Recently completed video games

[Kolzig]

Two Thrones did really bring that series home in a great way. It's a shame that some people didn't get to it after Warrior Within. I especially loved the combat dichotomy of regular prince being mostly stealth take downs, while the dark prince had the more heavy fighting. He also had stronger mechanics with that swallowtail that made it fun. POP will definitely be more about platforming than combat, but Two Thrones dealt with that aspect much better than Warrior Within, where the solution was just add more combat and more weapons to pick up.

I quit playing PoP games after Warrior Within, it was just too much full of shit with every part of the game. One friend said also some years ago that Two Thrones gets the groove back, but I just didn't want to bother because I have already quite enough of games on my list and WW just broke the PoP love for me.

[Squid Division]

That's awesome since most video games with signs in other languages seem to only want to write gibberish from what I understand.

Yeah, all the Latin they show in the game is correct too.

[elmuerte]

it's not gibberish, just low quality textures

[JonCole]

I think I'm done with Torchlight. I played it for a good long while (upwards of 40 hours) and hit a solid brick wall with a standard enemy around floor 40 or so. Either the game is just hideously imbalanced there, or I just didn't build up the right resistances and defense to stand up to continuous 3000+ damage attacks.

I hadn't really dabbled in those kinda isometric loot collecting games too deeply until Torchlight and I think it'll probably push me back into playing Titan Quest some more (played like... 5 hours of co-op in that game with the girlfriend). Also, totally understand the excitement for Diablo III now.

[Thompson]

I think I'm done with Torchlight. I played it for a good long while (upwards of 40 hours) and hit a solid brick wall with a standard enemy around floor 40 or so. Either the game is just hideously imbalanced there, or I just didn't build up the right resistances and defense to stand up to continuous 3000+ damage attacks.

I hadn't really dabbled in those kinda isometric loot collecting games too deeply until Torchlight and I think it'll probably push me back into playing Titan Quest some more (played like... 5 hours of co-op in that game with the girlfriend). Also, totally understand the excitement for Diablo III now.

Man, Torchlight was a real bummer for me. Am I the only person who doesn't want to go through 10s upon 10s upon 10s upon 10s upon 10s of levels of dungeon and side-quests in mind-numbingly boring surroundings using mind-numbingly identical talents against mind-numbingly boring enemies?

Occasionally i'll pick up a piece of armor that is supposedly part of a set, but since I have no way of knowing just how i'm supposed to get the rest of the set, the bonuses are totally irrelevant.

It feels like a game that i'm playing wrong.

[Erwin_Br]

Man, Torchlight was a real bummer for me. Am I the only person who doesn't want to go through 10s upon 10s upon 10s upon 10s upon 10s of levels of dungeon and side-quests in mind-numbingly boring surroundings using mind-numbingly identical talents against mind-numbingly boring enemies?

That's exactly how I felt about this game! Torchlight needs more polish. I've seen indie games with higher production values.

In other news: I finished Dead Space 1. Yes, I'm behind as always. But now I'm finally ready to play Dead Space 2!

[Sully907]

You are in for a treat sir. Dead Space 2 is an exquisite game. It's like they took their core shooting elements that were already fun in the first game, and then learned from everything uncharted 2 did right in cinematic style presentation, and gameplay pacing, and just made one heck of a game.

[JonCole]

It may be a lack of polish, or it might be the fact that its primary competitor is the memory of Diablo II... which is all but untouchable. Either way, I'm excited to see what they do with Torchlight II given the extra time they've had to develop it.

[Erwin_Br]

You are in for a treat sir. Dead Space 2 is an exquisite game. It's like they took their core shooting elements that were already fun in the first game, and then learned from everything uncharted 2 did right in cinematic style presentation, and gameplay pacing, and just made one heck of a game.

Hell yeah! Just completed the first level, and I see what you mean. Already there's more variation in this game. More action sequences, for starters. I really had to drag myself away from it.

[Tanukitsune]

I just beat Kirby's Epic Yarn, the game is adorable and fills me with the warm fuzzies, but I don't like that it's impossible to die or lose, you only get a worse score, I never give a damn about my score unless I'm going to be rewarded by something more meaningful than a bloody medal.

The mini games and furniture collecting didn't help much either, but I enjoyed in the end, because I simply ignored the extra stuff.

[CaptainFish]

Just beat Dragon Age: Origins after the DA2 demo got me psyched to play more Dragon Age. According to steam I went from 34 hours to 118, which represented going from my first army recruitment (Mage Circle) to the end game. I tend to load a lot so my actual game time was more like 90 hours.

