The Feb 2013 MONDAY FINISH thread

[LongBlade]

have you worn it for Mrs Blade?

Are you out of your Vulcan mind?

[undercovergeek]

lmao - she doesnt join you in the Star Trek love?

[LongBlade]

No one is perfect.

[Kushan]

Not to try and put this thread back on track or anything like that....the only thing I finished this weekend was watching all 3 extended editions of LOTR one after the other. I tried to finish the main quest in Skyrim, but then I took a fireball to the knee.....

[Gusington]

I was once an adventurer like you.

[JasonPratt]

have you worn it for Mrs Blade?

Are you out of your Vulcan mind?

If he wore a purse made out of Kirk's shirt for Mrs. Blade, I could see it leading to... questions.







(Edited to add: yes I saw, it's not a purse. I'm just running with the joke. :) I first saw it as a purse with a big front pocket made out of uniform sleeve for sliding the phaser into, and now I can't unsee it!!)

[JasonPratt]

Not to try and put this thread back on track or anything like that....the only thing I finished this weekend was watching all 3 extended editions of LOTR one after the other. I tried to finish the main quest in Skyrim, but then I took a fireball to the knee.....

One of the hardware issues that delayed me from getting back into my game-finishing list, was studying signal calibration science (or catching back up on it rather after having studied and then forgotten about it back in college for my broadcasting degree). Because I had a new TV (and then another new TV when the first one developed problems), and wanted to dial in the video signal better than I had with my old TV.

I mention this in relation to LOTR, because I popped FOTR in for a demo comparison test and was pleased on one hand to see that the faint green tinge was gone, but that on the other hand the standard calibration techniques lead to an overly dark picture. So I developed some protocols for further tweaking the brightness by checking certain scenes in FOTR.

(Also, after extensive testing I came to the conclusion that the procedures and tests provided by Disney on their WOW Blu calibration disc are kind of broken. So then I had to start over from scratch, though still using the handy color bars and b/w focus/sharpness test screens on their disc.)

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

I know it's Wednesday but I just finished The Testament of Sherlock Holmes.  I think it's the 6th in the Frogwares series of point and click adventures.  I really liked the Jack the Ripper and the Silver Earring titles.  This one wasn't so good.  Chiefly, I think they took too many liberties with the Sherlock Holmes franchise and contradicted some of Doyle's writings.  Gameplay was fairly straightforward.  The majority of the puzzles were logical and straightforward and fairly easy to solve.  There was some pixel hunting but not too much.  I did have to resort to a walkthrough twice.  Once because I didn't understand what was required of me for a certain puzzle (that was the fault of the UI) and one because there was a disconnect between the graphics and the in-game speech.  (You're told that there's a small magician's bag tied to a belt you find and you need to cut it open but the item in your inventory doesn't show any such bag.  I was busy doing a bunch of other stuff in the game and didn't get to the part where you needed the bag until a few hours later and forgot that it was mentioned.)

The overall plot of the story is good, but the way it was portrayed was pretty uneven.  Sometimes it's a little too goofy and whimsical, like when you take control of a basset hound.  Other times the pathos is a little heavy handed and maudlin and the translation from the game's original French is never of the best quality so the dialogue is often stilted of wholly inappropriate.

There is one game breaking part that I found.  In one part, you need to cut open some bags to get some documents that are inside.  You also must use your knife to try to pry open some floor boards to advance the story.  When you attempt to pry the boards, you break your knife.  If you hadn't grabbed the documents before prying the board (and the game gives no indication that you should do so), you're stuck and will have to revert to an earlier save.

Still love the attention to detail that the devs put into these games when it comes to the world and the architecture and furnishings. 

The most incongruous bit was the end credits.  They look like something straight out of a bond movie. 

Here's the video of said credits.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNh7oE4-WGk

[Gusington]

Just finished Dishonored. Anticlimactic ending, but it is related to my brutish play style. That said, it was by far my favorite game of the last few years. Just wish it was longer. And the music was awesome.

[Kushan]

I actually finished something. Just beat the main boss in the Skyrim Dragonborn DLC. Was one of the best fights I've had in the game.

[JasonPratt]

SDR,

I also own all the Frogware Holmes titles (including that one if I recall correctly), off a Steam sale before Christmas. Barely started playing Silver Earring, before I had to migrate to my new computer, and haven't gotten back to it yet, but they're all definitely on my game-finish list. :)

Do you recommend a worst-to-best progression? (I prefer to be not disappointed going from one game to another. ;) ) I'm assuming there won't be continuity progression between games.

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

There is a bit of continuity between the games.  Usually they're just in the form of easter eggs.  For instance, you'll find a statue from The Awakened in 221b Baker Street in later games.  However, there are some recurring ancillary characters that you can interact with and some of the incidental dialogue might not make sense if you haven't played all the previous titles.

The gameplay is pretty similar between all the titles but I prefered  the puzzles in the Ripper and Silver Earring because they tended to focus more on forensics, crime scene analysis, and piecing together timelines.  The puzzles in Arsene Lupin (Nemesis in N. America) and Testament tend more towards logic puzzles that don't really believably fit into the game universe.  I.E. open a safe by solving a chessboard logic puzzle.  Move all the red coloured pegs across a board without jumping over any green pegs, etc.

[MetalDog]

I finished my Warlock Master of the Arcane AAR.  It's in the Digital Gaming AAR's section on this very site.  :)

[TheCommandTent]

I didn't finish anything but I am locked in mortal combat in the Flu Dungeon.  I battled through several levels of Sniveling and Sneezing minions. I almost passed out entering the Chamber of Fevers.  However, once I broke out of that I made it to the boss fight. Unfortunately I just can't seem to get by this boss.  Perhaps I need to visit a local apothecary and mix some new potions.

[Gusington]

^Crap sorry to hear that. As someone who had flu once and bronchitis twice this winter, I feel your pain.