What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

[Sir Ilpalazzo]

http://www.twitch.tv/sirilpalazzo/c/4230151

Pulled off a one-credit clear of The Punisher. I actually managed a no-miss all the way up to the final boss. I think I could manage a no-miss with more practice but I think I'm going to switch games instead.

[Mortificator]

Frank approves.

[Ed Oscuro]

I was going to say "that's racist," and then I opened and read the panels.

[Ruldra]

I decided to take up BIL's challenge and now I'm working on a Shadow Dancer no death/no ninjutsu/no shuriken clear on hardest difficulty.

Aaaaaand it's done: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Abg3OfDcb6U

Toward the end my heart was racing and had some close calls in rooms 3 and 5. But other than that, everything went down nicely. Also worth mentioning that I had to play on a 320x240 screen to ensure a smooth recording.

That was a pretty fun challenge. Thanks for the idea BIL

[BIL]

I'd expect no less from a charter member of the system11 Ryukenden Task Force

[iconoclast]

Played through Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D. I liked the dungeons (for the most part), graphics/art, music, and general atmosphere of the game, but the combat was incredibly boring, the bosses were too simple, and there's some tedious design here and there that hurts the game a bit. Exploration also seems to be one of the biggest draws of the series, but the problem with that are the rewards. Why should I spend time searching for secret areas and completing sidequests when all I ever get for it are rupees and heart pieces, both of which are completely worthless? There's no incentive. I don't want to sound too negative, though, because I did like the game overall. It was good, not great.

[broken harbour]

Played through Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D. I liked the dungeons (for the most part), graphics/art, music, and general atmosphere of the game, but the combat was incredibly boring, the bosses were too simple, and there's some tedious design here and there that hurts the game a bit. Exploration also seems to be one of the biggest draws of the series, but the problem with that are the rewards. Why should I spend time searching for secret areas and completing sidequests when all I ever get for it are rupees and heart pieces, both of which are completely worthless? There's no incentive. I don't want to sound too negative, though, because I did like the game overall. It was good, not great.

I felt mostly the same about OOT when I played it a few months back, just a bit too tedious, and the Water Temple made me rage.

Still enjoyed it, mostly.

[soprano1]

Been a while...
Decided to try out the Gamecube library, so i got a controller and a memory card to play on my sister's Wii. Right now i'm really liking Luigi's Mansion and Paper Mario Thousand Year Door, so i'll play those for now.

[President_Obama]

Killer 7

[gbaplayer]

Treasure Hunter G (SNES/SFC)

2 hours into it since yesterday, totally awesome.

[null1024]

Shadow Dancer [Genesis].
almost the only game I've been playing recently, heh

FINALLY MADE IT TO 4-2!

The darkness is really cool, but it kind of ensures the stage is a screaming cauldron of death.
"okay, I'm going to kill this guy, back up so the red ninja doesn't hit me"
"er, where's the red-OH SHIT" and then I die

Also, I still can't do 4-1 without dying (that staircase with the police firing is awful). Getting better though, and I can usually make it all the way to 4-1 without dying once (I might die on 2-3 still, fuck that boss's hands, sometimes I get really lucky and have no worries, sometimes they just spawn around me and I have no hope; I did figure out how to do 3-3's boss without much effort, but it's slow).

[Ed Oscuro]

Finally finished up Drakan: The Ancient's Gates. Why do I do this to myself? Put this one in the "coulda been great, well, maybe, not really because it lacked a focus on being great, and also glaring money issues" pile. It does some things excellently, and is a great upgrade in a number of small ways over the original PC game - but it still doesn't do basic things right and that makes it tedious. In fact, as I was glancing occasionally at this rather poorly-written guide, I had reason to wonder if the later PAL version wasn't slightly expanded and possibly bugfixed over the NTSC release, but even that release is buggy and lacks focus.

What does it do right? Well, the scenery is pleasant to see, at least on first viewing, and occasionally it does present some nice vistas. Exploration is a big focus here, with lots of out-of-the-way places to look at. I had some fun jumping around the corners of a square "dead realm" map floating in space, at the end of which there's a stairway leading to a throne which rises from the air deep below - but if you run over the corners of the map you'll find goodies in both directions. Thoughtful, though it was frustrating not to get over to another flat area I could see just beyond. Additionally, it was amusing to be able to jump onto that rising platform without triggering the cutscene normally played, and triggering it by walking down the stairs instead of up. Maybe I should've tried killing the enemies before the cutscene...

