Carcassonne game board while someone plays online.
It is Wednesday!
- 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?
This last week I played more Dragon’s Dogma. I went into Everfall in order to progress some of the main quest but my character is still under level 20 right now. I also played a few rounds of Carcassonne with friends online.
So, what have you been playing?
I’ve been starting back on Etrian Odyssey II so I can get on to III to maaaybe be ready for IV… however with this Boycott ATLUS I dunno. It’s such a niche game that nobody is really making games for :c.
I need to resume III. I didn’t like II overmuch. Just be careful. III has many more ways to waste time.
What’s the story behind Boycott ATLUS? I was looking forward to EOIV as well!
Still playing Dead Space 2 and Mass Effect 2. Mass Effect 2′s pacing is still painful, and Dead Space 2 is a necromorph-slaughtering good time. I have noticed that the set pieces of Dead Space 2 seem to have a lot in common with those of Mass Effect 2.
I can definitely see why people think Dead Space follows Alien in many ways. The first game has a lot in common with Alien, and the second game has more in common with Aliens. I hope Dead Space 3 does not follow in the footsteps of the travesty known as Alien 3.
I finally finished Lost Horizon, which I enjoyed.
Decided to split my relaxation time between two adventure games, for now: A New Beginning and the Book of Unwritten Tales. I’ll probably focus on the Book of Unwritten Tales more, mostly because the script and voice acting are much more natural.
I’ve also been playing League of Legends (Sona, Lulu, and occasionally Ryze or Kog’Maw… I prefer to play support, so mostly those first two), and I’m almost done with all of the challenges in Swordigo.
I played a little more Persona 4 this week. I had forgotten how awkward and really kinda not great the school camp sequence is. I really wished my character had had the option to tell Yosuke to shut up and stop being such a homophobic douchebag. Just being able to tell him to cut it out would have made me a lot more comfortable with the scene – as it was, it seemed like it was presenting Yosuke’s homophobic “concerns” as valid and understandable. Bleh. I’m still enjoying the game as a whole, but yeah, it definitely has problems…
oh, my God, the school camp scene. Kill it with fire. Very prejudicially.
I love P4 in a lot of ways, but the things I don’t love are huge and glaringly horrible. :/
Yyyyup. I really enjoyed (not) that that sequence contained not only homophobia, but also the introduction of Hanako (whose entire purpose is to be a walking fat joke), Yosuke practically forcing the girls into swimsuits so he could leer at them, and the MC seeming to join in with the leering no matter what option I chose.
It’s like everything that’s wrong with the game, wrapped up in one gross little package.
I bought Little Big Adventure 1 and 2 (aka Relentless Twinsen’s Adventures and Twinsen’s Odyssey) from GoG, despite still having original CDs somewhere but GoG’s version works sweetly on Windows7. To say that these games (especially first) made me as a gamer seems like understatement. I played LBA1 and completed it many times before, now finished it playing obsessively during weekend and still absolutely love this gem released back in 1994! ( O_o that was that long ago..wow). Now I am playing LBA2 and still find it absolutely adorable. Video games at their best.
I have been on a finishing streak lately. The paladin and I finished a second play-through of Mass Effect 3 (on a “perfect” run that started with ME1 and made every “ideal for war assets” choice all the way through), and watched the Extended Cut Control and Destruction variants. We’ll probably get to Synthesis this weekend. I think the EC is definitely an improvement, though I’m still not 100% on it as a whole. (However, I am extremely contrary and ornery, and I’m half-determined to like the damn thing JUST BECAUSE so many people are complaining so loudly.)
I also finally finished Infinite Undiscovery, after five years of poking at it. It is not a good game, but I got determined to finish it for reasons that probably have to do with my Backloggery rating. Ugh. It’s about a third of a good game–there are really solid ideas in it–but it’s so badly executed and the devs have no idea how to write any female character ever. Also sharks ate the plot, I’m pretty sure. There are things in it I wanted to like, and there were hints of a potentially amazing game buried under the fail, but it just doesn’t live up to what it could have been, and that’s more frustrating than something that was just terrible in both concept and execution.
Still chugging patiently through Hakuoki: Demon of the Fleeting Blossom, in Chapter 5 on Hijikata’s route. Chapters 1-3 were very slow, but now that I’m into my specific route I’m much more interested. (Also, Hijikata is pretty. I’m shallow sometimes.)
I’m also working on the Chaos Shrine dark notes in Theatrhythm: Final Fantasy, which I’m enjoying way more than I thought I would. It’s delightfully fun although I wish it would give me something other than the FFXII ending theme for my dark notes. I love it, but there are so many other songs!
I also started making serious progress in Ash II, and I’m remembering all the things I loved about the first game because this one is doing them too. I still wish for more female characters (and for the one I have not to be The Healer), but apart from that, I’m very pleased.
