I want to load up San Andreas again just to play some multiplayer.

http://www.crazybobs.net/

Roleplaying server :O

I don't know how I really stand on Gears Of War 2. I mean, there isn't anything really wrong with the game, but maybe I am just sick of the gameplay found within. I'm not really sure, but it doesn't seem to have the same spark the original one had. I also don't really care about the characters.

Help me, Morrigan.

Terranigma on the other hand ... now that's a hidden gem (still favor LttP over it though, or I should say over just about anything!). I still need to take out that slot or whatever in my SNES so I can play PAL games and then get my hands on a copy of Terranigma. I've heard PAL SNES games had multiple language options? That's pretty cool if that's true.

Supposedly Illusion of Gaia and Terranigma are loosely part of some trilogy, I can never remember what the first game was though. IoG is kind of generic, but Terranigma improved upon it tenfold or so.

So Resident Evil 5 is coming in a few days, anyone else excited? I am glad Capcom stuck to its guns and did not include "run and gun" gameplay like everyone has been foaming at the mouth for on a few particular forums that shall go unnamed.

On a side note some people might find this a bit interesting.

http://www.1up.com/do/minisite?cId=3172911



A return to survival horror maybe?

Eh, I'm fine if they go backwards a bit with the gameplay, but I certainly hope they don't go all "run and gun" with the next one then. We'll have Lost Planet 2 anyways.

And yeah, definitely stoked about RE5.

Along with (randomly!) the Sonic Sega Genesis Collection. I have no idea why Sonic is in the title, but whatever. There's like 40 Genesis games on that shit, from Ecco the Dolphin to Comix Zone to Ristar to Shinobi 3 to Steets of Rage 1-3 to Phantasy Star I-IV, yeah, any classic gaming fan has to own it. Unless they own all the originals.

Plan to pickup that along with RE5 sometime next week.

Illusions of Gaia and Terranigma are part of a trilogy, and the first game in the trilogy is called Soulblazer I believe. I played Soulblazer, and I would say it was the precursor of Diablo for PC/PS and Dark Cloud for the PS2. I've never beaten it though.

Alot of people say Terranigma is better than Illusions of Gaia, but for some reason, I could never get myself to beat Terranigma. I always get half way, and then I just stop for some reason. But it did have better graphics and the sprite animations were alot cooler. I do remember it having alot of cool moments. Heh, guess I'll give it another whirl soon.

I really liked in Illusions how you switch between the main character and the Dark Knight, depending on the situation. Yes, it was very He-Man-ish, but it was still pretty cool. I just liked the concept of the evil Gaia shielding the world from what it really is, thus 'Illusions' of Gaia. And so when you beat the final boss, the illusion is gone, and the world changes into what it really is. I don't know, seems pretty cool to me. Don't get me wrong, there's games out there that blow this story out of the fucking water, but the story in Illusions was solid enough.

After watching tons of AVGN videos, I got back into NES emulators and have started playing some of the games he has, such as Castlevania II, Nightmare on Elm Street, Karate Kid, Top Gun, and Rambo.

Somehow they don't seem... entirely as bad as he states, but they still suck.

Castlevania 2 definitely does not suck, though you'd have to be Asian to beat it without a guide.

Ah that reminds me, I still need to download Symphony of the Night off PSN. Buying the disc its self is a bit pricey iirc.

Um, no. If you don't like the game, it's your loss, I really don't care. But who does care about characters from such a game? It's a mindless action game, the characters are there to say witty one-liners and little more.


Yeah the first is SoulBlazer, which is kind of fun but ridiculously primitive. I never finished Terranigma, I got stuck somewhere and couldn't be bothered. Those games are okay, but in the same style I much prefer A Link to the Past and Beyond Oasis.


Without having a "run and gun" gameplay style, I do wish they'd have the possibility to walk or strafe while shooting, still. Even Silent Hill 1 had that, and it certainly didn't turn the game into a Gears of War-like clone nor did it take away from the survival horror feel. I'm still pretty thrilled about RE5 though... even though I still haven't beaten RE4.

Left 4 Dead + 3 friends = huge amounts of fun. Left 4 Dead by yourself or with strangers = boring. I hope some cool mods start coming out for the game, though, as the standard guns are pretty stock. I mean, shotguns, sniper rifle, uzi, m4, pistols...not very exciting. Where's the missile launcher? Where's the flame thrower? Where's the chainsaw?!!?

Yeah, I wasn't entirely serious. I suppose I just found the game to have less replay value than the first one, simple because this is the second game of the series. It's not really stale, per se just less of a shock of something different.



