2017 VIDEO GAME CATCH-ALL THREAD

[Michael Sweetser]

Yakuza 0 is fucking amazing.  That is all.

[Salads]

15 hours ago, El Dragon said:

That was a heck of a comment to find in the unread content folder without context, let me tell you.

I heartily enjoyed skipping to the last page of this thread earlier in the year and being greeted with this

[Death From Above]

I'm into chapter 13 of Shadow Warrior and it's just too fun. I can understand where having to hunt for a key every few levels isn't everyone's cup of tea because it's a definite throwback to the days before quest markers on screen removed any actual exploring in some games, but I've actually mostly enjoyed being able to search out levels and find the odd thing here or there in a secret room. And the action is solid as hell. You have the touch. You have the power. I like how pretty much every weapon beyond the sword (which is the all-purpose killing tool in this game) has a specific use it's really good for. Like, I hadn't really got a ton out of the SMG before those green exploding fuckers showed up, and it's wonderful on them. The invisible assholes are a good time to use the flamethrower. The big ugly oooga booga guys with shields is shotgun time. The pistol, once upgraded, is great for those flying harpy things. The story is a muddled fucking mess, something about demons, memories, magic swords, and the asian mafia, fuck if I know what the hell is going on. Doesn't really matter. Game is a blast to play.

 

Chapter 12 got seriously Resident Evil on your ass, fuck that place in particular man. The tension is real.

[Cliff Hanger]

Watching Jeremy Parish stream a version of NES Bionic Commando that hacked the English translation into the Japanese ROM, re-instating Gen. Killt's Neo-Nazi symbology and language and calling a Hitler a Hitler caused me to break that game out in its GBA port.  I didn't understand people's insistence that it was 'too hard' as a child and I don't now; it's one of a relatively small number of NES titles I could beat fairly reliably and still can.

[J.T.]

12 hours ago, El Dragon said:

All the jokes of J.T. and Rippa still playing ME3, yet I'm the only one still playing it about 5 years later...

You bloomed late though and you have content you haven't even unlocked yet.

Rippa and I were regularly defending the galaxy against the Reaper hordes for years after launch and we have played every class and fired every weapon in the game.

[J.T.]

I am trying to level up an Engineer in GoW4 Horde mode because I have a Survive 50 Horde Waves As An Engineer bounty, but it is hard. 

I miss being a Scout and having a lot of health and being able to kill things dead after one or two shotgun blasts. 

I find it infuriating when my teammates don't turn their power-ups to the fabricator after every wave so I can build defenses and players dying in the field far away from home base is even more enraging. 

I am like, "Hey, assholes.  Why don't we fight from this area I just fucking fortified with laser fences, weapon lockers, chain-gun sentries, and turrets?  Now that I mention it, why don't one of you idiots man one of the turrets and kill shit instead of wasting your own personal ammo?"

We will not even discuss the Challenge Waves when it seems like I am the only one trying to get headshots or executions.  So much rage..

[SirFozzie]

Battletech beta scheduled for March 15th. You'll find me there.

[Michael Sweetser]

So for those of you playing Yakuza 0, how the fuck do I get better at the disco stuff?  I swear my timing's off - I think it's an audio/input lag thing a la Rock Band but I don't see a way to adjust it.

[Tromatagon]

I just play the disco shit on easy, but eventually I got the timing down and do okay.

Also, I forget which one, but one of the shoulder buttons activates a heat mode that gets you extra points.

You're kind of supposed to lose to Miracle Johnson so don't worry about that.  

[AxB]

Mortal Kombat is a pile of fucking shit.

[J.T.]

My Engineer in GoW4 is Rank 5 and I got that dumb survival bounty done!  I finally got paired up with a Scout and a Soldier that knew what they were fucking doing and we also had the benefit of a short map, so I had almost a fifth of the terrain set up with defenses and deathtraps, 

Wave 50 was almost too easy because I had decoys set up to lure enemies to my chaingun sentry nests and I had three turrets set up, so we just waited at base camp for enemies to come to us to get mowed down. 

Killing the boss monster for the big win took less time than it should have.  I like overwhelming firewpower.

Now that I've gotten that Engineer bounty out of the way, I can go back to leveling up my Scout to Rank 10.

