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Majikn
Super Robot
Posts: 2357
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« Reply #3106 on: 5 June 2011, 18:05:14 » |
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It only really gets harder when die THREE times, and in body form ONLY.
Then you'll notice a change in difficulty. All it really means is enemies take more hits to kill and you take less hits to die. Your health bar will be even smaller and the enemies will be even stronger.
I'll tell you what I did, I collected the thief's ring and the cling ring from 1-1. The cling ring makes you gain back some max HP in soul form. The Thief's Ring makes it a lot harder for you to be outnumbered and killed, because you're actually invisible to enemies up to a fairly close distance. Casting Cloak boosts this and helps you to sneak attack some of the tougher enemies.
You can get through the game fairly easily with that combo alone.
Anyway if you actually kill your body in the Nexus so that it doesn't affect World Tendency elsewhere (dying is -1 and pure black World Tendency is when you get to -4). That way the World Tendency will only keep going up as you kill the bosses, NPC black phantoms, and optional bosses and stuff and the enemies will only get less tough. (They still get a lot tougher with each progression into the area anyway.)
The only thing is you miss out on the thrill of being invaded by black phantom players (you can't be invaded in soul form), and some of those fights can be pretty epic (though mostly if you're new to the game, they're pretty one-sided and you get your ass kicked).
I think there's only one area where you can be invaded in Soul Form, and it's actually really cool when/if it happens. I don't want to spoil it if it ever happens to you (network was down when I did it so I got nothing) but I was really impressed by the thinking involved there.
I've found that when I got used to the feel of the game, I would join other games as a blue phantom just to play it and help kill black phantoms (which raises your CHARACTER tendency, which makes your HP even higher as it stacks on top of world tendency), without worry about losing anything if I died.
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The Exorcist has taught me that when I'm losing an argument I may save face by vomiting on the opposition.
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Majikn
Super Robot
Posts: 2357
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« Reply #3109 on: 7 June 2011, 20:11:11 » |
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I won't advocate a game that I do not believe is fun.
There were some not fun parts but those parts were entirely optional.
You can break the game by putting points to magic and using Soul Ray the entire time. That is the one big negative I can speak of.
There is also SOME farming in this game that you don't have to participate in to succeed.
Still, I think it's got superior gameplay to Oblivion in that all weapons have different and more complex animations, some more difficult to master than others. With Oblivion, because you can switch to first person, there's less of feeling like you're fighting with a sword and more like you're lining up a crosshair and hitting R1, and hoping your attack is in range.
(If you haven't played Oblivion, think melee weapons in Fallout 3 for my example instead. It's pretty much the same.)
It's complex, but not nearly as complex as having to pick and choose so many different things and read a tonne of words just to figure out how to play your character. Demon's Souls just shoves you into the game.
All you need to know is that there's four types of physical damage (and some weapons do two different types depending on R1 or R2) and then there's magic damage and fire damage. Status effects are bleeding, poison, and plague.
You use your head to figure out which enemies are weak to blunt damage, slashing damage, or piercing damage, or magic or fire damage.
PVP can be nasty if you're not prepared to be ambushed by delevelled players who WILL invade your game and kill you if you're not prepared. I didn't like the idea of this so I played offline, but when I got into the game I found myself wanting to play with other people, which is ridiculous because I hate online gaming with a passion.
All of the stuff that makes the game difficult makes it unique at the same time. I've never wandered through an action RPG thinking like I could die at any moment, I'd just pause the game and go through my endless supply of potions or stim packs or whatever. Not so in Demon's Souls. You have to always be ready. If you die, you know what you need to prepare for next time.
I think it was definitely worth buying. I just wish the story was a LITTLE more prevalent, with maybe slightly more character interaction. Most of what you gather about the world seems to be from rare item descriptions. There were also a few short wordless cutscenes. I could have done with a few more of those.
I'd also really like to have known more about the reason for the ending:[spoiler]Why King Allant was such a pussy bitch. He was very vague in his reasoning for wanting the destruction of the world.[/spoiler]
I remember hating the music originally, now I think it's perfect.
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The Exorcist has taught me that when I'm losing an argument I may save face by vomiting on the opposition.
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Mikero
Super Robot
Posts: 11986
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« Reply #3126 on: 3 July 2011, 21:16:04 » |
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Right.
So this weekend my girlfriend and I were gonna finish L.A. Noire together, so we rented it. The guy at the place said they had sort of rent one get the second half-price thing going on so I rented Brink as the second game. Got in, we played a bit of L.A. Noire and then I decided to check out Brink. I open the case...
And Call Of Duty Modern Warfare II is inside. I'm not big into FPSs, regardless of it's hype, so I went back to (I don't want to use it's real name in case they get offended so let's just say it rhymes with:) Schmogers Schmideo and long-annoying-story -I-already-typed-then-decided-to-not-bore-you-with, they didn't have it. They give you the option of a credit to your account or a different game so I rented Homefront.
