Asura or Yasha from Asura's Wrath

[XCOM]

GOTY: XCOM, Mark of the Ninja and FTL

Soundtrack of the year goes to Hotline Miami

So have none of you seen this yet?

I thought it was quite good.

Probably only Halo here.

Yeah, this looked great in screenshots, but soon as I saw the first video I was disappointed.   Slidetoplay reviewed it and panned it as well.  http://www.slidetoplay.com/story/borderlands-legends-review

http://kotaku.com/5954195/that-borderlands-ios-game-is-real-you-can-play-it-on-october-31-for-5

http://popwatch.ew.com/2012/10/23/borderlands-legends/2/

At first look reminds me of the new XCOM but I believe this is realtime and not turnbased.



Not Universal

The lead designer has repeatedly said that Classic is what they consider the intended difficulty for people to play on, which means that this is the kind of accuracy the aliens should have. And once again, this is like the original game, where the aliens were accurate and your guys were not.

I'd like to think that the developers intended that I play whatever difficulty works the best for me.  I understand if what they meant was play classic for the closest experience to the original XCOM.  I appreciate that they have both Normal and Classic...and Ironman for both.   

Yeah sure, that's not what I meant. It's good that they have multiple difficulties. The problem is that several people in this thread are assuming, without even a moment of critical thinking, that the aliens are getting hit bonuses on Classic when it may actually be the other way around.

I don't spend my time pondering the inner mechanics of games and I don't care where the bonuses apply or not. I'm not a hippie xcom lover from back in the day worried about the preservation of some imaginary legacy of difficulty.

I play games to have fun. So far, classic is not fun to me, while normal was. And as I've said, I'll have to adjust my tactics to compensate.  Buuuut when I've done that and played soundly and still get zinged it reduces any enjoyment to zero...

Are you using Hunker Down liberally or are you still ending all your turns in overwatch?   You really really need to use Hunker Down in Classic and higher.

I've never used the SHIV.  Are there other uses than just filling in for a wounded vet?  Why would you use one over a human squad member?  

They are immune to mind control.

"Everybody just calm down! There's no reason to panic. Everything's all right. Blackjack's in charge!"
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAIEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!"
<image>

More satellites STAT!

He doesn't need satellites. He needs a miracle. Better start polishing those diplomatic skills, Blackjack, because a deal with the aliens is about the best you can hope for now.

If he hasn't done the base mission yet, he can do that and recover pretty well.

On the PC do you ever just have the game sort of go off into La La land on a turn?  There are times it doesn't seem to know how to end the aliens turn or I cant tell my last soldier what to do and I have to end task on the game.

Try switching weapons when that happens
The X key.

One more question. Is there any penalty for not immediately pushing the story missions along?  I feel like if i delay those it gives me more time to research critical things for my troops and thus prevent them from being slaughtered.

Not really, as long as you can manage the world panic levels.  Though the aliens will continue to advance as well, there's definitely a sweet spot of when to hit it I think.

[Spoiler]

And I'm done!

What did you guys who have also finished think of the ending?

Nothing too special, but most of the game was the tactical elements, I wasn't playing this for the story.

Spoiler for Hiden:

So it was clear the Ethereals were up to something besides complete conquest, and now we have to find out what else they were afraid of when it comes looking for us.

Here's one of the few games I'm really looking forward to DLC for. Although I really hope that either they, or the mod community, patches up the game to have some elements be closer to the original. I'm fine with gamification, especially since I love board games, I think they could have included a bit more tactical decisions.

Ive finished normal and started on Classic and there you have to use more tactics.  Hunker down and flanking are way more important all of a sudden. I suspect the same will be true of suppress.

My Normal Ironman run is complete


not sure why I didn't get any World stats though, would like to have seen those.

Got some time with this today after a small break from Dishonored.  Restarted on normal without the tutorial.  Did pretty well on my first few missions while taking only WIAs.  Sadly, my first loss was a rook who was doing very well.  Had two kills and a promotion when he got caught in a crossfire with his flank exposed.  Hurt and then killed in the same round.  

Got my sniper up to use squad sight; looking forward to seeing how well that will do.  I was keeping him advancing with the group, so hopefully I won't regret it over snap shot.  

Now, ontoa terror mission with my higher ranking soldiers

Late game, squad site is so much better than snap shot it isn't even really a contest.

Can someone confirm that there is no way to pick the initial upgrade path of your soldiers?  Seems odd to me that you don't get to pick.  Is it just random?

It's random with some waited balancing to try and fill out empty/low classes.  So if you have 4 assaults and zero supports you should start getting supports over assaults.   They talk about the reasoning for it being random in one of the videos somewhere, it's because part of what they are going for with the game is having the player have to deal with the hand they are dealt and making the best of it.

