Meh, failsafeman is a lot more knowledgeable/experienced with cRPGs than I am. I just really like tactical realtime PC aRPGs to a degree that approaches unhealthy obsession. The more impenetrably obtuse the U.I. and combat system is, the better!

So you can probably see why I'm pretty beat up about not being able to play Dragon's Dogma...

Oh c'mon. I did read his post. I cut it off for effect. Commenting theoretically on anything Half Life 3-related is ridiculous.

And why is that?

I miss Shutdown.
(careful what I wish for?...)
I'm sure he misses my JRPG talk.


Bringing this back up... yeah, this is generally my conclusion too. They simply don't even have to give a fuck anymore. But still, throwing out more Portal and Left 4 Dead instead was kind of insulting haha.

They better buckle up when GOG Galaxy hits. Realistically though, Steam is basically... Facebook. Even if good competition pops up, they've been in this position of power with such a massive userbase for so long they never have to really give a shit anymore.

Yeah, for Steam to ever fail it would take a combination of 1) really stupid design decisions that make it really irritating to use, 2) really strong competition showing up. It's what happened with Myspace and Facebook - Myspace gradually fucked up its interface and made itself incredibly fucking annoying even to just casually browse, and then in came Facebook with a nice clean look and a very simple, user-friendly interface. But unless Valve ends up selling Steam to Viacom or somebody I just don't ever see that happening.

Shutdown moved to a new town due to getting a nice new job with lots of socializing opportunities so is on indefinite hiatus from the Metal Archives community.

I just beat Episode 2. Man, that whole thing rules so hard. Better than the base game, IMO. From the awesome antlion nest tunnels to the "kill billions of antlions!" defense part to the awesome forest road hunter encounters to the final frantic as shit battle with the striders and the Magnuson Devices to that chilling, soul-destroying conclusion. Some of the most perfect ~5 hours of gaming ever.

I'm not much of a video game person.. But Altered Beast & Streets Of Rage are the ultimate classics. As is MK & MK II.

I'll never forget noticing one of the achievements is to finish that finale without losing a single building or something. Are you freaking kidding me? That was some of the most frantic, insane, and exciting FPS moments I've ever seen.

HL2 and the episodes are indeed incredible. So immersive and well done, especially considering HL2 came out in *2004*. Still holds up, graphically and definitely gameplay-wise. I'll never forget the dystopian opening, so atmospheric and mind-blowing compared to what had come before in the gaming world.

After beating Episode 2 in 2008 I thought "man, it sure is funny that I probably won't be playing Half Life 3 until I'm done with college." Except that has now been amended to "Man, it sure is funny that I probably won't be playing Half Life 3 until my children are done with college."

But, you know, there's now a new Aphex Twin LP coming out after 13 years, so hope springs eternal and all that jazz.

Any Fatal Frame fans here? I picked up my replay of the first one again (that I started last Halloween haha) and wrapped it up. First time since it came out probably. This one has... aged a bit. The atmosphere is still amazing, but the combat with a few ghosts (this guy that was shooting stuff everywhere) and all the backtracking got kind of tedious.

I jumped right into 2 though and it's been improvements across the board. This one definitely still looks pretty damn good, the music is better, the combat is fun now, the level design is a lot better, less tedious puzzles and bigger maps. The twin NPC is never a bother either, so they did that well too. I played a bit of this one when it was new too but never finished it, so I'm looking forward to that.

Anyone ever get to 3? That one will be completely new to me so I'm pretty excited. I guess I'll just watch videos of 4 if I'm interested, but dammit Nintendo better give us the new one. The WiiU gamepad will probably be awesome for this.

This piece has quite a bit to say about that, and other things. I'll try to reproduce its point regarding Steam, Facebook, Myspace etc..

Successful online services/platforms/networks etc. tend to have a life cycle which is an inherent part of their business model, and in which decline is completely intentional. They start out as innovative and useful. Their commercial nature appears as secondary to the freedom and functionality they offer to their users. This makes them attractive, drawing in more users until a large portion of the target group is registered and actively uses the service. Users who indulge in social networking and who produce a steady stream of user-generated content (tweets, screenshots, videos, statuses, photo galleries, etc.).

The company that owns the service then begins to slowly turn the free service into a commercial product. The userbase is at this point married to the service because with it they maintain their online personalities, their network of online friends and followers, and the framework of their content production. Their accounts are a part of their social life now, something they have spend many hours creating and maintaining. They can't simply abandon them just because the quality of the service decreases.

These marrieds are the capital of the company, now ready to be milked like cows. Commercial data mining is what's been done from the start, now they start bombarding users with ads, screw with the interface to encourage more rapid content production, ask for more and more and more personal data (e.g. Google's "security measure" of constantly asking for your phone number), putting quantity before quality (constant Steam sales and awful "indie" games - consider how much money people are spending on Steam titles they could have just as well done without) and generally cheapening the overall experience to convert the fruits of the users' unpaid work into private wealth.

