Yukiko Amagi battling Kanji Tatsumi in Persona 4 Arena.
It is time for our weekly question session –>
- 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?
I started playing Persona 4 Arena this week and am having a lot of fun seeing some of my favorite Persona 3 &4 characters again. I am enjoying that the story really ties in with the plot of those two games. While this is a fighting game rather than an RPG, the back story from the previous titles is present in both Story Mode and Arcade Mode.
So, what have you been playing?
I’m just playing QFG4 while waiting for the Guild Wars 2 launch this saturday (!!!!).
Reminder that if you’re going to be playing GW2 and are looking for an inclusive guild, we’ve partnered with Praxis: praxisguild.com. It is a casual/social guild on the unofficial LGBTQ server.
Oh gosh, I forgot to ever apply to Praxis. I suppose I should do that now since GW2 is coming so soon! *excited*
Has there been any consensus about which server will be the unofficial LGBTQ server? I’d heard it would be Crystal Desert – is that still the case?
Yes, as far as I know that is still the case, and Praxis plans on being on Crystal Desert!
Crystal Desert for all~ friends from Proudmoore horde are rolling on Crystal Desert as well, possibility we’ll just make our own guild over there too if anyone wants in, or we’ll just try and get into praxis or something of the like.
I wonder if there’ll be an unofficial European LGBTQ server too, but have only found mention of Crystal Desert for the US. My home will be Piken Square since it’s the unofficial European RP server. And yeah, I’m really quite excited about the release too, which is weird because until about a month ago I couldn’t have cared less about this and never wanted to touch any MMO again.
I predict I’ll be stuck in character creation for about a day, though, especially with my two planned sylvari (guardian and elementalist). They have SO many color choices it’s really quite overwhelming, and I’m not so good at color-coordination, or face-sculpting for that matter. The three brief stress tests I got into weren’t enough to make up my mind.
The norn ranger is still on the drawing board too — and I’m not at all happy with the fact that the female norn body types ALL have wrecking balls stuffed in their shirts. If a female character absolutely “has to” have a huge rack, it should at least look like actual breasts. Which obey gravity. As in, you know, sag. The more the bigger they are. If I didn’t find the norn lore with the Spirits of the Wild interesting, I’d just stick to charr and sylvari. You can make some really awesome kickass charr women, and I very much look forward to my Blood Legion warrior.
I went back to Portal, and finally managed to beat it yesterday. Now I’m working my way (slowly, slowly) through the bonus maps, which are HARD.
I have to say, automatic phone systems sound REALLY sinister when you’ve spent a few hours playing Portal. “Your call is very important to us. Please hold the line, and one of our representatives will be with you shortly. And then there will be cake…”
Ocht, I totally fancy getting Persona 4: Arena, but I am so financially weak this seems unlikely to happen anytime soon…
As it is, I am back to playing Guilty Gear: The Midnight Carnival, as someone I know has just gotten into it, and I’ll finally have someone to play against, for the first time since I bought it in about 2005.
what a thrilling life I lead.
The most noteworthy addition to my gaming time within the past week was the Walking Dead episodes 1 and 2. I thoroughly enjoyed episode 1, and I’m almost done with episode 2. My favorite part of the game is the decision-making and how it changes the flow of the story… I’m actually looking forward to a second playthrough after I finish all of the episodes (which won’t happen until they’re all released).
Otherwise, I’ve been playing League of Legends still, though instead of typical Summoner’s Rift matches through the matchmaking queue, I’ve started playing a lot of custom “ARAM” games (All Random, All Mid). ARAM games are played on the Training Grounds map, 5 versus 5, and each player is automatically assigned a random champion from those they have available. I enjoy the randomness of the champion selection and the non-stop teamfights.
On iOS, I started playing both Box Cat and Ichi, both of which are fun (Box Cat’s an arcade-style game and Ichi is a puzzle game).
