Finally started on on Thief II. Only played the first two levels so far, but I feel a bit underwhelmed. There doesn't seem to be much new stuff compared to its predecessor. The first level was quite nice as a small and contained level. The second level was pretty bad all in all. It consisted of a huge amount of empty rooms in two warehouses that could have easily been merged into a single smaller warehouse so as not make all the rooms completely empty. The pathfinding of the guards was also terrible in this level, worse than I had seen in the whole of Thief. They kept getting stuck or falling of balconies.

Having played Dishonored between Thief 1 and 2 I must also counter all comments made by people and press about the AI in Dishonored being bad or poor. I invite them all to replay these classics in which it was revolutionary and realize how far we've come since Thief. The difference is much bigger than you might remember.

I'm hoping the game will pick up now. The second mission did feel a bit like filler material as its only purpose seemed to be illustrating that the main character is deprived of wealth. I'm assuming a story will start shortly. So far I don't feel it's on par with Thief.

Currently playing through the first Icewind Dale. Solid game generally, but it has a few issues. For starters, it is a hard game. I am using the normal setting and I have difficulties keeping my characters alive. It looks like it's optimized for those that exploit the character creation in order to obtain the best stats. I intentionally rolled medium stats characters because I thought it would be the other way around. Secondly, this game is a bad dice roller. Several of my characters had repeatedly received ~2 HP per level-up. That means the game rolled around 1 for a six or eight-sided die (if it is using them). Thirdly, there is not much you can do with your characters. You can't select a god, there are almost no skills and no feats when you level up, I still don't understand why the bard knows pickpocketing but cannot open locks (which is probably inherited from pen and paper, still stupid). Lastly, I feel that the story is very old-school (mysterious villain, player and NPC characters have secondary roles, focus on dungeons), which also means it progresses very slowly. As a whole, it's a good game however. If I don't reach a balanced party regarding deaths, I will probably lower the difficulty.

I am also playing a bit of Bullet Run, before it closes up on 8th March. Solid shooting mechanics, but the inventory is confusing, the special skills are uninteresting, and the commentators are lame. I wanted to add it on Moby. But I see someone is already working on it. It would be nice to know who that someone is, since I'm not sure how many screens I should take.

It's from a dev and it looks ok, but could need an expanded description. I can approve it right away if you want to do that.

And there are no screenshots added to it, so you can take a full set.

Sounds good to me. I can do that. :)

Please also contribute the credits if they are available in-game. The last time I checked there were no youtoube videos of the credits and otherwise they'll be lost forever. If you don't want to add them yourself, please make at least make a video. I tried do it myself after I heard the game will die soon, but the game does not work for me.

I have them captured.

Ah yes, that one is high up my list for when I finish with Thief 2.

One thing that irritated me with the Thief's stealth-mode, is that I didn't have to worry about the guards seeing a dark silhouette showing against a lit background. Only the lit patches on floors had to be avoided.

Only played the 2nd, didn't care for 1st, and that was hard too. In my first attempt to create a party, I just got slaughtered completely, barely got past goblins, and when I faced orcs it was clear I had no chance, so restart and create a party with very focused stats (annoyingly, min int and cha for fighter and barb, but they needed points elsewhere... also I believe 6 str for wizard, that was a pain throughout due to carry weight issues, and of course the wizard and cleric were tiefling and aesimar for the int/wis bonuses, so I had them with 20 at level 1). And no rolls on level up of course, max HP thank you very much.

But think the first thing that put me off trying the first was the smaller inventory space, me being the pack rat that I am.

I was was heavily into BioWare's AD&D games back when they came out, and there's a reason why I played through Baldur's Gate a good dozen times and Icewind Dale only once. It's just not as rich and open or as thoughtfully designed. They were capitalizing on the good-will generated by Baldur's and didn't seem interested in or capable of producing a work of lasting greatness.

Started on Icewind Dale myself. I agree with most of your statements.

So far the most fun I had was with the character creation. Unlike you I did roll stats until they were really high, which I presumed would give me an unfair advantage. Well it doesn't. The first goblin I saw immediately insta-killed my rogue.

The difficulty level in this game is just insane. There's absolutely no justification for the random crap it throws at you. It took me 10 times to defeat the first "boss" (the ogre who raided the caravan).

I loved Baldur's Gate II and Torment, but that was mostly because of the story and atmosphere and the great characters. The reason I don't mention Baldur's Gate here is because I liked that one a lot less. Particularly due to the low level characters. Combat with low level characters in 2nd Edition D&D just isn't any fun at all, there's absolutely no choice and hardly any tactics involved. Icewind Dale, focusing solely on combat, just hasn't been much fun up to now. And I know it'll probably get better later on when more abilities become available to my characters, but I probably won't make it that far. I might have liked this game if I had played it back then, but now I've played so much games with tactical combat which is more fun (including 3rd and 4th edition D&D), that I have a big problem getting into the game. I booted it up 4 times, but always quit again after half an hour or so, because I just got bored with reloading after my characters got instagibbed.

Next up: The Walking Dead probably.

I can't understand this. The second mission was when I fell in love with Thief 2. It is one of my favourite missions of the whole series. But on the other hand almost every mission of Thief 2 is one of my favourites. (I played the series in 2009 or 2010.)

If you think the warehouse was unnecessary big, prepare to suffer during the final mission :)

Just finished the Police Station which was pretty cool again.

The latest two missions that I played (the bank and Sherrif's estate) were fantastic. They did a good job in replacing the magic and undead thematics from Thief 1 all with more steampunk elements. That was probably my biggest gripe with Thief and getting rid of it makes Thief 2 significantly better.

And finished it. As Patrick suspected I didn't like the last level much. :) But most of the game was really good. The level design in particular was much improved compared to its predecessor where everything seemed like a huge maze and finding your way was sometimes almost impossible.

Not sure what's up next yet.

Can you elaborate on that? Because I played very little of any of the Thief games and I'll take your word that the AI was terrible if you say so, but the AI in Dishonored was atrocious, and there's no way around that.

Nevermind having the exact same morons that will endlessly patrol in the exact same pattern forever as every other game out there, the kind of morons that won't lift an eyebrow when one of their comrades disappear and that will simply forget about the suspicious stranger with a big-ass dagger the moment he goes into hiding. I think the turning point for me was activating one of those force fields with that nonsense inversion thing that made them lethal only to bad guys (yeah, let's not even dwell into the logic of that), luring a guard in, seeing him cook himself alive, and then seeing SIX OTHER GUARDS run in a suicide conga line to meet the same fate.

At that point I decided I wasn't gonna make any more oversights, and I started watching the game for what it actually was, and that's a ridiculously overhyped, massive disappointment, oozing design laziness left and right.

Really, very rarely did I ever regret buying a game at full price, because when I do such investment I'm usually very sure of what I'm doing; but I felt completely scammed this time. If I could get my money back I wouldn't think it twice.

A new game journal huh? And spelled correctly? Kinda boring. :P Anyway, I take back some of what I said about Oblivion not looking good. I made my way back to the priory and good gawd what a beautiful sight! It was dark, raining and cool in the physical sense of the word. The woods in particular really struck me. (Roads are for boring people. :D) Perhaps it hasn't aged as badly as I thought.

First of all the pathfinding is atrocious. Guards keep getting stuck in walls and ramps, falling off things. When they do see you they have great difficulty in finding a spot to stand next to you in order to hit you with their sword.

You can shoot out all the torches around them and they will continue to stand there in utter darkness while you are dancing around them sometimes murmuring that they saw something but not acting on it.

I stopped hiding bodies the moment I noticed they guards don't really care about finding them. When they do they'll stop their patrol for a couple seconds to look around (which doesn't do anything because they can't see in the dark). So it actually helps to litters bodies around because it breaks up their patrols and gives you more time to sneak past areas. The last level I played tried to remedy this by not allowing you to knock out enemies.

Dishonored doesn't do all that much new compared to thief. Except for guards waking up unconscious peers, guards noticing missing peers (but not acting on it), and guards staggering back when they suddenly notice you right next to them. But it just does everything better and in a more polished way. Sure it's not realistic, but it does allow for predictable patterns that allow for what I thought was great gameplay.

Not that Thief 1 & 2 aren't great games. Their AI is just a bit buggy and less refined compared to newer titles. Because of that it sometimes feels more prone to exploitation. Which was arguably also true in Dishonored, but there the game acknowledged this possibility and even rewarded the player for it while in Thief it feels like cheating the system (and a system that's very prone to being cheated).

Replaying the original Lost Planet, re-earning the achievements I somehow lost when signing up to Xbox Live.

Unlike a lot of games, it actually aged pretty well, where as with similar aged games I've been playing for the same reason, there's been a you-can-tell-it-isn't-a-recent-game feel. But with LP, it could almost pass as a pretty new game.

It's (Lost Planet) also a pretty good game... but the last battle... facepalm.

I'd like to ask then: which Thief-1-2-contemporary game did a better AI?

Better in what way?

Less glitchy? Lots of them.

More realistic? I haven't really seen any AI in action games that's very realistic. But that's OK as long as it's fun.

More fun? Personally liked the AI in Deus Ex more. Even though the agents can be considered quite stupid. Possibly No One Lives Forever, though it's been 12 years since I played that, so my memory might be off :)

But Thief = 1998, while NOLF and Deus Ex = 2000. Technology marches on.

I don't deny Thief AI is quirky. Just point me to a <=1998 game that did it better, assuming similar complexity (enemies detecting you based on how much noise you make/how visible you are etc.).

Thief 2 is from 2000 as well. Anyway, complexity wise I don't think there's a better game from that era. But as you said technology marches on and modern games do do it slightly better.

Mind you I'm not saying Thief's AI is bad. It's just glitchy. It mostly serves its purpose, though there are a couple ways it can be exploited.

