Messages

201

General Discussion / Re: People in Connecticut to burn violent video games.

« on: January 06, 2013, 12:06:14 pm »

To get this thread back on topic...

A while back there was a very similiar thing in Germany. There was a killing spree, video games and guns were blamed, and a few weeks afterwards a family of a victim announced this big event where people could throw video games into huge garbage containers to make a statement against them. What happened in the end? There was a ton of press there, and by the end of the day 4 (!!!) games were in the container. Or maybe 3, it's been a while. I'm not exagerating, it was 3 or 4 games, not a one more. Even more ironically - one of the TV crews there gave a few kids games to throw into the container, so that they'd have material to film. This act was filmed by people there, it's not some rumor. So at most, one game was actually thrown away that day. But the media still reported it as if it was a big event in every news show.

So I wouldn't expect much response here either... except for people who'll gladly take the money to get rid of some bargain bin games... Good idea to bring money into this to guarantee participation. Even if 99% of all burned games will come from gamers who just want a quick buck, they'll celebrate it as success. Is there any doubt that that's what's going to happen?

202

Gaming Discussion / Re: Sony patents system to block second hand game sales

« on: January 06, 2013, 04:19:02 am »

http://thedailypixel.com/2013/01/05/sony-insists-the-ps4-will-have-fuck-all-games-to-block-anyway

203

Gaming Discussion / Re: How good are cheap hdtvs these days?

« on: January 06, 2013, 03:24:44 am »

You get what you pay for, there aren't any "good" cheap HDTVs. But the ones you can get might still be adequate for your needs. Go to a shop and take a good look at them for yourself. Don't buy this kind of thing blindly online.

204

Gaming Discussion / Re: Sony patents system to block second hand game sales

« on: January 04, 2013, 04:35:13 pm »

But... if you buy a used game, play it, sell it back to buy another used game, you're essentially doing nothing to support the developers/publishers.

So? It's entertainment, things have a tiny half-life. The publishers aren't helping by sitting on their licences instead of taking care that their entire backcatalog is available completely all the time.

On the PC there hasn't been a real used-game market in years. CD-Keys and account linking saw to that. But no one really needs to buy used games anyway, since prices drop naturally 5 times as fast as on the consoles. Console games are just overpriced as heck due to publisher enforcement. They create the demand for affordable used games themselves, so they'll have to live with the consequences too. This is nice negative press for Sony, I hope they'll choke on it.

205

Gaming Discussion / Re: Let us proclaim our 2013 gaming resolutions.

« on: January 03, 2013, 01:20:41 pm »

I will work on reducing my huge Steam backlog. I have spent too much time on online gaming the last year. It was never planned that way but kinda just happened.

IF I'm online gaming, I want to try and not get pissed off so much anymore at shitty teammates or difficult opponents. Took a friend of mine going off the handle too many times for me to realize how shitty I was doing myself. Negativity only breeds more negativity.

206

Gaming Discussion / Re: Puzzle Games

« on: January 03, 2013, 11:37:30 am »

My problem with certain puzzle games like SpaceChem or Splice is that the concept is too complicated. So for many missions I'm fighting more with the interface or the concept than with the actual solutions. And there is a 99% chance I've lost interest before I'm comfortable enough with the concept to focus all my attention on the actual puzzles.

How about Puzzle Quest? It's a RPG in which the battle system is implemented as a symbol matching puzzle. I can play something like that at least

207

General Discussion / Re: Your Movie of the Year

« on: January 03, 2013, 06:20:07 am »

Watched Dredd yesterday and it's very good for what it is. A B-Movie comic adaption that doesn't take itself too seriously and is appropiately gorey, good looking and to the point. No PG12 bullshit or forced in personal drama to pander to a mass audience, just 90 minutes of pure 80s action in a dystopian scifi setting. Fuck yeah.

208

Gaming Discussion / Re: Puzzle Games

« on: January 03, 2013, 03:52:43 am »

My all time favourite will probably remain Mario Picross from the GB. But it's generally not my genre. Puzzle games are so abstract, they just don't motivate me enough to play through them. I do like 10 levels then I lose interest and play something else. Happens with 95% of all puzzle games I play. Endless loop puzzle games like Tetris are even worse for me. If there is no aim to achieve, just beating my own highscore over and over I just won't play such a game. Not my thing.

