Games games games (Also Steam summer sale!)

So I've been gaming lately. As usual.

Let's see, stuff I've played recently...

Did a second playthrough of the Mass Effect Trilogy, this time a renegade run culminating in Shepard chosing the destroy option.

 That's a hero's face alright.

I enjoyed my first run of the series but 3 just starts to break down the more you think about the story. I mean, let me get this straight- You spend most of the game trying to figure out what the Catalyst is, and you need to find it before the Reapers do because then they'll try to capture it before you and then the galaxy is fucked, right? And the Catalyst turns out to be... the guy in charge of the Reapers. Uhhhhhhhhhhhh.

 Anyway playing as a biotic was alright but Infiltrator was a LOT more fun.

At the same time I was playing Kamen Rider Battride War. It was, overall, disappointing. The gameplay was bad, the story was bad, the whole thing was way too short, there was a whole lot of characters you couldn't even use. But having the original actors voice the characters was really nice, as was re-enacting scenes from the shows. Fuck the stupid original story shit, I'd like to see a game where they do nothing but re-enact scenes from the show. Also Odin teleporting behind you and slapping you around when you try to punch him was awesome.

Da Capo 3 RX was alright and made me decide to go through the entire series again, as well as replace my aging/missing copies with new ones and buying fandiscs that I hadn't played before. And I found my supposedly missing copy of DCPC an hour after my order shipped, and it turned out that my non-missing copy was the Vista-compatible version while the "new" copy I got to replace it was the old not necessarily compatible with Vista version so eh. At least it was really cheap! But anyway yeah, 3 was... okay, I guess. Pretty good. But eh, 2 was better. I like Himeno.

Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition was on sale on Steam (not part of the Summer sale) and since it was only like $8 I went and got it. And then they announced Ultra Street Fighter IV so uh yeah. Fuck you Capcom.

CHIRI TO TOMO NI MESSE YO

Now, of course it's impossible to play Street Fighter with a keyboard (especially considering how I main Zangief and Wakamoto) so I hooked the USB gamepad that I bought ages ago (for another playthrough of Baldr Sky that I never got round to doing) up for it. And figured that since I had it in I might as well look for other games I already had on Steam that might be able to use it.

I found Mark of the Ninja.

Ohhhhhhh boy, Mark of the Ninja.

Ninjers

First of all, yes, this game was made by people who decided to make a game with Japanese words in it while not consulting a single person who understands any semblance of the language at all. The usual, you know. And usually that'd bother me the way people talking about using an FTP to hack the GUI with Visual Basic to hijack the internet and steal all the money from all the banks at the same time in Hollywood movies bothers them software engineer types.But this game is just so good that I didn't give a shit. I feel that it's a bit overrated- The whole thing is kind of short and there really isn't that much replay value- But that's relative to how high its ratings are. Even when you adjust the score down a bit from all those easily entertained people it's still a really good game. Let me just copypaste my Steam recommendation here:

First of all: A controller is ABSOLUTELY REQUIRED. I cannot stress this enough. Playing this game with the keyboard and mouse is just horrible.

Anyway yeah, this game is really, REALLY good. Some people call it the best stealth game ever but they're exaggerating, it's not THAT good. But it IS one of the best. And because it's a 2D platformer the experience is completely unlike any other.

"Arcade-style stealth" sounds like an oxymoron but that's the best way to describe Mark of the Ninja. And it's pulled off flawlessly.
Bad story, typical "let's look through a dictionary and/or make shit up and not consult anyone who knows the language" Japanese, and the controls annoying you sometimes (e.g. try to grapple somewhere and the fucking game decides it wants to grapple you in the opposite direction directly into lasers) are the only real flaws the game has, and it more than makes up for them by being plain fun.

The whole terror system (make corpses drop from the ceiling and scare guards into shooting each other!) is terribly fun too.

So like yeah. HIGHLY recommended. (While we're on the topic of stealth games I'd like to recommend Dishonoured even more though)

"Arcade-style" is the keyword. Fast-paced action doesn't seem to be something you'd usually associate with the stealth genre but Mark of the Ninja pulls it off great. It's a really unique experience. So yeah. The game is good.

