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Azmodes
Ultranaut

Joined: Fri Nov 02, 2007 10:44 am
Posts: 11196
Location: Ob der Enns, Austria
PostPosted: Wed Apr 20, 2016 7:00 am 
 

So I've been on a friend-induced Borderlands 2 binge this past month or so. Made it to UVHM with a Commando, to TVHM with a Zerker and a lowly lvl 10 Siren for when I play with two friends of mine. Fun game, Gunzerking with two Torgue shotguns, Moneyshot and all those cooldown reducing/'zerking increasing passive skills is just ridiculous. I need a better shield and probably a transfusion grenade mod, though. I also finished The Pre-Sequel yesterday. That Gunslinger action skill... :lol: Aim bot + Jakobs sniper rifle or revolver = fun. It has some cool gameplay additions, weapons, classes, etc. and it's interesting to see Jack's transition to his BL2 self, but I noticed that the humour is often noticeably forced and annoying compared to the sequel. That being said, I had to laugh at the new meta-comments when playing again in TVHM.

Any DLC campaigns you guys could recommend? I already played Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep, pretty fantastic all around. Heard bad things about the Hammerlock one.

I saw that there's a Battlezone remaster on Steam. Now that's bringing back some fond memories. It doesn't look as good as the Homeworld one next to the original, but I guess 16 € aren't exactly a risky investment. Has anyone played it yet?
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alex80
Mallcore Kid

Joined: Sun Apr 17, 2016 12:04 pm
Posts: 1
PostPosted: Wed Apr 20, 2016 8:19 am 
 

Hammerlock is awesome, mate! I highly recommend you to play one.
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darkeningday
xXdArKenIngDayXx

Joined: Mon Aug 23, 2004 1:20 pm
Posts: 6032
Location: United States
PostPosted: Wed Apr 20, 2016 9:33 am 
 

Azmodes wrote:
but I noticed that the humour is often noticeably forced and annoying compared to the sequel.

I dunno, that sounds exactly like Borderlands 2 to me. I had to completely quit playing just because too much of the "humor" was total nails-on-a-chalkboard for me. There definitely were great moments, but for every meta-conversation about joke-dissection with Claptrap there were five "let's re-title this enemy 'Bonerfart'" or "let's build a quest around plugging an evil AI into robots over and over and over again, because there's no way that could possibly be fucking annoying." Borderlands 1 was too far the other direction in that it was incredibly bland, but at least it didn't give me a migraine. If forced to pick between Borderlands 1 and Borderlands 2 for a semi-open, semi-RPG hub-based FPS, I'd have to go with STALKER.
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Azmodes
Ultranaut

Joined: Fri Nov 02, 2007 10:44 am
Posts: 11196
Location: Ob der Enns, Austria
PostPosted: Wed Apr 20, 2016 11:05 am 
 

YMMV, I thought those two examples were amusing. I don't mind much of the "internet era humour" of BL2, most of the time it actually works, and when it doesn't I just shrug. It doesn't spoil anything for me. That rocket science chick on Helios or the Greenpeace/flyer thing on Elpis, though... :/ Those are pretty good examples of the pre-sequel trying too hard.

alex80 wrote:
Hammerlock is awesome, mate! I highly recommend you to play one.

hah, is it? Seems to be the only BL DLC on Steam with a mixed rating. :D
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Smoking_Gnu
Chicago Favorite

Joined: Sat Mar 15, 2008 11:22 pm
Posts: 4797
PostPosted: Wed Apr 20, 2016 11:15 am 
 

Azmodes wrote:
YMMV, I thought those two examples were amusing. I don't mind much of the "internet era humour" of BL2, most of the time it actually works, and when it doesn't I just shrug. It doesn't spoil anything for me. That rocket science chick on Helios or the Greenpeace/flyer thing on Elpis, though... :/ Those are pretty good examples of the pre-sequel trying too hard.

alex80 wrote:
Hammerlock is awesome, mate! I highly recommend you to play one.

hah, is it? Seems to be the only BL DLC on Steam with a mixed rating. :D


Sums up my thoughts pretty well too. Also, BL2 with the Pre-Sequel's weapon grinder would be perfect.

