Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 Wyrmalla wrote:
Just completed Max Payne 2. Having only ever played the first in the series I'm kind of blown away by how good the writing and gameplay are. For a game made eight years ago its set the bar pretty high for game from that era, as well as making me think that more modern games really could do better.

Max payne 2 had some hilarious moments and also some poignant ones. I love the bit about half way through when you overhear two aging mobsters discussing their retirement and there (ex)wives and kids (His kid's going to college thus escaping the mobster lifestyle), just before you round the corner to gun them down the divorced one has decided that he's going to finally make it up with his ex-wife. Long before games like Borderlands ripped it off.

The shooting also felt incredibly responsive even on the xbox pad. Considering this was a free-aim game with no over-the-shoulder view (which helps with concealing aim assist and allows for a far slower crosshair) it's actually pretty impressive.

Also this line has always been one of my favourites:
Max: 'Throw the rules out the window, odds are you'll go that way too'.

Armored core/project phantasma/master of the arena. Going to work through the 3 ps1 AC games in that order. I started out with ACPP way back when it was sort of new, and so I missed out on all of the wacky human plus tricks, so I'm going to get those right off. Sure, they may be quasi-cheating, but I don't necessarily have to use them for the most part, and if the ravens in ACPP get to have them, I gotta compete somehow :p

So thanks, thread, for mauling me with this bout of nostalgia

Splinter Cell: Conviction, getting ready for Blacklist on Tuesday.

Apparently there are a few in-game items you can get for Blacklist if you have completed "Realistic" Hunter and Coop modes.

Well, just finished XCOM: Enemy Unknown. It was cool and very good, but near the end I was starting to get a bit tired of it. Nevermind completing it 4 more times, each time starting in a different continent for the achievement.

Now I guess is Ar Tonelico, Van Helsing with a friend and gather up courage to resume my ME2 playthrough xD

Finished up Max Payne 3 on the hardest settings. Man that game can be mean.

Now just downloaded Dead Rising 2 on my Xbox with one of its DLC as it's free now.

Dragon Commander, all I say is that ending up as Emperor with a Lizzard folk Princes can be rather amusing.

Space Hulk, Dawn of War 2: Retribution and Space Marine. Oh, and I am planning to play through Knights of the Old Republic 2 for a 10th time.

 TheDraconicLord wrote:
Well, just finished XCOM: Enemy Unknown. It was cool and very good, but near the end I was starting to get a bit tired of it. Nevermind completing it 4 more times, each time starting in a different continent for the achievement.

I just started my first playthrough of it and I'm hooked. Last game I played that was similar to it was Final Liberation

 The Grumpy Eldar wrote:
Now just downloaded Dead Rising 2 on my Xbox with one of its DLC as it's free now.

Did they ever fix it so that you could invert the Y axis?

Received confirmation that my Super Dangerous Wub Wub Edition has shipped.

heh

Good times.

XCOM reminded me a bit of ff tactics which I never regard as a bad thing.

Bit more of Skyrim. After all the time i've played it, i still haven't stuck with a character up to level 50.

Hilarious thing happened though.

Mild spoilers (fans/experts only as well, i guess):

If you have played the quest 'The forsworn conspiracy' you will know it ends with a bunch of Forsworn led by their King Madanach escaping Markarth. Just before he escapes he says how he is going to go join the Forsworn in the field and make them a force to be reckoned with blahblah.

Well after his admittedly quite exciting escape from the city instance i followed him out into the Reach.

Strangely upon the scene loading he and his men put away their weapons and just started jogging. Even stranger was the fact the City Watch around the gate and stables were simply ignoring the vicious rebels who, not 5 minutes before, had killed 5 or more guards and Thonar Silverblood, a prominent Markarth resident.(His corpse was also raised, rather pointedly, by Madanach himself as a temporary ally (i am proud to say i quickly silenced the abomination, for the honour of the Silverblood family, of course, and not because Madanach had not given me ample time to frisk his corpse for gold.)

