Off Topic The Video Game thread

[Geoffrey Taucer]

I know we've got some other gamers on here. We've had specific game-related threads in the past, but they've tended to die fairly quickly, so I figured why not just have one catch-all thread for the subject of video games.

Anybody else played Journey? I would name it as not only the best game I've ever played, but perhaps the most moving work of art I've ever experienced. I don't think I've ever read a book or seen a movie that got me as emotionally involved as this game did, and it did so with such elegant simplicity.

Highly recommended for any gamer -- heck, highly recommended even for people that have never played a video game before.


I also just finished Dear Esther (though whether or not that qualifies as a game is debatable), and found it to be quite haunting.

 

[gymgurl]

Haven't played journey as I moved on from my gaming past (I was a significant gamer between ages 8 and 12) due to other commitments but had lots of fun playing:
Jak - probably my favourite of them all
Ratchet and Clank - equal favourite
Pokemon was a good old favourite haha

Now i'm more into the more girly Just Dance 3, Band hero, Singstar, Wii Fit and the like.

 

[BlairBob]

Baldur's Gate series.

Though I think I want to play some Star Wars since I watched the movie last week a few times, especially the trench scene into the Death Star. One of the X-wing games would suffice.

I kinda want to join WoW again so I can play my rogue and annoy "Alliance" members by ganking them and vanishing and throwing bombs at them. Don't really care about leveling, just ganking people randomly.

D3 sounds promising as well.

 

[gymkat]

Journey sounds a lot like Braid-- have you played that? The graphics are absolutely beautiful, and the time manipulation aspect is a great brain workout.

Unfortunately, I only have a computer and emulators (not to mention virtually no free time), but I still like to play my way through Earthbound/Mother 2 every so often-- yay SNES!

 

[Geoffrey Taucer]

I LOVED Earthbound.

Have you played Mother 3? I haven't finished it, but so far it's definitely living up to the expectations set out by Earthbound/Mother 2.

 

[gymkat]

I can't figure out how to get Mother 3 to save on my emulator!! I've tried patching it, but it still won't save.

 

[Geoffrey Taucer]

Does your emulator have savestates?

 

[BlairBob]

I gotta love the SNES emulators for Zelda or any of the old Sonic games. Especially any Sonic games with Tails or Mega-Man.

My tablet had a few neat games but they really took a lot of space with what little space it had on it (8gb to start, 5.5 for storage or so).

Hoping to get a nice laptop soon so maybe I can play some MMORPG like Conan or the most recent Duke Nukem.

 

[gymnastbeth]

I gotta love the SNES emulators for Zelda or any of the old Sonic games. Especially any Sonic games with Tails or Mega-Man.

I still have an SNES in my basement from growing up. Having three older brothers I always played a lot of video games.

Anyways, I LOVE LOVE old mega-man or sonic games. Maybe it's just the nostalgia, but I can spend hours with them. However, after playing through zelda several times, the newer games are more fun for me. Only problem with the SNES is that sometimes bumping it just slightly makes it reset itself.

 

[Geoffrey Taucer]

Journey sounds a lot like Braid-- have you played that? The graphics are absolutely beautiful, and the time manipulation aspect is a great brain workout.

I haven't played Braid. I keep hearing it's really great, but what I've seen of it doesn't look all that impressive. Is it really that good?

 

[emorymom]

Pro2k15: his videos on Dailymotion You guys should watch this ...

 

[gymkat]

I haven't played Braid. I keep hearing it's really great, but what I've seen of it doesn't look all that impressive. Is it really that good?

The concept is pretty basic: find the princess while manipulating time. The graphics are beautiful, and the puzzles are surprisingly challenging. It's the only game that actually has gotten me to go, "OOH!" as I inadvertently solved a puzzle.

I'm not super techy-- what are savestates? I'd love to be able to play all the way through Mother 3!

 

[Geoffrey Taucer]

Most emulators have an option to just instantly save at any point in the game, without having to find one of the save points built into the game. On SNES9x and other emulators based on the SNES9x interface, it's Shift+F1 (or F2, F3, etc) to save, and F1 (F2, F3, etc) to load.

Whatever your emulator, you can probably do it form the file menu.

 

[Geoffrey Taucer]

Perspective - Experimental First Person Perception Puzzle Game

Ok, remember when Portal came out? The entire game was built around one single piece of gameplay mechanics. And that one concept was so unbelievably genius that we could tell right from the start that it was going to be one of the best games ever made, and it completely and totally lived up to those expectations, and it's all just because somebody had the idea of the portal gun.

This game is like that. Watch the first ten seconds of the trailer and you'll see exactly what I mean; there is a single clever idea, easily put on display in a couple seconds of footage, that is so surpassingly brilliant as to be able to carry the entire game.

 

[Geoffrey Taucer]

Anybody else played the Mass Effect Trilogy?

I don't think I've ever gotten as emotionally invested in a game (other than Journey) as I did in this series.

SPOILERS AHEAD

I've played it so many times that I've probably seen every possible scenario, but there are two scenes that stand out to me like no other scene in any game or movie:

1) Choosing whether to brainwash or destroy the heretic Geth. Every time I play through, when I get to that point, I have to set the control down and really think about the implied existential questions about what it means to have free will, what it means to believe in something, and what it means to die for those beliefs. Extra credits once did an entire episode on that one scene.

2) Legion's death, if you choose to save the Quarians and sacrifice the Geth. "Does.... this.... unit.... have.....?" I cried like a baby.