The Gaming Den

Blicero wrote:The ending(s) for Mass Effect 3 were like legitimately some of the worst endings I've ever seen for a videogame. No joke. They're so bizarre, nondeterministic, and generally pointless it's not even funny.

I mean, the Terminator at the end of ME2 was embarrassing. But this seriously reaches a new low.

I'm inclined to agree. It came out of nowhere.

So to get over my comedown from Mass Effect 3, I snagged El Shaddai.

Think Bayonetta, except angel-focused, cel-shaded, and homoerotic, and less blatant about it.

I will give them credit for the graphics. So much of the awesome is seeing it in motion. I just wish the first level (an ice mountain) wasn't in eye-searing white, blue, and purple. I now have seen those colors in pastel and neon at the same time.

Then I get to the tower of Fallen Angels, and it can't be a bigger contrast. Black sky above, red city below. Deep red, almost black, metallic paths curving through the air in very structured circles. Fireworks constantly popping in the background. It's like an infernal Vegas, and it's awesome.

So far? Combat seems okay. I'll know better once I have some different weapons. Can't say much for story. The point of it seems to be "Hey, seven angels went rogue. Go kick their ass an imprison them."

Also, I mean it about the homoerotic. Enoch, the hero, is like if you made Fabio blonder. Or Hitler's wet dream (blue eyes, blond hair, leonine features).

It's fun to play with some friends in the room so we can make fun of it as I go.

Just be sure to wear sunglasses when playing that first level.

Are all of the endings of Mass Effect 3 stupid and nondeterministic and bizarre (like Chrono Cross) or only some of them stupid and nondeterministic and bizarre (like Chrono Trigger)?

Lago PARANOIA wrote:Are all of the endings of Mass Effect 3 stupid and nondeterministic and bizarre (like Chrono Cross) or only some of them stupid and nondeterministic and bizarre (like Chrono Trigger)?

Apparently you get to do one of three or four things to the Reapers, including blow them all up, mind control them, and "save" them, and integrate them into something which might be the saving or might not be.

But then, what happens is, after you make that decision through interacting with probably some magic hack box, or being told to push a button so that an AI does it for you (What's that Deus Ex?), what happens depends on the amount of piddling around the galaxy gathering forces.

So even though the game begins with the reapers blowing up huge chunks of earth, if you take a long time to piddle around, the world survives, but if you really quickly blow up the reapers, Earth is destroyed.

Also, Shepard living requires more special victory points than you can get in the single player game, and the only way to get enough is to play multiplayer before you finish the game.

Suck on that.

Parthenon wrote: I really like DoomRL. Except that I'm not very good at it. I managed to win on the easiest mode with Marine, Ammochain, and ending the second last level with Invulnerability,

I'm even worse. Okay, normally when I die it's due to carelessness or being stuck in a tunnel with two fatties followed by two fireguys who keep rezzing the fatties (and each other if need be). But twice I've reached the Spidermind (I assume this is the final boss and the game doesn't extend to Doom 2?), generally low on supplies (with NO armour in one case), and got completely shredded by its gatling gun.

but I can't get past level 4 on any higher difficulty- the Arena Master is way too tough.

Generally I beat the Arena Master by grabbing the chainsaw, going into berserk, already having 150+ HP (if I'm low on HP I just skip it) and then charging straight for him, ignoring all the other guys (maybe killing the Pumpkins by the door). As soon as he's dead, grab the stick and nuke everything on the screen.

That said, while it's good for Plasma ammo (that you won't be using for ages) and a couple of mod packs (potentially useful), and you'll probably gain a level out of it, really you only need to do the Chained Court if you intend on doing City of Skulls (attempting anything other than stick -> medpack -> stick -> medpack -> stick will likely get you torn to bloody shreds). And all you get out of the City of Skulls (save for a bunch of ammo) is the BFG, which you can just get from the Halls of Carnage - much easier.

