What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

[Sumez]

It also seems unsporting to dismiss some of the more active fights against Ganados or Novistadores as "shooting gallery" fights when they're constantly flanking you or dropping off walls

It's not a dismissal, to me it's the game's primary appeal. And I'm certain BIL meant it lovingly as well.

Were talking Blood Bros, Wild Guns, or NAM1975 galleries, not tipping over static bottles in a carnival.

@Sumez, if you can't already see the influence on Gears from RE4 then I'm not sure a pedantic dissection of the game mechanics is gonna do any good.

Uh. Sure, I think if you want to display your character on the screen while you're aiming at enemies, it's better to push them off to the side a bit? Good idea to do that like RE4.
But if you think playing Gears of War feels similar to playing RE4, I'm pretty convinced it's been quite a good while since you've played either

IMO the biggest attraction of RE4 is how much it *doesn't* feel like GOW (and I actually do like those games too)

[Sengoku Strider]

But if you think playing Gears of War feels similar to playing RE4, I'm pretty convinced it's been quite a good while since you've played either

Well, like Rastan said, Cliffy's other big inspiration was Kill.Switch, which...plays almost exactly like Gears of War. The sticky cover system, moving while in cover, off-centre character positioning, dive rolling, it's all there. But whereas that game went ignored because it got lost in a sea of other charmless 6th gen post-9/11 military brownfests, Gears definitely learned from RE4's cinematic, character interaction & horror elements.

[BIL]

I'm certain BIL meant it lovingly as well.

Were talking Blood Bros, Wild Guns, or NAM1975 galleries, not tipping over static bottles in a carnival.

Honestly, I think even RE4's literal Carnival game is pretty rad. Same beefy ballistic heft as the main game, plus a decent chaining system (not unlike that of #1 attraction THE MERCENARIES), with an inexhaustibly gratifying payoff in nailing them crack shots on Salazar's mug before he can get away. (shoot the stars for fireworks! Or the beehive for bees! cute!)

RECORD OF BATTLE (｀w´メ)

Spoiler

ALL caps ERREHTIEM baybee!

[Ed Oscuro]

Poor Sumez - the one time you aren't trying to sell us on an, ahem, unique opinion you still think I'm out to get you Well, maybe I am! Nah, I was referring to a short ranty post from the previous page. The shooting gallery games are good fun. Aiming for high scores are a must; you've got to fill out those bottlecap collections so you can spam the chainsaw sisters screaming! It's incredible how a game so long delayed and retooled ended up with so much content even its its original release.

Time for some reports:

Nightmare Creatures II: Thanks to the developer of Flycast this one should be getting improved FMV performance soon. Unfortunately, this is another extremely disappointing sequel - and the Dreamcast version seems almost completely unenhanced, keeping an exactly PlayStation-like draw distance complete with the fade to black over a few meters. The original design plan was for a two-character epic like the original Nightmare Creatures, perhaps with switchable characters or in RE2 mode. Instead it was whittled down to the story of a dude, his axe, a very badly paced collection of cutscenes imitating a story, and irritating mazes full of backtracking and too few cues. The original Nightmare Creatures seemed to have a bit of ambition to play a like a free-roaming Mortal Kombat and allowed free use of extensive combos and items; this title seems to have a very small number of combos which appear like minor variants of the basic attacks. I also think there was ambition to do some Tomb Raider style platforming; there's swimming, ladders, and the ability to climb ledges from only very precise locations. Kalisto also thought it helpful to offer distinct combat and exploration modes and to automatically switch; the computer usually waits until you're already being attacked to switch over to combat. Even with the limited number of buttons on the Dreamcast controller, it doesn't feel like much of a help. Where and how did Wallace get an axe in his padded cell, anyway?

This may not the worst game Kalisto made - The Fifth Element and Castleween both look really shaky, and neither have Rob Zombie, but even the harsh reviews from back in the day were pretty generous scoring NCII above 50%. Kalisto's New York Race looks like it could be fun; maybe Dark Earth has some of that old Nightmare Creatures charm. Now that this one is done I'm considering trying out Deathtrap Dungeon and Die By The Sword / Draconus.

