The Bill's Now Playing Video Game Thread (Now with Bames)

[The Bill]

This fucking game...

[Spooky Apparition]

hmmmmmmm

"It looks like the House of Valor faction in Amalur's various kingdoms will be joining Catwoman in the limbo-like world of online passes. Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning's House of Valor faction questline is dependent on players having an online pass that only comes with new copies of the game, as our reviews editor Richard Mitchell spotted in his retail copy of the game on Xbox 360."

has this happened before? a non-multiplayer, non-DLC part of a game being locked with an online pass? i do not like this, good sirs. MS might not even have to use a new console to eliminate used games, just lock most of the original content and call it extra stuff for new buyers.

[Spooky Apparition]

new revenue idea for starving game developers/publishers: charge per save at diminishing rates. your first 10 saves could cost like $1 each, and then slowly get cheaper and cheaper. that way if you're just renting a game (you cheap, pathetic fuck) you still put some money into the developer's pockets to keep them off the streets, but if you own the game eventually you earn the privilege of paying nothing to save your game. i hope EA reads this board

[Hypnagogia]

[riley-o]

just beat shadow of the colossus again-- they fucking butchered the controls and gameplay on this re-release which is a real shame because it's such a great game. the design and scope and ambition to make a game like this does wonders for my faith in the medium and honestly of the human species but to go back and change it for the drastically worse, to the point where i'm not going to play it again, is really sad. also really sad:

I just bought this on PSN. What did they mess up? I only took down the first colossus so I haven't spent too much time with it. The only thing I can think of is the camera was never this unwieldy. I might be misremembering things.

they severely fucked with the controls. a lot of this is just petty annoyance; agro sometimes goes left when you push right, he runs into walls and turns completely around; more annoying and something that actually affects the game is that the camera is controllable with the right stick, but if you turn it to a specific angle that actually lets you see where you're going, as soon as you let go of the stick it will frequently just shift it right back to where it was (which is usually behind a wall or at an angle that doesn't let you see where you're going). all of that would be dealwithable and minor gripes (minus the camera thing), but the worst part though, is that now you lose your "balance" any time the colossus moves and you're gripping at a weakpoint trying to stab; i don't know if you played the ps2 version but originally you would time your attacks between thrashings of the colossus. now you readjust your grip any time the colossus makes any move whatsoever, meaning you can't charge your stab for almost any of the later levels, and can only get off quick little digs that do minuscule damage and send the colossus into a thrashing frenzy during which you can only hold on and hope he doesn't start walking. on the second last colossus, i had a run where i was on the dude's head and got one stab off before wander just refused to get balanced enough to do even the quickest, pussiest of stabs, leading to me using up all of my grip. and i had a HUGE grip circle. it makes it so the boss fights aren't even fun or satisfying when you win, they're just annoying. and considering the entire game is boss fights, well..

[Spooky Apparition]

curt schilling is such an upfront dude that i'm willing to overlook EA's straight-up jewish meddling on reckoning-related matters. it looks like it involved a forced farming of the demo out to a 3rd party as well (he posted this on the neogaf forums):

"Let me start by apologizing. The demo? Ya, it is way way WAYYYYY more buggy than anything ANYONE should ever release, much less a demo ... [but] the demo has been a God send, especially when I realize even in this thread, how many people became aware because of the demo. In a partnership there is a lot of give and take, and I believe in my team, they are world class, but when you have a publisher there are things happening you'd rather not choose. Shipping old code out 3 months prior to gold master to a 3rd party with no stake in the demo's success can be problematic."

i mostly like the idea of this guy:



... sitting on an airplane reading a game thread for six hours worrying about how players are reacting to his demo.

but i'll still probably get this because i'm a hopeless nerd

[BroMan]

So uh consider me in shock, but UFC Undisputed 3 has little to none of the problems the first two had. I can't say anything about the online because people cheat, but the demo is actually a blast. I hated the last UFC game! Also, the standard commentary besides some off the wall stuff Joe Rogan says is lame as fuck compared to the Pride commentary. Two words why, Bas Rutten! I hope he's an unlockable fighter, I liked kicking ass as him in EA sports mma, he's a monster on that game. Yeah, I'm just really surprised its not garbage like the last two, but most of all NO MORE SHINE!!! A new submission system that works.

[Friendly Goatus]

I'm kinda looking forward to Kingdoms of Amalur. I might wait a month or so to get it though, let them patch out some bugginess but mostly just to wait out honeymoon phase and see what people's objective reactions are to the game so I can know if it's really worth getting.

[Comrade Slinky]

Couldn't make it through the demo. After Dark Souls, Skyrim, TOR and watching somebody play through the horror of Fable 3 I'm suffering a bit of rpg exhaustion. Especially when I couldn't see anything kingdoms was doing even a little differently.

Darkness II demo was a good bit of fun though.

[guardianoftheblind]

yeah, it's totally nothing special. could be a $15 purchase for sure, but as for now it's not on the radar at all

[Spooky Apparition]

i agree with riley 100% about SOTC's controls compared to the PS2. at the very least they're annoying, but they seem broken at times. never played the original ico, but they seem pretty shitty in that too. probably going to sell the collection without beating either game there's nothing i hate more in a game than feeling like I'm constantly fighting against its controls.

