What platform would Mark of the Ninja do better on? The 360 or the PC?

I just finished Edna and Harvey: The Breakout. Wow. It’s been a while since I’ve been this invested in a game’s plot. I think the last game where I really cared about the plot (and was actually satisfied by it) was Bastion. Maybe I’m more effected by it because it was a spontaneous buy and I had seen nothing on the game before I played it. In any case, I recommend it to people who are fans of 90s adventure games and fans of dark plots. It’s not exactly the best game play out there, but the story is pretty good. To me at least. I can see it being a YMMV type of story.

Spoilers ahoy.

In regards to organiclead’s above spoiler:

I’m playing Borderlands right now, after borrowing it from a friend…and to be honest, I’m a little glad I didn’t buy the game myself. It’s a pretty solid shooter, with good enemy variety and controls, and the skill system is alright. It’s humourous mostly in a good way and always brings smiles to my face whenever I see a tastefully-done shout-out/reference.

It is fun, but it has quite a few flaws. I don’t think I’ve ever played any other game that requires you to unlock quick-select slots — what in the world is the point of that? While driving isn’t difficult, fighting other vehicles is a pain in the butt, especially the boss fight against Mad Mel (which I just ended up cheesing with a sniper rifle and Phasewalk). Damage-over-time is ridiculously overpowered and turns fights against tougher enemies into keep-away.

My biggest problems with the game stem from one of its most prominent boasts: “gazillions of guns”. And those problems are that: a) 99% of the guns I find are mundane weapons with nothing special about them; b) only about 1% of the weapons I find are actually useful or viable upgrades to my arsenal; and c) the inverse relationship between how cool a gun is and how useful a gun is. A shotgun that fires a spread of shots in a wave pattern or fires explosive pellets in a smiley-shape isn’t appealing to me when an ordinary shotgun can do better damage more consistently. I’m especially disappointed with the “Carnage” shotguns, given how much I love Carnage in Mass Effect 1 and Mass Effect 3 — they’re far too inaccurate to reliably hit enemies.

I’m hoping that once I get farther into the game, I’ll find fancy weapons that are actually useful; given what I’ve heard about the game, I’m going to be a little disappointed if the weapons that carry me all the way ‘til the end are ordinary shotguns, SMGs, and sniper rifles.

(Also, I’m still peeved that the “Sirens” in Borderlands have nothing to do with actual mythological sirens. I know it’s minor, but I am a bit of a siren fangirl and purist. XD)

I’m playing Borderlands right now, after borrowing it from a friend…and to be honest, I’m a little glad I didn’t buy the game myself.

Yeah, I had the same feeling. Actually, I had played STALKER: Call of Pripyat just prior to playing Borderlands, since I got it on OnLive during their opening sale. I was kind of underwhelmed that the same feeling of desolation and mystery wasn’t there and that sort of ruined it for me.

I’m actually a bit hesitant to try Borderlands 2 now, even though I’ve read so much good about it. I just can’t reconcile what I know of the original to what they’re saying about the sequel.

I’m really tempted to buy it now.

So am I. And then I remember why I never played the beta… I have no time. D:

I guess this is the appropriate thread for it, but I decided to exercise my goony rights by reading the (in)famous Dangan Ronpa LP. Shit is cray cray.

Shit is cray cray.

That’s what makes it awesome.

OH YES THANK THE REAPERS WE HAVE A VOLUS VANGUARD

I HAVE AWAITED THIS DAY FOR SO MANY YEARS

(okay, okay, like a couple of months, ever since they released the first volus characters. But still—three-foot-tall aliens who I believe literally explode if their pressure suits are ruptured and look/sound like teddy bears with asthma… using a fighting style where you are, on average, six inches from your enemies… :DDDDDD)

I must have one.

Pokemon X and Y people! I’m over 20 years old and I still look forward to this. Is that a bad thing?

I guess they ran out of colours.

...well, of course it’s not a bad thing. Pokemon are awesome. (How much that means coming from someone with a Pokemon plushie as their avatar is up to you. XD)

Crysis and Crysis 2 are currently £5 each on the EA Origin store.

That is all.

Haha lily, funny you should mention that. I’ve always thought about it and I always come to a certain conclusion.

Those clothes don’t look half as good in real life.

I always thought you were pretty good when I played with you. Not better than me obviously, but nobody is that good.

Started playing Dungeon Defenders, ‘cause a freind gifted it to me.

It makes me want to stab things.

but I named all my characters after led zeppelin members

What don’t you like about Dungeon Defenders? I haven’t heard of it, is it a recent game?

My crystal keeps getting destroyed by stupid dragon things.

I hate them.

@lily – ahaha, that was hilarious. Why would they do that?!

Man, Chivalry is a silly game. I feel like I’m getting a bit better at it, though.

Elder Scrolls Online beta is open for applications!

