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Video Games - a general discussion thread — Page 205

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C3PX said:

DarkGryphon2048 said:

Life? Don't talk to me about life! Here I am, brain the size of a planet...

Geez, dude, lighten up! I think that may have been the most depressing and negative post I have ever seen in the Video Games thread. It made Skyjedi posts sound bright and cheery by comparison.

 

 

I don't know about anyone else but I'm extremely fucking irritated at LucasArts making ANOTHER fucking damn what the fuck Star Wars video game instead of an Indiana Jones game for XBOX 360, PS3 and PC. How about I make a petition for an Indiana Jones game? Yeah sure it'll fall on deaf ears. By the way, it's The Force Unleashed II. If I were rating the game for a site I'd give it an automatic 0/5 or 0/10 score especially for blatant overuse of an IP instead of working on other series.

Where's my Grim Fandgo II and Indiana Jones (current generation)?

Seriously? Another Indiana Jones game? Have any of those even been any good? The last Indy game I played was Fate of Atlantis and I thought it was great, but has anything good with that brand name attached to it been released since?

If you'd give a game a zero out of whatever just on account of it being from a series you think is over used, then I am extremely grateful you don't work for any game sites. The fact is while you and I may not care about them, SW games tend to sell, the first Force Unleashed went over extremely well, so it is not surprising that a sequel is coming out.

As for Grim Fandango II. Eh, please no! Love to see the first one make its way to Xbox arcade with high rez textures, but the first one was a really great game on its own, and a modern addition to it could be nothing more than an awful cash in. Had a sequel to Monkey Island 2 never been made due to Ron Gilbert's departure from LucasGames, no doubt we would still be hankering for Monkey Island 3. Fortunately/unfortunately that game was made, and it taught us a valuable lesson... sometimes things are best off left alone.

 

As for physical media, I am a fan of it myself, and in a world where limited edition collector's editions are still the norm for major titles, I am not too worried about it going the way of the dodo anytime soon. The nice thing is, for people who would rather just have their games stored on their console or PC's hard drive, that option is there. I have gotten into the habit of buying Xbox arcade games, and it is quite nice being able to sit on the sofa and load them up without need of disc, or to be able to download them and play them on a friend's console while on vacation without the need of dragging my discs with me. So I can definitely see the appeal for having all your games in this manner. But I am still too attached to having my collection displayed on a shelf to be content with that being it. So I can see it from both sides. It is also worthy to note, even though many of us are paranoid, myself included, about what our ownership status of these non-physically purchased games are going to be five or ten years down the road and if we will always be able to get access to them, that they do hold the advantage over physical media in that they don't scratch, can't be stolen, lost, or destroyed. Which is kind of a nice and comforting thought. While all the other games in my collection could be taken away from me by various methods, for the time being, Braid and my other Xbox arcade games will always be waiting there for me to re download, even if my console is somehow lost.

Interesting that you say it seems like it is "cheating" to download games off of Steam rather than purchasing a hard copy. I am really trying to get my head around exactly how that is "cheating" and who or what you would be cheating by doing so... takes sometimes years to find a game? Wow, that has honestly never happened to me. Seems like you have made the purchasing a video games a sport and hobby in and of itself. If there is a game I want, I walk into a store and buy it, or I hit up amazon or ebay. If that turns out to be fruitless, then I turn in desperation to the seedy underbelly of the internehts until I find what I am looking for.  

What does annoy me, however, is that real physical swag is getting to be a rarity in both pre-orders and in collector's editions, and is rapidly being replaced by codes to unlock exclusive items. I for one kind of liked the cheap silly little crap they used to give away with pre-orders.

For Indiana Jones I own Infernal Machine (PC) and Emperor's Tomb (PC, XBOX). Fate of Atlantis is a CD-R of the CD-ROM for ScummVM.