I also finally got round to clearing Portal. It was fun enough but I can't help but feel that it's a tad overrated. The portal physics concept is unique and fantastic, but these days you get all sorts of similarly weird physics-based games (usually indie). The game was kind of short and some of the later puzzles less challenging and more plain frustrating (fuck those "go search for a wall far off you can shoot a portal at that you can only see through a certain hole from a certain angle" bullshit "puzzles"). It was fun enough though. Also I loved GLaDOS (then again, who doesn't?). And fact: Best part of the game was Still Alive.


Meanwhile Senjou no Valkyria 3 E2 (the complete version of Valkyria 3 which was released before I could clear the fucking game and made me lose the will to continue on with it) went on sale on PSN and I figured why not and grabbed it. Been chipping away a bit really slowly and am still only like halfway through the tutorial.


And then STEAM SUMMER SALE.

Incredipede: Saw a trailer for it before it was released, put it on my wishlist, forgot about it, saw it on sale, got it. Haven't played it yet.



The Walking Dead: Heard good things. Haven't played it yet and probably won't for some time because my fucking controller won't work with it and the mouse/keyboard controls are absolute shit.


FTL: Heard good things, everyone I know has it. Tutorial went all blah blah blahhh so I figured I'd save it for later.


Fallout: New Vegas Ultimate Edition: This is even though I had NV vanilla on Steam before (because buying the ultimate edition on the sale was the cheapest way to get all the DLC). So uh, vanilla (360), vanilla (PC, Steam sale), Ultimate (PS3, Japanese), Ultimate (PC, Steam sale). I have bought this same fucking game four times. But eh at least the two Steam purchases were cheap, so my reigning champion is still limited edition To Heart 2 PS2 limited edition To Heart 2 PC limited edition To Heart 2 PSP limited edition To Heart 2 PS3.


Deadlight: I like platformers? And it was cheap (sale!). Haven't even installed it yet.


Deus Ex Human Revolution: I enjoyed it on the PS3 and it was cheap so I figured why not. I tried playing it a bit on my second laptop (turns out I can actually run PC games now!) but it kept freezing on me so bah.


Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion- Forbidden Worlds DLC: It was cheap and I haven't actually started on Rebellion yet (have Trinity on disc tohugh) so why not.


Dishonoured: I fucking loved this game on the PS3 and it was on sale so ehhhhh. Also got the DLC to go with it that I actually hadn't gotten on the PS3. It was okay I guess but the third stage felt kind of lazy. And searching for the key to the legal district in the second was a nightmare. Overall... I don't know, is it just me or is the level design just not as good as the main game's? Somehow it was all just way less fun. That's just the stages though, freezing yourself to blink in mid-air at the top of a double-jump and summoning assassins was fantastic. But yeah I always hated that murdering piece of shit Daud and while the game's creators clearly wanted you to symphatize with him somehow I never really could. Also I always have rats eat him alive then set him on fire while he's being eaten alive by rats (and if I have wind blast on the playthrough I try to throw off a building at the same time) so yeah "play as the legendary dickwad Daud!" wasn't really a thing for me. The DLC was okay though.

But yeah, I enjoyed Dishonoured so much before that I gifted it to friends and immediately starting playing it myself too. And cleared it in like two days (low chaos for the main game thanks to my prior knowledge, high chaos for the DLC because Daud's a murdering piece of shit and doesn't deserve any of that redemption bullshit). Because it's really really fun.


And finally, Super Robot Taisen OE is out (or rather the first chapter is). I was really on the fence about this one: From the start I wasn't sure on buying it because I hate downloads. Yes I realise I just listed a fuckton of games I just bought on Steam; But Steam charges reasonable prices while the vast majority of Japanese developers still seem to think it's perfectly fine to charge more than what most fucking retailers are, and Bannam is one of the fucking worst among them (Masoukishin 2 for example costs like four times more as a download than what you can buy it for brand fucking new in stores). So yeah, I wasn't sure about this. And then the 18th and the list of DLC came and I was all what the FUCK is this bullshit? So instead of grabbing the whole season pass-ish ("ish" because you don't get the fucking DLC) I just grabbed the first chapter for 500 yen and... Ohhhhhhhhh god. That fucking Patlabor intro. TSUUSHOU PATOREIBAA NO TANJOU DEARU. With the wire background and 3D Ingram. AND THAT BGM. I'm just going to have to get all of it. Fuck you Bannam. You win this time.

