We chat about videogames and videogame accessories.

SO earlier today I decided that I wanted to play Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey
it turns out that this is not a very easy game to obtain
so if I don't want to pay $45+ on Amazon, I have to drive to the nearest Gamestop that has one
which is 60 miles away

my question to those of you who've played it is:
is this actually worth it?

I've heard it was good but I don't know if anything is that good

"There's nothing wrong with a short game, if it plays well short" is the only caveat that's needed there. Length IS a quality that can enhance or detract from the gaming experience. Games of pure player skill have a tendency to need to be on the short side, as once the player conquers the game's mechanics and the game loses the novelty of any uniqueness it had, the game has to actively fight to keep the player's interest. With no levelups or new skills, it basically comes down to either creating exponentially difficult levels, which has a hard ceiling before you walk onto the roof called "Impossible", or gimmicky levels which can completely throw out everything the player has learned and make them feel like they wasted their time. OR they can pad out time with cinematic cutscenes because we're always in the mood for a movie.

Your run-of-the-mill RPG, on the other hand, tends to need to be longer. The primary pleasures of the Vidya Game RPG are Exploration, Story, and the basic feeling of Work-Reward that comes with gaining EXP to level-up a character from weak peasant to Dragon-Knight-King or with furthering the plot, all of which are qualities that fare better in a longer game. RPG's want to be grandiose about everything, because otherwise its just pressing buttons so the characters can do something somewhat independent of you, the player.

Obviously these are just me discussing the extremes, and most games have combination of these elements or other elements not discussed. I'm just trying to explain what factor length plays in a game. For example of a combo-o-elements-o, SOTC plays long because, even though its just a series of boss battles, exploring its world on horseyback is a huge part of its experience, and exploration fares better when you have time to feel the emotions of anticipation and excitement.

I've played Strange Journey. I found it had kind of a slow start, but it's a lot of fun! Lots of numbers and such. I haven't played much of the original SMT games but it's certainly a lot closer to Etrian Odyssey (which I've also only played a bit of) than, say, Persona 4. It's been a while since I played it, so nothing specifically jumps out in my head about it. Fight demons with demons and etcetera.

I'm not sure it's worth a 60-mile drive nor $45+ for it though. When I first got it I got a few hours in and didn't pick it up again for ~8 months. Not sure why, it just didn't grab me right off. I'm not very good at explaining what's good and bad about games... If you really like SMT games or first person dungeon crawlers, and want more of the same go for it? Otherwise I'd say go for a cheaper game that plays similarly.

The ridiculous part became moot, since I found out I have to drive almost all the way for something else, so I'll be giving it a try

Wowee, okay, that was quite a TF2 update we just had. My thoughts (on the things that I thought were notable in the list):

• My only surprise at the addition of a mark of death to the Escape Plan is that they didn't go even further.
  
• I am surprised they didn't make any changes to the Equalizer. As it stands it's more or less a straight upgrade to the Shovel, since the number of situations in which a Soldier would have to pull out their melee weapon while being pocketed by a medic is extremely small. (And if a player finds themselves getting into those types of situations frequently, Soldier probably isn't the best class for them.)
  
• Now that the Cow Mangler 5000 has the same clip size as a regular Rocket Launcher and no longer suffers reload speed or damage penalties, it's looking to be an extremely viable weapon for a roaming Soldier. Given that a lone Soldier is unlikely to take out a fully rooted Engineer on their own anyway, the damage loss against sentries stings quite a bit less, and not needing ammo means the Soldier can stay away from "home" longer. The lack of crit boosting is trivial to a roaming Soldier, who should be off harassing the enemy and trying to kill the opposing Medic, rather than buddying up with friendly ones.
  
• I swear I can hear the hooting at Valve headquarters all the way over here in Missouri over how they managed to make the Liberty Launcher even worse. Not only does it still have subpar damage output in exchange for an increase in projectile speed which only shackles the player to the weapon (as learning to predict the movement of Liberty Launcher rockets means it will be harder for the player to adjust to other rocket launchers), but now you have to land an additional rocket or the damage output gets even worse (75% of the regular Rocket Launcher damage if you land all four shots, and about 56% if you only land three).
  
• Chargin' Targe looks a bit more interesting now, even moreso when you consider the fact that it prevents the "puff 'n sting" strategy. Add to that the +50% fire resistance buff it already had, and Demoknights suddenly get a good deal more lethal to Pyros. Regular Demomen will still have some trouble, though; even though the afterburn removal is nice, Demomen have no close range combat to fall back on other than "melee," and their other attacks can still be reflected by a good Pyro. Even without the capability to use puff 'n sting, the Pyro will usually end up killing them without having to rely on afterburn to do it for them. If the Demoman does survive the fight, however, they'll be quite relieved to know that they're not going to have to deal with up to 60 points of extra damage should they fail to reach a health kit, friendly Medic, dispenser, friendly Pyro with a compression blast, supply cabinet, friendly Heavy with a Sandvich or some variant thereof, some body of water, friendly Sniper with jarate, or a friendly Scout with Mad Milk.
  
• Firing every shot of a Rescue Ranger into a sentry gun will now repair it by 1200 points - up 400 from the previous amount, but still much less than an equivalent Wrench would do in the same timeframe (2205 points). Not really much to say on that, I just ran the numbers because I was curious.
  
