General Gaming Discussion

[Gare]

I've only played the demo and it was notable, but following crushy's recommendation I ended up buying it. Still have to start it, tho

Looked up some videos on it, and it seemed pretty cool so I ended up getting it. But knowing myself, I probably won't get around to starting it for a while.

[Inferno.]

Looked up some videos on it, and it seemed pretty cool so I ended up getting it. But knowing myself, I probably won't get around to starting it for a while.

Pretty cool hack n' slash, I don't get where people get the "it's like Zelda" thing from though. The only similarity I can see are: You ride a horse, you get items out of a chest. That's it.

[Milady]

So I'm in Act II of Dragon Age II now and I'm not feeling very immersed. This makes me a very sad girl, considering how very quickly I felt emotionally involved in the first game. ;__; I'm doing my best to consider the merits of the game as if it were not a sequel, and overall, it is enjoyable. I was excited for its release after playing the demo and discussing it a bit with Gare and Ray, but I made an effort not to be completely taken in by the hype. However, there are many things I am not pleased with and though I'm not exactly feeling a huge rush of fangirl rage, I felt the need to whine a bit.

Conversations with your companions seem to be extremely limited. I've had only two extremely brief conversations with each of my companions, and it doesn't seem like there's going to be another opportunity to do so again until Act III. Not everyone is a fan of long-winded dialogue, but character development is a thing to be appreciated. And the ability to skip through the dialogue or to avoid it altogether in DA:O worked just fine with regard to characters I wasn't particularly fond of hearing.

Inventory management is also restricted, with each of your characters "choosing what to wear" on their own. You can change their weapons and accessories, but not their armor. So much for giving your warrior that amazing set of heavy armor that your mage or rogue just can't wear. Stopping to go through every single piece of equipment after a major quest to decide what to keep and what to sell isn't the most enthralling aspect of RPGs, but I prefer to feel like I have a measure of control over how my party is outfitted. And anything that isn't a piece of equipment or a consumable, the game automatically decides is junk. You can't do anything with junk but sell it, giving it little purpose. I would almost rather have the junk eliminated completely and have it replaced with money drops, then I don't have to worry about my pack filling up with nonsense whilst I have equipment to carry.

I don't know if it's a result of the protagonist being voiced, but I'm not really attached to my character at all. This makes it somewhat hard to be compelled by the storyline quests, which don't feel very substantial in and of themselves. I feel as if I'm simply working through a very long list of side quests. Most likely, I wouldn't have even known that some of my completed quests were story related quests to being with, if they hadn't been listed under "main quests" in my journal.

And having arrived late to the DA:O party, I don't know if the game felt buggy when it was first released, as games often do. This one has some odd issues every so often. Characters' hair often does strange things, such as clipping through their faces, or appearing in layers so that the character appears to have massive bald areas. Frequently, enemies spawn and become stuck, standing there frozen until they're obliterated. My mabari also suffers from this problem occasionally, usually whilst running from one enemy to another. The dungeons have white lines running between the pieces of their construction. And speaking of the dungeons, it's not particularly thrilling to visit the same copy pasted cave repeatedly. And it's frustrating to run over to one area of the room, where there appears to be a passage on the minimap, only to discover a permanently impassable door that the designers seem to have put there for the sole reason of taunting you.

I feel as though I had another thing I wanted to mention, but at this point I've forgotten. I'm sure this and more has already been raged about in other places, anyway. Suffice it to say that my expectations were not high, but I was hoping that I would be pleasantly surprised. Though I do not regret purchasing the game, and I am having fun playing it, it would seem that this is not going to be the case.

I did hear some NPCs bantering about grues in the Deep Roads though. That was slightly amusing.

[Gare]

Well, seems like my suspicions were correct. As in - okay game, but severely streamlined for all the 'tards. Oh well.

[joga1st]

for some reason none of the ps1 games i downloading seem to run one ePSX emulator...

[Cookie Monster]

for some reason none of the ps1 games i downloading seem to run one ePSX emulator...

Go to Everything Emulation, Sony Systems and read the PSX FAQ, I'm pretty sure you have .ecm files.

[Miss Piggy]

So I'm in Act II of Dragon Age II now and I'm not feeling very immersed. This makes me a very sad girl, considering how very quickly I felt emotionally involved in the first game. ;__; I'm doing my best to consider the merits of the game as if it were not a sequel, and overall, it is enjoyable. I was excited for its release after playing the demo and discussing it a bit with Gare and Ray, but I made an effort not to be completely taken in by the hype. However, there are many things I am not pleased with and though I'm not exactly feeling a huge rush of fangirl rage, I felt the need to whine a bit.

Conversations with your companions seem to be extremely limited. I've had only two extremely brief conversations with each of my companions, and it doesn't seem like there's going to be another opportunity to do so again until Act III. Not everyone is a fan of long-winded dialogue, but character development is a thing to be appreciated. And the ability to skip through the dialogue or to avoid it altogether in DA:O worked just fine with regard to characters I wasn't particularly fond of hearing.

