Has anyone played Assassin's Creed 3: Liberation? I have been thinking of giving it a try since I saw it is out on the PC. But I'd like to hear a little about how it plays first. Namely if you can save at any time and place you want, like most PC games. Since it is a port from a Vita I am afraid it has the usual console save system, of only being able to save and load the game in certain areas, which drives me nuts.

Nevermind, I just found out that it does indeed prevent you from saving any time and place you want. Instead it does an autosave at certain points. And of course only loads from those points. I won't be wasting my money on this game.

Yeah I got it for free on Xbox LIVE and still feel like I payed too much for it. You can really tell that it's a handheld port, and feels like a step back for the franchise. Waste of a promising female protagonist.

Tonight I´ve played some

Oblivion
Super Mario Bros
Dr Mario
Probotector (Contra)

I actually got further in Probotector than I ever have; up to the boss on level 6: Energy Zone. The level itself was quite easy but I had wasted a few lives on level 5 so even though I had the best boss weapon (laser), one hit from the boss and I was gone Could have continued but I didn´t bother.


Overall, quite a fun game night

About to start Assassin's Creed II again...

Why?...

Because my brain...*Shrug*...

I spent so long playing that game, collecting all those feathers and whatnot. The day I got 100% completion was one of the best days of my gaming life.

Fair dues...*Applauds Hazmick*... ...

I've never chased 100% ever...I don't do the races on ACII, as I suck Alpaca Testes at free-running...Which, considering the amount of time I've spent on Assassin's Creed is absolutely ridiculous...But - as Terry Pratchett observed in the last bit I've read - as with everything else in the universe, it just goes to show...


The closest to 100% of an AC game I've gotten, is 93% for ACIII this last time I did it...My main downfall, certainly on Brotherhood on, is the optional objectives...

Game: "Complete this section but make sure you do so by only using harsh language and spit!"...

Me: "?! "...

I've yet to finish Unity...I tried so hard with that game, I really did...Oy...*Fac-e-palm*...

Still playing Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate.

It's the only game I've ever played multiplayer online.

That's how much fun I'm having with it.

Today I finally played through Probotector on the NES!!

It´s also known as Contra and considered to be one of the best games on said system. I did cheat though and pulled off the famous Konami code to get 30 lives, and boy did I need those! The game isn´t actually that hard but when all was said and done and the game restarted on its own after the credits I had 17 left. Most were taken by bosses and a few by simple mistakes I otherwise never do, plus I didn´t always make too much of an effort to stay out of harms way


Edit: One interesting thing when you start over after beating it, enemies come from behind you at the first level which they don´t do first time through

With the release of Pillars of Eternity, I have been in the mood for some old school rpging. So I fired up Neverwinter Nights 1, and started the Shadows of Undrentide campaign. I rolled a new toon to beat the game with - an archery focused Ranger, with the plan of eventually going Arcane Archer. So far, so good.

Finally unlocked the Tiger on World of Tanks, after about a year of trying to unlock it. Turns out it's not as good as I expected. Such is life. Still, the grind continues. There's always a bigger tank to unlock.

Also downloaded Borderlands 1 and Gears of War Judgement. Played through GoWJ before and really enjoyed it, never played Borderlands but enjoying it so far.

It's been a long time since I last played, but I've just dusted off my 360 controller(literally, which shows how long it's been) and fired up Oblivion.

Edit: Argh! The character name box is one character short!

Tried out a little Goonies II on the NES. Played it as a kid but never got far into it. It´s not linear and I can have some problem with those kind of games. Nice graphics and music though, and the gameplay is solid

Xbox's free game of the month is a 2-D game called Terraria. It was recommended by a friend who said it was like a 2-D Minecraft. I've never played Minecraft, but this is so much fun!

You make a character and can create several randomized worlds, each containing different types of landscapes, like jungles, or snow, and stuff. You build houses for various NPCs who each have specific jobs, like a nurse, or a demolitions person. I saw a steampunk person but I'm not sure what they do. Your character always keeps whatever is in their inventory, no matter what world they go to so it is possible to have one world solely for mining and gathering materials and another for your town.

Anyway, to build stuff you need the materials, which come mainly from the environment. There's a lot of mining for ore and bricks and you can make as many houses as you want. You also make yourself weapons and armor, as well as little things like cups or vases to hold flowers.

There are also lots of enemies and they really come out at night. Every so often there's a Bloodmoon, which is when the zombies can open doors and get inside and kill the NPCs so you have to fortify and defend the house(s).

I've spent at least 20 hours on it so far, though a lot of it was spent trying to learn how to build houses. The tutorial mode kept getting stuck on one task, even after I finished it.

I have never played those game either. Most people do love the Minecraft thing and all the spin-off ideas. I must have a go one day myself.

