Caltrops - Rants





	[quote name="curst"][quote name="FABIO"]TOO much running around for my taste, is this a battle or a marathon? Can you PLEASE make the horses faster than your average jogger?[/quote] Red Hare and Hex Mark are the only horses worth getting - so you gotta make it a point to get at least one the special items that let you use them all the time. Once you get one of those saddles, you'll find it INCREDIBLY useful for slow characters on the larger maps. I just wish mounted attacks weren't so pussified, and that it wasn't so easy to first get knocked off and then lose your horse. [quote name="FABIO"]The game gets ten times better once you switch the voices from English to Japanese.[/quote] Hell yes. I appreciate their attempts at recreating Black Belt Theatre with the English voices, but that shit gets old eventually. Xiahou Dun's Japanese voice is absolutely sinister - great stuff. And now that I know Cao Cao is definitely not pronounced "Cow Cow", hearing the English voices just makes me cringe. Some of the worst voice-acting EVER. [quote name="FABIO"]Also, do I just suck or is blocking (L1 button) totally useless (it only blocks about 10% of the time for me)?[/quote] You suck. I don't know what to tell you other than make sure you're not completely surrounded when you try blocking, otherwise obviously someone's gonna nail you from behind. Then, remember to hit Square right after you successfully block an attack, and you'll likely knock them off balance and get to counter. I can't imagine surviving duels against most tough generals on Hard difficulty without using blocking all the time and going for the "power" blocks that let you counter. [quote name="FABIO"]And does anyone know any difference between swords, spears, and pikes? I got the impression that they got slower to swing but a longer reach as you progressed from sword to pike. On that note, are crossbows just more powerful bows with a slower rate of fire?[/quote] You mean for the bodyguards, right? I'm not sure what the difference between swords, pikes and spears are. However, in the XL expansion, the manual mentions that bows allow bodyguards to block attacks, whereas crossbows do not. I'm not sure if this holds true for the original game or not. If I had to guess, I'd say that pikes do the greatest damage, spears give them the best "clearing out crowds" capability, and swords are the fastest and probably best against individuals. Frankly, I just give them bows all the time. Then again, that's because the XL expansion lets you order your bodyguards to "shield" you, where they'll refuse to attack and simply block everything they can. Their defense rating SKYROCKETS when you order them to do this, keeping them alive much longer, so you can afford to give them bows because they have a much greater chance of surviving and getting experience even if they don't get any kills. In the original game, I think it's a good idea to give them crossbows when they're real weak (so that they'll do at least a little damage before they get inevitably slaughtered), then move to bows when they can take a decent amount of damage. I never gave them melee weapons because when you take on generals, you want to kill them with at least a 16-hit combo (or a combo that gives you at least 60 combo points when playing the expansion), so that you get better powerups. [quote name="FABIO"]The coin-op verson of Aliens vs. Predator is still my favorite beat 'em up ever.[/quote] Just wait until DW4 in late March. JUST WAIT, MAN, IT'LL KICK AVP'S ASS. (I wouldn't get the expansion, at least not for $50. I bought my friend's copy for $20 after his PS2 refused to play it, while it worked fine on mine. No idea what happened there. DW4 is going to add at least one really interesting (not sure about "promising", though) feature - siege weapons, everything from portable bridges to catapults to what I think are called arbalests - basically huge crossbows that fire multiple rounds in succession. Apparently you can move them around on the field as you see fit - they aren't just set in one spot the way they are in the few DW3 levels that have them. Also - the number of levels is going up from 23 to 50. <B>FIFTY</B>. Goddamn. And the new characters should be pretty good. I have no idea <a href='http://www.kongming.net/dw4/portraits.html'>what the fuck that is</a> Cao Ren is wielding, but it looks nifty.[/quote]