The General Gaming Thread!

[Cogwheel]

I thought so too until the patch said they changed it today.

But for me, it was tuesday.

[Zevox]

Couple of pieces of gaming news:

In some news from Nintendo, it has been announced that The Last Story will be getting a North American release in the summer of this year. For those who don't know, that's an action-RPG for the Wii from Mistwalker, the company founded by the original creator of the Final Fantasy series, which Nintendo had previous said would not be getting a NA release. Can't wait for that myself - I've liked both of Mistalker's other major titles (Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey), and the Wii could always use more games worth playing.

Also, they announced that the new Fire Emblem title being developed for the 3DS will be getting released in Europe (though nothing about NA yet), and announced, without giving any details, that a game for the 3DS is being developed jointly by Capcom, Namco Bandai, and Sega. Yeah, three different major companies making one game. Weird.

Also, Atlus revealed that the Persona 4 fighting game they developed with Arc System Works, now titled simply "Persona 4 Arena" rather than its clunkier Japanese title, will be getting a North American release this summer. And boy am I happy to hear that - not that I expected it wouldn't get a NA release, since both Atlus and Arc System Works are very good about releasing pretty much everything they make here, but confirmation is always good, and it's coming sooner than I expected, so that's fantastic .

Zevox

[warty goblin]

Also Wargame: European Escalation is out today, so if the bandwidth gods are smiling I'll be able to download and start playing the sucker by this evening. It looks delicious, and seems to make good use of long zoom. After Sins of a Solar Empire and SupCom 2, I find it terribly hard to go back to games where I can't flick the mouse wheel and see the entire battlefield at a glance, or zoom in and scrutinize individual units. It's so much more elegant and naturalistic than the minimap.

[Triscuitable]

Updated the OP with the Minecraft and Terraria servers over on the Steam thread.

[Tavar]

Some of you may have heard of the game called Path of Exile. It's a Free-to-Play hack and sla- okay, it's a diablo clone. But it's not a simple hack job- it's really well done, and well thought out.

Here's the main site.

In Path of Exile, the player has been exiled from their homeland to the corrupted and deeply hostile continent of Wraeclast. Alone, or with other exiles, they must develop their skills and discover powerful magical artifacts in order to survive the challenges of a cutthroat post-apocalyptic fantasy world.

Path of Exile immerses the player in a gritty and realistic art style that goes against the current industry trend of cartoony RPGs.

Our combat is especially visceral, with plenty of blood and gore. Position matters a great amount in our combat system. You can dodge projectiles and be blocked in by monsters.

So, why does this matter to you? Well, partially I hope to get some more people interested in it when it goes public. But, also, I have an extra beta key. So, if you're interested in the game, contact me, either by posting in the thread, or by sending me a PM.

[Triscuitable]

Some of you may have heard of the game called Path of Exile. It's a Free-to-Play hack and sla- okay, it's a diablo clone. But it's not a simple hack job- it's really well done, and well thought out.

Here's the main site.




So, why does this matter to you? Well, partially I hope to get some more people interested in it when it goes public. But, also, I have an extra beta key. So, if you're interested in the game, contact me, either by posting in the thread, or by sending me a PM.

That looks superb, but I don't think I have the time to play that AND Diablo II.

[Starwulf]

Some of you may have heard of the game called Path of Exile. It's a Free-to-Play hack and sla- okay, it's a diablo clone. But it's not a simple hack job- it's really well done, and well thought out.

Here's the main site.




So, why does this matter to you? Well, partially I hope to get some more people interested in it when it goes public. But, also, I have an extra beta key. So, if you're interested in the game, contact me, either by posting in the thread, or by sending me a PM.

You're not the only one with an extra beta key, and I"ll be honest, I don't particularly relish the idea of giving it to one of the people on the forums over there, for the most part they all kinda remind me of trolls. And not even internet ones, real ones, that hide in caves and have no manners. Oh wait....(yeah, PoE Beta key forums are a nightmare).

So, I'll actually second this, I have an extra beta key as well if anyone is interested.

[Zevox]

Path of Exile immerses the player in a gritty and realistic art style that goes against the current industry trend of cartoony RPGs.

