Happy New Year.
If I'd had a clearer head on my shoulder last week, I'd have given game of the week to the monster Steam Sale that enthralled us with rock bottom prices and warehouse savings. Their prices were so low, they must be INSANE!
My impulse buy reflex was kicking in overtime, and I was sorely tempted to spend hundreds of dollars stocking up my PC reservoir for whatever coming apocalypse might have me holed up in a lead-lined vault for a decade or three. As we enter the new year, however, it is time to start looking forward again and realize that some anticipation worthy titles may be right around the proverbial corner.
Baby new year comes out of the gate wielding serious artillery and ready to kick butt with a better than average first week. Among the games, the first true sequel to one of my favorite RPGs, Divine Divinity. However, Divinity II looks on first glance to be a follow-up title in name alone. Initial reaction seems to be sketchy at best, and I'm likely to wait for a little more info before pulling the trigger.
Sharing the spotlight this week, Darksiders looks very promising. A pure action game that puts you into the fire-branded shoes of one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, initial reviews are falling over themselves with joy. Add to the mix Bayonetta, and you've got a pretty serious week of gaming -- so I hope you saved those gift cards you received over Christmas, because it's time to spend some money again.
For me, Darksiders comes out of nowhere to take the week away from what had been a long anticipated Divinity II.
PC
- Divinity II - Ego Draconis
PS3
- Bayonetta
- Darksiders
Xbox 360
- Bayonetta
- Darksiders
- Divinity II - Ego Draconis
Wii
- My Fitness Coach 2: Workout and Nutrition
DS
- Fast Food Panic
Comments
Nice choice. I'll let you know how it turns out.
Let Christmas in January begin!
How did I live before digital distribution of old, cheap games?
MilkmanDanimal wrote:You did live before digital distribution of old, cheap games. Now you just play games.
I'd love to purchase Bayonetta but I'm afraid of the high probability of wife aggro. The demo really sold me on it, but I've got tons to play right now and I think I'm good until around 2015 when Marty McFly visits us.
Love others, weird and wonderfully. | "Life's a trip. You've only got one shot, let her rip." - K.Flay | My Games
Bayonetta and Darksiders look interesting, but I've got plenty on my plate, as well. I might take a break until Mass Effect 2 hits in three weeks.
"You realise that you're questioning the internal logic of a game in which a fat plumber rides a dinosaur in space?" Jonman
This, thanks to the Steam sale.
If it weren't for ME2, I probably wouldn't be buying any game until April (Red Dead Redemption).
Steam: [GWJ]MeatMan | "Now I know where to go if I have a hankering for testicles." –Higgledy
I'm right there with you. I started home gaming back in the 80s when games and movies were not so easy to come by. Something would come along, be in the stores for a little while, and then be gone. If something looked remotely good, I would snag it, keep it forever, and play the hell out of it. This doesn't work as well at a time when games - and good games at that - come along faster than I can play them.
This impulse to hoard against the coming dark is why I have dozens (maybe hundreds) of games that I've put a couple of hours into, then put away and forgotten when the new shiny comes out.
Must ... resist ... urge ... to ... buy ...
Damn Steam, Impulse, Direct2Drive, GamersGate, Amazon and Good Old Games for their wonderful sales!
Hans
Chasing some brass e-peen ring is for high schoolers who have nothing better to do.
Bayonetta is coming on my newfangled Gameaccess account, and I'm pretty damn excited - its my first "Horizons Broadening" game in a while.
Darksiders is also on that list - we'll see where it sticks in the rotation.
Steam: Dysplastic / Battle.net Dysplastic#1920
I bought X3 Terran Conflict on the steam sale. The manual is actually *gasp* acceptable!
The game still has some rough edges though. I started in the merchant career and about 5 minutes into the tutorial the guy asks you to shoot a cannister of debris he has ejected from his ship, you know, to teach you how to fight.
Except the merchant ship has no weapons.
End of tutorial. No problem really, since X3TC is really just X2 with a fabulously good user interface (by comparison) and it's really the same game as X2 structurally. Fine by me.
Steam/PSN/Xbox: InfinityDevil
Certis: Quintin is both smart and attractive.
Fedaykin98: Good lord, I wouldn't have expected brilliance like that from that nemeslut Quintin Stone!
Yonder: It's weird to say this, but Quintin Stone may be the wisest person here.
Not really where I need to address this, but 1) the manual is decent, but basic and the gap between what's written on the page and execution in game is a vast, vast expanse of confusion. And 2) you're given two ships as the merchant. Get out of your freighter and into your fighter. The tutorial is still atrocious, as they always have been with X games.
How did I live before digital distribution of old, cheap games?
MilkmanDanimal wrote:You did live before digital distribution of old, cheap games. Now you just play games.
Bayonetta is solidly on my to-buy list, but that's a long, long list as it is. I suspect I'll jump in after a price-drop on it - January's gaming budget is dedicated to Mass Effect 2.
You've never known true joy until you've shaken a lich stick at someone.
I played the Bayonetta demo and probably won't be buying it.