I do have a few XBL Arcade Games on my 360. Sometimes the pursuit is more half-assed compared to others of course. The "cheating" is that to me it doesn't feel as much as an accomplishment or satisfaction to download a game as you mentioned not knowing what'll happen to it in the future. I'm extremely anal retentive about the care of my game and was absolutely amazed when I was rummaging through a box the other day. There was BRADE RUNNAH 4 CD-ROM version from Westwood Studios amongst some other PC games I thought were lost from my collection. I do enjoy displaying these on my shelf and sometimes install them if they're not already on my HDD. I do own The Curse of Monkey Island and thankfully not Escape from Monkey Island. Yeah I do use NoCD.exe's for alot of games since I own alot of them.

I agree with the pre-orders. I fully expected I would've received a poster or something similar when I did the pre-order for FALLOUT: New Vegas. Even a CD soundtrack would've been nice. I do own the Collector's Edition for The Lord of the Rings Online - Mines of Moria and damn it has some great swag in it. Sometimes I miss the random extra stuff you get for free in the game boxes such as posters, maps and even game related items. Was especially true for alot of the floppy disk games back in the 1980's and 1990's.

Hell, as an example I downloaded the CD-ROM version of THE DIG, burned it out to CD-R and put it in a case. Now of course I'd rather own the boxed retail version. Just hoping I'll go to a swap meet/flea market and find goldmines of boxed, even just jewel case, retail PC games. Oh it'd be great finding Wing Commander III and IV, even though I've never played them. Also including some games I played when I was younger or never got around to it.

What to do with my PC Star Wars games? I am considering selling them.

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Pre-ordered call of duty:black ops for my 360 from newegg, only cost 49.99, like it used to be.

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DarkGryphon2048 said:

What to do with my PC Star Wars games? I am considering selling them.

You obviously liked them at some point. Why do they deserve to be tossed out, just because the games that came after them sucked?

There are still few games out there that I loved more than the original Dark Forces. And I had tons of fun with X-Wing, Tie Fighter, Rogue Squadron and Shadows of the Empire, to name a few. I even really enjoyed the Rebel Assault games back when they first came out. More recently, but still a shockingly long time ago, I thought Jedi Outcast was pretty amazing. I even had some fun playing Galactic Battle Grounds, even though it was essentially a total conversion of AOEII.

I played Infernal Machine and absolutely hated it, and was never interested in any of the later IJ games. Guess I am just not a fan of the clunky third person thing.

 

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape

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C3PX said:

Had a sequel to Monkey Island 2 never been made due to Ron Gilbert's departure from LucasGames, no doubt we would still be hankering for Monkey Island 3. Fortunately/unfortunately that game was made, and it taught us a valuable lesson... sometimes things are best off left alone.

Monkey Island 3 was awesome. http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a283/IAMTHECHEESE1138/emot-colbert.gif

What does annoy me, however, is that real physical swag is getting to be a rarity in both pre-orders and in collector's editions, and is rapidly being replaced by codes to unlock exclusive items. I for one kind of liked the cheap silly little crap they used to give away with pre-orders.

That's another awesome thing about being a PC gamer. If all they're doing with those pre-order items is unlocking some code, that means that that shit is already in there somewhere, and somebody already knows how to go into the console and unlock it. For instance, if you look on the Fallout 3 wiki, you'll see several weapons that say "Available through console only", like this one: http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/O%27Grady%27s_Peacemaker

 

 

http://i.imgur.com/7N84TM8.jpg

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I guess I will have to admit I enjoyed it to a degree, but I still can't help thinking what might have been had Ron Gilbert gone on to make it a short time after MI2 was released. I felt MI3 was in general, a good deal more childish than the first two. It did have some great moments though.

 

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape

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I've started to look at Ron Gilbert as almost George Lucas-esque these days. It's not like he was the only person involved (Tim Schafer and Dave Grossman were just as instrumental to the development as he was), and what few things he's done ever since haven't been that great (do you know anyone who's played Deathspank?). I'm starting to thing that he's just been holding the whole "What IS the real secret of Monkey Island? I'll NEVER TELL http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a283/IAMTHECHEESE1138/emot-smug.gif" thing over people's heads over the years just to make sure people still care.

