TurboPubx-16

I am not a fan of shields. I find that the time to raise them is too long compared to DS1, which led to a lot of surprises and frustration when I first started. I also find them to be less stable and that I get into that "throw my hands up in the air in exhaustion" animation very often with large groups of enemies. Enemies in DS2 are all about stun locking you and the only way to get out is to roll. When the LB button on my controller stopped working I ran through DS1 with no shields and no ranged weapons, and it gave the game a new life. Now that I have power stances I am a very happy gamer. On scorpion man: I reached the very tall black tower you can see from Majula and desperately needed a dexterity weapon that dealt strike damage. I searched up and down and came up empty, until I visited the very first merchant in the game and found my solution: the caestus. Since I put on a pair of these I've rarely taken them off. They were total garbage in DS1 but in this game they scale A in both strength and dexterity, the attacks are swift and cost tiny amounts of stamina, and most importantly they are damn satisfying to use. In a battle with your standard humanoid with a sword and shield it is very easy to constantly circle around them and dodge any attack, while constantly smacking them around with combos. In one room where these statues come to life I was literally decapitating these guys with my fists before they could stand up. Remember when we all had tons of titanite chunks and were hurting for large shards? I have a ton of SLABS and no chunks! PVPing for chunks just doesn't work for me anymore, probably because I'm too high a level. If anyone is on Xbox I'd love to see if trading is viable in this game, since you can still summon people in areas where the boss is defeated. I'll trade one slab for six chunks, any one interested? Or, if you need large shards I can get those too. I am Edgeworth23 on Xbox live. Sorry in advance, my microphone doesn't really work.

I upgraded my Blacksteel Katana to +9 and took it to an area where I felt strongly that I needed to have a torch in my off hand at all times. It worked wonderfully with my 40 dexterity. Not all S ranks are equal, that's for sure. The problem is that one Blacksteel Katana weighs twice as much as two Ricard's Rapiers! I am now able to put any quality I want on weapons... but I'm too much of a wuss to do it. I really wish this option had come earlier, before I had already beat most of the bosses and developed a playstyle around dexterity scaling. I thought I should talk a bit more about adaptability since I advocated it so strongly in this thread, but be warned, the following is some pretty dorky shit. There is a lot of controversy surrounding the stat right now, with fan studies calling its usefulness into question. I respec'd my character to reduce his adaptability from 20 to its original level (9) and put those points into vitality instead for higher equip load. At first I didn't see much of a difference but eventually I met a boss that required clutch dodging. I lost to this boss many times before going back to the old ladies and putting my adaptability back to 20. After that, it took two tries to defeat the boss. Now, I can't say for sure if I got more invincibility frames during rolls, if my rolls started sooner after I pressed the button, if I drank estus all that much faster, etc; what I can say for sure is that my movement speed was much faster. Previously I found it hard to get in position to roll under his right arm as he started to swing his weapon, my basic strategy for all humanoid enemies. On my last attempt I was orbiting him much faster than he could rotate, so much so that I was able to get right behind him a couple of times. So there you go, I am still a believer in adaptability, but only up to 20! Anyone who puts up to 38 is seriously drinking the Koolaid I mean it's totally just a placebo effect

Another helpful bit of info from Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/DarkSouls2/comments/20nnd1/faq_from_japans_dark_souls_ii_site/. What we have here is what should have came with the game, a manual. To the person asking about the Zwei, yes, it is only a D in strength scaling, and a C in dexterity. The link I've posted gives a short explanation on how heavy weapons have changed, by the way. I wouldn't know much about heavy weapons because I am dual wielding Ricard's Rapiers (one +10 and another +9) in power stance mode. For those who aren't aware, if you equip two of the same weapon and hold Y/Triangle, you'll get new attacks that have you strike with both weapons at once. It is the greatest thing ever. For the rapiers, the attacks retain most of their reach and the stamina cost is incredibly low for the damage I'm outputting. You can also use one handed attacks whenever you want in this stance. And in the case of the rapiers, no, there isn't a version of the crazy stabstabstabstabstab STAB combo that uses both swords (how do I do a crying smiley). Is that the Blacksteel Katana? That's the only one I've found. The first enemy type I saw wielding a katana forced me to start crushing rusty coins. It starts off with a A scaling in dexterity with no upgrades which has me excited to try it out more. I hope you talked to the little man and got your Speaking generally about progress, I've acquired two of the four major souls but at the same time I feel like I am missing a lot of stuff. For example, I haven't found a single ember, or any other way to give extra qualities to my weapons, despite finding all sorts of crazy titanite. I'm about thirty hours into the game and it still feels absolutely gigantic.