[Wang Mandu]

Now downloading SWTOR. What am I doing to myself.

[Comrade Slinky]

[Comrade Slinky]

double

[ungodlywarlock]

I'm kinda looking forward to Kingdoms of Amalur. I might wait a month or so to get it though, let them patch out some bugginess but mostly just to wait out honeymoon phase and see what people's objective reactions are to the game so I can know if it's really worth getting.

I really liked the demo. Seems like a mishmash of lots of other games, but it seems to be done well. I'll probably play it after I finish Uncharted 3 (which gamefly has just sent me).
Darkness 2 demo didn't blow me away. I mean the demon tendrils are cool, I guess...but other than graphical differences, it doesn't seem to be much different than the first game (which admittedly, I only played the demo of that, too).

Now downloading SWTOR. What am I doing to myself.

It's pretty good fun.
There's some stuff that they will definitely need to add soon so it doesn't turn into a ghost town, but it has a ton of polish for a new MMO launch. Plays great as a single player if you just want to treat it as a spiritual KOTOR 3, too.

I highly recommend the Imperial Agent.

[Comrade Slinky]

I think they have a few too many servers, some of the later planets have pretty low average populations. That and some end game content definitely needs to be put out soon. I went with the imperial agent with the sniper class spec but I guess if you're into pvp it's a bad choice.

[Wang Mandu]

It's pretty good fun.
There's some stuff that they will definitely need to add soon so it doesn't turn into a ghost town, but it has a ton of polish for a new MMO launch. Plays great as a single player if you just want to treat it as a spiritual KOTOR 3, too.

I highly recommend the Imperial Agent.

Yeah, I'm digging it a lot. I've got a Sith Inquisitor Assassin started and an Imperial Agent as well. I'm pretty much only playing it for the single player stories. The Imperial Agent side is so much cooler with all the gangsters and shady characters on Hutta but I like how purely evil you can be on the Sith side. Lightsabers are always fun in games, too. I doubt I'll ever get into PVP or do any huge raids.

One thing I can't really stand is all the trash mobs. It's nice you can easily avoid them but it gets to be a chore after the first 5 hours.

[Wang Mandu]

New non-playable character for Mass Effect 3

SPOILERSPOILER_SHOW

That tart on IGN. I hope this game is as full of camp as I think it's shaping up to be.

SPOILERSPOILER_SHOW

Can't unsee.

[spacehamster]

New non-playable character for Mass Effect 3

10 threads on the BW forums complaining that she's in the game.

30 complaining that you can't shtup her.

[ungodlywarlock]

It's pretty good fun.
There's some stuff that they will definitely need to add soon so it doesn't turn into a ghost town, but it has a ton of polish for a new MMO launch. Plays great as a single player if you just want to treat it as a spiritual KOTOR 3, too.

I highly recommend the Imperial Agent.

Yeah, I'm digging it a lot. I've got a Sith Inquisitor Assassin started and an Imperial Agent as well. I'm pretty much only playing it for the single player stories. The Imperial Agent side is so much cooler with all the gangsters and shady characters on Hutta but I like how purely evil you can be on the Sith side. Lightsabers are always fun in games, too. I doubt I'll ever get into PVP or do any huge raids.

One thing I can't really stand is all the trash mobs. It's nice you can easily avoid them but it gets to be a chore after the first 5 hours.

The PVP actually isn't too bad. People complain a lot about Huttball because it's the one that pops the most, but out of all the "Battlegrounds" on pretty much every MMO, I find it to be one of the most enjoyable as far as interesting areas to traverse.

Raiding I could give a fuck about...I got way too many other games to play and beers to drink to worry about that.

The one thing I would highly recommend...don't alt out too early. If you roll one of everything, you'll get VERY VERY sick of Dromund Kaas fast and by then you might be too bored to get to the really good parts of the game. Just pick 1-2 classes and stick with em.

[riley-o]

playing lego harry potter years 5-7

love these games so much

don't even care

[The Schwartz]

Did MGS:4 drastically change the controls because I'm sucking farts over here and it's very depressing

[james]

I'm fucking freaking out over Metal Slug lately. I was dicking around with a Neo Geo emulator on my DS and dropped an original ROM of MS2 on there to test it. I hadn't realized it, but until now, I've only ever played odd ports of MS games; I've never actually played the original games. This shit is amazing! I can't believe I've been sleeping on this stuff. Fuck they are HARD though!

[The Bill]

I'm fucking freaking out over Metal Slug lately. I was dicking around with a Neo Geo emulator on my DS and dropped an original ROM of MS2 on there to test it. I hadn't realized it, but until now, I've only ever played odd ports of MS games; I've never actually played the original games. This shit is amazing! I can't believe I've been sleeping on this stuff. Fuck they are HARD though!

Metal Slug 3 and Contra 3: Alien Wars are the epitome of 2D side scrolling excellence. I don't believe the genre will ever see games that good again.

[Let Us Help You]

>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EU4oAKZE1VI&hd=1<