The recent news that Blizzard is going to be tarting up Diablo II and rereleasing it for a quick cash grab did very little to make me want to actually buy it, but it did a
great job of getting me to install the actual D2 and LoD on my new computer and start busting heads with a Paladin. I'm not sure if there's a single game that I've sunk more time into than Diablo II over the years. Maybe, maybe Star Wars Rebellion or Civ 4? It just never gets old. Neither the original or Diablo 3 had the same level of replayability for whatever reason. I suspect it's because your character in Diablo 2 is so much more customizable.
I also did a playthrough of Dishonored recently. I did something that I don't think I'd ever tried in a video game before and made a completely nonlethal run through the game...right up until the last minute when the final villain started speechifying about how he'd told the ten year old girl that he'd usurped that all the murdering he'd done had been for her benefit, which made me so utterly pissed off that I possessed him and forced him to jump off a bridge. Oops?
StoneCold Skywarp wrote: ↑Thu Jan 14, 2021 9:00 amI think portal 2 accomplishes something that portal 1 didn't. It gives you a reason to care about the characters. The reveals and revelations of the characters, their actions and reactions drew me in as much as the gameplay. Especially on a recent play through.
J. K Simmons is inspired casting though.
When life gives you lemons...
J.K. Simmons is
always inspired casting, but I agree that Portal 2 has a brilliant story going for it. In a way I think that takes away some of the magic of the original's absurdities, but on the other hand I feel like that's naturally going to happen when you make a sequel of a game like Portal anyway. Either way, they both wind up being great experiences on their own merits. Just for very different reasons.
Tantrum wrote: ↑Sun Jan 24, 2021 12:03 amI finished TP last weekend, and one room of Hyrule Castle made me think of this comment. There's bunch of blocks that fall away when you jump on them, so there's only one way to safely make it across the pits. There's some creepy ghost knights that you can only see with your wolf senses, like the ones in the graveyard just outside the castle, that point the way. So what does the game do when you enter that room?
Sic you with a bunch of those little bugs from Arbiter's Grounds that make you walk slow, and you can only see with your wolf senses. This ensures that you transform into a wolf, turn on your wolf senses, and see the first knight.
You're absolutely right! Most other Zelda games wouldn't have signposted this quite so clearly, at least not once you were so deep into the game.
Thinking about it a bit more, I almost wish that Twilight Princess was a movie or a TV series instead of a game because I love absolutely everything about it
except the gameplay. I feel like I'd enjoy it more just sitting down and watching it than I did playing through it and not feeling challenged.
Tantrum wrote: ↑Sun Jan 24, 2021 12:03 amI have my parents' old Wii in my garage, but don't care for Wii Sports or the whole flail your arms to control the game idea in general.
My Wii spent the last half decade collecting dust, but we introduced our five year old to it to help with his motor skills and he's absolutely fallen in love with it. We've actually played Wii Sports with him pretty much every day for the last three months. I get why people don't care for the motion controls, but I've been reminded just why I loved it so much. The console seemed to attract a ton of shovelware from developers who didn't understand how to actually make use of the hardware, but when a game
works on the system it's just magical. A well-implemented Wii game is just about the most pick-up-and-play experience I've ever had. It's no wonder so many casual buyers picked up a console and it's no wonder why everyone who visited our place when the Wii was cool wanted to play on it.
Tantrum wrote: ↑Sun Jan 24, 2021 12:03 amI just keep it as a backup Gamecube.
I always forget that the Wii can play Gamecube stuff until someone reminds me.
I really need to pick up a Gamecube controller and memory card and dig up a copy of Rogue Leader, if nothing else. I absolutely fell in love with that game back in 2005 (?) when it was new. I'd love to have a crack at Windwaker too.
ganon578 wrote: ↑Wed Feb 03, 2021 3:41 pmSony was nice enough to put together an individualized 'year-in-review' thing for users, so I took a peek at what I did on my PS4 over 2020.
Where would you find this? I'm morbidly curious about how many hours I wasted in 2020.
ganon578 wrote: ↑Thu Feb 18, 2021 6:10 pmIn other news, I invested in a
Nintendo 64 over the weekend.
I'm quite happy that mine is still alive and kicking. In fact it's still plugged into my living room TV, although I probably only use it once every few years. I'll still give Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask and Rogue Squadron a go every once in a while.
I know this is nostalgia talking, and I know that most of my peers sneered at the N64 and its "old tech" back in the late 90s/early 2000s, but I really do feel like the game catalogue has stood the test of time better than its contemporaries
or the generation of consoles that followed.
ganon578 wrote: ↑Thu Feb 18, 2021 6:10 pmStar Wars: Rogue Squadron
Still a great game, except for the part where if you switch away from the default control scheme the snowspeeder levels become literally unwinnable. Rogue Squadron is actually what's plugged into my console right now.
(Fun bit of trivia: this game was programmed in such an arcane way that it's still pretty much impossible to emulate even on modern machines.)
I remember enjoying the kinda-sequel, Battle For Naboo, quite a bit as well. It's been ages since I've played that one, though.
ganon578 wrote: ↑Thu Feb 18, 2021 6:10 pmI'll also want to get an Expansion Pak to pretty up Rogue Squadron and eventually play Perfect Dark. Fond memories!
I'm honestly stunned that any N64s are even out there that don't have an Expansion Pak installed. I seem to remember that most of the good games for the last half of the console's lifespan were unplayable without it.
I have amazing memories of Perfect Dark as well. I'm fairly sure my multiplayer avatar (if I could find a copy of it) has around 200 hours logged, most of that just from the summer after it came out (which I believe was the break between grade 11 and grade 12 for me). I don't think I have even a fraction as much nostalgia for any game in the world as I do for Perfect Dark. The last few times I've played it though, it's been the prettied-up Xbox Live Arcade version. Which is nice, but it lacks the charm of the original.
And by "charm", I obviously mean the ability to reduce the system to half a frame per second while playing multiplayer in the Temple.