toxicitizen

It's not the games that you like that are the problem, it's the games that you don't like.

I'm starting to worry about Ethan, guys. I think we should start considering setting up an intervention about his terrible tastes in games.

Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes. Took me about an hour. I didn't do any side stuff because at first I couldn't figure out how to find or activate side missions but then a bunch of side-ops unlocked once I finished the main story so I think you just can't do any of it right away. I should mention that I ended up playing a bit last night, so it only took me an hour but I was already familiar with the map and objective locations. That being said, I have to seriously doubt any reviewers who claimed it took them 2-3 hours. Unless there's actually a way to do side-missions on a first run and I missed it, I just don't see how it could take anyone that long to play through the main story. After an hour last night I was about 80% through the story. Only reason I stopped is I went to restart from checkpoint and ended up accidentally picking restart mission instead. Seriously, who the fuck thought putting those two options right next to each other was a good idea? It's not. Anyway, it's pretty damn good but it really shouldn't have been its own release. People complaining it was nothing more than a demo weren't very far off. The only reason this exists is because MGSV is still quite a ways off and Konami needed or just wanted to start generating revenue now. That much is clear as day. I can't believe they initially wanted to charge 40 bucks for the PS4/XBone version. That's just fucking theft. 20 bucks is a bit easier to swallow, at 30 I'd probably be regretting my purchase. I was also both surprised and disappointed that there's essentially no story to speak of. I mean, I didn't expect anything too elaborate but this is nothing. This does less to set up the story than either the Tanker or the Virtuous Mission. And the ending, well... So yeah, overall it's quite good but I felt it failed to justify its price tag. edit: Forgot to mention. Not a fan of Snake Bauer. Nothing against Kiefer but he's just not Snake. Though after Blacklist, I kinda knew this would be an issue for me. Also, those who played it on PS4, was the 60fps framerate stable? On PS3, it couldn't really keep a stable 30. Nothing so major as to affect gameplay but there were quite a few noticeable dips.

That's kind of implied. If you haven't finished the game then your playtime is completely irrelevant when discussing its length. Well, I mostly meant that in the sense that the levels polish and production values justify a slight premium. I expect a mainline Metal Gear Solid title to look and play significantly better than most downloadable games would. edit: Bought it off PSN for the lower price. I'd love a physical copy for my collection but 35$ for a physical copy of this? Hahahahaha, no. Besides, when The Phantom Pain finally comes out, I'd be very surprised if there wasn't some form of MGSV: Complete Edition available that includes GZ+TPP. I'll get a physical copy of that one. Also a PS4 between now and then. That should probably come first. Anyway, download's not going very fast so I probably won't be playing it tonight. I was thinking of starting Deadly Premonitions soon but Deus Ex: The Fall unlocked a week early on Steam for some reason. So that should keep me busy for tonight.

You're missing the point, Cowboy. Game length is the time it'll take the average player to complete it, not the time the most hardcore players will get out of it. Assassin's Creed II is a 20ish hours game at best. It took me maybe twice that long to platinum it, though. But that's not a good indicator of most players' experience with it. Most of them won't bother wasting hours getting all the collectables and shit. And that's exactly why game length is a terrible metric to use when it comes to judging a game's value. I'm fine paying 20$ for a 2-3 hours game that has 10 hours worth of content. Plus, this is a fucking Metal Gear title. You just know it's top-notch AAA quality regardless of length. I'm willing to pay a small premium for that. I'll be grabbing the PS3 version off PSN tonight.

Yeah, that sounds more like the person got 10 hours out of the game total. As in, completing absolutely all optional stuff (I mean, time trials? What?) and collectables. Also sounds like it was across more than a single run. That's not the game's length, that's its replay value.

That's hardly "almost everything in the game". It's just environmental stuff. Literally just crap lying around/playing in the background. None of it would interfere with someone's enjoyment of the game if they had never watched the show.

Nah, there's nothing like that in the plot. I'd imagine they knew games take much longer to make so they wrote the script accordingly. The only somewhat topical reference I can remember off the top of my head was an achievement. I won't spoil what you have to do to get it but it's called "Heisenberg".

Well that's just not true. I mean, unless you go nuts and count absolutely everything that was once on the show as a reference? Like, yeah, the goth kids are just like in the show but that's not a reference. It has a lot of references that a non-watcher would definitely not get (like Stan and Cartman's closets) but most of them are just environmental stuff and there's just as many (if not more) jokes that aren't references. Honestly, the references felt more like neat little nods to fans of the show to me. They were hardly the funniest things about the game.

I've been keeping track of the NeoGAF downgrade drama the past couple days and it kind of had the reverse effect on me. Enough people have chimed in essentially saying "you guys are blowing this WAY out of proportion, the game is still amazing" to make me realize that lack of fancy lighting, while disappointing, will not be anywhere near enough to make me not want to play the game. I was initially waiting in case GMG came out with a voucher but lately they've kind of sucked in that regard. Can no longer use vouchers on games that offer credit and whatnot. So I just grabbed it and got the 12$ of store credit. With some luck, if they do release a voucher I'll be able to get support to retroactively credit me the difference. It worked with my XCOM: Enemy Within pre-order. edit: Actually, adjusted AI is one of the features they listed when they announced the PC version. Hopefully that means they rebalanced the game to compensate for the improved controls.

