What Game Are You Playing Right Now?

Circe · 07-03-2013, 02:08 PM

I just finished up the newest DLC for The Walking Dead (the Telltale game, not the shooter). I'll probably go into depth on it when I've collected my thoughts on it a bit more but as a whole I enjoyed it and so will anyone else who liked the original game.

LoathsomePete · 07-03-2013, 02:10 PM

Just saw that was released, definitely going to be picking it up this weekend.

djchameleon · 07-03-2013, 03:49 PM

I really need to stop buying new games I swear!!!

Anyways I picked up three 3DS games. Lego City Undercover:The Chase Begins, Brain Age Concentration and Project X Zone

debaserr · 07-03-2013, 07:04 PM

^ Been playing Animal Crossing since it came out, you get that one?

djchameleon · 07-03-2013, 07:05 PM

Nope, I'm not interested in it tbh. Have you hooked up with Circe's game and helped her out some with the Animal Crossing stuff?

I've never played one but it just doesn't appeal to me. Is it similar to Harvest Moon?

14232949 · 07-03-2013, 07:14 PM

I've been playing Dishonoured. Wholly frustrating and poorly designed. The sneaking system is flawed beyond belief as there is no way of truly knowing when you are or are not in cover, the game play gets real repetitive and there isn't much depth. The game prides itself on its various different ways to approach different aspects of a mission, but really it's a choice between do you want to go into the building via the front door or sneak in through the roof.
Yet, despite all this; there's an unmistakable charm to the game that has kept me hitting retry after every death (and there's been many) I don't really know the storyline but the assassinations are quite satisfying with their multiple ways of interesting death options as is setting packs of evil rats out to devour enemies.

Dr_Rez · 07-03-2013, 08:04 PM

Any Halo 4 players up in this piece?

Guybrush · 07-04-2013, 05:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mankycaaant

I've been playing Dishonoured. Wholly frustrating and poorly designed. The sneaking system is flawed beyond belief as there is no way of truly knowing when you are or are not in cover, the game play gets real repetitive and there isn't much depth. The game prides itself on its various different ways to approach different aspects of a mission, but really it's a choice between do you want to go into the building via the front door or sneak in through the roof.
Yet, despite all this; there's an unmistakable charm to the game that has kept me hitting retry after every death (and there's been many) I don't really know the storyline but the assassinations are quite satisfying with their multiple ways of interesting death options as is setting packs of evil rats out to devour enemies.

I've written this before a few times, but perhaps it's worth repeating that I took the stealth approach to everything in that game and didn't find it very satisfying. It got repetitive and there were just a lot of powers and so on that I didn't use because I insisted on sneaking all the time instead of fighting.

Very fun, but slightly overrated, I think. If I was to play it again, I'd kill my way through the game.

Circe · 07-04-2013, 06:51 AM

I wrote a min-review for TWD's newest DLC on another forum and figured I'd post it here as well. I'm going to accentuate the negative here as, well, there are a lot of negatives. I'll put all spoilers in one tag at the bottom. Oh, and if I miss anything out just assume it's the same as the original game, for good or for ill.

First things first, a lot of this chapter's problems stem from it just being too short for its own good. All credit goes to Telltale for recognising the limitations of having to condense five different arcs into the length of a standard chapter and doing what they can to adapt to it but it just doesn't work. When it comes down to it all we're left with if five fairly shallow "we hardly knew ye" stories that don't get the time or depth to engage you on the level that you had with Lee. It's difficult to really say how Telltale could have avoided this other than making it longer, although doing that might have also solved the problem of...

The exposition. By god is the exposition in this addon awful. There are few techniques out there for filling the audience in that I loathe more than the "as you know" method of having a character spout the events of the past few weeks in the most contrived way possible and unfortunately it's relied on far too much here. Having the characters you're supposed to grow attached to very quickly stand in a circle and recap events that they've already experienced comes across as completely artificial and jarring. In one particular scene they may as well have had the NPCs walk up to the fourth wall and begin tapping on it in terms of breaking immersion. These background events also have a bad habit of coming across as far more exciting than the actual events portrayed in the game itself, but that would be forgiveable in a normal situation.

Unfortunately this DLC isn't a normal situation because the actual in-game arcs aren't very well managed. The technique that made those biting decisions and shock scenes in the vanilla game so effective was their juxtaposition with the calm that made up most of the game. The DLC tends to be very shaky with presenting this, giving us chapters where all the fast-paced action happens off-camera and others that play up the tension far too much to make it an effective enough punch in the face. That's not to say there isn't a chapter or two where this is done excellently, and those moments are absolutely the standout parts of the DLC for me.

