The Shrine

Now that we're through the madness of the August to November release schedule, what are you guys playin' right now? I can see the Mass Madness going on, but not sure what else you guys are still playin'.

I personally have the following on the go:

- Portal: played it for about an hour and a half and got to Level 18, the one where you enter a room and have the crazy timing of opening the door with the suspended button. Got there just before the 3RLOD and haven't gotten back into since. This is an awesome action-puzzle game that everyone should try

- Mass Effect: got through Eden Prime (I think that's the name of the planet; got the first achievement). We spent about an hour and a half or so, about half an hour just creating the face of the guy (took a basic soldier for the first play-through). That's an awesome feature. This game looks and feels awesome, can't wait to get into it more.

- Assassin's Creed: got to the top of the first city where you meet the head of your clan; again, about an hour or so once you get through the tutorial and to that part with some exploring and fooling around in the city. Very neat gameplay and the game is gorgeous, no doubt about it. I'll judge for myself whether or not it gets stale but I really like how it's setup.

- Metroid Prime 3: finally got to this game. Played it for about 45 minutes or so, got to the part where you first learn about and land your ship. Feels very, very familiar and was getting used to the controls and sensitivity (I may turn it up). I like very much so far but like all Metroids, we'll have to see how the rest of the game is.

- Mario Galaxy: Wow, this game is insanely fun. Really starts you off a bit slow but once you get into it and see just what they do with the setup, it's incredible. I love how the galaxies are set up like levels and within each level it's essentially broken up into small, self-contained sections. Sounds weird but it works amazingly well. Somehow, this game wows me on a regular basis, just like Mario 64 did back in the day. And it's not like the entire game is a cake walk. You COULD beat it without too much issues, but go back and try and get the special stars, the ones where you race your shadow or have timed runs. They ain't that easy. And there's so much to explore, so many things you can try. This game is getting better and better the more I play and really reminds you just how far above most other game developers Miyamoto really is. Looks and feels like the true sequel to Mario 64 with Sunshine more like an offshoot to keep you busy until this one came along (the fact that it was mostly developed by someone else helps too).

Due to the ridiculous awesomeness of Mario Galaxy (and the fact it can easily be played in 20 minute bursts) all other games are on hold. It is that amazing.

Christmas break (2 weeks for me) is gonna be filled with such gaming goodness, especially with Rock Band coming...

Mass Effect definitely.

I'm still playing a bit of Virtua Fighter

Halo 3 - the people I play with online make it soooooo much fun

Twilight Princess for the GameCube. For the past five months. And before that, it was FF12 for seven months.

There are oodles of games I'd like to play, but time and money are limited.

Just Mass Effect now. Recently GH3, Halo, and FFVI (GBA). Been slowly whittling away at FFVI... wish I could just skip to end game to check out the new shit.

Should we have a Game of the Year vote? There aren't many of us so the winner will likely be by a vote.

Kupek wrote:Twilight Princess for the GameCube. For the past five months. And before that, it was FF12 for seven months.

There are oodles of games I'd like to play, but time and money are limited.

Yeah, I gotta get back into Twilight as well.

My Xmas break is filling up FAST :-)

Right now, mostly Rock Band. I did some 3-player World Tour on Wednesday and we did some 4-player yesterday for several hours. So much fun.

I just got Rainbow Six: Vegas so I want to play more of that.

Right now I am playing Super Mario Galaxy, Smackdown vs Raw 08 for Wii, Albatross 18, WoW, Me and My Katamari, the FF Tactics remake for PSP, Inital D (import) and PopoloCrois.

Mario Galaxy for console, easily the best game in years, at least. I had to put down everything else for this game, at least until I finish it through.

Also Phoenix Wright 3 on handheld.

M'k'n'zy wrote:Right now I am playing Super Mario Galaxy, Smackdown vs Raw 08 for Wii, Albatross 18, WoW, Me and My Katamari, the FF Tactics remake for PSP, Inital D (import) and PopoloCrois.