And yeah, Hammerlock is boring as shit, definitely the weakest dlc.
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Morrigan
Crone of War

Joined: Sat Aug 10, 2002 7:27 am
Posts: 10528
Location: Canada
PostPosted: Wed Apr 20, 2016 3:32 pm 
 

Azmodes wrote:
YMMV, I thought those two examples were amusing. I don't mind much of the "internet era humour" of BL2, most of the time it actually works, and when it doesn't I just shrug. It doesn't spoil anything for me. That rocket science chick on Helios or the Greenpeace/flyer thing on Elpis, though... :/ Those are pretty good examples of the pre-sequel trying too hard.

alex80 wrote:
Hammerlock is awesome, mate! I highly recommend you to play one.

hah, is it? Seems to be the only BL DLC on Steam with a mixed rating. :D

I agree with both. The Pre-Sequel really failed at humour for the most part, it was very (at the risk of sounding cliché) cringe-worthy and try-hard. BL2 was more consistently funny.

And yes the Hammerlock DLC sucks. Tiny Tina's is the best, but second best is probably the Pirate one. Mr. Torgue's is amusing but gameplay wise a bit mediocre compared to the rest maybe?
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HellBlazer
Metalhead

Joined: Sat Aug 10, 2002 6:48 am
Posts: 2119
Location: Canada
PostPosted: Wed Apr 20, 2016 3:40 pm 
 

Azmodes wrote:
Any DLC campaigns you guys could recommend? I already played Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep, pretty fantastic all around. Heard bad things about the Hammerlock one.


You've played the only really good one. Captain Scarlet's is okay, Torgue's is sometimes funny but the quests are really bland, Hammerlock's is just unfathomably boring.

alex80 wrote:
Hammerlock is awesome, mate! I highly recommend you to play one.


What? Who approved this post? Clearly this is some sort of Gearbox spambot, nobody would really think this.

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Smoking_Gnu
Chicago Favorite

Joined: Sat Mar 15, 2008 11:22 pm
Posts: 4797
PostPosted: Wed Apr 20, 2016 3:46 pm 
 

The big draw for Torgue is being able to get some utterly insane explosive guns from the Torgue vending machines, though that requires a hefty amount of grinding replayable missions. Getting 3/4 of the way through Captain Scarlett's will get you the Sandhawk if you're trying to pull off a Sandhawk/Bee combo (I once got a Bee in the loot chest at the end of that campaign. :D )
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Morrigan
Crone of War

Joined: Sat Aug 10, 2002 7:27 am
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Location: Canada
PostPosted: Wed Apr 20, 2016 4:04 pm 
 

HellBlazer wrote:
What? Who approved this post? Clearly this is some sort of Gearbox spambot, nobody would really think this.

:lol:
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Von Cichlid wrote:
I work with plenty of Oriental and Indian persons and we get along pretty good, and some females as well.

Markeri, in 2013 wrote:
a fairly agreed upon date [of the beginning of metal] is 1969. Metal is almost 25 years old

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Napalm_Satan
Ever-Opening Flower

Joined: Sat Apr 18, 2015 4:27 pm
Posts: 3812
Location: United Kingdom
PostPosted: Wed Apr 20, 2016 5:07 pm 
 

I swear, more time is spent traversing the endless, featureless map on those goddamn hoverboats, chasing down that last pink borok, then you know, actually going through with the story. I played through it solely for completion of the game 3 times over. What a boring slog of a DLC - Mr. Torgue's and Scarlet's ones wreck it, to speak nothing of Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep.
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BastardHead
Worse than Stalin

Joined: Thu Aug 18, 2005 7:53 pm
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 20, 2016 6:31 pm 
 

The only ones I played through completely were Tiny Tina's and Mr. Torgue's, and I agree completely with everybody else on those. I started Captain Scarlett's but never finished. Really though, Torgue's is pretty funny but kinda eh in terms of the missions and gameplay, but Tiny Tina's is by a wide margin the best one.
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iamntbatman
Chaos Breed

Joined: Sat Feb 21, 2009 5:55 am
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Location: Tyrn Gorthad
PostPosted: Wed Apr 20, 2016 10:24 pm 
 

Yeah, I really thought that the Hammerlock one should've had a lot more "go kill this crazy giant beast" type stuff rather than that really shitty plot with the super lame villain. That rare beast hunt mission sucked, too. Fuck hunting random spawns.

