What are you currently playing?

[Jude]

Started playing Star Trek Online.  Character creation is pretty flexible, and I haven't seen anybody who looks like me yet.  Then again, everybody has this weird human fetish.  You can choose pretty much any race you've seen on the TV shows and even create a custom alien species if you want (which is what I did).  First impressions of the game are mostly good, but some away team missions are kind of lame compared to the space battles.

[Alchemeron]

I played STO for a week.  The most instantly-repetitive game I've ever played.  Pretty disappointing.  I moved on to Warhammer Online and haven't looked back.

This was my guy, Lieutenant Sharp:

[Mark]

I just want to be a guy in a bad dinosaur suit.

[Jude]

I just want to be a guy in a bad dinosaur suit.

You can actually, if you pick the Klingon Faction.  I had my first run-in with a Gorn (non-player) during a mission today, which proved Cryptic has a real sense of humor.  For one of their abilities they do the slowmo rock throw that's in the YouTube video below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SK0cUNMnMM

[Mark]

OK, that is officially awesome.  I may have to give this a shot.

[Alchemeron]

Last week, my friend bought Ultimate Alliance 2 from Gamefly for $10.  It's a pretty fun co-op game.  The presentation, voice acting, and story are awful but the actual gameplay is quite fun.  And since our copy is Xbox, that means we can plug in an iPod/Zune/usb key and replace the in-game music.  That really enhances the experience.

Activision made the curious decision of, after December, removing all DLC from the two Ultimate Alliance games (and the first game was removed from the games-on-demand store).  They did it without warning and said, after the fact, that the DLC was a limited-time offer.  It would've been really fun to play as Juggernaut or Magneto or Cyclops.

Seriously, though, everything but the core gameplay is terrible.  It boggles the mind.  Talking to other characters is cumbersome, the presentation is atrocious, and the controls are just stupid.  Here's the layout...



That's right.  Jump is "Y".  It's just weird, makes no sense, and there's no option to change the controls.

The core gameplay is pretty fun, though, so it was worth $10.

[Mark]

You know, everything about this series (Marvel: Ultimate Alliance) seemed to be all win on paper.  But Tina and I tried to play through the first and simply couldn't maintain interest.  I thought the gameplay was mediocre at best, a trial in bland button mashing.  There wasn't a whole lot of skill involved and the actual moves didn't have enough oomph or technique in them to keep me interested very long.  Big roster, but still a crappy moveset amongst all of them.  I don't know if it's something wrong with me or with the game.  Other people seem to like it.  I'd rather play Xmen or Baldur's Gate DA when I thirst for this genre.  Hell, we enjoyed Spider Man: Friend or Foe tons more.

I have stayed away from UA2.  I've heard nothing good about it and the DLC issue just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.  There used to be a time where I would devour any and every coop game I could get my hands on.  Now I find myself passing over all sorts of tripe trying to find that elusive diamond in the rough.

By the way, that diamond in the rough as of late is the Special Ops in Modern Warfare 2.  I should write an article on it or something...

[Jude]

Well, I made it to Lieutenant Commander Grade 2 before Star Trek Online lost me.

[Alchemeron]

You know, everything about this series (Marvel: Ultimate Alliance) seemed to be all win on paper.  But Tina and I tried to play through the first and simply couldn't maintain interest.

My friend and I tried out the first game last night.  Holy shit, what a difference.  Presentation, voice acting, that's all better... but the gameplay just sucks.  It's all about melee combos and it makes the characters feel extremely interchangeable and generic.  We expected the game to be a rouger, less-refined version of Ultimate Alliance 2... but it's a totally different game.  The character designs are all based on the Ultimate universe (which I really liked, because as I said the first's presentation is better) whereas UA2's characters are completely based on the 616 Marvel Universe.

It just really surprised me.  Mark, if you can grab UA2 for like $10... I'd say go for it.  Gameplay-wise, it's the far superior game.

[Mark]

This is something I totally would have missed if not for your suggestion.  I assumed the gameplay would be more or less the same.  Thanks, I will keep my eyes open.

