Hey let's catch up on some video gaming in the sandbox

Been playing Saints Row the third. It's fun, but I find it lacking a certain polish which is evident in the gta series. Vehicle control is still a gripe for me. Nice character customisation though.

BF3 of course, I'm lame at it but I'm realising the damage system is so much better than BC2.

Anyone on Assassin's Creed Revelations? I've been thinking of getting it but I've still to complete Brotherhood, I kind of ran out of steam with it. I don't like the sound of Den Defence.

SKYRIM

also MTG on 360 was half-off for Black Friday + I picked it up

Den Defense is the fucking worst thing to happen to Assassin's Creed. Followed up in short order by the Desmond wanna-be Portal bullshit segments (of which I finished one and, after doing most of the second, won't bother doing any more of them).

It's the worst ACII, despite further refinements in Assassin recruiting/advancement and some great kill moves in combat. I'm going to finish it for the story, but I'm worried about what they might do with ACIII when it comes along.

Had to take a Skyrim break, but am looking forward to returning to it when Revelations is done and back in the box for good.

the Skyrim frost troll pissed me off so much I had to go back and do riddles in Arkham City

still playing Dark Souls - have rung both bells, no clear objective atm though which is making things a bit aimless
Mario 3D Land is a complete joy, especially playing as Luigi in his cute fox suit

tried to play metal gear solid 3 and just can't do it. maybe i'm playing the game wrong, but it was basically 'try to find a stealthy path > get discovered > suicide > repeat' ad naseum. plus the clumsy controls and endless (admittedly hilarious) dialogue.

so i downloaded resident evil 4 and it is delicious video game comfort food.

still playing skyrim, although i haven't had a chance to play since last Wednesday.

also, i posted this on facebook/ILX, but some of you might find this journal article about working conditions in the videogame industry interesting:

http://www.cjc-online.ca/index.php/journal/article/viewArticle/1771/1893

the abstract makes it sound dull as hell, but it's actually an easy read

love skyrim and all but SPACE MARINE is goty for sure

SPACE MARINE multiplayer rules because it is slow and kind of forgiving so people who are bad at video games ie me can partake in SPACE MARINE clunking around and chainswording fun

i believe that ppl who are enjoying space marine have never played gears of war

I would be going out and buying Skyward Sword for myself but my sister is probably asking for it for chanukah so I have to wait a month

i played gears of war and it is probably better i guess? except for all the racist stuff and that all the pleasing aesthetics are straight up 40k ripoffs. also in gears of war there are not enough orks yelling SPACE MARINE over and over all the time

Tons of Skyrim, but taking breaks with de blob 2 which was on sale at target for like 13$ and is so far kind of awesome actually

Tonnes of cobblestone in Minecraft 1.0.0

Finally getting to GTA IV, which is kind of how I roll these days: I made a note yesterday that there have been lots of Assassin's Creed games, so I should get them in four years when they're on "all of them for $4.99" sale* and walkthrough the lot.

I imagine I'm not the first person to point this out, but GTA IV is far too realistic in many ways - they've clearly executed on their vision, but at the price of much in the way of fun. In fact my two main emotions when playing it are guilt when someone bounces off my can in a particularly crippling manner, and, er, more guilt when I don't answer the phone to someone.

I pressed a button one too many times when exiting out of a menu on a date with Kate, and gave her a nasty shove that dropped her 'like' by 45%. I was devastated, and would have reloaded except that I had done lots of pigeon-shooting and stump-jumping since my last save, so fuck that.

<a href="http://oglaf.com/sircoffee/";>Oglaf has the gist of it</a>

*such as happened for all yes all of the GTA games on Steam over the weekend!

Haha I am an idiot.

you can bounce ppl off yr ass in GTA IV?

yep, just hold L2 and then tap b (for butt) twice

What level are you guys in Skyrim?

I seem to be finding that one hour of gameplay = one level, more or less

i'm only at 11

14 iirc

i started playing friday, at 11 by now i think

so... skyward sword. worth buying?

uh Im level 41 in skyrim.. the game is a fucking full time job.. I kinda feel like I cheated boosting my smithing up to 100 by creating hundreds of iron daggers but goddamnit it was the easiest way.

xp a quick glance at metacritic suggests universal acclaim…does that have any validity? who knows. There's some "best Zelda since OoT" being thrown around. Havent' gone and looked at SelectButton threads or anything. All i know is I want to play it.

infinity blade is eating my life

secretly glad that skyrim isn't available for macs

also there is some tarted up version of cave story out now??

I think it's the same as the WiiWare version basically.

"Best since OoT" doesn't make any sense, as Mask of Majora was already better than it!

secretly glad that skyrim isn't available for macs

it runs pretty well with the cider wrapper (windows emulation nerd stuff)

Best since "Link's Awakening"

lol in Skyrim I am (wait for it...) level 4

this may be why the ice troll pwns me

hahahahha what the

I have been entertaining guests and playing Arkham City!

however in AC I'm at something like 70% complete

some of those Riddler puzzles are like "WHA-"

i think when i was getting pwned by ice troll i was uh level 10?

so

u doing it rong

hahaha

so basically I should go do some side quests

yeah dude

that kind of goes against the whole "zomg URGENT SUMMONS" thing in the main storyline but hey

I did kind of do a side quest by accident tho (the dragonstone one, while getting back THE CLAW for the shopkeeper with the gullible sister)

yeah i did some of the companions quests and some random bandit mines and dungeons and whatever before going for the ice troll - i am finding a fairly good flow in realizing that if the main storyline = getting pwned, i need to go level a bunch.

yeah, lots of skyrim here too. wonderful game so far.

Damnit I would love to try me some skyrim shit(*) I just don't want it to eat my life.

(*)nb have not played an rpg since moria/larn/nethack back in school.

or maybe i should try SPACE MARINE since space > dragons (only just). or maybe i should try gears of war since apparently it is better. see? it's just too hard.

space is not > dragons!

does anyone have an opinion on http://www.dinodday.com/? Tempted by THE AWESOMENESS OF NAZI!!! DINOSAURS!!! but the reviews are shitty.

@ ledge I can't play any new games since my Nethack + ADOM phase. Everything feels so sloow, "oh, I have to walk all the way over there?"

I got caught up in wandering and sidequests; I was level 19 before I met the frost troll and was unimpressed.

I did play and love RDR, galloping around, shooting wild beasts, sidequests, just dickin' around in the desert. it's more the statscock aspect of rpgs that puts me off. and the lifesuck.

I thought I might ask some recommendations here... I just finished playing Jade Empire, and I'm kinda looking for something similar to tackle next. It should be an action RPG (no turn-based stuff) or action adventure, with an intriguing plot and the ability to affect the storyline with your actions. Preferably fantasy, though sci-fi is okay too, but nothing too realistic. And it shouldn't be too nihilistic either, I like games where you can choose not to kill if you don't have to. Can you recommend anything along these lines? Oh, and it should preferably be something a few years old, I'm not sure if my computer can handle really recent games.

And it should obviously be on PC, I don't own any consoles.

Mass Effect?

Having never played any of the Bioware classic run of D&D RPGs (Baldur's Gate, Planescape, Icewind Dale), I bought the compilation DVD. I don't own a PC. I'm saving them for any future stretch of invalidity.

okay I haven't finished Mass Effect but somehow I am thinking it fails the "choose not to kill" and "not too nihilistic" criteria

Btw, I didn't mean you can go through the whole game without killing, I liked the fighting system in Jade Empire. But I also liked how you could solve many of the sidequests by either fighting, or with your wits/empathy.

i don't think Mass Effect is too nihilistic. there's obviously mandatory combat sections but there are some pretty serious moral choices you are given the opportunity to make.

Maybe try Deus Ex, Toumas? (The original, not the new one.) I think you can play most of that game without killing anyone?

Also maybe Morrowind which also has very limited killing and is of course a classic.

If you don't mind dated graphics, Bethesda released Daggerfall for free online and it is still a total classic. Betrayal of Krondor is also free floating out there.

try SPACE MARINE for its touching story of friendship through adversity and chainsaw swords

http://images.wikia.com/gearsofwar/images/9/97/30nkw02.jpg

as far as antinihilism goes i've been playing a lot of ultima 7, where if you steal stuff the other people in your party get mad at you and leave

betrayal at krondor is a straight masterpiece for at least half of its duration (especially CHAPTER 3: THE SPYGLASS AND THE SPIDER) but the combat is turn-based.

but yeah if you've never played deus ex the answer is deus ex because there almost aren't any better games than deus ex.

you only have to kill one person in deus ex and don't worry you'll want to.

do I buy CoD MW3 or BF3?

