Travis4

Joined 01/23/2012

Web developer and all-around geek.
https://travisnewman.me

547 Posts

http://www.joystiq.com/2012/03/02/id-responds-to-alleged-doom-4-image-leak/

Looks like there may be a screenshot of Doom 4 floating around. If this is real, I am excited. Even if it isn't, the fact that Doom 4 is being made excites me enough.

@jdodson have you seen this?


http://gematsu.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/FFXIII-2-Moogle-Trailer.jpg
I just tried out the Final Fantasy XIII-2 demo. I have to say, this dude is annoying, kupo! I always thought Moogles were cute and amusing in the games where they didn't have any recorded dialog. They aren't supposed to sound like 8-year-old girls, kupo! The moogle is really useful to have around though.

Now, on to the meat and potatoes: This is a lot of fun. Random encounters are back, but they are easily escapable if you aren't interested in fighting. The preemptive attack is done much more cleanly, giving you the opportunity to attack before battle mode is activated.

Speaking of the battle system-- say what you want about FFXIII, there are plenty of bad things to say about it, but it's the best battle system so far. The sequel improves upon it significantly. The ability to use monsters you've fought as allies in battle provides for more varied paradigms, and shifting between these paradigms doesn't annoyingly pause combat as it did in FFXIII. The only downside is that they've included a new mechanic in battles called "Cinematic Action." Yes, my friends, quick-time events (or as Yahtzee Croshaw of Zero Punctuation fame calls them, "press X not to die") are in a Final Fantasy game.

Outside battle, from what little I can tell from the demo, Square Enix has addressed many of fans' concerns-- everything seems more open, there are NPC-given sidequests, there are towns with shops and people to talk to. The trailer that played after I completed the demo showed many little diversions to pass the time, like casino games and chocobo racing.

I'm looking forward to actually getting my hands on the full game. Skyrim isn't done with me yet, and I want to finish up some things in LittleBigPlanet 2, but then I think I'm going to be all over this.


http://cdn.playwire.com/503/thumb-20110124-3006_0000.png
I don't know what happened, maybe Battlestar Galactica happened, but I stopped playing this game before I finished it. I picked it back up over the weekend and realized just how much I missed it. The charm runs thick in LBP2, though not as much as its predecessor, probably because it's stuff we've all seen before. The polish is amazing, though, and the new mechanics and toys are fantastic.

The only thing I don't quite like is the community levels. Some of them are amazing, don't get me wrong, and this extends the replay value infinitely. The problem for me comes from the new tools. You can now make full-on games, not just levels in a platforming game. RPG's, space shooters, first-person shooters, you name it. Since you *can* do that, everyone is doing it. It's more difficult than it should be to find platforming levels.

The first LittleBigPlanet was the first game I got a platinum trophy on. I played the hell out of it. I think I'll do the same with LBP2 now as well.


Here it comes. Borderlands 2. I fully intend to get this day 1, and this time maybe I'll go PS3 since, surprisingly, everyone I know who plays the first one played it on PS3.


I just finished this game today. I started it months ago, much later than everyone else under the sun, and had a nice chunk of time over the past couple days to finish it.

Overall, I'd have to say I'm disappointed. I was level 16 when I finished-- I had no real problems with it except for a few *major* frustrating sections. In 8-4, if I hadn't been in the last level I would have turned it off and never finished it. After the credits roll, you can go back and do some sidequests. I checked into them online to see whether I wanted to bother and found that some of them aren't recommended unless you are level 40.

And there's the part that I hate. This game is a platformer. Sure, it's also an RPG, but the idea of grinding in a platformer because my stats aren't high enough seems foreign.

So yes, I had some fun, and I would recommend it to anyone, but there were so many missed opportunities.


With the Creation Kit coming out very soon, here's an idea for any modders.

I wish you could restore Helgen. It could be a nice little questline. Clear the bandits, gather the scattered survivors, bring different kinds of ore, ingots, and firewood, donate money to the restoration effort...

You could even use your connections to get business. The Arch Mage could use his connections at the college to get an alchemist shop in town, the leader of the Thieves Guild could get a fence and even some legit trade, you could get the Companions to provide muscle, either the Imperials or Stormcloaks to send guards, the Bards College could send word to all the bards in all the inns that an innkeeper is needed... the possibilities are endless!

And then, of course you're going to want to live there after spending so much time there. You could then pay to build yourself a badass house. Build it up on a hill overlooking your work.

Then, as your town grows, you petition the Jarl of the hold to allow Helgen to become a hold in its own right, and you, the savior of Helgen, should rightfully be its Jarl. Construction walls in the area around that badass house and expands it, making it a modest castle-- bigger than a Longhouse but smaller than Dragonsreach, for example.

And there would be a library. None of this 3 bookshelves per house crap. Every book in the game could be on display. 5 or 7 mannequins. A forge in the basement.

This sounds more like a Fable style quest than Elder Scrolls, but I think this would be fantastic!


http://i.imgur.com/zJOY3.png
This is getting a remake. I'm not sure how well it will hold up in the era of the Skate titles, but I'm looking forward to it.

http://wolfsgamingblog.com/2011/12/11/vga-2011-tony-hawk-pro-skater-hd-remake-announced/



http://getandroidstuff.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Downlaod-Dragon-Fly-Android-Game.jpg
If you have an Android phone, this is a great time sink. They've recently opened up microtransactions, which is annoying, but you can ignore them. It's very basic gameplay, you just tap and hold to dive, and you use that to control where and how you land and how far it makes you fly. Very addictive, very fun, very frustrating.


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/60/Bible_adventures.jpg
Yes, I actually own this game. All I can say is, watch the Angry Video Game Nerd review it. He's spot on.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkNvQYiM6bw

(Jon, if you read this, does standard HTML code work for making links? I don't want to try it and break the layout).