Where are my Satellite Guy's gamers at?

[yourbeliefs]

I suppose.. but it did feel satisfying to bash that button to rip that guy's arm off...

 

[Zookster]

I haven't had much time for gaming the last few weeks, but in that time, I have kept up with the TWAU and TWD2 episodes, though given the hour length of each one, that hasn't been a problem. (still need to download the last one for TWAU)

I've also dabbled in the Game of Thrones RPG (about halfway through the campaign of a game that is the definition of mediocrity--and I say that as a big fan of the TV series and books) and Sly Cooper Thieves in Time (a PS Plus freebee that I'm glad I didn't end up buying earlier as tempted as I was at times. It's a good game, but it's nice to actually get a free game I was willing to spend money on as part of my Plus sub.).

And this past weekend, I finally started my Mass Effect 3 run with all DLC installed (thanks to a recent 50% off sale on the PSN) and with a Shepard that I first created in ME1. Last night I completed From Ashes and agree with many other people in other forums that Javik really should have been (or was originally intended to be) part of the core game. Compared to Zaeed or Kasumi in ME2, it's pretty obvious the Prothean is an integral part of the story and will add a lot of insight to future missions.

 

[yourbeliefs]

Apparently my Bigby is a different kind of wolf..

 

[king3pj]

Wow! I saw the very rare stutter now and then but nothing like that.

Speaking of glitches. I'm currently playing Saints Row 4 and having a glitch with the music. It has been like this every time I play. No music plays if I am in a car even when I manually try to select a channel. Strangely enough I have had the music randomly start a couple times while I was running on foot but not once in a vehicle.

 

[yourbeliefs]

Wow! I saw the very rare stutter now and then but nothing like that.

Speaking of glitches. I'm currently playing Saints Row 4 and having a glitch with the music. It has been like this every time I play. No music plays if I am in a car even when I manually try to select a channel. Strangely enough I have had the music randomly start a couple times while I was running on foot but not once in a vehicle.

You can get the music to manually play outside of the vehicles. I did that a lot, because once you get your gliding and super speed abilities there's literally NO reason to use a car unless they take the power away for a particular mission.

 

[king3pj]

You can get the music to manually play outside of the vehicles. I did that a lot, because once you get your gliding and super speed abilities there's literally NO reason to use a car unless they take the power away for a particular mission.

Yeah, I've gotten a little ways past where vehicles are necessary but I still can't make the music play. The only time I hear it is the missions where a specific song plays in the background like the first time you fly a spaceship. It doesn't play by default and even when I manually select one of the in game radio stations I hear nothing. All other game sounds seem normal.

 

[yourbeliefs]

Some have said it's a glitch based on the key bindings, but I never had issues when playing with my 360 controller. Maybe a custom key binding is in some way responsible.

 

[king3pj]

Some have said it's a glitch based on the key bindings, but I never had issues when playing with my 360 controller. Maybe a custom key binding is in some way responsible.

I saw something about that when I was searching for a fix. I am also playing with a 360 controller though and haven't changed any of the buttons from default.

One more comment about The Wolf Among Us. The episodes are noticeably shorter than TWD Season 1. If I remember correctly TWD Season 1 was about 2.5 hours per episode while TWAU were about 1.5 hours per episode. This isn't necessarily a bad thing for me because sometimes I like a focused story I can play through in one sitting.

I just looked at my Steam profile and it says it took me 7.5 hours total to play all 5 episodes. Just something to point out for people who like to get their money's worth out of a game. Of course, you could always play it again making different choices if you want to get more hours out of it.

 

[yourbeliefs]

Yeah I haven't even finish the game (about to start Episode 4 and working through my 2nd Episode 3 save) but I have 12.2 hours according to Steam. Like I said, playing it with 2 concurrent saves does make it a bit more fun and give a better view of everything that's going on. But yes I also noticed that the chapters were noticeably shorter than they were in TWD 1 and 2. I'm taking a break from Season 2 of TWD until Episode 5 is released.

