The Energon Pub

[Jelze Bunnycat]

Mega Man ZX Adent
Tackled Rospark the Floroid first, then Chronoforce the Xiphosuroid (in case you're wondering, Chronoforce is a horseshoe crab, and they belong to the order Xiphosuridae). Next up is the Oil Field. I wonder, why would they still need oil in a future Mega Man time line?

[prowl123]

Call of Duty: Black Ops

Finally got to Round 24 on Der Riese. Now I'm shooting for 20 on Ascension, higher if I can. Also working to 20 on Shangri-La, Moon, and 22 on CotD.

Please add me if you ever want to play. Xbox GT: DrPepper811.

[The Happy Locust]

Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass
Obtained the eponymous phantom hourglass and then returned to the Ocean King's temple. Survived the phantom's and obtained the second chart. Tried heading north but a whirlwind won't let me pass.

Metroid FUsion
Got my hands on this.... FINALLY! Started playing it. Cleared the 1st sector SRX and moved onto the tropical. Last accomplishment was retrieving the high-jump and jumpball abilities.

[Jelze Bunnycat]

Mega Man ZX Advent
Crossed the Oil Field only to come across that bitch. No, not Leviathan, but Atlas, Mega Man Model F (for Fefnir). Made short work of her and got on my way to Legion HQ. Got an unexpected visit from Siarnaq, Mega Man Model P (for Phantom). He was a pushover, pretty shameful really.

Now I'm at a gigantic crossroad, with four levels to choose from:
- Vulturon the Condoroid
- Queenbee the Hymenopteroid
- Aeolus, Mega Man Model H (for Harpuia)
- Thetis, Mega Man Model L (for Leviathan. No, he's a boy)

Which to go first...

[The Happy Locust]

Epic Mickey
Nearing the end. Made my way to Oswald and we decided on an attack strategy. Lots of fireworks.
Armed the weapons but the Blot got wise to use and took Oswald and Gus. Mickey, being both heroic and heartless (literally, at this point), braves an attack on the blot, ending up inside of it. So now I'm trying to disentangle the the blot's entrails from around Mickey's heart. ewww...

EDIT:

Epic Mickey
GAME.OVER!
Got the mostly good ending. Small Pete still isn't allowed in gremlin town and Animatronic Goofy's head sadly remains disembodied, but generally everything else worked out for the positive.
I liked this game. It was fun, cute, and extremely charming. The camera is the worst enemy in the game but that's not unheard of. I'd recommend it. 7/10.

Okay, one game out of the way. moving back to Deus Ex.

[Shadowman]

Okay, fine, I'll post something.

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II:
I've been going on kind of a big Star Wars binge lately, which stems from me trying to catch up on Clone Wars, but that's a story for another time. I decided to reinstall KOTOR 2 and install one of the content restoration mods.

Short version: Got my Lightsaber on Dantooine, finished that place up (Fun fact, it's far too remote for a rebel base) and now I'm on Nar Shaada. Atton and (Because I'm a lady Exile) Disciple are both Jedi now. Looking forward to the HK Factory.

[The Happy Locust]

is it wrong to truly, utterly despise an online gaming service? Because I, simply put, HATE Steam. never had a good experience with it and expect nothing but bad things when a game I purchase has it.

Here's the latest offense:
Deus Ex: Human Revolution
After playing on a friend's copy, decided I liked the game enough to buy my own copy. Went to install game from disc, had to register serial code. Steam crashed in the process.
Tried again, but apparently the registration took. Went to install.... Steam crashed AGAIN. Okay, gave it another shot and install succeeded. Game time right? Nope. Steam decided it needed to download something. at 8.4GB, I'm going to assume it was going to download the ENTIRE @#$@#$@#$ GAME! Kinda defeats the purpose of the hard copy, eh?
Assuming the install just failed, tried again. Nope, still needs to download 8 gigs of something. Decided to let it download overnight. Did it work? we'll find out when it finished.

And yes, this is pretty much every experience I have with Steam.


Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass
Earned the cannon for my ship. Used it to reach a new area but a prevalent fog made travel impossible. Found an island where a citizen had apparently made it through the fog. Found his notes and learned how to make it through. Reached the island of Gust. Took some puzzle-solving effort but managed to open the temple of Wind.

[Shadowman]

And yes, this is pretty much every experience I have with Steam.

That's really weird, I've never once had a problem with Steam before.

Grand Theft Auto IV:
Man this game does not run great on my computer. Even with everything turned down to the bare minimum, running in windowed mode at a reasonably small resolution, I still get poor FPS. How odd.

Didn't get very far. Got to Roman's place, then decided to just rampage across Liberty City for a while.

