The Video Games Thread

[Inigima]

But if it gets its own thread, maybe more people will see it and try it!

I like playing so many champions I'm not sure who to recommend. My original three favorites were Amumu, Malzahar and Akali, but I've branched out and haven't played those in a while. Lately I've played a lot of Kennen and Gragas, and I've just recently discovered the joys of Jax and dabbled in Morgana.

Assuming you don't want to splash out cash for champion packs or anything, my suggestion would be to just play the free ones each week and only buy the ones who really click with you after several games. Influence Points are free, but they're slow coming, so you want to make sure you're buying characters you really like with such a limited resource.

EDIT: Just had a great game as Jax with GD and a bunch of pubbies. Amazing the damage a well-coordinated team can do. Saw GD (Shen) pop in with a great ultimate to turn the tables on Shaco and allow Annie to finish killing their tower. Dove in to save people a few times, dodged-and-stunned, finished them off. And man, is it ever hard to run from Jax.

I find that my performance as Jax can be predicted by how easy it is for me to get to my Guinsoo's Rageblade. If I can get it quickly, the competition isn't too stiff, and it massively upgrades my havoc-wreaking potential.

[Onion Knight]

Does someone know if it's possible include both a retail-purchased Dragon Age Origins and a steam-purchased Awakenings in the same Bioware account(Thus uploading characters from DAO and such)?

[gyp casino]

I just beat Mass Effect. It was amazing, although I was disappointed that I couldn't go through and finish all my side quests after the game was over. Maybe I'll play through a second time with a female character.

[Poobah]

fem-Sheppard for life!

[Lightning Lord]

I've been playing Earthbound all week(end). Yup, the SNES game. It really pisses me off that I've never gotten any of the 1/128 drop items. I want Poo's sword, dammit! :tantrum:

*gets back in time machine for 1995*

[Ardamin]

Been playing a little King's Bounty: The Legend after I picked it up at the GOG weekend sale for $4.99. So far it's been great fun!

[dalThor]

I downloaded Fall from Heaven 2 and started playing it yesterday. I have no idea what any of the Civs or many of the buildings do, maybe I should read the manual?

[Fez]

I downloaded Fall from Heaven 2 and started playing it yesterday. I have no idea what any of the Civs or many of the buildings do, maybe I should read the manual?

Probably. It really is quite different from normal Civ4, and in addition to new civs, buildings, and units, there's whole new game mechanics like magic, summoning, world spells, unique units, etc.

An easy to Civ to start as would be the Calabim; the trick about them is that they have a bunch of unique buildings that let their cities grow very fast but unhealthy, but that's okay because all their vampire units can gain experience via an action called 'feasting' that takes away 1 pop. from the city they are in so you can very quickly gain a veteran army. A Calabim city should never be over size 10.

A general tip would be that Barbarians are much, much stronger so be prepared; and also once you're settled in and have a small empire going, start churning out the units, you will never have enough. You need a couple 50+ unit stacks in addition to whatever regular garrisons you have; which should probably be at least 10 units strong.

[dalThor]

A general tip would be that Barbarians are much, much stronger so be prepared; and also once you're settled in and have a small empire going, start churning out the units, you will never have enough. You need a couple 50+ unit stacks in addition to whatever regular garrisons you have; which should probably be at least 10 units strong.

Holy shit. In my wanderings I found a (very strong) hill giant and have been building up my garrisons in anticipation of nasty things.

I started with the Elohim (I don't remember the name) and am putzing along. I will read the maunal as I don't have a clue what any of the new units do. Thanks for the advice!

[Space Bandito]

Does someone know if it's possible include both a retail-purchased Dragon Age Origins and a steam-purchased Awakenings in the same Bioware account(Thus uploading characters from DAO and such)?

Not sure. I'd email Steam. I purchased Dragon Age (on sale) from the EA download site when it first came out. Other wise I usually buy everything from Steam. I have been waiting for a decent Awakenings sale. I also understand they are coming out with the final add on. $7 bucks or so.

In other news I will be getting the 4th Borderlands expansion for my PC on the 28th! I don't know why, but that game is so addicting.

[Fez]

Holy shit. In my wanderings I found a (very strong) hill giant and have been building up my garrisons in anticipation of nasty things.

I started with the Elohim (I don't remember the name) and am putzing along. I will read the maunal as I don't have a clue what any of the new units do. Thanks for the advice!

Yeah, once the computer reaches the limits of its natural expansion its shocking how many units it will start building; and with the newer patches at least its gotten very good at building mixed armies instead of spamming a single unit type. So you gotta be ready for when they inevitability declare war (unless you share the same religion and alignment, then you're probably okay).

