Topic: The Currently Playing Thread / Recently Finished Thread

[idolminds]

Assassins Creed = beaten! Not sure what I want to play next.

[Quemaqua]

Quake Wars.

 

[scottws]

The critics just seem conflicted.  Some call the mechanics dated, some say it's brimming with new ideas; some say the gameplay is tight and balanced, others claim there's spawn camping; some say the maps are superlative examples of grace and balance, some say the maps are a little imbalanced or out of whack; some say the game "welcomes newcomers", others say it has a "fairly harsh learning curve for newcomers".

I find that hilarious because spawn camping is by far the worst in the Battlefield series.  There's no spawn invulnerability, so when you spawn, you get capped by someone that's standing behind you, or worse, an attack helicopter hovering low behind the spawn that just unleashes rockets anytime a group spawns there.

As far as the map balance though, I agree.  The demo map... I can't remember what it's called but that one where you have to build the bridge as GDF right away... that one is horribly balanced.  The Strogg get two Tormentors, a Cyclops, two hover tanks, two of those cars, and the jetpacks.  At best the GDF get a tank and that missile truck.  I once saw where the two hovertanks were sitting on the hill above the tunnel.  You could get a vehicle and start shooting, but if they'd get badly damaged they'd just go back over the crest of the hill where an engineer guy would repair them.  If you got out and tried to go around the hill, a pair of snipers would waste you.  That's on top of the jetpack guys dropping bombs everywere and the Tormentor unleashing hell.

The GDF never got the bridge built in 30 minutes because the Strogg had their defense set up so well and it was nearly impossible to do anything against them with what the GDF have at the beginning.  And I feel like the bridge is actually one of the easier parts of that map for the GDF.  Very rare to see the GDF win that one.

[MysterD]

I recently started (last Saturday weekend) True Crime: NYC on the PC.
Finished it Thursday night (the main quest).

It was decent.
It sure ain't no GTA, but it was still was fun.

The game ran well at 1024x768 on my PC -- it should, given my system and what the game's requirements are. For the most part, no controller really needed for the driving and shooting elements -- which is good. KB/moue controls are fine, for the most part. Though, a controller is necessary for any of the hand-to-hand brawling portions of the game, since the camera sometimes can be very wonky AND since the game doesn't have a button to press to put the camera right behind the player (like say Silent Hill series does have) at any time.

There's some side quests and stuff -- that are preset and all. I ain't done many of those, though.

But also, I did like was it has those STALKER moments, where you'll be in the middle of just driving around and a random quest will just pop-up to where you can take care of the matter however you feel; good or bad; up to you. Maybe a big shootout. Maybe a few people got into a fight. Maybe someone stole a car. Who knows. The quests ain't deep, but they just keep popping up like there's no tomorrow. So, that part is cool.

I like the whole "good cap/bad cop" meter, too -- which all depends on if you kill people (when you shouldn't, when not in self-defense) or if you actually arrest people. You can frisk anyone and try to find evidence. If they got evidence, you can arrest them. If you like, turn in evidence to increase your rank. If you find evidence on someone, you can even plant evidence you find on people and arrest them! LOL. Too funny.

The voice-acting ranges from not-so-good at all to very good (Lawrence Fishburne, Mickey Rourke, and Christopher Walken come to mind here). It's usually dead-on or completely off; there's no real in-between. The script was defiintely nothing special, though the action was definitely good enough to keep me going.

The game does have a very annoying bug in the Shadow Tong quest, which can cause you to have to restart the mission so you might be able to finish it (same issue is on the XBox version of the game, still).

Though, one additional thing to note -- the licensed soundtrack in the game is awesome.

[gpw11]

A lot of DoD:Source and some God of War II.

[Xessive]

I just jumped back into Phantasy Star Universe! I found it and the expansion at Virgin Megastores for about $4 each! And Prey was selling for about $9! They had some crazy discounts.

[Quemaqua]

X-Com, fuck yeah!  That's why it's 3 in the morning and I'm still awake making useless posts about why Audiosurf is stupid.

[gpw11]

Did I mention I like capping Germans in DoD?  That's why I'm up at 4 am and making posts about why Audiosurf kind of isn't stupid.

[MysterD]

I just finished a few minute ago TimeShift (Single Player Portion) for the PC.
When it's all said and done, it was decent.

[TheOtherBelmont]

I just finished up the main part of Persona 3 FES called The Journey, got close to 110 hours of playing time in.  Damn good game, now I have to get started on the FES part of it called The Answer which is supposed to be about 30+ hours.

[idolminds]

Dwarf Fortress. At least, trying to. I'm getting better at it, though.

[Quemaqua]

Playing Haunting Ground.  I really like this game.  In fact, I think I'll make a thread on it.

[TheOtherBelmont]

Playing Haunting Ground.  I really like this game.  In fact, I think I'll make a thread on it.

Hmm, sounds interesting, I'll have to check that game out.

[MysterD]

Spending a good amount of time w/ Sacred: Underworld.
I'm working on the Sacred: Ancaria Campaign (that's the game's Original Campaign).

