Llyranor

This game is awful. While at its core, it has elements of an enjoyable (but flawed) combat system, for the most part it just reeks of awful design. Awful bland level design with no semblance of providing a sense of direction to the player, awful enemy encounters (you will essentially be fighting the same 4-5 enemies throughout the ENTIRE GAME), awful exploration (the game tries to be smart by giving the player abilities such as pushing doors from afar and breaking wind, but all it ever amounts to is getting to an area and then using that stupid power - there is absolutely nothing clever in terms of exploring your abilities), awful balance (the game compensates for complete lack of class of balance - only the medic can heal, aside from the rare occasional hp drop - by making you infinitely respawn for free), and an awful sluggish interface that goes out of its way to make checking or changing anything a chore. The game could have had potential, but instead is full of fundamentally awful design decisions that sucks out any enjoyment someone might have had from the good parts of the game and then pummels it into the ground. This is 'David Cage trying to be a Hollywood director in Fahrenheit' bad. We're talking 'Morrowind using walking encyclopedias to flesh out a living breathing world' bad. Only, it encompasses the entire game. I'm not even dissing the generic art or stupid animations; those are awful, but who cares? What's important is that the design flaws directly affect the gameplay. I got the game recently because the demo 'wasn't too bad'. However, the demo encompasses all the good elements of the game, and is short. The full game takes all that and repeats it ad nauseam. It's all completely downhill from there. Disclaimer: I've only played 3 chapters out of 4. I threw away that piece of crap back to the store. I virtually recouped all the cash I got from it, but what I will never get back is life without experiencing this piece of crap. By the way, the music is awesome.

I've bought a couple of games from them. Never really had any trouble. The DRM is developer-dependant, I think (Paradox' own titles are DRM-free). Pretty hassle-free.

Bioshock is that a-way.

Technically, the PC version is much better, and it even has an awesome feature to speed animations 5x. *However*, the 360 version is still fine if you install it, it's just that the PC version is better. Not convinced that it's been better balanced, though. From speaking to people who've played *both* versions, the PC version is quite easier (I guess if that's what you consider balanced, it is). One very significant change is that the leader limit has been removed (whereas the 360 version has a limit which increases as you progress through the game), which has a pretty significant impact on how you manage your units (why use generic soldiers when you can just use leaders who are better at everything? the mechanic of switching soldiers in and out depending on your tactical needs is made more irrelevant, and the game plays more like a JRPG where you just level up party members). The balance's been balanced to accommodate that, but seemingly not enough to provide as good a challenge. You're still better off getting the PC version. I just really dislike that single change, given how important it was in the 360 version.

Okay, Bayonetta demo is amazing. I might just day1 this one. Completely blows the crap out of DMC4, which is sluggish compared to this game. Extremely agile character. Running/jumping/dodging can pretty much get you across the battlefield at a whim. You can also actively continuously dodge in mid-air for as long as you're in the air. You can also jump-cancel or dodge-cancel out of pretty much anything. Good breadth in the movelist. Pretty extensive. Moves are quite nice, too. Integration of offensive and defensive gameplay together is pretty awesome. If you hold a punch/weapon or kick button, you'll charge it and use your guns in the meantime. That means you can indefinitely stall combos, eg. P P P = P P --> hooooooooooold while shooting --> P. Even more awesome is that while holding said combo, you can actively be evading around. So, you can queue up your combo while dodging enemy attacks as well. And while you're dodging, you're still shooting enemies because you're still holding that button. Pretty awesome.

Picked up the Asian version a couple of months back. Game is amazing. Easily best PS3 game. Really satisfying action RPG combat mechanics. All the different weapon types and styles are a blast to try out. It's really a great dungeon crawler. With games like this, I don't see why real-time RPG combat drivel like Morrowind and Oblivion is even tolerated. For co-op, dead players need to drop blue markers. Living players pick those up and summon the blue phantoms. Kill the boss = blue phantoms revive. For PvP, you need to drop a black stone and invade someone in that area. You can only be invaded if you're alive. I'll go into details as needed, but basically the online elements are made to complement a primarily singleplayer experience, and the game actually goes out of its way to make co-op gaming with friends as cumbersome and annoying as possible. I'm saying this as someone who's been exclusively playing co-op with Nick; it's a horrible co-op GAME; it's an awesome co-op EXPERIENCE. Once you get used to the hurdles, they're not that bad. Essentially, BECAUSE you can only play co-op when one of you is alive and the other dead, it's pretty limited. If the living player dies, the co-op session is over. To revive, you either have to 1) invade and kill another player; 2) help a living player kill a boss as a blue phantom; 3) use an extremely rare item that will revive you. While doing all of this, you're not having a co-op session with who you were meant to. In singleplayer - you die, you respawn and start again. In co-op, you die, session's over. The game may potentially be easier because it doesn't really scale, but it creates quite a different type of tension. Death is much more significant, and that makes it all the more awesome. It's Atlus publishing. SCEA dropped the ball completely. PAL likely won't get it. It's region-free, so who cares. Difficulty's overblown. Dying is learning. This is one of those games where player experience is much more important than character experience (which is important too, but without player experience, pointless).

