I'm not sure about the new Gears of War game. I really liked the first two, but 3 was pretty disappointing. Then again, they ditched Karen Traviss and brought in People Can Fly, both moves I approve of. Traviss doesn't ever need to get another shot at writing the story for a game.
Any people wanting to catch up on God of War. Gamestop.com has God of War Accession deal for 60 bucks you get the new game and The God of War Saga which has GoW 1-3 and the two PSP games. I picked it up because I wanted the new game and need to play the PSP ones as well. Ill probably throw the Saga up on craigslist after Im done with it and hope to get my shipping back plus a little extra.
Wait, you get fucking everything for $60? Holy shit. Speaking of which, I need to get the second PSP game off Amazon.
I dunno if anyone else around here ever got much into Starcraft, but the new expansion is out, Heart of the Swarm. Campaign is pretty damn fun so far, and they managed to boss fights into an RTS game and it actually worked.
My issue with the hellbats was for tvz, but honestly I don't know why it is zergs complain 5x more than any other race. Between vipers and infestors they now have the two best spell casters in the game, and a zerg player just won mlg. I main as protoss, but I go random all the time and I don't see any glaring issues with playing zerg. The medivac speed boost seemed a bit much at first. Then, you realize protoss air opening are good in all match ups now, rather than just doing some cheesy all in. Oracle openings are crazy good against terran and I think 3 gate void ray is really the way to go in pvp now. There's so many builds that seem viable now it feels dangerous to rely on the 'safe' fast expand openings that worked in WoL. I seriously hope they don't patch anything for at least a couple months while the metagame develops. There were so many instances in WoL where something appeared imbalanced (or appeared not imbalanced) only to find out later the opposite was true, so I would rather blizzard not rush into any hasty adjustments. The campaign was really short, but really fun. I still think it's the weakest of the series though, and at the moment I don't feel like running through all the missions on brutal mode.
What happened to the days of New Game+ and unlockable content? I picked up Tomb Raider yesterday and after playing fanatically for a few hours (it's a lot of fun) decided to look online to see what kind of stuff I had to look forward to unlocking, only to find that there is NOTHING AT ALL. No new game+ or any variant, no costumes, no cheats, no unlockable weapons, nothing. There is tons of shit to find, collect, and see, and absolutely no incentive aside from trophies to find any of it (and lore about the island, I guess, but it's nothing revolutionary or terribly interesting). After you beat it you can still explore the island to find tombs and collectibles, but again - no real incentive to do so, since all you get for doing it is points to spend on bonuses that don't matter because you have already finished the content. Enemies don't respawn. New enemies don't spawn. It's just sightseeing, which is fine because it's a very very pretty and meticulously designed game, but I can't think of a compelling reason to spend more than a few minutes doing it. It's a shame, because something as simple as rolling my character over into the next difficulty, carrying over upgrades, and ideally having some new duds to try on would have me playing through at least a few more times; as it is though, it definitely looks like a one-and-done game. It's a huge bummer to me that game companies have shifted so heavily toward the paid dlc model for content and skins and stuff. Devil May Cry and Metal Gear Solid are 2 of my all-time favorite franchises in no small part because they reward replays so heavily, with new modes and costumes and bonuses and gear and rankings and all kinds of sweetness. God of War did, but they seem to have dropped that in favor of paid DLC, which totally ruins the fun of it in my opinion. I'm more than willing to play your game 3 times through or more to unlock Super Dante, or get ballin stealth camo, and will tell all my friends they should too. Fuck off if you think I'm gonna pay $3 to just unlock it from the start. Rewards are satisfying because they are rewarding. That said, can you guys recommend me some games that will help me scratch this New game+ itch I seem to be having? I own and have already played the hell out of Metal Gear Rising, so that's out, I've already played and sold Bayonetta, and I'm not really looking for an RPG like Disgaea... So I guess that crosses a lot off the list. I'd mightily appreciate any suggestions regardless. EDIT: Dark/Demons Souls are already in my collection as well, as is Bastion
Can’t think of a recommendation, but since you mention Metal Gear.... Here’s something for the guys I’ll see on Battlefield:
I know god Of War 3 had some of the play through rewards you speak of, not too sure about the new one, though so far has been a lot more fun than the reviews have stated. I dont know if youve played all the GTAs but those games are made for the tedious side missions. I just got GTA SA and spent hours taking over all of the gang land and moved onto getting the 100 tags. Shits pimp. The Batman Arkham games are have a lot of those side missions as well.
Batman: Arkham City. After you complete the main campaign on normal or hard, you unlock new game plus.
Anyone have Gamefly? Ive been thinking of getting it for a while since I have a slew of games I need to power through but really don't want to buy all of them. Is it worth the price, I used to have the netflix DVD mailer option but rarely returned them. Is there any sort of digital only game service like this for PS3?
I've heard good things about them. It's unfortunate, but there's a lot of games out there, especially new games, only worth playing once.
I have 6 games I own now to beat, and I think I'll be switching to Gamefly afterwards. I hate Gamestop so much, I can't take games back there, and I can't own games anymore since I'm not dedicating that much time to them as I want to, mostly because of my League of Legends addiction.
No Bioshock Infinite discussion? I enjoyed the heck out of the game. It was a pretty good balance of calm exploration and action. The combat was serviceable - not stellar, but rarely frustrating even when the battles descended into a clusterfuck of chaos. The weapon choices were varied enough that everyone will find something they like - I preferred a combination of the carbine and the sniper rifle, after deciding that the shotgun/hand cannon/etc. weapons were a little too inaccurate. The carbine was a good balance that let you battle up close but still provided the capacity for headshots or medium distance fighting. A lot of people seemed to love the hand cannon - it's definitely powerful, just not my favorite. The second-to-last level Spoiler where you're going through the asylum was just great. Creepy as hell, the "tears" scattered through the level with bits of disturbing dialog added to the atmosphere, and the insane people who would get set on you if you alerted the weird-ass sentry thing were all very well done. It was almost genuinely scary, since there was no ammo anywhere. The last battle Spoiler was a little bit excessive. It wasn't all that hard, I guess, once I figured out that I shouldn't be simply fighting off the waves of enemies waiting for the Zeppelins to come around front of the ship. I won it on my first go-through, but only after 10 minutes of successfully fighting off wave after wave of enemy without realizing that it was endless. It felt rather like Assassin's Creed in that regard, where the last fight was almost totally out of context from the whole rest of the game. The ending Spoiler was pretty enjoyable, a good payoff. I don't think it was the "headfuck" that some people are claiming - just an interesting and unique way to end the storyline, while bringing together some of the other stories of the series, and actually feeling slightly fulfilling. I didn't mind the linear, choiceless ending here - I think it played out very well. I really like the relationship with Elizabeth, as one of the few NPCs in any game I've played that felt like a compelling relationship and a useful companion rather than a child to babysit and an inane dialog machine. Anyway, I liked it a lot. Not many gripes... One would be that there was no penalty for death at all, meaning you lost a little of the panic mode fighting or escape. Also, there were some times where I felt like you should have been able to stealth through a section, but killing anyone immediately triggered all the nearby enemies, even if they shouldn't have been able to "see" their comrade die. Also, the relative plethora of vending machines meant you never had to change weapons - which is okay in some ways, but it can be a nice challenge to force a player out of their comfort zone.
Anyone playing Dead Space 3? Thoughts? It's my first time playing the franchise, and so far I'm liking it quite a bit.
Oh man, go back and play the first one. I haven't played the second one, but the first one is from 2008 and it holds up REALLY well. I'm playing it now as I've lost saves 50 times.