So I bought Dark Souls last weekend after reading all the praise here and across the internet and only just now beat the damn Taurus Demon just to be killed by that damn wyvern... I am starting to understand the bittersweet joy this game creates. I am glad I beat the demon after working hard to get to him, but was pissed once I was burnt to a crisp right after. I am enjoying the experience overall though, it reminds me of when I played through MGS2: Sons of Liberty; lots of frustration punctuated by moments of sheer exhilaration when your work pays off. Well, back to the grind.

Just wait till you get to the Capra Demon

Wii Fit and Nintendogs were still new IPs when introduced, regardless of what you or I label them as. They have been a lot more conservative with their newer IP since then, opting for e-shop/digital releases a lot of the time (see Pullblox/Fallblox, HarmoKnight, Dillon's Rolling Western). I can't say I blame them for not wanting to risk a big push on some of the stuff they've produced, they know what sells and what doesn't. As I said before, in an ideal world they'd put money into more different stuff and make a big push on it. I do want something unique like Ouendan/Elite Beat Agents again. But hell, Mario sells millions.

This is in response to MGSV being open world, I remember when GTA3 came out and I was completely blown away. I thought man how neat would it be if every game was open world and we could have living breathing cities and worlds. Then Oblivion came along and blew the whole concept wide open(to all Morrowind fans don't get narky it's still my fav one but Oblivion's world was revolutionary) everyone had patterns, they slept they ate and they walked around and talked to people. Sure it got a little tired after a while when you hear the same dialogue over and over again but it was quite refreshing to see such a move in gaming.

Then the inevitable copy cats came along and every shitty budget game was trying to emulate open world sandbox gaming on that scale. It became an industry seller and now it seems that we can't walk three metres without seeing advertising for the next shitty open world game. If you had said to me a while back that MGSV would be open world I'd be thrilled, now I'm a bit sketchy about the whole idea. Open world/sandbox has become so overused in the industry now and even me the biggest open world game enthusiast has grown weary of it.

Mirror's Edge 2 is open-world and probably has less shooting. Color me excited. While I like open-world games, I'm not that crazy on them and don't wish every franchise follow that path, but that's exactly what I thought would make Mirror's Edge even more awesome. There's different ways to pull it off, like designing the missions to be outside the open-world itself, but just the ability to endlessly run around this city makes me incredibly eager to have my hands on this. I just hope the feel of speed and thrill is still there and that the controls and moves are as satisfying.

Mirror's Edge had a cool concept and great style but I thought the game itself was disappointingly short and considering it was supposed to discourage shooting, shooting was actually the best way to deal with enemies a lot of the time. If the game is big and involves a lot of freerunning and exploration though I'd be really interested.

Borderlands II is so addicting!

What platform are you playing it on?

I didn't mind the length because they managed to keep it quite varied for the whole length and part of the game is to be as fast as possible. I like being able to get through the game in one sitting and I think they meant it that way, with a short story happening over the length of two days (mostly over the same day). Finishing the game was almost just getting started. Then you got the speedruns and time trials which were honestly very fun.

In fact, I started to enjoy Mirror's Edge a whole deal more after I finally bought the game late last year (after beating it once back in 2008), re-finished it and actually spent a big chunk of time honing my skills and learning new movies while doing speedruns and time trials. Getting 3 stars for a time trial is not only extremely satisfying because you managed to do it, but because the gameplay itself rewards you a lot. You really run through the whole thing and feel the speed and thrill. And that's something which I really enjoyed, it is rare nowadays to see such a game with a steep learning curve, and one that rewards you as such as you progress. That's why I say the objective of the game is not getting through the story mode, it's about doing quasi-perfect runs through really nice level design. I think in particular of that huge tower near the end of the game where you have to go on top. There's the speedrun itself which is really fun to do, but also the two time trials. The one which you have to actually climb it and the one where you have to go down. I failed many many times but it was so damn fun to pull off at the end.

I also like a lot that in the gameplay, even the little things made a difference. Just crouch while jumping can make you keep your momentum, running on walls to jump at the opposite side or simply that little trick of giving yourself a boost with your foot in corners or when you get outside after bashing a door. This time trial is pretty sweet: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aU-NHD73Bd0 (you should also look at the 1 hour speedrun of the whole game.
And then you go through the story mode again in a breeze and have a lot of fun. But granted, knowing the levels help and it's a lot easier with a short game. I don't think this type of stuff is meant to be long.

