What Are You Playing This Thanksgiving Weekend?

Thanksgiving has a special place in my heart as a long gaming weekend. I think I posted this story on G4tv — as a kid, I used to rent games the Wednesday before Thanksgiving since the local video store was closed for the holiday and I’d get a free day of rental. Ah…good times.

This weekend I really, really want to spend a chunk of time playing The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, but I have a shoot in Chicago that will break up the time. Skyrim deserves days of uninterrupted attention. I received a code for the “Treasures of the Sun’ DLC for Dungeon Siege III. I’ll definitely be playing that. Perhaps it will make the perfect appetizer for Skyrim….

How about you? What’s on your Thanksgiving weekend playlist?

Author: RPadTV

https://rpad.tv

50 thoughts on “What Are You Playing This Thanksgiving Weekend?”

    1. Well, for the Zelda: Skyward Sword, it's one of two definite (maybe three) Zelda games to earn a 10/10. So yes, it's one of the best. I say "one of" because there's debate about which is "the best". It's hard to distinguish between such great titles.

      As for the BF3 or MW3, it depends on how you'll use it. MW3 has better Single-player, while BF3 has (supposedly) better Multi-player.

      1. BF3 > MW3 in regards to multiplayer. No clue on single for BF. No interest. I'll play MW3 multiplayer when nobody is on for BF since I've maxed my engineer and tanks :)Sent from my iPhone 4

      2. From what I've heard, BF3's single player is decent. The plot is better than MW3's, but there's all sorts of problems. For instance, there are WAAAY too many Quick-Time Events, ranging from "Press this button to stop peeing (or die)" to "Press this button to NOT be killed by a rat". Essentially, too many "Press X to not die" moments.

  3. Im gonna try to buy monopoly streets at 3pm (lightning deal) off the amazon links

    hopefully it wont sell out in like 3 seconds

    1. Did you get it for Xbox or PS3? My wife loves that game and is always looking to play with people online.

      -M

    1. im such a hypocrite, i waited 5 years for skyrim, and i havent even started it yet….

      stuck on demons souls

      2. yeah i meant dark souls, those damn gargoyles at the undead church or whatever its called are kicking my ass

      3. The 2 on the roof that shoot fire?

        Once I got the Drake sword it was easy. I don't know if you call any of this cheating BUT. I stood under the bridge that has that huge dragon on it that shoots fire each time he sees you and shot the dragon's tail with arrows. After a bit he drops the Drake Sword. The game is much better after that. Then I went and bought 999 of the cheapest arrows from the undead merchant in the city.
        Then I went back to the Firelink Shrine campfire. You can go pretty far down near there to some place with a lot of guys that wont attack you (sorry I don't recall names of places). But on the same building you came down there is another door (it seemed like it was completely out of the way and hidden until I saw it the first time) and it leads you to the Valley of the Drakes. Dead guy behind gate has stuff. Cross the small bridge and go left. Cross the long bridge and there is a Dragon that spews acid. You can kill him with about 300 arrows (i'd take more). He doesn't move so you can gete fairly close. The closer you are the more damage arrows do. Point is there is a nice sword in those dead bodies.
        I had already lost so much stuff I just ran in there with the dragon alive and picked up an item and died until I had all 3 things. I died but since you keep equipment it was okay.

        Finally I did exploit part of the game. Run in circles in the forest and get people to run off the cliff for 7000 souls each time. Talk about fast souls!

        Entire point to the story (that was clear as mud) was once I got the Drake sword and killed that second dragon AND got extra souls I was able to grade the Drake sword with the dragon scale and upgrade my armor. Upgrading a shield to +5 helps A LOT.

        Every person I couldn't go toe-to-toe with was easier at a distance with arrows. The guy that kills you in 1 hit with that mallet can be lured outside long enough for 2 arrows or fire bombs. He has a nice ring on.

        I could go on all day about that game…..now I want to drop skyrim and play Dark Souls

      4. Oh I spent 2-3 hours under the bridge killing that dragon with arrows after I got the Drake sword. Shoot him once and he flies away. While he is landing you can shoot him again and he finishes landing. Shoot him again and he flies away again. It take patience but he is guarding a very convenient camp fire

      6. got past the damn gargoyles, beat that damn butterfly, now im stuck fighting the capra demon. He seems easy enough, but after awhile of playing, i seem to lose my patience. I need to reset my frustration level occasionally.I wont be stuck here long.

