Video Games - Watcha playin'?

[Kael]

I got the demo for Civ Revolution on my Xbox, but it was pretty 'meh'. Even lacking a copy of Civ IV right now, I'd rather do without than play the kiddie version.

You know what I miss? The awesome council from Civ II.

[Ensign Steve]

[Megatron]

Madden 10 is about to annihilate every last bit of free time I will have for weeks, maybe months.

[Adam]

That's awesome. I think I may have posted this one here a long time ago:

[Pan Narrans]

I just downloaded Eversion and played a few levels. Ye gods!

[Adam]

I've completed a whole game of Civ Rev on the iPhone, and I have to say I like it better than the console version. The stripped down game play makes a lot more sense on a portable, and the controls are a lot easier to manage. Touchscreen is a suitable mouse replacement. Moving a cursor around with a control stick is not.

[California Tanker]

shit, I have tie fighter somewhere, but hell if I can find it anymore, probably in one of the "Old Backup Shit" folders inside a later "Old Backup Shit" folder on my "Old Backup Shit" hard drive from like, 1999, lol

There are very strong rumours of a new TIE fighter game on the horizon.

So, I reinstalled Rome: Total War the other day after feeling a desire to crush mighty empires and being unable to find my copy of Medieval 2: Total War (Total War being my go-to series for mighty empire crushing

I have the latter at home, it's kept me busy for quite a while (at least, until those damned Timurids show up). I'm told there are mods for it which are most worthy.

Current two computer games in use are Civ IV and World of Goo.

NTM

[erimir]

Originally Posted by Adam

I've completed a whole game of Civ Rev on the iPhone, and I have to say I like it better than the console version. The stripped down game play makes a lot more sense on a portable, and the controls are a lot easier to manage. Touchscreen is a suitable mouse replacement. Moving a cursor around with a control stick is not.

It's not so bad on the DS either with the touchscreen. But the dumbed down gameplay is still a problem for me.

Not that I was ever that hardcore about the game (I don't really venture into the higher levels of difficulty, but I enjoy the myriad options and improvements, etc.).

[Dragar]

Originally Posted by California Tanker

There are very strong rumours of a new TIE fighter game on the horizon.

This would be amazing.

Assuming LucasArts actually recover some of their former glory and don't make it crap, anyway.

[Joshua Adams]

Originally Posted by Joshua Adams

Fable: The Lost Chapters

Ok, I don't know about anyone else, but I found it to be a huge letdown. Maybe my expectations were out of whack, because this was billed as the sort of game where you can "go anywhere, do anything" and define the world based on your choices. So I was thinking, I guess, that it would be an immersive experience where I could get lost in the game world, much like Morrowind.

So I was sad to find out how small Fable is. It's not just that the main quest is short; that's probably true of any game like this, and fine, because the real meat and potatoes should be elsewhere. But everything about the game struck me this way. Instead of roaming around a vibrant world and seeing what interesting things were hiding there, I get screens connected by linear, forking paths, with an endless supply of the same traders being assaulted by the same bandits in every other zone. You can't go anywhere before you're supposed to, as far as I could tell. It seemed like new paths were magically appearing on my minimap as I progressed, but maybe I'm just crazy. Of course, even if I could go to a new zone there wouldn't be anything in particular to do there, except play cards or whatever with that one guy in the tavern--you know, that guy, every town has one.

As much as I felt railroaded, the game touts its choices. The way the game presents them normally came off pretty hamfisted. Sometimes, two quests would appear at the guild (Why, oh why, did they have to structure the game around the guild? I felt no incentive to explore the game since nearly all tasks were assigned in the same central location), one being the good side and one being evil. I couldn't just show up to escort the bandit to the gallows, and then deal with the situation how I wanted, and then lie to the questgiver about it, or kill them and loot the reward off their corpse. No. If I wanted to let the bandit go, I had to take the other quest, from the bandits who asked the guild for a hero to (lol) help spring him from his armed guard. If I take the quest and screw up an objective, I tarnish my reputation as a hero and hope I can rebuild trust by completing petty tasks? No, actually, I get a game over and automatically load a save at the beginning of the quest.

One of the more ambitious ideas they had in the run up to Fable's release was the ability to customize any object in the game and use it in combat. As you killed enemies with an object and augmented it, almost any crap could eventually be a legendary weapon. Of course, this never came to be. Shockingly, there aren't even any mundane objects in the game, so forget about picking them up and beating the shit out of balverines with them! The idea survived in vestigial form: you can add special augmentation items to your weapons to give them a special property, like flame elemental or the ability to restore your health. Well, at least it's something, but it doesn't make up for the extremely limited selection of equipment. I think there were probably about 30 weapons tops in the entire game, almost all of them useless, and the same can be said for armor/clothing. I went through about 3 swords and 3 suits of armor, everything else I found was worse than what I had. And none had a unique, cool look that made me want to wear them despite low stats. To add insult to injury, a lot of the armor was identical except for being good or evil branded (i.e. bright vs dark chain mail).