However in some ways combat is like the Malazan books, just 2 or 3 properly upgraded arch-mage units (which admittedly it would take a long time to get) can wipe out a stack that large in one turn if it wasn't prepared.

I haven't played the Elohim much, but I think they're considered an average Civ. The developers tried to balance things, but since they all play so differently from each other, some Civs are much stronger than others. If you have too much trouble, like I said the Calabim are considered one of the easiest to play; as are both elf civs since when they build improvements the forests don't disappear.

[Jon AS]

Looks like Bioware managed to screw up the release of another DLC. And instead of at least removing the link to the file from their site, they allow you to download 1.5GB of trash as often as you want, just in case you don't check the forums and thus keep thinking it might be a corrupted download.:thumbsup:

[Onion Knight]

Not sure. I'd email Steam. I purchased Dragon Age (on sale) from the EA download site when it first came out. Other wise I usually buy everything from Steam. I have been waiting for a decent Awakenings sale. I also understand they are coming out with the final add on. $7 bucks or so.

In other news I will be getting the 4th Borderlands expansion for my PC on the 28th! I don't know why, but that game is so addicting.

Let's say Steam doesn't accept that, are there other digital versions that could be compitiable with the retail version(like the one that purchased through the EA store, for example)?

[Space Bandito]

Right now the prices are the same. Steam is just known for several things. Its sales and its friends lists. http://www.ea.com/games/dragon-age-origins-awakening

For example I brought Borderlands when it was only 10 bucks on Amazon during a Christmas sale. That is another game I cannot play with Steam friends. While that would not be a big problem for a single player game Steam is known also for great patches. Something Borderlands has been lacking on.

If you want to pay 29$ For Dragon Age Awakenings then you are fine, but I am in no hurry to play it. I prefer sales.

[Jon AS]

After Bioware managed to upload the correct file, I played through the Lair of the Shadowbroker DLC for ME2. That was a lot of fun and even offered some interesting insights into Shepards sqadmates, some of it quite touching, some hilarious. Who knew Grunt would be into Hemingway or that Legion is an avid MMORPG player?:lmao:

And it looks like they've got more stuff planned as the DLC directory is called "DLC_EXP_Part01". As long as they keep up this level of quality it'll be value for money.

[Werthead]

This game sounds brilliantly hilarious, although sadly for all the wrong reasons.

Let’s try mission 2 of the Greenpeace campaign, where you perform a raid on a ship that may or may not be carrying an illegal lumber shipment. Basically, it’s up to you to go over there and see if the other crew’s got wood.

Looks like the culture of "Release broken, patch later," isn't going away any time soon.

[Poobah]

Still totally not in to companies milking more money from already released titles via 'dlc'.

Also I particularly don't like that it seems that most of these companies use fucking ninja ways to disguise how much it costs. What the fuck is a bioware point other than some retarded currency that you need to buy if you want to buy their dlc? And of course you have to buy the points in bulk, so as well as disguising the actual cost of the things you are buying you end up spending more than you would have to anyway.

I added up the cost of all the current DLC for ME2, by the way. Excluding the obviously retarded alternate appearance pack.

-Shadow Broker: 800

-Firepower Pack: 160

-Aegis Pack: 160

-Equaliser Pack: 160

-Kasumi - Stolen Memory: 560

Totalling up to 2400 bioware points which by my calculations is something like £19. Roughly half the cost of ME2. You are telling me you get value for money on this stuff?

Edit to add. This is why I still love Egosoft while I've slowly come to despise every other developer. Since X3:Terran Conflict was released in late 2008 it has not only been continually patched to not just improve performance/remove bugs but the entire out of sector ship combat system has pretty much been rewritten to be more balanced (and they would have been perfectly within their rights to leave it as it was, it's been the same since X2 as far as I am aware) and added four entirely new plots. Not some 30 min mission using pre-existing game doodads and resources. Entirely new plots with entirely new content. Well technically it's at 3 for the moment, but I have the beta of 3.0 with the new Balance of Power plot, coming soon yo.

[Max the Mostly Mediocre]

It's like Poobah's never heard of valve or something.

[Poobah]

I don't have any issues with Valve, Max. But I'm not a fanboy of theirs either. Though I did nearly buy a companion cube plushie.

[Durckad]

Yeah, Bioware's really screwed the pooch when it comes to DLC. I never imagined that a company that is (usually) really good, could get it sooo wrong.

Bethesda also had a bunch of broken DLC issues with FO3, though I never encountered any as I didn't play 'em till way after the release. I had enough glitches and problems with the main game itself.