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Walton Simons posted:I think there are four packs with actual missions. I'd like to know if they're any good too. I've heard decent things about Nightmare in North Point, sounds like it's not to be taken seriously. They're cheap at any rate. DLC you should get: Nightmare in North Point - Self contained cheesy horror epilogue to the main story (complete with spoilers as people come back from the dead) where you get to punch hopping vampires in the face. Zodiac Tournament - Less than an hour long, but it's an Enter the Dragon fight tournament on an offshore island, complete with kicking rad '70s guitar and retro film filter. Accessed from the main world, best used as a mid-story intermission. Year of the Snake - Self contained mini campaign where you get to play as Wei Shen, beat cop. Nothing too amazing, but a selection of new missions with pretty much all the gameplay stuff from the main story. The best part is that it unlocks the beat cop uniform for use in the main game, so you can go undercover in style.  Of the smaller pieces: Triad Enforcer - Gives an infinite fight club, plus a driving mission shooting bikers, also an outfit and a car. Nice to have on new playthroughs. SWAT - Gives you a chance to go and drive a SWAT van responding to infinitely generating emergency calls. Not a huge thing by itself, but nice for when you want to spend 15 minutes doing something else before carrying on with the story. Wheels of Fury - Gives you five driving missions that unlock a super car with built in machine guns. Mission and toys, always a good combo. I also really dig the Law Enforcement pack. It's purely cosmetic, but it puts all the cop vehicles in your garage and a bunch of SWAT outfits in your wardrobe. The beat cop outfit only comes from finishing the Year of the Snake DLC, but the amount of vans and cruisers and a bike, all with real radios (and if you have the required cop XP guns in the trunk) make this a cheap way to go on a cop rampage in style. While wearing the uniforms you get to tase people, slap handcuffs on anyone you see, and you commandeer vehicles rather than hijack them. It's totally worth two dollars.
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| # ? May 21, 2013 09:59 |
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| # ? May 23, 2013 16:53 |
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Little Blue Couch posted:Is any of the dlc worth it? It mostly seems like cosmetic changes and pay-to-win packages. There's one piece of DLC that adds an extra story outside of the main game ala Red Dead Redemptions expansion pack, and oh, basically turns the game into Big Trouble in Little China. Nightmare in North Point. And the cosmetic packs with any vehicles in them are worth it for the zoominess.
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| # ? May 21, 2013 10:33 |
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Wheels of Fury basically gives you the Batmobile. Get Wheels of Fury.
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| # ? May 21, 2013 10:43 |
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Sounds like I'm finally getting Sleeping Dogs soon, then. One thing I like in Minecraft that's new since the last time I regularly played: you can now drag an item over slots in the crafting grid and a stack of items will distribute over slots as evenly as possible. No more fiddling with balancing each space's item count individually.
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| # ? May 21, 2013 10:48 |
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Metro: Last Light is the rare sort of post-apocalyptic story where the world getting obliterated is still something that's actually in living memory, and the game plays with that a lot in its more atmospheric moments. There's one bit where a group of children are trying to guess the shadow puppets and older man is making, not actually recognizing any of the animals and instead calling out the names of vicious mutants. There's also another section where a companion NPC rejoices at feeling rain for the first time in years even if it's so contaminated with nuclear fallout that it's almost burning him through his protective gear.
Kalos fucked around with this message at May 21, 2013 around 11:08 |
| # ? May 21, 2013 11:02 |
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Games where higher difficulty also makes the player better or the stakes higher/faster. STALKER, for example, where high difficulties make both you and enemies more accurate and deadly. Metro 2033 Last Light on Ranger Hardcore is the same way. Resources become scarce and you're very fragile, but your bullets hit like a truck carrying truck parts. So the armored dudes and advanced mutants that would eat ammo go handily down with one or two well placed shots. Miss or be discovered, though, and you're the dead one.
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| # ? May 21, 2013 11:49 |
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BiggerBoat posted:I'd love something like that. A proper detective/mystery game done right. I'm not sure I've ever really played one, come to think of it; a real, genuine whodunnit style game where you have to break down clues and poo poo. I remember certain games sort of touching on the mechanic, but they all seemed to boil down a pre-determined script and clunky interfaces rather than real crime solving. #1. The Sherlock Holmes games from Frogware. The ones that I've played are Sherlock Holmes vs. Jack The Ripper and currently playing through The Testament of Sherlock Holmes. They're somewhat low-budget, but they've managed to keep my interest. The detectiving is a bit of a pixel-hunting affair at times, the real fun begins when you have to do some experimenting to find out what's been going on, and my favorite feature is the Deducation Board. You basically get a list of all the clues you've discovered so far, and link them together and deduce what actually happened. That's where the game really feels like a Sherlock Holmes game. They're not too difficult, and you could theoretically brute-force through it, but those are my favorite puzzles in the game. They generally make sense, and makes you think about the discoveries that you made earlier. #2. The other would be Spycraft: The Great Game. I've only played a bit through this, but what I did play felt like it has potential. You're basically an agent for the CIA, and have to use several tools to solve several mysteries. For example, tracing the trajectory of a sniper bullet to find out where a shot was made, or deduce what kind of gun was used, based on statistics. My favorite mystery so far was trying out to find out who stole some millitary equipment by going through the schedules and phone calls from three suspects. You're reading through their stories, trying to find out a possible discrepancy. The fun thing here is that there are tons of red herrings, lots of documents to browse through that have nothing to do with the solution. So you really have to pay attention, and it feels incredibly reward to suddenly find that one thing that doesn't make sense, and you realize what's going on. I can't tell you if the entire game is like this, but it sure feels like it. I really have to dedicate some more time to it after finishing the Testament of Sherlock Holmes.
