The "What Are You Playing Today" Thread

[Grahf]

Just started the original Prototype, for some reason I find the way the dodge is implemented to be strange. Also the camera is very jerky. It seems quite solid though.

[Brian]

Devil Survivor for the DS.

This is one of the worst games I have ever played.  It presents itself as a strategical combat game, and there's actually an interesting storyline behind it.  Unfortunately, that storyline is hidden behind an RNG-based combat design that means that any amount of power-leveling (which is subject to diminishing returns, and so not very effective anyway) means nothing in the face of an enemy that just gets lucky and has the status ailments for their spells proc.

Effectively, in about the middle of the game, it becomes blindingly apparent that the game was never actually balanced around your power, but the power you're supposed to have by playing on New Game Plus.  Specifically, the map pits you against an enemy that is invulnerable to all attacks.  The hero character has an item that will do about 1/8th the enemy's health in damage, and no one else on your team can do anything to that particular enemy whatsoever.

Before undertaking the battle, I spent the better part of a week of real time power-leveling my characters to the best of my abilities, because I was tired of enemies getting lucky and destroying my party, and foolishly believed that having more levels would save me from the hopelessly random nature of the battles.

Alas.

I 'strategically' cleared all of his allies from the map and then began the very tedious task of trying to kill him, running my healers out of mana by the time I actually reached him.  It's probably important to note that he has an attack that will actually hit every member of your party on the map simultaneously -- and heal him.  Incidentally, that healing offsets 90% of the damage you can do in a full round of the hero attacking him.  So, this fight was going very poorly in the first place, but I had hope.  Hey, I could get lucky, too, right?

But, no, as soon as you attack him, he summons allies -- the same number that he had when the map began.  Those allies then proceeded to in a single one of their turns, get 'lucky', destroy two of my parties from full health (with ranged attacks that I couldn't counter), heal all of the damage I'd done in the three rounds it took them to get to him, and then getting 'lucky' again, hit the hero with a status ailment that locks him down (stone, which also gives a high percentage chance of any physical hit instantly killing the stoned character).

Did I mention that when the hero dies, even if you've got ressurect spells, it's instant game-over?  Because it is.

So, in one round, I went from full health and having the enemy boss to 60% health, to having one party capable of acting, at all, and no mana to actually heal anyone with.  Then it was the boss's turn.  "Hey," I thought.  "I could get lucky.  He might miss, and the ailment might wear off before I lose too many rounds.  Maybe I'll get a few crits in, or something."

This is where I discovered that this particular boss has an attack that instantly kills anyone with a status ailment.


I threw the cartridge in the trash.  Random elements that can throw out any pretense of 'strategy' and also make any amount of power-leveling you are capable of the first playthrough of the game so utterly irrelevant are not good design, especially when a given battle has a minimum playtime of ten to twenty minutes.

I cannot encourage people to avoid this pile of crap enough.  It is not worth your money -- I don't believe I could be paid enough to play it again.

[Squibidyflop]

The Perpetual Testing Initiative has coaxed me back into Portal 2 for the moment. The quality of the maps obviously varies wildly, but most seem to suffer only from insufficient playtesting (i.e. confusing deaths, unclear routes). When you consider what Valve is able to throw at the game to get it to that level, I'm amazed by what a single person is able to do. Props to Valve for making the actual design interface so easy to use as well.

Persona 3 Portable has enraptured me for the past week. Many complain about the 'dating sim' aspects, but it doesn't put me off at all. The game was redesigned with a VN-style interface outside of the dungeons due to the PSP's limitations, but I find myself preferring it here to in actual VNs. In my opinion, the format lends itself extremely well to the PSP, and I'd like to see more of this in future handheld titles. I almost find myself avoiding the actual 'gameplay' segments in favor of advancing the story.

[Brian]

I picked up the latest Humble Bundle so am working my way through that.  Also finished my Fallout3 playthrough, and am working my way through Fallout: New Vegas.

