Fuzzy Lobster

I downloaded this game and it's a cool concept, but I've gotta say I'm pretty confused about how it works, since my opponent was awarded points for "eloiner" and "lawine" and I was denied the words "mage", "gaia" and "vega". I looked eloiner and lawine up in several online dictionaries and it appears they do not exist... hrmmm... Am I an idiot? Please any eloiner fanatics reveal what the F it is... Maybe my opponent's got iHax.

Ehh..... Well, truth be told, whether you like it or not depends a great deal on your sense of humor, I think. It's really, really wierd. Basically, it's kinda adventure-gamey, you get items and run errands for completely bizarre villiagers so that you can access new areas, blah blah. The goal is to impress your love interest by gaining more kissing experience, which you accomplish by kissing various townspeople, such as the mushroomish guy who lives in the sewer, or the guy dressed in S&M gear chained up in a basement. Your dad is constantly praying to the world's most suggestive tree that you'll become "experienced" whenever you go to sleep, if I remember correctly. And so on. Beyond the concept of the game, the art design is really puppetish and exaggerated, which I thought was fabulous, but kinda surreal and disturbing in it's own right. I love love love super out-of-nowhere, wierd, surreal stuff like this, so personally, I think it's tops. I have heard slightly different opinions, however... It was really inexpensive when I bought the one and only copy that the local GameStop had ever sold, so if you can get it cheap and all that sounds like you'd find it funny, I heartily recommend it. I haven't played Animal Crossing, so I don't know if they're that similar or not. I'm guessing not.

Oh, it's so cute! My PC bit the dust, so I'll have to wait for Wiiware.

I imported the Japanese version of Afrika when it first came out, since they seemed unsure if they would make a US version initially. Of course, then they did. I also received a super-awesome imported Kanji dictionary program for the DS as a birthday present. You write in the character, and it defines it in one of the other alphabets, uses it in a sentence, etc. I'm a bit of a troglodyte when it comes to technology, so I'm easily impressed as a whole, but this thing blew my mind. .. I know, not a game. But it's really cool! Oh my god, hooray. I LOVE random, quirky Japanese games. It's not an import, but all people should play chu-lip. It is the most bizarre/kind of disturbing game in the history of time.

Yeah, what I was referring to was not being accustomed to the group dynamics in approaching battles like this. I think people who play MMOs are more used to thinking about what various fighters' skills can contribute, even though they're actually only controlling one character. Usually I play games that have only one controllable character or multiple characters that you control directly in a jRPG kind of way. I haven't played a lot of games that have multiple characters that you indirectly control by setting tactics and require consideration what each of the characters could best be doing all at the same time. This is the same reason that the battle system in FF12 threw me off. I think I should do more. This may be the key to me successfully attempting to make all games into a melee-smashy, brainless, beat-em-up.

What are you playing? I always end up playing lunkhead warriors so that I can be lazy and stupid and think about battle strategy as little as possible, but that's not serving me well in this game. My rogue keeps dying and my mage wasn't healing anyone. Oops. I'm starting to get the hang of setting their tactics now. Not enough MMO experience, I guess.

I just finished the mage tower. that was the most irritating example of the unevenly balanced fights mentioned above, at least for me. I kept getting completely smacked by apprentice mages, then totally wiped the floor with the demons. Maybe I just can't set tactics for crap. I switched difficulty back and forth a lot.

Woah! The conversation around here certainly seems to have had a different edge back in the day, huh?

Oh, man. I've been playing the heck out of this game for the past week and it's great. It's been a while since I've been so invested in the story of a game to get so totally addicted. I think the story flows well without dragging and I love the interactions between the characters. I also appreciate the approachably difficult combat. I have had my butt handed to me several times, but the challenge manages to stay away from "hurl the controller at the TV" territory. Yay. In general, I'm not hung up about graphics and I think I'm easily impressed, so IMO it looks pretty great in general. There is one wierd thing that I can't get over though and it may be completely stupid. Is there only one figure model for NPCs? This bothers me most with the Chantry nuns, or whatever they are, probably because other NPCs are in armor, or have less.. exaggerated features. No matter what age or structure their heads have, they all have exactly the same bodies attached. I just watched a cutscene with a very aged and a young nun who are identical from the neck down. I find this totally jarring, for some reason. It's like they're all wearing foam-rubber suits or something.

Yeah, I usually play games on easy or normal as well, especially when they require me to shoot anything, as I can't aim for crap. Also, the first thing that screamed to mind when I saw this thread was the one-handed mode, but I thought I might be too much of a newb to bust out with the perv-factor. Now that the can is open: Huh huh huh.. I heard that this game has a "one-handed mode".

