Video Game Thread 2.0

[Cerim Treascair]

Giving Dishonored a go lately (boy, I've got a bad habit of starting games and leaving them unfinished...) and... it's HARD to get perfect mission scores.  DAMN!

[chitoryu12]

Fighting unarmed enemies in Arkham City is trivially easy if you have the right upgrades. Get Critical Strikes and Free Flow Focus as soon as you can, and you're basically moving faster than everyone else and making one-hit KOs. I took down 28 thugs in about 30 seconds with that, and about 10 seconds of that was building up my combo so I could do it.

[Askold]

1. Beginning fatigue.  The opposite of ending fatigue.  There's so much that happens at the beginning of the game, you can't skip cutscenes, and you can't just run through it because you miss stuff that's helpful at the beginning, as well as character development for Shepard.

Uhh... Story development is bad? Too much plot is bad? Should there be some filler missions or something that you can skip between the story stuff?

However I think about this, I can't consider story/character development to be a downside in a game.

Are you one of those guys who skips every single cutscene and dialogue and then bitches that the story makes no sense?

[Ghoti]

2. FUCKING THRESHER MAWS GAWDS.  I don't mind that they can kill your tank in one melee hit.  I don't mind that they hide out in various planets.  I HATE THAT THEY GIVE ME A FUCKING HEART ATTACK EVERY TIME I FIND ONE GAAAWRGH.

If I die of a heart attack, sue BioWare on my behalf, k?  Because there's a 95% chance that it'll be because of a fucking Thresher Maw.

They're actually pretty easy to spot if you know what to look for. See a flat area plopped inbetween a rocky/elevated area? That's where they spawn.

Edit to address the devolving askold/Magus argument: you're both right. No, there's nothing wrong with character development and setting up the story, but the beginning drags by your second or third playthrough. The beginning fatigue is understandable when you take a look at the humongous, intricately detailed world that's being built from the ground up. Yes, it's tedious when you already know what's going to happen, but remember your first playthrough? How vast and detailed and downright plausible the galaxy seemed? Wouldn't you feel cheated if the game sent you on an epic quest to save the galaxy without giving you a reason to care about the galaxy you're saving?

[Shane for Wax]

It's better to spread things out. From my multiple playthroughs of ME1, it does tend to feel like everything is in the beginning and end but with little to no development in the middle. And that's boring. ME2 does a lot better with this by having multiple BIG EVENTS throughout your playthrough, even if you go and fart around throughout the galaxy picking up side quests and stuff. And then ME3 is just BIG EVENT BIG EVENT WOW BIG EVENT HERE TOO but has a bit of broken immersion that can't really be helped. It'll always feel like you have all the time in the world while you're doing side quests to beef up stats and inventory and whatever else.

Also, because my main (and currently only) Shepard is a Sole Survivor I quickly began to memorize the planets that threshers spawn on. You can imagine her reaction when she had to help Grunt and then the QUEEN OF THRESHER MAWS in the third game.

[Witchyjoshy]

1. Beginning fatigue.  The opposite of ending fatigue.  There's so much that happens at the beginning of the game, you can't skip cutscenes, and you can't just run through it because you miss stuff that's helpful at the beginning, as well as character development for Shepard.

Uhh... Story development is bad? Too much plot is bad? Should there be some filler missions or something that you can skip between the story stuff?

However I think about this, I can't consider story/character development to be a downside in a game.

Are you one of those guys who skips every single cutscene and dialogue and then bitches that the story makes no sense?

You do realize this is not the first time I've played Mass Effect 1, right?

I've seen all of these cutscenes before.  I know what party members say.

My problem is, I like playing multiple characters in any game that gives you choices.  I also read really fast, so I can skip through dialogue much faster than the actors can say it and still take in everything they have to say (of course then I run into the problem of accidentally selection an option which pisses me off)

So running into lines of dialogue that can't be skipped (which are heavily concentrated at the beginning of the game), and running into cutscenes that I've seen already, it gets annoying.

So maybe you'll take things like this into consideration before you jump on my ass for assumptions, okay? I know you're going through a tough time right now, but I'm not gonna let you take it out on me.

[Søren]

So im actually enjoying a game that has no end goal.

europa universalis 4.

Austria is gonna fucking slaughter me soon, though ive lasted just over 50 years and have taken an elector seat in the HRE

[Shane for Wax]

1. Beginning fatigue.  The opposite of ending fatigue.  There's so much that happens at the beginning of the game, you can't skip cutscenes, and you can't just run through it because you miss stuff that's helpful at the beginning, as well as character development for Shepard.

