2014 VIDEO GAME CATCH-ALL THREAD

[Guest The Magnificent 7]

Ok guys I need some help here: between giftcards and fantasy football winnings, I can finally get a next gen. I'm a ps3 owner and I have quite the backlog and am thinking of getting the Xbox One AC bundle. Should I do this? Also what is the one game I should buy extra?

 

Yes you should.  Games I've played on my Xbox One are Metal Gear V Ground Zeroes, NBA 2K series, Volgarr the Viking, Halo Master Chief Collection, Titanfall, and Shadows of Mordor. 

 

The Halo collection is just a ton of content, especially if that series passed you by since you didn't have a 360.  But the best game I've played so far is Shadows of Mordor.  It's just incredible. 

 

Wal-Mart has the Halo Collection bundle.  I'm not a huge fan of the AC series, but if you do get one extra game get Shadows of Mordor. 

[Guest The Magnificent 7]

Shadows of Mordor is awesome.  I completed a vendetta mission, where you have 5 minutes to kill an Uruk captain who killed someone on your friends list.  Tofuloaf is someone on this board, yes?  I could swear they are.  I killed a captain (jumped off a building and waxed that fool) and avenged you. Please tell me it tells the person on your friends list that someone avenged you.  That would be pretty spectacular.

 

Really impressed with this game. 

 

For you Xbone guys, my gamertag is Celtic FC 1967.  There are Uruks who have killed me out there.  Have at 'em.

[Lamp, broken circa 1988]

 

At least the attack has given us one fascinating thing in awareness of this website, which provides real-time maps of where traffic attacks are coming and going in the world.

 

Try not to read nationalism into this. the Lizard Squad guys are just paying other services to essentially fire DDoS cannons at Microsoft Headquarters in Seattle. Where the computers are stationed doesn't matter so much.

 

What is hosted in St. Louis that is getting destroyed right now?

 

I would guess PSN?

[Chaos]

 

 

At least the attack has given us one fascinating thing in awareness of this website, which provides real-time maps of where traffic attacks are coming and going in the world.

 

Try not to read nationalism into this. the Lizard Squad guys are just paying other services to essentially fire DDoS cannons at Microsoft Headquarters in Seattle. Where the computers are stationed doesn't matter so much.

 

What is hosted in St. Louis that is getting destroyed right now?

 

I would guess PSN?

 

 

That'd be my guess, but Lizard Squad is claiming to be attacking TOR now.

[Big Fresh]

Ok guys I need some help here: between giftcards and fantasy football winnings, I can finally get a next gen. I'm a ps3 owner and I have quite the backlog and am thinking of getting the Xbox One AC bundle. Should I do this? Also what is the one game I should buy extra?

Personally, I'd go with the Sunset Overdrive bundle and then buy AC separately because I think the white X-Box One looks better.

[Brian Fowler]

Walmart right now has an online bundle offer where you can get either the ac or Halo box plus another game (from a limited selection) for 399, fwiw.

[Casey]

What's the opinion of UFC Undisputed 3? I've got $125 in Amazon giftcards, and I'm curious. Mainly concerned about the career mode, if there is one. I believe the general opinion, when it was released, that EA Sports MMA was better, but Undisputed 3 wasn't terrible or anything.

[assfax]

I played the shit out of the Pride mode in undisputed 3.  We'll probably never get El Guapo and the Fight Professor in another game on commentary.

[Cliff Hanger]

Bayonetta 2 was under my tree as an unexpected gift. As bonkers as the first one is, the second is beyond the impossible. Haven't played it too much yet as my weekend was packed and when PSN came up, I wanted to hit lv20 in Destiny ASAP. But it's gorgeous and baffling.

[Matt D]

I plan on starting Trails in the Sky tomorrow on my PSP emulator on my tablet. I'm totally on the same page as the rest of you guys, a page in 2006.

[assfax]

Finally beat that new Thief game after lackadaisically playing it for 10 months.  Large unformatted rant incoming.  Speaking freely about the entire game.

 

thief

i was hating it and still kinda do. no manual jumping. having multiple discreet actions contextually squished into one button sucked. the way rope arrows worked sucked. That lights out puzzle in the clockmakers house sucked. the two "boss" fights REALLY sucked. I was lukewarm, then started doing the client and basso jobs and almost started diggin it. The map sucks major ass. Even near the end of the game I was still struggling to do simple navigation from a to b. Mainly because it shows the whole city but to reach certain parts you have to go through a window and it never feels intuitive. It doesn't show elevation well. So I was doin' the side jobs and enjoying myself a little. It had a spark of some of the humor that thief used to have. Then did mission 6 where you return to the baron's mansion. This level was getting my shit going. I explored every nook and cranny. Then it got to the end of the mission and had this awful escape while everything is on fire part. YUCK. Then it got worse. The Cathedral level had me damn near furious and not giving a fuck. The boat level had that fucking stupid boss fight.

played on PC. graphically great. Then it would go to a pre-rendered cutscene and the image quality and framerate went right in the shitter.

