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Bloodborne

Sportsfriends I had some friends over recently for a drinking social night and decided to break out the PS3. We had a few rounds of Skullgirls. I brought that out mainly because the 2 of the people that were over were artists and I wanted to show them the art in SG (which is really well done).After that we decided to break out Sportsfriends which none of us had ever played. I had gotten a copy for free from PS+ and hadn't tried it yet. We had a blast playing Sportsfriends. Sportsfriends is a collection of 4 mini games with a focus on local multiplayer. Now when I say I played Sportsfriends, I mean BaraBariBall which is one of the 4 games that is part of Sportsfriends. We played this 99% of the time. BaraBariBall is so much fun. What was supposed to be a few minutes of gaming before we got back to other non-gaming social endeavors turned into a 5 hour gaming marathon. The game is very easy to learn, even when you've had a few drinks and really promotes a part atmosphere.

The other games weren't too impressive and we weren't able to try Johan Sebastian Joust because I don't have any playstation move controllers.If you are looking for great local multiplayer games for parties and people who don't normally play video games then you can't go wrong with BaraBariBall. Guilty Gear Xrd After maybe 10 years of knowing about Guilty Gears existance I've decided to finally take the plunge and try the series out. I ordered my copy of GG and have been having quite a lot of fun playing this game. I'm totally prepared to admit that the tipping point for me to try this game is the insane graphical accomplishment this game has achieved. Once I saw how the game is actually 3d and read some white papers on how they accomplished the look I was sold. So I already felt I had a good deal as a technical art study. It was a major bonus that the game is actually really really good. If you come from a Street Fighter background you'll notice that the game is much more forgiving, combos are much easier to execute. I believe everything is a chain rather than a link but I could be wrong about that. Regardless, I found myself not struggling on execution like I did with Street Fighter. The characters are also generally awesome, my favorites being Faust and Ramlethal (confirm the spelling). Faust is just a crazy nutbar design with the ability to use intermensional doors. Ramenthal has 2 huge swords and can use them for zoning, she also has a ton of target combo-like special moves that she can dispatch. She's definitely a very interesting character to play. PT PT is a free game on PSN for the PS4. It's supposedly a mini Silent Hill. I haven't played any Silent Hill games so I'm not sure how true that is.The game has you repeatedly walking down a hallway where things change slowly and get darker/scarier. The game I'd say it as its scariest when you are about halfway in when nothing has quite happened yet but you know something is going to happen. Sometimes I found the scariness of the game was compromised from getting stuck on a puzzle. I ended up checking my phone to figure out how to get though one section and it pulled me out of the game. [Blocked Image: http://levelism.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/PT.jpg]  Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate About 18 months ago I came back from Japan and while I was there I discovered Monster Hunter on the PSP. I liked it but I also heard you need to play with friends. Since MH4 was already out in Japan and I didn't know many monster hunter players I figured when I got back to Canada I would buy a 3ds and MH4. [Blocked Image: http://levelism.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/monster-hunter-4-ultimate-topper.jpg] I didn't realize that there was no english release of MH4 and that it wouldn't come out until a year after I bought my 3ds. Even worse, when MH4 finally did come out they released a new 3ds that plays MH4 with a better framerate and higher resolution graphics.I guess considering this is Nintendo I should have suspected that they might do something like this. It's ultimately my fault for not confirming MH4 was released in English when I bought my 3ds.The game is great, if you have played Monster Hunter before then it will be very familiar, only much more refined. Despite my playing the game on an older 3ds it still looks fantastic. Also my work has a Monster Hunter club where we play at lunch and various times. This is really where teh game shines. We have a couple high rank players here who have been gracious enough to guide low level players like myself. As a result, in one lunch hour I got more monster parts than the entire 10 hours I played myself. This is a great game for playing local multiplayer. It also has internet multiplayer which is also good but it's never as good as being in the same room with the people you are playing with. I worry about losing 500+ hours to this game. Strider Well I beat Strider and did a few of the challenge rooms as well. I really liked the game overall, the style is great, the control is great and the combat is great. The biggest problem is that they take way too long to introduce you to all the character mechanics. The big issue with this is that the first hour of the game feels way too shallow because you don't have enough moves. I've talked to quite a few people who were turned off on this game because of this. Hell I put it down the first time because I thought it was going to be too shallow. I feel like they could have unlocked all the items in the first 10% of the game minus the weapon improvements and maybe the kunai. Also the launch attack I found clunky and it seemed to unoptimized to ever be used. I wonder if it would be more useful if it didn't stop Strider from moving when it executes. Here's what Strider looks like when he's more powered up and has more ability options. So I wholeheartedly recommend playing this game if you are looking for some hyper-fighting Strider gameplay. The soundtrack is also really good. Particularly the Kazakh theme.

It's amusing how many 10 ± 5 years old play TF2. Plus, it seems to be that age group in all countries.

Sometimes it's some teen blaming teams. Sometimes it's kids playing that they are watching FIFA or UFC. And not to mention the useless VAC that lets hackers join anytime.

Valiant Hearts.

Started Hitman Absolution, got to the Terminus Hotel. I'm playing at hard and it was quite easy until that point, haven't found a clean way to progress there yet.