A bit of of info some might find helpful that I see people not noticing in various boards.  If you can capture an enemy, when you select your unit with the arc thrower the enemy will have a ring around it showing the radius you need to be in to capture it.  Some aliens can not be captured, and as such will not display the ring, in other words don't try to capture that Chryssalid!

This reminds me, does it make more sense for one particular type of class to use the arc thrower? Or should you just give one to everybody in a given squad? And if you already researched, say, one captured Thin Man, is there any reason to keep capturing that instead of killing that type after that?

From a research point of view I don't think there is any advantage, but if you take a unit alive its gun goes into to storage, so when you eventually research plasma pistols or what have you that's one less gun you'll need to manufacture.

An aside - so I take there's not really any way to improve the conventional weaponry, since the whole idea is you have to start using alien tech to improve? I thought maybe you'd be able to research "plasma bullets" or something, that maybe some sort of "hybrid weapons tree" would be neat.

The Foundry I believe lets you create upgraded guns though I'm not sure how they stack up to just moving to new alien weapons.

A bit of of info some might find helpful that I see people not noticing in various boards.  If you can capture an enemy, when you select your unit with the arc thrower the enemy will have a ring around it showing the radius you need to be in to capture it.  Some aliens can not be captured, and as such will not display the ring, in other words don't try to capture that Chryssalid!

Lieutenant Forgeforsaken "Pox" support.
(He lives to throw smoke grenades, probably to get high)

Man I'm practically straight edge in real life, don't know where you got that stoner thing from.  But I fully support my guy being support and chucking smoke grenades everywhere.  Xcom supports are pretty awesome, love that sprint skill and deep pockets.

Coming from the original X-COMs, I'm used to losing troops, just not in these ridiculous ways. I don't feel like I'm making mistakes, instead I feel like the computer is using loaded dice.

I haven't seen anything as ridiculous as losing half your squad on the first turn like you could in the old X-Com.

I'm going to see if I have the will to not reload a battle if i lose someone I've built up...

That's why you turn on ironman mode.

Classic is no joke.  I just jumped into a game real quick last night skipping the tutorial and lost a unit on the first mission.  I restarted this morning...

Why? Losing units in the first mission doesn't matter. That's why the tutorial kills off most of them. They're rookies. They're there to die. As long as you don't lose veterans or the mission, everything is fine. You're supposed to die on the first mission.

I didnt' restart because I lost the unit, but because I wanted to go through the tutorial as I heard it was a bit longer than the demo and I had some questions about some base mechanics I hope that it covers.  I believe there are 4 tutorial missions now as opposed to the 2 from the demo.

Hmm I like to play most games on Normal (assuming this is what the developers balanced the game for) first but I don't like that the AI is shackled.  Not sure now where to start, Classic could be painful.

Classic is no joke.  I just jumped into a game real quick last night skipping the tutorial and lost a unit on the first mission.  I restarted this morning to go through the tutorial and opted for Normal with Ironman turned on. 

This game is so evil sometimes...

PC release date Oct 16th.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/09/24/sneaky-stabby-mark-of-the-ninja-officially-steam-bound/#more-125321

May want to update the header to say PC/XBLA now.

Potentially dumb question... If I have two weapons with roughly equal stats, but one is an fire and one is just plain, is there any reason to prefer the plain over the fire? I'm thinking the fire is a bonus, so otherwise it's comparing apples to apples. Is this true?

If they have roughly equal stats, and one gun also has fire damage, take the fire damage gun.  If the damage would be roughly equal when taking into consideration the fire damage it's a tougher call as fire is more effective against certain enemies but some resist it as well, it's that way with all the elemental damages, kind of.

Ran into a bug yesterday - playing the Siren, I wanted to complete the fur-for-his-hat mission, and neither the trapper nor claptrap are around.

Have they moved on to Sanctuary?

Lucky I bought both Xbox and pc. I'm having the steam launcher issue, so the xbox copy has my full attention. The graphics disparity isn't as huge between xbox and pc this time around 

I knew this was going to happen.  I should have bet Hark money.   Anyhow, let me know if you ever get back on the PC, my Siren could use some company.

This game is great, everyone should at the very least check out the trial.

Agreed.  Great art style, fun gameplay and you can play it how it suits you.  Really digging this and am amazed it isn't getting more love from MS itself.  This should have been the headliner for the summer promo.

Absolutely agree. This is the best release of the year so far on their service, and I saw Microsoft Studios on the splash screen. you would think they would be pumping this title up.

It should have been the headliner for Summer of Arcade, I wonder why it wasn't, considering how weak SoA was this year and how good this game is.

Looks like there are 12 or 13 levels (I've seen conflicting reports) and about 6 - 8 hours of gameplay, but it looks like there are some reasons to replay levels, too.

For example, I'll have to replay the first level, since I didn't realize that you scored points for not killing anyone.

There's usually several challenges associated with the levels, and you'll need to complete 3 of each type to unlock different Ninja suits that alter the gameplay.

