miffy495

Well, as I said, I cheated through Half Life and OF back in the day too. It was actually really rewarding to make up for that though, as I got a much more heart-pounding and enthralling experience. Finished HL2 today and got (I think) about halfway through Episode 1. That game is still fucking great, but I found myself dicking around a lot more this time. Now that I know the beats, it wasn't as engrossing, but it was still a lot of fun. I got held up for about 5 days at the Highway 17/Sand Trap section (held up as in, I was in the middle of that section but didn't really want to keep playing it), but once I'd made it through to Nova Prospekt it was pretty great to just blaze through to the end. I always forget about those two chapters when I'm thinking back to HL2, but man are they slow and tedious compared to the rest of the game. Come to think of it though, it's odd how similar Borderlands is to those chapters, particularly the bits with the giant bug things that you need to shoot in the ass to crit. Given that I thought Borderlands was fairly good but don't like those chapters of HL2, I'm a bit puzzled. I guess what that means is that those chapters aren't actually that bad, they're just not at all up to the standard of the rest of the game. Anyway, HL2:E1 is now happening. It's better than I remember it being, actually. I'm finding myself totally freaking terrified in the parking garage bits. Zombine fucking suck. New time with the super gravity gun is also incredibly welcome. I love those sections, just fucking with combine soldiers and flinging them every which way. Good times.

Also, in addition to Vanquish, Half Life 2 is now done. It took me about 15 hours, which I assume will be the longest amount of time of any of the games in my Valve replay. Now I have both episodes left to go, as well as Portal and Portal 2. I also threw Research and Development on the pile, as I've never tried that and would like to. Onward and upward!

So I beat this game about 4 hours after writing that post, but haven't bothered to come back to the thread until about now. Holy shit does the story in this game ever take a massive left turn around the "30 minutes to go" mark. Seriously? The final cutscene includes the president of the United States What the fucking shit happened? Regardless, the final battle against two other soldiers in the same ridiculous kit that you have is fucking fantastic. In the end, the only thing that I wish were different about this game is that I want more variety in my enemies. It's fine to blow up a bunch of robots, but almost every boss fight was just against increasing numbers of Argus mechs, and you have already fought one of them by the end of the first chapter. It gets crazy, don't get me wrong, but I wish they'd throw a little more different at me. Still, that's my only complaint. I really can't recommend this game enough to anyone looking for a new fast-paced shooter. I haven't played Bulletstorm, but this is the kind of game that I hoped that was and the reviews told me it wasn't. Check it out if you want to see the concept done fantastically well.

I beat Vanquish on Wednesday, but forgot to say anything until today. It was fucking great. I may post more in the game's thread later. The takeaway will be that it was fucking great though.

No anything internet at all. Of course, as I don't have internet at home and that's where my PS3 lives, it hasn't effected me too much. Still, I've been keeping a close eye on my bank's website at every opportunity to make sure my CC is secure.

Actually, I've found the weapon upgrade system to be really nice. My two most used weapons, by far, are the assault rifle and heavy machine gun. By halfway through the third act, I had both totally maxed out. Didn't even take that much to do so, just a bit of planning on my way into certain fights. I find also that it encourages me to be much more judicious in what I assign to my third weapon slot. The only time I've felt that the transition from one area to another was particularly disjointed so far was between acts 3 and 4, where you go from skyscraper to forest with little to no explanation. At that point though, I was happy just to see all the beautiful greenery and didn't care. As for the cutscenes being frustrating for doing what you yourself can do as well, I half agree with you. Only half because I've actually found that they give me ideas and make me a better player. I'll be going through one way for a while, see a cutscene, think "Oh shit, I can do that?" and then start working that maneuver into my tactics. Anyway, super excited to get home in a few hours and pick it up again. Want to get to at least act 5 before going to work tomorrow afternoon.

Thead-surrection! I bought this for $40 on Amazon a week or so ago and have played to halfway through act 4 on Normal difficulty. Given how it started out, I was starting to be a bit disappointed, but as the difficulty has ramped and I've been forced to carefully manage my heat meter while flipping all over the place and doing ridiculous things, I've started to really love this game. I picked it up mostly to psych myself up for Shadows of the Damned coming out next month and wanting to catch up on Mikami stuff, and the excellence on display here has certainly done that.