I found the zweihander! It is...

So much to say! What an amazing game. Hey, anything you hear about a Souls game two days after it is released shouldn't be taken as gospel. I will say that the added benefit of higher resistances saved my life on a couple of occasions. I'll just say that the first time I was poisoned, it wasn't from anything as obvious as a snake with green goo dripping from its fangs. To the person who asked earlier about my adaptability: it's somewhere in the late teens. My agility is around 100, I think. If you can dodge and block boss attacks at low adaptability, more power to you! I've gone from a rolling ninja with an empty left hand (30% equip load) to a knight using a shield extensively (60% load) since upping agility. On one boss I'll roll my way through it with light armour, on another I'll don a mishmash of heavy gear and block everything. I love how you can carry as much gear as you want at all times, since I can walk into a new area and easily change my tactics. What gear are you guys using? I haven't found the holy grail: a straight sword that scales highly with dexterity that has both slashing and thrusting attacks when wielded with one hand (think Balder side sword from DS). Until then, I have a rapier+6 as my main weapons with a long sword+3 as my back up. I also have a long bow+3 that I use to great effect. To the person who asked, I found a greatsword, which is confusingly categorized as an ultra greatsword. Do a Google image search for "berserk guts sword" and you'll see it . I found it in... If anyone sees my sword, please let me know the general area you found it, I'd greatly appreciate it. Here's something crazy: http://www.reddit.com/r/DarkSouls2/comments/20ekpn/reviving_to_human_after_playing_coop_is_a_bug/. I was relying on doing co-op to restore my humanity until it stopped working today. In fact, a couple of times I was restored to human even though we failed to defeat the boss. I wonder if From has made a game so mysterious even they don't under stand it

A tip: level up adaptability. It raises the agility stat, which effects how many invincibility frames you get during rolls, how fast you raise your shield, and how fast you drink from your flask, among other things. This game is like The Witcher 2 in the sense that it is an action game with shitty action until you level up your ability to do actions. I felt the game was very sluggish at first but after leveling adaptability I am rolling through boss attacks like I used to in Dark Souls 1.

To those of you who are enjoying the game, what are you playing it on? I find it to be very hard to play on my 4S due to the small screen and all the extra touching I have to do.

I recently reached level 112 of Candy Crush and decided that this is the moment where I cannot possibly beat the level without being very lucky or spending money on boosts. I was more than happy to pay $1 for fifteen more levels over and over again. By making this level crazy difficult they've actually lost out on money from me. I know that doesn't matter to them.

Apart from the microtrasactions, I think the gameplay itself is a big step down. Basically, there is a bunch more tapping of the screen which amounts to a bunch more gimmicky busy work. I've heard a lot of good things about PvZ2 on Gamers With Jobs and Rebel FM and in those cases I'm pretty sure they were talking about the iPad version; on the iPhone there is so much extra tapping that my fingers obscure the screen to the point where I am missing a lot of the actual game, in addition to my sore hands. There is now plant food to pick up which can be used to temporary power up a plant. You have to tap to pick those up, tap a bar at the bottom to select one, and then tap a plant to use it. The plant food is given out like candy and there are obvious moments in a level where you are supposed to use it. There are enemies that steal your sun. You have to tap the evil sun to turn it good again, then tap it again to collect it. There are new abilities like swiping and pinching that you use to clear zombies with incredible ease. I hate doing these moves, especially the pinching (I basically have to cram my finger tips together to get it to work). It feels like they added a pile of -1 + 1.5 's to the gameplay equation: the enemy gets some small advantage and you are given a slightly stronger solution to it. It used to be, you have plants and they have zombies; now it's, you have plants and they have zombies but now they have ten zombies in one lane but you used plant food to nullify that but now they are stealing your sun but you tapped your fingers red and you got it back and now there are so many fucking zombies but you swiped them off the screen oh shit my hands hurt too much to pick up that coin and it's blinking out of existence wait... this is what this game looks like under my fingers? I only caught a few glimpses in the whole battle.

