"Pick nose." "Success! You now have an open nose.": Video Game Thread

[YojimboMonkey]

The original Fable is on sale for 800 points. Worth playing, yes/no?

Also, there's a trailer up for the next Fallout dlc, The Pitt. It comes out next week! It looks way better than Operation Anchorage, which was mostly good for the gear you get.

Can't wait for the Pitt!

If you want to check out Fable, I'll send you Fable II. I bought it used and have hardly played it.

I was just asking about Fable because it's downloadable cheap right now and I sort of missed every video game ever because I never really got into games until milly made me buy my XBox and Fallout and zombies.

I think it's worth the, what, 10 bucks you pay for it though XBLA?  Though I think I might have benefited from reading a manual or something.  My character always seemed really grimy and filthy, I don't know if there's some sort of bathing mechanics in the game that I was missing out on.  And the good/evil thing was done much better in Mass Effect, but it's still pretty interesting in Fable. 

[girl]

I've been downloading Fable for like 3 1/2 hours and it's 44% complete. WTF?! This is like the slowest download EVER! I don't even really want to play it anymore.

[alistarr*]

i would say that if you missed every videogame ever then there are far better things on the marketplace on which to spend 800 points, but it's a pretty fun game from what i remember. if you enjoy it/ever get that download to finish, give fable 2 a spin too (obviously).

[girl]

i would say that if you missed every videogame ever then there are far better things on the marketplace on which to spend 800 points, but it's a pretty fun game from what i remember. if you enjoy it/ever get that download to finish, give fable 2 a spin too (obviously).

I started Fable. I don't understand why I have to play as a boy, but whatever, it's fine. Tell me other games to play, too, please.

[milly balgeary]

i know a lot of people are disagreeable about it, but i heard re5 is pretty awesome. if you like multiplayer pick up unreal tournament because it's about 10 bucks new, and they just released a lot of content.

[girl]

I downloaded the preview of RE5 and didn't really like it, but maybe it's more fun to play it for real. Mostly I just want every game to be like Fallout or Tetris.

[Little Sixes Little Nines]

video's gone on my xbox. and it's out of warranty. and i've resorted to the towel method. and it won't last much longer.

ps3?

[alistarr*]

get an xbox arcade and put your existing hard drive on it. keep your game library useable, and don't spend more than you need to spend replacing your games machine.

as seth might say, i fully ignored my hatred of the playstation control pad in coming up with this plan. but hey, maybe you fancied a change anyway, in which case go for it. there are a lot of appealing games there now if you were running low on new appealing xbox games.

[alistarr*]

I downloaded the preview of RE5 and didn't really like it, but maybe it's more fun to play it for real. Mostly I just want every game to be like Fallout or Tetris.

for tetris' "one more go" sensation, maybe get geometry wars. i think it's on sale at 400 points. geometry wars 2 widens the range of play modes and also looks really excellent, but i'd say get the first one first and then you've got something to branch out into when you get bored. but i've spent many hours playing the first one and still haven't broken 300,000 points (my friend is nudging ever closer to a million). it's fast moving and the first couple of goes you'll die just as it gets interesting, but it's a great game. try the demo. Rez HD is another fantastic very videogamey type game with nice visuals. you move on "rails" and have to "shoot" stuff. it makes little melodic noises. maybe try the demo. for tetris' "bit by bit puzzle" feeling, how about hexic, which i think came pre-loaded on all 360s? i'm a little bit addicted to it. at first it seems fairly simple and easy to "win" the main game mode, but then you realise the real point isn't to get to the end without dying but to make a cluster of particular things happen, and it's pretty darn difficult. every couple of weeks i load up hexic, put on a cd to listen to, and waste a couple of hours trying to get that magic cluster of black pearls or whatever it is. you might also like braid, which is on the live arcade marketplace thing. it's a brain-twister and looks cute. once you've got all the pieces in the demo, rest assured the ones in the main game are often devilishly different and just as rewarding to finally "crack". and the ending is fairly spectacular. other puzzles/jewels/blocks type games that people love but i've not tried are things like puzzle quest and bejeweled. and, though the only thing tying it to any of these other games is the fact that you can get it on the marketplace, i'd be doing the world a disservice if i didn't recommend sonic the hedgehog 2. that game is beyond amazing. yes it's an old game. yes it's awesomer than any other sonic game and most other any-kind-of-games that have come out since. (actually there's a sega collection including that, and some other not-as-good sonic games, and the streets of rage games, and a bunch of stuff i don't care about, coming out as a boxed product around now at a fairly cheap price. maybe that kind of classic collection would appeal to the tetris lover inside you).

other people already recommended a bunch of fallout replacements (mostly fallout, fallout 2, and oblivion, but the fable recs weren't too far off. in fable 2 you can choose to play as a girl, by the way, but not in the first one), so i'll go ahead and say that while it's not the same i'd happily also recommend grand theft auto 4 or grand theft auto san andreas as examples of games where you can do a lot of exploring (albeit in a modern not-destroyed city) and play through some story as and when you feel like it. a lot of the fun is based around driving fast and running away from police, but i think there are some similarities thanks to the free-roaming, and some of the characters have enough humour and personality to stop it feeling anonymous.