That's a helluva list of older and newer games

Zeus wrote:

M'k'n'zy wrote:Right now I am playing Super Mario Galaxy, Smackdown vs Raw 08 for Wii, Albatross 18, WoW, Me and My Katamari, the FF Tactics remake for PSP, Inital D (import) and PopoloCrois.

That's a helluva list of older and newer games

Well I just got the PSP in the last couple of weeks here, a friend of mine didnt want his and he sold me the system and about a dozen games for 40 bucks.

Also those are just the games I am actively playing. If I got into the list of games I am playing off and on that size would about triple.

Megaman ZX Advent
Assassin's Creed
World Of Warcraft: BC
Jeanne D'Arc

Kupek wrote:Twilight Princess for the GameCube. For the past five months. And before that, it was FF12 for seven months.

Jesus, you poor bastard. Economical, at least .

Actively playing:

* COD4
* Mass Effect

Just finished:

* Phoenix Wright 2

Currently distracted from, but intend to play more:

* FFT on PSP
* The Orange Box (HL2 ep. 2 specifically)
* Halo 3

Looking forward to playing shortly:

* Phoenix Wright 3
* Super Mario Galaxy

Andrew, Killer Bee wrote:

Kupek wrote:Twilight Princess for the GameCube. For the past five months. And before that, it was FF12 for seven months.

Jesus, you poor bastard. Economical, at least .

Actively playing:

* COD4
* Mass Effect

Just finished:

* Phoenix Wright 2

Currently distracted from, but intend to play more:

* FFT on PSP
* The Orange Box (HL2 ep. 2 specifically)
* Halo 3

Looking forward to playing shortly:

* Phoenix Wright 3
* Super Mario Galaxy

Do NOT play Mario Galaxy until you're done all the other games or you're willing to put all other games on hold. Just fair warning....

COD 4 multiplayer, I was in the midst of boring zelda:PH (but sold my DS on ebay for THIS!), Dragon Force, Mario galaxy (doing the thing after you get 120 stars), Halo 3 multiplayer when anyone invites me, and writing SOC, PSCI, and WMST papers.... those are games.... right?


also, 400th post! eat it bitches!

bovine wrote:COD 4 multiplayer, I was in the midst of boring zelda:PH (but sold my DS on ebay for THIS!), Dragon Force, Mario galaxy (doing the thing after you get 120 stars), Halo 3 multiplayer when anyone invites me, and writing SOC, PSCI, and WMST papers.... those are games.... right?


also, 400th post! eat it bitches!

So are you saying that Zelda: Phantom Hourglass is boring unless it is in a golden cartridge played in a golden DS? You're even WORSE than a graphic whore =P

bovine wrote:COD 4 multiplayer, I was in the midst of boring zelda:PH (but sold my DS on ebay for THIS!), Dragon Force, Mario galaxy (doing the thing after you get 120 stars), Halo 3 multiplayer when anyone invites me, and writing SOC, PSCI, and WMST papers.... those are games.... right?


also, 400th post! eat it bitches!

Ah Dragon Force... the one Saturn game I really wanted but never owned. Moot point now, since I don't have a Saturn anymore. I do, however, have a good condition Guardian Heroes.

I've got japanese guardian heroes.... the north american one is fetching too high a price.

I have no idea what happened to my Saturn, I know for sure I had one ~2 years ago, but it disappeared around that time. I haven't really asked any questions about it though.

* Mass Effect right now.
* Still need to finish Orange Box (on episode 2 right now).
* Played through Bioshock twice already.
* Still pop in Burnout: Revenge every once in a while, or TF2 on the Orange Box.
* Got WSOP '06, but haven't played it much.
* I'm about halfway through Eternal Sonata, but I haven't had much desire to play the rest.

Still have Crackdown unopened. Twilight Princess is also unopened, but my Wii is at my parent's house, and I'll probably just end up giving it to them for Christmas. I'll get it back in a few years and catch up on games when I'm bored with my 360.

Ninja Gaiden and FFXII.

That's right.

Ninja Gaiden. Original One--no fancy Ninja Gaiden BLACK or Ninja Gaiden Sigma.

Back in my day, we played our original Ninja Gaiden on the X-box and we was GRATFUL.