Hah! What industry are they talking about? Because "gritty and realistic" seems to be all western developers are interested in these days. I actually found it rather refreshing when I saw a video interview with Kingdoms of Amalur's designers where they said they had deliberately eschewed a focus on realism in that game.

Our combat is especially visceral, with plenty of blood and gore.

I can think of exactly one game where "plenty of blood and gore" has ever been a selling point for me, and that's MadWorld. Which, ironically, only works with that because it went for a completely unrealistic, almost entirely black-and-white, very comic book-ish art style, and the blood stands out as the only real color in the game. That makes for a nice contrast and goes very well with the morbidly over-the-top nature of that game's violence.

Also, perhaps I'm wrong (though from the screenshots on their site I don't think I am), but in my experience anyone who advertises their game as having "plenty of blood and gore" probably has a very over-the-top amount in it, which would clash with their claim to focus on "realism" in their art style.

Zevox

[Triscuitable]

You're not the only one with an extra beta key, and I"ll be honest, I don't particularly relish the idea of giving it to one of the people on the forums over there, for the most part they all kinda remind me of trolls. And not even internet ones, real ones, that hide in caves and have no manners. Oh wait....(yeah, PoE Beta key forums are a nightmare).

So, I'll actually second this, I have an extra beta key as well if anyone is interested.

But... You can't... It's my... PRECCIIIIOUUUUUSSSSSSSSS... *Shields Diablo II discs*

[warty goblin]

Hah! What industry are they talking about? Because "gritty and realistic" seems to be all western developers are interested in these days. I actually found it rather refreshing when I saw a video interview with Kingdoms of Amalur's designers where they said they had deliberately eschewed a focus on realism in that game.

At least when it comes to fantasy RPGs, the only ones I can think that really do realism to any degree are the Witcher games and various titles by Piranha Bytes. Pretty much everything else is some degree of stylized, usually for the weapons and armor designs.

In fact, weirdly, a lot of the armor designs in Amalur are substantially more realistic than those in Dragon Age. I'm pretty far into the game now, and I've yet to see any armor that makes me wonder how a person can move their arms.

[Morty]

Well, maybe Path of Exile will be actually "gritty and realistic" instead of "gritty and realistic except not really". I won't hold my breath, but it looks like it might be worth checking out. How does one go about obtaining a beta key? Is it distributed randomly to those who sign up?

[Mx.Silver]

At least when it comes to fantasy RPGs, the only ones I can think that really do realism to any degree are the Witcher games and various titles by Piranha Bytes. Pretty much everything else is some degree of stylized, usually for the weapons and armor designs.

Note that being interested in something does not in any way guarantee success at it

[warty goblin]

Note that being interested in something does not in any way guarantee success at it

I'm not sure how this is a response to what I wrote.

[Tavar]

Well, maybe Path of Exile will be actually "gritty and realistic" instead of "gritty and realistic except not really". I won't hold my breath, but it looks like it might be worth checking out. How does one go about obtaining a beta key? Is it distributed randomly to those who sign up?

They randomly hand one out to someone who's signed up to the forums every, what, 12 hours? Their is a bit of preference to those who'have posted on the forums.

You could also likely have either mine or Starwulf's extra key if you asked for it.

Finally, this is the closed beta: they plan on taking it to open beta sometime this year.

[Zevox]

Getting further into Devil May Cry 4, a few more thoughts:

In the story, Nero recently acquired a new weapon. So, why the heck can't I use it?! All it did was give me the ability to use Devil Trigger mode! I mean, what is going on when a Devil May Cry game won't let me use a weapon I found? Even Devil May Cry 2 did that (granted its weapons were all minor variations of the same sword, but still). It's made all the worse by what that weapon is: Yamato. Vergil's sword from Devil May Cry 3. An iconic weapon for the series.

Ugh, so yeah, that's annoying the crap out of me. Other than that, I do have another couple of lesser quibbles. One being that I'm very disappointed to see that the camera issues that have plagued the series since game 1 still haven't gone away. Even with the game including proper camera control on the right control stick, there are areas where that control is disabled for no apparent reason, and even in areas where it works they still have the camera change angles on its own for no good reason at times.