I fucking love bf3 but playing with friends makes it so much more satisfying. If youre more of a lone wolf mw3 might be better..

I'm playing mass effect now, it's great. Excited that I'll be able to import my character into Mass Effect 2.

mw3 kind of sucks. ive not played it in about a week. the maps are shitty. the singeplayer, if you care about that, lasts something like 4 or 5 hours.

maybe the most obvious answer if u really liked jade empire is kotor

^^^

^^^

plus, kotor is better than jade, imo

i've been playing a lot of ultima 7

hats off. although i keep trying to play it i just can't get the blasted thing to load. not even on the dos box.

oh yeah it would be totally impossible if not for http://exult.sourceforge.net/

which means i'm playing the game natively in linux which is a rare treat

Playing Lemonade Tycoon on the phone. Once you figure out the recipe, everything else is easy.

hey so i wanna add ppl to my gaming center on iphone so i can compete in temple run against you guys -- friend me, my nick is "mordys"

Ticket To Ride! On IPAD. It is the best.

Somehow stumbled back into playing Tiny Wings on my new phone, it really does tread the fine line between "just one more go" and "DIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEE YOU FUCKING CUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNTTTT"

Seconding Deus Ex for Tuomas. Also, I remember quite enjoying Outcast many years ago.

Played all three Gears of War over a month, way too much murdery fun. Didn't even notice I was essentially killing the same dude over and over again. Now I am playing through Half Life 2 and the HL2 Episodes again for some reason.

deus ex deus ex deus ex

If you can get past the slightly frustrating first mission it's great. And if you're doing a no kill run the first mission is good for practicing that anyway. It's a less than 10 minute download from Steam and works with no problems on my Win7/64 PC with crappy integrated graphics. Just get the original by itself and don't bother with Invisibubble War as it's crap.

Non stop skyrim for me too, according to raptr I've clocked up 43 hours now (somehow! Lots has been 10 minute blasts snatched here and there) and I'm up to I think level 22? The fact levelling only happens when you're actively DOING STUFF means it can be pretty easy to spend a lot of time just wandering or exploring or doing fetch quests without seeing any level increase at all (but then clearing a couple of dungeons or spending 20 minutes forging and enchanting can bump it up by 2 or 3 pretty quickly). Patch today but it sounds like the things it breaks are more major than the things it's fixed.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-11-30-skyrim-patch-1-2-has-resistance-breaking-bug

skyrim u eating my soul.

its great though, love the fact that you cant just cruise in it ever but there is still a decided progression (ie i no longer run like a child from bears when they pop up). but man even now every so often some novice conjourer will give me a smackdown because im not paying attention, so it never feels easy. way better balanced than fo3 or nv, where at a certain point you are just unstoppable. lockpicking in this is also way way more challenging. speaking of which i need to figure out where to buy a ton of lockpicks.

i am level 18 and in the labyrinthine or whatever and holy shit lol dungeon is hueg

i have like a million things to say about skyrim but i don't want my pearls lost to the sandbox of time.

it rules but as always minor things are bugging me. why you can't DEFEND while dual-wielding is just criminal

can i just say re skyrim that tom bissell is kinda a moron?

the grantland piece u mean? yeah seems like a lot of legwork to say "the dialogue is pretty bad"

the "no defending while dual-wielding" thing got me killed multiple times as I was running around with an axe in one hand and balls of flames in the other

~ remap shouts to the d-pad or R3
~ RB is defend in all cases

bethesda do you hear me

re: badness of dialogue, i do kind of wonder when this will improve. even top-tier character driven games like rockstar's have woeful speechifying by any standard. post-writers' strike you'd think there'd be resources enough to bring in some "real" writers to polish things up or give things a little zip. as i understand it, the writing is up to the directors (right?). i wonder if any division of labor in this will ever happen. if the audience doesn't measurably care then probably not, i guess.

I thought the dialog in both Arkham games was outstanding

reading that thing made me imagine a huge open-world game like skyrim where you're a ghost and so can't directly interact with other characters and it's all about exploration and maybe you can move objects which can become an indirect mode of communication/influence. i would play it, talking in video games does pretty much always suck.

it ought to be convention to make your selections indicative and not quotation i.e. [ask to buy something] and not "hey, what do you have?"

a lot of games have a problem where you're given sarcastic options and it turns out they weren't meant that way (or v - v)

it ought to be convention to make your selections indicative and not quotation i.e. [ask to buy something] and not "hey, what do you have?"

this is why conversation in Mass Effect is so good

a lot of games have a problem where you're given sarcastic options and it turns out they weren't meant that way (or v - v)

sometimes i wonder if this is a social skills issue where ppl writing the dialogue aren't very attuned to the way ppl talk + how things sound. i can't think of a specific example off-hand, but numerous times I've been playing a game and heard or said a piece of dialogue that was just totally aspie.

i.e. HIRE A WRITER

lol I was trying to think of a good example of this and the first thing that came to mind was GLaDOS, which is pretty much the exact opposite of what you're talking about

anyone who's still playing glitch, did you hear they're putting the game back into beta to improve it? i was about ten minutes from canceling my subscription out of boredom, so that's cool. they also added some skills, but i've been on my phone and haven't seen 'em yet.

40 hours on skyrim guys and i still wanna call in sick every morning

btw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=4z9TdDCWN7g

skyrimmmmmmm

***wipes away manly tear, all old school canklestyle***

seriously though whenever I hear the DOVAHKIIN DOVAHKIIN bit I seriously want to go fight a dragon, they should totally bring back the draft and just blast that at malls across america

Dovahkiin! Dovahkiin!

Naal ok zin los vahriin!

Wah dein, vokul, mahfaeraak ahst vaal!

ahrk fin norok paal graan,

fod nust hon zindro zaan,

Dovahkiin fah hin kogaan mu draal!

the controls in skytim are still p terrible and all ive really learned is that everytime a stonefaced aryan dude asks me to join his band of outlaw warriors and help cast off the dark skinned oppressors and restore the land to its original purity i take the other option

also that there are bandits everywhere and angry skeletons for some reason

also i dont really get the constellation of skill upgrades

it reminds of me of old snes rpgs for some reason... like some sultry pixelated gypsy crowding the menu screen, your FATE awaits amongst the STARS young warrior...

call me back after you've done twenty hours padawan

BTW, here are two awesome things I have found:
http://livinginoblivion.wordpress.com/2007/02/28/to-sum-it-up/
http://prequeladventure.com/2011/03/prequel-begin/

4.50 for the REALLY BIG BUNDLE - http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/38770/Indie_Royale_Debuts_Third_Really_Big_Bundle.php
Breath of Death VII/Cthuluhu Saves The World/Eufloria/Runespell and Really Big Sky plus whatever they'll throw in later; this looks worth it.

so if any of you still ive by a surviving lol blockbuster, you might want to check and see if they are doing the same sale mine was (any 5 games/movies priced at $15 or less for $30).

as a result and because obv i dont have enough stuff to play already, i now have

spiderman: shattered dimensions
blur
fable iii (yeah i know)
dead space 2
and a season of curb your enthusiasm

it is too damn bad that there is no Curb Your Enthusiasm game

like some sort of awkwardness simulator

X - get defensive
O - gesticulate
square - insult
triangle - jump

quick time failed apology events

Theres been about a dozen times Ill switch from Skyrim to BF3 and Ill throw a grenade right on the ground in front of me at the onset of a match because Im trying to sprint..

btw that spidergame so far is way way better than it deserves to be, although it seems like kind of a way more lighthearted version of the wolverine game. not looking forward to the noir dimension stealth thing tho because stealth games suck and i suck at stealth games.

nobody on a skyward sword tip?

i know you all hate the tedious side missions in gta, but i was very ANGRY at gtaIV for making a big thing about simulating NYC and then actually not letting you become a yellow cab driver. whas dat all bauot?

Forced my friend to get the New Vegas offer last weekend, when it was £3.75. anyone else grab it?

