What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

[Steamflogger Boss]

Pandora's Tower

Fantastic video game.

[To Far Away Times]

Spent the day playing racing games. 1CC'd all the 5 endings in Outrun arcade (normal difficulty settings). I played for like 4 hours getting nowhere, got real upset with myself because I coulda sworn I was better at it before, came back to it, did all the endings pretty quick. Funny how a break will remove the stress. Aggressively hard braking was working way better for me than feathering the throttle was.

Also 1CC'd with all the cars in Outrunners. They're all mostly useful. You've got Mad Power and Speed Buster with lots of forgiving top speed to get extra time around corners (Mad Power's better as it doesn't have as much speed loss and acceleration issues IMO), you've got the balanced cars Easy Handling, Smooth Operator, Bad Boy, the super good handling Quick Reactor, the gimmicky Wild Chaser which goes faster when offroad and is kinda bad otherwise... and then there's Road Monster.

Road Monster is garbage. Its acceleration sucks. Its handling sucks. Its top speed sucks. If you tap the brake, it takes way too long to recover its speed. Hardest of the 1CCs (eventually got it with the Switzerland route) by a massive margin. Why does it even exist in this game?? :S

I had nearly the same experience with the original Outrun. "It shouldn't be this hard, its a short game, and I know what I'm doing..." Took a break for a bit and came back to it and just started tearing through it and 1CC'ing all the tracks with ease. I think it takes a little bit for the mechanics to really sink in, but once it does the game is pretty breezy (pun fully intended). Its a really wonderful series. I really wish there were more Outrun games. I've played them all to pieces except for Turbo Outrun, but I don't know... something's a little off with that game.

[Marc]

Spent the day playing racing games. 1CC'd all the 5 endings in Outrun arcade (normal difficulty settings). I played for like 4 hours getting nowhere, got real upset with myself because I coulda sworn I was better at it before, came back to it, did all the endings pretty quick. Funny how a break will remove the stress. Aggressively hard braking was working way better for me than feathering the throttle was.

Also 1CC'd with all the cars in Outrunners. They're all mostly useful. You've got Mad Power and Speed Buster with lots of forgiving top speed to get extra time around corners (Mad Power's better as it doesn't have as much speed loss and acceleration issues IMO), you've got the balanced cars Easy Handling, Smooth Operator, Bad Boy, the super good handling Quick Reactor, the gimmicky Wild Chaser which goes faster when offroad and is kinda bad otherwise... and then there's Road Monster.

Road Monster is garbage. Its acceleration sucks. Its handling sucks. Its top speed sucks. If you tap the brake, it takes way too long to recover its speed. Hardest of the 1CCs (eventually got it with the Switzerland route) by a massive margin. Why does it even exist in this game?? :S

I had nearly the same experience with the original Outrun. "It shouldn't be this hard, its a short game, and I know what I'm doing..." Took a break for a bit and came back to it and just started tearing through it and 1CC'ing all the tracks with ease. I think it takes a little bit for the mechanics to really sink in, but once it does the game is pretty breezy (pun fully intended). Its a really wonderful series. I really wish there were more Outrun games. I've played them all to pieces except for Turbo Outrun, but I don't know... something's a little off with that game.

Was always a weird one for me OutRun. Even when I finally got the Saturn version, I was reluctant to put in too much time to really learn because it was just such a formative game for me that I never wanted to burn out on it.

The Switch version was the first one where I really thought I'm getting to the age where, if that was to happen, at least I've done it. It's currently about the sixth most-played game on my system, with only a handful of Nintendo titles, Lumines, Fortnite (my boy), and more recently, Capcom Arcade Stadium above it. Not bad for a 35 year old coin-op.

Having said that, they've patched it to stop it wiping the hi-score table since I last booted it so I really should pick it back up

Sigh, every time this comes up, it reminds me of the rapidly-diminishing chances of an OutRunners port.

[guigui]

My experience with Outrun Arcade is :
* try, dont get to the first checkpoint. Bah I must have lost too much time in corners and bumping other cars.
* try again, dont get to the first checkpoint. I was better though, will try again.
* try again, dont get to the first checkpoint. I was better though, will try again.
* try again, dont get to the first checkpoint. I was better though, will try again.
* try again, get what I think is a perfect first segment : not getting out of the road, no bumping, no stunts. Dont get to the first checkpoint. Turn off the game.