There's a lot of characters in this game and some of them have great dialogue, although not much of it. Many refuse to talk to you again, while others just repeat one or two lines. Still there are some great characters in here, like the Surdana blacksmith who always made the trek worthwhile with some quip or other. Occasionally you'll find other characters going through semi-comic routines as well.

What's not so great? Well, the great scenery doesn't go so far when most of the game is populated by some combination of grassy hills, icy mountains, stone ruins, and caves or stone crypts - an almost identical clone of the original game, but now with pop-in and a heat distortion effect over torches. Hooray. Near the endgame, you go to a "desert," which is just a valley with sand in place of the usual grass, and some crazy music. A bit later than that you go through a bunch of Arabic-themed passages in the game's final dungeon. Neat, but still cookie-cutter stuff.

The exploration is largely rendered meaningless when money doesn't seem terribly useful, and when it's not possible to convert every item to cash, and when attempting to use weapons you find is usually not a good idea since most are much worse than your best weapons. There are two individual weapons in the game that outclass all the others - one of these is simply found, and the other is bought after you find (after spending a very long time and besting a few terribly obscure puzzles with no directions to speak of) four lousy blades, and once you bring all of these to your friendly / insane local Surdana blacksmith, the best weapon anticlimactically drops into his inventory. Unless you are wasting a lot of money somehow, like maybe on restocking bows, I didn't find many uses for money aside from rare armor upgrades. I dragged everything I could out of dungeons (in some cases even trekking all the way through dungeons multiple times to gather everything) and ended the game with a huge pile of money which I didn't need.

Combat has a lock-on, but even that doesn't say it all. Combat balance is only good so far as that you can't survive on one skill alone. You get points after killing tons of monsters, and you can drop these points into melee weapons, archery, or magic - using particular items requires a basic level in each skill. Beyond that, the system is incomprehensibly designed. You can plop all your points into melee combat, and by endgame you probably can get away with this - except you will still find many, many cases where you'd rather zap an enemy from safety rather than charging out and taking arrows or fireballs to the chest. There won't be many points left over for the useful ranged skills, and to add insult to this injury, the game's ultimate weapon has no minimum skill requirement, just like in 1999! You can slash your way through most of the game with a sword with only a 3 melee skill requirement, though I did find that using high-skill weapons in addition to the ultimate weapon helped me save that weapon for when it was needed.

Even worse, melee weapons degrade rather quickly, so you'll need to balance that with something else. Quivers run dry, and magic takes forever and a day to recharge (I didn't find the hotslot / "quick" item use functionality very helpful or quick enough to use in combat, and it's always amusing to see your heroine frozen solid while she's just about got a health potion to her lips). The game is rather keen to present all kinds of opportunities to play boringly - you can lock on and run tight circles around some enemies while you chip at their hamstrings, and whether they can hit you or not is sometimes a matter of inches, and not very intuitive to deal with. You can use shields, but I don't think those are going to help much against AOE attacks. You can hit enemies with a sword through gratings and solid doors, with the occasional result that they pop right on through and get in some whacks of their own, but it's far more common to see an enemy stumped by a lone torch or pile of boxes, or circle back and forth on a high hill with a clear path around to you. You can even zap enemies through solid walls with many of the dragon's breath weapons, and your own character's lightning spell also can shock enemies repeatedly through stone barriers, or across great distances, without even alerting them. Too many opportunities to just zap them with low level magic over, and over, and over again, and then some more, and then some more, until they die. Better yet, the game often puts boxes or cliffs around which allow you to zap an enemy from complete safety, and the game is designed this way! You need it, because your character can't move while casting magic. You need magic (or maybe arrows) because melee is not necessarily the best way to go through much of the game. The bugs only multiply the opportunities for playing tediously. Oh, and somewhere in here I ought to mention that the three-hit combo isn't paced very well - and sometimes the heroine just seemed to send a stray chop through the air a full second after I had stopped pressing buttons. Very strange, and not good for tightly-timed attacks.

I found that turning off the frame limiter and enjoying 150%+ speed was often more to my liking than playing the game at its default 50Hz setting. Since there's no skill involved in most battles, even close melee combats were sometimes quite manageable, and some platforming as well. Even fighting from the dragon sucks, as it feels just as slow as using magic, and his breath weapons also have a magic meter. The only benefit there is that you can actually move while using him, but battles devolve into just jinking back and forth and flying straight in reverse to lure enemies straight into your attacks. Some of the breath weapons are really cool - I like the sonic blast's disintegrating capabilities - but they are very underpowered. I really miss the insta-crisp breath attack from the first game, which was very exploitable and ended every fight too quickly, but at least required you get close and personal.

