Couple Gaming

As you have seen previously, an RPG became a family affair, and to this day we are still trying to finish Dragon Age.  But we also still really really enjoy it.

So I am not looking forward to Hunted: The Demon’s Forge by inXile.  Not only is it a new RPG that looks amazing.  But it also has co-op!  Seriously, Co-Op an RPG with the wife will be awesome!

More info on the game;

“Set in a dark fantasy world, Hunted: The Demon’s Forge is an unforgettable cooperative action game, pitting you and your partner against waves of vicious enemies. Taking control of either E’lara, a ranged weapon expert, or Caddoc, a master swordsman, you must use a variety of weapons, powerful spells, and cover tactics to battle your way through menacing dungeons, overgrown ruins, and downtrodden towns. Discover secrets and complete co-op-based puzzles whilst exploring the sinister world to discover answers to the game’s deep, dark mysteries.”

For the PS3, 360 and PC

Way back in the day.  I was a young man sitting in a dark room.  With nothing but the glow of the monitor to light my face and fingers as I typed away in the Lower Lights BBS to what I thought was a girl.  Now, we will never know if it was, but I remember many nights like that.  I know Ophilye use to be on lower lights doing something very similar.  So when a game like this comes along, everyone who use to use a BBS should really give it a go.

Digital: A Love Story is a great little game that brings back many memories of being on a BBS trying to meet some hot nerd girl.  Go check it out at http://www.scoutshonour.com/digital/

Dragon Age is the first real game I bought for my PS3.  I saw it on sale for about $40 for the PS3 right after it was just released, while the 360 version was still $60. I figured since it is a single player game, I won’t need to be on live and it will give the family time to play their other games in the other rooms.  Also the dust on the PS3 was just embarrasing.

Turns out the wife and daughter are big fans of RPG’s.  Who knew?   So for the past two months, almost everynight, we gather in the spare bedroom and play dragon age.  And by play I mean I play, but the girls get to tell me what choices we are going to make and what spells to pick when we level.   The story in dragon age isn’t bad, but it doesn’t really bring anything knew to the table either.  An evil is acending upon the world and you need to gather all your allies and defeat it.  Easier said then done of course.  And the story is interesting enough that you won’t be complaining about it.  What really sets Dragon Age apart is the charecters.  Each one has a back story that you can learn if you find the right items and ask the right questions.  While you are on your journey they will randomly talk to each other about their past or thoughts.   We really enjoyed having Allister and Morrigan in the party because they would always be arguing.  But be aware that to gain approval with one, might be a dissaproval for another.  For instance we wanted to sleep with Morrigan, but with Allistar in the party every choice we made that she approved of he didn’t.  And at one point he almost left our party for good.  So we made it up to him and then dumped him in camp as soon as we found a new warrior.  Dragon age is full of quests that take a fair amount of time, but we have played over 50 hours and we still aren’t bored of it.

All and all if you’re a fan of RPG’s you should already own this game.  If you aren’t sure you like RPG’s you should probably own this game.  If you hate RPG’s but like avatars having sex, you should own this game.  I can’t think of a good reason no one shouldn’t own this game.  And remember.  Just because it says single player on it doesn’t mean your family can’t enjoy it as well.

Tale of Tales, the creators of “The Path”, are releasing a little more information about their newest venture, tentatively titled “Fatale”. The game is based on a biblical story, specifically Salome, a princess that demanded the head of John the Baptist. I’m definitely not up on my biblical stories, and so could care less about Salome, but they gave us a snippet of what to expect:

The character of Salome is complex because “Fatale” is designed to evoke all possible interpretations of her legend simultaneously. Salome is at once the mighty princess who mercilessly seduces men to their downfall and an innocent child on the brink of womanhood who is manipulated by the grown-ups that surround her. But she is also just a girl, a teenager who falls in love with the wrong man at the wrong time. She gets a first taste of the sweetness and the bitterness that we all know so well. And then there’s the Salome created by Oscar Wilde: a mad woman, lurking in the shadows of our souls, a selfish, passionate, wilful creature who will stop at nothing to get what she wants.

Ooooh, sounds as complicated as Shakespeares Ophilia! I’m definitely a sucker for character development in game play.. so I’m excited to hear more.