Also, FFXII. Neither of them I have beaten, so I'm hoping to get one of them finished in the next week or two.

Fucking Fire Cavern in Ninja Gaiden though...ugh....

RentCavalier wrote:Ninja Gaiden and FFXII.

That's right.

Ninja Gaiden. Original One--no fancy Ninja Gaiden BLACK or Ninja Gaiden Sigma.

Back in my day, we played our original Ninja Gaiden on the X-box and we was GRATFUL.

Also, FFXII. Neither of them I have beaten, so I'm hoping to get one of them finished in the next week or two.

Fucking Fire Cavern in Ninja Gaiden though...ugh....

Dude...original Ninja Gaiden was NES, not X-box.

M'k'n'zy wrote:

RentCavalier wrote:Ninja Gaiden and FFXII.

That's right.

Ninja Gaiden. Original One--no fancy Ninja Gaiden BLACK or Ninja Gaiden Sigma.

Back in my day, we played our original Ninja Gaiden on the X-box and we was GRATFUL.

Also, FFXII. Neither of them I have beaten, so I'm hoping to get one of them finished in the next week or two.

Fucking Fire Cavern in Ninja Gaiden though...ugh....

Dude...original Ninja Gaiden was NES, not X-box.

no shit mant....rent you pussy.....you call yourself a ninja gaiden fan.......christ....play a real game sometime

RentCavalier wrote:Ninja Gaiden and FFXII.

That's right.

Ninja Gaiden. Original One--no fancy Ninja Gaiden BLACK or Ninja Gaiden Sigma.

Back in my day, we played our original Ninja Gaiden on the X-box and we was GRATFUL.

Also, FFXII. Neither of them I have beaten, so I'm hoping to get one of them finished in the next week or two.

Fucking Fire Cavern in Ninja Gaiden though...ugh....

*Russian accent* You don't know from Ninja Gaiden

I always pictured you with a Russian accent anyway.

Dutch wrote:I always pictured you with a Russian accent anyway.

Keep those comments to those who would like them, like Derith or Ish. I'm married, man.....to a woman...... :-)

Zeus wrote:

Dutch wrote:I always pictured you with a Russian accent anyway.

Keep those comments to those who would like them, like Derith or Ish. I'm married, man.....to a woman...... :-)

I picture her with a Russian accent as well. Though I am not sure what your interest in Derth or Ish is.

Recently beat : Assassin's Creed

Playing: Mass Effect (second play through), GH3 (when I'm bored)

Have played a bit of but not into yet: Mario Galaxy, HL2 on Orange Box, RE4 Wii, Super Paper Mario (half way through and dropped it a few months ago).

Still need to beat : Dead Rising.

And my timeless habit I pick up for months at a time and drop again : Dark Age of Camelot.

Mass effect on hardcore......this is how it should be played.....

can't wait to beat it and start one on insane

Mmmmm...Ninja Gaiden. Such an awesome piece of work. Can't wait for the new one to come out for the 360.

At home I mainly play Mario Galaxy, possibly my favorite Mario ever.

My friend also just bought a shitload of games, so when I'm there I play Halo 3, Ace Combat 6, COD 4, Resident Evil Umbrella Chronicles, and Marvel Ultimate Alliance.

Crysis, but I just got to a part where it brought my system to it's knees and then beat it like a red-headed step child. When shit goes Zero-G...my system went tits up.

I've been playing TF2 a lot as well.

OMG thread bump.


I've been playing Jeanne D'Arc for the last week and I really dig it. About thirty hours in now (many of those hours are idle) and the game has been pretty easy so far. I've failed maybe two battles so far, one of those being a stupid "save that dude on the other side of the map before he gets killed b-- oh wait, two hits and he's dead game over". I think the Sol-Stella-Luna elemental aspect is almost game breaking in that can preview your enemies (completely) before even deploying your troops, load your dudes up with winning element boost skills, and rape away.

But dispite all that, It's pretty awesome. Great cutscenes, nice graphics, nice music.

