What are you playing now?

[Tale]

The Darkness 2. Maybe got 3 hours into it today. Judging by my relic acquisition, I'm slightly over halfway. So 5-6 hours I expect.

 

And given the pacing that's seem a good run for the game. It's faster and throws you into fights against more enemies more often than the original Darkness. It's lots of very intense action that always gives you a break just before it gets too far. Several enemy types that mix it up. In addition to your standard mooks, you've got guys with a flashlight that you must focus on when they show up, another guy with a shield you must disarm, a guy with a whip who will steal your weapons (until you only have one gun left), a teleporter, a melee guy, and they'll throw them all together in mixes. So things get hectic, but I never feel quite overwhelmed. The powers aren't especially neat, but they do help move the action along. You can do special things in the middle of a fight to heal yourself or replenish your ammo if that gets down. It always requires killing a guy first.

 

This is the first game I've played out of Digital Extremes (not counting UT2k3/2k4). But I am really looking forward to seeing what they do next. After that Star Trek tie-in, at least. Not particularly interested in that.

[WDeranged]

Decided to go with Skyrim. I'm VERY early in the game, but the dialogue reminds me of Oblivion. I'm not seeing any improvements.

 

Quite a lot of dialogue is hugely improved over Oblivion but there's still shoddy writing during some "high drama" moments, the game as a whole is very good though, keep going I say.

[GhostofAnakin]

 

Quite a lot of dialogue is hugely improved over Oblivion but there's still shoddy writing during some "high drama" moments, the game as a whole is very good though, keep going I say.

 

I hope it picks up the further in I go. I'm just heading to meet some Jarl person, after leaving the first little town you're sent to after the beginning. That town's quests were very Oblivion-like, and the dialogue with the citizens certainly weren't an improvement over Oblivion.

 

Not that I disliked Oblivion, or anything. It's just that I was expecting them to improve upon what was in Oblivion, not just repeat it with a different story.

[WorstUsernameEver]

One more boss.. one more boss and I'll be done with Dark Souls (well, for the moment, I suspect I'll try my hand at NG+ too). That was.. quite the ride. Really satisfying game.

[Walsingham]

Decided to go with Skyrim. I'm VERY early in the game, but the dialogue reminds me of Oblivion. I'm not seeing any improvements.

 

At least the protagonist speaks in whole sentences, even if there's no real choice in what you say.

 

Some people have a few interesting things. But no real characters so far for me, except maybe that bald bloke from the tavern in Solitude. He's OK as a companion.

[Morgoth]

Who was the lead designer of Skyrim? It's not the same guy as Fallout 3, I hope. AFAIK, Bethy had Skyrim indevelopment before Fallout 3 even shipped.

[Brayko]

Who was the lead designer of Skyrim? It's not the same guy as Fallout 3, I hope. AFAIK, Bethy had Skyrim indevelopment before Fallout 3 even shipped.

 

Bruce Nesmith. Never heard of him, but he wan't the guy who did F3.

[HoonDing]

"Long before mankind existed, there was a technologically advanced civilization which inhabited Earth. They made humanity, and enslaved them by modifying their brain to be manipulable by Pieces of Eden. For that moment there was a forced peace, until Adam and Eve stole one of the Pieces, an Apple,^[4] and started a war between the two species. Too occupied by the war to see the threat, a major solar flare impacted the Earth and significantly damaged both mankind and their makers, and as the people of First Civilization became extinct, mankind grew and populated the Earth, seeing their predecessors as myths and gods.^[9][7][3]

 

The Pieces of Eden were not destroyed by the blast, and throughout time, humans started recovering them, also causing a split of sides based on different mindsets, Templars and Assassins. The Templars were out to restore peace in the way the First Civilization had once done, forced by the Pieces, unlike the Assassins, that fought for freedom and a flawed humanity, putting free will above order.^[7]"

 

Basically, the "old folks" are the personages upon which the idea of "gods" came from. They ran humanity and then (among other things) 2 human slaves (a man and a woman) managed to get away with one of the Pieces of Eden (the Apple, which is where the biblical eden story got it's start). Then a solar flare went off, and basically wiped out a lot of the life on the planet, leaving humanity to become the dominant species.

 

Then the story just goes all Deus Ex and splits things down the middle with "control" and "Freedom" as the two sides. The unfortunate thing is that, as they work on the plot, it becomes more and more and more out there. The first was good, mostly stuck inside it's territory, and didn't go flying off the handle with sci-fi/magic.... the second had more magic, brotherhood was more, and finally Revelations just decided "you know what? F-it, let's just make it ALL technology!"

Glad I never bothered with that series.

[entrerix]

FF9 was the last great Jrpg.

 

I hope not forever, but there definitely hasn't been a great one since that game.

[Nepenthe]

Who was the lead designer of Skyrim? It's not the same guy as Fallout 3, I hope. AFAIK, Bethy had Skyrim indevelopment before Fallout 3 even shipped.

 

Bruce Nesmith. Never heard of him, but he wan't the guy who did F3.