Uhh... Story development is bad? Too much plot is bad? Should there be some filler missions or something that you can skip between the story stuff?

However I think about this, I can't consider story/character development to be a downside in a game.

Are you one of those guys who skips every single cutscene and dialogue and then bitches that the story makes no sense?

You do realize this is not the first time I've played Mass Effect 1, right?

I've seen all of these cutscenes before.  I know what party members say.

My problem is, I like playing multiple characters in any game that gives you choices.  I also read really fast, so I can skip through dialogue much faster than the actors can say it and still take in everything they have to say (of course then I run into the problem of accidentally selection an option which pisses me off)

So running into lines of dialogue that can't be skipped (which are heavily concentrated at the beginning of the game), and running into cutscenes that I've seen already, it gets annoying.

So maybe you'll take things like this into consideration before you jump on my ass for assumptions, okay? I know you're going through a tough time right now, but I'm not gonna let you take it out on me.

Luckily they fixed that problem, somewhat, later on in the series. To be honest, every game should have skippable cutscenes for those of us who play a game multiple times and remember what the dialogue and story is.

I will say though that ever since being able to record my footage on all of my consoles that I've never really worried about missing something and sometimes when I'm going back through to find screens to post (like I showed earlier in this thread) that I find neat facial expressions or things I didn't notice before. Such as Ash photobombing my pictures.

[Vypernight]

1. Beginning fatigue.  The opposite of ending fatigue.  There's so much that happens at the beginning of the game, you can't skip cutscenes, and you can't just run through it because you miss stuff that's helpful at the beginning, as well as character development for Shepard.

Uhh... Story development is bad? Too much plot is bad? Should there be some filler missions or something that you can skip between the story stuff?

However I think about this, I can't consider story/character development to be a downside in a game.

Are you one of those guys who skips every single cutscene and dialogue and then bitches that the story makes no sense?

You do realize this is not the first time I've played Mass Effect 1, right?

I've seen all of these cutscenes before.  I know what party members say.

My problem is, I like playing multiple characters in any game that gives you choices.  I also read really fast, so I can skip through dialogue much faster than the actors can say it and still take in everything they have to say (of course then I run into the problem of accidentally selection an option which pisses me off)

So running into lines of dialogue that can't be skipped (which are heavily concentrated at the beginning of the game), and running into cutscenes that I've seen already, it gets annoying.

So maybe you'll take things like this into consideration before you jump on my ass for assumptions, okay? I know you're going through a tough time right now, but I'm not gonna let you take it out on me.

This is what bothered me the most about ME 3 (besides freezing more often than the other 2 games combined).  If they do an ME 4, they need to make EVERY cutscene skippable.  I mean, I'm sure it's a great story, but after a couple play-throughs, many of us just want to skip to more fighting instead of sitting through the scenes over and over again.

[chad sexington]

So im actually enjoying a game that has no end goal.

europa universalis 4.

Austria is gonna fucking slaughter me soon, though ive lasted just over 50 years and have taken an elector seat in the HRE

Good man.  I'm looking out for a copy at the moment, but not having much luck

What country you playing?

[Søren]

Wuttemburg

Everybody says to start  as a large nation, but im like

"no..fuck you...so not gonna manage all that shit. Ill be fine with two provinces"

[Ghoti]

I got another copy of Mass Effect 2 (Xbox 360) for my birthday. Anybody want it? If not I can just take it to Gamestop or whatever, but I'd like it to go to a good home.

[Witchyjoshy]

I got another copy of Mass Effect 2 (Xbox 360) for my birthday. Anybody want it? If not I can just take it to Gamestop or whatever, but I'd like it to go to a good home.

I don't have a 360, but my boyfriend does.  Can I claim it on his behalf?  It'd make a nice Christmas present for him.

[Art Vandelay]

I never thought I'd ever say this, but I'm really interested in Assassin's Creed IV. The shitty combat and assassination bollocks is still there, but the open world sailing with a fucktonne of sidequests and whatnot looks absolutely fantastic. Gives a rather nice Wind Waker and Sea Dogs vibe to it.

[chitoryu12]

I never thought I'd ever say this, but I'm really interested in Assassin's Creed IV. The shitty combat and assassination bollocks is still there, but the open world sailing with a fucktonne of sidequests and whatnot looks absolutely fantastic. Gives a rather nice Wind Waker and Sea Dogs vibe to it.

Nerd Cubed actually loved the game, and he was halfway to hating the previous games. For once, you're not just playing as a regular Assassin and it has a gigantic open world filled with combat and adventure.