Video game news and reaction

[Agent 333]

40k stuff

If you just remember that all the Codexes are propaganda written by an overexcited fanboy schola sevitor, then it makes things a bit easier to swallow.

If the fluff sections were written in character then I could see that, but the presentation basically says "This is objectively how it happened. No arguments." It's kinda stupid.

Even if it was propaganda, why would the Grey Knights (who are supposed to be so super secret they commit Exterminatus if they think mindwiping a planet is too much of a hassle) admit to killing Sisters of Battle to use their blood in a ritual to protect them from a demon of Khorne. I mean seriously, their whole schtick is "We're incorruptable!" and then they go "Gee, I don't think we're quite incorruptable enough for this one demon. Lets kill untainted nuns who have been really helpful so far so we can use their BLOOD to stop the BLOOD GOD from corrupting us." ::headdesk::

That's not even getting into Draigo's Mary Sue masturbation fest...

[Nepenthe]

And I'll say it, by Jupiter: I'm glad it's the Ultramarines. I like the Ultras. They've got a solid color scheme and are only minimally insane for a Space Marine chapter.
You call them boring, I agree. But they're a good boring. Astartes first, last, only.
No drama, just service.

I assume you are a big fan of vanilla ice cream?

I'm positive somebody had Blood Ravens as a preorder. Am now considering getting this game.

Matt Ward made me hate the Ultrasmurfs.

I heard a funny thing the other day: GW have decided to 'promote' Matt Ward, meaning he won't be writing any more army books.

Finally!

Must be wishful thinking. They don't have enough people on the writing side, as it is.

Unless they finally wised up and decided to have Phil Kelly do them all.

He ruined the Grey Knights. So they're all sorcerers, capture daemons in pokeballs and butcher Sororitas, using their blood to cast spells. And their 'supreme' grand master (what is he, a kind of pious pizza?) went into the warp and beat the shit out of the Chaos Gods. Periodically he pops out and kills stuff, then goes back in. He even defeated M'Kachen, the arch-nemesis of another character, and carved his fucking name into his heart.

Rumour is that he co-wrote the new Necrons 'dex. [sarcasm]Imagine my joy.[/sarcasm]

I dunno, he's only written spez muhreens (for 40k) so far. Hard to say if, as an obvious elevated fanboy, that would result in the 'crons being the next "I can't believe that thing costs half of what I get and is twice as good" army, or something that will make eldar seem a bargain.

I leave you with this personal motto: The webway or the highway.

(p.s. funny coincidence. Just about to run off to the gee-dub to pick up my medusae and ur-ghuls.)

[Valentina]

And I'll say it, by Jupiter: I'm glad it's the Ultramarines. I like the Ultras. They've got a solid color scheme and are only minimally insane for a Space Marine chapter.
You call them boring, I agree. But they're a good boring. Astartes first, last, only.
No drama, just service.

I assume you are a big fan of vanilla ice cream?

I'm positive somebody had Blood Ravens as a preorder. Am now considering getting this game.

Matt Ward made me hate the Ultrasmurfs.

I heard a funny thing the other day: GW have decided to 'promote' Matt Ward, meaning he won't be writing any more army books.

Finally!

Must be wishful thinking. They don't have enough people on the writing side, as it is.

Unless they finally wised up and decided to have Phil Kelly do them all.

He ruined the Grey Knights. So they're all sorcerers, capture daemons in pokeballs and butcher Sororitas, using their blood to cast spells. And their 'supreme' grand master (what is he, a kind of pious pizza?) went into the warp and beat the shit out of the Chaos Gods. Periodically he pops out and kills stuff, then goes back in. He even defeated M'Kachen, the arch-nemesis of another character, and carved his fucking name into his heart.