At the moment I am playing Oblivion (8th level Dunmer with about 50 hours), Dishonored and F1 2011.

I should be doing practice for the Malaysian GP but end up playing nothing but Oblivion all week!

Started playing Guild Wars 2 today. So far so good, pretty standard MMORPG as far as I can tell. Combat is good, quests are good, world is good. Plenty of lore. Doesn't keep pushing you into joining guilds or forming parties so I can solo around to my hearts content at the moment.

I'd probably have an easier time if I wasn't playing it on my laptop, but hey ho I enjoy the challenge

I was just gonna play a little Legend of Zelda on the NES before continuing with Oblivion, but I ended up finding several great items and cleared two dungeons, giving me two more pieces of the Triforce

Never did play this game much either when I was a kid, I never liked it for some reason. Compared to Link´s Awakening it´s very simple and maybe that´s it. Still, it has lots of things to find and it´s always fun when you find something new.

I was feeling a bit burnt out on Oblivion last night, so I switched to my second favorite open world (or more accurately, open universe) game - Freelancer.

The basic gist, for anyone who hasn't played it - you play a freelance star pilot named Edison Trent who gets swept up in an enormous and sprawling bit of political intrigue. You start out having just been rescued from a station that was mysteriously attacked and destroyed and you have no money, no ship, no nothing. You're hired by a terrific character named Jun'ko Zane (aka Junie), who gives you a bare bones ship and a bit of spending money, and you just go from there. Junie becomes your ally in the course of the main plot and she's the contact for the new missions that move things along, but you don't get a new mission until you've reached a set level, so you spend a lot of time just out and about in the universe, exploring and doing mercenary work or trading or salvaging or mining or pirating or... whatever earns you money and experience. Then every once in a while, Junie will contact you and hire you for another mission, which will advance the main plot some more, then you're back on your own until the next one.

The environment is surprisingly nice for a 12 year old game. I'm always impressed by how effective the graphics are. Yeah - if you look at the models, they're extremely low poly (at least by modern standards), but they're so effectively textured and mapped that they really do the job well. The star systems are very convincing and interesting and it's just a pleasure to fly around and see what's out there. And the combat, when it happens, is quite engaging, with intuitive controls and a nice but not overwhelming range of ships and weaponry.

It's just a great game - so well done that I even rank it ahead of my other other favorite open world game, GTA San Andreas.

Now I'm back to Oblivion though, or more accurately, to fiddling with Blender, trying to sort out how in the hell hair meshes work...

gpstr, Freelancer sounds an awful lot like one of my favorite starship games - Ambrosia's Escape Velocity:Nova. What I loved about it are the storylines - there are no MQ as we recognize it, but rather six different pathways you can choose if you wanted to - Colonials, Aurorans, Vell-Os, Polarians, Rebels, and Pirates. Not all of them are mutually exclusive, but the choices you make each step of the way can open or shut doors for you. For example, if you start down one of the other paths, and decide to go Pirate, you lose the opportunity to continue down the previous path. If you chose to go with the Aurorans, you can still pursue the Polaris story line, but the Colonials are closed to you. The intricacies of the storylines really make for a fascinating playthrough, and thinking back, I suppose it was the very first taste of roleplaying I had, because in this game I found myself telling stories about my player character.

Mmm... that does sound very similar - particularly the web of disparate cultures and factions. I might have to check that out when I can spare the bandwidth to download it. Thanks.

I've been sucked back into Oblivion, but I finished Bioshock infinite and replayed dishonored

So now you have officially played through all three Bioshocks, Kobby? Which one was best?

Dragon Age Inquisition is taking up most of my free time at the moment, although I've also been fitting in a bit of Evolve and GTA.

Oblivion is also looking appealing, if I can find the time...

Is that a new game? I have to look into that one..

Yeah, it sounds quite good. Not sure that many people on this forum will have heard of it though...

For the last few days I have been playing Neverwinter Nights 1 again, starting a new game with Persephone. Yes, the girl gets around. I have been having a blast. It may be the older game than NWN2 - with correspondingly poorer graphics, fewer classes and neato feats, less races, etc... - but it is definitely the better game. I just cannot get through NWN2. But I have gone through NWN1 several times over the years, and I am still loving it one more time.

I do have an idea for my copy of Neverwinter Nights 2. I just downloaded Baldur's Gate Reloaded, which turns NWN2 into Baldur's Gate. BG1 from the looks of it, not 2. But I liked BG1 better, so that is a win for me. At some time I will give that a try.

Still having a lot of fun with NWN1. Persephone is my first character to have the Great Cleave feat. Wow! For those unfamiliar with the D&D 3.x rules, the Cleave feat gives you a free attack when you kill your opponent, so long as the new person you attack is in melee range. Great Cleave takes it a step further, and allows you to chain an unending number of such free attacks, so long as you kill an opponent with each swing, or run out of people in melee range. The Paladin in Diablo 2 had the same feat.

