Phantasy Star: Fringes of Algo

Well I've killed Vaas and now I'm skulking around on the second island

I agree it was a really fun game and I will admit, Far Cry 4 was equally fun. I really loved riding on an elephant smashing through outposts

Well, I got the new Godzilla game that came out this week. I grappled a bit with posting my thoughts here or in the thread about that game specifically, but I ultimately chose that thread to go more in depth. Here I'll provide a much shorter summary.

In short, it has come the closest to actually making you feel like a huge monster destroying a city, at least for me. And it does have what I've found lacking about most giant monsters games I've played - weight and impact in every movement. I can't say it's necessarily better than other giant monster games I've played. It does some things better (see the above mentioned thing that has been lacking) but how well those things actually work translated into a game is something only the player can really decide for themselves. And for me, those things are somewhat of a mixed bag, but in the net, come out positive for me. I enjoyed what I have played so far and I intend to play more, as I do now what to unlock more monsters and start discovering each monster's evolution path.

All that said, I'm a Godzilla fan and 100% the target audience. If you are not a Godzilla fan, this game is not likely to be for you.

I've been trying to play a good number of the indie games I've gotten through PS Plus on my Vita. Here are four in the last week I've played, but ultimately dropped before finishing...

Kick & Fennick - It started off well. It had an interesting mechanic where instead of a jump button, you have a gun with a ton of recoil that can launch you, and you can use it to effectively double jump. Interesting, but also extremely imprecise. The first few levels were good and fun. And then all the sudden the platforming got way, WAY more precise than the mechanic and controls could really allow for, and it quickly crossed out of the sweet spot of being challenging without being frustrating to just being frustrating.

The Swapper - This one is puzzle platforming where you have the ability to use a gun to create clones that mirror your movements. I liked the atmosphere, but the gameplay failed to get me invested. There was nothing it did wrong, there was nothing bad about it, I just lost interest.

Maybe I'm just in the mood for platformers this week, but whatever...

Hohokum - An art game above all else. You play a long snake-like thing, and you go around rather colorful, bizarre worlds. The problem is that there's not really gameplay, not really a story to speak of, just exploration and seeing what objects you can interact with by going near them and trying to figure out what they do. And apparently that's what the dev were trying to do. It was pretty and fun for a few minutes, but again, I lost interest to keep going after a while. I don't mind games like this, but I much prefer them to be short as they quickly overstay their welcome for me.

Murasaki Baby - This game could've been good...if it wasn't ALL touch controls! I don't mind some touch controls, but this game is only touch controls. Like Kick & Fennick, it was fine at first, before the inherent problems of touch problems started kicking in, namely imprecision and being generally finicky. Unfortunately, this game requires you to basically always be touching the screen at all times, which also causes your finger to necessarily obscure part of the screen from view. And sometimes, you have to be touching the screen in multiple places at once, making that problem worse. This game was killed by its controls for me.

I have several more indie titles on my Vita to try, but those are the four I've been playing the last few days.

Undertale.

I'm half-tempted to make a general topic on it, because its a really, really good game. I fear that its not for everyone though, because if meta-humor is not your thing I feel like Undertale kind of falls apart (for the record, I think its really well done meta-humor and not something a 12 year old thinks is cute and clever).

My Skyrim urge came back again, so when I'm not gaming for my thesis experiment, I'm playing Skyrim. But this time, I deleted my install and my save files so I could start totally fresh with a whole new set of mods, now including mods from the Nexus site and using more advanced tools like the Nexus mod manager and LOOT to better organize what I install (still not Bethesda's Creation Kit, though...). The Nexus mods are typically far bigger and go much deeper than the mods available on the Steam workshop, though there's plenty of overlap. But I started with the Skyrim Script Extender (SKSE) and SkyUI. The former allows the game to run much more advanced and new scripts, while the latter is an overhaul of the user interface for PC and includes mod configuration menus. And since then, I've installed an overhaul of Skyrim's werebeast system with a complementary enhancement of werewolf perks, much more involved animal loot and crafting because I tend to play a sort of hunter/ranger character, a hunter's guild mod, several wildlife mods that play well together, follower changes, and a survival mod, though I went with the slightly simpler and lower maintenance iNeed over the more popular realistic needs and diseases. As well as many smaller mods fixing small things and making minor adjustments, like deconstruction of items back into raw materials, new cooking recipes that work with iNeed, and some texture mods. So far, running well, no problems that I haven't been able to sort out and the game seems no less stable than usual.

So lately I've been playing a game called Qvadriga (pronounced "Quadriga") that... let's be fair, it should be a bit less than the twenty dollars Steam wants for it. But, what the hell, you pay your money, you take your chances, caveat emptor, audaces fortuna iuvat, &c.

Yes, as you can probably guess by all the Latin I'm throwing around, Qvadriga is a game about chariot racing in ancient Rome. Now, ancient Rome around the time of the Roman Empire is awesome (unless you were the Emperor) and chariot racing is awesome. Your goal, as the manager of a chariot racing team, is to win three races in the famed Circus Maximus. Only problem is, in order to race in the Circus Maximus, you need a personal invitation from Caesar himself.