As for the shooting, I agree those bits could've been better, it's a bit hard to figure out what you can do without too much shooting. But even the bit with the server room isn't too hard when you figure it out, I think you can just run around kicking the servers and leave. But sometimes the shooting was fun (even if I was trying to evade it most of the time) because you arrive running, beating the shit out of a guard, take is automatic gun and in 5 seconds unload it in the two others near and then leave as fast as you got in. Pretty satisfying.

But one of the reasons I'm so excited about the open-world, is that you finally have ''real'' free running. You can run as long as you can in different directions honing your skills and doing fancy stuff to reach cool places and feel the speed for a longer period of time. It's like a Tony Hawk game when you just feel like doing shit around in a free run for as long as you wish instead of actually playing the game with limited time. And in Mirror's Edge, if you feel like just running around, well you pretty much are limited to the path you have to follow.

But yeah, there's room for improvement which is a big reason why I am so excited.

man, that is some big post I made.

Playstation 3

^ That's a shame, we can't coop then.

From Kahalachan: Reggie says to devs bitching about used games losing them money: make better games, lol.

Zing!

New Metal Gear Solid 5 E3 trailer looks so cool. Judging purely on looks as well as the time frame, I'm guessing Eli might be Liquid Snake.

It's brutal as hell at first, but it will get "easier" as you level up and get better at the game. I got about 5 characters up in the level 100 range and one at 250. Also beat the whole game in a couple hours once I knew exactly what I was doing. I hope you got the summoning stone from the knight on the balcony area before the bridge where the wyvern cooks you? A good strategy early on is to keep putting your summon sign down and help other people defeat the boss of the area which will give you souls and humanity. Then once you have a bunch of humanity you can reverse hollowing and summon people to help you as well. One of my favorite games of all time for sure

What's interesting is how true it is. If you go to a Gamestop and see the prices for the main Nintendo franchises, they hold their value a lot better than most other games. Rockstar games too hold their value pretty well and they're mentioned in the article as being all for used games.

And then there's Xenoblade which no one on earth wants to trade in. But it having a strong cult following is a strong factor so I won't say it's this OMG awesome game despite me thinking so.

When I bought The Last of Us today I saw no Demon's Souls or Dark Souls used games. The good games are just harder to find used giving you incentive to just get the new copies.

First thoughts on The Last Of Us? I was a little hesitant because I was wary that it might be a feature-length escort mission, but the almost ubiquitously-positive reviews officially have my attention. The Uncharted games prove that Naughty Dog is great at crumbling ruins and huge setpieces, so I'm interested in their take on the post-apocalyptic genre.

It's like Microsoft is trying to continually garner bad press. I mean seriously, not three days can go by without some new thing popping up or some exec saying something insanely stupid. It's a circus, holy shit.

Are Microsoft trolling?

Microsoft steadily buries any kind of credibility they had, more at 11

MGS fans doing what MGS fans love to do.
http://youtu.be/tb1WhDdto08

May seem a little tinfoily to some but this is incredibly convincing. This is a borderline spoiler. O.O

I need to just frickin' play MGS4 already so I can actually watch/read anything related to MGS again. It's been years since I was able to. I've managed to get this far with only one or two minor spoilers so far:

I'll copy and paste from a post I made elsewhere.

Someone was saying how it felt a little like Uncharted so my response is based off that.


"I can see how it feels like Uncharted 2, like with physics and movements and stuff like that. But gameplay is entirely different. Guns will kill you quickly. They're about as deadly in this game as they are in Deus Ex Human Revolution. You aren't taking a lot of bullets.

Sneaking is more important here, but in Uncharted you could easily rush enemies if a sneak didn't work out. In this game you're in a bit more trouble if sneaking didn't go well. That's not to say sneaking is forced, but it's just about the right balance of if you wanna use stealth or have a straight up fight.

I've also played a couple of hours and the time just flies. What felt like 30 minutes was like 3 hours passed already.