Actually I was asking you to talk Dishonored up. Of course Thief has a million faults, it was sorely limited by the technical constraints of its time and it was treading on uncharted territory. What's Dishonored's excuse? As a matter of fact, many of the flaws that you point out in Thief are still true for it. Sure its systems are slightly more refined, but not really that much. It's a game that came out a dozen years after Thief, it has a lot of previous experience to learn from, and it had a budget 1000 times as big --it should be MUCH better than it is when you think about it. Instead, it still has the same laughable AI as every other game ever, and even worse, playing by the game's own rules feels like exploiting it, so you have to hold yourself back just to get anything resembling a challenge. Those are gigantic, unforgivable design failures to me.

Also: Do guards actually wake up unconscious ones in Dishonored? I remember that happening in Human Revolution, but I never saw it happen in this one, and I played it sneaky all the way through. My guess is the level design is so bad, the guards' patrols are so predictable, and blink is so ridiculously overpowered that I never had trouble hiding bodies. So again, cakewalk gameplay, exactly what you don't want for a game like this.

I finally wrapped up Enchanted Arms after 90 or so hours...

And because of this I wanted to play a game totally opposite in style next, so I decided on Mega Man X5 for ps1. While the controls are as tight and responsive as ever, I feel that crouching was totally unnecessary. It adds nothing to the game. Couple that with some pretty bland/poor level design and I can honestly say I'm pretty disappointed. X4 was a really good game, so how they can make this sequel so much inferior is beyond me.

Also, for those times when I only have a couple of minutes to spare, I'm playing Mario's Picross on gameboy. I seem to have gotten slightly addicted to nonogram games lately (I still have to add 3 of the ones I've finished on my iphone to moby).

All of the X games from X5 on were largely outsourced to a company called Value Wave. With a name like that, you can't really expect too much. ;)

That does really explain it all! And that solidified my belief that I won't need to bother with the further installments. ;)

I suppose I really should push forward with all the outlandish Japanese games I have instead and... Ehm... Perhaps contribute a few at some point?!

Yeah, you'd be surprised how many Mega Man games Capcom has outsourced. Value Wave, Minakuchi Engineering, Inti Creates, Sun-L, Oersted... together they've probably made more of them than Capcom has internally.

Outlandish Japanese games are always good. Of course, I may be a bit biased... :)

Given that there's probably a million Mega Man games at this point, I'm actually not that surprised. ;)

Haha! Yeah... Seems we are the ones who try to cover that area for moby. ;)

I think Assassin's Creed III is a step back. The new scenario is appreciated, but Connor is a weaker protagonist than Ezio. I found Conner's father more interesting, to be honest. The main story missions were mostly enjoyable as always, but boy, did they screw up the side missions. They basically threw everything out of the window which brought a bit of diversity and replaced it with basic fetch quests and awful mini games. The exception is the great ship combat.

I also played The Saboteur. The open world content is useless - just a few average side quests, three optional races and half a million Nazi installations to blow up - but the storyline was at least interesting enough to hold my interest. The game really picked up the pace towards the end even if some missions were annoying. It also has the bad habit of sending the player from one corner of the world map to another without a good justification.

A protip to game developers: If you want to voice your Nazis in German, hire some freaking Germans for the voice acting and not some Americans with heavy accent. Even better, generally hire native speakers for your voice acting. And native writers. Positive example: The Last Express

I still don't really understand why some people despise reading sub-titles of a foreign language. Though I've noticed that voice-acting sometimes aren't taken seriously in the gaming industry. So many characters that have a sub-urban American accent in a European medieval setting.

American accents do not fit in any world with a fantasy setting.

Fantasy doesn't have to equal medieval, cf. Orson Scott Card's "Alvin Maker" series. (Admittedly they haven't been made into a game yet, but...)

'Merkin accents would also be very appropriate in eg. games set in Oz, full of fantasy.

American accent in a fantasy world that looks XVIIIth-centurish is OK.
American accent in a fantasy world that looks XIIIth-centurish will always make you think it's "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court". :]

Relax, at least you fit well in space-faring sci-fi.
Unlike Russians... "Privyet comrades aliens!" :D

Negative example: Wolfenstein 3D Mein leben! :D

I couldn't play C&C Red Alert because of those Scottish(?)-sounding "Russkies"...

That's right Indra, medieval-styled worlds are very un-American by definition.

Still playing Morrowind. Major grip (as with 99% of RPGs and action-RPGs): your inventory room gets filled quickly. But there's something even more annoying about it in Morrowind: what's the point of having an item with a value of 32,000 if there is no one who can afford buying it?

No kidding...

A touch of realism for your game! Does it allow you to settle for less?

Adventurers wreck havoc on all kinds of systems, so it only makes sense that they would destabilize economies as well. See this for a historical precedent. (Admittedly most adventurers aren't traveling with a camel caravan...)

Well, yes, it does allow me to settle for less. The problem is that the richest merchants hold only 10,000 gold, so that's the highest amount you'll get for an item. You can artificially inflate his purse by buying expensive items from him, but I was interested in making more money, not trading items.

Items sold for merchants stay in their inventories, which ruins any sense of realism. It seems that I'm the only costumer in the whole game world. If the merchants sold those expensive items I sold them before, they could have more money and then they could afford my further sells.

The only way of solving this problem is to sell the merchant a given amount of items that you don't want to get rid of, sleep for 24 hours so he refills his gold and then buy back those sold items, doubling his amount of gold. Doing this over and over is the only way to make merchants have more gold.

Don't worry about it, it's an Elder Scrolls game, soon enough you'll be swimming in money and there will be nothing worth buying anymore.

*checks last save* Day 147, 189330 gold and nothing to buy. Remember deciding to just stop looting before giving up the 2nd time. Selling is just far more trouble than it's worth and there's little to nothing that won't just be there again (and again, and again, and...) if I want it due those damned respawns.

After always swimming in money in Morrowind, Oblivions and Fallout 3. In Fallout New Vegas I opted on not picking anything up unless I was planning on using it, or if it was incredibly valuable. Never had too little money. Had enough money to spare to buy the damage reduction and regeneration skin implants as well as increasing my primary stats to 10. (Well it helps of course to start with 10 luck when the game is about Vegas...)

Well, I'm kinda weird playing RPGs, I tend to acumulate money but never expend it. I onlybuy weapons or items if it is strictly necessary; if the game offers good equipment as loot, I won't buy things from merchants.

But in Morrowind you can use your money to buy training, and I sometimes use it, but only if the training is relatively cheap (it is weird how bad I feel whenever I expend money =P). So I was saving to buy training if I felt that, toward the end, I had and undeveloped character (I'm still level 11 and I just finished the Third Trial in the Path of the Incarnate).

Same, hoard money and good consumables just in case and only spend/use if truly necessary. But yeah, used some training, from what I remember lately (before stopping) was heavy armor, got that to 50 I see. Otherwise, level 45, all attributes but luck (that's just 59, never raised it till I did the others, so no way I'll get it to 100 anymore, meh), destruction and alchemy (primary), speechcraft and light armor (secondary) and medium armor (misc) at 100. Trained a lot.

So you're role playing as an Indian in RPGs. :p

RPG games could be a great tool for psychologists, because of all the choices available... some of our habits and hidden urges kick in also while playing a game.

Absolutely. What's infuriating is when the game doesn't let you do what comes natural... There are such restraints all over in real life, RPGs should let you be yourself, fully...

Shouldn't the point of an RPG be not to play yourself? :)

Maybe if you can act like yourself in "reality". If you can't, or if "reality" doesn't offer the opportunities you need to "be yourself"...

Nah, you've been tubing self empowerment seminars or spiritual gurus*. Both of which are minor forms of crimes against humanity.

*check out Indian spiritual gurus explaining the Higgs Boson and see that you can bullshit about anything really as long as you have a gullible audience.

Probably what he meant is the the you can play a psychotic warrior or a psychotic mage, but still remain psychotic. :p

*mutter* Really in no mood to start this talk.

Hey, being old and bitter is my gig. :p

See, puzzle solved. You see gameplay issue, I see bug exploit and economic puzzle.

Was it Morrowind or Oblivion that had that imp who would buy/sell any item at exactly it's given value, but only had 1000 gold that would replenish daily? You could sell anything to him so long as you slept in his house for enough months.

That's Morrowind, but the imp has 5,000 gold actually, which reduces a bit the amount of months you have to sleep. =D

And there's a mudcrab that has 10k, as long as you know it's a merchant and don't kill it, same thing with the value.

OK, I really take back what I said about Oblivion not looking good. The further I go, the less obvious it is that it's from 2006. The mountains to the north are really breathtaking. But It won't let me go to the coast! Why? I can see more neat stuff that way! WHY WON'T YOU LET ME GO OVER THERE? I forgot how much I hate invisible walls. Err.

After a three months break, I finally return to Drakensang. Unfortunately I stopped at a very bad moment to continue: directly before a big round of inventory management.

Playing Spec Ops: The Line. I'm near the end already I think (just caught up with the flash forward) after two play sessions. In any case it can't end soon enough.

I'm not sure where the praise for this game comes from. I had zero interest in this game until I heard a lot of positive things from various angles (including Yahtzee). So I picked it up in a Steam sale for next to nothing (so no harm done in that regard). I'm not quite seeing where the praise for its story comes from. The whole scenario is incredibly over the top. In fact all the action is even more over the top than Battlefield 3 and the Modern Warfares that I played. And in the midst of killing dozens if not hundreds of enemies in each encounter, my teammates suddenly react shocked at killing a single enemy in a quasi scripted sequence.

The choice moments are an interesting touch in that you always try to find the best solution only to find there is no good solution. But other than that there were no thought provoking parts to the story. There are no good persons in this story. There aren't even morally grey people in this story. Even the protagonists are pure evil from almost the start mowing down wave after wave of men without blinking an eye. Only when some civilians are killed halfway through the game do they start to give it any notice. "Oh no, what have we done!" Well the same thing you've been doing for 2 hours, only now they didn't wear uniforms. I don't see the difference.

Then later the hallucinations start. And really if you have to resort to that to tell a proper story, perhaps you're not that good of a writer anyway... I sincerely doubt that anyone who praised the story of this game ever read a good book or even saw a film adaptation of a good book. Although I must argue that the story in general was better than 99% of the action films out there. And it was better than most games.

