What Games Are You Playing?

MercenaryRaiden said:
fabricatedlunatic said:
and the battle system is an awkward, clunky mess (nothing like Xenoblade's elegant, intuitive real-time combat). And it's easy to forget how ugly the Wii's SD graphics are... horrrp.
Click to expand...
Argh, that's a shame. I had a feeling that Nintendo had specifically brought out Xenoblade first, as it was the best of the lot. It's a shame about the looks as well, at times Xenoblade can look rather stunning for something on the Wii.
Click to expand...
Predictably, the combat does get easier to manage as you progress through the game, especially once you're able to issue orders to your party, but it still feels too chaotic for my liking. That the framerate falls through the floor when things get vaguely busy on-screen just compounds that impression of clunkiness, as it feels like the controllable character is wading through mud. On the other hand it's been an exceptionally easy game thus far, so it's not as though the issues are likely to impede progress.

In other news, I too started playing Corpse Party. For a game with simplistic 16-bit style graphics, it isn't half effective in creating a creepy, menacing atmosphere. I managed to get the "good" ending of the first chapter at the fist time of asking (well, except for when Naomi was killed by the shadow thing - I wasn't expecting that) though I understand that in subsequent chapters things get more complex regarding the decisions you make. Chilling!
 
Last edited by a moderator:
fabricatedlunatic said:
Predictably, the combat does get easier to manage as you progress through the game, especially once you're able to issue orders to your party, but it still feels too chaotic for my liking. That the framerate falls through the floor when things get vaguely busy on-screen just compounds that impression of clunkiness, as it feels like the controllable character is wading through mud. On the other hand it's been an exceptionally easy game thus far, so it's not as though the issues are likely to impede progress.

In other news, I too started playing Corpse Party. For a game with simplistic 16-bit style graphics, it isn't half effective in creating a creepy, menacing atmosphere. I managed to get the "good" ending of the first chapter at the fist time of asking (well, except for when Naomi was killed by the shadow thing - I wasn't expecting that) though I understand that in subsequent chapters things get more complex regarding the decisions you make. Chilling!
Click to expand...

That's still a shame. I'll still end up playing it at some point, but it's very much on the backburner until Xenoblade is done.

Corpse Party is pretty cool, I enjoyed it most of the way through, but there's one rather frustraiting part of the game that I can't say - thanks to huge spoilers. It does fall into that kind of trope of being very "japanese" though (BUTTER POOPER.) I thought the VA's did a stellar job though, although it helps having most of them as favourites via anime of course...


So, I finally got through another set of courseworks and exams in the space of a week, and now I've finally had a play around with my Vita. I'm really enjoying it! I think the hardware definitely has a lot of potential and it could produce some stunning games. I gave Touch My Katamari a quick blast, which was as you'd expect from a Katamari game. Although thankfully just having a second stick on the Vita makes it VASTLY superior to Me and My Katamari. Nowhere near as good as We Love or Forever though - yet. I'm not sure what the morphing is actually going to bring to the table, other than a time consuming gimmick. I'm starting to fall for Lumines though. It's my first Lumines game and it's rather addictive. I've also noticed ZHP just got reduced on the store and is Vita compatible...

Although everytime I've tried to use any online feature it's always coming up with server maintenance, but I was able to brute force it to link my psn account. Frustraiting but...It's Sony and their maintenance. They go hand in hand sometimes...
 
Last edited by a moderator:
The "butter up my pooper" line was bizarre enough for me to attempt to take a photo of the screen, just to prove it wasn't a figment of my imagination, but I couldn't get a decent shot. I'm glad you mentioned it since that means it did actually happen.

EDIT: lolz

<object width="560" height="315"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/gu7rScvPO7g?version=3&amp;hl=en_GB&amp;rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/gu7rScvPO7g?version=3&amp;hl=en_GB&amp;rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="560" height="315" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object>
 
Thought I'd take advantage of my early receival of Yakuza: Dead Souls to give it a go....Oh dear.

First of all, I just want to say that I was right. Playing Binary Domain before this has, most likely, completely ruined any fair opinion that I could have given. Binary Domain is an excellent game on the same engine. This? Oh dear... Whereas Binary Domain felt surprisingly tight and responsive, Yakuza: Dead Souls feels a bit...Wonky. It's not bad or horrible by any means, but after the responsiveness of BD it does feel like a step back (Which isn't that surprising considering they made YDS first...)

