Does playing a mod but failing to be able to defeat the final boss due to the thing not letting me have enough ammo and therefore forcing me to watch the ending on Youtube count?
'cause if so, Cry of Fear for Half-Life - 6/10.
It's an extremely well made mod, and it's certainly effective at what it does, with several moments making me jump out of my seat, but it goes on for FAR too long, to the point where I just wanted it to end about three chapters (about an hour) before it actually did. And even then I couldn't actually finish it because of a bad design choice!
The plot also doesn't make that much sense when you think about it. Spoilers!
You basically play as a guy who's in a car 'accident' and, in flashbacks told throughout the game, end up in a wheelchair and thoroughly depressed. Which is all fair and good, except that during the actual game, you play as a perfectly fit person who has to run through a demon infested town. It doesn't quite sync up. The previous mod by the same people, Afraid of Monsters, had the excuse that the main character was addicted to pills, but this one doesn't really have any justification as to why he's going through this mental hell.
There's also four (single-player) endings, and in three of them you commit suicide at the end, with changes depending on which of the two main NPCs you take you with. The only ending where you live has you kill two cops for no real reason, which is just bollocks. There's also other endings for other playthroughs, including the co-op ending which is the only real happy one because it stops the car 'accident' from happening at all. Somehow I feel cheated out of my happy ending because I happen to be a single player. Never like that feeling.
The gameplay itself works with limited inventory spaces forcing you to be conservative with your weapon selections and such (although the justification for losing half of that as well as your inventory around the two-third mark is VERY weak), and the horror atmosphere is well done. The main issues I have with gameplay is that there's a LOT of backtracking, the levels ironically feel TOO large, several enemies being really frustrating (the flying ones and the dudes you encounter on the train being my primary examples) and the save points being somewhat interestingly placed (no saving before a bossfight? Bulls**t!). Also, unskippable cutscenes. Unsurprising given it's using the Half-Life engine, but still annoying.
Overall it's a good mod, but like the Director's Cut of Afraid of Monsters, it suffers from being too long and having too much backtracking to pad the game out. It's good, just not amazing.
I don't have much to say that wasn't already covered a few pages ago. It took a little while (say, chapter 2) for the story to engage me but then I was pretty hooked. I love that even when you're trying to be a good guy, there just isn't always a good option to every situation. Geralt doesn't have Commander Shepard's ability to convince someone that wanted to murder hundreds a minute ago that he really shouldn't just by picking the blue dialogue option, and the game is better for it. I'm currently feverishly downloading the sequel.
I don't have much to say that wasn't already covered a few pages ago. It took a little while (say, chapter 2) for the story to engage me but then I was pretty hooked. I love that even when you're trying to be a good guy, there just isn't always a good option to every situation. Geralt doesn't have Commander Shepard's ability to convince someone that wanted to murder hundreds a minute ago that he really shouldn't just by picking the blue dialogue option, and the game is better for it. I'm currently feverishly downloading the sequel.
I still don't know if I chose the "good" option on my first playthrough. I just know that I found Sigfried to be absolutely hilarious in his self righteousness so I just did whatever missions he gave me. And then spent the rest of the time picking every single flower I could. Because my Geralt likes to stop and pick the flowers.
I still don't know if I chose the "good" option on my first playthrough. I just know that I found Sigfried to be absolutely hilarious in his self righteousness so I just did whatever missions he gave me. And then spent the rest of the time picking every single flower I could. Because my Geralt likes to stop and pick the flowers.
There isn't really a good ending, I think. I mean, both sides of the conflict are in the wrong in some way or another, and even if you choose to keep out of it as much as possible, they're still gonna slaughter each other.
Though for my money, the neutral path is the best one, because then Geralt gets to have a threeway with a couple of nurses. :cool:
There isn't really a good ending, I think. I mean, both sides of the conflict are in the wrong in some way or another, and even if you choose to keep out of it as much as possible, they're still gonna slaughter each other.
Though for my money, the neutral path is the best one, because then Geralt gets to have a threeway with a couple of nurses. :cool:
I was thinking of the neutral path... but Sigfried! And, well, I already know that I'm sticking with Roche for the second game... whenever I get around to it.
Why do you expect us to spoilertag the plot of a game that is several years old?
Super Mario Bros. - Spoiler:
The princess is in castle 8.
On Topic:
Diablo 3. 5.5/10
- What I played: Wizard in Normal Mode
- How long did that take: 27 hours including searching through every corner of every area I came across. Act 1: 9 hours, Act 2: 9 hours, Act 3: 9 hours. There was no act 4. They just split Act 3 in 2 parts to pretend that there are actually 4 acts.
