oh yeah the FFT story rules but that's a totally different thing.

Yes. VI exists.

This.

Even then, VI does has a pretty major pacing problem that Xeo was always extremely quick to point out, what with the World of Ruin basically bringing the plot to a screeching halt, giving you all the time in the world to prepare and defeat Kefka when he has the ability to eradicate you from halfway around the world with a globe spanning death ray. I do agree that VI probably has the best story of them all (though I also like the whole "exposing the church" bent of X as well) but it's true that the villain pretty much wins halfway through VI and then just sits around and waits for you to kill him. It's made up for with how fucking awesome Kefka's tower is and how unbelievably epic the final fight is, but it's true and basically one of the only things about VI I find valid to complain about.

But I like that the plot comes to a halt in Ruin, it makes the ending feel much more open-ended in that you don't have to get *any* of your characters back to finish the game. In my experience it made the story much more enjoyable and so I see it as a strength. Kefka waiting around for a challenge like the false deity that conquered the world fits perfectly to me.

That was always my counter as well, Kefka's entire motivation is to become a god, and in the final fight he pretty literally does, but everything he does is driven by his insane arrogance, so it makes total sense that he'd be so fucking confident that he'd just sit up on his throne and let the heroes gather everything they can just so he can crush them again. It's right in line with his character that he'd become a god and underestimate the people who have been giving him fits throughout the entire game since he's already beaten them once before. I tend to take your perspective on it in all honesty, and VI is usually considered the best FF (and often one of the best JRPGs period) for a reason, but if somebody wants to complain about that I can at least understand where it's coming from.

Ya know, unlike whoever it was years and years and years ago who claimed XII sucked but his biggest complaint was that you couldn't jump. There are tons of things wrong with XII but that's officially the most hilarious reason I've ever seen for hating it.

lol I've never read that jumping thing about XII, that sounds insane and hilarious.

I didn't finish VI, but I don't remember a single thing about the story (I played at least a third of it, maybe half I dunno).

And I literally remember every single detail of that story.

Well Kefka doesn't even necessarily know that everyone is still alive, or that they're gathering together to defeat him. He's a god but I don't think he's omniscient, and even then (as has been pointed out), he's absolutely not the type to just nip it in the bud anyway. From his viewpoint, his total victory happened the moment he absorbed the world's magic and created the World of Ruin, and nothing can ever defeat him. If he knew the heroes were getting together again to make a final effort to defeat him, he'd probably welcome their attempt. Imagine letting them take their best shot and crushing them anyway - how's that for a god?

gaming related kinda

If I remember correctly, he also had gigantic laser that could incinerate towns, at whim. Total dominance.

Yes and he called it the Light of Judgment which is the most badass name ever for a death ray.

Sure, and whole armies of followers. I know the whole "villain would win easily if he weren't so arrogant" is a cliche, but with Kefka it makes a lot of sense. He's not at all like that prior to becoming a god - he runs away from battles he can't win, he uses sneaky tactics, and he doesn't reveal his plan until the very last second, once it's too late to stop it. And it succeeds! That's what makes the main plot to FF6 interesting - usually the villain has some mad plan for world domination/ultimate power, which the heroes stop at the last second. Instead, they fail to stop it at the last second, the villain achieves world domination/ultimate power, and the heroes have to spend the second half of the game picking up the pieces and wresting it away from him.

Well, I hope nobody here was intending to play FF6 for the first time...

I figure the statute of limitations on spoilers would have expired by now anyway. FF6 came out in what, 1993-1995? I don't think people are obligated to walk on eggshells when discussing the plot of a 20+ year old video game

Ehh, maybe, but you should have seen the non-readers bitch about spoilers in Game of Thrones, the first book came out in 1996 after all!

Yeah but reading is so

I highly disapprove of this comment.

I haven't played it yet, but don't worry, I automatically scroll past all FF posts lest my eyes glaze over.

I swear to god, every time I enter this thread you guys are either talking about Final Fantasy or Dark Souls.

Has anybody else played Doom?

i will be soon i hope depending on money, how does doom compare with bulletstorm(i know odd question)? it looks like a serious amount of fun i have watched people playing about an hour or so of it

Doom is probably the best shooter since the 98-04 era of FPS games. It's been such a long time since I've seen such good game design in a first person shooter. In essence, Doom is game about throwing different kinds of enemies at the player and forcing the player to figure out how to kill them all. When you supplement that with good level design, enemy design, weapon design, and sound design, you end up with Doom and it's fucking awesome. It says a ton about how well designed Doom is when you look at forum discussions about the game and see people discuss so many different ways just to kill one enemy and no one can seem to agree which weapons are the best.

