toxicitizen

I'm also in. It was great last year.

Welp, I dug up my PS2 copy of Persona 3 FES tonight and fired it up for the first time in like two years. Played for a few hours, fun was had. Hopefully I can finish it this time. It's kinda weird going back to it after so long. I'm very much in the last stretch of the story and getting all these big reveals (some of which I've had spoiled by now) but they don't mean much because I remember fuck all of the story. If it were any other game, I'd start over from the beginning. But I'm 70 fucking hours into it. I don't have time to redo all that shit. And, honestly, at this point I'd much rather play Persona 4. So I'll just finish it and move on, I think. Only got 2 weeks of classes left before finals, too. So, once christmas vacations start I'll have plenty of free time. And if I do get a Vita next month, I'll definitely be grabbing P4 Golden along with it.

Honestly, if that's the case then I'd rather they didn't even bother. The way you only control a cursor in the non-dungeon crawling sections of P3P just puts me off that version of the game entirely. I'd rather stick to the superior FES version. It'd be nice if they did a proper Vita port of FES, though. Something like The Golden buut with the extra chapter included this time. Doubt it'll happen, though.

It's a Vita game. Looks quite similar to Elite Beat Agents and that game was a ton of fun on DS. At least, considering I only paid about 10 bucks for it I was satisfied with what I got. I've actually been toying with the idea of getting a handheld next month. I'll have quite a bit of extra cash and I figured getting a new system would be more fun than just blowing it all on the Steam holiday sale. While I'm still not sure if I should go with Vita or 3DS, if I do get a Vita this one will definitely be on my radar.

But more importantly!

I was wondering about that. They seem to love porting all their games to handhelds but could the Vita actually handle a proper PS3 game? I mean, there's Disgaea 3 (and an upcoming port of 4, I think?) but those are sprite games and 3 wasn't even HD. Besides, if there's any game worth keeping a PS3 around for, it's definitely Persona. I'm actually really glad it's not PS4. Not really planning on getting one for a good while.

Shit, man, you sure know your Who. Thanks for the clarifications. I don't exactly expect perfect consistency from a series with such a long and convoluted history but that kinda seemed a bit too blatant, so I figured there had to be some details I was missing. Oh and have there been any kind of hints or whatever as to what we can expect from Capaldi's run? I really liked how darker Smith's run felt. Not just with the stories and villains but also with the Doctor himself at times. It was much more compelling, imho. I also loved how his first two seasons had an almost serialized main arc to them. Main reason I was disappointed with the last season was the move away from that format. So I really hope those two aspects carry on with 13.

:bun-ohmagawd: :bun-ohmagawd: :bun-ohmagawd: Guess it's time to finish 3 and play 4...

Yeah,

Oh man, that was so, soooo good. Felt really good to see Tennant in those clothes again. Quite different from what I expected, though. And yeah, it is really strange that Eccleston wasn't in it. There were quite a few moments where having him there would've just made it all so much more awesome. A few things kinda bugged me, though. Maybe you guys can help fill in the blanks.

Honestly, Resistance was one of the first games I got for my PS3 and I remember enjoying it a lot but I never felt the need to revisit it. It's probably nowhere near as good as I remember. I suspect most of you will feel the same way about Shadow Fall in a couple years.

Oh man, for some reason I thought the special was airing tomorrow. So I figured I'd download the season finale to watch tonight. Then I find out it's actually today! Maybe I'll just make it a double feature!

I've been playing the Hearthstone beta on and off the past couple weeks. I'm fucking terrible at this kind of card games, so that usually puts me off them entirely. They seem cool on paper but I bought one of the Planeswalkers games a couple years back and couldn't even beat the single-player campaign. It really felt like bashing my head against a wall. That being said, Hearthstone is actually a lot of fun. I dunno, it's kind of a treat to look at. It really has that trademark Blizzard polish. Every single action has this awesome visual feedback to it. I'm still terrible at it. I spent most of my time in practice mode trying to unlock all the classes, and there's still a few I haven't managed to beat yet. But at least I feel like I have a decent grasp on the basics. I guess it's a more streamlined take on the genre because it was fairly easy to wrap my head around. At this point, I mostly need to start learning how to build decks. I played some unranked multiplayer tonight and it was a ton of fun. I even won a few games. I could see myself really getting into this one.