In fact One Guard, rather than give chase, thought it more important to remind me that his cousin was off fighting dragons while he stays doing guard duty(which he implied was more boring). I didn't have the heart (or in game means) to tell him that perhaps the gross negligence he was currently displaying was the reason he was not chosen for his preferred Dragon hunting.

Perplexed, i carried on escorting Madanach, hoping to deliver him to a Forsworn Outpost where perhaps i would make peace with the rebels or at least see Madanach re-united with his kin. I followed them for what seemed like forever. Madanach and his band refused to stop their peaceful jog for anything, even with several cavebears clawing at them and an encounter with a dragon. At one point i noticed Madanach was down to his last sliver of Health, Healing hands had always proven too steep a tax on my Magicka reserves so i simply hoped the Old man would persevere.

I took a moment to slyly see off Borkul the Beast who had been Lagging behind, luckily he had bore the brunt of the dragon's frost breath in the earlier encounter. He proved little challenge and did not even attempt to defend himself as i crushed his skull with my Paralysing Ebony Mace. Borkul had proved a tough adversary earlier in the quest, requiring much save scumming, i demanded to have satisfaction, he could not go unpunished.

Luckily none of the rebels noticed or protested, perhaps they were glad to see him dead, what with him being a vile Orsimer and not a true native of the Reach. Or they were simply well aware that this Dragonborn was an incredibly petty man who wore many Grudges, especially against ill-mannered Orcs.

After a time we passed the Dwarven Ruins of Bthardamz and in the distance i spied two Female Forsworn Warriors standing over the body of a horse. Just on the Border between Haafinger and the Reach.

I could've sworn Madanach sped up a smidge to meet his brethren (Sistren? Whatever....). To my surprise and perhaps horror the two Forsworn warriors did not greet him. He came on closer, he did not stop his run but he did seem to have trouble navigating the Piebald horse's Remains. Eventually one of the Forsworn did speak,
'Now you'll pay!'
She said as the other silently and with a blank-faced determintation grabbed the old man and did the Dual wield, scissor head lop Canned-animation on Madanach (You know the one from Gladiator?.) As it transpired Both were the robust 'Forsworn Pillagers' and proceeded to make short work of the rest of the prisoners with the Dragonborn a bystander.

Their bodies lay scattered in the road alongside the unfortunate Redguard peddler and her horse. They finally turned to me. Due to a favorable slope at their backs a simple Thuum blast from the dragonborn finally saw them off.

Perhaps during his time in Cidhna Mine he had lost his relevance to the Forsworn cause? Perhaps they simply found him wanting compared to the new leaders that had Arisen since his imprisonment? Maybe there faith was in the Briarhearts and the dark pacts they forged with the Hargravens? We may never know, and as his head slowly rolled, alternating its view between the Tall pines of Haafinger and the stunted Juniper of his ancestral Hold neither did poor Madanach.

Or you know, you're not s'posed to follow them out the gate.... 'Cause Skyrim is sometimes a little bit goofy.

 Perkustin wrote:
Bit more of Skyrim. After all the time i've played it, i still haven't stuck with a character up to level 50.

Hilarious thing happened though.

Mild spoilers (fans/experts only as well, i guess):

If you have played the quest 'The forsworn conspiracy' you will know it ends with a bunch of Forsworn led by their King Madanach escaping Markarth. Just before he escapes he says how he is going to go join the Forsworn in the field and make them a force to be reckoned with blahblah.

Well after his admittedly quite exciting escape from the city instance i followed him out into the Reach.

Strangely upon the scene loading he and his men put away their weapons and just started jogging. Even stranger was the fact the City Watch around the gate and stables were simply ignoring the vicious rebels who, not 5 minutes before, had killed 5 or more guards and Thonar Silverblood, a prominent Markarth resident.(His corpse was also raised, rather pointedly, by Madanach himself as a temporary ally (i am proud to say i quickly silenced the abomination, for the honour of the Silverblood family, of course, and not because Madanach had not given me ample time to frisk his corpse for gold.)