Soon after taking Great Cleave, Persephone went into a big room that was filled with fire beetles. Low level critters. But there were about a dozen of them, and they all came in at once and swarmed her. Persephone attacked once, then the cleaving commenced. It didn't stop until all the beetles were dead. In one round, one action, she killed them all. As one would die, another would step up into the gap, so that when Persephone's sword came around again it was in range. Wow!

SubRosa, glad to hear you are still going strong with NWN I. Heh, the Great Cleave sounds like some special power that a busty Nord might have that causes her top to pop open and distract her foes.

Like Sigrid?

Well, I've ditched MH4U and gone back to playing Rune Factory 4. There's something strangely satisfying about combining farming and dungeon-diving...

currently on my 7th playthrough of Dragon's Dogma, but I accidentally missed out a quest so I'm planning on blitzing through it and going for 100% on playthrough number 8. My character is just over 2 years old and still isn't strong enough to take down the DLC endgame boss.

*sigh* the grind never ends.

I was just watching the Angry Joe review on Dragon's Dogma. It sounded interesting, right up until I discovered it is for X-box and Playstation only.

I keep meaning to get back to Dragon's Dogma, damn good game. I completed the story once before the expansion came out, but haven't gotten around to a second attempt. Which class do you play? I tend to go for either Mystic Knight or Magic Archer. Too much fun.



Anyway, I'm trying to hack, blast, and respawn my way through Halo 3 on Legendary difficulty. I want to see that alternate ending.

I rock the assassin, for the sword/bow combo, and my pawn is a ranger (though she was a lot more helpful as a fighter so I'm thinking of switching her to that). I like the abilities of the magic archer but I don't like the way the bows look It's always style over substance for me.

I've got to the point now where I've been everywhere, done everything, and killed everything, quite a few times so my pawn knows exactly where to go and what to do. Makes things so much easier. The expansion is still really difficult though.

For the last few days I have been playing my Amazon Total War mod for Rome: Total War 1. It has been years since I have touched it. This sure brings back memories.

It brings me back memories of when you talked about it and posted a couple screens over on the Bethesda Official site back in 2009! Did looking at that particular vid make you nostalgic to play it?

It was watching Angry Joe's review of Rome Total War 2 that got me hankering for some total warness. It sounds like RTW2 is not very good, something I have heard from more than just him. So I took a stroll down memory lane with my Amazons. Nearly all of Asia Minor has now fallen to my women.

As soon as you said you played it again after all this time, I wondered if watching that vid had kind of got you thinking about it.

I remember a screen with troops on a bridge, or maybe nearing a bridge - that is all I can remember about it, other than you loved the game and carried some of the things you loved best about it into your roleplay in Oblivion - some really cool things like that lance, etc. I remember the girl Legionaire on horseback carrying that lance and I think her armor too was based on that game. I learned more about the Roman wars listening to you than I learned in school, and it was a lot more fun your way too, lol.

Let me see, I do have a bunch of old pics from ATW. I did most of these for faction previews, to showcase their units. I just wish I could remember what I did to hide the UI in those pics. It has been so long I cannot remember anymore.

Amazonian Chariots

Amazonian Agema Archers

Amazonian Companion Cavalry

Amazonian Armored Hoplites

Amazonian Axewomen

Amazonian Agema Axewoman

Valkyrja Spearwomen

Valkyrja Berserkers

Valkyrja Companion Cavalry

Valkyrja Heavy Cavalry

Gorgon Armored Elephants

Gorgon Agema Axewomen vs. Carthaginian Sacred Band

Bean Sidhe Chosen Fianna

Bean Sidhe vs Romans

Thanks for sharing these SubRosa - looks like a beautiful mod. I'm sure I've seen several of these at some point posted by you over the years. What epic scale!

Holy Cow, do you have to control all those people? How do you do it? These screens are amazing, and I love some of the armors! The charging Elephants tossing people in the air had me laughing! What a great touch! Awesome shots, this looks great - but hard to play!


GAAAAH, this is a mod? I thought it was a game! Holy Cow !!!!

It is not as difficult to coordinate it all as you might think at first. You don't have to control each individual person. Your soldiers are organized into units, usually of up to 160 or 240 people each. A little less for cavalry units. You can have a max of 20 units in a battle. Though the computer can have any number over that. It is a real time game, but you can pause any time you want. So by pausing a lot, it basically becomes a turn-based game, and can micro-manage the battle really well.

My general Penthesilea recently conquered the island of Rhodes, but the Greeks want it back (The Greeks are the guys with the gold flags with the lightning bolts. Each person you see on this strategy map is an army.)

