Video Games

[Danneskjold]

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That's 1337 $[]D34k (leet speak) for:

This is a thread about your favorite video games. We have one for movies and I figure some of you must play video games at one time or another. Or maybe that's just me. Either way, if you have 'em, post your favorites here.

Note: leet speak is a video game communication thing done by people who have no life. I was able to write that in leet speak because I used a leet speak translator, which was set up by someone with absolutely no life.

Anyways, my favorite game is a game called Gears of War. The idea is you kill the alien type things that are coming out of the ground. Use the gun with the chainsaw on the bottom to saw them in half. It's fun. Also, you can make guys' skulls pop off if you headshot 'em with the sniper.

[BAMF]

Wow, I can kind of read that. My favorite video games are silly: Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, Ape Escape, stuff like that. I also like old school Super NES games like Donkey Kong. Also, anything where I can hold a fake gun and shoot things. Pure funness.

How could I forget....I wanna be a GUITAR HERO! (maybe I should spend more time playing my actual guitar)

[John Dailey]

~ Given that we're not talking MMPORPG's, but 'single-player' games, I'm a fan of the TombRaider series, the original and latest Doom ones, Unreal Tournament 200X, yes, definitely; mainly 'Personal Computer' ones.

~ Am also a fan of a couple old Jaguar (especially A-vs-P) and Sega (Phantasy Star, anyone?) systems games, not to mention a few really old original Nintendo games, a couple of which I STILL haven't finished; those suckers were harder than nowadays ones! (No, not 'Mario.') O-t-other-h, I've also acquired a strange addiction to the very non-hyper, low-key Myst and it's near Mensa-level puzzle-type sequels. --- Regardless...

~ ICO (the kid with horns, not the dolphin which is ECCO), on the PS-2, is hands down moi's fave.

LLAP

J:D

Edited December 14, 2006 by John Dailey

[Judith]

God, don't get me started.

I'm crazy about THE SIMS. I loved the first series and I love the new SIMS 2 series. It can keep me up till all hours on weekends. Now they have pets....

I loved the SYBERIA games.

I really liked THE LONGEST JOURNEY and its sequel.

I liked the three INDIANA JONES games, with FATE OF ATLANTIS being my favorite; I have the fourth but I never loaded it. The graphics in the third were amazing for the time.

The first three MONKEY ISLAND games were among my favorites, but I thought the fourth stank. I just tried to load #3 on my 2004 vintage Alienware laptop, but it won't work; the game is too old. I may try to fiddle with the graphics settings, but I'm not optimistic.

I loved the three GABRIEL KNIGHT games, with #2 being one of my all time favorites. I've wanted to visit Munich and Ludwig's castles ever since I got the game in late 1995.

There's one more series, the first of which was better than the second, and the third of which I haven't loaded yet; can't think of the name off the top of my head; the characters are George and Nico, based in Paris. I really liked the first of the series.

I bought my Alienware laptop specifically for game playing, although I ended up using it for work at home pretty often as well.

Judith

[John Dailey]

Jeff:

~ Haven't played your Gears of War, though sounds a bit down my line. As far as 'war' games go, not really interested in the history-oriented ones (WWII/Civil-War/'Total-War' types) for some reason, yet I'll spend hours as a general directing troops in Warcraft/Starcraft.

~ However, Return to Castle Wolfenstein was quite an attractively weird blend of WWII Nazi-fighting (and you really had to be a fair 'sniper' in spots to get farther) and, simply put, Doom/Half-Life. (Hitler WAS into the occult: 'Spear of Destiny' and all that.) It's an updated sequel to the pre-Doom game that started the whole 1st-person-shooter genre: Wolfenstein 3D (which caused a controversy in Germany; check Wiki.) From what you say about 'Gears...', I think you'll go for 'Return...'

LLAP

J:D

Edited December 14, 2006 by John Dailey

[studiodekadent]

MY FAVE COMPUTER GAMES:

Rollercoaster Tycoon 3: This game is like cyber-heroin. Its so damn addictive!

System Shock and System Shock 2: Cyberpunk RPG Survival Horror. Utterly terrifying, fighting for ones life against an omnipotent sadistic AI with a god complex. This game is pure emotional terror.

Vampire The Masquerade - Bloodlines: Gothic RPG with a wonderful dark feel to it, a brilliantly deep world and incredible characters.

