EchoEcho

I played Vindictus for a little while, but I... really, really couldn't get into it. I tried it because someone I know was raving about it being the best MMO they've ever played, but it felt like little more than a slightly less-horrible PSO/U. The combat is definitely more entertaining than in PSO/U, and the graphics are leaps and bounds better, but the game does feel kind of... shallow, compared to other MMOs out there.

To be fair, I think calling it an "MMO" is a bit of a misnomer. The dungeons are all instanced locations, and there's no world to run around in -- it's more like a multiplayer action RPG with some hub towns to do your crafting/bartering, and that's where you'll see players to party up with for dungeon runs. Like I said, there are a lot of parallels to PSO/U, which I also never agreed with calling an "MMO".

I don't know. I gave the game a fair shot, and I tried to enjoy it for what it was, but I guess "what it was" just wasn't for me. I can understand why some people think it's the bee's knees, so I'm not saying it's "bad", but personally if I'm in the mood for that style of game, I'd rather it wasn't done up in MMO trappings -- and definitely without a microtransaction store mucking things up.

It should be stated that my background lies primarily in EVE Online and Lord of the Rings Online, with some dabbling in other MMOs over the years. I've never played a F2P game for longer than a few hours (with the exception being Vindictus, which I played for at least a month to give it a fair shake). LotRO has since gone F2P, but I have a lifetime subscription, so I get all the paid-tier benefits.

I really don't like the microtransaction stores that come with F2P, and it still irks me that they now exist in my primary MMOs, which weren't originally designed with them in mind. I already pay subscription fees for the games (paid upfront in the case of LotRO), so I don't like the fact that there are now store-exclusive items that I have to pay for separately, and which in the past would have simply been added to the game as being purchasable from NPCs or as instance drops.

There is one reason and one reason only I'll be getting BF3 on the console, just like I get everything else on the console: that's where my friends are. I'm not terribly disappointed by the downgraded graphics (which still look better than most everything else on the consoles) -- the only thing that's a bummer is the player count. It'd be nice if they'd at least bump it up to 32. But given the choice between "proper" Battlefield on the PC with a bunch of strangers, and "downgraded" Battlefield on the console with all my friends, well...

@Yanngc33 said:

Brad - 1/5 - Brad seems to not give a damn about video games. When he talks about a game, he rarely sounds enthusiastic or interested in what he's talking about. He also never seems to be able to review a game on-time, which is annoying.

That is definitely not the impression I get when listening to him on the Bombcast. Sometimes Brad gets really excited about games.

That said, I also think this thread is pointless. It's like someone's getting voted off the island. All of the guys do their jobs well, they just have different opinions and different ways of expressing said opinions. Can't agree with everyone all the time.

If you gave him shaggy, white hair, he'd look almost identical to his original design, only a bit younger. Just one of the reasons why the frothing anger over the design change is so amusing to me.

@ShiftyMagician said:

Very fair thoughts sir and I agree with them. Personally after playing through the mess of a story X had (and to be fair VII wasn't exactly amazingly written either), I find it interesting that a lot of people still like the game. I would guess that it is because of the core gameplay mechanics involved (I did like how the battles played out to be honest), but I could never understand how people could just sit there and absorb every piece of noise that came out of Tidus alone. I liked Auron though so that helped me go through it even after the dreaded laugh scene.

Auron is one of my favorite FF characters from any of the games, and is definitely one of the primary reasons I kept playing, as well. I was right there on the "Tidus is insufferably annoying" bandwagon when I first started, but somewhere over the course of the game he matures enough that I actually started liking him -- believe me, I was just as surprised by that change in opinion as anyone. But oh God, that laughing scene. Nobody else was even around to hear it and it still made me feel overwhelmingly embarrassed.

All in all, I can't honestly say that FFX is one of my favorites from the series, but it did some things very well, and compared to FFVII, the story was even somewhat comprehensible. FFIV and FFIX will probably always remain my absolute favorite FF games, especially if FFXIII is any indication of the future of the series. It might not all be Square's fault, though. I'm beginning to wonder if my tastes have just changed too much over the years to still enjoy the kinds of stories and characters that JRPGs -- in general -- present. I actually found Lost Odyssey inoffensive and even enjoyable a lot of the time, enough so to finish it, but I've also got at least half a dozen JRPGs on my shelf that I've only managed to get about halfway through before getting burnt out.

