Sarumarine

Oh. Heh. I never would have expected you don't have to do anything. The time thing does make sense. The longest matches I've had were Team Deathmatch and Execution. Most of the time the game is over before that switch pops up. Next time I'll test it out with maximum lives and see if it works. That sounds right though.

All aboard the Skytrain! The inflight movie will be the greatest of best of Giant Bomb Quick Looks Vol.18! Catch it!

These are so good.

I know how contentious DLC in Gears of War 3 can be... but for those that did get the new maps. I'm trying to figure something out.

I play bots in Versus because online play with people is a little too brutal and stale the way they use shotguns. And on Rustlung (the smallish area that takes place on the ship) something triggers a switch that pops up in the area labeled "Silverback" on the map. The guy on the loudspeaker who comments on the torpedoes rising and falling says something like "Silverback stage 1 complete". I managed to pull the switch and a short delay later, a Silverback rises up and you can drive it around the stage.

As you can imagine, the mini-gun wastes enemies in seconds (it's only loaded with two rockets though). And it's extra funny when a Locust rides around in it. Myrrah has some great lines when she takes control. It doesn't seem like an instant win button because smoke grenades act like EMP that disable the Silverback for a few seconds and kick you out.

But mostly, I'm trying to figure out what triggers it. I've played with the torpedo switches and searched the control room for buttons but nothing seems to work. I've spent a couple rounds dead and the stage 1 button still shows up. I've seen it on Team Deathmatch and Execution but I'm not sure about the other modes. Does anyone know how this works?

@KittenMitten said:

I had trouble at this part too. I tried so many ways of stealth killing those last two but eventually gave up. As I left that area, however, I noticed that the door they were guarding was not the exit. Instead, you are supposed to climb the roof behind them.

So, just a theory that I totally didn't test, but maybe you are supposed to sneak by and leave them be. Or not, whatever.

I actually did try to just run past them. However, since Elena is part of your group she can't sneak by them, and the game will actually set you back to the checkpoint for leaving her behind. Like she got caught or something. So no dice there.

I finished Uncharted 3 and I wanted to get a feel from Giant Bomb of something I realized halfway through the game. It deals with the sneaky-sneaky parts of the game where you roll up on a gang of enemies wandering around an area and have the option of trying to pick them off one-by-one. I feel like Uncharted 2 had some great optional stealth sequences where you could clear an entire area without sounding the alarm and feel like a badass.

Uncharted 3, I feel, gives you the illusion only to force you into a massive gun battle no matter how sneaky you are.

The point I realized this is the airport right before you reach the cargo plane. I took out everyone except two guys who are standing right in front of the thing you're supposed to climb to the next area. They're right next to each other, so no matter what you do they always see you and sound the alarm. Even if you use the silenced pistol, as soon as you kill one guy it's "Oh crap, they must have spotted us." Drop a grenade and it's the same story. Then I realized this pops up a bunch of times throughout the game.

The Ocean Liner is another frustrating example. Once you get inside the ballroom Drake himself quips "Let's try to do this quietly". But there are two guys sitting on crates in the back of the room that will always see you no matter what order you try to eliminate the guys standing in the front. Even worse is the end of the Convoy level where enemies can spot you through a raging sandstorm so you're always getting caught by dudes you can't even see. This also sucks when they're sniping you with laser sights through a cloud of dust. Whatever goggles those guys are wearing, I want a pair.

Has anyone pulled off a stealth sequence successfully? Or is it always going to boil down to Drake vs. the World? I know that Uncharted is not a stealth game by any stretch of the imagination. It's just a let down to play so carefully only for the game to go "Surprise! Gun battle!" at the last second.

@Godzilla_Sushi said:

@laserbolts said:

Lame I bought the season pass. I have a question are these new maps just for horde mode or will they be used for the multiplayer matchmaking? If it's the former than I don't care when this comes out and that's pretty retarded.

Yeah, can someone please answer this guy? I'm wondering the same thing / confused.....