 

[Zookster]

I'm finding both the TWD2 and TWAU episodes to run about 1.25-1.5 hours so far, usually closer to 1.25. Only the last episode of TWD1 ran that short. The other TWD1 episodes ran closer to 2.5 as king3pj said. I think some of the difference might have to do with the much simpler puzzles and less challenging action sequences in TWD2 and TWAU. I remember in even my second time through TWD1 on the Vita, I still had some trouble with a few puzzles (like getting the pharmacy key in episode 1) and died a few times in the action sequences (though some of that was related to getting used to the Vita controls).

 

[king3pj]

Tell Tale has gotten me into the point and click adventure genre. I know this was a classic style for PC games but I was a console guy so I never really played them before. I have picked up several of them during humble bundles and Steam sales. Now that I'm waiting on Gamefly to have a copy of Wolfenstein for me I'm making a tiny dent in my Steam backlog. I started Broken Age but the first point and click I finished was The Blackwell Legacy.

I had a lot of time to kill over at my parents house yesterday and of course none of my gaming stuff is over there. My mom has a standard HP laptop so I opened up my Steam library and looked for something that could run on that i3 with no separate GPU besides my normal go to, Civ 5. I got the Blackwell Legacy bundle of games 1-4 for $2 during the Steam summer sale. The 5th game that closes out the series wasn't included. Anyways, this series was released from 2006-2014 but strangely all 5 games run on Windows ME or later. These games were designed to be classic point and click adventure and built for classic hardware(directX 5, 64MB RAM, and locked to 640x400 resolution).

http://store.steampowered.com/app/80330

I played through it in 1 sitting. Steam says I played for 4.3 hours but I got up several times to help my dad (the reason I was over there). If I was at my own house with my entire library available to me I wouldn't have played it that long at once but it was good enough for the situation I was in. The game is ok and I'll likely jump into the next one next time I need to keep an eye on my dad for a day. The story was interesting enough. I will admit that I had to consult a walkthrough 3 or 4 times. There we're a couple instances of classic adventure game logic that I don't understand how any one could figure out on their own.

 

[yourbeliefs]

Well it should be noted that Tell Tale was founded by a number of former Lucasfilm Games employees, the company behind the golden age of adventure games like Monkey Island, Loom, etc etc, which would also explain how they got Sam & Max and Tales from Monkey Island as well as a few others. To be fair though, most adventure games of today are REALLY, well, dumbed down compared to the games of the 80s and 90s. That's not to say that the ones of old were better, but they definitely made you think more about how to solve various puzzles. I still will never understand how Sierra adventure games became so popular back in the day because god DAMN were they hard. I really should consult with my cousins who first introduced me to such games to understand why they bothered playing them. Hell they had all the Kings and Police Quest games and actually seemed to enjoy them. When I tried them out then (and even today) I can't help but think my time would be better spent doing ANYTHING else rather than trying to figure out what sort of logic and patience could be implemented to solve this. Oh, and also Sierra games were INFAMOUS for having more ways to die than a compilation of all the fatalities of every Mortal Kombat game released thus far. If you ever want to delve into those, GoG has all those and they're frequently on sale.

 

[king3pj]

Well it should be noted that Tell Tale was founded by a number of former Lucasfilm Games employees, the company behind the golden age of adventure games like Monkey Island, Loom, etc etc, which would also explain how they got Sam & Max and Tales from Monkey Island as well as a few others. To be fair though, most adventure games of today are REALLY, well, dumbed down compared to the games of the 80s and 90s. That's not to say that the ones of old were better, but they definitely made you think more about how to solve various puzzles. I still will never understand how Sierra adventure games became so popular back in the day because god DAMN were they hard. I really should consult with my cousins who first introduced me to such games to understand why they bothered playing them. Hell they had all the Kings and Police Quest games and actually seemed to enjoy them. When I tried them out then (and even today) I can't help but think my time would be better spent doing ANYTHING else rather than trying to figure out what sort of logic and patience could be implemented to solve this. Oh, and also Sierra games were INFAMOUS for having more ways to die than a compilation of all the fatalities of every Mortal Kombat game released thus far. If you ever want to delve into those, GoG has all those and they're frequently on sale.