And yes Minecraft. been playing lots of Minecraft. Decided I want to create houses on a beach, in Minecraft.

i am getting skyward sword for xmas

'from santa'

did not know you had a mexican pimp

first half of res evil 4 was harder than i remember - i think i missed some ammo dumps and got through the section with the two chainsaw ladies with my last bullet (also found next to no shotgun shells in this part, when i remembered using it constantly). then the fun really starts at the castle, when you can buy the riot shotgun + the semi-auto rifle.

almost every boss i encountered in re4, i would sell everything just before and buy a rocket launcher. then spend the next level suffering with no basic weapons. yeah i was bad at it.

http://www.bethblog.com/index.php/2011/12/01/skyrim-what-were-working-on/

Continued Game Updates – This week we released update 1.2 across all platforms, and we’ll be releasing an incremental update next week. We anticipate it will be up on PC first, and then hit PS3 and Xbox 360 later in the week. Among other things, the update will fix issues like magic resistance not calculating properly and the rare, amazing backwards flying dragon. Once the update is released, we’ll share the full release notes.

After the holidays, we’ll continue to release regular updates for the game — through full title updates, as well as incremental “gameplay updates” to fix whatever issues come up along with rebalancing portions of the game for difficulty or exploits. We plan on having a lot of these, not just a few. Overall, you should expect updates to be hitting the PC and Steam earlier and more often, as that’s a process we control. Console updates will follow, as they must be certified and processed by those manufacturers.

We all know this is a huge game, and everyone has a different experience. We’ll continue to do everything we can to make the game better and better for as many people as possible every day. We’ve also realized that with the millions upon millions of people playing Skyrim, we need to treat our updates with greater care. If we get too aggressive trying to fix a minor issue, we run a risk of breaking something larger in a game like this. To be safe, we are prioritizing code side fixes right now over data fixes. Quest and balance issues are usually data, and those will start rolling in a large way with the January updates.

did not know you had a mexican pimp

JOKES by forkcslovetofu

a fragrance for men

I had probably my most satisfying Skyrim session last night. Can't wait to go home. Why do we have to have a dumb office party tonight, argh.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVABQuSAm1s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPtVdK7OzpE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAnQQcIncq0

you are one of the best posters

why do people do things like that

why because of

http://profile.ak.fbcdn.net/hprofile-ak-snc4/41575_258211223160_2456069_n.jpg

Back on RDR. Fucking sick of load screens.

Finished the latest Assassin's Creed and it wasn't very good. Easily the worst since the first (somewhat fitting that the first game is a free bonus on the PS3 version). Hopeful ACIII will have some more interesting ideas and less bullshit additions that clutter up the core gameplay. If you stripped it down and refined the good parts it could be an amazing game (though you can say that about most any game).

(i am pretty awesome btw)

Bought Deus Ex. Waiting for it to d/l from Amazon which is bleah FOREVER.

Played Junk Jack and Oh! Edo Towns on my phones over the holiday. Good times.

So if I go ahead and get Skyrim should I care what platform I get it on? And can I download it or will I have to go to a fucking shop! Of all places!

Mario Kart 7 has some good online features. anyone else gonna get this so we can set up an ILG Community invite code thing?

looks like console is nice and 360 is best image.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=4z9TdDCWN7g

ughh stop mugging for the camera

as much as i love video game faux english folk music this is like pomplamoose level smdh

truth

"Female Cover"

usually stupid shit posted on IGN's news page is easily ignorable but just seeing the headline for this was enraging

https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions/!/petition/immediately-ban-deadly-videogame-known-skyrim-safety-americas-youths/YmY1bLQ5?utm_source=wh.gov&utm_medium=shorturl&utm_campaign=shorturl

loooooool

would love for that hit 25K signatures and get an official white house response

omg lol

def signing that

vital legislation imo

some of the names on that list...

VagMuncher V
CHEESEFOREVERYONE
Jimi Hendrix, Seattle , WA
ZoosmellPooplor D (possibly the title of the next Tenacious D movie)
Hue G Boner

it is kinda weird to me how pervasive skyrim is---I have friends who were non-gamers who are nuts for it

my favorite signature on that petition is:

Matt Bowman needs to slob on my nob biznitch

Also, as a note for future petition signers, Hugh G. Rection is much funnier.

"1) To enact an immediate ban on the videogame known as "SkyRim" produced by Blizzard Entertainment."

Finished downloading Deus Ex, finally. Makes me wanna read more cyberpunk. And I already caught the first pop culture ref of the game

DID YOU TAKE THE CROSSBOW OR THE GEP GUN OR THE SNIPER RIFLE

space miner for ios is free for the weekend; got some coint and plick love if anyone's into it
getting it now

Guys when is GTAV due out?

not soon

BTW guys: EA made Tetis on the iOS a subscription based system
http://toucharcade.com/2011/12/02/the-new-tetris-boldly-takes-iap-to-heights-few-dream-of/
it would be funny if it weren't fucking nuts

EA would turn breathing into a subscription based service if they could.

I usually use the crossbow; scoped non-lethal takedowns

Got skyrim, level 6 after about 8 hours. Keep on forgetting to save, dying, having to retrace 1000s of steps. Keep on stumbling upon and attempting quests that I really should be a much higher level for, like labyrinthian. Fuck a multi frost troll attack.

Also, i'm a thane, and dragonborn, and I don't even have a house yet! I can't afford 5000 cash, don't they have mortgages?

I just want a house! I've got all this kitchen equipment!

How are skyrim mods coming? Has anybody put out anything good yet?

Don't worry man 5k won't seem like much septims to worry yourself about by even level 10 or do.

This game has many more Septims than it has things to buy with them.

I usually use the crossbow; scoped non-lethal takedowns

― kingfish sandbox bonaparte, Saturday, December 3, 2011 11:24 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Permalink

i have taken the crossbow in all but one of my 839257238942042 playthroughs of this game but the way it makes anyone it hits run around frantically going "OOG!" for a minute before falling down leaves some stealthiness to be desired

Oh no Tom I was going to tell you not to buy skyrim cos it's great but to love it you need to turn a blind eye to lots of exactly the kind of stuff you hate. But I was too late. At least tell us you got it on 360 not ps3?
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-vs-ps3-skyrim-lag

What stuff do I hate? I mean there's so much - what in particular? :)

Got it on 360 yeah. Gonna spend some time tomorrow just tooling around, pickin' some herbs, doin' some alchemy, chattin' to folk. Dialogue may be cloth-eared but it's such a rich world I think you have try and immerse yourself in it or you'll miss out. E.g. Empire vs. Stormcloaks, what's that about? Whose side should I be on? I figure I won't really find out without talking to people.

Haha I was thinking "you'll hate picking herbs and doing alchemy and stuff" so maybe I'm just wrong. To be fair it's a game where you can mostly ignore any bits you don't like and still get by just fine (like I do with shields and blocking and armour and stuff).

Stormcloaks and imperials both seem like dicks to me, been refusing to join either. I'm a werewolf now though. And I'm considering the thieves guild.

(actually the stuff I thought you'd hate would be the actual role playing. I think you're right that it's a world you do have to immerse yourself in cos it's also one where the illusion's easily shattered if you don't force yourself to play along with it).

i have taken the crossbow in all but one of my 839257238942042 playthroughs of this game but the way it makes anyone it hits run around frantically going "OOG!" for a minute before falling down leaves some stealthiness to be desired

THIS. I have mixed (if mostly positive) feelings about the rest of the game, but the dart gun in Human Revolution is a huge, necessary improvement.

How are skyrim mods coming? Has anybody put out anything good yet?

― kingfish sandbox bonaparte, Saturday, 3 December 2011 21:17 (Yesterday)

The toolset's not coming out until January.

OK, duh, of course there are modders who haven't waited and there was a nudie mod on day 2 after release (please). Child killing took a couple of weeks longer.

On the upside, there are lots of nice looking texture packs out.

I'm waiting until I've finished a vanilla play-through and made my own wishlist before I check out mods though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=93W6mB0ZqCM#!

http://i.imgur.com/1iKvl.jpg

lol

idgi is there spoiler-free explanation

nb i am already tight with lydia

I gots an iPhone 3GS, can anyone recommend some good games for it? Preferably free, just because I can't be bothered dicking about with credit cards. Underwhelmed with Angry Birds, is thus really what people were going apeshit for?