That said, while it's easily the weakest DLC, it's still BL2 gameplay and the scenery is alright (even if the actual level design of it is sometimes really frustrating) so if you love the shit out of the game it'll just be a "meh" lowpoint rather than a steaming heap of shit or something.
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inhumanist
Metal freak

Joined: Fri Jan 14, 2011 5:09 pm
Posts: 5634
PostPosted: Fri Apr 22, 2016 3:00 pm 
 

I just completed the water level in Soul Reaver. It was okay, I guess, but
Spoiler: show
Rahab is a shitty boss. I forgot that you can aim your ranged attack, or it was never explained or needed before, don't remember. Took me forever to figure out what I was supposed to do, and repeatedly accidentally falling into water (not because the boss gave any notable trouble but simply because the controls really aren't very precise), and then having to climb those dumb pillars was annoying as fuck.
The emulator crashed shortly afterwards. Now I can do all of it again, jay.
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Morrigan
Crone of War

Joined: Sat Aug 10, 2002 7:27 am
Posts: 10528
Location: Canada
PostPosted: Fri Apr 22, 2016 4:09 pm 
 

:\ I liked Rahab, but it's true that the platforming was a bit annoying. Make sure you always crouch before jumping, I find that it helps with the precision.

Pretty sure the game tells you how to aim the projectile when you get it, but I don't remember 100%.

The Drowned Abbey level itself is amazing though, my favourite in the whole game. Love the music too.
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Markeri, in 2013 wrote:
a fairly agreed upon date [of the beginning of metal] is 1969. Metal is almost 25 years old

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inhumanist
Metal freak

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PostPosted: Fri Apr 22, 2016 4:28 pm 
 

The level was alright, but I liked The Tomb of the Sarafan better I think. Really creepy atmopshere and twisted level design, loved it.
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Morrigan
Crone of War

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Location: Canada
PostPosted: Fri Apr 22, 2016 4:34 pm 
 

Ah, it was kind of short though. But I really loved the twist when you open it... Raziel's being all offended was all the more hilarious.
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Von Cichlid wrote:
I work with plenty of Oriental and Indian persons and we get along pretty good, and some females as well.

Markeri, in 2013 wrote:
a fairly agreed upon date [of the beginning of metal] is 1969. Metal is almost 25 years old

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inhumanist
Metal freak

Joined: Fri Jan 14, 2011 5:09 pm
Posts: 5634
PostPosted: Fri Apr 22, 2016 4:40 pm 
 

Oh wait I mixed things up. The LoK wikia is really messy and confusing. The name of the level I meant is Silenced Cathedral. :crash:

But yeah, good level design all around.
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Morrigan
Crone of War

Joined: Sat Aug 10, 2002 7:27 am
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Location: Canada
PostPosted: Wed Apr 27, 2016 4:47 am 
 

Ni Oh alpha demo is out.

And, well... if you thought Souls games were hard... pffft, that's for babies. This demo almost crushed my soul. :(

There's apparently two missions but I spent all night doing the first one, most of it trying to kill the boss. And when I did it was just... I don't even know what I really did differently, just got kind of lucky. That's not very satisfying to be honest... :( My hype for this game is diminishing somewhat. Controls are not as precise and fluid as Souls (despite the obvious influence), the camera is pretty awful, the lock-on system sucks (my attacks often whiff because of the poor lock-on, and no circle strafing... WTF).

Too bad, there are some really cool ideas in there. I want to like this so bad, but I was mostly frustrated. I guess I'll see how mission #2 goes tomorrow...

Edit: well I posted more detailed impressions on GAF, might as well repeat them here:

----------


Well, that was brutal. Only did the first mission and it took me all night. Most of it was retrying the boss though. Didn't even start the second one yet.

Except I'm not sure if this is the good kind of brutal. Because when I did win it felt like luck, not me gitting gud. That's very unsatisfying.

I understand it's an alpha but well, the game has some glaring, glaring problems:

- Hitboxes. I often get hit when it feels like I shouldn't, and my attacks often whiff when I feel they shouldn't either. Something's off. Similarly to that, it's unclear what can be blocked and what can't. The boss's attacks sometimes could be blocked despite being at a weird dead angle where I was sure I'd get hit, and other times I was perfectly positioned and holding L1 and I'd get hit anyway (full stamina of course).

- Lock-on. That lock-on system is trash. Not only do I dearly miss circle strafing, but my attacks routinely attack in the wrong direction despite being locked on to an enemy dead ahead in front of me. This pretty much never happens in Souls games but it happened constantly here. Very frustrating.