http://www.datatragedy.com/wipmoabd/ FAQ 1. What is it? It's an indie game. Jeff Gerstmann described it an aesthetic experiment. 2. What do I need to play it? A web browser with the Unity plugin, which is provided on the page above. 3. How long will it take? Ten to twenty minutes. 3. Of the Idle Thumbs cast, who is most likely to love this game? Steve Gaynor. 4. Can I play it full screen? Right-click, full screen. 5. What is the biggest mind-fuck someone could experience after playing through this game? https://twitter.com/festedafool/status/326131884394438656/photo/1 https://twitter.com/festedafool/status/326132348146028544/photo/1

I didn't feel like we were engaging in a discussion about criticism so much as a discussion about expectations; I have been reading, "I was let down" and, "I felt the game promised me X and didn't deliver." If I read wrong then I apologize. My issue is with the tendency for people to put too much on one game's shoulders, get disappointed, and then making sweeping statements about the people who write about the medium (who, I'll add, write reviews, not critiques). If we are critiquing Infinite, well, to puke out some thoughts: the dialogue is inane, the characters are razor thin -- how the hell is Elizabeth not feral? Time travel stories are stupid and inherently childish. The whole thing is just fantasy-fulfillment of being a super-powered sociopath! These are all things I feel about Infinite, but I don't hold the game accountable to them, the same way I don't expect it to deliver a thoughtful treatment on American history, because that's not the bill of goods I was sold, literally and figuratively.

In responding to these posts I'm going to tell you about my expectations. I think this will do a lot to clear up my arguments. To me, Infinite is very clearly a comic book-like experience. I had this expectation from the reveal trailer, from the first Bioshock, and from the two personalities I know of who worked on the game, comic book fans Shawn Elliott and Ken Levine. It is story about three main characters and one strong theme, that arguably are all in service of the genre fiction favorite, the plot twist. In essence, the literary elements are secondary to the visual ones. This is not To Kill A Mockingbird, it's Preacher. It was not clear to me that they were going anywhere in the first act other than establishing the setting. If there was something more to it, then I would expect that a minority character would have been introduced in the first act. The absence of any such character was a clear message. There were many such hints, such as the lack of insightful dialogue from either character. Once the plot literally stepped through a portal to another dimension the deal was sealed. The themes you're listed are developed to the degree that I expected them to be; they were introduced as more one-dimensional than not, and that's how they ended. They are there so we can see the posters, the museum exhibits, the city covered in red; all images that to me are nothing short of breath taking, like incredible two-page spreads in a comic book. By comparing Infinite to a work of genre fiction I am not giving it a pass. I am judging the game on what I believe is reasonable, as well as calibrating my expectations to be realistic. My expectations for storytelling and serious thought are not low, they are in line with the standards set out by works such as the original Bioshock. Now, to shift from Infinite as comic book to Infinite as a game: speaking of realistic expectations, if they were to implement those points it would extend the game's length and development cost quite significantly. Furthermore, I never felt that the game was introducing these topics so much as it used them to flesh out the setting, but even if I did the fact that this is a first person shooter would lead my expectations to a realistic place. Where is the precedent for "meaningful" or "interesting" discussion of these themes in first person shooters? I am not saying "typical shooter", I am saying any shooter ever. There are very real limitations to the stories you can tell in the genre. It is not a trivial task to tell a literary story in an FPS, in fact it has never been done before. The major theme I felt was being introduced was one of how people deal with their personal histories; how some people define themselves by their histories, whether earned through deeds or inherited by birth, and when that history is nullified they fall apart (Slate and the whites of Columbia). How those born without strong histories will devote their lives to crafting the narrative they feel they need to be human, sometimes ironically at the cost of their humanity (Lady Comstock and Fitzroy). How people rarely achieve redemption, and in denying their wrongdoings, destroy themselves and the ones they love in their constant pursuits to craft a perfect narrative, or escape a detestable one (Booker and Comstock).