Yay. Amazon delivered Skyward Sword to me on release day, even though I chose the cheapest shipping option. Unfortunately it was a present for my girlfriend and I had to wait til her birthday! Finally got to (mostly just watch her) play it yesterday and really liking it so far. It managed to distract me from Skyrim for the whole day, which is no small feat.

ledge, no spoilers really: you can use enchantments from captured souls to create magical rings and name those rings. lydia is a pain in the butt; constantly running head on into battles or falling off cliffs or ruining stealth attacks but you can't really ditch her because she's a de facto mule who doubles your carrying capacity. She also whines "I am SWORN to carry your BURDENS" every time you use her this way. Basically, killing her and turning her into a ring would generally make life a lot easier, especially when you're later into the game.

is it a ring that can carry half of your shit, because that would be WORTH IT ZOMG

I have taken to using Lydia and my horse as bait/distractions so I can run up behind mobs and flamechop them in the back of the head. Oh, also I discovered that my horse can outrun the ice troll on the 7000 steps ^_^

holy crap lydia will carry stuff for me?! not that carrying capacity is a major bottleneck for me any more.

also her running head on into battles is probably an asset, she's saved my skin multiple times. and then i accidentally burn her up with my FLAME ON. i don't really do stealth tho.

lydia > lydia ring since that ring takes up a spot you could use for other excellent ring abilities

I just found some leather boots of lifting so that's all good.
Yeah ledge: your companions will pack mule and you can use them to carry stuff. Talk to them.
Companions only die for real if you accidentally administer the killing blow; if they're being attacked from outside sources, they fight till they're almost dead and invariably the outside attacker stops with them and goes after you. So be careful with the FLAME ON cuz you can kill her really really dead.

BTW, i restarted at level 21 when i realized my stealthy, bow-based tank mage had spread out his perks WAY too much and was starting to be a pain in the ass to play. Ninja mage this go round, level 9. Amazing how I could put in 40 hours, restart and IMMEDIATELY get back into it. This game is a gem.

one of the funniest things in the game to me is when Lydia jumps directly in front of my fire blast and then screams "HEY I'M ON YOUR SIDE"

it's like, "then stop jumping INTO my flames, crazy person"

I just restarted too, like forks a victim of my own diverse folly. Strangely, doing a similar stealth/magic combo, though thus far he seems more dickweed than ninja.

http://skyrimpatchnotes.com/

refresh for more

i don't really do stealth

apparently sneaking is a primary skill of my race (khajit) :/

n.b. inverted look on by default \m/

omg those patch notes, lol

protip: stealth/archer is basically overpowered

- Increased cost of Zerg Spawning Pool to 200.

:D

lol the magicka one.

apple cabbage stew mmmmm

I assume there's already an alchemy repository out there, so we don't have to start a new one

i like skyrim a lot and am happy with my character but i kinda stalled out after killing the first dragon and havent really been back to it

alchemy repository

u mean like a wiki? yeah

Companions only die for real if you accidentally administer the killing blow

I've done this to four different wingmen now.

protip: stealth/archer is basically overpowered

Oh I dunno, I'm doing this and I'm kind of ok but still run into trouble pretty regularly.

n.b. inverted look on by default \m/

Er dude this is just a system wide setting on 360. It knows what you prefer and autoselects it for every game (same with triggers for making cars faster/slower, etc).

Thx to my obsessive alchemy, I think half my capacity is in the form of potions. I gotta find some idiot to sell these to.

four?!?

i guess i whacked lydia at some point during the fight with krosis and felt super bad about it. but i managed to beat the guy and didn't feel like reloading. so not that bad i guess.

xp

protip: stealth/archer is basically overpowered

― Mordy, Monday, December 5, 2011 4:57 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Permalink

this is how i'm playing, and i don't agree (well it's not like i'd know tho w/o like nine playthroughs). you can do low-level clears pretty well as you creep around picking people off, but when you get to a set-piece one-on-one and don't have perks put toward magic or fighting it gets pretty damn hard

creeping around picking people off is fun as fucc btw, highly recomm'd

bought a 3DS with SM3DL and MK7. so good.

xp there's a rough patch between early levels and later levels where archery feels a little sluggish, but once you've got some kickass bow (ideally something that delivers damage in the 40-50 range --nightingale bow for instance, or an ebony bow -- plus extra enchant damage) and arrows at Orcish and above (really Elvish is where difference because apparent), you're a DPS machine. combine that w/ Lydia + give Lydia a staff of companion spawning and be preparing to pull up some atronachs when necessary and you've got tons of tanking and you just blast away.

differences becomes* apparent

in most respects i'm a stat whoring powergamer type but i just don't like rolling with a companion, even for the extra baggage carry.

yeah I cant handle npc fucking my shit up.. and they die all the time and makes me sad. I got the conjure dremora lord before I finished the game and that was the shit right there.. dude pops up in full bad ass armor and flaming double handed sword and will kick the shit out of anyone in his way,. then disappears after a minute or two.

i really wanted to get bound bow spell but apparently you need conjuring 50 to get it and i have like conjuring 21

i've run with bound sword every now and again, if i don't feel like wasting charges. the wikis say it's equiv to a pretty nice sword but it takes a couple seconds to pull up. also i don't think casting is silent w/o perks so backstabbing with it is tougher.

I used the bound sword a ton of times because I usually rolled with a magic sword of some sort and would use the bound sword on things I didnt want to waste charges on and didnt want to add weight

oblivion w/spells

four?!?

Yeah, I've killed Lydia, that image of the fendahl guy, some dude whose ancestral shield I'd recovered, and a beefy woman who agreed to join me after I beat her in a fistfight in a pub in whiterun. Game seems to be full of potential companions though, I've turned down a lot more than I've taken on.

You don't know the meaning of annoying companion until you've spent some quality time with jzargo or whatever from the mages guild

i prefer to go at it alone!

Todd

Todd?

That's my name!

Todd

Can anyone rec a decent first person ps3 shooter with a good deathmatch feature? Specifically for irl players - not online. I don't play by myself much anymore, but plan to host a monthly get together w/some friends so we can chase each other around with flamethrowers and whatnot. This seemed to be a staple with all first person shooters on ps2 games, but not so much anymore.

I gots an iPhone 3GS, can anyone recommend some good games for it? Preferably free, just because I can't be bothered dicking about with credit cards.

Its hard to find good game apps that are free, unless yer ok with stuff thats either a single demo level or is covered in ads. I'm really enjoying Helsings Fire, but not sure if there is a free version of that (its only 99c but you do need to set up an account with a card. In fact I think you have to do that regardless dont you?)

Whoohoo first full on console lockup in skyrim! Now I finally feel like I am playing a Bethesda game.

Also fuck a sightless pit.

I've just enrolled by sorceress/archer into that magical college up north. Looking forward to smiting.

Since I want to be a magic+archer person, do I need to train up with a sword/dagger/whatever? Or can I just rely on my bow and some kind of awesome fire spell?

Film Crit Hulk expands into games crit:

http://badassdigest.com/2011/11/29/film-crit-hulk-smash-hulk-vs-the-bat-shit-evolution-of-the-modern-warfare/

Playing LA Noire and I'm sort of bored by it.

totally fucked up by destroying my necromancer/regain magicka 75% faster robes for enchantment; my new character build was predicated on fast regenerating magic for healing/firebolts. I gotta find and kill a new mage pronto.

I've settled into a nice pattern of shooting a target with my bow to pull it, setting it on fire then smacking it in the face with my two-handed axe. I think I need to learn fast healing tho.

Nothing faster than drinking a potion.

I got into a bit of trouble with some mercenaries, half a dozen of them and their leader all at once was a bit too much for me. Afer three or four attempts I remembered I had some scrolls, paralyze and frost damage - job done.

Nothing faster than drinking a potion.

haha true, but I kind of keep chugging them all at once, making me okay for wave one but not so much for wave two

I guess I should be incorporating scrolls and some form of blocking into my combat patterns

I love stopping in the middle of a frenzied battle to change weapons, drink some potions and eat a whole wheel of cheese, and sort through my scroll collection.

oh shit, FOOD

I forgot I have food

WoW has totally screwed up my expectations re: what is and isn't feasible during combat

taking a time out to carefully apply a dose of poison to a weapon is very handy.

Better yet: Planetfall allowed you to take a nap in the middle of a fight.

I'm hesitant to ask but is the ps3 much better than the 360 or about the same?

i have wondered the same thing

with certain games, the graphics are tighter
in general, the only reason you'd need both is if you're into console exclusives.

I was 100% convinced that the voice actor for Paarthurnax was Peter Cullen, the optimus prime dude. But I finally remembered to look it up just now and...it's-a bloody mario!

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Voice_Actors

Woah, and it turns out Cullen was the original mario anyway.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Cullen

so skyrim is half price in gamestation in the uk? should i? i fear i'll never have the time it apparently deserves, though if it was really good maybe i'd make the time!

