A soldier in a mobile trench unit fighting one of the blue television screen-faced enemies in Iron Brigade.
Another Wednesday means another chance to have your voice heard on a light-hearted topic!
- What games have you been playing lately?
- Are there any you would recommend to other Border House readers?
- Are there games that have you ranting or raving?
- Are there any games that you played and want to see covered on the site?
I was out of town this past weekend and was not able to spend a lot of time playing games. I did get in some time with Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure. I am still enjoying that game and it is just a fun experience.
I also started Iron Brigade from the Xbox marketplace and finished a handful of missions. I am not a fan of my Polish soldier’s accent but otherwise I was having fun. All of the playable soldiers are male and the intro has some over the top versions of men’s magazines with titles like Man’s Life and Real Man. At this early stage of the game it has felt satirical and silly, rather than offensive or sexist. Although I do wish I could play the game with a woman soldier rather than with a man.
Finally, I would have played some Witcher 2 but the newest patch is not working on my PC and that has effectively broken the game. After 3 failed attempts to download and install the patch I ordered an Xbox copy since it also has the Polish voice acting. I will now have to wait another week before I can try out the game.
So, what have you been playing recently?
As I boringly say every week, I am playing Lost Odyssey! I think I’ve now done most of the sidequests, and my team has an average level of 99, so today I move onto the last level.
I tried not to let my OCD stop me from enjoying it (it makes playing RPGS into an absolute chore sometimes, which is terrible as they’re one of my favourite genres), and I was mostly successful. Hooray!
I ordered Dark Souls, mainly as a commenter here was extolling the virtues of the character creation a few weeks ago, and that should arrive tomorrow, just in time for me having (hopefully) finished Lost Odyssey. It has worked out nicely!
Oooh, yay! I hope you enjoy the ending.
I did enjoy the ending, ta! I was a bit teary-eyed, and no mistake. I genuinely liked all the characters (something that hasn’t happened for me in an RPG for a while), and was so pleased when Kaim turned out to not just be ‘generic badass’ and Jansen wasn’t the total jerk he seemed to be upon his introduction (and in fact went on to be my second-favourite character, after Seth).
Oh, Lost Odyssey!
Lost Odyssey discussion is never boring! I loved that game and I am glad you have been enjoying it.
Just beat Journey and got all of the trophies. Loved every minute of it, even if it was all too brief.
SPOILERS BELOW
Not sure if I should be impressed with the ingenuity of the team for a way of making it so that you can play co-op with anyone from across the globe without fear of harassment or even a language barrier, or saddened that effectively muting every single player and removing all forms of competition is probably the only way they could have done it. Some food for thought. Anyway, a beautiful game. Anyone know if you can buy the soundtrack anywhere?
Now I’m working on the second elite pack for MW3, and it’s brought me a stupid amount of joy. Well the first mission, Black Ice, is just so ridiculous that I laughed all the way through my first run. Every time it died down to snickers the intensity would go from 11 to 12 to OVER 9000 – Snowmobiles and jumps and self-destruct sequences! Oh, CoD. It could only be you. On the other hand, Negotiator is actually – wait for it – difficult. After the absolute softball experiences that MW2/Blops/MW3 have been even on Veteran mode, this one hearkens back to CoD4′s Mile High Club or WaW’s Burn ‘em Out. My mate and I had all the Black Ice trophies within a half hour; we’re still trying to save all those hostages, days later. Good times.
The Journey soundtrack is available on iTunes!
I share your mixed feelings about the multiplayer in Journey, but I come down on the side of being delighted with the whole experience. I must have played through it a dozen times by now.
Replaying Mass Effect from the first part, this time planning to romance Liara with my femshep. Also I played the Tera Online beta and now I’m waiting for the official start… Feels very guilty about this, because there is lot of problematic stuff, especially with the girls designs… but it was first game that allowed me to create such androgynous male character I always wanted… so uh, I’ll be shallow this time.
Wait, it’s Wednesday again already? How did that happen?
I’m right at the end of Devil Survivor and I’ve changed my mind about which path I want to take; I’m going with the cop-out one so I can get to new game plus faster, and thus tear through my actual chosen path at a ridiculous rate of speed.
I played some more of Xenoblade Chronicles, in which I completed the Tephra Cave mission and oh no suddenly the plot has exploded. It took me 6+ hours to get to this point. (I was busy with sidequests.)
I haven’t made any progress in Final Fantasy XIII-2 or Ash II, sadly, nor on any of my replays, but it’s been a busy few weeks.
I just picked up a ton of new things for my iPhone, including two varieties of Picross (yes, I’m aware I have a Picross problem), so we’ll see how that goes.
Picross games are some of my favorite puzzle games! Loved the ones on DS.
