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kimahri said:
Why does the monster catching genre seem to be going... backwards?

I wouldn't know, as I've never played one before.

I also didn't know they had real time monster capture previously? Or if they did, not like this:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvDWleKmhYs[/youtube]
 
WTF Bayonetta is really weird. It's just you average button masher but they've made the main character a sexual female character to appeal to all the Japanese people who fantasise about that sort of stuff.
I mean come on. In the game when fighting a boss the finishing move is called 'climax' where all the characters clothes come off. Plus when she's walking she bends her back back so her boobs are always sticking up. Also whenever she lands in a sexual position the screen pauses and you hear a camera click.
It's ridiculous and Sony are hoping it's going to be the next big thing. :roll:
 
I know it's Sega but on the PS3 forums and PSM3 magazine Sony are thinking it's going to be the next big thing even though its on the 360 as well. It wasn't even fun to play. It was just run into enemies hit random buttons till you win, move on do the same with the odd boss thrown in.
But yeah really weird lol.
 
Bayonetta has awesome voice acting! Especially that clip I saw of the motorbike level.

furie said:
kimahri said:
Why does the monster catching genre seem to be going... backwards?

I wouldn't know, as I've never played one before.

Well, the oldest game Know to use the concept of catching monsters and having them fight for you is Megami Tensei but in that you ran around in a maze first persona style and instead of bumping into cutesy creature you ran into things based of folklore and religion and stuff. This isn't the point i'm trying to get across though. In Megami Tensei you had to talk to, threaten and bribe demons to join you and each demon would react differently to different responses. Recruiting demons was also based on your alignment of law, chaos and neutral. some demons wouldn't join you if you were a certain alignment or buggered off if your alignment changed. I think you can have 4 demons in our party as well as your main character and a sassy sidekick with magic. The latter 2 level up ala standard RPG but the demon don't. You needed to go a certain room and take 2 of your beloved demons and fuse them to make a new stronger one withsome abilities carried over. Probabl one of the things that Pokemon carried over was the weakness and resistance thing in which a fire attack will kil the **** of an ice demon (as an exmple) but because megaten is an older RPG it was really unbalanced so you had to abuse the hell out that mechanic to get any where. On top of that the series in it's self has a much better developed plot, escially later in the series. They usually have very religious overtones and morally questioning senarios.

I think it's safe for me to say that Megaten didn't inspire Pokemon alot of the mechanics from megaten are gone. Pokeballs and random chance instead of talking, 1vs1 and later 2vs2 instead of a party of 6. standard leveling instead of the really deep fusion stuff.

Now I know that you don't play these games furie so this entire post isn't aimed at you but this invizimals seems t be taking away more from the genre. when you look into it Pokemon isn't just a simple rock paper sissors. Sure it's not as detailed as megaten but there are lots of things affecting fights.

So yeah, I kinda do thing the genre is going backwards.
 
Alright, Kim asked me to elaborate the mechanics in Pokémon, to make it easier to compare.

First, you have the elemental types, of which there are seventeen. I'm not going to list them here, those of you who are interested know them anyway, and the rest of you don't give a damn. Any Pokémon can have a combination of two types, called dual typing (for example, Charizard is Fire and Flying). Moves only have one type, they are the same as the Pokémon typings, but a Pokémon can learn moves of more different types than its own. Moves which are "Super-effective" on one typing, will deal double the damage it would on a neutral typing, but moves that are "Not very effective" will only deal half the damage.

Please note the difference between type and typing. The first is used concerning moves, the second is used concerning the Pokémon. A full list of types is seen here.

Dual typing is a double-edged sword. First, the benefits: If both typings are resistant to a certain attack type, the attack only deals a quarter of the original damage. We can go back to Charizard, whose typings both are resistant to Grass attacks. Now let's imagine him and Pikachu both being attacked by an enemy Bulbasaur's Razor Leaf (a moderately strong Grass type attack). The formula for damage calculation is rather complicated (it can be found here). Let's for simplicity's sake pretend that both Pikachu and Charizard have the same amount of Special Defense points. Under normal conditions, they would be hit for an equal amount of Damage. But as both the Fire- and Flying-typings resist Grass attacks, while Electric doesn't, Charizard will only lose one fourth as much lives as Pikachu. These factors can also nullify each other. For example, the Fire typing is resistant to Ice attacks, while the Flying typing is weak to them. Thus, Charizard will take neutral damage from Ice attacks. On the other hand, if one of the typings are immune to a certain attack type, then it will override any weakness the other typing would have (Even though Ground moves are super-effective on Fire Pokémon, they won't hit Charizard because of his Flying typing).

