It seems like I am the only one here who still cares about Nintendo these days. The 1 or 2 good games they have a year beat all or most of the others in my opinion. So yeah Skyward Sword is pretty sweet so far. Controls got some getting used to. The occasional screw up is worth getting to choose the direction of your swing and the whole game being developed around that concept. It started off a bit weird but once it got into things it felt like a real Zelda with all its charm and style. And the musical is the best it’s ever been now that it’s orchestrated.

But you know what’s really annoying about this Zelda? The fact that a lot of it is so similar to my main story idea that if my book was ever published people would think I copied it when I had the ideas before there was any information on this Zelda. People were talking about that rule of 3 similarities being a rip-off thing in another thread and my book kinda has that by pure coincidence. But I suppose the similarities are reasonably superficial and Skyward Sword’s story is somewhat limited by it being a videogame, not to mention a Zelda game, so I feel my story and characters and everything is way more fleshed out and better.
Even before Skyward I thought my story had a few similarities to the Zelda series in general but I don’t think they’re that significant and can easily apply to a lot of other things.

Did no one else actually like Phantom Hourglass for the DS? I honestly really enjoyed that one. Sure, the big temple was annoying, but being able to explore something OTHER THAN HYRULE was super sweet, and the boat mechanics were well done. Combat was fun, the graphics were nice, the puzzles were entertaining and occasionally hard enough to challenge, and they added a secondary character, the pirate guy, who is a hilarious more-cowardly Han Solo. The dialogue actually made me laugh once in a while, which is not easy to do, and I loved that guy so much. His backstory was interesting.

And yet everyone pans the thing. Geez. hugs Phantom Hourglass protectively

Funny story about Crysis Two.

@Inkblot – that is a hilarious interpretation of that game. I love it.

why the water dungeon always seems to be the hardest. It’s weird. SS most likely has one :( I had A Link to the Past on GBA and my cartridge has somehow screwed up. Maybe I got it wet …

This struck me as amusing for some reason. I dunno.

Also, Minish Cap = definitely the best. There was a certain old-world, classy charm in the artwork and how it was implied that all the stones and everything were really detailed when you got up close. Plus the charm in getting really small, and hunting for those little holes all over the town. Great game.

Swenson: I know, right?! For bonus points, if you’ve seen Cowboy Bebop, the episode where he’s hung over in the bar, picture this guy like that. Gray skin, bags under eyes.
“You spilled my egg. ...I needed that egg.”
kicks everyone’s ass in five blocks…

Dude, yes. I liked the saw blades though.

The (I call them stage 2) animal sounding ones that climb walls? My favorite kill on one of those was when it was leaping at me and I reflexively turned and shot it out of the air with my trusty saw blade.

Also, fast headcrab zombies can go fall in a pit and DIE. I HATE them.

+1

You’re walking along la la la, nothing happening, Combine off in the distance, maybe duck under a train car, and then EEEEEEEEEEYYYYYYYYYYAAAAARRRGGGH and this UNHOLY MUSCLE-CLAD ABOMINATION comes flying out at your FACE...

That’s been the cause of one or two near heart attacks for me. I’ve taken to just carrying the shotgun around everywhere if I can help it, and I’ve gotten really good at midair jerk-reaction blasts. Those freakin’ things.

That’s precisely the right sound, too. That’s exactly what it is. I can hear it right now. shudder

But because I’m playing on Hard, I was nearly out of ammo by the end… the fight with Grigori through the cemetery was particularly awful, although I did manage to hang onto a couple of sawblades throughout most of it.

i played it thanks to swenson

i can write up some detailed shit once my keyboard is replaced

should be in a day or two

While you’re waiting for the keyboard (which sadly will take away a great deal of entertainment about your posts will be a wonderful thing for everyone), got any quick impressions? Liked it, hated it, thought it was OK?

pretty cool

didnt try any melee classes but i liked the cover mechanics well enough as a ranged class

i didnt see anything exceptional from a gameplay standpoint but there werent any crippling flaws either which is unusual for an mmo this early

the thing that jumped out most was the single playerish vibe of the convos and cutscenes which is a neat device but im not sure how well it plays in groups

npc companions are pretty overpowered

best of all you can make a fat dude

sadly will take away a great deal of entertainment about your posts

ಠ益ಠ

I was in this past weekend’s Old Republic beta and another one a while ago, and most of what sansa said is accurate.