[Red is Dead]

100% finished lego batman 3. having the green loontern, adam west, kevin smith and Conan o brien? Yeah, that was fun.

also loaded up portal, for old times sake, beat it in half an hour, then uninstalled it again. Still as good as I remember it.

[Lamp, broken circa 1988]

FIRE EMBLEM HEROES [n/a] - My phone fucking haaaaaaates this game. I'm getting a new phone because I need stronger phonery in general, but WOW dude. From the tiny amount I played, I will go back to it once I have more phonery because it's just interesting enough.

ANOTHER METROID 2 REMAKE [3] - In lieu of another Metroid game ever coming out, this is fine. It's just off enough that it still feels like a fanmade game, but yeah. I dont know that I'll finish it. I haven't felt tempted to go back since the first two hours I put in.

FOR HONOR OPEN BETA [4] - As much as I deeply loathe Ubisoft, I fell in debt with a friend and the way they offered to let me repay them was to get this game and play it with him. So I played the open beta to see what I was in for, and... it's really, really good. Granted, it is SUCH a particular venn diagram (Competitive Monster Hunter with either Trials of Osiris or Dynasty Warriors mechanics) that I have low hopes for the game's actual success, but gosh I enjoy it a lot for being as defiantly fuckin' weird as it is. The one thing that I think the game hasn't done enough of a good job stressing is how much it's like a fighting game. I went in expecting nothing and I'm gonna come out of it excited. Weird.

[J.T.]

10 minutes ago, BL88 said:

.FOR HONOR OPEN BETA [4] - As much as I deeply loathe Ubisoft, I fell in debt with a friend and the way they offered to let me repay them was to get this game and play it with him. So I played the open beta to see what I was in for, and... it's really, really good. Granted, it is SUCH a particular venn diagram (Competitive Monster Hunter with either Trials of Osiris or Dynasty Warriors mechanics) that I have low hopes for the game's actual success, but gosh I enjoy it a lot for being as defiantly fuckin' weird as it is. The one thing that I think the game hasn't done enough of a good job stressing is how much it's like a fighting game. I went in expecting nothing and I'm gonna come out of it excited. Weird.

Good to hear.  This came up in my activity feed and I have been mulling over whether or not to download the trial beta.

[Lamp, broken circa 1988]

2 hours ago, J.T. said:

Good to hear.  This came up in my activity feed and I have been mulling over whether or not to download the trial beta.

Well, today's the last day and it's out Tuesday, so, I'd get on it so you can see it for yourself.

EDIT: Might as well use this to say another good thing about the game: The multiplayer is framed as this massive faction warfare thing between the knights, samurai and vikings. When you complete matches, you generate "War Assets" and those assets are pushed into the faction war, so you can choose where to put your assets. The brilliant idea is that you can do every mode against bots, and still contribute to the faction war. It doesn't contribute as much as PVP does, but it's not nothing, and it lets you do something productive if you're winding down for the night and don't want to play against humans any more, but still want to practice and feel productive. You can still get loot drops for playing against AI. And, if you find yourself playing against AI more than humans, there are bi-daily quests (i.e. Get 50 Kills in Elimination with any class, complete 10 games with a specific archetype of class, etc) that you can only earn playing Player Vs. AI modes.

I will also say that currently it seems like the Samurai are the most populated and the Knights are the least. Also worth noting that the knights unintentionally have white supremacist ties (they yell a historically accurate thing that was yelled during the crusades that dipshits have adopted as a rallying cry) so there. I'm going with the Vikings because I really enjoyed playing Rune on PC. Also worth noting: when you join a faction, you do not have to exclusively play those factions to get experience. You can be a samurai on team viking.

[twiztor]

i just picked up Crash Bandicoot (the original, on ps1). i've never played it before. i grabbed a Crash skylander figure to display with my amiibos and it piqued my interest. pretty pumped to start playing it tomorrow. really hoping i can beat it before Zelda comes out on 3/3.

[Ryan]

Have fun with the very awkward running at the camera controls. Other than that, good on ya.

[J.T.]

My GoW4 Scout is still Rank 8, but I had enough scrap to craft a Legendary card and unlock a Rare Achievement.

Still slugging through my old Horde bounties.  Mass Effect Andromeda launch day cannot come soon enough.

