What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

[Ed Oscuro]

Dark Souls progress! Quite a bit too. (In the Undead Burg bonfire room, I broke some boxes and left a message with the word "prisoner" as a memento of more frenzied times.)

Yesterday, I killed (cheesed out) the dragon in Drake Valley. Very tedious. Inside Blighttown, I picked up some purple stuff to cure poisons...and immediately got poisoned. Ran as far as I could back towards Firelink before dying by a grassy part of the New Londo entrance.

Today, using the Halberd +5 (I need to figure out how to improve it further), I went back to the Church and killed the Channeler. I also picked up shins + torso armor from those respawning skeleton knights - too loud, so I went back to the basic leather wraps. Looking forward to picking up ninja garb later on. I thought he was escaping up stairs or something, so I found him quite by accident after rolling off a higher area back down to the ledge he was initially at. Having surprised him I quickly struck him down. Then I spent a little while beating the bell gargoyles. I was rather close a few times. No blocking, no shield use, just attacking the first one as much as possible and staying near the entrance to avoid bringing the other into the fight. Closing distance to both when the flames came out. Got three items I haven't bothered with (another halberd that looks useless, an axe or something, and the gargoyle helmet). Then I went back to the town and tried my luck with both Dark Knights in the vicinity - the Burg and Parish ones; both very easy at this point; three hits regardless of blocking or on the Burg one. Went back to Firelink Shrine and killed off the first two necromancers and activated that bonfire.

Visited the Burg again and fooled around with Havel the Rock some more - lost quite a few souls here, 8000+ one time (one level's worth), decisively lost by rolling backwards off the plank bridge leading to the Burg bonfire in a thoughtless attempt to dodge the crossbow zombie outside (why did I roll straight back, though?). Against Havel, I tried to use the lure-drop-rinse method from the tall first staircase but timing proved critical - you have to let him basically stand on top of you and start his attack for him to reliably follow you over, as opposed to running down the stairs (although running will give you plenty of time to swig from the flask). As it turned out this was a stupid way of going about things. I tried the Halberd, first with backwards rolls to keep distance, but using those too much drained all my stamina and left me slow and open a few times. I kept at it a few more times, and was very close a couple of times. My strategy was to aggro him, then quickly gauge distance and engage as soon as possible, keeping to the wall and stairs so that I could always escape further back up the stairs with a roll. I was doing excellent damage with a two-handed grip and so he quickly went down.

Man, what the hell is that cloud thing that goes rushing at you in Darkroot Gorge?

Instead of finding out, I decided to revisit the Undead Asylum. (I did kill a couple of the big golem things for blue titanite, though; using the tower doorway as some cover.) Before leaving Firelink, I left a message on the chapel roof where you find the key on a corpse. I have to say that the game is unkind to not allow you to freely walk up the incline of the flying buttress (on your way to the crow's nest) you need to jump to from a grassy ledge - you have to roll up it a couple times, and I imagine it'd be easy to roll too many times. I actually did it right but the inability of my player to walk up made me wonder if I was trying the wrong way up there. Once actually in the Asylum, I fell into a hole and got insta-killed by Stray Demon, killed both Black Knights (much tougher than their previous brethren, but killed them using the same tactics as against Havel, but a bit more engaged because of their combos), got red titanite, got a doll, and got the Black Knight's Sword! Man, amazing damage on that one, but it is the toughest weapon to use so far due to the PC being so clumsy to use it. On one trip to kill the second Black Knight, I blundered into the wrong doorway and fell into the hole with the Stray Demon again. Another few thousand souls down the crapper! (I have been regularly losing 5000-7000 souls at a time, though, so it wasn't that big a deal.) I also re-met that dying soldier and slayed his hollow undead corpse with extreme prejudice (and ease); his rolling attack connected with me only once. Since I originally left the Asylum without Live connectivity, the Achievement about reaching Lordran finally triggered when I returned to Firelink.

