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Rate The Last Game You Played
Ceric:
--- Quote from: broodwars on June 18, 2012, 03:26:10 PM ---
--- Quote from: Ceric on June 18, 2012, 02:04:46 PM ---I'm trying to think of any real RNG in Mass Effect 1 and I can't think of anything but the drops.
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There's definitely some random number dice-rolling going on in the first game, because you can point your reticule right at a guy's face in ME1; pull the trigger; and have your shot miss because the invisible dice roll determined that your shot missed. You can make that dice roll more favorable by increasing particular stats, but it's always there. I was glad to see it gone in ME2.
--- Quote ---Another thing that bugs me is you start the 3rd game and where is your team? I have this huge threat that is still coming and I disband my team...
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Well, in all fairness your team came together to perform a particular task, and they performed it. I still haven't played my copy of ME3 yet (I recently got it when it was $30 on sale, but I'm holding it until the Ending DLC is released), but from what I understand your crew all has their own obligations to their people to perform. Plus, after the events of The Arrival, Shepard had to cool his heels for a while under heavy guard, so it's not hard to imagine his team having things they needed to do in the meantime.
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Ok, That is BS DLC. No wonder the start of ME3 makes no sense. What makes that more infuriarating is that it was not available for the PC. I had all the DLC for the PC when I played through.
broodwars:
--- Quote from: Ceric on June 18, 2012, 04:02:03 PM ---Ok, That is BS DLC. No wonder the start of ME3 makes no sense. What makes that more infuriarating is that it was not available for the PC. I had all the DLC for the PC when I played through.
--- End quote ---
Yeah, in The Arrival Mass Effect 2 DLC, Shepard ends up blowing up a Mass Relay, thus destroying an entire inhabited solar system to prevent the Reapers from coming through it and attacking the galaxy before they were ready. As a result, the DLC indicates that Shepard will turn himself in to Federation/UN Spacy/etc. custody to face the consequences of his actions after the business with the Collectors was finished. That's where Mass Effect 3 comes in.
Ceric:
Alright so looking on the web I should have been able to buy The Arrival DLC for the PC, but no where says where I could have bought it and it wasn't there for when I bought all the other DLC so I would only have to do 1 run through. This is frustrating. Maybe I have it and I just have to continue my game or something weird like that. I beat the game and just went to the main menu because I had done all the missions except 100% Planet exploring. This sort of annoys me to no ends.
broodwars:
Alright, let's get this show on the road. 4 games...GO! :P: :
PS3 (Platinum #60)
People on this site probably have a huge misconception that I hate Nintendo and I similarly hate motion control due to my various posts over the years railing against both. They're wrong on both, but let's just focus on motion control for the moment: my problem with the Wii has never been the idea of having to do motion control for certain games, but rather that the technology flat-out doesn't work and it certainly doesn't work reliably. Then Nintendo proceeded to shove it into games it didn't belong in, performing functions that correspondingly (due to waggle) were either obnoxious or unreliable at best. Even Skyward Sword's motion control wasn't terribly reliable in my experience.
Now here's Sony with the PlayStation Move, a device I've found in the past to be even worse at motion control than the Wiimote, due to most of the games that support it using it as a pointer device whose usefulness is entirely dependent on the lighting in your room. I've often considered getting rid of the thing but after playing the long-delayed, recently-released Sorcery I'm glad I held onto it because it's a pretty decent (if extremely flawed) budget title.
In Sorcery, you (naturally) play as a teenage Sorceror's Apprentice named Finn, apparently quite skilled in wrecking anything he manages to point a magic wand at. After a misadventure in a nearby cave to scavenge for potion ingredients with his talking cat Erline, the Evil Nightmare Queen arises to attack the duo and reclaim Erline as part of her plan to Take Over the World.
So, young Finn and Erline set out to find a way to stop the Nightmare Queen, with Finn gradually growing from an incompetent, cocky spell-slinger to an earnest heroic figure. As simple as this story is (it's "Fantasy Hero's Journey 101"), I thought the game sold it very well through the constant and entertaining Uncharted-style banter between Finn and Erline, as well as the simple but stylized 2D "storybook" cutscenes between chapters. The characters are memorable, and the storytelling is rather gentle and earnest while still having just enough bite to it. It's "child-like" without being "childish". In many ways, this game reminds me of the similarly-budget titled "Majin & the Forsaken Fortress" in that respect.