What I do like about the game are the graphics. The levels look amazing and the whole sand theme is fantastic. It's great how you can make areas flood with sand. The music choice is a bit weird, but somehow fits really well. I liked it, there was even some Björk in the hallucinations. The sound was good as well.

The gameplay itself was al right, but very repetitious. The AI of the opponents seemed to work better than that of the allies, which would often forget to duck behind cover and not fire unless explicitly told to. The whole cover-based shooting mechanic sucks, just as in other games that use it, but the limited squad commands were nice. The hitpoints of the enemies become a bit ridiculous towards the end when a single headshot with high calibre is no longer enough to take someone out. The heavies are just plain retarded. They instantly kill you if you get up out of cover, so you can no longer move. They just move straight towards you until they can shoot you in the face and they take a couple of grenades and ammo clips to kill. Most of the times when I encountered them I knew I was game over already by the moment the entered the screen. I thought the ammo sparsity was interesting at first, but later on it just gets annoying as each gunfight features way more enemies than you can carry bullets for, so you keep having to scavenge for bullets by running into enemy terrain in the hope you don't get shot. Instakills on the protagonist don't help much either. And how come I can heal my team mates, but they don't heal me? Left 4 Dead and Republic commando did this a lot better.

Another major annoyance is that the game was way to eager to wrest control away from me. I keep getting interrupted with useless cutscenes and camera pans. Some of which can't be skipped. Some of which have my character do something I don't want him to do. All in all I didn't feel any connection with the protagonist, because he kept doing stuff I didn't tell him to do directly.

Also, don't give me dramatic cutscenes where someone is shot in the foot, if that doesn't prevent him from running and jumping around for the entire rest of the game. It only emphasizes how shallow the story really is.

Ok, in turn the ending of the story was pretty awesome, even though it's a blatant rip-off from one of my most favourite books and films. I guess I should have seen it coming, as there were more nods to that specific book/film earlier in the game.

So I beat Morrowind not long ago. I don't know if can elaborate my impressions, other than I didn't feel it was thaaat good.

Since I'm on this RPG mood recently, I decided to beat Neverwinter Nights this time. I just found the first Waterdhavian creature and so far what I can tell is that this game wasn't designed to be played in a single player mode, unless you're playing with a fighter, I guess. I'm playing a rogue, and I forgot how unforgiving D&D games can be with non-fighter classes. While inside the prison, all I did was walk around in stealth mode until I got one guard (and one guard only)'s attention. I then ran to a safe room, killed the guard and saved the game. Rinse and repeat. Once I faced the first Waterdhavian creature, my character didn't seem to be up to the challenge, most of my strikes wouldn't hurt it, so I kept quicksaving anytime I hit it hard. With this, I discovered an exploit: if you load a quicksave during a battle, your first two strikes will be in sneak attack mode, so you'll deal a lot more damage. Anytime I died I loaded and, if my sneak attack landed, I saved. Rinse and repeat.

I'm really hoping that things will get better as I reach higher levels, because this can be really boring. I've already played this game with some friends years ago and it seems I had a lot more fun with a party.

I wouldn't waste my time on NWN (wait, I already have... well, not again!). It is so much below BioWare's standards that it almost becomes an embarrassing experience.

I'm talking about single-player only, of course. No idea about multiplayer because I always play alone.

For Morrowind you need to enter a very specific mood to appreciate it, I guess... I suspect that actually finishing the thing won't contribute to that. I left it in the middle and felt really good with that.

Neverwinter Nights was always meant to be a tool for creating custom campaigns, and believe me, some wonderful things have been made for it. If I'm not mistaken, it wasn't even meant to have a real campaign for it, just the tools. The official campaign sucks indeed, but I personally really like the engine and the overall tilesets/music.

My sorcerer is still around, and I am playing with him alone, not even sidekicks or the familiar (unless needed, the pixie, there to disarm traps and open locks). Playing veeeery patiently and micromanaging is fine, I found, and of course focus on AC and physical DR gear, and I found one wand with infinite casts... of a cantrip, but hey, it's ranged damage and infinite, spammed that like crazy. And loaded him up in SoU as well, then HotU (where I gave up last time, towards the end of chapter 2). He's level 26 now, all sorcerer, taking auto still spell feats to go sorcerer/fighter next... Actually one reason why I gave up, at 27 he should go fighter and I was uncertain it was the right choice so...

Started on Miasmata. So far it feels a bit like a mix between Myst and Trespasser, which is nice. I love exploring the island. The character movement feels really nice in general, particularly in regard to momentum. First game since Mirror's Edge that stands out in that regard. What I don't like are all the hunger-daemons. The game could totally do without those. And the character dropping everything when he jumps in the water, but then cannot dive to retrieve it. The game could definitely do without that.

Miasmata is just all kinds of awesome. It has a great atmosphere and exploring the island is just a wonderful experience. Aside from the aforementioned mix of Myst and Trespasser it also has a lot in common with Amnesia, particularly when it comes to the antagonists and the helplessness against them.

The cartography element is really cool. Through triangulation with known landmarks you can mark your location on the map. And once you have your location you can mark the direction (but not distance) of unknown landmarks. Once you've oriented the direction of a landmark from two different positions, it's exact location becomes known on the map. Thus you're constantly expanding your map to show more and more of the world.

The lighting in the game is also pretty amazing. I was standing in a forest when a single small beam of light cast by the sun penetrated the thick foliage and illuminated a small piece of the skin of my arm. I don't believe I've seen any AAA game do that. I also spent too much time watching the clouds roll by already.

Does the map have special legend signs or is it more like writing words to mark places of interest?

There are special legend signs for different features such as statues, tents, buildings, shrines, etc.

Excellent, I have been searching for this kind of game for a long time.

Got a bit further in Miasmata. Absolutely love it. It comes highly recommended to anyone who loved Amnesia.

Also started on XCOM which I bought in the winter Steam sale. I'm enjoying it way more than I anticipated! I never cared much for the old X-Com games. But I'm really enjoying this one. On normal difficulty, cause of my great aversion for randomness with large affecting outcomes. I also noticed that the combat is almost a carbon copy of 4th edition D&D, but with way less hitpoints and less melee attacks.

Hmm, Miasmata, is taking a turn for the worse. The creature is becoming a real pain in the ass. It basically spawns as soon as I leave a camp and never despawns anymore making what makes the game fun (exploring the island) impossible. I'm about 1 third through the game (assuming there are no follow ups to the main quest), but by now I have absolutely no clue where to go and anywhere unexplored I do try to go I get mauled by the creature before I can even try to triangulate my position...

I liked the game a lot more, when creature encounters were just sporadic at most.

I wouldn't know about D&D, but yeah, XCOM is pretty good. I especially like how they turned a strategy game into something that fans of more action-oriented games can enjoy --there are some serious clevers going on in there.

My main problem is, the whole thing is painfully linear. After I finished it I went straight for a replay because I really liked the mechanics, but about 1 hour in I realized that I was playing *the exact same game* once again. Nevermind randomly generated missions or extra difficulty tweaks or whatever, none of that carry an actual weight in the gameplay (some of it just feels like cheating against oneself for the sake of getting a challenge, which is rather lazy design in my eye). There's not real variation to the core of the game, nothing that actually matters: You still know exactly what you're gonna be doing, what stuff you need to build, in which order you're gonna do that, which missions will come after which ones --all of a sudden it feels so small and constrained it might as well be a corridor shooter.

If they make a sequel, I sure hope they add some more variables to make different playthroughs, well, actually different. As it is, I feel it's a huge waste of opportunity, because I sure would play something like this for months on end.

Yeah I was already wondering about that. I'm still in my first game, but it really feels like a linear story. I was already wondering if there would be any variation to it in a second playthrough. Sad to hear that there isn't. A story-less game mode more akin to a random Civilization match would suit the game very well I'd think.

Finished Miasmata Yesterday. Seemed that the excessive creature spawning was due to a bug. After updating to the latest version (the first time in five years or so I had to manually patch a game. Gog.com has some work to do here still...), it worked fine again. Excellent game. Highly recommended.

Basically in 4th Edition D&D you can let your character do a move or a double move (move and dash in XCOM). You can move and attack (same), or do a full round action (such as firing a rocket in XCOM). You can also go into full defence (hunker down) or ready an action (overwatch). Furthermore objects can provide half or full cover (same).

When you go into more depth there are large differences of course, but the core functionality is very much identical. Maybe that's why I like it more than I expected to :)

Does watching a full playthrough of Heart of the Swarm count? :/ Obviously not going to play it, so seemed like a good idea because I'm interested in what they did with Kerrigan, so largely glazing over the actual gameplay and paying close attention at all dialogs and cutscenes and such.

Actually playing... my confidence in my computer being sufficiently stable to get back to anything keeps getting eroded by a steady string of failures and issues started in October, and now it's just about zero. Plus, of course, need a certain mood to play too, and... yeah.

Hacking away at the first Dragon Quest for NES.

Got Gears of War: Judgment today, so going to being playing that.

Woop woop!

Got a *huge* package full of Japanese PS2 games last week, which signals the end of my current buying frenzy. Trying to play through a few of them now... :)

On a bit of a visual novel kick right now. Played through Kanojo no Densetsu, Boku no Sekiban, which really didn't do much interesting with its premise. The dialogue was amusing at times, though. Got the red-haired fighter girl's ending, though chances are I won't go back for any of the others anytime soon since the game doesn't have any dialogue skip options for stuff I've already read. I'll likely start on Under the Blue Sky or Suzunone Seven next.

Put in a couple hours with Hungry Ghosts this evening, and I don't think I'll be going back to it. The concept is fascinating, and it seems like a really thoughtfully-designed game, but it's just a bit too creepy for me. I really wanted to like this one...

Also put in a couple matches on The Rumble Fish, which seems like a solid if rather unexceptional 2D fighting game. The real standout feature is the sprite animation, which frankly looks *really* weird. Imagine the fluid 2D motion of Odin Sphere combined with chunky King of Fighters sprites and you've just about got it... It's really distracting the first time you see it.

