It's a thread! (Games discussion, etc.)

[Moge]

What was the last game console you seriously invested time into, HG?

[Hyperguy]

Nintendo DS. :S

[Moge]

But that's a handheld

[Hyperguy]

Yeah.

Last game console I owned was a Playstation 2.  I've never owned an X-box, X-box 360, or Playstation 3.  At the same time, I build computers occassionally, and for the most just play games on PC or via emulator.

[MMX]

http://dungeonfighter.nexon.net/
http://www.terraria.org/

Also White Knight Chronicles, bitches.

And for offline: http://www.humblebundle.com/

[Moge]

Have you preordered your copy of Skyward Sword yet, JGOO?

[JG]

Nope.  I don't generally preorder unless someone offers a deal and I havent seen one for Skyward Sword yet.  If you locate a worthy deal, please let me know about it.

But given its the biggest Wii game hitting just before the Thanksgiving weekend, Best Buy will likely offer bonus Reward Zone points for buying the game from them anytime Sunday to Wednesday that week.

[Moge]

No deals i know of. Getting it at Best Buy doesn't sound like such a bad idea. I'm contemplating making a reservation for the collector's edition since it sold out on Amazon.

Final Fantasy VII holding up for you? I haven't given the game a replay in over a decade, but if nostalgia serves me correct, should still be very much enjoyable.

[JG]

Not really.  I havent played any FF7 in over a week.  Of course, I was out of town last week and been so busy this week I havent had a chance for any console or PC games, including GOW3.  Since I was gone I started a few games on my cellhpone and that's what I've been playing in my spare time some.

[JG]

Ok, I got Zelda Limited Edition, but let me tell you - they are exceptionally rare.

This is not "Limited" as in a Call of Duty, Gears of War, or Halo game, where you can find them months after the games are released.  When Nintendo says limited they obviously mean it, as I got the one and only non-preordered copy my Best Buy had, and they dont know if they're getting more.  It's possible they could all be gone nationwide by Christmas.

If you're wanting it, I strongly recommend trying to buy it online for pickup in store, rather than getting to the store and be disappointed.  Best Buy's also offering a $10 gift card with purchase of either regular or limited editions.



Also, I meant to say it before, but upon beating Gears of War 3 I have to say I'm very disappointed.  The game is good and the story is very engaging, but my goodness is it buggy as hell.  I've never seen a major first or second-party release have so many bugs. (This is a second-party game as MS put thier money behind Epic to make it.)  My save file got corrupted once and I had to restart from the beginning; it locked up at least 10 times through the campaign; it doesn't consistently remember which awards you've seen; and once, the trigger for accessing another area didn't fire, so I had to reboot and play the previous level all over again to proceed.  Serious lack of playtesting in this game.

[Moge]

All the stores around are sold out of The Skyward Sword LE ;_;

Are there no patch updates? The games console industry has picked up some bad habits from the PC side.

[JG]

All the stores around are sold out of The Skyward Sword LE ;_;

I know.   I'm considering myself quite lucky now.  Will remember to preorder an limited edition Nintendo titles in the future.

Are there no patch updates? The games console industry has picked up some bad habits from the PC side.

There are, but they haven't yet fixed the crashing or retaining of which awards you've looked at on your collection screens.  The awards screens thing is entirely unexplainable.

And yes, Xbox and PS3 games generally ship with a few bugs now, becuase of the assumption that players can download updates to fix them.  It seems that the days of thorough playtesting of games are gone.

[Moge]

Have any impressions yet on Skyward Sword?

Best 3D Zeruda?

[JG]

Its arguably the most difficult so far.  You start with six hearts instead of the normal three, but just about everything does a full heart of damage.  I've had to scavenge for hearts a little too often.  Fortunately, they put chairs and tree stumps around that if you sit on you'll recover health pretty quickly.

Difficulty isn't helped by the first (wooden) shield being a total piece of crap.  If you don't block correctly, it breaks in just three hits.  You can pay to repair it or use a potion on it to fix it, but you're better off saving your rupees and just running from the Octoroks until you buy the second (iron) shield.