In what way would that make it subpar? Too easy, you think? I have no idea how it actually controls on mobile so I can't really imagine. All I know is when the PC version was announced a dev said something along the lines of the idea for the game being good but that they got the platform wrong. It seemed to imply that the PC version is an improvement in every way but it might just have been PR bullshit so who knows. Either way, it's a mobile port so I don't exactly have high expectations. And it's only 10 bucks so as long as I get a few hours of fun out of it I'll be satisfied.

Nah. Besides, from what I heard the controls were pretty horrible on the mobile version so I'd rather play with m+kb anyway.

No real reason to pre-order other than it's Deus Ex. There's no way I was ever going to not want to play it day one. 33% off on Steam. A bit of an impulse purchase but I've been wanting this one pretty much since the kickstarter. The sale was just the excuse I needed to finally pull the trigger. Only reason I didn't buy it day one is because 25 bucks is just a little bit outside my instabuy price range.

Yeah, I've seen it being described as Tropico 3.5 more than once. That was part of my reasoning. If I'm going to play more Tropico, might as well be on a slightly improved version. Any idea if Tropico 5 is looking to be a more significant update to the formula?

Grabbed this today. It was on sale on Nuveem, a South American digital distributor. I've always passed on it whenever it went on sale because I never finished playing all the campaign "missions" in Tropico 3 and have been meaning to go back to it for years. But once I realized it was about four bucks after conversion to CAD monies, I just kinda went "fuck it" and accepted that I'm never going back to T3.

Haven't taken the time to jump in to try the new Loot 2.0 update yet but all I've been reading about it so far has been very positive. I already loved the game in the first place so it was kind of a no-brainer.

Did the mage get any magic attacks in addition to the regular "spells" ? I played as a Jew and all my PP abilities were relevant to that. Sling of David, 4 Plagues of Egypt, a dreidel attack, etc. That was the extent of what the class had that was unique, I think. Oh and you missed out by not using Cartman. He was the most powerful buddy, I think. Once I started using him, I barely used anyone else. I only ever switched when it was necessary to progress.

A massive exaggeration. To the point where it actually hurts the argument you're trying to make... I'll grant you that it's possible the X360 controller's sticks are more precise. I have one that's physically very similar to it but I have no way of knowing if the sticks are exactly like the official 360's since I've never used one personally. And yes, I'm definitely used to the DS3 since it's essentially the only controller I've used in recent years. But to say that anything is "barely playable" on it is just patently false.

I was gonna wait until more episodes are out but since it's on sale I figured fuck it. I paid about the same for season 1 anyway, so I guess I'll just play this one as they come out, for once.

I'll echo what was said in another thread and point out that you being bad at something doesn't make that something bad or broken. I have zero problem playing shooters on the DS3. In fact, that's the controller I was using to play RE4 on PC. So I have no idea what you're on about here.

South Park: The Stick of Truth. Holy shit, that was fucking amazing. As far as RPGs go, it's pretty light. It's kind of easy (I played on the hardest difficulty and only one fight gave me any trouble), there isn't much to the mechanics, you can pretty much equip any gear regardless of your class and the combat gets really repetitive. It's also very short if you ignore the side-quests and stick to the main story. But for a long-time fan of South Park like me, it's basically a perfect experience. It feels true to the show in every way imaginable but it also acknowledges that it's a video game. I went in hoping for something akin to a second movie and what I actually got was even better than that. According to Steam, it took me about 14 hours to beat. I completed all the side-quests I found but I still have some collectables left to get. That might seem short for an RPG but I've paid more for shorter games so I'm happy with what I got for my money. If you're a fan of the show, it's worth every single penny.

Yeah, Druckmann and the other TLoU guy were heavily involved in Uncharted 2, the best of the series by far. So I'm not too worried about it falling under their control. Like I said, I'm not worried. But this comparison doesn't really work. Light-hearted dialogue and humor in something like TLoU versus Uncharted really isn't the same thing. I don't actually remember anything particularly funny in TLoU. Most of it was more like small "hehe thank god they're not dead" moments whereas Uncharted is more consistently funny and can actually make me laugh out loud at times. Personally, I'm just really curious as to what could've caused this to happen. I mean, if she was actually forced out by those guys, what's the deal with that? Were they that unhappy with the direction she was taking with U4? Are they simply massive assholes? It's hard to imagine that having a single successful title under their belt would give these guys enough clout to push out someone that's been at the company for a decade.

Not really a studio death but this seemed like the appropriate thread to post it in. Looks like Amy Hennig is no longer at Naughty Dog. http://ca.ign.com/articles/2014/03/05/uncharted-ps4-writer-amy-hennig-leaves-naughty-dog The article suggests it's possible she might have been forced out by the Last of Us guys. If true, that's kinda fucked up. I wonder what that could imply for Uncharted PS4 since she was lead on that. Development/story troubles perhaps?

Well when it's something I'm already really tempted to get, it's usually more of a precaution in case it turns out to be utter shit. So long as reviews are at least decent, my mind is essentially already made up. In this case, they're actually pretty high across the board so there wasn't much of a decision left to make. Normally, though, yeah, I'd take more of a wait and see approach. So, yeah.