I finally finished Drakensang. It was a bit dungeon heavy in the end and it has its fair share of other problems, but I still loved it. I also played and finished Bioshock Infinite.

Next up: Oblivion, mostly because I want to experience the add-on I never played before. However, I'll also play the main game. My plan is to screw exploration and stick to quests. I don't want to sink another 100 hours into this.

Nice how what reviewers hail as by far one of the best games of all time just gets a passing mention in your post :))

Finally reinstalled a game, still Divinity 2 Developer's Cut... Last time I did this, the next day I had to start over with getting a stable system...

Finished playing Gears of War: Judgment. Overall, it's a slight let down. The main campaign is definitely the highlight, but that's really it. Whilst the second 'Aftermath' campaign starts well and never lets off on the quality, but when I got to the end, I was left thinking "What, thats it!?". If you don't know, it takes place during the events of Gears 3 when Fenix send Baird and Cole to get help and transport, eventually finding a boat and the Gorasni. They find the boat and one gorasni, who leaves them when they get the boat without no other gorasni making contact with Baird & Cole.

It's multiplayer is so lacking. Ok, you do get two new game modes, that's it. Most of them have been scratched. Along with Horde and Beast. You do get survival, but that's like taking away a guys gold brick, and giving him a lump of bronze. Which would you rather have? And you only get 8 multiplayer skins, compared to the 2 dozen odd Gears 3 had. Then you have the unlocks, which have been mostly replaced by micro transactions. Overall, the multiplayer is a half arsed, barely bothered with disappointment. I'm sticking with the Gears 3 multiplayer. Just sooo better.

I guess it depends on which reviews you read. I got a pretty "meh" overall idea from my usual sources. For me, this is yet another one that will wait until a 50% off or so.

But you don't like any games (except one) anymore, so your opinion hardly matters ;)

3 stars from Tom Chick, as you'd expect for a title arriving with insane hype, otherwise don't see anything below 80%, and anything below 90% is darn rare.

Personally can't stand the whole style of gameplay, couldn't stand System Shock 2 either, so nothing I'd ever touch, but hey...

I tend to steer clear of any website that still uses any form of numeric scale for their reviews. In fact, this one and this one are pretty much the only sites whose opinions I bother reading anymore. And then I'll read some comments/forums, because among all the fanboi wars there are regular users that often pick on things that professional reviewers mysteriously forget while belching out praises and/or fancy synonyms. And what do you know, in this case, apparently Irrational *still* hasn't figured out how to make a proper mouse driver for their shooters.

So yeah, DARK SOULS 4 EVER!!!!!11one

If I'm interested in possibly playing something (not the case here, but saying in general) I tend to look for a couple of sites I know as decent that have a very good opinion of it and a couple that have a very poor one (or whatever may be appropriate, depending on what the score range is, take from the top and the bottom), to see what's to like and what's not to like and then determine for myself which side counts more for me personally. Without a numeric rating, can't be on my radar.

Well, watched a playthrough of Bioshock Infinite too (guess I can do this at least, watch). As I said, no interest in shooters, but not bad ideas thrown in there. I do agree with that review I linked to, particularly this bit "Bioshock Infinite is full of the equivalent of Ryan Amusements because it struggles with how to tell its sprawling story in the context of a two-fisted shooter. Imagine Inception as a real time strategy game or The Maltese Falcon as a match-3. Imagine a vast and unmoored story straining at the seams of its medium. Imagine ambition exceeding gameplay."
Quite an ending though. Not that the supposedly shocking revelations had been particularly hidden till then, had them figured out for quite some time by that point, but that very last scene... Hm...

Overuse of blooming technology is a fad I hope will soon end.

I played Drakensang in 2010. Compared to that, it's nothing.

At least Drakensang had hot chicks. Which for some stupid reason has been removed in its sequels.

You might be interested to know that the next game in the series (which is currently being kick-started) returns to its top down roots and appears to offer more tactical combat.

Dunno. What few hours I did play on Divinity 2 was un-impressionable: blooming graphics, clunky combat, obsolete class/skill system (though reading minds perk was mildly amusing). Probably not my kind of series. Felt like a poor man's Gothic.

Well, it's free form, so no real class system. If you want to go there, Gothic has much better world, no comparison there, but this has better controls and character development (at least compared to Gothic 1 and 2, which only had a few things and annoying to deal with even so, didn't play 3).

I'm poking around the Fjords with a character that uses a bow but put all attribute points into intelligence, has no skills and was level 17 when she entered. Close to 20 now, after a bit of poking around. Skill points are there for when I'll figure out what to do with them. 'Course, always want to be a mage, but bows just rule in this game.

My patience must be waning then. Never did bring myself to pass the real first town (after being the dragan watchamacallit)...combination of lousy graphics and mediocre combat bored me immensely.

Hell, I'd prefer playing Gothic 3 and you already know how much I loathe the bugs in that game. At least in Gothic 3 you still felt like you're fighting. Here combat felt like a cheap knockoff of one of those Diablo clones.

Perhaps I'm delusional. The memories of blooming effects fried my brain a bit, it seems. :p

More to do after you're allowed through, obviously. I mean, the Broken Valley Village part is... more or less a second tutorial if you look at it that way.

I'm generally very unphased by graphics, so no complaints from me on that. Combat feels... F2PMMO-like, but uh well, didn't get into it expecting some masterpiece.

A Diablo clone was the first one, was saying that in my review, but one hell of a good one, just taking the basic concept and running away with it. Really liked DD, loathed Diablo 2. It was all those small touches in DD that made it so nice to play (according to the dev diary, those parts were largely introduced by a forum member who kept pointing out that just mindlessly killing over such a large world is just boring, so they agreed and just hired him to make it un-boring, and he sure did).
There are still his touches in D2 as well, including him as a character, a mad mage, faced in several fights and mentioned in various other moments, always talking in rhymes and just having fun at your (or others', when you just hear of it) expense. Also usually nice touches with Talana's quips in your mind.
Last I checked the forum, he was apparently in a long-term writer's block when it came to adding such moments for what they now have in development though.

My fifth attempt at finishing Nevewinter Nights 2: Mask of Betrayer since 2010. Now let's see. OK, I'm a monk, level 25 and I'm in a place that looks like a red wizards academy. Hmmm.... what the fuck am I doing here? How do I deal with the hunger? Why is camera in this game so atrocious? What quest am I doin'? Don't you hate to pick up a long forgotten game in the middle? Gotta struggle to finish it... gotta struggle...

Actually it plays nicely. I got into it and now doing side stuff in Chapter II. Have no idea why I was falling asleep at it during my previous attempts in 2010 and 2011. Guess I was too tired to play RPGs!

I'm playing Dark Souls! Yes I am! Am I hardcore or what? :)

So far, the game is unbelievably addictive. But... it is a very tough game, right? I don't suck THAT much that I need to retry an area 15-20 times? Also, I'm already level 20 at the beginning of the second dungeon or so, and it's STILL very, very tough... am I doing something wrong or is this supposed to be this way?

You are doing good, Oleg. Keep it up. Until you throw your controller up the wall that is. Actually, a great game indeed. Well worth playing and reviewing.

Until you throw your controller up the wall that is

Playing with mouse and keyboard here, wouldn't want to throw those :) Not as awful as everyone says it would be: decent with the patch, actually.

The game is exhilarating, and I love the frustration so far.

Well worth playing and reviewing

Go ahead, then! I'm surprised there aren't any reviews yet. And what about Doc? A guy who loves this game so much should at least review it :)

Something unexpected happened to me in Dark Souls. I met a friendly blacksmith who kindly upgraded my weapons. Then I accidentally mashed a wrong key and hit him. He got very angry. In vain I tried to explain that it was a mistake. He killed me 5-6 times with his powerful kicks. I was literally forced to kill him after all because he was running amok and blocking my way. He cursed me with his last breath. I haven't felt so guilty in a game since I ground a wounded soldier in God of War, even though I didn't have any bad intention this time!

By the way: is it even possible to SELL items in this game?.. I'm carrying 15-20 complete Undead sets, I really want to get some souls for them!

There is one guy who can restore any NPCs you've attacked, but only if they're still alive. It also costs a buttload of souls. Also, you can technically sort-of sell items later in the game, but you don't get a whole lot from them.

Also, Dark Souls was the game that ruined every other game for me as well. :D So good.

Yes, you can kill everyone in the game, even those who can be really helpful, like blacksmith Andrei. But hey, he should have dropped a key worth 20 000 souls (not that you can sell it anyway). An area in the woods should be accessible now (but I presume it's too early for you to go there yet))

About review - I meant that you should review it. I personally tried to review games three times here on MG and I'm very displeased with the results )

PRAISE THE SUN! Glad to see another converted around these parts :D

I actually have a half-written review, but it's been taking its sweet time. Mostly because I spend it playing the game :P


You killed Andrei? Uh, I don't mean to freak you out, but you really screwed the pooch with that one :P Of all the NPCs you really want to keep alive and friendly, he's just about the most important one: He's the only one who can eventually ascend your weapons to +10, which in turn lets you take them up the elemental path or further up the physical one. Without him, you're gonna have to rely on the special "unique" weapons for the latter bosses of the game, because a regular +5 will become obsolete rather quickly. A piece of advice in that regard: Whenever you see a boss with a tail, cut it before you kill them, it will always give you a reward.

Also, two things about the levelling up: First, you want to focus more on endurance than vitality. Endurance is directly responsible for the length of your stamina bar and your max equipment load, which in turn determines how fast you can move and roll; and that's much more important than having a lot of health --in this game you actually want to avoid getting hit (or at least blocking blows) above all.

Second, don't get too crazy with climbing up levels. Focus on just feeding the specific stats required for whatever build you're aiming for, and (unless specifically required) only up to 40. Anything above 40 will get you hugely diminished returns for your precious souls.

