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The easier difficulties on System Shock 2 actually give you more cyber modules, so you do have more room for experimentation, but you still want to have a plan. You still have to specialize to be effective, and you need to know what you're specializing in, or things will just spiral out of control. ... Honestly though, I always felt that the game was quite easy on its easy difficulty. Okay, but in this game where resources are so precious and each individual action is so important, how do you have an ideal first playthrough? I don't think you can, i think the game is inadvertantly a bit trial and error. The game tries its very, very hardest to prepare you, there's an incredible interactive tutorial, and there are tool tips and tutorial prompts everywhere. It, however, doesn't successfully convey which things are important. You might assume that hacking is important because it's a cyberpunk game, but it's easy to overlook the importance of the maintenance skill. (Which is something the game itself clearly recognizes, with the higher than usual cyber module cost for that skill.) Which is not to say that the game is rigid either, there is not one sole effective build that you have to follow, i think the systems in that game afford a wealth of replayability. It's more just that everything interacts in really strange and unexpected ways, there's a lot of unconventional stuff in there, and you need to understand it before you can really take advantage of what the game offers. (This is, of course, where it breaks down for that first playthrough, since you need to take advantage of it before you understand it.) To be fair, i think this also happens with many other RPG's that are thought of as difficult games. It was the one official patch that enabled people to more finely mod the details of the game's difficulty by editing some of the files, yes. That patch also added a crazy co-op mode. Imagine how scarce the resources are in that game and divide them by half. You have to plan so closely with your buddy to make it work, you essentially have to be a laser focused hacker build with a laser focused soldier build watching your back.

The System Shock license is quite infamously trapped in limbo between multiple parties, so there is currently no legal avenue for obtaining the games short of tracking down original copies. (Which have become quite expensive because of this situation.)

Platinum's other early 2013 brawler is also of great interest to me. (Shit, and they're apparently going to have Bayonetta 2 out sometime this year too.) Pretty much just skip to 3:20, unless ridiculous over-the-top violence offends you, then probably don't watch. Speaking of brawlers, Ninja Theory's DMC reboot just came out and apparently it's pretty fantastic, but doesn't quite compare to the polish of the Capcom games. (That's my interpretation of things, at least. I don't know how much of the latter negativity is borne specifically out of the really putrid fan backlash, but DMC3 and DMC4 are really tightly designed and technical games, while the Ninja Theory games i've played are rather clunky.)

I remember now that we've actually had this very conversation.

Alright, yeah, consider us on Colossus #2. The next finish date will be the 21st.

Also, repair vs maintenance. So the degredation system works on a 10 through 1 scale, and after it degrades to 1 point, a given item can actually break. To increase the number, you use expendable maintenance tools, and the maintenance skill makes those tools repair more and more of an item's status. Those tools are relatively rare and very important, so making them work better is highly valuable. Maintenance is also a very costly skill in SS2, however. The alternative is to use an item until it breaks, at which point you can use either an extremely rare repair tool to fix it, or try to use the repair skill to do the same with only a small nanite cost. Repair is much cheaper in its cyber module cost, and will fix items to a status of about 2, i think. (For you to occasionally bump up a bit more with potentially ineffectual maintenance tools.) You'll basically be dancing around your weapons probably breaking in the middle of a fight, though. (Additionally, leveling up repair, instead of making it better, lets you repair more complex items.) Generally, i'd recommend investing into the extra cost of maintenance, and just saving some repair tools for the rare incidents where you fail to keep things in top shape. (Though there will be rare incidents where there might be a broken door or something that you can't otherwise get through. Seriously though, i'm talking like two or three doors in the game, i think.) But yeah, SS2 is all about the numbers, it's not really very much of a shooter. It's more about the complex interactions between systems like these, and there is very little room for mistakes because every resource is so precious. Also, If you go psi, be very careful about the powers you pick, because realistically, you want to keep it manageable. There's no limit to how many you choose, but i can't imagine a particularly effective build with more than a half dozen to a dozen or so powers. Those costs can mount at the expense of other growth. (The biggest cost is just from actually unlocking a tier, so try to localize those selections a bit, don't try to pick one from each tier.) The same is true of weapons, you should try and specialize. You really need to have some points in on ballistic, and can stand to have points spread around in only one or two other weapon skills. A few points in energy is a good move. The normal pistol is more effective and versatile as a main, but the laser pistol effectively has infinite ammo once you find some recharge stations. I'll again emphasize that research is important. (When you get to the point that you are being asked to hunt down specific chemicals for research, you can refer to your notes to see what is available in each chemical store room on each deck, assuming you've already been to those store rooms and have grabbed the datapads contained within.) When you find the nanite recycler thing, make use of it. Eat up stuff you don't need, pretty much just ammo for weapons you don't use, and then go hack vending machines and buy more of what you need. Hacking is so important. Mmmm... Anything else... I once went through the files in that game and managed to find the object names for like another dozen functional gamepig games that do not exist anywhere in the game environment. I think there was even a Tempest clone. That's... not useful information, i've just never had an excuse to share that. How about that little question mark on your hud? Click that and click other parts of your hud or items in your inventory. There is tons and tons of fun world-building flavor text all over the game. Also, something about a hidden basketball in the prologue and the basketball court on the recreation deck. I would consider System Shock 2 to be my favorite game, but i didn't really even like it all that much when i first played it, it is a very oppressive and impenetrable sort of game. I kind of put it away for a year or two before going back to it, and ended up playing through it like a dozen times over the course of the next four years or so. I think it's pretty good.