The other is the difficulty. Part of the appeal of the first and third games in the series is how challenging they were, and part the disappointment of the second is how easy it was. This isn't as bad as the second, as most of the bosses so far have still been a challenge (though the most recent one I faced, not so much), but they're the only thing that has been so far.

So yeah, my assessment of the game so far is that while it's definitely better than DMC2, it hasn't given me reason to consider it better than 1, and it's almost certainly not as good as 3.

Zevox

[warty goblin]

Played the first campaign mission of Wargame: European Escalation last night.

The maps are certainly large, and although not a sim it seems to be much more realistic than I was expecting. Tanks can shoot things from very long distances, HE shells can ignite stuff, there's a good terrain based concealment system, and things seem fairly deadly. I had an enemy infantry team holed up in some woodlands kill an armored scout vehicle with some sort of AT weapon in one shot, tanks could blow the crap out of an infantry team quite easily, and my more advanced Leopard MBTs were eating T-34s for lunch.

There's also some interesting stuff going on with supply. Armored vehicles burn fuel and have finite ammunition supplies, you need to send them off to resupply at either a FOB or a supply truck, which in turn must be supplied from an FOB. I had one of my Leopard platoons literally run out of gas and needed to call in another to capture an enemy supply depot so my supply truck could tank up and get the tanks back into action. On a more challenging map, this could become quite interesting.

Annoyingly the first map didn't give me any infantry or aircraft to command, so I can't comment on how they work. Hopefully tonight's session will provide clarity.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

Played the first campaign mission of Wargame: European Escalation last night.

The maps are certainly large, and although not a sim it seems to be much more realistic than I was expecting. Tanks can shoot things from very long distances, HE shells can ignite stuff, there's a good terrain based concealment system, and things seem fairly deadly. I had an enemy infantry team holed up in some woodlands kill an armored scout vehicle with some sort of AT weapon in one shot, tanks could blow the crap out of an infantry team quite easily, and my more advanced Leopard MBTs were eating T-34s for lunch.

There's also some interesting stuff going on with supply. Armored vehicles burn fuel and have finite ammunition supplies, you need to send them off to resupply at either a FOB or a supply truck, which in turn must be supplied from an FOB. I had one of my Leopard platoons literally run out of gas and needed to call in another to capture an enemy supply depot so my supply truck could tank up and get the tanks back into action. On a more challenging map, this could become quite interesting.

Annoyingly the first map didn't give me any infantry or aircraft to command, so I can't comment on how they work. Hopefully tonight's session will provide clarity.

That game looks pretty sweet!

[Forbiddenwar]

Well, maybe Path of Exile will be actually "gritty and realistic" instead of "gritty and realistic except not really". I won't hold my breath, but it looks like it might be worth checking out.

well. It makes diablo look like a cartoon. Beyond gritty graphics I can't say more, played only about 3 hours worth.

[warty goblin]

That game looks pretty sweet!

Just finished the second campaign mission. This has given me the following information

1) The campaign is fun. I'm a well documented hater of the RTS campaign, so I do not say this lightly, but this is some good stuff. It's straight up strategizing, there's no unendurable story full of saccharine characters having Heroic Wartime Moments, horrid cutscenes of models viewed from much shorter distances than they should be, stupid mission objectives or any of the other crap that usually seems to get in the way of a decent RTS campaign.

Instead you get a very short summary of the current geopolitical situation which segues into a very short briefing on the current battlefield status, after which it's straight into hot tank-on-tank action. Better yet, all the pre-mission stuff is presented like a history lecture, it's even in that weird pseudo-present tense historians use when talking about the past. This makes the whole thing feel sort of like a playable documentary.

And the missions themselves, at least so far, feel very organic and believable. It's very much here's the situation, here's what you need to do. It seems to be doing what a campaign mission should do, setting up an interesting tactical scenario, then turning you and the AI loose to blow stuff up.

2) It doesn't really feel like an RTS. This is a hard thing to define, but it really doesn't. I suspect a lot of it comes down to units coming from a finite, off-map and persistent pool. Since they gain levels in action, you really do not want to lose them, which breeds a constant level of paranoia and encourages fighting like a clever bastard. The large maps and long engagement ranges reinforce this as well. I'm really digging the tactical and strategic maneuver so far.