Which are you playing on iOS? I’ve only tried iPacross so far.
I loved Picross 3D. Blew through it in about two weeks.
I picked up PixelCross, which is the one I’ve been playing, and PicrossHD, which I’ve not tried yet.
I loved Picross/Nonogram/IllustLogic puzzles on Linux, but the DS version was too limited for me. The pictures were limited to small sizes, and the game had the bad habit of filling in part of the puzzle for me.
Picross! I’m annoyed that the US eShop doesn’t have the new Picross game yet. >:-(
I started playing Skyrim for the first time this month. (Got it on the cheap – Amazon had it on sale for $40 plus I had a $20 credit!) I’m playing a female khajiit. I have never played an Elder Scrolls game before (the 1st person view literally gives me a migraine), but wanted to give this a try as it offered the 3rd person option. When the game began & I got to choose my character I was delightfully surprised at the options!!! I thought I’d only be able to choose between human, elf, dwarf, etc.
I have an affinity for felines (my friends call me the cat whisperer!) so the choice was easy. Early in the game you can buy a house in Whiterun. It comes (again, to my surprise) with a housecurl, Lydia. I’d read that one can marry in the game. When I got the opportunity, I married her. Now she runs a shop out of the house & gives me a share of the profits!!
Having primarily played JRPGs prior to this, I’m finding the game fascinating & a blast.
I’ve been playing Deus Ex and Age of Empires Online, the latter partly out of nostalgia (Age of Empires is what really got me into gaming), and partly because it’s actually not as bad as people say. Most of the criticism is aimed at the payment models and Games for Windows Live, but the game itself is a decent RTS, although not quite as well integrated into the MMO metagame as it could have been.
I bought the Humble Botanicula Debut (the charity goes to preserving natural habitats, so I chipped in extra), and I’m really looking forward to try out Botanicula, but I’m waiting for the weekend, at which point I might be finished with Deus Ex as well.
Oops, sorry! I meant to post my longer post down there, but when I saw that your friends called you the cat whisperer, I just had to reply, and something got mixed up. My friends say the same thing about me, and I modeled my Skyrim character, also a Khajiit, after my cat! Small world, eh?
Good to hear you’re having fun – Skyrim is a great game.
Cool, glad to know I’ve got compadres out there! Actually had to take my friend’s cat to the vet for her yesterday.
Good luck with Age of Empires Online – those games have too much minutia for me. You must have a TON of patience!!!
Thanks! I actually don’t do well with the little things either, and I’m bad by any competitive metrics, but I still like RTS games – they feel kind of like gardening somehow, which I’m sure is a weird comparison.
I hope the cat is okay!
I follow the gardening comparison – something else I’m not good at (have a brown thumb). One of my ex-girlfriends was big on gardening – I enjoyed looking at the finished product & the wonderful smell!!!
The cat’s fine – thanks for asking. Her husband is taking one of their dogs to get fixed tomorrow – she & the cat hate each other – so it was easier on them to go separately. I’m not big on dogs (like children, they’re ok when they belong to someone else!), so I volunteered for cat duty!!
Skyrim has quickly become one of my favorite games. I have played the Elder Scrolls series for a while (although I have yet to actually finish a game). Currently, I am stuck on the section where you have to eavesdrop on the guards in the sewers. They always kill me, even if I’m super quiet and don’t move. GRRRR!
I’m still playing Valhalla Knights 2. I’ve opened up some new areas and my party’s well-leveled so far. Traveling to those new areas every time is getting a little annoying though, so I hope I’ll find some shortcuts soon.
I just read another confirmation that, yes, Valve is working on making Steam available for Linux. Once that comes true, I hope to finally check out some of the games that have everyone raving here so I can hang out with the cool people maybe.
My games backlog is already very long though..
After the discussion here about Vanille, I decided to try to finish FFXIII again, and got the final boss battle finished on Sunday. Now I’m working on missions and achievements, and waiting for FFXIII-2 to come from GameFly. This is the first Final Fantasy game I’ve “finished” (Although I very nearly finished FF7), and one of the more enjoyable ones.
one of the more enjoyable ones
Indeed!
<— hopeless FFXIII evangelist
I enjoyed FFXIII as well. I’d put it in my 2nd tier of FF games (VII & XII are first; XIII, VI, V & IV are second). XIII-2 was good, but not as complex (gameplay-wise/the lack of ability to level weapons, etc.) as XIII – very heavy ending though.
Do some of you play the demo of Dragon’s dogma? I’ve heard it has a good character creator where you can create people with many different body types for example short people, fat people and so on.
I played it last night and it definitely has a lot of sliders and options in the character creation.
