Played through Spec Ops: The Line yesterday because I knew it was short (which is true, I finished it in one sitting, ~4-5 hours) and I had the day off with nothing to do. Y'all should know from my posting history that I prefer JRPGs over everything else and, while I suck at them, turn based strategy games are a big draw for me as well, so there wasn't much gameplay wise for me to really get into from the outset from a cover based 3rd person shooter. But you should also know that I tend to value story over everything else in the medium, and that's where the game delivered. I knew the basic outline of the story and half-knew the big secret of the whole thing (my four year old memory fudged the details), but the impact wasn't lessened at all, it was a huge deconstruction of the whole modern shooter genre that blew up with Call of Duty 4. Basically all of the really fun and iconic elements of those games are introduced and played with, only to immediately turn on you and make you feel like a shitty person for enjoying it. Even the loading screens start straight out antagonizing and patronizing you (they start with general hints and small bits of backstory on the characters, but near the end of the game start saying shit like "Do you feel like a hero yet?" and "You are still a good person"). I basically loved every part of it from the narrative standpoint, and everything about the game that I didn't really like could be easily explained as executive meddling (Why is there multiplayer when that totally undermines the moral of the story? The publishers demanded it and outsourced it to a different studio. One of the most memorable sequences actually doesn't make any sense by the time the entire story is explained in the climax. It was scripted prior to the entire story being fleshed out and one of the suits really liked it and demanded it be left in the game regardless) or entirely the point (the gameplay is repetitive but the entire point of the story is that war isn't some glorified badass power fantasy that endlessly fun to play through, it's dirty and brutal and absolutely harrowing and painful).

The game was totally reviewed as a huge surprise and it still managed to surprise me. I liked it a lot.

Yeah, I liked it a lot too. It was more or less the Funny Games of modern popular video games; what you accept as normality in the things you like (or are programmed to like) is really quite horrific when looked at from just a slightly different angle. Comical deconstructions annoy the piss out of me (Cabin in the Woods, Feast, Borderlands 2) because usually they're just a celebration/circle-jerk of the things they're satirizing.

I knew nothing about Spec Ops going into it (other than that it was story-driven), and so the second half spanked me like a naughty schoolgirl because of how much of a monster I apparently am. :{

I remember my friend telling me about Spec Ops, abouthow much of an emotional game it is. I love games like that, games that make you feel things. Like, they make you actually care about the characters and what's happening and all that. They make you feel like you're actually a part of the game.
To me, that's one of the things that makes a game, and anything else really, a truly great game.

So since the Darksouls I thread is locked, I guess I'll post in here.

My disk stopped working while I was trying to beat Quelaag, so I stopped playing for a year and only picked up the game recently. In the past two days I've made a lot of progress. I beat Quelaag, finally. I was cursed which made it very difficult. After that, the game became extremely easy after I was able to get a Dark Knight Sword +5. I beat Gwyndolin, Crossbreed Priscilla, Smough and Ornstein, The Iron Golem, The Stray Demon, Seath, and Sif. I just made it to New Londo and then died due to carelessness. Trying to get out of the way from a knight's attack, I rolled into range of one of the drakes, which immediately flattened me from behind.

I'm not sure if it's because of my new weapon, or if I'm just getting better, but the game has become a lot easier. We'll see if it stays that way.

Yeah that weapon is pretty darn OP. +5 already? Or was it after killing all of those bosses? I don't recall twinkling being that common until you reach Anor Londo.

Do you have the DLC, btw?

I killed Ornstein and Smough and the Iron Golem with a +10 halberd and the rest with the sword. I like the halberd because it's pretty strong and has good range but it just doesn't work well on the bigger enemies because you'll often just stab right between their legs, and when you miss with that weapon you're wide open. The sword does 100 more damage, but once I get the halberd to +15 it might be a harder choice.

