So what're you playing nowadays?

Idolores wrote:

Baldur's Gate (PC) - I had been warned of this games' difficulty, and while the first three or so hours were incredibly grueling, it has since become laughably easy. I attribute this to the many, many hours I spent rerolling my stats at the beginning to get the highest possible in as many stats as I could. I ended up with 18 points (the absolute highest a human can go in AD&D) in each category with the exception of intelligence, which is sitting at 11. A fair trade for being the peak of human performance in every other category. I've heard the sequel is incredibly tough, so I figure by getting my character as high as I can go in terms of level and performance, I'll be well prepared to dive head-first into what I'm told is one of the greatest games of all time.

Yes, Baldur's Gate is absolutely fantastic! I think it puts nearly every FF game to shame (with a few exceptions). The first Baldur's Gate is good... but in BG II the game takes off and becomes truly a classic! You need to play this game through to its conclusion (Throne of Baal) in order to get the complete picture. Easily, one of the most satisfying RPGs ever made.

cheers,

-avatar!

Lessee, I just about wrapped up FFXIII, although the Last Boss killed me off in such an incredibly cheap and infuriating way I'm not too sure I'm going to try again anytime soon.
Fortunately, Mass Effect 2 has come along to take FF's place, so I'll be playing that instead. Just got in about 2 hours yesterday and it's already a great experience.

On PSP, I'm playing Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep which is so ridiculously awesome I'm hardly progressing because EVERYTHING is so much fun I'm spending more time on mini-games than the main game.
Also, Shimomura did a fantastic job this time. People who were disappointed with the low quality synth in KH2 are definitely going to want to check this one out.

And that's about it.
I still haven't finished Bayonetta despite my ardent love for it though. RPGs just go first....

I recently finished up a replay of Final Fantasy VIII.  I definitely have much more respect for that game than I did back when I first played it.  When the game came out I totally rushed through it, but this time I actually took it slow and soaked everything up.. so good!  Best overall ending theme from the entire series by the way, wow.  Also, right before FF8 I demolished New Super Mario Bros. Wii and Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, both were incredible (for completely different reasons, obviously, SH for the fun gameplay and Mario for the amazing psychological plot )

As for right now, I'm playing Resident Evil Code Veronica X on PS2.  Believe it or not this is my first time playing it.  As far as the main RE series goes, this and Resident Evil 0 are the only ones I've never played all the way through.  My goal is to finish up Code Veronica so I can move on to Darkside Chronicles on the Wii, as it mainly follows the plot from RE2 and CV.  My friend finished it and said it was excellent and that the soundtrack was top notch, it even has some music in there performed by an orchestra a la RE5.  I went through the first couple levels with him and he's so right.  Walking the streets of Raccoon City and eventually re-visiting the police station in full 3D goodness as the gun-wielding Leon and Claire = awesome.  So I'll be playing that soon for sure.

Then we have No More Heroes 2 coming out any day now, followed up by Heavy Rain on PS3 next month.  It sure is a good time to be a gamer!

the_miker wrote:

I recently finished up a replay of Final Fantasy VIII.  I definitely have much more respect for that game than I did back when I first played it.  When the game came out I totally rushed through it, but this time I actually took it slow and soaked everything up.. so good!

ive been meaning to play ff8 again, I only played it through it twice so im sure it would feel fresh again,, the last being june 2000 when i had strep throat and tore through it in 9 days. the second time i made sure to draw 100 of every new magic i came upon for stat junctioning, then near the end walked around forever on 'island closest to heaven' and 'island closest to hell' to max out on the super magics. the end battle was still hard as hell.

Angela wrote:

I think XLord007 is playing the exact same game.  Maybe YOU guys can do with some co-op play.

It's an interesting game, no doubt, but the there are lot of additional microtransactions that they don't tell you about on the back of the box.  Plus, you have to do a lot of busy work and fetch quests between story missions.

A month off to play games? I could do with that. The only big screen game I've played in the last six months is Uncharted 2. Just no time to sit and play games and that's just not right.

Over the last two days, I have played through the new Silent Hill three times. I think I love it.

Before that, it was Zelda Spirit Tracks. I didn't finish it. There's nothing wrong with the game but I just didn't feel involved or something. I'll probably finish it another time. Also got briefly addicted to Holy Invasion Of Privacy Badman.

James O wrote:

What I really need is like a month's vacation from work so I can just sit down and game hahaha.

Jay wrote:

A month off to play games? I could do with that.

Been there, and it was awesome. I used my time off between jobs a few years back to get through some serious gaming backlog. Somehow it just made much more sense for me to quit my job and play Viewtiful Joe 2 in my pajamas all day.

longhairmike wrote:

the end battle was still hard as hell.

That was one of my major gripes with FFVIII: the string of final battles is insanely long and hard.
I recall the very first time I tried to tackle the last bosses it took me over 2 hours and I still died at the very last one.
It doesn't help that the game's main system of Guardian Forces is rendered useless either.