The song "Machine Head" by Bush always reminds me of Lunar for Sega CD. I went through a phase when I was about 13 where I was obsessed with both. Also, some poppy Mexican music reminds me of Little Big Planet and any world beat, african-styled music makes me think of Civ 4.

It's in a different direction, but what about old adventure games on the PC? When I was little, my mother, brother and I would all play together and work through the puzzles. I loved it, and it was a bit more engaging than just watching my older brother play duck hunt.

As far as older games go, the older Mario games seem great. After all, that's where many of us started! If you have got an old SNES around, Yoshi's Island is great. I used to play it back in the day with my 3 year old nephew and although he was a bit young, he loved just running Yoshi around. I'd bet your little kids would love the cute art style and it's a lot of fun. For XBox, there's the Viva Pinata games.

Egads! Between this and the bayonetta thread..

Oh.. Yeah, I was told that it was only local co-op some time ago. I thought that something strange and wonderful might have occurred to change that. Bah.

Ooo! I didn't even know that was an option. My username is FuzzyLobster, I'd be down for some co-op any time! :woohoo:

Mine. Thanks for the info!

I completely agree. I also think that I and most other people on this forum are very positive toward changes that would increase what we get out of games. Unfortunately, I'm afraid that most consumers aren't as receptive to new experiences, perhaps especially more emotional ones. As a result, I feel that progress in this direction may be limited since it's not likely to be as profitable as another zombie face-smashing game.

I bought it for the PS3 a little over a week ago. I've kind of been obsessively playing Dragon Age, so I've only put in a couple hours, but it's a lot of fun. I wasn't expecting it to be as lush and gorgeous as it is. It's great! I haven't played it on PC.

I may have to put in another vote for Dragon Age. I just picked it up last week and I've played the living bejesus out of it ever since. For sheer doofing-around-with-your-buddies goodness, I've been getting a kick out of both Trine and New SMB Wii. Honorable mentions for both since I haven't played that much of either yet.

Forgive me if this has been said a thousand times before, and much better than I can, but I do really wonder if people in general would even WANT a challenging game experience? I will openly admit that I may not be the greatest authority here, as I am pretty unexposed to mainstream culture. I haven't had television in well over ten years and I don't watch movies often, particularly not major blockbuster types. It seems to me in my observations, however that "challenging" seems to be pretty under-represented in whatever the highest grossing films/most popular TV shows seem to be. Instead, it all seems to be rehashing the same old routine over and over again. Look at how many old TV shows seem to be being remade. I think the film equvalents go without saying. People seem to be pretty comfortable in this space, and things that come up and differ from that don't appear to go over well with the average Joe. An old housemate of mine was perfectly content with anything that involved cars, explosions or boobs but anything that veered too far into the realm of thought-provoking was promptly labeled as something very rude. Sadly, I think that he's a shining example of mainstream (mostly male) interests. Without going on and on stating the obvious here, I'm sure that pretty much everyone on this forum agrees and would love to be challenged by games in this way. I really don't know, however, if there's enough of a market for this type of experience in general. As a result I'm not sure that we can expect to see games of this kind often. Just like a really great film or a really great book is pretty rare, if you consider the volume of what comes out, gaming experiences that really break the mold are few and far between, if you've ever had that experience at all. Unfortunately, I'm not sure that I can really see that changing anytime soon/ever either.

Oh, Mario Kart.. Why do I suck so much at you? I only played the first version a few times and I was unbelievably terrible at controlling the darn thing. I did my friends with low self esteem a world of good, I'm sure. Just this last weekend I played Mario kart for Wii for a great many hours and uttely faceplanted the entire time. Once, I got 7th place. It was a triumph. As a result, I can't really speak to whether or not the items are too helpful, as the only thing I've ever recieved is the three mushrooms..

Agh, that's rough. "I want to make it clear that the Pandemic brand and franchises will live on," ..... just not anyone who had anything to do with their creation. I hope those guys can find a place elsewhere.

HAHA! Yes, those would be the ones. It does appear to be quite a thing. Who knew? Now I want a megaman one.

I'll keep you company on this. I'm generally at least 6 months behind, so when I finally get really into a game, it's often extremely old news. For example, I just got Trine, and it's great. Yay. But.. I haven't played this one. I do, however do that unnecessary pause thing in my everyday patterns of speech.. heh. This may be a pointless post. Oh well. I'll help keep your thread up on top of the list.