I had some graphical glitches and I thought that the companions just spoke a little too often for my tastes but otherwise I really enjoyed the demo. The control system was fun and the music that played during the large monster battles was really good and helped make it feel like an achievement when you take down one of the monsters. I definitely enjoyed it.
I’ve been playing with it with much glee and enjoyment. You can, indeed, make short and tall and skinny/underfed and fat/muscularly barrel-bodied/plain overweight types and everything in between.
Definitely a lot of sliders to choose from.
I enjoyed it as much as I thought I would. Oh, and cool thing? You can import your character+main pawn into the full-game upon release.
Yup, very good character creator. You can create tons of different body types and many body parts can be changed individually: for exemple, you can chose to have shorter or longer legs without changing the height of the rest of your body. It’s also fairly to use, with lots of presets choices for those who have trouble getting the looks they want by themselves. And my favorite part of it: not only do you create your main character, but you can also create your main companion.
Woo Wednesday! I have been playing FEZ, partly because it’s just an easy game to pop in and out of for a few minutes at the end of the day, and partly because it’s rather mesmerizing with the sherbet colored skies and endlessly wandering through levels trying to find where I should probably go next.
I’ve also had Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion in my Xbox for about two weeks now, but keep not actually starting it (I started it years ago, got stuck many many times, and then my saved game was killed by the red ring of death). Admittedly, my game skills are better than they were (Hello hand-eye-coordination!), but I’m torn as to whether I want to go for it again. I need a rainy empty weekend to happen so I can commit to it!
Unsurprisingly, still Legend of Grimrock and Rift. Also an iOS MOO clone called Starbase Orion. Also, very loosely speaking, a yet unnamed tower defense game that my spouse and I are working on, though “playing” is perhaps a bit strong a term.
I made a Backloggery list last week, and it really has spurred me to finish a few things. Right now I’m on Kingdom Hearts: Re:coded, which is actually turning out to be one of my favorites in the series. It still rehashes a lot of the same old worlds from the first game, but it has the most varied gameplay yet in the series – Paper Mario-esque skilled turn-based battles in one world, reversed escort mission gameplay (you’re defenseless, and your party members guard you and remove obstacles) in another, etc. Nothing is especially groundbreaking, but it effectively spices up the usual Kingdom Hearts formula, and the leveling and skill systems are, as usual, creative and engaging.
After that, I’ll probably try to tackle a Final Fantasy again. I lost steam on XII again recently, so I might try back on that one, though I’m also tantalizingly close to the final stages of X.
Backloggery is a fun site. I’ve been watching their Monday evening streams for a couple of years now and it is one of the friendliest online communities I’ve ever seen.
Indeed. Backloggery is a very nice site. I do try to :B: my games at least, but those :C:s are as elusive as ever. Problem is that I still try for them, which takes a lot of gaming time. Maybe that’s just me though :/
Backloggery’s “scoring system” sees :C:s as an ideal, but you can approach it any way you like.
I even know of people who simply use the site as a database for their collection and don’t decorate their page or use any of the comment or tracking tools.
Oh, I love the Backloggery! It’s really encouraging for finishing the stuff that’s been lying about forever. As one of my friends put it: “Wait, you mean I get rewarded for meaningless accomplishments* with the accumulation of pointless numbers? It’s like they’ve got a window into the gamer brain!”
* Meaningless in the sense of “not necessarily having measurable real-world value.
And I agree, it’s very friendly there. Surprisingly few annoying hassle-prone types, at least in my experience.
“Wait, you mean I get rewarded for meaningless accomplishments* with the accumulation of pointless numbers? It’s like they’ve got a window into the gamer brain!”
Ahahahahahahaha YES.
I’m enjoying it so far – haven’t done much with the social aspect of it, but it’s been very useful in getting a wide-angle view of my collection. I’m a little disappointed that I seem to be one of those people who only finishes about half the games he owns, but hopefully this will help me up that stat, so to speak.
(I think the Mastered status is one of my favorite parts of the site, since it gives you a way to acknowledge those games that you loved enough to give your all even beyond normal completion. Having that little Mastered diamond next to The World Ends With You reminds me that I’ve ever had as much fun grinding to perfect as I had in that game, and being able to commemorate that experience is a nice touch.)
Using Backloggery over the past 3.5 years has definitely shaped my gaming habits and pushed me to :B: a lot more of my collection than I would have otherwise. It’s also led to me shaving off a lot of the dead weight in my collection as well, as watching my :U: count go down as I sell off superfluous games that I’ve been hanging on to for years w/o touching is very satisfying!
Backloggery! I love that site. I’m oliemoon over there, if anyone wants to look me up.
