General Gaming Megathread: What are you playing?

Alphadrop said:
You forgot to mention the French robot, best character ever.
Click to expand...

Hah, yeah, Cain. Though actually (end-game spoilers, and the way end-game works is sorta neat)

[spoiler:d7d1e7a537]Who survives and who does what depends on how much they like you. Somehow, I never got Cain up high enough. I guess because I ran out of ammo for much of the subway segment and he wasn't impressed by my pistol-shooting and whipping. I got Faye high and Shindo maxed out during the hollow one-zombie segment. Hell, I got the whole team high enough that no one turned on me, including Big Bo.

But apparently Kain wasn't high enough so he didn't show up to stop the robot punch, and Bo died. Lost three teammates, including shindo, but I don't think Shindo can survive in any case[/spoiler:d7d1e7a537]

Man I been playing a lot of games I picked up during Steam sale. Escapist behaviour much? Haha. Anyway...

Driver: San Francisco was a lot more fun than I expected. The Driver games are open-world but driving-only, and this one has a nice twist, as you have the ability to zap from mind to mind and kind of hover above the city as a ghost of sorts. It's weird, yeh, it's kind of a Life on Mars-like plot, but it works really well. Stopping a street race by taking over the minds of people going the other way is tons of fun, as is taking over a truck to cut off said racers on the same path.

It's not really open-world, as in, you spend most of your time hovering over the city going from activity to activity, though you can go down, take over a car and do a free activity like pissing off the cops, or racking up points by doing stunts and gathering movie points. Anyway, surprisingly good game. Story is really well-done, has a good TV series atmosphere. Cutscenes are mostly nice and short as they should be for action-based games.

Next, Just Cause 2. I actually finished this one, unlike Just Cause, which was a major drag. 2 is much better where it should be, you don't spend as much time bored out of your skull travelling from point A to B and the activities are less repetitive. But it's still pretty flawed.

The core of the game is causing chaos. A brilliant concept for an open-world game, just drive around and fuck shit up, yeh? Well not exactly. It is fun for a while to go from military base to military base blowing up properties with miniguns or attack choppers but it's repetitive and gets kind of old. The missions are more varied by often come down to one of two things - either attack a military base (alone or in a takeover with companions) or chase down and jump from car to car to kidnap a person. Again, gets old fast. The main missions are more varied and long but there's only like 3-4 of them.

The main problem with this franchise remains two-fold: a) driving is fucking wank. Cars have no weight and almost no grip so if you hit a small obstacle you fly up like a fucking air balloon. I spent almost no time driving, all time flying, in both Just Causes. and b) for a game with a more interesting setting (spygames on a tropical island), it's shocking how much less interesting they are than Saints Row or GTA. It's like the developers just can't think of anything more interesting to do than "shoot shoot shoot hurr hurr". The story is fucking ridiculous too. I mean, it's basically "just bad" for most of the game, then at the end it reaches "holy shit this is retarded" proportions.

It's like they spend all their time crafting this huge island and then have to cram in a little gameplay at the end. Maybe next time they should focus on making an actually interesting rather than huge game. It's a bad combination of huge and shallow, these games.

And, finally, for a newer game, got a double-pack of Orcs Must Die 2 and gifted a copy to Sander. We spent hours co-opping it last night. For those who don't know, OMD is an action-based tower defense game. You set your traps and defense and then run around in 3rd-person OTS view shooting your crossbow/wand at orcs/trolls/ogres/etc. In OMD2 they added a second character with different traps and items, including some really good ones (I am loving both charm and the fire-throwing trap, they're awesome).

Adding co-op to this game makes for a giant improvement. It's a ton of fun, easy to coordinate traps and which doors to cover as long as you communicate well and keep an eye on the minimap. And it's necessary, because OMD2 is balls-to-the-wall hard. Me and Sander haven't failed a level yet but we're not getting 5 skulls much either, it's much harder than OMD, and the stuff they throw at you in co-op is mind-boggling. Great fun so far.
 
