My zen garden in Plants Versus Zombies. A garden with pots that have the plants from the game. The plants give money when watered, fertilized, and otherwise taken care of by the player.
Another week has gone by quickly and it is time for our regular questions:
- What games are you playing this week?
- Would you recommend those games to other Border House readers?
- What games have you ranting?
- Are any of those games listed ones that you want to see covered on the site?
This past week I finished Plants Versus Zombies and finally got to hear the ending song, which was very catchy. I also went back to Fable 3 and my queen is keeping all her promises to her people, which is proving to be an expensive measure. It is interesting to how the choices made as ruler in that game affect the treasury and thus the readiness for the end game segment. It definitely attempts to make the good choices harder on the player because it means a loss of money in the treasury. The evil choices generate more money for the ruler. That is an interesting potential message about government decisions.
So, what have you been playing this week?
Just Left4Dead 2 multiplayer and a tiny bit of Lost Horizon for me.
I am pretty close to finishing Lost Horizon… still. I need to play more so I can move on to Gabriel Knight
I’m quite pleased that the Left4Dead 2 multiplayer events have been generally successful!
Finally finished Mass Effect 3, was planning to replay it with my other Shepard until the ending crushed all the enthusiasm out of me. Wrote a chapter of my thesis instead.
…So, I’m looking for recs. My roomate recently got Mirror’s Edge, Call of Duty 3, and Portal. Also debating picking up a copy of Amnesia: The Dark Descent or Journey. Which one would be most worthy of my rapidly shrinking, soon-to-be-defending free time?
Of those titles listed, I would recommend Amnesia: The Dark Descent if you’re interested in the idea of playing a rather intense horror game. It was a memorable and thoroughly enjoyable experience for me.
Portal is a good choice if you’re more interested in solving fun puzzles with a humorous storyline. Lots of fun!
I haven’t gotten Journey yet, either… but I very much want to!
Journey sounds incredible, but ME3 ripped my heart out just now (and not in a good way) so I’d rather something light-hearted for now. Portal it is! Thanks for the rec.
Journey is pretty overrated IMO, buuuuut it would definitely be much better to play it now, while the hype machine is still active, than to wait til after the buzz has died down. To explain why might be a spoiler, so I’ll just say that if you want to play it at all, now’s the best time!
Still grinding patiently away in Devil Survivor (I discovered I can gain XP/Macca/skill cracks and then run away from battles when the tide turns against me, which is SO HELPFUL), and poking at FFXIII-2 (nearly done chapter 3.) I am mostly doing these things to kill time until Friday, when Xenoblade Chronicles will be mine and I will cling to it like a limpet.
I also started Ash II: Gold on iOS, because I loved the first one SO VERY MUCH (despite its shortage of female characters) and so far it totally lives up to my expectations.
Really enjoying P3P, btw. I find the demon fusing so much more manageable since I only have to focus on developing one persona, instead of juggling three teams of three plus a few spares like in Devil Survivor. And I really like the high school setting! Needs more yuri though, let me romance my female teammates, not the dudes!
I’m so glad you’re enjoying it!
Some of the later S.Links you get as a female MC have some serious subtext (because they were only barely shifted from the male-MC’s romance links) – Lovers and Empress, in particular.
Unfortunately the only explicit romantic social links (in the sense that the game spells out that it’s a romance, not *insert bad 70s music here*) are with the guys :/
Yay, subtext is something I can work with! See: Fanille
Also, yes.
Xenoblade Chronicles will be mine and I will cling to it like a limpet
This is what will happen, haha. I picked Xenoblade up again this weel after taking a break to focus on Platinum-ing XIII and XIII-2 and OH SO GOOD ITS SO GOOD. I’m rather glad I took a break though, there is so damn much to do in this game, I feel like it would be easy to burn oneself out.
Finally STARTED Mass Effect 2 over the weekend, now in the process of downloading ME1. (Will consider getting ME3 a few years later either after EA and Valve work their crap out or I hear something reliably non-bad about Origin.)
Liking the paragon/renegade system, which I assume is non-exclusive rather than the usual zero-sum alignments you get in RPGs.
Liking somewhat less the cover system which goes against all my oldschool FPS instincts – by which I don’t mean needing cover instead of circlestrafing so much as the fact that there are all these very specifically placed bits of prescribed “cover” that you have to “use” rather than simply eyeballing out the LOS with the enemy and moving behind the obstruction.
(and speaking of eyeballing things out… anyone know how to increase the FOV while in combat? I’m relying almost entirely on audio to know when I’m being flanked.)
That said, I’ve never seen this sort of Star Wars-style space-opera firefight dynamic replicated as well as this in any other game.
