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Recently played Mass Effect 2, Dragon Age: Origin and Awakening. Enjoyed both. I'm now (re)playing Oblivion with an updated mod set. I'm very close to maxing out my installable mod list.
Of course, as I (re)read Shogun, I'm getting an itch to reinstall Shogun, Total War.
Playing Fallout 3 right now myself. Had to go to an earlier save after beating the game because I missed a bobblehead..
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Spoiler (?).
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When you get into Raven Rock--explorer thoughouly and get the bobblehead--it's the only time you ever get into there....and when your in there--explorer completely before you get into the next section....
That's the one for energy weapons, right?
I am having a romp through Thief, Gold at the moment.
Yup, the original thief. ALong with Thief 2 they are I think the two best games ever.
Thief 3 is good but compramised by making it X-Box friendly.
Speaking of XBox, I've started Assassin's Creed II again. Not a bad game.
Yep!Quote:
Originally Posted by Moose
Heh, I never use energy weapons anyway. A good head shot with one of the unique sniper rifles, the Lincoln rifle, or your preferred modded equivalent (as I do) will do everything the best energy weapons can do against power armored humans, and outperform them outright against softer targets like super mutants.
And how often does one run into those heavy assault robots anyway? ;)
All I know is that I *never* have any ammo! Post-apocolypitc wastelands need more random ammuntion laying about. :)
There's a luck-based perq for finding "more ammo" in containers. It's a priority. Essential if you're into burst weapons. I wouldn't bother with any of the "extra caps" perqs, though, unless you're really hurting for something to pick.
[Edit:] There are other solutions, too, for that matter. The Pitt DLC provides an ammo press which can let you convert that near-useless 10mm ammo into .45 or .308. There are mods that let you convert ammo in more elaborate ways. There's a mod called Classic Fallout Weapons BETA that adds in a bunch of real modern weapons (including a rare few from science-fantasy movies, such as the pistol that fires .223 lapua) along with all of the weapons found in Fallout 1 and 2 (and Tactics/BoS?). Same mod provides a number of useful sub-machine guns that use the plentiful 10mm round.
I bought the Game of the Year edition which, among other things, includes 'The Pitt', so I'll have to look for that. I wasn't as pressed for ammo today, but never have enough that I feel 'comfortable' . . . but I'm figuring out you oft have to be more resourcefull and tactical instead of guns-blazing.
The press would be awesome; I have a ton of that crappy 10mm ammo. I'm not high enough level to unlock that ammo perk yet.
So I finally got to the end of Silent Hill: Homecoming.
What a thoroughly disappointing entry to the canon. It was evidently written by people who had seen the previous entries to the series, but had no understanding of what made them remarkable. In SH1-4*, gore was a consequence, almost an incidental side-effect, of the soul-rending story that was the real hero. In Homecoming, it's like, "Wow, look guys, dismembered corpses! Huh? What do you mean, that's not shocking? Course it's shocking!" In SH1-4, the monsters are products of the characters' subconscious (mostly). You want to look away but you can't - whether it's the hideously disfigured (but highly sexualised) nurses, or the pitiful (but dangerous) straitjacketed figures, or the clumsily rebuilt mannequins, or, most disturbing of all, the "Daddy, please don't" monster. This is H.P. Lovecraft for the 21st Century. But in Homecoming it's hammerhead sharks with arms and legs, big metal spiders, big-lunged smog-breathers and baddies in protective suits. Where's the depth in that? In SH1-4 the images of decay, neglect, and blood and rust reflected the inner landscapes of the protagonists. In Homecoming it's just the consequence of hordes of monsters unleashed on a town. Where's the fear in that?
