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Giant robots! Woo!

I love the music of these new-fangled digital entertainments! To avoid flooding with embeds, i'll mete out some of my favorites as the topic grows. ^ By my estimation, one of the best and most energetic final boss themes ever. ^ And this is just one that's really stuck with me.

I had started up Revelations again, trying to get the last few Raid mode S-ranks and finish a Hell mode playthrough i hadn't completed. The CPP doesn't seem to ever actually turn itself off. It goes to "sleep" after a period of inactivity, but still seems to drain its battery in this state. Nintendo had originally put out some numbers saying that a battery in the CPP will last for a few hundred hours, but in my experience, it seems to be way less. I actually kind of like the underwater bits in Revelations, i thought they were some of the most tense sections of the game, and underwater stuff always looks awesome in 3D. (Save up pulse grenades for those sections if they're troubling you, those are usable underwater.) The interludes are absolutely the worst part of the game, i hate that it keeps taking you away from the narrative you've been immersed in to play snippets of gameplay with other characters you don't know or care about for just a few minutes at a time. On top of that, what really does this stuff in is that your progression is all tied up with Jill, and that disappears completely during these interludes where you're then building up a new stock of supplies that won't carry back over to anything else. The "survival" part of the horror kind of evaporates when it keeps throwing your careful management of supplies out the window. You also can't upgrade any of the weapons belonging to the side characters, and that makes those sequences absolutely brutal on Hell difficulty. Nearly gave up on several occasions, but i'm still struggling through it. I don't strongly disagree with any of the points you've made, but i do still think Revelations is an extremely good Resident Evil game. To me, It feels like a good fusion of old-school RE ideals, and new-school RE gameplay. (With the exception of those interludes, which we'll agree are unnecessary, out of character, and bad.) Have you messed around with the raid mode at all? It probably won't click if you're into Rev for atmosphere and don't find the gameplay particularly interesting, but i personally got a ton of mileage out of co-oping with randoms through Raid mode. (Even solo, it's still great fun.) I mean, and i do feel there's a lot of nuance to the action in Rev. They actually seem to have learned a few tricks from Dead Space, with how you can damage specific limbs on an enemy to change the dynamic of an encounter. Breaking an ooze's arms with carefully aimed shots to impede it's ability to attack you at range, for example. With the fixed camera perspective in the game, i actually find Super Mario 3D Land more difficult without the depth perception offered by the 3DS's autostereoscopy. I walked away from that game feeling like it was the best case Nintendo has made for the 3DS's fancy top screen. Also, the grim specter of Nintendo discovering DLC looms large over NSMB2. You know, but i'm kind of in love with the "EVERYTHING IS COINS!" vibe NSMB2 is going for. So, i dunno.

I don't know if i could give you specific examples, i don't follow PSN news too closely. I mean, and the point is, if something disappears from Live, you can generally still get at it if you had originally bought it.

I don't exactly play Halo online every night or anything, but i do generally do enough online gaming that i've been perfectly happy to pay for Live. (I also don't play MMO's, or pay any other inessential subscriptions on anything else, so the Live sub isn't exactly a huge drain on my resources.) So there's a few behind-the-scenes things Live does that i appreciate. - When stuff goes up on the marketplace, it stays on the marketplace, barring special-case or license-related issues. Moreover, in those cases, it's actually only "delisted" instead of outright pulled from the service. You can still download it from your history, but it's invisible on the marketplace. Steam doesn't even go this far, i've had things disappear from my Steam account with no explanation or recourse. Also compare to PSN, where if something is provided as a free download, publishers are buying from Sony a set number of downloads before something disappears from the store, unless the publisher chooses to re-up. (This includes patches, as i understand things.) There are also no restrictions on how many times you can download something, or to how many systems you can download it. (I believe PSN has changed its policy regarding this? It used to have a hard limit on how many times you could download a piece of content after "buying" it.) Microsoft-run match-making and leaderboards will also remain active for as long as Microsoft supports 360 games, opposed to it being entirely up to the publishers on most other platforms. I mean, i actually really appreciate that i can still play Puzzle Fighter 2 HD online, even if me and my friend are literally the only people who do. (There are exceptions, of course. Every goddamned EA game, because fuck EA, and a few special cases like Chromehounds which was running an extremely elaborate persistant metagame off of proprietary servers.) I think Live is generally a really excellent and reliable service, and i continue to be totally okay paying a subscription for it. The Metro dashboard update was total trash though, fucking ads everywhere and terrible sorting and search options. It has made it very hard to find things, yes. The account hijackings have also been a total tragedy, apparently it's all social engineering going through outsourced tech support. You literally cannot do anything to protect yourself from it. It's very upsetting that Microsoft hasn't been taking those more seriously. (Or, if they are taking it seriously, it's upsetting that they're not being more transparent about it.) You... You don't need to pay the sub for access to the marketplace, you realize, right? If you don't play MP or use one of the apps they've gated behind gold, you're basically fine at the silver tier.