Of course the characters themselves are a crucial part of any kind of game like this and for the most part they're good enough. I do have to call out Telltale for seemingly trying to mix up all the character aspects of the vanilla game into these arcs which makes them feel like shallow efforts at pandering for the old audience's approval at times (more on that in the spoiler part) and the problem is compounded by the fact that most people are going to have all of the player characters acting in the same way that they "played" Lee, which stifles a lot of their originality. That said I did end up liking all five of the main characters at the conclusions of their parts of the story and their unique situations and personalities do give them enough individuality to stand out from each other and appeal to the audience. The NPCs are for the most part pretty good as well, and there aren't really many cases of generic major characters anywhere.

Past that I guess there's the gameplay, although who honestly cares about that? Err, I guess there is a bit too much reliance on dialogue at times, although that ties in to the aforementioned problem with balance between calm and tension. For the most part it's pretty much what any player of the original game would expect. The "action" scenes are still pretty dumb but the power that acting out those brutal scenes yourself give to them is still there, so there's not really a huge amount to criticise.

Right, spoilers. I'll once again make it clear that beyond this tag are spoilers for everything in the DLC. If you're one of those weirdos that only plays half of it at a time then, well, I have no idea why you would do that but don't read it. Nobody has any right to complain if they open this prior to finishing the addon and get a massive event ruined for them because of it.

Spoiler for This DLC, duh:

Vince's chapter was the first one I played. It was... pretty good, I guess. I'd say it suffered more than any other chapters from "this feels like Lee" syndrome as even though it doesn't have that much in common with good old chapter 1 the superficial similarities were enough to make it a little jarring for me. I shot Justin because in Vince's own words "**** Wall Street" and as previously mentioned having to pull the trigger on the poor bastard's foot yourself is still as brutally effective as ever.

Wyatt's chapter was probably the biggest case of too much tension for me. You do get that cooldown conversation period (which was actually one of the few times the game managed to get exposition through dialogue right) but you do pretty quickly fall into ohmygodthere'szombiesandgunseverywhere a bit too quickly for my liking. Past that the relationship with Eddie is well developed, particularly the end which was just tragic. However, I simply can't forgive Telltale for having the nerve to leave a major decision entirely up to chance and then even adding in a luck-based achievement attached to it as well. seriously, that is a dick move and a half in a game like this.

Shel's chapter was without a doubt the absolute worst out of all five for me, mainly because nothing bloody happens in it. Yeah, I liked Shel and Becca and yeah, the whole cancer patients reveal was pretty nice but all the effective character building in the world is meaningless when these characters aren't really subjected to anything. All the potentially interesting scenes are left off-camera and there's a load that's left unexplained, and not in a good way like whatever Wyatt and Eddie were fleeing from.

Russell's chapter was pretty good although seriously Telltale, **** you guys for reminding me of Carly's death. Russell himself had a bit of adorkable charm but the real standout character of it was obviously Nate. I don't know if there's really that much more I can say about it but seriously, full props to Telltale for making pretty much the only identified antagonist in the entire DLC so bizarrely good.

I played Bonnie's chapter last and enjoyed it the most out of all five, mainly because I think it hit the sweet spot for the classic Walking Dead formula really well while still feeling new and refreshing. Bonnie was far away enough from Lee to feel original while still being deep enough to be easy to warm to quickly.

Overall I also liked the epilogue because unlike the vanilla game I felt like my choices in previous chapters actually affected the conclusion, even if the relations between the two were pretty arbitrary. Then again it's also the aforementioned atrocious exposition scene so I can't warm to it too much.

And I've run out of time to write anything else. I'd just like to emphasise that despite all my complaints I still enjoyed the DLC and would definitely recommend it.

Sparky · 07-04-2013, 11:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mankycaaant

I've been playing Dishonoured. Wholly frustrating and poorly designed. The sneaking system is flawed beyond belief as there is no way of truly knowing when you are or are not in cover, the game play gets real repetitive and there isn't much depth. The game prides itself on its various different ways to approach different aspects of a mission, but really it's a choice between do you want to go into the building via the front door or sneak in through the roof.
Yet, despite all this; there's an unmistakable charm to the game that has kept me hitting retry after every death (and there's been many) I don't really know the storyline but the assassinations are quite satisfying with their multiple ways of interesting death options as is setting packs of evil rats out to devour enemies.

