twmac

Oh man, I just unlocked Pincoya.

Damnit, I tried to capture Verbum Dei but for some reason it didn't work. I haven';t fought Paganini yet but I look forward to that. I just started getting good witht he ghost monk - he is slow but he has some cheeky little juggle combos when an enemy is in the corner. you can hit them against the wall with a standard standing strike then crouch to launch them and then launch them again and then do a two hit combo and most enemies are dead after that. Otherwise the crouching launcher is the best. Also, frames of invincibility on the rising grab move are essential or else you will never be able to use it effectively. I am liking this game more and more.

Always use up and Y with the Peacock warrior, that double kick is devastating!

'Completed' this last night on my fourth attempt. I discovered a massively over powered (32 damage) sword and the Peacock warrior is the best dude that I have absorbed so far. Ran through and beat the Warlock with that combination. I wrotet about it in the podcast thread but my mood about the clunkiness has definitely shifted and I am liking it way more than I did. Will probably try and playthrough it again later in the weekend. Depsite the clunkiness this might be in my 'games of the year' selection.

Played to level 3 and got bored. It felt like a dull version of Halo. Does it get better?

Yeah, that is a massive leap in your imagination there. Especially the comment the old guy makes about Blaskowicz not being as handsome as him [in the jacket].

So, I dropped about 2-3 hours on Abyss Odyssey last night and although I am really liking it, it is another Ace Team game in which there are a bunch of really good ideas that are poorly executed. For starters, I hope Captainfish is still reading this thread and can explain how to employ some good fighting tactics. The reason for this is that it is clunky at best and downright frustrating the rest of the time. Most fights degenerated into me spamming the attack button until the opponent died. It was better than trying to use any kind of tactics and it made the game feel like I was playing Prince of Persia (specifically the Master System/Game Gear version where you can spam the attack button and win every fight). Some tips on comboing successfully (attack into special suggestions specifically) would be great. The platforming is also a little unresponsive (the jumping reminded me of Mercenary Kings) and the swinging blades are the worst as it is utterly unclear as to how the hit detection works. Whenever I encounter them on the Hard version of any levels (ones with moving platforms and death flames beneath them I just resign myself to either losing a chunk of health or just outright dying. I know I must be doing something really wrong because no one designs a game to be impossible. Despite its core being utterly broken... I am still compelled to come back to this game. The levelling and the exploration is compelling and I really like the character design and a bunch of the premises. I also love that nothing is explained to you, hence why I am hoping someone else has understood the game better than me so that they can explain what I might be missing, or that I am going to discover some new thing that immediately makes my initial gripes redundant (like Dark Souls) Anyone interested in this kind of game should try out a game on Xbox Live Indie games called 'Brand': http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-GB/Product/Brand/66acd000-77fe-1000-9115-d80258550a72 It might not have randomly generated maps or as pretty art but it does have a reasonably deep crafting system that encourages revisits. The game is a little clunky but once you understand how it works it is really fun.

I am hoping that is a reference to the dissonance and not a literal thing - if it is literal I completely missed that part.

Yeah, I understand there usage it just feels like the cloud is so context specific and takes far too long to reload to be useful. With there being a lot of tunnels and corridors it is easy to keep firing into a cloud and score hits on someone retreating. The vortex is fun but there are simply things that can be shot through it or cannot be trapped so it is, again, a context utility. What would have been nice is to maybe given the Ogre the option of using a combination of two of the abilities due to its lack of mobility and make it into a proper tank instead of a slow bullet sponge. Man, the low scoring capture the flag matches are the best - it is unfortunate that too many people play it like it is attrition. It is definitely a mode I will go back to once I get bored with Last Titan Standing (that could be a while).

The SMG is my favourite weapon. I like the generation requirements being there too as I have found that I am really into 40cal gun on the Titan. Sadly, the particle shield and cluster missile are still my favourites as support equipment - I just don't like the cloud or vortex thing.

I know exactly what you mean about that last boss. The best way to be able to get at him is to basically go back and replay the last two levels until you have enough health kits to tackle him. I still struggled a lot and his attacks on normal are devastating - not to mention that he can heal himself and quickly becomes really, really irritating. Hope you found the tutorial I linked helpful.

El Shaddai is rubbish. Really pretty and interesting but it is an absolute chore to play. I finished it last year and I do not recommend playing it past the first three or four levels. http://www.arcadianrhythms.com/2013/01/nyr-01-el-shaddai-ascension-of-the-metatron/ Spennny - Go watch a tutorial or read this (sorry for the IGN link): http://uk.ign.com/wikis/metal-gear-rising-revengeance/Parrying Parrying is really poorly explained in the game.

So, it has been announced for release on October 31st. City Interactive are pretty terrible but I am still holding out for this one.

So I got this game as part of the 'What makes a metacritic score' challenge I set myself this year (I just finished a Red Dead Week last month) and I don't really know what to make of it. Nier is a basic hack and slasher with series of fetch quests and RPG clothing wrapped around it. The two things that stand out are the Music Direction and the mood of the game as a whole. The music direction has some Monkey Island-esque moments whereby, as you move between different areas, the music weaves new instruments into the song or changes them entirely but keeps with the same style or even possible the same song with a different mood. It is a pleasure just to switch between the different areas. The mood of the game is outright depressing but in a very different way to most JRPGs. Everyone seems to be dying, getting sick or getting-sick-then-dying. I've made it seem quite trite, so I'll elaborate on an example: when out on an average-seeming fetch quest to collect and old man's errant dog, you find the dog dead with a herb in its mouth. Turns out, the dog never ran away and was actually trying to collect the herb that helped his master's heart condition. On returning to the old man you find his son, who tells you that the old man passed away in his sleep due to his heart giving out. It is just so surprising to catch games doing that once, but this game does it every other side quest and story mission. I don't think refreshing is the right word, but it is definitely unique from that perspective. Anyone else played it?

