What are you currently playing? [2]

[Tankred]

Feels good not being as cynical as the Tarnsman (though he's probably right).

Just probin' the whole galaxy, relaxin', takin' minerals, enjoyin' mah shepard's monotonous voice, feels good man. Good to be playing this again.

[symbv]

I wonder what people think of the coming SWTOR MMO game?

[Tarnsman]

I wonder what people think of the coming SWTOR MMO game?

I'm downloading it right now for a gigantic helping of disappointment.

[Final Messenger]

I wonder what people think of the coming SWTOR MMO game?

I probley won't check it out PC games and MMO's aren't my cup of tea but cudos to bioware for having a fully voiced MMO

[Dream]

System Shock 2

I find it kind of amazing actually how such a simple or old game had such advanced gameplay mechanics so ahead of it's time. The only game i can think of that is like this would be Fallout.

[liquidus118]

System Shock 2

I find it kind of amazing actually how such a simple or old game had such advanced gameplay mechanics so ahead of it's time. The only game i can think of that is like this would be Fallout.

Try the original Deus Ex, too. The game those guys made after SS2.

[ZapX]

Wait, what? Deus Ex was made by Ion Storm. Ken Levine and Irrational did System Shock.

[Monk Ed]

System Shock 2

I find it kind of amazing actually how such a simple or old game had such advanced gameplay mechanics so ahead of it's time. The only game i can think of that is like this would be Fallout.

Is it any wonder that you've got so many old grognards complaining that gaming ain't what it used to be?

[Tankred]

Is it any wonder that you've got so many old grognards complaining that gaming ain't what it used to be?

Nostalgia goggles.

Also, I AM ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL.

[Tarnsman]

Playing SWTOR and wondering how anyone let this crap through QC.

[Tankred]

Playing SWTOR and wondering how anyone let this crap through QC.

Sounds unbearable, care to tell us what you've found?

[Dream]

Try the original Deus Ex, too. The game those guys made after SS2.

Actually, i've also played Deus Ex before, and i also freaking loved it! Specially the merge of genres and the... Originality? of the game. (But i'm also pretty sure it was actually made by ION Storm)

Is it any wonder that you've got so many old grognards complaining that gaming ain't what it used to be?

To be honest, i'm not too sure if System Shock or Deus Ex are exactly representative of the games of their times.

[soul.assassin]

Bought in: Red Alert 2, Starcraft and Warcraft III with DOTA. Time for some old-time religion.

[Tarnsman]

Sounds unbearable, care to tell us what you've found?

Sure. Spoilered for WALL O' TEXT.

SPOILER: Show

I originally had no intention of buying SWTOR, but after seeing fan backlash towards the game, I knew I had to play it. So I immediately purchased a digital download of the deluxe edition literally five minutes before the pre-order period ended (because if I'm going to play crap, I want the stupid pre-order items). After downloading all 25 gigs of this bloated turd, I booted it up.

Immediately something was very, very, VERY wrong. The game started with a cutscene but it there was no Star Wars opening crawl. I suppressed my urge to instantly uninstall the game for its abject failure, and continued watching. It started off with NOT John Marston (I'm dead fucking serious, there is a cowboy in Star Wars) walking down a hallway with two NOT Clone Troopers and two Jedi. There is some mundane dialogue about NOT John Marston/Jim Raynor smuggling Sith artifacts, before the Sith Empire invades (complete with The Imperial March - which I found particularly out of place, as most of the music in this game is). What follows is a cutscene that I can only describe as Bioware trying to cram everything wrong with the Star Wars prequels into twelve minutes of explosions and slow motion. After what seemed like an eternity of boring, overly choreographed, emotionless battle (complete Bioware thinking I'd give a shit about Jedi Master A I know nothing about dying) the cutscene finally ended. This cutscene was entirely pointless, all I learned from it was that Bioware thinks flashy CGI makes for good battles and that the Sith invaded. THE TITLE CRAWL COULD HAVE TOLD ME ALL THAT! There is absolutely no reason for the opening cinematic of this game to exist, it should have just been the crawl, it would have been less boring, would have felt more like Star Wars, and I probably would have learned more information about the plot than with this turd.

So after that I was able to pick my side. I picked Republic, and was given another overly long stupid cutscene. Once again, this cutscene is everything wrong with modern Star Wars. It's just ten minutes of pointless battle. There is no strategy, just two armies running into each other and dying. Then at the end it tries to make me feel bad for the loss of life (which I don't because I just watched such a blatant disregard for military tactics that those soldiers deserved to die).

Finally, after twenty minutes of pre-rendered bullshit and nothingness (yes the cutscenes are skippable, but Bioware billed this as a story driven MMO so I'm going to watch them damn it!) I was able to make my character. I looked over my limited choices of four classes and picked Trooper because I knew everyone and their mother was going to be Jedi/Smuggler. Then I came to the wonderfully varied racial selection where I had my choice between Human, Blue Human, Green Human, Cyborg, and Grey Human. I picked Human because I'm a massive racist, and went with female for my gender because she was voiced by Jennifer Hale and I wanted to see if she was as hammy in this as she is in Mass Effect.