Rumour is that he co-wrote the new Necrons 'dex. [sarcasm]Imagine my joy.[/sarcasm]

I dunno, he's only written spez muhreens (for 40k) so far. Hard to say if, as an obvious elevated fanboy, that would result in the 'crons being the next "I can't believe that thing costs half of what I get and is twice as good" army, or something that will make eldar seem a bargain.

I leave you with this personal motto: The webway or the highway.

(p.s. funny coincidence. Just about to run off to the gee-dub to pick up my medusae and ur-ghuls.)

Actually I'm more of a Tin Roof Sundae kind of dessert-seeker.
That doesn't really alter my preferences in murderous, post-human knight-templars though. Blue and gold, man, blue and gold.
I actually prefer the Sisters above the other factions of IoM, but they're kind of in a distant last place for projects like Space Marine.

I beeeee-lieve the Blood Ravens are the Steam Preorder package.

[Valentina]

Nepenthe: here you go.
http://www.spacemarine.com/buy

That should have everything preorder.

[Nepenthe]

Yeah, the blood ravens pack is exclusive to pc. Pass...

[Wolverine]

Plus the addition of them mind-wiping other Marines is just awful.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but in Matt Ward's defense that is something that's been in the fluff for years. I remember being told about it back around, or before, 3rd Ed came out. Marines who had encounters with Chaos forces got mindwiped, everyone else was simply killed.

Happy happy, joy joy.

[glimmerrat]

I play Black Templars. They took my unique Land Raider variant and give to everyone.

Friday is a die-hard Necron player. I've seen her do terrible, terrible things with a pair of Monoliths. At a tourney, she made a White Scars player concede and walk out. I think he may even have cried in frustration.

Oh yeah, her Necron army is pink. I always refer to her Monoliths as 'Barbie's Monoliths'.

[Nepenthe]

I play Black Templars. They took my unique Land Raider variant and give to everyone.

Friday is a die-hard Necron player. I've seen her do terrible, terrible things with a pair of Monoliths. At a tourney, she made a White Scars player concede and walk out. I think he may even have cried in frustration.

Oh yeah, her Necron army is pink. I always refer to her Monoliths as 'Barbie's Monoliths'.

Well, to be fair, most women can do terrible things with a pair of towers. 

Plus the addition of them mind-wiping other Marines is just awful.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but in Matt Ward's defense that is something that's been in the fluff for years. I remember being told about it back around, or before, 3rd Ed came out. Marines who had encounters with Chaos forces got mindwiped, everyone else was simply killed.

Happy happy, joy joy.

Yes, I remember this one. Has definitely been in a long time, it's pretty much the opposite, the imp guard now has dedicated anti-daemon troops when they just used to be summarily executed after seeing one. Sigh.

S'yeah, I was away from 40k for pretty much exactly 10 years, before getting back in late last year when the new dark eldar came out. Having quite a bit of fun with the whole thing now. I actually wrote to the GW guys, thanking them for giving something to the life of an old(ish) curmudgeon like me. Imagine my surprise when I got an answer from Jes Goodwin.

[glimmerrat]

Yeah, I wrote to Alan Merritt (sp?) as a kid, and he wrote back. By hand.

Incidentally, the thing that pissed me off the most about the SM codex were the following quotes:

"Of all the Codex Chapters the oldest and most famous is the Ultramarines"
LOLNO

"Some, such as the Blood Angels and their successors, strive to be worthy of Guilliman's legacy"
ORLY? I thought they were more concerned about being worthy of the legacy of Sanguinius?

"These aberrant Chapters were always few in number and their presence diminishes further with each passing decade, for their gene-seed is no longer the source of fresh Chapters"
Wat. So only Ultramarines and their successors use their gene-seed to create new chapters?

I would quote here the wanky section about Calgar punching out an Eldar Avatar after catching its sword with one hand, but it makes me too mad.

"The Ultramarines may be the most famous and respected of the Space Marine Chapters"
Famous? Yes. Respected? No. What about the Imperial Fists or Blood Angels? At least they made it to the bloody siege.