Dropped TF2. Joined Quake live. QL is pretty casual for me, which is perfect. And it runs smooth.

I've been playing a crapload of marvel vs capcom 3 lately.

After the discounted purchase, installed last night and through the morning Ryse.

Gave it a quick spin at lunch and just finished a proper session, got to the beach landing that was shown as the first gameplay if I'm correct.

Quite enjoying it, needed something "ignorant" to play. I'm a bit bummed because combat options are very limited, is not giving me the sense of accomplishment Batman gives me; also haven't been able to acquire dexterity to have combos longer than 20-30.

I'm surprised that the controller has a unique scheme, and being on PC i'm sure it would have been possible to enable configuring the buttons -- I keep mixing up A and Y for defense, Batman's mechanics are way too imprinted in my muscle memory.

Happy about the performances, runs well with everything set on high on my laptop, although there are a few hesitations here and there in scenes with the most extensive backgrounds.

Quote from AlexM

Guilty Gear Xrd

After maybe 10 years of knowing about Guilty Gears existance I've decided to finally take the plunge and try the series out. I ordered my copy of GG and have been having quite a lot of fun playing this game.

I'm totally prepared to admit that the tipping point for me to try this game is the insane graphical accomplishment this game has achieved. Once I saw how the game is actually 3d and read some white papers on how they accomplished the look I was sold.

So I already felt I had a good deal as a technical art study. It was a major bonus that the game is actually really really good.

If you come from a Street Fighter background you'll notice that the game is much more forgiving, combos are much easier to execute. I believe everything is a chain rather than a link but I could be wrong about that. Regardless, I found myself not struggling on execution like I did with Street Fighter.

The characters are also generally awesome, my favorites being Faust and Ramlethal (confirm the spelling). Faust is just a crazy nutbar design with the ability to use intermensional doors.

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I think high level execution is actually a lot harder in Guilty Gear, really. Accent Core is probably the most technical 2D fighter out there and characters like Eddie only a handful of people could play properly. There are certainly links, but Slayer is the only character who needs them just to make ground normals connect like some kind of mug. It generally does execution in a much better way: See Sol Sidewider loops versus grinding one-frame links. Xrd is a little more lenient, most noticeably it removed FRCs, but it can get pretty hardcore. It's a pretty cool game, more than I could've hoped for given how bad BlazBlue has become, I just hope they add more of the classic cast soon.

Fair point. I'm so far away from high level play I can't even begin to see how the execution is handled at that level.

Basically the initial low-level play is a lot more rewarding because you can get a decent combo by just chaning from weak to strong most of the time. In street fighter, outside of target combos it's pretty hard to get a decent combo at low level.

Quote from Pericolos0

SNAKEBIRD!! really great

http://store.steampowered.com/app/357300/

lmao

nice

Quote from AlexM

Fair point. I'm so far away from high level play I can't even begin to see how the execution is handled at that level.

Basically the initial low-level play is a lot more rewarding because you can get a decent combo by just chaning from weak to strong most of the time. In street fighter, outside of target combos it's pretty hard to get a decent combo at low level.

Yeah, and when you do start doing the more training-mode combos it’s not to link two crouching punches together, but to do something cool like have May RC her throw and setup Applause For the Victim so she can jump on it later. I think it’s a very well put together game, and really gets the risk/reward right where things that do damage take a setup or leave yourself open. Plus I still can'r get over how nice it looks.I remembered that Valentine (Or Ramlethal as she's called now for whatever reason) has a dragon punch that you can only combo from if you just frame. It's not a real just frame, you just have to end the input at down-forward rather than doing the scrub shortcut, but it's pretty needless edition. That's my only real gripe execution wise, though.

Quote from Sentura

I think people fool themselves into thinking links are harder to do than they are. Sure they require some practice, but it's not like something you need to train 10 hours a day to hit. I wish fighting games would do away with plinking though

Plinking is exclusive to Street Fighter 4 because of an input bug, but I guess you meant the idea of links? In theory they are hard to stamp out, especially if you want combos more interesting than normal chain -> special -> super. Although Mortal Kombat X is quite draconian with what you can do, and will actually pop the enemy neutral if you attempt to link something it doesn't like.

I do not mind links, most of that Sol Sidewinder example video is made of links. but I am against the idea of learning one-frame timings just to connect two ground normals together. It's boring to learn, do and watch.

AFAIK the only games with plinking are SF4 and MvC3.

Been playing Splatoon for a few hours and holy crap this game rocks! Really satisfying to run around get everything painted and try to keep the opposing team balanced out, with the close calls (as in nearly 50/50 of the top down map being both colours) with incredibly exciting end of match score counts. The motion control aiming didn't really do it for me tho, though I appreciate the idea

But of course Nintendo nails shooters, tho it's not really the shooter part that's so great about it

The motion controls are so good though! Fine aiming on gyro is such a good idea.

I've lost faith in MP games. MP games, specially those e-sports, are filled with toxic players, cheaters and the worst kind of players.

Tested Ark: Survival Evolved with some friends, still early access. Has lots of potential, but performance is some of the worst I've ever seen. Will probably be playable in 2-3 years :v