obligatory "What vidcons are you playing????" thread

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Bet On Soldier is a French FPS released in 2005 and a sequel of sorts to the developer's very love-or-hate it previous FPS, Iron Storm. The game's big gimmick is money management: forget regenerating health or scavening medkits and ammo from slain enemies, replinishing everything from reparing your armor to replinishing ammo must be paid with in-game currency. $$$ are obtained by killing enemies and doing s1ck headshotz and killing them with explosive barrels will earn more cash. Even saving at checkpoints cost money! Further tying into the "money" theme, you can hire set your loadout before each missions, hire from a variety of mercenaries and select which mid-boss you will fight in a televised battle midway through the level (a very neat but rather underused idea).

The plot is that something something dystopain future something blood sport something amnesia somethin something revenge. It's not terribly interesting or original.

BOS doesn't do a great impression what's with its low production values (this was the same year as FEAR and Resident Evil 4), abundance of bugs and poor English localization (although being a dirty frog, I can experience the original French writing and acting which is not too bad). The gameplay gimmick outlined above will scare away most observers as a lesser-skilled player can easily end up in an unwinnable situation. The game does offer some mitigating factors (changing map restore ammo and health, after the first level you get allies who can repair your ammo for free, etc) but if you're the kind of person who feels the need to compare Crash Bandicoot to dark souls, Bet On Soldier probably ain't for you.

As someone who likes money management in games though, BOS fills a niche and I'm rather enjoying it so far. And it's literally One Buck in the Steam summer sale, so...
 
I got my ass kicked by

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Ghen War is an early saturn. Ignored due to its 3D gameplay and western origin, it's actually a pretty good game! The story, told through amusing live-action cutscenes, is that you're a scientist manning an "hypersuit" (basically a bootleg power loaded) to ruin the machinations of the Ghen, a seemingly-friendly alien race attempting to enslave humanity.

Today it doesn't look like much, but for an early 1996 release, Ghen War was a fairly technical accomplished game with full terrain deformation way before Red Faction made it its selling point, reasonably smooth framerate (even rarely going to 60 FPS in indoor segments), and a variable soundtrack that changes depending on whats happening on the screen. The combat is pretty fast-paced and most of the levels are fairly open, which I like.

However, Ghen War was also my first genuine experience with permadeath and it was not pleasant. You start with 3 lives and gain another in an early level. If you die or quit without finishing a level, you lose a life. The game autosaves when you resume a session. When all lives are gone, your save is deleted! It's nuts. Are there even any other FPS that did something like that?
 
MonaWare said:
Having lives when you can save the game makes being able to save the game kinda pointless.
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Not really. The game is too long to be comfortably completed in a single-sitting. it's definitely a mechanic you don'T expect to see in what's otherwise a fairly dumb conventional FPS' though.
 
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Magma said:
Imagine a game where if you die you're not able to play it anymore at all unless you like do some crazy hacking
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I've thought about making a game like that. I had the idea of adjusting the difficulty by the age of the character. In the beginning you're young and strong, but as you age, the game gets more tense and demands more strategy/careful decision-making. By the time you reach the final challenge you are a decrepit old beggar with a heart condition.
 
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Magma said:
It is something I'd like to see implemented in more games
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You mean lives and a save feature? It feels pointless to me : p I mean being able to save your progress but losing it if you die. I do get the idea and all, no one wants to sit through 5+ hours in one sitting of gameplay. But I wouldnt want to lose my progress and have to start over again just cuz I died, after spending a couple of days advancing in a game.

And Im actually not big into having limited lives in a game : p I understand why it existed in the past and all. But I dont like losing everything and having to do it all over again : p I really enjoy being able to save my progress, knowing that my hardwork paid off and being able to enjoy the rewards Ive earned because of it, haha.

And I know of two games with perma-death. Aidyn Chronicles: The First Mage and the Fire Emblem series. But of course that only applies to your team mates, and even if they do die, you would of course reset and start from your last save point : p

Speaking of Aidyn Chronicles though, one thing they did wrongly in the game is not being able to trade out certain characters in order to get new ones. Like when I was younger I didnt like having Brenna in my party and liked trading her out for Becan. But she refused to leave the party. So that meant that the only way to get rid of her was to kill her off in battle. Not only would that remove her from my game forever (meaning she would no longer show up in any cut scenes or anything), but when she dies her character lets out a horrible scream as if shes being murdered or something : p It was always really unsettling, haha.
 
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Which one was it? I dont think you can evolve your pikachu in yellow, right?

And Ive been playing Star Wars Knight of the Old Republic 2 on Xbox. Its really great, I like it more than the first one definitely. Its certainly a bit buggy though : p And it can at times be unclear about what you are supposed to do next. But other than that its way fun.
Characters are better in the sequel too, other than the Jedi who trains you in Kotor 1, I never cared that much for the characters.
 
MonaWare said:
Which one was it? I dont think you can evolve your pikachu in yellow, right?

And Ive been playing Star Wars Knight of the Old Republic 2 on Xbox. Its really great, I like it more than the first one definitely. Its certainly a bit buggy though : p And it can at times be unclear about what you are supposed to do next. But other than that its way fun.
Characters are better in the sequel too, other than the Jedi who trains you in Kotor 1, I never cared that much for the characters.
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DId you know the game was massively unfinished and the PC version got an huge fan patch to re-add the scrapped content (with blessing from the original developers)?
 
Glowsquid said:
DId you know the game was massively unfinished and the PC version got an huge fan patch to re-add the scrapped content (with blessing from the original developers)?
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I had heard that, yeah. So I was worried about it. But Ive reached the end now, just have to fight the final battle and all that. And other than some stuff that happened in the end, its not really that bad. The last few scenes at the end do jump around a bit, which is confusing. But its not too bad.

It was a fun game regardless : p Ive enjoyed it and Im glad that I bought it. Im a little under 25 hours in, which was about the same length as the first one, so I cant complain there.
 
Magma said:
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Recently completed a run through of the first generation Pokemon games with this team.
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I also had Gyarados in, but I think I'm actually going to be leaving him from now on. I caught a Magmar, and as that's actually got typing advantages, I think it's going to be more interesting. It is underpowered, though, as I caught it so late. I did give it two injections of Protein. (that was quite expensive, so I better get some use out of him now!! d:P)
 
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Skeleton Warriors is a 2D action game based on a short-lived toy franchise that is basically a blatant rip-off of He-Man, but like, with 200% more skeleton. You play as a sword-wielding dude, who also has up to three ranged at his disposal and the ability to block. There are intermittent rail shooter stages that are pretty vomitive but you don't lose a life if you die in those so it's no biggie.

It's pretty good. The controls are very smooth and the boss battles have an enjoyable duel style to them because most of the blockign mechanics and that your most of your opponents are human-sized. On the other hand, levels are flat, lacking in verticality or alternate pathways and the lack of scoring system or any kind of secondary goal makes it a pretty one and done affair.

Mostly though, I didn't make this post because Skeleton Warriors is a game worth writing home about but because it made me look up the underlying property and jesus christ on a bike this is amazing



Why can't cartoons look like this anymore?
 
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