Man, all that really made me want to tag this tread "Tanu likes cats" in addition to the "Thunder complains" that I'd already added, but I'm not allowed. In any case, I support being able to see who added what tag. I love the meta-comedy in tags that this forum has seemed to get a lot of, but have always felt sort of uncomfortable with (particularly) things like "Tanu doesn't get it." (ASIDE: Though honestly, it is sometimes applicable [sorry Tanu], it does get abused and I can see how it could be hurtful.) So yes, accountability in tagging!

Well, personally I have yet to play anything for more than about 5 minutes with the 3D set higher than 25-50%. It really does depend on the game, but even at the lower settings I've been finding it an immense help.

That depends. As long as it still requires glasses and such on TVs, I think it should remain constrained to the portable sphere. That said, I've found it does actually serve a purpose in both Pilotwings and Rayman whenever precision is required. It really does feel more natural to be platforming in 3D, as everything seems to be that much more tangible. Anything requiring that degree of third person accuracy I think can be helped by it. That said, I'm also very happy that Rayman uses the 3D very subtly. Once you've been playing for a while, it doesn't stand out as anything big, but it really does feel like it helps the game. Basically, I hope that 3D becomes a useful tool in games rather than a bullet-point on the box to help them sell. 3D for 3D's sake is a gimmick. Used sparingly and to good effect though, I've been really impressed with how it's worked out so far.

Having never played it before, I don't know what to tell you. It controls great with the analog stick and face buttons. The only downside is that the camera is a bit dodgy, but being a game from 1998(1999?) I can forgive that. It just feels like a really good port, and the 3D is subtle but also feels like it really helps with precision platforming. If you haven't played the game before, highly recommended. If you have, you probably need to decide for yourself how much you want to replay the exact same game with some fancy 3D stuff added in.

Rayman 3D is a remake of Rayman 2: The Great Escape that was on N64 and (I think) PS2. It was a game I really wanted to play back when it came out, but being 10 I had no disposable income. Now it's just good times all around. Rodi, are you sure that's the case? I've been able to get puzzle pieces from people that it said I met 4 hours before getting the notification. Maybe you have to go into the puzzle swap and find mii stuff within an hour of acknowledging it, not actually receiving it?

Episode 1 ends at the train yard stand-off. It's mostly just a trudge through City 17, with some neat bits in a headcrab infested parking garage. It's not the best, but I felt it was pretty fun and a really good setup for episode 2, which was completely stellar. It's like a 3 hour investment though, so I can't really think of a compelling reason not to go for it.

No, that's not the case. I have three different puzzles going on now, none of them complete unfortunately, but it definitely didn't require a 3DS from a different region. In other news, Rayman 3D is freaking rad, at least for someone who's never played the game before. I'm at 30% completion and have loved every bit. The 3D stuff has actually been really well implemented too. Excited as hell for the end of the month when the 3DS shop goes live though. I need more good stuff to be playing!

Actually MGS4 does a good job of shooting you all over the world, so the beige goes away after the first chapter. If I recall correctly, it goes Middle East, South America, London, Alaska, and then offshore-y thing. Lots of variety, and the colour palette does a nice beige-green-grey-white-orange thing over the course of the game. That said, it's also WAY more actiony and up it's own ass than 3 was, so I'd worry more about that than the setting dragging you down.

Yeah, I've found I've been messing with NPCs far more this time as well. To the extent of stealing a person's TV when I'm running through the apartments, then feeling bad about it, taking a TV from an empty room, and going back to give it to them. When they didn't notice or show any gratitude, I threw their brand new TV at their head, and then out a window. Still, it's a whole new way that I'm enjoying the game! As for the weapons, I found Opposing Force to have the craziest of the bunch. By the end of the game I was leaning so heavily on that lightning-bug-thing that I couldn't imagine how I'd gotten through HL1 without it.

I'd just like to share that this evening I got a streetpass tag from a guy who' declared dream is "to be a wizard." That is all.

