What VIDEO GAME(s) have you been playing?

Vlad wrote:

All other Bioware games after BG2 - KOTOR, Jade Empire, ME - are fully voiced, and whatever you think of the plots, the truth is that the dialogue is not that great. It is slow, cliche-ridden, and people just don't talk like that. But those games - back then - were pretty unique and didn't have much competition. I remember that if I was in the mood to play an RPG with conversation trees, it was either Bioware or nothing.

I thought the Dragon Age: Origins conversations were okay, and the side conversations your companions have while you're walking around are very good. Some of the conversations can drag out, but most of the long ones are ones that you started yourself, so you don't have anyone but yourself to blame. Witcher III has the same issue: you can end up spending 15 minutes having a conversation with an NPC (e.g. The Bloody Baron, or CSI: Novigrad), or you can just short-circuit it and say, "Don't care."

I'm not going to dis these games on unrealistic dialogue- nobody in real life talks like they do on TV and the movies either. The only show I saw that came close to it was The Royle Family sit-com. Anyway, I liked CYOA/FF books so getting that in video games is alright with me. I spent ages with the original Planescape poking as much dialogue as I could (and built my character for maximum text delivery) because I dig that stuff.

However, I wasn't at all interested in reading all those books in the Elder Scrolls games.

Vampire the Masquerade - Bloodlines had some cool dialog.

Best incidental dialog I have heard came from Dragon Age Inquisition, when I was just wandering around and 2 companions had the following conversation (and my wife refused to believe me that it happened so I had to scour the internet for proof):
Iron Bull: You could've been one of the Chargers, Blackwall. You’ve got the stature, the attitude...
Blackwall: And you'd be my boss.
Iron Bull: Hey, I'm a great boss. I’m a firm believer in No-Pants Fridays.
Blackwall: I’d rather fight for a cause.
Iron Bull: Hey, No-Pants Fridays is a cause.

Ha! That reminds me of the grammar nazi bit in Castle Wolfenstein.

I didn't get to play DA:Origins, and there's very little chance I will...

Vampire Bloodlines' writing is superb all the way, thanks for reminding about it, hotseat!

The thing about writing "like people talk", and it is true for films, books, TV-shows and games, it doesn't literally mean "like people talk in real life", but about creating an illusion of a "real" conversation, with just enough realistic elements to con the audience into believing that the characters are real people, but at the same time edited and focused in a way that the conversation remains engaging. In my opinion, writing a believable but engaging dialogue is equal parts technique and talent. Or, in words of Steve Coogan in Hamlet 2: "Oh my God, writing is so hard." ()

That's not how people talk, that's how fiction conveys conversation. So you can say that games writing sucks when it's not as effective as TV etc in constructing fake dialogue, that's fair, but neither medium typically involves people talking like people talk.

I got to play some Rock Band VR last night. It's not as good as Rock Band 3 (I can't speak to RB 4 as I don't have a current gen console). The new play style is interesting in that it seems to give you freedom to create your own "chords" but I found a couple of things immediately jarring with it. Firstly is the sense that you're being thrown in there without a strict formula to follow (such as the note highway of other RB games) and you have to figure out something not too repetitive as I think you increase multiplier by changing chord styles over multiple bars. Every combination has a name and you're encouraged to find them so you might play 3-4-3-4 then 2-3-3-4 etc. You have to hit some specific chords at key moments of the song but other than that you're left to improvise. You might find that enjoyable.

The other result of playing each chord you play is the resulting audio filter it applies to the song. In typical RB, so long as you're hitting notes, you're generally hearing the studio version of the song, and when you flub there's that kind of muting of the audio. In RB VR, each chord you play applies a different audio filter, so you can be scoring good combos, but you're flattening or muting the actual song by playing certain chords. The basic "three fingers" chord sounds the best, so you kind of want to keep playing it so the song sounds good, but you'll lose score and also be literally just strumming the whole song.

In terms of the VR experience of putting you right there up on stage... Well, seeing the controller in VR is pretty excellent, with the game interface stuff projecting out of it (such as sparks coming from the buttons you're pressing) and there's that cool VR experience of looking around, but... you're literally not there. There is no player avatar, just a disembodied guitar. There is no avatar at all in the game. One of the things I enjoyed a lot about RB 3 was customizing my guitarist with new outfit stuff and doing all that. Of course if you only care about the actual core gameplay that's not a problem, but the incongruity of both being immersed in VR while at the same time losing immersion due to the existential horror of disembodiment in the game was jarring for me.

There isn't much to the game outside the basic "be on stage and play guitar", and except for there being a decent (if not expansive) selection of songs, it kind of feels like playing a demo.

Rock Band VR was $70 including the wireless guitar (which also came with another touch controller holder) so on that score it's not a bad deal, because I can look at some other options for games to play with it. I wouldn't pay out $50 for the software alone, though.

Jack Krauser: What is it that you fight for, comrade?
Leon S. Kennedy: My past I suppose

Gave Godzilla on the GameCube a break for a bit after I found a PS3 copy of Red Dead Redemption at a thrift store for $2 yesterday. I have mentioned how much of a console newb before, with my knowledge of games being akin to living under a rock for two decades, right?

So my initial reaction after playing for the last 12 hours:
"Ummmmmmmmmm, wow. Look me up in 5 months once I finally get tired of WestWorld, ya'll!"

My 360 started to die when I was playing RDR so it tainted my experience cuz it would freeze up. It was still incredible and just wait until you cross into Mexico...

Looking forward to the sequel


Just started my Professional difficulty play through of RE4. Leon is dressed like a gangster

Colorcrayons wrote: Gave Godzilla on the GameCube a break for a bit after I found a PS3 copy of Red Dead Redemption at a thrift store for $2 yesterday. I have mentioned how much of a console newb before, with my knowledge of games being akin to living under a rock for two decades, right?

So my initial reaction after playing for the last 12 hours:
"Ummmmmmmmmm, wow. Look me up in 5 months once I finally get tired of WestWorld, ya'll!"

I picked that one up too at the thrift store for Xbox. It's been fun so far. I've also just gotten an Xbox One. My last system was the Wii so I with you under that rock.

Based upon a recommendation by Black Barney (thanks Barney!), I picked up Mass Effect 2 for Xbox 360 for $5 bucks shipped. Since they've recently made Mass Effect 1,2, & 3 for the Xbox 360 backward compatible to Xbox One and since they've now released the new Mass Effect: Andromeda, these older ones are a great bargain.

ME2 has been awesome so far and I feel like I'm an active participant in a space opera and captaining a starship. It's perfect in almost every way. The UI is perfect. The story line, plot, and dialogue are excellent. You can tell where they've paid homage to other scifi franchises--I loved it when they revealed the Normandy S2 in its hanger just like when they revealed the new Enterprise from the first Star Trek movie. Each character feels developed. Each NPC also feels developed. The world/universe is unique. Reading the Codex shows that the writes attempted to tie everything together. The path for tech upgrades is clear. There are repercussions for your decisions. The combat is cool (although it's too easy so far on normal) (I'm used to Dark Souls, however). I'm only 4 hours into it.

I've liked this franchise so much that I went ahead and purchased ME 1 & 3 on eBay for $5 so I can experience the whole trilogy.

But who r u bangin

Don't bang Jack. I still have emotional scarring from that. When we made love, she....she was the man...

Michael Barnes wrote: But who r u bangin

Uh, errhh, Bioware has a secret code where you can play Sheperd as an androgynous eunuch who identifies as a Geth pulse rifle...that's the one I'm playing.