My criticism is slightly unusual: It just doesn't look good enough. Literally. Visually. Looking at the demo, I don't think we've hit the technical threshold to support a 3-D action game based on T&A. The concept of Bayonetta instantly disrobing to do a special move is kinda titillating, but the execution doesn't work for me -- it doesn't really look like anything. The animation was too small and too bare to really engage me, even in HD on a huge TV.
I'm open to the idea of playing a game about exploitative eye-candy, but it's not going to be this one.
Twitter: @grobstein
Switch friend code: SW-7176-9307-5215
Battle.net: Grobstein#1571 (I used to play a lot of Hearthstone)
Actually, I tend to agree with this. Despite having very tight and responsive controls for combat, I felt like the Bayonetta demo had a major problem with player feedback, with way too much stuff happening way too fast on the screen.
I realize that the breakneck pace is part of what is supposed to make the combat so thrilling, but I wouldn't have minded fleshing out -- and, as a result, slowing down -- some of the animations, just so it would be a bit easier to follow (and execute) the actions on-screen. As it stands, some of the combat motions are so clipped down that it would seem like you're playing in fast-forward: equal parts exhilaration and confusion.
"@OzymandiasAV No, you're just indicative of the sjw infestation in the gaming media." -- Brad Wardell
Sounds like you guys need to convince a friend to buy or rent it and then watch him (or her) play.
How did I live before digital distribution of old, cheap games?
MilkmanDanimal wrote:You did live before digital distribution of old, cheap games. Now you just play games.
If they would do a midnight launch for Bayonetta I would be out there in line. All my Devil May Cry fanboy neurons are firing in anticipation.
Website | Twittah | Tumblr
I'm waiting for some impressions on these three:
- Bayonetta
- Darksiders
- Divinity II - Ego Draconis
And then I'll wait until the middle of the year to even consider them.
If I had a PS3 I would totally get this game. I'd consider it a bonus that my wife would want to watch me play it as much as I would want to play it. And yes, this post is here mainly to brag about that fact.
Steam: http://steamcommunity.com/id/biginja... | XBOX/PSN: BigInJapanGWJ
All the reviews so far have claimed that the PS3 version is by far the worst. I played it safe and picked up the Xbox one over lunch.
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I picked up Darksiders first-day. After not hearing anything about the game except very positive rumblings, someone mentioned that Mark Hamil voices the protagonist's "minder", a demon who rides you around and forces you to do things occasionally.
I was totally struck offguard by the fact that the game starts out as a post-apoc in a modern setting - seeing a winged demon tackle a news chopper made me cheer, and the entire story premise of the game ("Someone ended the world, it wasn't me!? What the heck is going on, now I'm getting angry!") is pretty neat.
Combat leans toward more simple rather than more "J-fightey" or God of War-style, however you've got a large inventory of items you collect as you progress, which can be bound to multiple keys, very Zelda-style. There are puzzles and dungeons and you collect souls to buy stuff from a demon merchant who was kicked out of Hell for some reason.
The comparisons to this game have seemed to be "god of war clone" commonly, but it really doesn't have a ton to do with god of war, this is not a "cutscene, kill enemies, cutscene, kill mroe enemies," game, it's an exploration/puzzle game that feels to me a lot like Soul Reaver meets Zelda.
It totally needs Brutal legend's soundtrack, though.
BTW, here's what the main character originally was supposed to look like, for peolpe who think the art direction is dumb or "grimdark".
http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360/image/article/875/875437/darksiders-wrath-of-war-20080520022056289.jpg
http://www.gamerevolution.com/screen/view.php?game=10166&screenf=darksiders_001
versus the new style: http://www.dailygame.net/images/screens/Darksiders/Darksiders_10.jpg
Please somebody make comments on Ego Draconis on the Conference Call. The feature set sounds great and the engine and play style look so much better than previous offerings. I just want some confirmation that this isn't a broken, imbalanced mess that typically plague overseas developers that are overly ambitious.
Being fangoriously devoured by a gelatinous monster.
redfang#1780
Sorry, Fang. None of us have played it yet.
The thing about smart people is they seem like crazy people to dumb people -- Thing I saw on the Internet
Since my negative comments upthread I've been hit by a real hunger to get Bayonetta. I did play the demo again (on 360 this time), but I'm not sure how to explain my change of heart. The animations still look nearly incomprehensible to me, and Bayonetta's design looks totally weird (pretty much love the enemy designs though). I will probably buy it this week.
Twitter: @grobstein
Switch friend code: SW-7176-9307-5215
Battle.net: Grobstein#1571 (I used to play a lot of Hearthstone)
Rent it?
Words... are a big deal.
Jill Lapore wrote:Editing is one of the great inventions of civilization.
That's so . . . rational. Perhaps I will see if it's possible.
Twitter: @grobstein
Switch friend code: SW-7176-9307-5215
Battle.net: Grobstein#1571 (I used to play a lot of Hearthstone)
I've only seen one gameplay trailer for Dvinity 2, but The graphic engine and visual style reminded me immediately of those in Two Worlds with a sprinkling of Sacred 2 grass/foliage.
I'll be curious to hear impressions of it too.