What Video Games Have You Been Playing, Part 10: Or; A Shameful Display!

[Commodore]

I really got into roleplaying my character. Like after Virmire, I had my Shepard (who was a Sole Survivor and starting to feel the strain after losing yet another person under her command) hang up on the Council and practically chew out Udina when he grounded the Normandy, which was kinda out-of-character for her.

Spoiler :

Also, Sovereign was creepy and really awesome. But at the end, when he got into the Citadel, it reminded me of my old cat who liked to dry-hump dirty socks.

I was kinda the same on my first playthrough. I tried to play as if it were actually me in Shepard's position (which is something I do in all games that have any kind of decision-making mechanic) and I did find myself being generally angrier in my dialog choices and more violent in my solutions in the aftermath of Virmire.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Was anyone actually surprised by the end of the Virmire mission? The whole thing seemed to obviously signposted from the start when you're having to pick between two people to do a dangerous mission, that you're choosing who's going to die. The only surprise for me was that you get a couple of chances later on to switch that choice.

Spoiler :

Plus it ends up being another meaningless decision anyway since whoever you save shows up in 1 scene in ME2, which plays out the same whoever it is, and then a larger part in ME3, but which again plays out exactly the same with the same dialogue. Other than romance extras it makes no difference at all.

 

[Akka]

I was kinda the same on my first playthrough. I tried to play as if it were actually me in Shepard's position

Well, that's the whole concept of "role-playing"

 

[Lexicus]

I'm playing HOI4 again and my god it's engrossing. I've tried two different scenarios in the last couple of weeks: trying to go for a Communist South Africa and leading an anti-colonial crusade in Africa (which I aborted for now because it seems extremely difficult) and leading Mao's Chinese Communist Party to world conquest by, maybe, 1960? Not sure how plausible it will be to do that.

Playing Communist China with the standard historical AI settings on is very difficult. I believe that every single HOI4 game I've ever played (though admittedly before I started playing again last week I had only played Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union) saw Japan completely overrun China. With Communist China you have access to essentially zero heavy weapons for most of the game, you're stuck building small arms and recruiting infantry divisions. So resisting the Japanese is quite difficult. One of their divisions can push back three or four of yours, easily, unless you're sitting in mountains or across a river.

Anyway, I settled on some settings for the game that I think make world-conquest as the Chinese Communists a bit more plausible and fun. First I set the Germans to Kaiserreich, which makes the German AI revolt against Hitler, installing military rule before bringing back the Kaiser. I set the Japanese to Neutral, which makes them strike at the Soviet Union rather than invading China. And just for giggles I set Australia and South Africa to go Communist. I'm thinking they will eventually make helpful allies/puppets.

I can't remember whether I set the Soviet Union to attack the capitalist powers in the Middle East first rather than establishing a buffer in eastern Europe. Either way it won't matter much; Germany hopefully won't be going all-out in Barbarossa so the idea is that the main action will be Japan vs USSR (hopefully Germany can attack the western Allies and bog them down some while I make moves to grab some oil and whatnot e.g. from French Indochina).

Anyway, playing my first runthrough with these settings I conquered Shaanxi, Xibei San Ma, Sinkiang, and Tibet before I had to go to bed, with my armies lined up on the border with Republican China. I'm not 100% sure where to go from here but I've equipped my divisions with supporting artillery and some other support companies and started recruiting cavalry units, so I'm feeling pretty good about the course of the game. I'll probably take some of the national focuses that relate to the Chinese Civil war in preparation for attempting to take over the rest of China, but my next actions will probably be dictated by what happens between Japan and the USSR and how soon.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

What game is HOI4?

 

[Lexicus]

Hearts Of Iron 4.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Was anyone actually surprised by the end of the Virmire mission? The whole thing seemed to obviously signposted from the start when you're having to pick between two people to do a dangerous mission, that you're choosing who's going to die. The only surprise for me was that you get a couple of chances later on to switch that choice.

I was.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

I can't remember the details now because it's been a while since I played it, but I just remember there's a big scene before the mission where they're both trying to get you to assign them to this mission, because "they can handle it" or whatever. I think you even get an "are you sure?" conversation option before it's finalised don't you? It just seemed they were making such a big deal over it that it had to be significant, and as it was a dangerous death mission it wasn't hard to guess what that significance would be.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

I remember them bickering about it but didn't think much of it. I did find it strange that you couldn't tell the other squadmates to help them, though. (What do the non-selected squadmates even DO when you're out on a mission? Sit around playing cards?)

