The "What Are You Playing Today" Thread

[Kt3]

I've been playing Malik, a little bit of Hubert, and Richard.  Asbel when I haaaaave to.

My friend loves to play Pascal.  Just loooves to play Pascal.  He says the AI does a terrible job at handling her.

(The plot in Graces?  Yeah.  I've been wanting to refer to it as 'Tales of Graces: Friendship is Magic' for a while now.)

[Brian]

Pascal is the best character so far (IMO).  On account of being cheerful and really helping turn the mood around when she was introed.

As I joked to Drac, "We gotta get Cheria all the 'bench' perks; Pascal should never need them."

I thought Richard handled pretty well.

[VySaika]

Pascal is the most balancedest, yes. Trying to molest the group loli is a pretty hilarious way to be intro'd.

Once I eventually get Richard back I'll be giving him a try. Hubert...I dunno. i like his moves, but the AI does a much better job of staying alive as him then I do. Pascal I...admit, I just don't have the patience to control a mage, or a long ranged char. I prefer to be in melee whenever possible. Malik I only control becuase his A artes are a bit easier for me then Pascal's, and I love using his secret MA, which the AI never will. A MAN SPEAKS WITH HIS BACK!

[Iron Dragoon]

So, my bro picked up this little Steam game titled called 'The Legend of Grimrock.' It advertises itself as a throwback to the days of dungeon crawling grid movement and grid paper maps.

And boy, so far, that's exactly what it is.

However, it does have modern updates. There is an option for an in-game map (because, let's face it, as awesome as it is *remembering* the old school maps, doing it again is not as much fun as your memory tells you it is), the controls are as basic as Ravenloft, you start with no gear at all, and you get no instructions what-so-ever. The graphics, though still kind of old school, look, so far, great. They're nothing amazing like Crysis level, but for this type of throwback, they're great.

Basically, your party are four criminals you generate from four races (Human, Minotaur, Lizardmen, Insectoids) and three classes (Fighter, Mage, Rogue). You've been granted pardon by your King, but the catch is, you are released at the top spire of Mt. Grimrock, a legendary mountain no one has ever made it down from.

King's a dick, apparently.

All the old school trapfinding and puzzle solving? It's all there. No hints. No help file. Nothing. Just you, your four dudes, and a whole lotta dungeon crawling.

It's a $15 game on Steam, but it's $13.50 until April 18th. http://store.steampowered.com/app/207170/

[Jon]

It's also $13.49 on GoG, which includes such bonuses as no DRM and some artwork.

[Jason_Miao]

Speaking of old school dungeon-mapping games, I've been playing Might and Magic 2.

The game itself is a (what is now) almost-standard fantasy RPG, with random puzzles and trivia scattered across large grid-maps.  What makes it interesting (and what you won't see in most RPGs these days, except maybe the Elder Scrolls alchemy mechanic) is rule mechanic abuse baked into the system.  While it's not necessary to win the game, the fun is in exploration to find (1) ridiculously overpowered monsters unnecessary to the plot (2) ridiculously overpowered bonuses unnecessary to the plot that let you kill the ridiculously overpowered monsters unnecessary to the plot, to obtain (3) ridiculously overpowered treasure which almost constitutes a win the game button.  Speaking of winning the game, one major quest item is unobtainable unless you abuse the game mechanics - and yes, it's designed that way.

On the flip side, since it is an old school RPG, it's not above sudden and unexpected fuckery.  My two "favorites" are the monsters and areas that will, completely without warning, vaporize all of your gold, and phase spirits which can appear in an army of 250, are immune to physical attacks, and which will drain your magic as their initial attack.  These are all relatively rare, but the juxtaposition of thinking "I am invincible" before horrible and humiliating death as intentionally designed experience is usually only found in the classic roguelikes (or, hell, Rogue itself).  But Might and Magic 2 manages to pull it off without being obnoxiously broken about it - and you can save the game, so there's less incoherent screaming than you'd have from dyin^H^H^H^Hplaying Angband and the like.

[Dracos]

So.

Mass Effect 3.

Just delivered the least satisifying boss fight I think I might've ever encountered.  A fight that hands down was being trivially won.

Before a Cinematic has the boss hand us all our asses, walk in, take our prize, and then fly off unopposed.

And then he writes you an email, taunting you for clearly not being good enough and him being better.

Seriously, Bioware?  You couldn't have the whole thing just be a cutscene?  You had to have a battle with him barely ever managing to move from my allies array of lockdowns combined with constant headshots that instantly were ending each phase of the battle and then have him declare victory?