- Windup and tracking. Some of the enemies have attacks that are frankly bullshit. I'm amazed at the archers who can insta-knock and shoot their arrows, like the one before the ship, I'd run past him and he'd get an arrow on me as soon as he aggro'd, which is ridiculous. And don't get me started on those zombies's poison grab attacks... -_-

- Durability. I actually didn't mind the durability system in DS2 because guess what, it auto-repaired at bonfires. Here your gear constantly degrades and if you are stuck on a boss, well... I guess thankfully the boss room dropped whetstones and glue every now and then, but it was very frustrating. I don't like this system much.

- Animations. They should be better in a game like this. I had to laugh at some of those running animations, or the gestures. They are really subpar.

- Spears are disappointing in the movesets. The thrusting attacks in chudan feel like they should have way more attack and staggering power. And if you use any other attack in close quarter, haha, good luck.

- The Yokai fog or whatever that cripple your stamina regen.... ugh, that's overkill guys.

- Sometimes I'd respawn at the shrine with 3 elixirs, sometimes 4. If I had 3, I'd "rest" at the shrine again (after respawning, mind) and I'd get the fourth one. What's up with that?

What I did like:

- The stances are pretty cool. As a kendo nerd I liked the switching between chudan, hasso/jodan, and gedan. :P Too bad gedan (low guard) seem to be really crap most of the time though. Quick hits but no power and no range. Maybe I'm missing their appeal but I'm pretty much always going middle/high.

- The spirit guardian thing is kind of cool. But it needs polish. If you use it against a boss, and die, you lose it until you refill it again which can take several attempts (or "grinding" against mobs to fill it up). Since they make such a huge difference, it's really a clunky and frustrating way to do things.

So yeah... even the things I like have problems to them. :( I was very excited for this game, but I hope they fix most of those things in the final release because now I'm way more lukewarm.
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Von Cichlid wrote:
I work with plenty of Oriental and Indian persons and we get along pretty good, and some females as well.

Markeri, in 2013 wrote:
a fairly agreed upon date [of the beginning of metal] is 1969. Metal is almost 25 years old

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Kahalachan
Metalhead

Joined: Mon May 17, 2010 1:46 am
Posts: 573
PostPosted: Wed Apr 27, 2016 4:31 pm 
 

I don't remember who that member was that really wanted Guile in Street Fighter V, but here's his wishes fulfilled. Guile's default uniform looks weird. He looks like a mall security guard or post office worker. I'll probably be getting his alternate costume.

But it looks like good old Guile with a few twists. Street Fighter V is trying to take me from Dark Souls 3.


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Expedience
Metal freak

Joined: Wed Aug 27, 2008 4:22 am
Posts: 4509
PostPosted: Wed Apr 27, 2016 8:36 pm 
 

FF experts -
1. Does one need to have played previous titles to enjoy IX? I'm pretty sure I've only played up to VI, and I'm not even sure I've finished all of those.
2. Are there any decent PC ports of VII and VIII?

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BastardHead
Worse than Stalin

Joined: Thu Aug 18, 2005 7:53 pm
Posts: 10857
Location: Oswego, Illinois
PostPosted: Wed Apr 27, 2016 8:55 pm 
 

Expedience wrote:
FF experts -
1. Does one need to have played previous titles to enjoy IX? I'm pretty sure I've only played up to VI, and I'm not even sure I've finished all of those.


IX might actually be more enjoyable if you've played VII and VIII, since IX was pretty obviously meant to be a wink and a nod to the people who didn't like them much, since they're darker, more serious, and have big heaps of sci-fi in them. IX is basically the polar opposite in every way, the Zidane is plucky and charismatic, a very upbeat and funny thief (worlds apart from the endless self pitying brooding of Cloud and Squall). It's very bright, colorful, has a fun atmosphere and layer of optimism as opposed to the weighty oppression of the previous two. Like, VII opens with a mercenary joining a group of eco-terrorists to blow up a large reactor, attacked by mooks with rifles, and VIII opens with the main character and his foil combat training, the MC getting his face cut open, and then spending the next two hours whining about it while you walk around university. IX on the other hand opens with your theater troupe putting on a fake play to distract people in order for the actors to kidnap a princess for ransom, only for her to get captured on purpose because she wants to run away, completely bungling the entire plan with humorous results, all while being chased by the Medieval equivalent to Barney Fife. That's not to say it's aimed at kids or anything (Vivi is heaviest and most well written character in the entire series and The Black Waltz are terrifying), but it's definitely not overflowing with angst like VII and VIII are.

