Video Games and Beyond...

[Shryke]

I disagree. They are, all three highly story driven fps or at least ps's. Go here, find out more about this and kill the bad guys. FNV and DE have more narrative freedom then Riddick but they are still too similair for me to go from one to the other for a change.

What games AREN'T story driven these days?

One's an FPS, ones an FPS/RPG hybrid, ones an RPG.

[Muttering Bill]

Something strange happened yesterday. I went to GameStop to trade in a few games, and they forgot to rip me off. :dunno: I traded in 7 old games, wasn't expecting much, maybe $30-$40 for the lot. They gave me $90. :shocked: They appear to be running a promotion that got me an extra $5 per game, on top of a base trade value that was higher than expected.

So I took my mini-fortune and got Lollipop Chainsaw. Yay! So far it's awesome. It's just endless zombie killing, with a decent combat system and a funny script. It's very Buffy-esque in it's approach. The game revels in it own cheese, although the humor is far cruder. I've especially enjoyed Nick's running commentary. Lots of fun little mini games to break things up. And I'm in unlockable heaven: upgrades, moves, music, concept art, and outfits. Oh, the outfits. 20 on disc (with more likely to come by DLC). They must know that's my weakness.

On the downside, the game is short. I knew it would be beforehand, so I'm not bothered by it. But just in case anyone else is interested, story mode is about 5 hours long. I've played for around 2 hours and have cleared the first 3 (out of 7) levels.

[ICE CROW]

So i grabbed

yesterday and i am loving it, it still isn't perfect though. Rebellion is really just a polished expansion that incorporates everything from the original game 4 years ago and it's 2 previous expansion packs. It adds some new units and factions and the graphics got a decent bump, but the game looked really good 4 years ago so it didn't improve much there but it looks really nice. The only real problem i have with this game is there is no single player story campaign, it was the same in the original and i would love to play a good campaign with this game. Everything else still works as it always did which is nice a few new features but nothing really worth mentioning, but the biggest thing for me in this game is GUI i think it is the best i have ever used in an RTS. The tech tree and researching are easy to see and utilize and doesn't take very long to understand how things work. It's a gam that you can pick up pretty quick but takes a long time to master. If large massive space battles are what you love, this is the game to play.

[ICE CROW]

It looks like EA and Bioware will be turning The Old Republic free to play soon.

http://ca.ign.com/articles/2012/06/15/bioware-looking-at-free-to-play-for-the-old-republic

Can't say im surprised to be honest, now at least if and when they do this i will finally give it a go. I love the Knights of the Old Republic games but i have never been a fan of MMO's, free to play though i will definitely play it.

[Rhom]

It looks like EA and Bioware will be turning The Old Republic free to play soon.

http://ca.ign.com/articles/2012/06/15/bioware-looking-at-free-to-play-for-the-old-republic

Can't say im surprised to be honest, now at least if and when they do this i will finally give it a go. I love the Knights of the Old Republic games but i have never been a fan of MMO's, free to play though i will definitely play it.

Alas TOR... we knew thee well.

Can't say as I'm surprised. The numbers on their subscribers have been dropping significantly. I haven't seen the numbers, but I could see it in game over the months. You might as well be playing solo for all the interaction you have with other players in that game now.

[Jon AS]

Alas TOR... we knew thee well.

It's my understanding that F2P games can actually be quite profitable. Surely the Star Wars MMO dropping the subscription model will get a lot of people's attention.

Of course, TOR had huge amounts of montey sunk into during development alone, so it might be a while before EA gets a real return on its investment.

[Shryke]

F2P is quite the profitable business model for MMOs that aren't WoW.

Can't say I'm surprised though. You can't out-WoW WoW, even with the Star Wars license.

[Ferrum Aeternum]

I'm glad to see this move for TOR, and I agree it could (maybe, eventually) even turn a profit by switching to F2P.

I cancelled my sub last month, but I'd come back to play for free.

[Rhom]

I'm glad to see this move for TOR, and I agree it could (maybe, eventually) even turn a profit by switching to F2P.

I cancelled my sub last month, but I'd come back to play for free.

My sub renewed at three months last month before I realized it... so I have a couple more months to go. Its been so long since I logged in, I got an email from EA last week that says "Aric Jorgan misses you." (Trooper companion.)

They opened up select server transfers last week, but what they really need to do is consolidate servers. They implemented so many at launch to handle the initial rush that most are now ghost towns.

[Cuellar]

As a complete asside, are there any decent RPGs or old school ports to the ipad? I would have killed for civilization, star control, or one of the sierra games. I did download a bunch of crap like like mass effect, infinity blade, and rebuild (zombie sim city style game). So far only ME and rebuild have kept me entertained for more than an hour, and Infinity blade is somewhat boring as fuck. Plus a lot of games are hard to control on it.

Not suprised about SWTOR, I liked the game a lot, but didn't have time to play it. I'd assume at some point the business model will swing back towards single player games with multiplayer ability (like diablo 3 and guildwars).

[Shryke]

Nah, the markets swinging towards more online stuff. Just without a sub fee.

[Jon AS]

Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition will have an iPad port. It's due out sometime this summer.