Pfft, everyone knows that.

SO4 features both the absolute worst and best cutscene in gaming history. Don't watch it if you ever plan on playing the game: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrnV6kN-bxI You can skip to 6:35, but the first part is hilariously cringe-worthy too. Eternal Sonata has a decent contender too http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X65VNWFQDcE I guess it's a huge spoiler, but no one gives a freaking crap about the Eternal Sonata story.

First of all, don't play ANY of the 360 JRPGs for the story. Just don't do it, man. In terms of gameplay, Lost Odyssey is pretty standard/mediocre. The skill system is nothing worthy of note (immortals learn skills/spells by leeching off mortals, mortals learn them by levelling up), and the actual combat mechanics are pretty ho-hum. It tries to be interesting by implementing a turn order based on command types (those who defend go first, then items, then those who attack, those who use skills, then spells; you can also stall spellcasters if you hit them with attacks first --> might get delayed into the next turn). While nice in theory, it never develops into anything worthwhile. The wall system is also untapped potential. Your back line (and enemy's) has very high physical damage resistance until the party 'wall' is broken. You do that by dealing damage to the front line. Again, conceptually-sound, but the gameplay implications are pretty minimal. It was basically just a 'attack front line first, or use magic on the back line' standard formula, rather than an intricate dance between trying to break and restore the wall using various skills/spells/items. There's also a ring system which allows you to equip a ring which adds status/elemental effects to your physical attacks. Interesting in terms of scanning enemies for weaknesses and using the proper ring, but once you realize that you're basically just looking at the enemy weakness and picking the appropriate ring - and that's all you do - you realize the system has no depth at all. Overall, though, wouldn't say it's actually bad; just standard/mediocre. Its biggest crime is awful pacing, both in combat and in dungeons. To be fair, the Dreams of 1000 Years were fairly well-written. Blue Dragon is an old-school JRPG that people will just liken to Dragonball in artstyle. If you ignore the story, it does have an interesting job system. You essentially equip a job to learn abilities, and then equip those abilities even after you've switched to a different class. The customization is pretty neatly done, the jobs are mostly well-balanced, and they allow a good breadth of abilities between them. The game also forgoes random encounters and places you on the field (in which some jobs will grant you abilities to deal with enemies - such as one which instantly kills enemies you've already encountered and give you the AP for it). The saving grace for the game was the hard mode DLC (free). The vanilla game is a cakewalk. With hard mode, it poses a good challenge, and some of the bosses can be pretty tough. I've had to fundamentally revamp my entire party setup a few times when I've hit a rough spot. Combat-wise, much better than LO. Just avoid clicking on every single object you find in the environment, and the pacing should be relatively decent as well. ______ Last Remnant is definitely my favorite of the bunch. Again, I've warned you to NEVER EVER play any of the 360 JRPGs for the story. The combat system here is one of the more innovative turn-based systems in recent times, and one of my favorites. It can be hit and miss depending on who you ask. Some will swear by it, some will absolutely hate it. Rather than placing emphasis on customization of specific character, it places it on customization of your entire party. Your party is composed of a max of 5 unions. Each union is composed of a max of 5 characters. Each character usually has a 'class' (not fixed in stone, just ability-wise), such as fighter, healer, mage, item user, traps, area effects, etc. Party leaders (of which you can only have a limited number - limit cap is removed in the PC version, which I view as a BAD thing; more on this) usually have the abilities of 2-3 classes together. As your characters fight through battles, they gain stats/abilities based on what they do in battle. Get hit a lot --> increase hp; attack physically a lot --> learn new weapon art; use healing herb a lot --> learn revive herb. Now - and this is important here - what I love about the game is that grinding isn't required (some will even argue that grinding will maybe even penalize you stats-wise), because even though your non-leader soldiers will learn new skills and get stronger, you can always go back to the HQ and get new soldiers who are probably just as good. So yes, while you *can* keep the soldiers you have, you have the flexibility to switch them in and out based on what tactical needs you have for your unions. The game basically rewarding proper party/union planning, rather than grinding characters. What's special about the combat system? Here's the part where some people may hate the game. You don't give specific orders to specific characters; you give them to unions. What commands each specific character gets depends on what skills they have, how much AP the party has, and such. Example; all the party unleashes their weapon arts, or longrange spells. There is movement in battle, but you don't freely move them around - it works relative to enemy positions. You target an enemy union, and your unions will run towards each other and engage in battle. You can set up ambushes to have unions get intercepted, or get interrupted yourself. If unions meet, they engage in a deadlock. You can attack a deadlocked union to gain a flanking position, which leads to more damage. You can increase the odds even more with a back attack. The interaction between unions and actions between allied unions can be interesting. For example, to heal a deadlocked union using an allied union, you have to engage that deadlock. To have a deadlocked union heal itself, you either mix between attacking and healing, or have your union pull out of the deadlock and have more of the characters using healing - but then that puts you in a more vulnerable position. It's these kinds of tactical considerations that make the gameplay really compelling. Some people will complain that you don't really have a lot of control, but you actually DO have a lot of control; it really depends on how you customize your unions. It's not ABSOLUTE control, but it works absolutely well, and enhances this specific game. To add to the no-grinding policy, there are no random encounters, and you can *easily* run past every single encounter if you want (you have a move that speeds your movement). You can also link multiple enemies into a single encounter. This is great if you'd rather have fewer - but much tougher - battles rather than a bunch of easy and repetitive ones as in some other JRPGs. Given that you can fight as many or as few battles as you want, pacing usually works really well. There's also a bunch of sidequests you can do or skip. If you play the 360 version, you absolutely must install the disc to your hard drive. _______ SO4 isn't turn-based, first of all. Second, it has the worst story and worst cast/party in the history of JRPGs, and that's saying something. The action combat system is pretty fun, and blindsides are cool at first. But, by the end of the game, you realize that it really isn't that deep. I finished the game, but you could never pay me to replay that ever again. I'm not sure whether I'm recommending it or not. Eternal Sonata is pretty much crap. It has the second worst story and cast/party in the history of 360 JRPGs. Combat is fast-paced, not really turn-based ('semi', but not really). It's fun at first, but it's extremely shallow. It has co-op, which is its saving grace, but Tales of Vesperia utterly mops the floor with it. Best JRPG soundtrack this gen by far, though. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjmVN-8EEqc Tales of Vesperia is my favorite 360 JRPG. Pretty fun co-op action combat, and best overall package here. Avoid if you're allergic to animu. I'm never heard anything remotely good about Spectral Force 3, Operation Darkness, or that Roids game. I love SRPGs, but these seem to be scrapping the bottom of the barrel. You also might want to look into Culdcept Saga (demo). It mixes boardgame and CCG gameplay. Kind of like Magic meets Monopoly. Demo was nice, but I didn't actually get the full game. Front Mission Evolved is NOT going to be turn-based. It'll be a crappy action game made by a no-name developer.