[Jelze Bunnycat]

Mega Man ZX Advent
Scrapped Vulturon the Condoroid and Queenbee the Hymenopteroid (Hymenoptera is the order to which bees and wasps belong), now the two Mega Men are left. Thetis or Aeolus...

[The Happy Locust]

And yes, this is pretty much every experience I have with Steam.

That's really weird, I've never once had a problem with Steam before.

Probably because you chose to have it. If I don't use it, my only other option is to not play the game I bought. sigh...

Just because I'm in a venting mood, another reason Steam should evaporate. A while back, I picked up Saint's row 2 (great game, BTW). After fighting with the install for similar reason above (and the license registration failing so completely I had to register it completely outside the installer), I found I couldn't install it due to space restrictions. Sounds like a fair point, but I had just purchased a 1.5TB drive that had pretty much nothing on it. Maybe I could just install into the other drive? No, way too convenient. Steam is installed on D drive, must install games on D drive. Long story short, GTA4 had to go to make room (granted, SR2 is a much better game, but the point is clear). In truth, I have no use for the features Steam offers and would much rather just do a straight install without the online service and use a basic registration or DRM.

Okay, done venting.

Metroid Fusion
Havoc being wreaked in Sector 4. Worked my way there and found a dead serpent creature, then found the X version of said creature. Thing moves wicked fast so my game plan is to simply hide in a corner and time my shots to hit its head. Manged to take it out but was so weak that the Core-X killed me. D'oh! Will get back to this.

[Shadowman]

Grand Theft Auto IV:
Once I remembered how "fantastic" San Andreas looked, I got over the fact that I can't run this game with nice graphics. Also it now runs at a respectable frame rate.

Shipped a giant bomb-in-a-truck to a garage. I've been very careful with my casualties and collateral damage, in fact, cautiously dodging pedestrians and various objects. But, upon loading the bomb into the garage, I seemed to have suddenly obtained a two-star wanted level, and the police piled into the tiny garage Blues Brothers style. I didn't feel a whole lot of pity when it went off and took them all with it because, well, they insisted.

[Phaze]

Just completed Batman Arkham city just have the Riddler Side mission to complete then its on to newgame plus for a rematch

side note it is even more epic than Arkham Asylum

[1337W422102]

A lot of folks have had Steam nightmare stories, myself included, but when it works great, it's bloody awesome. And yes, you can install off a hard copy of a Steamworks game DVD, but it's not always straightforward.

Also, Shadow, did you turn down GTA IV's settings far enough? Some settings can go from "Low" to "Off," yielding higher framerates. I'm running it on a laptop, so...

GTA III [PC]:
Felt like installing it again, so I did. Installed the Xbox version conversion mod, which has the higher-res textures, higher-poly models, and other effects of the Xbox version that were not found in the PC and PS2 versions. But it conflicts with Xfire and Steam in-game support and I can't take screenshots.

Story-wise, I got the 31 packages on Portland that you can get without access to Staunton while I was still in my prison jumpsuit. Did the first mission.

By the way, if anyone (and I mean anyone) wants to get me a Christmas/graduation/birthday/etc gift, I'm rather partial to this.

Borderlands [PC]:
Singleplayer, finished the "Prove Yourself" mission. My co-op buddy and I didn't feel like 'Doming, so we moved onto the Armoury, which is fun as hell. Activated the light bridge, heading back to Dat Moxxi after having found the loop. Got 74% of the Achievements so far, for whatever that's worth. Dropped the eight mil on the Bullet tour. At least that way all the money I've been hoarding has served a purpose, however pointless.

Animal Crossing ['Cube]:
Running two towns on two different memory cards. Only, because I'm so original, I gave both towns and characters the same names. I wonder if I can still visit the other town and mail stuff "to myself."

[Shadowman]

Also, Shadow, did you turn down GTA IV's settings far enough? Some settings can go from "Low" to "Off," yielding higher framerates. I'm running it on a laptop, so...

Some of them, yes, and it's running okay now. I'm trying to balance at least some visual quality with playable frame rates. That little "How much resources will this take" should have been annoying, but was actually a bit more eye-opening. Now I think I know why my last video card burned out...

Grand Theft Auto IV:
Killed Faustin because Dmitri raised a pretty good argument of "He's destroying himself and everyone around him, and if you don't kill him, we're all going to die." Bad news, turns out Dmitri is just Starscream in a nice suit, and once his boss was out of the way he made certain I was out of the way too.

Fat chance.

Well...okay, he burned down Roman's apartment and office, and we had to move to a (Actually nicer) place in Bohan. Next up...probably mission for Brucie.

[1337W422102]

I forgot to mention that the "Rigged to Blow" mission is straight outta GTA III in terms of the premise and even the title. Feels good, man.

[Shadowman]

Well, after battling the feeling of "I want to play something but I can't figure out what," Steam swoops in with a good idea, one that won't come to fruition until December, but did come with...

