The Official "What Are You Playing?" Thread (Post Screens)

[BLACKICE 11]

Gravity Rush, Binary Domain and Mass Effect Infiltrator.

i got me infiltrator for a buck. how are the new controls?

They're fine as long as you position yourself correctly. You're pretty much dead If you run into 3+ enemies out in the open.

Solid game for $.99, but I prefer this devs previous game(dead space) more.

[-GD-X★ 7,760]

Yeah dead space played surprisingly well.

[Twinblade★ 3,935]

Gravity Rush (Vita) and Ys Origins (Steam/PC)

how's origins? im grabbing it soon.

[-GD-X★ 7,760]

Finished gravity rush. Despite the combat issues, it was a great game. An 8 in my book

[Sajuuk 329]

So fucking addicted to Shogun 2 at the moment, waiting on a summer sales or until my will breaks to get Fall of the Samurai. Stopped playing as the Oba because they're too fucking hard to play without samurai units, and now i'm onto the ikki, monks are a loophole! Still hard because everyone fucking hates the ikki and their religion

[Risky 2]

So fucking addicted to Shogun 2 at the moment, waiting on a summer sales or until my will breaks to get Fall of the Samurai. Stopped playing as the Oba because they're too fucking hard to play without samurai units, and now i'm onto the ikki, monks are a loophole! Still hard because everyone fucking hates the ikki and their religion

I'm pretty sure I played as the Hojo or Höjo something like that since their flag looks like the triforce.

[Sabo 442]

Well, finished Xenosaga Ep. 1.

The dungeons in Xenosaga are very bland to be honest. To make things worse there is no music in the background during these segments so the only audio you'll hear is the sound of your characters foot steps. The layouts of the dungeons are also very simple, it's a straight path for the most part with an alternate path scattered here and there that'll lead to a chest. Prowling along these paths are enemies. There are no random encounters in this game, instead you see enemies on the field and you initiate combat by coming into contact with them. Sometimes you may find an explosive object on the field that you can set off as a trap when an enemy is near it. If you trigger the battle after you set off the trap then you'll begin the battle with an advantage and depending on the type of trap it was you'll get different advantages. These traps aren't exactly common though so they really don't play that much of a factor.

The combat in Xenosaga is a bit different from Xenogears but it kind of uses the same template. There are tweaks and additions made but some of the same problems I had with Xenogears are present in Xenosaga although they're not as bothersome.

The combat system is this game is Turn Based instead of being an ATB system like Xenogears. You have your turn window displayed in the bottom corner of the screen but the turn order given isn't set in stone. Next to the turn window is the Event Slot. The Event Slot is an interesting dynamic because you can get different bonus effects depending on the active Event. There are four Event Slots:

Critical Rate Up -Higher chance to score a Critical Hit

Boost Gauge Up -Boost gauge fills up twice the amount as normal

Point Bonus -Killing an enemy on this Event being active rewards the player with more Points (Points are used to upgrade your characters skills, stats and abilities)

Then a blank slot with no effect at all.

This Event Slot constantly changes after each turn is taken in that exact order. Enemies can also take advantage of the Event Slot so you're going to want to keep a constant eye on the turn window and pay attention to the Event Slot.

Earlier I said the turn order isn't set in stone and that's because you can manipulate the turn order with a gameplay feature called Boosting (enemies can also Boost as well so keep that in mind). When you attack an enemy the Boost gauge will fill up. Each character has their own Boost gauge and you can store up to three Boosts. Boosting is a skill that's going to become necessary as you get deeper into the game. It's also a skill that breaks the game if you fully exploit it. A character can only Boost if they're not listed in the current turn order, if they're not listed then the character can Boost which effectively allows them to cut in line and take the next immediate turn. As long as a character isn't listed in the turn order then you can Boost another character to take the next turn after the previously Boosted character. This is where it becomes easy to exploit the system, if you max everyone's Boost gauge you can actually get twelve turns in a row which will make even the hardest boss fights a complete walk in the park. You can even get more turns than that if you plan around the Boost Gauge Up Event Slot although it's not even close to being necessary, twelve turns in a row is more than enough to dominate anything in this game.

As for the means of attacking you have Normal Attacks, Tech Attacks and Ether Attacks. You'll pretty much never use Normal Attacks because Tech Attacks/Ether Attacks will be your One-Two Punch (although you'll mostly be relying on One punch).

Tech Attacks replace the Deathblows from Xenogears and they behave a bit differently than Deathblows did. For starters, you can upgrade your Tech Attacks in this game to make them stronger with Tech Points. Tech Attacks are much faster to execute as well, you're not forced to sit through long attacking animations like you had to endure with Deathblows. You also don't have access to all of them at all times like you did with Deathblows, instead you have to assign them to a blank Tech Slot in order for them to be used. Tech Attacks come in two flavors- Near and Far. You have six slots to assign Tech Attacks to, two slots are for Far attacks only and the rest are for Near. Each slot also has it's own pre-set button combo displayed next to it. This is starting to sound a bit more complicated than it actually is but it's really simple. For example, say I wanted to assign KOS-MOS's R-Cannon to be an active Tech Attack.