The worst part of the experience was that playing the game was unnecessarily frustrating due to technical issues. The camera is abysmal, especially in enclosed spaces. It will often follow behind and zoom in on your back, so the hero is obstructing almost the entire screen; inexplicably, the camera controls liked to lock up until I got back into the open. I actually couldn't do the archery competition later in the game because my body took up half the screen when I was aiming the bow. Some camera problems could have been solved by adding first-person mode. I'm not sure where they'd have put it on an already crowded controller, but maybe they could have put it in the menu, as annoying as that would be.

The controls are equally clunky; part of it is the fault of the Xbox's controller, quite possibly the worst ever conceived, where no less than 7 buttons and a stick are assigned to one thumb. I found it all but impossible to use the blocking/dodging system when engaging multiple foes; the easiest thing to do was just hack away and use potions as I took the hits. The targeting system was clumsy, usually turning my character 180 degrees to lock onto a villager or something, instead of the guy I was facing. Worst of all, anyone you target is highlighted red, as an enemy, even if they're not one. Like blocking, it's a feature you're better off not using.

I also found certain button assignments maddening. What fucking idiot put "flourish"--an unblockable attack that's unlocked by scoring a few successful hits-- on the same button as "run"? Why not go with, I dunno, the talk button, which isn't used for anything in combat, or even the attack button? Countless times have I needed to quickly dodge an oncoming projectile, but couldn't because my run button was disabled. Also, sucking in experience orbs with the right trigger was kinda clunky, since I often used my magic by accident when I meant to keep physically attacking. Despite the combat weirdness, the game remains very easy, as you find health potions all over the place and can use them at almost any time, even while you're knocked down or attacking. I never died.

I probably should have gone with the PC version, but I guess my thinking was that it would be weird playing Fable II on the console after playing the first one with keyboard and mouse. I could have probably escaped the poorly designed menus, too. Anyway, [/rant].

I actually didn't hate the game, it's just that this one was supposed to be revolutionary, one of the best games ever made, and it just falls short.

[Awareness]

Originally Posted by Ensign Steve

Don't lie. We all know that's your porn folder.

Try "Hentai" ..................oops.....I am out of here!

[Ensign Steve]

[Adam]

That's pretty much how I felt about Fable. It was fun, I guess, but it didn't even come close to living up to the hype. It is a Peter Molyneux game, after all.

I did sort of dig the idea of the absolutely neutral Guild, who are more than willing to hire out both a Hero to spring a criminal from the authorities and a Hero to escort that same criminal to the gallows.

[Joshua Adams]

Yeahbut, how dumb do the bandits have to be to make their plan to spring the convict a matter of public record?

Also, Fable III was announced recently. Sounds like it's gonna be "awesome."


Also also, can EA just stop publishing games that I want? Really, I mean, stick to Tiger Woods PGA or summat. I kinda wouldn't mind boycotting them if they weren't behind things like Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age: Origins. I just learned the other day that Dragon Age is going to come with a code to download DLC, so if you buy it used, you have to pay extra to play the added content (as the code probably won't be there in a used copy). ... The implication being, they're intentionally withholding content that they already made, in order to squeeze out extra money from DLC. God, fuck EA. There'll probably be a million bugs that they don't give a shit to fix them, and then maybe the game will just stop working altogether eventually.

[Adam]

I'm sure the Guild is discreet about their contracts. They're like the Dollhouse.

[Kael]

So, BrotherMan, did you find any good mods for M2:TW? I'm trying Stainless Steel right now, hope it's good.

[California Tanker]

I'm hearing very good things about Stainless Steel, I think it's up to 6.1 now.

Third Age is supposed to be sortof fun. Orks, anyone?

NTM

[Kael]

Stainless Steel seems alright so far, though I have to run 4.1 because I don't have the Kingdoms expansion. I'll probably give Third Age a try sooner or later. There was a LotR mod for RTW as well but it required the BI expansion.

Stainless Steel is still nowhere near as awesome a M2TW mod as Rome: Total Realism was an awesome RTW mod though...

I'm trying to find where they buried the timescale code in the mod, because the years-per-turn while characters only age six months like in Rome is really bothering the shit out of me. 'Course, if you put the timescale back to .5 like it was in Rome you end up with games that last 600+ turns, but that's never bothered me before.

[Joshua Adams]

Not that this has anything to do with what I'm playing (Crackdown, not on Hitler's recommendation though), but this is the not-WOW video game thread.

