Jolt Country

YOU ALL HAVE NO TASTE IN GAMES!
[11:07 PM] InsertClicheName: http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=54112
[11:07 PM] InsertClicheName: That article is such japophile bullshit for a pretty average game.
[11:08 PM] IceCreamJonsey: If it came from Japan, it's obviously of much superior quality than anything roundeye and Roundeye Studios (C) could churn out. =(
[11:08 PM] InsertClicheName: Jhoh?
[11:08 PM] IceCreamJonsey: Gahahaha, yeah.
[11:08 PM] InsertClicheName: That just except for the equals instead of colon smilely was just like him. :(
[11:09 PM] IceCreamJonsey: That was the effect I was going for, yeah. Heh.
[11:09 PM] InsertClicheName: I mean Lex is buying an actual mech to play a fucking game, Keza is playing DDR and a goth or something.
[11:09 PM] InsertClicheName: Do Euros really not know games?
[11:09 PM] IceCreamJonsey: An actual mech, heh
[11:09 PM] IceCreamJonsey: She's a goth?
[11:09 PM] InsertClicheName: Probably.
[11:09 PM] IceCreamJonsey: Yeah.
[11:11 PM] InsertClicheName: I mean WOTS was pretty fun.
[11:11 PM] IceCreamJonsey: It was!!?
[11:12 PM] InsertClicheName: It was just really really short.
[11:12 PM] IceCreamJonsey: This is for the Xbox or PS2?
[11:12 PM] InsertClicheName: PS2 I think.
[11:12 PM] InsertClicheName: Probably redone for ECKSBOCKS with some new cheek bone models.
[11:14 PM] InsertClicheName: I mean, I just don't know if these motherfuckers are maKing a joke or really haven't played any thing like Fallout, Gothic, or really anything that Black Isle studios made.
[11:14 PM]IceCreamJonsey: Yeah, I need to get Gothic. Well, Gothic II, anyway.
[11:15 PM] InsertClicheName: (Speaking about WOTS1) "However it was actually a rather clever threaded narrative that branched in various directions depending on your actions. More than just whether you said "Yes" or "No" in a particular dialogue tree, characters would react to you differently depending on your behaviour as well as dialogue, and most importantly in turn this affected your options. Engaging in grisly missions would leave the gentle townsfolk cold, unwilling to help when things went wrong, and refusing to pay the blacksmith and then slaughtering him mercilessly when he took up arms meant no sword upgrades. "

[11:15 PM] IceCreamJonsey: That doesn't sound like the way of the samuari.
[11:16 PM] InsertClicheName: First off they are describing a game that is no more complicated than Chrono Trigger like people describe fable.
[11:16 PM] IceCreamJonsey: heh
[11:17 PM] InsertClicheName: Secondly most of the dialogue options were "cold" or "caring" ultimately it came down to what kind of maggot/asshole you were.
[11:18 PM] InsertClicheName: Then the Black Smith deciding to murder you for not paying was just put in to give the illusion of a non-linear game.
[11:18 PM] InsertClicheName: Ultimately you were better off killing people for weapons.
[11:18 PM] InsertClicheName: It's just a boring Catch 'Em all game except pokemon took me a few days to beat.
[11:20 PM] InsertClicheName: oops! I'm funny again.
[11:22 PM] IceCreamJonsey: heh
[11:22 PM] InsertClicheName: This is going up on JC because Pinner hasn't televised his death yet.
[11:22 PM] IceCreamJonsey: Sure. This will possibly drive him to it.

I can't really stand Japanese rpgs anymore although I do have to say that I enjoyed "Skies of Arcadia" a great deal. I also have to admit to playing DDR at least five times a week and have lost all sorts of weight because of it.

Let me go on the record once again and say that Fallout is overrated, though. It reminded me of a text adventure that leaves you wanting for more (especially with several references to unimplemented quests that they didn't add), specifically FoD for some reason. FoD makes it works and still rocks and turns the "wanting more" factor into a benefit while in Fallout, I find it a shortcoming.

Maybe I would have liked Fallout more if I had played through it right away while it still had that "new and exciting" feel, who knows.

Fire Emblem is good.


Well, wait, is that actually a game? I remember the days when a game could be anything, but now I'm pretty that if it's under 1 terrabyte it doesn't count as 'hardcore' enough.

Metal Gear Solid 2 was six gigabytes. How the hell do they expect an honest pirate to survive?