Plus Freya and Beatrix are just two of the most bona-fide badasses the series ever gave us. Basically there's an added approval to IX if you played VII and VIII and didn't like them much, but it's potentially the best in the series anyway so it'll be great no matter when you play it. If I have any problem at all, it's that Amarant is pointlessly shoehorned into the story just so you can have a monk type character, and you go ungodly long stretches without being able to save, otherwise it's phenomenal.
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Zelkiiro
Pounding the world with a fish of steel

Joined: Sat Apr 18, 2009 5:30 pm
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Location: Pennsylvania
PostPosted: Wed Apr 27, 2016 9:12 pm 
 

BastardHead wrote:
If I have any problem at all, it's that Amarant is pointlessly shoehorned into the story just so you can have a monk type character, and you go ungodly long stretches without being able to save, otherwise it's phenomenal.

I liked Amarant--he was an obvious foil for Zidane, in that Zidane is upbeat and buddy-buddy with everyone, whereas Amarant super self-serious and is a loner because he thinks being in a group just slows you down, and naturally his character arc involves him learning that his way isn't necessarily always the right way to go, and that putting up a tough-guy routine isn't what strength is all about.

But yes, Vivi, Freya, and Beatrix are probably among the greatest characters in the entire franchise. I'd even stick Quina in there, just because no other title in the series has ever had a character so brainlessly brazen and consistently hilarious.
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WebOfPiss
Myopic Void

Joined: Mon Sep 22, 2008 7:17 pm
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Location: Presidio Modelo
PostPosted: Wed Apr 27, 2016 9:29 pm 
 

Oglops?!
Spoiler: show
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iamntbatman
Chaos Breed

Joined: Sat Feb 21, 2009 5:55 am
Posts: 11421
Location: Tyrn Gorthad
PostPosted: Wed Apr 27, 2016 9:59 pm 
 

Finished Bastion. Pretty fun game though I'm glad it was only like 11 hours long. I really liked the art, music and narration and the seemingly bare-bones story got a bit more interesting toward the end. Combat was serviceable enough. I really liked how they handled difficulty - there are only two difficulty levels, normal and infinite lives mode (you actually have infinite lives no matter what, but if you die more than once (twice with an unlockable upgrade) you have to start levels over from the beginning. Anyway you can tweak the difficulty to your liking by activating different idols at the shrine to give specific bonuses to enemies, like faster movement/attack, chance to reflect attacks back, dropped bombs when killed, etc. which give you bonus XP and money. Really cool way to customize the difficulty.

That said, the upgrade system and combat aren't really deep enough for a game of more than 10-12 hours or so, so I didn't really have any burning desire to jump into NG+.
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Expedience
Metal freak

Joined: Wed Aug 27, 2008 4:22 am
Posts: 4509
PostPosted: Wed Apr 27, 2016 10:10 pm 
 

BastardHead wrote:
and you go ungodly long stretches without being able to save, otherwise it's phenomenal.


The new port autosaves when you change rooms, along with high-speed mode which will be useful when watching repetitive battle animations.

Thanks for the handy info anyway.

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Adriankat
Veteran

Joined: Tue Jul 31, 2007 10:54 pm
Posts: 2793
PostPosted: Thu Apr 28, 2016 1:08 am 
 

Doom 4 just had a huge info drop on it's single player.
https://www.twitch.tv/bethesda/v/63155977

Looks fucking amazing. I wasn't expecting for there to be such a huge Metroid Prime influence.
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darkeningday
xXdArKenIngDayXx

Joined: Mon Aug 23, 2004 1:20 pm
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Location: United States
PostPosted: Thu Apr 28, 2016 2:21 am 
 

Erm, it looks more like Doom 3 mixed with a, uh, brighter version of Doom 3. Does look more fun than Doom 3 though.


In other news about things that you'd think would be bad but actually aren't, I just finished EA's FPS reboot of beloved strategy game Syndicate.

And guess what? It was actually pretty damned good. Like all Starbreeze Studios games (makers of the Riddick series), the acting and production values were out of this world; there were even some big name actors like Brian Cox, Rosario Dawson (!!) and Michael Wincott, all turning in film-level performances while reciting some very good dialog. Unfortunately the story itself was so stock standard you could calibrate your watch to the story beats. Because there was such a wide quality gap between the plot and the actual writing, I can only assume some extremely talented writers at Starbreeze were handed a "bottom line" from the top brass of the EA sweatshops.

