I lost my PC savegames to hard drive crashes... multiple times. I didn't lose any other data, because I backed up the important stuff. I just kept on forgetting savegames qualified as important.

These days I try to back up saves too :D Though my hard disks seem to last longer... I remember that time back in the day when Maxtors would just die, several in a row, I went through more warranty replacements than some people on their RRoD-d Xbox 360s. (My Xbox only died once! ...So far...)

Originally Posted by: phantomganon

Originally Posted by: stevekwan

I am not aware of any situation where content originally built as part of a game was sliced off and released as DLC. It may feel that way from a consumer standpoint, but I am highly doubtful of any backroom dealings where someone said, "Hey, you know what would be great? If we cleaved off 10% of this already complete product and sold it for a few extra bucks!" It frankly is not that simple to slice up code like that. It's not a pizza that you can cut into as many slices as you wish. :)

ANY in game content released the day of release or even the same week is content that should be in the game but because the developer thinks "well so and so "mario for example" is supposed to have red pants well make a skin for 5 other colors BUT well sell it SAME day as the game comes out....this should of been in the game and should of been free.

That might be true with games that only have a digital release, but if there are physical copies too, during the manufacturing and distribution time it's still possible to work on extras. Or cut what's unfinished before pressing the discs, then cram to finish it just in time to be able to offer it as a day-1 digital DLC sale. Granted, I'm not in the video game industry, but I think that actually happens quite often. Of course when the entire content of the DLC is on the disc and you're only buying an unlock key, that's different and a rather ugly business move. I think Mass Effect 3 was like that, but I'm not sure since I got the DLC with my special edition and IIRC didn't have to download it.

BTW I often buy DLC, but usually not at full price, because that can get very expensive and there is also a slow upward price creep *glares at Mass Effect single-player DLC*. I try to buy everything that expands on the story of games. DLCs which add gameplay are usually minigame collections or some kind of Super Hard Mode (typical of JRPGs these days), which I'm less interested in. The only online multiplayer game I play these days is Mass Effect 3, which has had a whole slew of completely free DLCs, so I can't complain on that front - they added new maps, new hazards on maps, new enemy types, and more character types than I could count. Of course this is financially supported by the people who buy upgrade packs with money; I don't, but all the more power to them, they enable me to play for free. (Frankly, it's not very grindy if you otherwise like the game - I'm a quite casual player, but even I unlock more stuff than I have the time to try, especially now that characters can be unlocked separately.)

oh and the only game I ever bought costumes for was Final Fantasy XIII-2. I really disliked Serah's clothing and I generally find it hard to spend money on PSN - I bought a

I also couldn't get into Shadow of the Colossus. Or Ico either. In addition to the stuff discussed above, SotC on the PS2 had bad framerate issues, which annoyed the heck out of me. (I'm also the kind of person who can dislike games over the lack of vsync.) Sure, it looks nice, but if it moves like crap...?

Also, Ico was pretty much "You are an adventurous boy! You drag around a useless girl!" which really rubbed me the wrong way. I thought I was reading things into the game that weren't there, but <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/04/18/team-icos-the-last-guardian-and-the-illusion-of-half-realism/">apparently not</a>...

I'm not particularly interested in the upcoming Wii U games, but I'd like to have the console if only for the HDMI out. :D I'll wait until the console actually comes out to see if it can render Wii games at HD resolutions (like Dolphin) or if it only upscales. The Wii looks AWFUL on our projector, even a PS2 produces a crisper, cleaner picture... and yes, I spent a lot of time cabling stuff together in various configurations.

