@feenwager I like making broad statements. It gets people goin’!

@bowlisimo I wouldn’t, as @feenwager states, broadly state that all the mainstream devs aren’t willing to try things out with storytelling. Hell, one of the most mainstream releases this year — Mass Effect 3, is still a solid example of RPG storytelling mechanics (until the ending). I even think Infinity Ward did a decent job with the atmosphere, characters, and moment-to-moment narrative of the earlier Call of Duty games. They kinda nailed that “you are one soldier with your buddies in the middle of a massive ward” feeling without a single cut scenes and with some solid set piece design in the WWII games as well as the American campaigns of the first two Modern Warfare games.

Sure the mainstream games are now stuck within a limited range of archetypes and characters and whatnot, but the medium is still malleable enough that even they’re willing to experiment with the mechanics.

@feenwager Canadians can’t be trusted with the internet. FACT.

@feenwager Don’t get it.. Don’t care

@feenwager I don’t understand how I’m supposed to make my friend codes work without the internets.

@beige Resistance is futile. At least in the lunch-hour gaming space. Let the score-wars begin!

@feenwager The one TV/tablet thing I could given some reason to. This? No idea. Didn’t a later model wifi-less PSP iteration get laughed out of Europe? You’d think they’d play up the smaller form-factor as a viable Netflix streamer box.

Or am I bringing too much logic into the equation?

@feenwager Did you play any of the following and enjoy them “back in the day”?

Dungeon Master
Lands of Lore
Eye of the Beholder
Knightmare

If the answer is “yes”, and you’re not averse to the idea of returning to that exact style of gameplay with modern graphics, then you should pick it up.

@bowlisimo @feenwager Might I suggest Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey? It is a completely different tone to the Persona series, is challenging but hadn’t faced issues of spending a long time grinding, I’m still in the middle of the game though.

@feenwager Don’t let them fool you, P4 still has the same grinding, easier or not. Tartarus is replaced with similarly bland dungeons, but the theme changes at least. Personally, I liked the characters/relationships better in that game, and murder mysteries are fun, but I think the overall plot (and ending) of P3 was my favorite of the two.

Edit: Isn’t there an anime? I guess you could skip the grinding and watch that?

@impynickers @unmanneddrone Yeah, they really do a horrible job of explaining ANYTHING in that game, so you run around saying “WTF am I doing” and “WhereTF am I going?” for a few hours.

But man, I played Planetside 2 for an absurd amount of time this holiday weekend. I knew the only MMO that still had a chance to hook me was an FPSMMO, and well…here we are 30 something hours in.

The battles are just incredible, every day in Esamir is like Hoth. *Holds on to dove* I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships flying into drop pod rain over Mani Biodome. I watched phalanx cannons glitter in the dark as two entire armies tore themselves apart. All these moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.

@rocgaude Yeah. That’s a solid Vita list, and I second the motion for Corpse Party if you’re into that. Gravity Rush is good, too, at least until the last hour or so, when it becomes rubbish. It’s awesome up until that point, though. Hot Shots Golf is great, too, as is Need for Speed Most Wanted.

@feenwager P4 is much less grindy than P3, and there’s more variety in the dungeoneering. It’s lots of smaller dungeons rather than one massive one. It still has a very “slow” opening, though, so be warned, as that puts some people off.

@feenwager As a hardcore Megatenist (shut up, it’s a word and a thing), I think P4 is by far the easiest of the SMT games, and I finished it at a relatively low level. I can only think of a couple of bosses that gave me much trouble, and that’s mostly because I tried to power through them instead of just figuring out their weaknesses, fusing new personas, and then trying again, which I should have done.

@feenwager And just after I redeemed some Xbox points for episode 1…. just my luck.

Out of curiousity, anyone play Walking dead on both PC/Mac and console? Wondering which one is the better playing experience….. as primarily console guy, I still want to kinda play it on my 360

@angryjedi Well done sir Glad to see this…

@angryjedi Well done, sir. Glad to see this in motion. I’ve had both depression and anxiety in various levels ever since I was a teenager. It sucks and addressing that it’s a real thing, not imaginary, helped me a lot.

