LAST PERSON TO POST WINS

Damien · Post by **Damien** » Wed Dec 03, 2008 11:43 pm

My Play package STILL hasn't arrived

Not to impressed!

Lord Golbez · Post by **Lord Golbez** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 12:41 am

I don't know what that is.

Damien · Post by **Damien** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 12:46 am

Will your knowledge make it arrive?

Lord Golbez · Post by **Lord Golbez** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 2:01 am

Maybe?

Yuka · Post by **Yuka** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 8:40 am

My Play order best show up today, or else I'm going to kick some puppies.

Damien · Post by **Damien** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 11:28 am

But what have the puppies done?

Yuka · Post by **Yuka** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 11:50 am

Uh... got in the way? I dunno.
Either way, I can't see any puppies, so I guess they're safe.

But I have to go into town, so I might see some then. Who knows?

Damien · Post by **Damien** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 12:42 pm

Have you got a job at Argos or something?

Yuka · Post by **Yuka** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 2:38 pm

I am still of the unemployed variety (and probably will be, forever and ever)

I had to go into Uni for the inevitable 'Your assignment did poorly because...' meeting.

And I went in for a lecture that had been cancelled, so I had to kill a whole hour, which I did mostly wandering around Lincoln jumping over puddles and glaring at swans.

Today's been a crap day. I'm hoping the sunny-happy-rainbow world of Eternal Sonata will make me happy.
Or vomit.

Damien · Post by **Damien** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 3:05 pm

But it's not overly-happy.
Magic users can only use magic as a side-effect of an incurable terminal illness which'll eventually kill them.
Cheery stuff, eh?

Yuka · Post by **Yuka** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 4:11 pm

But it's so bright and la-la-la and all the voice actors are on helium...

I'm getting slightly worried by the fact I can spot a character voiced by Mona Marshall within seconds. There really isn't much variation in her characters at all.

Damien · Post by **Damien** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 6:06 pm

I don't know voice actors' names, or recognise their voices

[google]Last Remnant[/google] finally arrived btw. Bullshit it was posted out Sunday though!

Lord Golbez · Post by **Lord Golbez** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 7:46 pm

You should really know Cam Clarke though. I don't care about the rest, but everyone should know who Cam Clarke is and should know "Sorry, I can't hear you with these earmuffs on." Everyone!

Yuka · Post by **Yuka** » Fri Dec 05, 2008 1:58 pm

Well, Last Remnant arrived today, so my vendetta against dogs has been called off until further notice.

Is it me, or is Sonata really easy? Provided you can time it right, blocking hardly hurts you, and I took down that annoying maze-forte boss with 3 fully charged Bonecrushers.

... maybe that whole 'Party Level' thing makes it harder? Give me back my unlimited thinking time!

Lord Golbez · Post by **Lord Golbez** » Fri Dec 05, 2008 3:52 pm

I would hope that blocking doesn't hurt you at all. That's some crazy shit. Next you're going to tell me that healing barely hurts you.

Yuka · Post by **Yuka** » Fri Dec 05, 2008 4:06 pm

Depends on the healing spell. The early ones aren't very good at all (about 5-10% of your max HP) but some of the later ones are a lot better.

And anyway, taking damage from defending makes sense. What game (bar FFVII's 'Defend' command) reduced damage to 0 with a block?

Damien · Post by **Damien** » Fri Dec 05, 2008 4:16 pm

What annoys me in ES is that each random battle in the same area is the same.
I'm thrown into battle, and will know who's going to attack who when and how from the off after a couple of times.
This gets tedious when I'm walking around lost

Tried out LR yesterday, but I think I'm going to try to get back into ES first before playing the first 10 hours of another console RPG

Damien · Post by **Damien** » Fri Dec 05, 2008 4:18 pm

And yeah, the "party level" upgrades makes the battles increasingly tricky.
You're only a few hours behind me now

Yuka · Post by **Yuka** » Fri Dec 05, 2008 4:30 pm

Tried out LR yesterday, but I think I'm going to try to get back into ES first before playing the first 10 hours of another console RPG

That's exactly what I was thinking too.

My ES strategy went out the window when the action time got reduced by a second. Usually I could get 12-16 hits in there and finish with a special that'd take the enemy out.
Now I have to finish them on the second turn.

Also, I don't get Viola's attack at all. Is it me or does it do more damage the further away she is?... up until the point where she misses, pretty much wasting a turn. She's still ace though. Heal Arrow and Bonecrusher ftw.

edit: wow, look at us, discussing games! That's a rarity here.

Damien · Post by **Damien** » Fri Dec 05, 2008 4:43 pm

Yeah. Every time I start a second turn with her I have to spend half of it walking away from the enemies she's going to attack.