I just played KH Re: coded about a month or two ago and actually sort of loathed it by the end. >_<;; I know they changed up the gameplay, but Squenix has just re-used those same worlds/thin Disney plots WAY too many times now w/o adding a lot substantially plotwise so my patience for Re: coded didn't last very long unfortunately.
Went ahead and added you.
(Same name as here.)
I actually just finished Re:coded. It’s definitely a slog at times (especially during Wonderland, but when isn’t that one a slog?), but once it got to Hollow Bastion a whole slew of excellent fights started popping up one after the other, which was pretty exhilarating. The ending was pretty poignant, too, and for the first time it’s clear how all the games in the series fit together. I loved it, but to each their own, eh?
I added you! I’m elliewellie77 (….. don’t ask?!?!?)
Ahahahaha, I’ve always wondered….;-)
It’s actually not that weird, I had a Tarutaru mule in FFXI named Elliewellie (because my main character was Eleniel) so for some reason I used that name at backloggery and steam >.> lol
Wonderland ugggggghhhhh (but actually the Coliseum is the world I hate the most by now, haha). The ending did get me excited for Dream Drop Distance (it’s a pretty nice set up!) but for me it was just too little, too late. Plus the last KH game I played last was BBS (which I think *might* be the best one in the series and is *definitely* the best non-PS2 installment, IMO), so coming off of that experience, Re: coded just paled in comparison and felt like a step backward. Glad someone else was able to enjoy it though!
Now SE, just give me more Aquaaaaaaaa.
I’ve only finished Terra’s story so far on BbS. I’m at the final part of the other two, but I’m thinking I’m going to go back and play through them all again just because it took me a year on and off to do it the first time. I kind of lost track of what was happening, and just reading up on it to review doesn’t really have the same weight.
Botanicula, which is so charming. I play it with a constant grin on my face. Each little noise they make becomes my new favorite thing ever.
Been playing Unstoppable Gorg after getting it from whatever bundle that was. I love the B-movie style of the art and cutscenes—it makes the aliens interesting when they’d otherwise be boring and done to death by every other game. Not really a fan of tower defense though, even though this one is a little different.
And I’ve been on a New Vegas kick for a while after getting a new PC and checking out all the mods that didn’t exist when I first played it. I enjoyed it immensely when it came out, and now it’s a billion times better: more beautiful, more intense, and more meaningful. I just finished my takeover of the Strip and am torn between continuing the main quest, doing DLCs, or just exploring.
This week has been continuing the things I was playing last week, for the most part, with one addition that I’m a little reluctant to talk about. (Suspense!)
LotR: the Third Age (PS2) continues to be a bland cash-in. Last night’s session introduced a love triangle, which made me groan out loud. Goes to show that boring people feel sexy, too.
Half-Minute Hero (PSP) continues to be canny and funny. If you’ve ever enjoyed a JRPG, I recommend it highly.
And then there’s my guilty admission, Record of Agarest War (360). The presentation is cut-rate at best, the story is a combination of dull summaries of off-screen battles and embarrassingly stupid het-male-audience-centric titillation, the music is mute-worthy, there’s way too much time spent fooling around building your items and spells, and in general it feels like it’s going to be waaaaay too long for the interest it’s delivering. “Tactical JRPG” is one of my favorite genres, though, and RoAW has the occasional hint of–not brilliance, not hardly–a hint of a challenge curve or opportunity for tactical thinking.
Back to some old NDS games lately – Children of Mana, Avalon Code, FF:CC:Echoes of Time. I really like Echoes of Time, even if it’s kind of preachy – the story is moving enough to make me cry in bits even after playing it several times, there’s important female NPCs, and you can make your own character and team instead of being handed an angsty spiky-haired hero.
Also, a question: I noticed that Tales of the Abyss has been remade for 3DS, and I’m sort of thinking of picking it up due to lack of new RPGs, but I’m really really tired of games where you can’t play a female main character. Anyone else played it and have a review?
Tales: Centers around a dude, but apparently is the second best in the series (or tied with Vesperia) as far as gameplay and overarching story goes. The Tales games are pretty ani-tropey in my experience (heavy with things that you see a lot in anime). At least that’s my $0.02 from seeing it played.
Also: I LOVE FF:CC games! Not quite sure why, but they sure are fun!
Yep, you do play a dude in Tales of the Abyss. The story circles around the dude protagonist and his struggle of maturity (he’s a huge asshat in the beginning) and responsibility. There are a couple strong ladies in the story, but… well, the only lady that gets a lot of screen time and development is the main love interest/romance lady, as is typical. She’s a cool lady, though, for most of the game until she gets kind of cornered into a purely ‘love interest/background character not as fierce as in the beginning’ type of character.