I really liked the tendency for tough choices to be made, especially in the end game where they took me by surprise in parts.

I definitely got to the point where I had enough spells between Wynne and Morrigan to just roll any encounter, although switching one for Shale or Leliana was viable as well. I think the game should allow for respecing, because now looking back I realize what spells are kind of useless without combinations, and which ones are crucial for crowd control.

The camera kinda bugged me, I wish you could just scroll around the whole battlefield rather than being confined to a proximity around your dudes. Especially when so many fights depend on archers at long range where you can't see them unless you're in 3rd person view. This was especially troubling when said archers would perform scattershot constantly, interrupting your attempts to cast talents.

While I liked the combat, I definitely started to get the feel of playing a D&D game where the DM attempts to be more diabolical every encounter, while your options remain basically the same. Almost every travelling encounter begins with your enemies in interesting tactical positions while your team is all clustered up. It makes me long for games like Shining Force or Front Mission 4 (which I'm currently playing) where more equal forces match off and positioning and use of terrain and spells is relevant for both sides.

Almost every fight just boiled down to getting my mages in place to freeze, petrify, paralyze, sleep or knock down groups of enemies to keep my rogue and warrior from being overrun. I know it sounds like a wide variety of options, but they all basically end up being the same effect, tied to different cooldown timers. Fighting elite enemies was particularly hairy when the spells you've been counting on for control simply don't work on account of bad rolls. This eventually leads to me running my healer away from the elite, only to be 'hit' by a sword swing that doesn't actually touch her character model and die.

The latency of some of the spells and talents made them less fun to use (not the ones with casting bars, but just the inherent animations). Shale's rock throw is a good example, where there is a long wind up to an area attack with friendly fire, making it much harder to use than similar faster casting spells like fireball. The delay also makes the little targeting areas more useful as a guide than an absolute target system. I appreciate requiring a bit more finesse for aiming your spells, but when you fail because of it it can be a bummer.

Anyhoo I liked the story stuff, so I'll probably do the Awakening expansion, eventually.

[Patters]

Metro 2033 (PC): A lot of the game follows from the book however at a certain point the game diverges completely from the book, a lot of themes and events were changed, which may have made the game play better but I’m not entirely happy with them.

[Noyb]

Metro 2033 (PC): A lot of the game follows from the book however at a certain point the game diverges completely from the book, a lot of themes and events were changed, which may have made the game play better but I’m not entirely happy with them.

I haven't read the book, so this might not even be relevant, but just because it might not be clear after finishing the game (and actually this is one of the reasons why I really like the game):

There's a morality system that the game never explicitly tells you about. If the sum total of these silently judged choices is above a certain threshold, you're allowed (but not required) to make a different choice (which also isn't completely telegraphed as a choice either) at the end which determines which of two endings you see

.

[Patters]

I haven't read the book, so this might not even be relevant, but just because it might not be clear after finishing the game (and actually this is one of the reasons why I really like the game):

There's a morality system that the game never explicitly tells you about. If the sum total of these silently judged choices is above a certain threshold, you're allowed (but not required) to make a different choice (which also isn't completely telegraphed as a choice either) at the end which determines which of two endings you see

.

Well the point which the plot changes completely is in Polis

The Brahmin (intellectuals) send Artyom in search of a clearly mythical text along with another guy and some Stalkers.

I just watched the other ending, which does in a way agree with the final encounter with the dark ones

they are a side line in evolution which needs humans to help them technologically while they can live in more adverse conditions. Artyom is the only one able to communicate with them.

The game completely removed the bat-shit insane religious nuts that were in the book, slavery,

the abduction of children (briefly touched on).

I really enjoyed both, the book however had inconsistent translation, hopefully the sequel will get better treatment, simply because I really love the universe.

[Gabbo]

Metro 2033 (PC): A lot of the game follows from the book however at a certain point the game diverges completely from the book, a lot of themes and events were changed, which may have made the game play better but I’m not entirely happy with them.

I agree with this completely. I read the book after playing through the game, and there is just so much depth to Artyom and to the tunnels themselves in the novel that I was actually really disappointed the game didn't attempt to weave them into the overarching plot a bit more. Unless the other ending (which I have not seen) even remotely touches on those aspects I can only hope the sequel aims a little higher in this regard.

[lobotomy42]

I finished Gray Matter and put my thoughts in that thread.

