whatchu playing now

lol @ ftl discussion, thomp otm the battle interface is what i've been craving since um star fleet 2: krellan commander (library sale), and depressurizing sections of my ship (let alone having reasons to do it!) scratched the deepest itch possible but idk about choose-your-own-adventure roguelike, as a genre; idk if what rogue needed was to simplify. windsor davies describes exactly what i'm pretty sure was the last time i played it. i couldn't believe they did that.

still it was a model kickstarter game iirc and so it prob spent its money right; maybe someone will pay them now to make the game thomp describes.

ftl

diplomacy online

super mario 3ds or w/e this is game called. it's awesome!

I wish the FTL developers would try their hand at a roguelike homage to Final Fantasy Tactics...

playing Trails In The Sky, pleasant enough but blah blah blah do they talk a lot in this game, having Golden Sun flashbacks

spent an hour or two playing space hulk. its sort of amusingly not a videogame

Spent a few hours playing Rogue Legacy yesterday after buying it for seven cents or something on Steam. Pretty fun game, kinda Wonder Boy + Castlevania + Dark Souls. I have made zero progress so far.

Rogue Legacy is awesome, and I keep meaning to go back to it once I get a new USB gamepad. Playing it on keyboard was kind of a bummer, because so much fun but difficult to control.

the controls are better on pad, but it's still pretty wobbly. i need to get back to that game too

has anyone played tactical rpg roguelike 'steam marines'

i want to play something that is like space hulk but is actually a videogame

i'll bite: why is space hulk not a videogame

it's kind of a sim of a tabletop rpg right? that's SORT OF a video game.

well there's ios/pc/console version galore

i would play the fuck out of a proper sim of warhammer 40k

i mean i don't think that chess against a computer is a videogame either

How about a traditional war game like battle of the bulge which could easily exist as a physical game but only exists as a video game? Is the criteria that a game must do things that can't be done on a physical board or that it can't have been a physical game first?

in other news dayum it's fun buying a million games on steam that you may or may not play but cost as much as a subway token so who cares

i've never played battle of the bulge so

how familiar are you with space hulk the board game? it's full of things that are highly elegant solutions to the problems of limited resources that come with the medium (one side has unlimited units but these are represented with cheap paper counters until they are in line of sight at which point they are replaced with models; the board is made of various sections which are re-assembled for each mission; the different kinds of attack all roll d6 but in different ways) but which in a videogame feel counterintuitive

i suspect that if given the resources to play a paper-only simulation of fire emblem: the sacred stones or ufo:enemy unknown (i picture two hardbound volumes, one being a decision tree and one a compendium of random numbers) i would feel comfortable complaining that it was 'not a board game'

xpost i just bought nidhogg and steam marines /:

i feel like a lot of avalon hill games would work better digitally than w/ 300-page rulebooks.

anyway, challops ahead but i think we should be able to vote for non-video games in coint + plick bc all games are games, man, no matter the medium let me vote for jane mcgonical ARG next to monopoly philadelphia next to hopscotch next to halo 17 plz.

Because our results aren't esoteric enough

is neverwinter nights not a video game because it's based on d&d??

if apples to apples wins the goddamn coint + plick poll i will seriously be fucking furious, i hate that game, and i while i can respect people who enjoy playing it i also hate people who somehow rate it as their favorite game of all time. like this is what someone would choose to do, play this terrible fucking game where people can say witty things and people can choose interesting cards and people can choose a nasty combination, but no, THIS person will be chosen as the best player for this round because they chose "Keanu Reeves" (paired with something unrelated like "a fine wine is like...") and that simply MUST be the winner because hahaha they have a thing with Keanu, and meanwhile, this dude across the table just pulled a Shakespeare on the table but won't be rewarded because everyone's draaaaaanking tonight.

GOD FUCK THAT GAME, and in conclusion if people are dumb enough to love that game and play it on purpose than maybe physical board games shouldn't be included. i admit it's possible i could be overreacting

i was at a bar last week and there were 2 girls playing cards against humanity against each other

cards against humanity is the mother fucking worst

like i don't really like mardi gras b/c it feels like Mandatory Fun. does that make sense? i don't like cards against humanity b/c it is Mandatory Edginess?

kill that 2nd ? as that is an assertion

You guys sound like the people in that Scientology thread.

Marvel: Ultimate Alliance (2006). Follow up to the two X-Men Legends games by Raven I didn't play. Fun console Diablo-lite with atrocious voice acting and lots of fan service. Wish the online wasn't dead and hope they follow it up with a sequel someday, but I think the developer is locked into making Skylanders games for the foreseeable future.

I actually bought Ultimate Alliance 2 used yesterday for local co-op and it was more fun than the first one until a really buggy, awkward boss fight

annoying as hell that they artificially sectioned off loads of major playable characters as DLC you can no longer buy because Activision no longer has the rights; think that puts paid to a straight sequel but why nobody with the license has managed to make a next gen game that basically does the same thing is beyond me

MUA 1 has the same problem, there are eight DLC-locked characters that are totally unaccessible now unless you buy an OOP "Gold" reprint for like $80 on eBay (hells to the no). Not only that, there were common annoying bugs that prevented characters from unlocking properly, so for I was never able to select Doctor Strange and Ghost Rider after their storyline missions. So like half the characters were unplayable for me.

