Megaman Zero
The game is already hard as a pornstar's fake tits, but to actually complete the game, I had to mold my balls with stainless steel, and still didn't hurt as much as the last fucking boss, hell I almost die cuz of that son of a bitch

^...how ...colorfull

finally finished the last mission of saints row 2 after nearly 6 years

the ending left me underwhelmed

Good timing. I'm slogging my way through the mandatory Stronghold side missions, once I've gotten them finished do I have any other mandatory side missions to look forward to for the rest of the game or can I finally focus 100% on the main story?

have you done ll the activities ?
hitman
whelle rman
that cop show
snatch
insurence fraud all that razz ?

if so all you have to do is the 4 ultro missions and the ultro stronghold in the mall

currently i am at 56% but i cant be arsed to do all the side missions
stillwater is purple so i dont care

I actually ended up using a mod to get max respect so I didn't have to do the activities (I had completed several activities but I was tired of having to stop/start/stop/start the main missions just to gain more respect). I've done all of the individual faction quests (IE: Brotherhood, etc) that are/were available and now I have to clean out the strongholds before I can move on to the rest of the main story (apparently).

Edit: max respect, not max experience.

i could use that mod
some activiites are fun the figth club the cop show drive by shootings ( how many bloody gangmembers do these gangs have ?! )

but most are indeed tedious

It was the open version of the Gentleman of the Row mod. It gives you maximum respect almost instantly for driving on the wrong side of the road, and then you can save and uninstall the mod without any issue (if you wanted to, I did). Yeah some of the activities are fun and I'll definitely do them in my spare time for something to do (like Septic Avenger), but some (like level 6 of that destruction activity) were just not fun.

Two games on the Playstation Network

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
PSN, 11/13

God, I love this game. This is probably the fourth time I've beaten it? Twice on the Playstation, once on the PSP (Dracula X Chronicles), and now on the PSN. Sure, it has its weaknesses, balancing issues and annoyances, but the original Castlevania game of its type remains the best.

Wild Arms 2
PSN, 11/21

God, I hate this game. Slow, dull combat, pretentious and inane pseudo-philosophical writing that constantly undercuts itself, a map-searching system that adds nothing but tedium and is clumsily used to enforce linearity (because places you're not supposed to go to yet won't show up on the map, even if you search the appropriate area), a horrible translation*, terrible balancing, a weirdly disconnected plot whose elements don't really come together, the world's most obvious "plot twist," some of the worst level design I've ever seen,** ... I should have just quit, and if it were a PC game I'm sure I would have, but I have trouble bailing from console/handheld games once I start them. Don't ask me why. It's a neurosis, albeit not a very harmful one.

So was there anything about the game I liked? Well ... some of the character interactions were cute. The heroes*** didn't break any new ground, but they were good enough; I found Lilka endearing, and liked Kanon and Brad. The female miniboss squad member who's in love with the main villain, normally an excruciating cliche, ended up turning into something unusually interesting. There were some clever puzzles. The plot threads didn't come together well, but some of its individual elements were interesting. Still. I give it a 2/5.

* Depressingly, the translation might have been the best part of the game, in that it was at least entertainingly bad.

**In fairness, it wasn't consistently awful.

*** Cue inane five-minute soliloquy about what it means to be a hero.

septic avenger is hilarious

i should download and install gentlemen of the row i have heard good things about it

Mostly I'm just fed up with D&D. I don't like the ruleset in the first place, but the games all look really good aside from that one defect. Still, I am passingly familiar with AD&D 2E rules and I like a lot of the changes in 3E. The feats and skill system are pretty interesting, and I like the multiclassing mechanics a lot better as well. These make for much more intricate character building, which I'm a big fan of.

Regarding playing as a spellcaster, the big problem was that my minions just would not get aggro on enemies assuming they decided to attack at all. So until I loaded enough to get lucky and win, fights basically went along 1 of 3 lines:

1) Enemy is running at me. I cast a spell -> enemy is now in melee range. Cast another spell -> Attack of Opportunity -> Dead or spell interrupted -> repeat.

2) Enemy is running at me. I cast a spell -> enemy is now in melee range. Run away -> Attack of Opportunity -> Dead or keep running -> repeat.

3) Enemy is running at me. I run away -> Either I reach an NPC who kills the enemy granting me no XP or the enemy catches up and kills me.


That's an interesting way to put it. Not that I disagree - I had to make myself stop playing multiple times so I wouldn't throw my DS across the room.

Playing the 2nd one yet? I had difficulty beating the intro stage. I don't think I made any real progress past that.

Yeah, you can't solo enemies that well as a spellcaster, especially not at low levels, and you can't cast spells in melee. No idea, why your pets weren't attacking. I think maybe you can set your familiar to being more aggressive or more defensive via its dialogue menu? Not sure. And you should also use range weapons in addition to spells (crossbow or sling), I think they fire more quickly, so enemies don't catch up with you that soon and you get a few shots at them while running. Clerics are a good compromise, btw. You won't get the familiar but you can still summon a creature to help you and you will be able to cast spells and defend yourself in melee equally good. Clerics are pretty overpowered in NWN, I think, which is to me why they're fun to play. :)

For me, in terms of difficulty and fun, from easiest and most enjoyable to hardest and most tedious: clerics > sorcerers > mages > fighter types > rogues. That spellcasters can be a bit tough to play on lower levels is a typical D&D issue; it's offset by incredible power once you've slogged through that phase. Going from rather helpless on their own to overpowered one-mam-armies, that's D&D spellcasters to you. ;)

(Fighter types are the most simple and therefor easy, but I find them a bit boring to play. Bards are somewhere in between mages and rogues, sharing their disadvantages, but getting more fun to pay on higher levels. Not saying that rogues are bad characters, but I think they're most difficult to play; you really have to know what you're doing to make them powerful, and the gameplay is slower.)