In SH1-4, one had a sense of layers of reality. A handful of people were drawn to the town for one reason or another (and part of the delight was that the character you played was not the only one with a strange backstory - the people you occasionally met were probably having adventures every bit as disturbing as your own), and whereas they were all experiencing physical danger, there were strong hints that it was all taking place in a nightmare version of the "real" town. By contrast, in Homecoming, the protagonist's home town of Shepherd's Glen was simply overrun by hammerhead sharks from Silent Hill. So why didn't it make world news? Why didn't the army go in and neutralise the threat?
Anyone can come up with razor-clawed monsters and moustache-twirling villains. Adult horror goes beyond that. Subtlety and sensitivity are the watchwords. Let's hope future releases have these qualities.
*I haven't played SH 0rigins yet, or the more recent Shattered Memories.
Doing a re-run through Dragon Age: Origins, mostly to see what life as a warden is like for the fairer gender. Unlocked a couple new achievements while generally psyching myself up for the release of Dragon Age 2.
Also gave Two Worlds another look through knowing that its sequel is due to hit shelves here soon.
Other than that, some minor goofing around with The Sims 3. Dunno what it is, but I've liked this series since the original was launched ages ago, it seems.
The female human noble start is pretty good, especially if you "set your cap" for Alistair. The expansion starts out with a nice happily married couple cameo, too.Quote:
Originally Posted by Doodler
I'd been playing Pokemon FireRed until about an hour ago, when I discovered the existence of a game-killing interaction between GBA FireReds and later DS editions. It works fine until you fire up the later edition (to, for example, import legendaries from FireRed). When you do, it immediately erases the FireRed game file irretrievably. Gah.
I got through the 'Operation Anchorage' DLC for Fallout 3 today. I haven't gotten though the main story arch yet though, but at least it's another quest off the checklist and a handfull of gamerpoints and achievements.
Nice recommendation, Fazor - you make it sound as much fun as washing the car!Quote:
Originally Posted by Fazor
I must admit, I do sometimes feel that way myself. I loved Zelda: Ocarina of Time, but the endgame was so hard and tedious, I just wanted it to end. I was miserable for over a week - and I had more important things to do than fight a boss monster. When I finally defeated him, I just felt relief rather than elation.
The problem I had was it's added content which usually is for people who have always finished the main game and want more. It turned out to be such a long and un-related to anything else quest chain that it felt out of place. Not that it wasn't good.
Yeah, Anchorage is good. Very good. But... it definitely feels a bit out of place. It takes you out of your own character for an uncomfortably long time. It doesn't do anything to personalize your temporary character. It reminds you, frequently, that you're in a temporary, faceless, nameless character. The character-power progression is... abrupt.
"Out of place" doesn't quite cover the nuance I'm after, actually. Jarring is probably closer to it. It's still well worth playing, just hard to enthuse about.
Fazor, I'm reinstalling Fallout 3 and it's entirely your fault. I haven't played The Pitt, nor Lookout Point yet. I did a "pro-BoS-faction" play-through last. I'm going to do a "meh, thanks all the same" one this time. I'll help 'em, but I'm going to avoid joining factions, other than Megaton.
All this talk about Fallout 3 makes me want to play it again, but I cant because my TV broke a couple of weeks ago and I still havent gotten the money to fix it yet.
It broke in the first half hour of playing Dragon Age: Origin, so I think the game is haunted or something... :)
You put it better than I could, Moose. Jarring. But it added some gameplay elements that were just different enough to keep it from being a total waste.
I beat the game today... the main story arch I mean. Since I have the 'Broken Steel' add on, play continues. I just traveled to Point Lookout, but I was getting my butt kicked there. I think I'll try leveling up some more first.
They did some really slick scripting with Broken Steel. Unlike Anchorage, Broken Steel _is_ something to enthuse about. In a way, it's a reward for all your "hard work" up to this point, where you get to see firsthand, and remind these Enclave punks, along with your BoS allies, just exactly why Power Armor panicked the Chinese into ending the world in a way that the "Operation Anchorage" DLC only hints at.
I think what would have made 'Opperation Anchorage' better would have been to create breaks between the segments where you return to the 'real world', so you could do it as quest segments rather than getting stuck in an hours-long unrelated quest.
