Llyranor

Okay, I got Bayonetta and finished it not too long ago. Now currently having another go at it on hard. Pretty fun game! As far as console action games (DMC, NG, and the like), the combat mechanics are the most in-depth/fleshed-out ones I've had the chance to experience. There are some similarities to DMC (I can only compare to DMC4, though) in terms of basic mechanics, but the flow and pace of battles are so much more fluid than they are in DMC4. Bayonetta as a character is a lot faster, as you can jump and double-jump your way everywhere, and freeform dodging (including unlimited dodging while in the air until you land) allows you to cross any given battlefield in a manner of a few steps at most if need be (and you also get faster methods of travel for in and out of combat later in the game). You equip separate weapons to both your hands and feet, and can switch between two weaponsets with a quick button press; thus giving you fast access to 4 different weapons and movesets at any given moment (though, of course, you can also just go into the menu to manually switch things around). There is a Witch Time system through which you can enter bullet time for a few secs if you manage to dodge an enemy attack at the very last second - pretty useful, but people probably overplay how awesome a feature it actually is. Fits well with the gameplay, though. Again, the real strength of the game lies in its combat mechanics. Re: combos, you can build them up via punch or kick combinations. Usually, the end move of a combo is a finisher, which is usually a big attack, such as a giant fist or boot materializing out of thin air. Here's where the game really shines. Every attack you do is basically chargeable. For example, with guns equipped to both arms and legs, if you do Punch Kick Punch, you will punch/kick/then summon a giant fist. If you hold the first P, you character will pause the combo (while still shooting at the enemy with the guns). If you then K and hold, you also pause the combo and continue shooting with your leg guns. You then finish with the giant fist (and can keep shooting if you hold the final P). Different weapons will have different charge properties; guns will keep shooting, swords will charge up to unleash a strong slice, whips will grab an enemy towards you, etc. At any given time during an attack charge, you can actually dodge and get yourself out of trouble, while still retaining the combo where you paused it. So if you P + hold, and THEN dodge, you can still complete the combo simply by using K P after the dodge. Also, while you are dodging, the charge still applies, ie. you are still actively shooting at the enemy while you are dodging, AND still retaining your combo. What this means is that rather than having offensive and defensive being different separate entities, they instead intermesh into faster-flowing dynamic combat, where your defensive dodging does not get in the way of your attacks. But that's not all; you don't need to necessarily charge attacks in order to dodge within combos. If you tap an attack AND a dodge at the same time, you will dodge, and the game will actually register that attack into the combo, even if you haven't actually done it in the game. For example, P K P again. If you P+dodge, K+dodge, then P; all you will see in the game is the character dodging twice, and then executing a giant fist attack. So, you can ultimately build up your attacks and combos while actively dodging enemy attacks, but you can also use it as an advantage to bypass some attack inputs within the actual combo. Needless to say, the system is *awesome*. The actual art/level/world design is pretty nice. The enemy designs are really cool. The protagonist's hypersexualized style is questionable, but ultimately it's relatively harmless. Music has a lot of variety to it, and some of it is a tad weird, though it fits nicely with the game; overall, I found the soundtrack pretty strong. It's out on 360/PS3, but if you have the choice, definitely get the 360 version (the PS3 version was ported by SEGA, rather than made by the devs Platinum, and has some framerate/loading issues - though still playable). Demos are available as well. Took me almost 15 hours to finish on my first normal go, but I still have a lot of gametime left in this game.

Wait, Aliens got cancelled? When the crap??

Losing thousands of souls is nothing! NOTHING!

No, I think it's because you don't make a thread out of it. I only found about it by pure luck - I'm not even interested in COD or MOH! As if I didn't already have enough excuses for not getting any work done, the other day I find about Arsenal of Democracy, and now this. Thanks a lot, Llyranor. Thanks a lot. Well, I thought a Medal of Honor thread would be the most appropriate place for it. Maybe I'll make an AAR or something, since alanschu sucks at them.