@ShiftyMagician said:

Indifferent personally. I do like playing the idea in my mind that they are just trolling the FFVII fanbase in particular by jumping right past it to X instead.

Square's been trolling their customers for years, in my opinion. They've done very little since the early PS2 days that hasn't made me shake my head in disappointment or disbelief (and even back then I could see my faith in them waning). They've already run pretty much all of their non-Final Fantasy/Kingdom Hearts franchises into the dirt through shitty, half-assed entries (see: Seiken Densetsu series) and even FFXIII was an overwrought, terrible mess -- again, in my opinion. Never cared for the KH games, so I didn't play any of them past the first.

All that said! (getting on topic here) I liked FFX back when I first played it, but I really don't think it needs an HD upgrade -- it holds up relatively well, considering how old it is. Unlike most of the Final Fantasy fanbase, though, I didn't care for VII all that much. I liked the materia system, but most of the characters (except Cid because he's hilarious, and Vincent because he keeps his trap shut) and the story were mediocre at best, and downright terrible at their worst. I would, however, like to see FFIX redone in current-gen splendor. FFVI should get the FFIV treatment on the 3DS/Vita -- except better.

If I had to guess why it's FFX getting the treatment and not FFVII, I'd say it's just an easier process -- they can probably reuse a lot of the assets and just upgrade them, beef up the poly count and up-res the textures. Also -- and this is probably the primary reason -- FFX was the best selling FF game in Japan in its time, outstripping even FFVII in popularity.

@oblique_: You're right on all counts. When you put it that way, the Ultramarines are really the obvious choice. I guess Relic just wanted an excuse to show off some Black Templar, since they got name-dropped earlier in the game but never showed up. And I probably should have picked up on the timeline difference, since I knew about the uproar over Titus being the second company's Captain when the spot was already taken. I really don't know how that got by me.

As Vinny said in a Bombcast a few weeks ago, "I know just enough about the WH40k universe to get myself in trouble." I've only read the Eisenhorn Omnibus and I'm halfway through Horus Rising (though I haven't picked it up in months -- I moved and have yet to unpack most of my things); aside from that, all my knowledge comes from the Dawn of War games and reading things such as Lexicanum.com.

@oblique_: While it didn't bother me quite as much, it did strike me as an odd choice, even given my (comparatively) sparse knowledge of WH40k. Wouldn't it have been more appropriate for a squad of Deathwatch marines to be accompanying an Inquisitor of the Ordo Xenos? (Then again, was Thrask Ordo Xenos? I finished the game a couple nights ago and I already forget. Hell, I don't even remember if his name was Thrask or if I pulled that out of my ass.)

Given the other Space Marines on hand, though, and if he couldn't get a squad of Deathwatch or Grey Knights for the apprehension of a single marine, the Black Templar are probably about the only choice left. One has to admit that Thrask would have had a hard time convincing other Ultramarines to come in and apprehend their own Captain, and the Blood Ravens have their own reasons to avoid palling around with Inquisitors, probably even more so than the Black Templars at this point, given that whole "our Chapter Master ascended to demonhood" thing.

@oblique_ said:

@Scrawnto said:

All I can find on the subject says that 8 of the founding 12 members of the Inquisition were Astartes (that means Space Marines in their fake Latin), and Inquisitors can requisition Space Marine forces for missions. Of course, the Inquisition would have been founded thousands of years before this game, so who knows what might have changed. I don't know if any full Inquisitors are former Space Marines with all of the augmentations that come with that, but it seems plausible.

*snip snip* If I'm wrong and what you read does indeed state that founding members of the Inquisition could you tell me where/link to it? I'm curious.

I believe you can find some of that information right here, although it's stated as being only one of two possible stories explaining the origins of the Inquisition. I haven't read any of the novels that the information comes from, so I can't really add anything beyond that.

@big_jon said:

The marines in non Legion/Chapter colours really bug me.

Why is that? Games Workshop specifically set up the lore to account for player-created Space Marine Chapters/Chaos Warbands. There are approximately a thousand Chapters in existence, and the records for a lot of them are sketchy at best. Only about 250~ (give or take) are accounted for in the canon, not counting destroyed or missing Chapters. That leaves a lot of room for people to get creative.

I, personally, have several Chapters/Warbands that I've created, a few of which I've put a decent amount of effort into developing history for and creating Chapter iconography. I used them in Dawn of War and Dawn of War 2, and I made several of them for use in Space Marine's multiplayer as well.