Psychic space monkeys.

Have you ever played any of the Phoenix Wright games?

http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=140088 Well, speaking of patches, there was this crazy thing.

It doesn't mean i support it. I really disagree with that mentality, i don't think the game is by any means unplayable the way it is out of the box and with just the one patch Irrational put out. I think it can be an immensely really rewarding and challenging game. When the Many starts taunting you about how your weapons are failing and how fragile and alone you are, it hurts, and it hurts because you were kind of already feeling that way. You know, but somewhere along the way, the accepted perception became that the game was badly balanced. I believe Levine even eventually conceded that the game was probably too difficult, and that sealed it for most people, the game was broken and needs hacks to be playable. I've long believed that people's response was more a reaction to how uncomfortable the the game made them feel. Edit: I also don't like the community model pack either, for that matter. They gave the cyborg midwives huge breasts!

Eh, so any other thumbs playing this particular internet shooting game? Any interest in some custom games ridiculousness, or running amuck through some of the playlists?

I guess i just "finished" Anarchy Reigns, though i'm still playing the multiplayer. I have a few things to say about it, though i'm not sure it deserves its own thread. The only other person i've seen mention it here hated it. I like it a lot, it's definitely a game with problems, but i think the things it does well are done very well. I think it's a riot online, when it's at its best, it comes off as a bigger and more advanced PowerStone. The action is ridiculous and frantic, but i do feel like strategy shines through in the gameplay. I think it mechanically owes actually a little more to fighting games than to brawlers, and familiarity with bounces and juggles helps. (There's even a competent training mode to complete the fighting game vibe.) I mean, but really only in a very minimal sense, you really just need to know that launching somebody with a normal hit and following up with a super is better than opening with the super. Then you go do some normal combos to build up your super again, applying different combos to, for example, maybe result in knockbacks for spacing or pop-ups for juggles. There's also a burst attack in the game that miiight be too strong, and understanding how to use that and how to counter it is kind of essential to the game. (You can try and clash with it, but you can also counter-burst.) I think the netcode is pretty good, though there's definitely latency-related ambiguities with hitboxes. Occasionally frustrating, but it works well most of the time, and it holds up well even in the big 16 player matches. There's actually a quite generous clash mechanic for near simultaneous hits that i'm pretty sure is being used to side-step the who-shot-first latency issue, and it comes across as a wise bit of design. The match-making is kind of clunky, and there's just barely enough people playing online. I've had trouble finding groups for battle royale, the 16-player gametype, though mostly everything else works out. (There's also a proper bot match mode. While they aren't particularly challenging, they're smart enough to know how to play the gametypes, they even work fine for survival and deathball.) The story mode is awful, I don't think it's even really worth talking about. You need to play it to unlock some things, but it's short. Compared to the breadth of content in the MP, it seems relatively clear that it wasn't the focus. (The characters can all be unlocked simply by playing the multiplayer, though there's a handful of perks you can only unlock in the story mode.) It's probably the weakest game Platinum has put out, but i still really like it. It's 30 bucks too, Sega wants to move those copies very desperately. It's kind of hard to recommend to just anybody though, but if you think you're the kind of person this game is for, you'd probably be pretty happy with it. Also, go turn the camera sensitivity up to ten, you won't have problems spinning around and locking onto people who sneak up behind you. (Aim speed for thrown objects and weapons is a different option, so that's not an issue.)