I just downloaded it. I can confirm that the new maps work on every mode. Or at least they were when I tried them out.

I caught a bit of this in the chat, but the replacement equipment for the Tricaster (that died) couldn't keep up with all the stuff going on in Geometry Wars and it was causing problems. A couple of people suggested switching quality up and down. And I'm pretty sure they reset it at least once during the stream. I switched the quality to 720 (or whatever) and it worked alright for the rest of the show.

I feel it's a lot like snaking from the Mario Kart games. It's in there. You can do it. It takes some effort. But whether it's fun or not really depends on the player and how badly they want to win. I'm not that into "Always Be Winning" mentality so I don't care for it. I've used it unintentionally offline trying to lug around heavy weapons like the Mulcher and the Mortar. But generally I find it goes with a lot of Shotgun Rollers which I don't care for whether they're on my team or not.

A lot of stuff about Gears online leaves me pretty torn. It's interesting to see a player base strip away unnecessary elements to find the quickest way to win, but it's a shame to see so many cool weapons and fire fights boiled down to one trigger pull on a shotgun. I've never even seen anyone use weapon pick ups, but I've only played during events and a handful of Team Deathmatch games. Usually I play bots. They're robotic, but at least I can have shootouts with them and play with Mulchers and Diggers.

I was very tempted to call this "Nothing in Common" but recently I've been playing two games that couldn't be more different. One is a third person shooter with chainsaw bayonets featuring Ice-T on the XBox and the other is a painfully straight faced JRPG with giant knights on the PS3.

Gears of War 3

If you don't know about Gears of War 3 and haven't made a decision on it by now, we have the technology to catch up. But I'll try not to spend a whole lot of time recounting everything on Epic's latest chainsaw romp through the amazingly fucked up world of Sera. The story is alright. The unlock system is crazy. The Digger is my favorite new weapon. But I will spend time talking about my new favorite addition.

Beast Mode, Terrorize

I love Beast Mode. One of the things I like the most in video games is when you can play as the villains in any capacity. Campaign mode is fine, but when you have a mode like this where you can take the Locust monsters for a spin, it's a great time. It does take a bit of time adjusting to the controls of the locust. A lot of them don't handle like the main game, but have the same concepts. The Bloodmount is especially weird as you control the mount while an AI locust guy sits on top of you with a Hammerburst firing away. The Kantus can't take cover but has re-spawning Ink Grenades and a team healing move. It's a lot of fun to rip through defenses and destroy everything in your pursuit to wipe out the COG.

Playing as a Berserker is the obvious highlight as it's just as indestructible as it was in the first Gears of War. You can tear through any barrier, turret, decoy and Silverback without so much as flinching. Even if your vision is limited, having that telltale sound of a Berserker charge while running is just fantastic. But I think my favorites include the Serapede and the Armored Kantus. I don't always get to the final tier (because there are some good people out there) but the Armored Kantus' spin ball move ala Sonic the Hedgehog had me laughing for a long time when I used it to kill an enemy. Not to mention, two of those Gorgon Pistols are mean. And if you're feeling especially helpful, you can heal the team.

The only problem with Beast Mode? It takes FOREVER to find a game. It's not nearly as popular as Horde or standard multiplayer modes... and I guess I can see why. But man, Beast Mode is so worth the wait.

Hail to the Bots

Online Versus mode in the Gears of War series has been kind of tragic in the way that so many awesomely ridiculous weapon designs like the chainsaw bayonet, the torque bow, the Mulcher, the Digger... have always been tossed aside for one weapon: the shotgun. All of the games I've played so far with people (a handful at the most) have been nothing but Dances-with-Shotguns. The way people play you'd think no one started with an assault rifle, never mind the other weapon pick ups. Which is why I felt compelled to mention the greatest thing in Versus is the option to play with bots. It's nice to have the computer to play around with and experience the various maps, guns, and modes.