Bitch, Resistance was great.

Because being graphically dated invalidates anything else of value the game might hold. Duh!

Yeah, I looked it up after replying. I guess I didn't realize it was new because there was an ice plasmid in the original. So it didn't exactly seem all that new. I'd forgotten there wasn't one in Infinite, though.

I also played on hard and thought it was about on par with the main game. Maybe I died a bit more than I had to because I never bought any upgrades but the final fight didn't give me any trouble. Not sure what Mal is referring to that makes it a joke, though. Also, what new plasmid?

Played through Bioshock Infinite: Burial at Sea - Episode 1 tonight. It's... more Bioshock. There really isn't much else to say about it. Same old subpar shooting with a cool story. Without all the hype I had going into the main game, I found myself to be a bit less forgiving of the shooting but I still liked it a lot. Looking forward to Episode 2.

Well, I just played the two Castlevania: Lords of Shadow DLC chapters. Jesus christ, what the fucking hell... I knew going in that MercurySteam has gone on the record saying it had been a mistake to make the DLC. It was a last minute decision forced on them by Konami higher ups after the game was a surprise hit. They admitted they had to rush it to market, so my expectations weren't exactly high. Right off the bat, the cutscenes were done in the same kind of shitty abstract animation as the DmC DLC. Not off to a great start but hey, looks like I might've been spot on about the DmC one feeling rushed. The first one was kind of alright. A little light on the combat and heavy on puzzles and platforming but I didn't have a problem with that. Overall, not really worth the 10$ it would've cost on its own for the console version but still worth playing. The second one, though. My god, that was the worst fucking piece of shit. I mean, it has some cool moments but it's mostly centered around a boss fight and the actual fight is so fucking terrible. Imagine if the worst designer ever tried to create a Dark Souls-type boss battle and you're halfway there. The boss' attacks do not account for the clunky controls at all. You're also forced to jump to attack it most of the time but there's no way to air-dodge and aerial combos are kinda lacking. You also hit him for what's basically chip damage so not only is it infuriating, it takes fucking forever. This might very well be the worst boss fight I've ever played in my entire life. I'm all for a challenge but this was just downright unpleasant. After 40 mins, I was getting furious and dropped the difficulty all the way down because I just wanted to get it the fuck over with already. And even then it was a gigantic pain in the ass. It still took forever and the only reason I managed to beat it at all was because his damage had been significantly reduced and my health bar was getting refilled every single time I died, even after reaching a new checkpoint. Talk about needlessly ending the game on a sour note. Then, the last cutscene was done in the same shitty animation, as if to spit in the wound one final time. Ugh. At least they filled in the blanks I mentioned in my last post, I guess...

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow. It was alright. Not exactly a stellar game but definitely a decent one. It's not without issues, though. The gameplay is quite derivative with combat that feels like a cheap version of God of War. The movement controls are kinda bad, too. The way the main character moves and jumps has kind of a weird weight to it and, combined with the fixed camera, you get something that, while otherwise perfectly functional, can make for some very frustrating platforming sections. And considering the amount of platforming this game has, it feels like a rather serious offense to have such terrible controls. I don't really have any major complaints beyond that, though. The story is pretty good, the soundtrack is fantastic and most of the levels have a really epic look to them. It's kinda long for this kind of game (Steam says I took 18 hours to play through it and I spent like 2 hours tops revisiting early levels for collectibles) but it maintains a consistent level of quality throughout so I never felt it overstayed its welcome. I still have the two DLC chapters to play. Hopefully they'll fill in some of the blanks because there's kind of a gigantic gap between the ending and the post-credit scene. I had a detail from the ending accidentally spoiled so, since the event itself was ruined, I was mostly looking forward to seeing how it happened. Then the credits rolled and... it never happened. Only in the post-credits scene is it addressed and there's no explanation for it whatsoever. So that seemed kinda weird. I mean, I can kind of infer the gist of it but it still feels like big details are missing. But yeah, I liked it enough that I'll definitely consider getting the sequel for full price at launch. In the meantime, I hope they bring the HD port of Mirror of Fate to PC soon.