Trine 2 Beta:
I saw the pre-order in the news feed and didn't waste a second. Completed the beta, and they made an already beautiful game even more beautiful. I even unlocked some achievements; Cirque de Zoya, (Use Zoya's grappling hook to launch over an object, then grapple it again before hitting the ground) A Hail of Arrows, (Fire three arrows into the sky at once as Zoya, then catch them as they fall as Pontius) and Dirty Tactics. (Kill 10 enemies with other enemies attacks by using them as a meat shield as Amadeus) Can't wait for the full thing to unlock.

[The Happy Locust]

Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass
Found and cleared the temple of Courage. Released what was effectively half a fairy, merged it with the full fairy, and found that the combined form is the Spirit of Courage. yay!

Metroid Fusion
A little hard to keep track, so just go by latest achievement. Power went out so I returned to my ship and found the Dachora and Etecoons had taken up lodgings there. Was given directions to the power source drop and found myself being attacked by a frustratingly cheap Spider-like boss. Managed to kill it by hiding in a corner. Blew it up and got the space jump. Used it to escape the pit and found myself face to face with my evil twin. RUN!

Minecraft
Trying to get back into this. Still never finished that damn hole. It's only a 64 x 64 x 71 block hole, but who new destroying 290816 blocks would take so long.
I think I'm almost over Minecraft at this point. Love it, but the more I see the RPG update changes on the horizon, the more I think I'm getting in over my head. Somehow, I found it more appealing as a basic creativity tool. Meh, that's just me. Maybe I'll just ditch this world and switch to creative mode.

[Shadowman]

Team Fortress 2:
The Third Annual Scream Fortress Update is live and it is really, really, scary.

First off, Costumes! Costumes for everyone! (Made of two misc items and a hat) You have to find the pieces in randomly-place giant presents, like last year's masks.

Those pieces appear in new new-ish map, Eyeduct. It's haunted by the new boss monster, Monoculus, the Demoman's missing, possessed eye. It'll fly around and shoot mini-crit eyeball rockets at you. Occasionally, it'll teleport, leaving a portal to the underworld behind. You'll take constant damage, but reaching a doorway at the end will launch you back to the normal map, with several seconds both uber and crits. Killing him leaves a portal to Loot Island, another area of the underworld, where, inside of a giant skull, you find the Bombinomicon; a misc item that makes you explode when you die. (Doesn't cause damage, though)

In other news, I got a Strange Degreaser for Pyro. I now have all-strange weapons for Pyro. I am happy now.

[prowl123]

Go change yo' pants

[SlyTF1]

Mass Effect 2:

Hell yeah!!! I just beat the game playing as Megatron Shepard, with my big ass shotgun and everything, and guess what? I finally got everyone except Tali to die!!! Though I died in the process too...but 'twas the point! Now I'm going to try to save Garrus too. I didn't know that he died if you didn't upgrade the Normanday.

[Shadowman]

Though I died in the process too...but 'twas the point!

I thought the point was to have an awful save to transfer over to ME3? Because you can't transfer a save where Shepard doesn't survive.

[SlyTF1]

Though I died in the process too...but 'twas the point!

I thought the point was to have an awful save to transfer over to ME3? Because you can't transfer a save where Shepard doesn't survive.

I know, but I wanted to import my main save (which is the one on the PS3) to ME 3 with only 2 squad mates surviving. I played this play through on the 360 version and it was not my man save. It was but a test to measure the fluidity of being able to keep just two squad mates through the entire game.

I tried to save Garrus along with Tali after this, but Samara ended up surviving some how. BUT fortunately, I didn't do her loyalty mission. Therefore, I will kill her when I get the chance to play that. And only then will my plan have unfolded completely. Mornith is another problem entirely. I just wish you could kill them both and be done with it.

[Shadowman]

Mornith is another problem entirely. I just wish you could kill them both and be done with it.

If you're having trouble killing Morinth, you really need to try harder.

DC Universe Online:
Hey, guess what went free-to-play?

Hey, guess what went free-to-play, causing a massive influx of new players bringing the "Mega-Servers" to their knees?

FORTUNATELY I was able to play a bit last night. My hero (Using my stock name "Ydwyrd") looks like a black Power Ranger in a jaunty pose. Escaped Brainiac's ship with help from Superman (Voiced by Adam "'til you understand who's in ruttin' command around here" Baldwin) and then did some neat stuff around Gotham. Like, helped Batwoman beat Scarecrow. Right now, though, I'm just exploring. The world is beautiful (Metropolis damn near brought a tear to my eye) and huge. There's gotta be a few GTA's worth of space in here.

If only we could access the damn thing. They're patching the servers right now.