Fuck you guys.  That's more annoying than the mage boss who backstabbed you (twice) in the end fights of DA2.  Man, I'm startin' to thing the right way to play ME3 is to stop midway.  Railroading but something fierce.

Also, the main character proceeds to mope about it and everyone comments on you suddenly being a stressed out bitch.  Really?

[Kt3]

But Dracos, don't you see?  It's really a deep and clever metaphor for PTSD (that's Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder for everyone, as they obviously do not know what it is) and it's melded seemlessly into the plot to create a compelling end to a trilogy!

It's not like it's a complete railroad that ignores the choices you make.
</sarcasm>

[Jon]

Man, if you thought that fight was bullshit, you're really gonna love the ending.

[Brian]

Bah.  I fail it; split the topic a few posts too late.

Oh well.



I played Shoot Many Robots, which is a 4p co-op 2.5D side-scroller.  The plot is as deep as it sounds; the gameplay, slightly deeper.  Surprisingly fun, and handles a lot of the 'co-op' ideals better than (say) Rachet and Clank All-4-One.  That is to say, provide cooportunities, not coopetition.

[Kt3]

Finally got the chance to play a little bit of Orcs Must Die!.

In comparison and in contrast to Dungeon Defenders... I can stand Orcs Must Die a heck of a lot more.  It's not a "tower defense" per se, but it ends up being more of a trapfest fiesta slaughter as you gleefully headshot the stragglers, because your traps are definitely not enough to kill everyone.  And I think it's better because of it.

It's also definitely not anywhere near as "grindy" as Dungeon Defenders feels.  The levels are short enough, to the point, and doesn't feel like it takes forever like a number of the Dungeon Defender levels.  Honestly, the RPG system in Dungeon Defenders felt tacked on, and it really makes it feel awkward and makes the pauses inbetween waves stretch on forever as you go scavenge up items, manage your mana or whatever, and do all of that.

Orcs Must Die! also looks about 1 million times more polished than Dungeon Defenders.  (Might be a slight exaggeration.)

I just wish the guy wasn't so flamboyantly cocky, it's almost annoying despite him being an obvious satire.

[Brian]

I thought that Orcs Must Die! would be truly awesome if it had a co-op mode.

[Dracos]

So, got a PS3 again.  Whee.

I beat Mass Effect 3.  The ending is as terrible as suggested by everyone.  I highly suggest stopping the game after the 2nd major arc.  There's even a cutscene finisher there and a dramatic hope for the galaxy  type thing that goes on.  It's simply a superior finish point and the writing doesn't even start unraveling there.

I have been playing Trolls of Graces F.  Beat the Arena, though I can't solo the end guy for the master arena yet.  151k hp, a little much.  I think difficulty levels matter for the arena, but am not entirely sure?  either way I turned it back to easy and slaughtered through.  Co-op has been fun, but the game is simply poorly built for it (Waaay too many out of battle/menu mechanics of significant depth).  Titles have become mostly irrelevant to gain skill for as playing almost constantly on Evil creates ridiculous skill ups.  Looking ahead, it seems it will get only 1 playthrough as the grade shop looks super shitty.

I restarted FFXIII-2, I kinda already miss my army of monsters.

[Jason_Miao]

Been playing Might and Magic III.

Different than II in that party order is not as important.  The exploits I've discovered so far (which I haven't found repeated by casual google search) include 0-time strength/poison resistance grinding with no cap, and a reusable well which was probably supposed to add +50HP for any party member who was not over max HP, but instead adds +50HP if any party member is not over maxHP.

Things that were actually supposed to be part of the game include archery that actually works as a long distance attack (in 1991!  Why couldn't JRPGs have figured this out?) and lairs that you could hunt down to eliminate wandering monsters (the player had the choice between grinding and stopping pointlessly stupid random encounters in 1991!  Why don't most RPGs today do this?).

[Brian]

I just finished Dear Esther.  I guess it takes a little over an hour?  It was ... different.

I thought I understood it, so I checked the wiki to confirm (or figure out if I missed anything), and it turns out that what story is delivered to you is semi-randomized, so....  It was alright, I guess?  I think it might have been improved with a faster walk speed.  The surroundings are relatively pretty, but frequently not detailed enough to warrant the time you spend with them.

If it's on sale again on Steam, probably worth picking up for the novelty, but I can't really be sure it's good.  The theme is about unhappiness, so ... yeah.  I don't know, mileage will really vary.