@feenwager I wonder about that, too. For me, gaming was where I went to deal during the darkest of days. Gaming also tends to be a preferred hobby to lots of creative types which also happen to be a big target of the dreaded “Black Dog”.

@feenwager I…. I dunno, I’m suspicious of current-gen (or at least close) tech being able to drive 2 screens without frame loss without very specific effort from third parties

Effort that I’m not sure nintendo will be able to get from third parties due to history… which will ironically reinforce the poor third party performance…. and that could get quite sad.

Maybe! I hope I’m wrong, but we’ll see.

@bowlisimo Listen to @feenwager on PS+. It’s hawt shit D-luxe.

I have Uncharted 3 on my holiday playlist. Would fancy a discussion on that one should you get to it.

@feenwager It begins…human nature catches up with unfettered good will.

@feenwager I’m a bloke who would back a product, rather than a promise. Nexus 2? The engine is there, they’ve got the systems in place, essentially they just need funds to polish that thing and bring it to market. As much as the idea of throwing money at someone I respect for them simply saying “Y’know, I’d love to do [insert scenario]” in kinda appealing, I’d much rather have a prototype to investigate first.

—

This XCOM talk has thrown me back into Arulco and JA:BiA.

@feenwager It’s me, @bluesforbuddha, @shingro and @cgrajko. We talk. A lot. And somehow manage to stay on topic. For about four hours. But then we were covering four games. 🙂

@feenwager I know. It’s just a fairly prevalent attitude on the Net, not just from your comments, and it’s getting a little tiresome. Gaming is so much more than whatever blood and guts game monopolises the front page of IGN at any one time, and it’s frustrating how relatively few places seem to accept that as a possibility, and how few take great titles like The Last Story seriously purely because of their graphics and/or platform.

Sorry, it wasn’t intended as an attack on you. Straw that broke the camel’s back and all that.

@feenwager Your loss. Interestingly, regarding what you were saying recently about wanting to play and RPG/go on a “quest” — RPGs have very much moved to the lower-tech platforms (Wii, PSP, DS), presumably because it’s simply cheaper to develop for them, so if you want to continue to enjoy new releases of that kind of game, you will have to swallow your pride and use these “children’s toys”. I’d be very surprised if Wii U didn’t find itself home to some quality quests, too — that tablet will be ideal for menus and battle interfaces, and given the choice between developing for brand new, expensive tech and a system that is closer to being a known quantity, those wanting to make a 30-100 hour game will pick the “safer” option.

The point is, you shouldn’t dismiss something because of what platform it’s on or what resolution its graphics run at. That may not be what you mean, but it’s what’s coming across. Is The Last Story worth buying a Wii for? Probably not, but there is a ton of quality games — including The Last Story — on that platform that no-one ever talks about just because “it’s the Wii”. Instead it’s stuck with an admittedly not entirely undeserved reputation as a waggle machine, a children’s toy. And that’s just kind of sad.

My favourite experiences of this year (that I’ve PLAYED this year, I should say) have all run at considerably less than HD resolutions — The Last Story (Wii), Pandora’s Tower (Wii) Shadow Hearts: Covenant (PS2), Fortune Summoners (PC) and my current RPG jam, Trails in the Sky (PSP). To ignore games like these is to do them a great disservice, particularly if you’re a fan of that genre.

On the other hand, though, I’ll freely admit that there’s enough stuff coming out for the HD consoles that it’s easy to let lesser-known stuff pass you by. It’s no longer possible to “play everything” — you have to make some decisions. For most of my interactive entertainment these days, I’ve chosen to forgo the blockbusters in favour of the smaller, lower-budget titles I find more interesting; you’ve clearly gone the other way. And that’s fine — just please, please please don’t imply that those of us who choose to play games on, say, the Wii are somehow “lesser” or “children” for choosing to do so. As I say, I appreciate that may not have been your intention, but it is what comes across.

Peace out.

EDIT: I realise my “you are BAD PEOPLE” comment could be taken the same way, and for that I apologise. Regardless, I do believe that titles such as The Last Story should be supported rather than ignored.

@feenwager So that’s a thumbs up, it sounds like. You were a big fan of the original, if I recall…

—

In regards to iOS puzzlers, been really enjoying Megacity HD of late. So much so that I recommended it to @rocgaude and, thus, to the rest of you fellows. Just a tidy little block and modifier game, quite neat and lovely little soundtrack.

