magic > firaga > cast > the video game thread

[Mattrick]

I notice this a lot with video games. The first game is excellent but at the same time is limited in what it can do, the second game opens it right up after a successful debut and establishing a fanbase, then by the third one they forget what brought them there and either abandon or minimise what generated their fans in the first place. Bioshock managed to re-invent itself while still keeping true to the spirit of the first game, I just think this is missing in Dead Space 3. I know I've played the first two numerous times and you can make an argument I'm more desensitsed to this brand's horror now but at the same time that shouldn't really matter. I have nothing bad to say about the game play (except my smg almost always fires when I hit the LT instead of going into ADS mode and I waste ammo) because it's as smooth as it's ever played, the story is as good as the previous two games but the main reason I play these games is the anxiety that comes with them. It's just become two easy to predict when a big fight is coming etc from experience and I hope for the next installment they really change it up.

[Still Servant]

Dead Space 3 is Dead Space for pussies. It's a lot of fun to play and looks great but I'm not edge of my seat. Even the regenators aren't getting my pulse going. I'm sure it will be tougher on harder difficulties but necromorphs only killed me once, its only the environment taking me down, specifically the flying through space near the beginning. I was afraid of Dead Space getting too actiony after DS2.

Agreed. That's because we are allowed to craft our own badass weapons. Some weapons combos can be really overpowered too. I still think it's a fun game, but it doesn't quite capture the atmosphere of the first two games.

[Still Servant]

Dead Space - Horror
Dead Space 2 - Horror + Action
Dead Space 3 - Action

Dead Space - Resident Evil 1 & 2
Dead Space 2 - Resident Evil 4
Dead Space 3 - Call of Duty

[Mattrick]

I constructed Hammond's Galvantor, a nice 4 burst with stasis bullets, it does some work. Other than that I've basically only liked the Plasma Cutter. It's amazing how little scrap metal I seem to find yet I need it for everything and it's usually the reason I can't upgrade stuff lol

[Yaksha]

I generally use a line cutter mixed with a rocket launcher and a javelin gun mixed with a force gun. I wreck shit with them.

[Still Servant]

I generally use a line cutter mixed with a rocket launcher and a javelin gun mixed with a force gun. I wreck shit with them.

Love the force gun. Force gun with anything is a great combo. Especially with anything close range.

[OchrisO]

After beating inFAMOUS 2 and Festival of Blood, I am playing inFAMOUS: Second Son now. Holy shit, this game is nice. It looks amazing.

[Mattrick]

Im enjoying my stasis laced, automatic javelin gun with a ripper as the lower tool. Its great against those thin humanoid ones who come in droves I wish I could put a lower tool on my plasma cutter but I don't like to use it horizontal (why I hate the line gun) because its more accurate and efficent vertically. I've really only used four guns and primarily used only two of them (with no lower tools). I dislike only being able to carry two weapons in this game because I never want to be without my faithful plasmacutter so trying to get my second gun to be everything else I could need is tough...so no contact beam for bosses and the force gun is too limited.

[Merlin1958]

You guys need to take a break and go out and play some 3 on 3!! LOL Perhaps a little baseball or soccer? J/K

[Still Servant]

You guys need to take a break and go out and play some 3 on 3!! LOL Perhaps a little baseball or soccer? J/K

I played basketball today. I do most of my video game playing at night. Around 11pm.

Matt, I'm surprised you don't like the line gun. I love chopping their legs off and finishing them with a head shot.

[Mattrick]

Line gun is too bulky and undependable. It works for legs but sucks for arms. I'm sure in this game I could give it a lower tool that could make it more versatile but I'll wait for new game plus to really experiment with making guns...I spent most of my stuff upgrading my rig 100% first play through.