Also, there is a factor called Same Type Attack Bonus, or STAB. In short, it means that if a Pokémon uses a move of its own typing, the damage done will be multiplied by 1.5. In short, if a Charizard and a Pikachu both use Fire Punch (note: In reality, Pikanchu can't learn this move) and they share the same Attack stat, Charizard's attack will be 50 % more powerful. Secondary typing also gives STAB, so Charizard's Flying attacks will be 50% more powerful than, say, Jigglypuff's.

Then, the drawbacks. You guessed one of them already: You get the weaknesses from both types as well. Both Fire and Flying are weak to Rock moves, and when combined, any Rock attack will do four times as much damage to Charizard as it would to Pikachu (see example above). Also, as seen with the Ice example, you can lose resistances if your Pokémon's secondary typing is weak to the attack type your primary typing is resistant to.
___
Good. That was the basics. Then onto stats:

I've briefly mentioned the Attack and Defense stats above here. Pokémon have six primary stats, called Hitpoints (HP), Attack (Atk), Defense (Def), Special Attack (Sp.Atk or SpA), Special Defense (Sp. Def or SpD) and Speed (Spe).

The HP stat is the number of lives a Pokémon has.

The Attack stat determines the attack strength of a Pokémon's physical attacks (usually attacks where the Pokémon hits the opponent with a solid object). Previously, whether a move was considered physical or not was determined by its type, but it has later been changed, so that there are now both physical and special attacks of each type. A high Attack stat means the Pokémon will hit really hard, physically, but doesn't affect its special moves.

The Defense stat determines how well a Pokémon will take physical hits. A high Defense stat means that it will lose less HP when hit by a physical move, and can compensate for the opponent's high Attack stat.

The Sp. Atk stat determines the attack strength of a Pokémon's special attacks (damaging attacks not involving hitting the opponent with a solid object).

The Sp.Def stat determines how well a Pokémon will take Special hits.

The Speed stat determines which Pokémon will attack first. Yes, this is important. A high Speed stat means that the Pokémon almost always will attack first. Unlike the other stats, it's not important to have the highest possible Speed stat. As long as you're faster than the opponent, you should be satisfied.

There are ways to temporarily increase the Pokémon's stats (apart from the HP stat). More on that subject here.

Each battle is divided into rounds. The trainers can choose between using one of the Pokémon's four attacks, switch to another Pokémon, use items, or flee. In professional battles, neither of the two latter options are available (well, fleeing means forfeiting). Again, which Pokémon attacks first in the round is determined by their Speed stats, but there are "priority moves", that strikes before any other move, regardless of Speed stat. If both Pokémon use a priority moves, the attack order will again be determined by their Speed stats. For a more comprehensible article on priority, follow this link:
http://www.smogon.com/dp/articles/move_priority
The battle is over when all Pokémon on one team is knocked out (have 0 HP left).

Then there are abilities. Each Pokémon has a more or less useful ability that may change the course of the battle. Comprehensive explanation here.

There's also the effect of weather. About one in a hundred readers of this topic will even read this sentence, and less than half of them will have a look at the effects of weather here.

And Items. Each Pokémon may hold an item that may change its performance. Full list here.

At this point, I'd like to thank my eventual readers. If you have any questions about the game mechanics of Pokémon, hit me on MSN or drop me a PM.

Last, short about moves. There are about 450 moves in the Pokémon arsenal, ranging from useless (Splash) to absolutely devastating (Earthquake), of all types. All moves have three factors to determine their usefulness:
Base Power (how much damage the move will deal),
Accuracy (chance of hitting the opponent with it), and
Power Points (Or PP. How many times you may use the attack in the battle). Usually, a move will score well on two out of these three criteria and equally bad on the last (Splash, being the only move that doesn't do anything, has 45 PP and will never fail to execute, while Horn Drill, one of the moves that always will KO the opponent, has 5 PP and an accuracy of 30%). Of course, the moves can have other drawbacks as well, such as lowering stats or dealing damage to the Pokémon using the attack. Those effects can again be countered by using items or with abilities.

That should be it.
 
Kim. Wow - thanks, a long, well put together post. I am shocked :p

I didn't understand much of it, but the effort was appreciated :lol:

Erm, Invizimals then? It's a little more complicated than I made out. There are three "attack types" - bite, slash and smash. Each Invizimal is one of 6 core elemental types (predictably). Each is impervious to some degree or another to some attacks. So slash attacks don't hurt an ice based creature - unless the creature fighting it is fire based. That kind of thing. So there's an element of knowing the creatures, and which attacks are you strongest and will have the most effect, balanced out with defending against that particular creature type. Etc, etc, etc.