Hoping to play some Titan Quest this week with Geisha, Deep Seed, and Kimadactyl, and hoping to find time to play more Orcs Must Die! 2 with Ike. I might try the new Team Fortress 2 co-op mode, as well. And I really want to resume playing Alan Wake, the Book of Unwritten Tales, and Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers :’c
Oooo, Persona 4 Arena. Maybe someday I’ll get that. It certainly looks snazzy.
I wanted to see the true ending of Persona 4 before I went back to school, but I gave up when I realized that I still probably have 20-30 hours of the game left, and only half a week before I have to leave. Oh well, guess I’ll get back to it in the winter… if I still remember what was going on then.
I won a copy of Analogue: A Hate Story in a giveaway at Jay is Games. I really enjoyed it! I still haven’t gotten all the endings, or quite all of the logs (Block 1, where are you?), so I might be trying for those in the next few days.
I started Chrono Cross, which has been in my backlog forever and a day, and I’m still patiently poking away at Glitch, as well as Pixelogic HD on my iPad (the most useful/least terrible picross app I’ve found.)
Oh, and playing Theatrhythm still; I finally unlocked all characters and am working on S-ranking all the Ultimate songs. After sixteen tries (that doesn’t include the times I just straight restarted upon realizing I was hosed) I finally S-ranked “Battle on the Big Bridge” from FF5, and now I’ve S-ranked every song from FF1-8. Small victories!
Adding: unlocking Kain was the worst thing. It took me, no lie, eighty-five Dark Notes to find just ONE that would drop a Navy Shard. UGH.
Chrono Cross! That’s one of the games I would love to play again (the other would be Legend Of Mana). Come on, Squeenix, port them to the PSP already.
Well, CC is available as a PSOne classic, so technically you could play it on your PSP =) (That’s how I’m playing it, to reduce wear and tear on my dear old PS2, because I will flip tables if that thing dies and I can no longer play FF12 or Persona 3 FES.)
I’ll have to look into hacking access to the N-A PSN shop some time. I hear it’s possible if you have a valid N-A address and (temporarily) give up access to your European content. That’ll have to wait a little though, as I’m still playing FF6
I…always forget that Sony doesn’t always make things available in all markets, ugh. Sorry. Yeah, I’m in NA and that’s how I picked it up.
I finally found Final Fantasy 6 in the PSN shop. It took some digging though, as it wasn’t listed in any category and only showed up when I used the search function.
So now I’m playing FF6. When I finish this game, I will have beaten all FFs from 1 through 9; 1-4 on the DS, and the rest on the PSP. I did play some of them on a SNES emulator before, but now I own all of these games. After that I’ll have to wait for FF10 and higher to be ported to a handheld system. Maybe the Vita?
It’s nice to be playing a Final Fantasy again. Sure, there’s all kinds of clichés in the series, but they’re also a guaranteed 100+ hours of entertainment each, which is pretty good. FF6 has lots of things to collect (espers, blue magic, dances, rages), so I expect this one will go over 100 hours as well.
I recall Terra and Celes being praised as good female characters, but they’re rather lonely among the large cast of men, Terra has spent most of the time not in the party so far, Locke in particular keeps going on about protecting Celes, and both of them have somewhat below average stats (except for magic, of course). All in all I wouldn’t hold up this game as a shining example.
I think Square said something about re-releasing FF10 in HD for both PS3 and Vita, but I do not have a link to verify (and as I’m at work, I can’t really go hunting.)
(The following paragraph contains no spoilers, I promise.) Terra and Celes are a little painted by nostalgia glasses for me, but what I find interesting about FF6 is that the plot literally doesn’t happen without them. Terra and her backstory are central to the first half of the game; Celes is one of three characters absolutely required in the second half.
^ This
Also, keep an eye on how Locke and Celes’ relationship evolves.
Locke and Celes have some of my favourite interactions of any RPG, hands-down. I can go on for pages.
Let me tell you how the Opera Scene is probably my favorite moment in a Final Fantasy game. And maybe in Video Gaming.