Probably the next thing to do is either go to Darkroot Gorge and fool around a while (but that's a long trip through an area I am too familiar with, without any new bonfire in sight for the Gorge yet, and possible infinite waves of screaming explosive souls to contend with for a while) or to back to the Parish bonfire and take out the faceless zombie down there - I am doing good damage to it, but its leaping attack when you get around to its side is a bit much for me at the moment. I would try the new Dark Knight's Sword but its windup time is atrocious.

[cj iwakura]

Still playing Digitial Devil Saga. In the final dungeon, but that doesn't mean shit. Still probably 10-20 hours from the end.

It's not THAT long. Maybe 2-3 hours away from the end.

@Ed: if you want to stare death in the face, melee the red drake.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Nocturne on Hard last night. I was supposed to get some sleep, but the game was like "no you don't".

[Marc]

Finally finished Dark Douls with a +10 Zweihander as my weapon of choice for the last boss. I feel fucking elated.

[CMoon]

Still playing Digitial Devil Saga. In the final dungeon, but that doesn't mean shit. Still probably 10-20 hours from the end.

It's not THAT long. Maybe 2-3 hours away from the end.

I disagree (at least the way I play it.) I got to the third karma temple in the final dungeon, warped out and started doing the optional bosses. That was 5 hours and I've only beaten Beelzebub. Perhaps if I just bee lined it straight for the end, but even then, everything takes sooo much time in this game with so many random battles.

[null1024]

I'm still mad how much of a downgrade Cypher got compared to Viper II in VO(OM). Viper II kicks ass. Cypher's shots do fuck all, and trying to come in close for melee attacks is extremely likely to get you killed. Also, I can't aim the SLC move in VOOT for shit.

Don't try to use cyphers right weapon for damage, it's pretty much just a chip damage and pressuring tool (not a bad one at that). The right turbo right weapon laser is also one of the best lasers in the game IMO. very easy to sneak in some aimed cRTRW hits when people are moving around(crouch variant doesn't knock down) People usually say cyphers best weapon are the daggers as all the variants are useful and it's the spread attack. The most powerful attacks are crouching center weapon (half cancelled once you learn the timing) and forward dashing center weapon attacks (or back dash crouch for anti-air, RTCW if you're feeling lucky)

Cypher is also the only VR that can do two air dash attacks in a row which is easy to spam on beginners but against experienced players mainly use them as counter attacks (dash attacks are never safe) and/or end the attack series with CW because it gives you a speed boost until you land. Main thing I'm disappointed with the character is that the fighter mode is extremely useless, the damage and turning speed are a joke so it's just for showing off. wish it had some use because it looks awesome.

SLC on the other hand is pretty good but gimmicky.. the top/most active player on the XBLA leaderboard spams it like a bastard until his opponent figures him out, haha

Oooh. Interesting. Thanks for the advice, once Friday comes around and I can fight actual people in VOOT again, I'll be able to not get killed brutally with him.
And Cypher has an extremely different strategy compared to Viper II, which is probably why I was getting wrecked so badly.


Mario 3D Land [3DS].
Lemme just take a few lines I typed up on IRC channel about it:

<null1024> I bought Mario 3D Land yesterday
<null1024> all the level design reminds me of Mario Galaxy, except without all the sloped surfaces
<null1024> and actually is kind of how I thought a 3D Mario game would have been from the start
<null1024> the levels are a bit unimaginative though, and mostly easy
<null1024> and the tanooki suit makes all the precision platforming in the game stupid easy
<null1024> world 3-5(?), the one with all those moving platforms and autoscrolling really sucked without it though
<null1024> because trying to judge some of the jumps properly was fucking impossible because the camera was top-down
<null1024> and the 3D effect didn't go deep enough for you to use that to judge your position
<null1024> it also showed that autoscrolling doesn't work too well in it
<null1024> instead of the screen edge pushing you forward, you can go behind the scrolling direction and end up not knowing where the hell you ended up

Still, pretty fun.

