The Video Games Thread

[Inigima]

Yeah, roguelikes are an acquired taste but good ones can be a blast. You really have to know what you're getting into before you start to avoid frustration though.

I found it easier to kill the clones just there would be fewer shooting at me. It's not necessary, but I came through it taking very little damage.

Wait, if I kill them they don't come back? I assumed she'd just make new ones. This changes everything.

There isn't really any single best weapon. It's just a matter of picking the best from what you have the stats to equip and upgrading accordingly. Any weapon will be good once you get it +5 Moon or Dark.

And you should concentrate on more than just one weapon, since different enemies need different types of damage. If you're going to do a lot of melee, then you'll want good blunt (for world 4), piercing (for world 2) and slashing weapons (for everything else). And a good bow.

Hm okay. Moon or Dark would take the place of Sharp, right? I don't need to upgrade with both Moonlight and Sharpstones and so forth?

And here are my rec's for some games to check out. You have a 360, right? So I’ll just list up exclusives. Here goes, alphabetically:

Perfect, thanks a ton. This list is perfect, because yeah, I was talking about exclusives.

[Tyrellius]

Would be interested to hear other game recommendations (preferably reasons, not just a list) and to know who else is on PSN. My PSN ID is inigima.

I'm Tyrellius999 or some variation, I'll try add you later on.

Demon Souls is only coming out here in a couple of weeks or so and I'm def gonna be getting it.

Only other newer games I have are Red Dead Redemption and God of War 3, both I am dug a lot. Nothing beats free roaming in multiplayer and sniping some cowboys head off and finishing his quest.

God Of War 3 was good gun and the first 2 episodes recently go re-released for PS3, I might pick them up since its only a score for the pair.

[Slurktan]

Who else is excited about RB3? I'm loving that I can finally learn some real songs on a real guitar.

Check out the video for pro mode with the real guitar.

I'm excited for it, for the guitar but just as importantly for the "pro" drum mode. I only wonder if in the pro mode the disco high hat beats will be changed to the yellow cymbal as opposed to the red pad as they are placed now.

I think I'm taking too much pleasure in executing certain heroes in my RoTK 11 game my diplomatic relations with Wei at the moment is rock bottom from a combination of hiring some of their officers who I had captured and mashing execute with joy for Xiahou Dun (Taking half their cities probably isn't helping either)

I love ROTK 11 but just wish there was more scenarios. I can't play the Heroes one because it annoys me that the AI has no idea how to control Sun Jian out of Chai Sang and so Liu Bei dominates the AI's every single time.

Inigima,

Can't really add too many exclusive recommendations off hand except MLB 10 the Show. I know you said you don't need rec's on that but "the Show" games are so much better than any other baseball games out there. Also for PSN games Joe Danger and Pain are also fun. My PSN name is Slurktan although I don't really play much online except Rock Band.

[Inigima]

Woo, beat the Fool's Idol. It turns out the copies take minimal magic damage -- at least, from Flame Toss, which is all I tried as the boss takes more damage from that than from Soul Arrow. I wasn't willing to risk running up and meleeing them, so I did the same thing I always did, except I wore the Cling Ring instead of the Thief's Ring as the Thief's does basically nothing for me on a boss fight. I also got real paranoid about healing myself to full, and probably used more Grass than I should have, but I made it through. Man, the ending cinematic of 3-1 is weird.

Upgraded some souls, bought Soul Ray and replaced Soul Arrow with it. Did a quick run through 2-1 to see about upgrading one of my weapons to a Moon one, but apparently I forgot where the blacksmith there is, so I just went to the end and warped out again. Got almost enough souls to buy the Enchant Weapon spell, which I'm thinking about doing. I'm in body form, though, so I'm really paranoid. I've been routinely suiciding in the Nexus to avoid worrying about Black Phantoms or hurting my world tendency, but with all these souls I haven't yet.

[jurble]

Now, I may just be a sucker for Westerns, but god damn, Red Dead Redemption is a good game.

[Weak With The Dawn]

Now, I may just be a sucker for Westerns, but god damn, Red Dead Redemption is a good game.

Yes, yes it is.

Pretty excited about the new Golden Sun, new Zelda and the new Dragonquest (which looks like the old school ones, yes!! ).

At the moment I'm rediscovering my love for Fire Emblem.

[Darkostar]

Which Fire Emblem?

[Weak With The Dawn]

Which Fire Emblem?

Shadow Dragon on the DS. Currently trying to get my hands on the Game Boy Advance ones as well.

[Guy Kilmore]

After watching the latest episode of Justified and playing some more Red Dead Redemption, the creators of both series need to get together and create "The Adventures of Boyd Crowder, Repentent Neo-Nazi, Religious Fantantic, and Vilgante"

[Muttering Bill]

Hm okay. Moon or Dark would take the place of Sharp, right? I don't need to upgrade with both Moonlight and Sharpstones and so forth?

Yeah, I have a Dex. character so I use Sharp and Tearing (suckerstone). Moon and Dark upgrade paths will increase the stat bonus from you magic level.

Woo, beat the Fool's Idol. It turns out the copies take minimal magic damage -- at least, from Flame Toss, which is all I tried as the boss takes more damage from that than from Soul Arrow. I wasn't willing to risk running up and meleeing them, so I did the same thing I always did, except I wore the Cling Ring instead of the Thief's Ring as the Thief's does basically nothing for me on a boss fight. I also got real paranoid about healing myself to full, and probably used more Grass than I should have, but I made it through. Man, the ending cinematic of 3-1 is weird.

