The General Video Gaming Thread

[Krika]

I did. I am going to need to do multiple playthroughs to see the multiple possibilities (probably will Livestream one), but I do think it's quite interesting. The ending was unexpected though, and oddly lined up with my thoughts. I tend to think a little in-character, or narrate along inside my head when I play games, and in doing so, multiple times, I referred to the aerial as "my escape". Then comes the ending and...well, it was.

Funny thing, that. Pretty creepy at times as well, the music is terrific.

[Adell]

Dear Esther is a very good game. I would hesitate to use the word fun to describe it, but I would heartily recommend it to anyone.

I have watched this. I know people who would hesitate to call it a 'game', actually, because they consider a game needing to have more than just 'press the directional buttons to move' in order to qualify as gameplay. In terms of an interesting story, though, it's very interestingly done. Not really my taste, but sheer eye candy.

Did you find yourself enjoying the story?

I am very much in the camp of hesitating to call it a video "game." It's certainly an interesting way to tell a story, though.

It is an interesting experiment. And experiments in the gaming medium are cool with me.

[Krika]

As someone told me (and I was thinking of using the same terms, except that said terms sound pretty pretentious), Dear Esther is not a game, it's an experience.

[SpiritfChaos]

Anyone play Spiral Knights?

[The Wild West Pyro]

I've gone back to playing an MMORPG from my childhood-TOONTOWN ONLINE!

[eli_gone_crazy]

So, I did the worst thing I could ever possibly do, and I joined an MMORPG. Guild Wars to be specific. I like it, and it's... @_@

I'd love to play with more people from here though, enough to maybe start a small guild? Sicon and Mimsy play the game already, and have one of their own they offered to let me join.

So, uhm, yeah. Anyone up for insanity?

[Krika]

......I might, except that MMOs are something that I really don't want to play, because I'm not going to have the time for it and everything else with my already terrible time management skills.

Also, I'm cheap and don't want to pay money for them.

[Sicon112]

Guild Wars 2, that is. There is a Guild Wars 1, but we aren't playing that one right now. As far as my stance on GW2, I do really like it. The combat, gameplay and general mechanics of it are a very interesting and unique take on the normal MMO mechanics, and rely more than usual on a player skill component. That isn't to say it's really hard unless you are really good at games or something. It isn't, especially if you have a party with you. It IS, however, always CHALLENGING due to the way that the game scales stats, negating the normal complete overpoweredness you see in normal MMOs when a higher level character travels back into lower leveled zones.

Anyhow, I got eli to play it by talking about some of the things I had done on the game, like a two hour boss marathon against a one-time event boss super-crab alongside an army of well over a hundred other players as we knocked over mile high trees with explosives onto its back, blasted it by lighting off steam vents, bombarded it with a full cannonade while fighting off hordes of its offspring that were STILL five levels above the maximum player level possible, and then chased it up and down its nest in the core of a supposedly dormant volcano before dropping it through the floor into the lava below by all jumping at once. Or the time Mimsy killed an NPC that was supposed to be invicible completely by accident and shut down an entire servers progress on an event chain for a day while GMs frantically ran to patch everything back together. Good times.

If anyone wants to play, Mimsy has, due to his first and strongest character being named Heathcliff and wielding a sword and shield, has started the KoB. XD That means we have our own guild, and moreover, we have a guild that is a reference to an awesome anime/light novel series. As of right now, it's just eli, Mimsy, and I in the guild, but we have upgraded it a ways, and are working on more, so it isn't a bad guild, really. Anyone who wants to join us on GW2 is also welcome to a spot in the KoB.

[Pixelmage]

Soooooo....

GW2, eh?

I don't play MMOs. Ever. Don't ask.

Download you say? What download? I'm not downloading the client for the game, nope, not at all. XD

Joking aside, they'll have a free trial weekend from 23 to 25, or, this very next weekend. So, I registered for said trial in order to see if A) My laptop can handle the game, and B) If I'll actually enjoy it. If both answers there are yes, I might just buy it and start playing seriously, or as seriously as my weekends-only schedule will allow.

But yeah, you got me to try an MMO. I hope I don't regret this dearly.

