Video Games - a general discussion thread — Page 233

CP3S said:

I added some zeros at the beginning and end to disguise it a bit.

Like Greenpenguino and Red five?!?!? [/scorned]

How awesome would it be if that was my real serial number?

 Someone out there has to have it, right?  I think your new hobby should be tracking down and collecting EVERYTHING with that serial number.

I still can't believe Assassin's Creed II did that to me... I spent way more time playing that game over the last few days than I'd really care to admit, and now it is all gone. I even took the time to painstakingly collect every collectable I could as I went along. I had ever feather except for the ones in Venice, all the statues, and all but two seals... renovated every building, built one of each kind of shop as was working toward upgrading them... healthy amount of art purchases... *sob*

That is truly tragic.  It makes me think it can't be the physical disk... that it must either be some bug you walked into the way you (and others) played the game (not that it's your fault- just that it's a software bug that doesn't affect everybody) or some hardware specific thing.  It really is bizarre. 

Did you get to the Glyphs yet?  That was one of my favourite parts of ACII.  I think you would like them.  Surely if you've been collecting everything else, you were collecting/solving glyphs?

Erm... this may be bad timing for this, due to C3PX's experiences, but Target has ACB for $28 or so.

Played Portal 2 all afternoon. Very different, taking the basics of the first and adding new twists. So far it seems like each new thing is only in a couple oh chambers, then they move on. Im not sure how far into the game I am, but I hope it keeps going and they keep using the new things. I'd hate for it to be like how I see L4D2, as a demo of what is possible, but fell that it needed more...

xhonzi said:

Erm... this may be bad timing for this, due to C3PX's experiences, but Target has ACB for $28 or so.

And so does Amazon.

005: I've seen a lot of disappointed Portal players on the webs over the past two days.  How is your opinion faring?

ACB MP: I started playing ACB multiplayer yesterday.  Pretty interesting.  I already knew what the basic gameplay was, but it was a different experience than I had anticipated.

Basically,  you're dropped in a couple of city blocks that are littered with muliples of the same  6 or 7 character models.  Each player choses a model to play, and as far as I can tell, each model is only played by one player.  When you get into the game, you're assigned another player as a target and it shows you what he/she looks like.  You're also given a compass that indicates direction and distance to your target.  There's an indicator that shows how many people have the same target.  The better that player is, the more people will be targeting him/her.  At the same time, 1 or more players may be targeting you, but you don't know what they look like.

Okay, so now imagine that you're tracking this guy:

  You navigate by compass to get within line of sight.  Now that you're close, you have to play it cool.  If you look like a another player, instead of a dumb AI guy walking around with the same model as you... you're going to tip him off and he's going to either bolt, or turn around and punch your face so that he can escape.  Being used to Halo, I'm pretty terrible at that part.  But let's pretend that you're sneaky and you start closing the distance.  You get down to 10 feet away.  Then 7, then 5.  2 more feet and you'll be withing range!  And then... you're stabbed from behind by the guy that was chasing you.  Wah, wah, wah.....

You respawn and see that you're far-far away from your next target.  You also notice that 3 players are targeting you!  You see one of them come running around a corner and heading right for you, so you decide you'll punch him before he can kill you (targets win ties).  But then!  You see a 2nd pursuer!  You might take out the first one, but the second one would kill you before you could react.  You have no choice but to run!  You take off in the opposite direction, scanning for single-use gates- gates that shut on your pursuer as you run through them.  Finding one, you lose your two pursuers for a moment, but they'll catch up with you soon unless you do something!  So you look for mindless AI that are your same model and you do your best to do what they do.  Stand still, slowly walk around aimlessly, talk to shopkeepers.  Maybe you've unlocked the "disguise" ability.  You find an AI that looks just like you.  Stand next to it, and then enable disguise.  This makes you change to a random model for about 30 seconds.  Your pursues track you to where you're standing.  And they go for the kill!  The poor helpless AI that had the bad fortune of looking just like you goes down for the count.  And the contract on you is therefore cancelled.  You have successfully evaded assassination.  As this was happening, the third player that was targeting you has arrived on the scene.  You notice that this third player is also your assigned target.  Now the tables are turned!  You waltz in behind him, and slit his throat.

You are a master assassin!

Or something like that.

xhonzi said:

005: I've seen a lot of disappointed Portal players on the webs over the past two days.  How is your opinion faring?

doubleofive said:

Except for the last level [of Portal 1], [...] that part sucked and you don't really want to replay it.

What?  Whaaaaaaaaaaaaat?  WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?!?!?

Man, that was the best part of the game.  Far and away.  I felt like I was finally figuring out what to do, instead of the game just telling me.  Even though that's not really true.  The game was still telling me, it was just less overt.

xhonzi said:

doubleofive said:
Except for the last level [of Portal 1], [...] that part sucked and you don't really want to replay it.

What?  Whaaaaaaaaaaaaat?  WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?!?!?

Man, that was the best part of the game.  Far and away.  I felt like I was finally figuring out what to do, instead of the game just telling me.  Even though that's not really true.  The game was still telling me, it was just less overt.

Woo-hoo!  Portal 2, here I come!*

dear super star wars
i still hate you

-spoiled by easy games

CP3S said:

they seem to have fallen into the habit (starting way back with Counter-Strike, actuall of scoy)ping out small developers with promising and original ideas, then buying them out, employing their developers, and allowing them to run with these ideas in ways they previously never would have been able to dream of. Which is actually really cool. 

 

They actually did this with Portal 2 as well. The different gels were invented by a team at Digipen University in a game called Tag: The Power of Paint, who also got hired by Valve.

It's pretty interesting that pretty much all of the people responsible for the Portal games were graduates of DigiPen University (which is also based in Washington state).

CP3S said:

The issues 005 mentioned has kind of been Valves thing these last few years. While their older things like Half-Life were long story driven campaigns, they seem to have fallen into the habit (starting way back with Counter-Strike, actually) of scoping out small developers with promising and original ideas, then buying them out, employing their developers, and allowing them to run with these ideas in ways they previously never would have been able to dream of. Which is actually really cool. This was the case with both Portal and Left 4 Dead, both of which are extremely original and unlike anything else on the market. The quality level is extremely high, and they are extremely pretty and well polished (didn't realize how true that was until playing games like Fallout: New Vegas and Assassin's Creed II, both massive games with tons of longevity, but extremely glitchy and clunky), but the experience ends up feeling short. It is worth it, because the experience of these games is so far beyond anything else on the market, but at the same time it is hard not to look back and feel like you've experienced this fantastic demo over and over and over again and are now ready to experience the real product... which doesn't exist.

I haven't played Portal 2 enough to say if that is the case with it or not.

3PX, did you see the achievement where you have to help someone go through one of the coop missions after you've completed them all? We can help you with that, I can play with you, the wife can play with the girlfriend, so on. We can also give each other "hugs" and get that one too.

CP3S said:

Sounds good! In fact, that achievement is for beating just one set of the co-op missions, that would only take about thirty minutes. Free this evening if you are up for it.

CP3S said:

doubleofive said:

CP3S said:
Sounds good! In fact, that achievement is for beating just one set of the co-op missions, that would only take about thirty minutes. Free this evening if you are up for it.

Did you beat all of the coop yet?

No, but I've beaten the section you need for the Professor Portal achievement.