209

Gaming Discussion / Re: Gaming Progress Thread

« on: January 02, 2013, 03:25:02 pm »

Time for some final(?) thoughts on The Secret World.

I'm in the final of three large areas of the game now (Romania) and the game certainly takes no prisoners. I think at the latest, this is where more casual players will hit a total brick wall. Most enemies here are "nightmare" mobs, which require a very strong and specifically adjusted build. All the nightmare enemies have a special mechanic, for example they'll enrage after X time or they'll counter with strong attacks if you use cc against them. If you just stroll through the game without really understanding the mechanics, game over. But that's what I really like about it. In everything, from the story, the investigation missions, the writing, the battle system, this is a thinking man's MMO. Sadly it also explains why it wasn't succesfull enough to stay afloat without massive lay-offs and a switch away from subscriptions. It's just not for the average gamer.

I also beat all dungeons on Elite difficulty now. Surprisingly, with a solid build they felt easier than most of the normal dungeons. Probably because people by that time know what they are doing while on normal you have a lot of new players with bad builds. It was a very pleasant experience. Now before I can start with Nightmare dungeons I need to defeat a special boss called the Gatekeeper. The game won't let you pass into those dungeons if you can't prove with this fight that you have what it takes. My first attempts failed, so I need to work on my build. Couldn't dish out enough DPS, it killed me with an ability that's literally called "Too Slow!". I suck   I also haven't done most of the final main story segment yet. Waiting on a friend who is still on the fence to decide if he'll get the game or not. Depending on his answer I'll either rush through and finish it or I'll stick around for the long haul.

210

General Discussion / Re: Your Movie of the Year

« on: January 02, 2013, 04:58:05 am »

Are you sure I recommended that? Because aside from Oldboy, I've seen none of those yet myself. Oldboy is pretty amazing though.

Concerning "Drive", for me a synopsis for that film would be: Clearly autistic dude staring blankly into space for two hours. I went into that with wrong expecations probably

211

Gaming Discussion / Re: That moment when you need a guide..

« on: January 01, 2013, 03:57:16 pm »

I don't think anyone hates the FAQs on Gamefaqs. It's the forums there that make genocide on humanity appear like a good thing to consider.

212

General Discussion / Re: Your Movie of the Year

« on: January 01, 2013, 02:16:31 pm »

Prometheus.


 


Of course not, just trolling. That one was the WORST of the year. So horribad. And not so horribad that it was good again. Just plain bad.

Anyway, movie of the year.... The Avengers! I love comic movies even though I never read a comic book in my life. This is one of the very very best. Though i still prefer Watchmen and The Dark Knight, this was definitely the best from this year. Haven't watched Dredd yet, but I actually want to do just that later today. Looking forward to it.

213

Gaming Discussion / Re: Avernun Escape from the Pit is a masterpiece for. Portable/mobile game

« on: December 30, 2012, 04:27:30 pm »

I haven't tried Avernum yet, but I played a bit of Avadon, which is from the same developer. It's definitely solid. I played it on Steam, but with the lofi graphics I think the game would be better on tablets/smartphones too. Need to revisit that game in any case.

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General Discussion / Re: Guild Wars 2 constantly freezes/crashes - Halp?

« on: December 30, 2012, 04:16:27 am »

Yeah what MMJ said. Try to disable the OC. You won't notice much of a performance decrease in other games, don't worry about that. Such overclocks rarely ever bring more than 5%-10% more FPS, which is only 2 or 3 FPS if we are talking framerates < 50 FPS.

How far are you in the game if I may ask? I guess you didn't get too far with all those crashing issues.

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Gaming Discussion / Re: That moment when you need a guide..

« on: December 28, 2012, 11:13:28 am »

If a JRPG is a mountain

With extremely few exceptions JRPGs are more akin to this:



Hey it's still 2012!