Still playing Glitch, though less intensively than I was, and I just picked up a massive pile of STUFF at the Steam summer sale (quite a bit of which has been covered here at TBH), so I won’t run short of things to play anytime soon.
I’ve been finally playing Mass Effect 3. I’m really liking the gameplay changes they made for this one (I didn’t like the changes they made from 1 to 2 as much.) I hear the ending is terrible, but I’m going to reserve judgment until I actually finish it. Plus, I downloaded the extended cut DLC anyway.
We’ll see. (No spoilers please!)
No spoilers, but something you might want to know -
Since the Extended Cut DLC, you no longer need to play multiplayer to get the “best” endings (the war readiness points cutoffs have been lowered), but you should give it a try anyway, it’s surprisingly fun. I normally only play single-player games and offline multiplayer, but this one is really enjoyable and the community is quite supportive. Most Bronze (entry-level) matches are silent, so you don’t need to worry about people discussing spoilers over the mic. (I was really worried about that and only started playing MP after I’ve finished the game, and I kind of regret missing out on some of the events because of this.)
If you’re just starting out with the MP, try playing more of a powers-based character than a weapons-based character (biotic explosions are especially great for this purpose), the good weapon stuff takes more time to unlock. Also, don’t miss the excellent multiplayer class builder, and this beginner thread with guides.
Disgaea Threeeee~~~~!!!! Welp, it’s been nice knowing you.
I am slowly adjusting to the changes they made to the system since the first one. Some of the stuff is good, some of it is a little unruly.
I’ve warmed to paying mana for skills since it cut out that “level your weapons” thing in the first one, but I’m mixed on the classroom/homeroom thing. I love the layout idea for combo attacks and I like the clubs IN PRINCIPLE, but I find maximizing my club participation to be a bit of a pain. ON THE OTHER HAND, all the changes to Item world are fantastic and the bribery system for passing resolutions is much better.
As to the plot/voice acting? It’s Disgaea. I DO love that there is a Japanese language track. Otaku-hoooo!
I expect to be playing this into mid-august when Darksiders II comes out.
Last week I started Lux-Pain again. I’d played it before, but got distracted. So I started from the beginning, and this time finished it. As I wrote on Backloggery, “The translation of this game is really quite bad. For one, the text and voices don’t match. Second, the text seems to have been translated by more than one person, some of whom aren’t very good at Japanese, and some of whom tried to change the setting to an American one. The end result is that you get several different angles and can usually understand what the original intention was, but it’s never a coherent whole. Pity, because the story is really interesting.” It seems that the ending I got was the Good ending. I’m still missing one picture and several scenes from the Archives, but I got a few more by playing a NG+ (¼ experience, all black QR cards, and all friendship ratings carry over). I’m not sure if I’ll finish it a second time though. I hope more people give this game a try. Despite the messy translation, it is a pretty good VN-like game.
Recently finished The Game That Shall Not Be Named. It was a lot of completely ridiculous fun (a divine chainsaw? count me in!), but they could’ve found a better name for it…
Other than that I’ve been playing Mass Effect multiplayer (yes, still) – since I only play a little at a time, I still don’t have many of the character classes, but I just got the ex-Cerberus adept who’s more ridiculous fun (the biotic lash doesn’t top the divine chainsaw, but it comes close). The past few days I’ve played more than usual because of the weekend event and the new free DLC. Haven’t unlocked any of the stuff from the new DLC though, but I’ve played with people who had, and the new characters look… over-the-top. Power inflation anyone? (also, was that a magic sword?!) I’m not sure this is a complaint, though
My brother bought FFXIII-2 so I think I’m going to play that next (with him kibbitzing – sigh these games which have multiple controllable characters should have couch co-op by default, like Tales of Vesperia did). We both liked FFXIII, so this will probably be more of the same…?
We picked up a copy of Epic Spell Wars of the Battle Wizards: Duel at Mt. Skullsfyre, which is awesome, easy, and quick.
Linky: http://www.cryptozoic.com/games/epic-spell-wars-battle-wizards-duel-mt-skullzfyre
The Secret World! I only know one other person playing this game, and I really think that if you are not playing, you are missing out!
I really would be playing if it weren’t for the Dragon intro non-con female-only and exotic asian stereotyping. I had been looking forward to this game for years too… oh well.
I’ve been playing Dungeons and Dragons Online still, here and there. Can be quite fun and entertaining with the right group of people.