Character creation is a joke. Compared to other Bioware games it's damn barren. Things like cosmetics are now one slider, all facial features are now one slider, there are 44 different hairs but they're all shit, there are like 40 faces and all but one of them suck, and complexion is just cosmetics 2.0. In Mass Effect I was able to make full on Ganguro Shepard, here I could just make a brown girl.

After making my character I finally found the Star Wars opening crawl which was titled 'Prolouge: THE REPUBLIC TROOPER'. After being given a crapton of generic information, I found myself on Ord Mantell in the middle of a war. This is where the game started sucking less as I was immediately put into a cutscene and it felt like I was playing [s]Mass Effect[/s] Star Wars. After being a complete bitch to my commanding officer with absolutely no repercussions, I was thrown into battle. This is where the game started sucking more. This game has the worst combat I've ever seen in an MMO. Enemies don't even attack (despite them apparently being separatist soldiers who shoot anything on sight) until I'm standing on them, battles are just two guys standing still shooting at each other (except for the glitch where the guys I'm shooting at will start power-sliding across the map backwards), and there is no auto-attack.

I was tasked with destroying a missile cache (which I did by KICKING it) and reaching the FOB, along the way I met a quest giving soldier whose face never rendered and whose body was a mass of texture flickering (this game looks like crap, and there are tons of graphical glitches) he tasked me with taking out several deadly snipers (who also didn't attack me until I was humping them). After reaching my objective and being able to pick up side quests/get involved with the story the game started to pick up. I got to threaten a child to extort information out of a woman, kill some smugglers, be a complete bitch to a widow, show more insubordination with no consequences, and overall enjoy the "evil" route.

However I gave up playing my Trooper after the floor disappeared and I fell through the world.

I then decided to play for the Empire (I had to watch another pointless cutscene filled with boring action). I rolled a bounty hunter, then got permanently stuck when the opening cinematic didn't trigger. Enraged I decided to make a Sith Inquisitor (which has been the most fun I've had with this crap). My racial choices were again extremely limited (I got red human and tentacle human this time though) so I again just went with plain human. After discovering body type 4 (which is halfway between voluptuous and chubby) I made my pudgy British girl (because all Sith are British for some reason) and began my quest to be a full light side Sith. The story of the Sith Inquisitor has been pretty enjoyably cheesy so far (I've only played it up to like level 7). My main quest giver actively hates me, threatens me, and tells me how another student I'm competing against is going to kill me because I suck. (The main theme of the Sith seems to be trying to out douche each other/be as cartoonishly evil as possible.) Combat has been more enjoyable on my Sith than on my trooper, if only because two people standing in one position smacking each other with swords makes more sense than two people standing perfectly still and shooting each other in the face; but its still atrocious.

Overall thoughts? This game is a mess. If this game was made by some indie developer on a shoestring budget, I'd praise it; but after three years of development and a budget over 100 million dollars, there is no excuse for this lack of quality. Excluding the decent main story quests, every side quest is standard boring shit, the little bit of the story I've played so far has been comically cheesy, the much lauded voice acting is decent at best (with plenty of people who are clearly just phoning it in), all the music is just re-purposed from previous Star Wars works, the visual style of the game is not that appealing, the admittedly well designed settings feel lifeless, combat is just WoW but worse, server lag is ridiculous, the game is glitchy as hell, and everything else feels unpolished and broken.

Regardless, there is no reason for this to be an MMO, it brings nothing new to the table, it could have easily been eight single player campaigns with tighter gameplay and more polish.

I give it a 3/10. I would give it a 2/10 but Overseer Harkun makes me laugh.

[liquidus118]

Wait, what? Deus Ex was made by Ion Storm. Ken Levine and Irrational did System Shock.

Oh yeah. Not sure why I had that in my head then. Must be because they're pretty similar.


Thanks to the Steam sales I now have Max Payne 2. I had it on PS2 but the PS2 version - like my PS2 versions of Oni and Deus Ex - ran so badly that I had to get the PC version.

So far I'm enjoying it, but it seems like something you really need to have played the original for. Pity it's no longer on sale...

Sure. Spoilered for WALL O' TEXT.

Wow. Guess it really did just plain suck. They better not fuck up Mass Effect 3...

[Light]

Battlefield 3 and Metro 2033, with some minor indie games in between.

Metro has made me realize the importance of gasmaks. Nothing gets you going more than having to find a new air filter for your mask before your current one is finished.

[driftking18594]

Gran Turismo 5. If anyone has it, and wishes to race against me and my army of Skyline GT-Rs, my PSN is driftking18594.

[Tarnsman]

Wow. Guess it really did just plain suck.

My biggest problem with SWTOR is that there is what could probably be a decent single player game buried underneath the mound of unpolished gameplay, horrible combat, poor optimization, and glitches/bugs. I never thought I'd play an MMO whose biggest flaw was being an MMO, but Bioware found a way to make it happen.

They better not fuck up Mass Effect 3...

They will. Especially after seeing stupid crap like a thresher maw vs a reaper, I have absolutely no expectations for ME3. I will still buy it for Garrus, but I will complain about it the whole time.

[Aiko Heiwa]

I just started playing Super Mario 64 DS on my 3DS.

Circle Pad is a godsend.

Also, I've had that game for like four years or so now and still don't have all the Power Stars.

[TehDonutKing]

I beat Portal 2's single player. I haven't started the co-op mode yet, because I've no one to play it with.