Story had me really not giving a shit. You were supposed to care about the girl but as far as my experience with her she was annoying in the prologue and then she was annoying in some slow-ass cinematic hallucination sequences and then she was really annoying in that final boss fight. Narratively clunky. No real motivation or actual villain. I'm sitting here having just beaten the game and still don't understand what the gloom was. The story as I can recall was: Girl falls into laser beams. Gets imbued with primal power which is somehow the spiritual embodiment of the city itself. So if she dies the city will physically unravel. This Orion guy tried to sacrifice her but I went into some supernatural mode and stole a necklace out of his hand. Then he kidnaps her like Bluto and hides out on a boat. Then the lady gives him the ol' Last Crusade "chose poorly" diet. Then I have to run around a room picking up glowing stones. then shes hanging from my hand. Then the orion guy puts his hand on the book and she drops. What the fuck was this game?

The AI was never dependable. I wanted an archer to move so I threw a bottle. He does nothing. I throw it right in front of him. He does nothing. I can't get near him because there's a torch he will reignite and a fucking raven in a cage i can't take out without him being omniciently aware of my location.

Hated all the overwrought animations. You could never quickly blackjack a guy unless he was seated. It was always a canned sequence. When you got a unique loot item it always did a stupid animation that blocked you from doing anything else. YUCK. Checking all the drawers in a desk was always slow and tedious. I thought I understood the lockpicking but I don't really think I did. You rotate and if you go slowly you might hear a click which means you went past the spot and then you wiggle it in a circle until the dot lights up. I think? Who cares? I finally beat this hunk of shit so I can uninstall it.

When I first got it I used a custom difficulty. I chose not to have a reticule for my bow thinking the goddamned weapon would have an aimer on it. This was not the case. Using water arrows was always trial and error. I got to the brothel mission and then said fuck it and restarted with the reticule on.

Y'know what else sucked? All the regular ass swearing. Just made this dumb game seem even dumber.  If they said taffer it was hidden in some readable that I skipped.

 

Beat Splinter Cell Blacklist.  I got to that part where bad guys attack your plane and just said fuck it for a few months. That part really could've been done better. Just kind of an uninspired section. Finally squeaked by and finished the game.  Overall fucking good.  Movement controls were fucking great. Don't really like how there's only one slow movement speed.  Mousewheel method from the original trilogy was superior. Cover button tended to wig out when you least wanted it to.  It kept levels segmented into small sections.  I'm probably going to play this again.  Game is better if you whisper pithy one-liners when you take out badguys because the main guy sure as shit ain't going to say anything funny.  Weird, abrupt ending.  That was unfortunate.

[Cristobal]

Finally beat that new Thief game after lackadaisically playing it for 10 months.  Large unformatted rant incoming.  Speaking freely about the entire game.

 

thief

i was hating it and still kinda do. no manual jumping. having multiple discreet actions contextually squished into one button sucked. the way rope arrows worked sucked. That lights out puzzle in the clockmakers house sucked. the two "boss" fights REALLY sucked. I was lukewarm, then started doing the client and basso jobs and almost started diggin it. The map sucks major ass. Even near the end of the game I was still struggling to do simple navigation from a to b. Mainly because it shows the whole city but to reach certain parts you have to go through a window and it never feels intuitive. It doesn't show elevation well. So I was doin' the side jobs and enjoying myself a little. It had a spark of some of the humor that thief used to have. Then did mission 6 where you return to the baron's mansion. This level was getting my shit going. I explored every nook and cranny. Then it got to the end of the mission and had this awful escape while everything is on fire part. YUCK. Then it got worse. The Cathedral level had me damn near furious and not giving a fuck. The boat level had that fucking stupid boss fight.

played on PC. graphically great. Then it would go to a pre-rendered cutscene and the image quality and framerate went right in the shitter.

Story had me really not giving a shit. You were supposed to care about the girl but as far as my experience with her she was annoying in the prologue and then she was annoying in some slow-ass cinematic hallucination sequences and then she was really annoying in that final boss fight. Narratively clunky. No real motivation or actual villain. I'm sitting here having just beaten the game and still don't understand what the gloom was. The story as I can recall was: Girl falls into laser beams. Gets imbued with primal power which is somehow the spiritual embodiment of the city itself. So if she dies the city will physically unravel. This Orion guy tried to sacrifice her but I went into some supernatural mode and stole a necklace out of his hand. Then he kidnaps her like Bluto and hides out on a boat. Then the lady gives him the ol' Last Crusade "chose poorly" diet. Then I have to run around a room picking up glowing stones. then shes hanging from my hand. Then the orion guy puts his hand on the book and she drops. What the fuck was this game?