Ideally the service finds the right balance between maintaining an as large as possible userbase and screwing those users as effectively as possible, to steadily generate the most possible profit. In reality that's a very unstable and hard to maintain state, so the company decides to overfish the pond until the service is dead/let its revenue peak and then sell it. It happened to Myspace (although, wasn't Myspace a commercial failure? Perhaps that's due to pioneer disadvantage), its currently starting to happen to Facebook and it might totally happen to Steam if Valve's game industry idealism turns out to carry less weight than the prospect of Lamborghinis and swimming pools.

If nothing else, Risen 3 has the rare distinction of being the first game in which I completed a companion quest for a parrot.

My only real complaint aside from the relative lack of strong female characters, homosexual representation and minorities (c'mon PB, stop being so damned German) is that the game is just waaaaaaay too ridiculously easy at this point. Cheesing through the hardest enemies in the game in microseconds without taking any damage at all on the so-called "Hard" difficulty setting? PB seriously needs to take (another) page from the Souls games and introduce a new difficulty mode that implements an upgradable stamina bar for rolling and blocking. Fingers crossed.

Bloodborne direct feed gameplay footage, finally!


Framerate looks a bit janky, but a) it's still early and b) it is a From Software game after all Sony is helping, so hopefully it'll be more stable, like in Demon's Souls, rather than the Dark Souls fps. They're aiming for a locked 30 fps, I hope they meet it without sacrificing too much fidelity. The gothic atmosphere and architecture is top notch, exactly what I expect from them. <3
Combat looks sweeeeet. This demo was made purposefully easier, obviously, but we get to take a look at the mechanics, such as the healing system (the healing animation seems a bit short... hope it can be punished), the consumable throwing items, the "regain" system*, the sideways dodging, the weapon transformation, the charge move, the blunderbuss "parry" (stun) and then the sweet "riposte", with all the blood gushing about. Speaking of that, did you see how the main character was covered in blood after doing a critical hit on that boss? How cool is that?

* They say that after taking damage, you have a small window of time to attack enemies to regain a bit of health. It's a risk/reward thing; do you press on to try to regain health, but risk taking even more damage, or do you cut your losses and retreat, etc. From has said they wanted a more aggressive style of combat (hence no shields, and this) this time around.

Edit: holy fuck that giant spider brrrrrrr

the skyline is sooo purdy.

I just love how outright wretched everything looks in the game. The werewolves are mangy and malnourished, the big brutes have a borderline Frankensteinian appearance, and that boss looks equal parts miserable, pained, and menacing. Magnificent!

Looks good.

Also not sure how I missed this trailer of Xenoblade X from June.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0BLEytgSlI

Looks good.

Bloodborne looks very cool. I should probably try to play DS2 before that comes out.

List of the most pirated game by states from torrent sites.

http://kotaku.com/the-most-pirated-game ... 1621803833

You could turn this into a political discussion but I'll refrain from that. I find it amusing seeing Delaware stick out like a sore thumb with Goat Simulator though.

Oklahoma's weirding me out more.

Texas made me laugh for some reason.

I can't imagine their sample sizes for some of those states are very large. There's no way Xenonauts is just incredibly popular in Tennessee; they probably only had like one guy torrent anything from there.

What's that state under Washington? That can't be the US!

Illinois has good taste.

My thoughts exactly. I wouldn't remotely take that graphic seriously.

Need MOAR turn-based JRPGs. I've beaten multiple Final Fantasy titles (IX is one of my favorite games), but it's been an eternity since I've thoroughly played much else. I've already beaten Persona 3 and 4.

Breath of Fire 3/4!



We just love to play God.

We? I moved away, am I still a Texan? Hmm...

Once a Texan, always a Texan.

Do you have an ass-cent?

Absolutely not, and I'm not sure about that I belong on the East or West coast, most likely. Living in Georgia for the next couple years...

On topic, haven't played any CS:GO in a few weeks, but my computer desk should be getting here soon! Not that I'll have time once the semester starts and I have to do research assistant stuff + hopefully find a second job.

Platform(s) of choice?

One of the few things Morri and I will circle jerk over is Suikoden II. So get on that if you haven't yet. Granted, you'll have to pirate it unless you have a lot of disposable income (I paid like 120 bucks for my copy).

Of course that's just assuming you haven't played most of the obvious classics.

I have a buddy who paid an arm and a leg for this title.

Bravely Default on the 3DS.

You're welcome.

Yeah it's safe to say it's not coming to the PSN after all.

It's been going for ~$120 for like 10 years.

Ah man, Bloodborne looks so good. Not sure how I feel about the "regain health by hitting enemies" mechanic ( ) but at least it helps make the combat a lot more tooth-and-nail and savage, which is what they were trying to achieve. Most exciting new improvement over Dark Souls: variable-speed ladder climbing!

Anyone here play Hearthstone? It's a very simple card game, but I love it to death.

For like, the first 3 chapters, then throw it in the trash.


Dark Souls 2 has the faster/slower ladder climbing too. The regain system apparently only works with the enemy that stole health from you, and for a very specific window of time. Also, apparently enemies can use it on you, too.

I hate it to death because I can't stop playing it

Not a fan of cosmic horror and/or time travel?

Older stuff, PS1/2 or PC, but I'm probably gonna have to pirate whatever I want to play, since I'm broke as a joke right now. Might give Suikoden a shot.