If the image looks familiar, you’ve been playing too much Silent Hill. “Salome was designed, modelled and textured for the project by leading game artist Takayoshi Sato, of Silent Hill fame.”
Return to their site http://tale-of-tales.com/Fatale/ to get more information.

It has been a very long time since I have played a fishing game.  As a matter of fact I think the last one I played was one of those little hand held devices you could pick up just about anywhere.  I liked them enough, but it never held my attention for more then a few minutes at a time and obviously was no where near as fun as real fishing was, but it was nice to pass the few minutes on the car drive to the lake.

I can’t say I am actually excited about this game, and even less so with the rumored $70 price tag, but I am interested.  Watch the video and decide if you would drop $70 for it, in the mean time, see you on the lake!

A long time ago ( over a year!) I wrote a short little article about a new MMO being made by funcom Dark days are coming and finally we start seeing more details about this MMO, now known as Secret World, across the gaming sphere.

Below is the teaser trailer for Secret World and I LOVE this trailer, but there is no game play and that is what we want to see and lets face it, funcoms MMO’s are always lack luster, not to say they are bad,  I loved Anarchy Online even with it’s horrible bug filled launch, and I bought AoC and played it up to level 47, but it also couldn’t keep me or that many others.  I am hoping for much better things from this MMO as the concept really appeals to me, who doesn’t want Cthulhu in their MMO?

A short blurp about the game

The Secret World will have no classes or levels. Tornquist…describes it as an “action-adventure-MMORPG” with “fast, reactive combat”. Although there will naturally be character progression and an incentive to play the game for a long time, “The Secret World begins where other MMOs end,” he says. “There’s no grind to get to a preconceived place.”…Furthermore, the entire game (which we know will include London, New York, Seoul, New England and Egypt as launch locations) will be open from the start.

After Ymiris posted his anticipation of a new horror game called “The Path”, we were positively flabbergasted to be contacted by the developers.  US! Couple Gaming, actually being seen!  After we got over the shock & Ymiris could hear again (I’m a screamer), we downloaded our Review Copy (Squeee!) of The Path, and after an incident that resulted in needing a new laptop (Note to couple gamers: Clean out your fans), I finally got my hand on a girl.

And I have been wandering ever since.

First, I’ll let you in on a little secret: This game is not your typical game.  This is the game that real gamers scream for at the top of their lungs.  This is something new.  This is what needs to be heralded from rooftops, shown to every new developer;  when you bought FEAR or Doom, you didn’t know it, but that disgust on your face was you screaming “WHY CAN’T YOU BE THE PATH?!?!?!!” Remember the first time you played Shadowman?  Fatal Frame?  Hell, the first Silent Hill?  You’re going to get those shivers here.  I promise.

Let me give you a quick summary, just to give your mind somewhere to go:  This game is based loosely on Little Red Riding Hood.  You go through 7 sisters, ranging in age from 8 to 18.   Each one of these girls is dropped off at the end of a street, and you are always given the same instructions:  Go to Grandmothers House.  Do Not Leave The Path.

Like any real girl, one cannot follow directions & still live her life.  Sure, fine, follow instructions if you need to.. but it won’t get you where you really need to go.  No, you are going to need to go into those woods, find what is hidden, make your own Path.

As you play each of the girls, you slowly uncover who they really are.  Each girl has her personality, her ideas, her hopes, her dreams, her cynicisms, her fears, her own demon, her own hell.  And each girl is doomed.

I cannot tell you more than that, but as you wander as each girl, you realize you’ve been dropped in a Lynchian dream.  Every object you come upon isn’t just an object, it is going to mean something to someone, and you are not always going to be told the only answer.   I’m not sure there really is a “right” answer for this game, and walkthroughs are going to be a bitch.

I will give you 3 hints:

1. Take your time.  You should not run in this game, ever, and the camera changing is one of your biggest hints, not an actual hindrance.
2. Find everything you can.  There is no silly Achievement in this game, so the things you are finding are there for a reason.
3. Enjoy the Horror.  Darken the room, get a GOOD set of headphones (with bass and reverberations) and Enjoy it.