The AI was never dependable. I wanted an archer to move so I threw a bottle. He does nothing. I throw it right in front of him. He does nothing. I can't get near him because there's a torch he will reignite and a fucking raven in a cage i can't take out without him being omniciently aware of my location.

Hated all the overwrought animations. You could never quickly blackjack a guy unless he was seated. It was always a canned sequence. When you got a unique loot item it always did a stupid animation that blocked you from doing anything else. YUCK. Checking all the drawers in a desk was always slow and tedious. I thought I understood the lockpicking but I don't really think I did. You rotate and if you go slowly you might hear a click which means you went past the spot and then you wiggle it in a circle until the dot lights up. I think? Who cares? I finally beat this hunk of shit so I can uninstall it.

When I first got it I used a custom difficulty. I chose not to have a reticule for my bow thinking the goddamned weapon would have an aimer on it. This was not the case. Using water arrows was always trial and error. I got to the brothel mission and then said fuck it and restarted with the reticule on.

Y'know what else sucked? All the regular ass swearing. Just made this dumb game seem even dumber.  If they said taffer it was hidden in some readable that I skipped.

I was willing to give it a try as AC-lite, but it just turned into bad versions of a half-dozen games. "Here, start with some bad AC-style movement. Now, this'll be like a really bad version of an Arkham predator mission. Oh hey, want a zombie level?" F off.

[assfax]

Beat Burial at Sea Bioshock DLC.  First episode, gameplay wise, kinda dragged until you started getting more vigors and guns.  Then it was over.  Second episode kept showing unskippable movies every fucking time I fucked up and died.  HOLY SHIT.  I was half way through before I found out how to bring up the gun selection wheel with the keyboard.  Then, the second one introduced usable health kits but didn't deign it necessary to tell me about it. Second didn't even have skylines or usable tears. The stealth shit was almost decent but then they fuck it up with those teleporting bad guys.  GOD DAMN. Story didn't continue or majorly expand upon whatever in the fuck they think Infinite was about.  Who in the fuck is Sally? I never played the first bioshock so this thing was just a nebulous blob of shit. What the fuck was that decoded message at the end?  Who the hell was I?  God damn this thing was deeply entrenched up it's own ass; huddled around a fire made of shit like the intro to Amazing Stories.  I did make 45 cents from steam cards so that still doesn't excuse this hunk of shit.

[Tabe]

I'm watching ESPN today so...

Can somebody please find every copy of the Kevin Hart Madden ad and make them disappear? Thanks in advance.

[Andrew POE!]

Beat Burial at Sea Bioshock DLC.  First episode, gameplay wise, kinda dragged until you started getting more vigors and guns.  Then it was over.  Second episode kept showing unskippable movies every fucking time I fucked up and died.  HOLY SHIT.  I was half way through before I found out how to bring up the gun selection wheel with the keyboard.  Then, the second one introduced usable health kits but didn't deign it necessary to tell me about it. Second didn't even have skylines or usable tears. The stealth shit was almost decent but then they fuck it up with those teleporting bad guys.  GOD DAMN. Story didn't continue or majorly expand upon whatever in the fuck they think Infinite was about.  Who in the fuck is Sally? I never played the first bioshock so this thing was just a nebulous blob of shit. What the fuck was that decoded message at the end?  Who the hell was I?  God damn this thing was deeply entrenched up it's own ass; huddled around a fire made of shit like the intro to Amazing Stories.  I did make 45 cents from steam cards so that still doesn't excuse this hunk of shit.

 

Sally was a name of a person that Booker acted like he knew that showed up name only in a sidequest in BioShock Infinite.

The actual explanation for her and the pretty much "FUCK YOU" ending to Burial At Sea Ep2 made me realize that Ken Levine is an asshole.

[Guest The Magnificent 7]

Played a little of the Halo 5 multiplayer beta.  I got worked as my Halo skills have diminished greatly.  Graphics and sound really impressive, but I'm way more interested in single player when it comes to Halo these days. 

[Chaos]

Played a little of the Halo 5 multiplayer beta.  I got worked as my Halo skills have diminished greatly.  Graphics and sound really impressive, but I'm way more interested in single player when it comes to Halo these days. 

 

I think the sound editing was the most impressive aspect of Halo 4. You have to commend 343 for wanting to deliver as authentic of an experience as possible.

[Big Fresh]

I do absolutely love the talking Spartans in this one. In high school, I pretty much loved my whole life for Halo. Halo 4 disappointed me so much though, it's probably not even in my favorite 5 franchises. But this seems to be a step in the right direction.

[Andrew POE!]

Marvel Vs. Capcom Origins, Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, UNO & UNO Rush have been delisted from XBLA & PSN after today.

[assfax]

That Scott Pilgrim game was always the secret love child of SNK and the developers of Three Dirty Dwarves.