I didn’t play a ranged class, so I wouldn’t know about the cover system.

I really enjoyed what I saw from the storyline. It’s nice to feel like it’s my story within the bigger events. I also liked that there were actual characters working against me, not just some vague opposition. Some of the conversation options were also pretty nice.

Didn’t get much experience with group conversations, but it would probably work better if you know the person/people you’re partnered with. If one person wants to go with the Dark Side choice but another wants to go Light Side, it’s a bit awkward.

The companions might be a bit overpowered, but then again I was playing a squishy wizard, so having a giant scaly tank as a companion was kinda nice.

I care. :P

By far the biggest complaint I’ve heard about MW3 is the maps. I’ve only played the games for a few hours, but I could not stand half of them. My problem with the maps lies with the absolutely terrible spawn system. I’m not exaggerating when I say there have been dozens of times when a guy would literally spawn right in front of my eyes, or right behind me as a turn the corner. And, like you said, every place is just filled with holes and entrances. You’ll kill the entire enemy team and they’ll spawn right outside the building and charge you from all directions at once. The maps and spawn system are just terrible.

As for the snipers, I’m actually kind of confused. In Black Ops they took “quick scoping” out of the game completely and nerfed snipers so much that they were pretty much useless. One of the main selling points of MW3 was that it would be like MW2 in that you could run around by yourself with a sniper and still get a good score. I can’t really say all that much on the matter since I don’t like sniping in CoD games (more of a CS AWP guy myself), but from what I’ve seen using a sniper in MW3 is just as easy as it was in MW2 (not counting in factors such as the map, other guns, lag, etc.)

One huge problem I had with MW3 in my short time with it is hit detection. It’s worse than Black Ops, and that’s saying something. I tried turning off Theater Mode, my NAT was open, etc. Nothing helped. I would die around corners, my bullets would go straight through people, the hit detection was just disgraceful. And it wasn’t a connection speed problem, I have a good internet connection, yet 90% of the time I was on a 3 bar. I just don’t understand how with every new CoD game the hit detection just gets worse and worse. Makes it unplayable, in my opinion.

Edit: Check out this ridiculous spawn.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxNTAEORB-g&t=3m47s

Yeah, I heard they’re actually going to be releasing some CoD4 and MW2 maps for DLC. I don’t mind it as much since the default maps in MW3 are terrible, but at this point they’ve run out of ideas and are just trying to milk as much cash out of the series before everyone realizes it’s the same game every year with a new title and a new skin.

this game is over when sansafro187 says its over and no one else

sansafro187 is the one who kills around here and sansafro187 has killed you

i killed you meowkin pirates

I’ve been playing Oblivion of late (as opposed to studying for my finals/finishing my final projects) and finally got around to finishing the Thieves’ Guild questline. The final quest was awesome, and then the ending made me d’awww.

Starcraft 2 for the Holidays

That guy probably has insane APM. ;)

Yeah, when it comes to StarCraft, and especially Brood War, the Koreans dominate.

QUAKE. LIVE. ROCKET JUMPING.

Finally got to play Ace Attorney: Apollo Justice. I think I might enjoy visual-novel style games a lot, since I did like this considerably. Also, Klavier: man, I hated that guy. How I loved to make him squirm. I think I ended up sympathizing with a bunch of characters way too much, though…like when you think Kristoph is calling a rose his best friend, and his locks are filled with ‘despair’...I was going ‘T_T ohhhh…’ way too much in that game. But it was fun. They better get cracking on that Ace Attorney vs Prof Layton game.

Game of Thrones – The Game: The Wall Trailer [HD]

Lack of precision in controls is awesome.

Oh yeah I finally bothered to finish Zelda Skyward Sword. Ending was pretty sweet. I like how it sort of explained why evil just keeps on trying to destroy Hyrule and why Zelda, Link, Ganon are always reborn.

StarCraft 2 is fun. :D

ALL OF THE DARK SOULS. Dark Souls is the best, everyone! The best!