Am I missing something ??

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I really wish there were more Outrun games. I've played them all to pieces except for Turbo Outrun, but I don't know... something's a little off with that game.

I think it's because it feels too over the top. The massive number of obstacles, the dashing, the shop thing (which ones are best to get?). The track design isn't always great, there's some incredibly nasty tight turns that aren't as well telegraphed, and at times the boost mechanic seems like it's there to bait you into crashing into these. It's a lot more complex and demanding than even the drifting in 2 / 2SP is, so it's much more of a racing game, rather than a driving game like its predecessor.

* try again, get what I think is a perfect first segment : not getting out of the road, no bumping, no stunts. Dont get to the first checkpoint. Turn off the game.

Am I missing something ??

The gear shift, maybe? I'm not trying to be sarcastic, are you aware there's a 2-gear shifter you need to setup if you're playing it in an emulator? The game doesn't have an ingame gear indicator like Outrunners. Maybe you're on a weird version of an emulator that doesn't use the Low/High thing MAME overlays at the bottom right to show the position of the shifter? You should have enough time in Outrun Arcade that with a serious crash you'll still hit the first checkpoint, and your max speed at top gear is about 293 km/h (183 km/h or so is top on low gear?).

Here's a picture of Turbo Out Run, MAME displays the same shifting icon at the bottom right on top of the course route icon for Out Run unless somehow you can accidentally disable the overlay.

Outrunners is the first game in the series that, when playing Manual transmission (which gives a boost to top speed), there's an actual gear shift indicator on the screen at the bottom right.

[BIL]

I've done the "driving in low gear, holy fuck this is impossible" thing, can confirm.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I've found some emulator footage recorded without that shifter icon, so it makes sense that some people aren't going to be aware there's a physical shifter you had to use if the emulator doesn't provide its own virtual indicator over the game screen. Home console ports such as the Genesis one do add a gear indicator though.

[Steamflogger Boss]

Yeah you have to be missing something because when I really got into that game I completely smashed it and cleared every single route permutation. It's not that hard, because I am not very good at video games.

[guigui]

Huum, at least it looks like I'm in the same category as BIL, which is good.

I'll have to check that gear shift. I tried it on the Sega Saturn, various emulators, and on the Nintendo Switch iirc, never saw a gear shift

[BareKnuckleRoo]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4E4wU08oSB4

See where just to the right of the speed indicator or km/h it says LOW or HI? That's where the gear indicator is in the Switch version. There's a button that toggles between gears.

The Sega Genesis and Game Gear ports just put an icon beside your speed that says L or H depending on if you're in low or high gear.

[Sumez]

My experience with Outrun Arcade is :
* try, dont get to the first checkpoint. Bah I must have lost too much time in corners and bumping other cars.
* try again, dont get to the first checkpoint. I was better though, will try again.
* try again, dont get to the first checkpoint. I was better though, will try again.
* try again, dont get to the first checkpoint. I was better though, will try again.
* try again, get what I think is a perfect first segment : not getting out of the road, no bumping, no stunts. Dont get to the first checkpoint. Turn off the game.

Am I missing something ??

The replicates every experience I've ever had with Outrun.
I've passed the second checkpoint once ever, with barely a second to spare, and I have no idea what I did different.

And yes, I do go into the high gear as soon as it's viable.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

My suggestion then would be to record footage to watch, that's the best way to analyze how you're playing and where to improve. If it's emulation you're doing, you want to make sure controls are registering and setup properly so you're hitting the max speeds, turns and braking are responsive, etc. My problem was always learning to deal with the traffic, and learning that it's better to brake very hard then accelerate through the turn rather than trying to slow down modestly mid turn.

[Sumez]

I've usually been playing on the standup cabinet variant. Most recently though it was the port included in Yakuza 0.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Record yourself playing and we'll see what's happening.

The standup cab, if it's one you have access to the test menu, you can also check the difficulty settings to see if they're non default.

[WelshMegalodon]

The replicates every experience I've ever had with Outrun.
I've passed the second checkpoint once ever, with barely a second to spare, and I have no idea what I did different.