[Ed Oscuro]

Hmm. After two false starts (and 4000 souls lost, can't get mad about that now) I beat that Titanite Demon handily; keeping to his free arm (his left) and somewhat behind allowed me to dodge almost all his sweeps, just as promised. That took me to Darkroot Basin, which is a pretty neat area. The enemies here were laughable, especially the frogs, and the knights didn't scare me either. Bush Mans are a nice source of some herbs so I'll harvest some more of those before returning to Blighttown. "Try attacking" notes left were very helpful, and I didn't expect trees to block paths! A ways in I discovered another Dark Knight (past the corpse with the Leather Armor set), who made quick work of me a few times. I noticed, lurking below his position, another white item glow, so I resigned myself to possibly losing my souls for the curiosity of getting whatever was there. Grass shield! And when the Dark knight arrived, I just struck out wildly with the halberd four times, and he fell after only landing one hit. Can't complain about that.

I don't use shields at all, so I'm very happy for the Grass shield, which gives me at least one free extra hit in a volley, without having to waste any souls on stamina upgrades.

I also finished up some other business. After a long trek back around the Darkroot Basin path to collect souls, I died to that one stupid leaping swordman right outside the Burg bonfire (outta flasks early on and so was limping along with a sliver of health), and so I took the other path around back to that bonfire through the Parish. I hadn't been to the Basement yet, but had forgotten about the locked door on the Taurus Demon's bridge - I opened it and did most of the stuff down there. Another "try attacking" note was useful, but I was expecting the door to take damage. A few steps further and I realized that note had saved me a flanking enemy during an ambush. Such small houses they've got. Taking the shortcut back to the aqueduct above Firelink, somebody else left a message on a the tower landing reading "beware of charmer." Oh, right, her. Nice iron bars you got there, lady.

Considering buying sorceries and/or miracles, for achievement progress, but maybe that's for another build. Level 40 now, so souls are just as precious as ever.

I'll probably go back to the basement and look for a boss in there.

[Ed Oscuro]

Capra Demon kicked my ass. Happily, the 5000 souls I left were collectable from outside the mist wall.

Just now, I had my first invasion. I ran up the tower (shortcut to Undead Female Merchant) looking for an invader, and stayed there for the good maneuverability. I blew my cover by running down slightly past the platform where the red archer undead typically is - and the invader saw me, although I had seen them first. So I walked back up past that and let them advance towards me. A few halberd strikes took them down to 1/3 health, and then they started using their shield. They got in a couple hits next but it wasn't much to worry about. I struck at their shield a few times and that took care of 'em.

Better luck next time! Thanks for the humanity and 3000 souls. Not going to worry about spending it; I need to take out Capra Demon. Actually, I'm gonna be smart about it and use them to buy six charcoal rubbins' for my halberd.

Edit: Bah, just under 1/2 damage to Capra demon, just standing in the door and lashing out blindly. I need to move. Serious Question Time: Does touching Bloodstains do anything for the other player, like add a humanity? I love watching Bloodstain movies - especially the ones near newbie areas like the Firelink to Burg aqueduct. You see all kinds of people using rolls right off the cliff. I just saw one of a player at the very top, by the opening into the aqueduct, and they fall almost out of sight, catching the edge below. Then they promptly run over and end up dodging straight off that cliff and finally out of sight.

[sjewkestheloon]

Blood stain touching is just for education and entertainment purposes. There are some brilliant ones too. My favourite was watching someone make an impossible leap from a high ledge down the well at the firelink shrine. Lol'd.

[Ed Oscuro]

lol, that would explain the "Here!" message somebody put next to the well, huh?

I gave up on Capra Demon for a while, went through more of the Catacombs, got my halberd to Fire (but it does less damage now against skeletons - I still two-shot them though so it's not a problem for them), got killed bunches by the damn Titanite Demon, but I did remember to grab the item behind it once. I've killed five of the necromancers so far, I hope that's all of them. Set up in the second bonfire (by Patches) and left a marker outside.

[CMoon]

Capra is frustrating because it really feels like luck. You MUST get to the steps. Once there, you will probably win, but if you get nailed it is very likely to kill you so early in the game. You MUST take out the two dogs, and then the fight becomes really manageable.

[null1024]

Runner's High [PC-98]. Neato little time-attack game where you fly a jetpack wearing girl around one of 3 courses.