- I did not dare to enter the secret pony level because I had no interest in grinding to gather the items that are required.
The good (hard to think of something honestly):
- I got to level 31. That's more than the usual level I'd get in Diablo 2 vanilla.
- Achievement system to keep you playing / exploring and for the most part grinding.
- The Act 2 boss fight was AMAZING!
- Crafting items (but see the bad!)
- It said Diablo on the really pretty box!
- Downloading the English version without any problems
- The collector's Edition came with the much better Diablo 2 (I'm desperately searching for good points and it really shows)
- They tried to expand the story aspect (but see the bad!)
The bad:
- The game is slow. Really slow. Compared to the direct competitor you are crawling like a snail over the battlefield
- Dumbed down gameplay. You cannot change the stats of your character manually any more. Why my Wizard got 1 point of Dex every level I don't know. I never use it for anything!
- The Skill system. Okay it's neutral. They kinda got rid of the old skill tree and just unlock everything as you level up. The runes are a neat idea and can change the base spell a lot. The problem is: in the late game, which means higher dificulty levels in this case, you will use the same skills as any other player of your class or die. So why bother? Shorten it more and only give us these spells.
- Killing things doesn't feel satisfying. This is one of the things that should keep you going but it doesn't work here. I was bored for the first hals of Act 1 until Spectral Blade finally unlocked. The only skill of the Wizard that really feels rewarding. Con of that: You need to be up close to use it and this will not be doable on higher difficulties. Then I'm mostly back to shooting missiles without any real impact.
- I was highly disappointed by the numerous compression artifacts in the cutscenes. The ones in D2 looked perfect. But this is a shamefur dispray!
- The lore books. Well they tried but they failed. It's nice to get some background info from the lorebooks that are scattered around but most times when I pick one up I'm more occupied with closing the text that suddenly covers half the screen and killing mobs. Most of it will never be heard. Also there are several of those and you can only get a low amount because Cain only "lost" 2 of them. There are 5 either play on higher difficulty levels to grab more or grind the levels over and over again until you found everything.
- The main story line of the game is also pretty meh and stretched out to make the 3 acts longer than they need to be.
- The bosses are a disappointment except for one. (look under the good points) Pure standard cannon fodder with sometimes a huge amount of HP. Also the bosses constantly interrupt you with text during the acts. That's especially bad in act 3. They build up the boss and he annoys you again and again and when you get to him he's dead in 30 seconds. On the first playthrough.
- The Lord of Terror is no longer scary because you see Diablo constantly as a portrait. Diablo will also never shut up during the fight. Actually seeing the bosses constantly through the act was spoiling the fun. They didn't show you the Act 1 boss and it was a pleasant surprise unless you checked the Achievements for who it is.
- The story is spoiled by the achievements. And by watching the making of beforehand. Don't do that!
- Crafting suddenly stops in Act 3 because you suddenly need items to advance the blacksmith which can only be found in the next difficulty level or bought in the auction house. Good luck with that!
- The item drops are bad. Really bad. Even if you finally get better drops around Act 3 the stats aren't too good. No more resitences (I'd have loved to build up poison resistance). The loot is meh. All you look for is how does it change my: lifepoits, protection and damage. The rest is irrelevant. Is anybody still reading? Also loot is progress based. There are no gems or socheted items before Act 2. You cannot find "epic Items", which aren't that epic tbh. before Nightmare difficulty. This is another keypoint in keeping the player playing they completely killed.
- Don't get me started on the DRM that is only there to control the precious Real money Auction house...
Why do you expect us to spoilertag the plot of a game that is several years old?
because I intend to play it at some point soon, there are other games that exist which I have been playing instead, and the story is actually important to the gameplay experience, unlike Super Mario Bros.
because I intend to play it at some point soon, there are other games that exist which I have been playing instead, and the story is actually important to the gameplay experience, unlike Super Mario Bros.
and also out of courtesy.
Well, to be honest, I don't think we really spoiled very much in the first place. So now you know you have three paths to choose and can pick flowers.
hmmmm... Diablo II had some really nice, old-style orchestral music. How's that in number 3? Haven't yet had a listen... it would be the only thing about the game that loosely interests me.
The last game I finished was Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers.
Now I know why this series is so highly regarded. I only ever played GKII (and I never finished it). It's really great to see the beginning of Gabriel's story. It was a great one too. Multiple murder mysteries, jazz, and voodoo. What's not to enjoy?
It was weird hearing Gabe talk so deep after being used to Dean Erickson. But I got used to it quick, and I really enjoyed Tim Curry's take on the character. And, I'm a big Tim Curry fan anyway.
