The "What Are You Playing Today" Thread

[Dracos]

Because well...yeah, this kind of thread is usually fun.
    
I started and finished Demoncrest yesterday.  The only thing I think that would've made that game cooler is if they took the headbutt move one step further and let you bludgeon lesser demons to death with your skull at points.  Of course, if they did that, that would be like all I'd ever do.  I'd never finish the game.

Did a full run of RCR Advance on 'crazy' difficulty with 1 guy.  Took about 2 hours, zero deaths.  Acro and Torpedo are so incredibly broken.  I really should do a run on crazy without ever getting them, since I always end up just torpedoing the last boss until he falls over.

Dracos

[Carthrat]

We're becoming more like the DL than before! O_O

Well, I'm playing Rez at.. lots of stuff, seeing as we're at a LAN cafe. I suspect we'll next be playing Dawn of War, wherein he'll probably beat me silly, thanks to him, y'know, actually having played it more than a couple of times in the past. ^^

Overall we seem evenly matched. He's got an edge on me in FPS games, but I have one on him in strategy...

[Anastasia]

The infiltration cannot be stopped, C-Rat.

Anyway, I'm playing Hearts of Iron 2 and Dragon Quest 8. The former is fun, as guiding the US of A into Fascism and Dictatorship by 1937 is horridly broken. You can declare war freely, and the US get a +70% production and a gigantic boost to mineral/resource generation when at war. (Think in the range of 1000 percent. No, that's not an extra zero at the end.) This has brought about a revision of Manifest Destiny - the government of Fritz Kuhn is mimicking Germany - the entire North and South American continents are theirs to take. Mexico and half of the minor Central American countries have fallen in short order, and soon flagpoles up to Panama shall be flying the Stars and Stripes. Once up to the gateway to South American is taken, the US will prepare for the upcoming invasion of Canada. This must be undertaken carefully, as England and the Allies will declare war on the attack. Further, I need to decide if I want to join the Axis or strike out on my own. If I choose the latter, I may end up declaring war on Germany as well and rule Europe through puppet states. This frees me from perhaps having to declare war on Russia, which is never fun.

As for Dragon Quest, I just finished the Alexandrian Tower. Nice and simple dungeon with easy randoms(To be fair, I'm level 15. That goes without saying.) Anyway, game's awesome so far. Incredible world map, good characters, great voice acting and writing, it all works. I'm impressed in the extreme so far and I hope it continues full bore. My only complaint is that I don't have enough time to play it.

[Dracos]

Yeah, DQ8 takes a lot of time.  Beautiful and I don't think it could've been done any other way, or should've, but it's one of those you can pick up for your entire month's gaming fun.

Dracos

[Jason_Miao]

My sister recently persuaded me to start playing what she calls a funny MMORPG, but which I believe is better classified as some variant of MUD.  It's called Kingdom of Loathing.  It contains such items as:

Tiny plastic Crimbo wreath

   This is a tiny plastic Crimbo wreath. It's one of the nine tiny plastic lords who were deceived by the rings of power and now serve the Multi Czar. Wait, sorry, that would be 'wraith.' This is just a plastic rendition of a festive holiday decoration.

   The bottom of the base reads "Series 1C, 4/5 (U)"

   Type: accessory
   Selling Price: 30 Meat.

   Enchantment:
   Regenerate 1-2 MP per adventure

It's a game where you buy and sell things by using Meat, get sloshed in order to increase the number of adventures you have per day, and fight fearsome monsters (such as the dreaded Anime Smiley).  

Like most such games, they also have special holiday events and themes.  This year, sometime before when I joined, toy factory elves went on strike.  You could either work as a Pinkerton, or pick up a union sign and fight off strikebreaking reindeer.


Edit: I almost forgot to mention that the game is one of satire, and may depend heavily on knowledge of internet lore and popular computer and console games.  And I was sure that I needed to add this, for all of those technophobic game-haters on this board. :)

[Dracos]

Heh.  I recall dex being a crazed fan of that.  Should poke him when he logs on.

Dracos

[Ginrai]

Been playing Mario Kart DS a lot more often than expected even after beating all the stages.

Also playing Grandia II, Tales of Symphonia and FF IVa, of which I'm sure I'll finish at least one.

[Ragnar]

Having received a PS2 only about two months ago, and working on a limited schedule, I'm also playing DQVIII. I also find it awesome, but I'm a bit biased. Level 15 at Alexandria? I'm about level 15 now, and I'm at Pickham. For some reason, I always seem to have low levels when I play RPGs. I guess it's because I don't ususally just wander around fighting random monsters for hours as much as I like to advance the plot.
I'm also in the beginning of Midnight Club II and Katamari Damacy.

In terms of the NES/Gameboy, I should really finish DQ 3. I'm in the middle of DQ 2 as well, but I can't finish because I can't find my @%$!-ing boat. I'm just a tad frustrated by that.

