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Video Games - dragons, lasers and zombies


Lyanna Stark

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Their expectations were too high. The game sold over 1 million globally (wikipedia) and >760K of that was outside of Japan. 1 million in sales globally for that sort of game is bloody good.

It was a slow burner in the west and gamers didn't really notice it until it won "best game nobody played" awards in 2008, which then boosted 2009 sales. Hells I even came on here in 2009 and talked this game up, to a gigantic "meh" from everyone. Funny enough one comment on here was "that's that turn based game where you can get shot at when you're having your turn.. no thanks." And only a few years later we get X-Com Enemy Unknown which everyone praised to the high heavens, and the same thing happens in that game.

And of course their move to PSP was an absolute disaster from a sales perspective. It sold marginally less on PSP in Japan but VC2 completely bombed in the west to the extent that VC3 was never localised.

If Sega had half a brain on this game they would have recognised that in the west there was, in the end, a decent fanbase for the game, and a sequel on PS3 would have sold a decent amount, as launch price and would have made them some money. Given VC2 turned out to be brilliant (see reviews) it was a guaranteed hit (relatively) for PS3. Perhaps they decided a bit too early to switch to PSP before the fanbase in the west built up tot what it was.

Can you provide a source for those sales? The article Wikipedia cites has no evidence that VC sold that much (it says exactly what I said, that sales were poor). It was even written before the brief sales upturn in 2009. VGChartz has a higher figure, but that site is notorious for inflating their numbers and having incomplete information.

At any rate, even if the game sold 1 million copies eventually, it certainly didn't sell 1 million copies at full price, and it likely didn't sell 1 million in time for the sequel. That's important. Meanwhile, companies like Capcom were moving their less popular franchises (Monster Hunter) onto handheld systems and making a killing. Sega's decision to release on PSP was good given the situation and available information at the time.

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After four days of addictive DA:I gameplay I can say with absolute certainty that this is my personal favourite game of the year '14. While I dislike the way they introduce you to the story, basically just throwing you in and telling you that you're the guy to fix it all - I would have killed for an Origins-chapter like in the first DA game, why don't they stick with the stuff they did really well??? -, it had really hooked me once I got to the point where the main villain revealed himself. Holy shit, what an epic battle!



To make the whole thing even sweeter, the multiplayer is just perfect. They took what I liked about the ME3 multiplayer, smoothed out what was annoying about it, added crafting and a fair distribution of loot, gold and xp - something most multiplayer RPGs fail at.


Hell, even the boss fights are challanging so that you really get hyped when you manage to kick that red templar commanders ass with your buddies after getting wiped two dozen times by his fucking frenzy-sword-whirlwind-spin.


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Brought my Warlock up to level 30 in Destiny. I've had a blast playing in the Iron Banner this past week. A big step in the right direction for Bungie. Now they just need to learn how to hold a decent PVE event. Only two more weeks to the Dark Below and a new raid, so they have time to figure it out.


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Wasteland 2 question: If you played it, what did you think of the LA portion compared to Arizona?




I really liked Arizona. Solid 4/5. I really enjoyed travelling around, answering distress calls and generally trying to achieve the best possible outcomes in my simple minded fashion, much like a Desert Ranger probably would. Uncovering the extent of the synthetic threat was good, too. Starts out with one synth killing one of your best rangers, and eventually leads into the discovering of a well-coordinated attempt to destabilize the region (or, at least, the DRs), with the synth scientist infiltrating the Ag Centre, the synth bandit trying to wipe out Highpool, the synth doctor at the Canyon of Titan, and then the Tinker activating the robot army at Damonta.



When Vargas was telling me about LA, I expected that we'd be introducing the rangers to the locals so that we could gain allies and take the fight to Matthias. But apart from some vague radio messages, everything we do to help them out is pretty self-contained, and it ends up irrelevant to the final battle and to a lesser extent the synths.