Still… for a JRPG (and set-protagonist RPG in general) it is a really decent title all around, the sigh-worthy aspects aside.
Long ago, my spouse was playing some early Tales game, and had a device which revealed secret doors, which it did by hitting them with a beam of yellow light. So I walked into the room, and saw a character walking down a long corridor, and every step he walked up to the wall, and there was a yellow line above him, and then he turned and went on ahead. And apparently, this secret door mechanic is a sort of recurring theme in the series.
I assume that the reason the main character is always a guy is just verisimilitude for the phase of the game where you walk around peeing on everything.
I enjoyed Avalon Code until it got to the point where I had so many pages and code blocks lying around that if I learned how to craft a new weapon, I had to massively juggle things to get the blocks I wanted in place. I stuck with it long enough to make a spreadsheet tracking the locations of all my blocks and their sizes, but then keeping it up-to-date was a pain too.
Other than that, I enjoyed the gameplay, the story, and the dating elements.
Tales of the Abyss 3DS is my first Tales game and I’ve put about 15 hours or so into it and…I’m pretty meh on it so far. Haven’t touched it since Kid Icarus came out actually. The main female character, Tear, is super super awesome but Deviija says she gets less awesome as the game goes on and she’s really the only thing that I strongly like about this game so….
People say that Abyss is one of the best of the Tales series, which leads me to believe that Tales must be just a really by the book, generic JRPG series. I’ve really been scratching my head over why this game/series is so beloved cause it’s not doing anything for me so far. /shrug
I think Vesperia is the only Tales game that conformed to many of the Tales’ game-y and plot-y criteria, yet broke away from it in many more ways. Even being subversive about gender archetypes and personas on some level, too. I kept waiting for Estelle (the ‘main’ lady of the game/love interest) to dwindle in importance or become a soppy damsel… While she does have some story instances where she’s very inept in the beginning — but even there she’s trained with a sword and shield and knows how to use them (weapons which are very rare for a lady headliner in a JRPG to boot) — and has a brief ‘rescue Estelle’ quest later on, she manages to end the game on a very high and empowered note. I liked it a lot.
Also, her growth arc in the game centers a lot around becoming more of a fighter, which I liked. The strong protect the weak, the strong change the world, fight for what you believe in and stand for something greater etc. concepts she deals with.
And the supporting cast had a very awesome spellcasting tough-and-tumble lady that solves most all the problems in the game, and a bumbling young dude that deals with courage issues. So, really, imo, the entire team and their issues and personalities were really interesting and helped propel the game forward. How they deal with each other, how they deal with themselves, how they deal with the ever-growing plot intrigue that goes from a simple fetch quest to local-endangerment quest to a regional quest to a world-saving quest.
Tales of the Abyss is no Vesperia, imo, but it is a decent second or third place in the Tales series for me. Hard to say. I think Tales of Symphonia gives it a good run for the money. Though then again, I’m rather fond of Symphonia for no reasons beyond ‘I like that Chosen One plot Collette has.’ Heh.
I continue my replay of Mass Effect 1 with FemShep Vanguard. At first I felt that game is rough among edges in comparison to smooth and polished ME3 but now that I have adjusted I think I like it the most from whole series, even mako explorations though a bit grindy is something that I enjoy more then bunch of mission of ME3 tied in CoD style.
Botanicula is really neat, i like it.
I was planning to pre-order GW2 to grab access for Beta weekend but price for bare digital download is a little bit steep for my current situation so I’m skipping it for now
Still crawling forward in Xenoblade Chronicles. The quest system is sooo…. painful, especially now that I’m in Alcamoth. >_< One because it's timed quests and two, good luck finding every person with a timed quest in that huge city in the day AND night AND they move around. ._. However Eryth Sea at night during shooting stars is awesome. I sometimes just stop and stare at the sky.
Mostly been playing around with the Dragon’s Dogma demo. Fiddling with the character creator most of all. I think I got my Character + Pawn ready for importing when the full game comes along. I am imagining backstories for them and already eking out plots and romance storylines that will play out (in my head) during the game. Bwah! It’ll be a cute couple of a Burly Mage and his Strongman Rogue.
There are a ton of long hair and medium-length hair for men in the game as well. I know some people really like having the longer-hair options for men, so there is that for those people. Not too many short-hair, though, much to my disappointment (about 6? out of 30ish?). But hey, spiked, roman, and mohawk, so I’m pretty happy. A lot of decent facial hair options, too. Like wolverine muttonchops. Hee.