[Dracos]

I'm at stage 21 of Ogre Battle.  Perhaps this time I will actually finish the damned thing.

Personally, it's too rich for my blood with its classing/ali/rep restrictions.  I could go for something on almost the same engine with rep being far more determined by choices made, protecting cities, etc and alignments more based on fighting with similarly aligned beings and/or not being necessary for getting the all important top classes.

Ignoring that though, it's good fun.  it's got a nice strategy behind deployment and encouragement not to deploy too powerful units early.  It's got a neat exploration scheme.  I like the little animated battles and such.

If it wasn't for the whole rep deal over it, I'd be quite happy with it as it stood.

Dracos

[Karlinn]

Just finished: FEAR.  Y'know, fantastic gunplay can only carry a game so far, and an ending ripped from page 1 of the Book of Horror Movie Cliches can be kind of a buzzkill.  Having said that, the firefights are reason enough to keep playing.  The AI is *that* versatile.

Currently playing: Radiata Stories.  The accept/cancel buttons are wonky, and there is no fast-forward.  Apart from that, I am entertained considerably.  It's not that it's particularly outstanding in any one aspect, but as a whole it comes across very well.

Also playing: Dawn of War - Winter Assault.  The campaign needs more badass Force Commander-vs-Demon action.  Otherwise, this is the game that can teach me to love RTS once more.  The Imperial Guard is surprisingly well balanced.

Currently replaying: Baldur's Gate 2.  I don't know why I didn't install Ascension and Unfinished Business before.  It's the next best thing to playing it for the first time all over again.  Still marveling at just how insanely useless the six mind control or ten dispel spells are whenever I try to use them.

[Dracos]

That sounds like what I'd expect from Radiata.  When I first saw it my greatest impression gotten from it was "This game, it was made with heart."

Dracos

[twentytwo]

This month, I finally played ICO. That was probubly the best game I've ever played. Perfect example of "Show, don't Tell". A classic that every good game designer should OWN. Watch, Play, Learn, Do...

After that, Beyond Good and Evil. Great game, with some awesome variety. The Looter's Cave scenes were some of the best fast-action obstacle-course racing I've ever played (beats F-Zero hands down). Plus, the final boss was a great tribute to all the great Full-screen bosses of the SuperNes days (Ys, the Soul Blazer series, etc etc). Only one downside: I played it right after ICO... (this was entertaining, but not as much depth...)

Current title: Dark Cloud 1. Stopped after the first stage and replayed Soul Blazer. Beat Soul Blazer. Now, back to this one. Does anyone happen to notice the similarity... (Quintet... Level-5... Enix...)?

Next on my plate: Dark Cloud 2. Maybe after I finish LaPucelle...

six million games to play... choose ONE
-22

[Fallacies]

Finished Kingdom Hearts II. Finished it again in Proud Mode for the secret movie.

The plot is cool (though it's definitely not stand-alone), and there are practically none of the annoyances there were in the first game. There isn't much in the way of the Disney elements that gets in the way of core plot. At the same time, you kinda end up hating Disney even more after the game ...

It's smooth gameplay, though it's a bit silly that they let you use pre-scripted special moves on bosses with the triangle button. Graphics and art are superior to the first game, obviously, but they're still not the best. The shitty camera angles have been corrected, thankfully. There's an all-star voice acting crew for the original characters, but I'm not sure how well that'll translate to the American version.

The level of combat at the beginning of normal mode roughly equals the level of non-boss monsters in the later half of the previous game. Winning on many of the bosses involves use of the pre-scripted moves I mentioned earlier, and use of potions. There's an auto-reload for item use now, but you're stuck with however many items you had to fill your item slots during a fight.

It seems fairly certain KH will recieve a fourth installation, probably on the PSIII. The secret movie after the end of the game seems to indicate that it'll be more traditional Final-Fantasy-ish in setting or plot elements. The corpse of Bahumut Sin (from FF7AC) appears ...

I'll be replaying this again when the American version gets released.

Games to play soon:
Tales of Legendia, Tales of the Abyss.

I dealt with Shin Asuka's incestuous lolicon tendencies for X episodes of GSD ... Let's see if I can't deal with him in Legendia ...

[Dracos]

Hah, the fault of modern gaming =)

Playing with Civilization 4 and Mystic Ninja 64 at the moment.  Simultaneously as is my wont.  Civ 4 is...different.  Yet like Civ 2 in many ways.  I still have no god damn clue how to deal with the 'unhealthy/unhappy' of crowding that spawns right off the bat.

Dracos
Continues prepping comp

[Dracos]

Today I played Magical Pop'n which while not unmitigated, is definitely in the awesome category.  I also played some zombies ate my neighbors, which is not definitely in the awesome category, but might get into the passable category.

Truly, I could go for another round of that kinda stuff.

Dracos