Resident Evil 4 is an amazingly frightening experience. I believe I played it through at least five or six times. I personally laughed when Capcom said "Gears Of War controls" and everybody here was, "ZOMG GEARS CLONE." It was stupidly obvious that was just a marketing buzz term to get the Western audience more interested, or those uninitiated by the Resident Evil series excited about the forthcoming title.

I never really believed making Chris walk and shoot would take away the terrifying feeling of the game, it would just allow a little more flexibility in the player movements. The strafing was a good mechanic for them to include, but I don't think it's enough. The player experience is still incredibly abrasive and shockingly frustrating and new players are going to be completely put off by the controls. Resident Evil 5 is an action title masquerading as a survival horror title from its controls.

I'm probably going to buy it (The Return Of Matt Hazzard looks amazing too,) but it really only took a couple of play-throughs of the demo to warm up to the controls again. The tank controls are definitely those that once you learn them, you never forget and the time it takes to get used to them again is minimal.

I'd say Dead Space definitely has superior controls. It felt like a step backwards when I played the RE5 demo. That said I'm sure I'll warm up to it and enjoy it. Whether or not it'll beat RE4 though ... that'll be tough.

The coop aspect is quite interesting, though. I enjoyed it in the demo at least.

He even admits to hugely exaggerating the shittiness of the games, even beyond the obviously hyperbolic remarks. For instance, apparently he actually enjoys Castlevania II, but just doesn't think it holds up next to its predecessor and successor.

Man, I used to love those videos so much.

anyone else looking forward to SOCOM 4: US NAVY SEALS?

i heard it was going to be an online only (hence, no single player story mode) game. is this true? i would imagine its out in North America, Europe already.

No.

I'm addicted to Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix for some reason. I used to play the original back in the day and this updated version makes me warm in all of the right places. Except, I still hate the voices.

I've just started a new game of Master of Orion (the first one from 1993). I played the second one to death in the 90s but only briefly played the first one (which many people prefer for a reason that I haven't figured out yet).

Even though similar games are still being made (GalCiv, Sins of a Solar Empire) I still miss the 90s, which I consider to be the golden age of gaming. Either that is down to nostalgia or games were actually better and "purer" back then. I think it's a bit of both.

To sum it up, most of the main genres of games seem better in the 90s:
RTSs - Nothing since has managed to match StarCraft in terms of strategic depth, pace and competitiveness.
TBSs - The genre that doesn't seem to be making much progress, yet hasn't really gotten worse.
Adventure games - What's to say? They barely exist now.
FPSs - The 90s had UT and Quake3 coming in very late at the end for competitive play and had Half Life, which to this day has the best single player experience within the genre.
RPGs - Exluding adventure games, this genre has gone downhill the most. Not much has rivaled the Fallouts, the Baldur's Gates and Planescape.
Racing games - Has made absolutely no progress at all. It is, in my opinion, the most worthless genre. Not because of the quality of the fundamental mechanic, but because there is nothing to innovate.

Let me explain what I meant earlier by "purer" games. I believe that games nowdays seem to be heading in a direction that focuses too much on non-player directed story (specifically cutscenes) and meta-gaming (achievements). You could take a very simple platformer, add Blizzard quality cinematics between every level and sell the game for full price. Alternatively, you could make a really short game, add hundreds of achievements and people will play it to completition due to the natural "completionist" inside many. These two seem to be used heavily by game developers in order to hide a lack of innovative features. Back in the 90s, game content was very simple and so game mechanics were placed at the front of the player's mind. This is what games are about. Creating a path constrained by rules through to a goal. The key to developing the rules and the goal is to make it challenging. This can either be done through complexity or forced repetition. I'll choose complexity every time.

Agreed, playing with a friend is going to be a blast. The AI seems to be able to hold its own for solo purposes but having someone there to split screen with you or even online will really make it shine.

Even if this ends up being Resident Evil 4.5 the co-op could really put it in a league of its own. A great co-op experience can do wonders for a game that otherwise might not have seemed so great.

In my opinion at least.

I'm actually completely in the dark as to what emulators exactly are, how one might get them, and how to tell which one is good. Like, I get that they basically replicate old gaming systems, but is it the actual games that have been transferred to the computer, or what?

Anyone care to enlighten a complete noob on the subject - and maybe point me in the right direction to a decent SNES emulator? I really want to play some Super Mario World

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Now playing: Death - Individual Thought Patterns

Yes, they're software replications of the hardware inside those older systems. The games available are the actual rom data dumped from the cartridge, so they're the real deal.