OK Squad Minecraft, let’s do this!

L and I have been playing on the Xbox 360 the last couple of days, but for whatever brain reason this is, I get frustrated that the Adventure Update has not been applied yet and I cannot “win” Minecraft by going on quests and defeating the Ender Dragon on my console. I know this worldview defeats the whole point for most people, but for me it’s very necessary to always be working towards something concrete.

Also I want very much to create a giant Justice League style hall of Squadness with Yorgle the dragon etched in glowing rock on the floor. You know, considering how multicontinental we all are and soforth. So yeah, how do we get this rolling?

@feenwager I found myself scanning the surprisingly good reviews for Rainbow Moon on the PSN last night wondering why I, who has been in the mood for something RPGey in a hella way lately, hadn’t even heard of it. Sure it’s Japanese, but it’s a character-buildey kinda thing. Anybody in the squad know anything about it? Could be worth a look. There’s always The Last Story too, coming out in a few weeks. That one’s a no-brainer as far as I am concerned.

http://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-3/rainbow-moon

@feenwager I hear you. Howabout free to play MMO’s? D&D, Lord of the Rings, Age of Conan. Do some quests, get it out of your system, never pay a cent. Hopefully Wasteland 2, the only game I’ve kickstarted, will actually be that game we’re looking for.

And HELL YES, Episode 2 of the Walking Dead game was amazing and messed up! You know those decisions in Mass Effect where you don’t know whether to shoot a guy who is holding a hostage or keep talking to him? This game is ALL those, except there’s no easy paragon/renegade choice, there’s more of a snap, gut reaction involved, and the choices that best help your survival are often the hardest god damn decisions you’ll ever make, and you have this little girl watching you make them…

@angryjedi I would love to screw around in Minecraft with you guys. I can show you my bridge to nowhere, and my enormous unfinished castle… and then I can lock you up and force you to mine and finish said unfinished castle. Yesssssss.

@unmanneddrone It will, almost everything that has lost on that community vote has showed up in either the daily or flash sales.

@feenwager So… a party-based RPG… that isn’t J…

Best I can give you is Final Fantasy XII which is the least “J” of all party-based JRPGs released in the last decade. It plays very much like an Infinity Engine game, so much so that some of its UI elements found their way into Dragon Age.

But come to think of it, I would at least think some indie team would be trying to make an homage to Baldur’s Gate and the other Infinity Engine games.

If I ever run into this problem, I do have practically all the Infinity Engine games laying unplayed on my hard drive as well as the desire to start two or three new characters in Dragon Age.

@feenwager Not even CAWWADOODY?

Well to be honest, I don’t know what Grimlock is, and I already own a Total War. I’m also a bit iffey over the indy games because I’m trying to save my monies for X-COM. And dishonered.

@feenwager Pendulo are doing some good stuff. Their newest project just went up on the new Gamesplanet Lab platform (worth keeping an eye on if you’re into unusual games — it’s like a quality-controlled Kickstarter) and sounds pretty cool.

The Secret World still has its hooks in me deep. I’ve been playing for about 22 hours now and I’m still in the first main “zone”, which I’ve now got to know very well — it feels very well-realised and not at all like simply “somewhere to run through”. There are three large “hub” areas in the game — the “Not Innsmouth At All, Honest” town of Kingsmouth, an Egyptian area called Valley of the Sun (I think) and… Transylvania. Awesome. Each area is made out of three large “zones”, each with a bunch of quests to do in each. Each hub also has a lengthy and very involved “story mission” to complete, and the game is designed in such a way that you will naturally come across its objectives as you complete other quests.

The cool thing I’ve found is that surprisingly little of the game feels like “filler”. MMOs are usually rife with filler content to help you grind, but most things you do in The Secret World feel meaningful. This is helped at least in part by the fact that “main” missions start with cutscenes, but even the side missions (which you just find on discarded objects and things lying around the world rather than from people) have a sense of purpose to them.