Didn't expect them to do such a great job on the story either. I love the direction they went with Doomguy by (minor Doomguy background spoilers)

Make sure you've played Rise of the Triad 2013, Shadow Warrior 2013, STALKER, Serious Sam 3: BFE, and FEAR: Extraction Point before you make that declaration.

Rise of the Triad 2013 has a huge disconnect in it's design philosophy that made it very hard to enjoy. You can't give the player a fast movement speed, the ability to rocket jump, and so many different kinds of rocket launchers to choose from, and then force the player to pop in and out of cover and shoot boring hitscan enemies. The new Shadow Warrior did a better job at reviving an old 90's shooter and the new Shadow Warrior looks even better so I'm looking forward to that. Can't believe I forgot about STALKER though. Open-world shooters are very popular right now and it's a shame that they don't borrow idea from STALKER.

Serious Sam 3 deserves a playthrough since I was a fan of the first game. I didn't think much of FEAR: Extraction Point when I saw it but now I'm assuming it could be FPS's very own Mask of the Betrayer.

Weird, I've never once used cover in the Rise of the Triad remake... You just keep on movin', and I was playing on the second hardest difficulty. My only issue was the shitty checkpoint system, but they patched in a quicksave/quickload option pretty quickly. To be honest, I'm not a fan of the original at all, but the remake managed to tick all the right boxes for me.

Extraction Point doesn't have great writing like MotB or anything, but it takes FEAR's gameplay and refines it into an art. And also has a new difficulty setting, which was desperately needed as FEAR 1 was way too easy.

I just read that Rise of the Triad's enemies had rather shitty behavior on release where they instantly turned and shot at you as soon as you came around the corner, like a Doom 2 chaingunner or a hitscan enemy from a 3D Realms game. That was my main issue with the game so I'll give it another go.

Man, FEAR is such a great series. Even the somewhat-maligned FEAR 3 is excellent, although in a very different way from the first two. The co-op mode is amazing - one player is Point Man, and has the standard slo-mo power and uses guns, but the other player is Paxton Fettel, and has various psychic powers in his normal mode (no guns) but can possess normal enemies and use their weapons himself. Now possession has a time limit, but you can extend it by killing enemies and eating their souls. If/when the timer runs out or your host gets killed, you just explode and go back to your normal mode. This is fun enough in itself, lots of opportunities for neat combos and such, but the best part is - YOU CAN POSSESS HUMANOID BOSSES.

The one downside with FEAR 3 is that while it's definitely more challenging than a lot of modern FPS's, it's nowhere near the original games in terms of simple "beat the game" difficulty. What makes it really interesting is that in co-op mode, the much-maligned scoring system actually comes into play, as the brothers end up turning on each other in the end - whoever had the overall highest score triumphs in the end. So really, you're competing as much against your "teammate" as you are against the enemies, which encourages some really hilariously dick play, like body-blocking your buddy's headshots, kill-stealing, etc. etc. Is it as good as FEAR 1 & 2? Fuck no. But it offers something very different and definitely worth checking out.

RotD and SW appear to be good remakes, but I don't recall anybody being blown away by them. I enjoyed the hell out of Serious Sam 3: BFE, but anything not related to shooting (voicework, character models, environments, music) are embarrassingly terrible. F.E.A.R. is from a different era when FPSs were awesome so that game doesn't even belong in the weird mishmash of the others you've listed. F.E.A.R and F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin are incredible, and I very much enjoyed F.E.A.R. 3 even if it didn't hold a candle to the first two. I've no opinion on S.T.A.L.K.E.R. but I would class it with F.E.A.R. during a time when FPSs were awesome. God, I still remember blowing that asshole's head clean off as he's struggling in F2:PO. I would, without hesitation, play remastered versions of F.E.A.R. if they managed to release them.

Doom is such a goddamn outlier in today's first-person shooter climate, and it's a goddamn masterclass in weapon design, weapon mechanics, enemy design, enemy engagement design, level design, exploration, upgrade systems, story and deifying Doom Marine / Doom Slayer as they've done in the most hilariously pitch-perfect way. I've completed the game twice and I'd like to start a Nightmare run in the next couple of weeks. Also yeah, the Combat Shotgun is seriously one of the best shotgun designs, (look, sound, general portability and reliability) in a game since Rage's Combat Shotgun / Double Barrel Shotgun, BulletStorm's BoneDuster, Wolfenstein: The New Order's Auto-Shotgun and F.E.A.R.'s VK-12.

Im very close to the end and its really cool that they added Tomb Raider like upgrades. Havent even tried multiplayer yet, but I will eventually, as I bought the season pass.