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| # ? May 21, 2013 11:53 |
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Parkingtigers posted:DLC you should get: Further, though lesser recommendations: Retro Triad Pack - Looking ridiculous should always be a goal in these games. This makes you look like an extra from a cheesy 80s kung-fu film. It also gives you a totally sweet van with a dragon painted on the side, dude. Drunken Master Pack - Sort of self-explanatory...lets you do drunken fighting specials. Monkey King Pack - Dress up as the Monkey King, always have a staff on hand to fight with, and ride a "cloud" (or a motorcycle that poops out clouds around its wheels, anyway) all over town. These are all cosmetic DLCs at heart, though every outfit gives various stat bonuses, and more importantly they all have some element of fun to them. I'm personally a sucker for Journey to the West references.
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| # ? May 21, 2013 11:53 |
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Thanks to you jackasses I went and got myself LA Noir (dirt cheap, assuming DLC isn't worth getting later). Already in love with it. Particularly that not every case is the end of the world (like the first traffic case just being fraud) and how eerie the dead bodies look now that they have more realistic faces. Usually it's a little difficult to have death have much impact/importance in games thanks to the norm being ridiculously high body counts and looking like caricatures. Nice to have something slower paced once in a while.
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| # ? May 21, 2013 12:56 |
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Sad lions posted:Usually it's a little difficult to have death have much impact/importance in games thanks to the norm being ridiculously high body counts and looking like caricatures. Nice to have something slower paced once in a while. But on the other hand, I kind of appreciated having brutal gunfights to break up the regular investigation work. Unbalanced in a way, but just right in others.
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| # ? May 21, 2013 13:15 |
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My favorite little thing about LA Noire is the black & white mode, and that there is no achievement/trophy for playing through the game with it on. I found it helped with the "uncanny valley" issues such that the only thing that bothered me is that only one face can be animated at a time in the engine. I wish I'd never heard that because it's tough to notice initially but impossible to miss once you know to look for it. Any time one person talks, everyone else's face goes completely slack. There is at least one mission where you need to follow a blood trail which is basically impossible to do well in black & white mode, though. Other than that it rules and as far as I'm concerned it's the way the game is meant to be played. As for the game on the whole it certainly wasn't a great Rockstar game but it was a pretty good casual Rockstar game; it seemed pretty accessible to me with reasonably broad appeal. It certainly doesn't hurt that they used a lot of recognizable TV actors, particularly from Mad Men. Intuition points were a good "avoid getting stuck" mechanic especially when used regularly, although the typical gamer's urge is to hoard them. I wish the game was somehow more explicit that if you reach Rank 20, you start every case with full Intuition; I would spent more time in the early game grinding side mission XP and probably gotten a little more out of it than I did.
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| # ? May 21, 2013 13:47 |
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Kenny Logins posted:Intuition points were a good "avoid getting stuck" mechanic especially when used regularly, although the typical gamer's urge is to hoard them. I wish the game was somehow more explicit that if you reach Rank 20, you start every case with full Intuition; I would spent more time in the early game grinding side mission XP and probably gotten a little more out of it than I did. Intuition points were only really useful if you have an active Internet connection. For those who haven't played, there are two ways to use them during an interrogation: if you have an open connection, you can see the percentage of players that picked each option, usually with the overwhelming majority picking the correct answer. The other option eliminates one of the three possibilities, but you can usually rule one out easily and that's the one the game usually picks. It's frustrating to play when XBL goes offline. Other than that, though, it's great. I heard that the three options (Truth, Lie, and Doubt) were originally labeled something else, like Press for doubt when you know someone's lying but you have no evidence. Whatever the original names were, they seemed to be more fitting for the actions Cole takes.
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| # ? May 21, 2013 15:29 |
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It's also telling if you hit doubt and he screams like a maniac you probably picked the wrong option anyway.
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| # ? May 21, 2013 15:46 |
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One thing that makes the game a lot easier is realizing that there's only ever like two times in the entire game that someone's actually telling the truth. So really it's just a question of "have I found any evidence contradicting what they just said?" If yes, Lie. If no, Doubt. It's better that way since it comes down to how diligent you were at searching for evidence and how clever you are at connecting what you've found to what they're saying, and feels less like you guessing at what the game wants you to pick between Truth and Doubt.