i'm deliberately restricting this to things you can get on xbox, but really what i want is for you to play the 3D zelda games (ocarina of time, majora's mask, twilight princess, and - graphically-different, this one - the wind waker). they have fantastic worlds with strong stories and characters, and wonderful epic conclusions (with the exception of wind waker, for me). the different areas and dungeons are distinct and full of character themselves, with challenging puzzles that almost seem to grow out of the environments - yes, even when it is a question of moving puzzle blocks around. the dialogue is uniformly excellent ("hey kid, check out my beard!") and the main character's actions, grunts and facial expressions are just great. it's a fantasy setting and not a sci-fi/dystopian one, which i feel i should mention in case that's what you like about fallout, and it's not as open-ended in what you can do, but it is an adventure with a lot of appeal, varied enemies, and a good amount of "side quest" type stuff to be exploring as you pursue the story. maybe one day you can come round to mine and play ocarina of time for a couple of hundred hours, see if you like it.

other people would recommend final fantasy to you, but as someone who hates turn-based fighting i can't wholeheartedly bring myself to do it. the new one will be coming to xbox 360 and might be worth a look when it finally arrives.

basically this whole post was an excuse for me to list a bunch of games that i love, so i can understand if some of them don't sound appealing.

[alistarr*]

i didn't play a videogame for three days straight, i think, and last night was a glorious return to gears of war 2's horde mode. our previous best of wave 19 was shattered - we made it to wave 27, including an awe-inspiring run from 20 onwards without dying. after the first couple of plays i was fairly sure that finishing horde wasn't going to be possible with just two players, but after last night i'm filled with optimism. i so want to play through the campaign again, too.

[alistarr*]

we were playing on the Day One map, by the way, which is a great one for cat and mouse tactics. get up on the fire escape above the arcade and you've got a handy low wall to stand behind when maulers appear and hide behind for grinders, and a good long big of coverless ground around the corner which - if you've managed to tempt some grinders far enough towards you and can therefore make use of their weapons, becomes very difficult for bloodmounts and flamers to cross without getting mown down long before they reach you. there's even a sniper rifle/torque bow spawn point, and while i miss the hammer of dawn from the opposite balcony sometimes, it's much better to have consistent good weapons than to be waiting for the rare hammer of dawn between basically unuseable mortars (the only way to effectively use the mortar seems to be to have a dude in the open ground tempting guys in all at once, and that results in death far too often for us).

[alistarr*]

...

basically though when you say you want every  game to be like fallout or tetris i'm guessing you actually just mean you want every game to be AWESOME.

[girl]

Holy cow, thanks, alistarr*!

[silentsigh89]

I decided not to drag my xbox home for my 10 day break and I am really regretting it. I keep getting cravings. I want to try Bioshock!

(I also got condemned for five dollars from a discount bin at blockbuster. It looks terrifying!! I figured it would be good for some bloody fun.)

[girl]

Fable is getting on my nerves. I got out of the village and into Hero Training, but when you save the game, you don't pick up where you left off but at THE BEGINNING OF TRAINING. I don't want to hit the beetles with a stick anymore!

[alistarr*]

wave 31 of gears of war horde last night; we are getting better.

[Captain Insano]

wave 31 of gears of war horde last night; we are getting better.

wave 50 description -
"ok cool. everyone alright?...
cool."
"alright frank there's a suicidal bomber bug comin' in.'
"k, good."
"wait! whoa watch your lef-oh shit there's a fucking alien buffalo comin' in.
yes i'm serious. oh lord. now he is mounting you like a pony. i'm comin' in. "
"alright so it seems like i can go, ah fuck. who's this guy ? what?"
"no i would not like you to cleave my balls, but thanks for the offer."
"moving on, k i'll take cover by this car. alright. this is nice!"
"wait, why is the car wiggling *looks over to see Locusts with a hydraulics remote control "
"owww. owww. my legs. my legs are stuck underneath the tires, jesus christ. fucking frank. fucking buffalo. ow."
"i'm dying, ow, this hurts, ow."

and so on. you get the point.

[alistarr*]

one of my favourite bits of (often repeated) dialogue during horde is "ok there's only one/two left so i'm going to get some ammo before we kill hi- ...oh *** nooooo i'm dead sorry sorry he's coming up the stairs now."

Fable is getting on my nerves. I got out of the village and into Hero Training, but when you save the game, you don't pick up where you left off but at THE BEGINNING OF TRAINING. I don't want to hit the beetles with a stick anymore!

hitting beatles with a stick is indeed lame, especially when what you signed up for was battling the forces of evil as a timeless hero. training levels should be shorter.

[girl]

Fable is getting on my nerves. I got out of the village and into Hero Training, but when you save the game, you don't pick up where you left off but at THE BEGINNING OF TRAINING. I don't want to hit the beetles with a stick anymore!

hitting beatles with a stick is indeed lame, especially when what you signed up for was battling the forces of evil as a timeless hero. training levels should be shorter.

I just don't understand why the save works that way. I feel like I should be able to pick up where I left off!

[davy]

Anybody have any Dead Space testimonials?



I just finished the second S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game and I'm casting about for something new. Saw this at Best Buy last week and it looked like it might scare me shitless in a good way.

[Little Sixes Little Nines]

hitting beatles with a stick is indeed lame

 

[girl]

Anybody have any Dead Space testimonials?



I just finished the second S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game and I'm casting about for something new. Saw this at Best Buy last week and it looked like it might scare me shitless in a good way.

Chet has raved about it more than once. It does look pretty excellent, but I haven't played it myself.

[davy]

Honestly? I don't know that I could take it. All my game time occurs in the middle of the night after Erin & Finn have gone to bed. So I'd basically be playing this game exclusively in the dark, alone.

[girl]

Everything about that sounds excellent! Extra scary!

[jebreject]

Mass Effect is freakin' awesome.