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Finished up Bioshock Infinite.  Long story short, I wasn't blown away.  The combat bothered me a lot, the themes seemed problematic at best, and the story was just nonsense.  Also, they managed to make a fight where you shoot a ghost with bullets unbelievably annoying.

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Finished Anodyne.

 

It was definitely an enjoyable experience. It felt like an extrapolation and expansion of the dream-world concept of Link's Awakening, elaborated into something entirely more surreal with Freudian over-tones. The writing added to this feeling, although it sometimes felt self-consciously vague. The soundtrack was nice although it occasionally felt derivative of Disasterpiece's work on Fez.

 

The game-play got to be quite repetitive towards the end of the game, but I was really happy with the game-breaking item that you get at the end. I found the post-game exploration that it opens up to be almost more fun than the game itself.

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Just finished Transformers: Fall of Cybertron. This game and its predecessor War for Cybertron are fantastic action games. The only game I feel this series compares to is Space Marine. This one doubles down on everything awesome the first game did, doing more frequent character hopping making every level feel unique. Also you get to play as Grimlock who turns into a robotic T-rex when angry. The story is a competently delivered justification for why the robots are shooting each other, but not much beyond that. I liked this game.

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Just finished Transformers: Fall of Cybertron. This game and its predecessor War for Cybertron are fantastic action games. The only game I feel this series compares to is Space Marine. This one doubles down on everything awesome the first game did, doing more frequent character hopping making every level feel unique. Also you get to play as Grimlock who turns into a robotic T-rex when angry. The story is a competently delivered justification for why the robots are shooting each other, but not much beyond that. I liked this game.

 

Oooo. I have a really weird, intense love for Space Marine.  The combat and shooting just felt so delicious and creamy.  Mmmmmm...  I'll definitely check out Transformers if...

 

WAIT. The PC version is still $60 on steam and amazon??  Weird.  Feels like Activision forgot to change the price since 360 and PS3 are $15 and $20 on amazon...  Hopefully it'll go down in price for the summer steam sale! :D

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WAIT. The PC version is still $60 on steam and amazon??  Weird.  Feels like Activision forgot to change the price since 360 and PS3 are $15 and $20 on amazon...  Hopefully it'll go down in price for the summer steam sale! :D

 

As someone who as specifically looked for discounts on those games, I've only every seen them go on sale once, and even then were still in the $30 range. Pbbt.

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War For Cybertron is only 20. But Fall of Cybertron I watched for a while before I picked up on sale. Add to your steam wishlist and they let you know when it is on sale.

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(finally) Finished Binding of Isaac "Platinum God" tonight http://tinyurl.com/pwdot5s

 

its my second time...silly corrupted flash save.  Bring on rebirth!

 

Whooooooooooah...  I'm so glad Mac achievements are permanently broken with Flash games and I will never be tempted to go all out like this because I would murder myself even getting halfway to what you accomplished.

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Whooooooooooah...  I'm so glad Mac achievements are permanently broken with Flash games and I will never be tempted to go all out like this because I would murder myself even getting halfway to what you accomplished.

 

i was ready to quit the sob when i had to re-do chest kills with samson, blue baby, and eve....essentially my 3 worst characters.  and some 800 or so deaths in there too.  i think i platinum'd on attrition, i may reset stats to get get plat w/lowest death count

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That's an amazing gaming achievement, congrats.  I wasn't even able to see all the endings, I think I bailed on the last or next to last one.  Just got too frustrated at getting 95 percent of the way there on most runs, but not being able to finish the run. 

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Finished Anodyne.

 

It was definitely an enjoyable experience. It felt like an extrapolation and expansion of the dream-world concept of Link's Awakening, elaborated into something entirely more surreal with Freudian over-tones. The writing added to this feeling, although it sometimes felt self-consciously vague. The soundtrack was nice although it occasionally felt derivative of Disasterpiece's work on Fez.

 

The game-play got to be quite repetitive towards the end of the game, but I was really happy with the game-breaking item that you get at the end. I found the post-game exploration that it opens up to be almost more fun than the game itself.