I bought most of the Wii titles I'd been interested in used (IIRC the only one I'm missing is Last Story), they practically threw them after me, even the popular and well-received ones. I'd love to play them and have them look nice as opposed to a smeary blur, but going the Dolphin route seems so annoying, the reason I'm playing on consoles is to save time that'd go into setting up my gaming environment. I used to be heavily into emulation, but one can spend SO MUCH time tweaking everything until it's Just Right. Maybe that's just me ;D

I think the Wii U hardware looks interesting - not the least because this will make MS put some effort into their own tablet/console interoperability plans ;] - but I can't think of a single game I'm looking forward to playing. I think the most interesting one is the WiiU-ified version of ME3, which is kind of sad considering I've already sunk 100+ hours into the Xbox version (mostly multiplayer though; only one SP playthrough).

Stacking? It seems to be on sale right now, for 300 MS points. If you enjoy adventure and puzzle games, you should definitely give it a try.

There's a great adventure game pack offered on gog.com this weekend - https://www.gog.com/en/promo/indie_adventures_weekend though if you are an adventure game fan, you probably own all these already *looks at backlog* *flees*

I don't really like to play for more than 2-3 hours... there's just so many things to do besides playing video games. *runs for cover* :D

Originally Posted by: gaiages

IndieRoyale has its new Gone Fishin' bundle, with SOL: Exodus, All Zombies Must Die!, Cubemen, SQUIDS, two Platformance games, and other goodies.

I can't make up my mind about this one. For people who bought it - what swayed you?

By the way, does it count if you get the game with a magazine? (IDK if American mags do that, it's pretty common here in Europe.) I've gotten some ridiculously awful games that way :D

Originally Posted by: pheria

Oblivion is honestly up there for me. I bought into the hype, but really hated playing it. Everything was so dull and slow. I'll think twice before stepping into Elder Scrolls again.

I hated Oblivion and I also think it ranks up there with my worst purchases - this gen at least - but I really enjoyed Skyrim. Have you played Fallout 3 / New Vegas? Skyrim is a lot more similar to those than to Oblivion.

I grew up a computer gamer (started on the Commodore 64) but these days I prefer consoles for gaming because of the ease of setup. I only buy small indie games for the PC because these are usually not available on consoles. Still plenty of annoyances. Just last week I couldn't get Dear Esther to display on our projector, at all. After 15 minutes of fiddling with resolution etc. settings I just gave up and played it on my old CRT.

I'm a Linux user, so if I want to geek out with settings etc., I have plenty of opportunity to do that :D, but when I want to sit down and game, I want to sit down and game, right away. Maybe the rumored Steambox will offer that for PC gaming... Steam itself is not there yet, not even on Windows, though it does come in handy.

These days I don't have time for long sessions, but to be honest I don't even enjoy playing for very long periods of time. 2-3 hours and I'm like... I'd rather do something else.

When I was a kid I think I had a few 10-12-hr Civilization marathons...

also, The World Ends With You for NDS, one of the best NDS games overall if you ask me :D

A couple of Japanese recs:

* Seiken Densetsu 3 for SNES has never been officially released outside Japan, but the English fan translation works perfectly with an emulator, played through the entire game back in high school.
* Resonance of Fate for X360/PS3 is a lot of fun - some people say the difficulty curve is a bit too steep for them, but I didn't have any trouble. It also comes with a Japanese voice option (at least the EU version does).
* Eternal Sonata for X360/PS3 (fun to play, but the ending is REALLY confusing)
* Nier for X360/PS3 caught a lot of flak from reviewers, but I enjoyed it (played the PS3 EU version)
* Conversely, 3D Dot Game Heroes for PS3 was well-received, but I personally found it boring
* FFXIII, FFXIII-2, Tales of Vesperia and Star Ocean IV are also available on the Xbox 360, Tales of Vesperia is actually *not* available on the PS3 in English
* Valkyria Chronicles for the PS3 is a great but somewhat unconventional SRPG. The sequels are portable-only and I haven't played them.

Originally Posted by: zenicreverie

That's a good question. There are a number of excellent PC RPGs. I only assumed the OP wanted consoles as that's all he had listed.