It seems that, aside from levelling, the rewards from any given special area are designed to help in another one: Arena -> Rocket Launcher -> The Wall (very handy Backpack and kind of "meh" Missile Launcher"). Alternatively Rocket Launcher -> Halls of Carnage -> BFG9K. Chained Court -> Stick -> City of Skulls -> BFG9K.

I can't remember what you get from Spider City, two of the three times I tried it all I got was "dead".

And then I look at the wiki and see all these special mod packs and wish I knew how to play it properly.

Finesse 2 -> Whizkid 2 (alternatively Technical guy can jump straight to Whizkid). Each level of it lets you add one more mod to a weapon/armour.

So add "Power" and "Bulk" to the crappy knife and you get a Chainsword. That's something you can do without any ranks in Whizkid. Or double-Bulk on the Chaingun for a Minigun (highly recommended for the Chaingunner build). But say you want a Focused Double Shotgun, you need to take a Double Barrel Shotgun and add Power, Agility and Technical - needs 1 rank of Whizkid. And there are ones that take four mods (and thus, both ranks of Whizkid).

And there are a few really rare mods that are required for some of the best assemblies (like Nano or Obsidian), and I'm not sure how you get those. Probably requires playing in the hardest difficulties.

Anyway, regular shooting Doom is much simpler, and also much easier.

Lago PARANOIA wrote:Are all of the endings of Mass Effect 3 stupid and nondeterministic and bizarre (like Chrono Cross) or only some of them stupid and nondeterministic and bizarre (like Chrono Trigger)?

As near as I can tell, they all bring you to the same place. You have three options if you've done enough in the game. All three kinda blow.

Someone did a Let's Play of DoomRL in this thread:
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showth ... id=3459667

Yeah, it's sorta like Deus Ex HR that way. There's all this shit that goes on and then you get 3 buttons that actually matter.

Whipstitch wrote:Yeah, it's sorta like Deus Ex HR that way. There's all this shit that goes on and then you get 3 buttons that actually matter.

I found out that you have to have the Ready Points, otherwise you just have one or two options.

Well, will say this for ME3:

Vanguard is -fun- to play. With a light loadout, your recharge times can be really, really low. Like a second-and-a-bit low. Some of them have recharged by the time they reach the enemy.

So I charge a group of soldiers, hit the Nova button, and a second later I have another charge ready. And can Nova again.

Pull also has a very, very low cooldown, so it's handy to screw with enemies.

Oh, and instead of making an omni-blade for your heavy melee attack, you build up an energy field around your fist and just punch them. It's like Ganondorf's Warlock Pumch from Smash Brothers.

I discovered a pretty amazing Dwarf Fortress Let's Play yesterday. Originally a Something Awful thread, but it has its own website now.

http://www.bravemule.com/

Ah, yes, Bravemule.
Same class as Boatmurdered ^^

I bought a PSP vita today. ... I know, I know. I wanted to buy one early before firmware updates started coming hard and fast for homebrew purposes.

Initial impressions:

1.) The graphics are really nice on this thing. The screen is friggin' huge and brightly lit. No wonder this bastard drains batteries like a 3DS. Well, maybe not that bad.

2.) The ergonomics on this thing are an improvement over every handheld I've played, except for one major issue that irks me. The shape and weight of this thing means that it digs into the flesh between your thumb and index finger while you're holding it. I really, really wish that they made an inward divot for this thing or at least coated the side with something nice. I will be buying a rubber case ASAP.

3.) The front touch screen isn't as sensitive as I'd like. Or rather, it's reasonably sensitive but has just enough friction to be noticeable. Again, I can see myself getting a touch screen plastic for this. The back touch screen feels a lot better but I feel that they fucked up a bit on the design. They need to be about a cm closer to the edge. I appreciate the idea behind it but it's a bit difficult to manipulate the buttons while simultaneously operating the touch screen on the pad with your stray fingers ALONG with the joysticks and buttons.

4.) The joysticks, keypads, and buttons are pretty much the best I've ever used on a handheld. They're responsive, light, and feel natural manipulating.