The combat is okay, but it's not something I've ever been into at all. The game is seriously all about the capture and viewing of the Invizimals. To catch a new creature, you first have to hunt it, through you home or wherever. It's like hide and seek, only you have an Aliens motion tracker at your disposal :)

When you find the creature, you have to then play a mini game to capture it. Different mini game for each creature. For one I had to do a platform game type of thing, another I had to swat the fly creature (but I had to be quiet and still before it would settle down and land). The thing that makes it great is that it all happens in your home. The platforms appear on the kitchen table. The fly lands on your toilet lid. You have to shoot down bad dreams that float around your pillows. The camera works "pretty well". It's not perfect, but when it is (a lot ) you have a great sense of these creatures actually being there - you're really sucked in. It's still not my kind of game, but it IS one of the coolest games I've seen in a long time... Until I played...

Eyepet. I love these kind of ideas when they're done well - the interactive creature type of thing. At it's most basic, there's not a lot here you haven't seen before in things like Catz or Nintendogs. It's a staple computerised pet. However... Having it running around your living room and interacting with you makes this "game" superb. If you've already got an EyeToy, then grab this cheap (about £15 online) - it's well worth it just for the basic interaction.

Then it goes a step further, into brilliance. You gain the ability to "draw" your own things to interact with the Eyepet's world. It starts with a car. Draw the body shape, then two wheels. Choose a building material, and you Eyepet draws it into his world and can interact with it. It's brilliant seeing your drawing make it's way into the game. You can then get cocky and really start pushing the designs (I made a "Spider Car", with four legs on each side that move). It's actually genius stuff.

There's then the plane design (though the plane controls are much more limited than the car) and a robot.

Really great "Tech Demo" and brilliant fun as well. The only downside? You need a lot of floor space for it, and you'll spend a lot of time on the floor too (not so good for old farts like me).

Been quite a gamey weekend all told, as I also traded in Beetles Rockband (finally completed it) for Lego Rockband. Hurrah!

It's okay, not mind blowing, but I've played a HUGE number of these games now, and it's difficult to get excited by them. I think the track list is great though, the Lego-ised atmosphere is great fun (as always) and the super easy mode is brilliant as it means MMF can join in with us singing Crocodile Rock and Ghostbusters :)

I'm not too happy with the creation side, it seems quite skimpy for a Lego game, but it's alright. Story mode is good too - thankfully I have lots of DLC to bring into it. Does anyone know if you exported Rock Band disk will work in it?

With the left over cash, I got Arkham Asylum cheap with Minor_Furie. Not really played it yet, but I thought I'd find out what all the hype was about. Will give more details later in the week I think.

Phew...
 
furie said:
Kim. Wow - thanks, a long, well put together post. I am shocked :p

I didn't understand much of it, but the effort was appreciated :lol:

In short,

p3mara.jpg


Megaten has creepy Penis Monster :C
 
Kim that thing looks disgusting lol.

Furie, yay for reviewing awesome games I have yet to buy and play. They had a cool set up for Lego Rockband at Bluewater at the weekend, was awesome. I loved every song that they let the little kids play.

I still need to get EyePet. The one thing that stops me from getting it is that it'll be played once and then left to gather dust. It does look ace though.

Need to get that PSP game too but I fear it'll get the same treatment as EyePet. Hmm.



As I saw it cheap and I thought it'd be hilarious to play I got Disney Sing it: High School Musical 3.

It's actually really cool, I love the menu design, so easy to navigate etc. It looks like they really took note of how Singstar works, which means it works very well. My only gripe with it is that it is far more pedantic about your singing compared to SingStar (it notices even the smallest of movement in your voice). So yeah, good fun...if you like the High School Muscial tracks.
 
Yeah Peep, I'm too old for Invizimals - it doesn't really do much for me. I have no compulsion to play the fighting bit - but thew capture mini games are excellent. For under £18 with the camera, it was an easy to justify impulse buy.