It has that addictive action-RPG crack feel (like Diablo II, TQ, HGL), despite its lack of story depth.

[Xessive]

Wish I could have a real update on my current games but I'm still hooked on R6V2!

Now that I'm playing online more often I am having a blast!

[MysterD]

Yesterday afternoon, my copy of Sam and Max: Season One arrived.

Played a good deal of Episode One: Culture Shock last night.
Yeah, it's absolutely hilarious.

Ahhhh....we need more of the adventure gaming genre to be this good....

EDIT:
This morning, knocked off from Season One Culture Shock (Episode One).
Just finished moments ago, Situation: Comedy (Episode Two).

Man, when's Season Two coming to retail boxes?

[wizall]

I've been playing a lot of Civ:Rev and Puzzle Quest.  God damn, these are fun games.

[scottws]

Oh, I should mention I crushed the Overmind and its various Zerg broods upon finishing the original Starcraft late last week.  The great Protoss High Templar Tassadar, sadly, was lost in the carnage but his heroism will never be forgotten.

[PyroMenace]

*sigh* WoW... again.

[Quemaqua]

Aww, Pyro.  Couldn't even wait for the expansion?

I'm playing Pinball Hall of Fame.  There's the Gottlieb Collection, the first, and the Williams Collection, the second.  Both are awesome games.  They have them for a wide variety of platforms other than PSP, including PS2 and Wii (plus the first game was on Xbox and GC).  Great games with recreations of real pinball tables.  They aren't perfect on PSP, mostly since the textures aren't quite super-sharp and the view is a bit limited, but having so many awesome tables in my pocket is truly a dream come true.  Wish I'd found these earlier.

[K-man]

Just finished Fable:  The Lost Chapters in anticipation of Fable 2.  Now I'm playing Oblivion and Madden 09.  I feel dirty, but I wanted a football game this year and 09's shaping up to be a good madden year.

[MysterD]

Currently playing Sam and Max: Season One - Episode 5: Reality 2.0.

EDIT, August 16, 2008:
Last night, finished all of Sam and Max: Season One.
Great season, I must say.

I think Episode 5: Reality 2.0  was my fav. of the episodes, despite all them being pretty great.

Reality 2.0 Spoilers

(click to show/hide)

Nothing was funnier than the Internet getting pissed at you trying to give it the virus to pull the entire Net down, so it decides to pull all the graphics from the game and turn it into an old-school text adventure (like say Zork). HILARIOUS.

[MysterD]

Got back into Gears of War PC last night. Been playing that again.

Game still stutters now and then, but not as crazy as it once was -- since putting those new NVidia drivers in...

[PyroMenace]

Well before I reformatted my computer and started playing WoW I was playing the flash map pack for Portal. Its probably was the first Portal maps should have been, they are longer and more challenging, it was very satisfying.

[MysterD]

Finished Gears of War PC last night.

Despite the annoying stuttering issue that Epic still has yet to fix (mostly happens outdoors on me), it was still pretty good.

[Cobra951]

I've been on an emulation retro kick lately, and that led me to finally track down everything I need to play Dracula X: Rondo of Blood, the one remaining classic Castlevania game I've never played.  SOTN is the direct sequel to this, and I now know where it got its inspiration.  But man, this sucker is HARD!  Thank God for save states.

[TheOtherBelmont]

I've been on an emulation retro kick lately, and that led me to finally track down everything I need to play Dracula X: Rondo of Blood, the one remaining classic Castlevania game I've never played.  SOTN is the direct sequel to this, and I now know where it got its inspiration.  But man, this sucker is HARD!  Thank God for save states.

Rondo of Blood is so fucking awesome.  What emulator are you using to play it?  I lost the stuff I needed to play it when I had a hard drive crash about 3 years ago and forgot about downloading it again.

If I ever get a PSP, I will definitely be getting the remake they did of that game since I've heard great things about it and it has the original Rondo of Blood and Symphony of the Night with it.

[Cobra951]

The emulator of choice for the TurboGrafx-16 is Magic Engine.  It's technically not free, but neither is the game, which can fetch up to $100 last I heard.  I didn't spend any money. *Waits for shock to die down*

ME does a seemingly perfect job with everything, including the Super-CD attachment.  I'm very impressed.  I had version 0.96 from years ago, but the newest versions far surpass it.  You can find version 1.0.0 PR 10.1 elsewhere.  That seems to be the most stable version prior to the current 1.1.3.

[TheOtherBelmont]

The emulator of choice for the TurboGrafx-16 is Magic Engine.  It's technically not free, but neither is the game, which can fetch up to $100 last I heard.  I didn't spend any money. *Waits for shock to die down*

ME does a seemingly perfect job with everything, including the Super-CD attachment.  I'm very impressed.  I had version 0.96 from years ago, but the newest versions far surpass it.  You can find version 1.0.0 PR 10.1 elsewhere.  That seems to be the most stable version prior to the current 1.1.3.

Thanks for info, now to find the game.  Also, I don't know if you have a DS or not but the new Castlevania: Order of Ecclasia is coming out in October and it looks pretty awesome so far in case you were interested.