[Sicon112]

GW2 is a very unusual MMO, as I noted above, as far as mechanics go. Yes, the framework and the look of an MMO is still there all over, but going back to other MMOs after playing GW2, I feel actually kind of limited. It's got some elements of more fighting oriented games like dodge rolls/flips, or blocks and counters, and it has some elements of platformer games, like a working jump and the ability to climb around all over, not to mention the optional special "Jumping Puzzle" areas which I personally find to be INSANELY fun. As far as mechanics go, I would go as far as to say that this is the MMO furthest down the path towards SAO, or a similar game, that is out today.

The world and races and such are very detailed, the map is huge, and exploring it is pretty much the absolute funnest thing ever. Usual questing in MMOs is totally revamped for convenience's sake. Instead, you just run into an area and it notifies you that there is an area quest there, usually to help out someone or other in the vicinity with whatever the problem happens to be, be that centaurs, portals to hell disgorging shades to torment ghosts, really shoddily made magical golems, or any other number of things. It gives you a list of things you can do to help out, and if you do some of that, you fill progress up until the quest completes and you get an EXP and monetary reward, followed by more money and a letter from whoever you helped in your mailbox. In addition to these wide ranged area quests are "Events" which are sequences that play out either every small period of time, or when certain conditions are met. An event in an area that is a battleground between groups of NPCs could have an event to take an enemy base, followed shortly by an event where you hold off the counter assault the enemy mounts to try and dislodge you before you can entrench there. These you can see on the map when you are in their vicinity, and can join and leave as you please, and you are rewarded based on how much you contributed to the success of the event, which is honestly pretty forgiving. I can pop into an escort mission crossing my path, wipe about six guys from a wave of ten enemies that is one of many waves, and then run off and I still get max credit. Honestly, though, events are really fun and I usually go out of my way to do all of them that I can, just because I like doing them.

The one complaint I HAVE about the game is this: I'm not the greatest fan of its story element. GW2 has a story, and it isn't a bad one. There isn't any evidence of horrible writing or anything of the sort, like some games I've played. I might even call it somewhat above average. The thing is, I started up GW2 right after coming out of Bioware's The Old Republic, and I cannot ever praise the storywork and writing that went into that enough. The sheer amount of effort put into that completely blows my mind sometimes. But that's the thing. TOR was a story focused game, because I guess that's what Bioware wanted to do. AreaNet poured about the same amount of focus into the inner working of Guild Wars 2, and they created something that I personally think plays better than any MMO I've ever had. However, after coming off the hugely interactive story of TOR, the story that Guild Wars 2 gives you, while not bad, just feels limited, as your character acts how he acts in cutscene and that's that. You get choice points from time to time, but usually just one at the end of a quest that picks your next quest, and most of them are unfortunately not huge changes, like I sometimes feel they should be. You also get to fill in a few multiple choice backstory questions during character creation, and a couple other choice points are hidden inside some outside of cutscene dialogue options, but that's more or less it. Compared to TOR's fully voiced gloriousness with three totally different response options every time someone says something to you, it's simply not as good. Then again, as much as I would LIKE every game to be as good as TOR, TOR's story element is so ridiculous that holding it up as a standard for everything ever right now is pretty silly.

That aside, as for issues of hardware compatibility, you can run GW2 just fine with a pretty surprising amount of equipment. If you do have to upgrade, you will not have to upgrade much at all, and it probably will not be very costly. This game, while very nice to look at, does not in any way require top of the line hardware and gives the best attempt it can to run on whatever you tell it to run on.

[Sicon112]

Oops. The text walls are back.

[The Wild West Pyro]

Anyway, Toontown is a very....interesting....MMORPG.

But sad news:

http://toontown.go.com/closing

I played it as a kid....now it's going to be.....gone.

DISNEY, Y U CLOSE THIS DOWN AND SPEND EVERYTHING ON STUPID CLUB PENGUIN?

Oh well, back to TF2 for me.....

[Sicon112]

Anyway, Toontown is a very....interesting....MMORPG.

But sad news:

http://toontown.go.com/closing

I played it as a kid....now it's going to be.....gone.

DISNEY, Y U CLOSE THIS DOWN AND SPEND EVERYTHING ON STUPID CLUB PENGUIN?

Oh well, back to TF2 for me.....

I have been on Club Penguin before. Not seriously, obviously, but my friends heard about it on the internet and were so amazed at the sheer inanity of the idea that they all came over and we created a single account. We just kind of wandered around in awe of the total waste of time that was the entire game and then quit. From what I saw, stupid describes it pretty much perfectly. I certainly didn't see any reason to touch it with a ten foot pole.

