We chat about videogames and videogame accessories.

Let's talk about them videojames! Talk about those wacky first person shooters and JRPGS the cool kids play these days!

I got to play Donkey Kong Country returns with my brother last night and damn, what a huge disappointment it was. I thought it would be kinda like that one mario multiplayer game with a ridiculously long name but a bit less redundant since diddy and donkey have different abilities and stuff, turns out it doesn't even need to be multiplayer. DK is completely worthless, he can't glide nor shoot projectiles and he doesn't have any special ability, and while the game itself isn't half bad (though nowhere near as good as the snes DKC) the biggest selling point for me was the multiplayer, so i was thoroughly dissatisfied.

dad came in and watched me play skyward sword yesterday and he fell asleep in his chair
it's not my fault I was on a tedious part where I had to find all the fragments of a temple key :(

(that is a very good gif by the way)

Your dad sounds an awful lot like me.

The fact that you can't play skyward sword without wii motion plus leads me to believe it's not the kind of game i'd enjoy a lot. I'll see if i can borrow my friend's wiimote to play it though.

I'll go play galaxy 2 for now.

basically you need to use the wii motion plus because there's a lot of combat where the enemy is holding their shield in a certain direction so you have to attack in a certain direction otherwise you won't hit it

also for flying your giant shoebill etc.

they only thing I don't like about the game so far is Fi the "guide" character
she literally says stuff that you already just read in the message box like
"you got _____ you use it by pressing some button and waggling the wiimote around"
"IT APPEARS THAT YOU HAVE OBTAINED ______ USE IT BY PRESSING SOME BUTTON I BELIEVE THERE IS A 85% THAT YOU HAVE TO WAGGLE THE WIIMOTE AROUND AS WELL"

It has been so long since I've played videros with any kind of real regularity

And even the ones I do play occasionally are mostly freeware

That it took me several retries to realize you meant the new Zelda game and not the new Elder Scrolls game. They're all kinda blending together in my brain.

What has become of meeeeee?

The Legend of the Zelda Scrolls V: Skryim Sword

I've been jumping around between games lately, but I've more or less settled on Final Fantasy 5 for the moment - specifically, the GBA version. I've beaten the game something like eight times (though only once before on this version with its new jobs and new bonus dungeon), so I pretty much know what I'm doing.

One thing I haven't done before is get 100% of the treasure chests (there's a guy late in the game who tells you your percentage), so I'm trying to do that on this run. It's going pretty well so far, I'm about to get the ship. I'm at a higher level than I usually am at this point because I passed Level 15 and I built up a bit so I could learn L5 Death, but in the long run that won't matter too much.

I've been playing Phoenix Wright! The first one, with intent to move on to the next few games once I'm done here (how long are these games anyway?)

At a prompt from my brother, who never payed enough attention to the story for it to make sense (and oh gosh is there a lot of story - I can see how it slipped by him the first time), I have been playing Final Seventh Fantasy. He claims that it's the best in the series, and while I've not played that many (1 and 13 are the only ones I've beaten), I think I'd agree. The mechanics are solid, the story is complex and though confusing ultimately makes sense (even though the motives for doing things things are a bit unclear - I get that Shin-Ra is killing the planet, by why are we trying to stop them from blowing up Meteor, exactly?), the characters are memorable and well-developed (though I'm not sure if I missed Tifa's backstory or if there just wasn't much of it)... It's a very impressive game, and I sorta wish modern games had as much thought put into them as this one seems to have had.
The soundtrack is... well, it's the Final Fantasy VII soundtrack. It's pretty good.

Right now I'm on Disk 3, but I'm thinking of holding off going in the crater and beating up a weapon or two first, level my materia some, that sorta thing. I'll probably beat the crater once "normally" before going back and getting as much as I can stand. All that (beat all weapons, get and master at least one of each materia, get all final limits and best weapons) will require jumping through quite a few hoops and probably more than enough grinding for one lifetime, so a once-through of the crater would probably be a good idea anyway.

The best grinding spot (for Materia, anyways) is in the Crater. You'll probably want to spend some time there before taking on the Weapons.