My problem is the entire aspect of the shooting and aiming. Whilst BD feels more akin to something like Gears, YDS feels a LOT looser. It's hard to describe but it's a third person shooter, without a cross hair for the third person shooting. Whilst BD has the traditional "Hold L1 to Aim, R1 to shoot" in YDS you shoot with R1, which is completely handled by auto aim, and you can kind of "lock in" and strafe by holding L1. You can bring up a manual first person cross hair by holding L2....But the aiming then gets mapped to the Left stick instead of the right. You are forced to stand completely still whilst lining up shots. And with quite a large enemy density that can spawn from anywhere, including the floor and the sky (No, seriously) it proves only to be useful in certain situations. The guns don't feel as "meaty" or as satisfying as BD's either. I do feel like i'm being overly negative towards these aspects but BD really has ruined my perception of this, before I even went into it! One of the best things about Yakuza 4 is that the play styles of the 4 leads are all different enough to make things fresh. Here it's going to rely on the guns - and right now I can't see there being that much of a difference for the next 30 odd hours.

So I could easily forgive the game if we had some kind of conclusive plot, similar the brilliant tales that we know the Yakuza series can conceive. Oh dear...So we've essentially had about 20 seconds of Kazuma time...And then "Oh hey, Zombies." Like...I know the Yakuza's can be slow starters but I've been playing for around 3 hours now and the plot can be easily summed up as "Oh hey, Zombies." and I'm almost done with Part 1...

Kamurocho opened up for me quite recently though and things have started to improve. Back are all the usual array of mini games and side quests to do, however one potentially huge omission - No locker keys. No OCD collect-a-thon has replaced them either...However, the developers have thought ahead cleverly by giving you two ways to access the infected parts of Kamurocho. One way will advance the main plot, whilst the other allows for free roam to liberate shops and do side quests. But...Don't get me started on the liberating of the shops. Spawn enemies right behind you then sandwich you into a small area with invisible barriers? Don't even...

I really, really feel like i'm being overly negative towards this. I'm fully hoping it gets better, but right now I think that being a fan of the series is hurting in a very negative way...

Edit: Er...Didn't mean for this to come off as a huge rant. My apologises everyone!
 
It's got pretty terrible reviews so I've been keeping a wide berth. Let me know if you change your mind about it! But then I haven't even finished Yakuza 4 yet.
 
Made a start on the campain of Winter assault, i felt like i was being given an easy ride for a first level. Sure its an expansion of DOW 1 that you can play as a stand alone game too but for returning fans i'd have thought they would have let loose abit.

To elaborate: Unlimited respawns of guardsmen on the first level meant that newcomers to the game would then expect that same unlimited amount in every level - not showing them the importance of requisition and capturing listening posts. With abit of luck the second level will be abit more... in tune with the first game and skirmish mode.

So far the changes to improving your army have lead little delay for SM, i have to now make sure i have a sacred artifact to make predator tanks and instead of upgrading to lascannons: you get them as standard (which is a nice perk)

Perimeter of turrets seems to have become the sole intention of my servitors the moment a skirmish starts; without that defencive line the Imperial guard with their superior build times and cheap to increase squad numbers (literally 20 req to add another squad member is craziness when i'm paying out 50 for 1 guy) means they get access to AOE (area of effect) grenade launchers quicker than i get hold of whirlwind tanks means they can set squads to fire in specific areas none stop - pinning my army completely in the opening minutes.

Mobs of guardsmen at your door partway through building your armoury is not a nice site lol so turrets come out to play first and foremost! Then atleast i can keep them at bay till i can build up a few squads of marines with apothecaries, sarge's and the health upgrade.
 
The second Dissidia game.

So far I'm really enjoying the game and I love playing as Lightning,Tifa and Yuna.

Also replaying Miles Edgeworth: Ace Investigations.


I have a question to those with Corpse Party. I'm really interested in the game but do you know how much space it takes up on the memory stick, since I probably have to buy another one to play it.
 