I heard there was no sequel because MUA 2 didn't do well, which doesn't surprise me since it was the fourth game in the series and it seems like they didn't put much effort into upgrading the engine since the PS2 days. That said, I should try those LEGO games, they seem similar though more simplified.

Have played about half of Lego Marvel on PS4 and it's fun but the formula gets old p fast - combat's not really as satisfying as the co-op puzzling, whereas having Storm bounce lightning off Wolverine's claws to obliterate a room of guys in MUA2 is a lot of fun

ftl

finished Trails In The Sky, decent enough story but far too easy and the battle system only gets good in the last few hours.
started and finished both Proteus and Ikachan today, took less time than a Kojima cutscene. lol short games.
can't decide between Jeanne D'Arc and FFT Advance next.

FFT Advance is good fun stuff, but you know, 50-100+ hours if you're gonna do it all. Also none of the complex plot or gravitas of the original but more efficient streamlining of the general mechanics. It convinced me that the RPG-TBS genre is absolutely perfect for handheld gaming.

yeh i want a long game to play on & off during TdF, i like SRPGs but have never got round to FFTA. find the prospect of digging out my GBA from storage more daunting tbh!

if you beat ffta and wanna keep scratching that tbs=rpg itch, the tactics ogre game on there is great too... far less streamlined tho

I have put 30-35 hours into Fire Emblem and it has been almost as much of a joy to me as FFT was all those years ago, with the added bonus that I care more about the characters and want to marry them off.

I suspect I will be done with this in 10-20 more hours. Would love to play Bravely Default next but that cover art is embarrassing or creepy for man of my age to be buying. If the NA release had the EU cover I would have been fine with it.

has ANYONE beat ftl with the mantis ship(s) particularly the one with NO WEAPONS?!?!?

is that the one w/ the 4-man transporter room? bc if so, yes, and it's one of my favorite ships (and i think i played it pretty exclusively until i unlocked the crystal ship w/ the 4-person transporter)

yeah!

i've been playing it for a while and have gotten SO close... but tbh i find with the boss level luck just plays way too much of a factor, you can go in strong but have no access to repairs etc bcz of the layout

if you put the right ascension kit together (transporter, ion weapons, cloaking device, missile drone defense I, etc) you won't need repairs against the boss

you know i never eff with cloaking device, largely because its so expensive. what's your strategy for that?

generally pop it whenever you're about to take dmg you can't prevent, but during the boss fight in particular you want to get it on cycle to trigger right before that super drone attack or the super weapon attack that they send. essentially you need to dodge direct damage until you've disabled the individual weapon rooms by teleporting into each one, killing the operator manning the particular weapon, and then destroying it. if you kill everyone on the ship, it'll start to auto-repair which isn't good for you, but if you leave even one guy alive you can disable all the systems and he'll run around like an idiot trying to fix them (and he can't even get into the weapon rooms bc they're separated from the ship proper).

aw, yeah, i just came up with the teleport into weapon room strategy myself two days ago and then got totally owned by the auto-repair! good advice.

I've been playing the premium beta of Elite: Dangerous, [featured today in the New Yorker](http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2014/07/the-video-game-that-maps-the-galaxy.html). The standard beta (at a more reasonable £50/$75) starts 29 June.

Even with rather restricted universe/ships/playstyles compared to the full game, E:D is pretty glorious, particularly with respect to sound design. Full game late in 2014, and a Mac version in early 2015.

Say hi should you run into Cmdr Sanpaku.

it looks amazing. i'll def give it a try in 2015

I do like the look of Elite. I loved playing it and Frontier back in the day, though I think I spent most of my time practising the manual docking and generally being a trader rather than a fighter. I'm not willing to take the plunge on it until the price is down though - I don't think I'll get on well with it if it's too online-oriented and just full of trolls blowing me to pieces every time just trying to make some cash on a trading run (or, as some previews have suggested, it's crazy difficult to get started with *just* trading).

On the FTL topic, I feel like I've got to be missing something. I really enjoy it, but boy am I terrible at it. Like, I never have any cash beyond repairing my ship and stocking up on a few more missiles. Guess I should read up some basic strategies - I've only made it to the end a few times, and never completed it.

Since I last posted in here asking if anyone was playing Watch Dogs, I have (all PS4): completed Watch Dogs, Stick it to the Man, Murdered: Soul Suspect (in a single day with my wife's help), given up on Child of Light half way through as I'm just not feeling it, and bought Wolfenstein to tide me over until the Last Of Us is released.

Haven't started Wolfenstein yet, but between that, Pixeljunk Shooter Ultimate and Tower-game (can't mind it's name - the PS+ freebie) I think that'll be my gaming for July.

Spent a good chunk yesterday replaying Bastion in New Game+ mode to finish out the achievements and see the other ending. Still love the music, art, narration, story and general feel of the game, it's just too bad the gameplay was not fully realized and tuned up. They went a long way though - the difficulty idols you unlock near the end of the first playthrough make it a lot more interesting and rewarding, and all the weapons feel better when fully powered up (for example, heat-seeking Calamity Cannon). I still have to check out Transistor at some point.