Video Games

[K]

Yeh, I played Sorcerers exclusively.

[Koumei]

I enjoyed playing Sorcerers, but I also played around with others - Druid/Master of Many Forms, Fighter/Weaponmaster/Kensai (iaijutsu strike and obscene crits for the win!) and a few others. Of course, I always kept up to date with the Player Resource Consortium, so had lots of options to play with.

[Cielingcat]

I played a Bard/Fighter/Pale Master online in Neverwinter Nights. With items capped at +5 I seriously had over 90 AC and saves in the 40s. And with a ring of magical resistance, even Missile Storm spam couldn't beat me.

I miss that game ;_;

[JonSetanta]

Yeh, I played Sorcerers exclusively.

That's funny, but why did you?
For me it was because the Vancian style always, and I mean always, caught me unprepared. I would have to rest and re-study for every few encounters with a Wizard rather than run through a series, blow my best spells repeatedly, then spam the rest until only Magic Missiles and Color Sprays remain.

Favorite Spells: Thunderclap, Darkness, Cloudkill, Horrid Wilting.
Most Used Spells: Horrid Wilting, Web, Ice Storm, Stoneskin, Precognition.

[K]

Yeh, I played Sorcerers exclusively.

That's funny, but why did you?
For me it was because the Vancian style always, and I mean always, caught me unprepared. I would have to rest and re-study for every few encounters with a Wizard rather than run through a series, blow my best spells repeatedly, then spam the rest until only Magic Missiles and Color Sprays remain.

Favorite Spells: Thunderclap, Darkness, Cloudkill, Horrid Wilting.
Most Used Spells: Horrid Wilting, Web, Ice Storm, Stoneskin, Precognition.

I found that the Neverwinter series has a lot of "closed room deathmatch"-style battles where you can't retreat, so it's just easier to be able to switch up spells when you run into a guy who is immune to a big portion of your spells. For example, in NWN2 there is a dragon battle where I got to learn that the damn thing knocked people down so that none of my melee guys could hit it (and I had no archers) and so I had to use various metamagicked versions of Magic Missile and Missile Storm. I killed the thing with my last 1st level Magic Missile after the rest of the party was killed (the animation fell on me, actually, since it was charging me).

Also, unlike DnD there is no way to recon anything without expending huge amounts of time and effort, so the ability to mix up your effects is pretty invaluable because I'm a little lazy about that kind of thing.

It was a bitch come item creation time, but I delayed item creation until the end so I could afford +5 everything for everyone.

[Maxus]

As I said in the Major Weapons thread, I'm playing my way through Odin Sphere.

It's a decent game. It's bringing back the old-school 2-D sidescrolling beat-em-up action. You enter an area, and then have to deal with waves of enemies (up to three waves, depending on the difficulty for the area).

What's more interesting to me is how they broke the game up.

There's five characters, each with his or her own book-- and someone you play in one book may be someone you fight as another character.

And you see part of the story as each character is played through, and a lot of events happen at the same time. The story's kinda...girly, though. Four of the five characters have some heavy romantic stuff to their stories.

The game has several neat points actually. I think a telling one is that it lets you turn unneeded items into stuff you actually want, through an alchemy system. (I will defend any game that makes it easily possible for me to cook up my own bottle of Napalm for use on crowds of enemies).

I have to wonder at the design, though. The game really slows down when you have a lot of stuff on the screen, and this makes one of the bosses (one most characters have to fight) an exercise in patience, as she summons crap-tons of small enemies and that makes the PS2 slow right on down.

[Maxus]

Just when I think I've gotten a handle on the comparative amounts of awesomeness and suck that the Internet can dish out, it keeps surprising me...

http://www.cyberthing.net/flash-play.php?id=69

Not really a game, except that you control the camera and the sound. But still pretty fun to watch.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

Another pokemon question.

