This isn't the right thread for it, but it's close enough. I was reading on RPGFan that the new cell phone game Tales of the Rays will be free to play. At that point, I lost all interest in the game. If there's one way to turn me off your products is to make me the merchandise and then saddle me with (likely) micro transactions in order to do anything interesting.
I prefer Square-Enix's model of charging their customers for their games available on Android and iTunes. Remember kiddies, if the game is free, then you're the merchandise, not the customer.
On thread related news, I recently purchased The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky on Steam. I originally played it on PSP but never finished it. I hope to correct that with the PC version (which incidentally, is the original version).
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Allan Glenn. 1984-2005 RIP
Under no circumstances should Quentin Tarantino be allowed to befoul Star Trek.
I finally powered my Playstation 4 after leaving it idle for months in order to finally start playing Tales of Berseria. I find the gameplay a lot of fun, most notably the combat. The combat engine is action based and with the right set of button presses, you can pull off a number and variety of combos, which is a lot of fun.
The story has been interesting so far. It starts out with an opening cinematic showing a blood red moon and an attack on the protagonist's character's village (her name is Velvet). In the cinematic, you see a village get turned into a monster. In any case, after that scene, the game starts off seven years later where you learn Velvet, the main character lost her older sister to that attack.
During what is essentially the game's prologue, she is eventually betrayed and imprisoned by someone she was very close to and looked up to as mentor. The nature of the betrayal has left her an embittered woman obsessed with vengeance. I'm not entirely sure I like who she turned into since she was much more kindhearted before the incident. Still, the story itself is interesting and I want to see how it ends.
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Allan Glenn. 1984-2005 RIP
Under no circumstances should Quentin Tarantino be allowed to befoul Star Trek.
I am getting rather obsessed with Mordheim - city of the damned. It is a cracking little turn-based tactical game, based on a spin-off tabletop game set in the Warhammer fantasy battles universe.
The tabletop game must have been pretty good - well balanced, challenging, and with carefully fine-tuned rules. You have to manage, equip and pay your band of troops every turn. In order to do so you have to gather Wyrdstone in the ruins, while fighting off enemy warbands in turn-based tactical skirmishes. Surviving missions levels up your troops, and allows them to learn skills.
Every 7 turns or so, your faction will demand a shipment of Wyrdstone, and they will demand more and more of the stuff every time. Fail to supply these too often, and the game ends. You get 2 missions (scouts can get you a third, for a price) and if you are unlucky they will involve warbands that outclass you badly... while the overall difficulty level steadily ramps up.
There is no saving. If you suffer a bad defeat, you will see some of your prize units permanently mangled, or needing lengthy recuperation... while still drawing their pay. You can fire them to save money, but training up new ones is going to take time. Run out of money by spending unwisely, and will have to play a few missions under strength and sell off all your equipment to keep your soldiers from going on strike.
All this gives the gameplay a wonderful sense of urgency. You have to make careful decisions, because getting it wrong may send your campaign into a negative spiral that is hard to break. This can be frustrating at times, but the cool thing is that the reverse is also true: catch a lucky break and exploit it, and you can turn a seemingly impossible situation around again.
There are some niggles as well: the interface for warband management is clumsy and unwieldy. There are some AI pathing issues that can be exploited.
But overall, this is a cool game that has had me screaming in frustration when that 90% hit chance blow just missed, or whooping in victory when my Leader just survived getting singled out long enough for reinforcements to save his ass. Highly recommended if you liked games like X-com, Jagged Alliance, or some of the turn-based Space Hulk games.
__________________ The miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics for the formulation of the laws of physics is a wonderful gift which we neither understand nor deserve. -Eugene Wigner
I don't have a PS4, but I'm gonna say you made the right call. Mass Effect Andromeda didn't deserve all the infantile bullshit that was shoveled its way, but the game was quite a disappointment nonetheless, especially from a story telling standpoint. Some pretty impressive investigative reporting on Kotaku's part revealed a highly troubled development history that resulted in a game that was in the works for five years actually being cobbled together in about fifteen months, which is nowhere near enough time for a game this size. I generally agree with the Metacritic aggregate scores, which range from the low to mid 70s.
