Together Retro, Jan 20: 2010 RETRO!

[lordb0rb4]

Wife's been playing a lot of Don't Starve on my PC so no FF XIII yet BUT i've started one of my favorite games of 2010, Call of Duty Black Ops and good lord, the memories.
My hype was through the roof after MW2 and IMO it delivered, amazing MP and to me it was the last enjoyable COD campaign, bought it on PC day 1, PS3 and even Wii and last year got the XBOX 360, wich I'm playing now.
Great stuff

[PretentiousHipster]

Tried an experiment that failed twice. At the end of the funny man stranger quest, he says he's gonna leave the country. Where exactly would he go? I tried to follow him. It seemed like he was going to go to the closest town. However, some wolves came. I killed them, but he must have thought I shot at him, and he started to run away. I tried following him again but every time I got close he ran the other way.

The same thing happened the second time when I helped the prison guard with the 2 escaped prisoners. The third attempt was the same event, but I managed to do it. So what do these NPCs do? They walk to the closest town, go to the train station, go to the counter which I assume is them buying their ticket, and then sit down and wait. I didn't wanna go on the train to follow them because I wouldn't know what stop they get off at, or if they would just disappear when on the train.

Still, it was a curious experiment.

[Sload Soap]

I'm glad to see some Castlevania in this thread! Look, I agree with everything you said. Everything. And in reality, LOS really wasn't even meant to be a Castlevania game at all, right? The license was attached later wasn't it? I think. Anyway, as 'bad' a CV game as it is, I did manage to have some fun with it back in the day. I don't think it's horrible. Just y'know, not a great CV.

I guess to some degree, I feel an analog in your playing LOS and me playing Other M.

I think it was always supposed to be a Castlevania reboot, Konami just played it close to their chest. This was when Konami gave at least half a shit about pissing their fans off. And yeah, there is a connection with Other M I guess, different studio's take on an long running and beloved franchise, both more story focused as well.

I'm up to chapter 7 now with LoS and things are improving as Gabriel has a fuller arsenal and we've entered more the more classically spooky territory of vampires and werewolves. The pace is picking up as well with fewer levels per chapter. And I think I've seen the last of the fights against the Shadows of the Colossus styled bosses. They were out of place and not very well executed IMO.

I still feel the combat isn't quite there; despite having a combo system it's still quite mashy as most enemies don't stunlock and just attack through any long combos. The camera is often too far out as well so the parry system is pretty useless and you can be attacked by an unblockable move you didn't see coming as it started off-screen.

The main gimmick with the combat is being able to enter into either light or shadow modes which allow your attacks to heal you or do more damage respectively. Both modes have their own pools of magic which are refilled by neutral magic orbs. You get neutral orbs from defeating enemies with neither modes active and the idea is to build up combos to fill out a power meter that when full starts to shower you with orbs with each blow you land. The light mode is helpful as it is the only way to heal. No wall chicken here. The shadow mode is a bit underwhelming, I don't think it puts out enough damage to be worth expending meter on.

For a system as complicated as it is the gains are really incremental and it's way too easy to be knocked out of a combo thus stymieing the availability of orbs. I've found it better to just stay in neutral, keep dashing around and using the wider range attacks to keep enemies at bay as I chip into their frankly excessive amounts of health.

The health and magic upgrades are also really incremental as well which is frustrating. You have to collect five coloured gems each to increase the health, light magic and shadow magic meters and even then it goes up by about a fifth. Like the combat, it's a little too much input for not a lot out.

Still, it is improving as I get better moves and move equipment. If memory serves that last half of the game isn't as stodgy as the first so perhaps this is why I held this belief the game was better than I thought it to be. Also I know Satan turns up at some point so that's always fun.

[PretentiousHipster]

50% done exactly with Red Dead Redemption after around 12 hours of playing. I'm starting to feel like it's overstaying its welcome. I think the big issue is that he's a total yes man. It comes off as incredibly frustrating where no matter how much of a waste of time it is, and is irrelevant to him, he still does what they ask. It's just making me impatient. Perhaps they did this to emphasize the frustrating he is going through, and to make it a lot more satisfying when I assume you find them, but it still doesn't change how I feel about the journey to get there.

[lordb0rb4]

Weekend's been great for gaming so i managed to beat Call of Duty: Black Ops (Xbox One BC) and Metal Slug XX (PSP) and what a blast!


Both are not strange to me but not in this exact format, Metal Slug XX was released also in 2010 for XBox 360 and my hype for COD was so high that i bought for all 3 platforms i owned back in 2010, PC, PS3 and Wii.
It was actually refreshing to play a FPS without nowaday's trends, no stats, skills, rpg's stuff, open worl and boring activities, just pure and fun gameplay on top of a intriguing plot and protagonists.
Also delved a bit online and to my surprise it's pretty active still, +140k online player after 10 years!?!
Worthy alone for this man right here:

In Vortuka, we are ALL brothers!

[TEKTORO]

On games like Bioshock 2, Residet Evil 5 Gold, Dragon Age Ultimate are you guys sticking to the release dates or can the HD versions or vanilla versions still be considered?

[lordb0rb4]

I think it's valid to play however you can my friend!

[noiseredux]

On games like Bioshock 2, Residet Evil 5 Gold, Dragon Age Ultimate are you guys sticking to the release dates or can the HD versions or vanilla versions still be considered?

Tek!!!! Go crazy my friend.

[alienjesus]

I wrapped up Ys: The Oath in Felghana yesterday.

I had a pretty good time with it all told. It's not very long and the story is a bit meh, but the gameplay remained fun throughout and as always the soundtrack is great. Difficulty was pretty standard Ys faire - difficulty largely determined by big jumps in power when you get new equipment, and mostly easy outside of some very challenging bosses. I liked it a lot.

I was considering jumping into Ys Seven, but I decided I needed to get back to Final Fantasy XII as my portable RPG currently, so that's likely me for the month.

[lordb0rb4]

Good job AJ, i might squeeze 2 more game this month, Bayonetta and/or Dante's Inferno and Battlefield Bad Company 2