The main problem with this franchise remains two-fold: a) driving is fucking wank. Cars have no weight and almost no grip so if you hit a small obstacle you fly up like a fucking air balloon. I spent almost no time driving, all time flying, in both Just Causes. and b) for a game with a more interesting setting (spygames on a tropical island), it's shocking how much less interesting they are than Saints Row or GTA. It's like the developers just can't think of anything more interesting to do than "shoot shoot shoot hurr hurr". The story is fucking ridiculous too. I mean, it's basically "just bad" for most of the game, then at the end it reaches "holy shit this is retarded" proportions.
Click to expand...

I think that was intentional. This game just doesn't take itself seriously at all. Not only the story, but all the ridiculous stunts and the unlimited parachutes and the outlandish accents et all. I think that's a big part of its charm, myself. I mean, playing GTA and doing crazy stuff, then going back to the main story and having the protagonist all serious-faced just seemed weird. In Just Cause 2 Rico actually seems like a bit of a psychopath that enjoys blowing shit up. As for the floaty driving, true, but it does allow for some wicked-looking stuns. Going at max speed on the highway in a sports car and hitting another car once made me fly at least 50 meters doing barrel rolls all the while. Of course it's not realistic, but damn if it's not fun. it does get repetitive, which is why I always play this game 1 or two hours at a time, never more. It keeps it fresh and entertaining.
 
Ilosar said:
I think that was intentional. This game just doesn't take itself seriously at all. Not only the story, but all the ridiculous stunts and the unlimited parachutes and the outlandish accents et all.
Click to expand...

That's kind of my point tho'. Saints Row doesn't take itself seriously either, the difference is it's a ton of fun to play, especially Saints Row 3. More unique story missions, more fun activities, and it's actually enjoyable to drive around.

Just Cause 2 kind of...like...it should be more fun, based on the setting and story, and it's not. Like I said, it's super-shallow but super-big. A really bad combo.

As for the story...(endgame spoilers)

[spoiler:0a15487a7c]I'm not complaining about the assault on the nuclear sub or the bit where you RIDE THE FUCKING WARHEADS, that's awesome. But reprogramming the final one to go back and hit the oil field goes away from "this is nicely over-to-the-top" right into "this is fucking retarded". You just let off a nuke right next to the island you're supposedly saving. Unless he really just doesn't care about how much it harms the island people and only wants to prevent a war. In which case, fuck him.

Also, for a womanizer, he doesn't womanize a lot. Where are my hot coffee minigames?[/spoiler:0a15487a7c]

PS: this is fun tho
 
VERY MINOR CONUNDRUM:
In the next couple of weeks I should be freeing up some additional time to play some more single player games. I bought Jagged Alliance 2 and JA2: Wildfire but also have bought JA:BIA; I haven't played any yet(I know, I know). I was thinking about playing BIA first to save the best for last, but what are the problems with the game? Can it be patched to goodness or is the gameplay simply sub-par? I might play JA2 first if BIA is simply lacking polish.
 
Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings EE. With the expansion pack it's absolutely the best RPG in recent years that blows Skyrim out of the water entirely and with extreme prejudice.

Seriously.

[spoiler:83e7d01a23]I finished Roche's path by both saving Foltest's bastard child and rescuing Triss and none of these left me with the feeling that it's somewhat unfinished. How I felt about them emotionally is different: either you save the mages and give them security to work for the benefit of all, dooming Temeria to be partitioned, or you save Temeria while triggering a massive campaign of reprisal, aggression and doom against mages and non-humans. The choice is quite terrible and neither is fully attractive.

I love this game. [/spoiler:83e7d01a23]

What's more, the EE includes a detailed ending sequence with animated slides, voiceover and... Well, the narrative is simply amazing. I need to play through Iorveth's path as well to have a set of saves for Witcher 3.

Witcher 2 is mandatory lecture for any gamer.

MANDATORY.
 
I keep playing heroes of might & magic 3, alpha centauri and Master of orion 2. Have loved both original fallouts to death so must keep them away for a while. Multiplayer FIFA 12 is great if you are in that kind of thing. Legend of grimrock is best of the never games ive played, true tribute for Eye of the beholders.
 