A liiiiiitle too short [seriously, 3 not-very-long courses, if there were like, 6 or so, I don't think anyone would really complain], considering this was an actual retail release by Compile, not like a little doujin game, but it's very well presented, and pretty fun.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Perhaps if I just bee lined it straight for the end, but even then, everything takes sooo much time in this game with so many random battles.

Tell me about it. In DDS2 on Hard I didn't even defeat all of the optional bosses, but the last two "obligatory" ones took me two days to beat. I'm talking two days' worth of just battling the bosses, because I REFUSED to level grind at first. Only to give up finally and resort to a little bit of grinding, having looked up a guide beforehand.
You'll NEED to play 2 after 1 anyways. It's a one game in two volumes really.
Replaying Nocturne these days, I wonder what's left to achieve for MegaTen. I can't imagine the ancient formula getting refined anymore. The only rough edge I found so far is that waiting for full Magatsuhi to open a Mystical Chest is rather unadventurous. Come to think of it, there was a similar rough edge to DDS (with some skills it was reasonable to fight certain bosses at the exact right point of the cycle)... and exactly that one rough edge got ironed out in DDS2, if memory serves.
Being near-perfect at its finest, Shin MegaTen is threatened with stagnation. A bit like Square after Chrono Trigger had seemingly nowhere else to go... (I liked FFVII a lot and I do look forward to playing The Crystal Bearers, so I'm okay with Square cheese. It's just that I don't expect anything of Chrono Trigger caliber of them anymore.)

[Marc]

Currently carving my way through Dark Souls NG. It feel so fucking good to be making absolute mincemeat of some of the bosses that held me up first time around.

Picked OutLand back up, left it on the sky stages last time I played, really enjoy the controls and visuals on this.

May make a start on Deus Ex's DLC later as well, tried the first hour or so when I first picked it up but it seemed really linear and I never went back to it.

[sjewkestheloon]

Mid way through my Mass Effect 2 Insanity trilogy run. Going well so far, ripped Harbinger a new one with the particle beam when I wasn't running Benny Hill style around the arena.

Also most of the way through DJMAX Portable Clazziquai Edition's Club Tour mode. Got a few songs yet to unlock that need me to play 6 button better than I can but I need to practice those more. Now onto the DJ grind where I beat the same DJ over and over until it lets me move onto the next one... Nice work Pentavision. Thankfully the charts are fun, if a little on the easy side, and the track list is great. Also works as a good training exercise for the DJMAX Fever charts that rip me a new one. Think I will get Black Square next.

Also been acting like a whore with my new PS3, swapping between NGS1, Demon's Souls and Valkyria Chronicles, with a smattering of others on the side.

[null1024]

Cosmic Smash [DC].
Getting the hang of it, although I usually time-over right before the first fork on the map. Very slick, and extremely arcade like, I'd be a bit surprised if this didn't have an arcade release.

EDIT: oh hey, it did

Crazy Taxi [DC].
Class S license, got 18th on the default scoreboard, was doing brilliantly until my last pickup, where I hit damn near every car on the highway [got to my stop still, and had 3 seconds to spare, but fuuuuuck, no way I could have reached another customer in time].

[Marc]

Not worth starting a new thread for, so can anyone tell me if Galaxy Fight is any good? Actually trying to be sensible for once, rather than buying random shit from PsN that I will regret when sober.

[Hagane]

It's a mediocre-bad fighting game with some nice spritework and some awful design ideas (such as endless stages). It's not even worth playing it on MAME, don't waste your money.

[Marc]

Thanks man.

So, WipeOut. How this became the poster boy of PS gaming is beyond me because it's fucking brutal. I can't believe how much the series softened up. I used to ace this shit on the most difficult level, I've struggled today to place above third on rapier. The tracks are awesome though. It's absolutely spartan, mean and bloody-minded and I'm determined to master it again.

[louisg]

I picked up Rolling Thunder 2 and am trying to beat level 7. And I started playing Shinobi 3 again because I realized I hadn't beaten it yet (farthest I am is at that samurai house level)

Though it didn't click with me like F-Zero did, I can definitely see why people like the original WipeOut. It really requires a lot of good technique and is a more simmy approach (but not as simmy as the original Power Drome. That game was brutal as hell). Maybe it became the poster boy for the PS because, early on in that generation, the machines were all starved for above-average games. Most of the stuff from around launch doesn't hold up very well, but WipeOut does. Though it's also odd not only because it's hard as nails, but because the ports of WipeOut were all pretty good too!