And yeah haha xd

Lord Golbez · Post by **Lord Golbez** » Fri Dec 05, 2008 4:56 pm

Yuka wrote:Depends on the healing spell. The early ones aren't very good at all (about 5-10% of your max HP) but some of the later ones are a lot better.

And anyway, taking damage from defending makes sense. What game (bar FFVII's 'Defend' command) reduced damage to 0 with a block?

That's not what you said. You said it hurts you, not that it doesn't reduce damage to zero.

Yuka · Post by **Yuka** » Fri Dec 05, 2008 5:03 pm

I say lots of things

Damien · Post by **Damien** » Fri Dec 05, 2008 5:13 pm

BONECRUSHER!

Yuka · Post by **Yuka** » Fri Dec 05, 2008 5:16 pm

ORANGEGLOW!

Uh, I've got to stop hitting the camera button when I want Beat to attack... what is this, Dark Chronicle a-fucking-gain?

Damien · Post by **Damien** » Fri Dec 05, 2008 5:43 pm

I removed him from my party because I kept forgetting, and it got damn annoying

Yuka · Post by **Yuka** » Fri Dec 05, 2008 11:00 pm

He's handy though. His long range attack builds up echos pretty sharpish.

I've mapped the camera to the held down button, so as long as I tap Y, he'll do what I want.

Yuka · Post by **Yuka** » Sat Dec 06, 2008 12:01 pm

News just in: I suck at the Resident Evil 4 In Africa... I uh mean, 5.. demo.

And they give you some woman to keep alive, and her AI sucks. So if she dies, it's game over. Maybe if the daft sod could learn to pick up and use her own damn ammo and herbs instead of me having to order her to do it she wouldn't be on the bad end of a massive axe!

Edit: Oh wait, she IS capable of doing shit herself. Still suck at it though.

Lord Golbez · Post by **Lord Golbez** » Sat Dec 06, 2008 3:46 pm

Zombies use axes in RE5? Those are some smart zombies. Do they use guns too?

Yuka · Post by **Yuka** » Sat Dec 06, 2008 5:01 pm

Well they're not technically zombies. Like in RE4, it's probably something else, since they're capable of thinking more. But the demo doesn't really give you a good enough impression of how much they can think and strategise, whereas RE4 had them chasing you over rooftops, cutting off your escape, moving ladders to windows to get in, throwing grenades at you... etc.

But there's nothing in the demo that goes beyond the 'moving slowly towards you before attacking' behaviour.

Etch · Post by **Etch** » Sat Dec 06, 2008 9:02 pm

Yeah. The "zombies" in RE5 are the same as the las plagas enemies in RE 4, the infected in 28 days & weeks later...and the zombies in Left 4 Dead. Technically, they are all still alive, but severely mutated, fucked up in the head, or they have a parasite growing in them.

But that is disturbing that the AI counterpart in RE5 isn't all that great. I guess I'll have to play it co-op online cause I suck at keeping AI controlled characters alive in games.

Yuka · Post by **Yuka** » Sat Dec 06, 2008 9:08 pm

I may have to revise that opinion somewhat.

It's a very... mixed bag. On the one hand, the AI makes a lot of decisions on its own if left unchecked. I played the demo not telling the AI to do anything, and she picked up everything in sight, mixed several herbs together, passed all pistol ammo to Chris and kept all Rifle ammo for herself.
So I have no idea how she's supposed to function, but I'm guessing her default is to try and create some sort of balance as opposed to having me the player sort all her equipment for her.

She doesn't just follow you around either, there's cooperative moments where you need her to progress. Like, there's one area in the demo where you pretty much throw her onto the other side of a building (whereupon she gets attacked and you have to do some sniping to help her) and because of this she's able to open a locked door for yuo to get through.

There's another moment where you give her a boost onto a roof of a building, so she can shoot oncoming enemies in relative safety so you don't have to worry about her for a bit.

It might pan out quite well, who knows?

Lord Golbez · Post by **Lord Golbez** » Sun Dec 07, 2008 4:05 am

Etch wrote:Yeah. The "zombies" in RE5 are the same as the las plagas enemies in RE 4, the infected in 28 days & weeks later...and the zombies in Left 4 Dead. Technically, they are all still alive, but severely mutated, fucked up in the head, or they have a parasite growing in them.

Well, I don't know about the rest of the bunch, but the zombies in 28 days were still pretty stupid and I don't recall any of them using weapons.

Mitsurugi CP · Post by **Mitsurugi CP** » Sun Dec 07, 2008 5:33 am

Also, none of the zombies in 28 Days Later were black, so we can't accuse that movie of advocating genocide like we can for RE5.