Alright, I've decided to drop my Machoke, because as far as offense goes, Meditite was superior despite being a bit of a glass cannon (a missed hi jump kick ususally KO's him, but it knocks the crap out of everything not resistant to fighting.)

Going to use Meditie for my fighting power, although even with a mind plate he can't really do psychic too well. I'm thinking of getting a Kadabra for that purpose.

I'm also considering wrangling a misdreavous, because a dark/ghost pokemon would really shore up my team pretty well, are they good?

[Maxus]

Another pokemon question.

Alright, I've decided to drop my Machoke, because as far as offense goes, Meditite was superior despite being a bit of a glass cannon (a missed hi jump kick ususally KO's him, but it knocks the crap out of everything not resistant to fighting.)

Going to use Meditie for my fighting power, although even with a mind plate he can't really do psychic too well. I'm thinking of getting a Kadabra for that purpose.

I'm also considering wrangling a misdreavous, because a dark/ghost pokemon would really shore up my team pretty well, are they good?

Misdreavous is pure ghost. It gets a good variety of moves, but it stats are a little lacking.

However, a good Dark type is always worth considering.

Looking at Serebii.net, you may want to check up on evolving/catching a Cacturne. Crawdaunt wouldn't be that bad, if you made sure you took one of the few Dark-type moves it learns.

Those skunks have some decent moves, and the Dark-type cancels out the weakness to Psychic, and I think the Poison-type evens out the weakness to Fighting. You've still got Ground to worry about, though.

...


Actually, Dark-types get more awesome with each generation....

[Koumei]

Misdreavous is fairly good when evolved into Mismagius. Get it to learn Mean Look, Protect/Will O Wisp, Pain Split and Perish Song and you can basically death-trap people. Hit them with mean look so they can't escape. Then use the Perish song. Now, everyone receives the phone call and in seven days... er, 3 rounds, they all die.

All you need to do then is survive until the death count reaches 1. Do this by either protecting to negate a few hits, or using Will O Wisp to reduce their Attack. Pain Split can then be used as a pseudo-heal.

Once the death count hits 1, switch out. The opponent is still trapped until next turn, where they are KOd. Even if they predict the swap-out and use Pursuit to KO Missy (and it will KO it), they're still trapped until next turn, where they also drop.

Or you can simply use Perish Song without the Mean Look as a phasing effect - hit a Sword Dancer with it and they can't just sit there boosting their attack all day, they need to swap out or pass out, and either one loses their stat boosts.

For fighting, I'm actually tempted to breed a combat Abra. Confused? It has a very shit Attack score. It can learn Power Trick as an egg move. Power Trick swaps your Attack with that of your opponent. Suddenly their Machamp/Salamence/Dragonite is looking embarrassed and Abra is incredibly strong. It can also learn Fire/Ice/Lightning Punch as egg moves.

I figure it's worth trying, considering all four of those egg moves can be handed across by a Meditite/Medicham. So I'll just use my Shiny Medicham for it.

For Dark/Ghost (no weaknesses, three type immunities), you have only two options: Sableye (found on Iron Island when you have the National Pokedex, if you insert a Sapphire cartridge into the GBA slot) and Spiritomb (involves talking to other players in the underground explorer thing - I seriously used two DSs to do it). Spiritomb is better than Sableye in all aspects, but still has somewhat mediocre stats. That being said, it's not too bad.

Skuntank is Diamond-only, IIRC. My favourite Dark type is the Dark/Ice Sneasel, but I'll admit that I chose them because they're cute. Still, they have a decent selection of moves available.

Oh, remember those stupid Starlies at the start? They actually evolve into something useful: Staravia -> Starraptor. They are flying/normal (immune to ghost attacks), have Intimidate as their ability, and can learn a good number of decent attacks, including the second-best flying attack, Brave Bird. For the best, Sky Attack, you want the National Pokedex.

[Jerry]

I actually like the Zelda series of games; although they rehash the plot and items a lot, I had a lot of fun with Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask.