If you're going to play System Shock 2 without nerfing the weapon degredation or the enemy respawn and generally making the game less frightening and easier to play, you need a plan. You need to minmax some stuff, you need to sit down and think about what you are going to do with your character and how those things will compliment eachother, jack of all trades builds do not fly. When i used to do hard runs through the game, i usually focused on maintenance, hacking, standard weapons, energy weapons, and melee. (I don't usually do psi builds, but the anti-entropy skill is a very useful compliment for the guns.) The pistol, shotgun, laser pistol, and laser rapier are very good weapons that you can find relatively early on and can keep using almost through to the end of the game, though the crystal shard makes a brief foray into exotic weapons important later in the game. Don't ignore burst fire and overcharge, and make sure you use the right ammo against the right enemies. The assault rifle i think is the best weapon in the game, since it uses extremely common ammo and is very powerful, but you need to max out... Standard? Ballistic? weapons to use it. I haven't played SS2 in a few years, so forgive me if i'm getting details wrong. Hacking and maintenance are almost the two most important things in the game, whichever way you go. Hacking gets you through doors so you can have supplies, maintenance keeps those supplies working. (Make sure you map the controls so you can easily perform a manual keystroke turn while you have the inventory open and mouselook locked, you can essentially be watching your back while you hack a door. Given that the enemies respawn and roam, it's quite valuable.) If you go with a psi build, you don't necessarily need maintenance. (Since you can either get anti-entropy or forgo guns altogether.) You always need hacking. (Cameras are bad news, make sure you hack those security stations.) Research is also very, very important. First goal when you head into a new area is to find a med bay so you can set the respawn point. Also, stealth isn't really a thing in SS2. You can poke your head around a corner to see an enemy before it sees you, but you're not going to sneak by it. SS2 is not a forgiving game though, i tried to play it a few times before it clicked with me. If you feel like you've ruined your build and have some better ideas about how to go at it, i don't think you can go wrong by starting over.

Are you being snarky or looking for people to play with?

I've learned to never assume that Nintendo is going to fail, because that company has consistently turned horrible situations into positive ones. Devil's advocate for a bit though, if the Wii U fails and they concede the home console market, the other problem here is that the handheld business, being what it is now, isn't likely to itself support a company like Nintendo. I mean, Nintendo is a company of life-long employees, it's not a company has traditionally been willing to cut the fat in tough times. Nintendo either ends up gutted or hemorrhaging money if the Wii U fails, it's all bad. This sentiment and possible eventuality is incredibly depressing to me, because the threatened middle ground is what i love most. Well-staffed studios trying to create original IP, pushing forward with ill-advised expenditures and big ambitious designs, shooting for the moon and not quite getting there. That's the shit i thrive on.

Oh shit, a response! This lone reply would indicate that there are not enough interested people here for any idle forums group games. I have my own group i play with too, so it's all fine. (Though we don't have enough people to do customs.)

I don't think we disagree, we just have different reasons for wanting backwards compatibility. I don't want to see games that are so completely dependent on outside factors be stranded, and i think that's an issue that didn't necessarily exist before this generation of games. I think it's actually worse on the PC to be honest. Even if you're going through Steam, it always seems like there's a few other more unreliable layers to it. On the consoles, you're mostly just dealing with the platform holder. (And EA, because EA.) Speaking for digital-only games, it seems almost a little strange that Nintendo ended up being the first one to say that you can let your old games live on the new consoles. I mean, with their weird hardware-tied purchases, it would have been really easy for them to say that your games will only live on the console you bought it for. (On the other hand, Nintendo has already for a very long time been quite a paragon of backwards compatible systems.) It's a good precedent they've set for the digital stuff though, and i feel like if Sony and Microsoft don't follow, there's going to problems. They will have severely misread the market if they think backwards compatibility doesn't matter. Even in this thread, some of you guys who are saying backwards compatibility doesn't matter are also saying you want to transfer over your XBLA games. It's the exact same thing as backwards compatibility. You want that digital thing you bought to exist in perpetuity, it's a natural expectation in this age. Digital media has become so device agnostic, and in this changing market, that is another reason why backwards compatibility is going to be so important for the next consoles.

