The Arcade

[TurboKill]

Saw this (Hitoshi Sakimoto AMA*) was going around on Reddit and thought some people might want to read up on it. If you don't know him by name, composed the music for a bunch of great games including Vagrant Story, FFXII, Valkyria Chronicles, and Final Fantasy Tactics.
Man, video game music would be a dream job area for me.

(* AMA mean Ask Me Anything in case you didn't know. I had to look it up myself..)

[ZombiePlatypus]

Been playing Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection for the 360. I love Zaxxon, always will. It's odd playing it in color, since when I spent most of my time with it originally it was a green-on-black version off a floppy disc at my friend's house back in elementary school.

Aside from that, I've discovered that I really dig this Fatal Labyrinth game. I need to beat it to say for sure, but I may just love it as well. It's charm for me lies in the simplicity of it all, from the set up and story to the gameplay. Wander around a randomly generating castle, up floor by floor until you reach a dragon and then kill it. Attacks are made automatically by walking in the direction of your enemies. For as simple as it is, there's a wide selection of items and equipment you can find. Not knowing what each item you find can do until you use one of them for the first time is a nice touch, to me anyways. An explorer wouldn't really know what some random potion he finds on a castle floor would do initially, y'know?

[Shinobi13]

Fatal Labyrinth is one of my favourite Genesis titles. Since you love it so much, check out Dragon Crystal on Game Gear. It's essentially an 8-bit successor to Fatal Labyrinth. I own both copies and am proud to have them in my collection. I wish my Dragon Crystal was complete though, only have the cartridge.

[ZombiePlatypus]

Haha, I actually *just* downloaded Dragon Crystal for my 3DS after typing that last post. After reading about it and watching a gameplay vid it was an easy decision, since it looks like an upgraded Fatal Labyrinth with a PET DRAGON!!

[GlowBear]

Replaying The Darkness and never realised it was so clunky in shooting. Jackie Estacado's hairs is so lanky and greasy!

[usedtabe]

Playing Warriors Orochi 3 and it's so stacked with content. Between this and DW7 I could see 250+ hours of gameplay.

[keisal]

I haven't played games in forever. Stupid real life getting in the way of my fake life

[GlowBear]

Oh dah shock

http://www.wegotlife.com/177/microso...-the-next-xbox

[usedtabe]

Got the Darkness II in from Gamefly. Was hoping it wasn't going to be that good so I could just fly through and send it back to get the next game in queue. So far it's looking to be a really good game, and I can keep it for less than $10. Fucking Gamefly, just when you think you're saving money.

[ZombiePlatypus]

With gamefly do you just get the disc in an envelope or what?

[usedtabe]

When it's rented yeah. The great thing about keeping it though is they send the case, the manual and any DLC/Special offer codes the game came with.

[ZombiePlatypus]

Okay, that actually sounds good. I was thinking you just got a netflix-style envelope and that's it if you kept it.

[usedtabe]

Nah, you get the full deal, which is much better than if you bought something at Gamestop as those don't ever come with the codes.

[Hector Garfria]

Holy fuck the DLC for Fallout 3 is uneventful borefest after borefest.


I'm having trouble beating the final part of The Pitt because the game keeps on freezing.

[usedtabe]

I liked it at the time but that one was pretty bad. Operation Anchorage was okay but it gave you the bad associated stealth Armor. The one that let's you get to level 30 was decent. The only one really good was the redneck one. Never played Zeta but heard and read it sucked.

[Hector Garfria]

Point Lookout best DLC ever I can kill usedtabes all day.

[Edd Strid]

Replaying The Darkness and never realised it was so clunky in shooting. Jackie Estacado's hairs is so lanky and greasy!

Very clunky and the online code for that game is terrible. It's still a decent game even with it's sketchy gameplay.

Mothership Zeta is the Mad Moxxi of DLC for Fallout. Slow, boring, repetitive as you get plasma weapons all over the place.

[usedtabe]

Darkness II just keeps getting better. I don't know how it flew under the radar as it's one of the few games in a long time that I'm playing for the story(even though the gameplay is fun as well). I remember the first game being very engaging and the voice acting was good but this one is topping it ATM. Unless they do something completely retarded with the ending this game will be close to perfect. Even if they do manage to fuck up the ending, the mystery and journey to it so far makes it a 9/10 for me.

[Edd Strid]

That's encouraging used, I loved the first game and having the ability to watch To Kill a Mockingbird or the other channels added a little something special to an already great atmosphere of a good game.

[usedtabe]

The Darkness 2 get's a 10/10 from me. It's so good I am literally going to go back through it again, and I haven't done that with a game in years.

To say I was done/bored/tired of video game stories and acting is an understatement. Other than noted games like Bioshock and RPGs like Fallout, I usually skip all custscenes(even in your beloved "trophy story" games like Metal Gear Solid). But this game has renewed my hopes that games can tell a good story and have good acting. Yes, they try a little too hard with some of the love "stuff" between Jackie and Jenny but what they get right they do it really well. I honestly kept waiting for them to do something retarded, as it had been so good and had me guessing as to what was real and wasn't the entire time. After it was over for the ending I chose I wanted to go back in immediately. And reading on the ending I didn't choose(the "bad" one) it really hit me hard. The way that one plays out is just amazing, and I haven't even experienced it yet. The main character's VA did so good I even sat through the loading screens past the "press B to skip" just to hear him finish the monologues. I never do that, not even in the first one.

"Take care of him while I'm handling this"

"Yeah, we'll watch the nutball. We'll take em to tha zoo. Retards like tha zoo."

Gameplay is really smooth and really fun. Not as many Darkness options as the first, but you don't really notice it. It's not as "open-world" either, but I honestly like that as the subway rides in the first got old. The skill trees add some fun options that more than make up for the 4 different darkness/darkling options in the first game. There's a lot of fun to be had with the combat in general. The gunplay isn't perfect but I was still able to get the majority of headshots I was trying for, and it's just fine if you're a spray and pray type of person.

Maybe this is all hitting me differently because I didn't expect them to come close the the first game's atmosphere, but they really nailed this one down. Some really good humor, acting, and even some touching and emotional story telling are all to be had here. I know lot's of games try to do love and romance, but they're usually shit IMO. What happened in the first game was hard to watch, and though they don't have a scene that comes close to that one in the sequel, the feeling of love,loss and despair are all there in a more minimalistic way, yet still as touching when they get it right.

10/10, going in again.