Last game you finished, tell us about it

JemyM said:

But yes, it's a parody of RPG's and there were quite a few laughs along the road, and some of it felt silly.

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Problem is - it *wasn't* a parody!

txa1265 said:

Problem is - it *wasn't* a parody!

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Riiiight.
At least it have alot of humor.

Too bad the joke was on us


"Project Ego," Fable’s working title throughout its early development, was hyped from the beginning as being the most open-ended game in history, with an incredibly vast array of gameplay and character customization options, and also with an incredibly dynamic world, where every single thing players do could change the outcome of the game

Yeah right!

Quote by Peter Molyneux:

"If you can see a place in the distance, you can go there"

Ok Peter, thanks a lot. The problem is you can't. On top of that, there's this game called Gothic that was released 5 years earlier that did a better job of fitting that description than Fable.

I got satisfaction out of playing my good character, marrying someone in every town (two in Bowerstone), and buying all available houses, but my most memorable Fable moment was from my evil game: getting a divorce was really, really unpleasant.
The story? Oh yes, I remember there probably was a story, too...

Maybe a separate thread for the Fable discussion.

Sorry, didn't mean to start ranting there. Can you tell Fable disappointed me?

Getting back to the topic. I just finished StarCraft for the 3rd time and I'm getting ready to start playing the expansion Brood Wars. I rarely ever replay RTS games but StarCraft is an exception. I'll be grabbing a copy of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. this weekend to play next.

OK, been busy this week ...

Chili Con Carnage (PSP) - wonderful fun shooter!
Pocket Racers (PSP) - really crappy race knockoff.
Battlezone (PSP) - nothing like the arcade classic, more like UT with slow tanks and cheater AI.
Spectral Souls (PSP) - cool battle system, but everything else is crappy and has the worst load times - about 5 seconds to load a single test box with 1 line (imagine a conversation!)
Safecracker (PC) - very fun puzzle adventure!
Battlefield 2142: Northern Strike (PC) - nice mini-expansion

A couple more games I've 'finished', but the reviews aren't in yet.

!?! I wish I could spend that much time gaming!

JDR13 said:

!?! I wish I could spend that much time gaming!

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Not me! I only liked 2 of those games ... except for Chili Con Carnage they were all reviews for another site where there was political trouble (two publisher's contacts were taking games and reselling and never getting them reviewed!) and I agreed to step up and urgently get a bunch of them reviewed as a favor for the site founders ... which meant eating into my sleep time, basically. A few more to go and I'm back to 'normal' (whatever that is ... )

txa1265 said:

Problem is - it *wasn't* a parody!

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It kinda was a parody... On gamer expectations and their willingness to gobble up everything developers say :lol:

S.T.A.L.K.E.R (9/10)
Not perfect but very close. This is really one game they have worked on for a long time.

JemyM said:

S.T.A.L.K.E.R (9/10)
Not perfect but very close. This is really one game they have worked on for a long time.

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How long (approx) did it take you?

Jade Empire: Special Edition (PC)

Good news is that it's still a Bioware game. Bad news is that it's still a Bioware game.

There's plenty o'role-playing to go about and the Open Palm and Closed Fist paths do lend some credibility to the whole thing... In concept. However, there is a string of poor implementations with it. Closed Fist is said to promote strength through adversity which isn't necessarily evil - but most dialogue still boils down to insanely altruistic/greedy/on the verge of popping a vein with all the violent threats. And as a result you'll encounter many situations where going either path doesn't entirely encompass the whole philosophy.

Combat is definitely an improvement for Bioware. Since it's their rules system, and not an attempt to shove turn-based rules and conventions into a realtime framework, it's much more fluid, responsive and just feels natural. There are no akward pauses in animations because your character can only execute three attacks per round, for instance. It's very WYSIWYG in that regard. But it's also painfully easy. Styles don't matter that much - you can very much go through the whole game with the styles you learn at the beginning. All that matters to styles is hitting with them - it doesn't seem to matter how slow or fast they are. Once you chain them, the combos are rarely - if ever - broken by enemies. Because of this speed isn't really important - range is. But this can be averted by either stunning or doing a series of jumps and rolls around enemies to get in close to attack. A lesser - but more developed - amount of styles would be better.