Upgrading weapons and armor is actually much more important than levelling up. Then again, not to make you feel guilty about it, but you killed the most important blacksmith in the game, that's kind of a picklish situation to be in :P

Damn!! Is there any other blacksmith around? I've played to the point when the game's world becomes more and more interconnected, but I haven't seen another blacksmith yet... This is really a bit too much - I just accidentally pressed a key, and that's it... I can't reload an earlier game because it always auto-saves... damn!

Thanks for the endurance tip - what about attunement and faith, I can't quite understand what these are good for?

There are other blacksmiths, but each one specializes in different kinds of upgrades, so if you lose one of them, you lose an entire branch of possibilities; and Andrei is kind of the most versatile of them all. Plus he's also the one that enables you to use some of the others at their fullest.

Keep in mind, the game is still perfectly beatable, it's actually very hard to get stuck for good, even if you intentionally try to screw up to your worst (it's one of the things that amaze me the most, in fact); it's just gonna be a tad harder --especially for a first run.

If something like this happens again, just run away without fighting (or even let them kill you). As someone said, once you beat the gargoyles at the bell tower you'll meet an NPC that can sell you forgiveness for your sins (the religion in DS is quite open about its corruption :P ), which in practice means that any NPC that you have angered for whatever reason become friendly again.

But, hey, worst comes to worst, you can always start over a new character. It's not a bad thing to do, actually, you will probably be amazed at how good you got at the combat, and how fast you can blast through the early areas now.



I assume you're using the DSFix mod: There's an option in it to backup the savegames. It's very useful for cases like this, and for the much more scary case where GFWL decides to eat your save, because it's the devil's tool.

You need to open the dsfix.ini file and change enableBackups 0 to enableBackups 1. There you can also set up how many backups you want to have at a time, and how often you want them to be made.



As for the stats, Attunement dictates how many slots for spells you have. If you haven't started a magic-enabled class (Sorcercer, Priest or Pyromancer) you have no use for that just now, but it will come in handy later, since there are quite a few spells and you can only equip as many at once as attunement slots you have.

Faith and Intelligence are the basic requirements for two of the three magic types in the game: Miracles and Sorcery, respectively. Most spells in each category will require a minimum level of Faith or Intelligence to be able to use them; and the higher the level of the corresponding stat, the more powerful the spells become. If you're going for a caster, usually you'll want to upgrade either Faith or Intelligence, but not both for the same character.

The third kind of magic is called Pyromancy, and it has the special benefit that it doesn't require any particular stat to use; so *any* character can cast Pyromancies (after you get a certain item that enables them). So even if you're a 100% melee character, you can always resort to Pyromancies if you want a bit of magical backup (for some enemies, having a powerful ranged spell can be a life saver).

Don't pay attention to Resistance, by the way. It's by far the most useless stat of them all. You'll get much better benefits in that area from armor, shields and rings.



If you have any more doubts, don't hesitate to ask; there's A LOT to be learned. There are also two wikis (here and here) that can give you an idea of just how much there is to know. I often found myself *actually studying* for this game, which is another of the reasons why I love it, it requires a lot of dedication to fully experience it.

Absolutely. This game is so versatile and so deep, I'm amazed. I thought I've played my share of RPGs of all kinds, but this is the killer. I haven't been that excited by a game in a long while.

Yeah, I'm using the DSFix mod - unfortunately I didn't activate that line, so Andrei is gone for good :(

Exactly my feeling. And if you read the wikis and watch some youtube videos you'll have your socks blown off, it's like there's always one more new thing to be learned. Even at the most basic levels there are plenty of details to be taken into account.

Speaking of details, make sure you exhaust every conversation with NPCs and you read every item description. It may look like a waste of time at first, but that's how you'll piece together the story (especially the backstory of Lordran and its characters, since there are barely any cutscenes and there's almost no direct plot exposition), and there's actually a gigantic tale buried in there, and scattered in a thousand pieces all over the place.



Like I said, starting over might sound like a drag, but I'm betting you're gonna enjoy it more than you think. Start as a Sorcerer, for instance, and not only you'll get to test the skills you acquired so far with the poor saps of the Asylum, but you'll get a taste of magic spells, which makes the game even more varied.

I actually started my second character because of a mistake I thought was unfixable at the time, and I enjoyed the experience so much that now I'm playing with three simultaneous characters of different classes.

Yeah, I might need help :P

Nah, it's other game designers who need help :) Seriously, I couldn't understand what the fuss was about until I played the game myself.

I'm so excited that I'm checking King's Field games now. I can see where many features come from - interconnected areas, high difficulty level, dark atmosphere, the possibility to kill any NPC, etc.

Has anyone played those games? Any particular recommendations?

I've played the first and the second a little bit. I really want to get into these games proper, but from what I saw, King's Field II (in English, it's King's Field) was a much improved sequel to the first one. After all, the first game came out in the first month of PlayStation's release, so it plays more like a short demo (but even then, it must have been revolutionary at the time!). The second game expands the world a lot. In any case, from the little I did play, they were both very atmospheric. The gameplay is extremely clunky, however. It sort of fits the era and the style, but I know many people don't believe in intentionally "gimped" controls as a valid design choice.

From Software is just a great company in general. I'm deeply in love with their Armored Core games. :P

FromSoftware is one of the few Japanese game studios left that remembers what it means to be a Japanese game studio. They don't chase after western design trends in hopes of "reaching a wider audience", they just make the best damn games they know how to make, trusting that they'll find the audience that will want to play them. Armored Core, Echo Night, and yes, Dark Souls are all far astray from the western mainstream, but they know their niches and fill them with gusto. Even their weird one-off efforts like Ninja Blade and Metal Wolf Chaos have a certain appeal, even when the games themselves aren't that great.

I'm sort of disappointed they haven't done anything with the Tenchu franchise in recent years. I'd love to see the Dark Souls engine transformed into a ninja stealth game. So many amazing possibilities.

Played and finished the single-player for Party of Sin. It has one of the crappiest stories I've ever experienced, but it's a great game because of the puzzles and the way you need to combine the sins' powers in order to solve them.

Started Metro 2033. Mixed feelings so far. From the little I've played, noticed that it's checkpoint-based (1), and shooting feels a bit off, as if it hasn't enough impact (2).

Still fuming at Metro2033...got stuck at a crucial place with no option but to restart way back. If you stand in the wrong spot at one location when talking to an NPC, the game will just stop progressing (issue #5 in FAQ below).

Pretty OK game up until this point, even with a marginal system IMO.

http://support.thq.com/entries/22593786-Metro-2033-PC-FAQ-Known-Issues

"0 people found this useful. - Be the first!"

Heh...

Thankfully, I have passed this moment without issues.

I finished playing the DLCs and add-on of Olivion: It did not manage to grad me. Don't get me wrong, Shivering Isles is a good add-on and I still had a lot of fun with it, but the game as a whole did not age well.

The DLCs:

• I did not play the house DLCs. I don't care about housing and even if I did, I would use one of the countless mods.
• Mehrunes’ Razor: This one is pretty good. I liked the dungeon, especially the village area. Probably overprices, though.
• The Orrery: The worst kind of fetch-quest.
• Knights of the Nine: A nice quest line with good ideas here and there.
• Horse Amor: Fuck this overpriced piece of garbage.

In conclusion, the DLCs are mostly OK if you buy a GOTY edition of the game, but don't purchase them separately.

Isn't that the rule for basically any DLC? Or any that's not downright crappy, I mean. No such thing as DLC worth purchasing separately, by definition.

Broken Steel, Point Lookout and -arguably- The Pitt for Fallout 3 are awesome full-fledged add-ons and quite a steal at their original 10 bucks price. The same could be said about the Prepare to Die content in Dark Souls and Shadow Broker, Overlord and some others for Mass Effect 2.

Buy yeah, there are rather rare cases, for the vast majority of DLC they aren't worth buying at all, let alone separately.

I started to play Game of Thrones. I did not read a single word of the novels and I did not watch a single minute of the series (and I don't plan to); so we'll see how this works out.

Way I hear it, the way it ties into the world is its best part, so good enough for those who just want to feel they're a part of that, but the gameplay itself leaves a lot to be desired. I'll be curious what you'll have to say about it as a non-fan then :p

So after i don't know how long after borrowing a friends copy, I've finally got around to buying my own copy of Assassins Creed II. That said though, there is still a couple of achievements on Gears of War 3 I've been working on, so I'll be finishing them off first.

Now I have played for about seven hours and reached chapter 7. I think the game quite enjoyable, especially the atmosphere. It is obvious that the game is not very polished, but I don't mind. The fighting mechanics are OK.

I have only two complaints so far: the game is very linear with practically no side quests (or I simply missed them) and the fact that I can't close the menu screens (particularly the map) with the same hotkey which opens it. This is very annoying.

I'm playing Game of Thrones too. Nice story, but that's about it. Level design and presentation are nearly painful.

I've been pretty out of commission lately, with work, real life and my own body caving under all the things i've had to do lately. So, I've basically not played anything in a while. I guess I've sporadically tried to play Brave Fencer Musashi and Dreamweb here and there. Both are cool games in their own (but very different way).

And also with the previous statement I'd like to add an apology to all the contributors since my approval ratio has practically been zero the past month(s). I hope life will work in my favor enough soon so that I can have time to help out with the ever growing queues again.

Health always comes first (or at least first after that of your loved ones). Get well soon.

But ew, "real life", what's that creepy thing you mention there? :/

Probably that thing with awesome graphics and too many fetch quests.

AOT: Bioshock Infinite is rather good. Not perfect of course, like many journalists claim, but rather good. Or maybe I'm just too old to appreciate it.

Don't forget no save function and no victory condition. Or, as that meme put it, it just gets harder and harder until you die.

Marcin Ostrowski is a screenshot maniac of the recent weeks. Or is it just someone looking into the queue?

It's a myth spread by left wing liberals. It seems to imply there is intelligent life outside of this forum. Lies.