The computer is cold, impersonal strings of code and that's probably the best part. Nothing is personal. It's pretty well rounded (even for AI) and make use of everything on the map. This is probably my mindset, but they play Gears in the way I imagined it. They snipe, chainsaw, mulch, dig- everything. And on Insane they're no slouch. Not to say they don't have their shortcomings, as they do exhibit some stupidity. But it's nothing you won't find online like teammates ignoring you when you're down and out only a foot away. But they keep things fresh with gunfights at a distance instead of rolling across the map to point blank range for a one-hit kill with the Gnasher or sawed off. I can just mess around, shoot guys, or chainsaw them when I have the chance. I hope this trend continues where games offer bots for the bulk of the multiplayer mode without stripping away features like Black Ops.

Probably my favorite moment so far is playing as Queen Myrrah and sticking Marcus Fenix with the Bayonet charge. Her follow up line was "That was oddly satisfying."

White Knight Chronicles II

White Knight Chronicles II is a weird game in a lot of respects. It's not exactly a straight sequel as it includes the first White Knight Chronicles packed in on the same disc. It seems kind of generous... except that the sequel part has zero tutorial and a long list of vaguely informative help topics. If you didn't play the first game, it doesn't throw you a bone in the least. The only real way to ease into it is start from square one and play through the first game where it takes the time to explain stuff to you. And that's what I ended up doing. Maybe I was drawn in from the idea of two games for the price of one (or the neat looking Knight designs) but I took on White Knight Chronicles I and II without really planning on it. My roommate seemed pretty excited about this game when it was first announced forever ago.

This game is... okay. Mediocre at best. But it has mad customization with armor, class and spells- and I love that stuff. The downside of White Knight Chronicles II is that it reuses every area from the first game, you just visit them in reverse. Yeah...

Standard Concept Fantasy

The most crippling part of this game is the story. It's rote fantasy that does absolutely nothing new. You can predict everything that happens from the word go. Prophecies, princesses, black knights, betrayal, fake betrayal, spunky kid heroes that never says die, yelling names, old mentors, and characters taking themselves way way WAY too seriously. The only thing I can say that was kind of interesting is that one of the characters is voiced by Charles Shaughnessy who played Sheffield from the American sitcom "The Nanny" starring Fran Drescher. It's just the stuff they're involved in is so boring. Guess what guys, there's good and evil, and they got beef. I can assure you those prophecies play out just fine, too.

The coolest thing this game's story does is present a giant city on top of an even larger monster that moves around a crater. They call it Greede, and it's pretty neat.

So one of the reasons I gave this game a try was the customization. You start by creating your own character (that has zero impact on the plot and hangs in the background during cut scenes) with some Mass Effect style options. I made mine look as pissed off as possible which payed off much later when my guy was loitering in the background looking disapproving of everything going on. While this avatar character won't do anything of value other than slaughter tons of monsters, it does give you the choice to use every character class. Other party members are restricted to certain skills. And they do have a nice range of choices. You got your sword master, mage, healer, archer, along with cool choices like axes, gigantic swords, lances. They all have their specific uses but you can get by with just about anything.

Go Go Knights of Legend!

The bright spots show up deep into the game. It's no instant gratification. I'm talking about the option for a few of your characters to transform into towering knights that can slaughter smaller monsters and take on giants with ease. They have a lot of systems in place (MP and Action Chips) that make it so you can't whip these Knights out every other fight, but it's fun to transform Power Rangers style and mess shit up. The first game only has two Knights, while the second adds a third. It never got old for me at least, and the Knights are perfect for bosses. I will say that White Knight is pretty good about making things huge. The downside is that they reuse a lot of enemy times or reskin the basic giant enemy frame. Hate wasps, spiders, wolves and golems? Because you'll kill a shit ton of them before the game is over. The Knights can help with that.

White Knight Chronicles won't set the world on fire. And if you aren't bothered by painfully predictable JRPG tropes, it's a decent game.

It's the Diet Squish montage I always wanted! Great work!