No, I don't have the DLC yet but I'll probably get it this summer.

anyone interested in the techomancer? seems like injustice 2 is coming out later

Injustice 2 is gonna be dope, I'm a huge fan of the first one.

same here i am a huge fan of the new mortal kombat games and the first injustice i just enjoy that style of fighting game a lot, i am hoping for a nice long story like the first one had

You can get a bunch from the crows

Do somebody plays Tekken here? I almostly get so excited when i see

So I beat Dark Souls with my first character and then just beat it again with another. I put a ton of points into Endurance, so I was able to midroll with Havel's Armor. I used the Zweihander and was able to tank everything. Gwyn was a piece of cake, because I just kept staggering him. This playthrough took 20 hours instead of 55.

I'll probably start another game soon. This time I think I'm going to make a pyromancer, paladin, or sorcerer, because I never used any magic with my other two characters.

Oh yeah, I played PVP for the first time too. I got two notifications that people were invading me. I didn't see anybody for a long time, so I just went about playing for a little while. Then I some dude near the painting in Anor Londo. He made a bad roll so I killed him in two hits. Then I ran up to the chamber where Ornstein and Smough were, and I tried summoning a player. I ran off towards the bonfire near the princess, and noticed that someone was following me. I assumed it was the guy I summoned, since I didn't know you could be invaded by two people. He then ran up and backstabbed me to death.

I'm not sure what you mean. You can't, typically, be invaded by two people except in one specific area (the forest). Did you summon from a red sign by any chance?

Uh oh, I didn't realize the GOG summer sale was on. Picked up Undertale and Grim Fandango Remastered purely for the positive word of mouth. I feel like it's not as crazy good as it was two years ago but that could also be because I simply got all the great games they had back then. I use an old laptop so I need to stick with less graphically intense games anyway.

In other news, I was talking about the Metal Gear Solid franchise with a buddy today, and I realized that at least of the games I played (so the first four main games, I've never played the side games or Phantom Pain), there is always at least one pivotal sequence where a player is saved by somebody getting diarrhea at an inopportune time. Also, during the Shadow Moses mission, Snake tells Mei Ling that he smuggled his cigarettes in through his stomach thanks to Naomi's technobabble peptides suppressing his stomach acids. If I remember correctly, the icon for the cigs item was that of a pack, presumably a soft pack since that's usually what he smokes in other games. So while it's not quite as bad as a box, he's still implied to have swallowed an entire pack of cigarettes without chewing them and then managed to poop them out unscathed.

The moral of this story is that Hideo Kojima has a fascination with shit. This probably shocks nobody.

Japanism™.

Huh. If Ubisoft aren't actually lying this time, this might possibly be good. That's probably the most realistic lighting I've yet seen in a sandbox game.

The first Watch Dogs honestly wasn't that bad, at best feeling like 'Deus Ex goes GTA,' which for me is pretty appealing. Hmmm. The writing is still horrible though, and I can't believe they're keeping on the Anonymous theme.

Every official trailer or "gameplay footage" is fudged in some way, even if it's just run on ridiculously maxed-out settings on a PC worth your weight in gold. There's literally no reason they wouldn't fudge to make it look as good as possible. Never believe that shit until the game is out.

^ Especially with Ubisoft and their constant, constant history of downgrades.



(To be fair I think Far Cry 3 had improvements on the character model but yeah, some of those are quite egregious... Rainbow Six haha holy shit)

I mean, no one should ever underestimate Ubisoft when it comes to shady promotional practices, but I think doing the exact same thing for a sequel to a game they got blasted the world over for and even went out of their way to claim that the "downgrade controversy" in Watch Dogs would forever change their approach to marketing and promotion, even for them it would be a bit of a stretch if it didn't at least look more-or-less like that on the hardware it will sell best on.

I will never pre-order. If it looks and plays the way they presented it to catch my interest, they'll get my dollar. If not? Then, well...

Okay, not a Kojima fan, but, well, if you've watched the E3 Sony conference... with that in mind this tweet is really fucking hilarious:

https://twitter.com/wwwbigbaldhead/stat ... 6995201024



Edit: also, here's a funny thing that happened during the conference:

[some footage of a VR game, a shooter set in space]
[6/13/2016 9:54:00 PM] Morrigan: Other than the setting and VR this looks like a generic cinematic shooter
[6/13/2016 9:54:11 PM] Kahalachan: Yeah
[6/13/2016 9:54:14 PM] Morrigan: regenerating health, objective markers, modern AAA everything
[footage ends with.... "CALL OF DUTY: INFINITE WARFARE" logo]
[6/13/2016 9:54:52 PM] Morrigan: HAHAHA called it
[6/13/2016 9:54:55 PM] Kahalachan: AHAHAHAHAH

These damn modern games are so predictable, tsk tsk!