Van Helsing, Xbox: Finally goes back ingame in the latest build of Xemu! First menu to ingame transition a bit jank but looks and sounds good otherwise. A very promising sign for getting more Xbox exclusives going.

Scooby-Doo Mystery: A random thrift find some years ago, I'm fond of this silly American exclusive platforming/adventure game hybrid. It doesn't really nail the basics of adventure gaming, and it's even worse at platforming with jumps of faith, hard-to-follow room layouts, an inventory that quickly gets clogged with Scooby snacks, and hard-to-use projectile weapons that you can use a limited but hidden number of times. The controller layout is bizarre. Face buttons control running, jumping, throwing, and, of course, sniffing out clues with Scooby. Still, the graphics go a good way towards selling the game. TCRF has notes showing certain puzzle sequences were planned to be more extensive, which explains why the game makes some odd shortcuts here and there, especially in the carnival boss trapping scene. The final version is not OSHA compliant as you have to stand in a certain distance in front of a cannon to load it by throwing the powder and ball in - and all that to "catch" a guy already stuck in glue. I'm just glad I'm not playing the ghastly Rocky & Bullwinkle.

Cold Winter: A PlayStation 2 FPS @ 30FPS. Viewed as a cult classic for some reason. It has some Ideas but still feels a lot like dozens of other "totally not Great War On Terror inspired" games. Vaguely tolerable for the sake of over-the-top cutscenes (early on we are treated to a scene of the Big Bad executing an underling for dropping a box, which is even more hilarious than it sounds) and hacking yourself in an unlimited supply of 40mm grenades.

Speaking of humor and cutscenes: Crime Killer on the PlayStation. Not far enough in to have a real verdict on the gameplay but as a vehicular rehash of some themes from Robocop it seems to hit the mark.

[BIL]

The carny game is a wonderful microcosm of RE4 as a whole. Who's manufacturing all these cutouts? What's the overhead like on those fireworks? Did PETA have anything to say about the poor bees?! All good fun, presented with such flawless deadpan, it wraps back around from the farcical to the comfily mundane, feeling as dustily well-worn as the surrounding world (or perhaps as gaudily indulgent, in the Castle's case). The shooting itself is OFC as sledgehammer/watermelon satisfying as the wider game's, possibly moreso... there's no encroaching pressure from the back and sides, but everybody loves a good Killstreak capped off with a deafening explosion! (which is why I swear by THE MERCENARIES - best of both )

That said, it was the stacks o' cash that got me clearing out the galleries - that and the deepest lore of all those official enemy names!

[Stevens]

I know it's a shooter, but I don't want my OTF homies to miss out on this one. This came out of nowhere and needs to be played.

Galacticon

Cross between Defender, Joust, and maybe a few others I'm missing.

You play as the Galacticon. You can move left, right, up, and down. You can also shoot. Duh!

In each stage there are three transporters that can hold four survivors each. Your goal is to fill each transport, and escape to your ship. The survivors come in three colors - red, blue, and grey. The more survivors you drop at a time the more points you get. This is increased if the survivors are the same color. Drop four of the same for a huge bonus.

The trick is red and blue are enemies and grey is neutral. Grey will join the majority. If you have a grey, 2 blues and a red the blues will kill the red. No bonus. You can drop two red and two blue and they will play nice and you get points. You are made aware of the next color to appear to help you plan.

After you fill the three transports you have to escape the planet and make your way back to your ship. You have to make your way through a an end stage obstacle course of sorts. It plays sort of like a bonus stage, but you can die.

I've only made stage four, but it's addicting. If it came out in 1984 it would be compared to the greats.

It's a whopping $3.99 on Steam and so incredibly worth it.

[BIL]

Sounds rad, and very Jarvis-esque! Thanks for the heads-up!

[Stevens]

I don't know how much traction it will get but dedicated thread is here:

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=70106

[dojo_b]

Galacticon (PC): I'm having a small problem that the game doesn't recognize the top/trigger buttons on my PS4 controller. I fussed with the Steam config-widget to no avail, LMK if anyone has a similar issue/fix. It's certainly still playable.

