Llyranor

This was my favorite fight in the game on the hardest diff. Took a lot of tries, but good challenge. Raised my opinion of the game considerably. Take advantage of animation-cancel when you revive. Roll as soon as you start activating it.

According to Steam, I've played about 17 hrs, and I think I'm at the final battle (or one of the final battles). PC version, hardest diff, 3p co-op (mix of online + local; 2 players can play from one PC if you have 2 gamepads). With the gamepad, controls are spot-on. I played the demo with keyboard, and it was kind of awkward. They work really well with the 360pad. Negatives: - Story/characters: What happened, Obsidian? What happened, Ziets? - Loot: Don't play this if you're solely looking for a loot game with interesting unique items. - Camera: You can't move too far away from other players. This has gotten us in trouble many times. You learn to live with it, and it's not a game-breaker, but still an annoying issue. Neutral: - Main menu music is nice. I don't remember the rest of the music. I think it's ambiant. Positives: - Engine/graphics: Fantastic! Looks good, runs smoothly, seamless world with no loading. You couldn't tell this is an Obsidian game. Very promising for future games on the Onyx engine. - Gameplay: Very enjoyable, and works wonderfully well as a co-op action RPG. As an action game, I find it more dynamic and involving than many other action RPGs. As an RPG, the RPG system is decent enough and allows you to make some interesting choices re: how you customize some of your abilities (not extremely deep, however). ------- I'll just describe a sample battle (one of my favorite ones from the game - I've kept the specifics vague so that there are no story spoilers at all): You're trapped in an arena-like environment, where enemies can enter the battlefield from every direction. There's one big strong slow-moving boss; you need to kill this guy to trigger the next sequence in the battle. He's assisted with some shield-wielding knights; also somewhat slow but with good hp. There are also a bunch of fast-moving ninjas that do good damage if you get caught up in their attacks. The knights and ninjas keep respawning until the boss is taken out (yeah, I know, infinite respawns - but I find it works really well in this scenario). Meanwhile, there is another boss in the background (which you can't harm yet) raining down projectiles and area spells (but with good visual and audio cues so that they aren't cheap). You're constantly overwhelmed by the incoming enemies trying to rush you, dodging around, building up your focus with regular attacks when you can fit them in (to use your abilities), unleashing your stronger abilities to try to reduce their numbers, while also focusing on damaging the boss so as to not just get overwhelmed by eventual attrition. The dynamic system allows you to stay in the fight even when against very bad odds. You can revive your allies if you can spare the 2 secs it requires (I've found you can cut down that time if you roll just as you start the revive animation - not sure if it's actually implemented animation-cancel, or just overlooked programming), and normal attacks building up focus means you never run out of 'mana'. There's also Rage which you build up by doing damage, which allows you access to other support abilities such as healing (as long as you deal enough damage, you can keep healing, so you don't run out of healing 'items'). You don't just heal instantly, but rather regen 50% of your hp over 30 secs. This means this isn't just an instant win key, but you still need to keep on your toes and evade attacks while your hp is slowly going up; I quite like this. You also use Rage to Empower your normal abilities; this can have various different effects, such as boosts affecting the entire party instead of just one character, or a single high-powered sniper shot spreading into a wave of 5. It's a nice balance of using your Rage abilities (incl. healing), and empowering your other abilities (since Rage doesn't build up that fast). So you're in this tough fight (the difficulty level makes all the difference, I think; wouldn't nearly be as enjoyable if it were easy) where various kinds of enemies are trying to overwhelm you. You dodge around, building up and trying to efficiently manage Focus and Rage. The fighter is trying to deal with crowd control, using dashing abilities and wave attacks to get enemies out of the way. The mage is lobbing fireballs, summoning minions, and casting area spells to support the team. ------- I was the sniper. Here's a quick rundown of how the mechanics work in this particularly case. I'll distill it down to what's relevant for this battle. I have a high-powered shot while deals about 90% damage to the ninjas. So, one normal shot + one high-powered would take one out. It takes me 2 normal shots to gain enough focus to get one high-powered. This is my main damage dealer. I've customized the high-powered shot ability to give me some focus back when I kill someone with it. Another one of my abilities is a curse that makes the target receive more critical hits. As I didn't require crits to be able to kill the ninjas, I reserved this one mainly on the boss/knights. Another abilities is a machinegun-ish attack. Grounds me in one place, and will keep shooting until I release the button or run out of focus. I've customized it so that it pushes enemies back and slows them down. This was great at pushing the enemy back when overwhelmed, and built up Rage fairly quick, but would drain my focus really fast. Another support ability was summoning a hound that would help distract enemies; and customized so as to heal me when it dealt damage; summoning it took 3-4 secs, though, which was very dangerous, and also meant I wasn't actively killing things in that time. For my rage abilities, healing/regen was my main one. I also have one that grants me 30 secs of increased damage, which I would try to keep on at all times if possible. Lastly, I would use rage for my Empowered high-powered shots, which would shoot out 5 in a spread instead of just one. That costs 2 rage orbs; healing and the other ability cost me one; I had 4 in total. So I would need to build up rage with my MG attack, which required focus that was gained via normal attacks (with the occasional high-powered shot to still maintain good killing potential, as I was the main DPS char in the team), and unleash empowered high-powered shots which would really help clear out the arena when we were overwhelmed, all while reserving some rage for healing as well. Between actively managing the various types of energies, trying to rack up as many kills as I could to give my team some breathing space, and also trying to damage the boss at the same time (otherwise, we would gain no progress), while avoiding all the ninjas chasing us, making sure not to get in range of the knights or the boss, and paying attention to the cues that the other boss in the background was throwing stuff at us - it all made for a very dynamic exciting battle. It definitely got the action part of the combat right. And given that the RPG elements allowed me to custom-tailor my character in this specific way, the RPG system works nicely enough. ------- (Sorry for the wall) I'm quite enjoying this game. Very fun co-op action RPG, with good combat. No more, no less. It's not a loot game, and doesn't focus on story/characters/writing at all.

