MrSlapHappy

Edit: Went and read a few more responses, looks like @wezqape already covered most of what I had to say. I'll leave my post as mostly a +1 for Rocksmith and the comments of a beginner guitarist.

I have spent some time with Rocksmith. It works well enough as that middle step between guitar hero and actually just playing a song on a guitar. I had some fundamental lessons before I started playing the game so I wasn't coming in cold, but still very new. I used it as a more engaging way to practice chords and chord transitions than just sitting in a quiet room. The arcade games were good for that kind of practice, if a little verbose in their presentations sometimes.

It gives you a lot of control over the complexity of notes and speed of a song, which is great for dialing in trouble parts. I had a few moments of "hey, cool, I'm kinda actually playing this."

The last time I was playing regularly, I did enjoy the session mode. Just being able to strum along with a drum beat went a long way for me.

A couple things I noticed that are worth looking out for:

The game seems to have a hard time recognizing palm mutes.

The "campaign" jumps you around between songs as it measures your progress against their difficulty. It made it super hard for me to want to focus on just improving at one song, when there was always another pip of game progress to be earned elsewhere.

The way it simplifies the notes as you tune difficulty is arcane and I found it makes it very difficult to transition between the different difficulty levels. It makes sense from a game progress sense, but muscle memory makes it incredibly hard to adjust. I found it easier to play on harder difficulties to see the "actual" song and then turn it all the way down or just slow the song down instead.

Hi, I don't post much and am not sure this is the right board.

I was visiting the site today at lunch and saw this Discover loan ad that I think is disgusting given the current situation.

Some time ago I remember hearing Rorie or Jeff mention reporting ads if they are egregious. Just wanted to try and do what I could to help.

I wanted to try to attach it to this post, but I lost it off my clipboard and of course I can't get it to appear on the homepage now.

I played through the Borderlands 3 story solo. Its fun. The guns shoot good, the enemies react and take cover. There are enough funny jokes to pad out the bits where the humor misses and weirdly they do alright on more of the character stuff than I expected.

I'll put in another vote for Fire Emblem as well. Its worth devoting the time to see each character start as paper thin archetypes and then get fleshed out into interesting characters over the course of the game.

"But what about Switch?" Asked Dr. Zoidberg.

That man is the hero we need!

I read this thread and then decided on Avalanche. Eco-terrorism is kind of like going into a distorted version of someones desires and stealing their heart...kinda?

Best of luck in the future, Drew. Your talent has been a great contribution to Giant Bomb and I will miss your insight and wit deeply.

@majormitch

Xenogears From my memory has a very dense story and unique combat mechanics for the time when my brother and I discovered it. It was our first dive into other jRPG's after really enjoying FF7. I fully endorse @slag describing it as the MGS of jRPGs. There are sequences of dialogue that last easily 1/2 an hour. And definitely keep a few save slots going, my brother and I had to start over a couple times due to getting into unwinnable situations. I think at the time we were too young to follow the story all that well so that element was boring to us. We enjoyed the combat and the mechs towards the end.

Dark Cloud 2 I never finished, but was most the way through it when I finally burned out. Its lighthearted combat and collection mechanics combined with the town building elements and a Zelda-like story about the ultimate evil destroying the world make for a delightful package. I remember it as a very long game that catered to my enjoyment of grinding. I had a love/hate thing going with the golf mini-game that you use to close all the dungeons.

Orge Battle 64 Was that game we got used for cheap and would come back periodically as we aged to see if we "got it" yet. Eventually, it clicked and I put some time into it, never finished it though. I remember it as a frustratingly slow strategy game with restrictive combat mechanics. I couldn't tell you the plot, probably something about rebellion against an evil empire...I dunno man, play Final Fantasy: Tactics instead. That game has its own problems (wonky ports, convoluted plot and random difficulty spikes) but shooting from the hip here, I remember the mechanics as doing something similar but better.

Valkyrie Profile I watched my brother play hours of this one. I've always wanted to track down a copy and give it a shot. Basically, you are a valkyrie and are recruiting warriors for an ongoing war in the afterlife. The combat seemed simply, but it was the story and exploration that I remember more than anything. You searched around the worlds (2D side scrolling, room based dungeons) to find warriors as they were in some critical moment in their lives. They would die and you would revive them to battle alongside you. You would use them in your standard combat, they would level-up and at set intervals you would be required to send warriors up to the war. There was an interesting push-pull of needing strong warriors for your own fights but also needing to keep your army in the afterlife at high strength as well. Lots of short vignettes that were interesting and only had enough time to say what they had to say and then it was back to the fight. There might have been an element of restarting while keeping some amount of progress A-la Dead Rising, but that's where my memory gets hazy. Also, part of my hazy memory: Don't bother with the sequel. What I remember is that they stripped out whatever restarting element there was and changed how the recruiting interacted with combat and the ongoing threat.

Sorry, for the giant blurb of what is probably already explained on the wiki...

TL:DR: Try Dark Cloud 2 and Valkyrie Profile EDIT for consistency: Try Final Fantasy: Tactics

We have a narrow-ish corridor like path that goes from the driveway to the front door. The highlight of the night was two 10-15 yr olds (the masks made it difficult to tell) dressed in full body suits with fans that inflated them. The specific hilarity involved how they had to maneuver past the swarm of small children and each other down the walk toward the door and then turn around to leave.

Great job! I look forward to seeing this hanging behind the Gbeast crew during streams!