The Joust design is one of various arcade archetypes that, as a child, I goofed around with for years on primitive DOS-freeware and then Mac-shareware clones (typically purchased in 10-disk collections, going in blind), without any real sense of their origins. The Glypha series was a capable and fun introduction to this one. I doubt I could find the versions of Centipede, Q*Bert, Pengo I played.

[NYN]

Thanks, Sumez. For a new round of

SUMEZ SEZ: Most Legendary Games NOT So Legendary (duh). Games I missed out on for 20+years, but feel unashamed to be painfully pretentious about almost all of them. If you can't see it my way you could be something of a whore. Aaa heh heh heh aaa heh heh heh.

Usually I'd secretly applaud such attitude. For none reason I won't this time.

Your two peaks: GameCube Evil has janky elements and RE4 is NOT scary. Admitting freely that you don't know the origin game the remake is based on you call it broken/faulty/a turd. Jill Sandwich one-time-clear, I may presume? If so, you spoiled yourself. And the other peak: you recognize the invention of brand-new mechanics, yet fail to acknowledge the second theme so close to it, since the new aiming perspective - extreme body horror, not only mutations as previous (mutations I could let slide as "not scary"). Huh? Everyone who reads edgy opinions like these, can easily dismiss them. Very weak.

[Sumez]

This is all cool Ronyn, except I have no clue why you're targeting me. I guess you barely skimmed a post and assumed things?

I said I liked RE4, and had no issue with it not being scary. It was not anything I even brought up, since I don't think it's relevant to the game.
I did mention RE1 not being scary in the context of me getting smarter with the games and now understanding why it doesn't need to be scary to be a horror game.

I absolutely loved the RE1 Remake, and if it weren't for the RE2 Remake, it would absolutely be my favourite in the series so far. I don't know how you got the idea what I would consider it a faulty turd or whatever when the opposite is the case, it was what sparked me to play more of the games.

As for the last couple of lines, I'm not actually sure what you are trying to say at all ("second theme"? "edgy opinions"?), but I'm completely open to engage in dialogue. I like discussing the qualities in games or lack thereof, nothing pretentious about that. And I also don't think any opinion I've expressed has in any way been particularly uncommon. The only real subject of contention has been RE4's inventory system, and it being divisive isn't exactly something new.
I'm glad people are still willing to discuss these games, because like you said I've spent 20+ years not being able to get into them.

[NYN]

Let's kiss and make up.

I "target" you since as you say you haven't had the longest of impressions of these things that are fairly long around now. Yeah, I know about you thinking yourself as some kind of straight-talker. Many know.

I finally managed to claw my way into the RE1 Remake (remastered on PS4, and still looking incredibly beautiful), making it past the janky elements of the game's design, and ultimately learning to understand how the game somehow actually benefits from said jank, resulting in something that absolutely is more than the sum of its parts.

So, when you write "jank" it's meant to underline positive aspects? The "jank" is fun? When I look up jank it stands for anything but.
I think the game is thight or thight enough, with very little to complain about, if one is inclined to find fun in such games.

I can't find a quote where you actually write that 4 is not scary. My take is that the changes for the game from "mutations" or "monsters" in the previous games to full blown distortions of human form bodies (Ganados) is to my mind very scary. It's very much on point since the new aim adresses various target zones, that shooting faster groups as new basic gameplay will be made scarier theme-wise when you learn what animates these poor suckers to their irrational behavior. In short: there's plenty of horror in 4 it only "grows" on the inside and I can't stand folks who just see the max killing and not what exactly it is what they dispose of. A true human puppet, the worst kind of human-made horror. It's what makes The Thing still scary as a movie.

I'm not actually gonna come around in 2022 and try to "fix" RE4, a game that a lot of people already love, but it's hard for me to see things like inventory limitations as anything other than annoyance when they don't actually serve any gameplay purpose.

The 4 remake was announcend some time ago. Maybe all your wishes will be granted. You can tell us all about it 20 years from then.