Monkey Island 4 wasn't that great (seriously, FUCK Monkey Kombat), but the Tales series was awesome.

http://i.imgur.com/7N84TM8.jpg

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Nanner Split said:


...(seriously, FUCK Monkey Kombat)...

http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d120/latro/black-spider-monkey.jpg

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Nanner Split said:

I've started to look at Ron Gilbert as almost George Lucas-esque these days. It's not like he was the only person involved (Tim Schafer and Dave Grossman were just as instrumental to the development as he was), and what few things he's done ever since haven't been that great (do you know anyone who's played Deathspank?). I'm starting to thing that he's just been holding the whole "What IS the real secret of Monkey Island? I'll NEVER TELL http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a283/IAMTHECHEESE1138/emot-smug.gif" thing over people's heads over the years just to make sure people still care.

Monkey Island 4 wasn't that great (seriously, FUCK Monkey Kombat), but the Tales series was awesome.

I agree with you about Gilbert being Lucas-esque, I played the Deathspank demo, and was overwhelmingly underwhelmed. Its humor was very forced, and none of it was in the least bit funny. Ron's the real secret of monkey island is just a running joke. I know it wasn't Ron Gilbert alone that made the first two games so great, but to me there is still a very distinct difference between the first two and the third one. Personally, I think it would have been great to have had a third game along the same lines as the first two.

Since we are on the topic, anybody else have the Monkey Island 2 Special Edition? When the first one was re-released, I played through it in just a few days. But I have been having a really hard time getting into the second one, even though that has always been my favorite. Maybe I just haven't been in the mood. I remember the voice acting in the first one being fairly decent, but so far in MI2 I have just found it to be annoying and horribly done.

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape

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That's odd, I thought they did a way better job with the voice acting in the 2nd special edition, especially with the timing. I thought the MI2 special edition overall was much more polished than the first one, I guess since they learned from their mistakes the first time around. The only voice actor I wasn't that happy with was Largo, but other than that I thought the cast did a decent job. 

As far as Curse of Monkey Island goes, I think there are 3 main factors that made the game feel different from the previous 2. 1) None of the 3 principal guys (Gilbert, Schafer, and Grossman) were involved, 2) Voice acting for the first time changing the way we looked at the characters (kind of like how everyone thought Mario sounded like a guy from Brooklyn until Super Mario 64 came out), and 3) Bill Tiller's art style (check out A Vampyre Story, which he directed; it has a similar look).

You need to check out the Tales of Monkey Island series. I know Dave Grossman was involved, as well as Jonathan Ackley and Larry Ahern from CoMI, and I believe Ron Gilbert was kind of a consultant on the project as well and came up with some of the new characters (not sure if Tim Schafer was involved or not).

http://i.imgur.com/7N84TM8.jpg

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Pardon my interruption of the monkey talk, but this really made me laugh for some reason.

When I was in college some 80 years ago, we played a lot of Tecmo Bowl one semester.  There was some random defensive player (I can't remember who) that was way too good in the game and would dominate every play.  For some reason the animation of him after a sack made us laugh like crazy every time.

Come to think of it, we may have been drunk.

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My Xbox LIVE friends, the price for Gold is going up to $60 a year soon, so everyone is dropping their prices to $40 a year for the time being. The wife and I are planning on buying a couple years a piece. FYI.

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Yeah, I just saw that too.  I should have bought more last time they were $30...

IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!

"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005

"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM

"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.

Rewrite the Prequels!

 

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Yeah, I noticed that. Just renewed last month. I always manage to get mine for about $35, so I am not too worried about it. If I am still playing Xbox a year from now, I have now doubt I will still be able to get it for under $50 despite its going up to $60.