I knew nothing about it so when I saw it was an FPS about Korea taking over the United States I felt I wasted my time and could have just kept CoD: MW2. I had been duped by a really slick cover design and the promise of rebellion. Anyhow the game is fun I guess, but here's the kicker;
I finished in the story in less than six to eight hours.
I'm sure there's online business but if I can't be arsed to get a Gold account on XBox Live for games I actually loved, why would I for this? I don't know if (or think that) anyone here's played Homefront much, but I wouldn't BUY it at all. It is literally SEVEN chapters levels long and NOT amazing. It's not incredibly well made or anything and it's actually disappointing because the videos and reports about other stuff going on in the world of the game are far more interesting than your actual missions, really. It was a good concept and the opening of the game made me want to get deep into it but it just ends kinda out of the blue, so perhaps a sequel would expand on it.
It controls exactly like Borderlands (which I tried at my friend's place on Friday) and looks like a weird futür-ISH Call Of Duty 3, but it seems like Borderlands knows it's kind of low-rent and plays it up in a fun way, and Call Of Duty probably doesn't drop you like a fat boyfriend.
Do not buy this game full price. Rent or wait or something.
Anyone else play it, or can anyone who may have played Brink let me know if it's any good? While at Schmogers the second time I noticed Brink was made by Bethesda, which only made me want to try it more.
Thankfully, I have the Arson desk of L.A. Noire to play.
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ASR
Super Robot
Posts: 10911
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« Reply #3127 on: 4 July 2011, 04:57:42 » |
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I heard Brink was disappointing, but that's not really my bag anyway so I'm not the guy to talk to.
Never ever cared for FPS games (save for the rare exception like Half-Life 2 or Metroid Prime) but I can tell you the bulk of their demographic ONLY play the games online. They don't care about single-player campaign modes, and thus the developers don't put any real effort into that stuff.
That being said, I think seven hours for a game is... well, worth my money. Maybe I have different values. I beat Portal 2 in one sitting of eight hours (it was right after finals and I was determined to make use of my newly acquired limited free time before starting production on my student film) and I never once felt cheated. Of course, that game was exceptionally well-made and it also had a co-op mode to delve into afterwards. In the same vein, though, most of the games I buy are generally short, and if they last much longer I lose interest. Still never beat Red Dead Redemption and I think I bailed on LA Noire after getting to Vice (still want to finish it, though.)
I think you're just saying Homefront wasn't a very good game, length notwithstanding. In which case, sure. Then I'm with you.
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Mikero
Super Robot
Posts: 11986
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« Reply #3129 on: 5 July 2011, 04:25:00 » |
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Hold on. It's not that Homefront was sort in HOURS, sorry. It's that the game FEELS short, i.e. I've played shorter games that felt longer and more satisfying. I wouldn't care if it only took TWO hours if the two hours had been properly structured. Looking around online, that seems to the be the generally consensus on this game.
The game is actually pretty fun, and the AI is pretty good. It's unfortunately flawed in story however, since every mission has no climax and just builds up to the NEXT mission, which in turn all build up to the LAST mission, which just sort of ends when it ends and you're left kind of dangling for a purpose.
Basically it's problem is was written like a movie instead of a game, which isn't really a surprise when you figure out the plot is basically Red Dawn except with Korea instead of U.S.S.R. and that it was written by the guy what WROTE Red Dawn.
I finished L.A. Noire today and not shockingly it was amazing.
It's worth getting through the initial skepticism that comes with changing to the Vice desk, Alec.
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Yubi Shines
Robot Master
Posts: 505
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« Reply #3148 on: 14 August 2011, 08:22:31 » |
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I periodically wander on Mabinogi. My problem with MMOs is that there's always an OPTIMAL PATH and if you don't do it you might as well reroll your character because RUINED FOREVER, which eh. Mabi mostly lacks that, but there's a couple of things I "have" to do (like rank up certain skills that are impossible to complete if you get too strong too fast) that are unreasonably grindy, even for an MMO, so I haven't progressed much at all.
Right now, playing Animal Crossing: Wild World, which, while fun, gets a bit out of hand, primarily since I'm getting the feeling I'm caught in a turf war between three gangs, one run by Nook's raccoon mafia, the second a racket between Lyle and Redd, and a mysterious third one headed by Lily the frog who lives in my village and keeps sending me off with enigmatic packages and errands and earlier today she handed me a gift and told me not to think too hard about where it came from. Then I accidentally bullied someone else into giving me their carpet for free.
I'm a bit scared.
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Vi Veri Veniversum Vivus Vici
"By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe."
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