It was also weird hearing Leah Remini when I'm so used to her being Carrie on King of Queens. But her voice did fit the character of Grace perfectly.
Oh, and of course as I mentioned in another thread, Jim Cummings as the desk sergeant made me think of Detective Lucky in Bonkers since he used the same voice in both productions.
And the puzzles were quite good too. There wasn't anything that seemed "out there" like so many people complain about a particular puzzle in GK3 (and having never played that, I can't comment for myself. But I can't wait to see if all the fuss is warranted after I get through playing GKII). And the deaths were actually obvious, and there didn't seem to be any dead ends. In this aspect, it reminded me of a Revolution game more than a Sierra game, which I appreciated. I don't mind Sierra games, but I'm one of the people who feels that the unexpected deaths and dead ends in most of their games are outdated make the game too frustrating to be a really enjoyable experience. Not having those aspects in this game made it a very enjoyable experience to me.
hmmmm... Diablo II had some really nice, old-style orchestral music. How's that in number 3? Haven't yet had a listen... it would be the only thing about the game that loosely interests me.
Well Matt Uelmen left with the rest of the Blizzard North guys and does the music for Torchlight 2 now. They have a full blown up orchestral score composed by 3 other guys that bored me so much I muted it and played my own music in the background from Act 2 on.
Well it's not memorable at all.
Here is the Diablo 3 main menue theme. This is what you see when they show you the Error 37 notice: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WY9UF-tnrn0
Well that's actually quite fitting to the rage you'll feel. At least the start. Then it just turns into nice background music you wouldn't even recognice at Video Games Live.
You know, I'm feeling like I really just need to get this game and experience it for myself. I may regret this, but I think this is just something that I have to do.
For a demo, I was surprised at just how much there was to play through (it lasted me two hours). I was initially going to do a blind Let's Play of it, but FRAPs let me down by not recording when I thought it was. It's probably for the best though - a large portion of the game is standard RPG fighting and it's not that interesting to watch.
The humour is definitely what drives this game, but it's not enough to overlook an incredibly bland and frustrating combat system. The basic principle is sound enough - it's just like classic JRPGs where you and the bad guys take it in turns to whack each other with pointy things, sometimes using magic or whatnot to heal yourself, etc. Where it all falls down is the introduction to each fight.
In most RPGs, you just enter the fray and sometimes random chance determines if you surprised the enemy or they ambushed you. Here, you can attack an enemy on the "world map", but half the time when you're trying to do your sneak attack they'll turn round, see you and attack you as you're in mid-slash, meaning that they'll get the advantage.
And 'ambushed' and 'sneak attack' are the ONLY options when going into a fight. It gets old very, very quickly.
The rest of the game is entertaining enough, with the wacky plot and the zany cutscenes, but it's that combat that drives the game and it's really frustrating. So that's why it's only a six. I want to like this... but I can't.
Q.U.B.E. 9.5/10
Again this one is pretty short. Took me about 4 hours to complete it. Just like Portal. It's a first person puzzle game in a mostly white environment that looks amazing and doesn't distract from the puzzles. Just like Portal. The puzzles range from tutorialesque to "i have to actually think". Just like Portal.
The soundtrack is electronic and for the most part not spectacular. Just like in Portal.
To make it short: This is me personal Portal 2. Not the disappointing one by VALVe but a real one. All that is missing is Cave Johnson and it would be perfect.
Oh that and I came across 2 glitches and 1 poorly designed puzzle. The poorly designed one and one error forced me to restart from the checkpoint but didn't sour my experience too much.
I stopped playing the game for a while, but finally
Batman: Arkham City
Pros
This may be the first ending where you feel sad for the hero, for winning! Holy crap.
Aside from the fact that Bruce Wayne got arrested for publicly speaking, the story itself was really good
The combat can be interesting when guards actually use knives and such
The enemies may be the funniest thing to listen to. Sometimes I'd just sit there and listen to them.
Cons
Why does Robin show up again?
Guards 50% of the time don't use anything of value to fight, so its just "ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK COUNTER ATTACK" over and over again
Combos do not work for me. I don't know if I have a bugged copy, but whenever I go for a combo attack, batman aims on his own, usually behind him at a wall.
Boss fights are boring with the exception of the Freeze boss
unskippable cutscenes.
Reccomendation: The game is pretty good, but I do NOT see how it got the praise it got.
A lot of characters are jumping in, saying "Hi, remember me?" and then they leave again in this game. Robin will eventually get something more to do in the next DLC. Let's hope he does.
What really makes this game something special is the world. Because the developers used their source material in the right way. I have seen so much stuff I never even knew about in these games and when I wanted to know more I even got the info I wanted directly in the game via the character biographies.