04 was definitely around the peak of FPS for me. Half-life 2, Far Cry, Doom 3, Chronicles of Riddick, FEAR the next year...I haven't enjoyed em as much since that generation, aside from a few gems like STALKER. I do want to play the newer Wolfenstein games, but they had some weird crash-glitch on my PC.

Playing XCOM: Enemy Unknown again. I've never gotten too horribly far because the game is fucking hard and I've just never been particularly good at strategy games, but it's always super fun to play because it's so easy to make your own stories for the randomly generated soldiers and I've always loved that about it.

Example, the beefy Argie, Humberto Rodriguez, escapes the tutorial mission as the lone survivor, and out of his guilt for not being able to save his teammates, he takes the young Ukranian, Igor Gusev, under his wing. They become fast friends and spend the next two missions always side by side, covering for each other. Gusev was also forced to work with a stern Russian, Mia Provorov. Due to their birthplaces, their relationship is contentious and the two squabble often. One fateful mission, the four man squadron is left with only one enemy to go, and Rodriguez is badly hurt from the initial wave. He takes cover and hunkers down while Gusev shotguns the nearby aliens into a bloody mist. One enemy remains, and he gets a lucky shot after Provorov misses her snipe (she was never very good at it, she was one for four by that point), critically wounding her. Gusev has the finishing blow in his sights, but hesitates (really this just means I accidentally hit triangle, for some reason thinking it would trigger my Run n' Gun ability to allow me to take the final victory sprint and instead put myself on Overwatch). With no support, no medkits, and no time to reload, Provorov has to make a mad dash for cover to get near our Support team member. Unfortunately, the last remaining enemy was also on Overwatch, and deals the fatal shot to the pissy Russian woman as she flees. Seeing his mentor in a heap and the woman who he had such a strained working relationship with gunned down, Gusev goes commando, running up to the space directly next to the murderous alien and giving him a faceful of shredding buckshot.

Gusev's generic nickname given to him after he was promoted from this mission was "Zilch", and I choose to believe he took it out of respect for his bitter rival Provorov, who always said he would amount to as much. He is currently my highest ranked soldier and easily leads the kill count of all active members.

This is the real fun of XCOM.

Do you have Enemy Within? It's not so much an "expansion" in the traditional sense as it is in the literal sense. You still play the same campaign, but with a lot of (really cool) things added, like chopping off your soldiers' heads and putting them on giant robot bodies, genetically splicing others with alien DNA, and having to go up against traitorous humans in special missions sometimes. It's really a complete no-brainer if you like the game at all.

I'd be all over XCOM 2, but unfortunately my current computer can't run it. I'm planning to upgrade this summer, though.

Anyone else gonna be playing Blood & Wine? I thought The Witcher 3 on the whole was pretty bad, but the first premium DLC was actually surprisingly good for the most part. It looks like the main story might be a bit dopey but I'm looking forward to exploring Southern France.

I don't, but that all does sound awesome. Maybe that'll be my next purchase.

I honestly had no idea there was a second one in this new generation. I'm playing on PS3 though, as my computer is a laptop from 2010. So yeah most PC gaming that isn't through GOG isn't really gonna fly for me, haha.

Mega Man X4 is one of my favorites. It's my first game i bought on the PSX. The playstyle here is deffinently different than the previous ones.You've got enhanced graphics,new enemies and of course you get to play as Zero for the first time. The animated sequences are kind of funny due to the cheesy dubbing but it's a very fun game to play.The only thing that always pissed me off is trying to get the sub-tank,heart tank from the Mushroom stage because of those annoying yellow balls.

That game stressed me out to the point where I could not continue. I have to give it that, it was pretty solid for the most part. I should not have named my soldiers after members of my family. Hilariously, I made my brother's character a big afro'd guy with a handlebar. When he died, I switched the game off and never returned. RIP Dan.

Speaking of these sorts of games, I've been playing that Fire Emblem Fates - Birthright. It is really good!

It's intriguing that they decided not to bring XCOM 2 to current gen consoles as well, especially considering XCOM worked so well on a controller. I guess it just didn't sell well enough on console?

ATTN Morrigan: Did you see this yet?


AHAHAHAHAHA. Oh my god. It's in Beta but even as a pre-pre-Alpha it would be embarrassing. I guess the only relationship of being a GamerGate asshole and making good games is an inverse one.

I just read through all the FFVI conversation, makes me want to play it again even though I played that game waaaay too much as a kid. Probably still the best RPG story ever, after FF9 they just stopped making much sense. I suggest playing through FFVI and name every single character Kefka, it makes for a fun ending.

I bought Overwatch and it's pretty damn fun.

So I spent an hour last night fighting the doom boss with the green shield. Then I figured out how to beat it and it was kinda easy.