@NickW: Ah, that's a tragedy! DA:O is a masterpiece of a game -- I made it all the way through it, which is the best review I can give. And I'm not being sarcastic -- there's been many truely great games that don't hold my interest long enough to 'beat' them. If I get through a game, it's either too short, or it was so well done that I actually wanted to keep playing to the end. DA:O is the later. Granted, I never bought any of the expansions, but only because I ended up using it's substansial trade-in value to purchase Fifa 10.
Bioware, though, has some magic ability. I've played through both Mass Effect's and DA:O. And I *never* make it through games. Bethesda is quickly becoming my second favorite game company, but that's behind Bioware. (As a side note, I did also play Elder Scrolls: Oblivian. But that one I did tire of before I got to the end. Part of that might be I was playing it on a PC that was underpowered, so it didn't run very well.)
I have Oblivion as well, and I have yet to actually finish that game. I was really excited about DA:O and the first little bit I played I loved, now I am just waiting for the money to replace the bulb in my TV so I can get back to it :)
I got fairly far into Oblivion's side-quests, but not very far at all in the main story. The side-quests were much more fun; the Oblivion gates were just annoying :-P
Unless you're playing the Midas Magic mod (where crafting with the sigil stones leads to some of the more exotic spells), you only actually have to close two of them before the Daedric invasion comes to a head. Another eight (if they're the right ones) will significantly reduce friendly casualties.
Of course, gates can be closed in just a few minutes if you're using the Midas Magic mod and your conjure and illusion skills are both at least journeyman level or better.
I didn't have any mods -- I had to spend about 3 days tinkering with the settings files in order to get the game stable on my laptop (and by stable, I mean it only froze once every few hours, rather than every few minutes), and I was afraid installing any mods would make the game unplayable.
I'm looking forward with both anticipation and apprehension to the DA:O sequel. On the one hand, I'm disappointed that character customization has been downsized to restrict your player options to human male or female (with three classes to choose from) -- even though that shouldn't bother me because I almost always play as a human anyway. The trade-off is your character will be fully voiced, a-la Mass Effect. Which is a nice bonus.
I'm also a bit worried about the story arc, as it apparently takes place over a 10-year span through the use of flashbacks. I probably shouldn't be worried -- storytelling is one thing that Bioware really, really knows how to do. But at the same time, I've never much enjoyed games that jump you through time like that.
We'll see.
Tara wanted to see the "ending" to Fallout3 (since I got to it while she was at work), so I fired it up last night. But she was too busy blabbing on her phone all night, so instead I just continued my game from the spot I left off of in Point Lookout (expansion).
Those baddies are hard, but not as bad as I thought the first time I visited there. I'm just used to things dieing in two or three headshots, and these guys don't (unless it's a sneak attack). I also realized that I had been stupid by not dumping points into 'medicine', which is why it was taking 10+ stimpaks to heal me close to full. Fortunately I leveled and dumped everything into it, then picked up the perk that allowed me to instantly add another 15 points to something, which also went to medicine.
Ah, such a fun game!
I just saw the review, yesterday at work, for Mafia II on the XBox. I didn't get time to check it all out, including videos, so I'm not sure, but it does sound good, and they did make fun of it in Penny Arcade, so I think I might want it. In the meantime I'm playing the CTRL-V Game.
Has anyone noticed that numbers after titles do not attract the same disdain in video games as they do in films?
Yes. But that's because the movies usually get worse and the games usually get better. The technology required to tell a good tale was perfected around fires in primitive times, the technology required to immerse yourself in an interactive gaming experience is improving constantly. It's not so much the name, it's what it represents.
ETA: For what it's worth, I think some of the back stories for the older games were probably a fair bit better than some of the newer ones though. Much like most action movies, many games just survive off spectacular graphics and faster processing. Not all though.
I broadly agree with all that, Spoons.