Video game news and reaction

[ludomastro]

High Moon Studio's (War for Cybertron) are making a Deadpool game and it's totally Deadpool - it just feels right.  Even the official site has his style totally nailed.

The video link is marked private.

[Antilles]

Turns out I've got a couple of those Secret World buddy keys, so if anyone else want a peek at it, send me a PM.

[Sletchman]

High Moon Studio's (War for Cybertron) are making a Deadpool game and it's totally Deadpool - it just feels right.  Even the official site has his style totally nailed.

The video link is marked private.

Damn.  It worked fine when I tested it.  It's at the top of the official site though, so use the second link and watch it there (it's the same video - I just took the address from the embedded vid).

[ludomastro]

Damn.  It worked fine when I tested it.  It's at the top of the official site though, so use the second link and watch it there (it's the same video - I just took the address from the embedded vid).

Yeah, that one works.

[foproy]

omg daddy want.

[Mister Andersen]

Anybody taken a look at the free to play mmo Combat Arms?

[Valentina]

Anybody taken a look at the free to play mmo Combat Arms?

Something tells me it probably has an unimaginably bad hacker problem.

[Valentina]

Holy Cow. 
The Secret World is making me learn Morse Code.
 
I think I'm in love.

[Mister Andersen]

I'm playing Jade Empire for the first time and it is brilliant (even if the plot twists are being blatantly telegraphed in the opening chapter).

[Antilles]

Holy Cow. 
The Secret World is making me learn Morse Code.
 
I think I'm in love.

Heh, yeah, those quests are something special, all right. Protip: bone up on your Roman history and Hebrew, they'll come in handy in Egypt .

Also, have you gotten a chance to run Polaris yet? The dungeons are very well done, hardly any trash mobs between the bosses and the bosses themselves are all pretty fun to fight. And thanks to the virtual server setup, it doesn't matter which server you rolled on, all you need is someone's nickname and you can team up with them to do pretty much any content in the game (I believe it's only the PvP area Fusang Projects that is server locked).

[Sletchman]

I'm playing Jade Empire for the first time and it is brilliant (even if the plot twists are being blatantly telegraphed in the opening chapter).

Heh.  Jade Empire is one of those games that makes me look at Dragon Age 2 and ME3's ending and wonder what happened to Bioware (ignoring the fairly obvious answer of "EA").  If it wasn't for those last two offerings it'd be pretty high on my list of "games I'd like a sequel for".  Right next to Call of Cthulu: Dark Corners of the Earth.

[Mister Andersen]

After the glory of Jennifer Hale giving me voice in Mass Effect, I'd forgotten just how immensely alienating Bioware's silent protagonists were.

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...but as I said before, it feels like JE is really telegraphing its plot twist so thoroughly that the PC is actually coming across as being a little on the thick side with the dialogue options the game's writers have given us to choose from.

I admit it's a fine line to walk between the player and their character, but if there's one overwhelming complaint I have about Bioware's writing it's their tendency to railroad dialogue around or away from options that seem and feel glaringly absent.

I mean, Master Li is revealed as the former Master Strategist -- sublime master of the long game -- and brother to the Emperor, a revelation he even explicitly tells you that he wanted Gao junior to overhear. Yet the idea that he's orchestrated his own kidnapping by the imperial secret police in order to spur you into fulfilling your destiny literally never seems to occur to the PC.

Of course, the moment you realise that Li's kidnap was all according to his plan,  it becomes obvious that he's been planning a coup against his brother for over two decades. He's told you all the salient details up front but spun them to obfuscate the facts. There was no Road to Damascus moment: his saving the infant PC from the genocide at Dirge, the murder of the Water Dragon, probably even the Great Drought itself, will be revealed as a long game intended to deliver Li the Jade Throne when his catspaw -- the PC -- demonstrates the Emperor's loss of the Heavenly Mandate for his disruption of the natural order.

Based on the information revealed at Tien's Landing, it also seems pretty certain that Dawn Star is going to be revealed as Li's daughter (and as such ultimately the new ruler once Li steps out as the Big Bad and is soundly defeated).

But despite that, the terrible facial expressions during the dialogue and Bioware's stock NPCs , I'm really enjoying the whole exercise in mythic asian steampunk, complete with its charmingly retro-arcade minigames.