[Rhom]

Depends on what you like for iOS. If you like old school RPGs, I really liked Dragon Fantasy. It's a completely original game created in 8 bit style. The first three Final Fantasy games and FF Tactics also have good ports.

SimCity 2000 also has a port, but I found it tough to play with the touch screen.

I didn't know about ME, I will look into it.

[ICE CROW]

As a complete asside, are there any decent RPGs or old school ports to the ipad? I would have killed for civilization, star control, or one of the sierra games. I did download a bunch of crap like like mass effect, infinity blade, and rebuild (zombie sim city style game). So far only ME and rebuild have kept me entertained for more than an hour, and Infinity blade is somewhat boring as fuck. Plus a lot of games are hard to control on it.

WOW i have not thought about Star Control in years, i wasted more hours than i can think of playing melee in that with my brother.

[Sci-2]

Star Control II remains one of the greatest games ever created.

[The Anti-Targ]

So I just got done playing Mass Effect on PC. I've played ME2 and 3 on PS3 already but my brother had ME for PC so I thought I'd borrow it and give it a crack, see what I've been missing.

The best thing about it: miniscule load times. Damn but load times on PS3 for non-optimised games are ridiculous. Unfortunately I'm so addicted to trophies that I'll always chose PS3 version of a game over PC despite stupidly long load times.

Curse Bioware for removing NPC armour customisation and eliminating so many of the other RPG elements that are almost completely missing in ME2 and 3.

Story-wise I think I prefer ME2 out of all 3, but it was good to get the full story through playing ME rather than only the fraction that the interactive backstory provides. Question: what happens if you manage to scan all the Keepers? I was planning to finish doing that, but didn't realise Ilos is the beginning of the end of the game, so I never got the chance. I don't agree with those who think ME is a bit of a dog in comparison to ME2. It's not as good, but it still compares favourably, and in some aspects it's better.

Another question: If Mass Effect was ever made into a movie would you want a male Shepard or female Shepard, and who would you want to be the love interest for Shep? Personally I think the love interest should be the person who dies, that way Shep would get a new love interest in the sequel. And really, Mass Effect stacks up, story-wise as pretty good in comparison to the sci-fi movie genre.

People keep saying KB+M > controllers. But to me I liked using the PS3 controller for ME2 and 3 more than KB+M for ME. I was tempted to go out and buy me a 360 controller to use for ME, but decided that the likelihood of me needing to use it again is pretty low. Although, I do prefer the KB+M control scheme for the pause and play type RPGs like Dragon Age. Definitely for that series KB+M is better. And of course for RTS games KB+M all the way. SO I guess for me at least it depends on the game. It is a bit disappointing that a series like Dragon age can't use KB+M on PS3, given you can use KB+M on PS3. Again for DA, trophy addiction wins and I'll be getting DA 3 on PS3. And yes I did like DA 2 quite a bit.

So now that I'm Biowared out for the time being I need to get through an evil play through of inFamous 2 and do my traditional run at platinuming Uncharted 3.

[Jon AS]

Curse Bioware for removing NPC armour customisation and eliminating so many of the other RPG elements that are almost completely missing in ME2 and 3.

I think pretty much all of the stuff they took out between 1 and 2 was superfluous (anybody who claims to enjoy the inventory management is either lying or deranged), they should have just given the squadmates sensible outfits. Having Miranda walk around in a painted-on catsuit with just a small oxygen mask in an area without atmosphere was stupid. Not to mention those high heeled shoes...

Question: what happens if you manage to scan all the Keepers?

You get an email from the questgiver in ME2, in which he expresses concerns about the Keepers possibly having a sinister purpose...

People keep saying KB+M > controllers. But to me I liked using the PS3 controller for ME2 and 3 more than KB+M for ME. I was tempted to go out and buy me a 360 controller to use for ME, but decided that the likelihood of me needing to use it again is pretty low. Although, I do prefer the KB+M control scheme for the pause and play type RPGs like Dragon Age. Definitely for that series KB+M is better. And of course for RTS games KB+M all the way. SO I guess for me at least it depends on the game. It is a bit disappointing that a series like Dragon age can't use KB+M on PS3, given you can use KB+M on PS3. Again for DA, trophy addiction wins and I'll be getting DA 3 on PS3. And yes I did like DA 2 quite a bit.

There is no contest, mouse and keyboard beats a controller every time. The problem with Mass Effect is that ME1 has by far the clunkiest controls and combat mechanics. There were massive improvements from game to game.

IIRC ME1 also does not support anything but a mouse+keyboard control scheme, so it's a good thing you didn't buy a controller.;)

[kungtotte]

Due to the inherent inaccuracy of weapons in the Mass Effect games, the type of controls you use doesn't matter as much as it normally would.

My aim is a lot better than the level of accuracy I can achieve in ME.

[Jon AS]

There are plenty of highly accurate weapons in ME2 and 3. My aim is actually improving (again?) through all the ME3 multiplayer I've been playing.

[ICE CROW]

Whats messed up about The Old Republic going free to play probably in the near future is i was about to buy it, Amazon.com has it right now at $19.99 now im in Canada so about 12 bucks for shipping and border fees. I was literally about 1 click away from ordering when i found that article the other day, i thought i would post the link from Amazon though in case someone didn't wanna wait till it goes F2P.