the be all end all video game thread

Dust514 just dropped a new build. Now its looking more like an actual game. Still in Beta, but its getting closer and closer. Sanding those rough edges down. I still got a Beta Key, PM me if you want it.

 

I just got XCOM: Enemy Unknown and so far it's one of the best games I've played all year. It's a bit hard to describe for people unfamiliar with the series (as I was, having never played the originals), but essentially, you command earth's defense against an overwhelming doomsday alien invasion. It's divided almost like a Total War game: part of the game is managing your XCOM headquarters - researching upgrades, deploying satellites and defenses, appeasing the various member nations, training and outfitting soldiers, building new facilities, etc. Then when shit hits the fan and aliens touch down, you send a squad of up to 6 soldiers to fight them in a tactical turn-based battle. That's not a great description, but I don't really know how to do it justice. It's amazing. Pretty sure the demo is free on steam, or if you want to get it on a console (reviews seem to suggest that the console version is on par, since combat is turn-based), you can probably download a demo off PSN/XBL or whatever. But seriously do, because it's a truly awesome game.

 

Wow, Xcom. I played the original in the mid 90s, it was buggy but awesome. Thanks for this, I will make some time to check it out.

 

You guys might appreciate this:

 

Cool video, the horse was a nice touch.

Is this similar to Final Fantasy Tactics? I had a lot of fun with that game and would be interested in something like that.

 

It's similar, although the similarities don't go very deep. XCOM has fairly limited RPG elements - soldiers do level up and earn one of two new skills per level, but aside from equipping them that's about it. Combat is turn-based, but it feels more like Gears of War (cover system is critically important) than FFT.

It's also punishingly difficult. Like Dark Souls hard. And it has a thing called ironman mode which doesn't let you reload saves - you get one, and if you screw up and get a veteran soldier or even a whole squad killed, you have to just suck it up and try not to make the same mistake in the future. Little mistakes can snowball into huge ones, and it's really not that hard to actually lose the game. It's brutal. And way refreshing.

 

Pro starcraft team Slayers is disbanding, this is pretty shit news to wake up to.

 

Anyone playing Pay Day: The Heist? Buddy and I were playing it drunk last night and it was a ton of fun.

 

I just picked up the new XCOM Saturday morning and I definitely shouldn't have waited so long. I haven't had this much fun with a game in a long time, I was hooked all weekend. I can definitely see the similarities to something like FFT in the battle part, but like awwwSnap pointed out, it's not nearly as deep into the RPG elements. It's similar in that the map is essentially a grid that you move your units around, position properly and taking turns with the enemy AI.

For a while it wasn't too hard, but now that I'm getting further into it things are really getting pretty dicey. If a soldier dies in battle, they're gone for the rest of the game, which sucks if it happens to be someone you've been grooming to be a power house since the beginning. They've made it so that you can't just have your six best soldiers that you use every mission. If they take any damage at all they will be wounded for so many days in the overall 'meta game'. So if you have another mission come up just a few days later and your 3 best soldiers are still off active duty, you've got to make due with the other soldiers in your lineup, so it's wise to switch them in and out early on so you have a deep roster of skilled soldiers.

Like I said, I'm having a blast with it, I just hope I don't get further into the game and realize I've made a mistake early on with my research or the facilities I'm building in my base or something like that.

 

Finally finished Arkham Asylum, moving on to Arkham City. If this were last year, I'd be so cool.

 

Now that everything is coming out, this shit is hilarious. The shady manager stuff, Jessica supposedly screwing everyone over, people blaming Boxer for leaving to go to SK Telecom, MMA crying to Crank. Soap opera caliber.

 

BTW, Chivalry is awesome.

<a class="postlink" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1B9sHBbyhs" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1B9sHBbyhs</a>

 

Being a year late, I just discovered you need Xbox Live to download the Catwoman content. I thought it was just included in the game. WHY THE FUCK IS IT NOT JUST INCLUDED IN THE GAME? /yearbehindrant

I guess I was going to get it anyway...now I can finally get to all those New Vegas expansions I wanted.

 

The fucked up thing is that those extras ARE already on the disc. You need the live componant to get the codes to unlock them. It's bullshit. We know this because if you played the game the day it came out, and had PSN/XBL, you had immediate access to the "extra" content with only a 5-10 second download for the keys.

 

Don't know about you Xbox queers, but the tell on the PS3 is the download/unlock is 100 KB. That's how you know that shit was on the disc. It's bullshit, but you either pay for it, or you don't. Entertainment ain't free.

 

I don't know about you all, but I got the Catwoman missions as a free download when I bought the game.

I think a lot of companies put "unlockables" on their discs as incentive to buy early. Take Assassin's Creed III, for example.

Preorder from Amazon, and you'll get a couple of unlockable characters. Preorder from Best Buy and you get some bonus missions.

I don't necessarily think this is a bad thing. They're encouraging people to preorder by offering bonuses to those who buy early. Buy it later (i.e. when the price goes down), and you have to pay for the content that the preorder people got "free" (or when they paid more for the game).

Now, there are some more egregious examples, like Marvel V. Capcom putting a bunch of fighters on the disc that they had no intention of unlocking for months, and then selling later. That isn't bonus content for preorders, or rewarding those who buy early, that is just locking out content for the sake of locking it out.

 

Just playing Metroid Prime for the first time, this game is effortlessly great. Everything that Ocarina of Time did wrong, Prime does right. If you have a Gamecube and somehow don't have this game, pick it up on eBay stat.

 

One week, motherfuckers. One week.

 

If I remember, there is a Wii triple pack of all three Prime games with new controls for the first two.

All three were awesome games, with the 2nd one being the weakest.