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

[Wang Mandu]

Unlockable costume for Resident Evil: Revelations....

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[DR. THRAXX]

Tom Of Finland DLC

[Wang Mandu]

Right but you also get a free game a month, don't you?

[DR. THRAXX]

I saw the digital download version of Last Light for PSN+ members will be $48. Nice to see Sony finally embracing decent pricing for digital only games.

But you have to pay for PSN+ first, right?

Yeah, but it's hella cheap, and it's benefits are completely worth it IMO. I've easily paid for my sub. numerous times over, plus the cloud storage, and auto-update features are really a nice touch.

It averages out to about $6 a month maybe, and it you buy that one game already you saved $12, so you're ahead.

I just got Sleeping Dogs for nothing, I've yet to play it, but it's there when I want to.

[Spooky Apparition]

last night at gamestop i deliberated for a solid 5 minutes whether it was a better idea to get MGS4, realizing i never played MGS2 and played 1 and 3 when they came out and don't remember much, or RE6 for $25.

went with MGS4 for now, but i'm pretty sure 80% of the game is going to be totally lost on me. it'll still be fun, right?

[Wang Mandu]

The gameplay is great fun in MGS4 but go ahead and skip every cutscene over 5 minutes. Iirc there's a few that are 30 min+. Maybe one that's over an hour? Ridiculous.

[DR. THRAXX]

Steam gives day one discounts?

[storm shadow]

last night at gamestop i deliberated for a solid 5 minutes whether it was a better idea to get MGS4, realizing i never played MGS2 and played 1 and 3 when they came out and don't remember much, or RE6 for $25.

went with MGS4 for now, but i'm pretty sure 80% of the game is going to be totally lost on me. it'll still be fun, right?

(begin rant)

Man, I've played every single MGS and related offering (e.g. Metal Gear Acid) and 80% of MGS4 was still lost on me. I love the series and remain a huge apologist for it, but MGS4 was the first one that in a lot of ways I just straight up didn't like. I think this is where all the stereotypes about Metal Gear (as a series written by someone who "has never left his house or spoken to another human being, except when renting another cartload of bad action movies and anime") became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The classic Metal Gear format was like playing an anime adaptation of a cheesy '80s action movie, where every half hour or so someone pauses the DVD to read you a Wikipedia article--and it was great! Yeah it was also kind of silly and campy at points, but it could be legitimately affecting now and again (e.g. the end of MGS3), and it actually seemed interesting and thoughtful. It's easy to forget now, but MGS1's writing and level of sophistication really were light years ahead of almost everything else coming out at the time, especially on consoles.

But everything about MGS4 is just incredibly incoherent, and takes a lot of things that made the series great and supercharges them into self-parody. What really sucks about this is that the gameplay is, for the most part, pretty damn good--although act three is a fucking joke and all of the boss fights are varying degrees of terrible, which is especially disappointing given that this is a series with some of the best boss fights in baming history. I would totally agree with Wang Mandu's advice--skip most of the cutscenes and make up your own story, because I guarantee you it will be better and more satisfying than the real thing.

[spacehamster]

Maybe one that's over an hour? Ridiculous.

There's no single cutscene that long, but several instances where the game strings cutscenes together because of the way it's structured. Wrapup cutscene at the end of a level, "mission briefing", opening cutscene for the next level. Basically, my advice would be to skip all of the mission briefings and every cutscene that's just narration over slides. The latter are particularly terrible, just endless blathering explaining minutiae of the MGS universe that nobody except maybe copstache remembers. And for god's sake, the monologues from that black arms dealer after every boss fight.

Besides, the game has a habit of tossing in a codec conversation explaining everything you really need to know at the beginning of every level anyway. At times Otacon practically repeats lines from the preceding cutscene verbatim.

I like how we have this conversation about every six months, by the way. There's just something about this game where you want to love it dearly for all the things it does right, but there's so much to hate as well. I think Yahtzee summed it up best when he said the game is great on the rare occasions that it begrudgingly lets you actually play it.

