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I feel like I must be the only person who really, really hates the combat in both of the Arkham games.

I've just been seeing a lot of people being incredibly negative about the Firaxis thing. It seems like people are getting exactly what they want, and are still finding ways to be angry about it. Internet people, arrrgh! I don't think you're being especially unreasonable in your own concerns, hence me not wanting to have this argument.

To be clear, the only point i was making was that, usual hyperbolic IGN-esque reviews aside, i'm not sure the game was ever universally hailed as a masterpiece, and neither was it despised. I think it was a very good game, and i think most of the reception to that game reflects a more moderate opinion about it. I specifically recall seeing a lot of very measured and critical discussion about the successes and failures of the game. Thunderpeel seemed to be coming from the perspective of thinking it was a bad game, and being disappointed because he perceived the reception as having been extremely positive. Obviously, i do not think that it was a bad game, or that the reception had been overwhelmingly positive. Anyways, glad that people are calming down, this would have been a dumb thing to get really vitriolic about. I generally want to agree with scoring philosophies like this, but the reality is that the vast majority of the gaming world works on that 60-100 scoring scale, and trying to stand out from it is ripe with misunderstanding and confusion. (Score aggregators have really only made things worse.)

I think the 3DS is kind of in a good place right now, it's obviously not the complete disaster the last few months led some to believe it would be, and it will have some kind of future ahead of it. However, as with any Nintendo platform though, it basically comes down to whether or not you like the kinds of games Nintendo makes. There's always going to be a lot of weird outliers on Nintendo platforms, some rare and really special 3rd party games that you can't find anywhere else, but don't let those be the things you bet your purchase on. The probable majority of what you will do on a Nintendo handheld is play Nintendo games, so do you like Nintendo's games? Also, if you're buying into the Sony marketing pitch for cinematic and immersive handheld games, it is an experience you're probably not going to find on Nintendo's handhelds. (Though i seriously question the value that experience holds.)

I think you are reading way too much into a single screenshot, and i think you have some rose-tinted perceptions about the original X-com. This isn't an argument i want to have though.

It definitely is.

Doing every quest i've come across, i'm at 200.

Because it's generic sci-fi? Kind of like the original X-com was generic sci-fi?

It was literally the very post prior to the one you're responding to. Or LA Noire was a very good game in a year with many, many great games. You seem to be building an argument around the idea that LA Noire can only have been the greatest achievement ever or else its dogshit. Anyways, LA Noire talk back over to the LA Noire thread, i guess. I don't know if i care enough about LA Noire to remain involved though.

Two that come immediately to mind are Intelligent System's strategy games, the "Wars" series and the Fire Emblem series. They seem particularly suited to the handhelds in that they're easy to stop and start with, and they have a lot of downtime where you don't need to be immediately focused. They are two really satisfying and complex series of games that i just do not ever want to play on a home console. (I remember playing the GC Fire Emblem game, it was not a great experience, mostly because it's such a visually simplistic game and because of all that aforementioned downtime, a lot of time spent waiting on AI turns.)

Firaxis, you say? Strategy game, even? Mmmm... Yes, i am pleased with this development.

I just think the whole surface-level philosophy for the PSP/PSVita is just kind of faulty, i don't want to play shittier versions of other games i own just because they're now portable. So after having bought a launch day PSP, i am definitely not buying a launch day PSVita. Which isn't to say that i think the Vita is going to be a disaster, the launch line-up looks pretty solid actually. (Way better than the 3DS launch, even.) I just don't even want to consider getting one until i see that hardware hopefully growing out of a "It's Uncharted! But slightly shittier!" phase. I own a PSP, and i've gotten a lot of mileage out of it for what it's worth, i don't regret it. The PSP has a fantastic library of unique and interesting games to play if you're willing to dig for them. It just wasn't so great a system that i'm dying to repeat that purchase, and the Vita seems to be reproducing a lot of the same fundamental errors. (Optical drive aside.)