        My problem with the drake sword is that i killed that damn merchant, and no one has a bow for sale. Then i need to go down to darkroot basin and maybe do the same thing you did in order to farm souls for 7k a piece.

      7. ok nevermind, i found a bow in darkroot basin, so ill be going after that dragon, after i kill the hydra

      1. Ah, they're really doing a number on my health bar! I better get some regenerative drinks… *goes to kitchen and grabs Mountain Dew*

      2. I better be careful not to get caught up in the crossfires of that Fanboy War up ahead… NO! Don't get distracted by TV Tropes! Carry on…

  11. My brother's getting a 250 GB Xbox 360, bundled with Halo: Reach and Fable III as well as 3 months of Xbox Live and a controller for $200. Good times, good times.

    1. From personal experience; Halo Reach (campaign) is most enjoyed with three or four competent buddies.

      -M

      1. Yeah, but we'll probably have only 2 controllers, so it'll be him and me. I don't mind much, since the other options are a 12-year old and a 10-year old.

      2. Uh, when I said "three or four competent buddies," I think I meant "me and other competent people." Ha, ha. But seriously, I don't think you can even play three or four player Halo Reach local. You're either going to have to do a LAN (if you can still do that) connection or XBL. If you do get Halo Reach and you are on XBL and you do see me online; send me an invite and I'll be happy to join in if it suits you. My only caveat is that I really don't play that game on any difficulty less than Heroic. It gets kind of boring without a proper challenge.

        -M

      3. Um, here's the thing; I'm competent in real life, but in terms of Halo I'd be considered a noob. You'll have to give me time to become competent (like that MW3 commercial, except with a much less awesome training sequence).

      4. The only thing standing between you being a n00b and a season veteran is a simple 80's-style montage.

        [youtube CQvNu8LoTo0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQvNu8LoTo0 youtube]

        By the way, if you haven't seen this movie, please don't ask me what is going on the first ten seconds of the video. If you're over 18, then just watch the movie.

        -M

      5. Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention; my 'tag on XBL is "Silicon Iceman" if you need an extra player in Halo Reach or any other game that I have. Drop me a line whenever. A 24-hour premeditated "heads-up" is preferable. With a wife and kid, a schedule is damn near a necessity.

        -M

      6. Tell me about it.

        My youngest started Kindergarten this year and this is the first time in 9 years that my wife and I have had daylight hours without kids running around.

        We have no idea what to do with the time, we've been trying to work more, but you know how the job thing is.

  12. Arkham City. While I'm at it, I have a bone to pick with Rocksteady and WB Games. You guys messed up on two things: 1) The Riddler's Revenge campaign challenges is the most egregious example of game padding I've seen in years and 2) No counter indicator on harder difficulties takes the skill (and the counter move) out of fighting, which makes trying to use that crucial move an effort in futility. Aside from those two glaring faults, the game is great.

    (details below)…

    1. For those of you who don't know, AA’s and AC’s extra content comes in the form of challenge rooms; half of them for combat, the other half for stealth (predator). These challenge rooms are scenarios taken directly from the game. AC, however, has the additional "campaign challenges" which simply puts a combination of previous combat and/or stealth maps in trios and has you "perfect" them in one go all the while adding modifiers to make it a bit more difficult. The combat and stealth maps, layouts, enemies, weapons, etc. are all exactly the same as the original individual challenges, only now you have to do them all over again as a set. So, not only do you have to do everything twice (three times if you count the single-player game), you have to do them all with the four different characters (Batman, Robin, Catwoman, and Nightwing). That means you have to do each map (and perfect it) 8 times! If this isn't the text-book definition of artificially extending a game's length without any significant effort on the part of the developer" then I don’t' know what is.