Edit: Finished off the summer sale with these

 Just Cause 2 was a 100% impulse buy. Strike Suit Zero/Infinity I'd had my eye on for some time but it turns out the fucking thing hates my controller. Magicka I also had my eye on for some time but it turns out the co-op is kind of necessary (either that or I'm REALLY bad at the game). Eh.

This week's loot (13th July 2013)

I cleared Da Capo 3. It was pretty good, and got me wanting to play the previous games. And I had no idea where I'd left my copies of the previous games (I found DCPC last night though, after placing an order for a new copy so whatever) so...

Yeeeeeaaaaaah.

Anyway, other stuff:

(Got Decade to go with my Machine Decader even though I already have him because I don't have my original one here in Japan)



And today the new Idolmaster Ichiban Kuji stuff went on sale so...

Yeeeeaaaaaaah. (Each of those was 800 yen = $8 FYI) Results were...

Towels!

Other stuff! The small figures were the lowest prize! The towels being the one right above them! I got the second-highest A prize Haruka figure but not Chihaya who was B!

Bah.

Oh and I already pre-ordered an entire complete set of all of these so yeah I have no idea what the fuck I'm doing myself.

Edit (14th July 2013): There we go

This week's loot (28th June 2013)

This week's loot (23rd June 2013)

Not much, yeah, but I've been busy. Still am actually.

The mini Destroyahs are really... mini. 10000 yen for this set, yeesh.

The next generation of console gaming: My thoughts.

So yeah PS4 and Xbox One had shit announced at E3. My thoughts, compiled from Twitter and IRC:

 First reaction to the Xbox One's announcements, on Twitter:

"PEOPLE IN YOUR HOUSE CAN PLAY THE GAMES IN YOUR HOUSE! YOU CAN PLAY YOUR OWN GAMES OUTSIDE TOO! FUCKING REVOLUTION"

Further thoughts:

"I mean yeah you remember me raging over the PS4's retarded cloud shit abandon all your PS3/PSP/Vita downloads lololol no backwards compatibility bullshit. But it wasn't THIS bad. Basically Microsoft is making a game console that runs on Steam. Where you can buy discs as activation codes. And there are no sales. THE ONLY FUCKING REASON I USE STEAM IS BECAUSE THE RIDICULOUS SALES OFFSET THE DOWNLOAD STUFF AND BECAUSE I ALREADY HAVE A PC. There's no fucking reason for you to buy a new console just to fucking use Steam now is there. Plus Steam works fine offline. So uh yeah, Microsoft is fucking retarded."

"The way I see it the only way the 360 did well at all is because they threw money at developers and got cod and haloes. Maybe they figured it's that crowd that matters the most to them. So fuck all the real video game players, the One's going to cater only to the teenage FPS player crowd? I'm fine with that because it means I won't need it."

"Seriously though the big One announcement yesterday. Basically what they were saying is YOU CAN DO ALL THIS SHIT YOU COULD EASILY DO BEFORE ONLY THIS TIME YOU NEED INTERNET AND OUR PERMISSION AND TO PAY FEES SO EXCITING AND REVOLUTOINARY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

"Oh right Simcity, that was a thing wasn't it. People keep going on about THEIR connections. But you know sometimes it's the fucktards running the servers. You can have broadband and your console's still going to be useless if the servers are down."

"What I want in a console is: Once it's dead, ten years after it's dead, I can take it out and plug it in and pop a game in and still use it. Granted though that's kind of difficult with the current generation already because of patches and updates and shit."

And then Monday came.