A lot of characters are jumping in, saying "Hi, remember me?" and then they leave again in this game. Robin will eventually get something more to do in the next DLC. Let's hope he does.
He does. Batman gets captured by Harley Quinn, so you play Robin as he goes in to rescue him.
*Most fun I've ever had mindlessly beating up people in any game.
*Robin's Zip Kick is incredibly satisfying to use.
Cons:
*The length. I beat it in 2-3 hours, and that's with searching the entire outside area for enemies to fight, twice. I guess you can search for balloons to pop, but...
*The balloons are the only collectibles. And all you get is a trophy/achievement for popping them all. There's no new Riddler anything.
*The price. This shouldn't have been $10. At all. Even $7, the price I paid thanks to GameStop's reward system, is pushing it a bit.
*The limited gadget use. Only Robin's Bullet Shield is used for anything new and interesting, and there's far too little of it.
* "Oh, nevermind, the
pregnancy test from the story mode was a false positive
". Really? The game designers couldn't find a way to cleverly design the confrontations with
Harley
around that, so they decided to drop it entirely? That's...annoying.
*Robin is never used in the open-world area at all. He's confined to the Steel Mill.
Overall...this was quite disappointing. The gameplay was still as fun as always, though.
EDIT: Hey, what happened to the spoilers? They're black bars now. That's new.
EDIT: Hey, what happened to the spoilers? They're black bars now. That's new.
They've been like that for a couple weeks now.
Everything you've said is pretty much in line with what everyone else has said about this, which is a shame. But hey, it's DLC, I wasn't exactly expecting the new Opposing Force.
I wasn't exactly expecting the new Opposing Force.
BTW, I was wondering, how many people thought that Opposing Force was WAY better than the original Half-Life? I mean, I think that Opposing Force is WAY better than the original Half-Life, and there's quite a number of people who are way too eager to start flame wars when they hear it, they all go '!!!!!!!! OMFG!!!! HERECY!!!! GEARBOX SUCKS!!!!! VALVE RULES!!!! VALVE VALVE VALVE AND ONLY VALVE!!!!!'
BTW, I was wondering, how many people thought that Opposing Force was WAY better than the original Half-Life? I mean, I think that Opposing Force is WAY better than the original Half-Life, and there's quite a number of people who are way too eager to start flame wars when they hear it, they all go '!!!!!!!! OMFG!!!! HERECY!!!! GEARBOX SUCKS!!!!! VALVE RULES!!!! VALVE VALVE VALVE AND ONLY VALVE!!!!!'
Well in Germany we were confused because the robots we killed in Half-Life are supposed to be soldiers now.
I really enjoyed the Tutorial in Opposing Force but the rest... well I thought Half-Life was better.
I thought, for the most part, they were pretty much on par with each other. Half-Life just has the edge, but Opposing Force was almost as good. I'll explain more later (I've got an incredibly important thing to get to now) but that's my 2% of a dollar, anyway.
EDIT: Explaining time!
Being able to experience the same events from HL in OpForce is a great idea and was done incredibly well. I thought the level design in OpForce was amazing, practically on par with the original game, and the way it all intercrossed with the original levels was brilliant.
The fact that you're a Commander and get to interact with other soldiers is neat, even if the pathfinding is rather annoying at times, and the non-canon elements (Race X, the advanced mutations of Zombies, Black Ops, etc) are great fun, if slightly forgettable. The new weapons kick ass too - BIG fan of the Desert Eagle and the 'grappling hook'.
But overall, as fun as it is, it does feel a tad too long and the limited AI really does show with the new allies and enemies, which is why I say it's not quite as good as Half-Life. It's still bloody brilliant though.
Super Mario Galaxy 2 - 10/10
(Beaten with ~70 stars, not completed.)
Improved over SMG1:
More variety of levels
More variety of bosses
More stars per galaxy (1 has 120 stars as Mario, 121 as Luigi, using same levels; 2 has 240 Stars, 120 are hidden green ones)
More more power-ups
Higher difficulty
Includes Yoshi
Requires more stars collected to beat
Better incentive to collect/max out star bits
I did like the Observatory hub area in 1 better than 2's world map, but I'm not docking points for that because it's only my preference.
Last year the base game was my second favourite game. Only beaten by Terraria. This 3$/€ expansion adds about the same amount of content and altered the game enough to give it a new and fresh feeling. If you love Isaac you MUST buy this. You must. You have no choice. Just make sure you can kill the final boss because the difficulty was increased quite a bit.
This DLC might become my Game Of The Year 2012. The only game that could top it now is Torchlight 2. It is just perfect. 40 hours of playtime for 3€. Where else would you get the same value?
