Garple

Yes, sir! Video game stories are all FUCKING BULLSHIT. Let's kill them forever.

Shut up, ya poop. He made Dogville. Dogville!

Oh, man, so he got you into the Idle Thumbs forums, too? That's so cute. Housemates, Unite!

OMG! Jake is playing hella games! I love you even more than I already did, Jake. In a gay way, of course.

That's the best kind of ten-year-old

God, I should play this. It really is the game you buy if you're just getting a ps3, apparently. But I had wanted LittleBigPlanet for so long, that ended up being my first ps3 game.

Man, I've always liked the idea of JRPGs, but the combat turns me off 100 % What JRPGs do you think transcend the genre?

Well, no. Because it sounds like you seriously dislike RPGs.

It really sounds like you wouldn't like Dragon Age at all. I'd say Uncharted 2 sounds more your style.

I second this. Paradise is great, but for a beginner, I'd start with Revenge. It's linear nature will be easier for your friend to have fun with...also the game encourages you to drive agressively more than Paradise does (and doesn't penalize you for it) which makes for an arcade-y experience that's probably will feel more responsive and fun to someone just getting into games. ODST has the firefight mode which is good for a newcomer, I would imagine, because it allows you to practice and hone your skills in Halo combat and also provides good co-op multiplayer, so you can jump in with him and help him to have a more fun frustration free experience as he's learning the ropes. Anything with good co-op would be a good pick if you're going to be able to spend time playing with him (Gears of War 2's Horde Mode, for example). Edit: the other thing about Revenge, is that you can jump into any event at any time (and you especially have tons of freedom with that in multiplayer: any event on any track etc). It's the most fun I've had multiplayer in a driving game since Smuggler's Run on the PS2 and it's still a game I pull out often when people come over.

Yeah, once I messed around with the tactics menus and tried to specialize each character, I started doing a better. Micromanaging isn't that bad on 360. The only problem is it's really hard to tell what one of your guys is doing until you switch your selected unit to him/her. So you can only focus on one at a time. So, I guess you're right. a lot of the time you kind of have to hope your other guys are doing the right thing and just watch their health bar. I'm starting to realize that (at least on the console version), a lot of the strategy is in how you customize your characters. I play as an elven rogue, so I picked up a lot of attributes in archery and then set up a tactic that says whenever an enemy uses a melee attack on me, I switch to my melee weapons, which is extremely useful because even though I'm trying to fight from relatively long range, dudes like to charge me all the time (maybe I need to drop some armor...I've read that the more armored up you are, the higher a priority you are for the enemy AI). But I also have the attributes that make you shoot uninterrupted even when you're taking melee damage and the one that speeds up your rate of "fire" (not to mention "dirty fighting", "Below the Belt" and "Deadly Strike" for suckas that try to get too close).

As I move through it, I'm finding more and more that I can't play this game very well on anything above casual, because I don't understand the tactical aspect of it. I use talents, but I can't tell at all what types of actions will be more effective than others in a given situation. I'm not someone who has played a lot of RPGs, so there may be fundamentals that I'm just not familiar with. I should mention that I'm playing on the 360. Does anyone have some tips about Dragon Age combat/tactics?

Me neither. I play a lot of games and read gaming websites ALL the time. But, fuck, most games are bullshit.

You're a towel.

Fable II, Shadow Complex, Trials HD, Rez HD And I second basically all the games that were already mentioned. Also: 'Splosion Man but only if he's already into 2D platformers.

I bought this game as soon as I saw your recommendation, 'blix. It's a game I've seen occasional reference to and always wanted to play it. Then everybody was like "Fuck that game." I didn't bother to download it, because the GOG downloader was not working properly. But now I've got it at 60 %. I'm hoping and expecting to disagree with the detractors. I also want to mention The Longing Ribbon it's an overhead 2D JRPG/Horror made in Germany with the RPG Maker engine and it's free. It has the goofiness of JRPGs but it's really atmospheric and engrossing. I mention it because I have a feeling it has certain things in common with sanitarium. I only played it for like 2 hours, and I'm not sure I can explain why I liked it or why anyone else might...but, damn. Edit: Sometimes my posts are full of rambling bullshit, like this one. I apologize for that.

I like this idea. edit: I like it a lot. Someone who is not me please organize this.

I didn't know internet historians existed, but that's really cool. It makes perfect sense that they would exist. I'm going to look into this guy.

"Kenka Bancho's charm. The presentation, including the rarely-serious dialogue throughout, and the complete pisstake on the rougher side of Japanese youth culture, is too good not to miss." 1UP.com

"I WAS TRYING TO PLAY THE SINGLE PLAYER, BUT I THINK I MUST HAVE BLINKED OR SOMETHING, BECAUSE I WAS AT DA END OF THE GAME BEFORE I KNOW IT. THIS IS WHAT THE SINGLE PLAYER WAS LIKE: SHOOTING GALLERY, FAKE MOVIE BIT, SHOOTING GALLERY, FAKE MOVIE BIT, SHOOTING GALLERY, OVER. IT WAS THE WURST." "ABSOLUTELY RUBBISH PRETSENTINGS, SOME OF THE WURST PRESENTINGS EVER TO BE HAVE MADE IN THE HISTORY OF COMPUTER GAMES. THE ONLY WAY IT BEEN WORSE IS IF IT STABBED ME IN THE EYE." "It makes sound so good for me." "This game is like taking a new car and smashing it with a sledgehammer." "Alright Im going to try and give an unbias review of CoD6." "This game more fail than the Gov't run health bill that was just passed."

"(at least when it comes to the PC market, a more discerning crowd than their console cousins)." (ign user review of MW2) FUCK, I hate this shit. Just because we play games on consoles doesn't mean we're stupid. The fact that the above individual reads and uses ign.com says to me he's not discerning at all in terms of gaming websites. Also...if this guy (and others like him) don't realize that the PC allows for independent developers to do literally whatever they want in terms of allowing the users freedom, how discerning can he be. Instead of treating this as the death knell of PC gaming, maybe they need to be discerning enough to play lower profile (but just as high in quality) games. Let's face it: Activision doesn't give a shit about anybody and all these guys who are bitching knew there would be a lot of aspects to this game that they really didn't like, but they bought it anyway...they can complain all they want, but it doesn't matter if they've already forked over their cash.

Plus, it's funny when taken out of context...which is, I think, kind of the point of this thread.

No problem. If a game is gush-worthy let us know about it so we can check it out, by all means. Especially if it's something like this that would be easy to overlook.

Yeah, I think it'd be awesome if Capcom made Mirror's Edge 2...but, then again, they don't have a first-person background

I did the same thing! I felt so stupid afterward, but yeah, I thought it was just "in case you don't want to know about this crazy upcoming creature" instead of "this is super important to the story." This also makes me feel weird about how little I've played Dragon Age. It's the kind of game I would devote all my gaming time to normally, but, ya know: holiday season + new PS3...