The "What are you playing?" topic.

[Monk]

I have given up on Mass Effect's insanity difficulty, and for that matter i've also given up on Gears of war 2's Insane difficulty for the exact same reasons. I was playing through both games in an attempt to try and get some extra gamerscore (worthless really) and to challenge myself in a new way. I also had my eye on the N7 gamer pic that comes with completing ME on Insanity. Well, after countless hours of shouting creative curses that has my family worried about my sanity, i can safely say I never want to play either of these games above Hardcore EVER AGAIN.

In fact, i would rather write a contrived post listing the outlandish things I would rather do than play insanity difficulty. It's. Just. Impossible. I fancy myself a damn good ME player, but even my Biotic jugglers who made Sarren into a kitty kat cat on Hardcore could not even get passed Feros on Insanity. I run into enemies who are walking refrigerators with the regen powers of wolverine and they can two shot me with their shot guns. The amount of times I stood up and made obscene gestures toward my TV... I just couldn't count.

And do not even get me started on Gears 2's insane setting. I've never contemplated throwing things at my TV before... but wow. I've defeated both games on their respective hardcore setting, and frankly i believe that is my limit. I just can't take this anymore, i need to have fun again.

Froggy, I salute you. For being able to defeat ME on Insanity you are truly more gamer than I. *takes off his hat*

Next post - Prototype

[Hooahguy]

Americas Army 2
seeing that AA3 was a complete flop, as of now, i downloaded AA2 so i can play with my clan mates.
best decision ive made since i got R6V1.
the gameplay is very enjoyable, and while the graphics are very old, the gameplay makes up for it. rounds are fast and furious, and training is also fun, but can be frustrating.
if you like BF2 or any multiplayer FPS, download the AA2 deploy client.
plus its FREE.

[frogbeastegg]

Froggy, I salute you. For being able to defeat ME on Insanity you are truly more gamer than I. *takes off his hat*

Wow. I think that's the first time anyone's said something like that. :faints:

It's. Just. Impossible. I fancy myself a damn good ME player, but even my Biotic jugglers who made Sarren into a kitty kat cat on Hardcore could not even get passed Feros on Insanity. I run into enemies who are walking refrigerators with the regen powers of wolverine and they can two shot me with their shot guns.

Feros was nasty. It took me a couple of deaths before I succeeded :sees Monk's eyes glowing with a desire to strangle and adds hastily: I figured out a few things which you'd be able to use as well should you find you want to go back to the game.

The first is what weaponry to use. You have the spectre X weaponry? If not then there's your first problem; you need the most powerful weaponry you can get in order to be competitive. The spectre X shotgun has a good knockback effect on it. Add in the level X rounds which have the knockback effect on them (hammerhead?) and two level X upgrades which significantly increase weapon cooldown. Now a third to one half of your shots will knock over the enemy it hits, and you can fire pretty much constantly. Shotguns fire in a spread pattern, naturally, so you can knock over more than one enemy if you're lucky. Give your two allies the same setup. The idea is to shoot at anything which is standing until it falls over, prioritising the closest targets. If nothing is standing then shoot at the closest target on the ground. If the Asari clone is there get her ASAP! She is the single biggest danger. It takes forever to kill the creepers but they go eventually.

The second key was about how the waves of creepers are triggered. Each time you damage the tendril thingies more creepers are activated so kill the initial lot of creepers, put a shot in the tendril, clear the next wave, and repeat until the tendril is gone and no creepers remain. Be careful not to accidentally catch a tendril with the spray of your shotgun!

The third key was space. Don't be afraid to walk backwards as you shoot; the areas you have already cleared will remain free of enemies. You should already know to keep the heck away from the creepers unless you want to die; distance is the single defence you have. There are a few points in that area where you can save your game once the enemies are gone. Certain points make for good defensive standpoints, mainly doors or anywhere else the creepers are funnelled tightly towards you.

The main thing to do with the AI team members here is to keep them close to you so they don't shoot a tendril and trigger a wave you aren't ready for. It doesn't matter much if they die so don't risk yourself or break your target priority to protect them. Their shotgun suppression is very useful and it does get a lot rougher if both are dead, however I (barely) survived that situation a couple of times before the end.

Be methodical. Be patient. Don't take any risks. Knock them down, clear them out, catch your breath, get back into position, start the next wave. When an entire room is complete try to save, backtracking if necessary to get far enough away.

If you're still trying to get to the underground part, the shotgun tip still works. Be heartless; kill the afflicted instead of knocking them out. The lightside option is near-impossible to pull off.

In the end Feros wasn't that bad. The boss in the lab or the run through zero gravity at the end, gah! Double gah!

I played insanity as a soldier, a class which gets little love because has no fancy powers. I suspect that helped me think in the right direction - when all you have is a gun you have to use everything the environment gives you and think smart. Your character can wave a hand and disable several enemies at once; mine had to work with an assault rifle and cover. When a Krogan comes charging at your character you'll levitate him and that's that; I had to find a solution based on my guns and the terrain. When there are too many Krogan to lift my approach continues to work where yours stalls. The soldier's extra health and shield power don't make much different on insanity; it was still possible for me to die in an instant with immunity.