Roody_Yogurt wrote:Let me go on the record once again and say that Fallout is overrated, though.

I agree in principle, but only because any game as ludicrously lauded as the original Fallout is has to be overrated. Especially if it's more than two years old. Debaser's Law applies as follows:

Fallout: Overrated!
X-Com: Overrated!
Warcraft 2: Overrated!
Deus Ex: Overrated!
Everything Infocom Ever Made: Overrated!

On a related note, I'd love to put all the inhabitants of all the Fallout/Troika message boards in a small room and with all the inhabitants of various Final Fantasy/Squarenix message boards. And weapons. If the Fallout cretins win, then JE Sawyer gets to execute gory headshots on everyone left standing in retaliation for all the sundry shit they gave him over the course of the aborted development of FO3. If the FF troglodytes win, then the collected BO will asphixiate the lot of them shortly thereafter, anyway. HO HO!

I'd like to put everyone in Troika into a room and shoot them all to gibs, but that's neither here nor there.

Vitriola wrote:I'd like to put everyone in Troika into a room and shoot them all to gibs, but that's neither here nor there.

At least they are out there making an honest fucking effort. Arcanum wasn't so great, but I heard the ToEE didn't blow. It's better than when Blizzard took a few years to produce Diablo 2 which was really Diablo 1 except you could play on Battle.net and not constantly deal with hacked characters because they where saved on a server instead of your computer.

Worm wrote:At least they are out there making an honest fucking effort.

If I remember my Forum Character Profiles correctly, V's hatred of Troika has absolutely nothing to do with their shoddy wares and everything to do with who's sticking their dick in who and, by extension, who's no longer sticking their dick in her.

That having been said:

but I heard the ToEE didn't blow.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

ToEE is basically a (very good, I'll admit) turn-based combat system stacked on top of a half-thought-out game world embellished with exactly the type of idiotic "features" you'd imagine a bunch of kids on a fan board would come up with if asked for ideas for an RPG. Oh, and with a bug-encrusted icing to top the cake.

Look, I wish the Troika people well, I really do (probably because none of them have, to date, stuck their dick in me), but it's becoming fairly obvious they have no idea how to produce a game without parental supervision. And the sad part is, Fallout's right there pointing out what these guys could do if they just had someone with a little common sense standing over them to point out that having NPC companions loot treasure until they become so overencumbered they cannot move is a bad idea.

Of course, I'll probably still buy Vampire the day it comes out. Hope springs eternal, after all.

So, yes or no. Do I owe ToEE a download?

Debaser wrote: Especially if it's more than two years old. Debaser's Law applies as follows:

X-Com: Overrated!

Hullo! What? X-COM? Over-rated?!!?

Let's stop this line right now. No idea why I didn't catch this before.

How can one of the best games ever be overrated? This ain't good. Ohhhhh, no, this isn't good. Debaser, why you wanna do this and go there?

Have you played it?

Worm wrote:So, yes or no. Do I owe ToEE a download?

Fuck 'em. You read the Caltrops review. The thing was hideously broken.

Actually, I don't even bother any more until the first patch. Deus Ex 2 had built-in mouse lag initially. Fucking mouse lag! Some of the dumbest people in the world work in video games and there's absolutely no checks and balances. (Well, thousands of screaming consumers are, I suppose, in a way.)

I just checked to see if there was a patch for Republic: The Revolution. My old 1100 mhz computer couldn't run it. I presume my new one can. There's no indication of a patch on their site.... and Eidos at their main site gives no evidence that one was released for it either.

It works out well for everyone, I guess -- I don't buy new games because they are a complete waste of my time for being so buggy. Waiting for patches also allows for the price to often drop. And then, when I do a system upgrade, it allows for a chance to run them on a faster computer.

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:Hullo! What? X-COM? Over-rated?!!?

Let's stop this line right now. No idea why I didn't catch this before.

Probably because I just wrote it yesterday. But you're missing my point. I'm not saying X-Com isn't a good game, I'm not saying X-Com isn't quite possibly a great game, though I couldn't get terribly into it (I have played it, but probably only for a few hours total over the however many years it's been available from various a-ware sites) because it was a strategy game wherein I can't conquer territories and live out my dream of being a brutal, power-mad dictator. I'm just saying that it can't possibly be as good as people, especially people who played during the zeitgeist of its initial release, imagine it to be. If you would prefer, I'll throw my own babies out the window:

Planescape: Torment: Overrated!
Master of Orion II: Overrated!