The beeeest!

(Side note: how do you guys typically name your characters in games? Serious, silly, based on other stuff or completely original, etc. etc.)

Two things.

First off, the moral of the story, which I’m sure you know, is ALWAYS QUADRUPLE-CHECK YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION. I can’t tell you how many millions of times I’ve been a complete idiot about this.

Second, you’ve got a pretty damn good friend there, man. I don’t know if I’d blow that kind of money on anyone I knew. You’d better put chocolates on his pillow for a while. :P

ARGH ARGH ARGH

I read a possible Mass Effect 3 spoiler from the beta leak and I really, really, really, really, really wish I could forget it, because if it’s true, it’s awesome and I just wrecked the awesomeness for myself.

NEVER EVER AGAIN. I am SO mad at myself right now. I’ve got two months to go without any really HUGE spoilers, and then I go and do something retarded like this. HATE.

ME2 really is about filling out your shopping list, isn’t it? Aside from Jacob, Miranda, a certain team member you pick up toward the end of the game, and I guess Mordin, there was never really a reason why you picked the people you did. I feel the shopping list thing could have been disguised a lot more by simply spending more time explaining “well, we should get this person for that… and this person for that…” and so on. Or picking up more squad members in an “organic” sort of way.

For example, in the rambling ME fanfic I occasionally write parts of (it’s basically for me to explain away all the things that annoy me!), I decided that the way they recruited Archangel was sort of by accident—they went to him because he could help them find Mordin, and when it turned out to be Garrus, Shepard was like “well, why don’t you come along, then?” More like how in ME1, it made sense why you were picking everyone up.

Anyway, on ME3, I really hope they improve that somewhat. I like ME2 characters and I feel a lot had interesting stories, but it was lost in the laundry list of “pick up this person, go do their loyalty mission; pick up that person, go do their loyalty mission; etc.”

Got “The Honorable” as my title in SWTOR today, which is sweet, because that’s what I like to think my Sith Sorceror is. My lone Dark Side act so far is sleeping with Rylee Dray, and I make no apologies for that.

I have to ask, are you on The Swiftsure? Because apparently it’s the “unofficial Aussie server” and there’s a bunch of pissy idiots who start complaining about the “yanks” on “their” server whenever the clock strikes 11pm here.

But yeah, I imagine I’m gonna stop playing soon too, just because I feel like the sorceror story is just kinda spinning its wheels right now and it doesn’t make me want to play that much further.

That is the downside of MMOs – if you don’t play it regularly enough, you’re probably wasting money.

Also, sansa, what is wrong with you? Playing a Light Side Sith Sorceror? Really? What’s the point of being able to shoot lightning from your finger tips if you’re not going to blast people for annoying you?

It’s official, Mass Effect 3 will require Origin. X(

I’m trying to grudgingly come to grips with this. To help me (or to make me want to just download a crack all the more), has anyone else actually used Origin? Even better would be if you’d used both Steam and Origin and therefore could compare their services. Is Origin really as bad as everyone makes it out to be? Also, and honestly more importantly to me, can I run the Steam overlay in an Origin game?

Also, I exceedingly rarely buy videogames new (by which I mean the only other full-priced game I’ve ever bought was Portal 2), so I’m still twitching at the thought of shelling out 80 bucks for the Collector’s Edition. But I really really want it! sigh Vidyagames, y u make my life so complicated?

Yeah, Steam is very unobtrusive as far as DRM goes. The one thing that annoys a lot of people is that you have to have Steam running to play Steam games, but you don’t have to have an Internet connection, and quite frankly I run even non-Steam games with the Steam overlay, so having Steam running is hardly a problem. But I doubt I’m going to love the Origin overlay as much as the Steam one, particularly considering that none of my friends use Origin much, as far as I know.

What bugs me with Steam is that you have to go online to play in offline mode… which means when the power blinks out, then comes back on, but without the internet, I can no longer play all of my Steam games. And out here, internet can be down for a very, very, long time.

...Yes, that includes Portal.

Wuh, level 300? Whoa! I’m only about level 110 or so, but I’m gonna be starting a new character because this one fails completely at higher levels (fun fact: playing as a thief and never really changing your weapon and not getting into magic tends to ruin a character).