It's easy to say you're sick and tired of wargames, when all you play are stupid Hollywood action games. Actual wargames are awesome, just not for ADHD 10-yr olds. The Airborne Assault series is the absolute best real-time representation of high-level (operational level) strategy and tactics in gaming, and I will accept any challenges to the contrary. The basis of this argument is on both the implementation of command and control/chains of command, and on the presence of time as a crucial element in planning strategy in the form of order delays. You aren't playing a godlike entity with full absolute control of your units, you're a high-level commander. The series currently has two titles, Highway to the Reich (Operation Market-Garden) and Conquest of the Aegean (Operation Marita/Mercury = German invasion of Greece/Crete). Later this year: Battles from the Bulge. Why is COTA a good WW2 game? It's not Hollywood-style, and it doesn't just implement the WW2 setting just for big explosions and drama. Instead, it uses the setting as a strength of the game, crafting historically accurate scenarios and putting you in the shoes of the general of a particular battle. It's of an operational scale (thus smaller than HoI2), which I think allows for tigher design. COTA covers the battles of Greece, Crete, and a hypothetical invasion of Malta. It's an operational wargame. It's real-time with pause, but plays nothing like a RTS. It tries to be as accurate as possible, avoiding as much gaming conventions as it can - a pseudo-simulation of sorts. How does it do this? I'll present some points posted by someone else on another forum (MarkShot) who does it much better than me, and I absolutely agree with him. Summary: 1) The Order of Battle actually matters. Multi-level chain of command means you can macro- or micro-manage as much as you want. The beauty of it is that the more you micro, the more HQ becomes overwhelmed, learning to longer order delays, so you quickly learn to deleguate. 2) AI is very capable of carrying out your macro orders. In setting your orders, you set out different parameters, and the AI carries them out competently. There are a general view of what order settings you can have available on the left: 3) Order delays means that this CAN'T be a twitch fest, even if you wanted it to be. Every order you implement (because you control battalions and regiments and above, and not single squads or units) takes TIME to be carried out. It takes time for your units to organize themselves and prepare. What this means is that you have to plan out ahead, and anticipate the enemy's plan as well, taking into account various possibilities as well. You can't overcome setbacks by clicking wildly. From a gameplay perspective, that makes it very challenging. Why does no one play this around here? Well, you basically play on a 2D map and manipulate little squares around. You don't see lots of bells and whistles. Despite that, the look is clean, the interface itself is ace and very functional, and it performs really well. It's a big shame, really. The games really put you in the commander's shoes. Immersion is a silly overused word, but I was immersed enough into the settings that I went out and bought some books on Market-Garden and the Greece/Crete operations to read more on them. That's what WW2 games should do - stimulate the player to learn more about the conflict. In any case, the upcoming game in the (renamed) series is Command Ops: Battles from the Bulge. It'll actually have a demo, so maybe people will finally try it out. I usually hugely favor turn-based over real-time when it comes to tactics/strategy game. In fact, I will always ALWAYS pick a turn-based tactics/strategy game over a real-time one given a choice - the sole exception being this series. The authenticity that the system brings to the depiction of operational-level strategy and tactics (any such emulation in a turn-based system would be fairly abstracted) is so significant to me that I will even forgo my turn-based bias. Wargames are awesome.

This thread is only for the discussion of the metascore of Dragon Age, based on the Gamerankings/Metacritic sites. Discussions of individual reviews should not be discussed here, as there is already a review thread. Metacritic: PC 91%, based on 41 reviews PS3 89%, based on 15 reviews 360 87%, based on 33reviews Gamerankings: PC 91.42%, based on 19 reviews PS3 89.70%, based on 10 reviews 360 87.89%, based on 18 reviews Feel free to discuss! Thread will be updated as the metascore changes. Keep spoilers in the other Dragon Age threads.