Well, I probably oughtta max out Enemy Skill at the very least, seeing as all the remaining skills are Crater-only and I cannot begin to express how amazing the Enemy Skill materia is, you guys, it is just the best

Were I really serious about this shit, I would max out Chocobuckle, but hahaha no


Agent, Phoenix Wright tends to be pretty long. Especially the last cases. Things get pretty intense.

I've just finished with Dead Rising 2: Off The Record. Also known as Dead Rising 2: We Like It When You Buy Our Shoddy Games. The game itself is fun enough. As a series I like Dead Rising, and while I'd love to say I was hopeful when Dead Rising 2: Off The Record was announced, I was not. If you aren't familiar with the blatant cash-in then here's a quick summary: DR2:OTR is DR2 with the protagonist of DR1. Perhaps the most shaky part of the entire concept is that while it claims to be 'what would have happened in Dead Rising 2 had Frank West been there instead' (and the amount of stuff that goes into DR2:OTR would support this) it later becomes clear that this is essentially Frank West writing fanfic about himself. Around about the point where you fight a giant robot in a funfair. This is a real thing that happens.

I was never going to think Dead Rising 2: Off The Record was an amazing game, simply because the concept is not one that needed to be given a game. But there was a chance that by mixing things up a hell of a lot more than they did (all new survivors, all new psychopaths) and by ramping up the difficulty to resemble that found in the first Dead Rising, there was a chance they could have made a game that was pretty good. Instead it is full of callbacks (hey he's covered wars, you know? x 50) and references which are like 'oh yeah i played the first game too, i kind of wish i was playing it instead of this'.

That said it did add co-op mode (which I didn't use because i am an antisocial loner) and sandbox mode (which I did play and found to be fun if repetitive) so it is not all awful. At best I would describe it as fair, at worst self-indulgent rehash of a game that didn't need it.

Saints Row.

NSFW?

SpoilerShow

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdZi3GUgYqM

Something I realized recently is that I don't really play console games anymore.

When I get a new one, I'll usually make an effort to play at at least for a while (like with Skyward Sword), but it always does end up being half fun, half chore-- I have to make a concentrated effort to actually get the TV and stuff on. It's obviously not that it's difficult; the problem is simply that IRC and shit has become so important to me, and multitasking so second-nature, and I've bought so many cheap-ass games on Steam, that it's just more convenient for me to play computer/3DS games.

I'm actually kind of unhappy about this because it makes me feel kind of lame! I'm sort of making it a goal that this summer, and possibly college, with senior year and play bullshit done and dusted, I'll make more of an effort to actually play Skyward Sword and stuff.

That said I just got Super Mario 3D Land and it is AMAZING the 3D is used really well you guys. Although a weird pattern I noticed is that Super Mario Galaxy has been going backwards, like the first one was kind of like Mario 64 in space and then 2 was like Mario World (but 3D) in space and now this one is like Mario Bros. 3 (but most of the time 3D at least to some degree) in space. It's still awesome but it's kind of freaking me out.

NTA as a general rule (read what me and close friends think) if you liked FF7 then you'll like FF9. One of the best games in the series, in my most humblest of humble opinions. It does play some dumb existentialist drama about princesses but all in all it's pretty justified and the plot is meaty enough for it not to matter too much.

Also I don't remember a single chosen one of destiny so that's always a good sign.

I can't see 3D on my 3DS (it's calibrated for people who can look at the screen with both eyes at once!) which is sort of a shame but eh, it's still more powerful than the old DS.
Mario 3D land is sort of fun but so far I've breezed through it, maybe only the last worlds are challenging or something.

It'd be nice if there had been more than 2 kinds of powerup but I suppose I can live without.

hey, Superfreq, your love for old video games has made me want to actually own old ones that I lost on the Gameboy/Gameboy Advanced and also buy a charger for my SP again.
Do you know why the prices are so insanely variable between used and new?
It scares me.

In other news, besides DA STEAM GAMES, I have mostly been loading up emulators on my kindle fire for no good reason other than playing with the silly touchscreen instead of actual controllers.
It is certainly easier than moving the cables for my N64 I guess...

