Whatcha Been Playing?

[Alex79]

Cool thanks guys I'll give it a go. Once I'm done with Dark Souls 2, Tomb Raider and Black Flag... >_<

[Alex79]

I've also been wanting to replay Fable II for a while, and picked it up for 99p today!

[Bakers_12]

I've also been wanting to replay Fable II for a while, and picked it up for 99p today!

Not aged well sadly

[Todinho]

Restarted FF XII and got until Firemane(such a badass first boss even if it's pisseasy)I gotta say camera aside the game aged pretty well and the techincal side of it still impress me not that I am an expert on the subject but I just find the amount of stuff in this game really impressive and I might be talking out of my ass here but I dare say that this is the biggest FF world to date.One thing I had forgetten is how MMOish the game feels not a bad thing but kinda of odd when you think about this as FF game,combat still fun and I probably fucked myself over already in the job system so all is right in the world,also Balthier is the best!

[DomsBeard]

Balthier Should've been the main character. I'd love to see this get the HD treatment too. Also the OST is amazing

[Alex79]

Just finished Hotline Miami. What the fuck? Anti climax or what!?

[Beck]

The secret ending is better if you have the time to hunt for the letters

[Alex79]

I haven't even heard about this....

[Todinho]

Yeah the secret ending is better but not by much it's still a big anti climax if you're like me and tried to follow the plot,the point of the game is that there is no point and that's fine but it's a turnoff if you're ivnested in the mystery.

[DomsBeard]

Fancied following people around and shooting so picked up CODBLOPS, so far so good

[mikeleddy83]

Upgraded FFXIV from PS3 to PS4 this morning, made my shitty week end on a high. It is a massive jump from PS3 to PS4 in terms of appearance and performance. I can't see me playing anything else for a good few weeks now

Same here, what server are you on (didn't put much thought into it and went with Shiva here)? If you want to wade through the murky depths of the dungeon finder with a tank that's not sure he's added all the correct aggro skills (prompting many "Well that was different" tells) give me a shout

[Feirsteax]

Actually i think the secret hotline Miami ending is deliberately even less satisfying than the normal ending. Like you're trying so hard to find meaning in this story but all you get is nonsense or cliché.

[arry_g]

Balthier Should've been the main character. I'd love to see this get the HD treatment too. Also the OST is amazing

It really is a shame that Yasumi Matsuno got shot down on making Balthier the main character, all because Balthier didn't meet their intended demographic. It's not like the "charming rogue" archetype was unpopular even then so they should have seen the strength in what he wanted to do. Never mind, no point in moaning about the business decisions of a company wrapped in a culture I do not fully understand from almost ten years ago.

Anyway, I am playing Bravely Default. The first forty or so hour were excellent... where I am in the game now, less so.

[Todinho]

Yeah either Balthier or Basch would've worked as main characters but Vaan just doesnt work(it also doesnt help he being the worst voice actor in the cast)Im in Bjuerba(aka cloud city) now and it's clear how shoehorned in the story he is,he's not important in the slightest but the game keeps putting him in the front in very annoying ways it's like you have a kid trying to be part of the older kids groups but he just doesnt fit in.Despite that I still like the game but Im almost restarting because I feel I made all the wrong decisions on the job system XD ,anyway Im on the infamous part of "Hey Im captain Basch!" so that's fun.

[Scrustle]

Got Strike Suit Zero today. Seems pretty good so far. The controls are pretty complex though. Left stick rolls, and right stick yaws, but both also pitch. Then when you switch in to strike mode the controls completely change, and it behaves more like a 3rd person shooter, except it's still got an inverted Y axis. Kind of a lot to take in. But it's still a lot of fun.

[Scrustle]

How come no one's posted here for almost a week? Usually this is by far the most active thread. Anyway...

Since finishing Strike Suit Zero I decided to go back to Project Sylpheed again, in the first time in forever. Started a new game since it's been so long. I forgot how much focus that game requires. It's not because of difficulty, it's just so busy. So much on your HUD, so much going on. It can easily become sensory overload, so you need to keep focus to keep up with everything the game's telling you. That's not even taking in to consideration all the chatter that's coming over your radio at the same time. There's even pointless chatter from your enemies coming through. I wish you could turn that off. Just adds useless fluff in to the already extremely crowded audio. Sometimes characters talk over each other, which is a pain.