GAMES TO LOOK OUT FOR:

Bioshock: Action-RPG to be set in a truly living world. Plot inspired by Rand: setting is an Objectivist utopia at the bottom of the sea 'gone wrong.' Developers are Libertarians and somewhat ideologically sympathetic to us as well so Objectivism is not getting panned!

STALKER - Shadow Of Chernobyl: Set in a post-apocalypse Chernobyl zone, drink Virtual Vodka, and other wonderful things! This game is so freeform in nature it will rock.

[John Dailey]

~ Am presently working through an old (2001) Deus Ex. Anyone familiar with that? I see that it has it's own pedigree in Wiki, fer pete's sakes.

~ Seems more's involved with 'item-inventory' priorities than any 'shoot-'em' aspects or even the recently popular Splinter Cell focus of 'stealth' (which was DE's hyped aspect of the time.)

LLAP

J:D

Edited January 27, 2007 by John Dailey

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

The problem in my life is called Quake (the first version).

Michael

[studiodekadent]

~ Am presently working through an old (2001) Deus Ex. Anyone familiar with that? I see that it has it's own pedigree in Wiki, fer pete's sakes.

Yep, am fond of DX. Its a great game, with a (simplified but still) very good sequel. I prefer System Shock 2 though.

[Rich Engle]

I am glad that my autoimmune system eventually figured out how to defend me from video games. I only wish it were sooner, say 35 years or so.

It started with "Pong." Even then I should've thought about what I was doing. For some reason, I and others of my ilk determined that it was wonderful to sit in front of a monitor with button controllers and move bars vertically to shove a ball back and forth. Maybe it was because it kept score for us, which can get dicey and cause fist fights if you are taking turns doing it with pencil and paper and smoking a lot of dope. Ironically, this was all going on in my basement, in back of a real ping pong table. You'd think at least one of us would have realized that.

For some reason, my father responded to Bill Cosby's panderings and bought that computer, whatever that was, a Commodore or something. It took 3 hours of BASIC programming to make a smiley face.

Later, we were in bars dumping quarters into "Asteroids." I'll skip that part, along with many others, other than to say that my 8 ball game would be much, much better had I stayed in the pool hall and maybe learned how to do a decent break.

Then there was the first real point and shoot that had any fire to it, "Doom." That one got me for awhile. I should have been looking for a job, or at least practicing guitar, or trying to score chicks. Something.

Then there was SIMS City. You spend weeks building places while the one you live in goes to shit. In the end, I built cities that were purposefully flawed. I polluted everything, and sent storms and pestilence through.

Then there was Bond. This was Doom, but with Ian Fleming overtones. Once again, I should've been doing something, anything else, down to replacing flapper balls in my toilet. Or learning how to survive midgame after a Queen's Gambit Accepted opening.

I'm not even going to talk about the role playing games or any of that crap. They rob souls from the earth.

If you want to develop good eye-hand coordination, go hit the range, or get yourself into a good street fight.

[Danneskjold]

I manage to balance this forum with baseball, school, video games (which I have to beat before I put down), reading, and a social life (or as much of one as I want). RPG's are by far the most destructive to my life because they take so long. I usually just rent one on the weekend and finish it by the time I have to return it.

[Rich Engle]

I think an absolutely great game would be "Sims: Maximum Security Prison"

Now that, I would get.

[studiodekadent]

I would prefer "Sims Brothel" but thats just me.

As for RPGs, I avoid fantasy RPGs (although I like Elder Scrolls Morrowind/Oblivion, but they are the only exceptions). D&D sucks, sucks, sucks. I like my RPGs to be horror and/or cyberpunk. Ill even play the pen and paper versions if they are good enough (Vampire The Requiem is a good game.... its like the gothic version of spin the bottle the way I play it).

Apart from the Half Life and Halo games I avoid pure shooters.

But strangely enough, the most addictive game for me is still Roller Coaster Tycoon 3!

[John Dailey]

~ Aliens vs Predator I discovered on the old, defunct Atari's Jaguar system ('5th'-gen compared to Pong being '1st'-) and believe that it really started (along with 3DO's Escape from Monster Manor) the whole creepy '3-D' Horror-genre for vid-games. -- Yes, there were 'earlier' versions on early systems, but, not really 'creepy'-oriented as the later Res-Evil and DOOM3 clearly picked up on. Even the later PC versions were good, story- and action-wise. I definitely got a 'soft-spot' for this series, whatever system; and, the PS2 had the best 'Aliens' yet: a 'DOOM3' with my favorite Freudian 'huggers'-cum-walking-pirhanas.