It's very good indeed and I can totally see how it could take over someone's life, but it doesn't need to be that way. I've been playing it in hour chunks in the evening, and the dungeons seem designed for that kind of play. It'll definitely give you twenty quid's worth of fun.

btw can I just say the Companions are AWESOME so far and I will be crushed when I discover they are secretly evil bastards bent on eating the world

also I just bought a house! squeee!

Was holding off from the companion missions, they seemed a bit suspicious in a libertarian kind of way, but ok I'll try and bro down with them. Got into the Thieves Guild but only 'cause I want to improve my lock-picking. And maybe I can take them down from the inside...

I love the Companions and their Warren Zevon ways.

I intend to marry Mjoll the Lioness.

preeeety sure i just stumbled into a dungeon that is some sort of main storyline quest thing by accident and am now worried that i am going to throw some game breaking wrench in the gears. its the one with the various skulls as keys. if anybody can confirm/deny that i am about to bungle the storyline plz speak up.

looked up "skull keys" and i don't think so

cool, it just kept popping up those text captions "YOU HAVE FOUND THE KEY OF WAFATHURIA" that only seem to happen when you are doing some big deal sorta thing, and considering i just sorta stumbled across a cave or whatever i figured i was on the verge of screwing something up.

i went thru a whole dwarven ruin (i was sent there to assassinate someone) and when i finished it there was a mechanism that required a piece to start it up. i didn't have the piece tho, and when i looked online it seemed like you got it from a different quest. i have yet to break a quest from doing something out of order.

altho tbf some of my favorite rpg moments are always the *cue dramatic music as lord whatever walks towards you* "I seek a champion and stalwart fighter! Long have I hungered to once again grab my ancestral sword and stride into..."
"Oh that thing yeah I got it in my backpack just a second."

xpost goole and i were talking last weekend about some supposed game-breaking bugs to do with the whole civil war thing happening out of turn so now i am paranoid i think.

also i just finished the big write up in game informer on this south park rpg they are doing and there is just absolutely no way that it will not be an epic clusterfuck of hilariously bad proportions. i mean when you have a show that is built around fairly wonky aspect ratio and foreshortening and perspective uh do you not see where that is going to be a problem. without even getting into the impossibility of sustained funny in video games.

yes that is a sensibility i want to spend 80+ hours in

"Oh that thing yeah I got it in my backpack just a second."

lol, they saw that coming with the dragonstone, huh

nothing like picking up an undroppable quest item that weighs like 12 pounds when you have no idea what to do with it. i guess that's what the internet is for...

that's what your house is for!

~undroppable~

yeah i am still carrying 2 undroppable bottles of alto wine that are quest items from the part where you get shitfaced and wake up after trashing a temple. also some bard assholes unique lute. its reeeeeally annoying

the bard quests are currently bugged and those musical instruments are never removed.

thanks for playing skyrim

noooooooooooooo

really, there's nothing like a boss fight with a bastard dude wielding a 2H sword to make you see the value in blocking, esp. when your sidekick is an archer with spatial issues (my daerest Aela: you suck in enclosed spaces, please utilize one(1) sword more XOXOXOXOX)

lydia is the way to go if you can ignore how annoying she is, esp since she's a fairly decent archer and is awesome at dual wielding staffs or staff plus badass onehanded sword. and getting the hell kicked out of her while i hide behind her.

i think i was gonna end up divorced if lydia said her burdens line one more time, so i had to trade her in for roggi knotbeard, who is shiiiiiit. always on the floor, seconds into any fight.

Lydia is awesome except for her uncanny ability to leap in front of my flames/fuck-off massive ax

also my life has gotten much much better in boss fights after learning the slow time shout, its pretty fucking awesome

xpost yeah note to future bethesda developers sacrifice reality or whatever and plz have my companion shut their fucking piehole when i open the companion menu "talk" to them about tactics etc.

this is the buggy intersecting quest fyi

http://uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Season_Unending

I feel like I'm way behind a lot of you guys (only level 15 so far), but I had fun making the journey to Winterhold last night. Lydia was as useless as ever.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/11/21/skyrim-lydia-death/

lol @ some of these screenshots

lol poly, I'm still lvl 10!

Ice wraiths are annoying as fuck.

i haven't played in 2 weeks. i'm hitting the same thing that happened to me with Fallout 3: i play intensely every day for 5-6 days, something comes up for half a week that prevents me from playing, and then i just can't return.

I have only been playing like ... twice a week ... but every time I play I'm like why don't I do this nonstop all week.

i think im level 22?

the other protip for companions that run in front of you is lots of conjuring magic or other offensive stuff that doesnt target

oh, I just started dicking around with "Conjure Familiar", it seems really great/helpful in pulling mobs and getting them to focus on something else while you barbecue them and then chop chop their necks like a wicked clown

yeah i use that and the various raise dead stuff a ton actually

There needs to be a vg thread for non skyrim players.

you mean like a support group or something

lol

I'd been avoiding the raise dead stuff because I didn't want to become a MONSTER NECROMANCER but considering that I went and ate some guards in Whitehall I should probably stop worrying about that...?

i am down because it just makes all these dickhead racist nords hate me all the more

(actually i dont think it makes any real difference, at least so far, wrt the way people react to you)

it's kind of funny how the guards veer back and forth between "WATCH YRSELF, IMPERIAL *spits on ground*" and "zomg you kill dragons! SQUEEE!"

oh and I finally ran into the "I was an adventurer like you once..." guard!

plz no spoilers but everyone keeps telling me I look pale and sickly; is this because my character doesn't ever sleep?

What race are you?

Imperial

u has a disease

damn u, Lydia

Go to a shrine and purify yourself every once in awhile.

yeah, it's easily done

the honest gamer review that noted how stupid the interface can be (how can i not find out if i'm sick? "this spell works on level 10 or below"? how do i know what level this wolf is) is dead on in many ways.
even though i love this game dearly it is kind of a not so good GAME and the best sandbox i've ever played in.

yeah i think about 90% of the time i have like the cave bear rickets or whatever. one huge annoyance abt this game is that there is no condition screen, and half the time the flash of "you have contracted draugrpox" gets unnoticed while trying to be not killed by stuff.

like fallout 3 felt like it had drive and motion but skyrim is all like hey i think i'll go explore my world

it's v poorly explained, but the magic menu >> active effects shows whether you're sick or not

ha I don't think I've ever looked at that part of the magic menu

there should be icons next to yr magicka/stamina/health when you're either boosted or inhibited on something

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/12/08/hey-bethesda-could-you-fix-skyrim/

it's v poorly explained, but the magic menu >> active effects shows whether you're sick or not

ok that lydia vs gate video in the lydia death link is hilarious

Gents and ladies and Dan -

I'm going to be buying some used games today; planning on Deus Ex and 2 more. I'd love some recommendations for non-FPS games of the past year or so.

Just Cause 2, Red Dead Redemption, Mass Effect 2, Saboteur was cool..., New Vegas, Arkham City, Portal 2, + obv Skyrim if you can find it used

ya both the Arkham games get massive THUMBS UP from me

also Marvel vs Capcom 3, but that's because I am addicted to fighting games

u know, if you can get it really cheap Mortal Kombat V. DC was a lot of fun!

I hear really great things about Saints Row 3 and if I wasn't in the middle of Skyrim I would surely be playing it

I always hear great things about the new Anno game and I can't wait for it to come out on the Mac

Saints Row seems to be ridiculous enough for me to play, unlike the GTA series

Thinking of Red Dead and Mass Effect. Saboteur was cool? I vaguely remember that - WWII Paris, right? Open worlder?

I've played all the others (except MK v. DC as I suck so, so bad at fighters) and loved them to various degrees.

Totally forgot about SR3! Wonder if I'll see it used.

hmm should i shot the first arkham game? its the only one available for mac

yes! though I played it on ps3 - i don't know if the pc version is as good (I assume so).

And don't tell anyone, but it's better than the sequel and I underrated it in our year-end poll when it came out.

it still won iirc

I think so, but I personally underrated it. A perfect, tight game with barely anything to quibble over.

Q related to previous Q: I thought the shooting in Uncharted was terrible so never played the second. Should I think about either of the sequels? Did they improve the shooting model?

some ppl liked dragon's age (nb i wasn't one of them)

KILLER CROC xposts

dragon age is a little bit above average fantasy world design and writing but if you're not into bioware rpg's i wouldn't bother

I liked the Croc stuff. Good change of pace. Liked it more than the Scarecrow stuff which everyone else seemed to think was the bee's knees.

