Beat the Heat, Clear the Pile

Considering putting Mass Effect 2 in there as I fired it up the other night and decided to download the DLC. I should be done with Deathspank this week, finally.

I will just say this: I hate you, Big Daddy helmet. I hate you so much.

Finished the 'story' component of Torchlight, which is good enough to call it done I think.

Strangely I really struggled through this despite being a fan of the ARPG genre. Not entirely sure why.

stevenmack wrote:

Finished the 'story' component of Torchlight, which is good enough to call it done I think.

Strangely I really struggled through this despite being a fan of the ARPG genre. Not entirely sure why.

I need to get back to Torchlight at some point. I was super excited for it when it came out, and kept waiting to get a computer that would play it. I finally have one, and picked up (or was gifted? I don't recall right now) Torchlight during the steam sale, and find myself in the same boat as you. I played about an hour and haven't touched it since. How long is the story by the way?

Garden Ninja wrote:

I need to get back to Torchlight at some point. I was super excited for it when it came out, and kept waiting to get a computer that would play it. I finally have one, and picked up (or was gifted? I don't recall right now) Torchlight during the steam sale, and find myself in the same boat as you. I played about an hour and haven't touched it since. How long is the story by the way?

There's 35 dungeon levels in total (a few of those are short 'boss' levels) plus some optional stuff ('mysterious maps' , random dungeon maps you buy from vendors, etc) and then once you beat it there's a second 'shadow vault' dungeon which I may look at some time down the road, but I think i've had my fill for now.

wasn't really keeping track of time but skipping a LOT of the side stuff I'd have to say - probably around 9 or 10 hours maybe.

Just finished up Strong Bad Episode 3: Baddest of the Bands. I enjoyed it quite a bit, and with the hints set to 'medium', it was the perfect difficulty for me where I didn't have to go look up a walkthrough a single time. I hated the first episode, but I'm glad I went back and gave the later episodes a shot.

going to see if i can squeeze in a couple more adventure games before the end of the month, starting with Still Life.

MK vs DC is done...

I think I've only scratched the surface of that game mechanic, but I'm too old, and too slow to start picking it up now. I think I'll leave the muscle memory tuned to SoulCalibur/Tekken for now.

Hemidal wrote:

I'm going to try and knock out Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands this month as well.

I'll throw my hat into the ring for that one as well. See if I can knock it on it's head in the 11 days left this month.

I've made it so far in Time Gentlemen, Please! while dealing with my daughter's recent bouts of won't-go-to-sleep-itis, that I may as well throw that up.

Finally got around to clearing Bayonetta tonight. What a batsh*t insane game, all the way through. Fun, but utterly mental.

Trine down.

Luggage wrote:

Trine down.

Ditto. Beat it just now.

Bioshock is done. It's almost a great game, but it settles for being mostly good mixed with some very bad.

Forgotten Sands is finished. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. Some of the later water puzzles got pretty tough on the timing, which can be annoying. I know exactly what I need to do, but I'm a quarter of a second off pulling the trigger, so I fall. Grrr...

I think I'm going to give 007: Bloodstone a shot.

Finished SC : Conviction . Excellent, tightly crafted game.

MadGav wrote:

Finished SC : Conviction . Excellent, tightly crafted game.

Did you play any of the co-op? That is a lot of fun.

I think I'm going to try to knock out a couple more of my smaller games before the end of the month. Can you put me down for Sam & Max 102: Situation: Comedy and Gish?

Fallout: New Vegas finished in 128 hours.

I'm abandoning Gish. I played for nearly two hours tonight and got literally nowhere. If I weren't gifted it during the summer sale I'd have given up on it earlier.

The mechanics themselves are actually okay, but it is exceedingly hard, and getting kicked back to the start of the world when you run out of lives is not fun (hence the two hours with nothing to show for it). Heck, having to restart a 5 minute long level when you die isn't fun either.

With some tweaks, it could be a lot of fun, even without lowering the inherent difficulty much. Scap the lives system entirely. A lives system has no business in a modern game, unless it is a challenge mode. Then, either shorten the levels (a la Super Meat Boy) or add Checkpoints (a la 'Splosion Man).

Shame. It could be really good. I wanted to like it. As it is though, it kind of sucks and I don't understand why it reviewed so well.

Speaking of games in the Humble Bundle 1, I finally got around to clearing the two smallest ones

I absolutely hate Lugaru HD. It just gave me a headache from its super old 3d graphics, as many old 3d games do. I can see where there's depth in the combat, but it's just too fast paced, if I had to compare it, it felt more like Marvel vs Capcom than Street Fighter third strike, which I enjoyed more. Also, was not fond of the controls or the spazzy animations. Uninstalled it, not going to replay that again

Samorast 2. Cute little adventure game. I had to look up a buncha solutions as I am absolutely terrible at them, and half the game logic doesn't click for me. But still, the music and atmosphere was pretty good.