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape

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It is odd...  A lot of people have been predicting the cost would go down... just to stay competitive with Sony, etc...  I don't really mind the $50 cost (which is usually between $30 and $35 for me too) but the cost going up to $60 sits wrong with me.

IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!

"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005

"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM

"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.

Rewrite the Prequels!

 

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I was going to justify it with the Netflix/Hulu/ESPN integration, but you still have to pay for Netflix and Hulu Plus to use those. I'm sure all of this video going through their systems has an extra cost attached.

Once Hulu Plus hits Xbox, I'm seriously considering paying for it and Netflix and dropping my satellite. There's no such thing as appointment television for me without Lost and 24. Really, the only thing we'll be missing is Colts games unless ESPN3 picks them up, which I doubt.

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I posted this elsewhere, but we discontinued our Dish last year just before Christmas.  I made an HD over the air antenna, and bought a capture card and 1.5TB HDD for our desktop.  We record anything we like on local channels, and then use Hulu and Netflix to catch up on whatever else.

Saves a ton of money.

(We use a program called PlayOn to stream Hulu and YouTube and some other stuff to the ol' 360)

IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!

"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005

"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM

"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.

Rewrite the Prequels!

 

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I tried PlayOn once, liked it a lot, but was going to wait for official integration. We don't any OTA HD in my area, so we'd have to live with Hulu for our shows. Hopefully CBS gets on the ball so we can watch Big Bang Theory (CBS is worthless as a network other than that one show, which they don't even show on their own streaming websites).

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I think we're going to get Halo Reach. Our friend we made playing Halo 3 wants to get in on it, and we're itching for some more co-op campaign action. I just read that it gives the AI different behavior depending on how many players are up against it.

I just found this site: http://www.co-optimus.com/

I haven't looked around, but it looks like its what I need, a website dedicated to the type of games I like, co-op, and even whether its split-screen co-op.

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I'm not to going to jump on it opening day, unless I can get a real deal on it (something approaching $30 like I did for ODST).

IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!

"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005

"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM

"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.

Rewrite the Prequels!

 

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But I'm loving the crap out of DarkSiders.  If you like recursive (not quite "free roam/open world" of GTA or FallOut, but lots of revisiting the same areas for different purposes) and hack/slash, RPG-Lite games... then this is a must.  I personally give it a 9.9/10... just so I didn't give everything I played this summer a full 10.  ;)

IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!

"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005

"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM

"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.

Rewrite the Prequels!

 

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C3PX said:

Yeah, I noticed that. Just renewed last month. I always manage to get mine for about $35, so I am not too worried about it. If I am still playing Xbox a year from now, I have now doubt I will still be able to get it for under $50 despite its going up to $60.

You guys don't realise how good you have it [in comparison.] - Here in Aus, were are paying closer to $75 / $80 [usd] already.

Fortunately the price increase will NOT be happening over here, but you guys will probably still be paying less than us so chin up.

 

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That really sucks, Microsoft must hate the merry little land of OZ.

I suppose membership codes are not cross-compatible? You could nab a $30 dollar code from the states and use it there, could you?

 

 

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape

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@Xhonzi and anyone else who has played Bioshock 2.

I was on Live yesterday and noticed a new BS2 DLC and couldn't have cared less. All that has been released so far are multiplayer DLCs, and I have really disliked the BS2 multiplayer from the start. But then out of the corner of my eye I caught the words, "New Story Driven DLC". Whoa! So it wasn't multiplayer DLC! Maybe someone finally got the point!

Decided to look up some reviews for Minerva's Den, and so far it sounds like it is extremely long and well done. It includes a new type of Big Daddy, and at least one new weapon, and supposedly its story is very in depth and outdoes the story to BS2. IGN's reviewer claims that it is better than the original game and takes around 4 - 6 hours to beat. At that, I am sold. Before the day is over they will have my ten bucks and I'll be playing it.

 

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape