I put 100+ hrs over two characters in Dark Souls but still haven't beaten it ahaha. The boss fights are like my least favorite part of the game tho, so I don't really care to fight Nito et al. to get to Gwyn.
e: I should do the Sif fight tho, never did that, but its one of my favorite enemy designs ever 8)
I like the bosses. What I don't like that much is the long runs from the last bonfire before boss to the boss. Luckily in many bosses there are ether shortcuts between the bonfire and boss, or the enemies are just easy to run past of.
I actually like just running in between bonfires and exploring and searching around for weapons/gear. It's weird, I guess, cause the travel and boss fights are the same concepts, memorizing patterns/layout and enacting an efficient plan to both avoid and deal as much damage as possible, but it just feels like BS to me when it's a boss fight. I think it might be cause the margins of error are smaller (or is it larger?? Whichever one means its easier to fuck up), and there's a lot of ways to die in one or two hits.
Tho that just means boss fights are an excellent time to summon some dudes so you can play a little sloppier and still make it out alive.
I put 100+ hrs over two characters in Dark Souls but still haven't beaten it ahaha. The boss fights are like my least favorite part of the game tho, so I don't really care to fight Nito et al. to get to Gwyn.
e: I should do the Sif fight tho, never did that, but its one of my favorite enemy designs ever 8)
If you're 80+ SL at all with a competent build you can stomp all of the bosses with ease. This last playthough I was 98 I believe with a build centered on magic weapons with moonlight greatsword and a combo of armor that gave 208+base physical and 51 poise and I fucked Gwyn's day up in like 4 hits. Also for bosses if you don't enjoy them usually just summon someone to help and they mostly become a breeze.
Also if you fight Sif after playing DLC and rescuing him the alternate cutscene will make you feel sad. They also seem to change his AI to be more defensive.
I finally beat te sanctuary guardian with my magic/faith guy. What a pain in the ass, the dudes resistant to the two main types of damage I can do (magic + lightning). I wound up using the dark moon bow so I could keep my distance... it did like 50 damage each hit so it took abt 15 - 20 mins to kill the fucker ahah
Still playing Arkham Origins. The game is pretty decent and I like that it features some Batman villains which are lesser known and haven't appeared in previous games, such as Firefly and Copperhead (both with new designs which I very much like, particularly compared with their main universe counterparts). However, the game has a couple of issues which are quite annoying, both technical and in the storyline so be warned.
Technical issues as mentioned before is the vent grate in the Burnley Comm Tower, which is glitched in the PC version making it impossible to complete. While this isn't a game-breaking bug as it isn't essential to complete the story or even Enigma's Most Wanted mission, it is still annoying. They also seem to have broken this even further, or perhaps a previous glitch now doesn't even let me attempt to complete this task anymore. This was either caused by a recent update, or by the fact that I fast traveled out of it and then completed the game without it. Perhaps this problem was also previously there.
There's also some other glitches such as incomplete animations on occasion, and I once got myself stuck in the steel mill in an odd situations where Batman was bouncing back and forth between a container and a forklift in the Steel Mill as he got stuck in his landing animation. Managed to somehow get to a spot where I could use the grapple to get out of this glitch.
The biggest problem however is in the design of the challenge system. It's an optional part of the game which unlocks experience points and some rewards if you complete challenges which consist of some tasks like "glide 250 meters" or "complete a predator room without detective visions". The problem is that unlike for example the Physical Riddler challenges in Arkham City, these challenges have to be completed in a specified order, which is very fucking annoying as it forces you to do things which you have already done previously and that can be occasionally rather time consuming.
What's more annoying is that certain challenges can only be completed during certain parts of the game. Biggest offender here is one challenge which requires you to complete four "exotic" take-down variations in one predator encounter. These are dependent on certain conditions in the geometry of the predator room. It has to have a ledge, a vent, a ledge, etc. And no predator room which "regenerates" after you complete the game has all the requirements and so the only way you can complete this challenge if you start the game over or start the New Game Plus mode, which is also only available once per save game. So if you want to do these challenges, be aware of them and complete them while you follow the story line.
The writing also seems worse than the previous game. A big spoiler here is that Bane somehow discovers that Bruce Wayne is Batman. This leads to him attacking Wayne Manor and the Batcave which is something the player actually never gets to see on-screen. Instead we get a rather ham-handed scene in which Batman arrives after the fact and finds Alfred trapped under some rubble. Batman then has to revive Alfred by jump starting his heart by punching him in the chest with the Electrocutioner's shock gloves. And then later in the game Bane's knowledge of Batman is essentially retconned out of the thing by explaining that the new strain of the Venom drug he is using causes Memory loss.
