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Comments
@DYRE: I think it fits with some playstyles and not with others. Depends on what people want from the game. It's not conducive to a narrative experience, but it is great for people who really like optimizing everything.
@DYRE
I get what you mean, but I don't think it's a big issue in Fire Emblem. Primarily because XP is really plentiful and the scaling supports building up low or moderate level characters moreso than maxing high level characters.
The best leveling systems I've played are in the Souls games and The Witcher (the first one). Which is funny, because their methods are almost polar opposites. In The Witcher, leveling up nets you "medals" of bronze, silver and/or gold, depending on the level you just moved into. The higher your level, the more medals you earn and the better they are. Bronze medals upgrade skills of levels 1 or 2, silver 3 or 4, and gold 5 and 6. Even as you get to earning gold medals, you're stilling earning bronze ones for every level up, so it ensures that even if you're not big on certain skills, you can level them up to a usable point. Nothing gets left behind so there's no real "min-maxing" -- just the build you prefer.
And the Souls games have awesome leveling in part because both games run on a single currency, which represents your overall power investment in your character, be it gear, stats, spells or whatever. So you can always make very quick and easy cost-benefit comparisons to work out the most efficient way to get stronger (such as choosing weapon upgrades over levels if you want extra damage at lower levels).
Uh... no?
Well, depends. I guess actually I mentioned two different things, and I probably shouldn'thave. Yes, experience scaling with level does discourage grinding. Sometimes.
But getting experience for individual actions in battle absolutely doesn't discourage grinding. It just means that grinding ends up being more "stay in one battle for hours healing alternating between healing an enemy and hitting it with your weakest attack" and less "run around for hours fighting random battles."
Oh, yeah, okay. No argument there.
Inspired by the FE stuff, I started up a new game of FE8. Tempted to bench Seth for a while at the earliest opportunity, because let's be honest, the guy is a tactical nuke.
Seth is kind of an oddball right-hand-man character in that he actually stays decent, and it's actually an okay idea to let him get killing blows on bosses since they're an auto-level no matter who kills them. But yeah, you want to be building up Franz, Kyle, or Amelia or something.
And by decent, I assume you mean "can pretty much solo the game", since, well, he can. :P Yeah, I'm not quite sure what they were thinking when they designed him.
^"Make the game easier to make it more accessible to the new Western audience".
Eh, half the cast of FE8 can solo it on Normal. Come back when you're doing it on Hard. Or tell me when you reach the ghost ship so I can have your stuff when you inevitably an hero :P
Up to map 5 and I can safely say I failed to appease some dark god at some point, because I am getting some terrible levels. And Lute, as I have always said, continues to be the best character in the game.
My last trip through, Joshua got like three points of strength. He was critting Lagdou monsters left and right for 0-6 damage.
So, Aliens: Colonial Marines came out and it sucks pretty hard, apparently.
I was prepared for this, given that it's been in development hell for so long and development hell rarely means a product will turn out well. Still disappointing, though; it was initially implied to be some kind of tactical shooter big on tension, but it turns out that's not the case. Gearbox apparently outsourced the single player to work on the multiplayer, but the multiplayer still sucks.
Also, I remember something about them hiring the writers of Battlestar Galactica to write the story. Did that actually pan out? If so, did Gearbox just ignore them? I dunno. All I know for sure is that Gearbox are eh.
That would imply that the Battlestar Galactica writers are good.
Well, there' bad writing and then there's no writing, you know? It doesn't take a masterful writer to create, say, a small handful of colonial space marines that aren't so completely stereotypical. Even if they take the easy way out and make them counter-stereotypical, which is almost as boring, but still a step up.
Mind you, I've never seen Battlestar Galactica, but judging by the reviews and footage, hiring actual writers for the project seems to have made no difference and the whole game feels more like fanfiction than an addition to the overall plot.
So, the Aliens thing gets weirder when you realize that things have actually been removed since the gameplay demo. What the hell?
Aliens were involved.
The technological steps back are the least of my concerns; the three AvP FPS games were just fine in terms of atmosphere and aesthetic with inferior technology to work with (try playing the 1999 original at night with the lights off, even today). What gets my goat are the flaws in gameplay design and narrative, which just shouldn't have been there. A while back, it was implied ACM was going to be a sort of first-person XCOM, where you have squad commands, soldier skill progression and that kind of thing. Kind of like a marriage between that and more dangerous, tactical shooters like Rainbow Six.