• With the addition of overheal (up to 50% of the regular overheal amount, or 25% of the heal target's maximum health), the Quick-Fix has made the abrupt jump from subpar to surprisingly viable. The lack of preventive healing was a massive crutch, making a Quick-Fix Medic useful only during (and directly after) combat, and decreasing their effectiveness at keeping the team alive as a whole (fun fact: a player who has taken damage in the last 10 seconds will only receive 1/3 of the full healing rate of any medigun). With that mitigated, the +40% healing rate and +25% Ubercharge rate can truly shine. 300% healing rate means 100.8 damage healed per second in combat on both the Medic and their target, with the target's maximum health still benefitting from the +25% overheal potential. And with the knockback immunity, Pyros can no longer use their airblast to ruin the Ubercharge (although a puff 'n sting will still win in the end, provided they can survive long enough). Although the knockback immunity was the only change to the Quick-Fix's Ubercharge, it was worth reiterating that it's still a very powerful Ubercharge in its own right - a non-Wrangler'd level 3 sentry gun can deal 1124-1324 damage in 8 seconds (the duration of an Ubercharge used on a single target), but only has 216 health, so it would lose most of the fights. As a fun point to note, a Medic with the Quick-Fix can get the speed boost from a Demoman shield charge if they latch on mid-charge. Add to that the knockback invulnerability and 300% healing rate of the Ubercharge, and, well, there might be some pretty pissed off Engineers whose sentries got beaten to death with sticks. For Engineers behind the sentries, consider the Ullapool Caber, which will deal 149 points of explosive damage to the sentry, any foes standing around it, and the Demoman - killing any non-overhealed Engineer turtling behind their sentry, and sending overhealed ones flying away with 38 health or less left.
  
• Why do people even still use the Bazaar Bargain
  
• Dead Ringer is still a problem, because of the ability to tank hits (leading to the use and abuse of DR. Enforsicle loadouts), but at least now feigning death requires a little more cunning, since damage taken after it activates will now drain the remaining cloak (no hard numbers yet on the ratio of damage taken to cloak lost).
  
• L'Etranger buff of +40% cloak duration looks fantastic - well, for the spies, anyway. I doubt the enemy players will share the same opinion on that.
  

Related to the DR nerf, I think removing set bonuses was a good idea - in general, but with the DR in particular, since it means its biggest drawback (extremely loud decloak) can't be removed anymore.

Some of you huge nerds will probably enjoy this article about finding the best TV for retro games

ee: Just made $6.83 of non-exchangeable store credit on Steam selling pretend trading cards. Just in time for the Summer Sale. And somehow, even though I feel like I cheated Valve, they still win.

I mean that's probably because they skim a bit off the top of any given marketplace transaction

I think the real loser here is the user who paid two dollars for a "foil" pretend trading card that does not even look foiled and is just flat grey.

And now you know the true motivation for Valve’s support of the Oculus Rift: Headtracking for shiny foil cards.

Some of you huge nerds will probably enjoy this article about finding the best TV for retro games

i swear if this is anything like people talking about vacuum tubes for music i'm just gonna deny everything having to do with older games

and yet valve still made money on your transactions

play with us

forever

And The Valve Man Get Paid Off All That

Another set of games I don’t care to buy now / can’t afford. Have I finally broken the cycle of steaṃsāra, or have I merely clung to avidyā?

Supes

It's Australian rules football

That’s not a football. THAT’S a football.

rated M for Sports

do they call it the yoshi sacrifice

Surprised you didn't go for the other fun thing on that wiki page

i think my least favorite thing about the steam sale right now is how i would rather buy have all of the bigger super duper publicized games on my peacethree because my laptop isn't the even close to the best gaming computer

My least favourite thing about the Steam sale is that none of the games i haven't played look remotely interesting, also i'm poor.

I approve of the above post, i have very fond memories playing Pocket Fighter. As someone who has meticulously examined the sprites from all the versus-like Capcom fighters i can say Pocket Fighter's aren't as detailed but that doesn't make them any worse, they have their own charm and it really does feel like they were just messing around and having fun with it.

I think there's a place for both kinds of fighting games, casual and super hardcore, as long as one doesn't dominate over the other in the "market". The thing is that the majority of people is intolerant about things they don't enjoy.

Obligatory gush about Darkstalkers: I think Vampire Savior/Darkstalkers 3 is a big contender for the title of the greatest fighting game of all time, aside from having exquisite art design it's extremely easy to pick up and play, there's a very small learning curve but it's deep enough to allow for competitive play. It's also kind of unique since it's focused more on super fast rushdown and not on long strings of combos, the game simply does not allow giant combos and as a result, there's a constant back and forth - this coupled with the unorthodox push block mechanics and the regenerating health bar makes for an extremely fun, fast paced and competitive game and i fucking love it in case there was any doubt about it.

Sony is auctioning off props.

The fiendish catch: You have to bid using gold trophies from your PSN account.

Rogue Legacy.

Rogue Legacy.

ROGUE LEGACY IS SO GOOD YOU GUYS.

rogue legacy

Yes
Yes it is
Unless you only get horrible filthy children with terrible traits
And then it is a nightmare

Yes
Yes it is
Unless you only get horrible filthy children with terrible traits
And then it is a nightmare

can i interest you in a giant with vertigo and a quantum translocator, my good madame