In fact One Guard, rather than give chase, thought it more important to remind me that his cousin was off fighting dragons while he stays doing guard duty(which he implied was more boring). I didn't have the heart (or in game means) to tell him that perhaps the gross negligence he was currently displaying was the reason he was not chosen for his preferred Dragon hunting.

Perplexed, i carried on escorting Madanach, hoping to deliver him to a Forsworn Outpost where perhaps i would make peace with the rebels or at least see Madanach re-united with his kin. I followed them for what seemed like forever. Madanach and his band refused to stop their peaceful jog for anything, even with several cavebears clawing at them and an encounter with a dragon. At one point i noticed Madanach was down to his last sliver of Health, Healing hands had always proven too steep a tax on my Magicka reserves so i simply hoped the Old man would persevere.

I took a moment to slyly see off Borkul the Beast who had been Lagging behind, luckily he had bore the brunt of the dragon's frost breath in the earlier encounter. He proved little challenge and did not even attempt to defend himself as i crushed his skull with my Paralysing Ebony Mace. Borkul had proved a tough adversary earlier in the quest, requiring much save scumming, i demanded to have satisfaction, he could not go unpunished.

Luckily none of the rebels noticed or protested, perhaps they were glad to see him dead, what with him being a vile Orsimer and not a true native of the Reach. Or they were simply well aware that this Dragonborn was an incredibly petty man who wore many Grudges, especially against ill-mannered Orcs.

After a time we passed the Dwarven Ruins of Bthardamz and in the distance i spied two Female Forsworn Warriors standing over the body of a horse. Just on the Border between Haafinger and the Reach.

I could've sworn Madanach sped up a smidge to meet his brethren (Sistren? Whatever....). To my surprise and perhaps horror the two Forsworn warriors did not greet him. He came on closer, he did not stop his run but he did seem to have trouble navigating the Piebald horse's Remains. Eventually one of the Forsworn did speak,
'Now you'll pay!'
She said as the other silently and with a blank-faced determintation grabbed the old man and did the Dual wield, scissor head lop Canned-animation on Madanach (You know the one from Gladiator?.) As it transpired Both were the robust 'Forsworn Pillagers' and proceeded to make short work of the rest of the prisoners with the Dragonborn a bystander.

Their bodies lay scattered in the road alongside the unfortunate Redguard peddler and her horse. They finally turned to me. Due to a favorable slope at their backs a simple Thuum blast from the dragonborn finally saw them off.

Perhaps during his time in Cidhna Mine he had lost his relevance to the Forsworn cause? Perhaps they simply found him wanting compared to the new leaders that had Arisen since his imprisonment? Maybe there faith was in the Briarhearts and the dark pacts they forged with the Hargravens? We may never know, and as his head slowly rolled, alternating its view between the Tall pines of Haafinger and the stunted Juniper of his ancestral Hold neither did poor Madanach.

Or you know, you're not s'posed to follow them out the gate.... 'Cause Skyrim is sometimes a little bit goofy.

Laugh. Not out loud, but out loud in my head. Well played.

Dreadclaw69 wrote:

 TheDraconicLord wrote:
Well, just finished XCOM: Enemy Unknown. It was cool and very good, but near the end I was starting to get a bit tired of it. Nevermind completing it 4 more times, each time starting in a different continent for the achievement.

I just started my first playthrough of it and I'm hooked. Last game I played that was similar to it was Final Liberation

Oh yes, XCOM is fantastic and I really got addicted. It was only near the end that I was starting to get tired.

GrimDork wrote:XCOM reminded me a bit of ff tactics which I never regard as a bad thing.

Aaah, GrimDork, you truly are a man of good taste


That thing I said about ME2? Yeah, cancel that, I installed Sleeping Dogs (damn you, STEAM SALES!!!) on a whim and decided to see if it was as enjoyable as it felt when I tried the demo. Oooh man, do I love playing a badass martial artist undercover cop. The game reminds me of "True Crime: Streets of LA" and was that game good!