5.) You can't operate the home menus with the keypad or joysticks or buttons. Yeah, seriously, it's touch screen only. That is really annoying because you have to take at least one hand off of the pad to access everything on the touchscreen and the unit is a tad too heavy to do so suspending the with one hand for more than ten minutes or so. I mean, when you have both hands operating the buttons the weight feels just fine. It's no heavier than a 3DS or DS Phat or Gameboy and it's also evenly distributed.

6.) The PSP Vita uses cartridges rather than CDs. I very heavily approve of this. Load times (at least with the two games I used) are way the hell faster than they used to be. I also imagine that it will be harder to break by dropping it, unlike that friggin' PSP. Especially if I get a nice rubber grip for it and a plastic touchscreen cover.

7.) There's a slot in the bad boy for you to put in your own Sim Card. It even comes with a trial signup for AT&T. The connection is just 3G, however, which actually kind of sucks (or will suck in the future). Probably just another gimmick to get an upgrade.

0.) This is more of a complaint about Best Buy than the PSP Vita, but, two separate salesman were really insistent about buying Sony's system-specific memory cards (which is going to be really annoying when I start getting more homebrew, but, the 2 GB PSP memory card was more than enough for me), even though the friggin' thing comes packaged with an 8GB memory card for free. Pushy bastards.



All in all, though, I think that the PSP Vita would be an excellent handheld with a minor ergonomic redesign and a firmware update to remove that annoying home menu crap--PSP Vita Slim in 2014? Right now it's sitting in the category between 'average' and 'good'. Unless there was some sort of killer app game coming out for it I would have put off purchasing it, but Sony is a lot more on the ball about security measures for this device than the PSP. There was a hack that took advantage of a security flaw in a downloadable game and they had it fixed within a couple of days. Granted, hackers found about 10 more since then, (nothing concrete enough for a definite jailbreak application though) but with the Vita's improved hardware and an emphasis on online content they might really succeed in locking the PSV out to homebrewers in the near future. Hence the need to get in on the ground floor. I mean, the Nintendo 3DS has been worked on for a year and a half and there's almost no progress.

Holy shit Wasteland 2 on kickstarter, $15 per copy, DRM-free.

Starmaker wrote:Holy shit Wasteland 2 on kickstarter, $15 per copy, DRM-free.

Yeah, I dropped $50 on that project so I can get a physical copy.

Anyone play Kingdoms of Amalur that can help me out?

I can't seem to strengthen shards at a sagecrafting altar. I have 10 ranks in Sagecraft, but the menu option won't appear. I'm playing on the 360, so patching won't help...

Also, I've been getting weird errors. Like the music playing for two seconds in Mel Shenshir then stopping. It's somewhat frequent that I'll get attacked and the monster won't appear except for their weapons...

I can't even imagine what's happening there. I never had trouble with that--and I have it on the 360.

I have had problems with enemies being invisible for a bit, though.

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In other news, I'm largely over the ME 3 ending. I still don't like it, but I decided to start up a vanguard to fuck around some with a different class.

That is too damn fun. My Current Video Game Goal is to get good enough at Vanguard that I don't need to pop up the power wheel in the middle of combat, so I can keep the flow going.

I also spent a fair bit of time thing weekend playing the multiplayer. They had a contest going on where if the playerbase can kill a million of a certain kind of enemy, everyone gets some goodies. There was also a reward for completing a Reaper match on Silver.

It took me about four tries, and even then, with a full four-man team of people over level 10 and most of us using all the crazy equipment we had, it was close. Bronze can already be challenging. If that's Silver, Gold must be fucking insane.

Of course, multiplayer mainly tries to make it hard by spawning tons of enemies at you, and putting the occasional time limit or king-of-the-hill or capture-the-flag condition on a round. So, on the one hand, not like they're stretching themselves very hard. On the other hand, you can get by up to a point. But even on bronze difficulty, and knowing a lot of the tricks I do, and using all the optimizing I can think of, it can still be a bitch.