The story and dialog are great. It's much more mature than Uncharted. Ruthless even. I like that it takes a realistic tone with post apocalyptic survival. Dudely Do Right doesn't come on top and making morally questionable decisions leads to making it out alive.

The graphics and presentation are top notch. OMG the beginning before the game actually begins and hasn't shown the title screen yet was just so amazing. I was hooked.


Play this game if you like:

-Dark/Demon's Souls difficulty, this is a good game. No strategic pausing. You can pause to pee and adjust volume, yeah. But you can't pause at a menu screen to heal or manage inventory. That all has to happen real time. This game doesn't seem like it'll hold your hand.

-Classic Resident Evil or Silent Hill. Supplies don't seem to be coming easy. I'm not finding health kits at every corner. So far I've been going through a lot of the game at yellow health and avoiding healing cause I don't know when I'll find the next one. Yep, this game doesn't have regenerating health.

-Uncharted cause of the storytelling and cinematic production value. This just feels like playable TV or a playable movie. The game just comes alive. And it's not open world like you can walk anywhere you want, but you can see a lot of things in the distance and you're heading towards it. Everything is seamlessly connected and there aren't stages or anything like that so it's immersive using what makes open world games immersive without being open world.

-Deus Ex Human Revolution or Metal Gear Solid games cause of its balance of stealth with combat. It's fun to fight and fun to sneak. Gameplay and combat is just fun.

-A mix of Walking Dead and Half Life themes. I get this viral breakout apocalypse that mutates humans mixed with a dystopian, militarism, underground movement vibe from this game.


So yeah The Last of Us has some things in common with really amazing games and is its own unique feeling game itself. The demo left a good impression and the first couple of hours sealed the deal for me. This feels like a must have game."


About the escort mission concern. The little girl does not seem helpless at all. Both as a character in the story and gameplay wise. I'm probably not at any area that's too difficult to tell if AI partners are capable of dying and thus ending the game. Whenever an AI companion fights, they provide support in accordance with whatever I want to do. If I'm sneaking up on another guy and the AI is far away, they're also sneaking and not giving anything away. If I fight it'll say something like "Ah Joel you like doing things the hard way" and assist. I haven't seen an AI die yet but it's not Bioshock Elizabeth where they're just super powerful. They seem to just work with you. In fact, it seems so good that I think taking damage in one part was my fault cause I was reckless and in the AI's line of fire and got shot. So the AI was better than me. HAH! Not sure if it was friendly fire or from the enemy but it seemed like my partner shot me.

About Naughty Dog's artistic design, they don't like to use only greys and browns of other games. It looks post apocalyptic, but you'll also see vegetation growing up walls and stuff. Even the garbage is a little colorful with trash laying around having these bright labels. The areas in the game that is inhabited looks unkempt and dismal based on artistic design not cause it relies on dull colors.


I can basically recommend this to anyone except people who want family friendly or casual games.

That's all good to hear for me, since I'm not big on Uncharted. But yeah watching my roommate play it, definitely looks kind of like what RE should have been this gen.


My world just exploded.

Indeed. Here's another:

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=590951

Banned XBL users will lose access to all their games, even single-player ones.

Note that XBL is very trigger happy about bans. It's not just pirates and hackers, but also:
- (allegedly) having enough people complain about you;
- people who bought games at Gamestop and played it before the "official street date";
- people with modem/connection issues;
- having a gamertag with the word "gay" in it, even if it's part of your real name;
- having your location or any profile info with the word "gay" in it, even if you live in Fort Gay (a real place);
- having your account hacked and M$ denying it;
- having "inappropriate" files (even TEXT) on your SkyDrive, even if they are private (this includes partial nudity, including the cartoon kind, of legal adults, as well as "obscenity" and "profanity").

Jesus fucking christ.


Edit: aaaaand another thing:

http://support.xbox.com/en-US/billing-a ... retire-faq

In other words: if you have MS Points, they will soon be converted to their value in cash in your account. So far so good. But, after they're converted, you have only one year to spend 'em, after which, Microsoft keeps your money. What's this? You stocked up on points during MSP sales? And you don't plan on immediately getting an Xbone? Too bad, the monies are Microsoft's now!

