2014 VIDEO GAME CATCH-ALL THREAD

[Neil Koch]

Not all of them.  If you go to the link I posted you can plug in your zip code to see if any stores in your area do trade ins.  I think a lot of it depends on local laws about pawn shops.  For instance, one of the Targets by me does not do trade ins, but the other in the next town a couple of miles over does.

 

You can only do 3 per transaction, but apparently you can keep doing transactions.

 

With the 3x value, you can get good deals.  For instance, Battlefield 4 is getting $54.  A guy at NeoGAF posted that he got about $450 for trading in 10 games.

 

There are some games you can buy new in the store and get more money by trading them in also.  Some of the "flippers" over at Cheap Ass Gamer are making hundreds of dollars doing this.

 

FYI, though, they don't give cash - only store credit cards.  But you can use them for whatever you want.

[cwoy2j]

Random question but is there anyway to play the old Godzilla NES game on PS3?

[Tabe]

Played the last of us recently. Couldnt get into it after the harrowing first couple of levels. Maybe I'm not cut out to be a one mistake = insta-death horror story kind of game but FUCK CLICKERS.

 

and the game is going back to the rental service.

That was my experience.  I just couldn't get into it and gave up.

Bix has ragged me many times since then for that decision.

[Tabe]

Final review of Resistance 2:

 

In the end, we've got a very competent FPS here that falls prey to some missteps that hurt the game.  I've mentioned a bunch of these before - spawning right into damage, a human killing machine that can't climb walls, and so on.  A couple more?  Occasional use of the "attacked from behind from a room you just cleared out" trick.  And the two biggest, baddest bosses in the game end up being letdowns to kill.  And, for the love of God, why can't I carry a handgun to go with my two rifles?  And why does every FPS treat grenades as some hyper-precious commodity that you are never given at the start of a mission?  And why do they ALL insist on changing your guns at the start of a new part of the story?  Argh.  Anyway, this is a good-looking shooter that plays well, has a good story and is generally the right level of difficulty, despite my frequent swearing at the screen.  Right at the Tabedoza line for this one: 7/10.

 

And now I'm on to Rainbow Moon, the charming little RPG with the great soundtrack.  Seems to be incredibly repetitive early on, thanks to the combat, but so far having a good time.  I'm going for a platinum on this one, which requires 100 hours of gameplay.  Only 96:08 to go!

[Tabe]

Review for Wolfenstein (7.8) at IGN:

 

Review

 

 

And one for Transistor

 

Which they really liked (9.0)

 

Cool feature in Transistor - you have a talking sword as part of the game and the game gives you the option to have the sword's voice come out of the speaker in your PS4 controller.  Nice!

[Neil Koch]

No More Heroes did something similar - when you got calls on your cell phone, you would have to hold up the Wiimote to your ear and listen to the call through its speaker.

[Cliff Hanger]

Out of all the indy-indy stuff that was shown for PS4 last year at the big E3 presser, Transistor was what I was most excited about. For some reason, I thought it was still a good six months away. Watch Dogs may have some competition when my replacement console arrives next week.

[Tabe]

Transistor is apparently just 6 hours long.  If it's competition for Watch Dogs, it won't be for very long.

[CSC]

Nevermind I found the answer to my own question about the trade ins...

 

I'm gonna be making a lot of separate trips to target this weekend to dispose of old games since Target gift cards are essentially cash anyway.

[Death From Above]

I discovered the weirdness that is Toribash in the free to play section of Steam. It's... pretty unique.

 

 I'm someone who enjoys dry stuff like engineering and physics, and this is basically a physics engine someone managed to make a game out of and disguise as a highly unorthodox combat game.

It has a very steep learning curve. Your first few fights will be "well, I fell down, I don't even know how to move my arms", but it's bizarrely entertaining.

This is a game you can be completely awful at and still have a good time. How many games is that really true of?

Very different, but very entertaining. Wasted an entire evening on it (basically all I know how to do is grab people and try and win by knocking them over) and will definitely be back for more. It's kind of hard to explain beyond that but it has a million youtube videos.

[GojiColin]

I Managed to beat Tales of Symphonia last night.  It was a fun game and much like the rest of the Tales series, one of the few games that I actually want to go back and do a New Game + run in.  I thought I had done pretty much everything, but nope only 14% complete according to trophies.

 

I think the thing I liked the most about the game is that the party didn't always do the right thing and it had ramifications.  Too often in RPGs your party always is right and always does the right thing to save the princess/world/whatever.  It's nice to see a rag-tag group of people actually get outfoxed by a more superior, organized villain, grow from it and then achieve their goal.

 

But before I play Dawn of the New World it's time to dust off my PS2 and get Persona 4 beaten.  

[twiztor]

Nintendo's got a sweet deal going if you purchase Mario Kart 8 for the Wii-U.

register the game with their Club Nintendo deal and you get a free game download. your choices are New Super Mario Bros. Wii-U, Zelda Windwaker, Pikmin 3, or Wii Party.

not too shabby since MarioKart8 looks awesome anyway.

[Jiji]

I was actually pondering picking up a Wii U and buying a bunch of Wii games on the cheap because I haven't owned a Nintendo system since Gamecube and even that was at the tail end and never could get into it. That deal sounds haht.

[Liam]

Would it be better to pick up Tales of Xilia or Tales of Symphonia Chronicles? Which is the better game?

[Brisco]

I have been playing Wolfenstein and have really enjoyed it. The game is very story heavy and easier than most shooters I have played. I usually play games on normal but bumped this up to "Death Incarnate" (the next highest level) for some added challenge. While I am finding myself dying often the game is very forgiving by having many checkpoints within each chapter. There is a rumor that beating the last section of the last stage on Uber will give you the trophy for beating the game on Uber, though I could see a forthcoming patch fixing this issue. From what I have read many seasoned FPS players are not finding Uber to be all that difficult.