    2. The other problem is the "counter" move that is an important part of Batman's combat. You usually fight a group of about 73 people and they will get in hits from everywhere. To give Batman a chance, a blue or yellow indicator will flash over their head letting you know that you can counter that move they are about to hit you with. Blue is for regular counters and yellow is for blade counters which are different controller inputs. The problem is that on the harder difficulties, there is no indicator to let you know that the enemy is about to attack you, so you have to watch the character animations around you to effectively counter properly, however, some bladed weapons (like a broken bottle or shank) is hard to see in the enemy's hand and you only have about one second to react all while trying to concentrate on keeping up your combo and judging their melee distance. It's impossible. Worse, some bladed attackers (ninjas) have bladed weapons but can either be regular-countered or blade-countered depending on their attack, but you have no idea which it is going to be until you are already cut to pieces. This makes the important counter move useless in harder difficulties.

      -M

      1. Okay. I can help you here.

        I speak from experience, it's not impossible and I have the achievement to prove it.

        First off, you could have started the game on easy and it wouldn't have affected your achievements. So it's not the harder difficulty, it's new game + and probably a few of those god damned campaigns where you don't have the indicators. You get used to it after a bit, but you will die more.

        Your right in having to watch the character animations. The knife guys stand differently and if you see him coming late, you may want to dodge instead of counter. Biut either way, gaining the early aggressive advantage is your best scenario. Knock 'em before they have a chance.

        If you are in a combo, the advantage is all you. Spam that Bat Swarm. This is not a combat room so variation bonuses are out the window. Especially if you are up against one of those one armed lieutenants. Punch, punch, punch, bat swarm, repeat and your combo will break 100 easy. Also, don't forget about the gadgets. That gel can be a blessing since it dodges at the same time. And the freeze grenades can really help slow that one guy for a while so you can handle his boys.

        When you were talking about the campaigns, you seriously downplayed the effects of those modifiers. So it's true that they are laid out the same, but some Predator missions you can't use the detective vision and some fight rooms you won't have counter icons or gadgets. The campaign versions are definitely harder. Plus, if your REALLY good, you'll only have 3 tries for the last room in the campaign.

        With Batman, it wasn't so bad. Everybody else… leaves something to be desired. Robin, being my favorite to use thus far (except for Batman of course). Examples: Only Batman and Nightwing have a disrupter. Only Batman and Robin have gel and can glide. Nightwing is the only one with knock-out darts, Robin has this awesome bulletproof shield he can whip out, and Catwoman… well, I got nothing. Batman is the only one with the disarm move. This is what really makes it a game changer. If you thought the guys with zappers and shields sucked before, try it with anyone but Batman.

      2. First, I must say that your 90K+ score on one of the combat challenge maps (I forgot which one) is incredibly impressive. I don't think I've even broken the 40K mark yet on any of the combat rooms, although I've been concentrating more on the predator challenges and I haven't played all the rooms yet. Even in AA, my highest score was around 60K something. I tip my hat to you.

        Second, easy mode is for pussies, although I may be eating those words if I get frustrated enough with the campaign challenges. And, yes, I was referring to New Game +, as that is where my counter frustrations came from. Specifically, the ninja assassins can be regular-countered or blade-countered, but I haven't been able to tell a difference in the character animations to know which one is which (if there is any difference at all). In addition, those bitches are fast and you only have about a second to react, and, yes, I know you can dodge jump over them (which I'm assuming is the standard way of dealing with my predicament), but still, it takes away (or makes it a lot harder to pull off) the blade-dodge disarm move, which is my default move during a blade swipe.

        I honestly haven't thought a lot about my fighting tactics because I'm still kind of half in AA mode. So far, I've been mostly using the same strategies I used in the previous game because old habits are hard to break, I guess. These strategies are obviously not working very well because this is a different game and I'm not doing myself any favors when I forget about the ice grenade or REC blaster (and the disarm move and the multi-ground takedown). In AA, I crutched on the ultra bat-claw. In AC, that strategy goes out the window, so it's just a matter of time learning what works and what doesn't. I will give your tips a try and see if that works for me. If not, I'll do a little tweaking to something more my style, which I like to call the "trying not to suck so much" style.

        I still stand by my statement that the Riddler's campaign challenges are crazy game padding. Your point about being more challenging because of the modifiers is taken, however, it still does not detract from the fact that they are making you do all of the maps twice with each character. Plus, they could have just allowed you to put modifiers on each individual map and that would take care of your argument.