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| # ? May 21, 2013 16:21 |
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The badge system in Paper Mario 2 - In the first two paper mario games, you find badges, badges need BP to be equipped. Equipping badges usually grant some form of ability such as a new attack, or some passive ability. Essentially its like learning new moves in an RPG, though rather from grinding in one area to get the super special attack that will 1-hit KO the bosses, you have to find them or buy them. Instead when you level, you choose if you want more HP, FP, or Bp. Essentially, the game really plays it down on the grinding, and being to powerful before you reach a given area. Since the only way to increase your attack and defense is with badges or finding jump or hammer upgrades, you become more powerful as the story progress' and you get more areas to explore. I think its a nice contrast to games where you can just grind in one area to get your stats super high. Paper Mario's is a bit limited due to a cap at 30 Bp, but in 2 - you can get your BP up to 99. In Paper Mario, I picked HP->FP->BP repeat, but in 2, I started picking BP much more often so I could customize him into a power house. Paper Mario 2 opens so much customization due to certain badges no longer being finite as opposed to the first game, where was one-two of each badge (usually one). Certain badges could also be stacked making them more powerful -> Two power smash badges would equal in power to the ultra smash badge in Paper Mario. Also in the sequel is a character who can rearrange your stats for a price, adding even more customization for you to play with and eliminate that RPG worry of loving up in the stats department.
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| # ? May 21, 2013 16:47 |
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I finally got around to playing Far Cry 3 and it's not hard to see why it was a thread darling just a few months ago. At the time everyone was talking about it, I was playing through Far Cry 2 and I feel like the sequel is all the better for having done so. It's really tough to push the discussion further without just rehashing what's already been said, but I guess I can speak as to the best ways 3 trumps 2:
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| # ? May 21, 2013 17:44 |
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scarycave posted:Also in the sequel is a character who can rearrange your stats for a price, adding even more customization for you to play with and eliminate that RPG worry of loving up in the stats department. There's actually a guy who does this in the first one, too. You have to blow up the wall in the room with the door to Shiver City in the sewers.
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| # ? May 21, 2013 17:45 |
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Dauntasa posted:There's actually a guy who does this in the first one, too. You have to blow up the wall in the room with the door to Shiver City in the sewers. Isn't that the guy who sells you random stuff for 64 coins? There is a character with the exact same name, except he's a bird in Toad Town but he only does it once, and can actually mess up your stats if your not careful.
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| # ? May 21, 2013 17:52 |
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John Murdoch posted:Further, though lesser recommendations: Earlier someone mentioned that the North Point piece of DLC gives you what is basically Big Trouble in Little China. The costume in the above DLC is directly from BTiLC (one of the airport thugs, not Jack Burton unfortunately.) You get the sweet snow glasses, so it is totally worth it.
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| # ? May 21, 2013 20:44 |
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scarycave posted:Isn't that the guy who sells you random stuff for 64 coins? There is a character with the exact same name, except he's a bird in Toad Town but he only does it once, and can actually mess up your stats if your not careful. Maybe I'm getting them confused.
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| # ? May 21, 2013 22:48 |
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One of the factions in Warframe has dudes with riot shields who provide cover for their bros and knock you down if you get too close. I never noticed this until I got the bow (basically a silent sniper) but shooting the tiny window in the shield, something small enough to barely be seen on my screen, lets you do direct damage to the enemy, instead of trying to get them to expose themselves or whittling away at their feet.
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| # ? May 22, 2013 10:16 |
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Kalos posted:One of the factions in Warframe has dudes with riot shields who provide cover for their bros and knock you down if you get too close. I never noticed this until I got the bow (basically a silent sniper) but shooting the tiny window in the shield, something small enough to barely be seen on my screen, lets you do direct damage to the enemy, instead of trying to get them to expose themselves or whittling away at their feet.
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| # ? May 22, 2013 11:52 |
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I recently finished my first run through of The Cave, and immediately started on my second pass (where a different selection of your three party characters corresponds to a unique set of levels). One of these is the time traveller's level, which allows you to switch between three distant periods at the same location inside the cave. What's neat is that you can keep one of your party members in each timeline, and toggle instantly between them. If you keep control of one character in the present or future era, and walk to where you left another in the past, you'll find a pile of their bones sitting where you left them. That's obedience!
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| # ? May 22, 2013 12:48 |
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Croccers posted:If you have the Mag warframe you can use Pull to yank their shields away. You can also just do a flying kick and plow right through them, then turn around and put a cloud of buckshot in their back as they flop around helplessly on the floor. Cyborg space ninja honor.
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| # ? May 22, 2013 14:46 |
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| # ? May 23, 2013 16:53 |
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XCOM: Enemy Unknown actually managed to do fun escort missions. They don't appear very often but they're fun to play because they change the entire dynamic of the game. You get to control the person you're escorting which is far and away the best approach to escort missions, and you're forced to play really defensively and carefully plan out your moves rather than hunting down the aliens like you do in most missions. The gameplay just has such a great feel to it, you carefully move your squad from cover to cover and use overwatch to make them automatically shoot at enemies if they run out at you. Its amazing how one little change in the way the mission works can make you alter your entire playstyle in such a huge way, and its loving great. I love the way that it gives your randomly generated troops each a country of origin and a little nickname if they get high enough in the ranks, too. If they make a sequel I hope they record some foreign accents for the voices instead of just 6 very similar American accents.
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| # ? May 22, 2013 22:27 |
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