[GojiColin]

Would it be better to pick up Tales of Xilia or Tales of Symphonia Chronicles? Which is the better game?

 

It depends on what you value in your RPGs, but i'd say get Tales of Symphonia Chronicles.

 

Storywise Symphonia is better (I can't speak for Dawn of the New World as I have yet to play it) but Xilia is a much more polished game and has the most enjoyable combat of the whole series.  Also consider you're getting two 40-50 hour RPGs for the price of one with Symphonia Chronicles.

[Salads]

 

This is a game you can be completely awful at and still have a good time. How many games is that really true of?

 

In my book, every single one that is actually good.

[The Natural]

I have been playing Wolfenstein and have really enjoyed it. The game is very story heavy and easier than most shooters I have played. I usually play games on normal but bumped this up to "Death Incarnate" (the next highest level) for some added challenge. While I am finding myself dying often the game is very forgiving by having many checkpoints within each chapter. There is a rumor that beating the last section of the last stage on Uber will give you the trophy for beating the game on Uber, though I could see a forthcoming patch fixing this issue. From what I have read many seasoned FPS players are not finding Uber to be all that difficult.

 

How many difficulty settings are there? GameCentral, the main website I use gave it 9/10 which doesn't happen often. Might pick it up later this year because of that review.

[Death From Above]

 

 

This is a game you can be completely awful at and still have a good time. How many games is that really true of?

 

In my book, every single one that is actually good.

 

 

Yes. It's a pretty fine litmus test.

[Tabe]

So I'm about a dozen hours into Rainbow Moon.  This is an RPG that's got some serious flaws, is pretty simplistic, and yet....I am loving playing it.  It's charming.  The graphics are very nice the music is good (see flaws below) and the whole kill-stuff-collect-points-level-up thing fits my personality pretty well.  Still, the flaws:

 

- it's incredibly repetitive.  This is true of a lot of JRPGs but the amount of combat in this game is just insane.  And, at least so far, every single mission is either a fetch mission or a kill mission.  No variety.

- the game actually makes you feed your characters.  WTF.  Is this 1983 or something?  AND you have to do it individually.  Multiple guys in your party?  Gotta feed each one individually.  And I'll be damned if I can find where the game displays your food status other than when you're actually using a food item

- the music is REALLY loud - and there's no volume adjustment anywhere.  BOOOO.

- thanks to the repetitive nature of the game, the music, besides just being loud, is also really repetitive

- I'm sure this will change later as I get stronger and get better spells but right now getting poisoned is way out-of-balance damage-wise.  My main character has about 260 HP and poison does 50-70 points per turn[/ib] in combat of damage.  That's double the damage I've taken from any enemy creature.  And it's every single turn.  IMHO, that's a big much.

 

Even with all of that, I'm hooked and will definitely be going for a platinum on this one.

[Tabe]

On a semi-related note to the post above, can I just say that I *HATE* it when games have theme songs or whatever that are SUPER LOUD in the PS3 menu system?  I'm looking at you Rock Band 2, Double Dragon Neon, and Rainbow Moon.  I don't mind games playing music and showing a picture when I'm scrolling through my list of games but having music that blows my head off is a little insane.  No thanks.

[Brisco]

I have been playing Wolfenstein and have really enjoyed it. The game is very story heavy and easier than most shooters I have played. I usually play games on normal but bumped this up to "Death Incarnate" (the next highest level) for some added challenge. While I am finding myself dying often the game is very forgiving by having many checkpoints within each chapter. There is a rumor that beating the last section of the last stage on Uber will give you the trophy for beating the game on Uber, though I could see a forthcoming patch fixing this issue. From what I have read many seasoned FPS players are not finding Uber to be all that difficult.

 

How many difficulty settings are there? GameCentral, the main website I use gave it 9/10 which doesn't happen often. Might pick it up later this year because of that review.

It has the same five difficulty levels from Wolfenstein 3D;

Can I Play Daddy

Don't Hurt Me

Bring Em On (default)

Death Incarnate

Uber

As I mentioned earlier a great FPS player can probably hop into Uber without the game becoming frustratingly difficult.

[Death From Above]

- the game actually makes you feed your characters.  WTF.  Is this 1983 or something?

 

This is where I drew the line on Skyrim immersion modding. Hypothermia is cool (hahahaha), but I'm not stopping in the woods to cook rabbits. No.

[Jiji]

Booo. That shit was the best, particularly when you got sick from spoiled food. Or you horde all this food only for it to spoil. As if there aren't enough things to do in that game.

[Travis Sheldon]

Tabe, I had pondered getting Rainbow Moon because all of the gameplay reminded me of the old SSI Dungeons & Dragons games. Keep us updated on your progress with this game.

 

Thinking about getting Minecraft PS3 Edition. Was looking at videos for the Pocket Edition for my phone, but I think the screen is too small for Minecraft. Really enjoyed watching the videos of the PS3 version. Have downloaded the demo from PS Store and like the gameplay. Saw there was some texture packs and skins in the PS Store, so I may hold out for a omnibus edition around xmas. I loathe buying digital games, except for my phone. Gotta have a disk. One of the reasons I haven't picked up Rainbow Moon.

 

Got Fallout 3 GOTY on an Amazon sale for $7 last week. Haven't finished New Vegas, so I'm holding off on that one for a bit. I know I'm going backwards with this series.

 

Anybody on Facebook play MLB Ballpark Empire?