[Spooky Apparition]

There's just something about this game where you want to love it dearly for all the things it does right, but there's so much to hate as well. I think Yahtzee summed it up best when he said the game is great on the rare occasions that it begrudgingly lets you actually play it.

it's weird to read that and compare it with the reviews for this game, which almost have insane levels of praise. but i'm probably more in the pisscubes camp than storm shadow when it comes to metal gear, so maybe my casual fan status will help. i'm gonna give it a solid chance for a few days before deciding if i should be the only dude who's ever walked into gamestop and exchanged MGS4 for RE6

but it's seriously okay to skip entire cutscenes and not miss anything important? god i hope so, because I KNOW i'll be drinking when playing this tonight and i'd probably get bored and wouldn't remember tons of details anyway

[Spooky Apparition]

i'll definitely stick with the cutscenes as long as i can. i don't know why i waited so long to get MSG4 in the first place (since it was one of the reasons i bought a PS3) but the very different opinions on this page are making me more excited to play it.

did anyone end up getting metro, btw? i was so close to holding off last night and just picking it up today but i need some trustworthy reee-pinions first

[Wang Mandu]

There's no single cutscene that long, but several instances where the game strings cutscenes together because of the way it's structured. Wrapup cutscene at the end of a level, "mission briefing", opening cutscene for the next level.

Ah right. All I remember is the cutscene transitioning to some Power Point slides detailing weapons or nanomachines....it was at that point I decided to make dinner and it was still going on after I finished cooking. I will give it to Kojima, that game is basically a Metal Gear superfan's wet dream. I bought the HD collection and should play through all the games again but my backlog is essentially a quicksand.pit these days.

Pisscubes needs to play Metal Gear Rising for what is possibly the most over the top story in the entire franchise.

Last Light.doesnt unlock until the 17th here. Gives me a bit of time to blast through 2033 again.

[storm shadow]

I'm way into narrative. Stories are a really big reason I play games-- that isn't to say I don't also require a fun game with good controls, or that I can't love the fuck out of a game if there's no good story-- but it is one of my favorite things.

So that said, the idea of skipping a cut scene that I've never seen before is just blasphmey. It's also how the creator of the game wanted you to experience it, so I try hard to give that experience a try the first time through. Hate 'em or love 'em, the excessive cut scenes in MGS4 are a huge part of the game. Give 'em all a try.

I'm pretty much the same way, but I feel like as I get older I care a lot less about video game stories because they're typically so FUCKING TERRIBLE. And not just obvious examples like MGS4; I think even a lot of the most critically acclaimed video game stories fail to rise above "airport novel" or "half-decent anime" level, and I'm a lot more likely to skip cutscenes than I used to be.

I think the best games know their strengths, story-wise: I never skip a cutscene in an Uncharted game because the writing and characterization is always delightful; those are games where (at least to me) the action sort of plays second fiddle to the story and just getting to spend time with the characters. What Hideo Kojima has never seemed to learn is that people (by which I mean me) don't play MGS for the 20 minute monologues about love blooming on a battlefield, they play it for the MOTHERFUCKING SNEAKING AND BOSS FIGHTS.

I'm picking up Metro on my lunch break, won't get to play until tonight after work.

[Wang Mandu]

The Wii is outselling the Wii U.

[spacehamster]

but i'm probably more in the pisscubes camp than storm shadow when it comes to metal gear, so maybe my casual fan status will help.

I hadn't played MGS2 or 3 when I got 4, so most of the story was completely lost on me. It wasn't what the game did to the story and characters that bothered me, just what everyone says - Kojima could over-write a guy going to the bathroom.

[Comrade Slinky]

Picked up last light, hope the video card is up for it.

[riley-o]

Speaking of, the sheer volume of poop jokes throughout the series was more than enough to raise an eyebrow..

