My friends and I have been running a persistent AntiStasi multiplayer campaign in A3 for a few months now. We always need more help if you're interested, or I also play Wasteland, Endgame and KOTH servers a lot. That said, I like the game more for its open-world nature and am not a very good strategist.

Morrowind game breaking > everything else game breaking

Yeah, I've heard great stuff about Arma III, would love to play it one day. Plus, there's a WW2 mod for it, and I love the shit out of WW-themed games.

Verdun is a pretty shweet WW1 tactical fps. Highly reliant on teamwork and some matches are so intense with people getting killed left right and center just for a stalemate. It's quite hectic with artillery dropping all of the time, bullets flying in every direction, poison gas. Taking a trench successfully is fairly rewarding, especially if you can manage to hold off the counter attack. I'd like to see some comp play of it but who knows really the playerbase is tiny and the game just barely launched officially.

I like that Morrowind put that Scroll of Icarian Flight guy near the beginning area to actually encourage game-breaking for new players.

Heard of that one too, though more negative stuff about it. Will consider, thanks.

Persona 5 comes out tomorrow. Looks like running through P4 last year was great timing since it quickly became one of the most enjoyable JRPGs I've played and it was only shortly before the release of a nine-years-in-development sequel. Gotdamb I can't wait. Gonna neglect the shit out of my girlfriend.

I finally beat FTL on easy mode, lol. My gf beat it her first playthrough ugh.

Having 2 burst laser mark IIs, a chain laser, and a missile was pretty OP.

I sure can't wait to not be able to afford it because it probably won't launch on the PS3 and, even if it does, I still can't shell out the $60 for it! I'm so pumped!

Guess I'll play P4G again, I guess.

I got it for PS3 (still too poor to upgrade) AND I literally just now got off the phone with my girlfriend's grandma (we get packages sent there because the mailman at the apartment is a dick) because she had to tell me I had a package there! SUCK IT DAY EARLY NEENER NEENER

I've beaten it on hard with every ship and every layout! Except Cruiser Layout C because fuck that one.

Thanks, I'll check them out. It's not so much the "thought and caution" related to weaponry I'm interested in, it's the question "should I shoot this guy?" in the first place. 99% of shooters the answer is unequivocally "YES", because that's what you do in shooters. I guess in that case, SWAT is not a shooter since you goal isn't to go into a place and kill everyone, but achieve certain goals that a police squad would want to achieve. Shooting is only there to serve that aim, and is used very rarely. And if you do it, you have to pay the price. The difficulty lies in assessing the situation and tactically weighing up your options for the best outcome -- not in terms of kills but morally, where your actions are linked to more than just winning.

Apparently my friend, whom I share my PS3 account with, bought Persona 5 just now. And there was much rejoicing.

Jesus fucking Christ, dude. How is it even possible to beat it on hard?

I dream about playing the Persona games with my gf one day, lol. I watched my brother play the original first two Megami Tensei games, I know Persona is totally different, but it just seems like a great series to play with someone.

Well, it requires a certain minimum amount of luck, in that by the end of a run you need pretty good offensive synergy. The twin burst laser Mark II's that you mentioned for example are a great linchpin for a weapon loadout, but on some runs you can visit every shop and simply never see a decent gun. Otherwise, it really helps to know all the encounters - many of them have random outcomes, but many of those random outcomes are weighted either positive or negative - you've probably seen the "alien spiders" encounter for example; without special equipment, if you choose to help the colony fight the alien spiders, you stand to either win some scrap or lose a crewmember, which is a terrible tradeoff. Others are weighted toward the positive, like exploring the asteroid field.

But probably the largest factor is simply learning good tactics and being able to perform them effectively. Boarders especially are something it takes a while to know how to deal with. Protip: buy door system upgrades and vent your oxygen. In short: git gud!

I wasn't a huge fan of Verdun. I don't think WWI makes for an interesting shooter if you try and play it realistically.

I wish Battlefield 1 would just abandon all pretense of being historical and become some really over the top dieselpunk game. Like a 3D Metal Slug game or something.

Radical! Glad I won't be the only dork immersed in that for a while. I've only been able to play for like an hour, and since, like its predecessors, this one seems to be a really slow starter, nothing has really happened yet, but two things really stuck out to me right away.

The good thing is how starkly different everybody's attitude is towards you. You got a fair shake in the previous game, people were excited to meet the transfer student from the big city, you immediately had a connection with Yosuke, etc. Here? Oh hell no. Life dealt you a crap hand and everybody you meet just can not wait to shit on you for it. I still actually haven't had my first day of school yet so I don't know how fellow students will be but holy shit everybody you meet just hates you right away. You actually feel like an outsider this time.

The bad thing is Igor's new voice actor. I know it's a tradition in Japan to retire a character when their VA passes away, and Igor's died before he recorded anything for P5, so there was a lot of uncertainty if he'd be the guide in the Velvet Room again or not. Well, he is back, but for some reason he has a new English VA as well and MY GOD is it jarring. Before, he looked and sounded something like Mr. Burns. Devious and old, always with a false looking toothy grin and tented fingers. It fit, he sounded how he looks? Now? For some utterly unfathomable reason he looks the same as always but now has a giant booming baritone like Keith David or Isaac Hayes. He sounds like fucking Chef. It's so bizarre.

Ah, I see. Then that applies to Stalker only. You are totally free to shoot anyone you like, but with it comes a price of getting fucked over by your victims' friends. Doesn't seem to be that focused on that kind of stuff like SWAT though.

"Say, everybody, have you seen my cards? They're long and pointy and fine! If you ever need a quick, Per-so-na, just stick my cards in your mind!"