Carmageddon: Splat Pack - I didn't play this expansion when I did my playthrough of Carmageddon last year, but I got around to it this year. On the whole, it's as as enjoyable and visceral as the base game. None of the levels were quite on the same level as the base game, but most of them were enjoyable nonetheless. However, some levels were not fun to play, the ocean level was especially frustrating, there was not enough land area to get up to speed often. In the end, though, it's just more of Carmageddon, and the dark, gritty industrial feel of the first game.

Zombie Shooter - Everyone said this was essentially just another Alien Shooter game, but I was quite surprised to see how true that was. It is another Alien Shooter, with different enemy sprites and the same behavior. Having said that, it's as fun as the first Alien Shooter, mowing through hordes of enemies with increasing ease as you move through the game. However, it seem quite a bit easier than AS1, I remember having quite a bit of trouble towards the end of AS1, whereas here I didn't die until the final boss fight. It's good fun if you like the original Alien Shooter.

Driftmoon - This game is charming, it's got a light tone to it despite the impending evil threatening the Driftmoonian world. The writing in this game, and there's quite a bit of it, is nice to read, it's a good break from having voice acting that is unskippable, and the characters have unique personalities. It's not a very long game, but the time you spend in the world is memorable and fun. The story is a typical fantasy one, but it's done earnestly. An overall worthwhile game to play if you like good characters and interesting worlds.

I’ve recently finished a playthrough of Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic.

After all these years I’ve finally been able to play this game, and it was worth the wait, as I managed to avoid spoilers and was genuinely surprised by a couple of the twists in the story.

The overall story is good, and in keeping with the theme and feel of the movies (I’ve only seen the first trilogy). The dialogues between the characters (your party and NPCs) is sometimes juvenile and even a bit annoying (Carth) in a good way, mostly :/, though they do remain unique, interesting and entertaining at times.

I started a blind playthrough, just to test out character development and skills, and to get acquainted with the game’s world(s). After a second test run, I was confident enough to create a character that would make it through to the end, and had no problem finishing the game.

There were a few places where I had quests that I couldn’t finish because of events triggered that made it no longer possible, trying to do everything all at once. In the end, it didn’t matter as you can grind a bit to level up in several areas along the Journey.

I couldn’t help noticing all the voices from Mass Effect, and had difficulty thinking of Kaiden as Carth.. I could also see the early stages of development that would eventually influence the first ME game.

I tried doing another KOTOR run as well with a ton of mods which really enhanced the experience. But could not for the life of me get Canderous's or Carth's side quests to trigger and did an epic ragequit/uninstall despite being some 40 something hours in.

I also played finished KOTOR 2 for the first time, A buggy mess if there ever was one but it was indeed one of the best written games Ive played in years.

Other games I beat recently (or this year), were

Bloodrayne
Crusader no regret
GTAV
Dead space 2 (like 7 times now)
Bioshock infinite
Last light,
Dino Crisis 2
Assassins Creed 4
Tomb Raider
Splinter cell blacklist
Dishonored
Limbo
Shadowrun Returns and Dragonfall (One of the best written games ever)
Stick of truth
To the mood
System shock 2 (soooooo awesome)
Last of the patriots
Datajack
Kentucky Route Zero Act I
Alone in the dark

Vessel

One of the best puzzle games I've ever played! Let me assure you that it's definitely NOT a platforming game. It just happens to be 2D game with some platforms but still it's not platforming because there is absolutely no ultra-precision jumps nor fast-paced action. It is really only about puzzles. Even if some puzzles do require some positioning and/or timing it's very forgiving in that respect. Let me put is simple: if you figure out a solution you can only ruin it by a pure accident and not because you lack action skills.

What's the game about? You play as an inventor of fluros - living organisms that use water to create their bodies. Their task was simple - to push buttons and thus operate various machinery. But something went wrong and all fluro-operated facilities stopped working. It's your task to learn what happened. It turned out fluros evolved. They started adopting other liquids as their bodies and changed their behavior. By the end of the game you would deal with five liquids with various properties and five fluro types.

Every fluro can pass through a grate and thus reach locations you can't. And that's how most puzzles are constructed: you have to guide fluros to open some gates that you cannot reach. The simplest fluro is always attracted by a button but it doesn't always work to your advantage - sometimes you have to make sure that a button is not pressed! other fluros are afraid of light so you can guide them by scaring them off with light sources. There are fluros that will always try to attack you! Not a big deal if it's a water fluro but don't let a lava-fluro touch you! Believe it or not - those aggressive fluros are also very useful! There are also some advanced tricks like water+lava create steam and you may need it to build up pressure in some devices.

To keep it short: puzzles are brilliant! Some of theme are really challenging so get thins game only if don't mind getting stuck from time to time. If solving a difficult puzzles gives you a lot of satisfaction then get this game - you should have as much fun as I've just had!


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