Check it out though, i still have my Gamecube, i can still play Gamecube games. It's only when you start talking about online integration and authentication checks, which has happened equally on every platform in the last few years, that loading up an old favorite in ten years starts looking like a dubious proposition.

It was talked about a bit in the recently played thread. I think it's quite a neat thing, i would recommend it highly. The way the story is conveyed via the aesthetic of a tabletop game narrated by an unseen dungeon master is just so cool. The battle system also draws an interesting balance between JRPG mechanics and PNP ones.

I don't think "a few changes" could have saved it, the story is a total train wreck. You can't fast forward through it either, the game is deep with lengthy, unskippable cinemas and story events. There's a solid action game in there though, it does some legitimately competent and interesting things. The way it handles the first-person aiming gimmick is clunky, but everything else is pretty excellent. Rather than a platformer or a shooter, it feels like an top shelf 3d brawler. (Given who made it, this makes sense.) It is also a really, really beautiful game. As far as visuals go, it's one of the standouts on the Wii. It's not a game i would recommend, but it's not awful either, it wasn't a complete disaster. You could do worse for ten bucks. If you really like Metroid, grab a copy of Trilogy instead, and when you're done with that and if you still want more, then check out Other M. (It's actually fairly interesting how the weakest gameplay element in Other M feels like a direct, but completely misguided response to Retro's games.)

It's a fine enough game. I'd say you should play it, if only to have a more gradual introduction into the series, because ZoE2 is fucking hard.

I don't think of the pointer as being part of the motion control equation, since it's really more of a primitive light gun. (Unless you consider light guns to be motion control.) I think the pointer works, I like the pointer. Skyward Sword tried to "fix" the few issues it had by using a weird motion-driven pointing scheme, and it ended up being way worse than simply relying on the system's usual sensitive-to-bright-lights camera/LED combo. But yeah, light gun. Light gun games found a pretty good home on the Wii, I really liked Dead Space: Extraction. Also: Sin & Punishment 2. (It's so awesome!) The thing is, even games that were not explicitly about shooting ended up being about shooting stuff at the screen. Galaxy has that weird star shooting mechanic, and WiiWare's awesome Cubello has you trying to match four by shooting bricks at a slowly spinning ball of bricks. There were also all of those really terrible first-person shooters. I think Corruption is one of the only implementations of a pointer-driven FPS control scheme that really works, and it's ultimately because of a cheat. Simply, it's that the lock-on that doesn't leave you trying to do that stupid screen push stuff in the middle of a fight.

It think it's a natural evolution. People gradually forget about the drek and consistently champion the highlights. Whatever the platform is, a canon of games is established and extolled. I mean, look at what a goddamned nightmare the Saturn was, but people still remember it with incredible fondness based on the strength of a few specific games. Give it another ten years and all the shovelware and software droughts will be a distant memory and people will remember only games like Xenoblade and Galaxy. (I'll probably also still be telling people that they really need to check out Sin & Punishment 2. Seriously you guys, it's so fucking good! Shattered Memories too! Play that!) I think Skyward Sword comes awfully close to being that game that finally actually justifies motion control as a trend that could be good for Video games, it is a real game that is doing things you legitimately could not do with any other device. Still, at the end of the day, and even with their matured understanding of how to design around that technology, that game still has big problems. The Wii Remote just doesn't work, and neither does the MotionPlus. None of the motion control solutions we've seen this generation have lived up to the promises that were made. We're definitely going to see more of it though, the games industry is obsessed with motion control, and it honestly always has been. (Sure, you remember the Powerglove, but do you remember the Sega Activator? If anything gives me hope for the seemingly inevitable Kinect 2.0, it's how far we've come since shit like that.)

Fi talks a fucking lot in this game, but... I don't know, i feel like Fi kind of walked that line between being an active participant in the story and just being the leading hand of Nintendo. I did actually play the N64 games much later than most other people, i played them after Wind Waker via those weird GC re-release discs. I ultimately felt that they completely held up, but Navi's shrill little voice bite, the frequency and insistence with which it pops up while you're trying to do other things, and the nakedness of her simply telling you where to go next with virtually no narrative justification, it made me crazy. (I don't actually remember if Majora was the same with Tatl, since it was recently replaying Ocarina on the 3DS that was a refresher course in how much i hate Navi, and i think they actually reduced the frequency of her "advice" in that version.) Midna was awesome, i liked Midna.