Honestly though, if you want a 6-hour big-budget dystopian sci-fi interactive-blockbuster you could do a whole helluva lot worse. The shooting mechanics have all been polished to a mirror shine with SFX that could put the fear of god into Gaahl, the graphics are fantastic if you can forgive whoever left the Bloom tap on, and the game finally does cutscenes RIGHT by emulating Valve rather than Hollywood. The co-op looks cool too.

Definitely worth <$20 if that's what you're looking for. Just don't expect it to last very long or reinvent anything.

Or provide justification for its own IP revival. :-/
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BarryLamarBonds
Metal newbie

Joined: Wed Oct 31, 2007 11:36 pm
Posts: 342
Location: United States of America
PostPosted: Thu Apr 28, 2016 3:12 am 
 

Expedience wrote:
FF experts -
1. Does one need to have played previous titles to enjoy IX? I'm pretty sure I've only played up to VI, and I'm not even sure I've finished all of those.
2. Are there any decent PC ports of VII and VIII?


VII is on Steam and, by most accounts I've read, is a solid port. Can't say the same for VIII.

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Adriankat
Veteran

Joined: Tue Jul 31, 2007 10:54 pm
Posts: 2793
PostPosted: Thu Apr 28, 2016 3:22 am 
 

darkeningday wrote:
Erm, it looks more like Doom 3 mixed with a, uh, brighter version of Doom 3. Does look more fun than Doom 3 though.

I'm guessing you missed the automap, exploration, and the various suit and weapon upgrades you can get.
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darkeningday
xXdArKenIngDayXx

Joined: Mon Aug 23, 2004 1:20 pm
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Location: United States
PostPosted: Thu Apr 28, 2016 3:33 am 
 

You guessed wrong!
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caspian
Old Man Yells at Car Park

Joined: Tue Dec 07, 2004 11:29 pm
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Location: Australia
PostPosted: Sun May 01, 2016 8:26 am 
 

Man, so just finished undertale for the first time. Neutral playthrough. I highly recommend anyone who hasn't played it to give it a shot. It's cheap, it's relatively short and it's really awesome. Really funny and rather heart warming- I was surprised how quickly i grew attached to the characters. It also subverts a bunch of gaming tropes in a lot of creative ways, sometimes great, sometimes not so great. All in all though I loved the shit out of it and haven't felt this way about a game for an extremely long time. 10 year sort of time deal. Just astoundingly great, not like anything I've ever played before. Gonna have to replay it as pacifist as possible and as evil as possible I think. Fantastic soundtrack too.

Spoiler: show
I wasn't really a fan of the final boss battle though. While I thought the "quit the game unexpectedly" thing was cool the first time, as it went on (I died a fair few times haha) it just got annoying and spoiled the immersion a fair bit. Same with the abrupt monty-python-on-a-bad-trip graphical change; I felt it all could've been handled just as well using the poor graphics that defined the rest of the game. On a positive note, Papyrus and Sans are some of the best vg characters in who knows who long.. One of those moments were you're going to miss having a fictional character around, yknow?
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hey
Metalhead

Joined: Thu Feb 07, 2008 6:41 pm
Posts: 1636
Location: United States of America
PostPosted: Sun May 01, 2016 12:51 pm 
 

caspian wrote:
Man, so just finished undertale for the first time. Neutral playthrough. I highly recommend anyone who hasn't played it to give it a shot. It's cheap, it's relatively short and it's really awesome. Really funny and rather heart warming- I was surprised how quickly i grew attached to the characters. It also subverts a bunch of gaming tropes in a lot of creative ways, sometimes great, sometimes not so great. All in all though I loved the shit out of it and haven't felt this way about a game for an extremely long time. 10 year sort of time deal. Just astoundingly great, not like anything I've ever played before. Gonna have to replay it as pacifist as possible and as evil as possible I think. Fantastic soundtrack too.

Spoiler: show
I wasn't really a fan of the final boss battle though. While I thought the "quit the game unexpectedly" thing was cool the first time, as it went on (I died a fair few times haha) it just got annoying and spoiled the immersion a fair bit. Same with the abrupt monty-python-on-a-bad-trip graphical change; I felt it all could've been handled just as well using the poor graphics that defined the rest of the game. On a positive note, Papyrus and Sans are some of the best vg characters in who knows who long.. One of those moments were you're going to miss having a fictional character around, yknow?