I don't think you get to put such an incredible weight on Infinite's shoulders and not walk away disappointed. Where is the precedent for such a thing in a first person shooter?

A lot of criticisms come from a place of, "Infininte was trying to tackle theme X" or "one of the main goals of Infinite was to do Y." I watched the announcement trailer and went on blackout until the game came out; from my perspective Infinite is a first person shooter with a fun comic book-style story based on the theme of redemption, with the single greatest backdrop ever seen in a video game. I don't know where people are getting so many insights into the grand plans of Kevine and co. The game opens up with "Are you afraid of god" and a quote about transdemensional travel, which is the only declaration I can see as far as the creator's intentions go, which is to say, this is a fun science fiction fantasy adventure.

Let me put it this way; take Infinite and put it against ten randomly chosen big budget shooters from the last three years; I'd bet the way we engage with Infinite would be in a whole other level than those games. A lot of the complaints I'm hearing would sound ridiculous if leveled against a lesser game. For example, I would never look for a character that was even remotely sympathetic in a Tom Clancy or Call of Duty game, let alone one of the boss enemies; similarly, I would literally never stop to look at anything in one of those games, save an explosion. Infinite also beats these games at what they're supposed to be best at: delivering a well-paced adventure. When AAA shooter has a low point in the action, it's a bad stealth section or a cutscene; when Infinite has a low point in the action, you're on the most sinister beach in the world, comparing the bathrooms of the different classes and listening to a white mom scold her child for kissing Irish girls.

In evaluating the skylines, I don't know what to compare them to. I had almost no clue they would be in the game at all. They are fun as hell, that's my opinion . Edit: What I'm trying to say is, Infinite is so innovative that it introduces problems we've never seen before in games. It can be a confusing experience, to delight in something so deeply and yet somehow be able to list off a dozen disaappointments. It's somewhat akin to that multiplayer game you have hundreds of hours on and yet all you think about it is, his power is OP, the matchmaking is bad, etc.

You're right, in that case we are going to have fundamentally different ideas about what MGS is. MGS didn't have fans in 1998; it had fanatics, acolytes and apologists. The level of presentation, the strength of its anime-ness, and its serious messages about war and nuclear weapons made people consider Metal Gear Solid to be something much greater than just a good video game. There were those who didn't get it, but they were drowned out by the tide of essays and 5 star reviews. *Old man stoner voice* It was like the 60s man, you had to be there. I think the hype for MGS2, and the ruckus it caused at its released, is a major factor in the birth of the whole Neogaf culture. Before DLC, DRM etc. wrested control of the Internet's rage, people exploding on message boards was just their way of trying to recreate the gushing passion of the days MGS2, the Dreamcast, Theif 3/Deus Ex 2, and all the other crazy shit going on in that era that really doesn't have analogues in this era. I guess that's what Metal Gear means to me! That and, MGS3 brought back the "cool" to the series that I wanted, and also was a step forward in the ways that I appreciate Kojima, like the forever ladder, and the river that contains the ghosts of every creature you ever killed up until that point. The first time it was so clogged with dead salmon and guys grabbing their stabbed necks that I could barely find a path through; the second time it was totally empty and somehow that was even scarier. There are very good reasons why people tend to enjoy 1&3 over 2&4 and vice-versa. I think that makes the series as a whole much more interesting and I wouldn't have it any other way. MGS2 refuses to run on my modern PC. Huge bummer!

That sounds awesome, and if the PC version of Dark Souls 2 comes out the same day as the consoles then I will seriously consider a day-one perch. But what if I want to opt-out of that experience? I don't feel like there was an option to play the game without ever visiting a wiki. There's even a built-in system to get a certain amount of "playground knowledge" that, if extended further, could solve almost all those problems. Things like incomprehensible icons next to a weapons stats are just bad UI.