And yes, I do go into the high gear as soon as it's viable.

Do you usually go right or left at the first fork? When I was getting into the game, I found that I was able to get through the former much more consistently. This goes for both track layouts.

I've done the "driving in low gear, holy fuck this is impossible" thing, can confirm.

As have I. Outrun taught me that the first step to not making a fool of yourself is to always thumb through the manual, no matter how simple a game looks.

[Marc]

I play on default settings on Switch, from what I remember it's pretty consistent to the Yakuza 0 machine. I know Yakuza 6 has different variations of each machine difficulty-wise though, and the harder revisions there I did think were genuinely impossible without the shitty gear-shifting tactics I've seem on replays. I still find the OutRun 'lets compare / port wars' videos the most interesting of the bunch, such a variation on how they were handled.

[Blackfielding]

I play a lot of turn-based RPGs too, some of which are indeed almost all combat. I don't mind a lot of combat when it is good, but Fallout's isn't, my opinion. The problem is that there are basically two tactics worth using: 1) shoot the other guy as fast as you can and try to kill them before they kill you or, 2) if they're a melee fighter, you spend most of your turns tediously staying out of their reach and only attack when it's safe. It's also a giant luckfest where you can get instant killed by a crit at basically any time. It's around the level of most Final Fantasies where you just attack until it's time to cast cure and that's the whole game. Even its fans seem to notice that it isn't a very good combat system - notice how every time they tell someone about the game they'll be sure to mention the 30 second segment where you can convince the Master to kill himself, but you'll hear hardly a word about the hours of mindless fighting.

I mostly play stuff like WoW where positioning and resource management are way more consequential than in your typical RPG. I like that thanks to certain services I can greatly improve my reputation and spend as little time on that as possible.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

As have I. Outrun taught me that the first step to not making a fool of yourself is to always thumb through the manual, no matter how simple a game looks.

I was looking up videos of an old MS-DOS game, Snarf, where you run around with arrow keys and shoot with WASD, and the first two videos I found appear to be totally unaware you can shoot. Despite the character sprite carrying what looks like a weapon and the game being included with a text file as a manual. Ah well!

[Sumez]

ScourgeBringer is one of those neat little games that make me realize how much great stuff is actually out there that I'll never find the time to try out, or even hear about. I only came across it by random accident when I found out Play-Asia was making a super cheap "limited edition" release for Switch, and I just checked out some footage and thought it looked cool enough. I had a bunch of (to me) unknown titles with new physical releases added to my basket, but this was the only one that survived a heavy purge, and so far it seems like a solid choice.



It's kinda "Indie Game: The Game", featuring the typical modern stylized pixel art with a Binding of Isaac inspired "roguelike" formula, with a persistent skill tree of unlockable passive abilities. But where a big part of the new roguelike indie wave seems to focus a lot on the randomization aspect of the idea, ScourgeBringer in many ways feels more like an arcade game.
It's hard to say exactly what makes the difference, because it really is the Isaac recipe over again. But at the core of the game is a heavily tactical, fast paced action combat system, which sees your character moving around almost freely and able to quickly slash up any enemy that gets in your way - The primary challenge comes from dealing with other enemies that want to fire at you while you are busy elsewhere. So there's a good mix of using the room layouts to your advantage, crowd control, and timed dodging or reflecting of projectiles. You got a quick dash move, but thankfully no invincibility frames, which gives the game a much higher focus on movement than what you'd normally see in these kinds of games.
Watching people play the game really looks like chaotic button mashing, but once you manage to learn different enemy types and really ace taking out a room, it feels super good.

Spoiler

I'm liking it a much better than the conceptually similar Enter the Gungeon or Dead Cells, which never managed to grab me.

[BrianC]

As have I. Outrun taught me that the first step to not making a fool of yourself is to always thumb through the manual, no matter how simple a game looks.

I was looking up videos of an old MS-DOS game, Snarf, where you run around with arrow keys and shoot with WASD, and the first two videos I found appear to be totally unaware you can shoot. Despite the character sprite carrying what looks like a weapon and the game being included with a text file as a manual. Ah well!

The game looks similar to Tutankham, but with a life meter and 4 way shooting.