[Ed Oscuro]

Blue Shift for PC, hardest difficulty, some quicksave abuse. I remember being pretty excited about this one back in the day. Lol, there were lots of complaints about a lighting (flashlight?) bug or performance problems, as I recall, but it didn't affect me. What I do remember is going through it very quickly, but I didn't remember how disappointing it was. These days, we get an experience that's slightly better, and slightly worse: You can make HL look better than it ever did by just typing in gl_texturemode gl_linear and then forcing anisotropic filtering and AA through your video card if you like, and of course there's widescreen support - but you can't get it to sound better. Half-Life games on Steam ship with a shit quality version of the soundtrack - workable but not very much. Additionally, there are a handful of bugs and annoyances, like the music cutting out at level transitions (and many HL games started it soon before transitions, too) or not being restarted after using a save made after music is triggered. As a bonus, though, the new lines of dialogue all sound much more natural than the very low-quality voice from the original game; it's just a shame that it's all uninteresting and unremarkable. Barney now narrates the training section, which sees a few other unremarkable changes (many places you used to be able to jump to your death have now been sealed over with invisible walls, for instance). It is very odd to play as "The Barney" Calhoun in a room with two or three other Barneys milling about, and speaking to you all in the same voice, or to have Barney's hologram training Barney in the training level.

On the whole, I was shocked at how disappointing this is. You don't go very many places, interesting or otherwise, and you don't do much. Examples: You ride on a tram, you get your gun, you listen to bitchy scientists, you take an elevator ride with the biggest asshole ever in the science team, which gets better after he stands a bit too close to an explosion, you go to Xen and ford the amazing Xen rapids (or the sewer system of Xen...hard to tell), you run around through a level because you can't pass a chain link fence to grab a battery, and then you press a button repeatedly to end the game. Dr. Rosenberg is kind of interesting; his voice actor is familiar to players of Condition Zero: Deleted Scenes (he plays your radio contact through the very last mission of that game, so has the last speaking role of both games).

Back in the day this retailed in its own big box for something like $30 or possibly more - pretty crazy, or even obscene, when you consider that Blue Shift was originally half of the Dreamcast port, and it is merely salvage from that. Meanwhile, the far superior Half-Life: Decay didn't get an official PC port, although it has been very competently ported to Steam by modders; in that you get not only playable Gina Cross and Collete Green, with kind-of-okay player-switch puzzles, and you get Dr. Rosenberg in a few scenes before he runs off to get trapped in a boxcar, but you also get some guy in a wheelchair - and some better scenarios to play through, as I recall. It's still Gearbox Software so the mapping is a mixed bag. In Blue Shift, there isn't much reason to use rockets (you find the rocket launcher by a tank stuck on a railroad flatcar; its turret can be quickly destroyed by your pistol, or softened up by the crowbar if you prefer), and I used a grand total of two satchel charges to take care of door breach situations, and one of each type of grenade (thrown and shot). Lots of ammo, but there's no real reason to use most of it. Many of HL's more interesting higher tier weapons are totally absent; you find satchel charges and SMG grenades fairly early on, but you don't find any crossbows; nor the Gauss, Egon, alien grunt pistol thing, or anything new. There wouldn't be much to use them on, though; most all of the enemies are low-tier aliens and grunts - surprisingly, very few scientist zombies, and all near the beginning; a few Controllers (flying bastards) and Alien Grunts show up. Not a good mix if you ask me; headcrabs and houndeyes are terrible to play against repeatedly. Enemy placement in maps is often ineffective - a few areas stand out for enjoyable difficulty spikes, but there aren't many. It's mostly standard corner-strafing pistol/shotgun peek-a-boo, which can make the original HL (and related games like the aforementioned Deleted Scenes) tedious to play. Gearbox's Opposing Force, which came out earlier, was a much more fully-featured title, with a longer playtime, mostly far superior maps, new weapons, a new storyline, and some very cool multiplayer maps. On top of all this, I played with the classic HL models; apparently anybody who can play Half-Life 1 engine games can play Blue Shift for free, and so you can get the HD pack too. Unfortunately it isn't enabled from within Steam; the new characters with ten times as many polygons could really be standard for most all HL playing. I imagine Valve is just leaving the old models in for compatibility and classic looks, but it's a shame.