Game's up for preorder on Steam. "Purchase Dungeon Siege III before release and receive single player versions of Dungeon Siege and Dungeon Siege II to play now!" Single-player? What's up with that? Matchmaking services down? Can you still play DirectIP with buddies? What I am fighting foooooor?

So did rehab, but Obs' IP was blocked there.

I've been in rehab for the past year or so. Nick is in prison for murdering his ex-wife.

Dangerous Waters is an excellent nuclear submarine sim. Best thing about it is multi-stations co-op, where you can distribution various stations from one sub between player (eg. one handles sonar/radar/weapons, other does navigation/TMA/periscope, etc).

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-02...ility-treatment

300 million in sales? Sawyer must be rolling in his grave.

Level 4, cannibal perk. Real Fallout New Vegas starts now. No more worrying about food consumption in hardcore mode.

Vanquish, wow. Vanquish. Amazing game. Only played Act 1 so far! Such fast-paced gameplay. Constantly boosting in and out of cover, flanking enemies on every front, going ARS. Good stuff. Also just started New Vegas. Enjoying it so far, but game isn't going to pick up properly until I can unlock the cannibal perk.

Like a floppy.

1) You're the problem. 2) It's only actually a problem when you only preorder the latest and biggest Hollywood game.

How are the difficulty settings? I want a good challenge, but I don't want to fight bullet sponges that just make the gameplay more tedious rather than fun. I'll play hardcore, but undecided re: normal vs hard. Though, difficulty levels apparently increase the food/sleep requirements.

Mirror's Edge really starts to shine when you go into the Time Trials. Those are awesome.

I haven't noticed any Reach levels having particularly bad design so far. It's pretty cool, very fun in co-op (especially Iron mode) - think I have about 2 levels left. Flood is gone, Elites are back, Firefight's been expanded. Some of the new stuff (little bonuses, really) is pretty neat too (jetpack, space battles). It's probably the ultimate Halo for the Halo fan, though I doubt it'd change anyone's mind who wasn't already a fan. I'd rate it above 1/2/3, but not sure I'd necessarily take it above ODST (not playing as a Spartan made the gameplay feel pretty different). Halo co-op is some of my favorite FPS gaming, so I'm pretty content.

Still old enough to be Hurlshot's mom.

The only good thing about Neeshka is you getting to at the end of the game. Rawr.

I though I had everything secured by this point. My units were well-positioned and dug-in, and XXX Corps south of the Veghel bridge couldn't get to us, being shot up from multiple directions and constantly shelled by artillery. At this point, enemy units were being spotted to the northeast, NORTH of the river. What???? I think we had broken the game at this point. The game only simulates the units that were involved in the actual battle around Eindhoven, whereas units that were committed to battles further north were not included. Historically, the Allied had already secured this sector and gone further north to Nijmegen. When Germans began harassing the route near Veghel, British ground units were sent back south to help out. These are the units you see here. Being caught in an unexpected pincer attack, I committed all my remaining reinforcements towards strengthening Veghel. Eventually, and I didn't expect this, Allies managed to sneak a substantial armored force (how did he bypass my scouts???) southeast into Veghel's flank. The battle was not going well for now. Ultimately, I held on until the end of the campaign (10 days), but had it gone for a few more hours, Veghel was going to collapse completely. Lucky again! What a tense epic battle! For the record, we also went to visit the battlefields of Market-Garden this September. Here are a few shots we took of the southern 101st Airborne landing sites (north of Best and Son)! One thing to note about the gameplay system is that it tries to be as realistic as possible. It often felt like I was acting as commander, ordering subordinates around. Flexible chain of command, order delays (units don't act instantly, you thus have to pre-plan ahead and anticipate the enemy's moves, otherwise it may be too late), realistic depiction of time and space (this is an anthentic map of the sector, movement is made at a realistic pace, eg. can very slow - so plan beforehand instead of just sending units everywhere, as they'll waste time AND become tired). For the record, tanks brisk right through the road when they're unhindered. Put them in polder terrain, and they'll slow to a crawl. Dig in a few harassing units along the road, and you can stall them for a very long time. Historically, there was a massive traffic jam all throughout Hell's Highway. Fatigue is an important factor, terrain plays a crucial part eg. roads, forests, towns, rivers. Nighttime is a tough choice between resting units, sneaking and moving them around (without being spotted), or surprising the enemy with an attack. So much decisions to make (with meager resources), so much fun. I played this battle about 3-4 months, and I still remember the larger details of the battle very clearly. That's how awesome it was! Smaller details may be a bit off, though. Most tense strategic/tactical battle I've ever had.