[Sumez]

Man, you really want to fight :\

So, when you write "jank" it's meant to underline positive aspects? The "jank" is fun? When I look up jank it stands for anything but.
I think the game is thight or thight enough, with very little to complain about, if one is inclined to find fun in such games.

It was just a short summary of the game. It has a lot of awkward elements and randomness to enemy encounters which results in most approaches feeling somewhat inconsistent, whether you're trying to avoid zombies or take them down. Things like the highly impractical camera angles get in the way all the time, and lots of other such things that I think is most easily described as "jank" (as in unoptimal control interfaces you can get around when you are aware of them), but you can call it whatever you like.
It's stuff that would be borderline bad design in any other game, looking purely at it as gameplay mechanics - but in the grand makeup of RE1(Remake) it all manages to work super well in tandem, ensuring the constant feeling that you can never be sure how things are going to work out. And combined with the limited (even if they are plentiful) save items, the game pretty much asks you to eat up mistakes and face the consequences, which creates a fun dynamic of resource management and a super intense pressure, which is what I personally feel qualifies it as a horror game.

I said it's a game that is definitely more than the sum of its parts, and I think that defines it very well. I hoped to find other games in the series (or anywhere really) doing that aspect quite as well, but even though the other games are good for other reasons, REmake seems to be fairly unique, which in itself makes me quite fond of it.

So there you go, a small spoiler for my upcoming "ranking all the RE games" post in 2042

[drauch]

That was the Max Hardcore version of kissing and making up.

[Blackfielding]

Just beaten Dragons Dogma: Dark Arisen, and yeah, I think this has turned into one of my favs.

It has a lot of flaws, mainly the easy difficulty of the main game, but also the lack of a proper story and not having a lot of different locations to visit.

Luckily, the DLC fixes this by just focusing on being a huge dungeon, with a lot of new enemies and bosses, all of them much harder than those of the main game. It kinda feels like Dark Souls, but less slowpaced and more beat-em-up.

In fact, one could think that the main game is like a tutorial for the DLC.

But the flaws don't matter when the game play is so, so good. You have meaty combat, with a good sense of weight and nice physics. Some DMC-like combos, Monster Hunter-like bosses and also a lot of different classes, each with their own abilities.

I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys open world adventures or just action games in general, as you spend most of the time battling foes and that part is fantastic. But if it doesn't fit you then WoW is a safe choice especially if you will use this service https://leprestore.com/wow-us/.

The only problem now is that after 8 years we still don't have Dragons Doma 2

[guigui]

Just beaten Dragons Dogma: Dark Arisen, and yeah, I think this has turned into one of my favs.

Always been interested in this one, but never pulled the trigger. Currently 10€ on the Switch, so it might be now or never.

Do you know if the Switch version is a good port ?
Also, I read that you can have characters playing by themselves in your party, and they make the game very easy. Can you have any kind of control on those characters, like, disabling them ?

[XoPachi]

I'm playing Legend of Kay and I'm just wondering when this game fucking starts...

[Mischief Maker]

Just beaten Dragons Dogma: Dark Arisen, and yeah, I think this has turned into one of my favs.

Always been interested in this one, but never pulled the trigger. Currently 10€ on the Switch, so it might be now or never.

Do you know if the Switch version is a good port ?
Also, I read that you can have characters playing by themselves in your party, and they make the game very easy. Can you have any kind of control on those characters, like, disabling them ?

Yeah, I'm a Dragon's Dogma fan as well. It's like a cross between Dark Souls, Shadow of the Colossus, and Devil May Cry with a splash of Final Fantasy Tactics' job system.

I uninstalled it when big AAA open world games like Horizon came to GOG, but I didn't have as much fun with them.

Shit... I think I'm gonna reinstall it today!

[Lopenator]

I been playing eternal darkness. First time run through. Really enjoying it.

[BurlyHeart]

Feeling a bit under the weather, so wanted to play a non-action game.

Picked up Disco Elysium and thoroughly enjoying it. Some great dialogue and voice acting. Interested to see where the story takes me.