Welp, looks like the One is stillborn. http://t.co/bjqUZciNFD
— wotn (@Weisskaiser) June 11, 2013

"Nobody wants a console that only licenses you your games. #dealwithit"

"Yeesh looking at comments on stuff and shit, some guy says he's on his third 360 and second PS3. How the fuck do people break their consoles so easily? The last console that broke down on me was the Saturn and that was just because I left it alone for too long and the battery thing leaked."

(In reference to a video of the Sony press conference):

"tl;dr HEY GUYS YOU CAN PLAY GAMES ON THE PS4 JUST LIKE YOU CAN ON EVERY OTHER CONSOLE EVER RELEASED (Cheering)"

"For some reason Microsoft fucked up SO HARD I kind of want a PS4 now. And I didn't really want a PS4 because of the no PSN games no backwards compatibility bullshit."

"https://twitter.com/Weisskaiser/status/344329707472445440/photo/1 hurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr THE FUTURE IS DISKLESS DEAL WITH IT SONY IS SHIT REMEMBER DUH TIME DEY GOT HACKED! So uh what happens if Microsoft gets hacked and you can't do the sign in once every 24 hours thing. Bam. But hey, if you get an Xbox One YOU CAN USE IT TO WATCH TV!"

Not me: "tv tv tv tv tv tv tv tv tv tv sports sports sports sports sports sports sports sports sports sports DOG DOG DOG "
Me: "You forgot HALO TV"

"Also some people going on about the One keep going on about the TV shit. That shit only works in America doesn't it? And seriously there's video rental and shit on PSN too isn't there. And fuck PSN I have video rental/streaming shit BUILT INTO MY TV. Why the fuck do you need an Xbox for that?" 

Reference: Microsoft defends the Xbox One’s licensing, used game policies:

(About "a diversity of business models"):

"ALL GAMES ARE FREE YOU JUST HAVE TO PAY FOR THE ITEMS or YOU HAVE TO PAY $60 FOR THE GAME AND PAY MORE FOR THE ITEMS ANYWAY! DIVERSITY"

(About "Mehdi noted that purely digital game marketplaces like the iOS App Store have thrived despite having absolutely no physical media."):

"iPhone games don't cost $60-100"

(About "While the Internet is decidedly up in arms about the way the Xbox One handles game ownership and online check-ins, Mehdi said it was "hard to say" what the larger reaction from the less attentive mainstream consumers would be. "):

"tl;dr LOL NO LIFE INTERNET LOSERS GET A LIFE WE'RE NOT SELLIN THE XBOX TO YOU WE SELLIN IT TO DUH REAL PEOPLE OFFLINES"

(About: "Things like live TV support and exclusive NFL and Skype partnerships will also help show consumers the Xbox One's "tremendous value.""):

Me: "TV TV TV TV TV TV TV SPORTS SPORTS TV TV TV TV SPORTS SPORTS TV SPORTS TV HALO TV SERIES TV SPORTS DOG"
Not me: "durr hurr hurr"

"See what they're doing with games on the One, it's not too bad IF IT WERE ON THE PC. Because you know PCs can be used for other things as well. Who the fuck wants to spend half of a thousand fucking dollars on a video game console that doesn't let you own your fucking video games? Besides retards."

"And seriously, TV, NFL, Skype? That's supposed to give the thing tremendous fucking value? I don't think I even need to fucking explain why no that's not fucking value at all you fucking moron. Also 'We're trying to do something pretty big in terms of moving the industry forward for console gaming into the digital world.' COMPUTER GAMES ISN'T DIGITAL DRM IS THE REAL DIGITALS!!!!!!!!"

"Seriously though this boils down to 'people on the internet are stupid no life losers we're going to sell plenty of Xboxes for real'. Really now?"

Me: "Whoa am I seeing things right or is the PS4 only like twice the size of the tiny model PS2"
Not me: "...it looks like two of them stacked together."
Me: "I like it. Better than the PS3 and 360 at least. PS2's still better. And the PS1's design was iconic"

"MAN that PS4 controller is UGLY"

"Nothing new but yeah the PS4 controller is an ugly piece of shit. And don't get me started on the glowing parts, God."

