toxicitizen

From Levine's message on the official IG website: Sounds like they're going out of their way to help everyone land on their feet.

I'll have to give the demo a shot. I had never even heard of the game (or the original) until yesterday but it looks pretty cool. As for me, there's the new HIB. Mostly got it for Monaco but I also didn't own Giana Sisters. I wasn't really interested in it but whatever. Also, this was on sale for 5 bucks on PSN last week. Grabbed it at the last minute before the store updated. I've wanted to play it for what seems like forever at this point and when I tried playing the PC version I remember having some annoying issues with it. Figured 5 bucks was an acceptable price to circumvent all that. It also made me realize I've kinda been building myself a bit of a PS3 backlog the past couple months. I should probably take note of all I've bought so I can make sure to play everything once I have more free time. Okami being at the top of the list.

Yeah, the more I think about this the more I'm convinced it wasn't Levine's call at all. It might well be true that he wanted to go back to basics and all that jazz. But shutting down the entire studio over it? There's no way in hell he would ever have the power to do that. He might have been the creative force behind Irrational but the studio still belonged to 2K Games and there's no way any sane company would shut down that kind of team unless they had strong financial reasons to do so. A lot of people are suggesting that Infinite failed to meet their expectations and considering the long and troubled development that most likely inflated the budget significantly, I'm inclined to believe that's actually right on the money. With development budgets essentially guaranteed to keep increasing with the new generation, I think there was simply no way IG could keep existing in its current form. Not with their heavy focus on high production values, narrative-driven single-player games.

Defending it in what way? I mean, I'm sure there's more to it that happened behind the scenes and it's more complicated than just him shutting down the entire studio because he felt like a change. 2K/Take-Two must've had something to do with that decision. I mean, if it was just Levine wanting to leave, there's no way they'd let him dissolve such a strong team for no reason. And the fact that Levine is staying under the 2K umbrella kinda fits with that, I think. If he did shut IG down because he just wasn't feeling it anymore, though. That's kind of undefendable.

A few too many games, to be honest. I've been playing Resident Evil: Revelations on and off for the past couple weeks. I like it but I'm more than halfway through and it still hasn't really grabbed me. It's very good but it kinda suffers from originally being a handheld game. I was planning on finishing it over the week-end but that didn't happen. I initially started it in anticipation of the new RE4 PC port, though, so I'll definitely make sure to finish it before that comes out. I also decided to try Steamworld Dig after buying it and I ended up playing for 2 hours straight. Very addictive little game. It's like all my favorite parts of Terraria but put into a more guided experience and without all the autistic crap. It's not very long, though, so I think the next time I fire it up I'll be finishing it. But right now Danganronpa is what's been getting all my attention. I'm only on the second chapter's trial but so far I'm really loving it. The Phoenix Wright meets Persona comparison was kind of spot on. It's much easier and more fast-paced than PW and the first trial was painfully obvious once I had gathered all the evidence but the second one just threw a curve ball at me and right now I have no idea where it's going. Fun times!

Saw videos of it when it came out on PC and it looked like something I'd enjoy. I was initially hoping for a Vita version but, of course, now that one's actually been announced, I grab it on sale from the Humble Store. I don't get it either...

The Last of Us: Left Behind. That was so fucking good. Definitely on par with the main game quality-wise. It's a bit short (took me about 2 hours) but it was easily worth the 15 bucks.

Grabbed a few cheap things over the past week. Been curious for a while but was waiting for them to strip out GFWL. Was on sale on Gamefly, I think. Impulse purchase. Managed to resist during the holiday sale but not this time. So far I like it but I'm kind of terrible at it. Haven't made it past the first stage yet. Mostly because nostalgia and it was dirt cheap. edit: and I somehow forgot to include the one thing I was initially coming in this thread to post about... Should unlock tonight around midnight-ish. Really looking forward to it.

I think in this case it might be you because the game isn't that difficult on normal. It has that initial "what the fuck am I doing?" panic and you're meant to lose soldiers and fail a few times at first but once you get past that it gets kind of easier, especially in the late game. Honestly, I think the reason it was so popular is because of how much they dumbed it down. I don't think anyone who spent a significant amount of time with it would call it deep. If you think Enemy Unknown was complicated then I wonder what you would think of the original (or the upcoming indie Xenonauts perhaps). It's deep but good luck figuring it all out. That game doesn't give a shit. I couldn't be bothered to deal with the UI, personally. Firaxis made their version very accessible with a slick cinematic presentation and a saturday morning cartoon kind of art style. I'm kinda surprised it did as well as it did, though. Especially on consoles. I figured it'd be pretty big with the PC crowd but I didn't expect it to be that big of a hit.

Oh, yeah, good point. I didn't pick up on that, for some reason. Probably doesn't help that Squeenix have also been kinda shitty on the mobile side of things. Seems they like overpricing their games and they certainly don't shy away from IAP-driven garbage products. Link doesn't seem to work but I'm assuming that's the PSOne Classic version? Pretty sure we got it over here as well and that version kinda runs like crap. I'd much rather a proper rerelease with better load times, adjusted aspect ratio and everything.

Even if you had the wrong game, holy shit, that's still pretty fucking terrible. What the fuck.

No fucking way. Did they actually do that? I mean, designing an entire game around scummy, cash-grabbing in-app purchases is one thing. But to gut an existing game, a beloved classic at that, to turn it into this kinda crap is beyond shitty.