[1337W422102]

I'm going to stick to Champions Online for now. Speaking of which:

Champions Online [PC]:
So there was an event in which existing accounts got a free character slot. Awwww yeah. They also now offer trial periods for some of the character classes that need to be unlocked either by paying a one-time fee or by getting a subscription. One of them was The Savage, who attacks with ferocious slashes. So I made a raptor with a white tunic, uzis strapped to his thighs, and a glowing halo and slashed up some baddies.

A friend asked me what Champions was about. An hour later, we were fighting evil together.

Progress-wise, I respecced my main, a soldier class modelled after Duke Nukem, gave him a jetpack and a flight power, and abused the hell out of the flight abilities to explore and solo the Prison Riot event and the mission where you have to beat a boss and defuse his bomb. Didn't get a chance to participate in the Halloween event.

Duke Nukem Forever:
Working on my Damn, I'm Good run. In the Hive, haven't fought any Octabrains yet. Well, except for one.

Participated in that Community Dukematch a few weekends ago, played with and against some devs. Had so much fun. The guys who were playing and the devs were understandably oldschool. Things/people we mentioned/joked about:

-Joe Siegler
-Ken Silverman
-George Broussard
-Allen Blum
-Scott Miller
-Todd Replogle
-BUILD Engine
-This Strife
-Shadow Warrior
-Raptor: Call of the Shadows
-Rise of the Triad
-Duke Nukem: Time To Kill
-Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project
-Commander Keen

If you don't know what those mean, you are too young to be playing videogames.

Serious Sam: The Random Encounter:
This crap's pretty awesome for $5. Think an oldschool turn-based SNES RPG with more action and less RPG elements. And Serious Sam. Plenty of ass-kicking, loads of fun. Got to the temple, met up with the cowboy.

Ghostbusters: The Video Game [PC]:
So much love, here. SO much. The little touches, the involvement of the original cast, and the fact that it's written by Dan and Harold MAKE this game. Little things like Onionhead using one of Venkman's ESP cards, Louis' helmet on the table where you start, the "Happy Birthday" banner in the background, the Ghostbusters II logo in the back of the office, the guy in the hotel lobby asking if you're a cosmonaut...

Unf. Just... just unf.

But, the PC version is held back by lack of the multiplayer mode and the combination of mouse acceleration, deceleration, and smoothing. Playing it is a pain in the ass.

Borderlands [PC]:
Co-oppin' with a buddy. Working our way through Expansion Pack #3. Dropped the General (surprisingly easy) and raided the Armoury once. Spoiler: there's nothing good in it. Finished the Circle of Duty missions. Have a bunch of missions to clear up, though, and there's no way in hell we're ready for Crawie yet.

Grand Theft Auto IV [PC]:
Only ten Unique Jumps left. Getting there.

Phantasy Star Universe [PC]:
So I accidentally found out that my friends are Phantasy Star fans, too. We're planning some group PSU costuming. Figured I'd better play PSU first, lest I get stuck as the male Ranger with the 'fro from PSO ep1.

Got to the beginning of Chapter 2. This is one half-the-eff-assed PC port. The gameplay is still as bad as it was in the Dreamcast days (still no decent camera controls?) and the PC controls are terrible. No mouse support at all? Needing to hold the Up Arrow to ready a firearm and press the Down Arrow to shoot? Ugh. I mapped the Down Arrow to the Spacebar and I'll see how this works out.

Drift City [PC]:
Reached Level 32. Haven't done the Level 1 missions yet. Problem? (Oh yeah, my clan is called "Troll" and our guild icon is a trollface with a six-point "U MAD?" written in a red font. Gotta be me, you know?)

The current even is a Harvest Festival sorta thing. Do repeatable missions, get items, craft stuff, trade them to NPCs for some sweet prizes. Seeing as how the repeatable missions are the ones I need to do anyway to unlock the car I want at Level 41 AND I have the bonus effect of additional XP and money from them, I don't mind doing a bunch of these.

[Shadowman]

Ghostbusters: The Video Game [PC]:
So much love, here. SO much. The little touches, the involvement of the original cast, and the fact that it's written by Dan and Harold MAKE this game. Little things like Onionhead using one of Venkman's ESP cards, Louis' helmet on the table where you start, the "Happy Birthday" banner in the background, the Ghostbusters II logo in the back of the office, the guy in the hotel lobby asking if you're a cosmonaut...

Unf. Just... just unf.

But, the PC version is held back by lack of the multiplayer mode and the combination of mouse acceleration, deceleration, and smoothing. Playing it is a pain in the ass.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg. A TON of things from the movies show up. Viggo is sitting in the office. He'll brag and threaten you if you talk to him. Like everyone else, he retains his actor from the movies. (The Librarian Ghost is a major plot element in one level)

Goddamn I wish they would re-release Ecto Cooler Hi-C.