This game is great, everyone should at the very least check out the trial.

Thanks for the help guys, and yes Forge please tell me where I can find a spider. Gives me the chills but hey, of they can snare enemies I can take having a spider pet 

Clime Morgan's Spiral to completion in the Caledon Forrest.  At the end you get an achievement, there's a chest there, and juvenile spiders.

Also the Norn starting area has by far the most pets, go to the area with the lodges and you can get a crow, wolf, leopard, and a polar bear.   In Lions Arch is a pig and a drake hound.  I've been using the hound and spider lately, Bear is the most tanky but lacks the hard CC.

Took a break from my other characters and started the Ranger class for the first time. Never played the Ranger on the beta so I'm a little lost on how to acquire new pets/or locations of them. Time to hit the interwebs

I can tell you where to get a spider 

I've been saying for years that I'm done with the MMO genre until someone totally breaks the formula, and the more I'm reading about GW2 it sounds like someone's finally done just that.

But now if I'm reading things right, there's no way for me to buy a downloadable version?!  It's not on Steam?!  The official site is sold out?  Of digital copies?!  Did they forget how to copy and paste instead of cut & paste files?

Is there some other way I can get this without having to buy a cardboard box?

They shut down digital sales because they were doing too well and was impacting the servers etc. it will go back on sale that way at some point.

Definitely not a fan of the combination of pc and console. I rarely went to console forum (because I have no interest in console games) so all it does for me is basically add 50% useless topics to a forum I frequented. Would rather put the MMO forum in the PC forum, but not sure if that would have the intended effect you guys are looking for.

so you have no interest in the Xcom strategy game or Skyrim?

Hark sure makes me laugh.

I need you to play SSFIV again so I have a better chance at winning a game

And you make me laugh too.

I can't decide what's the most amusing: beating Hark on round 2, him throwing a game he clearly was going to win, or Kato killing his own summoner.  

Hark sure makes me laugh.

If you guys start creating some games, give me an invite.

Yeah I already invited you.

And lo, on this day did the forsaken Goblins crush Harkonis of the Cloaks.

the cloaks who forwent their movement phase three times 

Oh I screwed up a few phases too.  It really needs an undo. I understand why they don't have it on the attack phase because of the dice rolls but they should let you roll everything back until you make your first attack.  Also, can't believe they still dont have in-game chat for their games.

And lo, on this day did the forsaken Goblins crush Harkonis of the Cloaks.

I'm not into console gaming much - I have horrible dexterity, etc.  Trying to figure out what button to push literally gives me a headache.  ABXYTrigger1Trigger2, etc.  Probably not harder than the PC, but I'm used to pcs.  I'm obviously not an action gamer so I realize that I am a dinosaur in the gaming world. 

This is me, too, so I probably won't be going into the gaming forum anymore. Not that I posted much in the PC Games forum anyway. I did like to lurk there, but I'll cope.

Sadly I am finding myself in this boat as well.  I don't do console gaming anymore, haven't owned a console in over a year now.  I dipped my toe into the new combined forum, pretty much saw a bunch of PS3/360 threads and decided I am likely not going to go back in to try and sort through to find the PC threads.  That leaves me with reading off-topic now and again, and using the new analog games section to discuss the D&D campaign.

I hope you have another seat in that boat for me as well. The last console i owned was a PS2, and I only played about 3 games on it. PC gaming is the only gaming that interests me.

That's the main thing that really bugs me about visiting NeoGAF; they sometimes have very interesting debate topics but it's mostly "contaminated" with console games I've never heard of and have no interest in. I really have to dig around for the PC game posts there. But I'm aware that GT is not NeoGAF and as long as topics here have headers indicating console/PC type, it might still be tolerable.

I think some of you PC only stalwarts need to pay more attention to the console space.   Pretty much every big Fps or Rpg is multi platform these days.  There's also a lot of stuff in the console space that would appeal to the Pc gamer.  Dark Souls and Dragons Dogma being two recent RPGs that i think the Pc crowd would enjoy.  The reason it matters is that with Dark Souls it is finally getting a PC version and no small part of that is from the demand of pc folks and online petitions.    If pc only folks had collectively ignored the console space that Dark Souls port wouldn't be happening.

On the flip side there's something like Xcom.  Xcom is probably one of the most anticipated games of the year of the old PC gamer, but it's also coming out for consoles.  The console only set, despite there having been a console version of the original Xcom, really don't know why they should be excited about it.  Now assuming the game lives up to expectations, we'd all want it to succeed so we get more games like that or a sequel a lot sooner than last time.   Now with a split forum, the PC folks would go crazy for it in the PC subforum, and the console forum might get a thread on it that would languish and die.   In the joint forum the console folks that aren't familiar with the title will now see a very active thread for the game and potentially be much more inclined to check it out.  That then further benefits discussion and success of the title.