Thanks for the well wishes! I'm sure I'll slowly get back in the groove again. :)

Related to Dreamweb btw... I noticed that our good friend Sciere wrote a walkthrough for that game over at GameFAQs. Neat! :)

Beat BIT.TRIP RUNNER today. It's like Battletoads' bike section in level 3 all the time. I had pains in my shoulders and felt physically tired after playing it, but the satisfaction of reaching the end of a stage was great.

Playing King's Field.

Okay, I know everybody are going to check those games out sooner or later, what with the boost FromSoftware received from today's (fully justified) Dark Souls frenzy. But the question is rather: why the hell did everyone ignore this game back in the day? After having completed about 1/5 of it I declare it a masterpiece ahead of its time.

Is it in Japanese?

Well, the first game was Japan-only and came out in late 1994! But the sequel came out in US in 1996.

Fan-patched to English.

Yeah, but probably the reason why it was never a big hit in English-speaking world because the first game wasn't localized originally. Otherwise, yes, for a game released in the launch month of PlayStation, it is truly revolutionary (at least for the consoles at that time).

It's actually quite strange just how many first-person games there were at the PlayStation's launch, considering how relatively few ever get made in Japan. Apart from King's Field, there was also Crime Crackers, Space Griffon VF-9, and Kileak the Blood all in the space of two months.

I think I'll put Crime Crackers in tonight and see if it holds up as well as King's Field apparently has. :)

Short answer: No, it hasn't.

Long answer: The only things this game have going for it are the ridiculously out of place music and the goofy characters. When you're boarding a captured space ship with two cute girls and a giant dragon-man for a shootout with space pirates, of COURSE the soundtrack is going to be smooth jazz with noodly guitars, right?

Is there a lot of text? I'm asking because I'd rather find the PSN re-release version, and I think English patch can't be applied to that.

Edit: there is text all right, in the dialogues with NPCs who often give valuable clues.

Yeah, and there's a translated game manual available on the internet.

Playing Dragon Age: Origins. Honestly, nice game with a well-thought backstory... except for some stupid stereotypes, like the Orlesian Empire. I like almost everything, maybe not the leveling up system. I don't see much of an impact coming from my skill - talent choices. I wish there would be more locations I can visit freely, outside of the ones added by the DLCs.

Ahh...free time once again! I picked back up where I left off with Oblivion. I saved Kavatch and delivered Martin to a safe hiding place, and now I'm just wandering around picking all the pretty flowers I see. Unfortunately for me strolling and flower picking doesn't exactly pay any money. Even with the new armor I have, my stuff keeps breaking all the time! I suppose I'll have to join a guild or something. I can't be picked off while picking my flowers now can I? :P

Great. Now I have vampirism. Blahh...blahh...

I finished Aquaria, and by finished I mean killed the main boss. There are 6 Steam achievements missing, and some treasures I didn't find. It seems I'll have to search every piece of map for any secret passages. This game is really addictive, I almost felt bad when I beat it because I wanted to keep searching for all hidden stuff.

Stay alert for that extra hidden ending :)

I guess I got the extra hidden ending instead the regular one, because I found all Naija's memories. I kept a save game before finding the last one so I could try and see the other ending. Unless there are more than 2 possible endings and I'm not aware of it. =)

Played the first 2 episodes of The Walking Dead. There is a lot I don't like about about the game, but in the end I still really enjoy it. The quick time events are obnoxious, most puzzles are way too easy and the game has way too many cutscenes and too little gameplay in general. But the quality of the story and the choice moments all make up for it. You really grow a bond wit the NPCs. I'm quite impressed they managed to pull this off in a game.

Game definitely comes recommended. I haven't watched the show nor read the comics myself and am also thoroughly exhausted with yet more zombie themed games, but it's just really good if you like making difficult choices in games and see how the story unfolds.

Not sure if I'm going to play it in a single go. Thinking of picking up the Dishonored DLC. And next week Fez is released on Steam. I'm really curious about that one.

Finally started playing Darksiders today. Had it sitting in my Steam backlog taunting me what feels like forever.

Finding it to be a quite enjoyable Zelda-like. It is quite refreshing to play a post-apocalyptic game that doesn't make me wish for a nuclear winter. Was surprised that there wasn't a review for it on here, I would write one if I wasn't awful at writing good informative reviews.

Well, it can't be that bad, can it? I mean, even "one point" reviews are of some use.

I have this game sitting on my Steam account too, got it in that Humble Bundle THQ, but there are other games in that same bundle that I wanted to play first, like Metro 2033.

I also have a copy. A gift from Patrick, but I haven't found the time to play it yet.

Interesting fact: searching the forums for darksiders gives me 0 results. Searching for darksider gives a ton of results...

Beat Darksiders.

Word of warning if you care about achievements in the least: I discovered far too late that the story-related achievements in this game have an issue where they can fail to unlock and then all the ones after that fail as well. One of mine failed halfway through the game but I failed to notice they weren't unlocking until I beat the final boss and no achievement popped.

Apparently, the achievements stop registering in the game if you launch it more than once from the same Steam instance. So each time after quitting the game you have to restart Steam before you want to start playing it again.

Oh well, time to move onto Killzone 3!

Edit: Oops, didn't mean to make that a reply like that, still getting used to this forum system, sorry!

I have encountered the same bug with the achievements. I think most of the Steam users did, actually.

Yeah, so I gathered. Oh well, I guess I'll just use it as an excuse to replay the game later!

You should at least rate the game if you're not going to review it. It is really quick and will give you 1/4 of a point (which is rounded to 1, anyway). =)

Done! Better than doing nothing I guess!

And it's four fails in your post! ;)

Stop drawing attention to my shame!

Ah, I do respect HardcoreGaming101 in general, but again they're using our screenshots (three PlayStation shots were "borrowed" from those I have taken for MG in 2011):

http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/timegal/timegal.htm

http://www.mobygames.com/game/time-gal-ninja-hayate/screenshots

I have finished The Game of Thrones. It certainly was not the best game I have played in the last years, but probably the one I enjoyed most. In fact, I enjoyed every single moment - and this is something only very few games can claim.

I picked that up during the Steam sale of it and the RTS a while back, but haven't gotten around to playing it.

Have you played Of Orcs and Men? It's from the same developer. Friends have told me it has a pretty entertaining story.

You're talking about the other GoT game...

Yes, as I said I picked up the RPG together with the RTS. It was a bundle offer so. I picked it up only for the RPG.

Ah, sorry, misread, thought you just meant the RTS.

No, but I certainly plan to pick it up when it is on sale.

Playing it too, Chapter 8. I'm surprised at how really good this game is. It's a shame critics treat it so bad. Sure it has issues, and it also had a low budget, so it couldn't try to compete with the likes of Dragon Age. But, the story! And I'm so fond of English voice overs and dialogues in general. Fighting mechanics are a bit shallow, but tolerable enough to have fun with the game.

Reviewers, including our own, eh? :p

Yes, I just didn't want to name YID YANG in this connection :)

Well, to each his own :) I was yawning when playing the game. It's the Western equivalent of Final Fantasy 13. Yeah, the story is good, but not THAT good... Basically a slightly pretentious Witcher-like "mature" take on Middle Ages, lacking beauty and imagination. But never mind, even if the story were amazing, the game would still be mediocre.

Finished Game of Thrones today. Out of 4 possible endings none was "good". A lot of people died, a lot of sad things happened. The game's story and how it unfolds is really depressing. It's talented for sure, but so fucking depressing. It's like they deliberately chose the worst course of action... Well, time to play an add-on for it.

Considering how the books play out, with the exception of one particular storyline, would have been quite a stretch otherwise.

So, I'll probably never read the books. And not sure if finish watching the series, although currently we're at S02E09.

I'm still giggling at a particular moment of 303. "We're going to need details... Copious details." (They didn't call it sexposition for nothing...)

Please tell me that's eventually going to be explained. I do hate sex-related cliffhangers. :p

That scene. Description of the three related scenes (2nd paragraph for season 3). :p

I decided to pass on Killzone 3 for now, felt I've had a bit much shooters lately.

Instead, I stumbled upon the fact that Mars: War Logs, a cyberpunk RPG set on Mars, just released on Steam. I knew of the title from before but had no idea it was coming out today. Since I love almost anything to do with Mars I had to have it, so now I am playing through that instead.

I also decided to make it my first proper contribution to the site by adding it as a game. Hopefully whichever approver handles it will give me constructive feedback on any potential problems with the submission!

That's great! Please, be patient as it may take a while for your submission to be reviewed.

Uuuugggg...being a vampire sucks. It's taking forever to get this stupid condition cured. I would resort to earlier save, but I've got too much cool stuff now. :P

Cry of Fear, one of the best things to happen to Horror genre since Silent Hill 2 (in my opinion) is finally available on Steam for free (http://store.steampowered.com/app/223710). It's an indie, and technically it's a TC to the first Half-Life. But... it scared my soul so many times, that I loved it.

I tried to contribute it last year when it still was a modification, but (as expected) it was rejected. Now goes the second try.

Seconded! Also, the co-op is excellent too. Nothing worse than having your partner abandoning you. :P

I remember beating it "in co-op" alone when it was version 1.02 or 1.03... The worst thing was this crazy Simon appearing out of nowhere. But, I could respawn infinitely, that was good. I'd like to play real coop with a real person now though.

Playing Shadow Tower: Abyss. Ahh... more FromSoftware goodness! Can't believe nobody added this gem to the database until I did a week ago.

Gotta check the first one at some point, though even fan reviews of it are negative. Has anyone played it?

Can't say I've played either of the Shadow Tower games, but you might want to check out Hungry Ghosts. It's not FromSoftware, but it feels almost like a horror take on King's Field. The few hours I put into it showed a ton of promise, though unfortunately my exceedingly low tolerance for horror led me to put it down before it really got going.

That game looks really interesting, shame it doesn't have an English localization given my extremely minimal grasp of the Japanese language.

I finished Mars: War Logs.

As I expected, it was a fairly mediocre affair but for the launch price I expected as much. I still found it to be an enjoyable game and I do believe that the developers have potential if they'd be given bigger budgets.

As for next game, I figured Cart Life will be a nice change of pace from all the action titles I have been playing lately.