[Alchemeron]

It's still a beat-em-up, but there are combination powers that are great and it's more about using a character's abilities than just hitting the same light-light-strong combo over and over.  Plus you can save at any point and, after the tutorial mission, you can swap out your team at any time.  The gameplay is just so much less tedious.

[Jude]

So Final Fantasy XIII is rapidly becoming one of my favorites in the series.  I was pretty skeptical for awhile, because the gameplay eases you in really slowly (more so than any other FF game), but the graphics, music, and characters kept me moving forward.  Maybe eight or so hours in the battle system cracks wide open and starts becoming more and more compelling, and once you hit chapter 11 it's out of this world good and unlike any other battle system I've seen.  Basically, instead of selecting commands for your party, each character has access to multiple roles/classes like Medic or Commando.  You set a number of "Paradigms" which is the role makeup of your group, and you can change them on the fly in battle.  From these roles, your allies automatically choose commands (and pretty intelligently too).  Enemies have what's called a chain bonus, where the more you attack them the more you build up your chain until you cause the enemy to stagger.  At which point you start doing massive damage, they might become vulnerable to devastating debuffs making you Paradigm shift to a formation with some Saboteurs in it, or your Commandos start to juggle it midair where it can't act and other enemies have trouble targeting your airborne Commando.  It puts you off at first since you basically have a couple roles and abilities for a good portion of the beginning, so you feel like you're just watching a really pretty battle system and not doing anything.  But eventually, proper Paradigm configuration and switching at at the right moments becomes utterly critical and you're rewarded a visual feast and victory.  Make no mistake though, this is way different than your standard jRPG fare, opting to cut out towns or exploration and is just a sequence of battles and cut scenes.  This would be a problem if the character development, story, and battle system were any less good, but it excels in these areas so well you just accept it as a part of the design.  You'll be disappointed if you wanted steak and potatoes since this game just doubles up on steak but I've always preferred a juicy ribeye anyway and invite the heart attack.

What I liked most:  Battle system and the cast (the character lineup and development is the best in the series, by a good margin too)
What I didn't like:  Item system.  Upgrading weapons is expensive and has little effect until you start pumping massive resources into it.

It goes without saying that it's utterly gorgeous and sounds great, since Squenix always invests in that front.  Catchiest battle theme in awhile.

[Mark]

Thanks for that review, Jude.  I stopped after X, never having actually finished it.  I may revisit this series now.

Now that we're off of WoW I started playing Dragon Age.  Amazing.  I started out as a dwarf outcast.  I'm a petty mercenary and my sister whores herself out while my mother berates me in a drunken stupor.  These guys know how to tell a story.

Really enjoying it.  I was hoping that now that WoW was over I could go to bed at a respectable time.  Of course, I throw this game in thinking I'll just get my feet wet and play for 30 minutes.  I went to bed at 3AM thinking it was midnight.

[wushuwannabe]

I'm with Jude, I absolutely loved FF13. Not that it isn't without its flaws. I truly missed the exploration aspect of Final Fantasy, the searching for the clues in towns, the scouring of dungeons, and all that. The game on a mechanical level is basically walk forward, fight a battle, walk forward, fight a battle, walk forward, fight a battle, and then....cut scene! Repeat until the end of the game.

But in exchange you get a game that is incredibly gorgeous and characters and a story that really played at my heart strings. The battle system is unique and fun. I thought the music on a whole was decent, but not anywhere close to some of the old FF greats. Although I'm fully addicted to the theme song sung by Leona Lewis...

BTW if anybody has beaten the game and wants to revisit the characters, there is actually a prologue novel being written. English translations here: http://dilly-shilly.blogspot.com/2009/10/final-fantasy-xiii-episode-zero.html

[wushuwannabe]

Update: Anticipating the release of Starcraft II, I started playing Starcraft's campaign again. It's amazing that even though the graphics are pretty dated (I chuckle at the cinematics remembering that we used to be so impressed by them), the gameplay is still awesome. I'm having fun re-familiarizing with Raynor, Menske, and Kerrigan.

Classics are those games that you can return to 10 years later and still find them just as fun.