No voice acting, which with all the text is disappointing. We're well past the days of skimping on features like this.  Other major games this season (Uncharted, Gears of War, Halo) are all entirely voiced, so it looks poor that Nintendo games continue to not be so when its clearly evident to be an advantage in adventure and other story-driven games.

But my biggest complaint so far is that it should have had a clock like Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, Wind Waker, and Twilight Princess.  Its always daylight, and the only way to get to night is to rest on a bed.  But at night you can't fly between islands so too many sidequests so far involve flying to another island, sleeping, doing a part of the side quest, sleeping, and then flying back.  Would have been nice to be able to fly at night or have the system treat one minute of real time as one hour of game time like so many of the earlier games did.  The time element was used so well in those games, and especially in Majora's Mask.

Best thing so far is the sword control.  Twilight Princess basically just swung back and forth when you moved the controller.  This one takes into account the angle that you swing or thrust with.  Enemies will usually block in one direction (ie, horizontally) but if you slash in the other direction (ie, vertically) you'll hit them.  Even the Blokoblins (those gremlin looking guys who first appeared in Wind Waker) are somewhat challenging now becuase they're relatively effective blockers.  Sometimes you have to slash diagonally, and not always top-to-bottom (sometimes you have to slice from ground-up)

Plus you get some new control of other things, like bombs.  Instead of just tossing or dropping at your feet, you can now roll them like a bowling ball, including into holes that monster's are hiding in to kill them.

Some of the old enemies (Keese, Octoroks, Blokoblins, Skulltulas) are back, but there's plenty of new ones like the one that hides in holes and need to have a bomb rolled their way.  Also appears to be a whole new top bad guy this time around - seems to be more sadistic and less power-hungry than Ganondorf was.  Most of the friendly races are all new, but I have run into a Goron so far.  There's also some new items (a parachute type device, a flying remote controlled beetle), some underutilized tools from previous games (like the digging mitts from Minish Cap and bug net from Link to the Past), and old favorites like the slingslot, bombs, and bottles for holding things.  For collectors, there's both forging items and bug collecting (like Twilight Princess) to be performed in this game, which help you upgrade your equipment or infuse your potions to make them more effective.

As far as best 3D, it's still behind Ocarina of Time for me.  Still behind Majora's Mask and Wind Waker (which alot of people don't like but I do), too, but I think it might catch up to them depending how the story progresses, what happens in side quests, and whether there are new, interesting items to be found.

[Rai]

I always figured the lack of fully voiced dialogue was deliberate -- a device to keep up the illusion the characters were actually speaking Hylian language rather than English or Japanese or whatever. Either way, I doubt voice dialogue would be an actual improvement to me. That sort of thing always just invites criticism over the quality of the voice acting.

[Moge]

I'd welcome voiced dialogue as long as Link remains as he is.

Glad to hear the combat isn't completely a cakewalk. It's the only thing about the 3D Zeldas that never sat well with me.

[JG]

I always figured the lack of fully voiced dialogue was deliberate -- a device to keep up the illusion the characters were actually speaking Hylian language rather than English or Japanese or whatever.

Well some of the characters make an "Oh!" surprised sound or "Aww" depressed sound when you talk to them, similar to previous Zelda games.  Your "spirit guide" of sorts does "talk" in a flute instrument sounding voice, but no one's got actual English or Japanese voice.

I'd welcome voiced dialogue as long as Link remains as he is.

You'll be glad to hear then that Link still pantomimes when he's asked to describe something to another person.  I think this has pretty much become expected of him.

There are alot of places where you can choose two or more responses ot questions though, so I presume he is speaking to other characters, we just don't see it.

Glad to hear the combat isn't completely a cakewalk. It's the only thing about the 3D Zeldas that never sat well with me.