[Maxus]

I actually like the Zelda series of games; although they rehash the plot and items a lot, I had a lot of fun with Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask.

I had a blast with Ocarina of Time for...probably too long. And Majora's Mask ruined about half of a summer for me back in early high school.

Wind Waker was enjoyable--just too easy.

Twilight Princess wasn't everything I'd hoped it'd be, but it was still good and had its epic moments. Although most of the NPCs seemed to be horribly inbred, and I loathe the little kid who opens the store (the old Gorons were fun, though).

I'm just waiting for a Zelda game with actual proper-sized cities that are more than a handful of areas, and more sidequests/cool stuff to do/get.

[Calibron]

So you want a GTA/Zelda fusion?

[Maxus]

So you want a GTA/Zelda fusion?

I'm down with that. Although mostly I want a bigger game.

Here's the wish list:

1) Give Link cool stuff to play with, and give him ways to play with it.

The bow is great and all, but it's not too surprising. You shoot, and you either hit it or you miss. The Hookshot used to be the shit because you could climb houses and explore nooks or whatever. But the Clawshot's just not as great because of the limited use.

If you want to be really awesome, give Link a magic spiked chain he can 1) Use hookshot style 2) Use as a grappling hook, WW style (if the issue comes up) 3) Fight with as another weapon. If this is for the Wii, maybe using it brings up a screen when you trace out the chain's path from a bird's eye and a profile view, using the cursor with the Wiimote. Bam. There. You have an movement tool that doubles as a reach weapon.

I mean, I was disappointed in Twilight Princess because the most versatile item turned out to be the fucking Iron Boots. Their use crops up so many times, it's like one developer just said to the other, "You know, I have a hard-on for those big heavy boots. How many ways can we make the players use them?"

And they might want to think about giving Link some more melee weapons than just a sword. An axe would be fun to use on stuff. Or a spear.

2) Give us fun extra stuff to do.

Majora's Mask had a lot of its awesomeness derived from how crowded Termina was. Lots of minigames. Lots of areas. Lots of extra areas to explore and good reasons to do so.

3) Give me enemies I have to outfight rather than outthink.

The best enemies in Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask were the Gerudo guards, the Stalfos, Dark Link, and the Garo. The best fight in Wind Waker was Ganondorf.

Why?

Because those enemies fight Link on more or less equal terms. They have weapon, you have a weapon, they can defend, you can defend. You have a repetoire of attack routines, and so do they. Make them more aggressive, and you have a fun fight on your hands.

And don't cheap it out and give me enemies against whom I can just spam the same technique over and over. CHALLENGE ME.

3b) Not every boss has to be a ginormous monster. No, really. We won't hold it against you if you make us fight weapon-to-weapon against someone other than the final boss and the occasional poorly-trained enemy. We'd kinda like that, actually.

4) Give sidequests, and give appropriate rewards.

There's all sorts of ways to go with this. Maybe Link has to mediate a dispute by the classic method of running back and forth and repeating what one party said to the other party and finding the one key item that'll make both parties put aside their differences. Maybe settling the dispute between the Inventor's Guild and the Craftman's Guild will flood the stores with cool new stuff to buy. Maybe we can go back into a dungeon and explore a previously-blocked off section of it to get something. Whatever.

Just make the rewards match the effort put into it. If I rip the souls out of 60 cackling scythe-whirling ghosts, to find all of whom I went through most of the areas in the game, I expect something more awesome than infinite free money refills. I'd kinda like to play with one of those scythes, myself.

Likewise, something is really wrong if I have to scour every corner of the country and catch 24 golden insects just to get a bigger wallet.

Anyway. I'm sure there's more I could rant about.

[Maxus]

Ergh. Figures.

Okay, I borrowed a PS2 and a game called Odin Sphere from my cousin.

One of the more notable things in the game is that it's broken into five 'books'--and in each book you play as a different character. You go from level 1, to level 35 or so in seven or eight hours of playtime each book lasts.