 

How heavy are the Freudian overtones? I have a deep love of Link's Awakening and a deep hatred of Freud, so I can't tell if this would be my favorite thing or my least favorite thing ever.

 

For context, I'll say that what bothers me is when people take Freud's work as literally true rather than an interesting historical document/groundwork for the countless developments in psychology that have come along since.

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I recently beat Kingdom Hearts I for the first time ever, it was the one from the "1.5 Remix", it was totally worth playing it since Sora feels more like a "classic" Final Fantasy hero and I got to beat up Cloud and Squall SEVERAL TIMES!

 

The 1.5 Mix has the stupid card game, which I quit near the end since I already beat on GBA and it was more like a "modern FF" game, A.K.A. very painful for me to play in every aspect.

 

The 1.5 Remix is a bit of a rip-off since it claims to have three "titles", KH 358/2 is not the actual game, but just the cutscenes, which were still painful to watch, since it nothing but "Nobodies" my least favorite characters and frankly, the plot just made no sense special when you look when it takes place. I'm kinda glad I didn't have to play it.

 

But now... I don't think I want to play Kingdom Hearts 2 or the upcoming KH 3 or anything from Square ever again...

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Oooo. I have a really weird, intense love for Space Marine. The combat and shooting just felt so delicious and creamy. Mmmmmm... I'll definitely check out Transformers if...

"SPACE MUHRINE!" -Orc #1457

Space Marine Is IMO one of the hidden gems of "last generation", it got a decent amount of lip service from the press but it seemed to just slip by most gamers. I think the this probably had more to do with the title than anything else, though WH40K has a better claim to it than anyone.

It is one of the most respectful games I have ever experienced: Respectful to itself; it never tries to be anything that it can't be gameplay wise or narratively. Respectful to it's characters; Not once in that game did I ever wonder WHY a character did something, or if i did it was answered shortly. And Honest to the player; for the life of me I can't remember a single expository info dump in that whole game. What isn't obvious is left to the player to infer and they seem to respect that if you want more info on the greater universe you can find it yourself.

I used the word "respectful" mostly because I couldn't think of a better term, but I think it gets the point across.

I have probably over sold it at this point but it really surprised me and I think more people should play it.

Shame that it will probably never get a sequel.

EDIT: Also Mark Strong does a great job voicing the main character (actually all the VO is pretty great), in fact whenever I think about WH40K space marines now I hear a version of his voice. :P

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I think "respectful" is a great way to put it. Space Marine is respectful to the canon and player in a fashion very similar to the Arkham games. I would even go as far to say that Space Marine is more respectful to the 40k lore than actually fielding an army of Space Marines against an army of Orks in a game of Warhammer.

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I think "respectful" is a great way to put it. Space Marine is respectful to the canon and player in a fashion very similar to the Arkham games. I would even go as far to say that Space Marine is more respectful to the 40k lore than actually fielding an army of Space Marines against an army of Orks in a game of Warhammer.

 

Two notes if people are inspired to go back and play Space Marine:

 

- If you're rocking M/KB, do it on Hard.  I never play hard, but on a whim tried it out, and found it perfectly challenging.  Never felt completely overwhelmed/outnumbered/outgunned.  When I did die I felt like I was learning.  Such a rare thing!

- You don't have to have any interest in the Warhammer universe.  I don't/didn't and still have a great deal of love for the game.

 

 

Re: why it got overlooked: the color palate was very brown.  I remember not being super psyched about it in the press lead-up.  It just didn't show well.  Also, it got released 2 weeks before Gears of War 3, which everyone wanted to compare it to...

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It doesn't have a co-op campaign right, or at least didn't launch with one?  I remember thinking it looked like something I would enjoy, but without co-op didn't want to buy until it dropped in price some.  I generally only play shooters for co-op play anymore, barring something special like Metro 2033.

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i am a huge fan of space marine MP, surprisingly still can get full matches...unfortunately (and fortunately since THQ is gone) the networking is shared hosting...and if it gets on a bad node (ie other side of the world) there can be awful lag

 

the horde mode is great as well, can get real hard if people are paying attention. 