The investigation missions continue to be the game’s highlight. I did one tonight that required me to visit the website of a company referenced in-game, look up product information and then use said information to find the appropriate items to solve a puzzle. Subsequently, I found myself translating morse code (with the assistance of an iPhone app — my Morse transcribing is not what it could be) and deciphering the message to find my way to my objective. And that was a simple one.

Even the combat-heavy missions are pretty neat, too, though. There are a few “kill [x] [y]s” along the way, but these are usually tied in to another objective at the same time — for example, in one, you’re hunting down mass graves and making sure the dead bodies therein stay dead. For the most part, though, the “action” missions involve some lateral thinking and environmental puzzles, too — it’s rarely as simple as “go to this part of the map and kill shit for half an hour”.

The levelling system is probably the most interesting thing. You have a wheel of skills, and nine different disciplines — pistols, shotgun, assault rifle, swords, hammers, fist weapons, blood magic, chaos magic and elemental magic. You can assign ability points to any of these disciplines at any time, so if you’re getting fed up with a particular build, simply switch it out. In order to facilitate this, many of the less important side quests are repeatable, allowing you to effectively “grind” them to respec if you so desire — alternatively, you could take your existing deck of abilities into a higher level area, gain AP at a much more rapid rate and spend your vast quantities of points on new low-level abilities. It’s a really nice, flexible system, with the only slight issue being the lack of an explicit “level” sometimes making it difficult to judge whether or not you’re “strong enough” for a particular challenge. It’s certainly a different approach, though, and it works very well.

I did a “dungeon” tonight, too. This was slightly more traditional MMO fare, though it still has nice things like cutscenes to give it a sense of narrative. The boss fight at the end of it was pretty spectacular, as well.

Dumb Fun Has a Place

THQ’s new president believes Saints Row: The Third developers Volition can “make something that isn’t embarrassing”. Is Saints Row something to be embarrassed about, and is there a place for games like this?

@feenwager I watched the 3DS showcase last night hoping to see some sort of new announcement of the Phoenix/Layton variety but sadly it was not to be.

I felt like the 3DS made a good case for its existence in the show though feel free to insert your comments here about whether iOS is eating / will continue to eat / their lunch in the kiddie konsole department and everybody’s grins were just pasted on.

Watching the demos it’s quite clear that iOS has not yet evolved either budget-wise or control-wise to the point where anything comprable to Fire Emblem or Castlevania exists yet. If it did, I doubt I’d be as lukewarm to iOS gaming as I currently am. Having traveled with my phone for half a year so far I’d almost forgotten that yes, you can play quote unquote “real” games on the go.

Surprised to see that Lords of Shadow has been picked up by Konami as their official going-forward direction for the Castlevania franchise. Loved LoS… Sure, why not? 3DS Castlevania looks great.

Paper Mario, also great stuff despite an overly long demo and will most likely be picking that up if I somehow come by a 3DS. For me, there is an even horizon where the “you should probably play this” factor of portable gaming tips and I end up purchasing a device. For the original DS this didn’t happen for more than a year after launch, looks like the 3DS may be in similar straits. Glad to see Nintendo embracing the fully digital-download concept, but…. does the 3DS even have a hard drive large enough to install something on?

Delight: Fire Emblem confirmed for North America, though there wasn’t but a single tweet from NOA announcing this. Why? Advance Wars notably unavailable for comment.

Tokyo Jungle confirmed English release….. (wait for it…) for Europe only. With this and the foolishness with Project Rainfall, it’s hard not to believe that Asia has entirely written off North America as some kind of place inhabited only by orcs and philistines, unworthy of beautiful things.

This Rock Paper Shotgun feature called : PC Gaming: E3’s Dirty Little Secret makes a good case.

@feenwager It’s good when it works, but it’s VERY limited in how much you can play for free. It’s also blighted with pay-to-win items, which kills any desire to play for me. Why play a competitive game where people can simply pay to get a higher score?

@feenwager Good question. We could do some sort of communal liveblog using a Page and the comments system… though I’m not sure if that updates live like the main page.

Anyone got any thoughts?

@feenwager After hideously failing your challenge, just because I really don’t want to overwork my ailing machine, all I’ve got in my foreseeable future is Endless Space on PC and Gravity Rush on Vita. Feels…good. I’m sure some indie business will pop up, but that’s about it. Will aim to add Walking Dead to the list at some point. Of course, I’m still battling through Gladiator Begins, and it’s damn tough. @beige, did you pick it up for your commute?