Not me: "http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-06-13-right-now-oddworld-new-n-tasty-isnt-coming-to-xbox-one-or-xbox-360 Way to fuck up. But seriously, Microsoft is fucking stupid."
Me: "Yeah they're applying that policy to indies too and had the cheek to say "Nobody has been more committed to indies than Microsoft". INDIES YOU AINT REAL GAME COMPANIES GO FIND YOURSELF A PIMP OR FUCK OFF"

Reference: Microsoft defends Xbox One: 'Digital is better'

"So uh, DRM is digital and nothing else is? See if you really thought digital better you'd provide free digital downloads alongside games with no DRM, that don't require the disc to play. What you're doing isn't promoting "digital" you stupid fucks, it's just treating your users like fucking criminals on parole who have to check in every 24 hours to show that they're not pirating like a bunch of untrustworthy scumbags."

Reference: Microsoft: PS4 won’t make us ‘change anything we’ve done with Xbox One’

"Last nail in the coffin"

(In reference to "When you look at games like TitanFall,… have you gone through Titanfall yet? Enough said. Conversation over. "):

"Yep. Conversation over. Conclusion is that you're a fucking moron."

(In reference to "uh,… it’s safe to say that we’re confident where we’re going. We’re also confident that gamers are going to love our vision of the future and what we’re going to offer for gaming”)

"A BLIND one."

"Your vision of the future isn't too bad, but the future isn't now and you're doing it wrong. Dumbass."

"Dumbfuck of the day https://twitter.com/Weisskaiser/status/346155150462820353/photo/1 STEAM CAN WORK SO XBONE CAN TOO! No it can't dumbfuck. Did you spend $500 on a new machine just to run Steam? That can ONLY RUN STEAM? "I being an INTELLIGENT gamer know that MS is doing things right also I have a JOB and MONEY so I will buy BOTH consoles" hurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Sseriously this retard comes off as being one of those MS spokesmen. XBONE GAMES ARE DIGITAL. Unlike all them other analog vidyas right? Even EA, FUCKING EA, saw that nobody wanted DRM bullshit and got rid of their online pass bullshit. How blind do you have to be?"

"This isn't about fanboys trashtalking each other. This is about the direction of the industry. And Microsoft is trying to lead it the wrong way."

Reference: Miyamoto: Nintendo's game ownership policy should operate "like a toy company"

"Miyamoto has the best idea of what games should be like. Pity Nintendo isn't following up with their locked-to-console download bullshit."

@dohertymark If your account is banned, you also forfeit the licenses to any games that have licenses tied to it as listed in the ToU. ^AC
— Xbox Support (@XboxSupport1) June 14, 2013

Update: Xbox 180 happened.


"BEFORE: Microsoft: PS4 won't make us 'change anything we've done with Xbox One'"

"AFTER: As a result of feedback from the Xbox community, we have changed certain policies for Xbox One"

"Family sharing and cloud library gone? What happened to THE DIGITAL FUTURE?"

"Irrelevant now that MS is backpedalling, but still worth a read. >Unwelcome Innovation Earns Gamers’ Jeers"

"Said this on IRC but WHY ARE (well, were) XBOX ONE DOWNLOADS STILL AT FULL PRICE? Going digital cuts a LOT of costs. The One as it was might have worked if games were like, say, $30. When you figure in the costs cut and used game sales eliminated they might've made even more than what they are with disc-based games. Instead, no, we still have cunts insisting on charging $70 for fucking downloads. Fuck you. This applies not just to MS of course. I can get Masoukishin for like 2000 yen new but it's 7000 yen on PSN? Fuck you."

"Taking away the family sharing and cloud library though, why? It's not like they can't coexist with discs. Make it so that they only work for DLs or something. Personally, removing the features reeks to me of WAHHHHHH I'M NOT LETTIN YOU PLAY WITH MUH TOYS ANYMORE"

"Related: Where does my money go?"

"What worries me about the Xbone is how they can just undo all that DRM shit with a single patch. Suggests that the inverse is possible too."