Played the first Dragon Age until I got bored with the annoying characters and crappy console combat.

the idea of someone enjoying the croc stuff makes me feel like charlton heston finding the statue of liberty buried on a beach

I liked all the parts of it where I didn't get lost and go the wrong way. The little zipline tool makes a cool noise and Batman looks like he's having fun on it. Though he shoulda yelled, "Wheeee!" once in a while.

yeah i didn't mind the croc stuff either.

solidarity!

Now I'm off to the store. Will report back. Thanks for the input people!

I hated the Croc stuff so much

croc was fine; i think i maybe had to play that part twice before i beat it? If you couldn't handle the platforming there I could see where it would drive you nuts.

I could handle the platforming, it was the ZOMG WALK SLOW bullshit that artificially dragged out the section that I objected to

YES

I liked the croc and scarecrow parts. Shocking.

i'm having so much fun re-playing resident evil 4 for the nth time that i'm considering giving RE5 another shot (played it one night with a friend right when it came out, didn't finish it), especially since it's super cheap now. is this a bad idea?

re5 actually gets pretty fun, but the first hour or two are such a slog that i dont think many people bother to make it that far.

still pales compared to re4 in a big way imo tho.

xxp there's a "walk slow" bit in Arkham City which is p annoying, nothing like as aggravating as the Croc stuff in Asylum IMO.

I'm now obsessively caning the fighting challenges. 71 hit combo!

the Scarecrow parts were prob my favorite parts of Arkham Asylum tbh

there are a couple of similar bits in AC- the Mad Hatter sequence, fighting Ray Ghoul or whatever he's called...

oh my god I ADORED the Mad Hatter sequence, esp. since I just sort of stumbled into it

i've been idly reading some skyrim wikis, and come across something kind of obvious but totally insane:

alchemy can make potions that boost enchanting and smithing
enchanting can make apparel that boosts alchemy and smithing

you can recurse these a couple of times, ending up with gear created and improved a big hunk better than "normal" limits. whoa!

the boosts are, tbf, pretty small on both ends but yeah in theory that's right

re5 actually gets pretty fun, but the first hour or two are such a slog that i dont think many people bother to make it that far.

i think we got to the start of the last chapter, but i don't remember any of it except that it was very action movie-ish. i was only in town for the night so we tried to stay up and blow through the whole game, last time i've done anything like that.

res evil mechanics feel like they were made for me, since i tend to find a safe place to stand & shoot even in games where you can do it while running.

Back from the store with Deus Ex, Saints Row the Third, and Gran Turismo 5.

alchemy can make potions that boost enchanting and smithing
enchanting can make apparel that boosts alchemy and smithing

i read something saying be wary of boosting yr non combat stats up too high, or the baddies will level up over yr ability to fight them.

also, biggest lydia annoyance: get the fuck out of the doorway! worst when i wake up and she is standing in my bedroom door staring at me.

yeah that's probably smart

er xp

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GpySAdU_Co

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQ6bCjoJnFo

A few hours into Saints Row and I'm having a blast. Needed a bit of a break from heavy Skyrim.

maybe i should get it...

no, you should just get snake II

so many turns!!

Argh

Lydia got killed in the dust up right before going to wipe out the Silver Hamd and I didn't notice because the game stuck me with Aela for that part.

Maybe she got jealous?

mirror's edge is free today for ipad and iphone

interesting GOTY list from Paste

NO BULLETSTORM NO CREDIBILITY

that reminds me, sandbox coint + plick?

new xbox ui is ugly

dude, i dunno about sandboxing c+p
when is this back up again?

New Xbox Netflix noises when scanning make me want to die

Also yeah, we don't normally start c+p noms until jan right? Hopefully we won't still be sand boxing then

we could maybe start a sandbox nomination list?
Now that I (and I assume most everybody else) are playing iOS games more regularly, I'm wondering how they'll dominate and how many are worth nominating. I mean there's like thirty or forty noteworthy ones dropped like every week it feels like.

I bought a whole bunch of DS RPGs this year & I had every intention to play them but iirc I end up playing Dungeon Raid & Ticket To Ride & Plants vs. Zombies & check my email & I bet those RPGs are very cool!

o/w I am just slowly making my way through C&P 2010 & 2011 re. AAA titles: e.g. DA: Origins, AC2, RDR, Just Cause 2. & uggh, FO3, Mass Effect 1/2. There are just waaaaay too many interesting looking games for the super limited time, like at most an hour a day & many days essentially no time, I have to play them. Which is another reason why iOS gaming works: a little Dungeon Raid on the can seems fine, whereas loading up even the DS for that seems like overkill.

Since last time: 3DLand best 3D Mario Ever.

So hyped about Monster Hunter 3GS I find myself looking at pictures of people lining up for it. Capcom SHOULD announce a western release soon if they're going to do it.

i was a bit unsure about 3DLand until the second half of the game unlocked - then i fell in love
Kart 7 online is sooooooo much fun!
also been playing Pushmo/Pullblox, simple but fun puzzle game made by the Fire Emblem people - huge amount of user generated puzzles out there already as well

i was a bit unsure about 3DLand until the second half of the game unlocked - then i fell in love

I'm just about to reach what I now assume is the end of the first half and am really relieved to hear that!

I loved the first part as well, at least knowing what would come. It's a game of two halves: Mario as a toy, playing with the creative level design, exploring the limits of them, speed-running levels... and then Mario as a set of skills you need to perfect, margins, 20 levels lost in minutes. Marvelous structure.

20 lives*

Hey Mordy:
http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/12/10/the-elder-strolls-part-1-fresh-off-the-boat/
Nondrick returns!

what if we did an iOS poll before we did the big poll?

I agree that we should be doing these polls in January, not now. And hopefully not in the sandbox.

i personally really don't want to break up gaming by portable/system

I don't want to break it up so much as I think there is a general interest in what the best iOS games are because so many people have iPhones, and doing a poll of them would be a good way to prepare for the big poll.

Doubt this is news to you nerds, but:

But the evidence is hard to pin down. Violent crime in America, Britain and Japan, the three biggest video-game markets, has dropped over the past decade at the same time as sales of video games have soared (see chart 4). That does not, by itself, exonerate the industry—after all, without games violent crime might have fallen still further. And several studies purport to show that playing violent video games raises aggression levels. But Chris Ferguson, a psychologist at Texas A&M International University, points out that much of this work is of poor quality. In a meta-analysis published in 2007, he found no evidence that games made their players violent. Indeed, after decades of research, he has concluded that violence in any media has little or no effect on their consumers. A review commissioned by the Australian attorney-general, published last year, backed this up.

http://www.economist.com/node/21541166

if anything, I'd guess people who normally would be out doing dirty are instead finding the outlet for violent crime that they need in, say, Wii Fit.

man, i played a lot of skyrim today. first time in a week. and about to go back in and try an all-night sesh. great game. so great just to play the 7000 steps quest and chill the fuck out during it - wander around slowly looking at the stars, following pointless trails.

gamers dont commit crimes, they too busy sitting on the couch

seriously

beautiful
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFLxi1ymrlY

i have never played a monster hunter game.... they look like hardcore pokemon?

nah, more a loot whore ARPG with timed missions

it looks stressful, and not in a fun way

It's not stressful because the fights always feel like real fights, and fair. Like, there's no secret trick to beating a monster, you fight it out in an honest boxing match, but you learn strategies with tools and bombs and traps and evasion and the fights become these 10-30 minute ballets with gigantic, gorgeous beasts.

Your character doesn't have stats, it's all in your equipment which you mostly forge from dead animals. Skill is much more important than whatever RPG elements are there, though, and filling your chest up with hundreds of items is just a bonus, adds to the excitement of planning these hunts.

Oh and the satisfaction from delivering the killing blow is more or less unmatched. You see signs that monsters weaken, but there's no hp or health bar so when they finally fall...

anyone else considering The Old Republic?

No Mac version, so no.

would play the fuck out of it if it was on the mac

ditto.

just bought skyrim based on all the above talk, looking forward to playing a lot, lying to gf about how much i'm playing.

really the only thing saving me from playing The Old Republic at release (EIGHT DAYS ZOMG) is the desperate need to replace my computer

Buy a Mac and continue the savings!