We would be, but that's the only portion of the game we'd be mainly interested in. Not keen on full price for 1/3rd of the game. Same thing for Uncharted 2 and its co-op.

Haha, you pieces of crap.

To put things into perspective, this is someone who's spent 10 bucks on numerous occasions to rename his Xbox Live gamertag.

Not really rushing out for this one. I'll grab it for cheaper (perhaps a few years down the line!) for the SpecOps co-op, which seems to be an improvement over previous CoD games (varied objectives, no infinitely respawning waves).

From Software makes plenty of games for other systems. In this case, the IP is owned by Sony.

One thing I found useful is just to add poo or poop to any name you come up with. For example, Nickiepoo, or Nickiepoop.

Hearts of Iron 3! Co-op with Nick as France and UK on hard. AI's not as aggressive as we'd like, but it's an enjoyable game so far. Currently we've held the line in Belgium and trying to recapture Dutch territory.

Do it! They removed you from Facebook, this is war!

Doctors are pompous, news at 11. I don't see the deal here. As vile as alanschu is, he's not the one laughing while shooting gophers, or who watched Two Towers nine times. Freaking Two Towers freaking nine times. Good man, alanschu! Send her CoD4 for her wedding!

Definitely. A statistical increase is pretty boring. Mods that change how the weapon is used are much more fun to toy around with. Though perhaps the repair skill could be used to upgrade weapons in such a way.

So disappointed in SoZ after playing MOTB. MOTB didn't have good gameplay, but at least it had other awesome things to compensate with. All SoZ had was cool character creation and music. I guess it was doomed to begin with, being stuck with the NWN2 engine and all.

Small spectrum on more weapons. Make the weapons *feel* different so that players actually try them out rather than sticking with one because they're used to it and the other ones are too similar to it. Now, one potential issue is that if there are 'too many' weapons, some players will just pick one they like and leave the rest to waste, whereas if it were 'more spectrum/fewer weaps' they'd stick with maybe 1 or 2, but given the increase in spectrum, they'd still feel an improvement in it as they proceed through the game. But then, that's the beauty of player choice. Allow the player to experiment, without forcing it. Now, I'd much rather see each weapon have a use, even the starting ones being potentially useful later on depending on the circumstance. It'd be more of a case of 'which weapon would best suit this job' vs 'what is the best high-level weapon I have for every job?' I suppose that depends on how 'RPG' you want the actual weapons to be.

Well, apparently the easiest starting class is a spell-caster (the noble), since you start off with a mp-regen ring.

Lost Odyssey has such horrible horrible pacing.

Certainly craps over every other RPG that's tried to implement some sort of real-time melee system, in any case.

Yeah, Men of War craps all over CoH. The series sets out on its own path rather than railroading the games into a conventional RTS format, and also achieved all the new stuff that CoH claims to have implemented as new for the genre before that game even came out.

The thread title only really works if FPS and RPG were siblings or something.

There's a *separate* co-op campaign. Demo had one level. Full game apparently only has 3. Gold rush is a good fun challenge, yes. The problem was that we already got to the last wave (10) within 1-2 days of playing the game. And the full game has 4 freaking maps.

All I can say from the demo is that the co-op is really fun. It's kind of like Gears with the cover system (but less enjoyable gunplay thanks to the gamepad), but the character is a whole lot more agile. You're basically running all over the place, jumping and diving in and out of cover, climbing buildings, running and meleeing enemies; it's pretty fast-paced. One of the co-op modes has you having to pick up a treasure, then bring it back to a location, while fending off endless enemies. Since you have specific objectives, you have to keep moving, while defending against enemies from every direction. Makes the gameplay very dynamic. I'll be picking up the game at the bargain bin, though. Apparently the co-op campaign only has like 3 levels, and the gold rush as described above (+ survival) only have 4 maps (and no selectable difficulty levels, it seems). Since I don't really care about the sp or PvP, it's pretty limited content.