Overall, the game is still very good. It hits most of the notes you expected and is still a very good, high quality game. However, it has some annoying issues and it is definitely worse than both Arkham Asylum and Arkham City.
When I played through Arkham City, I did most of the Riddler challenges, then just stopped realising they weren't fun, the main story was more interesting as were the other secondary quests.
Downloaded the $20 add-on for New Super Mario Bros U, the New Super Luigi U levels. This is a complete replay of the same game, but all of the levels are swapped out with 100-second-long remakes, and you play as Luigi, floaty jump and all. Mario U was the best side-scrolling Mario I'd played since the SNES, so this has hard standards to meet. Two worlds in, I'm not incredibly impressed. The new levels are good but not great. I'll keep playing b/c I trust there will be some gems.
I've been on the fence about it. Previous New Super Mario games have all been mildly difficult at best. The Luigi levels seemed like the would be a good challenge. I'm also disappointed it has the same levels, I didn't realize that. I'll probably just skip it since I've already sorta given up on NSMB U anyway.
I was playing NSMB at a friends house of the weekend with 4 players, it was pretty fun, the challenge of course coming from the other players and not necessarily the level.
My biggest problem with the game, why the hell do they do two toads and not some other Mario character.
I've been on the fence about it. Previous New Super Mario games have all been mildly difficult at best. The Luigi levels seemed like the would be a good challenge. I'm also disappointed it has the same levels, I didn't realize that. I'll probably just skip it since I've already sorta given up on NSMB U anyway.
When I say "the same" levels, I'll clarify that the Luigi levels are loosely inspired by the original Mario versions of the levels. They are very much different levels. Still haven't played enough to judge though.
I was hoping for the Mario 3D Land twist where the first set of levels were a joke, then fake game ending, then OH MAN real levels w/ Luigi!
I was playing NSMB at a friends house of the weekend with 4 players, it was pretty fun, the challenge of course coming from the other players and not necessarily the level.
My biggest problem with the game, why the hell do they do two toads and not some other Mario character.
Personally I find the 4-player Mario stuff to be unbearable, both in NSMB and NSMB U. You are spot on in saying that the difficulty is just staying out of each other's way. Coin Rush mode is OK, b/c then at least the objective is clear and dickisness is incentivized.
NSMB U is great as a single player game, and you can also get away with 2-player co-op where 1 player has the GamePad, not an on-screen character. The GamePad lets them lay down platforms, reveal special blocks, stun enemies, etc. so it is a more fully realized version of the co-op Nintendo started tinkering with in the Galaxy series.
Even though I'm not a fan of the 4p, I'm excited for the Super Mario 3D World (the names are all starting to blend together, aren't they?) solely b/c it's going straight back to Mario 2 characters and abilities, and ditching the fucking idiotic Mario, Luigi, and 2 toads thing. Aside from that the new power-ups and levels look enticing, and I'm holding out hope b/c it will be the Mario Galaxy team's debut on the Wii U.
Been currently getting back into learning guitar again, so I picked up Rocksmith 2014. Soooo much better than the original version. They really did take everything bad about the old game and fixed them, plus added a whole bunch of awesome new stuff. The guitarcade games are especially well done. One of them is basically like Typing of the Dead except you're doing guitar chords instead of typing words.
Fez: stupid symbols on stupid bells being relevant in other areas that I don't recall how to get to.
Each time I encounter a new puzzle and figure it out I think to myself, "Hohoho, Phil Fish, you are a clevery cheeky bastard!" I proceeded the weekend to watch Indie Game: The Movie. Then I saw PAX East 2011. Then I had a sad because I won't be going to PAX East 2014.
I bought Fez, but can't bring myself to play it for fear I'll just wind up punching the screen in frustration.
No, it's not bad at all. It's great. I am loving it. Put the soundtrack in my phone today to listen to today.
The puzzles are cool. I'm at 60% completion with 5 hours of playtime. I am having fun exploring and seeing how they use the 3D with the 2D platforming. It's pretty damn genius, imo.
I have heard of Gnomoria, but some people were saying it was a bit watered down, at the time I thought this was a bad thing. but having spent some time with DF now, I think it might actually be a positive thing.
My biggest issue with Fez is it's a pain in the ass to navigate around sometimes. The game is pretty easy though. There are some tough pieces to obtain but it's designed so that the game can be won without needing to look for them.
I played Fez about until I started to translate it's characters and read those messages. Translating Fez characters to the Latin alphabet got really dull and boring fast.