Had to google him to make sure if it was the guy - it is, he was the creative director of TSR before it was acquired by Wizards of the Coast,

 

[

 

[BobSmith101]

^{Final Fantasy XIII-2 . It's more open that the original, has less of an on rails feel as you can jump backwards and forwards in time. Unlike the original there are also "population" hubs rather than just doing all the buying and selling from the save points. It's got a games center much like FFVII where you can gamble and race Chocobo. Also you can fiddle with time to cause different events, or events more to your liking.}

 

^{The combat system is much the same. The X button still rules all most of the time, because of the star rating. Seems harder to get stars than in the original I could ***** 99% of that game but you can only seem to get ***** on a suprise strike here most of the time. The interactive scenes are very much like FFVIII where you could overpower your summons if you mashed buttons (here though its more about timing and less about mashing).}

^{Serah is sweet and Noel is not a tool , she's also got one of the more interesting weapons that can be either a bow a sword or a moogle..}

 

^{Can't say I quitte "get" the story yet, but time travel is hard to follow most of the time anyway. I'm not really far enough into the game.}

 

^{Thus far I'd say it's a big improvement over FFXIII while still being very familiar.}

[Morgoth]

Finally finished Batman AC with most of the side missions. It's been one hell of a great game. Also, dat ass.

 

Can't wait for the next Rocksteady game, whether that's another Batman or new IP. Or hell, make a game just about Catwoman! I'd buy that...

[GhostofAnakin]

^{Final Fantasy XIII-2 . It's more open that the original, has less of an on rails feel as you can jump backwards and forwards in time. Unlike the original there are also "population" hubs rather than just doing all the buying and selling from the save points. It's got a games center much like FFVII where you can gamble and race Chocobo. Also you can fiddle with time to cause different events, or events more to your liking.}

 

That might be enough to convince me to eventually pick it up. I gave up on the other one because of just how friggin' linear it was.

[Brayko]

KoA: Reckoning

 

Fresh mediocre fun-ness.

[Lexx]

Playing some Jagged Alliance - Back in Action. So far I find the game to be fun. It's better than the demo map (more tactical, really), but all negative points remain. The controls are bleh, the interface is bleh,... I try to see it as a game in it's own and not a Jagged Alliance game. Then it's fine... Also it's less buggy than 7.62 calibre and stuff was in the beginning, so it's a plus too. Right now, I'd say it's one of the better games in this genre (real time strategy whatever).

 

They updated the laptop portraits, btw:

 

Edited February 9, 2012 by Lexx

[Majek]

Looks horrible. ;_;

[Hurlshort]

For JA: BiA, are the voices the same? Do they have decent dialogue?

[Lexx]

I never played JA2 in english, so I can't say if it's the same actors. The text is *I think* mostly the same.

 

I've taken over Cambria now, San Mona, one missle area, etc. and yea, they used all story elements from JA2, but it's made up different. As example, you don't find Miguel right at the start of the game, or San Mona-- King Pin wants you to free his town from the queens soldiers, Pater so-and-so in Drassen wants you to kill the rednecks near Cambria, etc. It's all a bit twisted and changed. Have to say, it's... dumbed down. All side-quests I had so far, are simple search&kill. Especially the rednecks annoyed me. In JA2 you could talk to them, even sell one of your female mercs to them... in JA:BiA you can only kill them, because they attack on sight.

 

Also NPC dialog is even less than it was in JA2, heh. There you could chose between various moods, in JA:BiA you only have cancle or continue (well, it's written in real texts and stuff, but it's always only these two options).

 

Gameplay-wise, I find it playable. Story-wise, it's a real JA2 rape. They should have made up their own stuff, imo.

 

I also like how the locations are made up. They are pretty looking and stuff. Regarding sector zones, which don't exit anymore, I am fine with that. It doesn't feel much different gameplay-wise. Instead of 200 small sectors, there are less, but bigger ones now.

Edited February 9, 2012 by Lexx

[Enoch]

Still Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

 

And, oddly enough, I feel like I'm starting to run out of steam at around the same point I did in the original. The introductory mission, the open hub-area in the downtown of an American city, the underground Secret Base, and the open hub-area in a Chinese city were mostly fun and held my interest pretty well, in both DE and its Prequel. Now that I'm at the Place Where People Speak French, I'm beginning to find the gameplay somewhat tedious. (And by "gameplay," I mean "stealth gameplay." If I was playing it as a shooter, I'd have lost interest about 3 hours in.)

 

It doesn't help that the RPG progression has mostly plateaued (as I recall it doing in the first game, as well). I already have all of the upgrades that look useful to me-- any further progression will get me only marginal improvements in things I can already do, rather than unlock new and useful capacities.

 

I want to finish it (which I never actually did with the original). But the next point of frustration I hit is going to make it rather tempting to jump over to one of the other games on my to-play list.

[GhostofAnakin]

I'm up to Level 10 in Skyrim. I find myself doing a lot of exploring, rather than doing missions. Thus far, the only missions I've done are a bit of the I guess you'd call it main story up to learning to use the Voice, and a bunch of Fed Ex sidequests where I bring Item X to Person B from Person A.

[mkreku]

Why do you play a game that you so intensely try to hate?

[GhostofAnakin]

Why do you play a game that you so intensely try to hate?

 

Me? I enjoy the exploring and openness of the world in games lik Oblivion and Skyrim. I was just curious about whether they'd improved upon the dialogue and story from Oblivion, which were the two main things that I didn't like about Oblivion.

[BobSmith101]

I'm really enjoying FFXIII-2 making my own monster support party at the moment collecting monsters across time zones.I never liked the lack of save points at first, but discovered you can lock gates and do over levels with different results. Unfortunately (or maybe not it depends) I have to put it on hold and play Kingdoms of Amular over the weekend to see if it's worth keeping or not.

[Mamoulian War]

Playing and enjoying very much Final Fantasy XIII-2. The pokemon effect of monster catching is pretty addicting as well, just shame that Sony still couldn

[Oner]

The multiplayer of Space Marine is way more fun than it should be.