Hades will probably post pictures of his if you ask.

That's an idea. A side story/xpac/DLC/sequel in the Alpha Protocol universe where you play as Michael Thorton's mom.

What happened to your HoI3 AAR plans, anyhow?

The last (vehicular) section of ODST is my favorite level in the franchise, really. Great vehicular combat and awesome sense of urgency.

From WITP dev Gary Grisby comes two remastered games in one bundle covering the air war for the Battle of Britain and the defense of Germany in the last years of the war. Seems pretty cool. http://matrixgames.com/products/320/detail...mbing.the.Reich IGOUGO turn-based, 1 day/turn

hahahahaa

It's all relative, but the writing in the game is light-years beyond what Halo 1-3 had. Which isn't really saying anything at all, though. The main protag doesn't talk, but unlike HL2, it doesn't have every single NPC constantly talking to you as though you were some dumb mute.

Says the guy who hasn't played Firefight. Not to mention the actual, you know, campaign being full co-op.

Hey, nice session, you piece of crap.

ArmA2 is already out and receiving good praise from the PC tactical community. There's also a demo. Campaign has co-op. Also an xpac on the way with also a co-op campaign. The concerns the community has towards OFP2 is that it'd be OFP 'in name only'. Is it tactical-light only, dumbed down for console, etc. The main concern would be that it's made by Codemasters (who have no experience developing tactical shooters AFAIK), rather than Bohemia (who also develop software for military training). Demo will clear some things up, but from the looks of it, ArmA2 is probably more hardcore (and with what seems to be bigger ambition re: military accurary/detail, with the accompanying bugs - I'd wait for a few patches - kinda like HoI3!). OFP2 might go for a tighter more polished experience, but who knows. There's probably room for both. MW2 has no campaign co-op, but it will have a separate SpecOps 2p co-op mode. How extensive that mode will be remains to be seen. Not sure about DRM, but OFP was published by Codemasters, who are making OFP2. Isn't it the publisher who imposes DRM? Anyhow, that was 8 yrs ago.

If you haven't already, look into Armed Assault 2, from the devs who made the original Operation Flashpoint. Tentatively looking forward to OFP2, demo will help decide. The PvP also sounds interesting, where each player also has 3 AI soldiers to control.

Nick isn't my mom. Nick is your mom.

The only stupid person here is alanschu.

We'll be around. Maybe we'll even invite you if we're missing a player! Hahahahasjgfashgfashfgashfgashfgashfas (are you going to change your gamertag every month?)

Lack of Master Chef, Cortastupid, and the Flood make this my favorite Halo game. It's still very distinctively Halo - so wouldn't sway people whose dog was killed by Halo - but it's better than Halo as we know it. The role of the ODST is particularly important. You're still fighting the enemies the MC did, but being a lot more vulnerable this time around, it plays a lot more differently. Less running and gunning, more cautious gunplay, more tactically-inclined. It feels a lot better. Music is awesome. Firefight is a great co-op mode as well. Pretty awesome stuff. Overall, it's a pretty neat co-op FPS.

What is this Planetscape game you speak of?