Binding of Issac + Wrath of Lamb
I've never actually beaten this game 100 deaths later, but that doesn't mean I haven't enjoyed every bit of this game(only reviewing it now to tie in with the new wrath of lamb).
All I can really say is that this game is greatly disturbing yet always seems to make me come back for more. Also, if you are going to buy this game, throw in the extra $3 for Wrath of Lamb on it, there is zero point not to get one of the biggest expansions I've ever seen.
Saints Row:The Third
I don't know what the crap I've played here. The sure amount of awesomeness has still left me in a shock about how brilliant this game is! It is the best laugh I've had in a game since Portal 2!
LIMBO - 3.5/10 Playing LIMBO fealt as awful as playing Diablo 3. It's boring there is no real motivation to push on and the game pulls a "dick"-card quite often and kills you. The frustrating part in that is that you almost never feel like it is your fault. It's the game hiding things from y<ou too long or the controls failing to work properly.
There seems to be a story but if you search for it in the game you will not find it. The save system is okay. If you die it at least resets you quite near but since there are no manual saves sometimes you have to re-play quite a bit.
I also have no idea how they managed to compile a soundtrack for the game in the Humble Bundle. There is hardly any music. I actually played the Frozen Synapse Soundtrack in the background while playing. That helped a lot.
Why still 3.5/10 points? Why not lower? The game has 2 redeeming qualities. First of all the graphics. They are really beautiful even if they look better in a picture than when you are actually moving. What is in the foreground? Can I walk on this? Will this kill me? More often than not these questions cannot be clearly answered.
The best part is the sound design though. It is almost unnoticeable but the sound effects are really good and, when properly used, enhance the experience in LIMBO quite a bit. This is used in the secret bonus level where you can see nearly nothing and have to avoid obstacles by only hearing them. These sections are great and should have been more numerous in the game. For these sections I even lowered the volume of my music.
Some people just like the hands-on cinematic experience. I mean, if War qualifies as a card game, the flood gates are not just open, the dam blew the fuck up.
Comments
'cause if so, Cry of Fear for Half-Life - 6/10.
It's an extremely well made mod, and it's certainly effective at what it does, with several moments making me jump out of my seat, but it goes on for FAR too long, to the point where I just wanted it to end about three chapters (about an hour) before it actually did. And even then I couldn't actually finish it because of a bad design choice!
The plot also doesn't make that much sense when you think about it. Spoilers!
There's also four (single-player) endings, and in three of them you commit suicide at the end, with changes depending on which of the two main NPCs you take you with. The only ending where you live has you kill two cops for no real reason, which is just bollocks. There's also other endings for other playthroughs, including the co-op ending which is the only real happy one because it stops the car 'accident' from happening at all. Somehow I feel cheated out of my happy ending because I happen to be a single player. Never like that feeling.
The gameplay itself works with limited inventory spaces forcing you to be conservative with your weapon selections and such (although the justification for losing half of that as well as your inventory around the two-third mark is VERY weak), and the horror atmosphere is well done. The main issues I have with gameplay is that there's a LOT of backtracking, the levels ironically feel TOO large, several enemies being really frustrating (the flying ones and the dudes you encounter on the train being my primary examples) and the save points being somewhat interestingly placed (no saving before a bossfight? Bulls**t!). Also, unskippable cutscenes. Unsurprising given it's using the Half-Life engine, but still annoying.
Overall it's a good mod, but like the Director's Cut of Afraid of Monsters, it suffers from being too long and having too much backtracking to pad the game out. It's good, just not amazing.
I don't have much to say that wasn't already covered a few pages ago. It took a little while (say, chapter 2) for the story to engage me but then I was pretty hooked. I love that even when you're trying to be a good guy, there just isn't always a good option to every situation. Geralt doesn't have Commander Shepard's ability to convince someone that wanted to murder hundreds a minute ago that he really shouldn't just by picking the blue dialogue option, and the game is better for it. I'm currently feverishly downloading the sequel.
I still don't know if I chose the "good" option on my first playthrough. I just know that I found Sigfried to be absolutely hilarious in his self righteousness so I just did whatever missions he gave me. And then spent the rest of the time picking every single flower I could. Because my Geralt likes to stop and pick the flowers.
There isn't really a good ending, I think. I mean, both sides of the conflict are in the wrong in some way or another, and even if you choose to keep out of it as much as possible, they're still gonna slaughter each other.
Though for my money, the neutral path is the best one, because then Geralt gets to have a threeway with a couple of nurses. :cool:
I was thinking of the neutral path... but Sigfried! And, well, I already know that I'm sticking with Roche for the second game... whenever I get around to it.