Whoa, thank you Organic. Deponia was actually on my list (read: waiting for a steam sale) but perhaps I will give it a miss now…

I’m waiting for a PC release of Journey because I refuse to support PSN. They’re porting Botanicula next week so it doesn’t look too unlikely that this will happen.

TF2 is officially on Linux now.

I am seriously considering downloading Ubuntu purely to get my free penguin.

I don’t recall Robojean featuring in the musical…

Also, Marius vs Eponine… “Bitch, I took a bullet for you!”

Go with Linux Mint. Operationally, it’s the same as Ubuntu, but with some performance improvements, and better GUI options.

The final DLCs for Mass Effect 3 have been announced: Citadel and Reckoning.

I’ve already queued up my tears.

According to Mike Gamble, Robin Sachs had done work for the Citadel DLC before his death. So one last time to wax goddamn nostalgic.

This weekend’s multiplayer operation is even in tribute to him: Avenger and Inferno Grenade points.

I’m going to have to wait long enough anyway; I promised my girlfriend that she could play the DLCs first when they came out. It took her almost six and a half hours for her to do Omega on her own, given that I usually help her and give her advice whenever she plays.

Oooh. That sounds pretty sweet! The whole concept of turian biotics in the backstory is pretty interesting to begin with… her powers sound very cool indeed. Now I just have to wait forever to unlock her. :P

Total War Rome 2 ‘gameplay demo’ from back in October is kinda funny. No actual player input (aka gameplay) seems evident. Just a massive movie. I hope there’s some open beta or demo or something because it looks like something I’ll either like or really, really hate (like SupCom2.) I can’t tell from the trailers what a player actually does beyond order troops around. How much control will I actually have? 1a2a3a? Or something more substantial.

You know, I just realised.

The main plotline of Mass Effect is almost entirely lifted from Descent: FreeSpace. Not surprising I guess. Two amazing games of their respective generations.

And lily, you are raising my expectations for when I buy the whole thing outright.

So, anyone else have Tomb Raider? I figured I might as well try some big new game.

No, the plot isn’t really amazing, it’s only moderately great looking, and there’s one hell of a texture bug that shows up sometime and occasionally there’s a fatal error. But, the story is moderately well done, the voice acting is okay-good, and it is very fluid and smooth. I actually really like it, things that you want to do naturally happen. Crouching behind barriers, being able to grab things that look like they can be grabbed, the camera adjusts so you can look where you want, combat is interesting. Overall, I don’t regret getting it. At least not yet.

Lol. I don’t really know much about the whole series, but the way I understand it is that they are actually trying to do a story this game, rather than just making a run around and shoot stuff thing. Multilayer is somewhat interesting, but also disappointing. I’m coming from CS:GO, and boy do most people suck at gaming.

Oh yeah. I’m using GO as a comparison to other games multiplayer stuff. I think that CS in general embodies what a multiplayer game should be. The basic mechanics are easy to understand, and the gameplay is about Team vs Team, not how much stuff you’ve unlocked or what perks you’ve taken.

That said, there are at least a couple weapons in TR’s multiplayer that are pretty good, and can be cheaply upgraded. So a new player can get a gun that will allow them to compete with more leveled up players. However, the average player sucks. I mean, sucks so bad that they even get the first shots off at my back, and I kill them and the guy behind them. They keep popping out in the same spot, expect me to come back out after they shot me while I go behind them, etc. Map design is pretty good, but is really small for the speed that you can move at. One map is pretty epic, and you can make use of all the fast vertical maneuvering that is available. For game modes, there’s team deathmatch, free for all, rescue, and signal. Rescue is a CTF type game, where the survivors have to get five medkits back to base, and the solarii have to take down and execute 20 survivors. In signal the survivors have to activate three beacons, while the Solarii have to collect ~20 batteries from dead survivors. It’s not really competitive, but I’m having a lot of fun.

I think that CS in general embodies what a multiplayer game should be. The basic mechanics are easy to understand, and the gameplay is about Team vs Team, not how much stuff you’ve unlocked or what perks you’ve taken.

This. And skill. I hated the multiplayer of CoD because the first person to get a killstreak generally ends up winning the round. Same with Battlefield 3 to an extent. But CS is different. It’s so much about your reflexes and who can kill the other first. When I used to play more regularly, my clan got to the quarters of GotFrag and then we were thrashed by some australian team.

Gary’s Mod.

Looks like he’s taken some stuff from a lot of different places and stuck em all in Halo vehicles. Pretty neat.

This one is particular is as done as it’s gonna get, though it could probably use an explosion.

Reverse angle:

You can’t really see it from those angles, but Mario is driving the Hummer and Emperor Palpatine is driving the schoolbus.

After hearing about DuckTales Remastered on Twitter, I decided to play the original NES DuckTales. The Moon and Transylvania were pretty good…and then I went to the African Mines.