It only took me a week of semi-casual playing to beat it and both expansions, so it's not like it's the biggest investment of time or money. Still, fair enough. Got through the end of Water Hazard in HL2 today. Nothing much to say really. It's still awesome? Blowing up that damned helicopter is still invigorating? Really don't know what to tell you. I think that my progress posts may become very boring shortly as it'll just be "man, this game is still good." Still, good to see other discussions have started up now, so maybe the thread has life of it's own! Yay!

This sold out the opening night of our Underground Film Festival, being a largely local production. I sat in for about 3/4 of it and really want to see the whole thing. I really liked what there was to see. Also, Alan fucking Tudyk.

...and it's finished. No issues for me with the Steam version. Beat it just fine. Also, it was super easy. I had not a single combat-related death. It was all from falling in coolant or other such stupid jumpy stuff. I suppose it was a decent game. My Steam play timer says 3 hours, which is a bit sad. On the one hand, I'm glad that I finally played it, as I never had. On the other, it's sort of a bummer of a game to be bearing the name Half Life. Kind of just felt like it was slowing down my progress through the real Valve games. Nonetheless, I'm still feeling motivated and ready to start on HL2, the episodes, and both Portals. I know for a fact that all of those are fantastic, so exciting times are ahead! Don't know if I'll have as much to say while playing through those though, as they're more modern and everyone has probably played them relatively recently. Still, jazzed to soak myself in HL2.

Blue Shift is now done, less than 24 hours after starting it. That was a short game, thoughts to go in the Valve thread as usual.

I'd say the median age on this forum is probably around 25, which from my limited experience is higher than a lot of places where people talk about games. What's weird to me is that I've been a member of this community since I was 16, and weirder still is that I probably talked about 9/11 when it actually happened with some others who are still active here over on the Mixnmojo forums when I was 13. Doesn't make me feel old, but it really makes me take a step back when I realize that I'm 23 I've been talking to some of you people on the internet since before my age ended with a "-teen".

I flip through the headlines on Joystiq to keep myself more-or-less up to date with news, but the articles are typically dreck so I find it's a mistake to go past that. RPS is fun to actually read, and I spend some time every Sunday sifting through their Sunday Papers article. Giant Bomb I go to for Quick Looks so that I can maybe get clued into some game that I wasn't aware of that I may like (see recently Cargo: Quest for Gravity). That's about it.

Yeah, I remembered you telling me that last week over Steam chat. I actually haven't had a single problem yet though, and at 2/3 of the way through the game, I've just got my fingers crossed that the 45 minutes or whatever that I have left to go will work. Hell, even the loading screen is now just the word "loading" over a frozen shot of the game, as it should be. No idea why OF had that stupid loading box when I played it now and Blue Shift doesn't.

I played what (according to a real quick glance online) is apparently 2/3 of Blue Shift tonight in what Steam tells me is 108 minutes, so just over 1:45. Man, people weren't kidding when they called this short. Kind of a blessing though, given that the last half of a chapter is a fucking escort mission. There have also been a lot of sequences where all it feels like they're having me do is dump on soldiers for a while. Haven't run into a single assassin or black ops guy yet, and at 66% of the way through the game the strongest alien I've seen so far is a damn Vortigaunt. I get that Blue Shift was a Dreamcast bonus thingy, and so probably not intended to be up to the same calibre as Opposing Force when it was developed, but man. Also, after finishing OF, this game is unbelievably easy. Like, holy shit is this easy. Without being surrounded by teleporting in alien shock troopers for 15 minutes at a time and somehow surviving it to fight off a helicopter with 19 HP left, I just am not feeling it. On the other hand, it's more Half Life. It's still good, it's just not nearly as good. Let's just say that knowing what I now know, I probably wouldn't pay the $5 that Steam is asking for this game by itself. Maybe that's a bit harsh. It's probably worth $5. Yeah, I'm getting $5 of enjoyment from it. Still considering some of the other stuff I've bought on Steam for $5 or less, how my brain thinks of $5 worth of game has changed over the past couple of years.