The last actual game I played i think was Sonic Advanced 3, I played through the whole thing and for some stupid reason I am trying to go for all the chaos emeralds and stuff. It has a lot of collecty things and it is like, "okay first you get ALL THE CHAO, then you get key's in the level (you can only get one key per level and you have to collect it and then beat it which is not always easy), and then you have to do the special game and collect __ rings on a minigame" and it is a lot. You have to grind the keys and that's annoying, but the keys are pretty generous and spread out so far.
I am doing it pretty slowly though because I only play it when I go to my dads and I can't use my Laptop....

I have a feeling this backloggery thing could very easily be something I become obsessed with.

Last night I picked up Dead Island again and carried on from where I had left off. I managed by a massive amount of perserverance on my end to complete the game and I don't think anyone is going to be surprised when I say it is bad.

The biggest problem the game probably had was it's own hype from that completely impossible to live up to trailer they put out there, which doesn't even slightly mesh with the tone of their game or the mechanics therein. Which is not to say that it does not have other problems besides that, it really does. By the end of the game it was little more than an exercise in endurance. How much bullshit could I put up with to finally be over and done with this thing?

I think it's probably a shame that Dead Island is repetitive, bland and just plain bad. It could have been so much better, and I'm not about to suggest a stronger prevalence on story as promised in the trailer. No, the thing Dead Island most reminded me of was Borderlands with zombies, but also lacking the humour and self-awareness that made Borderlands fun to play. If they'd just gone for it a bit more, thrown all the overblown plot out of the window and just been all about making a really fun gaming experience then it might have been so much better. Also they really needed more variety in the zombies.

With all the buzz with X-Com of late I figured I'd play some of the classic game a bit more. It's still turbo fun to name all the soldiers after people you know and fight aliens! Gets especially tense when you get a 'takes plasma bolts to the face and and shrugs it off' badass that you reeealy don't want to die.

Oooh ooh ohhh I just found my old Game Boy Colorrrr

which has my Tetris Cartridge in iiiiiit ^___^

I'm playing Wind Waker on my friend's GC, which he loaned me. Me and my little brother are syncing things up so that I can play it while he watches, and we just have a fun time commenting on all the shenanigans that go down.

The fact that it took me something like an hour to get through that fortress dungeon near the start did not go unnoticed.

Ahhhhh I just found a game I used to play as a kid! It's called Drilling Billy. You have to dig holes in the platformer style landscape so that various inanimate objects that are for some reason alive fall through and explode into other objects that you collect for points.

It's super basic but the soundtrack is pretty cool, and both are free to download from here :O

So two things, one I ordered a GBA SP charger and Drill Dozer which I got both for around 12 bucks with a box which is awesome.
Second thing is that I'm playing Mario and Luigi: Partners in Time, the second Portable RPG game and I keep messing up the timing on the hammers.
It is really weird for me to mess up the timing on these things because Paper Mario has made me so good at it...
I really like the title screen music and the Shroobs are pretty creepy. Although sometimes using the ABxy thing throws me off.

I made it to the last boss in that, but I never won because I'm terrible at dodging.

That also describes my status in Mario and Luigi 3.

Last week there was a sale on on Amazon. Which means cheap, though very possibly crap, games. I took advantage of this and fed my insatiable lust for new games, buying amongst other things Driver: San Fransisco. I was, to put it mildly, dubious of this game. I knew Yahtzee had reviewed it and said it was good and then put it on his top games of 2011 list, but I thought maybe reviewing all those bad games had finally reduced his brain to pulp. Suffice it to say, had the game not cost me just a fiver, I wouldn't have purchased it.

That said, this is a really good game. It's not perfect, I mean some of the cars are difficult to control and the races can be particuarly annoying, not to mention the mission where you control your car from the perspective of another car. But really these complaints are not major issues. The vast bulk of this game is well done. The storyline, the atmosphere and the game mechanics all fit together really well. The mission types are well varied. The city is large and interesting and gives you plenty of reason to explore. The characters are well drawn and interesting. All in all I am pleasantly surprised.