Many options for body types, as I mentioned above in another reply. Short, fat, tall, skinny, barrel-bodied, tiny child, various muscular and fat settings to choose from for each. You can have mismatched colored eyes (monochromatic, I believe is the term?), or have one eye closed or both eyes permanently closed. Scars of so many variation. Guys can wear makeup options that the women have. And what I really enjoy: the ability to adjust your character’s overall stance to be feminine or masculine (several settings). So my Rogue has this little subtle sway in his hips now. It’s cute. I like it especially since it isn’t overtly exaggerated feminine-to-masculine settings either. No back-breaking and hip-dislocating swishy saunters or burly gorilla walks.
I do wish there were more hair colors and eye colors. A good selection, definitely, but I could always use more and more unique colors (purples, bright reds, oranges, etc.).
All in all, I’m happy. :3 Can’t wait.
Just so you know, altough you can’t romance your pawn, there will be NPCs you can romance (including same-sex romance)
The more I hear about this game, the more I’m gritting my teeth at my decision to never buy a console again (after the RROD I got from an XBOX three days after purchase a few years ago, I lost all desire to dabble in the medium, especially since I’m a PC building and fixing enthusiast and no console top date gives me the ability to tear it open and fix it in a matter of hours).
Then there’s the whole kerfuffle with Dark Souls as well, another game I’ve been following eagerly. It is being ported over, but the whole Games for Windows Live is a deal-breaker, since I’m not in one of the supported countries. Same thing with XBOX Live, really.
That I can very much empathize with and understand. My hubby had RROD a couple years back. Thankfully it wasn’t too much fuss to send it in to the company — and they even offered him a new console under the warranty. Took about four months to get it… but yeah, no extra fees at least.
I’m a PC person. Always have been since I was a wee sprat. However, the games of yore that I played are so different compared to the games of today. Things have changed a lot in 20 years. It’s one of the reasons why I have frustration issues over K&M setup in a (third person) shooter game vs. a controller setup. I just can’t handle K&M in frantic or otherwise shootery-type games. Even games like Skyrim I rather use a controller for. Thankfully many games do allow for controller support (or I can scrape by with xpadder), but most of the time I simply purchase such games for the consoles instead.
Now when it comes to strategy games, adventure games, point and click, Sim/life management, tactical, turn based, etc. games it’s all K&M and PC.
They did say that if there is enough vocal fan desire for Dragon’s Dogma on the PC, then they may do it. They’re looking into it last I heard.
It sounds like Devija spent more time playing with character sliders than playing the demo. High five! I did exactly the same thing. It was time to go to bed, and I had only played the Prologue, which doesn’t even feature your character.
I’m still working on my (female) main, and, aside from looking a little grumpy, she doesn’t seem to have much flair. I’m happy with my pawn, who is quite the skinny gloomy gothy fellow. Maybe I’ll change up my main some more and have two skinny gloomy goths save the world come launch time.
I’ve enjoyed Capcom’s Lost Planet 2 (multi) and RE5 (duo with my brother), and the prologue of Dragon’s Dogma makes me think it’ll be quite similar, and in a good way, especially when it comes to the big monsters. (Maybe I should give one of the Monster Hunters a try, too….)
I did the same thing. Did manage to get through the additional bit of gameplay, but I want to mess with my characters and my one pawn a lot more. She needs way more spice, although he does look good in his makeup.
Funtimes!
You mean there was a game attached to this character generator!? I kid.
I also jest to friends that I’d purchase this game solely for its character generator. What can I say, a GOOD chargen system with diverse options makes me weak in the knees and swoon all over the place. It is such an important part of gaming to me as the years go by. Not only to be a part of a game’s story and see what choices I want to make, but also to see what kind of characters I want to be part of this story I am creating. I don’t think it’s asking for too much in 2012+ state of gaming, hey.
I probably spent more than 3 hours fiddling with my main character and pawn, and I still want to go back and tweak it some more. My brain is so overwhelmed with scenes and little plots and such for the two of them that it’s hilarious. I take it as a positive sign, though. When a game can inspire me to imagine and inspire me to enjoy myself, that’s when I truly feel a game has given me keys to my own freedom of entertainment.
I fully support your skinny gloomy goth brigade saving the world.
Have you decided what classes your main and pawn will be?
I also really loved Lost Planet 2 (co-op multi) and RE5 (co-op) and Saints Row 2+3 (co-op). Being able to enjoy with another person, like my hubby or good friends, is another gateway to my enjoyment. It then becomes less about me and more about ‘we.’ A teamwork and mutual enjoyment thing. Where everyone can get a time to shine. Unfortunately with Dragon Dogma, though it seems ripe for co-op goodness, there won’t be any of that. We’ll just be able to trade pawns with one another, and our pawns will bring experience and knowledge with them to the other person’s game. Then what they learn there will also reflect back on the owner of said pawn’s game. It’s kind of like your main pawn has a life of his/her own, and goes off adventuring and doing his/her own thing even when your main character is not around.