3) It's hard. I had to restart the second mission three times before I could win. Part of this was unfamiliarity with the mechanics, part of it was simply fighting very badly, and part of it was being set a genuinely interesting and challenging scenario. I needed to seize a crossroads, hold that position, take another position on one flank, and neutralize an enemy FOB on the other flank. At no point did I have enough units to make a head-on assault viable, so I had to bait, flank, ambush and generally fight like a clever bastard.

I did get to command some infantry, but the map was chock full of tanks and wide open field, which meant that actually using foot soldiers for an assault was pretty much suicidal. I did try to use a British recon team to neutralize some jeep mounted AT units, but they got picked off by a Challenger MBT before the ground pounders got into position.

If it keeps up this level of quality, it'll be a real gem of a game.

[Cristo Meyers]

Apparently the next Saint's Row DLC, Gangstas in Space, came out last week: which was news to me until Steam started downloading it.

Much better put together than Genkibowl was. Genkibowl was fun, sure, but little more than a set of extra missions with almost no continuity. Gangstas is what Genkibowl should've been. This one is self-contained, full story, full voice-work, and, of course, pretty fun.

I'm not entirely sure that you can actually fail the first mission, I don't think the enemies can actually damage your vehicle. The others, though, are fair game. When the movie is actually filming the screen gets a film grain effect which is kinda neat, didn't get in the way of anything. It plays out like a B-movie, complete with really bad acting, and it's pretty funny.

Overall, this one is much better than Genkibowl was. Unfortunately you'll probably blast through it in about an hour or so. Considering the price-point I can't say I'd recommend it unless you already have the money to spend. But, if you do have the money lying around, then there's definitely worse you could get.

[warty goblin]

I too have been playing Ganstas in Space, and it's a perfect expansion for the warped insanity that is Saints Row III. I skipped Genki-Bowl, because the Genki missions in the base game did very little for me, but GiS is amazing.

And the acting is so totally vile, it's a work of art. My current (second) character has the female Russian accent, and her delivery is quite possibly the funniest thing I've ever experienced in a game. There's this one bit where she stumbles over the pronunciation of 'world' that is particularly good.

Also purple spacesuits and pink laser guns. All sci-fi pales in comparison to purple space suits and pink laser guns. I'd better get to keep my pink laser guns at the end of the DLC.

[Cristo Meyers]

I too have been playing Ganstas in Space, and it's a perfect expansion for the warped insanity that is Saints Row III. I skipped Genki-Bowl, because the Genki missions in the base game did very little for me, but GiS is amazing.

And the acting is so totally vile, it's a work of art. My current (second) character has the female Russian accent, and her delivery is quite possibly the funniest thing I've ever experienced in a game. There's this one bit where she stumbles over the pronunciation of 'world' that is particularly good.

Also purple spacesuits and pink laser guns. All sci-fi pales in comparison to purple space suits and pink laser guns. I'd better get to keep my pink laser guns at the end of the DLC.

Don't forget the blue-skinned space babes

I use the same voice and I know what you mean. The whole setup just nails the B-movie feel perfectly, all the way down to making you want to give it the MST3K treatment.

My wife is using the Hispanic voice, and that one delivers just as well.

My only real qualm with it is that, like I said before, unless you already bought the Season Pass like we did, I can't really say that it's a good amount of content for what you're spending.

[Zevox]

Okay, all those things I've been complaining about in Devil May Cry 4? Most of them are forgiven.

I just finished the fight with Dante in mission 10, and oh my god that was excellent. The only fight in the series that good was Dante vs Vergil at the end of Devil May Cry 3. You either know what you're doing or you lose, and you'll still lose plenty even when you know what you're doing. No throwing out random attacks - Dante will just dodge and punish you for it. You have to do the same back at him, bait and punish. Learn his moves, learn ways to provoke them, learn when you can sneak your hits in, or you've lost. I even found I could interrupt his combos by activating Devil Trigger, which has burst-like properties on activation, making the whole encounter feel even more like a fighting game match.

This whole game was well worth it if only for that one fight.

Zevox

[Triscuitable]

I've made it a personal mission to complete the Deus Ex franchise, chronologically.

Yes, that means I'm going to force myself to play Invisible War. Which takes place largely in Seattle, which means it can't be all that bad. I live in Seattle.