I thought the endings were a bit too barebones, but it is a cool game.

My problem is that I’ve got high dexterity for my knife, which makes most other weapons useless, plus I have put stuff into resistance, and I’m in NG+ and still pre-Darkroot Garden. (Well, I should be in Darkroot Garden right now but eh.) I started a new character, though, a bandit, and I’m having a blast with him.

...I don’t like to think. XD

The game’s music in general is great. There’s a playlist for it floating around on Youtube, which is awesome.

I read the description, and that sounds like a really interesting concept for a game.

I never heard about that competition before, either. That also sounds pretty cool! And like a lot of fun to participate in.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!

I have been waiting for Meet the Pyro for SO LONG! I’ve been waiting since before I ever even played TF2!

CAN NOT WAIT.

Well, I think that if they say they will do it this year, it means that they will actually do it. On the other hand, if they say “soon,” then there’s no telling how “soon” it will be.

Quitting SWTOR. It’s a fine game, but I’m at the level cap now and I’m done with my class story and I just don’t feel like grinding dailies just so I can grind more dailies. I’d rather just play some single player RPGs that are out right now.

So, what is it about WoW that’s made it such a successful mmo, almost to the point of being the only mmo being played? Any thoughts?

It’s been a few years since I last played WoW, but what initially drew me to the game is how tactile it felt, for lack of a better word. Feeling you have even slightly more control over your character makes a huge difference in playability in the long run, especially if you’re going to log hours and hours into an MMO. I’m good enough at SWTOR now to make my guy do whatever I need him to do, but it still felt pretty clumsy at the outset. WoW was smooth from the jump.

Sure that’s a video game, it’s just an online one. A Mumorpuger (MMORPG), specifically. Unfortunately, I can’t give you advice on it, never having played it. But I tend to figure, if it’s free, you’re at least mildly interested, and you have some free time, why not try it?

Oh, and I forgot to mention this earlier, but about MMOs, the real question is why EVE is still around. People tend to forget about it when they talk about MMOs, but it’s probably the second-biggest, and certainly the one through which the most money flows. And I think I may have just answered my own question right there.

ALSO FEMSHEP TRAILER YEAH

Not my FemShep, mind you, but hey, it still counts. Jennifer Hale is an awesome, awesome VA. Also, the trailer had Kaidan in it.

No clue, Sen, sorry.

No, it’s fine. I was just curious, is all and I like scary stuff. It’s just that they’re not so scary when you read them on a site where everyone’s trying to come up with the best and you don’t know whether it’s true or not, so that kind of takes the fun out of being creeped out. If someone here actually did experience it though, I’d find that interesting.

Buuuuuuuuuuuut I like hearing them aaaaanyyywaaaaayy whiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine.

Yeah, I guess they’re just stories. Life’s so dull right now. I must seek cheap entertainment elsewhere.

Vanguard Charge + Geth Plasma Shotgun = Death and destruction.

IIRC correctly Shepard is invincible during the charge, so if you ever need to dodge some big attack just charge the nearest enemy and you won’t take any damage.

And double-posting because I just played the Mass Effect 3 demo, and it deserves a post of its own. I think it goes without saying that SUPER MEGA ULTRA DELUXE spoilers follow. (If you’ve watched most of the trailers and other videos that have been put out, though, then you pretty much had spoiled everything already that’s in the demo.)

First, my complaints. Thankfully, there’s not that many.

Now for the fangirl squeeing and gushing.

Anyway, I think I’m going to replay with some different classes and see how things change. Maybe try some different difficulty levels/“story” levels. The story level thing is interesting, by the way, although I doubt a lot of people will really make use of it (or at least I fervently hope so). You can set the game to “Action”, where all dialogue plays as straight cutscenes, “story”, where combat is easier but dialogue is normal (so you have full control), and “roleplaying”, where both combat and dialogue are normal. I played as “roleplaying”, of course, and I can’t imagine playing on any other setting (easy combat settings are for sissies and people new to vidyagames, in my opinion ), but I may try one of the others, just to see how it goes. I’m particularly interested in whether such a Shepard is paragon or renegade.

Well, looks like Vanguard is broken.