Seeing as I'm still kind of burned out in general all I've really felt like playing lately is Picross 2 for the original gameboy. Funny how it feels like all I've done lately is play various takes on this form of puzzle. Last one I completed was a game for the iPhone called "Oh! Cube!" by some Chinese or Taiwan developer. I guess I'll need to add it here at some point when I feel motivated enough.

OK, Dungeons of Dredmor, give me my life back! Man, this game is infuriatingly addictive! I have 31 hours of gameplay already and I guess I'm not close to beating it. Last time I played I reached the 9th floor, only to die by the hands of a diggle (one of the weakest enemies available). This whole permadeath thing is reeeeally frustrating, but strangely enough, frustration is good (at least for this game).

I'm trying over and over the same character, so I really wanted to beat the game at least once to start trying other builds.

See how fun rogue variants are? Though admittedly this is probably the most graphically and design-wise serious variant I've seen yet. I think the game design makes more sense when you use random skills, which gives you more reason to be frustrated. :p

Oh, yeah. Should it qualify for survival cooking? I can vaguely remember one item (raw meat) you can burn over a stove to get cooked meat.

Yeah, I added that one to the group yesterday when I posted this. I didn't see any cooked meat, but you can make cheese sandwiches. =D

Oh, this one used without a recipe. Apparently you can manipulate some items directly: use steak on a BBQ to get Grilled Steak. So far this is the only method I've found where you can use on furniture.

Oh, just added one of the expansions: Realm of the Diggle Gods, so you can compare screenshots. I'm playing its newest expansion right now: Conquest of the Wizardlands.

I'll try that (though I'm playing a vampire, so food is just a source of money for me =P)

Leylines and Promethean Magic feels like cheating. Well, time to rob another shopkeeper.

My build has been a warrior/rogue one. Today, after 50 hours of gameplay, I finally reached the last floor and got killed by the hands of Lord Dredmor himself. He instakilled me in my first blow with a counter-attack. Oh boy, this game is so unfair...

Wow, you're a better casual gamer than me. Didn't even know there was a last floor.

I bet people call this a casual game because it is so easy to die and start over. Actually, that may not be the reason, so I'm starting a thread just to discuss that.

Put The Walking Dead on hold for a bit. Don't want to run through the episodes all in one go. Definitely will be playing this later on though.

Played a little bit of Worms Revolution in the free Steam weekend. I don't quite see the revolution. Worms 1 and 2 are still some of my favourite games of all times, but with this instalment they again fail to improve upon their game. The fluid dynamics are kind of cool, but the 3D engine feels more limiting than the previous 2D engines. Otherwise it's just Worms 2 again. It's amazing how they get away with releasing the same game every year and making a profit.

Also played some Monaco which can be quite a lot of chaotic fun in 4 player single screen coop. Saving this for when I happen to be in the room with 4 friends and controllers.

Dishonored: The Knife of Dunwall DLC: I finished the first level so far. Not as good as the best level in the original game, but definitely one of the better ones.

Currently Dishonored is on hold, as I'm hooked to FEZ. The game is just great so far. It was a bit prone to crash at first, but the latest patch (1.4) seems to have fixed that. Love the mechanic. Great exploration game.

Monaco is indeed great, it is a shame that the online community seems so tiny though, I'm always struggling to find people to play the final few missions I have left before I complete the entire game.

Similar to how Dark Souls ruined every other modern action game for me, Fez ruined every other indie platformer for me (except for Cave Story, natch). The puzzles do eventually get a little too obtuse for their own good, but there's just so much detail and personality packed into those blocky 8-bit sprites and it's simply a joy to just wander around the world.

The underground areas are probably my favorite part of the whole game. I really want to play through it again, though even after a year I still remember a lot of the solutions off the top of my head. Not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing...

I can imagine. Spent the whole day playing Fez in an epic 8 hour gaming session. It's been ages since I had anything like that. Nearing completion now I think, most of the map is golden. Still pondering on the security question and what the black monolith is supposed to do. Just figured out the counting system (that was quite a challenge!) and what I need to do at the little white statues, so I'll be revisiting those areas.

I'm still missing an artefact, and I haven't found a use for all those identical looking treasure maps yet. Still 8 cubes to go for the 64 total.

My desk hasn't been covered in so much handwritten notes since playing Myst in 1995. :)

Game of the year for me already. This will be a hard one to dethrone.

So in FEZ, is there some sort of Rosetta stone in the game, or am I supposed to do my own cryptography? I'm fine either way, but I'd rather know up front. (Didn't want to Google, to avoid spoilers)

Never mind, managed to crack it. Not sure if it was meant to be done in another way, but I cracked it in any case.

spoilers below



I used the speech of the characters who use the strange alphabet as a starting point. There was one that had two single letter words, which I assumed to be a and I. Then took a sample of speech bubbles and counted the amount each letter was used and the same for how often each first letter was used and each last letter. Combining that with stats of the English language on Wikipedia derived the most logical possibilities for e, t and o. Then I just started filling it in and found a likely candidate for the, revealing the h. I also figured that the sign near the warp gate, probably said something in that order, which got me the w, r, and p. The rest just followed more or less automatically.



spoilers above

I really like this game :)

There _is_ a rosetta stone in the game, actually. There's a room that has a "quick brown fox" jumping over a "lazy dog", along with a long message scribed on the wall nearby. ;)

Nice work figuring out out blind, though. You have a lot more patience than I did.

Yeah I found that later. Not sure if I would've gotten the hint though.

I did give up on trying to read the tome, and after looking up the solution I'm glad I did. That'd have given me a headache.

I finished Fez a couple days ago. Definitely one of my favourite games ever. Will take a short brake from playing games as everything will look bad by comparison :) I already finished the Knife of Dunwall. So when I do start to play something again, it's probably continuing with The Walking Dead.

I loaded up Gabriel Knight 1 and wow....

It's good. Really good.

As a side-perk I had forgotten a lot of things (puzzles and solutions) so in a way it was like playing it for the first time. This game is amazingly intuitive. Of course that might be that my subconscious remembered some things, but nonetheless, the way hints and clues are thrown into game and the way you deduce a solution out of them - it feels so natural.

And Gabe... Tim Curry... is just fantastic to listen to. :) Actually all actors (except the narrator) are just wonderful in their characterisation.

I think it really is the best Gabriel Knight. The other two... I liked, but this one is the best. The most complete, most flawless product of the three. It just oozes atmosphere.

I'm having a blast. Really, really enjoying it.

Most definitely you're remembering the solutions as you go. I mean, that part where you have to write that message with those symbols? I refuse to believe anyone ever managed to do that without some kind of walkthrough.

But yeah, I always said the first one is the best by a huge margin, it's the first time I see someone agree :3

Wait, what, isn't that the general consensus?

Wait, what, isn't that the general consensus?

I thought so too. The first game is definitely the best. The atmosphere is out of this world.

I love the two others as well, though. The third more than the second, but love that one too.

Ahh, Gabriel Knight. The memories, the memories...

Which reminds me I should try out the second game. I've played and finished the first one. I remember liking it a lot, but at times I felt like my inability to progress with the puzzles quick enough hindered the overall experience, since the story was so gripping that I just wanted to blaze through all the "challenge". And so I did, because I remember playing the last sections of the game completely with the aid of a walkthrough. :P

That was the only part I consciously remembered. :) But it seemed to me that the game does give strong hints to it - the lecture you hear about voudoun... has a lot of keywords in it like fwetkash and sekey module.

Otherwise, I even got stuck quite a few times and it was like playing it for the first time. This is THE best Sierra game... and one of the best adventure games.

The only real flaw I see is that the real New Orleans and voodoo history is much more interesting than the version that the game claims is true. I'm in day 8 at the moment and the game implies that New Orleans voodoo is a facade, an organized deception by this one ancient supernatural african tribe.... the mystery is much more interesting than the answer. The game is not as strong anymore when it starts answering it's mysteries. I guess it's a common problem with all such fiction.

A wise man once said: "Mysteries lose all their appeal the moment you explain them". I can't think of one mystery for which that doesn't hold true. Incidentally, it's also something that American storytellers never seem to understand.

But yeah, I remember loving this game for its atmosphere back in the day, and I hated Sierra games with a passion, so even though my memories are rather hazy, I think it must have been really good.

Edit: I just realized I never bought Gabriel Knight, that's too bad because I suddenly had this urge to replay it :/ Then again, I just learned that my Another World mutated into the 20th Anniversary Edition. You gotta love tose GoG guys :)

Finished a replay of Binary Domain which has to be one of my favourite third person shooters in recent years.

Started playing Killzone: Liberation on the PSP and am splitting my playtime between that and a new ASCII browser RPG called Candies.

After that I am thinking of playing through the Parasite Eve series. Also picked up the Star Wars Collection - 2013 during the Steam sale. I am hoping to play through the Dark Forces series for nostalgia and now Metro: Last Light is less than two weeks away.

Too many games, too little time. The eternal dilemma.

Currently just failing at free form UnReal World... Should start with some of the easy scenarios (did with the sort-of-tutorial one, got to hunting, got confused and abandoned it) but. Annoying, can't deal with any difficulty anymore, once it seems I have to go uphill a bit I just get completely disheartened (in games too, I mean), but at the same time I feel embarrassed of myself if I pick something that's supposed to be particularly easy. (Hence that thread I started...)

Anyway, got an amazing roll once, after a bunch of tries of course but skills insanely high and started with fine knife, axe, spear and fine bow and several arrows, and with settlements relatively near, I mean how can you mess up like that... and yet I did, tried too much too soon and ended up starving and injured and just gave up. Current attempt is on "custom (too easy)" (does that do something in game too or just allows you to customize skills more?), had lower starting skills regardless of about a hundred rerolls and just a regular knife and a staff as starting equipment, tried to take it step by step and still got nowhere, as of some point bash-fishing just stopped feeding me enough, climbing (to look for animals to hunt) is at 80% and I'm still falling and injuring myself, got myself beaten up pretty badly twice because of it, 1st time I managed to pull through, 2nd I guess I'll have to just abandon, and likely abandon the game too, because I'm badly starving.

