Hey [%target] Whatcha Playin'?

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beatbandito
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Hey [%target] Whatcha Playin'?

Postby beatbandito » Wed Apr 16, 2014 8:31 pm

If nothing else, this will save Brentai's game adventures thread from my deluge of dumb free MMOs.

After getting bored of SWTOR again I jumped back into Neverwinter Online; goddamn is this game better than I remembered. It certainly suffers from generic MMO falloff during mid-game grind but the combat feels way more clean than what I had been playing around with more recently (SWTOR, Secret World, GW2, TERA) and the regularly rotating 'dailies' throughout the day gives more reason for low level pvp and instance runs.

I remember the endgame having nothing that you hadn't seen already in some form early on but boy is it fun to pvp as a rogue in a game where maneuverability is one of the biggest performance factors.
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beatbandito
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Re: Hey [%target] Whatcha Playin'?

Postby beatbandito » Tue May 27, 2014 9:21 pm

Ascend: Hand of Kul is free to play on Steam and... good? It's pretty fun, with a better combo system than some beat-em-ups. Plays like an action heavy dungeon crawler with human / town interaction reminiscent of Black & White, and player interaction clearly inspired by Dark Souls. Your huge man-beast slam-jams some low-level baddies while showering in loot while claiming territory for their god (Light, Dark or Void) All the while you'll see 'phantoms' of other players moving around you, and can fuck with their world in strange or helpful ways.

I don't believe there's any direct pvp, but if you "Ascend" a hero, their loadout is saved and will attack other player worlds. Certain abilities and items will be passed on to future masses of meat swinging around swords.

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Büge
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Re: Hey [%target] Whatcha Playin'?

Postby Büge » Tue May 27, 2014 9:45 pm

Are you sure that's not some kind of fungal infection?
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pacobird
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Re: Hey [%target] Whatcha Playin'?

Postby pacobird » Fri May 30, 2014 8:52 pm

I'm playing Disgaea 3 on Vita; this is the first Disgaea (indeed, the first NIS game) I've played since the original. I don't know if it's ten years of anhedonia kicking in or what but the writing isn't as clever or endearing as I remember it being in the first game. Still, it's pretty jazzy even if it is currently forcing me to dick around in the item world.

Have geo blocks/fields always been this central to Disgaea? I remember them from the first game, but this time they seem intent on turning most maps into straight-up puzzles rather than SRPG slugfests. It's welcome either way, especially since you can still usually muscle your way through if you fuck something up.
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Grath
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Re: Hey [%target] Whatcha Playin'?

Postby Grath » Fri May 30, 2014 9:46 pm

Mario Kart 8 came out, and my roommate already bought a WiiU and had preordered it. It's... Mario Kart, but with a couple gameplay changes that I'm not sure I'm sold on yet - apparently most of them came in Mario Kart 7 (aka the 3DS one, aka the one nobody played because nobody owned a 3DS until Pokemon), those being the transforming stuff that Sega promptly ripped off, as well as bringing back coins from the original Super Mario Kart - but like in MK7, they can be found in item blocks, so now when you're in first you don't even get a banana or a green shell.

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sei
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Re: Hey [%target] Whatcha Playin'?

Postby sei » Sat May 31, 2014 7:13 pm

pacobird wrote:I'm playing Disgaea 3 on Vita; this is the first Disgaea (indeed, the first NIS game) I've played since the original. I don't know if it's ten years of anhedonia kicking in or what but the writing isn't as clever or endearing as I remember it being in the first game. Still, it's pretty jazzy even if it is currently forcing me to banana around in the item world.

Have geo blocks/fields always been this central to Disgaea? I remember them from the first game, but this time they seem intent on turning most maps into straight-up puzzles rather than SRPG slugfests. It's welcome either way, especially since you can still usually muscle your way through if you pineapple something up.

D1 > D4 > D3 > D2, memory serving. I don't know where Disgaea D2: A Brighter Darkness rates among those, not having played it, but you may want to grab it when it hits Vita. I think all of the DLC from the PS3 whale-hunting expeditions are bundled into the Vita versions for free.
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Classic
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Re: Hey [%target] Whatcha Playin'?

Postby Classic » Sun Jun 01, 2014 4:13 pm

Did they basically roll back a lot of the character development from D1 for D4?

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sei
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Re: Hey [%target] Whatcha Playin'?

Postby sei » Sun Jun 01, 2014 5:31 pm

Memory is rusty, but I believe D4 doesn't involve the original characters except as the same types of cameos Laharl, Etna, and Flonne have been making in other games like Makai Kingdom. My general impression is that NIS does whatever the fuck they want for lulz and wasn't too invested in persistent, canonical character development in those appearances.

Disgaea D2 (not Disgaea 2) is a story-sequel to Disgaea 1, and playing it would probably be the best way to get an idea of where character development wound up.
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Classic
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Re: Hey [%target] Whatcha Playin'?

Postby Classic » Mon Jun 02, 2014 4:16 am

Wait, fuck. I meant DD2.

