6 Likes
still impressed at how good that AI was at magic
on my first hit i ejected the pilot out of one of these big boys so i just had her hop right in and have a Cannon Battle
the pilot was helplessly shooting his pistol at it from the ground
this game is dumb. i love it.
9 Likes
I got to play the Switch version of Floor Kids at a Kid Koala show last night.
Iâm not sure of when switching moves is optimal but I dig that itâs a rhythm game with options. Sort of like how the Rock Band drum fills provide mini creative breaks within the ridgid Simon format.
Iâm not a Bemani Beast so Iâm not sure if itâs something thatâll appear to that set.
If you ever wanted an update to those two C64 b-boy games this is it.
I picked this up and Iâve played the first chapter, about two hours or so of the game. Thereâs some fun ideas in here. I appreciate that melee fighters, archers, and mages all have clearly defined tactical positions they want to take. Archers get a HUGE bonus against targets lower than them â I think enemy defense is lowered by 50%, plus their accuracy is higher â but have a lot of trouble dealing with enemies on higher platforms. Mages have spells that are very good at attacking targets on their level or higher, but have NO tools for attacking enemies lower than themselves.
The game was pretty easy until stage 1-5, the first boss stage, which features a pretty sharp jump in difficulty and tactical interest. First, you have another showdown with the scantily-clad pirate gal, whose superpower is âhas a gunâ, but once you beat her you have to cross a long horizontal map full of zombies and ghosts, which are repeatedly summoned by the necromancer boss at the far end of the stage. Zombies are annoying foes, because while they donât do a ton of damage, they cannot be permanently killed unless you cast Raise or use a resurrection item on them. You may recognize this enemy type from a certain other tactical RPG.
The real issue with the zombies is not them resurrecting â itâs that they leave corpses behind. When youâre moving, you can âdisplaceâ your allies by moving onto a tile they currently occupy. Everyone in the line will shift one tile back to make room. You cannot displace enemy corpses, so if you kill two or three zombies in a line on flat ground, you can make it impossible for some of your units to advance past their bodies. This can result in, say, your units getting bunched up in a convenient spot for the boss to float over and start casting a Poison AOE on your party. This is one of those games where poison actually hurts you a lot, so there was a bit of a scramble for my healer to run over and start stacking Regeneration on as many people as possible (I hadnât bought Cure Ailment yet so using Regenâs health restoration to counteract the poison was my best play).
Hopeful that the later chapters will build on these kind of tricky situations more.
4 Likes
I really hope the inevitable darkest dungeon sequel goes in this direction
Game is awesome. I donât remember those cannon things. Maybe thatâs during the branched story part? I think I only did one of the branches.
I was gonna emulate FM5 but your comments made me hold off. I canât believe they got rid of pilot damage/commandeering other Wanzers!
1 Like
'ey there thisâs Buttman69 and hereâs my spoilah-free speedrun walkthru for the worst goddamn quest in Morrowind
itâs the one where you have to buy a sex slave, and then take her on an escort mission back to her âhusbandâ 
1 Like
Xbone or Peeshee?
PC only im afraid mate
Still going through FM3 and, like, I mean, okay, it has mechs and Cool Future Tech and Anime Super Soldiers and all that stuff that you would expect from something trying to be cool and appeal to Man, Isnât War Cool types butâŚ
Whatâs really standing out to me in the game is how overtly political it is. In a way that games post-9/11 simply werenât.
This is KIND OF spoilery so Iâm going to spoiler tag it. I mean, itâs almost 20 years old so I shouldnât, but maybe people would want to play it now.
The supposedly relatable part of the main story is about the protagonist beyond worried for his sister, a researcher, but also about The Bomb. Literally a nuclear bomb that leaves no fallout, and how that would affect the nature of war worldwide if it were a real thing; and how literally everyone is chasing the researchers who know how it works, while one of the ones who created it is trying to track it down to prevent more of them from ever being made again. (which seems like a lost cause to me but itâs fiction bear with it)
Through this, it tackles:
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The militarization of the police, as they chase you down with live ammunition
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Military being corrupt and very clearly covering its own tracks, going as far as willing to endanger civilians
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A Chinese Rebellion being primarily driven by monetary concerns (its backers, its resources, acquiring and selling thereof, and, ultimately, paying them back)
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How said moneyed interests are consistently more than willing to sell people out for their own security.
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The profitability of the Military-Industrial Complex through all this (âWho makes money during a war? The arms companies.â was directly said by a generic town NPC.)
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Continually, over and over, emphasizing that the people who suffer most under all this are the civilians on the ground, even as the protagonists try to stay focused on The Greater Good
Pretty overtly political here!
I did not expect any of this, but it also says a lot to me about what FM5 did not have.
FM5 didnât question anything. Youâre with The Good Guys, youâre fighting The Bad Guys, the end. No moral quandries. No questions about what youâre doing. Just hoo-rah military check out our cool robots. I definitely think that game was targeted primarily as export, with its heavy US military theming, so in retrospect itâs a little surprising it didnât make it over.
FM3âs themes are distinctly Japanese, by comparison.
It makes me think a lot about how very little media in the 00s had stories overtly political or critical of government, likely due to the world going mad after 9/11. MGS2 was released after but most likely went gold before. Only recently have I felt like the tide is turning on this sort of writing again.
3 Likes
MGS2 cut a whole New York section of the game, due to 9/11
FM3 also isnt boring. Despite being dense and also mostly unfolding via text boxes with static backgrounds and character portraits.
it was just a scene of arsenal crashing through lower manhattan
wow vr chat is incredible. i feel like i just played the role of camera operator for a virtual cinema verite documentary about loneliness
9 Likes
Well, the tanker section was supposed to be a much more developed section. A race against the clock, down the Hudson river, to prevent Ray from reaching Manhattan.
And I could swear I watched or read some behind the scenes content, which said that the bad guys would end up fortifying on a high floor in the world trade center. And Snake would then have to go up floor by floor.
But this was 16 or 17 years ago so, my memory could be contaminated.
there were a lot of weird ideas that were considered that we know about cause the design document and script are out there but most of that stuff was thrown out early on, just oddball early game design idea stuff. like they were going to call it mgs 3 and just skip over 2, different codec people, the first section being about wmd inspections in iraq instead of a tanker in new york, fight vamp one more time in a weird church room inside arsenal at the end, etc. but by 9/11 the game was basically finished, they werenât redeveloping whole sections. the only finished things to not make it were the arsenal crash scene, raiden cutting an american flag down so it floats onto solidus corpse to give him a presidential send off, and I think maybe a short live action talking head news bit in the credits.
1 Like
I got no mans sky for a real bargain
Itâs chill
I feel like the outrage would have been way more muted if they presented it more as âJourney but itâs actually a complete video gameâ and not as âthis is gonna replace your real life and youâre only gonna live and work in the game world from now onâ
The music that plays the first time you get to a space station is pretty amazing
3 Likes
I hear they improved it a lot with patches and there are still some meaningful additions to come.
Journey was a complete video game.
9 Likes