What games are you playing ?

[Mask]

Controlled Demolition: The Game 

[jägermonsta]

Controlled Demolition: The Game 

New game for work. TY!

[|iR|Focalor]

Hitman: Blood Money

A very interesting game. Sometimes really really hard too, unless you use the internet to look for cheats and walkthroughs. There are tons of different ways to complete missions, different routes to take, different methods of carrying out hits. You can blast your way through and blow the shit out of anyone who gets in your way, or you can sneak around and be completely invisible. It forces you to really think about how to make the hits. Sometimes it takes quite a while to work your way around a map without alerting everyone to your presence. Seems to have a good bit of replay value because of how intricate the maps and series of events are. It's fun to figure out how to kill as many people as possible without anyone ever finding a body or witnessing you do it and alerting others. I like how they kinda took a page out of Richard Kuklinksi's book by using sodium pentathol/potassium chloride syringes as a method of poisoning. And the sneak attack with the meat cleaver is PURE FUCKING AWESOME.

[paradisel0st]

Wanting to play a copy of Final Fantasy VII I got from a friend, is it really THAT GOOD of a game

I always heard the game was absolutely amazing so I finally decided to play it. I have to say, I'm about 13 hours into the game thus far and it really is *that* good. I'm impressed with how the game plays out now, couldn't imagine playing it when it was released. You should definitely check it out.

[peewee_RotA]

Wanting to play a copy of Final Fantasy VII I got from a friend, is it really THAT GOOD of a game

I always heard the game was absolutely amazing so I finally decided to play it. I have to say, I'm about 13 hours into the game thus far and it really is *that* good. I'm impressed with how the game plays out now, couldn't imagine playing it when it was released. You should definitely check it out.

I played a PC version that was pretty bad. I'm not sure how different it was but the graphics were an insult to the word sub-par and the game was unpredictably linear. At any one point in time you could trigger yourself into the next zone without adequate time to level. In fairness, FF 4(2) was similar with unpredictable events jacking up the hardness, but it actually had better graphics.

Once again, I've never played the play station version so I have no clue how good that one is.

[Chocobo Joe]

Wanting to play a copy of Final Fantasy VII I got from a friend, is it really THAT GOOD of a game

I always heard the game was absolutely amazing so I finally decided to play it. I have to say, I'm about 13 hours into the game thus far and it really is *that* good. I'm impressed with how the game plays out now, couldn't imagine playing it when it was released. You should definitely check it out.

I played a PC version that was pretty bad. I'm not sure how different it was but the graphics were an insult to the word sub-par and the game was unpredictably linear. At any one point in time you could trigger yourself into the next zone without adequate time to level. In fairness, FF 4(2) was similar with unpredictable events jacking up the hardness, but it actually had better graphics.

Once again, I've never played the play station version so I have no clue how good that one is.

Hehehe... I've actually checked out a speedrun that utilizes the PC version, the music sounds FUCKING HORRENDOUS with Windows' MIDI sounds instead of the normal PS1 synths. Stay away from that version. And after playing the PS1 version for a while, I have to say, it's good, but it can't top FFVI, FFIV, FFIX, Chrono Cross, or Chrono Trigger. Final Fantasy VI is by far the best game in the main series (and I couldn't care less about the spin-offs).

[peewee_RotA]

So I finally beat Turok 4. It has something like 40-50 extremely linear levels, so investing enough time to beat it is a challenge. It was an extremely good homage to Turok 2 that was ruined by a myriad of bad ideas. Too long, too linear, plasma rifle really sucked, explosive arrows were the most powerful weapon and you get them on level 2, there's a ridiculous air-combat mode tacked onto the game that takes up about 1/3rd of it, the plasma rifle was literally useless due to a projectile glitch... The list goes on. I love the Turok series so I finally bought it an played through it. I probably won't replay it a hundred times like I have with 1-3.

Time Splitters 2.. one word... AWESOME!

[Whirlingdervish]

I found that in ff7 for psx, in the early game when you're still in the city, every time you find an area with enemies that you can easily whoop you should find the nearest save point where you can pitch a tent, and whore some xp to build up Cloud and Barret, then tent and do it again. You should be able to afford a new tent quickly and beyond that you make a profit.
Some good areas are by the playground and in that beat up area that's in between two of the little town sectors with the house shaped enemies that use fire attacks on you.

A useful side effect of this is a decent amount of income, which you should spend ASAP to grab up useful materia and items from the few shops that sell the stuff nearby.

Whore xp on the characters and materia now, so later you get the lvl 2 spells before you actually need them and your guys can take some punishment (even tho they'll only have weak weapons for now)

Once you find the yellow steal materia, (i think it shows up in the playground when you see them make off with Tifa) make sure you try every enemy you encounter because there are some good combat use items that you can find on the midgar enemies in the early game. In the train graveyard, gank "ghost hands" from the ghosty lookin dudes as they are an easy way to steal MP from enemies, and in other areas certain sweeper robots have "atomic scissors" (or somethig like that.. its a gun/arm weapon) that Barret can use or you can sell for decent amounts of money etc..) If I find something that's yielding decent items, I'll do the tent/xp whore method in that area and add constant steal attacks to the repertiore for even more profit.