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Gaming Discussion / Re: Gaming Progress Thread

« on: December 27, 2012, 04:32:58 pm »

FTL is quite glorious.

I'm afraid I'm addiced to The Secret World now. I can hardly stop playing and even after finally putting the game down, two hours later I want to play again. The steady influx of skillpoints and new abilities to experiement with is just too motivating. I'm in Egypt now and I beat the last normal mode dungeon earlier today. The dungeons are quite good. Very interestingly designed boss fights with unique mechanics, though some of them took a bit too long for comfort. But that might also be due to playing with other new players, so we were often probably undergeared and with unoptimized skill decks. What I like about the dungeons is that they very much to the point with all the focus on the boss battles. I remember years back when I played WoW the instances had a ton of boring trash mobs to fight through every time, that did nothing interesting but were just huge HP sponges that took forever to take down. I hope that was fixed in the myriad of remakes the game got since than (that was still before even the first expansion IIRC), but it tought me how to NOT design dungeons and raids. Trash mobs are boring, let me sink my teeth into the good stuff. As far as dungeons go there is Elite mode after that with also a few new dungeons that don't have a normal mode and then Nightmare mode, which is from what I gather were the endgame takes place and people farm perfect gear. It's quite possible I'll quit there then, because I'm just not the kind of grinder who digs that, but I can safely say I got my money's worth already.

Looking forward to the rest of the story and starting to branch out into new weapon types, I'm just about finished building a deck with my choice of starting weapons.

217

Gaming Discussion / Re: New to PS3; looking for some games to try

« on: December 27, 2012, 04:22:35 pm »

Yeah achievements/trophies are just for bragging rights and completionists. Since you mentioned in another thread that you have a hard time not 100%ing a game you'll probably hate them. Few developers put a lot of care into them so a ton of game have utter bullshit achievements of the "Kill 1000 X" or "Collect 500 useless badges" variety.

218

Gaming Discussion / Re: New to PS3; looking for some games to try

« on: December 26, 2012, 06:33:04 pm »

Metal Gear Solid 4. If you played the other 3 games. The story doesn't have the right impact unless as the conclusion to the big saga.

219

General Discussion / Re: Star Trek Into Darkness

« on: December 25, 2012, 02:10:40 pm »

That's a Dreadnought Cruiser, I think they are ugly as hell, but they certainly pack a punch.

220

General Discussion / Re: Star Trek Into Darkness

« on: December 24, 2012, 04:48:55 am »

Depends very much what you consider "equivalent". BSG, Babylon 5 and DS9 are same damn good shows with complex characters and interesting philosophical and sociological ideas though. Stargate was also very fun, especially SG Atlantis, but the time investment in return to the results is a bit massive to be honest (10 + 5 full 26 episode seasons - ouch).

It boils down to the fundamental difference between fantasy and science-fiction. Fantasy is about spectacle. You know you'll get magic and bearded dudes and people fighting over something. SciFi is about ideas and what-ifs. Sure there are often wars and stuff to blow up too. But what makes SciFi interesting are the questions. What are the implications of FTL travel? How would we react if we got into contact with new species? How would life be as the last remaining human beings, on the run against overwhelming destruction?

J haven't watched GoT. I read a few of the books. I don't want to start watching the show until I know where it ends, as in, will it get a proper end. Because the books are still unfinished and the author just took 10 years overtime finishing the last book because he was too busy blogging about football games. I'm tired of getting into plot driven series that end in the middle of nowhere because of authors fucking up or networks pulling the plugs because of ratings.

I pretty much stopped reading fantasy books. They all boil down to people fighting over something, with magic as an added bonus. (Yes I know GoT doesn't have magic - in the beginning). I only read SciFi these days since I just find the stories so much more worthwhile. It reflects in the tv shows too. Unfortunately a good SciFi show is extremely expensive to produce. The latest ones I can think of were V and Caprica. V had problems without a doubt... but the premise also had a lot of potential. It was a good "what-if". Caprica was pretty decent overall. But the ratings for both shows sucked. The audience for a SciFi show with GoT budget just isn't there right now. Maybe Star Wars VII will revive the mass appeal in the genre? Or it'll kill it forever...