Makagulfazel said:
VERY MINOR CONUNDRUM:
In the next couple of weeks I should be freeing up some additional time to play some more single player games. I bought Jagged Alliance 2 and JA2: Wildfire but also have bought JA:BIA; I haven't played any yet(I know, I know). I was thinking about playing BIA first to save the best for last, but what are the problems with the game? Can it be patched to goodness or is the gameplay simply sub-par? I might play JA2 first if BIA is simply lacking polish.
Click to expand...

BIA has been patched to alleviate the major annoyances with 1.0. IMO it is an extremely worthy successor to JA2. The environments are beautiful and the plan and go RTwP system works great for 3D. Anyway, BIA can be completed in a week, the older games could take a lot longer. If you've never played JA, I'd play in this order:
JA2
Wildfire (good luck, lol)
BIA
 
mobucks said:
BIA has been patched to alleviate the major annoyances with 1.0. IMO it is an extremely worthy successor to JA2.
Click to expand...

Mmmmmbop! Thanks - this is what I was looking for. Imma take your advice and play them in order, then.
 
Well, I have been playing Dragon Ball Z: Raging Blast, Sniper Elite V2, and Dragons Dogma. Dragons Dogma seemed okay, but the story was incredibly generic to me. It hardly held my interest. Sniper Elite V2 is probably the best sniper game I have played. The AI is pretty retarded , but The kill shots make up for it. Dragon Ball Z is just a guilty pleasure really. Ultimate Tenkaichi (the newest one) is awesome, but it is too simplistic, so I prefer Raging Blast, or Budokai personally. I am looking most forward to Borderlands 2 at the moment, so September should be a good gaming month for me.
 
Just finished Deponia, classy game and Daedelic finally have decent localisation, well mostly. Some sentences come out a bit funky but it does suit the weird mood of the game.

Onto Iron Brigade, your country needs you to fight the monovision menace by using a big walker thingy with lots of guns.
 
Just finished Dark Messiah of M&M's. What a clunky mess of a game, although it had tons of potential. I have no idea how the demo impressed me so much a few years back.
 
I couldn't convince myself to spend more than 4 or 5 hours playing Dark Messiah. I loved Arx Fatalis, though. Need to replay that one.
Jagged Alliance 2 is pretty good. Combat is veeeeeeeery meticulous at first, but some decent rifles fix that. I need to capture a few more towns before I make a more solid opinion.

EDIT:
Uh oh.. Just noticed Dark Souls is out tomorrow. Gunna have to shelf the Jagged Alliance series for a while, methinks.
 
Makagulfazel said:
Jagged Alliance 2 is pretty good.
Click to expand...

On the same game right now, pal! I like 1.13 aside from all of the unnecessary gunporn. I mean, seriously, at least three or four AK-100 series rifles with pretty much the same stats :roll:

And I've also just finished Mass Effect 3. I'm not sure why people are disappointed with the ending... The whole trilogy has been pretty stupid throughout, and this no exception.
 
Fallout: New Vegas baby. Despite the engine, all the technical and game issues associated with it, I'm enjoying it. There have even been a couple of moments where I actually felt like I was playing Fallout, but they were few and far between. Still though.

In general, I have to say that it feels like more of a fan project than a sequel, for some reason. Maybe it has something to do with all the constant references to the first two games that are a bit of a stretch sometimes, like the random characters in Novac, while at the same time remaining very inconsistent, in terms of getting the atmosphere right.

And I felt like the music of F1 and F2 was often out of place, considering how generally jolly-silly the world of New Vegas is, even though that's often unintentional. The tribal sounds just plain didn't fit and the serious dark tone worked only for so long until a mantis would start head-spinning up and down a room, from a critical hit.

Despite the many flaws and my negative attitude toward it (that's due to the bad taste left over from Fallout 3), it's still a genuinely good game. If Obsidian was given enough time and complete freedom to do another Fallout from scratch, using assets that they create themselves, then they could really bring this franchise back to base but I'd pay money for another New Vegas too. Considering what they had to work with, it's about as good as it could be and it's possibly the best modern RPG.

PS., Action Boy perk really saddened me because I used to always pick it and now it's useless.
 
Grim Fandango, eeeeee.
Couldn't get it to run on XP but works like a beaut on 7.... well mostly.

However this game still soars, soars like eagles... on pogo sticks!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top