@Argobot re: Menarche Re: Ending Re: Violence I feel like the only reasonable expectation was, "I will murder hundreds of people in this game." Since the first Bioshock indie games have exploded and I've gotten over my disappointment that Irrational's big budget games are going to include shooting many people in the face. It helps that I happen to love the combat in this game more than any shooter in long while.

MGS2 is written to be the ultimate game to be written about. It is loaded with all that academic stuff that's fun to sift through and connect together. I still think Raiden being an analogue for the player is a great conceit. It's fully fleshed out in every way conceivable, and it was a total success in that it offended the people it meant to without them ever knowing why. The heady, up-in-the-clouds stuff is all great. I just think the characters and the plot are awful. The fact that you spend the entire game failing at everything you try to do doesn't make for a fun video game, as much as it might make for a great meta-message. Vamp/Solidus/Fortune/Fatman/Olga is not cool, his/her dialogue is lame, his/her boss battle is boring, etc. In all fairness, watching video of these games I used to love they all look like anime bullshit to me now . I have gone from the 12-year-old who would call everyone on the codec at every opportunity in MGS to the 20-something PC gamer for whom this kind of story telling just doesn't work anymore. But I guess you guys win, because I just grabbed my PC copy of MGS2 of the shelf and I'm installing it right now.

That is exactly the kind of genius/idiotic paradox that Molyneux is best at. For example, game where you build meaningful relationships through farting over and over again.

This is an odd-numbered Metal Gear game, which means I am excited!

It is a bad thing that the game has situations where, from my perspective as the player, either outcome of a yes/no option is potentially very dire. It makes me feel irresponsible for not looking at a wiki. I use the dragon covenant as an example because that's the first time I looked at a wiki. "The dragons are bad guys, right? If I refuse he might kill me. He might even curse me! But if I say yes, maybe the dragon will kill and curse me because I dared to assume I was worthy to hang with dragons. Besides that, what does it mean to join a covenant? Is this a permanent decision?" This internal dialouge went on for literally fifteen minutes before I relinquished and went for outside help. Once I broke that seal, I discovered what all those ugly little icons mean, how crafting worked, how co-op worked, how equip burden worked, etc.

This post doesn't have any big specific spoilers, but none-the-less you've been warned. I tried my hardest to drop expectations, but the introduction was so incredible that it put those high standards on itself very early. There is little to say but that I spent my first play-through with my mouth agape. What I wasn't expecting was the strength of the combat. I've put 31 hours into this game, which includes one play-through on hard and another one-and-a-half on 1999 mode. I highly recommend that everyone try 1999 mode. Booker is so utterly god-like in his abilities, and not just because of one or two strategies; there seem to be so many combinations of gear, vigors, weapons and environmental tools that killing these racist/eyeglasses-wearer haters won't get old for a long, long time. One complaint I heard is that the game feels like it's from the early 2000's. It seems like every game in the last ten years has tried to make shooting and movement more sluggish. The pistol is the pistol from Half Life: the secret hip-shot sniper rifle that I missed so much. Booker has unlimited sprint, is impervious to fall damage when he means to fall, and can jump as high as the Hulk. After years of military dudes who feel like they were hit by a maple syrup truck, Booker is a revelation. I was initially put off by the ending, but then again I never go for time-travel/alternate dimension story lines. What's important is that the emotions were true and that the characters reached a satisfying conclusion. I feel manipulated to like Elizabeth through the incredible marriage of her animations and voice acting. The actual character is not likable but I can't stop watching her reactions to things and I still get shivers when she sings and dances. The fact that someone pointed out how she is basically rotoscoped from the Disney princess I adored in my childhood makes me feel much better. I'm curious to see how Alyx holds up now; I like to believe that she was a cool character and that she wasn't engineered through psychological suggestion for me to fall in love with her.

I feel like if things were explained a bit better then maybe I could play through the game without ever using a wiki. For example: "Would you like to join the dragon convenant? (Yes/No)" Seeing as how I have zero information about what that means, I think I'm going to look it up before I potentially ruin my character.