aprettycooldude

Query, as someone coming back to Destiny who dropped out shortly before The Dark Below, and who is *extremely* intrigued by Prison of Elders/Firefight, what are the immediate get up to speed bullet points? I've gathered the following outside the obvious "new gunz": currency revamps, light level increase via "promoting" your gear, "That Wizard" is back. Anything I should be doing to get myself to get prepped for the Long Weekend?

I was wondering where this Surprise Add came from

If you're starting fresh, PC is the way to go. You'll want to start with with Rocksmith 2014 out of the gate. Rocksmith 1 is a glorified song pack at this point, and when it drops to $10 or whatever during a Steam Sale, you're basically getting a 50-something song pack for $15 (game + probably on sale export key).

I mean, the emulator exists, it's the ROMs and BIOS for the emulator that fall into "not good, very bad" territory. Well, assuming on the latter, since I remember that being a big thing with PS2 emulators, and also a part of the "Connectix Virtual Game Station" scandal of the 90s. I've heard good things about VC3; Henroid's statement that they swung the pendulum in the other direction is an interesting one to me. What really grinds my gears (HAHA TANK PUNS) is that the CANVAS engine is absolutely gorgeous and SEGA has done *nothing else* with it.

I just grabbed it as well. The PSP remains notoriously easy to jailbreak if you can find one; I'm pretty sure that's a large part of the reason it tanked. Valkyria Chronicles 3 is a relatively cheap import from Play-Asia, but I'm not familiar with other game import sites that might have it cheaper. I'm not familiar with any PSP emulators and I'm pretty sure that's against forum rules anyways (I would be surprised if it wasn't). And then I saw this and snorted at work: "changelog: Changed occurrences of Alright/alright to “All right/all right.”"NOW LADIES

The tank is pretty trash until late game. I think Chapter 5 has a mission where it wants you to use the tank to BREAK DOWN THE WALLS while you have a covert team go around the other side (I think this same map turns into a skirmish later). I don't think I've ever touched the tank side unless there's an enemy captain over there, and I just run scouts and shocktroopers along the other side. I am very bad at the "roleplaying" part of this game.

*cracks knuckles* *does the yakuza head tilt thing* Re: language - Japanese language options were in the original game, but I think as free DLC; VC already had a large install for the time (4GB?). Re: cutscenes - the unskippable cutscenes and mission intros remain my biggest pet peeve with VC1 (I think they were skippable in 2, but I'd have to fire it up). Re: skirmishes and battle tips The game expects you to run each skirmish at least once after it's unlocked. It does not expect you to run each Skirmish to an A/S rank (did they change that in the PC port? S-Ranks were removed in the US PS3 version, with an A-Rank now being perfect), but it does expect you to at least knock it out. It expects you to do the same for any bonus missions you unlock along the way. As a general rule, if you unlock something extra before the next Story Mission, you should probably do it first. I have a *terrible* habit of running skirmishes into the ground to grind my classes up 3-4 levels above what I imagine is required, which I don't think the game necessarily expects, but that's the ol' JRPG instincts kicking in. After two or three runs you can usually finish a skirmish in one or two turns, and then it's just a matter of putting on some alternate tunes and going to town. When bosses and the like start showing up (SURPRISE A TANK), that grinding becomes extremely useful. Classes unlock skills in a relatively straightforward order (every 2 or 3 levels), and get their Second Weapon in most cases at level 10. This is *huge* for Scouts, who I honestly recommend grinding up ASAP, because they get a grenade launcher that drastically improves their ability to take care of clusters of Shocktroopers without getting murdered. Scouts in general are probably your best class for the majority of the game, and you should abuse them as much as you can. Shocktroopers are your second best bet, if only because Rosie is an unstoppable tank beast who can single-handedly grind most skirmishes solo. Snipers aren't really effective outside a few missions, and the same applies to Engineers. You'll also want to grind skirmishes for Big Bucks, since guns are *awful garbage* until you grind them past the first three upgrades. Similarly, enemy Aces that drop weapons drop 100% trash garbage since you'll probably outpace their upgrades by the time you run the missions. I'm sure I'll think of more stuff as I play through the game. It's still incredible.