Who were the protagonists for these anyway?
JUmmm...
D2: Redhead McPuncherson and Princess Bazooka Jane
D3: Super Science Geek and Perfect Milquetoast hero
D4: S-sardines? Vampire? and... Maybe a Flonne groupie?

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François
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Re: Hey [%target] Whatcha Playin'?

Postby François » Mon Jun 02, 2014 9:40 am

why did no one tell me that sonic & all-stars racing transformed lets you play as the tf2 pyro and repeatedly ram amy rose off-track so she explodes in a giant fireball

it's like the name of that game was specifically engineered to ensure i paid as little attention to it as humanly possible and the only reason i own it is because i got the sonic hits collection off the humble store on sale for seven bucks

relatedly: replaying the original sonic the hedgehog yesterday made me realize i probably owe kayin's mom an apology

Niku
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Re: Hey [%target] Whatcha Playin'?

Postby Niku » Thu Jun 26, 2014 3:22 pm

If you're not playing Shovel Knight, I'm not sure you actually know what a video game is.
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Rico
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Re: Hey [%target] Whatcha Playin'?

Postby Rico » Thu Jun 26, 2014 4:12 pm

Niku is 100% correct.

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pacobird
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Re: Hey [%target] Whatcha Playin'?

Postby pacobird » Thu Jun 26, 2014 5:24 pm

i'm sure it's a fine game and all but "pay $15 for something because it looks like your saturday mornings at age 8" is basically why the world is shit
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beatbandito
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Re: Hey [%target] Whatcha Playin'?

Postby beatbandito » Thu Jun 26, 2014 5:35 pm

Though the 'true 16-bit' or whatever crap that no one really cares about has been getting a lot of talk, Shovel Knight really is just a very tightly tuned and mechanically deep platformer. It's the closest you'll see to Megaman 2-4 or Super Mario Land from the 2d platformer resurgence.
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Rico
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Re: Hey [%target] Whatcha Playin'?

Postby Rico » Thu Jun 26, 2014 6:20 pm

It's really not about the look, though the art direction is very well done. Shovel Knight is kind of the Blizzard release of NES platformers: It successfully adapts the best mechanics and ideas of genre leaders and polishes them to a rich shine (and it helps that it's not limited to NES/SNES-level hardware). It also has good character and humor but not in the way-too-popular-right-now Zeboyd Games style.

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Thad
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Re: Hey [%target] Whatcha Playin'?

Postby Thad » Thu Jun 26, 2014 6:51 pm

Okay, damn it, you guys have sold me and I've got another game I'm going to have to buy and not have time for.

Is $15 the regular price or is it on sale? Can I wait and get around to it when I get around to it?

Because I'm still working my way through no fewer than 5 different 3DS games, Skyrim, and Retro Game Challenge 2. (I started 7th Dragon too, but died before I could figure out how to save and decided no I was not going to sit through the fucking unskippable opening cutscene again, fuck you. I'm bound to come back to it at some point, but Christ that's no way to start a game.)

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nosimpleway
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Re: Hey [%target] Whatcha Playin'?

Postby nosimpleway » Thu Jun 26, 2014 7:06 pm

Yeah, I'm intrigued, keep me posted if it ever gets cheap enough for me to afford.

sigh

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beatbandito
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Re: Hey [%target] Whatcha Playin'?

Postby beatbandito » Thu Jun 26, 2014 7:17 pm

It moisterally just dropped. As long as you can stand the wait, there's no reason not to get it for 33-50% off in the winter sale (my personal plan).
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Blossom
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Re: Hey [%target] Whatcha Playin'?

Postby Blossom » Thu Jun 26, 2014 7:23 pm

beatbandito wrote:moisterally


The fuck you doin', son?
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Niku
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Re: Hey [%target] Whatcha Playin'?

Postby Niku » Fri Jun 27, 2014 12:04 am

It's basically Mega Man 9 without the need to adhere to past conventions. If platformers continued to be the leading genre into the modern age, Shovel Knight feels like there should be a missing link somewhere between the latter day NES titles and it. The gameplay is rock solid, the music and art direction are basically A-class, and the design work is so good I can't even come up with enough hyperbole for it.

Seriously, removing lives in favor of having you lose a fraction of your cash when you die, which you can then recover if you get back to where you died, and then GIVING YOU MORE CASH FOR DESTROYING THE CHECKPOINTS THROUGHOUT THE LEVEL is a risk / reward system so goddamn tight that somewhere in the world a wrenchmaker just went out of business.

It's nothing you can't wait for, because I mean, it is a 2D platformer so you're not going to get the DEEP INTRICATE PLOT spoiled for you or anything, and it is available on Steam as well as Wii U and 3DS so it's guaranteed to have a sale at some point, but fuck is it good.

Also the 3D effects on the 3DS are exactly why I wish every single NES game released on the 3DS VC got the 3D Classics treatment. The fact that we never got a 3D version of Super Mario Bros 3, given how that game is built and designed to look like a stage play with its interaction of background and foreground elements, is basically the 3DS' greatest tragedy.

If Mighty Number 9 is anywhere near this good, then I'll basically have the best batting average for backing Kickstarters of all time.
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