So, I spent this morning figuring out how to give DF actual graphics, and I have to say that it makes quite a bit easier to get into once you can tell everything apart.
Comments
Tho that just means boss fights are an excellent time to summon some dudes so you can play a little sloppier and still make it out alive.
Also if you fight Sif after playing DLC and rescuing him the alternate cutscene will make you feel sad. They also seem to change his AI to be more defensive.
Technical issues as mentioned before is the vent grate in the Burnley Comm Tower, which is glitched in the PC version making it impossible to complete. While this isn't a game-breaking bug as it isn't essential to complete the story or even Enigma's Most Wanted mission, it is still annoying. They also seem to have broken this even further, or perhaps a previous glitch now doesn't even let me attempt to complete this task anymore. This was either caused by a recent update, or by the fact that I fast traveled out of it and then completed the game without it. Perhaps this problem was also previously there.
There's also some other glitches such as incomplete animations on occasion, and I once got myself stuck in the steel mill in an odd situations where Batman was bouncing back and forth between a container and a forklift in the Steel Mill as he got stuck in his landing animation. Managed to somehow get to a spot where I could use the grapple to get out of this glitch.
The biggest problem however is in the design of the challenge system. It's an optional part of the game which unlocks experience points and some rewards if you complete challenges which consist of some tasks like "glide 250 meters" or "complete a predator room without detective visions". The problem is that unlike for example the Physical Riddler challenges in Arkham City, these challenges have to be completed in a specified order, which is very fucking annoying as it forces you to do things which you have already done previously and that can be occasionally rather time consuming.
What's more annoying is that certain challenges can only be completed during certain parts of the game. Biggest offender here is one challenge which requires you to complete four "exotic" take-down variations in one predator encounter. These are dependent on certain conditions in the geometry of the predator room. It has to have a ledge, a vent, a ledge, etc. And no predator room which "regenerates" after you complete the game has all the requirements and so the only way you can complete this challenge if you start the game over or start the New Game Plus mode, which is also only available once per save game. So if you want to do these challenges, be aware of them and complete them while you follow the story line.
The writing also seems worse than the previous game. A big spoiler here is that Bane somehow discovers that Bruce Wayne is Batman. This leads to him attacking Wayne Manor and the Batcave which is something the player actually never gets to see on-screen. Instead we get a rather ham-handed scene in which Batman arrives after the fact and finds Alfred trapped under some rubble. Batman then has to revive Alfred by jump starting his heart by punching him in the chest with the Electrocutioner's shock gloves. And then later in the game Bane's knowledge of Batman is essentially retconned out of the thing by explaining that the new strain of the Venom drug he is using causes Memory loss.
Overall, the game is still very good. It hits most of the notes you expected and is still a very good, high quality game. However, it has some annoying issues and it is definitely worse than both Arkham Asylum and Arkham City.
My biggest problem with the game, why the hell do they do two toads and not some other Mario character.
I was hoping for the Mario 3D Land twist where the first set of levels were a joke, then fake game ending, then OH MAN real levels w/ Luigi! Personally I find the 4-player Mario stuff to be unbearable, both in NSMB and NSMB U. You are spot on in saying that the difficulty is just staying out of each other's way. Coin Rush mode is OK, b/c then at least the objective is clear and dickisness is incentivized.
NSMB U is great as a single player game, and you can also get away with 2-player co-op where 1 player has the GamePad, not an on-screen character. The GamePad lets them lay down platforms, reveal special blocks, stun enemies, etc. so it is a more fully realized version of the co-op Nintendo started tinkering with in the Galaxy series.
Even though I'm not a fan of the 4p, I'm excited for the Super Mario 3D World (the names are all starting to blend together, aren't they?) solely b/c it's going straight back to Mario 2 characters and abilities, and ditching the fucking idiotic Mario, Luigi, and 2 toads thing. Aside from that the new power-ups and levels look enticing, and I'm holding out hope b/c it will be the Mario Galaxy team's debut on the Wii U.
Each time I encounter a new puzzle and figure it out I think to myself, "Hohoho, Phil Fish, you are a clevery cheeky bastard!" I proceeded the weekend to watch Indie Game: The Movie. Then I saw PAX East 2011. Then I had a sad because I won't be going to PAX East 2014.
The puzzles are cool. I'm at 60% completion with 5 hours of playtime. I am having fun exploring and seeing how they use the 3D with the 2D platforming. It's pretty damn genius, imo.
http://sesau.ca/ksp/KMP.html