I think it would've been better to stay in LA after arriving, make Sante Fe Springs a little Ranger Citadel Mk II, and have our decisions with regards to solving all the regional conflicts determine how we eventually stormed Seal Beach. Especially as there seems to be a propaganda war going on between the rangers, Matthias, Dugan, God's Militia, Mannerites, etc, that suggests we can win or lose their aid, but never amounts to anything as far as I know.



If you give the rangers a shit name (say, by helping Matthias kill all the local leaders as he asks of you) you're left to storm Seal Beach on your own (like you are currently, grr), but if the people love me, as the radio keeps saying, then the rangers have an army of volunteers and help from the local towns.




Incidentally Matthias has a great voice actor. Whoever this is needs to do more work.


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Funny enough one comment on here was "that's that turn based game where you can get shot at when you're having your turn.. no thanks." And only a few years later we get X-Com Enemy Unknown which everyone praised to the high heavens, and the same thing happens in that game.

Yeah, that is different. In VC it's time-based. If you stand there too long on your go, you can get killed. The AI, which moves with maxium efficency (to the point where it somehow often avoids triggering shots from my characters it should have), never suffers the same problem. So the game does weigh that a little bit against you. Compared to XCOM, where Overwatch is a fair tactic used by both sides. And actually the AI doesn't seem to employ Overwatch too much, and when they do there are visual and audio cues so you can avoid triggering it.

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Yeah, that is different. In VC it's time-based. If you stand there too long on your go, you can get killed. The AI, which moves with maxium efficency (to the point where it somehow often avoids triggering shots from my characters it should have), never suffers the same problem. So the game does weigh that a little bit against you. Compared to XCOM, where Overwatch is a fair tactic used by both sides. And actually the AI doesn't seem to employ Overwatch too much, and when they do there are visual and audio cues so you can avoid triggering it.

In VC you know everyone is on overwatch, so you make tactical decisions about running through line of sight and don't stand around. And you make tactical decisions about who to take into a crossfire situation. Rosie gets a skill that basically means she takes no damage most of the time from cross fire, so she's a good choice to clear out a few soldiers if you need to. Yes you have to be decisive about your movements, if you run without hesitation you can easily avoid getting hit by crossfire as long as the enemy's field of view isn't to wide. in normal difficulty you can get an A grade on every mission without anyone getting mortally injured so the game is not unfairly difficult in the least.

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In VC you know everyone is on overwatch, so you make tactical decisions about running through line of sight and don't stand around. And you make tactical decisions about who to take into a crossfire situation. Rosie gets a skill that basically means she takes no damage most of the time from cross fire, so she's a good choice to clear out a few soldiers if you need to. Yes you have to be decisive about your movements, if you run without hesitation you can easily avoid getting hit by crossfire as long as the enemy's field of view isn't to wide. in normal difficulty you can get an A grade on every mission without anyone getting mortally injured so the game is not unfairly difficult in the least.

Whether or not you think it's a good mechanic, your original point that it's the same mechanic is not correct.

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Unless it turns out to be amazing, I will wait for a Steam sale with this one. Rome 2 was the only game I pre-ordered, and I am not doing that again.

Same. I'll do the same. And did the same. It was one of the two only games I've pre-ordered.

The other one was Battlefield 4. Fuck my life. :bang:

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Note that wishlists and such aren't showing the sale prices -- click through to your games.



As usual, unless you feel strongly about playing right now, if something is on sale for the whole sale but not on a daily/flash deal, don't buy til the last day in case the price goes down further.


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Beyond Earth is the only stand-out deal. Watch_Dogs is 50% off, but the original price was price-gouging nonsense of the highest order anyway. I'd probably plump for it at £10 but no more, so will keep an eye on that. Everything else that I'm interested in at the minute is way too new - or way too Origin/Ubisoft - for it to be in this sale.


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So I downloaded the free xbox Destiny demo the other day. Figured I give it a shot before commiting to the real thing. After skimming through the last few VG threads I haven't seen much discussion about it since late September, so I'm curious to hear what everyone has to say about it now that its been out for a few months. Has it held anyone's interest? Has there been any new content or fixes that have changed or added to the exerience? Or is there any word about upcoming expansions or dlc?

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