Get a spectre X pistol, give it upgrades which stop it overheating and boost the damage it does versus the enemies you face, and activate your maxed out marksman and shield powers. Now your character has a better damage output than my soldier and almost as much defence. Use cover, fight smart, and if you use Kaiden and Wrex then you have a combo of the most useful tech/biotic powers for disabling enemies on characters who can handle a gunfight. If there's a powerful enemy like an armature then order your team to use their powers on them, otherwise you can leave them to their own devices without much trouble.

[Monk]

Feros was nasty. It took me a couple of deaths before I succeeded :sees Monk's eyes glowing with a desire to strangle and adds hastily:

:eye twitches:

Appreciate the do's and don'ts froggy, and yes waving a hand about and making your enemies go flying is a particular favorite of mine.

Weaponry is the Spectre X stuff with inferno rounds. Straight, hard burst through Marksmanship with an added Damage over time. Throw in massive amounts of biotic attacks from Shepard and tech attacks this set up really kept the AI off balance... until Insanity. All around though I should probably change the main strategy since everything and their mother has Immunity after Hardcore. Last difficulty things started to get tough but i was able to just power through things with guile, here? I'm not powering through anything...

..I guess I should stop turning hammerhead rounds into omni-gel.

Really the problem wasn't space, it was that after my intial burst/float/throw stage the enemy still has enough health to prove a problem. So it really throws me for a hurt, if i can just survive for a few more seconds my powers will be off cooldown and i can enter into another juggle cycle, maybe the hammerhead rounds were the missing link. I'll give them a try.

If you're still trying to get to the underground part, the shotgun tip still works. Be heartless; kill the afflicted instead of knocking them out. The lightside option is near-impossible to pull off.

Forgive me, you must have mistaken me for a Paragon player. :evil cackle: Shepard can only be Renegade in my story-archs.

In the end Feros wasn't that bad. The boss in the lab or the run through zero gravity at the end, gah! Double gah!

Please, I don't want to think about that now.

I'll give the game another go from the start (giving me time to gather up supplies for the entire squad) in a few days, maybe next week after i've had some time in something else. I went into Insanity blissful of how hard it actually was, you really gotta buckle down and really get your game-senses going. It doesn't mess around. I respect that in a way, but in another... :inaudible rage:

[frogbeastegg]

Weaponry is the Spectre X stuff with inferno rounds. Straight, hard burst through Marksmanship with an added Damage over time.

Consider a change of ammo. Polonium stops enemy health regeneration in addition to damage over time. Inferno only has a stronger version of the damage over time effect. I used it on the weapons I didn't have polonium for.

I looked on the ME wiki to see what the knockback ammo was. It's sledgehammer rounds. Hammerheads are the weaker version. 1 level X sledgehammer round and 2 level X frictionless materials.

Really the problem wasn't space

Then I guess you didn't reach the staircase where they unavoidably come at you from both sides. Stuff of nightmares, I tell you. I could hardly move; I ended up jammed in a corner with both team members dead, barely able to see because the camera was having a fit, frantically blasting away at enemies so close they were standing on my toes. That's the section where all my deaths came from, and when I passed it I was one acid burp away from another.

Just thought I'd share that cheerful story in order to give you something to look forward to

[Meneldil]

Finished Bioshock. As said earlier, I deeply enjoyed it, though the end-scene was the biggest let-down ever.
The last boss was just too easy to kill, I was like "Yeah, I'm done, let's enjoy the video :)" and really expected something exciting or awesome, given the game quality. All I got was a 28 seconds long video showing

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

how Jack saved the little sisters and brought them out of Rapture, how the graduated, got married and all that.
All we can see during most of these 30 seconds are hands. What a disappointement.

I'm considering playing it again to see the other ending, but I mean, I'm not sure I'm willing to do it just for a 30 sec video and 2 or 3 cut scenes.

So now, I'm playing God of War. Almost done with it apparently (normal mode). The game is fun, but like most hack 'n slash/beat them all, it gets kind of repetitive at some point. Cube-Cube-Triangle-L1, rinse and repeat.
The platform and 'use your brain' parts of the game range from entertaining to frustrating. In any case, the game is fairly good, and I can see why it was rated so high at release.




Please remember to use spoiler tags - froggy

[Xiahou]

I think I can safely say, after 60+hrs, I'm finished with the final volume of .hack//GU. Yeah, there are still a few things I could still do, but I finally got the "secret" epilogue ending and at some point you have to say enough is enough and move on.

Next up on the console side is more PS2 RPG love- SMT: Devil Summoner. On the PC, I'm playing some EU3, but I'm feeling the MassEffect itch again.... for some reason.

[Hooahguy]

I'm considering playing it again to see the other ending, but I mean, I'm not sure I'm willing to do it just for a 30 sec video and 2 or 3 cut scenes.

or you can just look for it on youtube.

[naut]

Ok. My brother got Prototype yesterday. Imagine Assassin's Creed on crack/steroids and then you have Prototype. Pretty good so far, although I've only played about 10-20%.