Games General

[Nichi]

Indeed.

So, I just beat Half-Life: Blue Shift. The ending was kinda anticlimactic, and the game had a lot of irritating bugs in it, but it wasn't too bad; for the $5 it costs on Steam, it's not bad, and ending aside I did feel satisfied with my purchase. I might just pick up Opposing Force sometime soon, since I've heard really good things about it and it's also only $5.

[Nichi]

So, Bella and I crashed into each other last night...in Portal 2 -w-;
I'm sorry; I had to say it xD

But, yeah. We finished the 3rd set of co-op tests; that one proved more difficult than last time, but we managed to get through. Also, there was the glorious moment of my quick thinking to use the flying cubes to take out the turrets; which was a spectacle to watch xD

[Bella]

After all this time, there's still something very satisfying about seeing turrets get knocked to their death. -w-

It was a lot of fun, even with the moments of "Wtf do we do now?" in that final test. ^^;

[Nichi]

Indeed -w-

We'll have to do this again next Saturday; if I feel up to it and setup 2k at grandma's office :3

[Nichi]

Pardon the double-post, but I have a question for the people who have played both Portal games.
Which do you think is the better ending song: Still Alive or Want You Gone?

I will admit that Want You Gone is objectively the better song, although it lacks the quirky charm that made Still Alive so popular.

[Bella]

Just listened to both back-to-back and I still can't decide. ;___;

... though the change between GLaDOS's voice in the first and second games is really apparent when played like that. I still think the slow humanization of GLaDOS's voice over the course of the games was brilliant and creepy.

[Krizonar]

I like Want You Gone better myself.

[LeaflameSD]

Please tell me that one of you has played this game.

[Nichi]

I've honestly never heard of it, but being from Atlus, you have my interest; as I do like a lot of the games they've released over the years.

On a note involving Portal, I now have every achievement for single-player mode :3

[Chocofreak13]

whoo!

recently got a new game for my iphone: Hiragana Pixel Party.
i've played 6 levels and i like it thus far, though it's a bit frustrating as i'm horrible at memory-match games and this one whips them out like Donkey and his Dong.
with that in mind, though, it's a good kind of frustrating, one that makes me want to play and play and play till i get a perfect score. which is good, since in that case it's going to help teach me all the hiragana.

on the bad frustrating side, it seems you have to pay to unlock all the missions (this could potentially mean you have to pay to unlock all the hiragana) and to unlock the katakana alphabet. fukkin' balls, but whatever, i'll enjoy the ride for the moment.


also waiting for both mum and dad to be out of the house at the same time so i can test-drive that ddr pad i bought. :0

[Nichi]

Niice ^^
Although sucks on that game requiring you to pay to unlock the rest of it :\

So, as mentioned in Topicless, I beat Ancient Empires. It's been a long journey...which I'll go over in the spoiler

(Challenge of the) Ancient Empires: ShowHide

Ah, yes; Ancient Empires. I've played this game off and on for nearly 20 years now; it all began with my dad introducing me to it on our old 486 desktop, circa '95.

It was unique among games I've played for the fact it was more action oriented; as you navigate the chambers, solving the puzzles, finding the artifact pieces while avoiding the various creatures within (Bats, snakes, spiders, a fire-breathing scorpion, etc.), and all you have to get through are 3 tools (High-jump shoes for when you need to jump higher, a miner's hat to activate light switches and temporarily stun some enemies, and a force field generator to briefly protect yourself if you're in a sticky situation). Once you find all the artifact pieces, you reassemble it (The game rewarding you with a brief description of the artifact), and then find the door into the Logic Puzzle room (Which you have 2 tries to solve the puzzle within; if you get it wrong twice, you have to start the chamber over again, while if you get it right on your first try, the game rewards you by refilling your health bar).