I'm sorry to hear this. Dishonoured is almost tied with infinite for me in terms of best games played recently. I think the design is very strong. The blinking mechanic is really fun and feels fresh, especially when it becomes second nature.
They're lots and lots of ways to do the missions, more so than would appear on the surface. Especially later on--the dinner mission in particular. Not too mention the replay value of the game if you make different decisions. The upgrades don't feel like superficial depth, have more dramatic effect on the game than those in bioshock.

I thought it was really cool how even things such as the weather are effected by your actions. The half life style saturated aesthetic was great albeit sometimes underwhelming; a little more detail would have been nice.

Quote:

Originally Posted by djchameleon

I've never played one but it just doesn't appeal to me. Is it similar to Harvest Moon?

Kinda. It's like harvest moon if you take away all the micro management or relationship building stuff. Animal crossing you mostly pick up weeds and buy cute wallpapers. It's a lotta fun but hard to describe why.

07-03-2013, 02:10 PM	#5782 (permalink)
LoathsomePete Cardboard Box Realtor Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Hobb's End Posts: 7,648	Just saw that was released, definitely going to be picking it up this weekend. __________________ Last.FM 101 Albums That May Not Change Your Life, But I Really Like And You Might Too

07-03-2013, 07:04 PM	#5784 (permalink)
debaserr eat the masters Join Date: Aug 2008 Posts: 5,467	^ Been playing Animal Crossing since it came out, you get that one? __________________ Last.FM

07-03-2013, 08:04 PM	#5787 (permalink)
Dr_Rez Registered Jimmy Rustler Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: USA Posts: 5,361	Any Halo 4 players up in this piece? __________________ Best chance of losing virginity is in prison crew Always Checks Credentials Crew nba > nfl crew Shave one of my legs to pretend its a girl in my bed crew

07-03-2013, 02:08 PM	#5781 (permalink)
Circe Blunt After Blunt After Join Date: Sep 2012 Location: In a French-ass restaurant Posts: 337	I just finished up the newest DLC for The Walking Dead (the Telltale game, not the shooter). I'll probably go into depth on it when I've collected my thoughts on it a bit more but as a whole I enjoyed it and so will anyone else who liked the original game.

07-03-2013, 07:14 PM	#5786 (permalink)
14232949 The Big Dog Join Date: Apr 2011 Location: Scotland Posts: 1,989	I've been playing Dishonoured. Wholly frustrating and poorly designed. The sneaking system is flawed beyond belief as there is no way of truly knowing when you are or are not in cover, the game play gets real repetitive and there isn't much depth. The game prides itself on its various different ways to approach different aspects of a mission, but really it's a choice between do you want to go into the building via the front door or sneak in through the roof. Yet, despite all this; there's an unmistakable charm to the game that has kept me hitting retry after every death (and there's been many) I don't really know the storyline but the assassinations are quite satisfying with their multiple ways of interesting death options as is setting packs of evil rats out to devour enemies.