There's far too few games where I'm able to play as a cop and take down criminals WITH EXTREME PREJUDICE!!!

 GrimDork wrote:
Armored core/project phantasma/master of the arena. Going to work through the 3 ps1 AC games in that order. I started out with ACPP way back when it was sort of new, and so I missed out on all of the wacky human plus tricks, so I'm going to get those right off. Sure, they may be quasi-cheating, but I don't necessarily have to use them for the most part, and if the ravens in ACPP get to have them, I gotta compete somehow :p

So thanks, thread, for mauling me with this bout of nostalgia

Heh, I'm currently in the process of buying every single AC game I can get my mitts on. Project Phantasma and Master of arena are the only ones left now I think.

As for what I'm playing lately..

Dragon Commander
Europa Universalis IV
Planetside 2
Mechwarrior Online
M&B: Napoleonic shenanigens
Guns of Icarus

So, actually been kinda busy huh.

@TDL, I can't tell you how many times I finally killed the boss for FFT after 80something hours. I mean, I could have just worked on one save, maxing out classes and levels, but I started over fairly often. This time, I take all of the cool NPCs. This time, I let them give me their ubergear and then dismiss, cause my original party is cooler (if less effective). This time, everyone is a knight main class dabling only long enough to get secondaries! :p It is a shame that the tactics advance had so many wonky things going on that I couldn't get interested. I would pay top dollar for a well written lengthy FFT clone however, or if I ever tried to design a game... first thing I'd want to do.

How's PS2 treating you Soladrin? I played somewhat casually although I did reward them with a 6 mo sub. I eventually got tired of forcing myself to log in every day just to receive my capped certs. It was a good problem to have, I guess, but I don't have enough time to play and be good at a shooter atm.

Running people over with an invisible ATV though...

The discs may not be very serviceable, but I own the older AC games...somewhere, so I have no qualms emulating them on my phone for mucho ease of access. Quite pleased to finally playthrough in order though, I started at ACPP back when.

 GrimDork wrote:
@TDL, I can't tell you how many times I finally killed the boss for FFT after 80something hours. I mean, I could have just worked on one save, maxing out classes and levels, but I started over fairly often. This time, I take all of the cool NPCs. This time, I let them give me their ubergear and then dismiss, cause my original party is cooler (if less effective). This time, everyone is a knight main class dabling only long enough to get secondaries! :p It is a shame that the tactics advance had so many wonky things going on that I couldn't get interested. I would pay top dollar for a well written lengthy FFT clone however, or if I ever tried to design a game... first thing I'd want to do.
.

Not a clone, but it's the same genre as FFT, Strategic Role Playing Game, and my favorite game of all time. Allow me to present you, Shining Force III:

 GrimDork wrote:
@TDL, I can't tell you how many times I finally killed the boss for FFT after 80something hours. I mean, I could have just worked on one save, maxing out classes and levels, but I started over fairly often. This time, I take all of the cool NPCs. This time, I let them give me their ubergear and then dismiss, cause my original party is cooler (if less effective). This time, everyone is a knight main class dabling only long enough to get secondaries! :p It is a shame that the tactics advance had so many wonky things going on that I couldn't get interested. I would pay top dollar for a well written lengthy FFT clone however, or if I ever tried to design a game... first thing I'd want to do.

How's PS2 treating you Soladrin? I played somewhat casually although I did reward them with a 6 mo sub. I eventually got tired of forcing myself to log in every day just to receive my capped certs. It was a good problem to have, I guess, but I don't have enough time to play and be good at a shooter atm.

Running people over with an invisible ATV though...

The discs may not be very serviceable, but I own the older AC games...somewhere, so I have no qualms emulating them on my phone for mucho ease of access. Quite pleased to finally playthrough in order though, I started at ACPP back when.

It's fun, not massively into it, just playing about an hour or so when I feel like it. Bit annoyed at how slow unlocking weapons is, and them costing almost 10 dollars is just nonsense.