 

still got some achievos to clean up there...id be down for a 4-player IT go at them

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Two notes if people are inspired to go back and play Space Marine:

 

- If you're rocking M/KB, do it on Hard.  I never play hard, but on a whim tried it out, and found it perfectly challenging.  Never felt completely overwhelmed/outnumbered/outgunned.  When I did die I felt like I was learning.  Such a rare thing!

- You don't have to have any interest in the Warhammer universe.  I don't/didn't and still have a great deal of love for the game.

 

 

Re: why it got overlooked: the color palate was very brown.  I remember not being super psyched about it in the press lead-up.  It just didn't show well.  Also, it got released 2 weeks before Gears of War 3, which everyone wanted to compare it to...

 

Oh man, I forgot it launched that close to Gears! That's makes a lot of sense. I do still think the name hurt it, unless the consumer is familiar with what a space marine is in WH40K the title seems like a generic cash in or something.

But being a TPS launching the same time as gears man... ouch.

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How heavy are the Freudian overtones? I have a deep love of Link's Awakening and a deep hatred of Freud, so I can't tell if this would be my favorite thing or my least favorite thing ever.

 

For context, I'll say that what bothers me is when people take Freud's work as literally true rather than an interesting historical document/groundwork for the countless developments in psychology that have come along since.

 

I don't know what's meant by Freudian overtones, but it's constantly working to create an atmosphere that feels like the subconscious of the player character breaking through without ever being clear. That irritated me when I played it, but reflecting on it now, there's no way that could have been handled that wasn't shitty.

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I beat Arkham City last night.  Great game for the most part.  I still have some additional stuff to finish up and some DLC bits.  It's got me really excited for Arkham Knight now.

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I don't know what's meant by Freudian overtones, but it's constantly working to create an atmosphere that feels like the subconscious of the player character breaking through without ever being clear. That irritated me when I played it, but reflecting on it now, there's no way that could have been handled that wasn't shitty.

 

So if I go in expecting that part to be kind of not great, there are other good things that make it worth a look?

 

In other news, I finished Far Cry 2 last night. The game finally clicked for me the third time I tried to play it, and I spent the last week or so playing pretty much only that. I ended up loving the mechanics and the environments, but feeling a little mixed on the story.

 

Maybe it is just because of how often it has been done lately, but the critique that seemed to be written into the game fell flat. Yes, all of these leaders are corrupt, and yes there are countless interchangeable foreigner mercenaries and businesses willing to profit off of the suffering of civilians. That part of the story makes sense and seems like a story worth telling. But something about the way it wrapped up with the on the nose "Heart of Darkness" area and the player character's sacrifice just felt a little hollow. Also, I still am not sure how I feel about the chaotic, fun gameplay interspersed with atrocities.

 

Still, my hangups aside, I really enjoyed my time with the game. I probably won't do a permadeath run any time soon, but I'm glad I saw it through to the end.

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So if I go in expecting that part to be kind of not great, there are other good things that make it worth a look?

 

 

Thinking back on it, I may have been reading too far into the game when I mentioned Freudian overtones. There is definitely some pseudo-psychological meandering, but it only flirts vaguely with the full on Oedipus type stuff that you might associate with writing that takes Freud too seriously.

 

I'd say that the game works best when it keeps the symbolism and imagery in the writing open-ended. There are a few times when it becomes more heavy-handed, like (minor spoiler)

 

the area that is supposed to represent the internet

 

and those definitely bugged me the most.

 

Still, it was definitely worth playing.

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I just wrapped up Fez. Aside from a hint for one or two anticubes I solved the majority of the puzzles on my own...didn't bother with the language stuff though. I enjoyed the tone of the world it set up and the music is really amazing. Overall pretty fun.

 

A lot of the puzzles were clever, though once you figure out a specific cipher in the game, a good chunk of the anticubes are just from going through the motions with that, which felt a bit like filler.

 

One complaint specific to the GOG version of the game:

One of the anticubes requires finding a RT/LT code in an achievement description. There's no achievements if you play the GOG version! I hate looking for hints because you run the risk of ruining a puzzle, so I wasted a good bit of time before breaking down and looking this last one up. Lame.

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