Some irritating bugs aside (one of which required a restart of the game, since I had hit separate issues making three companion quests impossible to finish), the game is actually awesome.  If it had gotten more bug fixes, I'd say it's an all-time favorite.  Well, it's that anyway, I just can't really suggest it to other people because of said bugs. >_>;


Anyway, from the Humble Bundle, working my way through LIMBO.  One of those tedious and lackluster games that has a single saving grace:

"It's artistic."  Okay, I get it, the entire game is 2d and black-and-white with silhouettes.

That is all it has to make it different from any other platformer (note that the LIMBO dude is the one next to Tim, from Braid).  There's no original or genuinely innovative puzzles, but the 'artistic' style does add a false level of difficulty, insofar as you'll frequently need to retry a timing or memorization-based-difficulty puzzle dozens of times before figuring it out.

I don't think I've ever had to consult a FAQ this much to figure things out because the levers and buttons I've been working with manipulate stuff that's off-screen, or invisible because it's a black object on a background of the same color.  While I know this game's gotten a lot of praise, my takeaway is, "Interesting art style," followed by, "Wow, this is tedious."

Forest level, swamp level, industrial level.  Water physics puzzle, navigation-puzzle made more difficult by a swinging light (yes, they did that), gravity manipulation puzzle....  Every so often some element of the artwork makes me raise an eyebrow and think, "That's kind of neat...."  Before I die on it 15-20 times and it becomes very old.

I'm all for it because of the bundle, but generally, beyond that ... not a good game.  Too busy being 'artistic'.

Edit: Oh, wow, the ending is terrible, too. -_-

[Brian]

I experienced a setback in Fallout: New Vegas of getting three of my follower quests either bugged or 'impossible to complete' on account of doing something before the NPC asked me to (getting the plant data from Vault 22 before Veronica wanted it, Laugherty not spawning the evidence for Cassidy, and wiping out Nelson before recruiting Boone).  I'm now replaying, only as a testament to my irritation, cheating like a bastard.  (Strong Back and the perk that makes items below 2 weight have only half the count right off the bat is a game changer.)

When I finish Old World Blues, I will have gotten all of my SPECIAL stats up to 10 (I left room to buy all implants, despite my rampant cheating).

Game plays ... awfully fun this way!  Also, understanding how faction armor works and that you usually want to avoid it (unless you're infiltrating) helps a lot -- get my reputation boons much faster.  Reinforced leather armor is light, but remarkably durable; I'll actually be going with the Stealth Suit MKII from OWB as my main armor, since with Toughness and the damage resistance implant, well, you won't need better until you can wear power armor.  Hell, this may be the first Fallout I don't bother with power armor at the rate things are going ... having strength 10 (+1 implant, +2 OWB augmentation) kind of means I'd just be taking an agility hit....  Gotta think about that.


Other than that, I spotted Saints Row: Third on sale for 66% off so grabbed it (16.99ish).  Very worthwhile.  While it's very violent, and more realistic looking than Shank, it's also somehow so over-the-top (yes, compared to Shank!) that it feels more cartoonish than, well, a cartoon.  Strange, but I'm okay with that.

Especially when it comes to Professor Genki's Super Ethical Reality Climax.  Or them just giving you a tank.  Or....  Man, that game is fun! :P

[Dracos]

Been playing Devil Survivor 2.  Having a blast for the most part.  Save for damn splitting boss.  Screw that guy.

[Squibidyflop]

Picked up Yakuza 3, 4 and Dead Souls/Of the End for PS3 the other day. God damn these games are Japanese. I mean that in the nicest possible respect, but that's honestly the best way to describe them. Long (and frequent) cutscenes, losing progress upon death, random encounters, New Game Plus. And it's exactly why I bought them. I like that it's so unapologetic about being a brawler-RPG with level-ups and random encounters set in modern-day Japan. Plus the fact that they had the balls to release a full-length, fully featured zombie spinoff a la Read Dead Redemption's Undead Nightmare.