Just... wow... all of this should bury any reason to be a part of XBL. I have a friend who's a dedicated Xbox guy. He's a great guy, but the years of MS abuse he's taken from the points wasted to the shit customer service to the completely unnecessary membership "privileges".

This is very one-sided though. How does PlayStation's online service fare in comparison?

"I'm Phil Spencer, and I'm here to ask you a question. Is a major multibillion dollar corporation not entitled to the sweat of its brow? 'No!' says the gaming population, it belongs to the paying customer. 'No!' says the review website, it belongs to the quality of the games. 'No!' says the independent video game stores, it goes towards fostering a user-run gaming community. I rejected those answers; instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose... the Xbox One, a console where the major corporation would not be held accountable to the consumer, where the gamer would be forced to contend with absurd restrictions in their gameplay experience, where the petty and corrupt would not be constrained by those with an artistic vision! And with your constant cash flow, the One can become your console as well."

I hated that speech in Bioshock and, dear lord, do I despise it now.

http://thenextweb.com/microsoft/2013/06 ... -xbox-one/

I think Microsoft found out that they're allergic to making money, and are doing everything in their power to make sure that the Xbox One does precisely the opposite of that.

Just do it. I'm in the process of playing it and it is a great game. Lots of juicy story bits.

Part of my job involves making sure banks comply with consumer protection laws.

One thing that pops up is this.

http://www.fdic.gov/regulations/laws/ru ... -3100.html

If someone does not consent to paying but they're still forced to pay (card on file being charged without authorization, they cancelled recurring payment but still get charged, etc) then the bank itself can completely revert the transaction so the consumer gets their money back and the merchant doesn't get theirs. We have a window of time in which we can do this.

Sometimes it's fraud and identity theft that is the culprit.

And sometimes, a customer will call a company and give them all the evidence they need to say they didn't authorize a charge and the company still refuses to help them. When customers come to the bank for help, I step in after getting the evidence I need and reject all charges.

I've seen a couple of cases like this with Xbox Live and EA. In other words, I've basically done their customer service for them and given money back simply because banks have to legally protect its customers.

I haven't seen a Sony or Nintendo case yet. I see tons of Facebook cases, but those result from fraud. For some reason thieves with a stolen card want to play lots of Candy Crush. Naturally tons of Paypal and Amazon due to fraud. None due to Amazon screwing over their customers and refusing to refund them. I've seen every cell phone carrier screw their customers over. AT&T and Verizon are about equal in screwing customers over. Same with insurance companies. All the major ones but no specific company stands out. Microsoft and EA are the only game companies I've seen show up in my line of work.


And from personal experience. I got a 500 gig PS3 and got free PSN+. My code didn't work and Sony asked me for a pic of the receipt and the box to prove I should've gotten my free PSN+ promo. They said it'd take a week. I had to transfer save data from my old PS3 to the new one before then so I just bought PSN+ When they gave me my working code, I just gave it to Morrigan as I already had PSN+ and the code worked just fine for her.

So Sony resolved my issue in a timely manner when I provided them proof and explained myself professionally.

My biggest complaint about Sony online is chat is laggy and censored garbage.

Well I looked that up and he looks like he's gonna be swell.



I finally made it past the Taurus Demon and then I was having a bit of a difficult time getting past the bridge wyvern cause my game is unpatched as I don't have my Xbox hooked to the internet. However I finally made it past the damn thing this morning after another countless tries. I have started to get the hang of parrying attacks and that is helping immensely. I am farming souls though before I try the gargoyles, and I might cave and hook the Xbox up to the net for patch purposes.

I'd hook it up, the multiplayer is awesome in both co op and pvp

I feel like you should hold off on co-op if it's your first playthrough. I know it's part of the game and all, but it's much more satisfying to defeat a boss on your own after many tries, rather than getting help from an experienced player that'll wipe the floor with a boss in no time at all.

True, I was hollow most of my first playthru now that I think about it.

Changing the topic a little I just sold my Xbox 360 and am currently systemless... Debating between picking up a PS3 which I have never owned and catching up on some games like Demon Souls, God of War, etc. My buddy will sell me a used slim 160 GB I think for 150$ is it worth it or should I just wait for PS4? I don't know if I can survive 5 months without a console though. I wasted no time jumping straight off Microsoft's ship

Playstation 4 won't be backwards compatible. At least, not with physical formats. http://ca.ign.com/wikis/playstation-4/B ... patibility If you want to catch up on any PS3 exclusives you missed out on, I'd recommend getting to it now.