LLAP

J:D

Edited January 29, 2007 by John Dailey

[John Dailey]

Mike:

~ 'Quake'? You not done with that yet? Hope you make it to Quake II ! If you did like it, you may like the earlier Hexen; think better-graphics DOOM (early one), but, in a 'hack-n-slash' style (clubs/swords/magic-staffs) with a really dark ambience in colors, music and sounds (oh-h, that neverending w-i-n-d). Unreal's down the same game-play line, but, more 'story' and exploration to it. (Its 'Tournament' versions are extremely 'hyper' though.)

LLAP

J:D

P.S: I n-e-v-e-r will understand the popularity of any of 'The Sims', though; THIS has me totally perplexed. I mean, create a character to 'role-play' the routines of life (whether from the perspective of nude-dl's a la Sex-in-the-City or the more mundane afternoon soap-operas)? And a Sims version of Prison Break? Man, give me Total War instead!

Edited January 29, 2007 by John Dailey

[Danneskjold]

I suck ass at the Sims. Never have been good, probably will never bring myself to try hard enough to be. They aren't that fun unles you take characters and make them do entertaining things (I forget which version had the vibrating love bed).

Doom 3 is EXCELLENT. I got about halfway through Hell in that game before my Xbox broke. I couldn't believe it. Now I have a 360 and an utter lack of motivation to retrace my steps through that came.

Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is an amazing game. I have an orc in that game that is on pace to max out all his stats, has the atronoch birth sign (150 magica bonus) and is master of every guild except the mage's which I am about half way through. Also, I'm about 80% through the Daedric quests and as a result have 92% magica reflect along with the 50% magica absorb given to me by my atronoch birth sign. My armor is all Daedric except for my helmet which is the one you get at the end of the Fighter's Guild quests because that one just looks tight (Helm of Orren Bearskull or something of the like). There is a statue of me in the northernmost city on the map in honor of me saving the world from the Daedric onslought. Rand would have liked it. Me fully decked out in my armor (Daedric+bearskull helm) raising a Daedric Warhammer towards the sky in triumph. The moral of the story is that my orc is going to become one of the divines when he dies. I spent WAYYY too much time on that game.

Halo 2 is another game I'm good at. When I haven't been playing Gears of War (switching controls REALLY messes with your head in-game) I'm usually about a 29 in online rankings. Right now I'm something like a 15 because I decided to level myself down because its really fun playing with all the new kids and racking up forty kills at a time.

[John Dailey]

Jeff:

~ If you're REALLY a DOOM3 fan, get the PC version of it and, regardless of 're-tracing' the original game (and, apart from its sequel RESURRECTION OF EVIL), check out the website

Doom3 hobbyist-created downloads

~ These are (as named) mostly at least as creepy and action-packed as the original...and...most are quite 'different.' Some may not 'load', but, few showed that prob. Be sure to r-e-a-d the directions of each; most are identical, but, not all are. There's over 100+ of these 'maps/levels;' some kinda short, some longer than any in the game; a-l-l creepy and difficult (some more so.)

LLAP

J:D

P.S: Yeah, I'm a HALO fan also; hadn't gotten around to finishing the 2nd one though. Don't tell me the ending. Bummer about the X-Box.

Edited January 29, 2007 by John Dailey

[jordanz]

I just started a new MMORPG called Vanguard, Saga of Heroes: http://www.vanguardsoh.com/

This is an excellent game. It has many aspects of World of Warcrack (which I was addicted to for a year) but much more depth and playability.

Also, Oblivion was the best game of 2006.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

John,

I have already been through all five episodes of the Quake sequence a few times, but I am one of those obsessive/compulsive people who wants to kill ALL the monsters and find ALL the secrets (including ALL the secret levels) on the next-to-the hardest difficulty level before I'm happy. (The hardest difficulty level is more like a gauntlet where there is an unlimited supply of monsters, so I don't find that as interesting.)

I already did that with Wolfgenstein (way back when), Doom (1 and 2) and Duke Nukem.