I'm actually--gasp--thinking about getting a PS3 now. I've been completely ignoring it, and just mentally had the notion that there was nothing there worth playing that I couldn't get for 360. But it seems to be amassing a rather healthy list of exclusives that I wouldn't mind playing. Some good franchises are being continued -- Disgaea 3, Valkyria Chronicles, and apparently at some point Dark Cloud 3, off the top of my head. And interesting sounding games like Demon's Souls, Uncharted/2, Resistance/2, and LittleBigPlanet would round it out. I've never really played Metal Gear Solid or God of War games, but those are there, too. So, when and if I get a real job and a TV, I could very well see myself getting one of these. I'll probably never have as many games for it as my 360 (I'm pushing 50 at this point, which is way, way more than I've ever had for any console), but like I said, a healthy list, by my standards.

[Megatron]

Not to mention infamous, that shit was great

Also, you can download TV shows/movies/etc in HD from the internets, share to PS3 and watch on your TV (not that big of a deal if you have a really nice monitor but mine is ass, whereas my TV is awesome)

[Joshua Adams]

Yes, I would pick up infamous if I had a PS3. Same with Killzone 2. I'm sure there are others. I would never even have contemplated owning most of the games I have for 360, before I bought one and went digging for bargains -- they're just not system sellers for the most part. I pretty much bought it for Left 4 Dead, but I also knew about Dead Rising and BioShock as some other great games for it (BioShock was at one time an exclusive, but I dunno whether it was out for PS3 before or after I got the 360, not that it would've mattered).


Edit: Threw in Fable II a little while ago.

This is a hell of a lot better than the original, by the looks of it. I mean, I can actually look off into the distance instead of having walls (or rows of trees) everywhere! Such a simple thing to make a game a little bit better.

[BrotherMan]

Originally Posted by Kael

So, BrotherMan, did you find any good mods for M2:TW? I'm trying Stainless Steel right now, hope it's good.

No luck on my end. I tried searching a forum where I know people had played it but couldn't find anything. Sorry.

[Dragar]

Originally Posted by Joshua

I kinda wouldn't mind boycotting them if they weren't behind things like Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age: Origins.

I've pretty much boycotted them. I really, really detest the DRM they use. Most of my games would have required a phonecall to EA games 'helpline' by now, as I'm frequently changing the hardware in my PC. Deliberately killing the second-hand PC game market is a stinky move, too. EA Games: get over it. Books can be bought and sold on, so should computer games.

Does my frustration with them show?

[Joshua Adams]

They really are trying to kill the used market. On Xbox, and probably other platforms, EA refuses to allow Microsoft to provide servers for their games (Which they do for everything else). Thus, when the latest incarnation of an EA sports game comes out, they pull the plug on the old one, forcing everyone who wants to keep playing to pay for a new game that's the same exact thing they were already playing, but with updated player rosters and minor stuff like that. In this day and age there's no reason for that, a new player roster is worthy of a patch, not a new release. I don't know how detailed these games are nowadays so if they have to meticulously model each player's appearance, then maybe make it not free, but still.

I can go back and play any other Xbox 360 game with multiplayer capabilities, even when it's an afterthought and there's no community at all, like Prey or The Darkness. Because those aren't EA games (But they would be, if EA's hostile takeover of 2K had succeeded). Isn't it funny how it's Microsoft of all people who look like the good guys here.

I mean, god forbid they make money by continually making better games. Not that they don't make good ones what with all the studios they gobbled up (They have BioWare, Dice, and whatever the Command & Conquer people are called now, and many others) but I'd never want to touch a game from them that has online multiplayer, because chances are I couldn't get a fully functional used copy.*

Why don't these fucking game companies just start up their own second hand game stores if they're so bothered by it.



* I actually have Battlefield: Bad Company, but am thinking about not playing it on my real account because they'll probably ax it once the sequel comes out, and I won't be able to finish it. But maybe they'll have mercy since it is has sold so many copies.

[Dragar]

Yes, but note what Westwood ("The C&C People") have been producing: the same old derivative rubbish that EA are so good at funding. Tiberian Sun, and even Red Alert 2, were well received. The latest one? Was not (despite the hype EA tried to generate).

I was pretty unhappy when Bioware got bought up, but to be honest they peaked with Baldur's Gate II. Unfortunately, we can expect zero support for future games, and a slew of bad sequals.

And let's not forget their laest advertising campaign where they pretty much asked fans to harass their female employees, and then 'apologised' in a way that was incredibly insulting.


There are some good games out there, and in development. But they are few and far between, and getting harder and harder to sniff out.

Blizzard continue to perform well, and are beloved of gamers. Know why? Because they were still producing Starcraft patches years after release. They're the only large company able (in my mind) to compete with EA games, and they are kicking their asses. And it's obvious why - they treat their customers with respect, not like a cash cow.