A couple of months ago, I promised that I would do a playthrough topic for three games chosen by a select group of people. These ended up being the three and I have varying degrees of familiarity with the game/series. From this point forward, you are subject to spoilers.
Resident Evil 4:
I have only played the first two games and that was a long time ago. All I remember is not liking Leon, Wesker was a double agent, and there's something called Umbrella Corporation.
I had no plans on purchasing this game since survival horror isn't my thing, but people said that it was more of an action title than a survival horror and that regardless of anyone's feelings towards the series, this is an outstanding game.
It will be played on the Gamecube.
Bully: Scholarship Edition:
Received this for Christmas the year it came out, and I beat it within a month or two after that. It is one of my favorite games of all-time and has my favorite video game soundtrack.
However, it has been over five years, and I am curious to see what the new additions to the game are like
This will be played on the Xbox 360.
Mass Effect 2:
Played the first one last May and put in 24 hours in a four-day span. If the second one is as good as people say, there's a strong I will do the same. I will be carrying over my clear data from the first game as a male Shepard.
The notable decisions that come to mind from the first game are as followed: - Sacrificed Kaiden - Saved council - Anderson is human rep. or something like that - Had sex with Liara - Anything else that I'm missing?
I'm not making any guarantees, but if there's a game that a significant amount of people want me to do first, I may do that one. Otherwise, I will just do whichever one I feel like and will surprise everyone.
The goal is to begin this either tomorrow or the following day. I am still trying to get settled in after moving late last night, as well as deal with a bunch of other stuff, but I can set aside time for this.
Oh, and I am not one of those people who plays one game until they beat it and move onto the next just to repeat the cycle. I will likely be playing two of these games at the same time, obviously not concurrently. I will mark at the top of the post with a progress update which game is contained in the post.
The notable decisions that come to mind from the first game are as followed: - Sacrificed Kaiden - Saved council - Anderson is human rep. or something like that - Had sex with Liara - Anything else that I'm missing?
Did Wrex survive or not?
Three great games. I'd say ME2 > RE4 > Bully, but you really can't go wrong with either.
So Umbrella Corporation = bad, U.S. bailed on Umbrella, and they supposedly went under, which obviously didn't happen or they were immediately bought/funded by someone else.
I am already confused as to whose daughter I am supposed tor rescue. I know that I am in a European country, most likely Portugal or Spain, but as to whether or not it is the U.S president's daughter who was captured overseas or the president of the country that I am in.
I shut off my laptop so that I could focus on the game, but I forgot to give an update at the end. My first session was about an hour, according to my save file. I had just entered some house in the area where every person had an endless supply of dynamite.
Here are a few impressions of the game so far:
- I am not really digging the health indicator. Most action/shooters that I play use either the blood splatter, numbers, or a bar that is in position that the player will easily notice. Having a dial in the bottom-left corner isn't exactly the best location it could have been. My instinct isn't to look down when there are people trying to kill me at eye level or above.
- I am still struggling to get used to the controls. I keep pulling my gun out when I want my knife and vice-versa.
- I am also struggling to get used to the camera. Because it is a survival horror game, I realize that it would be counter-intuitive for the camera and Leon to be fluid. As a result, I keep getting into fights where there are an overwhelming amount of people right in front of me, but my instinct is to back up, as opposed to turning around and running and turning around to face the group again(which is what this game encourages). I also have trouble remembering to plan out things ahead as Leon can't react quickly.
- I like how over-the-top this game can be. Leon's kicks are ridiculously strong. If they don't bring a group of villagers to their knees, that means I must have caused their heads or chests to explode. I wish it were always available, but I guess it would be unfair.
Received this for Christmas the year it came out, and I beat it within a month or two after that. It is one of my favorite games of all-time and has my favorite video game soundtrack.
However, it has been over five years, and I am curious to see what the new additions to the game are like
This will be played on the Xbox 360.
I noticed that this is misleading. I received the original Bully for the PS2 on Christmas the year it came out. I have never played the Scholarship edition.
I am doing much better now than when I first began. I died 3 times in 1-1 but none in 1-2, if that's any indication. I made good use of the erratic behavior of the dynamite holders by causing them to explode a huge group of people. I was able to get one to take out eight at once.