I also just finished the main quest. Prior to completing it, the civil war quest and main quest were interlocking in some really crazy and scary ways. There was that aforementioned thing about the faction leaders not giving normal dialogue options, and then after that Now that i have a clearer sense of how Bethesda is managing their NPC's with these things, it'll be easier to predict how odd quest interactions might go, but i went a good ten hours with all of this just terrified that i had broken my game. (Really though, even if it didn't actually break, the way certain between-activity quest states are precluding other quest states is pretty shit, but it's a small thing i'm willing to forgive on the fact that it didn't actually break.)

I literally just ran into this same issue and ended up having to start the civil war quest to progress any further in the main quest. So i'm fighting for the imperials now, but whatever.

The fact that LA Noire has seemingly been absent from most places' yearly award wrap-ups seems to indicate strongly that it wasn't hailed as a masterpiece, and was in most estimations simply a very good game. I admire that those guys had the guts to make such an enormous and over-produced adventure game. Not even just a big-budget adventure game, but one with a 1940's crime noir theme. It is crazy to me that LA Noire exists at all. It definitely has problems, chiefly in that it wants to be taken so seriously and appear so realistic, it even moreso cannot escape that there is still some gamey-ass shit on display. Also the issues with occasional lapses into the uncanny valley and the debatably needless open-world structure. You know, but hey, i really enjoyed it.

How would we count honorable mentions to actual goties, or other weird personalized categories? Holy shit, I love that man's top ten list.

The only one i hadn't already played was the last one, which is to say i already played Knoxx, but i'd be on board for more Borderlands either way, sure. What level is your dude? Which class did you play? Edit: 360, right?

Yeah, i have a steam account, but i'm not on it enough that it'd be worth adding me. Maybe someday when i rebuild my PC, but not right now.

A lot of the texture replacement mods i've been seeing look really horrendous. Sure, tile the shit out of that art, or redraw it with less detail, but as long as it's higher resolution = success!

I generally keep my backlog fairly manageable, and outside of games i've just given up on ever playing, there's maybe around ten games i want to get back to. If i buy a game, i mean to play it, i play it, and i put it away. I don't usually let myself stop in the middle unless i'm really just not into it. Anyways, i just cleared through a bunch of my backlog a month or two ago. Nier, Resonance of Fate, and El Shaddai, all pretty great games. For games i intend to get back to, i still want to do the DLC for Borderlands, Mass 2, and GTAIV. I also have copies of Enslaved and Lost Odyssey that i've been meaning to play. There's also handful of handheld and download games that i mean to finish some day, but... ehh... Those aren't as much of a priority. (My unfinished playthroughs of Okamiden, Infinite Space, and Ocarina 3D particularly eat at me.) Also: Morrowind - Stamina/fatigue has a big impact on the combat and you can really feel it at lower levels, you will miss strikes a lot. (Additionally, then, heavier and better weapons drain your stamina/fatigue faster, and counter-intuitively can make combat harder at low levels.) If none of your starting weapon skills are sitting at around 30, it's going to be rough starting out.

Prevailing opinion seems to be that the sequel is a little bit better, but i personally like the first game a bit more. The point is, there isn't any huge gulf in quality between the two, they're very similar games. The second game does a better job in keeping you seeing new and visually interesting locations, but it's a little more linear and a little less dynamic. Again, the differences are really small. I don't know if you'd like Dead Space 2 if you didn't like the first game, but you might if your issue was seeing the same wall textures over and over. As for finishing the first game to play the second, i don't know. They're very story-driven games, but there's a couple messy retcons between the first and second game. There's a lot of small details about the end of the first game that don't match up with how those things are portrayed in the second game. I don't know if that's enough of an excuse to not see the end of that first game though, and i personally do think it's still the better game between the two.

The dungeon start in Daggerfall is notoriously crazy. Once you get out in the open and can properly go prepare yourself with some supplies and stuff, it's not nearly so bad.

I kind of did this too, and it seems like a lot of people really kind of got swept up in the role-playing aspect like that, and for a game that doesn't really seem like it would encourage it at all. I think the anonymous, silenced MP kind of helps it along. It keeps you immersed in that world, what there is of it. I did also kind of piece together an imagined backstory for my Argonian in Skyrim, which is something i've used to kind of guide the choices i've made story-wise.