There, see. Fun.

Debaser wrote:Probably because I just wrote it yesterday.

Nah. I ain't buying it. At this point in the thread my mood is officially distrustful.

TRY AGAIN!!!

But you're missing my point. I'm not saying X-Com isn't a good game

Whew!

I'm not saying X-Com isn't quite possibly a great game

Excellent. So far, so good.

Though I couldn't get terribly into it

Wait... are you secretly a Mac user?

(I have played it

Oh. OK.

But probably only for a few hours total over the however many years it's been available from various a-ware sites) because it was a strategy game wherein I can't conquer territories and live out my dream of being a brutal, power-mad dictator.

I hear you and everything. But X-COM made its own genre. Don't you like naming troops? Don't you like making up little d00ds and sending them off to fight aliens and having some of them cower in the back because they're cowards and you know they're cowards because the game has them panic and just start shooting everyone on the plane?

I'm just saying that it can't possibly be as good as people, especially people who played during the zeitgeist of its initial release, imagine it to be.

It is! It is, I promise. It still holds up.

I missed its initial release. I thought "bah!" to the concept at first. It came out in 1994. In 1996 I was working at an EB and people that I worked with wouldn't shut up about it. I finally grabbed it, because the CD-ROM version was $4.99 or so. WHATTA GAME. And sadly, no other game that has come out since has topped it, for what it managed to bring to the table. X-COM 2 had a bunch of annoying underwater shit. X-COM 3 took place in one city. That city had more real estate than all the battle fields in X-COM 1, but still. Everything else with the X-COM name is complete shit. So you still gotta go back to the original.

If you're me, I mean.

If you would prefer, I'll throw my own babies out the window: Planescape: Torment: Overrated! Master of Orion II: Overrated!

Everyone says I should play Torment.

Should I? Someday, I mean.

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:I hear you and everything. But X-COM made its own genre. Don't you like naming troops?

Corporal fag, Private Assmunch, and Lt. Commander Shitwank probably don't think it's as great a feature as you do, but only because they're pissed about their CO's puerile sense of humor.

(X-Com Sales Pitch)

I'm not going to try to talk the game down on you, because I simply haven't played it enough to say more than "I could never get into it". But, ultimately, a series of set-piece tactical encounters is a series of set-piece tactical encounters. The destructable environments are kind of fun, but the generic soldier dudes and UFO Invasion window dressing just don't get my dick hard enough to suffer through the slow parts.

Everyone says I should play Torment.

Should I? Someday, I mean.

I've heard lots of convincing arguments against the game and really, rated as a game it's nothing special. It's Infinity Engine combat, but with simplified spells, minimal ranged weapons, and an extremely limited selection of characters and character types. It's a bunch of quests that mostly involving running around, talking to people, and lugging trigger items across the gameworld.

On the other hand, if you're a fan of, or at least on tolerable terms with, the idea of entertainment software as experience rather than challenge, then really it's the best thing out there. At no point over the course of the game do you ever cease to have a genuine sense of wonder over the game world; at no point do you cease to feel pathos for the main character and possibly even some of the sundry secondary characters strewn about the landscape. There are the occasional slow bits where you're just wandering around solving side-quests and shit in an area you've already thoroughly explored but the game's central narrative thrust and general window dressing keep you pretty well enthralled.

I should warn you, however, that you're stuck with the characters the game provides and can't sub-out in favor of additional player-defined characters. I know this has traditionally been a deal-breaker for you. The sundry NPCs are all for the most part cool enough both in terms of character and in-game abilities that I couldn't imagine wanting not to use them, but, well... there you go.

Debaser wrote:Corporal fag, Private Assmunch, and Lt. Commander Shitwank probably don't think it's as great a feature as you do, but only because they're pissed about their CO's puerile sense of humor.

Lt. Commander Shitwank got promoted in the game. He made it all the way up to General!

Here's is a portion of the "magic" of X-COM, at least for me. Maybe this will convince someone else teetering on the bridge to play it:

The game generates a bunch of new soldiers for you when you buy them. You can immediately dismiss them... but you'd have to be insane to do so! They cost money.

I had one such guy show up a few years into the game. He had some Japanese name I couldn't pronounce. I thought, "boy, wouldn't it be nifty if the alien invasion spawned a superhero." I immediately forgot his name and put in "Dark Avenger" or some such nonsense. I gave him one of those flying battle suits in one of the game's equipment distribution menus. I then took him into combat.