It forces you to employ some system mastery, and each class and even the different versions of the same class play differently. I've been playing a Turian Sentinel. I've solo'd brutes and banshees and one of those Cerberus mechs. If I tried playing a human Sentinel, it totally changes how I approach combat because the moves change. Same goes if I switched classes.

So, yeah. Gotta give it props for mixing up combat and enforcing teamwork and making you -think- about how you play the damn game.

So I have actually managed to beat DoomRL a few times now. Always on Easy, but still, basically it comes down to a bit of luck early on in getting some good breaks, and shooting around corners all the time, luring individual enemies to their death. One victory with each of:
[*]Close Combat Marine (Vampyre with Chainsword) - I challenged myself to melee only, even throwing the starter pistol away
[*]Shotgun Marine (Army of the Dead with (eventually) Tactical Shotgun) - shame I didn't find a Jackhammer
[*]Pistol Technician? (Sharpshooter with (eventually) a Stormbolter - that's 54 damage per attack, non-boss enemies get shredded on the spot). Yes, the Storm Bolter is a Pistol, and yes, it's a reference to the non-pistol from 40k.

So I'm feeling good about that. Doubt I'll go try any other Roguelikes though.

Koumei wrote:So I'm feeling good about that. Doubt I'll go try any other Roguelikes though.

I keep trying to get into Roguelikes, but the ones with substantial choice and character development (so this kind of excludes ones like Izuna) feel too punitive for exploration or failure. Considering that your save gets fucking deleted and people derp the hell out about making backups, that's a major turnoff for the genre.

One Roguelike I quite like is Tales of Maj'Eyal. It has a graphical interface and uses the mouse for the most part so you don't have to memorise a keyboard layout. But the best thing for people like Lago is that by default you get multiple lives, gaining more lives as you level up and from some items.

It has the substantial choice and character development wanted, with the ease of multiple lives and an excellent interface.

Its pretty easy to get into (the complex and difficult to play options are locked to start with and get unlocked through play), is a complete game and has very few bugs.

The last 15 minutes of ME3 are an irremediable pile of shit that completely wreck the game. If you're going to play it, get to the part with the beam of light, turn your console off, and insert your own ending

The ends are a direct cut paste from Deus Ex 1 (?!?!) that don't make any sense, and the ending has no closure for the series at all. Also the presentation is cloned directly from Deus Ex: HR where an AI makes a bunch of statements that are amazingly dumb (I kill you all with synethetic life to save you from being killed by synthetic life?) and then you have three buttons.

Also none of your choices you made in the series matter at all. Have fun!

It's amazingly shit. It's worse than DA2 shit. It's truely the worst writing in a video game I have ever seen and I have played Hopkins FBI.

Koumei wrote:So I have actually managed to beat DoomRL a few times now. Always on Easy, but still, basically it comes down to a bit of luck early on in getting some good breaks, and shooting around corners all the time, luring individual enemies to their death.

Yeah, I only really play Hurt Me Plenty or higher and I've found that my most consistent path to victory is starting as a marine and going Bad Ass2->Reloader2->Son of a Bitch2->Trigger Happy2->Ammochain->Whatever. That way you go quite a few levels before you take anything that doesn't really contribute to kicking ass with a shotty--hell, you can even swap out a point of Bad Ass or put off Ammochain another level to take Shotty Man, if you want-- but are still in a position to grab Ammochain at around the same time you can be reasonably certain to have a Plasma Rifle. That's pretty sweet because shotguns may be just better than a chaingun but plasma rifles literally melt face.

In a puzzling move Amazon has started accepting returns for a full cash refund for opened box copies of ME3.

Surely Jeff Bezos hasn't developed a sudden loathing for money. The only explanation is that he really likes the game or something. A giant fuck you to EA right there though.

cthulhu wrote:A giant fuck you to EA right there though.

I think EA is getting to much unjustified critism right now.

I, for one, felt recently compelled to write them a big thank-you letter, for making Mass Effect 3 Origins-only and thus causing me to automatically avoid that trainwreck.

Which goes to show that if you only fail hard enough, you might even make the world a better place.

Thank you EA!