Back to Skyrim. I am now a level 17 mage. 80% of melee combat focused enemies can now murder me horrifically in a matter of seconds unless I down about a dozen potions beforehand. To my great shame I actually ended up using the console to kill a Dwemer Centurion, so many times did I die trying to beat it. Yeah, good work fixing the scaling difficulty problems Oblivion had Bethesda. ¬_¬

I'm all for enemies becoming tougher as the game progresses, but it was like I hit a wall at level 15. And it seems exactly the same for my companion, they now last about ten seconds in melee combat before being knocked out; leading me to kill them with destruction magic as I try to continue the fight more often than not.

All in all, I'm becoming rather more acquainted with the F9 key than I wanted to be.
 
FourthLion said:
It's got pretty terrible reviews so I've been keeping a wide berth. Let me know if you change your mind about it! But then I haven't even finished Yakuza 4 yet.
Click to expand...

Yeah, Yakuza 4 is a factor behind why I'm still going with this. I found Yakuza 4 to be a slow starter but it usurped 2 to become my fave in the series towards the end. I'm hoping this suffers from the same slow start. Although it is weird to be able to go around doing all the great mini games that Yakuza offers when around the corner is a giant wall with "Oh hey, Zombies." behind it. Kinda boggling! But i'm just waiting for one character to appear because they could *easily* steal the show...

Rena Ryuugu said:
I have a question to those with Corpse Party. I'm really interested in the game but do you know how much space it takes up on the memory stick, since I probably have to buy another one to play it.
Click to expand...

This is going off of my memory, but I want to say that it's 556MB. I'm fairly certain anyway! If someone doesn't jump in with a more concrete answer soon then i'll fire up my Vita and find out via that.
 
ayase said:
Back to Skyrim. I am now a level 17 mage. 80% of melee combat focused enemies can now murder me horrifically in a matter of seconds unless I down about a dozen potions beforehand. To my great shame I actually ended up using the console to kill a Dwemer Centurion, so many times did I die trying to beat it. Yeah, good work fixing the scaling difficulty problems Oblivion had Bethesda.
Click to expand...

There's one of the early Companion quests that has a Dwemer Centurion at the end, is this the one that got you? The game does scale enemies, but only within certain ranges (apparently more similar to FO3's). If it's any consolation, I've heard that mages get much easier as their level increases due to the scaling... and the stealth-focused assassin style character I have got wrecked by a lot of stuff at lower levels as well (including that Centurion), largely because there's no frigging way to avoid they-see-me-coming direct combat with the final encounters.

Steam tells me I've spent 123 hours in Skyrim. Eep... could've watched a lot of anime in that time.
 
sic vita est said:
ayase said:
Back to Skyrim. I am now a level 17 mage. 80% of melee combat focused enemies can now murder me horrifically in a matter of seconds unless I down about a dozen potions beforehand. To my great shame I actually ended up using the console to kill a Dwemer Centurion, so many times did I die trying to beat it. Yeah, good work fixing the scaling difficulty problems Oblivion had Bethesda.
Click to expand...

There's one of the early Companion quests that has a Dwemer Centurion at the end, is this the one that got you? The game does scale enemies, but only within certain ranges (apparently more similar to FO3's). If it's any consolation, I've heard that mages get much easier as their level increases due to the scaling... and the stealth-focused assassin style character I have got wrecked by a lot of stuff at lower levels as well (including that Centurion), largely because there's no frigging way to avoid they-see-me-coming direct combat with the final encounters.

Steam tells me I've spent 123 hours in Skyrim. Eep... could've watched a lot of anime in that time.
Click to expand...
It wasn't a quest, I just found myself in some serious Dwemer ruins. If anything, my biggest complaint would be that I have no idea upon embarking on a quest / entering a dungeon if it's going to be stupidly difficult or not. I just did another quest with multiple spell casting opponents where I wasn't even allowed to take my companion and it was easy. On my way to this quest we encountered three snowy sabre cats in a group, which took four reloads. That's just daft.

I went to make a new fighter character instead so I could have a bit more fun, but after spending ages customising her appearance the game has glitched and has me stuck on the executioner's block. The dragon won't land, it's just circling over the head of my incredibly oblivious executioner. Great. ¬_¬

Edit: And it looks like I'm not the only one.
 
