[–] DustyTopHat 0 points 2 points 2 points (+2|-0) ago
Shadow Hearts and its sequel, Shadow Hearts: Covenant. It's pretty animu, but the soundtrack and battle system is amazing. The story is very tied down to history (in one game you even hang with Francis Bacon!) starting around WWI. Here's the Wiki for those interested!
i haven't even heard of it. what's it like?
[–] LazarCyprium ago (edited ago)
Setting:
The STALKER series is set in the area around Chernobyl after a mysterious second incident. This surrounding area, called the "Exclusion Zone" (or simply "The Zone" for short), has been cordoned off by the military for the sake of public safety. But rumors spread of valuable treasures that can be found, such as rare artifacts created by physical anomalies. People start sneaking into The Zone, looking to profit from its riches. These people are called stalkers. Some of these stalkers start banding together, such as small clusters of bandits, but also larger factions formed by common ideological bonds.
The Zone is a dangerous place, even without the threat of bandits and other less savory stalkers. The incident has created patches of land with heavy radiation, mutating the wildlife, and the added presence of a new danger: anomalies. These are localized alterations to the physics of an environment. Fire can shoot off from out of nowhere. Sudden jolts of electricity. The most common anomalies alter gravity, whether its by instantly compacting anything that passes through it, tearing things apart, or tossing them up into the air. Stalkers must tread carefully and be aware of their surroundings to avoid these nasty pitfalls.
The upside to these anomalies is that they create mysterious artifacts that exhibit remarkable effects, such as healing properties. Scientists are willing to pay a lot of money for them. The trouble is snatching them up without getting caught in the trap.
Gameplay:
It is basically an open world FPS RPG. The controls are kind of old-school, so they may seem cumbersome to people who are more accustomed to more recent games. There is an old-fashioned PC RPG inventory system with the drag-and-drop interface and all. Gun play can take some getting used to as most guns in the early game will feel inaccurate, but that seems to be a stylistic choice since it would make sense that getting good guns into The Zone wouldn't be something simple bandits and lone stalkers could manage.
The game really feels like it has a life of its own with its A-Life AI and detailed faction system. You will often find mutants of one species fighting another, bandits fighting stalkers, faction up against faction. All of this is going on without you. Sometimes side missions will even complete themselves. For example, there is a reoccurring side mission to help stalkers fight off bandits at the railway station in the Garbage. Sometimes the mission will be completed before you even get there. Why? The stalkers killed the bandits. You could have helped, but they really didn't need you.
That is something that I love about the series. Most games make the player the sole agent of change in the universe. Nothing happens without them. STALKER is indifferent to you. You can progress your own story, sure, but most everyone else's lives can go on without you. And when you come to the end of your story, maybe you have changed The Zone. Maybe you just get out. Maybe you die like all of the other suckers. No guarantees.
[–] BaaruRaimu 0 points 4 points 4 points (+4|-0) ago
Metal Fatigue. It came out towards the end of the RTS golden age, so it had all the standard 3D RTS things down pat, but it also brought to the table some really cool ideas like a 3-layered map - orbit, surface and underground - with each layer having its own unique playstyle and alien installations/artefacts to explore/recover so you could build cooler robots. Oh yeah, did I mention the main fighting units of the game were giant fucking robots? Also, the robots were pretty customisable: you could give them massive circular saws for hands, or laser swords, gatling cannons, homing missile launchers, and all the other kinds of things you'd expect giant fucking robots to have, like jetpacks, sonars (for spying on the enemy's underground movements), etc.
During combat, your robots could lose limbs and knock the limbs off of enemy robots, then - if you liked the look of them - steal their limbs and use them yourself. Flying robots could also move between the surface and orbit layers, so you could send in reinforcements in just about the coolest way possible by having a squadron of massive robots FLY DOWN FROM SPACE TO CRUSH YOUR ENEMIES! Or, you could be a sneaky bugger and have a bunch of tanks come up from underground for a surprise attack.
If you've never played it and you like oldschool RTSs, you'd be crazy not to try it out (if you can find it). Sadly, it never got a sequel - it must not have sold so well, for whatever reasons - and it's not likely it will in the foreseeable future, with the RTS genre apparently dead (though hopefully not buried).
(PS: If you want to be pedantic about it, they were piloted mechs, not robots, but whatever you call them, they were cool as fuck.)
[–] BaaruRaimu ago
Yeah, it was very slow-paced. I always preferred them that way as a kid, though, since I enjoyed the building up my own base/army much more than actually fighting. Damn it Jim, I'm a lover, not a fighter.
[–] planetmatt 0 points 3 points 3 points (+3|-0) ago
Carnage Hearts on the PS1. Basically a programming game where you must create an AI to power a mech. It's a fantastic concept but fun and educational but the game was really rare and most people never played it.
[–] Gilgam3sh 0 points 3 points 3 points (+3|-0) ago
The Guilty Gear series.
Guilty Gear is one of the most fun and dynamic fighting game I've ever played. The char design kick ass and is one of the most original I ever see (a nymphomaniac witch fighting with a guitar, a blind assassin fighting with his shadow and mad doctor who can finger ass you? Where can I sign?). The music is absolutly awesome (check out "Heavy day", or "still in the dark"). And the game is really complex and technical, a lot more than the Street Fighter or Tekken series.
Definitly my favorite Fighting game series since I've played it, long before Street fighters or King of Fighters. Blazblue isn't half bad ever, but lack things compared to GG. Avoid the first Guilty Gear, Guilty Gear 2, GG judgement and GG Isuka though!
[–] Namrok 0 points 2 points 2 points (+2|-0) ago
I feel like there are a lot of games that get Kickstarted, launch on early access, establish an iffy reputation there, and then get much better later on.
I've been playing Planetary Annihilation a lot lately, and it's gotten much better since it's incredibly underwhelming 1.0 release.
It got written off, and deservedly so, when Uber decided to launch it's "feature complete" 1.0 version that was missing half of the features it should have. Like saving your damned game! And that other Kickstarter the company immediately launched looked like they were trying to raise funds to either complete their previous game, or they were just abandoning their previous game, leaving it half finished.
I'm really glad they cancelled their second Kickstarter and just focused on making Planetary Annihilation better.
If you want to play Total Annihilation, I think that Zero-k lives up to the legacy much better than Planetary Annihilation.
More customizable command bots. 10 different factories, all well balanced. Smart unit AI that will dodge incoming fire and will move to fight at optimal ranges. More interesting economy system. Deformable terrain (both from terraforming commands and some weapons deform the terrain). Up to 20 person multiplayer (10v10). Multiple game modes. Open source, free, and extensive mod support.
[–] gryffindoorknob ago
I saw Sips do a playthrough of it and it's pretty funny. I just don't have that kind of patience you need for older PC games like that though
[–] mcseanerson ago
The 24 game for PS2. This was a well done licensed game with the whole cast from the show doing their voice acting and motion capture as well as it's own plot telling a unique story from the show. I had plenty of fun playing.