And I started with ACPP too way back then.

@Soladrin, yeah unlocking guns is super slow. Most guns are sidegrades, although they did introduce new types and the tanks/planes really like station cash. The 6month subscription made getting upgrades for your soldiers fairly manageable, and if I were going to play all the time, I would consider it worth the cost, but no time to be any good :p
The arena portion of ACPP really makes it more fun, but AC is proving a pretty stellar game.

@TDL I may have to look into that

Just started Co-op Deadspace 3. Pew-pew stupid morphs!

 GrimDork wrote:
@Soladrin, yeah unlocking guns is super slow. Most guns are sidegrades, although they did introduce new types and the tanks/planes really like station cash. The 6month subscription made getting upgrades for your soldiers fairly manageable, and if I were going to play all the time, I would consider it worth the cost, but no time to be any good :p
The arena portion of ACPP really makes it more fun, but AC is proving a pretty stellar game.

@TDL I may have to look into that

Yep, arena was always fun, and has always stayed fun in AC games.

Arkham City.

Figured it was time to get the percent of my Steam Library I've actually installed and played above 50%

Curse you Steam sales!

Been playing all the DLC I have for Borderlands 2 currently as my commando. Haven't even beaten the main story yet and I'm level 41. Rest of the game is going to be easy mode I think.

Gotta love Krieg - MEAT BICYCLE!

Picked up Splinter Cell: Blacklist.

Initial impressions?
Fantastic.

I enjoyed Splinter cell conviction quite a bit, it's the only (stealth) game where you could get spotted and actually work it to your advantage, instead of just save-scumming (*cough*Dishonored*cough*).

Those later enemies that shared your sonar 'ping' ability can go jump off a bridge though. Absolute nightmare, albeit a deft example of turning the player expectations on their head (similar to the guys that'd blow up the Gargoyles in Arkham Asylum).

Is the co-op campaign split-screen? I may get it eventually if that's the case.

I don't know if the coop campaign is split-screen, but what I do know is that it took 49 minutes to complete the second mission--on normal, and not doing the "Ghost" playstyle.

I love this.

Right now I'm taking a stroll down Memory Lane, playing a very fun old game called "Run For It" on my Apple II emulator.

 TheDraconicLord wrote:

Dreadclaw69 wrote:

 TheDraconicLord wrote:
Well, just finished XCOM: Enemy Unknown. It was cool and very good, but near the end I was starting to get a bit tired of it. Nevermind completing it 4 more times, each time starting in a different continent for the achievement.

I just started my first playthrough of it and I'm hooked. Last game I played that was similar to it was Final Liberation

Oh yes, XCOM is fantastic and I really got addicted. It was only near the end that I was starting to get tired.

GrimDork wrote:XCOM reminded me a bit of ff tactics which I never regard as a bad thing.

Aaah, GrimDork, you truly are a man of good taste


That thing I said about ME2? Yeah, cancel that, I installed Sleeping Dogs (damn you, STEAM SALES!!!) on a whim and decided to see if it was as enjoyable as it felt when I tried the demo. Oooh man, do I love playing a badass martial artist undercover cop. The game reminds me of "True Crime: Streets of LA" and was that game good!

There's far too few games where I'm able to play as a cop and take down criminals WITH EXTREME PREJUDICE!!!

I believe Sleeping Dogs is actually part of the True Crime series or at least made by the same people so that's probably why.

@Eldarain did you play Arkham asylum? How does city compare? Got the first one on steam but wasn't crazy enough about it to look too hard at what followed.

City is a lot more freeflow combat and a lot more movement/planning before you engage.

Plus the Challenge Mode is so much nicer in City than Asylum.

Finishing up Tomb raider revamp, liking it so far. Not the QTE moments.

The only gripe i have is that the game is too Uncharted (even the online is like uncharted), the tomb puzzles were way to easy. And the detection system was off.

And those progammers must realy hate Lara, those death scenes were nasty.