Super Mario Bros. - Spoiler:
On Topic:
Diablo 3. 5.5/10
- What I played: Wizard in Normal Mode
- How long did that take: 27 hours including searching through every corner of every area I came across. Act 1: 9 hours, Act 2: 9 hours, Act 3: 9 hours. There was no act 4. They just split Act 3 in 2 parts to pretend that there are actually 4 acts.
- I did not dare to enter the secret pony level because I had no interest in grinding to gather the items that are required.
The good (hard to think of something honestly):
- I got to level 31. That's more than the usual level I'd get in Diablo 2 vanilla.
- Achievement system to keep you playing / exploring and for the most part grinding.
- The Act 2 boss fight was AMAZING!
- Crafting items (but see the bad!)
- It said Diablo on the really pretty box!
- Downloading the English version without any problems
- The collector's Edition came with the much better Diablo 2 (I'm desperately searching for good points and it really shows)
- They tried to expand the story aspect (but see the bad!)
The bad:
- The game is slow. Really slow. Compared to the direct competitor you are crawling like a snail over the battlefield
- Dumbed down gameplay. You cannot change the stats of your character manually any more. Why my Wizard got 1 point of Dex every level I don't know. I never use it for anything!
- The Skill system. Okay it's neutral. They kinda got rid of the old skill tree and just unlock everything as you level up. The runes are a neat idea and can change the base spell a lot. The problem is: in the late game, which means higher dificulty levels in this case, you will use the same skills as any other player of your class or die. So why bother? Shorten it more and only give us these spells.
- Killing things doesn't feel satisfying. This is one of the things that should keep you going but it doesn't work here. I was bored for the first hals of Act 1 until Spectral Blade finally unlocked. The only skill of the Wizard that really feels rewarding. Con of that: You need to be up close to use it and this will not be doable on higher difficulties. Then I'm mostly back to shooting missiles without any real impact.
- I was highly disappointed by the numerous compression artifacts in the cutscenes. The ones in D2 looked perfect. But this is a shamefur dispray!
- The lore books. Well they tried but they failed. It's nice to get some background info from the lorebooks that are scattered around but most times when I pick one up I'm more occupied with closing the text that suddenly covers half the screen and killing mobs. Most of it will never be heard. Also there are several of those and you can only get a low amount because Cain only "lost" 2 of them. There are 5 either play on higher difficulty levels to grab more or grind the levels over and over again until you found everything.
- The main story line of the game is also pretty meh and stretched out to make the 3 acts longer than they need to be.
- The bosses are a disappointment except for one. (look under the good points) Pure standard cannon fodder with sometimes a huge amount of HP. Also the bosses constantly interrupt you with text during the acts. That's especially bad in act 3. They build up the boss and he annoys you again and again and when you get to him he's dead in 30 seconds. On the first playthrough.
- The Lord of Terror is no longer scary because you see Diablo constantly as a portrait. Diablo will also never shut up during the fight. Actually seeing the bosses constantly through the act was spoiling the fun. They didn't show you the Act 1 boss and it was a pleasant surprise unless you checked the Achievements for who it is.
- The story is spoiled by the achievements. And by watching the making of beforehand. Don't do that!
- Crafting suddenly stops in Act 3 because you suddenly need items to advance the blacksmith which can only be found in the next difficulty level or bought in the auction house. Good luck with that!
- The item drops are bad. Really bad. Even if you finally get better drops around Act 3 the stats aren't too good. No more resitences (I'd have loved to build up poison resistance). The loot is meh. All you look for is how does it change my: lifepoits, protection and damage. The rest is irrelevant. Is anybody still reading? Also loot is progress based. There are no gems or socheted items before Act 2. You cannot find "epic Items", which aren't that epic tbh. before Nightmare difficulty. This is another keypoint in keeping the player playing they completely killed.
- Don't get me started on the DRM that is only there to control the precious Real money Auction house...
and also out of courtesy.
Well, to be honest, I don't think we really spoiled very much in the first place. So now you know you have three paths to choose and can pick flowers.
hmmmm... Diablo II had some really nice, old-style orchestral music. How's that in number 3? Haven't yet had a listen... it would be the only thing about the game that loosely interests me.
Now I know why this series is so highly regarded. I only ever played GKII (and I never finished it). It's really great to see the beginning of Gabriel's story. It was a great one too. Multiple murder mysteries, jazz, and voodoo. What's not to enjoy?
It was weird hearing Gabe talk so deep after being used to Dean Erickson. But I got used to it quick, and I really enjoyed Tim Curry's take on the character. And, I'm a big Tim Curry fan anyway.