There were still, even in the final release of the game months later, obvious bugs - some were helpful, like the Sunny Andrellian Isles glitch which I had to use because the game doesn't give any warning when closing off many dungeons and even major areas forever. Others weren't - trying to start up a magic spell from the menu won't work if you try to trigger it too quickly, which only compounds magic's speed problems.

So, after many hours (nearly a day's playtime) of repetitive dungeons and valleys, what do you get? You fight some suspiciously small-fry-seeming bad guy who has nothing apparent to do with the larger mythology of the game (itself not very interesting), and after an easy (if you have the ultimate melee weapon, certainly) battle, he climbs into his golem so you can now enjoy a trick battle from your dragon, requiring you to do the same thing repeatedly (hope you realize how to switch lock-on points) until he dies. Then you don't get to enjoy a scene of the great dragon awakening alluded to throughout the game - they simply didn't have the budget for it. Instead, enjoy some admittedly nice drawings and a voiceover! The game is even thoughtless enough to have one of its minor antagonists ridicule the heroine for not saving her kid brother. Sorry kid, but you're going to stay lost then - forever, because Surreal Software is gone and there won't ever be another Drakan, unless somebody on Newgrounds makes a Rynn x Arokh flash. WB certainly has bigger fish to fry - and just as well.

Even when the game is at its most ambitious, with the floating archipelago that constitutes the game's final world, I couldn't help but think how much more impressive Rygar did this. Yes, Drakan has a free-roaming world system, but it also has too many rough edges and doesn't make good use of its potential even if we ignore the multitudinous technical flaws.

______

I finally decided to check out Castlevania: Ramen of Innoculations, also on the PS2. I enjoy the options menu music (which I wrote this post to) but the opening video was just atrocious. You can see Igarashi-san's penchant for historical detail, and those lovely drawings - but the slideshow with lame dissolve effects is embarrassing.

[BIL]

Shadow Dancer [Genesis].
almost the only game I've been playing recently, heh

FINALLY MADE IT TO 4-2!

The darkness is really cool, but it kind of ensures the stage is a screaming cauldron of death.
"okay, I'm going to kill this guy, back up so the red ninja doesn't hit me"
"er, where's the red-OH SHIT" and then I die

IN THE DARKNESS Getting skullfucked by a red katana you completely lost track of is amazing. Annoying and amazing. Ninja as all hell.

I finally decided to check out Castlevania: Ramen of Innoculations, also on the PS2. I enjoy the options menu music (which I wrote this post to) but the opening video was just atrocious. You can see Igarashi-san's penchant for historical detail, and those lovely drawings - but the slideshow with lame dissolve effects is embarrassing.

"Aww yeee, just torrented Powerpoint! Now to scan this month's EGM."

Probably due to that dreadful first impression, I really like the oldschool-y minimal title screen. Black background, bigass logo, handful of options with cute animated cursor. Reminds me of good ol' CVIII.

The OST is one of the game's consistent high points, amazingly dark and enveloping with some well-incorporated electronica elements. The other great aspect is the combat engine and general sensation of beating down monster ass. Together, these forces of good will wage a fierce battle against the stultifying effects of IGA's Wolf3D map editor.

[Ed Oscuro]

Haha, yeah, that is already getting a bit tiresome. Lots of good combat options and ideas, and I'm even warming up to the camera (it's not that different from DmC after all). But how many organs can you fit in one church? I'm up to 11.9% of the map already, just found the holy water.

Agreed about the title menu, like that little cursor.

[Mischief Maker]

Startopia.

The unofficial Dungeon Keeper 3 that finally got it right.

Wonderful game.

[President_Obama]

Okami HD. I've just finished the first section and I'm on my way to the city. What a beaut of a game.

[KAI]

Ridge Racer 7 [PS3]. DLC music, buying Nitro...Ridge Racers 2 is much better.

[ACSeraph]

Ridge Racer 7 [PS3]. DLC music, buying Nitro...Ridge Racers 2 is much better.

Totally agree, Ridge Racers 2 is my favorite in the entire series. Also I think 6 just simply felt better than 7, I always got the feeling I was driving on ice in the PS3 game.