Injustice: Gods Among Us. Just finished the story mode. It's only about half as long as Mortal Kombat's, so that's kind of a bummer. It was pretty good, though. Gameplay is on par with MK's and the story is standard comic book nonsense, which I am into. There's some really cool moments in there and Superman makes for a great villain. NetherRealm Studio should really hire some better cutscene animators, though. Combat animations look fine but man, the characters sometimes move so damn awkwardky in cutscenes. The walking animations look especially weird. It's hard to describe but at times it kinda feels like they took a PS2-era game and just improved the visuals. It just looks kinda stiff and unnatural.

Most likely. Probably in the range of 6-8 hours long, I'd wager. Similar to Blood Dragon. Otherwise I would expect them to be charging a bit more. I might get this day one. Looks really cool and 15$ is quite reasonable, even if it ends up being on the short side.

Remember Me. Finished it last night. This is kind of an unfortunate one. I started out loving the hell out of it. I'll get into the good in a bit. But first, the weakest link: combat. If you followed coverage of the game around launch, you'll mostly likely have heard that it's shallow, repetitive and boring. Well, that's.. actually spot on. I could tell as early as the second proper mission that combat was going to get old pretty quickly. It was fun at first but after a while it was just something I had to go through to get more of the good bits. Another complaint I'd heard about the combat was that it was frustrating. I agreed at first. Around the middle, I kept going back and forth between loving and hating the game. I chose to play on the hardest difficulty to maximize achievements, though, so I wasn't willing to blame the game entirely for that. And at some point I started making a conscious effort to play better and it became significantly more manageable. So I can't say I agree on the frustrating part. Although, "playing better" mostly meant dodging around a whole fucking lot and customizing my combos efficiently. Not a whole lot of depth involved, unfortunately. By the end of the game, I had one combo made entirely of healing attacks and one combo made of attacks that reduced my special powers' cooldowns. So it was just a matter of dodging and spamming those whenever I found an opening. Not a whole lot of actual skill involved. Now that that's out of the way, the good: EVERYTHING ELSE. When I say this is an unfortunate game, it's because there's actually a lot to love here. The story starts out average but has some pretty good twists that ultimately made it rather compelling. The soundtrack is absolutely fantastic. And, although I must admit I'm a sucker for cyberpunk stuff, the art direction is just fucking amazing. The game is bright and colorful and the entire world has this augmented reality thing going on with pop-ups all over the place. It just looks gorgeous. It's one of those rare games that regularly made me stop just to take in the scenery and admire the view. Another complaint was that the memory remixing only happens a handful of times. But honestly, while it's a really cool and novel idea, it essentially plays like a trial-and-error puzzle. Had there been too much of it, it would've gotten really boring really fast. But as it is, every time it happens it has a certain weight storywise and it prevents it from feeling like a gimmick, imho. So, yeah, not on board with the complaint that it was underused. Overall, I feel the good far outweighs the bad and I ended up really loving the game. That being said, someone with less tolerance for repetition and shitty combat would probably not have as good of a time with it. If you can overlook below average gameplay and enjoy a good story and well-crafted world, then I recommend this one wholeheartedly. Otherwise, this probably isn't the game for you.

I wasn't expecting to get this one for a while. At least not until the next big Steam sale, most likely the summer one. But it's already 75% off on GMG and comes with 2$ of credit. The current 20% voucher doesn't work on it, though. But still, at 12,49$ it was already borderline instabuy. The credit is just icing on the cake. If the gameplay and story are anywhere near as good as MK's, then my love of DC will probably make it my favorite fighting game ever.

Yeah, I know. Last I heard, they were still saying "March" for the PC version but I wouldn't be surprised if it slipped a bit more. Honestly, if it means a decent PC version this time, I don't mind waiting a few more weeks. Although I hope it doesn't come out too close to my finals. Hell, I'd be okay with it coming out after, I think. Otherwise it's sure to be a massive distraction.

Oh well, I grabbed Remember Me during the Steam holiday sale but I still haven't gotten around to getting Last Light. Guess I'll play it on PS3. The Vita games are kinda meh, though. I'll give SFxT a shot but I'm not really interested in MNR. And besides, we got Sonic Racing a few weeks ago. I'm intrigued by that Smart As... game we just got, though. Gonna try giving that one a shot tonight.

*sigh*... digitally. I looked around and couldn't find a physical copy for less than 25 bucks with shipping. I would've been fine paying that much for it were it not for this PSN deal. Hard to justify paying 25 when you can get it for 9... edit: I was planning on waiting since it only comes out at the end of February, but there was a promo code on Gamefly for 25% off that ends on the 31st so I went for it. This one was kinda lucky. I had received 5$ of credit from Amazon for buying stuff back in december. It was only valid on specific Editor's Choice titles for January. Nothing interested me so I deleted the email and forgot about it. Then last night I was reading the Steam thread on Neogaf and found out Enslaved was added to the selection at the last minute. 7,49$ minus my credit, so it only cost me 2,49$. Pretty sweet deal for a game I really enjoyed on PS3. Now I'll finally get to play the DLC. It came bundled with Inversion but I can't say I'm too interested about that one.

Dark Souls. Holy shit, it feels good to finally make this post. What a game. I was kind of annoyed with myself when I stopped playing last fall. I started it fully intending to beat it but then I bought The Last of Us and then Blacklist and Arkham Origins and I got a Vita and after a couple months had passed it really started to feel like I'd just never get back to it. Really glad I did, though. I think it's easily one of my top games ever. For a while, I wasn't sure whether I liked Demon's Souls better or not. But now that's it over, I think Dark is definitely the superior one. Although that ending... Can't wait for Dark Souls II now. I kind of want to say I won't take so long to beat that one but I'm pretty sure I must have said the same damn thing about the first one so we'll just have to see. And, even though DSII is coming out soon, I really, really hope From does something about GFWL. I would hate to see the online side of the game die just because of Microsoft's piece of shit of a service.