It was also weird hearing Leah Remini when I'm so used to her being Carrie on King of Queens. But her voice did fit the character of Grace perfectly.
Oh, and of course as I mentioned in another thread, Jim Cummings as the desk sergeant made me think of Detective Lucky in Bonkers since he used the same voice in both productions.
And the puzzles were quite good too. There wasn't anything that seemed "out there" like so many people complain about a particular puzzle in GK3 (and having never played that, I can't comment for myself. But I can't wait to see if all the fuss is warranted after I get through playing GKII). And the deaths were actually obvious, and there didn't seem to be any dead ends. In this aspect, it reminded me of a Revolution game more than a Sierra game, which I appreciated. I don't mind Sierra games, but I'm one of the people who feels that the unexpected deaths and dead ends in most of their games are outdated make the game too frustrating to be a really enjoyable experience. Not having those aspects in this game made it a very enjoyable experience to me.
It gets an 8.5/10 from me. Great game.
Well Matt Uelmen left with the rest of the Blizzard North guys and does the music for Torchlight 2 now. They have a full blown up orchestral score composed by 3 other guys that bored me so much I muted it and played my own music in the background from Act 2 on.
Well it's not memorable at all.
Here is the Diablo 3 main menue theme. This is what you see when they show you the Error 37 notice:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WY9UF-tnrn0
Well that's actually quite fitting to the rage you'll feel. At least the start. Then it just turns into nice background music you wouldn't even recognice at Video Games Live.
For a demo, I was surprised at just how much there was to play through (it lasted me two hours). I was initially going to do a blind Let's Play of it, but FRAPs let me down by not recording when I thought it was.
The humour is definitely what drives this game, but it's not enough to overlook an incredibly bland and frustrating combat system. The basic principle is sound enough - it's just like classic JRPGs where you and the bad guys take it in turns to whack each other with pointy things, sometimes using magic or whatnot to heal yourself, etc. Where it all falls down is the introduction to each fight.
In most RPGs, you just enter the fray and sometimes random chance determines if you surprised the enemy or they ambushed you. Here, you can attack an enemy on the "world map", but half the time when you're trying to do your sneak attack they'll turn round, see you and attack you as you're in mid-slash, meaning that they'll get the advantage.
And 'ambushed' and 'sneak attack' are the ONLY options when going into a fight. It gets old very, very quickly.
The rest of the game is entertaining enough, with the wacky plot and the zany cutscenes, but it's that combat that drives the game and it's really frustrating. So that's why it's only a six. I want to like this... but I can't.
Ahhhh short but sweet. As is this post. Thanks for reminding me I have this Silver.
Q.U.B.E. 9.5/10
Again this one is pretty short. Took me about 4 hours to complete it. Just like Portal. It's a first person puzzle game in a mostly white environment that looks amazing and doesn't distract from the puzzles. Just like Portal. The puzzles range from tutorialesque to "i have to actually think". Just like Portal.
The soundtrack is electronic and for the most part not spectacular. Just like in Portal.
To make it short: This is me personal Portal 2. Not the disappointing one by VALVe but a real one. All that is missing is Cave Johnson and it would be perfect.
Oh that and I came across 2 glitches and 1 poorly designed puzzle. The poorly designed one and one error forced me to restart from the checkpoint but didn't sour my experience too much.
Batman: Arkham City
Pros
Cons
Reccomendation: The game is pretty good, but I do NOT see how it got the praise it got.
A lot of characters are jumping in, saying "Hi, remember me?" and then they leave again in this game. Robin will eventually get something more to do in the next DLC. Let's hope he does.
What really makes this game something special is the world. Because the developers used their source material in the right way. I have seen so much stuff I never even knew about in these games and when I wanted to know more I even got the info I wanted directly in the game via the character biographies.
(Not spoilered because it's in the trailer)
Yeah, if only that DLC allowed free roaming as Robin, but it doesn't, just for that one story segment:(
Pros:
*Most fun I've ever had mindlessly beating up people in any game.
*Robin's Zip Kick is incredibly satisfying to use.
Cons:
*The length. I beat it in 2-3 hours, and that's with searching the entire outside area for enemies to fight, twice. I guess you can search for balloons to pop, but...
*The balloons are the only collectibles. And all you get is a trophy/achievement for popping them all. There's no new Riddler anything.
*The price. This shouldn't have been $10. At all. Even $7, the price I paid thanks to GameStop's reward system, is pushing it a bit.
*The limited gadget use. Only Robin's Bullet Shield is used for anything new and interesting, and there's far too little of it.
* "Oh, nevermind, the
*Robin is never used in the open-world area at all. He's confined to the Steel Mill.