No, I've played Stalker. It sucks, bigtime. (the movie rocks though)

Nevermind, carry on.

Oh, alright then.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is pretty much the only harshly realistic FPS I like, if only because the realism actually adds to the experience by enhancing the game's bleak mood. Other than that, yeah, I like running around like a headless chicken shooting missiles everywhere with only the faintest semblance of a plot. Games are supposed to be fun, after all.

I've been playing a lot of Squad since discovering it in November. It's a semi-realistic shooter like Arma or Insurgency, 40v40 objective based. It's still in alpha, but I love the gameplay so far. There's a lot of emphasis on coordination and teamwork. It's the only shooter I know of where you can be seriously helpful to your team and have fun even without getting a single kill. It's poorly optimized at this point, but there's a free weekend on Steam this weekend if you wanna try it out.

I liked Spec Ops: The Line a lot because it was a really harsh and aggressive deconstruction of modern shooters, but even then the goal is still "shoot everything you see", it's just that it makes you feel like a terrible person for doing so as the game goes on. Not really the same thing as the SWAT games. But yeah, I agree with X, just shooting the shit out of things is fun. Why do you think DOOM is basically the most influential non-Mario game in existence? Gimme a huge arsenal of ludicrous Ratchet and Clank weapons or relentless cartoon murder in Borderlands over deliberate, tactical operations with weighty consequences. There's nothing inherently wrong with that but I certainly have less fun with it.

I think you'd like it if you enjoy Red Orchestra. Got a very similar feel, even more squad based. Verdun really balances realism and fun well imo. It's pretty chaotic and super rewarding if both sides know what they're doing. I don't know what the console version is like but I have no qualms with Verdun on PC.

Insurgency is fun as fuck but the recent updates appearantly made it shit. (Some intrusive anti-cheat that's definitely NSA approved.) I was a big fan of the original mod and it was nice to see a full game made out of it. There's a WW2 spin off now, I forget what it's called. Day of Infamy maybe?

I have over 800 hours in Natural Selection 2. One of the most unique multiplayer games on steam. Cheap as shit too. I haven't played it in like a year but I'm thinking about picking it back up. The developers have people from the community keeping the game running now.

I really want Squad but I don't want to pay $40 for it. I think I missed a few sales, is there a discount where it's free weekend?

I played a shit ton of FPS (basically since Wolfenstein 3D) and to this day I find that there's nothing quite comparable to the uuuhhnnnn feeling that I get from juan deaging someone in the face. It's just... evilgasmic, each and every time.

I think you're the first person I've ever seen who both dislikes the Stalker games and likes the Tarkovsky film... Just... wtf.

Do you think Tarkovsky himself would have liked the game?

I don't think that's a question that matters much now, does it? Stephen King hated Kubrick's adaptation of The Shining. Doesn't really make it a bad one.

That is true, but the Stalker game is far from an adaptation. In the film the Zone was simply a medium to explore philosophical themes, the game lacks those themes while retaining the now hollow medium. It commodifies everything that made the Zone mysterious and worthy of exploration, turning those mysteries into things to be exploited or conquered for material gain.

Sure, the game isn't philosophically deep or anything (not that I care about having that kinda stuff in my video games), but that bit about the Zone not being mysterious or worthy of exploration anymore? Couldn't disagree more. It oozes atmosphere and bleak dread, the kind that truly makes you feel like you shouldn't be there. Even during the middle of the day, under open skies, it seems more like you're in some kind of walled off, hostile part of reality rather than a former human settlement, and that's without touching areas such as the Red Forest or the ruins of Pripyat. The Exclusion Zone is far from a hollow medium, even when stripped of the themes of the movie.

I think the devs were considering 50% off this weekend. Not positiv.. If you add it to your wishlist you can get a notification when it's on sale though.

Edit: It is half of now.

Yeah I've played CS since I was 13 or so, 27 now, classic. Although CS is definitely less run n gun than something like Doom, more calculated...but it's got a nice mix. It's an action game at the end of the day, just one with a lot of depth.

FTL RNG is so brutal thought I was gonna win on easy today no problem, 4 different laser guns (heavy 1+2, chain, charger), hacking, 2 defense drones, 40% evade and full shields...flagship round 2 immediately destroyed my guns, shields, cloning bay, and drone station thing. Completely rekt

Whoops sorry for the double post.

not once in my life have i played a wipeout game, this is my chance finally



i cant wait, i loved episode 1 podracer, i enjoyed powerdrome on the xbox a lot(no one else seems to like that one) so finally i can play one of the biggest if not the biggest futuristic racers of all time

Play Redout instead, it's better than any Wipeout.

i heard great things about Redout do you know when its released for playstation 4? honestly i might get both you can never have too many great futuristic racers plus Wipeout Omega is only $50

I'm guessing it will release somewhere around the release date of the switch version, which is planned for end of december. If you don't have a chance of playing it on PC, Wipeout will certainly pass the time until then and it will make Redout's infinite superiority shine even more once you get it.

thanks i must admit i dont know too much about futuristic racing games but as i said i loved star wars episode 1 podracer on the N64, i enjoyed Powerdrome on the xbox, wipeout is one of the bigger names if not the biggest and i have only heard great things about Redout, i love the idea of being able to create your own ship/podracer from the ground up which i have sadly never seen done

i know i been posting about this a bit but this looks like a lot of fun



i love how you can

Fuck Persona, the superior JRPG franchise has a new entry coming out soon... Trails in the Sky the 3rd comes out in May!



http://store.steampowered.com/app/436670/

I don't know if I'm ready. Trails of Cold Steel I and II ate most of my life for a while.

Edit: wow, Trails of Cold Steel I and II are both coming out to Steam as well!