[Mattrick]

You guys need to take a break and go out and play some 3 on 3!! LOL Perhaps a little baseball or soccer? J/K

I walk 30 plus kilometers every week. I'm good lol

[OchrisO]

You guys need to take a break and go out and play some 3 on 3!! LOL Perhaps a little baseball or soccer? J/K

[fernandito]

lol^

My baby was my juiced up force gun (complete with stayis coated ammo) with a grenade launcher sub weapon. Launch them backwards and then nuke them. Fucking love that gun.

[Still Servant]

Lately I've been emulating PS2 and Gamecube games to catch up on my backlog or play some of my old nostalgia trippers.
I'm doing a lot of multitasking. Playing games on emulators while playing Minecraft. At the same time, I'm watching Biology Documentaries narrated by David Attenborough, occasionally switching over to listen to George Carlin's stand-up shows.

There is so much I love (Carlin) about this comment and only one thing I hate. For the life of me I can't understand what people see in Minecraft.

[Mattrick]

I'm at the end of Dead Space 3 now. I like the optional missions and the overall longer game (seems I'll be completing in roughly 20 hours). It definitely gets a lot more intense and crazy in parts, it's just a shame it took so long for the game to get so intense. Starting a fresh game on Impossible mode is sure to be quite the challenge at parts. I went so long without dying by a necromorph that when I got absolutely destroyed at a part mixed with Stalkers/Weapon Wielders (no idea what they're called), it was kind of relieving to finally die. In the later parts of the game I've noticed parts where the programming is easily manipulated...one part with Stalkers/Exploding arms guys wouldn't chase me and just kind of piled up together so I could just poke in an out of the entrance and it was like fish in a barrell, another spot where I could basically manipulate the environment to fight one necromorph at a time (the spot I said I got absolutely destroyed lol) so it's been some good scouting for higher difficult playthroughs.

I haven't played Dead Space 2 on any higher difficulties yet and I'm pretty sure you can new game+ on different difficulties (which you couldn't do in DS1) so I hope that's the case with this one. On harder difficulties is it worth completing the side missions for the extra stuff or does it exhaust too many resources to bother? Is the tram system on the planet only for Co-op? Every location was locked. There are some co-op only side missions too which are a shame since I don't have anyone to play it co-op with me. Not sure how many random people are online playing it anymore. I've heard cutscenes etc are different with Carver and that you get a bit of a different or at least expanded story.

[Mattrick]

Just thinking...why is the poll still at the top of this thread? It's been closed forever lol Or can it not be removed?

[Mattrick]

My problem with Minecraft is if the only limit is your imagination...grab some paint, write, sculpt, draw, build for real. Building stuff in Minecraft is creativity that doesn't actually build your creativity or your skills to be creative. It's a meandering time waster which is fine, there are plenty of games like that, I guess I don't understand how it can eat up so much of peoples time, I know some people that were addicted to it. Most video games have some plot or narrative or challenge to keep people coming back or the thrill of competition and I know Minecraft has doesn't really have any of those so I just don't get it's appeal.

[Still Servant]

Lately I've been emulating PS2 and Gamecube games to catch up on my backlog or play some of my old nostalgia trippers.
I'm doing a lot of multitasking. Playing games on emulators while playing Minecraft. At the same time, I'm watching Biology Documentaries narrated by David Attenborough, occasionally switching over to listen to George Carlin's stand-up shows.

There is so much I love (Carlin) about this comment and only one thing I hate. For the life of me I can't understand what people see in Minecraft.

Huge randomly-generated world to explore, thousands of mods to keep the game fresh, fun community, and the only thing limiting what you can do is your imagination.

If the graphics are your problem, there's texture packs and shaders. If the monsters or weapons are too limited, there's mods. If you don't like the Nether, try the Aether. Tired of playing alone? Join a PvE server.

I guess I just need more structure in my video games. I think it's great to see what people can create using their imagination. I personally had a great time creating levels in Little Big Planet, but Minecraft just seems different to me. I guess I'm just not positive I understand some of the things you can do in the game. If I'm going to explore a world, I'd much rather play GTA5.