Yeah I heard they will be available eventually as downloads, but not for awhile. Alright I think I will go ahead and get started, probably just get the system, Demon Souls and PSN+ to start and go from there.

My thoughts on the last of us so far, think of it as an informal review.

I'm about 4 or 5 hours into it so far so I think I can give a good judgment of the game. First of all I'm playing it on normal difficulty so things may be a little different on hard or easy.

You get a very scarce amount of ammo and you really have to judge yourself how you will take on an encounter. Will you try and sneak past all of the enemies or will you take them out stealthily or will you go all guns blazing. First one is preferable to save your ammo and the last one usually results in your untimely death. The shooting mechanics are a bit wonky if you're used to super slick and smooth COD style shooters but I think this is deliberate to give you a sense of just how hard it is to shoot a gun. It's very difficult at the start of the game but it grows on you and can be incredibly flexible.

This lends it to being a difficult game but ultimately very fair, the checkpoint system is fairly generous and I think it strikes a good balance between being difficult and just outright frustrating. No one wants to redo a section they already did perfectly using stealth skills because they got spotted after that section. Each encounter has it's own checkpoint and during the encounter there is sub checkpoints but sometimes they get in the way because you might have fucked up somewhere before the sub checkpoint. Luckily you can restart every encounter.

Healing isn't straightforward, you have a health bar and you must maintain it as best you can. It does not regenerate and healing yourself isn't instantaneous, you must hold down R1 to heal for a few seconds before the health is applied. So choose where you heal wisely. When shot in combat your character does not just soak the damage but stumbles backwards very realistically. Getting shot definitely has a more grave impact in this game than in the obvious comparison to Uncharted also missing a shot can prove very fatal because ammo is so limited.

There's also a lot of crafting options from scavenging items as you go along in the game, some items that can be made include molotov cocktails, shivs and healing packs, there are more but I won't spoil the fun. You can upgrade your character in a very simplistic manner but it does help and the upgrades aren't easy to come by. You can also upgrade your weapons in much the same fashion.

The enemy AI is absolutely and utterly superb, every encounter feels real and visceral. They will flank you and listen out to hear if your gun makes any clicking noises for when it's out of ammo. If you shoot a gun in one location and move the enemies think you are still there, it's never unfair. If one enemy sees you then you kill him the noise from killing him will alert other enemies but they will NOT know exactly where you are and they still have to search for you. You can hide then go for the jugular again, encounters feel really fluid and realistic. The infected are your straightforward zombie type AI nothing special to write about. Melee combat is nothing short of brutal and Joel will use the environment when he can, for example if you are fighting an enemy up against a wall or something, when the enemy is nearly dead Joel will smash his head up against the wall to finish him off.

Ellie the little girl is just absolutely superb, the character interaction between Ellie and Joel feels so real. She's never a nuisance and she helps out on occasion. The voice acting, motion capture, everything about the characters is just world class.

Graphically if you're used to PC gaming then it's not going to blow you away but for a PS3 game all I can say is wow, this is outstanding. Naughty Dog really know how to work the PS3, the graphics are almost near a PC quality and far outshine any console game out now.

Bear in mind I'm not an Uncharted fan, I passed the first one and thought it was good enough but not amazing. This however is a special game and if you have a PS3 then do yourself a favour and pick it up and don't play it; experience it, it's so aborbing.

Went to pick up The Last of Us but it was out of stock. Got Fire Emblem Awakening instead, fairly certain this will hold me over for quite a while.

Between Path of Exile, XCOM, and that game, I think it's safe to say I have bad RNG luck. I wanted to recruit Gaius, not one shot him on my defending turn!

Grab a PS3, game on it for a year or two. It'll let you sort out if either of the two next-gen systems will have technical or hardware issues, which one lands better exclusives, which system runs cross-platform games more efficiently, etc. Might even get a price drop by the time you upgrade; at the very least, you'll have a selection of games to choose from once you buy up, and you won't have to shell out $60 for them by then.

And the first thing people will use virtual reality for is... yep, that's right.