There's a Reddit thread where someone claiming to have worked on or with the game offers a bit of an explanation -- the game has been with Gearbox for some time but kept getting pushed back, notably for Duke Nukem and Borderlands 2. Core singleplayer development was outsourced (although overseen by Gearbox) and Gearbox themselves only did a considerable amount of work on multiplayer (which, to be fair, is apparently better than singleplayer). I know Alien is a cursed IP, but there's bad luck and there's willful negligence.
For comparison's sake, let's look at Alien vs. Predator 2010. It was by no means a terribly bad game, but it did fall short of being particularly good (unless you were a fan of the IP, because Rebellion actually did a remarkable job when it came to core mechanics). Rebellion's one claim to fame is the first "modern" AvP game back in 1999, which was highly influential and set a lot of standards alongside Half-Life; apart from that, Rebellion have a lot of mediocre titles under their belt and a few bungles. Now I understand Gearbox don't have the development power of true giants like Valve or Blizzard, but given their success with Borderlands, they ought to have been able to draw in the resources and manage them well enough to at least turn ACM into something decent.
Obviously, development hell generally means there's some severe core problems with a game. ACM hasn't just been in development since 2006, but potentially even 2001 -- during that time, it's been shunted from platform to platform, engine to engine, assets have been altered, updated and remade and the game system itself would have experienced innumerable overhauls. It would be naive to believe that this would be some kind of godsend game that would redeem the "space marines fight gribbly baddies" concept, but it's entirely reasonable to believe that Gearbox would handle the IP with care and respect.
I guess the worst thing for me is that I think the first three Alien movies are some of the high points of 20th century horror, tension and creativity. They're this beautiful merger of science fiction, id and paranormal implication, and the Alien monster itself is probably the best designed and conceptualised of its time. And I don't like Borderlands. And certainly not Duke Nukem. Knowing that Gearbox outsourced development and lied about content of the game for the benefit of a poorly-considered FPS/RPG grindfest and a hallmark of the 90s no-one cared about beyond humour is pretty frustrating. Again, I didn't even think ACM was going to be a particularly fantastic game -- but I thought it'd be functional, competent and be a good dozen hour romp for fans of the Alien IP.
Solution:
Give the Alien IP to CD Projekt Red.
Not the worst thing about the game, certainly, but it's something that makes very little sense in terms of how it would happen.
So GOG has Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams on sale for $4.99...until 6 AM EST, or about six hours and change later.
IJBM: Just as is the case with a few other people here, my bank believes that Europe (or at least Cyprus) is a massive scam. And I ain't calling anyone at the bank before the sale ends.
Oh well, it'll probably show up in a bundle later or something.
Strange Journey has yet to convince me that it's what I'd call a good game, but I think the series' approach to demons and fusions and such is what keeps me hooked even if I don't care for a lot of the games. I love unlocking new demons, seeing their designs and trying to make it so they have no weaknesses or do triple damage with ice attacks.
Combine it with the social link system Persona 3 and 4 have (and DeSu 2 as well I'm told) and you pretty much have digital crack for me.
If you were romantically interested in someone, and you know the following about 'em:
* plays some MMORPGs, such as Guild Wars and Runescape
* plays Dota 2
* currently engrossed in Fire Emblem: Awakening (you remember talking to 'em about Fire Emblem previously)
* anime fan
Which of these games would you give them for a Valentine's Day present?: Ys Origin, Ys: the Oath in Felghana, Recettear: an Item Shop's Tale
And once you've answered that question, does your answer change if
i get them the walking dead game and i tell them "Happy Valentines Day, hope you enjoy your heart getting wrecked"
If that were the case I should just gift them Amnesia: the Dark Descent.
give her a copy of FATAL
videotape her reaction
put in youtube
enjoy the monies
how do i monetized youtub vido?
If you get a certain amount of views on your channel, Youtube gives you money, I believe.
As far as I'm aware, you agree to let them put advertisements on your videos, then you get paid depending on the advertisements and how many people watch your video (and thus see them).