I like your introduction and your conclusion.

Finished Thief Gold. It's a great game. The only particular complaint I have about it is that it could never seem to hold a winning streak for very long. It would give you 2-3 really great missions and then give you one of noticeably lower quality/or one that was just plain annoying. The apex of this is was later in the game when you just did two really good missions, a pretty good mission, and then the next one requires you to revisit one of the best areas in the game, only to have you partake in a series of SPOOOooooOOoooOOOOKY FETCH QUESTS! Thankfully it was possible to cheat that level and beat it early.

The best things about it though were the sound design and the atmosphere. The sound design feels like it could easily be in a game today 16 years later. Most of the gameplay is highly dependent on listening to your environment so it's great that they didn't screw it up, and even went beyond what was required to make the mechanism work.

It's one of the few video games I would consider legitimately scary. I've never played any pure survival horror games which may explain that. But of what I have played, most don't even attempt horror of any sorts and the ones that do aren't immersive enough to be genuinely frightening or it just feels stupid. Thief Gold, though... yargh. I can't delve into many particular instances because of spoilers, but two keys elements are the standard fantasy world idea that since you are assuming the identity experienced person in that universe, your character is familiar with all the bizarre things that inhibit the game's world that do not reside in ours. So you may hear mention of some noun you've never heard before in a normal conversation, and later you'll encounter said noun and it will actually be this completely outlandish thing. The second is the art style. The setting itself is a believable gothic steampunk fusion, and the game's aged engine creates some really nightmarish walking animations. The brief cutscenes between missions are mostly black and white still frames depicting the events to come, until the plot's climax where they become an uncanny mix of that and 2.5D animation with muted colors. Even the game's intro/trailer is chilling. The plot is pretty good; at times it feels like a standard plot you would expect in a story involving a thief, but it's blown out into much grander and cosmic proportions than other variations.

My favorite part of the atmosphere may be the short excerpts from various lore in the universe at the beginning of every cutscene. They are unbelievably realistic and really haunting at times. They make everything sound so serious and insanely dark/archaic. Sure, I picked up every book and scroll in Skyrim to see if I could gain any levels, but I picked up every book and scroll in this game to read the damn thing.

I strongly recommend it. Now I just have to sit around and wait to see if the second game shows up in a flash sale on Steam. From what I've read it's plot is as good or slightly lesser than, but the gameplay is a significant improvement.

Roller coaster tycoon with expansion packs. IDK why, but it is so ridiculously fun. I mean you can kill as many people as you want! you can build roller coasters! Wait, that doesn't sound fun... You can be a stalker!
I'm really bad at making games sound fun but yeah it's awesome  

Spec Ops: The Line is one of those games where the less you know about it going in the better, so I'll try to be vague. Or you can just know it's a really good game and not read the rest of my post. The game is a scathing takedown of the standard AAA Call Of Duty military shooters. It succeeds in criticizing the games themselves, the real world parallels they draw, and the players who continually buy them year after year. It's a very unsettling game and one of those where no matter what you do in it, it's gonna make you feel bad. The gameplay is pretty generic, but the context in which it unfolds is unique/gripping, and the setting along with the script are great. I haven't played a straight up military shooter since the original Black Ops, and don't really see a reason to after this.

I've picked up Euroa Universalis IV again.

I'm still playing Pokémon by the way, and I've narrated two videos. If you wanna see them, check them out here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaZOFNM20T4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJMWJowSjAY  

Holy crap I always thought you pronounced it Esa, not Isa

Isa -> Isawithappen

Never had that problem

I feel kind of bad. I was playing minecraft, and rosabellis brought up Roller Coaster Tycoon, which made me want to play it again, so I played RCT 3 since I couldn't find any of the others, eventually decided that it wasn't as good as the original ones, got RCT 1, and have been playing it in my spare time. If it wasn't for that I'd probably have gone onto the server a few times recently.