Would be nice to be able to click on targets while the power wheel is up. And for a lipstick-free Shepard option.
Fact that Miranda goes about in combat in a rubber suit and high heels is significantly less offputting than I thought, but this may be because all the henchmen are usually sort of quasi-randomly teleporting somewhere out of sight anyway.
Trying to navigate through space still terrifies me, even in 2D and with everything reasonably clearly labeled.
I’m still playing Grandia, but I’m about ready to throw this game against the wall. The main character is so dramatically, world-and-characterization-warpingly heroic that the whole story is just a joke. Blech D: I hope this is the final dungeon. I just want to get it over with and go play something good.
Aww, I rather liked Justin. He’s just so friendly and upbeat. I like that in a JRPG protagonist (as opposed to mopey and morose or oh-so-serious). He reminded me of Zidane. Or maybe Zidane reminded me of Justin, can’t remember which one I played first.
SKYRIM!!! Still.. Doing Companions and Dark Brotherhood. Have barely cracked the main questline at level 32.
Juggling a lot of JRPGs right now but the two games that stand out (that I haven’t already discussed on this thread) are Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings and Kid Icarus: Uprising. I wasn’t really interested in or following the Kid Icarus news until right before launch and I have so say that I’ve been blown away by how awesome this game is. It’s definitely a challenge to get a handle on the funky controls but the game makes this as gentle as possible by giving you a very generous difficulty scale that can be changed at any time. The characters and voice acting are such a delight and it’s just impossible for me to play this game w/o getting a big grin on my face. I highly recommend KI: U for any 3DS owners who don’t mind wrestling with the controls a bit at first (they not /bad/ controls, just unusual).
FFXII: RW has turned out to be a lot more fun than I was expecting. I loved XII but could never get into RW because of the gameplay but I decided to force myself to stick it out this time around and now that I’ve figured out how to best control my units, I really really like this game. Sort of a piss poor game as a sequel, but on its own it’s a pretty superb little DS title.
I tried to play Revenant Wings. I gave up. I couldn’t get the hang of the gameplay, and floudering through it to try and get to the next bit of story just wasn’t fun for me.
Yeah, that was how I felt each of the past three times that I tried to get into it. Then I figured out the trick: pretty much every battle can be won easily by 1) Pressing X (to select all units), 2) Tapping the enemy you want to target, 3) Watching all of your units swarm said enemy and take it down in a few seconds, 4) Pausing to let your healers fill up any depleted HP, 5) Rinse and repeat. The problem I was having was that I tried to split up my units and direct them to simultaneously attack different groups of enemies when it’s just far more efficient and effective to keep your units all focused on one, united goal.
The yearly make-your-own-visual-novel-in-a-month festival is wrapping up, which means there are a pile of new short free games to look at, almost all made by people who are outside of traditional game development.
For just a couple of the possibilities, there’s “Kitten Crusade” where you play a cat trying to take over your neighborhood with Pokemon-style kitty battles, or “Ristorante Amore” which takes a standard dating-sim-for-girls concept and gives it a vigorous twist.
I just started the “Hunger Games Adventures” Facebook game. So far, it’s like every other Facebook game – do this thing, then that thing, wait for energy to refill, rinse & repeat. I hope it gets better.
Eh, it doesn’t. It abruptly ends, too. They’re not finished with the game, so it’s just Castleville+AdventureWorld blandness at the moment. But … I played the whole beta. I think it’s because I haven’t read the books and I’m waiting for my sis to give me her copy … The game showed me more of the world than the movie did, so that’s why I kept playing.
~~~They’re not finished with the game, so it’s just Castleville+AdventureWorld blandness at the moment.~~~
That is exactly how I would describe it. You build up your little campsite. Fight – er, “banish” – a couple of beasties and move on to the next quest.
~~~I think it’s because I haven’t read the books and I’m waiting for my sis to give me her copy … The game showed me more of the world than the movie did, so that’s why I kept playing.~~~
I haven’t seen the movie yet, but I’m the 2nd to the last chapter in the book. I understand how they want to fill in pieces of the plot to people who aren’t familiar with the story, but I wish they would come up with a better way than those annoying pop-ups.
I think it would’ve been interesting if they let us customize the character more: We would get to pick our district, then the tasks we do in the distrinct would raise our level until the reaping. We gain even more points for styling, for our exhibition with the Gamemakers, and picking the right answers for the interview portion. When it’s time for the arena, the points we earned would determine how well we do in the games.