[storm shadow]

Speaking of, the sheer volume of poop jokes throughout the series was more than enough to raise an eyebrow..

See, this is what I'm talking about. In the first game, that character was the kind of small detail that made MGS stand out. He wasn't a super-soldier, just a regular guy who hated his job: he caught a cold, he hated Alaska, he thought Meryl was totally "built". It's all a bit silly, but it's silliness that has context, and serves the gameplay (his mudbutt allows Snake to break out of jail).

In MGS4 this same character becomes a chronic pants-shitting cartoon for no coherent reason other than that Kojima, being a shut-in otaku wizard given superpowers after being bitten by a radioactive autism, somehow computed that an extended poo-poo gag that even a child would find declasse was EXACTLY what his postmodern saga of privatized militaries and nanotech clone wars needed.

In a way, this is a big part of what makes Kojima so endearing: the mix of spergian detail and ludicrous juvenilia. But again, the problem is that MGS4 just. Goes. Too. Far.

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[Spooky Apparition]

mix of spergian detail and ludicrous juvenilia.

between that and the fact snake apparently shits his pants, i think might be looking MORE forward to this now

[storm shadow]

mix of spergian detail and ludicrous juvenilia.

between that and the fact snake apparently shits his pants, i think might be looking MORE forward to this now

Hahaha I think Pisscubes has the right idea, the best way to approach MGS4 is to just embrace the stupidity of it all. I might need to replay it with this in mind.

Installing Metro now

[guardianoftheblind]

abandoned dragons dogma because it actually wasn't all that great, returning to a lot of old XBLA games i never finished.

and

...

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DARK SOULS

[valgalder]

The Wii is outselling the Wii U.

Probably the beginning of the downfall of Nintendo.. Pretty bummed about that, but I can't remember the last time I was actually excited over a Nintendo system other than GBA it DS. They kinda shot themselves in the foot with Wii U I think.

[The Bill]

Resident Evil's live action intro, man. Why does it remind me of Power Rangers? Anyhow, I forgot about limited ribbons for the typewriter. No 15 minutes here and there for me with this game, so next time I have to start from scratch. Not that big a deal, but this may take awhile. Really though? I only have six slots for inventory? I couldn't hold more than one key and zero plants. Do I drop the knife? Can I drop the knife?

[storm shadow]

An hour into Metro: Last Light (no real story spoilers)

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Again, I didn't play the first one, but the amount of grimy detail in the environments is fucking out of control. I've only played like 5 or 6 chapters but it really seems like they recorded an insane amount of dialogue for this game. All of the NPCs seem to have incidental conversations that just go on and on and on; it's not just one canned line of dialogue like "I used to be an adventurer like you..." There's a sequence in a theater where you can watch the entire performance and it's seriously like 15+ minutes (you get an achievement for staying).

I think the gameplay in some ways hasn't quite caught up to the atmosphere/art direction/etc. It really plays a lot like Far Cry 3 thus far. But that's not a bad thing at all, it's just pretty familiar. Then again, any game where you can shoot out lightbulbs is an automatic win for me.

There's also (minor spoilers ahead) a big twist fairly early on that I REALLY didn't see coming. Maybe I'm just a sucker (likely) but they totally got me. I am really, really loving this game.

I did like the game told me and started on normal mode

[Wang Mandu]

The Wii is outselling the Wii U.

Probably the beginning of the downfall of Nintendo.. Pretty bummed about that, but I can't remember the last time I was actually excited over a Nintendo system other than GBA it DS. They kinda shot themselves in the foot with Wii U I think.

I don't know about a downfall. I've heard they have billions in cash in the bank and they have yet to release a Mario or Zelda game. They've definitely bumbled this launch and it's not helping that third parties have kind of abandoned the console. They need a price drop and some killer games before the PS4 and next Xbox launch but are they even really competing with those two anymore? Would be a shame if it is the beginning of the end.