[keibo]

Just finished dead space: extraction on Wii. I've had it sitting there since Mid-July and I really wanted to finish it before moving on to Dead space 2. Unfortunately when I bought it I ended up buying loads more games during the next couple of months and it just shifted down the stack of games to play...

I really enjoyed it, I felt that the story was quite good and it really picked up the pace near the end, which is probably the only time I actually felt tense during it as well. I'm actually thinking of getting the films as well as the story set out in Dead Space 1 and extraction(and the comic side story) was really interesting and has left me itching for more .

I'm also liking the fact that you play as one of the Extraction people that survives in the DLC for dead space 2

[Tanukitsune]

I just beat Sonic Adventure from the Sega Dreamcast collection... wow, the game hasn't aged well, the facial animations, voice acting and dialog is hilarious bad! XD

And yet, the gameplay is still fun, maybe a bit on the easy side? I don't remember the game being this easy the last time I played it

[CaptainFish]

I just beat Sonic Adventure from the Sega Dreamcast collection... wow, the game hasn't aged well, the facial animations, voice acting and dialog is hilarious bad! XD

And yet, the gameplay is still fun, maybe a bit on the easy side? I don't remember the game being this easy the last time I played it

How long was it? I played, but never finished that game when it was new and I've been thinking of snapping into it.

[Tanukitsune]

Sonic has about 10 stages, while the other five characters have only four or five stages, but I'm not sure, I think it was 6-8 hours? It's definitely less than 10 hours since you unlock an avatar award for playing for that long and I haven't gotten it yet.

[pabosher]

I played (and beat) Space Asshole 2 today. It was pretty fun, even if the main character was Douchey McDouchedouche, and even though there were some annoying narrative conceits.

No I did not actually beat Red Faction Armageddon today. I did play it though. It was fine I guess.

[Orv]

I played (and beat) Space Asshole 2 today. It was pretty fun, even if the main character was Douchey McDouchedouche, and even though there were some annoying narrative conceits.

No I did not actually beat Red Faction Armageddon today. I did play it though. It was fine I guess.

How's the destruction? That's basically my draw to RF at this point. Aliens? Please, no.

[pabosher]

Destruction was pretty sweet. Having never played RF before (and yes I own them all on steam) I didn't know that you could also instantaneously rebuild shit, which was awesome.

The destructibility of the environments was the best part, probably by a long way. New weapons like the magnet gun (fire two bullets, the first pulls whatever you've shot towards the second) really amplified that.

Seriously though, the character reminded me of how the Thumbs described Castro in Alpha Protocol. Every line was a snarky motherf of a comment.

[syntheticgerbil]

I finished both Prince of Persia and Earthworm Jim for Game Gear recently. The former is a terrible 8-bit port with broken controls and a complete set set of levels, while the latter is a great 8-bit port with broken controls and a cut set of levels. Funny how that works out, but for whatever reason, the fact that someone managed to cram all those animation frames as well as fit the existing art in a tiny resolution that didn't make the game look like a bunch of color vomit is something I really appreciate. It came off as "cute" even though controlling Earthworm Jim with two buttons was annoying.

I finished all the Sly Coopers from the HD collection and was thoroughly satisfied. Still feel the same way I said earlier about 1 and 2 as well as still angry at the shoddy and sloppy HD porting (which seems to be a trend with everyone). In the end, the perks outweighed the bad since the original games are still there with the original art intact and all. It's just really not properly HD, missing a couple of extras, and cannot be considered "remastered" in the least. False advertising, I say, but it seems Sucker Punch, Sanzaru games, and Sony don't give a shit, according to their lack of replies to my e-mails. Shocking.

Sly 3 was incredibly fun in many ways, but definitely a step down. Since Sly 2 tended to repeat many missions or tasks in different areas, but not really in an annoying way I feel, it seems Sly 3 went all out in having different missions or gameplay styles every time something new was introduced. It's one thing if the set varied gameplay styles work, but if new types keep getting introduced relentlessly and are no fun to play, it becomes tedious (I'm looking at you RC Car garbage crap). The pirate ship section also came out of nowhere and turned out great once you got the hang of it. There was also a lot of adventure-lite™ stuff thrown in. While it was shallow and probably annoyed many, I found it welcome. Maybe dialogue trees make me unnecessarily giddy.

---

Also after a year and a few months of picking at it, I finally finished Metal Gear Solid 2 Substance. While completely behind everyone in the series as a whole, it seems like I'm one of the few that actually managed to 100% this behemoth of a game. What a tiring and ridiculous amount of game play time. I'm sure I must have put over 120 hours in the thing and I don't want to find out really. I even finished that idiotic skateboarding minigame.