I think the Blackwell games are meant to be a callback to the older adventure games in that it required a lot more thinking than TWD or TWAU. As far as I can tell there is no way to die or get a game over screen but there were times where I simply couldn't figure out how to progress. When I started and was still determined to figure it all out myself I spent at least 30 minutes going back and forth between the areas that were available to me, clicking everything there was to click with no success. When I finally looked it up I was glad I did because I never would have came up with the solution on my own no matter how long I tried.

You had to talk to a lady that was playing a flute for a street crowd. If you click on her your character refuses to interrupt her saying she has to wait until the lady stops playing. She won't stop playing on her own no matter how long you wait. There is a nearby dog on a leash tied to a garbage can. If you click the dog or the leash your character refuses to go near it. There were other parts of town you could go to so I kept going back and forth between all of them looking for something to make the lady talk to me. This is around 15 minutes into the game and had me questioning whether I wanted to keep playing.

Spoiler

It turns out that the solution was to walk to a light post that is not even near the dog. There is nothing to click on at this post and nothing to indicate that it's important. You have to make your character walk in a circle around the post. Once you do the dogs leash will stretch and he will follow you around the post and get stuck. This finally makes the flute lady stop playing and come talk to you. Keep in mind that nothing before or after this point requires you to move your character around things in the environment. It's all about clicking things to look for clues and making the right choices in dialog. I looked at the Steam discussion for the game after I finished and one of the first posts was someone asking for help with this puzzle. The people who answered pointed out that the included commentary features the developer saying how much he regretted putting this in the game because no one can figure it out without looking online and many people simply quit because it's so early in the game.

Thankfully most of the other puzzles were more logical and I could figure them out on my own even if it did take me a while. There were 2 or 3 other times I needed to look at the walkthrough though.

 

[yourbeliefs]

Well TWAU and TWD are really more of interactive narratives. Tell Tale does have true adventure games, but they really are on the lower end of difficulty. Clearly it was done to make the games more accessible, which I like, because as much as i like the storytelling of older adventure games, the fact that I need to have a walkthrough open in another window ruins the experience a bit for me. One that's worth picking up IMO is Tales of Monkey Island. Good acting and story (although admittedly you get more out of it if you played the originals because of the various references and characters) and I only had to reference gamefaqs a handful of times.

 

[yourbeliefs]

So I just finished The Wolf Among Us..

TL;DR: It's a great interactive narrative, pick it up at 50% off, GOTY candidate, A-.

Not much to talk about in terms of gameplay.. if you played The Walking Dead you've played this.

So let's talk about story. The story in this is quite well executed. It starts off as a simple murder mystery and grows into something much bigger. It's impossible to talk about this game and not draw comparisons to The Walking Dead as both are interactive narratives based on other material, and I have to say that this is similar but not a clone just with different characters. Yes, at the end of the day your decisions will not change the main story path, but they definitely make a difference in terms of overall experience. I played the game twice but had both playthroughs running in parallel, and I highly suggest everyone do this. It doesn't add too much time as the game is so short to begin with (it's less than 8 hours) and it gives a better understanding of the overall story. If you are dead set against doing so, I suggest at LEAST doing the last episode twice. You will be given a MAJOR choice and I suggest doing each option because the experience is drastically different, even if the end result is basically the same.

I would be amiss if I didn't point out a few things I did not enjoy about the experience, but honestly my complaints are very minor. For one, when they say "Next Time on The Wolf Among Us" most of the stuff they throw at you is BS, which is a weird decision on their part. Also, like TWD, your decisions don't result in major plot shifts, but just changes in the experience. Don't expect Mass Effect/Dragon Age level changes in what you decide. Still, there is a tangible difference depending on what you decide to do, which is best experienced parallel, as opposed to playing through once then starting from the beginning IMO.

Some have complained that the last episode sets up a cliffhanger and doesn't provide a satisfying ending. IMO this is rather unfounded, but don't be deluded into believing that this doesn't set up a second season because it certainly does, but to be fair it doesn't set it up as much as say, TWD does. The story of the first season is wrapped up regardless of the decisions you make, and there isn't a real "obligation" to get into Season 2 like TWD has. Without trying to spoil, the plot continuation is done in similar fashion to what was done in The Usual Suspects. I certainly look forward to what the next season will bring, and as soon as I get a deal for 50% or greater I will be sure to jump on it.