Oh and if you have a Wii, give Monster Hunter Tri a shot. It can be quite fun for the hunting monsters co-op aspect. When I was playing, I met quite a many random nice and chatty people I hung around with. Then, you know, it gets too grindy (get 60 bones of this beast that is rare to spawn and rare to kill and the drops are super rare) and I lost interest.
Maybe Dragon’s Dogma 2 will support co-op, if it sells well. I can hope. :3
Quoth Devija: “I fully support your skinny gloomy goth brigade saving the world. Have you decided what classes your main and pawn will be?”
I’ve taken a slightly different tack from the other post and now my main is a tiny girl with dark skin and blond pigtails and named Sunshine, and her gloomy companion is Shadow. The poor things are subject to change at a whim until the game is actually released.
I don’t know what classes there are in the game, but making Sunshine a tank and Shadow a caster would be amusing. I agree that it’s fun to imagine a story for these people you create yourself, how they might have come to adventure together and what their current relationship is like.
Even if there isn’t a co-op mode in the works, the idea of swapping pawns with other people playing the game is brilliant. A big cheer to Capcom for that.
Hee. I like that! Sunshine and Shadow. I tend to like being subversive with my lady characters too. Have the tiny gal be a tank, the lady be the strongest hitter of the group, muscular large lady be a caster… :3
Well, for the game, it starts off with three classes available. Strider (the rogue/ranger type), Fighter, Mage. Then as you go along, you unlock other classes. Hybrid classes and advanced/specialized classes. 9 Classes total, I believe.
On the PC: I played some of the Diablo III beta, some Titan Quest after that (with Ike), and a bit of Lost Horizon (can’t believe I’m still not done with it).
Diablo III seems okay, and I’ll be getting it specifically because a few people want to play it multiplayer with me, mostly Ike and my brother. Some of the character models are very facepalm-incuding, which is sadly not surprising given Blizzard’s character design history. The oversimplified character progression is also annoying, which is why I decided to install and start playing Titan Quest with Ike.
On the iPad: The Creeps!, SpellTower, Adventure Bar Story, Puzzlejuice, and Mage Gauntlet.
The Creeps! is a cute tower defense game, with cute little monsters (which are usually food items) and some neat towers to kill them with (glue, boomerangs, and even laser-shooting pumpkins).
SpellTower and Puzzlejuice are both some awesome word games, each good for different situations. SpellTower is more slow-paced for most of the modes, so it’s relaxing to play when I’ve only got a bit of spare time. Puzzlejuice usually lasts a bit longer and is more exciting, a cross between Tetris and a word-finder.
Mage Gauntlet is awesome as always (I never finished it before and decided to pick it back up, as I’d been having fun but got distracted).
Adventure Bar Story is sort of like Recettear, but you cook instead, and the selling to customers aspect is instantaneous. Trying to discover new recipes (and killing monsters for ingredients) is fun so far!
Thanks for the very fun word game suggestions, always looking for good ones. Puzzlejuice and SpellTower downloaded! I lost a good few hours to both today. SpellTower had me mulling over trying to clear the board multiple times, which I have yet to do.
No problem, glad you like them as well! The closest I’ve gotten to clearing the board is two letters left :’c
Let me know if you have any recommendations for other iOS games I should try… just finally deleted Infinity Blade II so I have a lot of space c:
My quick coffee break game is 7 Little Words, you may have heard of it. It’s also one that can really make me crazy, as the words are right there in front of you, it’s just finding the correct combo of letters to solve the clue.
I played the Diablo 3 beta over the weekend and was underwhelmed (longer version on my blog). Then I played Titan Quest, which is a similar style of game but allows more customization of character skills.
On the iPad, I played a lot of Squids, a turn-based strategy game with fun game mechanics but annoyingly sexist squids. I also played Hatchi, which is a Tamagotchi-style game and quite low maintenance.
I’m looking forward to the TERA launch next week. I will be avoiding the oversexualized humanoid female characters and instead creating a Popori version of one (or both) of my dogs.
Completely, head over heels in love with P3P, so most of my time has been spent there this past week. Played the 2nd Taiko no Tatsujin games for both the DS and the PSP over the weekend to break up my P3P sessions a bit, but it’s hard to stay away for long. Yukari and Mitsuru are so <3 <3 <3!
Sort of picking at Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky here and there, but I started it last winter, then put it down for a few months when XIII-2 came out and now, post-Vita launch, I'm finding it annoying to go back to the PSP's much smaller screen. I've been thinking about downloading it on my Vita, but I don't know if it's worth the double dip yet.