EyePet? Well, there's a lot of challenges to unlock. So you'll get a week out of it easy just unlocking the challenges and completing them. I now have a huge stack of paper of various car, plane and robot designs (oh yes, you can design your own robot :) ). Balloon and puppet designs next. However, you're right. After the week is up, I can't imagine me playing a lot of it a huge amount. £15 for a week of playing it though? Yeah, the figures add up :)
 
Double post for the win! I may make it to a triple post by lunch time! :)

Lego Harry Potter trailer has been released!
http://www.joystiq.com/2009/12/09/new-l ... -laughter/

I love the humour in the games, but I'm less than convinced each time with the actual gameplay (I'm looking at YOU Indy and Batman).

Though... Lego Rockband... Had me in and Minor_Furie in hysterics last night, really amusing game, but some of the pop songs I just can't sing :(

Going to get some new DLC I think, but it's a great game.

Played Batman the other night for, well, a long time (for me, must have been three hours).

I still can't make up my mind about the game. It's still warming up I think. I do like it, it suits my kind of gaming ability. Sneaking, taking things slowly, hunting all the extra bits, etc. The gameplay mechanics are really repetitive though, and I'm not entirely sure where this "brilliant story" thing comes into it? Yeah, it's not a bad story for a game, but it's nothing special - if it had been a comic, I'd have been bored by it by now. It's a little confused, and a lot of the story is repeated and hammered home over and over again. "What's this about the Joker taking over Arkham?" The next guard/character who asks me this is going to get punched in the face!

It's addictive though, you do want to keep on going and find out where it leads to next. It's got an excellent pace, so it's hard to find a point to stop playing - always the sign of a good game.

However, I'm not sure if I'm going to go back to it now I've stopped. There wasn't a hook in gameplay to make me actually want to play the game, I just wanted to continue as the pace drags you in. I'm not interested in how the story pans out (I've already worked out most of it anyway), and I don't care too much about the game. I'll hold off on a final verdict and see what happens over the weekend...
 
To stop furie quadruple posting ;)

I may be late, but I finally have played Left 4 Dead to a good degree on the PC...

It's great fun, both by myself, and online versus (yet to do campaign online)... There are certainly some parts of Valve's typical dry humour (In one safe room, in amongst the arguement of who the real monsters are, someone has put 'I miss the internet', this made me lol)...

If you don't know what's going on, then well, where have you been? 4 people take on millions in a typical cliched zombie game, with the odd special one thrown in to keep you on your toes (I've hurled much abuse at these guys because they can be bastards), and when you throw in the fact that you can be teamed up with anyone, fun is bound to ensue...

As always the Source engine provides a great physics to the game, as well as providing excellent scenery and backdrops, although all at night, meaning some of the detail can be missed...

In all honesty is does miss an actual backstory to it, as you don't know why your characters are the only ones surviving (with a few others who end up rescuing you), so they could have added some more cut-scenes to actually set the scene of each campaign, but the gameplay itself is completely awesome...

Overall Score - 9/10
 
Played Buzz! Quiz World earlier. It's awesome, such an improvement on the previous titles. You can customize the length you play etc so much, it's great. You can also save profiles now so with more characters and now Buzz actually calling your name it's probably the best update they have ever given the series. It also looks much better, the graphics have been improved upon greatly. Ace, can't wait to play it even more.


The other day I thought I'd also try out the new Movie store for the PS3. I downloaded Cats & Dogs in HD (movie review in the other topic). It took ages to download (something around 12-14 hours) but it was amazing. Was like watching it off a blu-ray disc. I don't know if I'm going to be using the store that much though, considering the length of time it takes to download the films. Overall though, I'm impressed with what they offer.
 
Bit of consumer advice here...

Was playing Lego Rockband last night, when suddenly the disk ejected. Tried a couple of times to get it to work, but it kept on getting spat out.

Checked the disk - it's got a crack in it at the centre of the disk. This is the third disk this year I've had now which has cracked/split at the centre.

The first one (Motorstorm: Pacific Ridge) I didn't have the receipt for. I had to call Sony, and they said they'd never heard of anything like this, and it needed to be returned to the retailer. As I didn't have the receipt, I couldn't. One £35 coaster.

I assumed that the damage had occurred due to one of the kids being a bit rough getting the disk into the case (I'm the only one takes them out, and I always use the "button" in the middle).

Then our copy of Ghostbusters did the same. This time I was prepared, I always keep my receipts now. Took it back to Game, who scowled at Maxi-Minor_Furie but replaced the disk. Fair enough, there was still a chance it was MMF who had damaged it, but the disks are kept on a high shelf Minor_Furie can barely reach. Even so, putting a game in a case (or getting it out) shouldn't damage a disk.