'The Zeist Campaign'
Yes, the guy even steals names from Highlander 2. He's that shitty.

"amongst their ranks there is a man whose nobility overshadows all others"
So Marneus Calgar is more noble than any of the other 999 chapter masters, including Dante, Azrael, Grimnar and a host of others?

There's also some crap about 'all Space Marines consider Marneus Calgar to be their spiritual liege' but i can't find it.

[Sletchman]

Picked up my copy of Deus Ex this morning, and got a chance to play it for a couple hours this after noon and it's really very good.  Hard to compare to other games, as it really does it's own thing in a lot of ways.  I'd say the closest is that it's sorta like Mass Effect 2 but with more options - you can avoid every bad guy, there's even an achievement for doing that for the entire game, and you get more options to put your points into (but less flashy then ME's Tech / Biotic skills).

The only mission I've done so far even allowed me to choose if I wanted to go in lethal or nonlethal (I chose nonlethal, and snuck my way through the entire mission slowly and carefuly avoiding everyone - it's a welcome change from most games pacing).

It's really excellent so far, and most of what I've seen I can represent with prizes, so just release SC3 guys... 

[Krensky]

I'd say it's a stealth game with a robust combat option. The game's set up to encourage a stealthy style of play, but there are times when the best option is to go loud and kick some ass.

I also like how even on the stealth side there are usually multiple paths, and you can almost, not always but often, find the codes for things floating around, and how it gives you bonus XP for poking around in corners of the map.

Interestingly, I find myself playing much more ruthless then normal. Favorite weapon so far is my fully tricked 10mm. I'll have to see if I miss the Tranq rifle's range on my next mission.

Interface wise I still windup accidentally hitting the grenade button when I want the radial. I do like that it uses a two save autosave system and the load dialog give you a choice between the last save, the last auto save, or the next to last autosave.

I love the style though, recognizably cyberpunk (although I suppose transhuman dystopia might be more accurate) with mirror shades and bangers with obvious chrome and lots of neon. But it's also clearly drawn from the modern world and what's twenty minutes in our future then the 'classic' cyberpunk vibe. I also like how the game doesn't prevent or waggle it's finger at you over morality and such, but it still rewards being the discrete good guy slightly better then being a sociopath. Non-lethal is worth slightly more XP then lethal (very slightly), the Ghost and Smooth Operator bonuses (stealth related stuff), etc.

[Antilles]

I realize people will be busy with Deus Ex (and come tomorrow so will I), but for those of you with a Wii, you really should look into getting Xenoblade Chronicles. To sum up all the reviews so far for it: Best JRPG this generation. And as far as I'm concerned, they're absolutely correct. Absolutely brilliant game, cannot recommend it enough.
'course, it's only out in Europe, so if you're a yank you'll have to softmod the Wii. Still worth it, though!

[ahzad]

looking for a few recommendations, if there are even any games like this, for a multi-player modern, or preferably sci-fi, pc game, no consoles here. the g/f and i play ddo and age of conan on our date nights, and some left for dead or team fortress and we are looking for something new outside the fantasy genre and the other two really don't have an engrossing storyline to them. looking for something with a good story to it.

any suggestions?

[foproy]

eve online may be one to look into, and the new star wars the old republic is looking good if mmos are your thing, not many multiplayer scifi games out there though.if you both play in the same house though both mass effect games though single player are great, you also have games like alpha protocol that while it did not get the best reviews was fun.

[ahzad]

eve online may be one to look into, and the new star wars the old republic is looking good if mmos are your thing, not many multiplayer scifi games out there though.if you both play in the same house though both mass effect games though single player are great, you also have games like alpha protocol that while it did not get the best reviews was fun.

yea the mmos are fun, but lack some the in depth story i loved in mass effect. which i just started playing a few months ago finished 1 and just about done with 2 what an amazing game.

i'll look into some of those and see what they are like.

thanks