Which brings me to my last points.  I’ve told you the storyline is excellent, the originality is off the charts, and the character immersion is unbeleivable, but one of the best parts of this game is the sights and sounds.   The musical score, the miscellaneous sounds, the breaths, the creepy creaking and wolf growls, they are the icing on the cake.

Don’t think it’s all good, there is definitely an adjustment period for this type of game, and it is not going to be as polished as you’re used to.   The visuals are disrupting at first, and the pathing & slow-moving girls leaves a lot of  room for improvement (in hopefully coming releases).  The moving through Grandmothers House when “successfully” completing a girl felt almost like the developers cheated us out of an interactive ending; it was a good, creative ending, but I know it could have been better.  I found that  if you just let go, maybe look for some of those hidden meanings that Lynch fans love, you’ll enjoy it quite a bit more.

As for being a “Couple Game”, both Ymiris & I give it HUGE thumbs up.  With 7 girls, it’s easy to trade off running characters, especially if you need a break  from the forest, and it’s fun to share accomplishments and highlights with each other.  In addition, the game is developed by Gaming- and Designing- Couple Auriea Harvey & Michaël Samyn, whom we are hoping will guest-write for CoupleGaming on how they came up with this concept, and how they work with each other to create something like this.

Thank you to Tale of Tales, not just for the review copy of  the game, but for creating something so outside the point-click-shoot-levelup that has become the standard.  Thank you for creating something beautiful, and chock-full of horror!

You can get the game Here

Since Ophilye was kind enough to start a good horror post, I decided I should also post a list of must play horror  games for 2008.  That is not to say these all came out in 2008, but they are good horror games to play even now.

1. Deadspace – An Original IP from EA and a hit!  A must play for this Halloween.

2. BIoshock – Something I have been playing a lot lately and truly a classic game, the big daddies alone make this game.

3. Condemed 2 – I never played the first one, but the second one is very good, and very dark.

4. Dead Rising – No horror game list is complete without zombies and Dead Rising gives you that in groves!

A short list for sure, but I didn’t want to repeat our list from last year.  Also keep in mind that both Left 3 Dead and Silent Hill 5 are coming out soon, they will also provide some seriously awesome game-play.

No, I am not kidding, they really are making a Lego MMO.  Now I won’t say I dislike the lego games, because truth be told they were fun, but I really do think they are making WAY to many of them, and now an MMO?  Not only do I think Lego is over done, but I am also getting tired of MMO’s, not necessarily the multiplay, because Cthulhu only knows I love to game with people, but the grinding it just to much for me anymore, and the power levelers are seriously retarded, they don’t even know what game they are playing, but alas I am going off on something that I need to bottle back up.

Lets hope for you Lego fan’s out there that they make a quality game that you can enjoy, I personal doubt it, but here’s to hoping.

Find the offical site here

OK, so I have played in the preview and the beta of Warhammer, I was both impressed and disappointed, I was impressed at how polished the game felt, I was disappointed that my enthusiasm for it wasn’t as high as I expected.  But I doubt this is Warhammers fault, I feel an over all dislike for MMO’s lately.

So Tuesday comes around and we are finally ready to start are characters with their pre-order head start, and I create a char and get to playing, I am level 5 by the time Ophilye decides to join in, after putting down her book long enough to notice I am not actually just sitting their staring at the wall, I am indeed playing the game.

She gives me the look like, WTF?!  Level without me?! and I quickly divert my eyes away and say “I am RvRing” in an attempt to sound like I wouldn’t even begin to have the nerve to level without her.  But by the time she is level 3 I am now level 7, because in Warhammer you can level fairly fast just doing RvR.  I decide I should cut my losses and log off for the night and let her catch up.

What was I saying again?  Ohh yes, so I really enjoy the fact that you do not have to grind to level in Warhammer, you can easily PvP all the way to Cap, or if you prefer mix it up and do PQ (Public Quests) and RvR to make cap, but that isn’t to say questing isn’t fun, a lot of the questing is about killing someone and spiking their head on a spear, there so far hasn’t been a ton of “kill 50 bunnies of doom” quests.  

I guess what I am trying to say is unlike AoC, after the beta I am still enjoying the game, sure there are a few bugs still there but nothing that causes me much concern. With the way they have designed the game I feel no need to return to WoW even with the expansion coming out and I don’t know if I am sad or relieved about that.