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Meanwhile: I imported my ME1 save into ME2. And so far I'm...pretty confused.

Spoiler :

So Cerberus resurrected me. But why did the doctor dude try to kill everyone? Why is it, as a survivor of Akuze, I can't tell them to screw off? Why doesn't Anderson (who's now on the Council) have a hologram like the others? Why doesn't anybody seem upset about me walking around with two people with obvious Cerberus logos on their clothes? And now I'm a Spectre again, but not really a Spectre? I don't get it.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

You can make Anderson an ambassador for Earth, but I don't think he's on the Council is he?

(not putting it in spoilers as I think you're the only spoilee around these parts)

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

No, at the end of the first game the Council is "humans deserve a place on the Council!" and you can suggest someone. I picked Anderson because Udina's kind of an ass.

This amused me, though:

Spoiler :

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Just out of curiosity I used a save editor to change my female Shepard to a male. It...uh....

Spoiler :

 

[Commodore]

Well, that's the whole concept of "role-playing"

That's what I thought too, but apparently not. I read an article a while back about the different "philosophies" of how to play a role-playing game. According to the article, there are three main ways to play an RPG: 1. Inject yourself into the setting, essentially making your character an avatar of yourself. 2. Try to play your character in a way that is different from yourself, such as playing as a woman when you are a man. 3. Play the character according to the background you choose for them, even if that means playing in a way you normally wouldn't play. An example of that would be in Dragon Age: Origins playing as a Dalish Elf and acting extremely bitter and mistrustful towards humans due to the bad blood between elves and humans, even if you personally don't think your character should act that way.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

In RPGs, I've before tried to roleplay characters that are separate from me. Even though I knew they were just code and pixels, though, I had a hard time being dicks to NPCs.

 

[Akka]

That's what I thought too, but apparently not. I read an article a while back about the different "philosophies" of how to play a role-playing game. According to the article, there are three main ways to play an RPG: 1. Inject yourself into the setting, essentially making your character an avatar of yourself. 2. Try to play your character in a way that is different from yourself, such as playing as a woman when you are a man. 3. Play the character according to the background you choose for them, even if that means playing in a way you normally wouldn't play. An example of that would be in Dragon Age: Origins playing as a Dalish Elf and acting extremely bitter and mistrustful towards humans due to the bad blood between elves and humans, even if you personally don't think your character should act that way.

Ah yes I see the point.
I consider it "role-playing" in all cases because you act "as the character would". It's just that how the character is defined changes. The case 1 might be a bit different (is it really "playing a character" when you're "acting as yourself" ? But I'd say we're not really "playing as ourselves" but more "acting like our ideal self would be"), but case 2 and 3 are basically the same for me, just with a different setup.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Yeah 2 and 3 just seem to be the same thing.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Some more thoughts about Mass Effect 1 and 2:

Spoiler :

• There's a definite tonal shift. I'm not sure if I'm explaining this right, but the first game's setting felt a bit more sparse. The Citadel was a pain to get around but it felt kind of mysterious and you felt out-of-place. And driving the Mako around planets made you feel like you were going places you weren't ever meant to go. 2 doesn't have that same feel, really.
• The Normandy SR-2 is also part of that tonal shift. It just feels...not very efficient. The SR-1 actually felt like a stealth ship, due to its small size. I guess this is the mindset of Cerberus?
• I bought some fish for my fishtank. They died.
• I know that Cigar Dude (yeah, I know he's actually Illusive Man, but I think of him as Cigar Dude) said that Joker was someone I could trust, but I was actually a bit more excited to see that Dr. Chakwas was on board.
• I still don't trust Cerberus, but since the Council blew me off...

 

[AdamCrock]

I haven't played ME2 yet but Cerberus ?! They are bad guys right !? ... right ? hmm... I would have serious doubts about them ! :O

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Yeah, in the first game they were terrorists. There's also a small sidequest that confirms they were behind the thresher maw attacks on Akuze, which really struck home as a Sole Survivor. They killed Admiral Kahoku too.