A good tip for the early parts is to keep a couple of heal materia and the steal one in every combat team you have so they lvl up the fastest (steal takes forever to become "mug" so you better start on it early, and the lvl 2 heal spell is gonna be very useful if you get it early on). The elemental ones you end up shuffling around a bit so everyone has some magic and due to enemy weaknesses. You can kinda ignore the fire and ice, but make sure you get one lightning one built up to deal with robots/sweepers and such.

later on, make sure you find every blue support materia that you can. "added effect" and "all" are increbily useful when paired with the right materia in a slotted item. If you happen to find a status changing magic/summon materia, link it to added effect on the player's weapon for some really good shit in combat. Probably the best is the Hades Summon materia which you'd find in the downed plane Gelnikah (or w/e the fuck it is), via submarine. Link that to added effect on clouds sword and almost every successful hit puts the enemy to sleep, poisons them and does like five other status effects to them at once like small and frog, rendering them completely worthless.

if you don't mind exploits:
In the later parts of the game make sure you find the yellow w-item materia when you return to midgar by parachute. it'll be at the end of one of the subway tunnels in a chest, and it's worth every bit of time you spend looking for it. There's a bug when using it that allows you to clone combat items in your inventory like elixirs and chocobo greens and this will come in very handy.
(the materia allows you to use 2 items instead of one in a turn) After you select the first item (the one you want more of) and target it, select the second and cancel targetting ad nausuem to clone out elixirs and megalixirs and other ridiculously tough to come by items. It'll just keep putting one more of the first item you chose into your inventory, every time you do this.

[Chocobo Joe]

Wow, who actually level grinds in an FF game? It's almost completely pointless if you the enemies' weaknesses and equip the right Espers/ Materia/ GFs/ etc. at the right time. Oh, and getting rare items helps too. Hell, I think the only logical reason for repeatedly fighting enemies is for money, not EXP.

[Whirlingdervish]

When you don't have shit yet in terms of limit breaks, money, items, materia or a decent weapon, you level grind.

That would be the position you find yourself in, in the beginning of FF7. Mug itself is worth it's weight in grinding, and gettin regen on the healing materia is very useful if you plan on fighting any of the bigger enemies in the game. The gold you get from killing shit that's in your way on the main quest path in midgar will be used very quickly as you start to equip more NPCs and find places to buy new materia out in the world map.

I'm not suggesting that you do this constantly, but seriously if you ever want to get the higher level magic/abilities unlocked before you beat the game, you should stop, and kill shit that gives you decent money and xp for you and your materia when you have the opportunity. Making the master materia in the long run is worth it, and certain things like limit breaks won't level without heavy use. (I recommend using a hyper to enrage your guys when building limit breaks because their bar fills faster..)

One of the coolest looking things in the game is Aeris's level 4 limit break and you will never see it unless you grind early and do some serious stomping around the worldmap prior to the end of disc 1.

Cloud's limit breaks can carry you through some tough battles if you build him up early enough.


To get his level 4 limit break, you'll need to fight in the Battle Arena a shit ton too.. If you've done this, and had to fight with a bunch of horrible handicaps, you'll understand why whoring XP is a good idea. The stats on the characters in ff7 aren't just for looking at, even though they are pretty tough to directly increment.

you can steal/morph a couple enemies in specific places to get "source" items that will give permanent stat upgrades, but nothing replaces leveling your character up.

[[BTF]adam]

I bought Aion on Saturday, been ill as fuck so even playing a bunch of other stuff i'm levelling quickly - 16 Gladiator so far. server is not overcrowded or laggy anymore, rolled asmodian so it's a little different. theres a patch coming soon significantly boosting XP because it is really grindy past 30, as in, that's the only way you can level. I even had to grind 15-16 out because I ran outta quests at this hub but i'm enjoying it :>

[peewee_RotA]

Wow, who actually level grinds in an FF game? It's almost completely pointless if you the enemies' weaknesses and equip the right Espers/ Materia/ GFs/ etc. at the right time. Oh, and getting rare items helps too. Hell, I think the only logical reason for repeatedly fighting enemies is for money, not EXP.

Somebody never played FF1 

although, yes money to buy weapons was more important in FF1 than the levels themselves but FF1 invented the concept of level grinding seeing as the other major RPG of the time (Ultima1-4) punishes you for gaining levels by raising difficulty level everywhere and not just in the next zone

[Chocobo Joe]

Wow, who actually level grinds in an FF game? It's almost completely pointless if you the enemies' weaknesses and equip the right Espers/ Materia/ GFs/ etc. at the right time. Oh, and getting rare items helps too. Hell, I think the only logical reason for repeatedly fighting enemies is for money, not EXP.

Somebody never played FF1 

although, yes money to buy weapons was more important in FF1 than the levels themselves but FF1 invented the concept of level grinding seeing as the other major RPG of the time (Ultima1-4) punishes you for gaining levels by raising difficulty level everywhere and not just in the next zone

Actually, I have played Final Fantasy 1, so you're wrong! But I haven't played Ultima...

[peewee_RotA]

Recently picked up Die Hard: Vendetta, Beatles Rockband, and Super Mario Wii

Die Hard Vendetta (game cube) is absolute freaking amazing in concept. Believe it or not the gameplay is molded to be exactly like the action you see in the first 3 movies. This doesn't always work out though so there are some points where gameplay concepts are clunky and/or just plain don't work. So it's a game that is AMAZING the majority of the time and then utterly frustrating other times. However the game takes a lot of risks, like the concept of "auto-jumping" and I respect that.

Beatles Rockband is pretty much the only one I ever considered playing. I have a copy of rock band 1 due to my wife's impulse buy when she saw it on sale. In every given copy of rockband a person can expect to enjoy half of the songs and hate the other half. Beatles is a little different. I'm not a huge fan, but I am fanatical enough to have most of the songs memorized. Lets me sing along while playing a different "instrument"

Super Mario Wii is a great party game and single player. The basic gameplay changes for every player that you add. Get it now. What are you waiting for? I mean now! No, I really am serious. Go right now and buy a copy.

[|iR|Focalor]

Madden NFL 08 for PC. There was talk of releasing Madden NFL 2010 for PC... but someone dropped the fucking ball... so to speak.