In conclusion, if you're looking for a well told story and another great example of "Games Are Art" then The Wolf Among Us is a shining example. It's not perfect, but lord knows I had fun with it and likely you will too, assuming you're willing to accept it's gameplay limitations.

 

[yourbeliefs]

So I just finished Act 1 of Broken Age. Most of what I mentioned in my early impressions still holds true: Classic Tim Shafer humor, TellTale style adventure with an interesting story that definitely has me interested in Act 2. Of course, the fact that we don't have Act 2 yet is more than a little annoying.

The stories of Vella and Shay are quite interesting, although I feel Shay is more interesting. Shay is a teenage boy stuck on a space ship controlled by a sort of "mother" AI that coddles him constantly and always seeks to protect him like an overbearing mother. His "mission" is to not so much escape but to find some adventure in his life, which he does with the assistance of a "wolf" named Marek. Meanwhile, Vella lives in a world where a weird creature called Mog Chothra goes around to all the villages and threatens to kill everyone unless each village sacrifices a few young girls to appease him. Vella is one of such girls but ends up fighting back and escaping, and then resolves to try and kill Mog Chothra. Yes, there's a bit more to each story, but to indulge more would be spoiling the fun (and plot.)

I don't have many complaints. As I stated, the fact that this was split up into two separate parts is annoying because these two seemingly unrelated characters relation is only revealed at the VERY END of the Act and then it ends. The game also skews a bit too much on the easy side. I only had to consult a FAQ once and the only reason I was stuck was because I missed picking up a particular item that did nothing in the game to distinguish itself as something I should pick up. So really this is almost easier than the standard TellTale game, which I don't think was something the majority of the Kickstarter backers were looking for when Tim said he wanted to make a game similar to the old Lucasfilm Games adventure games. Again, I'd prefer something more accessible, but I also want something that challenges my mind a bit more than this game did.

Still, as I mentioned earlier I am intrigued enough to see how the story ends, and after seeing the reveal at the end of Act I I looked back at what happened in the respective stories and am having fun putting different pieces together. I suppose for those not big into Tim's work it's best to wait until Act 2 comes out and read the reviews and wait before delving into this (as well as waiting for a 50%+ discount) but those who like an interesting, light-hearted story will likely find much to love about Broken Age. I can't really give this a grade yet as this is not finished yet but it definitely gets a recommendation so far.

I'm considering going into my unplayed TellTale games while I got this adventure bug. I also have Mario Kart 8 giving my Wii U some love. Finally I've been enjoying my time with the Strider reboot as well. We'll see what happens after tomorrow when the big Destiny Beta begins.

 

[Zookster]

I can only assume Broken Age will eventually make it to a PS platform near me. Perhaps the delay is in getting it ported to PS4 rather than PS3.

 

[king3pj]

I can only assume Broken Age will eventually make it to a PS platform near me. Perhaps the delay is in getting it ported to PS4 rather than PS3.

Yeah, I think it was a kick starter game so the original budget probably wasn't big enough to port to all the consoles. I'm enjoying my time with it and I have heard it mentioned in the gaming press quite a bit so I assume it's doing pretty well on PC.

Now that they are making some money off it I would be shocked if they aren't working on console ports to reach a bigger audience. Many of these popular indie games make it to console eventually after they prove themselves on PC. Sony has been very aggressive about going after the more popular little games on Steam too.

Unfortunately the wait between part 1 and part 2 has been pretty long. That could easily be because they have been working on porting part 1 to consoles instead of cranking out part 2.

 

[Zookster]

While on the subject of adventure games, episode 4 of TWD2 is releasing Tuesday, July 22.

 

[yourbeliefs]

While on the subject of adventure games, episode 4 of TWD2 is releasing Tuesday, July 22.

Good. Just finished Episode 3. Still a little lost in that there doesn't seem to be an overarching goal like Season 1, but we'll see if they pull something off in these next 2 episodes.

I was a little disturbed though when I saw this in Episode 3. Seems a little out of place in a game as serious as this..slightly NSFW and very small spoiler..