When I was 12, my dad was playing FF3 on the SNES. He dropped an extra save at the Opera. When I got home from my grandmother’s house, where I’d been for the summer, he excitedly summoned me to the living room basically as soon as I got home and said “CHECK THIS OUT!” and played the opera for me and I fell utterly in love and that is the story of how I fell for JRPGs in general and FF in particular, and part of why FF6 will never be toppled as my favourite of all time. XD
It sounds silly, but the opera scene is what got me into actual opera.
Yes! This is why FF6 is my second-favorite FF game (X being the first, if only due to the social interactions and world-building fitting my fancy). But Terra and Celes are the reasons why I love that game. No matter what Squeenix says about the game being an equal ensemble, I still think of Terra as the main character.
This is also the game that made me a devoted FF gamer in the 90′s. I just really haven’t seen those sparks and amazingness since then, though.
So much Skyrim! I finally finished the main quest for the first time! I totally cried at the end because it was so beautiful. What a nerd.
Our WoW guild is trying to get all the heroic content done before Mists of Pandaria. We are 6/8. We have a month, so I hope we can get it done! I’m locked into that game due to the Diablo III promotion, but I still find it enjoyable to raid (Though I don’t always look forward to it.)
Mostly playing The Secret World. Is anyone here part of a good Dragon cabal? Bonus points if it’s RP.
I finished the first Back to the Future episode, which was really rather fun.
Since then I’ve started Lego Batman 2 on the pc (but using an xbox controller – ‘cos the keyboard controls suck) and having a whale of a time. The Lego games really hit the spot for me when I’m too tired to play anything clever.
I just started playing Bioshock. It is a fun game. I am still making slow progress in Mass Effect 2. I am not looking forward to the third installment. I know it is a great game, but is not my preferred style of play. I want to be one of the kool kidz for knowing the ins and outs of the game. I just wish it was more fun to play.
Darksiders II!
I’ll take my ultra-violent Zelda clone with a side of Diablo any day. It’s a pretty good mashup of its genres, but lacks the polish of the marquee games (the platforming isn’t as good as AC/PoP, the environments aren’t as personable as Zelda, and the loot system isn’t as good as Diablo, etc, etc, etc). But I’m interested in the story because the cosmology of this universe has some unexpected wrinkles and layers.
The cast is mostly dudes except for Uriel and a few of the “Makers”, so it’s not the best for representation, but a passable way to do some smashing and puzzle-solving if it’s your thing.
Yeah, the lack of representation and portrayals is one of the big barriers that keep me away from the series. I tried the first and… it was just hard to get into. It feels like a lot of dudebro muscle flexing at how grimdark, cool, badass, and power fantasy the game/plot can be.
I did hear that Fury (one of the ‘Horsemen’) is a lady. Though googling her for a picture reference is about as much as I expected. Bleh. Heels, little clothing, huge breasts, standard crap. Unfortunate, because apparently there is unofficial rumor that she (and Strife) may be a protagonist in one of the sequels?
I’m totally stuck in oldies, and holy shit, sure sentimental glasses on my nose but these games are still absolutely fantastic (bar not so fancy graphics but in some way still cute) . Master of Magic, Little Big Adventure and now X:Com Terror from the Deep – terrific fun. Seeing though the Squersoft released FF7on PC made dig out my old CDs and installed it, I found custom driver on Internet that allows it to run at modern resolution and it works fine on W7. Now I haven’t touched FF7 in probably like 6 or 7 years and before I finished it like 3 or 4 times since it release in 90s, starting it now again feel awesome, yup I may actually think that this is the best video game of all time.
Picked up a cheap copy of Mirror’s Edge for pc recently and just started playing it. It’s challenging and frustrating at times, however quite rewarding when you find a different way to get some where or feel in the zone with the rhythm of the maneuvers. Until I press the wrong button on the keyboard and it all goes wrong!
Also it’s quite weird how the ‘blues’ (cops) seem to know where Faith is most of the time and that gets repetitive as an artificial timer. Sometimes I just want to stand on top of a building and survey the city for a bit.