Anyway, Lego Rockband. This is an easy one. I've put the disk into the PS3 three times. I have personally taken the disk out, and put it away again myself (three times out, twice in). Nobody else has touched the disk, but it has split. Not just between plays, but right in the middle of playing the game.

So, I did some more research. It appears that since my first problem earlier this year with MS:pR, there have been a lot more cases of people having problems with disks cracking/splitting. Sony are claiming in all cases "never heard of anything like it" and putting the blame on mishandling by the end user.

However, it does appear that there is a quality issue with some blu-ray disks, and they're coming out of the factory with minor defects in the disk. When the disk spins up to full speed, the defects become cracks, which then get worse until - pop- they hit the data area and your game is toast.

So, the consumer advice? Always, always, always keep your receipt. I keep mine now in the box with the game. The damage could come after ten minutes of play, or 100 hours - it depends on how bad the manufacturing fault is. Don't just write it off as dead and gone.

Consumer (UK) advice in the UK is that you should get at least 90 days from purchase out of the disk - but I suspect that if pushed, you could get a longer warranty.

Just to add (before we end up with a fanboy argument). I've also read about PS1, Ps2 and 360 disks suffering the same fate - it's a manufacturing issue on the disk, not the machine it's being played on - just to get that out there quickly before we have a rack of "Sony PS3 breaks disks hahahahaha" posts.
 
^Ouch. I always keep my receipts for games anyway. Usually tuck them in the box behind the instruction booklet.
 
furie said:
Bit of consumer advice here...

Was playing Lego Rockband last night, when suddenly the disk ejected. Tried a couple of times to get it to work, but it kept on getting spat out.

Checked the disk - it's got a crack in it at the centre of the disk. This is the third disk this year I've had now which has cracked/split at the centre.

The first one (Motorstorm: Pacific Ridge) I didn't have the receipt for. I had to call Sony, and they said they'd never heard of anything like this, and it needed to be returned to the retailer. As I didn't have the receipt, I couldn't. One £35 coaster.

I assumed that the damage had occurred due to one of the kids being a bit rough getting the disk into the case (I'm the only one takes them out, and I always use the "button" in the middle).

Then our copy of Ghostbusters did the same. This time I was prepared, I always keep my receipts now. Took it back to Game, who scowled at Maxi-Minor_Furie but replaced the disk. Fair enough, there was still a chance it was MMF who had damaged it, but the disks are kept on a high shelf Minor_Furie can barely reach. Even so, putting a game in a case (or getting it out) shouldn't damage a disk.

Anyway, Lego Rockband. This is an easy one. I've put the disk into the PS3 three times. I have personally taken the disk out, and put it away again myself (three times out, twice in). Nobody else has touched the disk, but it has split. Not just between plays, but right in the middle of playing the game.

So, I did some more research. It appears that since my first problem earlier this year with MS:pR, there have been a lot more cases of people having problems with disks cracking/splitting. Sony are claiming in all cases "never heard of anything like it" and putting the blame on mishandling by the end user.

However, it does appear that there is a quality issue with some blu-ray disks, and they're coming out of the factory with minor defects in the disk. When the disk spins up to full speed, the defects become cracks, which then get worse until - pop- they hit the data area and your game is toast.

So, the consumer advice? Always, always, always keep your receipt. I keep mine now in the box with the game. The damage could come after ten minutes of play, or 100 hours - it depends on how bad the manufacturing fault is. Don't just write it off as dead and gone.

Consumer (UK) advice in the UK is that you should get at least 90 days from purchase out of the disk - but I suspect that if pushed, you could get a longer warranty.

Just to add (before we end up with a fanboy argument). I've also read about PS1, Ps2 and 360 disks suffering the same fate - it's a manufacturing issue on the disk, not the machine it's being played on - just to get that out there quickly before we have a rack of "Sony PS3 breaks disks hahahahaha" posts.

You should just save games to the hard drive thats what i do on the 360 as soon as I buy them, That way if anything does happen to them they still work it only has to spin the disc for about 5 seconds then plays it from the hard drive. I got caught out with mw2 tho i didn't do this so i had to get my cousins disc and put it on my hard drive because mine was buggerd.
 
Rented Saw: The Videogame today. Only played it for a bit so far though. Honestly I thought it was going to be crap. But it's actually quite decent. Not amazing but not bad either. It starts off pretty well and the lighting and graphics are pretty good. The only awkward thing is the way the character moves. He runs like a spazz and could be much better. :p
Like the puzzles as well though and they're just the right difficulty as well. :)
Will play more either tonight or tomorrow when I'm not as tired but so far it's not bad at all.
 
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