Holy shit, the base defense in Enemy Within is fucking brutal! I played on normal because I figured I'd be rusty and that it would be frustrating to play on classic and keep failing before getting to try the new content. And I still got my ass handed to me. Main problem is you start with an incomplete squad and don't get to choose or equip them. So considering I only had a single set of laser weapons that I kept passing around to whoever was going on any given mission, most of them were rookies and only had basic armor and guns. That simply won't cut it against 3 cyberdiscs and 2 chryssalids. So yeah, lesson here: anticipate the base defense and prepare for it!

I've wanted to get it for over a month but I was hoping to get a good deal on it. That doesn't look like it's going to happen anytime soon so I just used a 20% voucher on GMG. Brought it down to 16$. But honestly, considering how ridiculously overpriced Burial at Sea part 1 is, this is a great deal by comparison...

XCOM: Enemy Within. I'm still early on in the campaign (have to capture the Outsider next) but so far holy shit did the game need this! It isn't too drastically changed but it is improved in a few key ways. Gene mods are cool and really useful but holy shit are the MECs a ton of fun! There's just something so satisfying in the way they loudly stomp around. The first time I used a MEC to destroy cover to clear a shot for my sniper, I was giggling like an idiot. It's also kind of awesome having a sniper that can run around and effortlessly jump up on any ledges or rooftops. Or an assault that recovers a little bit of HP each turn. I'm actually kinda worried that having a fully augmented and modded squad might be overpowered in the late game. It feels kinda weird that you can just start researching them almost right at the beginning but honestly, who cares when it's this much fun. There's also medals you can award to soldiers now. It gives them little bonuses. Nothing too crazy but a nice touch. Then there's the new maps. I think the replayability of XCOM mostly lies in its maps, so the limited pool in Enemy Unknown made it feel really repetitive after a few runs. Adding new maps was great but the way the old ones have been tweaked really makes the game feel fresh again. A few times I thought I was on a new map only to realize it was an old one, just with a different starting location. Then there's the urban UFO crashes. I only did one so far but it was great. The close-quarter nature of the map gave it a completely different vibe from the usually open forest maps. Those got old real fast and were my biggest issue with vanilla XCOM. Also, I didn't expect this but the council missions are actually handled a lot better. In vanilla, if you owned the Slingshot DLC, the first council mission was always the first Slingshot mission. And if you ignored it then the story arc never came up again in that campaign. If you chose to do it, the next few council missions would be that story. Here, you can activate it by checking a box when you start a new campaign. I got the first mission very early on but the next one I got was something completely different so their integration into the campaign is much more seamless. I was also really happy to find out that the other DLC story pack (the one that was scrapped after people complained about Slingshot) appears to have been incorporated in the expansion. I thought Slingshot was kind of alright. So, even though what I really wanted was an expansion, I was kinda bummed out that I wouldn't get to play those missions. This one is also activated at the beginning, like Slingshot. So, yeah, if you liked Enemy Unknown then this is definitely worth the 30 bucks. Really glad I picked it up. This will probably get me to sink another 100+ hours into the game.

It's better designed, plain and simple. Origins' map just feels kind of... thrown together, if that makes any sense. And I'm pretty sure that small area in the middle of future Arkham City, that little pointless park, is WAY smaller than the whole barricaded section around Wonder Tower was. So, I think it actually is physically smaller. Basically, that entire half of the map felt off for me the entire time.