I always like recommending LISA to people who enjoyed Undertale, it's maybe a tad under appreciated in comparison but still fairly popular with fans of the latter.

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HellBlazer
Metalhead

Joined: Sat Aug 10, 2002 6:48 am
Posts: 2119
Location: Canada
PostPosted: Sun May 01, 2016 2:57 pm 
 

caspian wrote:
Man, so just finished undertale for the first time. Neutral playthrough. I highly recommend anyone who hasn't played it to give it a shot. It's cheap, it's relatively short and it's really awesome. Really funny and rather heart warming- I was surprised how quickly i grew attached to the characters. It also subverts a bunch of gaming tropes in a lot of creative ways, sometimes great, sometimes not so great. All in all though I loved the shit out of it and haven't felt this way about a game for an extremely long time. 10 year sort of time deal. Just astoundingly great, not like anything I've ever played before. Gonna have to replay it as pacifist as possible and as evil as possible I think. Fantastic soundtrack too.

Spoiler: show
I wasn't really a fan of the final boss battle though. While I thought the "quit the game unexpectedly" thing was cool the first time, as it went on (I died a fair few times haha) it just got annoying and spoiled the immersion a fair bit. Same with the abrupt monty-python-on-a-bad-trip graphical change; I felt it all could've been handled just as well using the poor graphics that defined the rest of the game. On a positive note, Papyrus and Sans are some of the best vg characters in who knows who long.. One of those moments were you're going to miss having a fictional character around, yknow?


Yep, awesome game.

Spoiler: show
If you had trouble with Photoshop Flowey, wait until you get to the end of the genocide playthrough. :D

Just a hint to get on the genocide path (though you should probably do pacifist first): it's not enough to just kill everything in your way, you actually need to run around in each area until there are no enemies left, and you get "empty" random encounters. Be sure to do that in the first area before you reach Toriel's house. The music will change once you're on the right (wrong?) path.

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WebOfPiss
Myopic Void

Joined: Mon Sep 22, 2008 7:17 pm
Posts: 3025
Location: Presidio Modelo
PostPosted: Wed May 04, 2016 11:07 pm 
 

I wish I'd known about Hagane sooner. It's a fuckin' dope sidescrollin' action platformer for the SNES, Ninja Gaiden meets Mega Man, by Hudson Soft, makers of Bomberman. There a 4 or so weapon types, neat pick ups, a bunch of different enemies, plenty of bosses and mini bosses, fast paced running auto scrollers a la the magic carpet sequence from Capcom's Aladdin, and kickass visuals-cyber Japan with swords.

Spoiler: show
Image


Also discovered today was the Japanese released Alcahest, developed by Hal Laboratory, makers of Kirby.

sick box art:
Spoiler: show
Image

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yentass
Metalhead

Joined: Sun Nov 23, 2003 9:28 am
Posts: 927
Location: Israel
PostPosted: Thu May 05, 2016 7:26 am 
 

hey wrote:
I always like recommending LISA to people who enjoyed Undertale, it's maybe a tad under appreciated in comparison but still fairly popular with fans of the latter.

Of course it's going to be under appreciated if you keep recommending LISA only to people who enjoyed Undertale instead of, I don't know, everyone (at least those who don't mind their brains creeped out clean off). :wink: The DLC could have been better though.

Anyway, if any of you who play on PC has an itch for a distilled, Baby Mozart-esque Dark Souls experience - you might want to give a fairly recent indie title named Pharaonic a look.
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Morrigan
Crone of War

Joined: Sat Aug 10, 2002 7:27 am
Posts: 10528
Location: Canada
PostPosted: Thu May 05, 2016 2:43 pm 
 

yentass wrote:
Anyway, if any of you who play on PC has an itch for a distilled, Baby Mozart-esque Dark Souls experience - you might want to give a fairly recent indie title named Pharaonic a look.

Not according to an experienced Dark Souls player, huh. (And before you accuse me of cherry-picking, that's the most detailed review I found, and other positive reviews still complained about the shitty hitboxes so...)

Plus the game's art style makes me want to gouge my eyes out. No thanks. You want a 2D Souls-like, wait for Salt and Sanctuary. :nods:
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soverysorry
Metal newbie

Joined: Mon Jan 17, 2011 8:25 pm
Posts: 285
Location: Ireland
PostPosted: Thu May 05, 2016 3:22 pm 
 

If anyone wants to play some fucking Age of Empires 2, then please let me know. For those who may be unawares, it still has a huge online community and in fact there was an expansion released last November. Yes, 17 years later and there's still a big community and new material. It's that fucking good.