Then you beat all five of them, and get the sixth book, and the game actually tells you to go back and fiddle a bit and get your characters up further because you'll have to fight five bosses, in order, using one character for each boss.

So I'd gotten a couple of characters up to level 40, and my 17-year-old sister pitched in and she got in the other three. I took a break from the game a couple of days because, you know, Physics class expects me to do homework and all.

And then the 11-year-old sister's friend comes over, and Sheila makes a save file for her, and accidentally saves over my game (accidental as in, she wasn't paying attention to what she was doing), destroying around 52 hours of playtime, and a hell of a lot of effort (some of those levels and bosses were just plain hard).

Oh, so I get back through the first book, and then my cousin wants the PS2 back.

Le sigh.

Sigh.

[Koumei]

Woah, I just bought Odin Sphere yesterday and started playing it today.

I'm still in the first book - the chapter with the ice and snow. Velvet was a right pain in the arse to beat. I died so many times... on "easy". Until I discovered the secret of "Double-jump -> dive, repeat!" to kite anything that can lock you into a painful combo on the ground.

For those of you without this game: Odin Sphere looks beautiful. It's 2D, as in "you can run left and right, and jump and duck, but you can't utilise depth", and the majority of it is sprite-based (or possibly cel-shaded for some creatures), and has multi-layer animated backgrounds with a lot of work put into them.

It looks fabulous. It doesn't play too badly either, though it can get frustrating easily. It plays like a side-scrolling "hit groups of people over and over" game, except it has a few RPG elements - gaining levels, opening menus to cast spells and use items, planting goddamn seeds to grow fruit to heal HP and level your HP up, alchemy...

But so far, I'm giving it a thumbs-up.

Maxus: any hints on when the game is likely to get really infuriating to the point where I'll be eating opiates like candy just to stay calm?

[Maxus]

Woah, I just bought Odin Sphere yesterday and started playing it today.

I'm still in the first book - the chapter with the ice and snow. Velvet was a right pain in the arse to beat. I died so many times... on "easy". Until I discovered the secret of "Double-jump -> dive, repeat!" to kite anything that can lock you into a painful combo on the ground.

For those of you without this game: Odin Sphere looks beautiful. It's 2D, as in "you can run left and right, and jump and duck, but you can't utilise depth", and the majority of it is sprite-based (or possibly cel-shaded for some creatures), and has multi-layer animated backgrounds with a lot of work put into them.

It looks fabulous. It doesn't play too badly either, though it can get frustrating easily. It plays like a side-scrolling "hit groups of people over and over" game, except it has a few RPG elements - gaining levels, opening menus to cast spells and use items, planting goddamn seeds to grow fruit to heal HP and level your HP up, alchemy...

But so far, I'm giving it a thumbs-up.

Maxus: any hints on when the game is likely to get really infuriating to the point where I'll be eating opiates like candy just to stay calm?

It has flashes of difficulty that you can overcome by preparing the appropriate stuff. Some of the 4 and 5-star difficulty gives you hordes of enemies--If you've got a few bars of Psypher power, you should be able to spam them. Oh, yeah, and you learned how to make Napalm. I highly suggest you do so.

What's probably the hardest is when they give you a double-boss, as they do in the later books. It most often happens with the minibosses, but every now and then you'll have a chapter boss fight in which you're up against two boss characters.

And, see, you're on Gwendolyn's story. There's a stage she doesn't even visit in her book, and it's a right royal pain because of how damn tough it is--the enemies are a pain (there's actually one that you have to use an item or a Psypher power or something on to kill it, as well as sorcerors who teleport around, summon monsters, throw hordes of fireballs, and summon flying scimitars), the minibosses are a pain (huge giant axe-men), and the chapter boss is usually a pain (Usually Belial--the dragon you fought in chapter 1--or one of the Three Wise Men, or both. You'll see them later).