Want that invite from Caesar? Get famous in Italy by winning chariot races. How do you get famous in Italy? Get famous in Africa by winning chariot races. To do that, you win chariot races in Egypt. And to do that, you win chariot races in Syria. And to become famous in Syria for chariot race victories, you need to win races in Gaul...

The point is, you're gonna be doing a lot of chariot racing.

Not all chariot teams are alike, however, and you have your choice of six when you start a new campaign. Some factions, like the military and priesthood, favor stronger aurigas (charioteers), while the merchants and politicians have better horses and/or chariots. The choice is, of course, up to you and your racing style.

As you travel across the Roman Empire, you have the ability at each city to buy new aurigas (to replace the ones that die), chariots (accidents happen; quite frequently in my case), and horses (to replace the ones that die) to improve your team. You can also, if you have the denarii to throw around, buy the permanent services of blacksmiths, doctors, or veterinarians to improve your between-race recovery. Professionals are expensive, as are better components for your team, so you'll have to earn your denarii in the circuses.

Money comes at you in two ways: Either by finishing a race (not winning, though coming in first gets you a hefty sum!) or by betting before the race. You can only bet on yourself, and you only get payout on your bet if you actually win the race, so caution is advised there.

Once you're in the circus, ready to race, fate deals you a nice random event. There's a lot of events that can affect your upcoming race-- maybe they didn't have the time to clear the track before your race, so chariot wrecks from the last race remain on the track. Sometimes two of your opponents fight before the race and start fighting each other. You might be racing under Egypt's searing sun, increasing your chances of getting stunned. Some of the events work against you and you alone (looking at you, "We Are Tired of You") while other events work against everyone on the track. A handful of events help you out either during the race (such as "Bribe Opponent," which causes one opponent to yank his horses' reins as soon as he gets into the first turn) or after ("Medical Support," which halves any damage your auriga suffered during the race.) You might even find yourself running a short two-lap race or having to run a fourth lap!

Of course, being that you're in the Roman Empire, you don't have to be entirely by-the-rules when you run your race. Your auriga's whip, intended to spur your horses for a quick burst of speed, can be used to lacerate your opponents' horse team (or your opponents!) and, should you feel especially daring, you can ram your opponents' horse and chariot with your own chariot (hope you invested in a heavier chariot for more damage!)

The other racers aren't the only danger; take a turn too fast and you might find yourself thrown from the chariot, hanging on to your horses' reins for your life! The smart choice is to run from the track for safety (WARNING: Romans don't brake for stultii), but if you're close enough to the end of the race, you can totally win a chariot race without your chariot by getting dragged to your imminent death across the finish line albea linea. (The chariot isn't strictly required, it's just there for your own personal safety.)

Yes, Qvadriga's awesome and exciting, and truly worth playing despite the high price tag. It's a racing game, yes, but it relies on skill and tactical thinking rather than "jam the gas pedal to win." Plus, you get to learn some historical facts about the major cities in the Roman Empire as you play. =p

That's actually pretty accurate- being a charioteer may have been more dangerous than being a gladiator.

As for me, I've been playing Rebel Galaxy, an open-world space scoundrel game where for the first time I can remember in such a game, you don't start in something that's at the mercy of any jerk who wants what you've got. It's a game all about driving the big ships, and it has this wonderfully worn and rough aesthetic perfectly marked by the fact that every time you adjust your speed, it sounds like your ship has a manual transmission. It has basically replaced STO as my "doing stuff in space" game.

Pokemon Red on my 3DS. Just got to Vermillion City last night.

I did not have a Game Boy growing up, and only played a bit of Pokemon Red (or was it Blue? Don't remember) on a neighbor's Game Boy, so my nostalgia is limited. I think I only got as far as the first gym. So I'm experiencing this for effectively the first time, but being a citizen of the internet and gaming in general for a while now, one basically has to have lived under a rock held down with a large anvil and gorilla glue to not hear about the original Pokemon games and all the various rumors and secrets, etc. surrounding it. So I know a lot more going in than most probably did back then by virtue of the internet existing. Oh well.

Overall, I'd say it's pretty good and seems to hold up okay. The rock-paper-scissors nature of Pokemon is definitely a big deal, but there is at least some strategy besides that. I wouldn't say its the deepest RPG around, but it understands what it is and what it's trying to be, and is doing that fairly well. I can definitely understand why it became the big deal it was (and still is).

Currently playing Fire Emblem: Fates. Comes with three different paths to take! Can't say I'm huge on Nintendo's decision to split it up the way they did though; I got the special edition that comes with all three, but those were extremely limited in quantity and some people didn't get that opportunity.

Annnyway, it's a great game (besides subpar story) and it has tons of new mechanics to FE. While the new weapon system isn't my favorite, I really do like that they're changing up the system and keeping things fresh.

I hear good things about the FE games, yet somehow I just can't work up the interest to try one. In any case, I hope you enjoy it.

I started Ocarina of Time 3D a few nights ago. I have this weird thing with Zelda...all the individual elements that go into Zelda are generally things I love. On paper, I should really enjoy Zelda games. Yet, somehow, it seems every time the ingredients are strung together something gets lost along the way and I lose interest. I have yet to beat a single Zelda game in my life because I just stop caring, stop having fun and put it down.

Let's see if Ocarina can change that.