The third is an atrocity and the second is I think responsible for Cream the Rabbit and thus also infuriating for that reason alone, but I maintain that Cribbed Art or not, the Advance games were Good Sonic Romps that had solid difficulty progression and great replayability (which is just an ugly looking compound word). I played SA1 into the *ground*, and the fact that you could whip through it in an hour or so - much like the old Genesis games - was stellar. I was also in middle school, which come to think of it, probably had some sort of impact on my opinion.

The last great console Sonic, yes. The Sonic Advance series I think gets *criminally* ignored, especially SA1 (2 and 3 brought only problems). Sonic Rush (the first DS one) was great too, but that's because it had a Hideki Naganuma soundtrack. Pretty sure you could slap his name on Sonic Boom and I'd buy it in five seconds.

Guess I'm firing up JC2 tonight to relive the Good Times

Making the Water Temple less obtuse made me furious because I'm a heartless jackass. The boots are Top Tier though.

I'm hoping they take the OoT3D route and just put that big fat Sheikah Stone and just leave it at that.

ABSOLUTELY PERFECT Good lord, I can't wait for this to be $5 in a bargain bin. Seems like a perfect "get together and laugh/sob with friends" game.

It also doesn't auto-play the next episode of TV shows that I'm marathoning, which makes it *garbage*

Can we talk about character design and diversity at least? I'm with a lot of people on "oh okay it's just a Super Tuftoo," but the diversity of the cast has me pretty amped right now. Like, TF2's playable cast is what, 7 white guys, a black guy, and the Pyro (who was never given an explicit identity, iirc? I am not up on my teefs lore). Contrast this to Overwatch, which leads off with a cast of a white british woman, a (presumed?) French woman whose skin has been turned blue, a male gorilla, and a male Death Reaper Being. That's a pretty goddamn strong start, even if the rest of the trailer is built around two white kids.

If all these games stay on track, by Spring 2015 I think the Wii U will be the biggest steal in gaming. A $300 console with all those games available, growing indie support, backwards compatibility with a huge Wii library, and a colossal VC service? Hot dang.

I'm still of the firm "OoT is best game ever" mindset and do not really care about how trite it is at this point, but I remain thrilled that everyone seems to accept Wind Waker is a Top 3 Zelda game. I don't think I've ever seen it further down than that on anyone's lists, whereas Ocarina occasionally dips to 4 or 5. (personal top three are OoT, Link's Awakening, and Wind Waker, for reference)

Splatoon trailer, now in 60fps 720p (on Chrome only, I think)! Somehow this game just got even more adorable. n.b. you'll have to follow through to YouTube proper to change the resolution settings, I think

The fact that they removed coins from the Mute City level and added speed strips only makes it *worse*

I dropped Mario & Luigi around what I assume was mid-game and haven't finished it. I could probably (hopefully?) chew through the rest of it in two evenings or so but I just have no desire to; it was dull and any game that mandates the use of tilt controls on a handheld is the DEVIL

So what's the over/under that Majora's Mask launches alongside the New Nintendo 3DS in NA?

Splatoon now looks like some kind of wackadoo Jet Set Radio-inspired (look at those character design sheets and tell me I'm wrong) third-person Ratchet and Clank-style nonsense and I want it IN MY VEINS

I would like to give a Forums Shoutout to Dinosaurs for walking me through some stuff last night and putting up with my insane mic issues. Looking forward to more!

Keep on keepin' on, Cine, you're a stellar person and a Post Wizard. I'll echo all the thoughts on taking a semester off. Miffy's post especially hits the nail on the head; taking that time off is crucial, and following up by working a reduced course load or a part time job helps tremendously with structure.

Metroid Fusion was the first Metroid game I ever played and it got me *hooked* on the series (I played it I think four times total on a class trip to Washington DC). I put out a feeler on Facebook recently about games with terrifying presences that truly made you panic (it was mostly a Lu Bu joke), and the amount of people who said Fusion had the most tension of any game they'd played was astounding.