I guesss all of that would take a lot more power, time, and a money than a little Facebook though. ^_^
There’s a lot of potential for a Hunger Games video game. As a game designer, I’m watering at the mouth for it. I would have personally preferred to play AS Katniss for the Facebook game, since it’s so linear anyway (and all the characters wish they were talking to her anyway …)
I played the HG game board “Training Days” with my sister, and I’d recommend it. I understood it without reading the book, and it’s about impressing sponsors/Gamemakers. You get to pick your district and form partnerships. Anyway, its way more satisfying than this game and I enjoyed exploring an aspect of the world that only touched upon in the movie.
I am fiddling around with Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City and its multiplayer with the hubby. Still play ME3 multiplayer fairly often. Same ol’ iOS games, the usual subjects.
I still need to finish Skyrim. I still haven’t finished the main questline. The Civil War or the Dragonborn ones.
In terms of new games, I am playing Life Quest 2. I freakin’ love it. Of course, I like those life-simulator type of games. And the art and style of the game is so pretty! Plus, you can marry and have kids. Any way you want.
Also playing Phenomenon City of Cyan with my mother. She and I tend to play Hidden Object Games together, as a sort of quality entertainment time together. We like the puzzles and the art. The game? It is grand. The story is fairly decent for the genre, and there is pretty good voice acting and characters. The puzzles, though, are varied and awesome. The art, too, is so beautiful. It’s like steampunk/sci-fi/ancient civilization mixed in theme.
Finished Journey last week. Incredibly gorgeous, fun, and engaging. And not a word required for the entire game! Yet it still evoked emotion and imagination and story in me.
I’ve been putting off starting Journey but Deviija and Olivia have inspired me to start this weekend, I’m looking for ward to it. I loved Flower and went back to it often. I wish more games used the PS3 controller in this fashion.
Folklore and Heavenly Sword got creative with the controller and I absolutely loved both those games. They may be older games, but highly recommended.
I’m about half way in to ME3 and enjoying everything about it, though I still think they have not entirely aced the cover system. Is anyone using Kinect for issuing orders to your squad? My sweetie called out if I wanted tea and Liara answered and went running off, I’ve turned Kinect off! For the rest, the combat is awesome, smooth and the sound is excellent. I note an absence of hacking (unless I’ve not come across it yet) and have LOL at a few inside jokes referring to the first two earlier games. What’s up with the character Diana Allers and why do I feel so embarrassed for her … yikes.
Played more Skyrim too, I’m following the main quest – well, trying to stay focused. What an awesome game it is. Also, a friend talked me into starting Dark Souls as I think he wants someone else to share his pain and oh my gosh, I’m so imtimidated. I’m still plucking up courage to pick it up again after dying in just the turotial. It’s amazing, though. There is No Game Pause! Seriously.
Hee, awesome! I hope you enjoy Journey! As someone that also loves Flower, Heavenly Sword, and Folklore (and their controls and designs), hopefully you’ll enjoy Journey bunches. I honestly didn’t give much thought to their co-op system. I thought it sounded rather mundane and casual — people popping into your game and you can help each other complete puzzles together and travel around together (or not). But when I actually got to the end of the game, with a constant real companion by my side, and the obstacles and struggles we went through (no spoilers! you’ll have to see), it brought a LOT more emotion and sentiment out in me.
Also, bwah at your sweety asking about tea and Liara answering by rushing off. CLEARLY she wanted some teatime herself!
As for Diana… well… I have no positive things to say about her as a character or why she was included in the game. Sigh.
Only semi related but the team that made Fallout 1 + 2 is looking for funds for their new game http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/inxile/wasteland-2
And some other games that may be worth a look: http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-amazing-indie-video-games-that-kickstarter-made-possible/
Funnily enough, my wife and I are preparing to sell our copy of Fable III. We bought it the day it came out, because Fable II was one of the first games we both fell in love with. While it has its moments, III left us both feeling vaguely disappointing… and the feeling only grew with time. Eventually, my wife mentioned how every time she tries to remember something from the game, almost inevitably it turns out she’s thinking of Fable II. I realized I felt the same way: I can tell you specific plot points from III, but when I try to recall actual game-play… I end up thinking about II.
SPOILER-ISH STUFF AHEAD:
As for the dynamic of the second half, I felt like it was throwing a false binary at me that mimicked the fiscal lie of conservative warhawk America: You can either have social spending, or keep the money for military spending. Your pick, but the nameless evil will kill everyone if you pick the former. The third choice is to grind, so you have enough money to do both. As much as I love the idea of a ruler filling the war chest with private funds earned through a combo of busking and rolling out pies, I didn’t like being guilt into grinding. Also… why on Earth would any leader allow Reaver to live at that point, much less take political advice from him? He tried to kill you! Repeatedly!