I loaded up FFT: War of the Lions for a bit yesterday... and I remembered how much I hate the first chapter. Much like how I hate playing FF4 until Mt. Ordeals, FF6 until the World of Ruin, and FF7 until after Midgar. Thankfully, the new translation has been much better so far, so that will make it a bit easier. The game is a little hard to look at after playing Jeanne D'Arc, but that's to be expected of a ten year-old game I guess.


Funny find: one of your followers in Jeanne D'Arc is based off this guy, a convicted child torturer, rapist, and serial killer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilles_De_Rais

Ever since I broke my toe, hurt my back and got the fucking flu, I've had less time to do physical activity, and more time to game. So I've been playing a lot of Final Fantasy Tactics. And loving it. No, not the PSP rerelease - although I'd love to play with the new translation, but both a PSP and a new game cost money.

I'm really impressed at how well Tactics has aged. Even the cut scenes still look well animated.

Advance wars: day of ruin
Project Sylpheed
Zak and Wiki
Rock Band

willing to play Gears, Halo3, COD4 online if anyone sends me a request. It should show that I'm online on my computer, so if you want me to play you'll have to send me a message, not a game invite.

bovine wrote:Advance wars: day of ruin
Project Sylpheed
Zak and Wiki
Rock Band

willing to play Gears, Halo3, COD4 online if anyone sends me a request. It should show that I'm online on my computer, so if you want me to play you'll have to send me a message, not a game invite.

How do you do that? If you mean you are signed into the Live website then you're mistaken-- it will not show you online on Xbox. At best it signs you on for a second to send messages if you choose. If you mean another method then please share.

there's some crazy way to link your MSN messenger account and your live account so that you can talk to people on your MSN list whilest playing on the 360. They can send you messages and your name on MSN is "Bovine - playing Rock Band" or something like that. Maybe it's a one-way street and you can only see your MSN contacts from MSN and Live and your Live contacts cannot see you when you are on just MSN. I wouldn't know because you can't see your live contacts when you're on MSN. Does that make sense? I feel like I just typed the same thing three times and now I don't know what I'm saying anymore...

Black Lotus wrote: I hate the first chapter. Much like how I hate playing FF4 until Mt. Ordeals, FF6 until the World of Ruin, and FF7 until after Midgar.

I'm quite the opposite, my favourite part of FFT was Chapter 1, of FF7 (by far) was Midgar, and of FF4 was until Mount Ordeals. FF6 I liked all the way through without having a clear major portion of the game that I liked better than the rest, or disliked more than the rest (I think Sabin's journey after the first battle with Ultros may be my favourite part of the game, though I'd certainly have to think on that).


As for games I am playing right now:

On PC I play Civilization 4 every now and then (I am looking forward to playing Civ on DS, though I worry a little that they'll simplify it too much, I would much rather have a straight Civ 4 conversion). I have been meaning to play Sim City Societies, but I don't even know if I'll ever get around to it considering I never even got around to Sim City 4 which I bought a couple years ago. I am mostly waiting for SPORE, and nothing else interests me.

On console, right now I have been playing: Suikoden, Endless Ocean, Mario Galaxy, Wii Sports, Wario Ware, and Resident Evil Umbrella Chronicles. Donkey Kong Country 3 (and yes, I feel this one is equal to or above the second game in every department except music; DKC2's soundtrack is one of the best ever made though, so its not really a fair comparison to any game), Mario Brothers 3 (that game never seems to get old and everyone loves to play it), and Sin and Punishment. I recently finished Breath of Fire 2.

DS is a bit different for me, I usually only play one game at a time on the system and instead of playing once or twice a week (like console) or once a month (like PC) I play DS at least once a day. Right now I am playing Final Fantasy Revenent Wings, I am almost finished it. My last game was Phoenix Wright 3, and my next one is Hotel Dusk. I also play Mario Kart frequently (multiplayer), and I log into Rune Factory every couple of weeks or so to keep into that one which I will probably jump fully back into after Apollo Justice.


Revenant Wings:

I felt the game was quite good; the flavour of the game is very reminiscent of the original Final Fantasy Tactics; much more so than FF12. The gameplay is scenario based like FFT, though the gameplay is RTS rather than FF12 or FFT style; you have access to dozens of different types of units. In addition, there are various types of scenarios, some will give you a limited amount of units to go through and complete, others will give you Soul Crystals or Summon gates which will allow you to pump out units and revive fallen heroes.