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yentass
Metalhead

Joined: Sun Nov 23, 2003 9:28 am
Posts: 927
Location: Israel
PostPosted: Thu May 05, 2016 6:22 pm 
 

Morrigan wrote:
Not according to an experienced Dark Souls player, huh. (And before you accuse me of cherry-picking, that's the most detailed review I found, and other positive reviews still complained about the shitty hitboxes so...)

Plus the game's art style makes me want to gouge my eyes out. No thanks. You want a 2D Souls-like, wait for Salt and Sanctuary. :nods:

Can't say I'm familiar with that player, but I've got to say that his/her judgement of the game is somewhat misplaced in my opinion. Sure, when you go with a toe-to-toe comparison between a widely popular 4.5-game AAA franchise and a $15 indie title - the indie title is probably going to lose. Well, color me surprized and shocked to my very core. Sure, it's nowhere near as polished (most of the clunkiness of this game is a problem shared with many 2.5D indie titles, up to the very popular Trine series) as it could have been, but for what it is - a $15 indie title that tries to riff on a popular formula - it's pretty serviceable. Some of its new ideas and implementations of old ones miss, some actually manage to hit.

And yeah, I'm pretty much waiting on S&S just as much as the rest of this list. The waiting bit is the problem though, with nary of these games having a known release date along with anything else I'm remotely interested in, so I counted on something like Pharaonic to kinda tidy me over a bit. Guess it did.
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kingnuuuur wrote:
DoomMetalAlchemist wrote:
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Morrigan
Crone of War

Joined: Sat Aug 10, 2002 7:27 am
Posts: 10528
Location: Canada
PostPosted: Thu May 05, 2016 6:52 pm 
 

Well S&S is an $18 CAD indie title made by two people and it's very polished, with excellent hitboxes and precise combat, so I don't think the "it's indie" has many excuses. Perhaps this game is serviceable enough, I don't know, but I can't say I find it very appealing.

That said I really hope EITR and Death's Gambit end up being as good as they look. S&S didn't disappoint and even exceeded my expectations, so the bar has been raised!

From that video, Necropolist lost me at "rogue-like". Nope nope nope
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Von Cichlid wrote:
I work with plenty of Oriental and Indian persons and we get along pretty good, and some females as well.

Markeri, in 2013 wrote:
a fairly agreed upon date [of the beginning of metal] is 1969. Metal is almost 25 years old

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~Guest 334273
Veteran

Joined: Tue Apr 01, 2014 2:19 am
Posts: 2513
PostPosted: Thu May 05, 2016 7:13 pm 
 

caspian wrote:
Man, so just finished undertale for the first time. Neutral playthrough. I highly recommend anyone who hasn't played it to give it a shot. It's cheap, it's relatively short and it's really awesome. Really funny and rather heart warming- I was surprised how quickly i grew attached to the characters. It also subverts a bunch of gaming tropes in a lot of creative ways, sometimes great, sometimes not so great. All in all though I loved the shit out of it and haven't felt this way about a game for an extremely long time. 10 year sort of time deal. Just astoundingly great, not like anything I've ever played before. Gonna have to replay it as pacifist as possible and as evil as possible I think. Fantastic soundtrack too.

Spoiler: show
I wasn't really a fan of the final boss battle though. While I thought the "quit the game unexpectedly" thing was cool the first time, as it went on (I died a fair few times haha) it just got annoying and spoiled the immersion a fair bit. Same with the abrupt monty-python-on-a-bad-trip graphical change; I felt it all could've been handled just as well using the poor graphics that defined the rest of the game. On a positive note, Papyrus and Sans are some of the best vg characters in who knows who long.. One of those moments were you're going to miss having a fictional character around, yknow?


I've never been really much into videogames, but a friend practically forced me to play it (after months of "it's deep! emotional! makes you cry! blah blah").. and i can say that, to my surprise, i really liked it!
The characters, the story and the music (an highlight for sure!) have all a naive charm that i'm not going to forget.. even if i got a lot of problems with the battle system and kept dying :(
(a particular fight was insanely more difficult than the others.. more frustrating than selling door-to-door Sky subscriptions :( )

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