Considering the amount of time I put into it, I actually don't think I like Metal Gear Solid 2 very much outside of just the basic stealth gameplay I'm already familiar with. The dialogue seemed ludicrously long in all plant chapter parts in comparison to the much more interesting tanker chapter (and Metal Gear Solid 1). So much development seems to have been given to cutscenes that most gameplay mechanics and items were not explored at all in the actual game. This is very different in comparison to Metal Gear Solid, which seemed to make you use all items at at least once. While I don't mind the overall story, extended action scenes, and Patriot tirade at all, the incessant whining and drivel coming from Raiden made every conversation tedious. Since Snake traditionally tends to answer everything with a one word question or grunt, I took for granted on how much the writing and conversations could change with a swap of the main character.

Also I really could not stomach the desaturated orange setting of the plant chapter, it makes me feel queasy to look at that color scheme and it sucks there was so much of it. The VR missions also have this sickly beige and blue everywhere, which I don't understand since the Playstation VR Mission set for the first game was much more colorful and "digital" looking.

The big joke here is how much gameplay exists in the VR Missions compared to the regular game. It must almost be more than 5 times over the amount of gameplay required to finish the basic game, including the part where you play it five times over to obtain the dog tags.

Unfortunately no cheat items I earned through dog tags alleviated the bastardness of extreme mode. In Twin Snakes, extreme mode was not annoying outside of one or two parts, but it seemed on Sons of Liberty that everytime I made my way to a boss, defeating them in any traditional manner was out of the question and I had to reseort to looking up clever game breaking ways on Youtube playthroughs. Even worse is that I can't even fathom how expert players would be able to finish certain parts playing it straight. Seems impossible. In one part, the way to do defeat a bunch of guards is to crouch in a certain spot and spray coolant at them while Snake kills everyone, in another I was having to throw all previous gameplay methods out the window and do constant flips back and forth, and destroying 25 Metal Gears in a row seemed based on pure luck that you wouldn't make a mistake and die in the meantime.

The 500 VR Missions thing is sort of a sham also. There's really only about 40 unique levels and then 20 in the same areas with different arrangements and taskes. Those 50 are then repeated five times over on harder difficulties. The alternative missions are just parts from the game with guard or bomb tasks tacked on. While this is all sort of a good thing, as I was not looking forward to play 500 unique VR Missions of increasing difficulty, it seems unnecessary to repeat so much in the first place.

Either way, I was having a lot of fun solving the puzzles of each new mission as well as breezing through the more strange or hilarious levels, but of course all of that became aggravating as I started the last 50 or so where you have to play as "MGS1 Snake." I just gave up and started using guides to get through these. Apparently these missions are such utter bullshit in difficulty that not one FAQ had solutions to all missions in one. Most forums posts on the topic of VR Missions seem to indicate this is the point where most gave up. I had to mix and match various incomplete guides as well as bite the bullet a few times and struggle through certain ones on my own. The immense frustration on about five of these specifically contain gamer hell moments I'm not wanting to repeat ever again.

So once I made my way to the Snake Tales after this, I was super disappointed to find out that they all consisted of me running through all of the same areas as the main game, doing tasks that were similar but dumbed down from the VR Missions I had already finished in between text wraparounds. I guess I was under the impression they would have me doing new things in new locations as Snake instead of a bunch of fluff repeating everything I had done up to that point.

The Substance package wasn't anything like what I was expecting If the developers are already adding new content to a rerelease of the game which is substantial as is, why inflate it five times over with filler and fluff? 100-150 good or unique VR Missions along the Snake Tales involving the guy in much more unique locations and situations would have been much more ideal.

After all of that, I'm still looking forward to getting to Metal Gear Solid 3 soon. I don't have to beat it five times over for dog tags to fill a completionist urge (meaning I get to skip extreme mode as well), which is nice. It also appears that it does not contain hundreds of extra missions to complete for the Subsistence version. Should be a concise and enjoyable game, I predict. The colors are also much more rich this time according to screenshots, so that's a plus.

Edited March 8, 2011 by syntheticgerbil

[CaptainFish]

I remember having to kill infinity Metal Gears on the hardest difficulty on the PS2. It was a lot of chaff and stingers and luck. Not sure if that difficulty is the same as in substance.

Anyhoo, I never played Substance and was bummed out about it, so I'm kinda glad to hear that it isn't a bunch of crucial content.

I think you'll really enjoy MGS3 though, it's my favorite of the series. There's something about the style and some of the trappings that make it pop.