Anyways, here's my completion of Dinky Park without buying any property across the street:

Spec Ops was fantastic. It's one of the only games I've played that made me feel genuinely disturbed (the white phosphorous scene and the way everyone starts to unravel afterwards). It's impressive that a game like that got made given that its point is basically to condemn the vast majority of its audience expecting another military power fantasy. One of my favourite moments was the radio guy mocking you by playing badass music when you're massacring everyone.

Has anyone played Spelunky? Looks pretty cool, like a next-gen HatPC in a way. (although no level editor as far as I know)

I've played it. I absolutely cannot manage with the controls though

Warning: Metal Gear Solid rant incoming

As much as I'm enjoying Metal Gear Solid, I'm hard pressed to think of another situation where I simultaneously respect and dread the boss battles so much. Combining the extreme variation in them and the game coming out at the early era of the 3D gaming generation, they're bursting with creativity and good ideas. But with the exception of Vulcan Raven, each one has taken me at least 3 hours to beat, and that's on the easy ones like Revolver Ocelot. Some of the more difficult ones like Cyborg Ninja fistfight (which admittedly was probably my favorite fight thus far) or Psycho Mantis took me like 6 hours. Not of continuous play, I generally stick to 1.5-2 hour sessions, but still that's 3 days stuck in the same part of one game. And when I say 3 hours or 6 hours, I don't mean the boss fights are super long, I mean that even after reading strategies and watching videos online I die 20 times, think I may be starting with too little health to get a fair chance, backtrack for rations to even my chances, sit through some unskippable cutscenes, then die 20 more times. Also I like how the cutscenes, despite some superfluous ones help flesh out the story and make it more cinematic, but having any one be unskippable that the player could potentially have to rewatch after dying is just a death knell. The Cyborg Ninja fight was really cool, but even just the two or three 5 second unskippable cutscenes at various parts of the fight really dampened the experience for me, and then there's Revolver Ocelot's torture session; I submitted. Do you know why? Because after dying on it the third time I couldn't stand to sit throught the almost 5 minute long unskippable cutscene again. I guess this is a testament to my patience more than anything else. Back to the boss battles though, the Hind D fight is just making me emit a heavy sigh at this point. I love the ideas of the boss battles, and otherwise gameplay is great, but man I'm not sure if I'd be motivated to finish the game if I didn't have almost every other game in the franchise via the MGS Legacy Collection sitting around waiting to be played.

Also playing Legacy Of Kain: Soul Reaver, in which you play an undead vampire who runs around and fights mutant vampires by beating them to death with freaking torches, and then after the flame goes out you can still wail on them with the charred stick. Beat that, Skyrim.

Anyone play the new Smash Bros yet?

Are you gonna buy any Amibos? I still think at their core they're a shameless cash grab, but at least they're supposed to be of higher artistic quality and use more worthwhile characters than Skylanders and Disney Infinity

Nope, considering they aren't compatible with my system

Oh, and I wouldn't cause they cost like, as much as a game.

It's fun! It felt really weird not using a Gamecube controller, but it didn't take too long to get used to. Of the new characters I'd say Little Mac is my favourite so far. His KO move is especially gratifying.

I only have the 3ds version.
but, I'm gonna get the 3ds version for my brother and I have a friend who owns the wii u.
7 PLAYER BATTLE HERE I COME

I'm planning on buying pokemon omega ruby very soon.

That's interesting, I was planning on getting Alpha Sapphire myself.

My family already owns both.

A lot of my friends decided to get sapphire so i thought i'd get ruby to trade people some exclusives

Everyone I know is buying Sapphire. groudon cris evrytiem

7.8/10 too much water

[shrug] Sapphire just has the pokemon I like better. Unfortunately no mawile, which I really want to get, but I can manage without.

Actually, from what I've seen, you pretty much get a new game from buying a Disney Infinity figure, making it the most worth it of the three.

I ended up getting sapphire. Ruby is lame, despite having better pokes. Ludicolo is kind of a joke.