[BulletMagnet]

I'm playing Legend of Kay and I'm just wondering when this game fucking starts...

Chances are you just need to get farther in, as you might only have gotten to, say, Legend of Bee or Legend of Eff and have a ways to go; once you're at Legend of Jay you're almost there.

[Sengoku Strider]

You really have to play through to the finale to properly experience the saga.

[Ghegs]

Finished up Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights at about 17,5 hours for a 100% playthrough.

It's good, but falls short of Hollow Knight. Comparisons are inevitable as there are a lot of similarities in setting (dying kingdom ravaged by infection and attempts to battle against it) and gameplay elements. But Hollow Knight far trumps over Ender Lilies in both map design and world-building. HK's map is bigger and generally more fun to explore, and the way each area of the map is directly and logically connected to other parts of the map is far preferable to EL's "boxes connected by lines" -approach. It made each area (box) feel separate and not really connected to its surroundings. On the plus side, I do like how the game tells you when you've found all the items in an area by changing the box's color. HK's world also feels...alive, and real, so to speak, and despite the map's size you still get the sense that the Hallownest is but a single place in a vaster world, and there's a lot of history to it. Very little of that is present in EL, most of the available lore is directly connected to the events of the game.

I don't think one of the main gimmicks, of being able to find, defeat, and gain access to spirits as weapons was done particularly well. You get new spirits fairly close to the end of the game, but at that point you already have ~25 others at your disposal that you're used to using...so why change to late in the game? And if you've already used your upgrade points on those, you can't bring the latecomer up to speed anyway. I used the spirits I came across in the first hour or two of gameplay for 99.9% of the time and that worked well for me. Maybe if I'd have started New Game+ I would've had a reason to use the others as well.

A few bosses I had to try a couple of times, but none more than five, I think. And the last boss went down on the first attempt, so balancing was maybe a bit iffy. It was certainly no Radiance.

Still a good game overall.

[BrianC]

You really have to play through to the finale to properly experience the saga.

Men in Black go casual and no longer wear mostly black.

[Gamer707b]

Feeling a bit under the weather, so wanted to play a non-action game.

Picked up Disco Elysium and thoroughly enjoying it. Some great dialogue and voice acting. Interested to see where the story takes me.

I thought it was just me. Lol. I've had a cold for a few days and thought that action games like shmups would be too much for my brain. Been playing mostly Eastward. It's an adventure type game for those that don't know, but still had to fire up some Esprade.

[Sengoku Strider]

I've been playing a map or two each evening of Nectaris, AKA Military Madness, on the good ol' Duo-R. This game seemed so awesome back in the day; a friend of mine had it but would never lend it to me. It was clearly Hudson's response to Famicom Wars, and it was very well done in many departments compared to other digital war games of the day.

But in 2022 it comes across as kinda basic. The maps are quite small, only 2-3 screens wide. There's no economy or unit production, the game revolves around seizing factories which are already stocked. I'm about 2/3rds of the way through the 1st route, and I don't know if I just haven't hit a difficulty spike yet, but the AI seems kind of dumb. There have been multiple times where I've tried something to see if it would work (Now that I've moved this gun emplacement out of this factory deep behind my own lines can I move it again at all? Nope. Oops.) which resulted in what could have been a fatal mistake. But even though the AI had me dead to rights, it still played a slow roll in seizing turf when it should have, while it jumped at other opportunities that killed its momentum. Like breaking through my defences and seizing my factory, even though I still have it surrounded and can seize it right back on the next turn. Including one of his only remaining occupation-capable motorcycle squadrons inside.

That said, things move at a brisk enough pace that it's still fun, and the units are cool enough that I end up getting attached to some of them, focusing on levelling them up (which sadly isn't persistent between maps) & staging hero moments for them . There is a PCE-CD based sequel, which we only got the PSX port of in the West. I'll check that out down the line, but before then I've got Macross Eternal Love Song coming, a Macross based strategy game. Had we known this existed in high school my friends and I would have geeked out so hard. I have Ghiren's Ambition on Saturn but I was never much of a Gundam guy. But when I found out about Eternal, it was the very first thing I went for in my next Yahoo Auctions venture.