Going out to fight the Greeks

The Colossus of Rhodes looks on

Flawless victory

All this strategy game talk has got me in a similar mood. Of course being an Xbox player my choices are pretty limited. Thankfully my laptop is just about good enough to run the original 'Stronghold'. Might have to invest in some more games now that I know it'll work.

I love that all these armies are beautiful women; and the Generals too! Like the episode of Star Trek where they went to a planet where there were only voluptuous women, lol. These screens are great!

After Halo 3 bumped me back several times on legendary, I decided to just smash the game on heroic difficulty(2nd highest) instead. Then I moved onto Halo: Reach, which I'm getting close to finishing on heroic. Once I'm done I'll be moving on to Halo 4.

dread to think how much time I spent on Halo: Reach. Absolutely loved it.

aaaand now I wanna play through it again

Yeah, it's a great game. Even the single player, going through the story. There's something very satisfying about it.

Now that I've wrapped it up, for now, I'm moving onto Halo 4. Damn this game's gorgeous. I got past the prologue bit, into the first area with a proper view, and my jaw nearly dropped. It was one major "wow" moment.

My son LOVED the Halo games; but he played them online. I played one of them once or twice in single player, but compared to the games I was used to playing it was too linear - but it was gorgeous, agree with you on that.

Currently playing Jurrassic Park Operation Genesis on the original Xbox. I bought it years ago for next to nothing and a resurgence in popularity has made it worth almost $100. I love it. Really fun game and definitely a laid back way to kill a few hours.

So... you´re playing Genesis on an Xbox..? ....



Oh, retro-style humor! How I love thee

So I haven't been playing Oblivion much at all, since I got sucked into yet another open world-ish game - Uncharted Waters: New Horizons on the SNES.

I bought a lot of Koei games back when the SNES was state of the art, but mostly the pure strategy empire building ones - Bandit Kings of Ancient China, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Nobunaga's Ambition and the like. I got the first Uncharted Waters, but it just never really hooked me, and I didn't bother with New Horizons. But I ran across a mention of it on a thread on a retrogaming board and figured I'd give it a shot, and yeah... it's taken up most of my spare time since.

Quick outline for any who might be interested:

You play one of six different characters, each of which is just starting out in their eventual occupation - an Italian adventurer, a Dutch explorer, an English naval officer, a Spanish pirate, a Turkish trader or a Portuguese adventurer. They each have their own stories, but the stories just unfold over time, as near as I can tell triggered by particular amounts of fame or fortune or success or whatever's appropriate to the character. Each character starts the game with a ship - in most cases it's a pretty basic but usable one, though both the English naval officer and the Spanish pirate start out, though for completely different reasons, with stolen Spanish galleons. They have basic goals to accomplish, usually at the behest of the ruler of their nation (the Turkish trader is asked to expand trade routes and forge alliances, the Dutch explorer is asked to explore the world and report his discoveries to a cartographer, the English naval officer is asked to defeat the Spanish fleet, and so on). But really, you're free to just do pretty much whatever you want. When you start the game, the Mediterranean, Iberia and central Europe are open and the rest of the map is dark, waiting to be discovered.

The economic system is surprisingly sophisticated. Goods are divided into broad categories (spices, cloth, luxuries, food, etc.) and trade in particular items affects the markets relatively predictably and accurately. If you sell a great deal of one product to one port, the price they're willing to pay for it goes down, as does, though to a lesser extent, the price they're willing to pay for much of anything. And the demand for that item in neighboring and allied ports will also go down. Meanwhile, the port you've been buying the item from will be flush with money and it's prices - both what it's willing to pay for things and what it demands for things - will go up. If you run a particular trade route for too long, you'll exhaust it.

There's also a complex web of loyalty that's affected by pretty much everything you do. If you trade with a port a lot, it'll increase loyalty to, and eventually ally with, your nation. But if it's an important port, that'll potentially spur other nations to increase their trade with it, and it can lead shipowners from those nations to attack you, trying to force you out of the area. And so on.

One of the most interesting bits about it is that many of the playable characters appear as NPCs in the other scenarios. In fact, some of them are important characters in each other's scenarios. Since each scenario starts at the same point in time, that means that you can play out both sides of some of the important rivalries in the game. And all of the characters at least figure into each other's scenarios, even if they aren't active characters. For instance, as I mentioned, if you play the Turkish trader, your task is to expand their political and economic empire. He exists no matter what, so if you play any of the scenarios other than the Turkish trader, you're going to have to deal with the fact that there's this Turkish trader out there expanding their political and economic empire.

It's really quite a well done game, with lots of content and lots of freedom. I strongly suggest it to anyone who enjoys freedom, exploration and strategy.