07-04-2013, 06:51 AM	#5789 (permalink)
Circe Blunt After Blunt After Join Date: Sep 2012 Location: In a French-ass restaurant Posts: 337	I wrote a min-review for TWD's newest DLC on another forum and figured I'd post it here as well. I'm going to accentuate the negative here as, well, there are a lot of negatives. I'll put all spoilers in one tag at the bottom. Oh, and if I miss anything out just assume it's the same as the original game, for good or for ill. First things first, a lot of this chapter's problems stem from it just being too short for its own good. All credit goes to Telltale for recognising the limitations of having to condense five different arcs into the length of a standard chapter and doing what they can to adapt to it but it just doesn't work. When it comes down to it all we're left with if five fairly shallow "we hardly knew ye" stories that don't get the time or depth to engage you on the level that you had with Lee. It's difficult to really say how Telltale could have avoided this other than making it longer, although doing that might have also solved the problem of... The exposition. By god is the exposition in this addon awful. There are few techniques out there for filling the audience in that I loathe more than the "as you know" method of having a character spout the events of the past few weeks in the most contrived way possible and unfortunately it's relied on far too much here. Having the characters you're supposed to grow attached to very quickly stand in a circle and recap events that they've already experienced comes across as completely artificial and jarring. In one particular scene they may as well have had the NPCs walk up to the fourth wall and begin tapping on it in terms of breaking immersion. These background events also have a bad habit of coming across as far more exciting than the actual events portrayed in the game itself, but that would be forgiveable in a normal situation. Unfortunately this DLC isn't a normal situation because the actual in-game arcs aren't very well managed. The technique that made those biting decisions and shock scenes in the vanilla game so effective was their juxtaposition with the calm that made up most of the game. The DLC tends to be very shaky with presenting this, giving us chapters where all the fast-paced action happens off-camera and others that play up the tension far too much to make it an effective enough punch in the face. That's not to say there isn't a chapter or two where this is done excellently, and those moments are absolutely the standout parts of the DLC for me. Of course the characters themselves are a crucial part of any kind of game like this and for the most part they're good enough. I do have to call out Telltale for seemingly trying to mix up all the character aspects of the vanilla game into these arcs which makes them feel like shallow efforts at pandering for the old audience's approval at times (more on that in the spoiler part) and the problem is compounded by the fact that most people are going to have all of the player characters acting in the same way that they "played" Lee, which stifles a lot of their originality. That said I did end up liking all five of the main characters at the conclusions of their parts of the story and their unique situations and personalities do give them enough individuality to stand out from each other and appeal to the audience. The NPCs are for the most part pretty good as well, and there aren't really many cases of generic major characters anywhere. Past that I guess there's the gameplay, although who honestly cares about that? Err, I guess there is a bit too much reliance on dialogue at times, although that ties in to the aforementioned problem with balance between calm and tension. For the most part it's pretty much what any player of the original game would expect. The "action" scenes are still pretty dumb but the power that acting out those brutal scenes yourself give to them is still there, so there's not really a huge amount to criticise. Right, spoilers. I'll once again make it clear that beyond this tag are spoilers for everything in the DLC. If you're one of those weirdos that only plays half of it at a time then, well, I have no idea why you would do that but don't read it. Nobody has any right to complain if they open this prior to finishing the addon and get a massive event ruined for them because of it. Spoiler for This DLC, duh: Vince's chapter was the first one I played. It was... pretty good, I guess. I'd say it suffered more than any other chapters from "this feels like Lee" syndrome as even though it doesn't have that much in common with good old chapter 1 the superficial similarities were enough to make it a little jarring for me. I shot Justin because in Vince's own words "** Wall Street" and as previously mentioned having to pull the trigger on the poor bastard's foot yourself is still as brutally effective as ever. Wyatt's chapter was probably the biggest case of too much tension for me. You do get that cooldown conversation period (which was actually one of the few times the game managed to get exposition through dialogue right) but you do pretty quickly fall into ohmygodthere'szombiesandgunseverywhere a bit too quickly for my liking. Past that the relationship with Eddie is well developed, particularly the end which was just tragic. However, I simply can't forgive Telltale for having the nerve to leave a major decision entirely up to chance and then even adding in a luck-based achievement attached to it as well. seriously, that is a dick move and a half in a game like this. Shel's chapter was without a doubt the absolute worst out of all five for me, mainly because nothing bloody happens in it. Yeah, I liked Shel and Becca and yeah, the whole cancer patients reveal was pretty nice but all the effective character building in the world is meaningless when these characters aren't really subjected to anything. All the potentially interesting scenes are left off-camera and there's a load that's left unexplained, and not in a good way like whatever Wyatt and Eddie were fleeing from. Russell's chapter was pretty good although seriously Telltale, ** you guys for reminding me of Carly's death. Russell himself had a bit of adorkable charm but the real standout character of it was obviously Nate. I don't know if there's really that much more I can say about it but seriously, full props to Telltale for making pretty much the only identified antagonist in the entire DLC so bizarrely good. I played Bonnie's chapter last and enjoyed it the most out of all five, mainly because I think it hit the sweet spot for the classic Walking Dead formula really well while still feeling new and refreshing. Bonnie was far away enough from Lee to feel original while still being deep enough to be easy to warm to quickly. Overall I also liked the epilogue because unlike the vanilla game I felt like my choices in previous chapters actually affected the conclusion, even if the relations between the two were pretty arbitrary. Then again it's also the aforementioned atrocious exposition scene so I can't warm to it too much. And I've run out of time to write anything else. I'd just like to emphasise that despite all my complaints I still enjoyed the DLC and would definitely recommend it.