Since the release, EA closed the Bioware studio that developed ME:A and placed the whole Mass Effect franchise on hold. It appears likely that there'll be no single-player DLC at all.
That said, I'm finding the online multiplayer every bit as addictive as the ME:3 multiplayer. Bioware continues to provide regular support for multiplayer, although how long that continues is anyone's guess considering the relatively small player base.
Just downloaded Warframe, a free-to-play third-person shooter from a small Canadian developer that gotten huge over the four years it's been around. I've played just enough to realize how little I know, but the gameplay is compelling enough that I want to continue.
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"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ~ Louis D. Brandeis
"Psychos do not explode when sunlight hits them, I don't give a fuck how crazy they are." ~ S. Gecko
I don't have a PS4, but I'm gonna say you made the right call. Mass Effect Andromeda didn't deserve all the infantile bullshit that was shoveled its way, but the game was quite a disappointment nonetheless, especially from a story telling standpoint. Some pretty impressive investigative reporting on Kotaku's part revealed a highly troubled development history that resulted in a game that was in the works for five years actually being cobbled together in about fifteen months, which is nowhere near enough time for a game this size. I generally agree with the Metacritic aggregate scores, which range from the low to mid 70s.
Since the release, EA closed the Bioware studio that developed ME:A and placed the whole Mass Effect franchise on hold. It appears likely that there'll be no single-player DLC at all.
That said, I'm finding the online multiplayer every bit as addictive as the ME:3 multiplayer. Bioware continues to provide regular support for multiplayer, although how long that continues is anyone's guess considering the relatively small player base.
Just downloaded Warframe, a free-to-play third-person shooter from a small Canadian developer that gotten huge over the four years it's been around. I've played just enough to realize how little I know, but the gameplay is compelling enough that I want to continue.
I ended up buying Mass Effect:Andromeda after all. It was an ok game. And that's about it. Not what I'm used to from Bioware. I saw all the mess about them closing the office, they actually ended up merging with another studio so while there's no single player DLC coming, there may be more Mass Effect.
I don't play multiplayer games much, I play video games to get away from people.*
*there are exceptions. I still occasionally play Neverwinter and ESO
I recently started playing Ys VIII for the Playstation 4. The game is an incredibly fun action RPG. I am having a blast with the combat even though I suck at it. I especially like the different fighting styles of the playable characters.
__________________
Allan Glenn. 1984-2005 RIP
Under no circumstances should Quentin Tarantino be allowed to befoul Star Trek.
So it's been out forever and I bought it on steam like two years ago... JUST NOW I'm finally getting around to playing Xcom- Enemy Unknown/Enemy Within.
Why the fuck did I wait this long? This game owns.
__________________ Father Helel, save us from the dark.
I got bored of Pillars of Eternity and its neverending parade of bugs. Picked up Middle Earth:Shadow of War instead. It's pretty fun. It's gameplay is in the same vein as Assassian's Creed*. So far it's thoroughly enjoyable.
*I only played the first one a bit, it reminds me a lot of that.
Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus has an extraordinarily dumb and anticlimactic ending. There's plenty to do after the campaign ends, but it's completely pointless as to in-game rewards. Lots of reviewers love it, lots of reviewers say it's bad compared to Wolfenstein: The New Order.
Personally, I think the good vastly outweighs the bad. The shooting and movement mechanics are great, as are the weapons, and I'm having loads of fun running around maps blasting the shit out of Nazis (or melee-killing them in spectacularly grisly fashion using a hatchet). By way of extra added bonus, the game has the Trumplings all pissed off.
I very recently picked up the 2016 reboot of Doom, and goddamn, is that game a blast! Haven't even tried the multiplayer yet, but the single player campaign is nonstop shoot-'em-up fun from beginning to end.
As a spectator, it's great fun watching the dumpster fire that is Bungie/Activision's Destiny 2. Even more fun is watching the controversy swirling around EA's Star Wars Battlefront 2, a dumpster fire that expanded and engulfed an entire town.
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"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ~ Louis D. Brandeis
"Psychos do not explode when sunlight hits them, I don't give a fuck how crazy they are." ~ S. Gecko