I've heard the complaints, but...wow. Just wow.

Guys....

sweeeeeet. Damn that looks fun.

So..... New God of War looks..... Kinda completely different. I also dig the changes. Like, a hell of a lot. It's familiar, yet new. I don't know what's up with the Nordic setting, or Kratos not being an eternal murder machine anymore, but I'm definitely intrigued.

I don't know if I like that. I'm all for the new setting but that "over the shoulder" camera is just all kinds of wrong for what I'm assuming is going to be a primarily melee combat system.

I haven't been playing any video games for the past few months (well, except for DW) due to my focus on music and school, and with the shift to next-gen, I haven't been able to play anything new. I was pondering getting a new console just so I can get Dark Souls 3, because Dark Souls 1 and 2 are pretty much my favorite games ever, but idk if it's worth it. So, I've been thinking about getting a 3DS instead, is that worth it?

Forgive me if you mentioned it before and I just missed it, but what does DW stand for?

Because if it stands for Dynasty Warriors then you just became my favorite noob purely because OzzyApu and I won't be the only members of the brainwashed fanclub here.

Hell yeah it stands for Dynasty Warriors! So I'm not the only fan? (plus, we're both big BR fans, which is pretty fucking cool) I've been playing it and loving it since childhood, and I still play it and love it to this day. Heck, it's even a tradition between my sister and I to play the DW4 Nanman Campaign on hard every Christmas eve (weird tradition, but it's a fun one). Dynasty Warriors is my favorite game series ever, while DW4 is my all time favorite video game, and I also enjoy all of the series' offshoots.

This brings me to another question, is DW8 worth it? I have all of them but that one, and I'm rather shaky on picking it up. 2-5 are all amazing, and 6 was fun for about a month until I finally got fed up with the fact that they gave over HALF of the character's generic movesets (and took out Xing Cai completely, cuz you know, who needs her?). 7 was quite fun, and a step in the right direction, but it was way too easy and I miss the old engine. I've heard that 8 is the best since 5, is that true? Should I snag it?

Dude yes. There's also Bloodborne on the PS4 which you're gonna love if you love Dark Souls. And Salt and Sanctuary too. No-brainer!

No, it was definitely a white sign I tried to summon from. I did some research and I think I know what happened. I had already killed Gwynevere, and so I think one of the invaders was from a special covenant. The other was probably just a normal invader.

Playing a pyromancer now. Not using pyromancy as much as I thought I would...

It could be my own childhood affecting my perception of the GoW reveal, but I'm not feeling the love between Kratos and his son. Add a few punches and body slams to the son, subtract the hunting lesson, and that was basically my own childhood.

If the director wanted to show Kratos reversing his mistakes and being a family man, I'm a little confused.

It looks pretty, but I think I'll pass on purchasing a product that appears as though it may well have me actively control and play out a hugely detrimental portion my childhood, with my father being represented by the main character and protagonist.

Dude, I thought the same until I really got the ball rolling on my old pyromancer. Get yourself power within, upgrade the fudge out of your glove, and wait till you start unlocking some of the ridiculously OP pyromancies. My buddies did all that before me, and I didn't really believe them until I tried it for myself. Power within will make almost every boss a pushover if you're a good player.

Oh yeah, I might have to look into that! I remember hearing a lot about Bloodborne, sounds really cool! Is Dark Souls 3 as good as the first two?