Michael

[Danneskjold]

I'm almost the same way as Michael. I have to kill everything. It used to piss me off while playing Halo1 with a friend because he would run through and I would have to sit and kill everything. A few times this caused him to die because I got teleported next to him while throwing a grenade. I just don't have to find all the little side things. For instance, I couldn't care less about random side-quests like in Gears of War where you can find other soldiers' COG tags on the ground.

I would buy a PC game but my PC is crap. I have a mac laptop though, so if Vanguard works on that it would be cool. Do you need to pay a monthly fee for that?

[Rich Engle]

Well if you want all the marbles you just crack 'em open. Crackcodesdotcom or whatever... Asta La Vista Dot Com...

I'm still tied up thinking about Sims Brothel. That's the best thing that came out of this so far, IMHO.

rde

Room service: Cleanup in suite 4, please.

[John Dailey]

Mike:

~ I have my 'obsessive/compulsive' moments/moods also. Stood out when I was in a depressed relationship-prob time (what better time for this stuff?)...and discovered the original (made-for-life-distraction) DOOM. Found the Nightmare diff-level impossible even in the 1st 'level'; 5-secs into it, then d-e-a-d. Killed a lot of time on this game, lemmetellu. After learning 'the Map-Layouts' of each level (in Easy diff-level, of course), I just HAD to tackle the Nightmare-version levels. I did. I cleared the suckers. But, as Rich pointed out, I hate to think of the time I killed/wasted chasing/avoiding/outmaneuvering these cyber-devils. Much more 'hyper' than the new version, fer sure.

~ O-t-other-h, I don't have the 'need' of finding e-v-e-r-y single item, nor hostile...I just want to 'finish' the sucker before I die. (You obviously haven't tackled MYST; but then, it's not a shoot-'em up; yet, talk about hidden secrets!)

LLAP

J:D

[John Dailey]

Mike-Addendum:

~ I suggested a couple other 'similar' games down the DOOM line (but, with interesting 'stories' connecting the 'levels'), however, there's one that really stands out as 'super'in this shoot-duck-move game-type and, that's been unmentioned so far: SERIOUS SAM.

~ Think, as you mentioned you liked, DUKE NUK'EM, in a hyper-DOOM; with just as funny (though only occasional...but they thence stand out) 'voice-over comments.' Funnier is the music. Think of battling hordes (and, they come looking for you!) to the tunes of Turkey In the Straw and such! I lost more than 1 level just from laughing. But, a shoot-em-up it definitely is. - Oh, you do have to get every single hostile to finish a 'level.'

LLAP

J:D

P.S: I have no prob with on-line 'walkthrough' use; I don't consider them 'cheats.' Not that this is relevent to S-S!

Edited January 31, 2007 by John Dailey

[John Dailey]

Rich:

~ If that 'brothel' idea ever comes out, let us know how it seems. At this point, given the varied 'The Sims' popularity, censor-oriented ones in the news nwst, I'd be a bit surprised that such DOESN'T get created and advtsd (for 'Adults', of course) sooner-or-later! If such goes on-line it's bound to be a 'money-making' set-up (as some on-line cyber-living absolutely has, for some) for all involved. I just might be willing to become a cyber-pimp competing with Heidi.

~ Other than that, I'm still perplexed at this decade-long infatuation with playing out contrived soap-operas.

Sim-City I understood, but lacked interest in; but, Sim-'persons' barbecuing in the back yard and then couch-potatoing to a cyber-TV when they're not 'yakking' at the neighbor? As Shatner responded in an old TV-skit lampooning fans of S-T when an 'audience'-member asked him something about the Klingons: "Get a Life!" (He's not been forgotten, by fans, for that.) -- Uh-h, am I 'kettle' talking here about pots?

LLAP

J:D

[Matus1976]

I was a big Battlefield 1942 and Battlefield 2 player, but EA has dropped the programming ball big time as every other patch would kill the game and require a complete un-install / re-install taking an hour when you factor in having re-download full patches, and would sometimes would not fix it either. I tried the 2142 demo and said if this damn thing errors out I'm not buying any more of the EA Battlefied games. It errored out so I stopped playing it

I am a big Starcraft player as well, I love that game. Why hasnt Blizzard made an update to this fantastic game? Give us a higher res, twice the troops and online play and another story line and the thing would be a top seller even without updating the engine.

I played City of Heroes for a while, which seemed to have some Objectivist influence in it. Among other things, the centerpiece of the capital city was a 100' Atlas statue, very cool!