"The game mechanic's measure your prefered gaming styles and then try to match up a class of enemy that you can deal with"

I heard that on a g4tv but i pick fault with it, im lvl 27 and sure the more you progress the different dragons start appearing (believe me, you kill dragons then ice dragons then a blood dragon comes along and you begin to wonder if the jump in power is abit too harsh)

Similar to you Ayase i have a horrible habit of accidentally killing Lydia as she lasts all of a few moments these days.

The Dwemer ruins are hell for mages like us ayase (i'm a battle mage with summoned daggers) Destructive is in the 90's :p so most things are a OHK but every now and then a giant frost spider appears and you have to dual cast fireballs (literally the fireballs, not bolts) to kill in one hit. But despite that high devastation level most magic is negated by dwemer enemies :/

I remember in lower levels i ran like hell the first time i came across a chaurus - the lighthouse celler mission if anyone knows that one. I lost count on how many times i have to try and kill the giant at the very end of it all... Ledging and running like a mad man works for some times :p
 
Tachi said:
"The game mechanic's measure your prefered gaming styles and then try to match up a class of enemy that you can deal with"

I heard that on a g4tv but i pick fault with it, im lvl 27 and sure the more you progress the different dragons start appearing (believe me, you kill dragons then ice dragons then a blood dragon comes along and you begin to wonder if the jump in power is abit too harsh)

Similar to you Ayase i have a horrible habit of accidentally killing Lydia as she lasts all of a few moments these days.

The Dwemer ruins are hell for mages like us ayase (i'm a battle mage with summoned daggers) Destructive is in the 90's :p so most things are a OHK but every now and then a giant frost spider appears and you have to dual cast fireballs (literally the fireballs, not bolts) to kill in one hit. But despite that high devastation level most magic is negated by dwemer enemies :/

I remember in lower levels i ran like hell the first time i came across a chaurus - the lighthouse celler mission if anyone knows that one. I lost count on how many times i have to try and kill the giant at the very end of it all... Ledging and running like a mad man works for some times :p
Click to expand...
Yes I do know that lighthouse cellar Tachi... Bloody hell. My tactic in the final battle was to power up Jenassa to the best of my abilities, then stand back using most of my magicka to heal her constantly, firing off the odd lightning bolt when she wasn't on the verge of death (which was most of the time). She killed everything in there, I don't think I took out a single chaurus. Battle wives FTW.
 
I have to admit that the lighthouse with the scratching noises and the whole scenery of it and things could have been a very good horror movie.

That Chaurus at the end was beyond a joke, bare in mind at that stage i was level 6 or so and Lydia was no help - she ledged the whole thing! i tried to use shouts at the mob of chaurus but then that last one threw me right off my game, used whirlwind sprint to climb up to the second hut and realised you can edge yourself round the hut so standing in a place that you can't be hit, easy hits on the normal chaurus that died to nothing but thunder attacks which crippled my mana. Ended up dying when they realised they can flank the hut and spit at me from the other parts in the room.

The way i finished that off was by going into the first chamber area (the dark area with the second chamber to the right with the giant in it) firing off a few firebolts then running like buggery to the ledge i just fell off and realised that if you're facing the ledge and tunnel you just came from, if you go to the right of the ledge you can jump a few times till you get back onto it.... from there i used the axe of whiterun to slash the giant chaurus to pieces, summoned my familiar whenever i could (best summon i had at the time) and just played it by ear.

Paid off though :)

What other places have you found that are difficult?
 
Jenassa would have stayed on the ledge using her bow, had I not pushed her off with the Voice. Actually come to think of it we did take out the two chaurus' in the first chamber from up on the ledge there. What you've described is a good indicator of what I mean though, when you find yourself using exploits in the terrain to proceed you know the difficulty is a bit off.

I was having serious trouble recovering a book from a giant / mammoth camp until I decided to just sneak in round the back alone, drop down from a ledge and use an invisibility potion to get out, avoiding combat altogether. I'm thinking of doing the Skyrim equivalent of dual classing into a thief/mage so I can use that tactic a bit more, back-stab and even avoid some of the enemies that are currently too tough for me (it's not like you get XP from killing them or anything).
 
Back
Top