[Marc]

I normally pretty much ignore hype of any sort, my dalliance with Cyberpunk aside (what can I say, I'm desperate for another Deus Ex-type game), but I've heard so much about it that I gave into curiosity and picked up Disco Elysium.

I played an hour last night so hard to comment on it as a game - at the moment it's coming across as a classic LucasArts point & click with light RPG elements - but my god, the writing is already on a different level from 99% of games I've played. I'm really looking forward to spending a large chunk of time on this over the weekend.

[vol.2]

it's coming across as a classic LucasArts point & click with light RPG elements

Like, as in inventory puzzles?

[Marc]

Yeah seems to be so far.

[ED-057]

Currently playing the first of three games that I got from a GOG sale last month. Mary Skelter: Nightmares, Tokyo Xanadu eX+, and Ys 8 (which I heard works on Phenom II after all, although by the time I get around to it I may actually upgrade).

Mary Skelter is a harem anime dungeon crawler. Has the usual Compile Heart ecchi silliness. Also the elemental affinity system that can be safely ignored. It's not a bad game but could have been better if not for some balance issues. In addition to the element system, there is also a jobs system where the only benefits to ever using more than one or two jobs seem to be unlocking a bunch of redundant skills and getting to see different costumes for the anime babes. Beyond the very beginning, every encounter (except bosses) is against multiple enemies and skills that hit multiple targets generally do plenty of damage and cost little more SP than skills hitting one target. So as soon as you have each party member equipped with an attack that hits everyone and pumped up their agility so you get the first move then the enemies can just be wiped out before they do anything. There are various skills and items related to status effects, but they are again largely irrelevant so far. I think I've been poisoned or put to sleep once each during the entire game (I just cleared the dorm at this point). Oddly enough, the boss sequence at the temple was totally different and far more difficult than anything else I encountered. Took several tries to clear that. Since the game allows you explore the tower early, I can go in there and get (often) destroyed by high-level enemies and if I'm lucky find better loot. That provides a nice change of pace over effortlessly mowing everything down in the dorm.

[Mero]

Been playing my PC Engine Mini recently and managed to get the clear on Splatterhouse. Final score 241k.

I don't know if the actual gameplay is any easier than AC but it is easier because you start off with more health and it gives you back 2 health at the end of each stage.

Played this with manual fire even though I could have easily flicked it on, auto isn't neccessary for this though the stage 6 boss does take a lot of hits.

[Marc]

Xenon Racer. Seems to have flown under the radar and garner mostly middling reviews, which is quite a shame. On PS Pro at least, it a gloriously colourful futuristic Ridge Racer rip-off, with handling to match. It all initially feels too heavy, but get used to juggling the brake and acceleration properly and there it's possible to pull off slides that would make RR blush. The course design so far seems to be pretty well designed around it, with only a few corners that feel impossible to navigate at the moment due to your innate weight when not sliding, but that might still be down to me at this point.

It's not god-tier by any means, but for the fiver I paid, I'd recommend giving it a whirl. I'm pleasantly surprised.

[Ghegs]

^ Xenon Racer was fun, but it was much too easy. The AI doesn't put up a challenge at all.

[Marc]

It's kicking my ass ATM, but I'm still getting used to the handling. The cars are really heavy in the vein of something like Split/Second, up until you coax them into a drift.

First couple of races were spent lagging in 3rd/4th, but I'm getting there.

[vol.2]

^ Xenon Racer was fun, but it was much too easy. The AI doesn't put up a challenge at all.

lol. I've seen your youtube videos. You make the most difficult racing sims look easy.

I'm back to playing Dirt Rally (the first one). I improved my steering wheel mount and pedal setup a little bit and it's less frustrating now. I'm able to place 4th sometimes, but it's still a very tough game for me. The tracks are riddled with hairpins and the controls are unforgiving. If you lose control even a little bit (at speed) you might as well restart. ATM I'm employing a "tap the gas" tactic to maintain control coming out of turns or after taking air on a jump. Strategic nudging of the ebrake has also proven very useful.

[Ghegs]

^ Xenon Racer was fun, but it was much too easy. The AI doesn't put up a challenge at all.

lol. I've seen your youtube videos. You make the most difficult racing sims look easy.

Now that's a lie, but I appreciate the thought.