You can find everything pretty easily with just a few google searches, it's not hard.



I've never done it myself, but if I remember correctly, that only works if you're trying to play NTSC-J games on an NTSC system. If you try to play PAL games on it, you'll just get an error message.

What's a TBS?

Turned Based Strategy (Heroes of Might and Magic, also hybrid TBS/RPG like Final Fantasy Tactics and Shining Force).

Anyone got Empire: Total War? It looks golden, and I want my own recreation of the Sharpe battles.

I have it! I've only really played the tutorials to get a feel (although it's not my first Total War games) for it.
The first thing I did was command a unit of three cannon. OH MAH LAWD!
It put a big smile on my face!

I need to get it. The min requirements are surprisingly low so I'm pretty happy. I should be able to play it with pretty good settings.

Tried the naval battles yet?

I plan on getting it whenever my next paycheck comes in (Army sure likes taking their time with that). I've seen some of the naval battles, and it looks like a bitch to micromanage. Sure, there are less units to worry about, but the tide, damage, tilt, crew effectiveness, and more make it just as much a nightmare as land battles.

What I never liked about the Total War games, much, was how unrealistically small the units were. Whenever I see the maps, the units next to houses and trees were so damn tiny and the maps themselves were generally bland.

Not to mention this will be my first ACTUAL TW playthrough. I've played Rome and Medieval II, but those were illegitimate downloads that were in Spanish.

Kind of a cute inversion of the RTS genre, where units were comically big next to buildings and trees. I guess it's an attempt to make the world more "epic" or something.

Nope, not yet. I'll probably get some proper gaming done this weekend.

Just played the demo and I'm hooked on the land battles. The naval battles I need to get used to - the really are a headache.

If I have enough to spare, I might just by it today. The anxiousness for bigger battles is killing me.

I like experimenting on the Total War games. The demo level intended that the player flanks the enemy by going through a poorly defended river crossing, but I just sent all my units to the chokepoint that the Americans are defending.

I played it a few times to get the feel for different tactics. The first play through got me settled in and I had half go through the river and the other trying to hold the main arty side. The second time I did the same thing, though much more properly executed now that I knew my mistakes.

The third time I placed a shell around my arty at the crossing and lured them in - best way. Then the last time I said fuck it and through everything I had at the main crossing - bad idea.



Edit: Just went to Best Buy and bought myself a copy. Took my 5 minutes to find the PC Games because it's on the other side of the friggen store, but they had tons of copies.

Me on "TV" again.

http://www.quadv.com/match/891

Edit: Also, we were voted the 6th best TF2 team in Europe for last month, yay.

E:TW... wow. I just found myself bankrupt for the 5th time trying to fight the French. Alas, my unit of 500 was at half strength and the French attacked one of my forts next to Montreal, Fort Frontenac.. It was a last stand.

500 vs 2000. I knew I was fucked, but I couldn't pass up autoresolving, so I took command. Man, talk about brutal, epic, and Bolt Thrower. Had the For Victory album playing while waves upon waves of french / natives charged uphill to attack my fort. It was pure carnage, but I lasted long enough with rippling fire, shattering the enemies will to fight, espiecally after their winded run uphill.

By the end of it, all my canons and troops had no more ammo and were forced to go melee. The outcome:

Fabien Brissot: 2088 Deployed, 2001 Lost
Me: 551 Deployed, 310 Lost.

Dead...fucking...serious

50 Cent: Blood On The Sand is amazing, in some terrible way.

lmfao that is fucking awesome. I wish E:TW would come out for mac

That's epic as hell. I can't wait until my copy gets here

*Single tear drips down cheek, but from the centre of the eye, not the corners, a manly tear, like in Spartacus*

That was beautiful Oz. Brought back memories of a truly epic victory I had back in the Rome days. I can't recall the specifics, but basically my little elephants managed to rout bigger ones with some timely assault. It was like David versus Goliath, only this time, David won!

If you have an Intel processor Mac, you can run Windows. I'm not sure if you need bootcamp to do it or not though. You won't even have to buy Windows. You could try out the Windows 7 beta.

I've had quite a few epic victories in RTW against an opponent with a massive unit advantage my self, mostly involving impeccable use of cataphracts, holding bridges or defending cities with masses of low-tier units (before the siege weapon whoring begins) on both sides.

Also had way too many one-sided battles that you can play out with the fastest speed possible just watching your ranged attackers route the enemy army.