But it's fun. The chaos is a big part of it actually. It really does feel like you're in a huge, crazy space battle, but without making it feel like you don't matter. It's got some interesting control options to it as well. There are special moves that are kind of like something you would find in Star Fox, which helps a lot and makes you feel a lot more nimble. There's also an option to lock the camera on your enemy, in a way like you can in that recent Ace Combat game that people didn't like. But here it still gives you full normal control over your fighter, so you still have to be as good at targeting and chasing down enemies, but it helps you keep track of them at the same time, and it looks pretty cool visually as well.

Speaking of visuals, those are pretty good as well. I've always really liked the ship design in this game. They look pretty unique, but not odd in any way. They look very purposeful and aggressive, but they stand out too. It's not just generic looking ships. The way fighters leave trails of light is pretty nice looking as well. That's not exactly a unique idea, but it looks great with all the chaos of fighters flying all around the screen.

There are some thing I've noticed with these space sci-fi games I've played recently too. I think I've spotted a pretty big cliche with stuff like this. It's always about a conflict between the native Earth rulers fighting against colonial rebels fighting for independence, with the player on the side of Earth. This game, Strike Suit Zero, and Zone of the Enders are like that. Both this and Strike Suit also do the "allies=blue jets, enemy=red jets" thing. I can see the practical reason why they do that, but couldn't they have used some more original colours? Like purple and green, or purple and orange, or yellow and blue?

Anyway, enough about that. I also went back to Dust for a little bit the other day too. I was spurred by simply seeing some random person using a Fidget avatar on Youtube to go check out if there was any more info on the future of the IP, to no avail. But because of that, I found a panel that the guy who made the game hosted at last year's PAX. It was pretty damn great! He turned his slide show in to an actual playable level of the game, complete with a cutscene with Fidget explaining how the voice acting worked. That bit was especially brilliant. But no new info unfortunately. Although I did find out that the guy is also working on a full length animated film set in the same universe. In fact that's been in the works for longer than Dust was.

But seeing that gave me a deeper appreciation for the game, so I just had to go back to it. Cleared up most of the side-quests I missed before. Blasted through them pretty easily. I was surprised given how tedious they seemed playing the main story at the same time. I guess it was because at that point I didn't have to do much for the collection quests. I either already gathered all the items, or could easily buy them. Also found some more of those secret "friend" characters that are caged up. Gomez from Fez and The Kid from Bastion both had particularly cool areas connected to finding them.

[PressEscToExit]

I've been hitting SSF4AE pretty hard over the last few days and really enjoying it. Used to mainly play Sagat and routinely get spanked online but I'm having a bit more success since switching to Cody. It gets a little frustrating running into so many identikit Ryus and Akumas online, I do wish people would experiment a little more. I guess it's a product of the PP system, whereby folk don't want to risk playing a character until they're super confident with them? The thought of deciding which character to use based on whoever's at the top of some tier lists makes me a little sad and kinda reminds me why I so rarely bother playing competitive games online. The whole mentality of winning at all costs that makes people sit mashing out dragon punches gets to me a wee bit. I realise it's part of the game but I'd much rather try to learn the timing of that stuff than frantically spam inputs until my opponent drops a link.

Anyway, incredible game and my most played of that generation by a considerable margin.

[DomsBeard]

I need to get back into it ready for ultimate in a couple of months. Like you I loved to play with Juri and Guy but running into Ryu/Ken/Akuma made me play as Ryu as I got fed up and decided to play them at their own game and thought "why bother" and not been back since.

[Flabyo]

Oddly I've been playing it again recently as well, mainly in preparation for Ultra.

I've been watching a lot of tournament streams on twitch lately, and I think my game has actually improved a little just from what I've picked up from that. I've stopped jumping about so much and started learning how to get in on the ground (what's known as 'footsies').

I still main Juri even though she's considered pretty low tier at the moment. She gets some pretty decent buffs in Ultra, most notably more invincibility frames on her EX Spinwheel which makes it a viable wakeup move now.

I did play Sakura for a while, but her best combos have a lot of 1 frame links in them and I'm just simply not that good with my execution. I'm tempted to try and learn Makoto in Ultra.

Top tier in tournament play at the moment (prior to Ultra coming out in June) is Cammy. Although recently a lot of players have started showing that Evil Ryu and Oni have some serious potential.

[hazeredmist]

Well Phoenix Wright: Dual Destinies suddenly found it's way for me, mid-case too.