It's also incredibly short and has a pretty forgettable cast of characters aside Kang the Mad and Wild Flower - the first for being 'quirky', the second for role-playing options. Regretably they're still forced on players and are only useful in combat if you activate Support mode. I didn't care for romances but the game goes out of its way to shove them in my face. Unlike KotOR where you could play a female PC to keep Bastila's hormones in check, you can't do it here since there's hetero and homosexual romances all struggling for your attention - even characters you didn't start a romance with. I'm sure that will be great for someone.

The ship minigame is nice but as expected, pretty out of place. Baloons in a setting with rampant machinery doesn't really make sense, and a rickety and unstable ship in cutscenes is incredibly stable and easy to pilot in the minigame. Go consistency, GO! There's a couple of situations where the minigame is forced on players, too but a couple of times is better than all the time.

Bottom line: it's got some improvements over KotOR but not enough to elevate the game above it. Nice game while it lasts but nothing on par with Baldur's Gate 2 and KotOR.

txa1265 said:

How long (approx) did it take you?

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2-3 days in total, playing the whole day.

Dark Star One

Excellent game - space action at his best - the closest thing to Elite 1 I have ever met.
I really hope that Ascaron Entertainment will make an addon or sequel.

Gamespot review:
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/sim/darkstarone/review.html

Few more ...

Sid Meier's Railroads (PC) - pretty solid, just not deep enough to keep the challenge going. unlike Civ IV, which is still on my system, this is gone.

M.A.C.H. (PSP) - This is really great, I'm having a blast, I'm ... whoa ... is it over *already* ... yep, it was like that

Meteos Disney Magic (DS) - wow that was loads of fun! I expected a licensed crap rip-off of Meteos, but they completely reworked the game and added tons of fun Disney themed stuff! The big negative - no Disney music!

spellforce 2 9/10. finished this last friday after about 2 1/2 weeks with it. i had bought the original when the platinum edition came out and totally enjoyed the first one, but near the end of the first expansion it became more of a chore to play. my fault for trying to play them all at once. never got to the 2nd expansion. needless to say i didn't really like the spellforce 2 demo for some reason and waited 'til recently when i got a good deal on it. it was great and like all the spellforce games they have to me the best fantasy music save the gothic series. the campaign didn't drag on at all which is nice and the quests were much better than from what i remember of the original. the voice acting was below i thought, ashame since so much of the game was top notch. the graphics were beautiful and coupled with the 'better' hero controls really made for an engrossing 3-d world. its funny that most games i can play with graphics settings close to high but it is the strategy games like this and mtw2 that humble my computer to mid range settings. my only complaints with the game were the level cap that i reached with 4 'islands' including the one i was on left to go. also my companions maxed out at level 24 when i hit level 30 so lots of better items were wasted. but most importantly is my gripe with the removal of trees as a resource: i so loved the ability in the first to not only chop down trees but replant them as well--that was an rts dream fufillment.

working on nightwatch now, which is really enjoyable for the most part (great music, unique 'universe', diverse skills/spells that actually level up with use)...except when it gets monotonous.

STALKER - mild spoilers!!!

Good game. I was a bit disappointed about the last few zones - namly Prypiat and Chernobyl. Prypiat is one of the most impressive locations in the game, but the developers don't really give you enough time to explore it. You always have the feeling that you have to hurry (which isn't true), but the constant fighting that's going on in Prypiat makes it hard to explore the zone. At that I was pretty tired of fighting monolith mercs... Chernobyl I found a bit too simplistic - I would have wished for a more spooky atmosphere inside the sarcophagus, instead again just monolith mercs.
The end however (so far I've just seen one of the false ends I guess) was pretty good... and makes you want to see the other possible endings as well.

Metal Gear (6/10)
A bit outdated by todays standard. Note that I refer to the 1987 version on MSX.

Yet some more ...

Top Spin 2 (PC) (7/10)- pretty fun, lousy controls (really needs a gamepad) and I like Virtua Tennis more. The kids got a good laugh at my expense, though

Whirlwind Over Vietnam (PC) (7/10)- the looks are pretty good, and while I'm not a huge flight-sim fan, it was 'OK' compared to others I've played in the past ... and the difficulty 'curve' was more like a step! I went from coasting to thinking 'wha happened?!?!'

Spectrobes (DS) (?/10 - still not decided) - cool idea, nicely implemented, repeated 100,000 times over and over ... imagine playing a RPG and having to right click to search a 3ft radius around your character. Then moving 3 feet and repeating. And again ... and again. Then you travel to a different planet, and do it some more. My kids love it, but I will be happy to never see it again.