You guys are making me want to play this game i already decided i didn't like.

What i'm hearing from several people going through the game is that the cheesier aspects of Binary Domain actually coalesce into a really entertaining genre narrative that ends up being the best thing about the game, that the paper thin characters end up being pretty likable. Nobody seems super amazed with Binary Domain from a gameplay standpoint. Speaking personally from my time with the demo that Sega had put out, i thought it had some mildly interesting mechanics and some fairly impressive enemy types, but i also felt that it was a very loose and imprecise feeling game. (This seems to be a thing lately, third-person shooters with kind of crummy mechanics that just barely get by on the strength of a narrative.)

The last AvP was developed by Rebellion, the guys that had already developed two prior AvP games. (A lot of people absolutely hated this last one, but i thought it was pretty underrated.) The other big one still on the way is Aliens: Colonial Marines, and that's a Gearbox game. (I think this game looks bad, everything i've seen looks so bad.) Sega's super weird these days, like its Japanese business has just imploded, and it's scrambling to capitalize on anything it has going on in the west. Binary Domain, however, was a pretty genuine internal effort from Sega, it seems like.

For me, it was the japanese-development part of the equation. Sometimes you get a game like Vanquish, something that seems like an inspired and fresh outsider's take on a predominantly western genre. Sometimes you get a game that feels like pure imitation, like the developer didn't understand what makes the genre work in the first place. (Quantum Theory? Mindjack?) Binary Domain, to me, looked like it was the latter.

It seems like a lot of people are kind of discovering Binary Domain now that it's been marked down at retail a bunch, i've been seeing a lot of people start picking it up and having very positive things to say about it.

It wasn't that, i think it was a lack of feedback, like the enemies weren't responding to being shot. Edit: I think i'm probably remembering some details incorrectly, but I still thought that demo was terrible.

Like i said, i only played the demo, but it seemed like a bad shooter. Control had a real loose feel to it, the cover system was bad, and the enemies were major bullet sponges. It just felt really muddy, nothing about it really clicked. Ammo scarcity and selectable firing modes are not bold new features, and definitely not something to hang your hat on in the face of the above.

The demo they put out was pretty legitimately awful. It's a very subpar shooter, it plays like total shit. People keep saying the story takes some really great turns though, and some of the character stuff they've apparently done sounds neat. (For example - Multiple animation and dialogue sets for the main characters, detailing growing frustration and exhaustion as the game progresses.) It seems like a game that is perhaps worth taking a chance on once it hits bargin bins. That game has had a really weird, protracted development cycle though. It went through a bunch of hands before finally hitting store shelves.

I first want to say that i absolutely loved the insights that were offered about the game and the people who worked on it. As for the conversation carrying on in here, I also find the combat in BioShock disappointing, but not for a lack of player expression. I thought there was actually too much of it, too much opportunity to approach a situation in any way you want. The choices you made were essentially meaningless when every solution worked for every problem. Too many resources against challenges that were too forgiving, equipped with tools that were too broadly applicable.

I played through this too and really, really enjoyed it, and had posted my thoughts on the existing topic for the game. There's no particular grind to the main path in the game, i'd advise not dismissing an excellent RPG because of optional side content. I also actually kind of got pretty wrapped up in the side quests because of the elaborate affinity system wrapped around them.

Some alleged leaked information is making the rounds. I like Starbreeze a lot, but i hope they don't just end up turning Syndicate into Deus Ex, because we already got one of those coming this year. Heh.

So you know what you're getting into, the sequel wasn't developed by Starbreeze, it was a Digital Extremes joint. It delves much more into the fantasy elements, it's less of the unique character-focused story that the first one was, and on the whole is a much more linear combat-focused experience. (The open-world and predatory stealth stuff is completely gone.) It's a fine game, though. The core combat is much more interesting and balanced, they have a a really brilliant visual style going for it, and there's a co-op mode that is surprising for the amount of attention it seems to have received. It's also still reasonably well written, though the direction it goes in at the end would make me wary of a Darkness III, should they make another one. If you want more Starbreeze, i'd strongly recommend Assault on Dark Athena. (Which i am sure can be found for pennies.) It's two games! It contains a completely remade version of Butcher Bay that includes the additional content from the earlier PC re-release, on top of its new Dark Athena campaign.

On the movie poster is an image of an elephant and a dwarf. The elephant is striking down the dwarf.

If you have to break it down, with the first two being horror and action, i think the third campaign might be summed up as "survival" since it seems like it will at least partially revolve around having you being chased by a larger beasty. Anyways, i would say that the concern this demo has left me with is... In trying to hit every note the series is known for, i think they're trying to build on things that weren't necessarily the right direction for the series in the first place, and then potentially not even doing those things as capably as they would have to, if they are to make good on it. I mean, but it's a demo, a small slice of work-in-progress gameplay. I don't mean to pass judgement on the game as a whole, i'm just sorting out the thoughts this sample left me with. I really dug what it showed of Leon's campaign, and for that at least, i'm almost definitely on board.