Since R-Cannon is a Far Tech Attack I can only assign it to a Far Tech Slot. Next to the Far Tech Slot you'll see a button combo displayed. In order to use this attack in combat I'd have to do the button combo I assigned R-Cannon to.

Because of the way Tech Attacks work in this game there are no longer long combos to memorize like you had to do in Xenogears. Since you can also upgrade your Tech Attacks the latest ones won't make the previous ones obsolete like what happened to Deathblows in Xenogears. Tech Attacks are still just as dominating as Deathblows were however, I will even say with the ability to upgrade them they become even more dominating.

Ether Attacks are unfortunately just not as good for offensive means when compared to Tech Attacks. You'll mostly be using the White magic type Ethers and the occasional buff type. There is one interesting thing about Ethers though and that's the ability to use Ether Points to teach other characters. Every character in this game has their own Ether tree with their own unique Ethers to learn. You can use Ether Points to teach characters how to use an Ether from another character's Ether tree. This is really useful and you'll want to teach certain Ethers to as many characters as possible (for example- the all powerful Boost Ether, an Ether that immediately fills the Boost Gauge one level). It's just a shame all of the offensive Ether attacks just aren't as powerful as Tech Attacks are, even in the late game when you learn the more powerful offensive Ether attacks they still don't match up to your upgraded Tech Attacks.

So once again we end up with a pretty one dimensional combat system much like Xenogears was plagued with. However, the new additions and tweaks did help prevent it from becoming too uninteresting and boring. There's some nice ideas in here but they just need to balance everything out so these ideas can really shine. I'll be jumping into Xenosaga Ep II so hopefully I'll see some improvements.

[OperatOr 2]

I bought some MS points. Going to play the walking dead episode 2 tonight !!!!!

[soup 105]

Messed around with The Iconoclasts, a neat little Metroidvania game. It's not done yet, but there's an alpha version up for free worth checking out IMO.

http://www.konjak.org/index.php?folder=4&file=30

Going to play Lone Survivor after Viewtiful Joe.

[Dark_Emerald 1]

Gravity Rush (Vita) and Ys Origins (Steam/PC)

how's origins? im grabbing it soon.

It's awesome! Very beautiful and solid game so far. I'm having some graphic and framerate issues though because the game isn't recognizing my graphics card properly on my laptop. I'll have to play with the settings a bit. :(

Well, finished Xenosaga Ep. 1.

...

So once again we end up with a pretty one dimensional combat system much like Xenogears was plagued with. However, the new additions and tweaks did help prevent it from becoming too uninteresting and boring. There's some nice ideas in here but they just need to balance everything out so these ideas can really shine. I'll be jumping into Xenosaga Ep II so hopefully I'll see some improvements.

[Sabo 442]

Gravity Rush (Vita) and Ys Origins (Steam/PC)

how's origins? im grabbing it soon.

It's awesome! Very beautiful and solid game so far. I'm having some graphic and framerate issues though because the game isn't recognizing my graphics card properly on my laptop. I'll have to play with the settings a bit. :(

Well, finished Xenosaga Ep. 1.

...

So once again we end up with a pretty one dimensional combat system much like Xenogears was plagued with. However, the new additions and tweaks did help prevent it from becoming too uninteresting and boring. There's some nice ideas in here but they just need to balance everything out so these ideas can really shine. I'll be jumping into Xenosaga Ep II so hopefully I'll see some improvements.

I get the feeling the use of that isn't in the good way.

[-GD-X★ 7,760]

trying to get dat plat for gravity rush and i just started playing lost winds 2 on the ipad. fuck, this game looks pretty damn sweet with the retina diplay and enhanced graphics. a lot better than the wiiware version. i also plan to start yakuza 4 this weekend.

[mysticmoonman 1]

Does my fleshlight count?

[Rusty Shackleford 7]

hey gd did you like picross 3d? there's an awesome knockoff on the app store

[-GD-X★ 7,760]

hey gd did you like picross 3d? there's an awesome knockoff on the app store

i never tried it. what's it like?

[Rusty Shackleford 7]

hey gd did you like picross 3d? there's an awesome knockoff on the app store

i never tried it. what's it like?

it's called Oh Cube but it's where you get a big brick and you remove blocks to make a shape out of it

[-GD-X★ 7,760]

hey gd did you like picross 3d? there's an awesome knockoff on the app store

i never tried it. what's it like?

it's called Oh Cube but it's where you get a big brick and you remove blocks to make a shape out of it

ah.. i like those kinds of games. i will get! thanks bro!

[Twinblade★ 3,935]

gemini rue is a really cool little adventure game. atmosphere wise it reminds me a lot of blade runner.

[Hot Sauce 2,734]

So fucking addicted to Shogun 2 at the moment, waiting on a summer sales or until my will breaks to get Fall of the Samurai. Stopped playing as the Oba because they're too fucking hard to play without samurai units, and now i'm onto the ikki, monks are a loophole! Still hard because everyone fucking hates the ikki and their religion

http://www.getgamesgo.com/product/shogun-2-fall-of-the-samurai

[-GD-X★ 7,760]

gemini rue is a really cool little adventure game. atmosphere wise it reminds me a lot of blade runner.

i'm going to play that after i finish Yesterday.