I already have a Mac, lol

(yes I have two desktop computers, shut up)

I was on the Old Republic beta but after an 8 hour client download, it refused to boot up.

so i've just been trying out the BF3 expansion, maps from BF2 and BF1943 i think, quite good. and then i change server and stupid Origin breaks. And now nobody can log in. hate EA right now.

especially since i had to reinstall windows the other day, and i currently don't have BC2 installed. aaargh.

and they've only gone and weakened my IR scopes, to a ridiculous low level that deems them pointless now. bah, i was getting most of my points with these.

new humble bundle

gonna have to l2play now ste

pullblox is sick btw

Away for 3 days for work, stuck in a hotel, srsly suffering Skyrim withdrawals. /twitch

got my early access invite for SWTOR, might start a char tonight

sword & sworcery? anyone has experience with?

also

http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2011/12/14/telltales-law-and-order-legacies-coming-to-iphone-and-ipad-this-winter/

yes plz

i bought sword & sworcery and had some fun for about an hour or so, but eventually got really bored and never came back. :-/

Yeah it was a fun hour.

lol finally went back to the main story line and discovered THAT'S where the elusive dragons are lurking; I had just been fucking around in Whiterun with the Companions and then in the Mage Colege in Winterhold. I'm currently aiming to be warrior mage with very little battle focus:

- currently leveling 1H, 2H and archery on the fighter side, with heavy armor specialization
- currently leveling destruction and resto on the magic side, with occasional forays into conjuration

dual-wielding Flames or going Flames/Shock is intensely satisfying and hilarious, it's like you are literally melting health bars; it's also fun to melt down to exhaustion with dual Flames, then switching to big fuckoff 2H axe as finisher

also discovering the joys of pulling via archery + sneaking; I've started 1-shotting weaker foes which is just awes

giant spiders can still eat it tho

why am i doing these bard college things when i dont care about bards and find them annoying

why do i find it so hard to get the thieves guild quests started which would be useful lockpick levelling just because i think the dude i need to frame seems to be a nice guy

the questions that try mens souls etc

lol I started the Thieves Guild quests and discovered I am a terrible, terrible thief

I haven't gotten there yet but my initial thought based on the majority of the bards I've met wandering around Skyrim is "fuck one (1) bard college"

Mage school is DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOPE tho

OK so i finally broke 3 million in temple run after like two months and checked game center and the high score is 32 BILLION

what... THE FUCK!!!???

i mean FUCKING WHAT???

I'm stuck at 1.8 mil. Can't get above 40x multiplier.

wait skyrim has a 'bard college'

i mean FUCKING WHAT???

the wings are the secret

yeah the benefits of doing the mage college questline are like 1000x awesome

also i have been taking breaks from skyrim by playing blur and man this game (much like split/second) was totally slept on, people into arcady burnout type racers really need to play both of them

Mordy yeah i thought about it and i guess they just buy like 100 sets of wings and after a certain point just keep putting them on over and over and over - seems like cheating tbh

man, this early stormcloak mission where you have to sneak into the fort? i SUCK at it.

Almost beat Deus Ex. Mulling over whether I want the DLC or not.

slate video game club kinda shitty + boring this year :/

Epix for Xbox, wow are you terrible in every imaginable way. Gonna use you to stream true grit before my free trial runs out tho

Dear dwarven ruin with too many consonants in the name: I think I luv u

Haha plz be more specific

Just wasted about an hour because Lydia isn't smart enough to not jump off tall walkways when there are enemies below and she is carrying 300 pounds of good loot. Fuck

Mage school is DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOPE tho

Tolfdir is a bit of a feeb but yeah this is shaping up v nicely. I'm going down the warrior/mage line too, except fuck sneaking + bows, I just wade in there with my two-handed. Works great against a single opponent, especially a mage, you can just keep stunning them so they don't have time to attack. Not so good when a whole bunch bum rush you at once. Hmm maybe archery might be useful after all...

Got this mage guy Mercurio (or something) following me round, he's annoying because he keeps steaming in while I'm trying to stealth about, but then he's rock hard and wins the fight anyway (he took down a frost troll yesterday in like 4 seconds, while I was still getting my bow out). But it means my levelling is really slowing down! "Jeez dude, let me have a shot at it, I'm trying to bump my skillz" etc. Might need to just ditch him for that reason.

lol that actually is one of the reasons why I sneak everywhere; instant magic passive leveling when there's a mob in the room! Also, now that I've started casting Soul Tap on things I'm getting a lot of free leveling that way. Though I'm still only level 16.

Haha plz be more specific

I was directed to it by one of the mage school quests, to dig up more info on that giant hypno-orb. I'd look up the name but all of the gaming sites are blocked by my company (boo).

I ended my session last night after I got caught between a frost-spewing cave troll thingy and Lydia spraying flames and lightning from dual-wielded staves.

i ended my session last night after not being able to sneak past a guard for 30 minutes straight. i think the problem is my armor (all heavy) making noise. my new strategy for tonight will be to remove all armor, use an invisibility potion and sprint across to the lake, naked.

It is kind of hilarious how Lydia gets all "WE'RE ON THE SAME SIDE!" after she leaps in front of the flames blasting out of my hands, but if I let her get behind me she will without any thought or compunction whatsoever happily blast the hell out of me with lightning.

Want to try another follower but having trouble letting Lydia go...

I'm just afraid I wouldn't find another follower as hilarious, although I'm tempted to try the woman that keeps insisting that you can't truly know a Nord woman until you punch her in the face.

guys just putting this out there - maybe there should be a skyrim thread? i like reading the video game thread but i would also like to play skyrim someday without knowing a bunch of stuff that's going to happen

Yes please.

I have no problem with that but I've been trying to be intentionally vague to avoid massive spoilerdom

I am sworn to carry your burdens - Skyrimming for fun and profit

haha whoops

thank you

well at least we are all responsive to requests. locked mine, should i lock yours too dan?

oh ha i just read it, never mind

yes that was totally me mocking u

sandbox needs a de subjectivisten board so i can start a skyrim thread in it

Ik was van plan om een Nederlandse SKYRM thread te starten, maar toen nam ik een pijl naar de knie

good man, now i just need to find sandbox I love TMI and see if I can get tuomas to make a guess about what Skyrimming might mean

there was a twitter joke about getting your asshole licked in an airplane

you dorks should get your own skyrim thread

pls bring back ilx proper based stet

oh I'm two posts too late : /

cozen, explain the Soflam to me please. do i just stick it down and forget about it, and it will laser targets automatically?

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-12-07-telling-tales-skyrim-and-dark-souls-article

this was pretty good i thought, altho gets a wee bit carried away. i agree with the general thrust. i touched on part of this during the massive essay i posted on the dark souls thread that may have broken ilx

infinity blade 2 is devouring my precious free time

ILX DIED

loll

I killed ILX because it was being so bitchy about carrying all my shit.

haha

not to turn this back into skyrim thread but that eurogamer piece seems to miss that for a lot of players (and i think particularly for players who have been involved in this series since before oblivion) a lot of these references and lore do resonate, especially when they remind players of things they did and things they learnt about in other games. sure, the septim family is just nonsense fantasy garble - unless you freed Tiber's descendent Uriel Septim IV from Jagar Tharn in Arena, or used Tiber's Numidium at the end of Daggerfall.

someone posted a great piece on old ilx that really sifted through the lore and spoke a lot about Vivec and really i think made a great case for the kind of world building Skyrim is doing

the callbacks are cool but that's a small piece of the whole. "world building" is too generous a term when they have just cut and paste a bunch of thin fantasy tropes. but i think the interesting part of the article is to do with how the world is delivered rather than the content.

tbh, considering that Skyrim is the first Elder Scrolls game I've actually been able to play without completely losing interest within the first three hours, I think focusing on the lore entirely misses the point of the game, which is all about the leveling/skill improvement system and the hilariously awful AI

I am certain that in another game I would be eternally livid that my follower kept engaging traps on my head but in this game it is incredibly funny and charming.

I think focusing on the lore entirely misses the point of the game, which is all about the leveling/skill improvement system and the hilariously awful AI

yep, same here. don't care about the lore at all! that point in the eurogamer article about never, ever reading the content of any of the books is otm.

if the 'lore' is not evident in the world and people and actions that you do, but in a bunch of text-objects lying around that you have to read, it's not well done

I have no problem picking up lore without reading the books. I've heard about the relations of gods, of the various peoples to each other, histories of towns, the founding of Skyrim, the role of the Empire, etc just by talking to people and doing things. The books are just to give you even more, not as the only gateway to the lore.