END SPOILERS
Just got started on Syndicate. Decent shooter but feels a lot like a Deus Ex lite. Wish they had done more with the hacking aspect than simply have you hold down the E button.
Trust me, later on in the game you’ll really come to like how fast the hacking goes. There’s a certain boss fight involving redirecting missiles that uses it particularly well. It’s also more realistic this way: a hacking minigame would take away from the great immersion Syndicate provides.
Still the same old here: Orcs Must Die!, Dwarf Fortress, some Sims 3. I completed my mission to finish OMD! on Nightmare with 5/5 skulls on every level, so the DLC campaign will be next. It really is a fun little romp, and there’s a sequel in the works with 2-player co-op and a female player character, so I’m hopeful for that too.
Dwarf Fortress is going well, aside from my lack of focus and planning. At the start of year 4, I have some magma-powered forges ready and my militia — 4 axedwarves and 5 marksdwarves — is starting to be reliably kickass, routing 3-squad goblin ambushes with ease. Having said that probably means someone will die in an embarrassing manner soon, though. Now that clothing has been fixed, I’m slightly bemused to see the little buggers grab the dead invaders’ clothes as soon as their own starts to show signs of wear and tear. Maybe I should get my my textile industry running properly, because wearing pants ripped off a dead goblin’s bloodied arse doesn’t sound very nice.
One of the reasons why I like this game is that, childbirth aside, it really makes no differences at all between male and female dwarves. And yes, they really are called “marksdwarf” or “fisherdwarf”, while their craftsmanship is in fact “craftsdwarfship”.
I just bought a bunch of games but I have no idea what I want to play! I did start “The World Ends With You” a few days ago. I started “Silent Hill Origins” as well.
http://www.videodetective.com/games/insanely-twisted-shadow-planet/561515
Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet is what I am currently dabbling in; though it was released a while ago, better late than never I say. The game play is fun as it is similar to all the best scrollers such as Metroid and Castlevania. The controls are tight and the upgrades and power ups are very fun . The art style is amusing yet downright creepy to the point where some enemies can make the player want to run far away. Exploring, monster battles, spaceships, this game has tons of personality and appeal.
Age of Empires Online came to Steam recently, and I was quite exited, given that I grew up as a gamer on the Age of Empires series, and RTS games in general. I quite enjoy it, except for the highly finicky interface (trying to select a moving unit is a minigame in its own right) and the rather annoying including of Games for Windows Live, which made the installation process a pain and, it seems, means there won’t be any Steam achievements any time soon. It’s still got that old-school RTS gameplay I love, though, so it’s forgiven for the time being.
Also been playing some Deus Ex: Human Revolution. It’s a lot of fun, and I love that the game lets you get through without killing people (except the bosses, but I’ve only had one of those so far). I failed at a completely nonlethal playthrough by killing the guys who first broke into Sarif in the intro (I had no nonlethal weapons, and it hadn’t occured to me to use takedowns), but since then I’ve tried to make sure not to kill anyone. It’s a lot of fun, sleuthing around and hacking through security systems.
I’m playing the MULTI-player of Mass Effect 3. I say muti-player because I hated the end and found it to highly, highly problematical. The last ten minutes ruined it for me. Much of the story of Mass Effect included very obvious racial metaphors and the overall theme of the game was different races coming together despite their differences and indeed those difference being a strength. The last ten minutes amounted to “pick between: 1. forced homogenization of all races, 2. genocide, or 3. forced enslavement as per the enemy commander who believes races can never coexist recommendation”. I can’t expand beyond that without get super spoiler-y but these threads on the Bioware forums explain things well:
Waring discussion may be triggering for some.
http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/355/index/10036548/1
http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/355/index/11178038/1
I officially feel like a fool for trusting Bioware, and feel a little guilty for still playing multiplayer.
Actually that was my first interpretation. Except i don’t mind forced homogenisation as much as the rest because i believe the synthesis code (which was part of Legion and EDI, both loving, decent people) is not inherently harmful, only Catalyst’s will is. And i like to see Joker fixed.
First of those threads is so wonderful and makes all the sense in the world. The racist/genocide/God/predestination/obedience note in the ending was against everything i am, everything Mass Effect so far was and everything Shepard is. And i have to add, also everything EDI and Legion are.
But then you have the second thread – ‘playing god with the DNA’? Wtf , bioethics. Needless to say Dreger is a fine example of what a ‘bioethicist’ is. The future does lie in Synthesis, whether you pure bios want it or not, lol. And this is when i have a temptation to say it how it ends does not matter – because everything misses the point to an equal degree.
Skyrim :3 I kinda abandoned my vow to boycott it lol