Now...

The thing is, you can see what your guys and girls look like when you are fitting them out before a battle with equipment. Since this would-be superhero guy had his flight suit on 100% of the time, I never knew what he looked like. Ever!! It's a mystery. All I know is that the Dark Avenger guy hates aliens, loves to fly, and shoots them from five stories in the air.

(For what it's worth, the first Dark Avenger did get blown away by some aliens on his second mission. Fried right out of the sky and dropped to the earth with a satisfying squish. Ha ha ha! So I did the same process but told NO ONE. I don't even know why I am mentioning it now, maybe because I am mad. But a new soldier took over 'the armor' and has fought quite well since.)

I'm not going to try to talk the game down on you, because I simply haven't played it enough to say more than "I could never get into it". But, ultimately, a series of set-piece tactical encounters is a series of set-piece tactical encounters. The destructable environments are kind of fun, but the generic soldier dudes and UFO Invasion window dressing just don't get my dick hard enough to suffer through the slow parts.

Yeah. I made the soldiers less generic. Did I tell you there are robots in X-COM 3? That was one of the few bright spots of that game. Slumming around town with Subcommandante Dickride and Mr. Chmod (robots don't get rank in This Man's Army).

On the other hand, if you're a fan of, or at least on tolerable terms with, the idea of entertainment software as experience rather than challenge, then really it's the best thing out there.

I am!

I should warn you, however, that you're stuck with the characters the game provides and can't sub-out in favor of additional player-defined characters. I know this has traditionally been a deal-breaker for you. The sundry NPCs are all for the most part cool enough both in terms of character and in-game abilities that I couldn't imagine wanting not to use them, but, well... there you go.

Yeah, that used to bug me. Then Baldur's Gate II came along. Nobody will ever do it better than that one. At least we have ONE decent squad-based RPG. We used to not have any. (Devil Whiskey giving freedom was also great.)

So yeah, normally I think it's a terrible decision, but I'd be all for it in this case. Lately the thing that really shocked me was the Neverwinter Nights game. What a fuck up. It actually made me hate video games when I saw some people who helped make that game get all indignant on the forums over at www.quartertothree.com about how it "Was not!!! Baldur's Gate!!" I have a great idea for a game, personally. I'm going to make a first person shooter and then eliminate shooting. It is not!!! Doom! Who wouldn't like a game designed to specifically not-include kick-ass portions of the genre? What a bunch of losers. That game can't fall flat enough for my purposes.

Uh, anyway. I do have a friend's copy of Torment around here. I'll queue it up! I don't know what I would do if I actually played a decent PC game again. Probably freak out and start putting egg yolks in the lightbulbs.

Also, as this seems to be the default gaming thread -- here is how much I hate games:

Last game I enjoyed on the PC and finished: Freedom Force

Last PS2 game I enjoyed and finished: Parappa the Rapper 2

(There's apparently 50-some-odd levels to Robot Alchemic Drive for the PS2. Christ, I'll never fucking finish it, even though it's good.)

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:

Worm wrote:So, yes or no. Do I owe ToEE a download?

Fuck 'em. You read the Caltrops review. The thing was hideously broken.

BDR just isn't a guy after my own heart. I wanted an opinion from someone who has slugged through Daggerfall, or Fallout 2 prepatches and what not.

Worm wrote:BDR just isn't a guy after my own heart. I wanted an opinion from someone who has slugged through Daggerfall, or Fallout 2 prepatches and what not.

I didn't get FO2 until after it was patched, and basically consider Daggerfall unplayable*, so I might not be the guy to listen to either. But even cleaned up, ToEE is shackled with a pretty goofy Gygax module and <s>Atari's</s> those fucking frogs' idiotic editorial decisions, so it doesn't even have the idiopathy and puerile madness that made even Arcanum playable at times.

Still, if there's a downloadable trial or warez version floating about, you might as well decide for yourself.


*JC Before They Were Stars: This* was a post made by the Debaser before he made a name for himself with his quick wit, madcap tendencies, and registered login.


*I point it out because I still find the gag about the King of Daggerfall needing the warp code to be a Grade A zinger. ZING!!

Yeah, I know you don't dig Daggerfall I was just using that as a point against why I don't trust BDR's ToEE review. I sort of wondering if ICJ played it.