If I'm going to play Team Deathmatch zombies against other players, I might as well just play Call of Duty. The graphics certainly aren't the problem, I still play my Atari.

I have no problem when adults play Minecraft because they have the ability to do so much with the game. My biggest beef with the game is that it has become so popular with little kids. I watch my 6-year-old cousin play and it's so mindless. I grew up playing games like Mario which had fun, structured gameplay. I'm just worried a game like Minecraft could have an adverse effect on the perception of video games among our youth.

I also have another problem with it and it might not make sense. Let me try to explain it. I feel like video games have come a long way in recent years in showing people who aren't familiar with video games how realistic they look and how much the storytelling has come. I feel that when people who don't know anything about video games see Minecraft they will brush it off as a mindless kids game again. I felt the same way about some of the Wii games a few years back. I remember playing the Wii over my Uncle's house and my aunt commented how great the graphics were for the Wii Sports game. I told here it was garbage compared to games on the PS3, XBOX 360 or PC.

I just don't want to be going backwards.

[Mattrick]

I figured with Survivalist/Classic modes on Dead Space 3 both being on Hard I should do my Impossible difficulty playthrough now so Hard will hopefully feel easier by then. Can you play Hardcore mode on Easy? I'm not so much worried about dying from Necromorphs on Normal as they only got me I think 3 times my whole playthrough on Normal, but the instant death environmental things like flying through space etc. I would rather limit my possible deaths to those sequences than the rest of the game. I would hate to play through 75% of the game and die from the environment and have to start all over again...definitely doing Hardcore last once I know the game through and through. And what do they mean by 'classic aiming' on Classic mode?

Dead Space 3 had a wicked plot and told a great story and definitely ratcheted up the intensity in the later chapters of the game. There were plenty of parts where I found myself pre-dreading to play, such as a couple spots with both Necromorphs and Unitologist soldiers and a spot, where the machine is at the end (where the last door opens), when you get kind of swarmed by Unitologist soldiers only but there really isn't any place to effectively take cover...my ripper blades saved me from the shotgunners lol

[Mattrick]

Also, would it be considered reprehensible parenting to say, if my child was being an absolutely shit, if I put them in a dark room and forced them to play Dead Space for an hour?

[Mattrick]

Now I'm pissed. I get 1/4 way through the game on Impossible difficulty and it didn't save. I knew something was up when there was no 'save and quit' option when I was playing it. So basically the entiree three hours I played the other day was totally pointless because I couldn't even save it. I hate when stuff like this happens to me in a video game. It just kills my desire to play it, period. What, I have to play the first three hours again because Visceral doesn't know how to save a game? Fuck that.

[Still Servant]

Now I'm pissed. I get 1/4 way through the game on Impossible difficulty and it didn't save. I knew something was up when there was no 'save and quit' option when I was playing it. So basically the entiree three hours I played the other day was totally pointless because I couldn't even save it. I hate when stuff like this happens to me in a video game. It just kills my desire to play it, period. What, I have to play the first three hours again because Visceral doesn't know how to save a game? Fuck that.

That sucks. Aren't there only like 3 or 4 save points on impossible mode?

[Mattrick]

On my restart it's already saved progress that many times at least and I just got to the orbit of the planet. I thought something was odd when I played it through the first time because I was kind of just playing until I got a 'progress saving' icon and wasn't getting one and it only said 'quit' and not 'save and quit'. I have a feeling some sort of glitch happened or something. It doesn't seem to be an issue this time which is good.

[Mattrick]

WOO! XboxLive has a sale on now with Capcom hits...so looking forward to playing RE: Code Veronica (only RE game from the original all the way to RE5 I never finished), RE4 and RE: Revelations. Playing these games might fill me with such nostalgic joy I might end up digging out my GameCube so I can replay RE0 and REmake. If only I still had my RE2/Nemesis. I miss playing all these games.