If it is true, though, I will be very, very sad. :(

I’m doing an informative speech on art in videogames (or how videogames can be art, or what constitutes art in videogames, or whatever), so I have a task I want help with: when you think of “good art” when it comes to videogames, what games come to mind?

I already know I’m talking about Bastion, maybe Portal, and maybe Spec Ops: The Line. My general thesis that I’m trying to get it is, in essence, good videogame art is when everything (gameplay, music, art design, voice acting, story, etc.) works together to create an immersive, emotional experience. It’s a 5-7 minute speech, so I can’t rant about environmental storytelling and sound design or talk about TF2’s character design for a half-hour or anything, but I’d like to at least briefly touch on a few examples of games that really stand out.

The list of games I should probably talk about but don’t know enough about to talk knowledgeably about so I have to do more research first:
Shadow of the Colossus
Ico
Braid? And how it’s a metaphor for the nuclear bomb.
Journey
Dear Esther

Games which are really good in one or two areas but maybe not enough to be truly “art”:
Bioshock/Silent Hill for atmosphere
Mirror’s Edge/TF2/Wind Waker or something for visual style
Portal 2 for music (procedurally generated)
HL2, Deus Ex, some other stuff for story

As you can tell, I’m still trying to fit everything together, so… yeah, any game suggestions for me to look into would be great. :P

Mirror’s Edge/TF2/Wind Waker or something for visual style

I think that Mirror’s Edge deserves recognition on the immersion front, too—the way that you can look down and actually see your body is really awesome, and also pretty rare in first person games. That combined with the fact that the only HUD is a dot in the center of the screen (and that can be turned off, as it was only there to help with motion sickness) and the game does a great job of putting you in the protagonist’s shoes. Personally, I think the story’s really good too, but I won’t try to derail your talk into “reasons why Mirror’s Edge is awesome” like I’d probably end up doing. XD

Mirror’s Edge was primarily popular for its original gameplay—it’s a first-person, speed-based platformer, though it also has FPS elements and slower sections, both of which were generally not cared for. The story was generally criticized for being somewhat generic, though personally I think people aren’t really looking past the setting—if you ignore the “oh noez evil government” stuff, which does fuel the plot, there’s interesting themes about living versus surviving and the plot is also largely driven by the relationship between the protagonist and her sister, something that I think is really cool to see in a video game. But now I’ve written two paragraphs about it and I must stop myself before I ramble for days.

I played Halo 4 for the first time tonight, and used a controller for the first time in, like… seven or eight years. I did horribly, but that game is surprisingly fun. If there was a PC version, I would be buying and downloading it as we speak.

I have learned that Rome Total War: Barbarian Invasion is half Sim City, half Civilisation, and entirely too slow for my liking.

It’s a good game, well designed and mostly enjoyable, but it was clearly designed for much more patient people that myself, who can sit there for an hour achieving basically nothing while your units are being trained and walls being built, only to be able to move said units half an inch from your city in any one turn.

So I’m trying to find a good shooter MMO with a storyline. Anyone know if such a thing exists?

@swenson – Oooo, color me interested! Zene Tyler, if you need the name?

Also, this is probably a stupid question, but has anyone mentioned To the Moon?

One of these days, I’m really going to have to actually finish Fallout: New Vegas. Compared to companion storylines, sidequests, the DLCs, and just plain adventuring, going around and playing diplomat for whatever faction you side with is just incredibly uninteresting. Heck, I’ve finished Dead Money four times already and I freaking loathe Dead Money with a passion.

I did finally finish the final DLC, Lonesome Road. It’s a nice concept, nice setting, and overall nice DLC, but my biggest problem is how Ulysses goes from an almost-all-knowing figure at first to a massive, bull-headed hypocrite when you learn more about him and his motivations.

I’ve also discovered an awesome glitch that lets you assign ammo types to a hotkey, allowing you to use just about any type of ammo with any weapon, applying the specific effects of the ammo—you can stuff 5mm ammo into a hunting revolver and gain the armor penetration effect without any difference in damage. But the real beauty of it is when you equip a thrown explosive and the 12-gauge 4/0 buck or 20-gauge 3/0 buck (from the Gun Runners’ Arsenal DLC)—you throw four explosives with every attack, only deducting one shotgun shell per throw. I’m utterly carpet-bombing the heck out of the Cazadors north of Goodsprings at Level 3 with nigh-infinite frag grenades.

There are benefits to games programmed by semi-competent apes after all.

Looks like we’ve got to be friends first. Sent you a request (assuming it was the right one! I only saw one with that name, though).

Got it! Sorry that took so long, I had work.

ETA: Blarg, it’s not working. :<

@The Drunk Fox – sorry, I didn’t see your note before. Is it still not working? I can try to send it again.

@lily – Considering the source, WHAT A SURPRISE.