I can say with complete certainty now that its the most challenging Zelda game since Zelda II on the NES (a claim previously held by Majora's Mask in my opinion).  Barring what other people tell you and the famous bombable cracks in the walls, it otherwise doesn't give you hardly any clues (ie, fairy flying off to some peculiar spot) and expects you to look around yourself and do all the searching to figure things out.  (It does give you a radar type of ability, but its kinda lousy and keeps leading me in the wrong direction when I use it.)  Long story short, this is definately a Zelda for experienced gamers.

[MMX]

Ok, I got Zelda Limited Edition

i h8 u =(

Did you get the 3DS one too?  Have you seen that?  Oh my god, so shmexy.

[JG]

No I don't have a 3DS.  And I'm unlikely to buy one until they release an XL version.  I would have much preferred a DSi XL but bought a regular DSi shortly before they announced the forthcoming XL.  Not going to have that happen again.

Mainly its becuase the ergonomics of the DS Lite / DSi / 3DS are worse than the original DS, not becuase of the screen size.  It's more rectangular than the slightly hexagonal shape of the original DS and has to be held more forcibly at the corners so it doesn't slip out of alignment with your thumbs.  It therefore puts more pressure than you really want in the center of your palm (similar to Playstation or original NES controllers) and it hurts my hands to play the DSi more than about 2 hours at a time.


That being said I would love to play Ocarina of Time again, as its been several years since I last played it on the GC.  I'll probably settle for the GC version again though, so I can play it and Master Quest back-to-back (and it wouldn't cost me $200+ either)

[JG]

So I finished Skyward Sword yesterday.

Its is a very, very close second to Ocarina of Time, which just about every publication puts in their Top 10 all-time best video games lists.  Skyward Sword arguably gives the Zelda series two games in the Top 10.  (It does on my list!)  And given the recent run of shooters winning Game of Year accolades recently, Skyward Sword should get serious consideration this year.


The only compaints I've got are...
1 - Epona is much more interesting than your Loftwing.  Jumping fences and shooting things from horseback is fun while your bird, until very late in the game, doesn't do much except move you between sky islands.
2 - While the motion control is more fun than I expected to be, its also merciless.  Any angle at all and you may end up doing a diagonal slash instead of horizontal or vertical and too many bosses and harp tunes require you to move the controller unnaturally far in one direction then move all the way back across your body to the extreme on the other side of your body. I still like to sit while playing and when the game called for extrmeme movements it irritated me that it couldn't be happy with my desired wrist flicks.
3 - You don't get the bow until very late (which is also good becuase it doesn't replace your slingshot so early like it usually does).  As a consequence there's no special arrows and the old trick of shooting a regular arrow through fire to melt a block of ice isn't utilized at all.


But the game is still awesome.  It's almost like the Wii controller and nunchuk was designed for Skyward Sword, not the other way around.  The wand is obvious for the sword control, item activation, and tossing bombs, but the use of the nunchuk for shield control is much improved over TP.  And not just the sword and shield but your secondary items too: you can roll bombs at an angle, use your whip to grab items and pull switches, and swing your bug net above your head for flying bugs or across the ground for crawling critters.

And when you beat the game...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

... it explains the entire Legend of Zelda mythos, why a hero and a maiden will reappear throughout time whenever evil rises.  In other words, why there can be different Links and different Zeldas throughout all the different ages of Hyrule.  Nintendo has essentially retconned the entire series into a beleivable chronological structure instead of each game being off in its own little universe.  They're now all in the same universe, and all in the same Hyrule, just thousands of years apart.

Plus, there's finally a bonus challenge after the game is over!  Not quite the Master Quest of old, but Skyward Sword's "Hero Mode" is still a hefty challenge.  The game starts over from the beginning and is essentially the same, but damage inflicted to you is doubled AND there are NO hearts anywhere in the game.  One or the other would be sufficiently difficult, but now you really pay for your mistakes as most hits do two hearts of damage and the only way to recover them is to rest, sleep, find a fairy (which are much rarer in Skyward Sword than previous games), drink a potion, or acquire a piece of heart or heart container. I had to use all three doses of potion I had against the first boss and still only survived with a single heart remaining.  I fully expect to need Guardian Potion+ for some of the tougher bosses later in the game - if I can make it that far under such circumstances.