DW8 is, by a cartoonishly canyonesque margin, the best in the series (though I will also accept DW5 as an answer). It keeps on with what 7 did by NOT cutting out characters like 6 did and didn't fuck up the perfect charge system in favor of that god fucking awful renbu system and actually pronouncing everybody's name correctly (it drove me batty how "Cao" was always pronounced "cow" instead of "tsao"), AND improves in basically every other way. Every kingdom has at least two new characters, including FINALLY being able to play as Yue Jin and Li Dian (and also Yu Jin if you get your hands on Xtreme Legends, thereby fucking finally giving you some of the most important generals in the Wei kingdom) plus a couple of awesome newbies (Wen Yan, Guan Yinping, and especially Xu Shu are fucking insane) and finally readded Pang De, who mysteriously disappeared in 6 and was the only character to not come back in 7. It helps that Zhou Tai, my main homeboy, is still ludicrously overpowered and basically THE top tier non-Lu Bu character, so that makes me happy. The campaign has two routes for each kingdom, the historically accurate one and a split one where you don't lose half of your generals early on if you complete a bunch of optional objectives, which is great and adds replay value on top of what is already the most addicting series in history. The weapon system is 1000x better than DW7, since everybody has their own moveset and unique weapon, with a stock so huge it might as well be infinite, plus the attribute system from earlier, so you can customize them further. They also have intrinsic Heaven, Earth, or Man status, which does nothing to their attacks really but adds a rock-paper-scissors element to fighting opposing generals since each type is weak and strong against another, and there are bonuses for fighting with opposite elements like crazy guard breaking mega attacks. You carry two into battle once again, which keeps that new HEM system from being broken or unfair, since you can always swap out for an advantage. The crappy hexagonal Conquest mode is gone, replaced with a different Conquest mode that's more like the randomly generated Xtreme Legends levels from the previous generation, with a fun town/kingdom building aspect involved. I could gush forever, it's so fucking good.

If there are any flaws, it's that the voice acting and direction is still hilariously bad, but that's basically part of the charm of the series at this point. And I know you said 7 was too easy, and that can be true here too, but only if you abuse the system. One of the evolvable attributes can trigger an effect that takes x% of an enemy's max life, and Xiahou Yuan's weapon's C2 attack triggers it like five times. So if you get his ultimate weapon (which just so happens to come standard with a fully maxed version of that attribute), you can wipe out basically everybody you come across in one attack. I won't lie, I found myself giving up and equipping that as my second weapon when I was struggling with certain challenges on high difficulties.

Basically shut up and go get it.

The only Dynasty Warriors game I've played was Strike Force on the PSP. That was kinda fun. :V

Arguably better still. In any case if you enjoy DS1 and 2 there is no reason you wouldn't enjoy those two.

@BastardHead Alright, you definitely seem to know your Dynasty Warriors, and if you speak that highly of DW8, then I am so in. I think Yu Jin is the one with the dual hookswords? That looks totally badass. The fact that every character has a unique moveset is also awesome... okay, I'm gunna shut up and go get it.


You flaming idiots!! Feel the power of my MAAAAAAGIIIICCCC!! *waves hand around*



True, DS2 was so fantastic a followup that it's hard to believe; I'd imagine From would keep the quality rolling.

Has Dynasty Warriors ever decided to not suck? The whole concept of the game series has always been cool as hell to me, but in actual practice it was never very good. The enemies are just too dumb and non-aggressive to really take advantage of how ridiculously you can wreck huge numbers of them at once. Dudes are always too spread out and mostly just stand around. So yeah basically an actual engine update would be welcomed.

What's the last one you played? I think 4 was the last one when they all attacked you like the Mighty Ducks with the Flying V shit. In these new ones they mob the fuck out of you. Finishing stages with several thousand KOs is totally normal as of 7. The mooks are still kinda stupid in the sense that they swarm you but are still pretty conservative with their attacks so you never get stunlocked by three hundred spears, but it's monstrously satisfying.

And Yue Jin has the Kabal hookswords, I don't remember what Yu Jin had since I only played DW8XL twice (don't have a PS4 anymore). Either way, DW7 was a massive improvement over 6 but it still didn't have that hopeless, self collapsing vortex of addiction syndrome that 3-5 had. 8 brought that back for me.

^ That's... the whole point. You wreck a bunch of weak mobs to fill up your special attack meter (aka musou meter), and then you unleash that musou attack on stronger enemies that do fight back.

That said I'm not a big fan, but I did enjoy Hyrule Warriors and Dragon Quest Heroes despite not being a fan of either Dynasty Warriors nor of these franchises... Go figure!