I have a fairly ambivalent relationship with Resident Evil. I've come to respect what the earlier games in that series were trying to do, but i still don't think they're very good. (With the possible exception of the RE1 remake for GC.) RE4 though, i would argue that RE4 is one of the best action games ever made, and marked the beginning of earnest interest in that series for me. (I also believe that RE:Rev on the 3DS is an excellent game, and that RE5 was quite misguided.) SO RE6. That's a very big demo, that's a lot of demo. Three levels from its three campaigns, playable both online and offline. (There's co-op again.) Leon's demo had the least going on, but actually ended up being the most interesting to me, since it was the only part of the demo that seemed interested in trying to be a horror game. Chris's demo was kind of the worst excesses of RE5 and then some. Barely even recognizable as Resident Evil, it was all cover shooting against dudes with rifles. (That sometimes explode into monsters.) Then the other guy's demo, i forgot his name. His sequence was a boss encounter, so it doesn't really give any indication of what the tone will be. It was an ok boss fight. (Where you were surrounded by dudes with rifles.) There doesn't appear to be an active inventory for the AI partner when you're playing solo, an inelegant solution for what was by far the biggest problem with RE5. (An AI partner that is bad at managing resources in a game where resources are scarce.) I would wonder then if you'll be able to even change what their equipped weapon is, or what other issues might arise from this. The control is kind of swimmy and strange, but not in a way i find particularly awful, i guess? I could get used to it, and it feels right for a survival horror game. You kind of struggle with the aim just a bit, and it still has the things you'd want a close-quarters survival horror game to have, it still has a quick turn and everything. There's actually also some really crazy shoot-dodge maneuvers now, i don't really understand how they'd ever be practical, but i kind of love that they're there. The cover system, however, is kind of shitty and counter-intuitive. Having so many enemies with rifles is dumb, it doesn't work in the context of an RE game. The "be pinned down behind cover and trade fire" exchange is a weird contradiction to the part of the game where enemies are constantly spawning all around you to keep you from finding any safe spots. Nevermind that RE4 and RE5 already had a better form of ranged combat exchange, having you try to shoot thrown objects out of the air while on the run. I mean, but maybe that contradiction could make for some interesting gameplay if you actually had to ever use the cover at all, but you kind of don't. The ranged enemies seem to miss most of their shots even when they're standing right next to you, and successfull hits still do almost no damage. (Though this seems like a case of the demo probably being locked to whatever the lowest level of difficulty will be.) This game is really all over the fucking place, It feels like it's trying to be every RE game ever made all at once, and I feel like i know less about this game after playing this demo. It's such a weird thing, and i wish it showed more of Leon's campaign. There's also some really crazy rumors going around that it's going to have some variety of competitive multiplayer modes. (Which wouldn't even surprise me, given that RE5 already had a really ill-advised deathmatch mode added in via DLC.)

So as of July 3rd, which is today, Dragon's Dogma owners are entitled to an RE6 demo. The code is on the back of your Dragon's Dogma manual, and... I guess it downloads a key that lets you download the demo from inside of the game itself, or something? Anyways, it seems like most people aren't even aware of that little promotional thing. Yeah, so there you have it, go murder some zombies.

Are... are we just going to ignore that the topic creator is a spam bot?

I've started getting stickers for completing some of the quest lines, so i'm probably closing in on the end game, but there are a looot of stickers to collect.

Hold on there, it is absolutely not like Wind Waker. (Where it's a known story that entire dungeons were cut from that game and they instead tried to engineer another way to pace the back half of the game.) If you've been good about constructing a mental image of which corners of the world you haven't already been through, collecting the artifacts at the end of Prime is a loop around the game that will take maybe thirty minutes. (It's also possible to have almost all of them before they're required, anyways.) It may have been a lazy way to try and pad out the game just a little more, but in the case of Prime, it's a victory lap and not a ten hour ordeal. (The chozo monument above the end-game crater, near where you parked your gunship, is filled with a bunch of exceedingly obvious hints that give you pretty much the exact location of every artifact.) If you're ok with a hollow victory, the AI in Advance Wars is predictable to a fault, and following steps laid out in a faq would be a fairly certain victory. The AI in those games is almost entirely reactive, and in the context of the rigidly designed campaign missions, a set sequence of player actions can almost always produce an expected result. (To be fair, it's much less predictable in the longer and more chaotic MP skirmishes, but it will still never surprise you with clever strategies, the worst it will ever do is force you into a protracted stalemate since all it's really doing is acting to counter your moves.)

What is this? I think that's a completely valid reason for tearing down a sequel, what is the problem with holding something to the standard of what preceded it? I mean, it's insane to expect that people should evaluate sequels in a vacuum, comparisons are exactly what developers are inviting on themselves by producing a follow-up to something people love. Relative to TFC and original TF, TF2 had made what i felt were negative changes, and therefore i did not like TF2 as much. It is that simple.