Apart from that, Diablo 3 has been tearing my soul out. I've put around 15 hours into my now level 30 wizard, and I'm still on Act 3 Normal. I actually die so much my items occasionally break, causing more death. Call me crazy, but I think ~300ms of lag is a bit much for singleplayer.

[Brian]

"Hey, guys, let's only let people play on our servers, no matter what!"

"Even if they only care about single player?"

"YES."

Genius.  -_-

I'm sorry to hear that it's not working out for you, though. :\

[Muphrid]

It may be against one's sensibilities, but I've found Diablo 3 to be loads easier if one buys a cheap but level appropriate weapon from the AH every few levels.  A decent one at level 30 can be had for no more than a couple thousand gold (more than that, and the marginal benefit is pretty small).  If I recall, weapons around req. level 30 have around 50 DPS natively plus the socket for other nice things.

But yeah, lack offline single player is fun.  I can't imagine how people play hardcore characters when even just a bit of server instability could spell permadeath.

[Dracos]

Last night I sat down with Tales of Graces F.  I logged on, but there was some server lag and some asshole had lead a train of monsters right to the spawn point, so my hardcore character got killed before I could even do something.  I almost rage quit, but I really wanted to get some co-op in, so I swallowed it and created a new character.  'cept I was now way too weak to party with brian and hal, so they both had to too.  We finally got it all together and then twenty minutes later hal had to go to bed cuz we wasted so much time.

No wait, that's bizzarro universe.  I sat down, hit go, co-op happened instantly with brian and we went around solving sidequests and spending a metric goldton of ryo.  We murdered things all over the map because it was there, then went into the hidden dungeon and murdered some more.  When we screwed up on the highest difficulty level, it was no big deal at all.  Also, Crono is overpowered...but nobody is gonna nerf him.

Good times were by all.

[Brian]

Pretty much, yeah.

Not to say that people are wrong for liking D3, but I can't really admire the model.  It's got a leveled playing field, but not allowing single-player offline, even...?  Meh, I'll shoot zombies and tolerate forced level playing fields where it actually makes sense -- because of balance, not because the backing company wants to turn it into an e-sport.

[thepanda]

I keep hearing Torchlight 2 is the better Diablo sequel.

[Brian]

Well, it's not actually out yet.

But I hope it is!

[Dracos]

*muses*

So yesterday I finally continued with Devil Survivor 2: Space Prometheus route.  My characters had been leveling a while.  I instawipe the free battle enemies around.  Still, I didn't notice my NPC was level 55.

Didn't matter, my main had gotten up to 55 to, and my monsters were beefy.  Party size 2.

Start the next plot battle.  2 of us versus 2 heroes of them.  And a dozen of their friends.  And a superboss.  Part of getting everyone back together.  Brute force

"Okay, cool, I'm super strong.  This will be doable.  Power Overwhelming!"  Strategically slowly beat them to death as they come...  soldier guy rushes through and does an ungodly amount of physical damage to space prometheus.  Then repeats it.  Hero is unable to close it.

Okay, gotta neutralize that guy?  Could not find a way to do it without having my main character get killed.  Every time I did so, one of the other heroes (Brute Force overwhelming) would walk over and use assassinate on my main. 

Fine.  Screw it.  Let me just try to continue with space prometheus.  He's almost taken down Shiva the destroyer and there's only one phys heavy party left.

Space Prometheus proceeds to take on all comers in a brutal 1 versus eight or nine fight.  Holy grenades flew from afar as a combination of extreme range, magic, and going twice whiddled their forces until I realized my nearly dead party was surrounded by... 3 leaders and no demons.  And it was my turn.  *step back, Drain, Drain, Drain, Drain, Drain, Drain...*

So glad to have an actual full party again.  That was crazy.  The kind of sudden difficulty spike that really has the ability to be a road block to players.

[Brian]

Yeah, when you're powergaming as hard as you have been, and the game still makes you fight that hard for a win....