The major annoyance is that you really do have to keep up a steady supply of items, because a tough fight can make you burn through your healing items like you wouldn't believe. On the other hand, they give you the ability to make really useful stuff yourself--like Painkiller that makes you take half-damage for a longish while, or Napalm (which is damn good against large bosses, because they get hit by the crawling effect multiple times and some of them catch on fire to take additional damage).

You probably have a later version, so maybe they fixed the slowdown problem. It was really an issue for one boss in particular, because she summoned whole clouds of weak enemies and that slowed the fight to a crawl.

On the other hand, I can't do anything but recommend this game. The graphics are gorgeous, I actually care about the characters, it's challenging, and they do a marvelous job of setting up patterns and breaking them to surprise you, and each character has his or her own quirks to fighting. In the third book, you play as someone with a Psypher crossbow. And instead of getting dizzy when you run out of power, you have to recock it, which leaves you vulnerable. So that person has a more hit and run strategy, as opposed to Gwendolyn or Cornelius, who can just wade through crowds of enemies.

[Koumei]

I actually care about the characters,

I know! I already feel sorry for Gwendolyn.

And yes, I am a big fan of napalm, as it owns the huge bosses and is good against clusters of enemies. And besides, napalm. I mean, the ancient Chinese man who's name my username is Japanese for specialised in the use of fire for his entire life!*

*His words.

[Maxus]

I actually care about the characters,

I know! I already feel sorry for Gwendolyn.

Gwendolyn has her moments of irrational assumption when she really should have stopped and taken some time to assess her situation. But, to be fair, she does have the Bitchy Little Bluebird following her around, which is enough to make anyone irrational. And she makes up for it, anyway.

The other characters are pretty sympathetic and have their own problems...

-Cornelius is a decent guy who gets hit with a humdinger of a curse, and when he's not struggling against it, he's rushing off to save people without a thought to his own safety. He's also unfailingly polite to everyone, even the Necrobitch (which takes some doing, as you can see at http://creativeuncut.com/gallery-05/os-odette.html)

-Mercedes is, at the start, completely unprepared for dealing with her responsibilities, but she grows up and acquits herself nicely.

-Oswald switches between being a ruthless, conscienceless killer, and a knight in shining armor (even if it is the gleam off of jet black). Seriously, he gets the most scathing, hateful things to say in the whole game, and then he follows it up by showing a devotion to principles and a select few people that'd shame a paladin.

-Velvet has Issues with her whole family, especially her grandfather. And she's also the only character to have an idea about what everything's all about.

[PhoneLobster]

The spore creature editor is out as a demo thingy.

It's pretty much as advertised, and runs pretty damn fast and smooth to boot.

I'm well impressed.

[JonSetanta]

The spore creature editor is out as a demo thingy.

It's pretty much as advertised, and runs pretty damn fast and smooth to boot.

I'm well impressed.

[PhoneLobster]

What the hell is that supposed to be? The ambiguous smiley?

Use your words.

[Koumei]

I'm sure that even the editor won't run on my notebook. Ah well.

I've seen some creations on the Internet: all kinds of body parts. For instance, penises.

No really, at least three different penis monsters (I hear there are many more "genital aliens" in an attempt to drive the rating up) and a goatse alien. Several types of tyranid/genestealer (most are unbelievably cute!), mushroom people from Yuggoth, the Yith (accurate too!), a million ork variants (designed with the idea of spamming them onto the Internet to piss people off), a beholder (looks good - someone even exported it as a model to use in the 4E map tool), a neogi, an umberhulk and an ethereal filcher.

I'm impressed.

[Draco_Argentum]

Did you get the pay for version or the freebie?

[PhoneLobster]

Free version, but you can register it to get more doohickies or something.

in an attempt to drive the rating up

I hope but doubt they will succeed. And question their methodology as a means of increasing maturity. My biggest worry with this game is that it has been slowly drifting to be more and more kidsy.

Also, in other news, Age Of Conan isn't too bad. Not exactly revolutionary, but not too bad.