At the start, you have 4 caverns you can play in any order, with each one having 4 chambers and having a unique puzzle element to them; Near East introduces moving platforms and the various types of switches, Egypt introduces triangle mirrors (Which you use to direct the beam of light from your miner's hat to trip the light switches), India & China introducing conveyer belts, and Greece & Rome introducing coded panels and gongs depicting the Greek alphabet (You have to hit the gongs in the order displayed on the panel so it'll move out of the way). Once you complete those caverns, you're allowed entry into the final cavern: Ancient World, which incorporates all of the puzzle elements of the previous levels into what the game's intro calls "the ultimate challenge of the Ancient Empires".

Now with the basics of the game itself out of the way, my story. Dad had already finished the game twice over when he introduced me to it; once on each difficulty level (Explorer, which was the normal mode, and Expert, which is exactly what it says on the tin). For years, I wanted to do the same; although this proved difficult, as when the game would prompt me for the "Artifacts Disk" after beating chamber 1 of the Egypt level, I was confused and thought it was trying to install (I didn't know much about computers back then; just enough to be able to load my games unassisted). Then, in roughly '98, coinciding with the hard drive upgrade, mom put a strict ban on MS-DOS games for bullshit reasoning ("The computer is too advanced to run those old games now", when all that changed was the hard drive). It felt like my journey was over...

Jump forward to 2002; enter the 486 at grandma's bridal shop, which she gave me permission to use whenever I was over. I dug out my old DOS games, and began trying to play...although the 5.25-inch drive was nonfunctional, which left me with just the 3.5-inch disks to play the game. I began my quest anew; feeling the time was right. Unfortunately, I'd soon encounter another problem; the age of these disks, on top of being used so heavily over the years, catching up to them. I made it all the way to the Ancient World for the very first time...and once I completed the final logic puzzle, the game crashed with a Disk Read Error. For years after, I wondered what was on the other side of that door I went through, or if I'd ever get to find out.

Jump forward to 2005. I found an abandonware site that had the game for download, so I downloaded it and began to play it once more. At last, I got back to that part and went through that door; and was floored when I realized that yes, an educational game has a final boss. You stand before a giant jade statue that's shooting fireballs out of a series of orbs in its hands, and what you need to do to defeat it is written on the base of the statue ("Sound The Gong"). I defeated it, and at last saw the ending; which was some triumphant music as the statue shined and the orbs that the fireballs shot out of hatched into birds for some reason, followed by a message saying "Congratulations! Now try on Expert". So I did...but then Frankenstein V1's original hard drive gave out, cutting that short. But, I had the game downloaded, so it was a matter of reinstalling it and trying again.

When I got Asagi back in 2010, I setup DOSBox on her and Ancient Empires, and tried once more. I made it all the way through the game on Expert without much issue, but hit a snag when I got to the boss; now, its fireballs deal twice the damage they did before, and the game takes away any force fields you might have tried to save up beforehand, so two hits and you're dead. Likewise, strike the two gongs and the boss is defeated. I couldn't pull it off, and sadly, I lost my save file somewhere along the line

Jumping forward to 2014, nearly 20 years after I first played the game, I found myself with an urge to finish it at last. So, I setup DOSBox on 2k-tan the Desktop, setup Ancient Empires once more, and jumped right back in on Expert. Aside from a few snags, I plowed through it; tearing through the Ancient World last night with a few breaks in-between chambers. Finally, I got back to the boss, and managed to actually beat it this time; getting the true ending, as I jump onto a magic carpet and fly out of the pyramid as a crowd of people cheered, before flying off...and the game closes to the DOS prompt. Kinda disappointed they didn't have a credits roll or even a "Thank You For Playing" screen, but hey; a childhood dream was finally realized -w-

[Chocofreak13]

that was beautiful, man. ;v;

[Krizonar]

In other news, Tomb Raider sequel and Sims 4 previewed at E3!

[stewartsage]

Sims 4: Sims 3 II


TF2 in a Shellnut.

[Chocofreak13]

that describes a lot of games, brosef.

.....why am i thinking of Animal Crossing. like, some horrible crossover of Animal Crossing and Rule of Rose or something.