[MysterD]

I been trying GOW PC over Windows Live -- but unfortunately, seems that nobody on the PC is really playing this thing on the PC. Everybody must be still playing it on their 360.

I did the most generic search for servers I could on GoW PC, to try and get ANY kind of game to try on the MP side. There's barely any servers of people playing this -- like, there was like 4 to 5 servers up when I tried this, yesterday night. And, all the servers were doing WarZone mode, too!

Yet, boot up say an old game like Quake 3 (though, it is a MP classic) -- and there's tons of servers going on w/ tons of different game modes happening (CTF, Duel, DM, Etc).

[Xessive]

I been trying GOW PC over Windows Live -- but unfortunately, seems that nobody on the PC is really playing this thing on the PC. Everybody must be still playing it on their 360.

I did the most generic search for servers I could on GoW PC, to try and get ANY kind of game to try on the MP side. There's barely any servers of people playing this -- like, there was like 4 to 5 servers up when I tried this, yesterday night. And, all the servers were doing WarZone mode, too!

Yet, boot up say an old game like Quake 3 (though, it is a MP classic) -- and there's tons of servers going on w/ tons of different game modes happening (CTF, Duel, DM, Etc).

I find very few servers too. I've noticed it's more common to find coop than versus servers.

This is one game that I think should have been cross-platform. At least the coop side of it. It's not like there's any custom content to interfere with the console players either.

[MysterD]

I find very few servers too. I've noticed it's more common to find coop than versus servers.

This is one game that I think should have been cross-platform.

I wouldn't mind playing against X360'ers -- or with them, in CoOp.

At least the coop side of it. It's not like there's any custom content to interfere with the console players either.

I dunno -- but the game did come with an Editor/SDK.
Are there any GoW PC mods out there really?

[Xessive]

I dunno -- but the game did come with an Editor/SDK.
Are there any GoW PC mods out there really?

I have yet to find any custom content. Even Planet Gears of War lacks a files/downloads section other than videos and images.

[MysterD]

I like the MP for GoW PC (it's a littlebit different than most b/c of its pop-and-cover style), but yeah -- not enough people are really playing it and not enough games going to make me wanna keep this installed....

[gpw11]

I'm totally between games now.  I kind of went on a STEAM kick for a bit there with a lot of DoD, a little TF2, some HL2, Audio Surf, and Portal, but now I'm totally bored.  Kind of off of Company of Heroes at the moment as well.  I don't really know what to play.  Finish God of War 2?

[Quemaqua]

Quake 3!

[MysterD]

BG&E on the PC!

[Xessive]

I've been getting acquainted with MMRPG's (I intentionally left out the O because I agree with Scott in that it is redundant). I never particularly liked any but then I realized I had never given any a fair trial. I owed it to myself to explore the phenomena of Massively Multiplayer games.

I have been off on my own little quest to find my ideal free-to-play Online RPG adventure. I've tried Anarchy Online, Dungeon Runners, Fiesta, Solstice, 12Sky, DOMO, Last Chaos, Shaiya, Archlord, RF Online, Scions of Fate, Tales of Pirates, Florensia, and even Wolf Quest (which is a pretty cool idea though it's dull). I've tried a few other ambiguous titles too. Of this bunch I'd say DOMO, Shaiya, and Florensia are the best.

After searching for so long I think I've finally found it! Ironically, it's called Perfect World! It's a Chinese mythology themed adventure with 3 races to choose from and 6 classes (2 classes each). Doesn't seem like much but they cover the playing styles generally. You can check the details at the official website.

Perfect World is the first MMRPG I came across that actually has a comprehensive character customization; with facial manipulation and all (almost as detailed as Oblivion)! It has some presets you can choose from too but it's so much sweeter to make your own! You'll never come across another player that looks exactly like you! It's also got some of the best graphics I've seen in a MMRPG, technical & artistic.

With a lot of options, clean user interface, and the ability to jump like I'm in a fantasy Asian movie I am content.

While I was checking out some Multiplayer news I came across this:

Final Fantasy XI Boss Fight Lasts 18 Hours

We've all encountered lengthy RPG boss fights that lasted for more than an hour or two, but an 18 hours long MMORPG boss fight might be a little too much.

The fight took place in Final Fantasy XI, where "Beyond The Limitation" guild fought a new boss, Pandemonium Warden, who changed into 20 different forms through 18 fighting hours before the band finally gave up.

"People were passing out and getting physically ill. We decided to end it before we risked turning into a horrible new story about how videogames ruin people's lives", said one of the guild members called Sylphet. "None of us doubt that Pandemonium Warden can be killed. We just call into question exactly what the development team thinks is reasonable from human beings."

Keep in mind that those 18 hours weren't enough to finish the fight. Beyond The Limitation guild members believe that at least another 3 to 5 hours are needed to kill Pandemonium Warden.

[scottws]

I'm back to playing Enemy Territory: Quake Wars again.

[Quemaqua]

An excellent game.  If I can get enough people to install it, I'm hoping we can set up an FNFF for it one of these weekends.