Currently, the whole franchise can be bought for $30 on Steam. I already have Human Revolution (and I LOOOOOOOVE it), and I have Deus Ex as well.

Does anybody want any TF2 items, or something for The Missing Link, and the other Deus Ex 3 DLC? I'll take what I can get, honestly.

[Nai_Calus]

I've recently gotten back into video gaming after falling away from it for a few years. Mostly I've been playing the Assassin's Creed series. Played II, and am now working on Brotherhood. Next on the list is probably Dragon Age. I played Skyward Sword a bit, but I was really bad at it so I stopped for a while. :P

I've got a PS3 and a Wii, as far as current systems go. Yeah, no 360, it was that or the PS3 and I didn't have a blu-ray player so the PS3 won. Need to catch up on what I've missed.

[Dublock]

I've made it a personal mission to complete the Deus Ex franchise, chronologically.

Yes, that means I'm going to force myself to play Invisible War. Which takes place largely in Seattle, which means it can't be all that bad. I live in Seattle.

You are brave. I (easily) able to complete the first and human Revolution multiple times but.....but...Invisible War I (bearly) managed to beat it. I don't think I go re-install it (let alone I think my dad has it :P).

[Cespenar]

Invisible War IMHO isn't the spawn of hell that some people would make one believe. It's "okay". It's just not the original game.

[Zevox]

Heh, okay, I just have to post about this. For fans of Persona 4, the alternate color schemes for character in the upcoming fighting game have been revealed - and a bunch of them are based on characters from ArcSys's other fighting games, particularly BlazBlue and (if comments on the post I saw this at are correct; I've never played the series myself) Guilty Gear. And boy are some of them awesome.

A couple of my favorites:

Spoiler

Show

Akihiko Sanada as Bang Shishigami:


Teddie as Taokakka:


Naoto Shirogane as Hazama:


Yosuke Hanamura as Jin Kisaragi:

Also, every character in the game will have a version of each outfit with and without glasses - including characters who never used those, such as Teddie and the guests from Persona 3. Those four will be getting all-new looks in place of the usual TV-world glasses that are actually quite cool in my opinion. Take a look:

Spoiler

Show

I particularly like Mitsuru's Cyclops-like shades and Aigis' sci-fi visor.

Zevox

[Triscuitable]

I still have Guilty Gear Isuka. I never play it, but I still listen to that soundtrack.

If only the sane people could enjoy it too.

[warty goblin]

So yesterday I found myself desirous of some sort of urban fantasy game (which is remarkably hard to find for some reason), and maybe also a shooter, so long as it was cheap. Turns out the Darkness II is 50% off on Amazon right now, so I figured what the hell.

Played through the first mission last night, and damn this be good. The game look brilliant - the engine isn't great but the art style is gorgeous. It somehow manages to look like a comic without looking cartoony: characters have realistic proportions and features, but the shading on everything looks hand drawn, and characters have a very subtle black border around them.

And the gameplay is seriously fun too. It's like somebody took Bloodrayne and remade it as an FPS. As somebody who really liked both Bloodraynes, I appreciate this. It's got the same dark and gritty ultraviolent urban fantasy atmosphere, a fairly fragile yet extremely lethal protagonist, and the same use of enemies as health. Hell, it's even got the same focus on horrifically over the top finishing moves and avoiding bright light. And besides ripping dudes in half like wishbones and eating hearts for health, the shooting is pleasantly solid as well. Two bodyshots with the pistol seem to drop most minion types for summary cardio based dining, and weapons seem accurate enough for the admittedly fairly close corridor settings.

Thankfully, the writing is much better than Bloodrayne. That's damning with microscopic praise, but it actually seems to be generally well written. After the first mission I grasp everything that's happened despite not having played the previous game, understand the main character and his motivations, and actually find said motivations relatable. There's one or two bits I don't understand completely yet, but in the good wanting to see where this goes way, not the bad what the hell just happened way. And all the exposition is done in character, with most of it occurring as parts of conversation between people,or as ever so slightly self aware narration. There have not been any audio logs, diary entries, out of game codex or other exposition wads littering the environments.

If you like your shooters seriously violent - and I mean seriously, majorly utterly violent, it's worth a try.