Inventory management is also restricted, with each of your characters "choosing what to wear" on their own. You can change their weapons and accessories, but not their armor. So much for giving your warrior that amazing set of heavy armor that your mage or rogue just can't wear. Stopping to go through every single piece of equipment after a major quest to decide what to keep and what to sell isn't the most enthralling aspect of RPGs, but I prefer to feel like I have a measure of control over how my party is outfitted. And anything that isn't a piece of equipment or a consumable, the game automatically decides is junk. You can't do anything with junk but sell it, giving it little purpose. I would almost rather have the junk eliminated completely and have it replaced with money drops, then I don't have to worry about my pack filling up with nonsense whilst I have equipment to carry.

I don't know if it's a result of the protagonist being voiced, but I'm not really attached to my character at all. This makes it somewhat hard to be compelled by the storyline quests, which don't feel very substantial in and of themselves. I feel as if I'm simply working through a very long list of side quests. Most likely, I wouldn't have even known that some of my completed quests were story related quests to being with, if they hadn't been listed under "main quests" in my journal.

And having arrived late to the DA:O party, I don't know if the game felt buggy when it was first released, as games often do. This one has some odd issues every so often. Characters' hair often does strange things, such as clipping through their faces, or appearing in layers so that the character appears to have massive bald areas. Frequently, enemies spawn and become stuck, standing there frozen until they're obliterated. My mabari also suffers from this problem occasionally, usually whilst running from one enemy to another. The dungeons have white lines running between the pieces of their construction. And speaking of the dungeons, it's not particularly thrilling to visit the same copy pasted cave repeatedly. And it's frustrating to run over to one area of the room, where there appears to be a passage on the minimap, only to discover a permanently impassable door that the designers seem to have put there for the sole reason of taunting you.

I feel as though I had another thing I wanted to mention, but at this point I've forgotten. I'm sure this and more has already been raged about in other places, anyway. Suffice it to say that my expectations were not high, but I was hoping that I would be pleasantly surprised. Though I do not regret purchasing the game, and I am having fun playing it, it would seem that this is not going to be the case.

I did hear some NPCs bantering about grues in the Deep Roads though. That was slightly amusing.

Because there is no amount of rant in that at all. Seriously though, is it a good game? I was thinking of Steaming it.

[Milady]

Was it really necessary to quote my entire post to make such a silly response? I never stated that my post was not a rant. What I said was that I was not feeling particularly full of rage. I also said that I was enjoying the game, despite its shortcomings, so take that as you will. I don't know how prices on Steam compare to in store prices, but if you're on the fence about it you won't miss anything too spectacular by waiting a bit for a price drop or something of that nature. I know nothing about, and have little interest in, your personal tastes, so whether or not you'll like it is not for me to say.

I'm in Act III (the final act) now with about 23 hours put into my file, though I have a tendency to complete all of the various side quests I've picked up before advancing the story. I'm feeling a bit more engaged with the main story at this point, and a little bit happier with my companions after being able to complete some decent quests for them. I still wish, however, that you could speak to them whenever you wish, rather than only being able to have conversations with them when the game wants you to, through scripted events. I was rather fond of spending a bit of time in camp talking to any new party members about their backgrounds and motivations. Although, of course, a companion's dialogue options were exhausted after a while. Still, the NPCs just felt so much more interactive in the first game, for whatever reason. I only really care about two, maybe three of the companions in DAII thus far. Even if I wasn't particularly fond of taking everyone with me in DA:O, I felt as though they were all interesting characters that developed over time, and I never just left any of them to rot in the party selection screen for eternity.

I'm still unhappy about the equipment thing, too. I have a ridiculous amount of gold, and practically nothing to spend it on.

On the bright side, I just ran into a devilish Antivan friend from Origins, and had a pleasant, bloody romp at his side.

[MondayHopscotch]

Anybody read much about or is excited for Sword & Sworcery? Not sure what to think of the game play, but the artistic design of the game makes me really want to play it.

[Cookie Monster]

[Stark]

Nice. I think I might get this next year

[Gare]

Thoughts on the new RE game?

Capcom Confirms Resident Evil: Racoon City

The game is going to be set during the events of Resident Evil 2 and will allow up to four players to work for one of three factions. The big reveal was that players could work for Umbrella, sweeping through Raccoon City as part of a security team that's been charged with hiding evidence of the T-Virus outbreak (this means killing a lot of zombies and, presumably, using survivors as human shields). Aside from the Umbrella team, players will be able to as part of a US Special Ops team, and there will be an option to play as a "bio-organic weapon monster" created by Umbrella, too.

Could be interesting.

[Blue Electrona]

I was just perusing through some gaming news and I found this article on IGN.
http://xboxlive.ign.com/articles/115/1157436p1.html

Which is strange because I remember a few weeks back saying that I would of rather had an upgraded version of Resident Evil 4 to play on my xbox 360 than Resident Evil 5. Then next thing a HD Res 4 on Xbox Live and PSN is announced. I might just buy this game again...for a 3rd time.

(Oh and I also think the new Res game will be good.)

[Cookie Monster]

It will be my 4th, but who's counting?

Thoughts on the new RE game?

Capcom Confirms Resident Evil: Racoon City



Could be interesting.

Yup, we still don't know too much but I'm interested too.

[Raype]

Thoughts on the new RE game?

Capcom Confirms Resident Evil: Racoon City

Could be interesting.

Sounds exactly like outbreak. I guess tan will be pleased if there's zombelephants.