I always hate going to a shop for the first time in a game, especially those with high costs and low opportunities to received funds, because I never know what I should be buying. Sure those upgrades, firearms, and maps look nice, but what do I really need? I nearly bought the larger suitcase, but I instead went with the treasure map since I figure it will pay for itself and then some. I have over 30,000 in whatever currency I have, so let me know if I should buy a shotgun or whatever the next time I find a shop.
They seemed to have shed some light on the plot. From what I gathered, undead Fidel and cloaked man are the top dogs in this Los Illuminados group. Though they made it seem like Luis was not an ally of theirs, I highly doubt that he could escape where we were held and go through that village undetected if he didn't have some sort of connection. The villagers were on my ass the moment I stepped through that gate, so there's no way Luis could have avoided that unless he was already on their good side. I also don't buy his story on how he knew of the president's daughter.
Well, I will just give an update on the small amount of time I played RE4:
Not getting a new weapon or upgrading my handgun proved to be a big mistake as I met up with a chainsaw guy shortly after loading my file. He killed me twice before I finally got him. The next time I came to a shop, I ended up buying a larger suitcase, a shotgun, and I received some handgun called Punisher for breaking a bunch of blue medallions.
That essentially sums up the 20-30 minutes I spent today playing it. I found some info that suggests I am about to meet something crazy at a nearby lake and that Luis isn't a friend of the Los Illuminados, which would mean that Capcom has no sense of logic.
I kind of forgot how antagonizing everyone was toward Jimmy at the beginning. I thought they just gave him the cold shoulder, but instead they yelled at him or wanted to fight him. I did have to chuckle though when the prefects were willing to bust me for not wearing the uniform despite not having an opportunity to do.
I was curious as to how well the HD upgrade was handled. Animations are much sharper. I was blown away as I was fist-fighting some bully in the dorms with how crisp and fluid everything looked. In more wide-open areas, it loses some of that crispness, but I was impressed nonetheless. I am a bit disappointed in cutscenes though. Facial expressions are very good, but it's lacking in its attention to detail. The clothes seem a little off and my god do the hands look terrible half the time.
I also encountered some glitches early on. I gave a nerd a wedgie outside, but the prefect was right there to see me commit the act. I ran away, but I met some invisible wall in the grass and I lost control of Jimmy as he was casually sliding diagonally out of the blue. The prefect ended up busting me through a stone wall. That was the most extreme case, but I found some perpetually spastic students and people/objects protruding through solid materials.
One thing that I was really looking forward to was experiencing the soundtrack in-context again. I fought a bunch of jocks in the gym/football field area for the sole reason of hearing loop after loop of Vendetta Jocks, one of my favorite VG songs. Here's a link for it:
Now that I experienced the beginning again, I'm surprised that I didn't pick up on Gary's inevitable treachery the first time around. He often says, "Me...I mean us," in every conversation that has to do with taking the school by storm.
I don't think that I encountered any new missions yet, but some of the classes I have taken were definitely not in the original version. Biology, which is the hardest for me, and music are the ones I think are new, though the manual/box art said there is another. I should take a look at the box art again to see what new features there are again.
I ended up playing roughly three and a half hours through two sessions. I love just strolling through campus pulling all sorts of pranks, and the time just gets away from me. I did manage to complete the first chapter, but I haven't started any missions since beginning chapter 2.
The bottom line is that playing this today reminded me just how truly special the game is. I honestly pity those who have either never played it or didn't think highly of it.
Fighting the preps during Chapter 2 reminded me that Vendetta Preps is either the second or third best song in the game.
I don't recall ever doing the go-kart races on the PS2 version, but I prefer the bike races for the sole reason of being able to knock people off their bikes.
For awhile, I was confused about why the rubber bands and collectible cards were appearing on the map until I finally made the connection that geography must have been the final new class in the Scholarship Edition and that they were appearing on the map as bonuses for completing classes.
I had been fortunate enough to not fail any missions until Chapter 3 where a prep during a Bullworth Vale bike race took a shortcut on the last checkpoint in a race. I have also failed Cook's Crush twice now as I have been busted coming out of the teacher's lounge both times.