I really like Faith and her sister Kate and their difficult but affectionate sibling relationship.
Guild Wars! Trying to use the event on right now to finish up my Hall of Monument points for the Guild Wars 2 release. Will hopefully manage to get 25, my pre-set goal because I wanted a white bird pet for my ranger.
I managed to read through both of the Guild Wars novels as well (my transit to work is pretty long), so caught up to speed on the lore aspect of it. Recommend anyone who is interested in the lore to check the books out. I think if you’re a power reader, could possibly do them in a day or two, leisurely (an hourish reading a day) I was able to get through one in a week.
I’ve been doing more… roleplay/character backstory then actually playing games and I bought new coloured pencil crayons for drawing sketches! XD
Still playing World of Warcraft here. My main character is finally high enough to do LFR (Looking for Raid) so I’ve been enjoying that with my guild and fooling around until Mists of Pandaria comes out.
I prepurchased Guild Wars 2 today though, and I will be applying to Praxis. Hope to play with more of you!
I finished Fallout: New Vegas after pouring a staggering 150 hours into the game. It’s my first open-world RPG that I’ve played all the way to the end! I enjoyed exploring the most, and there was a lot of enjoyable sidequests as well as well-written companions that made the gaming experience really great. The overall story was ok I guess, but far from the best part of the game.
I enjoyed seeing a lot diverse characters, though there were some glaring flaws, like a rape-related storyline that felt really unnecessary and tacked on. I’m also unsure how I feel about the Nightkin’s struggle with “old tech”-induced schizofrenia. Fortunately, seeing female NPC in various positions of power with lots of moral greys, made up for most of the missteps for me. I also felt that the companions were surprisingly diverse, though I’m unsure how to feel about some things about them.
But it was the little details that made the game for me, like how you get radiation poisoning if you eat old junk food, or the radio shows and the vaults. Most of all, I enjoyed how I’d walk into a Vault or an old train station, and just by looking around or hacking a computer I could find shards of the old lives of those who lived there. Such an interesting way of telling a story, that really made me want to play the older Fallout games as well. Though F:NV would have benefitted from just a tiny bit of romance, in my opinion.
At the moment, I’m playing my female vanguard through Mass Effect 3. Unfortunately, it looks like she’ll end up single, but I’m enjoying playing as a relentless renegade who never wavers so much that I hardly even care about the lack of romance. Its not a flawless game, but it’s really, really close!
Almost completely finished with FF13 here. I’ve beaten the final boss; now all I have to do to get the Platinum trophy is kill the last few optional bosses and grind a whole lot of gil so I can get the trophy for having had all the equipment.
1) Minecraft. I’m puttering around with the Forestry mod because I want to try beekeeping, but I’m extremely frustrated with it. To make an apiary for bees — or just about anything else introduced by Forestry — you need powered machinery. To power a biogas engine, you need items created by powered machinery … so it’s impossible to use if you don’t already have power from another source. The electrical engine won’t run without BuildCraft, which I don’t have and don’t want to use. The peat-fired engine could be fuelled by manually produced peat, but my bog earth won’t mature despite having been placed right next to water for over an in-game week. Is that normal? So I can’t actually do anything with any of those fancy Forestry features due to a lack of power. All I want is some bees, how hard could that be.
2) Dwarf Fortress. It’s been on the backburner for a while, but now my current fort is slowly taking shape again.
3) Left 4 Dead 2. One of my gaming buddies is quite good at FPS games and has been poking me to try Advanced now that I’m comfortable on Normal. Despite my questioning his state of mind, I have given in a few times. :p The ramp-up from Easy to Normal wasn’t so bad, but going from Normal to Advanced feels bloody intense. So far we have finished Dark Carnival (my favourite campaign), Swamp Fever (with a double tank spawn in the finale … ouch!) and as of last night The Parish (one wipe to the car-tossing tank on the bridge). I was bouncing off the walls from the adrenaline rush for about two hours after that one.