So what I do now is just draw as much Aura spells in advance as I can find (the last Seifer battle is perfect for this) and just keep spamming Squall's, Zell's and Irvine's limit breaks or whatever they were called.
Pretty much every boss goes down in a jiffy like that.

Bernhardt wrote:

Amazingu wrote:

longhairmike wrote:

the end battle was still hard as hell.

That was one of my major gripes with FFVIII: the string of final battles is insanely long and hard.
I recall the very first time I tried to tackle the last bosses it took me over 2 hours and I still died at the very last one.
It doesn't help that the game's main system of Guardian Forces is rendered useless either.

So what I do now is just draw as much Aura spells in advance as I can find (the last Seifer battle is perfect for this) and just keep spamming Squall's, Zell's and Irvine's limit breaks or whatever they were called.
Pretty much every boss goes down in a jiffy like that.

Yeah, FFVIII is impossible to beat without Squall's Lionheart Limit Break.

Impossible? Hardly. Quistis + Degenerator (able to get surprisingly early, even before you enter the fire cave), Zell + Duel (alternate between up/down and the right/left, don't even bother with the other ones), Irvine + Armor Piercing rounds and you're good to go. Selphie and Rinoa were cut from the moment I had other options.

Even without spamming limit breaks, if you junctioned wisely, you could dominate in that game.

Squall with Auto Haste, Darkside with Drain as my St-Attack for instance, was pretty much my setup for the entire game.

Idolores wrote:

Bernhardt wrote:

Amazingu wrote:

That was one of my major gripes with FFVIII: the string of final battles is insanely long and hard.
I recall the very first time I tried to tackle the last bosses it took me over 2 hours and I still died at the very last one.
It doesn't help that the game's main system of Guardian Forces is rendered useless either.

So what I do now is just draw as much Aura spells in advance as I can find (the last Seifer battle is perfect for this) and just keep spamming Squall's, Zell's and Irvine's limit breaks or whatever they were called.
Pretty much every boss goes down in a jiffy like that.

Yeah, FFVIII is impossible to beat without Squall's Lionheart Limit Break.

Impossible? Hardly. Quistis + Degenerator (able to get surprisingly early, even before you enter the fire cave), Zell + Duel (alternate between up/down and the right/left, don't even bother with the other ones), Irvine + Armor Piercing rounds and you're good to go. Selphie and Rinoa were cut from the moment I had other options.

Even without spamming limit breaks, if you junctioned wisely, you could dominate in that game.

Squall with Auto Haste, Darkside with Drain as my St-Attack for instance, was pretty much my setup for the entire game.

God, Auto Haste alone was nuts enough if you had a decent amount of speed through junctioning.

Bernhardt wrote:

Auto-Haste especially kicks ass when you're trying to hunt Cactaurs; they give shittons of AP (20 a pop), but they have high Evasion, and they tend to flee the battle almost as quickly as it's begun.

Squall (with any model gunblade) and Selphie (with Strange Vision) will annihilate cactuars. Get Zell's speed (with Triple) and whatever junctions to Hit% and you'll be laughing your way to a full set of mastered GF's.

Bayonetta - going slower than anticipated, because I haven't played it often, and I've been refusing to continue when i die (that's just how I play these sorts of games) and nothing ruins a good mood faster than mowing stuff down for 20 minutes and then dying on a QTE I didn't see coming.

Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass - I really suck at this.

Lego Indiana Jones - came with my 360 and I'm only just getting to it. It's cute and all, but it seems way too easy to just stumble off a cliff and to your doom, repeatedly. I wish there was a Mario-style 'catch yourself' ledge grab.

Megaman 9 - trying like hell to get the Conservationist and Peacekeeper achievements before 10 hits, but I keep making stupid mistakes in the Wily stages.

New Super Mario Bros. Wii - fun with a don't-care crowd, but when I play solo and I'm going after all the Star Coins? I just want to punch things.

Raiden IV - pretty much what I expected it to be.

I also recently replayed some of FF7, Megaman 4, and (god help me) Majora's Mask. There's also (as usual) a spate of games I've picked up but not yet tried - Crystal Bearers, 'Splosion Man, Shadow Complex, Sands of Destruction. Finally, I've gotta get my PS3 fixed; I need Shatter back in my life.
As I did last year, I've set up a vacation from work to start on my birthday (tomorrow), so I should have time to get deeper into these...until NMH2 hits later this week, of course. Then all bets are off.

P.S. I've tried about two-and-a-half hours' worth of P3 FES - I'm a bit irritated at this point that I've done more high schoolery than dungeon-crawling (these guys get tired way too quickly). How long would I have to invest before the game becomes more about the latter?

P.P.S. The final battle to FF8 is one of my favorite things about the game, personally. Especially if you nerf your stats beforehand.