I may actually go for 100%, but I have to see what that requires and if there's anything missable besides anything to do with The Big Prank mission.
I was in some swamp place and hordes of people came out of nowhere. If they were on the wooden walkway or the swamp, I would have noticed them, so I honestly have no clue where they could have come from.
I fought whatever kind of fish-beast you want to call it. I was confused if I always had to get hit and heal up or if there was some way to dodge its attacks or cause it to veer off-course. I ended up beating it thanks to having a bunch of eggs on me.
I saved and quit shortly after beginning 2-1 though. Before quitting though, it finally donned on me about having inventory space. Is it wise to have three guns at once?
Finished up Chapter 3. I'm pretty sure that this was also my least favorite in the standard version. Ok boss fights and most of the Greaser missions involved crap with Lola, as opposed to dealing with the Greasers.
I am pretty much deadset on completing this game after checking out a topic on this game's board that pointed out what a user did to attain 100% completion. Nothing looked too time consuming or awful
It is the original handgun, Punisher, and standard shotgun. I also have the medium briefcase
You don't need two handguns and the Punisher is p. bad. Vanilla handgun is "just ok". A superior option and one of the best guns ever, the Red9, should already be available to you though. That or the Blacktail, which you'll get later, are the best.
Forgot that the Nerds and Jocks shared the 4th chapter, as opposed to having chapters of their own. If my memory serves me well, it was also my favorite back then too. The Cow Dance is just downright hilarious.
I thought that Townies referred to simply all of the townspeople, but I think that it specifically means to dropouts who are always picking fights with me, likely due to Gary, but I forget.
I am starting to clean up Gary's mess, but all jobs and races are done. I only need a single card to collect, which is currently in an area I cannot access at this time. I think that the vast majority of my remaining completion percentage comes from future missions, buying/acquiring remaining clothing items, and grabbing the remaining prizes at the carnival. I have over $2000, so the last two shouldn't be too much of a problem, though the latter will be time consuming.
There's a decent chance I will beat the game tomorrow, though likely not complete it.
I apologize for the lack of RE4 playing time (I think my total is around 2 hours and 30 minutes for it), but:
- It's not the kind of game that I can sit down and play for hours and hours like I can with Bully and other sandbox games. There's just so much to do that I can just settle in with it while games like RE4 or more straight-forward, even though has branching paths and backtracking.
- I generally play most of my games in the late morning and afternoon, assuming I don't have other plans and until I get a job, and since I have been addicted to Bully to the point of my average sessions being in the three hour ballpark, that leaves little time for other games.
I will try and not start Mass Effect 2 immediately after beating Bully, so I can get more RE4 in, but I can't put it off for too long since I have that May 31st start date deadline. I may even be more addicted to it than Bully though if my previously mentioned time with Mass Effect is of any indication.
Beat the game and I am currently sitting at 99.65%. Hopefully, taking care of the yearbook is all I have left to do.
Playing this again makes me question whether or not it is only my third favorite Rockstar game. I may actually like it more than GTA III and could be a Top 10 game.
Yes, I love Bully so much because it is that awesome. Such a perfect piece of satire about school cliques and hierarchy as well as being an absolute blast to play!
El Gigante, or whatever they called it, was both easy and a pain. The area is just so small to work with and given the constricted manner in controlling Leon, it wasn't fun and I just simply ran around hoping that he picked up a tree, stopped, or was distracted by the wolf.
I finally got Ashley and it was kind of weird that she believed Leon right away when he said that he was sent on the President's behalf. I mean, she has to know that she was targeted because of her father, so why would she believe any person who would just waltz in and say that they were there to save her?
I bought the Red9, but I stopped after coming across the next save point, so I have yet to try it out. I had to clean out and rearrange my briefcase before buying it though. I sold off the Punisher and all the rifle ammo I had since I didn't own a rifle. Unfortunately, I found out that you can't buy ammo at the shop, so I hope that doesn't come back to bite me.
I am also having trouble keeping my health up and acquiring healing items. I always seem to run very low on them, so it makes any confrontation with anything difficult.