Airborne Assault: Highway the Reich. The Eindhoven Historical Campaign. September 17, 1944. Operation Market-Garden. In this daring operation, US and British paratroopers are dropped deep into enemy territories to secure a long succession of bridges to prevent the Germans from blowing them up as the British ground forces push north from the Belgian-Dutch border through Eindhoven, Nijmegen, all the way to Arnhem to create a bridge across the Rhine river (Germany's last natural defense), so as to outflank the German West Wall and have a clear path to the industrial regions of western Germany. This is the Eindhoven sector, the furthest south. The paratroopers involved here are the 101st Airborne. You may have heard of them in that little show called Band of Brothers. Their objectives are the bridges at Eindhoven, Son, St-Oedenrode, Veghel, and a little sidequest at Best as an alternate route. I play as the Axis, Nick as the Allies. The very few blue units are mine. The green ones are his (all I see is what intel has spotted for me). It was a bold operation, with not much room for error. The expectation was to quickly capture the bridges and have the ground forces (XXX Corps) drive up a single road (around it was polder country - which is not suitable for tanks at all) all the way to the final objective. Meanwhile, the Germans didn't really have properly set-up units in the area. All I could settle with was a slow trickle of ragtag reinforcements. Blue lines are mine, green are Allied ground forces, yellow are paratroopers. As the paratroopers landed, they quickly made for their objectives. As I didn't have much to defend with, most got captured fairly quickly. Main pockets of resistance were at Best - where it was contested territory for a while - and at Veghel - where I was still holding the line, but defeat was inevitable. Unlike the historical outcome, the Germans failed to blow up the Son bridge. Historically, the loss of this bridge incurred some heavy delays on the Allied forces as they tried to go north. By day 2 or 3, I was in deep trouble. The Allies had almost all of their objectives. If they could hold on to them, it was only a matter of time before the ground forces would connect to them, which would make trying to cut the line would become much much more difficult. Given my reinforcement schedule, I had planned the following: 1) Veghel being the location with the most objectives, I would try to strike them there. It would be my schwerpunkt or whatever. 2) In the meantime, as I was unsure of the progress of the Allied ground forces, it may have proven wise to try to cut the line further south. If I can stop them before they reach Veghel, it might be easier to defend it (rather than trying to take it back). 3) I also sent another probing unit towards St-Oedenrode. If I can secure that town and dig in, I could stall them for a while. 4) Further reinforcements from the west would go towards Veghel. My probing of St-Oedenrode was proving fairly timely, as I had met the vanguard of XXX Corps. After a small engagement, I was pushed out of the town, but I was decided to stall them as long as I could. I committed an assault to the northeast of the town, along the (if you can call it one) forest. As a full-fledged attack, it proved pretty pathetic given the units I had available (Nick didn't even realize I was fully attacking, heh), but what I did achieve from that was heavily delaying the enemy. What this allowed me was to bring my main force south of Veghel, and attack the town from 3 fronts; northwest, southeast, and southwest. I realize how incredibly lucky I was, as my southwest unit had barely begun its assault when the Allied ground forces started probing their rear. I managed to spare a rear defense force to hold them at bay for a while, permitting my attack to carry through. If this had executed just a few hours later, XXX Corps would have reached Veghel before I could secure the town. Lucky! After a long battle, I managed to secure the town, except for a few American remnants (including Easy Company of the 506th Regiment, haha). XXX Corps was still held at bay, for now. I did the mistake of committing a good proportion of my Veghel units towards attacking the entrenched remnants. One is to expect heavy losses when assaulting an entrenched elite unit. Which is what happened here, and I didn't even get to kick them out (though from Nick told me later, I was pretty close, and he took heavy casualties there). This would cost me dearly later on.

Nice work on the engine. Really nice. There was a mention of a dpad, so it was one of the consoles, maybe. Re: local vs online co-op, can you mix-and-match? Eg. 2 people on one console playing with 2 online friends on another console?

Here's a screenshot of Tigranes being crushed by an ogre.

What the freaking crap?

Why did this thread get moved? It doesn't even make sense now.

This game was practically made for mkreku And there is a football RPG out in Japan on DS (Europe is supposed to get it localized at some point), which sold craploads in Japan. I know how much mkreku likes his anime

Stop harassing Morgoth, that Modern Warfare 3 preorder isn't going to pay itself.