This game takes a bit more of a Norse spin on the mythology, which shares more similarities to a classic Matsuno game than I felt the original FF12 turned into; even though Revenent Wings didn't even have Matsuno working on it. The music is quite good in this game, it feels like sort of a mix between FF12 and FFT. I do recall commemts about the gameplay being more simplistic than FF12's, this is not the case, the tactics involved are more advanced than FF12 by quite a bit, but the gambit menu systems have certainly been pushed down, which is probably what Square was referring to.

The game utilizes a similar system to Fire Emblem in that Range > Flyers > Melee > ranged, and things like that. Overall the game is quite good, the 8.5 it got from Gamespot and the 8.3 it got from IGN are good scores; I would strongly recommend the game to DS owners. This is the first time an RTS/RPG style game has felt right, Warcraft III failed to reach this sort of enjoyable level.

Oh yeah, lots of Espers, lots of side quests, towns you can walk around (normally, as opposed to RTS style controls), airships you can walk around. This game has more units than games like Warcraft III and Starcraft particularly because it also includes all the Ivalice Espers, and many of the traditional Final Fantasy ones (using Odin and Ultima to fight is pretty cool; Ultima is my favourite Esper). Espers act as a regular unit, so there is nothing really special about them except that they take longer to build than other units.

A last point, this is one of the few games where North America got the more difficult version, and Japan got the easier; the justification was that North America was used to RTS games.

I've been playing now some CoD4 online. It's great. That is all.

Barret wrote:I've been playing now some CoD4 online. It's great. That is all.

get yourself some warhawk and then we can play together! yahoo!

bovine wrote:there's some crazy way to link your MSN messenger account and your live account so that you can talk to people on your MSN list whilest playing on the 360. They can send you messages and your name on MSN is "Bovine - playing Rock Band" or something like that. Maybe it's a one-way street and you can only see your MSN contacts from MSN and Live and your Live contacts cannot see you when you are on just MSN. I wouldn't know because you can't see your live contacts when you're on MSN. Does that make sense? I feel like I just typed the same thing three times and now I don't know what I'm saying anymore...

We should test it... I know all about the MSN integration but I don't think it means your Live friends can see you on MSN; only the other way around.

Currently playing:

* Viva Pinata (Just retrieved my copy from a friend who'd had it for a year.)
* Call of Duty 4 (Still!)

I bought Viva Pinata for my ex... I doubt I can get $5 for it now, as it cost $15 new.

Black Lotus wrote:I bought Viva Pinata for my ex... I doubt I can get $5 for it now, as it cost $15 new.

Definitely not at EB. They'd probably give you $2 for it

Zeus wrote:

Black Lotus wrote:I bought Viva Pinata for my ex... I doubt I can get $5 for it now, as it cost $15 new.

Definitely not at EB. They'd probably give you $2 for it

Trade in 10 games and get a used copy of Gran Turismo 2 for free!

I've been playing Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga and Assassin's Creed along with some of The Simpsons and, of course, Rock Band.

Gotta get a lot done before SSBB comes out next month!

I've been hard-core playing through Persona 3 and finally beat it yesterday, on the 31st (which is significant if you play the game).

Now I'm prolly gonna order Halo 3 soon, so in the meantime I'll either try and beat DMC3 or .hack

I beat Naruto for the 360. Fun game, particularly for fans of the series, but it's a little light in the fighting department and stuff gets repetitious, so it deserves the 7's or 7.5's it got.

I still highly recommend as a $30 game for the Naruto fan, you will enjoy it. Just make sure you download the Jap voices IMMEDIATELY. We don't want anyone throwing their controller through the TV screen 'cause they can't stand it anymore :-)

Playing Phoenix Wright 2, and just started playing Rez again. I need to grab DMC4 at some point.

I'm actually not playing much atm. I'm mostly just web surfing till I leave Alaska next month. I have been firing up emulators on my PSP and going back in time to the SNES days every so often.