Since SW: TOR has gone free to play up to level 15, I’ve been fiddling with that. Many of the class stories are really cringe-worthy and, imo, boring to play through on their starter planets. Jedi Knight is so dull to me that I can’t decide whether it’s an accurate depiction of Jedi Knight = Boring or just a poor script. I do like the Imperial Agent and Consular and Sith Inquisitor and Trooper starters. Sith Warrior is… okayish but it feels very hack-and-slash evil mustache-twirling cliches, and then I have many issues with Vette and what options they did for her character and the romance. Shock collar, slavery, grossness…
Other than that, not too much gaming for me. The near Earth DLC has been released for ME3′s multiplayer, adding six new human classes. I may give that a shot. There is one or two classes that seem to be built off the Phantom’s archetype using a katana and acrobatics and stealth. Which I’ve wanted from the beginning.
Waveform! Picked it up, since its part of the Steam Summer sale and its quite amusing. The game in a nutshell – you guide a ball flowing a wave to collect little floaty balls. You control the amplitude and wavelength to guide it along. You’re then scored based on how many little floaty balls you collect by the end of the level, earning stars which you use to unlock the next levels…
I should be working on different games to finish before the end of the month – Orcs Must Die 2 preorder went up so I have a certain planned playtime with that game already decided!
I started playing Ryzom last weekend. I’m liking the complexity and flexibility so far, and the graphics hold up amazingly well for a game that was released slightly before WoW and can’t have had anywhere near the budget, either for the original development or for post-release operations/improvement. The starter island has been interesting, but I’m itching to get out to the mainland, where I hear things are Different. Hopefully the experience holds up there, or even improves. Is anyone else playing this?
I’m curious – I played early in the beta and Ryzom looked very promising…
The thing I think I liked most about it was the small but friendly player base. People were very helpful and interested in talking or exploring and not just fighting mobs. One time, I found some people who wanted to make a run out to a super-high-level area that we had no right to be in – and after a tense hour or two of hiding from monsters and scurrying down canyons, we made it. It was one of the coolest online experiences I’ve ever had.
On the other hand, there were some really frustrating things, like the fact that crafting required a ton of grinding to get anywhere with, and if you did want to fight monsters with a big party it got really confusing really quickly.
Can you give a little bit of a feel of what gameplay and especially non-combat stuff is like now?
Aside from my usual fare, I picked up Jagged Alliance 2, Syberia (due to hearty recommendations from people here) and Trine 2 from the Steam summer sale. I played and enjoyed JA2 back in the day but never finished it, so I hope it’ll scratch the strategy itch I’ve been having. It has enough women for hire to build a good all-female core squad at least — I’m going for Spider, Vicki, Raven, Ira and (once I have extra income) Scope alongside my custom merc.
One problematic issue I recall is that there’s an inbred redneck family somewhere who want a woman, and you can offer them one of your mercs. Disgusting to say the least. On the other hand, the mercenary organization’s fictional website lists a lesbian couple among its honorably retired members. Considering that JA2 was released in 1999, even the mere mention of homosexual certainly characters was ahead of its time.
My girlfriend and I have been playing The Walking Dead – we burned through both episodes after getting the whole season 40% off on Steam, and it was really enjoyable. I have to say that I found the game to be as narratively engaging as most movies and TV shows I’ve seen; so the fact that it still allows some kind of interaction is impressive, even if the interactivity is different to what we expect in games, and in some senses somewhat stunted. I’d recommend everyone give it a go.
Beyond that, though, I haven’t been playing much (my Civ 5 game has me squished between two halves of Rome with all of my cities requiring another 100 turns to grow in population, and I don’t think I can survive an attack by anyone at this point). This has to be the most hectic, most stressful, most bad-luck-ridden month I’ve ever experienced. I can’t wait till August!
I just got Civ V (and the expansion pack) and am loving it. Still working out all its kinks (I played a lot of Civ 4 & 3, but they changed a lot in this one). If anyone is playing and wants to do multiplayer, you will have a very easy opponent in me!
Also messing with Witcher 2 on xbox. Just started it, but so far so good (I loved the first one, except for its totally unnecessary misogynistic trading cards). Plus lots of random adventure games I’ve been grabbing when they get a “flash sale” on Steam.
But if anyone wants to mess on Civ V multi, let me know.
You know it’s possible in Civ V for players to team up, right? You need to put players who want to play cooperatively on the same team when launching the multiplayer game.
Feel free to add me on Steam, my username is the same there as well.
I finished Gravity Rush recently, and I liked it a lot. The main mechanic of changing the direction of gravity is so cool once you get used to it. The combat is kind of eh and rather difficult in places, especially if you’re disoriented. But the story is great, and I liked Kat a lot.
I’ve also been burning through Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood in an attempt to catch up before AC3 and Liberation come out. I haven’t played an AC game since 2 came out, so this is really reminding me why I love the series. So freaking badass. I’m not usually a stealth person, but so far my favorite parts are silently taking out guards and finally leaping on the target from a building. It’s just so satisfying!
I finished Mother 3 about 4PM yesterday. I’m still tearing up every time I think about it.