[null1024]

Decided to play some Armored Core [PS1] again.

People do complain about the controls, and like... I can't say they're entirely wrong. Took me like 15 minutes of faffing around before it clicked.
Also, thank god for remapping, I don't think I can go back to games without strafe movement on the left stick/d-pad. This actually severely affects how much I like the PS1 Ghost in the Shell game. It would basically be perfect with d-pad strafe.
Turning speed is terrible, and it's not even remotely reasonable how much it sucks. You can mitigate this a lot by just buying a better generator so you can boost all the time and just navigate so you rarely have to turn in pitched combat, but it does suck.

The game is still a ton of fun. Mech games can still get over being a bit clunky here and there just by virtue of them being mech games. The clunkiness is a deliberate aspect of the machine, or at least you can pretend it is.
It really does get way better once you can just boost for very extended periods of time.
I also really like how turbo-mercenary all the missions make you feel. Right from the start, too.
Do you want shoot at some squatters, or do you want to break up a strike with your mech? Who cares about doing what is right, you're in it for the money, and so is everyone else in the organization.

One mission was a total asspain, where you had to defend some train as it refueled while flying craft cheerfully show you the meaning of air superiority since you simply cannot turn fast enough to reliably track them. I ended up buying a new generator, which allowed me to boost atop one of the mountains and cheese them.
I'd managed to kill all the fliers quite a few times retrying the mission before this, but like, fighting the AC that shows up once the train pulls in while you have like 800 health left is painful. Still lost a ton of health the time I finally cleared it, but most of my damage ended up being from the AC.

[XoPachi]

I put 100 hours on Skyrim over the last 2 months. I think I mentioned this. But now I think the game's outright spoiling me. It's not perfect by ANY means. It's janky and very fucking ugly. But the core design pillars are so strong that it's making me disgusted with certain other games.

Skyrim I wander for maybe 3 minutes tops. I see ruins on my compass with no quest active.
I enter and suddenly hear "turn back..." but I push on anyway. I turn around and there's a ghost woman suddenly behind me. Failing to convince me to leave, she decides to let me help find something with her. So we go through the dungeon together. We find her corpse and her journal which leads us to more clues about the depths of where I'm at. I solve a puzzle at the end that would have some mysterious consequences if I fucked up. Having solved it and handsomely rewarded, it turns out there's more to what's going on beyond this dungeon. I'll need the ghost's journal and parse the map she made to find 2 other items that unlocks a new location.
Storied, thematic, and mysterious. A unique adventure awaits me! Exciting!

Let's log on PSO2 New Genesis to see what updates It's got....

"kiLL 300 rAre enEmiEs!!!1"

Oh...

[To Far Away Times]

I wish more open world games were about rewarding wanderlust like Skyrim is. I never knew what I was going to be doing, but I'd always stumble upon something interesting or find something cool. Just exploring that map aimlessly and wandering is so much fun. It's not a checklist game of finding flags and trinkets and crossing off lists. The exploration itself is the reward.

I put ~350 hours into it between two characters. And I am not the type of person to sink a ton of time into one game.

Breath of the Wild does the wanderlust thing well too. Those are my two favorite open world games by a mile.

[XoPachi]

I wish more open world games were about rewarding wanderlust like Skyrim is. I never knew what I was going to be doing, but I'd always stumble upon something interesting or find something cool. Just exploring that map aimlessly and wandering is so much fun. It's not a checklist game of finding flags and trinkets and crossing off lists. The exploration itself is the reward.

I put ~350 hours into it between two characters. And I am not the type of person to sink a ton of time into one game.

Breath of the Wild does the wanderlust thing well too. Those are my two favorite open world games by a mile.

Wild put me to sleep.

But I've been really tearing into Skyrim again. Its funny because I only got cosmetic mods. People swear you need like 500 different things to make the game worth playing and I just disagree. If the game wasn't gross to look at, I wouldn't need to mod it at all.