So, was there anything good about this at all? At a couple points the game gives you alternative views of classic HL scenes, starting at the very beginning when Gordon passes you in a tram (but this scene is obviously different from the actual HL opening, because the Barney who pounds on a door - you - didn't get off a tram at that spot). But the most interesting scene is actually at the otherwise incredibly disappointing ending, where you phase through a number of scenes via teleporter. Obviously, somebody liked the idea behind this sequence enough to include it near the beginning of Half-Life 2, so it's an interesting historical footnote for the series. But that's all this game provided.

Speaking of that, Black Mesa: Source claims it's close to completion (of an initial episodic-style release showcasing a few maps, possibly). Well, we'll see about that...in the meantime, here's an interesting interview with the team lead from earlier this year. This should be a pretty reasonable jumping-off point for a new era of HL style mods.

[drauch]

Probably played Half-Life and Opposing Force more than most games. One time I played Opposing Force in one sitting, resulting in my fingers cramped in the WSAD positions. Definitely worth it. Blue Shift was always kinda...meh. I need to give it a better chance sometime, but yeah, it really doesn't have the love as Opposing Force did.

[Ed Oscuro]

I once got to play OpFor in a collaborative MP server. Lol, the game engine definitely isn't built to handle that (lots of disappearing polygons for players since it was trying to render too many areas at once, oops, surprising but true). It didn't work for long. I later played the game again a few years back, and I have to admit some of the later scenes weren't too good. In particular there's a big squarish tunnel area that didn't seem too good. The final boss was nowhere near as long or difficult as I remembered, though.

BS is almost entirely skippable - there's better singleplayer mods or even community mappacks out there to play through. Planet Philip lists many (if not most!) of them, and has done some "100 days, 100 maps" projects (one last year, and one this year I believe) that rated many of them.

[CMoon]

Making the final approach on Digital Devil Saga. Just beat the hardest boss on the game (ignoring the NG+ optional boss), and am ready to rip a big gaping hole in anything left that wants to oppose me. There's like 5 more optional bosses, but I can't see how they'll put up much resistance. Amazing seeing one of my characters punch a boss for over 2000 points of damage.

[Ed Oscuro]

Just a random update: Some years back I wrote a bit about a couple Counter-Strike clones, namely Urban Terror (a bouncy bouncy fun fun fun fun fun Quake III Arena engine based mod that I detest; gimme Action Half-Life or The Opera instead) and Tactical Operations. It turns out that there were or are two versions of Tactical Operations.

First you have a very old-fashioned "retail" game that is based on Unreal Tournament. It seems extremely dated, but there are some cool features to it - my favorite level thus far, Avalanche (worked on in part by that guy I knew, ScHlAuChi), has a really strange easter egg. As backstory: In Canada, there is a research center built into some low rocky mountains or hills (it looks more like Europe though) that specializes in surveillance drone technology. Terrorists want to steal the drone, because that's what they do. First, there is a window somewhere in the CT base looking into a room with some beers on a table. Break out the window and possibly hit one of the beers ("leet beer"). You will see a message about a secret. Now run outside to a couple vehicles parked in front of a chain link fence; the fence will be open, and you can run down a short corridor. At the end is a stone slab set into the wall with the map authors' names. Run into the slab and you can see into a white room. Step inside. WHOA @_@ Some serious mirror effects going on here! A pretty cool secret, right up there with the original Counter-Strike cs_office easter egg, if not beyond. Unfortunately, the game doesn't seem very good to play. I also laughed at the use of a home alarm keypad behind some polygons to represent a mainframe computer. Yeah, not gonna cut it guys.