I'm an elder scrolls noob, having spent about 3 hours with a borrowed copy of Morrowind on the xbox back in the day, and the world seems plenty rich and lived in and "real".

http://battlefield.wikia.com/wiki/SOFLAM

The SOFLAM is semi-autonomous and will designate targets even when unattended.

this is not my experience; it may be semi-autonomous but its cone of vision must be so narrow as to be useless

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oVr5uQsifo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbIkM1z4YwU

shit gets real at 5:10

wtf. apparently Duke Nukem sold well enough that there's DLC now:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2F5T9RWRkl0

Also, almost done with Duesex.

Waiting for the Steam Sale to pick up tropico 4, which already has more dlc that 3 did. I wish they got the original announcer for the series tho. He had a much warmer and sardonic delivery than the newer guy.

I have Tropico 4 and Arkham City on Gamefly but haven't even touched them in two weeks due to Skyrim.

Yeah, I'm holding off on Skyrim until the mods start flowing. I remember the Oblivion experience, and how much more fun it was when people could yank around a few more things to my liking, like adding companion animals to the game and this little fun bit:

http://img147.imageshack.us/img147/876/death20star1wr0.jpg

That's no moon...

wtf. apparently Duke Nukem sold well enough that there's DLC now:

It makes some sense, if DLC was just Gearbox cleaning up the mess that they inherited, I'd imagine that they'd want to put out something fully by them.

Anyone here unlock/softmod their wii? I'm thinking that I might as well do this

yes, hard drive mod is well worth doing
good tutorials here http://gwht.wikidot.com/

I was looking at this one recommended at the Wiihacks forum

DJ Hero 2 w/ turntable p cheap on Amazon today, I'll bite. DA 2 for $15 also (360).

i picked up the latest humble indie bundle and super meat boy is soo much fun! does anyone if you can use a ps3 controller with this?

Super meat boy was ok for about 5 minutes till I got to a level that I never ever will be able to complete.

DJ Hero 2 w/ turntable p cheap on Amazon today

I just got it for my son, he already had the first one so now we can play with two turntables on Christmas day (& he can totally pwn me).

Project Zero IV (youtube) is a cool looking game that was only available in Japan. Not the best example of an emulated wii game in HD but I thought I'd link the youtube anyways. This is one of the reasons I want to hack my wii

Total War: Shogun 2 is on sale for like ten bucks on steam.

Finally beat DX:HE. The finale(s) writing leads something to be desired, but it works out. cute post-credits stinger, too.

Now i'm buying Hard reset, just to an indie take on cyberpunk fps.

Wii fully hacked, linked to a external hard disk with zillons of games on. If you've no interest in actually, you know, buying games, modding with a HD is the way forward. It's really easy so long as you follow the instructions, and not too expensive - you need a USB HD (doesn't need to be massive, most Wii games are less than a gig) and an SD card for transfering the hacks into your wii. Do it!

Or, you know, pay people for their work.

The Project Zero series used to be on the PS2, I think - genuinely great terror and horror, to the point that I made excuses to not finish the second one because I was too scared.

So I've heard! I'll be playing the wii version soon. I'm 97% done downloading. The guide that I linked to worked like a charm. Now my parents won't have to waste money on Skyward Sword this xmas. They can buy something American instead and help our economy

The best games appear to be mostly 3-4 GB (uncompressed)

Nintendo will take all my money in a year with the release of WiiU

with all the new names post-sandbox i can't tell who's canx trollin and who's just a prick

Seconded. If trolling; lol, if not; what a fucking prick.

Shogun 2 is fun, especially since one of the dlcs just adds your standard overdone arterial sprays after dudes get hacked. We'll see if I can stick with this one long enough to beat it like I did with TW: Napoleon.

just a few hours until ...

http://i.imgur.com/15xJZ.png

I think I already have a ratio of about 5:1 for <games I have bought through Steam cos they were so cheap>:<games I have actually got round to playing>

Finished la noire and started Mass Effect 2. I tried being more renegade instead of paragon, but I started to feel bad about it.

oh man another steam sale? how will they take my money from me this time?

Sale's on! Server's overloaded and poxy-fuling everyone!

What looks good?

Can't tell yet.

radiant historia is p fun and less boring than skyrimmmm

Portal 2 is only 7.50

For pure time enjoyably lost / money, <a href="http://store.steampowered.com/sub/13063/";>the 2K bundle</a> looks hard to beat (if you don't have any of the games already, of course).

Honestly, I'll get the hang of this one day

is that Warner Bros pack for real? am i missing something here, it looks like an absolute steal

i would buy so many of those titles at those prices if they ran on a mac

i am anticipating this game so much:
http://www.gameinformer.com/games/krater/b/pc/archive/2011/11/03/fatshark-reveals-new-diablo-style-loot-grinder-krater.aspx

That looks more interesting than Diablo 3 at this point.

been playing lara croft: gol.... great game!

Yeah, it's pretty much "Buy Arkham City, get a ton of stuff free" (except that none of the bricks-and-mortar shops are selling Arkham City for £39.99 - it's £29.99 in all the places I saw today)

hey wait there's a pack of the x-com games on there that run on modern computers? well, there goes my vacation

Bastion is 50% off on Xbox live today fyi

great game. highly recommend everyone get it

Finally Tropico 4 on sale, grabbing it today.

Bastion is 50% off on Xbox live today fyi

will be pissed if that's not still the case when i get back this evening.

have been playing a bunch of saints row III lately. was not a massive fan of SR2, and found i got bored of Just Cause 2 pretty quickly. when it comes to sandbox games, i'm still firmly in the GTA camp, and loved 4 and the DLC - i prefer the stories to the lunacy of SR2. SR3 is pretty fun, though; initially, the vibe and the aesthetic drowned out the gameplay: the whole design scheme and narrative voice is crass and junky and attuned to a 15 year old's TV-damaged sensibility, but once you get used to shooting swathes of stockings-sporting villainesses, its okay. the story is still pretty stupid and none of the characters particularly likeable, and at first it was the enjoyable sidemissions which kept me playing - never get bored of insurance fraud.

a lot of the missions were pretty frustrating and uninspired, and mostly involved shooting the shit out of endless waves of bad guys, with all the tension and jeapoardly of a schwarzenegger action movie. moreover, it was boring, so i switched the skill level to 'casual' and am now just playing through to see how weird it gets. there are some impressive and imaginative missions in there - yesterday i played through one set inside a computer mainframe which reminded me of rez meets psychonauts, and tbh such digressions (of which they are several) make me love this game a little, which i didn't expect.

its still pretty tacky and not massively polished though - like, a bunch of missions find you surrounded by endless bad dudes after completing the objective (fucking with a computer or whatever), and the mission just ends, you get your points, and you find yourself returned to wherever the mission began. not that i would've wanted to kill the rest of the bad dudes, but i always find myself thinking, "okay, he stopped the timebomb, but now how did he escape the bad dudes' lair?", and am a bit stunned that they just don't bother with the aftermath, and it fucks with the suspended disbelief a little.

am i being crazy here? anyone else playing this and bothered by it?

i tried it, and found it a bit too flakey. ie didn't enjoy the vehicle controls (much like SR2), lots of baddies on screen resulted in a complete mess. and vehicles themselves were daft looking.

i did like the boat i found with the rocket launcher, where i decided to just park up to the beach and endlessly destroy some gangs cars on the roads.

if they'd toned down on the purple too...

so i just got a PS3 and some games as a christmas bonus!

congrats! get WipeoutHD ASAP

Woohoo! Nice bonus.

hmmm

bastion

why wont this dude shut the fuck up

it's been an epic sleep deprived few days. i picked up Red Dead Redemption and MW3 to go along with the new Uncharted which came with the console. waiting to start Uncharted until my holidays begin because once i pop that game in, i'm not touching the others!

what's Wipeout like? (i honestly don't know alot about gaming) that game's been around for a while, no?

yeah, it's a futuristic hover racer with weapons and speed boosts and awesome music you can sub out for your own soundtrack and like 5 different play modes including one where the goal isn't to win the race but to blow up as many of your opponents as possible before time runs out

seriously this narrator thing in bastion is like having a randy newman simulator "hey the kid is hitting some stuff, hey now he walked off the edge of the world, that guy sure is shooting lots of arrows today" *smashes mute button*

The narrator in the demo turned me off so much that I never even considered buying that game.

yeah i only bought it because it was on sale and people seem to love it so much, but unfortunately i think most of the charm involved is this low rent morgan freeman dude babbling all the time, so the jury is still out. i do really really like the way it looks though.

the soundtrack is pretty too. and the mechanics are fun.