Endless Space remains oh-so-good, by the way. Oh so very good.

@feenwager I heard it was a bit Heavy Rain-esque, would you say that’s an accurate description?

@feenwager Yes. Squad Leaders assemble.

Should be a hoot, that Ni no Kuni.

Tangentially…I mentioned this to @feenwager, but good heavens, Rayman Origins OST is by far the finest game soundtrack I’ve had the pleasure of experiencing/listening to in years. Not only that, but it continues to be utter soul food.

@bowlisimo Magnificent work on the co-op. And yeah, quite strange with the reinforcements aspect, I never really was sure what the caper was in the grab-bag of who gets what. But it’s glorious, regardless.

@cgrajko Utterly useless factoid that would only be useful to terrorists and/or interrogators: Rez is the only game to ever make me feel woozy. A masterpiece, though!

—

Another toll from the village bell.

Music To Game By

Submit two tracks via THIS FORM, supply links if you feel the need, send me MP3s IN ADDITION to your form submission with the appropriate details via email at unmanneddrone ( a t ) gmail (d o t) com IF tracks are really obscure.

Throw ’em down, friends. I’ve received tracks from @feenwager and @mjpilon thus far. Should be a hoot, this mix.

Did anyone else read @feenwager‘s post in Morte’s voice? Maybe it’s just the avatar, but if I had the talent to do so, I would create an RPG about the Squad, and Feen would be an awesomely beligerent disembodied voice telling it like it is.

I crossed off a couple more games on my list, so that’s cool. And, I don’t have much to say about them, so that’s good for all the people who read the Squawkbox and have to scroll through my long-ass posts about weird shit no one (sane) wants to play.

I started and finished Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. It was actually an excellent diversion from the madness that is Nier, so it worked admirably in doing what I wanted it to. I’ll probably come back to it the next time I can lure unsuspecting nerds into my house to get drunk and play video games with me.

I also, finally, finished Rez. I adore Rez. I have always adored Rez. But, I suck at Rez. I’ve owned the game on one platform or another for years, and the final boss always fucked me up. Not today. I was in the zone today, and I finally cleared Area 5. This would be a good time to start up Child of Eden if I hadn’t promised my girlfriend I would play it with her.

Now, I’m not sure what I’ll play. Cthulhu Saves the World is an option. Costume Quest is also an option. Maybe I should check my mail again and see if Demon’s Souls finally showed the hell up.

@unmanneddrone I really wish that my move twixt and fro between houses hadn’t interrupted my Rayman schedule. Somehow I’ve gotten sidetracked with… well, everything we’ve mentioned already… since then. I’ll be going back to it no doubt, though now that we’ve started both Amalur and Xenoblade god knows when that’ll be. FEZ is keeping me happy on the 2D front. Spent only a small portion of time with it last night but managed to finish with the “32 cubes” ending. Protip: After you finish and begin New Game + you will get the ability to finish all those weird puzzles you couldn’t figure out the first time around. It’s not you, don’t worry.

@feenwager I noticed you’d played 8.5% or something of FEZ when I was looking at my friends leaderboards. One of those “…yeaah, nope.” experiences?

@feenwager I hear ya man. The gaming media, may be a good source of information, but there is a point where I no longer need an opinion to validate my experience. Often the game I am innocently playing is bombarded with so many layers of extraneous impressions and ideas surrounding it that it sometimes overshadows my own experience. I do try the ‘Beginner’s Mind’ every so often, but it is difficult to overcome what is a very invasive part of my life. Good thing is that you can walk away, or take a breather. Good on you for sorting out your priorities. I was never good at that.

I havent made any progress on the challenge since Kyrandia. Will resume after this week with extreme force and desperation. If there is another game on my entire list that people would like to hear impressions of I would be glad to do that one next. Just finishing up some crummy school junk.