I'm slowly making progress in ilomilo and am about halfway done with it. Initially, I found the game to be so cloying that I couldn't play it for long stretches at a time, but I turned the sound effects off and that's made a world of difference. The constant chimey sound effects were just too much on top of the visual aesthetic, the writing, and the twee music. I'd still like to vote Sebastian off the island altogether, but I'll take what I can get.

The puzzles themselves are fun, although I've really only found the bonus levels to be very challenging. The rest are remarkably easy.

In general, I much prefer the WP7 version of the game over the XBLA one. The puzzles were better designed, the bonuses were better integrated, and they got more of the little details right. For example, in the XBLA version of the game, the blue bonus levels are placed on a tile between the world's normal puzzles and the exit to the next world; since you unlock puzzles by finishing the puzzles adjacent to them, this strongly implies that you need to unlock the blue bonus level in order to advance to the next world, but this isn't the case. In the WP7 version, the bonus level in each world is on a tile that's clearly separated from the rest and obviously doesn't unlock anything else. Small little UI bits like that can make a big difference in the elegance of a game's design.

Bloodstone isn't bad, but it suffers from a wash, rinse, repeat third person shooter mentality. The aiming is a little mushy, so the snap-to (a la COD) is a must. This is definitely an average game at best. I hope to finish it up in the next couple of days. Then I can have the weekend for Deus Ex: Human Revolution (future pile spotlight member, I'm sure).

Garden Ninja wrote:
Luggage wrote:

Trine down.

Ditto. Beat it just now.

I've finished the first two level areas of Trine. Is it worth pushing through to the end?

I feel like Super Meat Boy, The Witcher 2, and Dungeon Siege 3 will all get my time before Trine.

Squee9 wrote:
Garden Ninja wrote:
Luggage wrote:

Trine down.

Ditto. Beat it just now.

I've finished the first two level areas of Trine. Is it worth pushing through to the end?

I feel like Super Meat Boy, The Witcher 2, and Dungeon Siege 3 will all get my time before Trine.

I liked it, and it is pretty short. I think it only took like 6 or 7 hours. You should be able to knock that out before the end of the month.

Garden Ninja wrote:

I liked it, and it is pretty short. I think it only took like 6 or 7 hours. You should be able to knock that out before the end of the month.

You'd think that, but I play a bunch of games of League of Legends a day with my buddies, so my single player gaming is usually only on weekends, or randomly during the week depending on how sucked in I get to that particular story/game.

Scratch The Witcher ( 1 ).

Good atmosphere in that one, although some of the running around on foot did get a little tedious on occasion. Overall, me like-y.

Garden Ninja wrote:
Squee9 wrote:
Garden Ninja wrote:
Luggage wrote:

Trine down.

Ditto. Beat it just now.

I've finished the first two level areas of Trine. Is it worth pushing through to the end?

I feel like Super Meat Boy, The Witcher 2, and Dungeon Siege 3 will all get my time before Trine.

I liked it, and it is pretty short. I think it only took like 6 or 7 hours. You should be able to knock that out before the end of the month.

I don't know how I feel about the last level, since it felt out of sync with the rest of the game. You could essentially clear it with Thief plus one Wizard spell. All the awesome skills you've gained and items you've collected until then didn't play any role at all. I would have hoped for a level you could only clear with all 3 living through it. Such a great build-up for nothing.

Then again the Warrior is basically obsolete as long as your Wizard has mana and you've mastered the fast-fired short- to mid-range shots of the Thief, so we're back to square one.

The last level wasn't great, and you're right, it did feel out of sync, but I don't think it detracts much from the game as a whole.

Luggage wrote:

...
Then again the Warrior is basically obsolete as long as your Wizard has mana and you've mastered the fast-fired short- to mid-range shots of the Thief, so we're back to square one.

The Warrior seemed kind of superfluous even early in the game. Honestly, I think about 40% of the time I used him was just switching quick to block some incoming arrows, then switching back to thief to return fire. The sword starts to suck before even midway. The hammer was good for a little while against heavily armored enemies, but it was slow and you can't block. The fire sword is cool, but by that point the thief has 3 arrows per shot, plus quick shot so it was only useful if you were surrounded.

The warrior was really only there to fit the theme of "What if the 3 classic classes merged"; he's not real useful from a gameplay perspective.

I've got a friend at Muse and I haven't quite finished CreaVures, so I think I'll hit that up for my team platformer needs first. Like a good friend should.

Hemidal wrote:

Forgotten Sands is finished. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. Some of the later water puzzles got pretty tough on the timing, which can be annoying. I know exactly what I need to do, but I'm a quarter of a second off pulling the trigger, so I fall. Grrr...

I'm at exactly this point now...

Spoiler:

Jumping through those three 'sheets' of water in the final ascent to the top is killing me... I really need to lay off the Gentleman Jack.