There are JRPGs on both PC and consoles... I'm mostly asking to see whether I should also take the time to recommend WRPGs for consoles (like the entire Mass Effect series, which is extremely worth playing IMO) or if the OP is only interested in Japanese games.

Originally Posted by: zenicreverie

I blogged a playthrough, here's a general overview for the game: https://sidequestsaga.blogspot.com/2012/07/star-saga-one-beyond-boundary-basics.html

The rest of the posts contain spoilers.

Awesome, thank you! This game looks fascinating and exactly the kind of thing we both love. I've just added it to my backlog (manually, but I hope other people will follow suit :] ).

I enjoyed reading the Steam sale topic, and I think something like this would be nice to have all year round. Sure, there are sites like Cheap Ass Gamer etc. but they have a lot of noise, plus I'm also specifically interested in your finds and recs.

Allow me to start -
the latest IndieRoyale bundle just went live (they are very... daring to do this so soon after the Steam sale!)
https://www.indieroyale.com/

IMO their bundles have been sort of hit and miss lately, but this one has not only Puzzle Agent - which I totally forgot to get during the Steam sale - but also the entire Geneforge saga, which offers a ridiculous amount of oldschool RPG gameplay. I've been meaning to get it, because I'm always interested in unconventional magic-themed games, but the series bundle was a bit pricey. Now I can get it for cheap!

Also, it looks like Amazon is going to have a daily deal on the FFXIII-2 collectors edition in about three hours, we've just started playing this game - my brother bought it two weeks ago in a local shop, also on sale - and our initial impressions have been favorable (the collector goodies are also nice, but I could've used MORE audio :D )

https://www.joystiq.com/2012/07/24/amazon-gold-box-discounts-games-all-day-starting-with-ssx/

Originally Posted by: zenicreverie

If you like adventure games, can deal with an all text interface, and don't mind switching between the game interface, map, and documentation, then I really recommend Star Saga: One I just finished it, and the writing is imaginative, game world innovative, and the plot was enough to keep me playing through to the end.

Looked at the page @ the Underdogs, and I'm a bit confused. Is this something like a board game that has a video game component? How well does it scale with number of players? I could play through it with my brother, but that's only 2 of us. Have you played it as a single-player game?

There were an amount of Sailor Moon arcade-puzzle style games on the SNES (not the fighting games) which were a lot of fun, even in multiplayer, but most people probably steered clear of them because of the Sailor Moon theme, and because they were only released in Japan.

We played the heck out of this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5D2jB4VbBT0

This one is also cool:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-62Ic9gL-hc

(I'm sure you can find ROMs with a minimum of digging ;] )

Are you trying to collect all RPGs or just JRPGs?

Also, different regions have different release dates...

Originally Posted by: ajbinky

and psn/xbl

I can't figure out how to get that from the Xbox website, Raptr can get it by looking at the live updates AFAIK, but there is no archive of previous play times... if anyone could figure that out for me I'd be really happy, some Xbox games do not track play time at all and before I registered on Raptr I did not record game times.

A bunch of indie games mostly for 75% off:
* Dear Esther
* Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble
* Analogue: A Hate Story
* Dead Mountaineer's Hotel (I hear the game's kinda meh but I liked the original book)
* FATALE
* Windosill
* Xotic

I have all the big-name releases I need right now, so nothing else. I wish I'd have waited a bit with buying the new Civ V expansion X[ and I really want a cheap deal on the PC version of Mass Effect 3 to try the multiplayer on PC too (I play the Xbox version), but it's not on Steam because, EA. *rolleyes*

The Steam summer sale is on right now!!

This generation it was Lost Odyssey (well so far anyway), 65h 31mins and totally worth it.

Altogether probably Civ IV or Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri / Alien Crossfire, but those came before I started recording my playtimes...

I've been meaning to play Fate: Gates of Dawn since forever, that's easily 200+ hours, but I'm afraid it might not have aged well :O Anyone here who played it? It's not in the database yet.