        I haven't really tried any of the challenges with anyone other than Batman. I want to get all of his achievements first, then move onto Catwoman's. I still haven't bought Robin's or Nightwing's bundle pack yet. I'll buy them when they go on sale or I get all of the achievements I can without them. In my opinion, they should have given those two characters a few levels weaving into the single-player story like they did with Catwoman's story. Doing a few levels from their perspective would have really added replay value to the game instead of those stupid campaign challenges that allowed the developers to get away with more "content" without any real extra effort. If they did it with Catwoman, they should have done it with Robin and Nightwing.

        -M

      3. I didn't say you would do it on easy mode, I said you could. Big difference.

        The tactics are a bit more expanded as opposed to different from AA. Use what you know as your broth but spice up the soup with the new flavors. Those ninja chicks are tricky though. They also dodge any gadget you throw at them. I'm not gonna lie and say I didn't die more on new game +, but it is possible. My main strategy was keeping an eye on them and avoiding them until I could hit them with the takedown. If they ran up on me before that, I'd jump away. If 2 of them ran up on me, I knew it was a standard counter so you just double tap Y and scrape them on the curb.

        Mr. Freeze gave me LOTS of trouble on + though. I didn't realize for like 5 hours that you could pause it and review all the moves that take him down. I spent FOREVER experimenting and failing. I'd get him down so that he'd need like 1 more hit and have no idea how to get him with it.

      4. I think you're the first person in history to compare Batman's fighting arsenal with soup. Figure out a way to compare the Green Lantern Corps to a Honda Civic, and you'll be the king of metaphors.

        -M

      5. Well, of the JL members, Superman is your all terrain, super sport hovercarft, Batman is your F150, GL I suppose is a Honda Civic, Wonder Woman is a Corvette, Martian Manhunter is the rare Rolls Royce you only take out of the garage on special occasions, and Aquaman is a Snorkel, useless outside the water.

        How that relates, is up to you, but after this comment, I, may, be, now, known, as, Commaman.

      6. I don't think Mr. Padilla would appreciate you comparing GL directly to a Honda Civic, Commaman (for the record, I said "The Green Lantern CORPS") especially when Batman is an F-150 and Wonder Woman is a Corvette.

        Also, I take offense to what you said about Aquaman since he is a fellow University of Miami alumnus and we look after our own down here, no matter how useless on land they are.

        (Aquaman > Namor)

        -M

      8. I'm 100% done with NG+, so my counter issues are over. The combat wasn't bad since I knew what to expect and I got ready for it, but two boss fights had me enraged: Freeze and Clayface. I figured out that the last fight was just a matter of spamming the Y button instead of fighting and then dodging/throwing the ice grenade. I did die a lot fighting Freeze, but unlike you, I found out about the takedowns when I paused the game during my 1st run and I saw all of the moves. I was like "Oh! O.K. Thank you, Bat-computer" and then it was just a matter of patience. On NG+, I still died because you had to do more takedowns and doing the hard ones made me to fail often. And for some strange reason, I couldn't get the breakable wall stun to work. I did it like 10 times on the 2 breakable walls, but he would still be OK. After the blast, I ran right up hoping to pummel him while he put his gun in my face and sent me straight to hell. Were you able to do that one?

        -M

      9. Yeah. I only did it at the one wall though. I only remember this because there's the window, the grate , and the magnet all in that same little area and it even has a ledge over the whole thing.

        Clayface was a pain in the ass too, I forgot about that. The way I did it is I would fight until he popped up. The second he did, I spammed the grenades and countered the goons until CF became a puddle again.

  13. I'm in the SWTOR beta right now. Good game thus far. Normal bugs and such. However what strikes me about this title which I might get is that Bioware puts TOO much story in an MMO. By too much I mean, dialogue. The quests do not need a 3 minute convo. I've skipped a few of the convos because they were uninteresting and I wanted to see how well quest objectives were laid out. They have a bit of work to do if you skip dialogue.

    I think Bioware gets the RPG part but not the multiplayer part. In an MMO you have to expect that a group will not care if you want to know story or not. Leave the story elements to solo play experiences. So far I'm not seeing a good balance.

    Anyone else in it?

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