The Thief's Ring is good against Old Hero and, to a lesser extent, Maneater. But not really necessary for them. And otherwise, as you said, kind of useless against bosses.

Upgraded some souls, bought Soul Ray and replaced Soul Arrow with it. Did a quick run through 2-1 to see about upgrading one of my weapons to a Moon one, but apparently I forgot where the blacksmith there is, so I just went to the end and warped out again. Got almost enough souls to buy the Enchant Weapon spell, which I'm thinking about doing. I'm in body form, though, so I'm really paranoid. I've been routinely suiciding in the Nexus to avoid worrying about Black Phantoms or hurting my world tendency, but with all these souls I haven't yet.

You can find Blacksmith Ed at the begining of 2-1. Come up the stairs and head straight to where the vendor is sitting. Go into the doorway to the room behind him (? her?). If you activated the lift, then you can ride it down to see Ed. If not... You can try jumping down. Not sure if you'll survive it though - I can now, but I my character's been leveled quite a bit. Otherwise you'll have to search for the other entrance; I don't remember the way. I found him accidentally. Stabbed him in the back too. He was kind of pissed, but I didn't kill him or turn him permanently hostile, so it was alright.

[Darkostar]

Shadow Dragon on the DS. Currently trying to get my hands on the Game Boy Advance ones as well.

Shadow Dragon's lack of a support system bothered me a lot, although Reclassing was handy.

[Daeric]

RoTK 11s AI needs a real good kicking in the head. My empire has gotten to the stage where my populace decided they wanted me as Emperor, this was basically when I controlled about 2/3s of the map, so I had a splinter force rolling of the 3 AIs left and the weaker of the other 2 decides to try to go toe to toe with my main force. Needless to say all it meant was I was able to push into his main base quicker.

Hell its bloody hard to get them to surrender even when they are down to one city and your marching on that.

[Inigima]

Fuck me, 4-1 of Demon's Souls is rough. Slip up and those guys will dice you faster than you can blink. So far I've identified the following options, all of which involve careful blocking and rolling, and all of which mean if I pull more than one at a time by mistake I'm fucked:

1. Use magic. This works great, but runs me out of magic quick as Soul Ray is expensive.

2. Use a blunt weapon. This works, but the only blunt weapon I have that I have the stats to use as a royal is the Iron Knuckles, and it takes a bit to kill them, allowing more chances for me to slip up.

3. Enchant and use a regular weapon. This works too, but involves swapping between a shield and a spare catalyst to enchant my weapon, and isn't as magic-cheap as you might think. You also can't know when your enchantment is going to expire, and you can't "renew" an enchantment, and reenchanting your weapon while fighting one of those things is asking to be murdered, so you sometimes find yourself waiting between pulls for it to wear off so you can re-cast it, or swapping to strategy #1.

The flying things can also fuck you up if you don't notice one is there. I did manage to kill the katana guy and get the Adjudicator's Shield, which I can't currently use for stats reasons; he wasn't anywhere near as hard as I thought he'd be, given the red eyes (the red eye knight in 1-1 is much worse). What I gather was Vanguard was laughably easy; I simply stood just inside targeting range and cast Soul Ray until he died. He never moved. His soul appears to be used for a weapon I don't care about. Haven't yet figured out where to go after the katana skeleton, I figure next move is deliberately triggering one of those traps to see what it does.

Lots of people seem to suggest that Fragrant Ring will keep me in mana more or less constantly, but for me it regens really slowly even with the ring equipped. Wonder if I'm missing something.

[Inigima]

Picked up Uncharted (the first one) and what I gather is the newest Ratchet and Clank (never played any of them). Only played Uncharted so far, it is fucking awesome. Can I really be almost a third through it after two hours though?

[sckma]

^more like a fifth. it took me like 12 or so hours to finish. and yes uncharted is quite awesome! 2 is better, which is hard to believe i know.

[Weak With The Dawn]

Shadow Dragon's lack of a support system bothered me a lot, although Reclassing was handy.

Yeah, it's not my favorite so far, but there's a charm to the series that, no matter the faults, I'm pretty dedicated to it. I like the reclassing, but I almost feel that it's...to easy I guess.

[Darkostar]

Yeah, especially if you reclass Wolf or Sedgar.

[WrightOfWay]

Been playing Alpha Protocol. It certainly has it's issues but the story does a wonderful job of branching. So much that I immediately replayed the game two more times to see the various changes.

Also, Steven Heck is awesome. Chris Avellone has finally surpassed himself by writing a better comic character than Morte.

[Rimmer]

Just ordered Super Mario Galaxy 2 after finally finishing the first one at 7am this morning. I love the almost non-stop action compared to the last two Mario games, and I hear they've taken out the hub world and gone to old-school SMB3-style maps, which is even better.

[Inigima]

I occasionally troll through the indie games section on Steam to see if I can find any hidden cheap gems. Picked up two games I'd like to recommend, $5 apiece:

• Eversion - I don't want to say too much about this for fear of ruining the experience. It starts off almost exactly like Mario. It quickly becomes... not like Mario.
  
  
• Toki Tori - Adorable puzzle game where you collect eggs while navigating hazards using a limited item supply. Reminds me a little of Lost Vikings, only one playable character though. Pretty large amount of content for $5, very polished.

Really enjoyed Eversion; took about 20 minutes to run through at first, but the "real" finish, which involves collecting all the gems, took about two hours. Toki Tori is longer-lived and also very good.