The onslaught at the cabin was by far the most fun I have had in the game thus far. I actually died four times in there, and each death was caused by villagers who have the parasite thing where their head used to be. The reach on those things is pretty far, and they nail me when Luis can't cover a single window when I am taking care of two.
I was wondering how they were going to handle the beginning. I knew that they either had to go off of the original and move forward where everything left off or destroy everything and put it back together again. I should have figured that it would be the latter after hearing all about the new party members, but I was taken by surprise when they showed the Normandy being annihilated and Shepard dying.
I am currently not digging the weapon/ability wheel solely based on size. I could be mistaken, but it, including text and symbols, looks smaller than the one from the first game.
I knew about Miranda before hand, but I didn't imagine how much of a ***** she would be. I definitely like Jacob more, who seems to be like a more interesting, honest Kaiden.
Tali thinks that I was dead for two years and that's the response I get when she sees me. She must be pretty preoccupied with the current problem to have such an unemotional reunited moment. I hope that I don't regret not telling her to come with me, though I assume that she wouldn't have anyway.
I got Zaeed as soon as I entered Omega. I didn't think it would be so easy to get a DLC character. I continued to use Miranda and Jacob though, and they didn't fail me in the plague cure quest.
That Zaeed DLC came free with the Cerberus Network. In addition to the DLC available through that, I bought the thief DLC so that I had access to all of the squad members. I am considering buying the Shadow Broker DLC, but I haven't decided on that yet.
For all the **** the Mako/undiscovered planets side stuff in the first game, I have mixed feelings about how they handled material gathering in the second game. Sure it's far less time consuming and eliminates any risk, but it doesn't seem very satisfying to simply look at the activity levels and probe the place until you suck it dry.
Importing my old character was great though since I got 100,000 credits right off the bat. I don't feel strapped for cash, so I feel free to probe and explore other galaxies as I see fit. I haven't done that yet since I still have business on Omega, but I like knowing I have that kind of freedom.
I am currently doing the Archangel retrieval quest and decided to try Mordin and Zaeed. I just got off the merc transport vehicle and am supposed to make my way to a bridge where some captain is.
Didn't see Archangel being Garrus coming. I feel terrible that I didn't sabotage the gunship when I was given the prompt earlier. I hope that there isn't any lingering effects from the injury that Garrus sustained because that means that it my fault. I am assuming anyway that the gunship wouldn't have hurt him.
I got the thief from the DLC I said I bought earlier, but I don't think I will tackle on her quest yet. I am currently trying to find my way to the council, but I keep getting lost and finding some small quests to occupy my time.
Hopefully this changes later, but I realize that squad members have less opportunities to speak in this game than the first one. That's part of the reason why I mostly ran with Garrus and Wrex in the first game. Now I hardly base who to take with me on a mission on personality and potential dialog. Instead I go for team chemistry on the battlefield and whose skills are likely to be needed the most in a particular mission. I tend to include Kasumi due to her special attacks, but I am trying to find the perfect complement to her.
Jack's rescue mission was kind of lame and the jury is still out on her as a combatant. I haven't been too impressed with her skills in the field, but she hasn't been a liability.
I was fully expecting Okeer to join the squad and he just had his prized creation in his room or whatever. I am very curious as to the future implications of my action and inaction regarding how to handle the sealed Krogan. My guess is that not doing Grunt's loyalty mission would be the only downfall of removing him from that chamber he was in. What would happen if I never did remove him is what intrigues me the most. It's also too bad that Grunt is preceded by Wrex because it will be tough to approach his greatness.
Jacob's loyalty mission was brief but neat. I chose for him to go to prison, but I wonder if there would have been a showdown if I elected to leave him and if Jacob would have shot him if I chose that option instead.
Tali's rescue was an absolute pain. It wasn't the sun issue that bugged me but the Colossus. I think that I died at least five times trying to take him down. I brought Mordin and Garrus, the latter thinking that there may be additional dialog for obvious reasons, but that may not have been the best combination to go with.
I am currently about to head out to the planet where the other two squad members on my list are located. Miranda's loyalty mission is there though, so I could be forced to do that before getting my new people