Etch · Post by **Etch** » Sun Dec 07, 2008 7:09 am

Lord Golbez wrote:
Etch wrote:Yeah. The "zombies" in RE5 are the same as the las plagas enemies in RE 4, the infected in 28 days & weeks later...and the zombies in Left 4 Dead. Technically, they are all still alive, but severely mutated, fucked up in the head, or they have a parasite growing in them.
Well, I don't know about the rest of the bunch, but the zombies in 28 days were still pretty stupid and I don't recall any of them using weapons.

No argument there. I was just listing games and films where blood thirsty, ravenous beings were put in the general mold as zombies, but really weren't in the classical interpretation of what a zombie was because they were still alive.

Yuka · Post by **Yuka** » Sun Dec 07, 2008 8:15 am

Traditional zombies just wouldn't cut it anymore. Since RE's moved into a more fast paced action game over survival horror, it needs it casual enemies to make the same transition.

If they were slow brain dead drones it'd be boring.

This is coming from someone who hasn't played Dead Rising, so maybe they weren't boring in that, who knows? But either way, most new games of this type are ditching the classic zombie in favour of something new.

Damien · Post by **Damien** » Sun Dec 07, 2008 10:34 am

[google]Dead Rising[/google] managed to make them not boring by having fucking thousands of them at the same time!

Yuka · Post by **Yuka** » Sun Dec 07, 2008 10:43 am

Interesting... apparently several British ISPs blocked access to this Wikipedia article this morning --> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Killer

The rest of the site works, it's just that article which is blocked.

Damien · Post by **Damien** » Sun Dec 07, 2008 10:59 am

Huh?
Doesn't load for me

Damien · Post by **Damien** » Sun Dec 07, 2008 11:21 am

Though I'd understand. My ISP is [google]Virgin[/google] afterall

Yuka · Post by **Yuka** » Mon Dec 08, 2008 2:32 pm

Still playing Eternal Sonata? I'm starting to think this game is too easy. The last boss I defeated barely made a dent to my party.

And I've somehow got 9 characters now. Isn't that a bit excessive?

Damien · Post by **Damien** » Mon Dec 08, 2008 4:18 pm

I haven't played it for about a month

You need to add me on XBL so I can get motivation for you.

Yuka · Post by **Yuka** » Mon Dec 08, 2008 4:19 pm

Ohh. I've probably ovetaken you then. Playing it's been pretty much the only thing I've been doing these past few days.

And I've left Last Remant alone too.

Lord Golbez · Post by **Lord Golbez** » Tue Dec 09, 2008 2:30 am

Last Remnant has gotten some pretty terrible reviews. Let me know if it's even remotely worthwhile when you get to it, because right now it sounds like it's total trash.

Damien · Post by **Damien** » Tue Dec 09, 2008 11:52 am

I played the first 20 or so minutes, and it doesn't seem bad.
I want to try to finish other agmes before I play it for real though.

Yuka · Post by **Yuka** » Tue Dec 09, 2008 2:57 pm

I've also heard some bad things about it, but I never notice them. Most 'average' games I have loads of fun with. It's only the really atrocious POS that even I turn my nose up to.

Damien · Post by **Damien** » Tue Dec 09, 2008 3:58 pm

Yuka wrote:I've also heard some bad things about it, but I never notice them. Most 'average' games I have loads of fun with. It's only the really atrocious POS that even I turn my nose up to.

How about [google]Bullet Witch[/google]?

Yuka · Post by **Yuka** » Tue Dec 09, 2008 4:12 pm

Yeah, that was an irritating crap-fest. Still finished it though.

Lord Golbez · Post by **Lord Golbez** » Tue Dec 09, 2008 4:22 pm

Yuka wrote:I've also heard some bad things about it, but I never notice them. Most 'average' games I have loads of fun with. It's only the really atrocious POS that even I turn my nose up to.

Yeah, but some of the reviews for Last Remnant weren't average. I think there was at least one score that was in the 20s. That's pretty bad. A game has to go wrong in a lot of ways to get a score like that, unless it's just being reviewed by an infantile reviewer.

Damien · Post by **Damien** » Tue Dec 09, 2008 4:24 pm

It really doesn't seem that bad.
I have a friend who's playing, I'll ask him what he thinks.

Yuka · Post by **Yuka** » Tue Dec 09, 2008 4:31 pm

Reviews aren't lore. I just looked at Metacritic (as much as I hate it) and the reviews went from a 20 to a 90.
To pull out an overused expression, it sounds like a marmite of a game. You'll either love it or hate it.

I'm generally willing to look past flaws provided they don't make the game any less fun to play.
Heck, everyone I know fucking loves Mass Effect, and there's all sorts of bugs in that, but they didn't stop me enjoying it.

I'm not really a review person, I prefer to make up my own mind. That's probably why I download so many demos.