[Sicon112]

On a different note, as I have posted in the Gone thread, I will not be present, and neither will Eli, during the free trial period this week. Whether Mimsy will be able to get on and help you out remains to be seen, however, both Eli and I are almost certainly going to be totally gone.

That said, there is something vitally important that you must do when joining the game. You MUST create your accounts on the Kaineng server. If you are on one of the other servers, there are not too many, you will not be able to play with the three of us. Hence, vitally important.

[The Wild West Pyro]

Anyway, Toontown is a very....interesting....MMORPG.

But sad news:

http://toontown.go.com/closing

I played it as a kid....now it's going to be.....gone.

DISNEY, Y U CLOSE THIS DOWN AND SPEND EVERYTHING ON STUPID CLUB PENGUIN?

Oh well, back to TF2 for me.....

I have been on Club Penguin before. Not seriously, obviously, but my friends heard about it on the internet and were so amazed at the sheer inanity of the idea that they all came over and we created a single account. We just kind of wandered around in awe of the total waste of time that was the entire game and then quit. From what I saw, stupid describes it pretty much perfectly. I certainly didn't see any reason to touch it with a ten foot pole.

It used to be good, but is now merely a chatroom with games.

[Krika]

I have started a full playthrough of Sonic '06. Partly so I can say I did it, and partly because it's one of those games that I think people have just watched the LPs of, and thus just parrot other people's opinions on, and so I want to be able to speak from experience (which is also my rationale for having read the Twilight books, but that's neither here nor there).

So, good luck would be appreciated as I make my way through it.

Krika out.

[JackAlsworth]

Good luck and Godspeed, ya loony bastard. *salutes*

[Endless Sea]

IT'S NO UZE

TAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKE THIS

*tosses over some painkillers*

[S_o_S]

I have started a full playthrough of Sonic '06. Partly so I can say I did it, and partly because it's one of those games that I think people have just watched the LPs of, and thus just parrot other people's opinions on, and so I want to be able to speak from experience (which is also my rationale for having read the Twilight books, but that's neither here nor there).

So, good luck would be appreciated as I make my way through it.

Krika out.

You poor man. You poor, poor man.

[Krika]

IT'S NO UZE

TAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKE THIS

*tosses over some painkillers*

That boss battle wasn't that bad, actually. I only died twice (first time because the first source of coins and where he drops in are the same place, second time because I didn't evade fast enough), and once I got the rhythm going, it was easy enough.

[The Wild West Pyro]

Has anyone played a particular WWI game where you have to escape from robotic dinosaurs?

[Victin]

So, they are making Megaman, but without Capcom.

[The Wild West Pyro]

Please Look Below

[Krika]

So, thanks to me actually having a group to play with, I've spent about 2 hours screwing around on Guns of Icarus. And it was glorious.

I can't really comment much on the maneuvers and the combat, and gunning and the epic maneuvers that took place - ask Mimsy and Sicon about that (Mimsy was the pilot, Sicon was a gunner). I was the Engineer.

And damn, did I have a fun time. Thanks to this other random dude who graciously agreed to be an Engie as well, we kept our ship (don't remember the name) in the sky so much - Everything would be on fire, and then the hull and balloon would be dead, and while we repaired those, the engines would die, and we'd have to run everywhere putting stuff out and frantically keeping us drifitng.....it was glorious. Not as prestigious or as badass as Pilot or Gunner, but if the other dude had been a gunner, or hadn't been as good as he was, we'd have died so many times over that we didn't die in. For whoever joins us as a fourth member - you are playing an Engie, so you know. It's basically impossible to keep up with stuff by yourself, and you can take up a turret if there's not much needing to be repaired (in which case I will be running all over the ship buffing everything, but you can fire a couple of shots every now and then if you like).

But yes - cool and awesome game, and I look forward to many more matches happening. Though I do wonder what the purpose of leveling up IS, aside from bragging rights.

[Sicon112]

Technically, Shane will be joining us already, but since we have a fifth copy between us, that one is still up for grabs. Drop a message here if you are interested or find Mimsy and chat with him about the prospect, since he is the one with the final copy. I'm sure most of us will be doing most of the jobs at some point, but I'm thinking it's a good idea to have two engineers on deck at all times, so we can shift around as far as what jobs we do so no one is pinned to one job.