Overall...this was quite disappointing. The gameplay was still as fun as always, though.
EDIT: Hey, what happened to the spoilers? They're black bars now. That's new.
Everything you've said is pretty much in line with what everyone else has said about this, which is a shame. But hey, it's DLC, I wasn't exactly expecting the new Opposing Force.
BTW, I was wondering, how many people thought that Opposing Force was WAY better than the original Half-Life? I mean, I think that Opposing Force is WAY better than the original Half-Life, and there's quite a number of people who are way too eager to start flame wars when they hear it, they all go '!!!!!!!! OMFG!!!! HERECY!!!! GEARBOX SUCKS!!!!! VALVE RULES!!!! VALVE VALVE VALVE AND ONLY VALVE!!!!!'
Well in Germany we were confused because the robots we killed in Half-Life are supposed to be soldiers now.
I really enjoyed the Tutorial in Opposing Force but the rest... well I thought Half-Life was better.
EDIT: Explaining time!
Being able to experience the same events from HL in OpForce is a great idea and was done incredibly well. I thought the level design in OpForce was amazing, practically on par with the original game, and the way it all intercrossed with the original levels was brilliant.
The fact that you're a Commander and get to interact with other soldiers is neat, even if the pathfinding is rather annoying at times, and the non-canon elements (Race X, the advanced mutations of Zombies, Black Ops, etc) are great fun, if slightly forgettable. The new weapons kick ass too - BIG fan of the Desert Eagle and the 'grappling hook'.
But overall, as fun as it is, it does feel a tad too long and the limited AI really does show with the new allies and enemies, which is why I say it's not quite as good as Half-Life. It's still bloody brilliant though.
Good story, funny/interesting characters, great voice work, challenging puzzles.
A must buy.
(Beaten with ~70 stars, not completed.)
Improved over SMG1:
More variety of levels
More variety of bosses
More stars per galaxy (1 has 120 stars as Mario, 121 as Luigi, using same levels; 2 has 240 Stars, 120 are hidden green ones)
More more power-ups
Higher difficulty
Includes Yoshi
Requires more stars collected to beat
Better incentive to collect/max out star bits
I did like the Observatory hub area in 1 better than 2's world map, but I'm not docking points for that because it's only my preference.
Last year the base game was my second favourite game. Only beaten by Terraria. This 3$/€ expansion adds about the same amount of content and altered the game enough to give it a new and fresh feeling. If you love Isaac you MUST buy this. You must. You have no choice. Just make sure you can kill the final boss because the difficulty was increased quite a bit.
This DLC might become my Game Of The Year 2012. The only game that could top it now is Torchlight 2. It is just perfect. 40 hours of playtime for 3€. Where else would you get the same value?
I've never actually beaten this game 100 deaths later, but that doesn't mean I haven't enjoyed every bit of this game(only reviewing it now to tie in with the new wrath of lamb).
All I can really say is that this game is greatly disturbing yet always seems to make me come back for more. Also, if you are going to buy this game, throw in the extra $3 for Wrath of Lamb on it, there is zero point not to get one of the biggest expansions I've ever seen.
Saints Row:The Third
I don't know what the crap I've played here. The sure amount of awesomeness has still left me in a shock about how brilliant this game is! It is the best laugh I've had in a game since Portal 2!
Chicken. Nuggets.
Playing LIMBO fealt as awful as playing Diablo 3. It's boring there is no real motivation to push on and the game pulls a "dick"-card quite often and kills you. The frustrating part in that is that you almost never feel like it is your fault. It's the game hiding things from y<ou too long or the controls failing to work properly.
There seems to be a story but if you search for it in the game you will not find it. The save system is okay. If you die it at least resets you quite near but since there are no manual saves sometimes you have to re-play quite a bit.
I also have no idea how they managed to compile a soundtrack for the game in the Humble Bundle. There is hardly any music. I actually played the Frozen Synapse Soundtrack in the background while playing. That helped a lot.
Why still 3.5/10 points? Why not lower? The game has 2 redeeming qualities. First of all the graphics. They are really beautiful even if they look better in a picture than when you are actually moving. What is in the foreground? Can I walk on this? Will this kill me? More often than not these questions cannot be clearly answered.
The best part is the sound design though. It is almost unnoticeable but the sound effects are really good and, when properly used, enhance the experience in LIMBO quite a bit. This is used in the secret bonus level where you can see nearly nothing and have to avoid obstacles by only hearing them. These sections are great and should have been more numerous in the game. For these sections I even lowered the volume of my music.
Best video game I have ever played, period.
Shouldn't this be in the "last movie you watched" thread?
This just means you haven't played any video games yet.