@feenwager *hands you a boutique ale*

—

In regards to my own Feenwager Challenge list, I’ve hit a bit of a tech issue on my laptop…namely an ageing machine and wearying guts that now, for some reason, heats up and could conceivably cook steaks to perfection. I can still play things, provided I don’t stress the GPU, but the PC has now taken a backseat and I don’t really turn it on with the same relish, burdened by the knowledge that graphically-pressing titles are now potential machine destroyers. I cannot justify a new laptop for gaming, so for the time being, I’m enjoying the odd spot of FUEL, a touch of GalCiv2, Reign: Conflict of Nations and some curiosities like A.I.M. 2 (a Russian sandbox trader/combat game set in a robot-infested future world)…

…but, all is not lost. Really loving the little Vita, primarily at this point for Rayman Origins. Now, a few folks – including @feenwager – have enjoyed this one prior, and I just want to laud artistic and aural accolades upon Origins. I’ve been a big Rayman fan since the old days, and always wondered why Mario copped all the praise when there’s so much creativity and visual delight (and it’s so subtly dark and morbid just below the surface in some areas) in these French gems. (Rayman 2 over Mario64 any day of the week! Très controversée!!!)

Anyway, I can’t say much more than hasn’t already been said. It’s a good challenge, has brilliant production values, character and level design from a scribbler’s perspective is second to none (I still cannot get over the attention to detail in the simple things like foliage crops…take a moment to gaze at the arrangement of ferns on the various planes in the first couple of levels). A very inspired piece of work.

Coming up next month: Resistance: Burning Skies, then the month after, Gravity Rush/Daze. So very keen.

@impynickers Great list, sir.

You know, it was the great @feenwager that deposited a modern day picaresque cyberpunk epic upon us with Ready Player One. Especially interesting for the way it returned to the digital remnants of the era that birthed classical cyberpunk. So kudos to Feen for that.

@feenwager More importantly, how the hell are you editing that post? I may be slow, but I can’t figure out how to do it.

@feenwager Every time I load this page, I see your challenge list pop up briefly and I couldn’t help but notice you crossed off some heavy hitters recently. Did you actually make it through Deadly Premonition? How was Lords of Shadow? etc.

@cgrajko Check the ME3 thread on the missions page. Several people have posted links to articles deconstructing the ending. @tolkoto posted a good one where a screenwriter picked it apart.

@feenwager I hear ya. It’s all people will bang on about on Twitter, and I even have people I know inviting me to “SUPPORT BIOWARE” Facebook groups. (I rejected the invitation.)

I’m in three minds about the whole thing. (Shush. That’s totally a thing.) On the one hand, I see where the disgruntled fans are coming from from what I do know of the situation having not played it but read a lot about it. On the other, petitioning people to change the ending to a story is just dumb, particularly it all it will result in is an “Ending Pack” DLC. And on the third mutant hand sprouting from my chest, I wish people would shut the fuck up about Mass Effect and talk about some of the fifty billion other games that are out right now. A new Ys game just came out on Steam and I want to know if it’s interesting, for example — and a couple of “double-A” PR people I’m friends with are inordinately frustrated by the whole thing because it means their poor games don’t get a look in from the press or the public.

Basically, everyone needs to accept each other’s viewpoints without feeling the need to try and yell hard enough to change each other’s minds, step back, chill the fuck out and then go play something else.

Or, you know, go outside. 🙂

Squad Primer: The JRPG

Listen now!

Direct link

@feenwager A Squadcast under three hours?! Hot damn.

@feenwager Good heavens! And praise be!

@feenwager ah… ups. I hope you fair better than I did.
I had to spend some time on the phone complaining before ups revealed that they delivered ME3 to the wrong address or something. Apparently they have top men on it…… top men.

@feenwager Good luck! The Reapers are invading! Apparently Gregory House M.D. sacrificed his team to them.

@unmanneddrone I think Bastion’s the most logical first step for me. Like @feenwager, I’m going to knock it out before ME3 drops on Tuesday.

@feenwager Good stuff. We can always bung together a twitpoll or something to aid in the Feenwager reconquista. I’m going to continue with Jagged Alliance, which should last a good while. 13 or so hours in and I’ve only got 9% of Arulco liberated. God help me. Next stop, Cambria University, and from what I’ve seen via a squad on the outskirts, Deidranna’s forces are there in number.

More than a great idea, a very sensible idea, this Feenwager Challenge.