I was under the impression that their Bloodrayne game was pretty fantastic, i played the trial on XBLA and it seemed pretty cool. As for Aliens: Infestation, i have some thoughts about this game. It's... Ehh... I think i'm souring on it a bit, but it's mostly a situation of seeing what they were going for, and seeing a lot of missed opportunities in that. Real, legitimate failings are not especially numerous. It starts out really challenging and interesting, but as the very limited progression kicks in, the challenge doesn't really ramp up at all. If the game is effortless, the perma-death mechanics never really kick in. (When you do die and are sometimes given a chance to rescue somebody, you also have only a very brief window to do so. Unfortunately, earlier in the game when this happened to me, my marine was apparently placed into a hive outside of what were the accessible areas at that point int he game. Oops.) And at some point, the illusion wears thin, the additional marines are just extra lives and nothing more. There is no benefit to tracking down survivors outside of filling an empty slot for an extra life. Individually, they have absolutely no defining characteristics outside of their dialogue and a pallete swap on the character sprite. I mean, somebody obviously went through a lot of trouble to ensure that every character would have dialogue for every scenario, but i don't know, i don't think it ultimately goes far enough with what is a very cool conceit. The ability to not just open sealed doors with a blowtorch, but then also actually weld them shut again, doesn't seem to ever come into play. That feels like a pretty big missed opportunity, i don't know why it's there if you're never given an reason to use it. I like the combat though, it's kind of restrictive and clunky, but kind of in a really great way that fits the tone they're going for. (I'm also not certain i've ever seen a cover system in a 2D sidescroller.) There are certain parts of the control scheme that maybe aren't handled in the best way though. (Previously noted, the way they handle strafing kind of sucks.) The biggest actual problem, though, is that the environments are small and poorly laid out, filled with wasted space and dead ends. It lacks the kinds of shortcuts and connected, circuitous paths that make a good Metroidvania-style game enjoyable through to the end. There's a lot of laborious backtracking in the back half of this game. (Even though the environment is small, you are yourself quite slow.) You know, but this is a good solid game. I don't mean to sound so negative about it, it is a really impressive game, just maybe not one of the last great DS games as some folks have evangelized it as. It is also very pretty, Wayforward's sprite art has always shined. That in itself almost makes it worth playing, if you're inclined to appreciate such things. Very smoothly animated game, very detailed backgrounds, very impressive to look at.

I was gifted a few games for Christmas that neatly fit within the confines of this conversation thread. 1. Super Mario 3D Land is pretty freaking awesome. You know, but in an alternate universe, a less ambitious and more conventional Super Mario 64 probably looked a lot like this game. Many of the levels follow a left-to-right theme, a camera looking on from the side, playing much like a traditional Mario game, but with the stages having the added depth of a third plane for the gameplay to occur on. That probably sounds like a slam against the game, but the context around it is important. With the 3D Mario formula that Nintendo actually went with being itself now well worn, i think that a design like this now serves as an interesting and fresh middle ground between the strictly 2D games and the Super Mario 64 lineage. There's also lot of small and amusing scenarios peppered throughout the game that all seem to be Nintendo trying to teach and convince people that stereoscopy has practical applications in game design. (And to be fair, they make some strong arguments.) The control is responsive, the levels are fun, the presentation is impeccable, it is a really damn good Mario game. I don't think i like it as much as i love the Galaxy games, but it's better than the NSMB games, in my estimation. It actually seems like this is the game that is justifying the 3DS for a lot of people. It would probably be easy to be really cynical about that, maybe, but it remains that Nintendo makes really fucking good games. It may be another Mario game, but who's to argue with more of an awesome thing? 2. Aliens Infestation It locked up 20 minutes in. That always weirds me out, when handheld games do that. It's the only time it's done it though. I'm not sure what i want to say about it, i feel like it has a lot of small issues that i want to overlook because there's virtually nothing else like this, and the intent behind this design is awesome. Some of the mechanics feel under-utilized, and the controls are convoluted and messy. Strafing in particular is handled in a really, really shitty way. I want to finish this one before saying much more about it.