There's also Tactical Operations: Crossfire, based on UT2004. The only servers still hosted all appear to be located in Germany, and they were empty when I went on by. However, the game has seen homepage news updates as recently as the end of 2011. There are some pretty maps, and some fairly ugly ones too - but as a whole the game has aged rather poorly compared to what I remembered. The bots are dumb, with essentially UT style AI that makes them focused on running to melee distances to shoot each other, ending maps too quickly. It's kind of amazing to see how good even the lowliest CS bots perform compared to these. The weapons I tried out feel wrong, and this game still falls prey to the tiny guns + tiny enemies trope; people today who complain about uneven playing fields due to some people having good equipment should realize that a good CRT monitor with 1600x1200 resolution or better, and the best mouse available, provided real advantages because they could make the difference between being able to put the mouse cursor over an enemy's head, versus having everybody be 1 pixel wide at longer distances. Suffice to say CS:GO is much improved in this area.

At this point, I am thinking that there may be yet another mod / TO or CS style game that I've encountered that I should load up again, but it's probably just a map in TO:Crossfire that I haven't replayed yet.

Bottom line is that we have things pretty good these days - plenty of clones have come and gone but the classics remain and new developments are out there for your enjoyment, too. I am quite interested to see what'll happen with Gooseman's new (L4D engine-based) game Tactical Intervention, but doubt that I'll spend any time with it unless it has something going for it. Still, gameplay over looks, right?

[njiska]

Finished Sleeping Dogs tonight. The game really does feel like a traditional Hong Kong heroic bloodshed film by the end. Honour and brotherhood are everything. Unfortunately the story is kind of weak by the end and a lot of the side stories feel extremely contrived and pointless. That said, I had fun, was gripped most of the game, truly cared about the characters and feel I got my money's worth.

Also if I'm not mistaken I think a dove does appear in on of the scenes near the end. Happened fast so I couldn't see if it was a dove or a gull, but if it was a dove, then i'm super giddy.


Also played The Walking Dead Episode 3 last night. Some amazing emotions going on there. Really difficult choices and a lot of yanking you gut six different ways at once. It was a very humanizing experience. Telltale have really outdone themselves here.

[Op Intensify]

Also if I'm not mistaken I think a dove does appear in on of the scenes near the end. Happened fast so I couldn't see if it was a dove or a gull, but if it was a dove, then i'm super giddy.

If that's the case, then Stranglehold will give you an aneurysm.

[njiska]

Also if I'm not mistaken I think a dove does appear in on of the scenes near the end. Happened fast so I couldn't see if it was a dove or a gull, but if it was a dove, then i'm super giddy.

If that's the case, then Stranglehold will give you an aneurysm.

Nah. See in Strangehold it's expected; I mean hell, "John Woo Presents" in is the title; but in Sleeping Dogs it becomes a nice reference.

[shmuppyLove]

Telltale have really outdone themselves here.

I'm still waiting for my LEGO Doctor Who game. It really needs to happen.

edit: ha ha disregard i suck cocks. That's Traveler's Tales that does the LEGO games. At any rate, I'm still waiting.

[Ed Oscuro]

Not sure whether posting here or in the Annoyances thread is better. I made the mistake of trying CS:GO online. I selected Hostage mode, so of course the game finds me a bomb match server. By this point I'm starting to feel shaky from not having eaten, but try to soldier on. Put myself on the losing team for balance. Get stuck with the pistol and barely manage to get killed. In that round and well into the following map I manage only a handful of kills, pulling in a nice 1:2 KDR...and the players are being little shits. Ten years later, same annoying dipshit behavior (teabagging, randomly hitting teammates with your knife when running places), except I'm pretty sure this is a new generation of dipshits. Anyway, I had fun with the game against bots. I guess I need to spend more time learning to shoot on the run (not that it's really possible, which is actually OK by me because it was ridiculous in CS: Source) and practice against better bots to improve my skills. Annoyingly, some of the little bastards were getting their introductory achievements off me, too.

Also if I'm not mistaken I think a dove does appear in on of the scenes near the end. Happened fast so I couldn't see if it was a dove or a gull, but if it was a dove, then i'm super giddy.

If that's the case, then Stranglehold will give you an aneurysm.

Stranglehold is filled with terrible levels and annoying gameplay, though.