[Red is Dead]

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaand Fable anniversary finished. Can see why it got such a good rep from way back when. Lovely art style and great core mechanics.

[J.T.]

The grind to get a Rank 10 character class in Gears of War 4 is fucking real.

Did anyone bother playing Mafia 3?  I'm trying to avoid getting too heavily invested in a sandbox game I will obsess over until after I beat Mass Effect Andromeda.

That's why I'm also avoiding Watch Dogs 2 until after I beat the ME:A campaign.

[Lamp, broken circa 1988]

For Honor Day 1 Impressions:

-SINGLE PLAYER
POSSIBLY the best Dynasty Warriors game ever. POSSIBLY the worst story mode I've ever seen. No one is a person. No one says more than ten words at a time. All motivations are "I'M BAD" and "I'M GOOD." There's not enough voice lines to make boss fights anything more than an exercise in how many times you can hear someone say one phrase before you have a hernia. It's mechanically beautiful still- at least to me- and the campaign gives rewards back into the multiplayer so I'll finish it, but god, I cannot imagine something less enjoyable than playing through this game on hard difficulties.

-MULTIPLAYER
It appears- preliminarily- that my concerns of Samurai population were unfounded. So that's relieving. I'm still all vikings all day but it's nice to not feel like it's just this unlevel playing field. I've also finally learned what the season pass buys, and it's possibly the silliest thing I've ever seen- Glowing effects for when you stand still, skins, and early access to characters and maps that will eventually be free anyways. That seems like a Bad Deal. Also yeah, microtransaction potential seems high, but, unnecessary if you find your character early on. Me personally, I'm fully committed to the Warlord, so there's not gonna be a point where I care too awful much about how much access I will or wont have to other characters, but I can see playing multiple characters getting grindy and unhappy. I still love playing this game a whole dang bunch, and I'm also playing at weird hours so I can't really confirm if the player base is good or not. I will now end my post with my dope custom shield, featuring my favorite word in the world:

[Neil Koch]

5 hours ago, J.T. said:

The grind to get a Rank 10 character class in Gears of War 4 is fucking real.

Did anyone bother playing Mafia 3?  I'm trying to avoid getting too heavily invested in a sandbox game I will obsess over until after I beat Mass Effect Andromeda.

That's why I'm also avoiding Watch Dogs 2 until after I beat the ME:A campaign.

I'm playing Mafia 3 now.  It's good, but I can see where the criticisms come from.

There is a lot of driving around because there is no fast travel.  I get that they were trying to be more realistic, but then Lincoln can "call" in cars, supplies, and backup basically at any time, so why not some sort of taxi?

The game's structure is pretty repetitive.  You are taking over the city, so you go from district to district, and meet your cronie and then find informants/bust up contraband/kill enforcers and then go back to your cronie to unlock the boss mission.  Standard side missions like racing and making contraband deliveries. 

There are a lot of good parts though.  This structure gets little addicting to me, as there is an urge to do just one more mission since controlling districts raises the amount of cash you generate (lots of guns and upgrades to buy) and will unlock more/better abilities.  I like the story, characters, and setting and the gameplay is solid for the most part - you can do some very violent kills on people.  Really good soundtrack if you like classic rock/blues/R&B.

There are quite a few collectable tchotchkes, including vintage Playboys so you can look at boobs (or read the articles, whatever floats your boat). 

[Andrew POE!]

Got my 70th Platinum with Killzone 3. The graphics STILL hold up today. Elite difficulty is slightly easier than Killzone's Elite difficulty was.

Trying to get the Platinum for Sound Shapes and I want to find the people who made this game and beat the shit outta them.

[Tromatagon]

I thought Yakuza 0 ruled and then I unlocked Hostess Club Management and I can't stop playing that part and forgot there was a rest of the game

[Raziel]

Because of course someone would, they finally dug down and figured out that the Mini NES Classic is really just a glorfied Raspberry Pi box, and they got Retroarch running on it, along with cores to make it play multiple systems.

 

Course, I'll just still make my own Raspberry Pi box with some of my tax return money, since the likelyhood of Nintendo ever releasing more NES Mini's before Christmas is pretty nil with the Switch coming out and all.