So will probably just go sulk some more.

Man, Another World is such a fantastic game. Too bad is so short. I replayed it for the 10th time this month.

I'm failing to see what's the difference between the 15th and 20th anniversary editions, out of a couple of annoying startup screens, though.

For some unknown reason I bought Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition at some point in the past. Might as well take it as excuse to play one of my favourite games. Although I know every map by heart (not counting the too few additions of the EE), I have a blast and it took me only a few days to explore all outdoor maps (except the Tales of the Sword Coast content) and reach Baldur's Gate. It must at least my sixth or seventh run through the game.

Was playing the Swedish educational game Kalle Kunskap: Ettan, in order to add it to the database, only to find out it's actually Reader Rabbit: 1st Grade. Now I must change the entire description.

I finally got around to completing Dark Souls. It's an amazing game, no doubt, but it lost a bit of appeal for me in the final act when the unspeakable happened, and it actually became easy. Tiptoeing through hostile and unknown environments became charging through and slaying everything with a couple blows. Not the worst thing that can happen to a game, but it was an unfortunate sign that the charm was wearing off. Still, I love the game and would gladly play it again, preferably in a few years when I've forgotten where everything is and how everything works.

For now, I'm going back to Demon's Souls, which I still have yet to complete. I'm surprised to see that the online environment is still really populated, perhaps moreso than it was when it was first released. Of course, this could have more to do with how the servers consolidate players, rather than an indication of the active player count. The reliability of the online connections is extremely refreshing when coming off the broken-ass Dark Souls PC port.

Despite still being a vampire, I managed to buy a house! I'm going to fill it with all kinds of useless junk! Muahahahaha!

I was about to ask about Demon's Souls servers being shut down but googling revealed that the shut down was cancelled? How the hell could I have missed these news. Now I have no excuse not to try to play through Demon's again.

I've managed to cure my vampire-ism, and I'm almost done with the main quest of the game. At this point I'm a little weary of slogging through dungeons, so I'm going to take my time with it now. I just can't believe how much stuff there is in a game like this. Maybe it's because I don't play many open world games, but this place is HUGE. And I still haven't explored every part of it yet! I can spend a hour just seeing how many mountains I can get to the top of. There are lots of forts and caverns I haven't explored. There's just soooo much I can do! And I don't HAVE to do any of it. I think that's what really impressed me. Very few things in this game feel like a chore. To me anyway.

Beat Parasite Eve, loved it. Hoping I enjoy the sequels as much!

Also, inspired by YID YANG's reviews of the King's Field titles I've decided to give that series' PS1 titles a go. Can definitely sense that they are the Soul's predecessors right from the start. Hopefully I can get through the first title before the 17th.

Playing BioShock 2 and I like it a lot. Strangely, I didn't very much like the first game, thought it was so boring, and this one, while essentially the same game - I find it awesome. Art style is brilliant, graphics in general are very impressive (even after BioShock Infinite). I can't really say what has changed since the first game that I started to like it - it maybe that levels are bigger and not so narrow giving the sense of being inside a city, maybe all this water leaks, deterioration and underwater segments giving the feel that we're actually beneath the sea - something that the original lacked, maybe it's refined battle and plasmid systems, or maybe it's just me being six years older than when I played the first BioShock.

Weird, I'm the complete opposite. Played the first one and enjoyed the the atmosphere, the different 'style' of the weapons and the story. But when it came to 2 I found it to be a complete carbon copy (and I can't emphasise that enough, it was the most carbon copied things I have ever come across) that I got achingly bored of it, shelved it and only dusted it off to try the multiplayer.

I would try another run through, but I doubt my opinion will change.

Yeah, and that's what most critics said too. I now believe that the main reasons for me liking it are that a lot of time has passed, I'm currently in the mood for playing a slow-paced exploration shooter, and the fact that I have expected a much worse game. Not sure if it works for you though.

Yeah, BS2 is much better than most people make it out to be, it just had the huge disadvantage of having to live up to one of the most legendary titles of this generation.

But it is a good game on itself: Combat is more refined, levels are better designed, and the story, while smaller and, let's say, less ambitious than in the original, it's also much more solid and better balanced (as in, it doesn't come crashing down horribly in the second half); and it has a surprisingly powerful emotional punch as well --especially if you're a parent.

It doesn't!? Geez, the only thing I can really remember about that game is the fact that the third act dragged on for what seemed like an eternity.

For some reason, I don't really care for the story here, but I keep coming back for the gameplay.

What are you calling "the third act"? I don't remember any such clear-cut division o_O

At any rate, it's been like 3 years since I've played it, so my memory is kinda foggy in the specifics; but off the top of my head, the final levels include rescuing Eleanor, playing as a Little Sister, and then the ending --just about the strongest parts of the entire game.

Overall, I remember it building up quite nicely and at a good pace. Maybe it was the stark contrast with the first one, which had one of the most memorable moments in the entire history of gaming followed by a couple hours of bland comic-book drivel, one of the worst escort missions ever, a ridiculous final boss fight and a fairly generic throwaway of an ending.

The third act in modern storytelling is when all the major plot pieces start being resolved. So here I would place it as starting on the scene when you rescue Eleanor or whoever.

It was quite a while ago that I actually played through the game. From what I recall, after I reached that point, I figured the game was about to reach its climax, so I decided I'd stay put until I finished it. But the ending dragged out. I honestly don't remember if I did wind up putting it down and finishing it later, but I do recall that it took hours to finally lurch to its conclusion.

That's basically all I remember about the game aside from small bits and pieces and a general idea of the overall plot. I'm pretty sensitive to story issues such as pacing, and I recall this one annoying me enough to colour my entire experience.

Yeah, it's one pretty long level after you rescue Eleanor, but I was wiser - I went to sleep and will finish it today in the evening ^.^ And even though you guys spoiled that thing with the little sister for me, I still found that bit of level fantastic. Really enjoying this game. Maybe I should later replay the original? Maybe I was just in the wrong mood or something, can't really remember.

Well, the original is much more boring to play, and even more after having played this one --plenty of flaws and limitations will stick out like a sore thumb.

Also, if TEH TWIST!!! didn't do anything for you the first time around, I doubt it will look much better now that you already know what's what. And after that point, it all comes crashing down miserably, it's almost not worth it to keep playing until the end.

That said, for me it's one of the best experiments in storytelling in the history of gaming and it really blew my mind back in its day. It's also one of the very few games I replayed in the last decade. But you know, tastes and whatnot.

I have finished all the DLCs for Dragon Age: Origins, plus its expansion Awakening. The DLCs add almost no new region (not sure about Amgarrak), so there's little new to see. I liked most of the new characters available to control, but that's about it. The storylines are all quick jobs and the overall structure of the DLCs feel like copy-paste. The only one worth a nugget, is probably Leliana's Song, which has more effort put into its story and adds a humorous tone to an otherwise serious game.

Awakening is a full-fledged expansion with new regions and characters. The overall premise is intriguing, but it doesn't live up to the original in terms of voice acting, story development and quests. It is one of those RPGs that throws a dozen of quests at you in the first 10 minutes of gameplay. It is worth a look, definitely, especially since the new regions are pretty well-designed.

I bought Deadly Premonition: Director's Cut, mostly as an excuse to play through it again. It's really hard for me to tell the difference between the two versions, since it was a while ago that I last played the original. I think it looks clearer, with less of that blurry depth-of-field effect and some better textures here and there, but I can't tell the difference in the controls. Vehicles still handle poorly. This version seems glitchier than the original, but I might just not be remembering it right. Most hilariously, I saw Quint get into his car, except instead of sitting in the driver's seat, he just floated a few feet to the left of it as he drove. It was extremely funny, especially because I kept running into him around town as he hovered down the road.

In terms of what they've added, I haven't noticed anything aside from the new scenes that are placed between chapters. I'm not sure how I feel about these. They're not too intrusive, but they take the form of someone telling the story, which is a storytelling mechanic that I detest. Then there's the additional support for DLC, which I really don't count as a positive "feature."

I think what's really frustrating about the Director's Cut is the stuff they didn't bother fixing. The loading times are still uncomfortably long, and since it has to load building interiors every time, looking through windows still doesn't make sense, as it necessitates two separate loading screens. At the very least they could have fixed the typos in the subtitles.

So in other words, it's probably not worth it to get over the 360 version. Especially since the framerate is a little poorer (though the split-screen sections seem a little smoother, oddly). Still, it's not a total wash, and I'm happy to support the Devs again. However, it's still a pretty poor effort. Considering a PS3 version of Deadly Premonition already existed in Japan, it's safe to assume that it required no time to port, so the budget for the Director's Cut content must have been crazy low. To be expected, I guess, but still kind of disappointing.

That this game hasn't come out for PC is just about the worst crime against humanity ever :(

If it's any comfort, the game's director said in an interview a few months ago that if he could find a someone to back them porting it to PC he'd be interested in getting it done.

http://kotaku.com/5979537/deadly-premonition-the-directors-cut-is-the-same-weirdly-wonderful-game-minus-a-few-rough-edges

Even though I own it on the 360 I wouldn't mind owning it on PC as well, so here's hoping they find someone to help them get it done.

I would totally buy Deadly Premonition yet again if it were to make it to PC. It would probably help loading times, at least. However, judging by the somewhat lackluster Director's Cut (a minor upgrade to an existing port), I would expect that a PC port would be really bad. At best I could see it as a straight console to PC port.

I played a bit of Amnesia: The Dark Descent. I reached the wine cellar and decided to never start it again.

But it's the only great horror game ever made! :(

I think I understand Patrick. Amnesia probably takes 6 hours from start to finish, but it took me about 6 months, because I found it so taxing on my nerves that I couldn't play more than 2 hours at a time, and even then I would frequently take week-long rests --and I really, really love horror games.

That's precisely what makes it "the only great horror game ever made" as you say, of couese, but it is quite the intense experience.

Sorry, Silent Hill happened.