It is about 6 hours long if you skip the cutscenes. There is some replayability in it (normal I found to be quite challenging) and the VR missions are pretty fun to try and beat as you have to think about the combat differently to the way you do during the campaign. My only advice is look up a Youtube tutorial about the parrying as it is not explained well in the game

I beat Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. Plot is dumb so it is good that it is all skippable. The combat is sublime, although the final boss is all the jokes. I got so stuck on it that I had to replay half the game to have enough health power-ups to take him on. The parrying system is different and a little more convoluted than Bayonetta. Still, it was a hell of a lot of fun and pretty short but sweet.

I eventually reviewed this, it just took me about 3 years to release the article: http://www.arcadianrhythms.com/2013/05/nyr-companion-nier-review/

See, I can understand people preferring the parkour running and gunning but for me the break neck pacing of Attrition and Domination just bore me as I spend most of my time dying and respawning. It is embarrassing but a 34 I can definitely see my reflexes dulling a lot so that kind of twitch gaming just isn't as fun as it used to be. Last Titan standing is still fairly hectic but it slows it down enough that I feel like I can play to my strengths of 'old' age. Those being able to tactically assess situations and moving through areas offering support and figuring out when to push advantages better than some kid who just rushes in every time and plays it like it is soem death match iteration. It is also why I got so hooked on Gears of War when it first came out. You say that usually lose in a 1 on 1 fight in titans. Last Titan Standing is a really good way to hone your titan fighting skills. In the same way that Capture the Flag has been great for me to hone my traversal skills (although if you are like me your K/D ratio goes to shit). A patch came out that tweaks teams in the lobby. It works, sort of, there were still some moments where we were 6 vs 3 but it is still better than what it used to be. The insignia and AI voices are in and don't really change anything - I actually prefer the original voice. The multiplayer option seems fun and chaotic. Randomly one person is marked for death on each team and remain so until one of them dies, when that happens someone else is randomly selectedn until one team scores 10 kills. I can imagine that some may cry out that the unbalanced nature of it (someone can be marked for death who is inside a Titan) but I think that it is nice that they are dipping into refreshing new play styles. Here is what bothers me - does it not feel like Remedy have done this arse backwards? All the free content they are providing is cool but would it not have been better to monetise that and made the maps free? I know I probably would have dropped a couple of quid for some new Titan skins and dallied with the idea of buying some voices for my mech, but with the community slightly fractured by not everyone having the map packs ... It doesn't make a lot of sense for the continuing existence of the game.

I would love a variation of Last Titan Standing (infinite lives but you start with a Titan) that was a Lords Management. You already have the abilities of a LOMA in there.

Been playing solidly now for about week and the connection problems don't seem to have been as bad as when I first played. I am heavily addicted to Last Titan Standing and Capture the Flag. The former slows down the pace of the game and people don't play the way they play Call of Duty because of the fact that you have only one life and your Titan is invaluable in this scenario, with the slower pace I am getting more familiar with the level layout as well as the best setup for weapons and abilities. It is by far my favourite game type and there seems to be a fairly healthy group of people playing. Some of my favourite experiences have been when we were outnumbered and clawing a victory back through communicating with the team and mixing up the weapons selection. I don't get a lot of kills because of my setup (chaingun, cluster missile and particle shield) but I can keep myself alive and do a hell of a lot of damage (I normally lead in assists). Capture the Flag is fun because it is hleping understand how to traverse the maps and not worry about feeding the opponent's team. Sure, they might get their Titans quicker but that doesn't help them win the match. The gameplay being less focused on twitch and more on tactical maneuvering is really helping and it is a hell of a lot of fun.

I only jsut found out on the giantbombcast that this game was announced for Xbox One. Good new for the console that they are actually getting some of the smaller titles.

I can still get into a match on Xbox One, without the DLC, but it takes a while and it really drags the experience down. It took a good 10 minutes to get a game going. When it is going it is great. I am definitely not going to be the first to say this but I will say it anyway: I really wish they would include a bot match option or the ability to setup an empty map. Because there is no single player there is no time for me to get familiar with the mechanics or maps. This became clear to me when I spent 4 games in a row being ground into the dust by more experienced players only to play two matches with inexperienced players around my level and not killed at all for two matches. In the current guise I have no time to get used to the maps or how the wall running works so I just have a lot of frantic shooting instead when I go up against someone who knows exactly what they are doing.

Apologies for having a discussion about video games - I didn't mean to sound abrassive. As for predictions, video gamer.com are having fun: http://www.video gamer.com/features/article/e3_2014_the_predictions.html Xbox One exclusive Resident Evil sounds like madness.

See, this is where we differ in what we want. Uncharted 2 paled in contrast to the vistas in the Tomb Raider series. Uncharted although pretty in places was utterly dreadful to play, the new Tomb Raider is solid and confident in terms of execution that the lacking of truly breathtaking vistas means it trumps all of the Uncharteds for me.

I concur with that sentiment - 100%. In fact all of the Tomb Raider games that Crystal Dynamics made before this one were better than it. Although, Tomb Raider (2013) is easily the best Uncharted game.