Also trying to make progress in Kid Icarus: Uprising. I really, really like it (Palutena is probably one of my favorite female characters in a game ever), but I suck at the controls so I find it a bit intimidating to play.
Legend of Heroes took me quite a while to work my way through, because I went for a perfect playthrough on the first go. (It is actually not technically possible to get 100% perfect in less than two playthroughs, but ah well.) It was enjoyable, but I don’t know that I’d pay for it a second time. I can understand being frustrated with the smaller screen. (I have this issue when I play games on my iPod Touch instead of my iPhone–the latter is new enough to have the Retina display and oh my but it does make a difference.)
I’m definitely not trying to go for a perfect playthrough (I’m sure I’ve already missed out on lots of BP by not doing quests perfectly, oh well!), but playing things on the Vita is just so much nicer now that I never want to pick up my PSP anymore =O My partner also sort of frowns on all of my digital double dipping as well…>_<;;
Remind me that this game does get amazing right? And at some point I'm going to really fall in love with it?
It definitely does become awesome later! I really liked it despite its problematic bits.
“Wait, you mean I get rewarded for meaningless accomplishments with the accumulation of pointless numbers? It’s like they’ve got a window into the gamer brain!”
Yerg, sorry. Misclick. Ignore this random post.
I’ve recently played Gray Matter, an adventure game featuring both a female and a male lead character. The female character, Sam, gets most of the focus though, which I thought was the right choice. The game mechanics for the xbox360-version were a bit odd, so the game probably works better on PC, but once I got used to them it got a lot better. I liked Sam a lot; she’s well-balanced with both positive and negative character traits and it was fun interacting with the NPC characters through her. And the puzzles were, albeit a tad too easy, quite nicely put together. All in all, it’s a game that’s played mostly for story and atmosphere. I loved the magic shop!
Other than that, me and my fiancée got addicted to Fez and I have only a few blue cubes left to collect. My fiancée is determined to solve the last puzzles without cheating, so I’ve promised not to look up any of the answers online. ^^;; It’s a really fun game and very cleverly put together. You don’t have to collect all the cubes in order to beat the game, but I think it’s worth trying to get most of them at least because of the puzzles.
I also play ME3 co-op from time to time. I’ve unlocked a Batarian soldier, whom I use for melee combat which is fuuuuun! And I’ve a purple Geth Engineer, whom I’m currently looking up builds for. I usually play at Bronze only, but I might try Silver a bit more often from now on.
I’ve been looking out for Gray Matter in the USA for months now, and see it’s still not available. Tried to download it on XBox Live, but the dreaded “Region Specific”/You Can’t Have error came up. Sigh. Remains a mystery! Otherwise, been playing the HD version of Beyond Good and Evil that I downloaded a long while back and that I never got around to playing. I’m loving it, the RPG/Puzzle/Action is so much fun, and I love the camera that is so much a part of the game, very cool. Also, they really got the menu system right, love that. Find myself bopping to the music, it’s all round a great little game. Just feels polished and has so many elements of fun, cool little hovercraft, an adorable aide/partly PC, and the protagonist, Jade, is sassy and fab. Also, loving all the species you get to see and the futuristic SciFi world is engaging.
Re: Gray Matter in the US: I don’t know if you game on the PC or not, but I bought my copy here: http://us-adventureshop.gamesplanet.com/buy-download-pc-games/Gray-Matter-2194-49.html
Thanks Tess! Maybe it’s time I upgraded my PC for gaming. I’m also intrigued by the game @loocas talks about earlier, called Botanicula. Sounds cheery and super cute.
I’ve been playing Botanicula on and off. Normally I love Amanita Design games unreservedly, but I was a little disappointed this time to find so many of certain types of physics-based puzzles that are kind of hard for me to execute. Ok, so one of them was a complete nightmare because of a bug, and I had to use a savegame some generous soul put online for other people to use at that point, but I saw it working-as-intended on a video and I doubt it’s the kind of puzzle I would enjoy having to go through even when it works.
So it turned out to be a game that I still love many things about like the cute little main characters and the sounds, and of course the graphics and storyline, but I can’t play it for very long at a time.
Very happy with my full game soundtrack and other goodies though.
Otherwise I’ve been mostly playing Mahjong while listening to music, or watching a TV-series I like.
Currently I am playing God of War 3; better late than never I always say. It has spectacular cinematic events, smooth fun game play, cool level design, nice upgrades, and fancy new weapons to play with. Narrative is not this game’s strong point, but it makes up for it in so many other aspects. Really, I am just trying to get pumped for the new God of War that is on its way. More ridiculousness and fun to come, and I could not be happier.
http://www.videodetective.com/games/god-of-war-ascension/94489
I am playing The Walking Dead and SUPER CASTLEVANIA IV.