Being a PlayStation Move-required game (and I'd argue a Nav controller-required game as well, unless you really like holding an entire Dualshock 3 in one hand and a Move wand in the other), obviously the big question is "how are the controls?" Well, I'm surprised to say they work astonishingly well, especially for a PlayStation Move game: you cast spells by flicking the Move in the direction and trajectory you wish them to hit. That means that if you want to hit someone off to the far left, you flick your wand in an arc to the far left. If you want to hit an opponent above you, you perform a quick flick above your head with an arc heading upwards. To switch spells, you merely have to hold a button to bring the game into slow-motion while making a quick flick or rotation to switch to the elemental type you want to use. It's all very simple; fast; and largely intuitive, with the exception of switching to Wind Magic (which I eventually learned to do by raising the wand over my head and waving the Move like a helicopter propeller). The motion control works because the developers were smart enough to limit the gestures to simple flicks, sweeps, and circles both the Move controller and the player can easily understand. There's also a certain degree of finesse to how you flick the Move that just isn't there in other Move games. It also helps, of course, that there's a very generous amount of aim-assistance on spell-casting. ;)
Unfortunately, Sorcery's biggest shortcoming is that it has a lot of ideas, but none of them are fully-developed and they don't come together as well as they should. For example, Sorcery presents this fantastic world to explore, but you have to traverse it in linear corridor levels (which largely don't let you backtrack) with the occasional branching path leading to a treasure chest or light puzzle. I also found combining spells for greater damage to be quite satisfying, such as sweeping your arm to create a wall of fire; sweeping it again with wind magic to create a tornado; and then flinging my new fiery tornado at enemies. Unfortunately, the combat scenarios in Sorcery are just too simple and there are only about 3 different combination spells. Furthermore, the game has an unfortunate habit of letting each new spell essentially replace the last one in terms of usefulness (especially once you acquire Lightning Magic, which obliterates just about everything). The game also waits too long to introduce spells other than the default "Arcane Bolt".
One key aspect of the game I thought was really cool, though, was the potion-brewing system. Throughout the game, you can take ingredients you either purchase or find in chests, and use them to brew potions that grant Finn permanent stat increases (more health, greater fire damage, etc.). When you do so, the game takes you to a separate screen where you actually brew the potion using motion control, sprinkling the magic dust; grinding the mushrooms; pouring the magic water; stirring the mixture; etc. And once you're done, you use the potion just by shaking the Move controller until it's ready (with the light shifting from a light color to a dark one) and performing a "drinking" motion. That all works really well and feels really natural.
I think the key problem with Sorcery is how Sony has decided to hype and market it: as this "epic, awe-inspiring, and immersive hardcore fantasy experience." Having played the entire game to completion twice now, this game is not "that" in any way, shape, or form. It's a child-oriented fantasy budget title where you flick various magic spells at waves of enemies in a way similar to a 3rd person shooter. It's not a particularly polished game and it's not a particularly deep game mechanically, but I also don't think it's a bad game. In fact, the game has some really solid and enjoyable ideas that probably just needed more time to develop into something great. I wish some of the "kids' games" I played growing up had this much thought behind them. Similarly, the story could have been something quite memorable with more time and levels to flesh out the characters. As it is, the game is merely average altogether, but if you have kids and the equipment to play the game, I think they would have a lot of fun with it. It's apparently a better "Harry Potter" game than any of the actual Harry Potter games have been.
Incidentally, it may only have been a coincidence but shortly after playing this game, the Dualshock 3 I normally have assigned to my PS3 broke...seemingly permanently. It will no longer sync with my PS3. It may just be a coincidence, but consider yourself warned.
Damn, that was a long one. Thankfully, there's not so much to explain in the others so they should be much shorter. And the others will be worse. ::) But seriously, Sorcery is a decent game and I DO recommend it if you have the equipment to play it.
Ceric:
I'll probably check out Sorcery if the price is right.
Found the DLC. Its hidden on the Bioware social site... They have The Arrival and Shadow Broker for PC now. I know I looked hard for Shadow Broker when I got the game. I have some really mixed feelings about this DLC. If I want it it will cost me $12.60 which is getting close to what I paid for the first 2 games Deluxe editions. I felt like the game was missing chunks of it and well that would be it. I like to play through it but I don't want to spend the money and I don't even now if they'll let me continue my game to do it now. Then it would require reimporting my Character in 3 and I'm sort of steamed on how they hid it.