[Valentina]

Holy Cow. 
The Secret World is making me learn Morse Code.
 
I think I'm in love.

Heh, yeah, those quests are something special, all right. Protip: bone up on your Roman history and Hebrew, they'll come in handy in Egypt .

Also, have you gotten a chance to run Polaris yet? The dungeons are very well done, hardly any trash mobs between the bosses and the bosses themselves are all pretty fun to fight. And thanks to the virtual server setup, it doesn't matter which server you rolled on, all you need is someone's nickname and you can team up with them to do pretty much any content in the game (I believe it's only the PvP area Fusang Projects that is server locked).

I have not, the buddy pass expired about the time I was getting wise to the idea. Fantastic to know about the virtual server thing. Great to see the barrier of being on the "wrong" server go away.

Anyway, TSW is on my list of games to get. The atmosphere is effectively evocative, the combat mechanics are solid and pleasing (making your own Deck by cherry-picking passive/active combinations is quite rewarding), and the various factions are engaging. I'm a Dragon with my primary character, but I've already made a Templar and an Illuminutty.

Solid stuff, though yeah some of the ARG puzzles can be rough. The Morse Code gave me fits for a while as it played the signals at a speed tough to decipher for a neophyte. I managed to logic out that they were all numbers by assuming that by the number of signal sets and the size of the map it'd be too difficult to effectively communicate a specific area with a single eight letter word. Then I started examining places on the map not filled with other stuff. Then I took the handful of numbers I'd managed to decipher, screened my map locations for coordinates that looked close, and got moving. A little exploration later I was getting my face eaten by the monster sought.
Cue a Dragon SMS ruminating on Change, Xp, and Pax Romana.
Bueno.

I will add this though: TSW requires some genuine skull-sweat for the tougher puzzles. It's galling to admit, but when it's late and you're tired but sure that you can just autopilot through for just a few more hours that's when it's time to quit. The stupid Cleaning Lady puzzle gave me fits. The answer is really, really obvious (literally painted on the wall) but I ended up looking it up in a wiki because

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I already knew there weren't more then ~150 Protestant Psalms and the answer was Psalm 659

.
Kind of a FFS moment there! I spent an hour on researching the wrong question.
Fracking hell.
But a good thing. And I'm hoping for some Nekomimi and maybe some interesting Angels or such. Maybe Naga. It'd be enthralling to have a setting that proclaims "Everything Is True" and have it mean more then Everything Bad.

[Valentina]

Alrighty, I've ponied up and bought in for a month.

I am:
StrayX                 -Dragon.
The-Leopard       -Templar.
V-D                     -Illuminatti.

[Sletchman]

After the glory of Jennifer Hale giving me voice in Mass Effect, I'd forgotten just how immensely alienating Bioware's silent protagonists were.

I've been replaying Dragon Age: Origins while I've been sick for the last couple weeks, and I didn't feel that was the case.  Yeah, if DA:O had Jen Hale voicing the female warden my mage would have been female, no question, but I didn't feel alienated because he didn't have a voice.  I guess that's a YMMV thing - I feel no more alienated playing games like Morrowind or Baldur's Gate (original) where it's almost entirely text, I just mentally read the lines in the voice you hear a snippet of.

I know what you mean about railroading, and to me CRPGs will never live up to the tabletop because of that.  There's the stuff you mentioned in JE (that just has you going "Why can I not object / ask questions / notice that?" - you end up RPing someone who seems a bit dim), DA:O has quite a few times when you simply can't use do what you should be able to (physically, and legally in the setting), and if it wasn't for Martin Sheen I would have wished that you could simply ignore the Illusive Man during ME2 (rather then report to him after every mission).  Even in non-specific terms - you build a character who is immune to certain spells, just to be magically put to sleep because the plot demands it.  With the current state of the industry, I think it'll get worse before it gets better - but such is life.  Mostly these games just make me want to GM more - just like a good tv series (also rewatching SG-1, so I'm sure you can guess what else I want to run...).

But despite that, the terrible facial expressions during the dialogue and Bioware's stock NPCs , I'm really enjoying the whole exercise in mythic asian steampunk, complete with its charmingly retro-arcade minigames.

Heh, it's so true.  The design aesthetic of JE is very nice though - and you've given me a bit of a desire for a replay after I cap of the DA:O expansions (I'm almost finished Awakening).