---

I've been playing Ougon Musoukyoku X (my PC can't run Cross). Pretty decent fun as a single player fighter, though I have doubts about how it would fare in competitive play. Particularly the tag out while blocking/getting hit seems kinda fucked to me. The atmosphere really sucks me in though. Beautiful graphics and soundtrack that really deserved to be put alongside better gameplay.

[KAI]

Doing mixups with the tag mechanic was kinda cool but the game is so fucking broken it hurts. Dlanor+Erika best broketeam.

[Marc]

FUCK Ridge Racer Unbounded. Almost 3 starred the entire game, but two horrendous drift challenges have scuttled me. The annoying thing is, the drift challenges are really fun, BUT, they leave all the destructible shit on the track for them, which, coupled with Bugbear's occasionally wonky physics (why hello there FlatOut), results in the odd run that completely fucks up because you got a lamp post stuck under your wheel and it completely interrupted the arc of an otherwise perfect slide.

Mario Golf for Cube just landed, given that the N64 version is still my favourite golf game ever I can't wait to try this. Also picked up Ridge 6 and FEAR for pennies, seem to remember the latter being quite well regarded at the time. Ridge looks like it might take a while to get going, but damn is it colourful and smooth.

[Xan]

I started playing Zelda Phantom Hourglass and finished the first three dungeons, but can't bring myself to continue this game. The Temple of the Ocean King is the worst thing they ever put in a Zelda game. The music is non-existant, the controls can be imprecise at times, the sailing feels gimmicky and the ship parts don't even give any special abilities except for more health...

Yeah, worst Zelda game ever hands down. At least for me. I did enjoy Wind Waker but this feels like a really poor knock-off of it. Don't think I'll even bother with Spirit Tracks.

[Moniker]

Don't think I'll even bother with Spirit Tracks.

Spirit Tracks is heads and shoulders above Phantom Hourglass (I couldn't finish it either). It doesn't have a huge fanbase, but I enjoyed every minute I spent with it. Touch controls are much improved, and the railroad gimmick is actually a lot of fun. It satisfies some sort of primal childhood appetite.

[gameoverDude]

Just this past weekend I played Virtua Cop 3. I had a 1-credit run of about 12M pts ending in the 3rd stage, and also a 13M multi-credit clear (about 6 continues used very late in the game). On the full run I got the good ending. It's not too hard to satisfy the good ending conditions- just take out the explosives Brand throws at you after his defeat, and knock out ALL the Crab's last-gasp barrage of missiles (this isn't like Razing Storm, you need to get them all or it ends with Mission 3). I'd like to eventually work for a 1LC of this (yeah, 1LC because losing lives drops 2 from your multiplier each time).

TBQH it seems that the TLB Dino Fang is far easier than the Crab.

Sega, why the Hell haven't we seen a PS3 version for the Move? I'd give you $100 for a "Virtua Cop: Triple Threat Edition" with all three VC games in HD on one disc. I would take this even over the 2008 Rambo. Even VC3 alone as a $15 PSN DL ala HotD4 would be good.

[BrianC]

Been playing Mario Golf World Tour. I'm liking it quite a bit. Some nice course designs along with online and a nice single player mode. Odd that standard tournaments aren't the meat of the single player this time around, but the challenge where you try to get under a certain score suits it better and there's still match play, as well. Online tournaments are sweet, as well.

[BulletMagnet]

Spirit Tracks is heads and shoulders above Phantom Hourglass (I couldn't finish it either). It doesn't have a huge fanbase, but I enjoyed every minute I spent with it. Touch controls are much improved, and the railroad gimmick is actually a lot of fun. It satisfies some sort of primal childhood appetite.

I'd have to personally disagree with that one; Spirit Tracks does play better than Phantom Hourglass in the dungeons (some people don't like the "Zelda in armor" thing, though I never had any major problem getting her to do what I needed), but I found traveling by train, while unique, to be a huge pain in the end; not only does it largely kill any sense of exploration (you can find the occasional out-of-the-way place, but no matter what you're quite literally on rails the whole time), but there are also insta-death enemies rolling around on the tracks, and all you can do is stun them; getting trapped between two of them is utterly infuriating.

For the record I finished both of the DS Zeldas and couldn't honestly say that I "hated" either, but even when you take the Temple of the Ocean King into account (which was, yes, a pretty major drag), I disliked the trains from Spirit Tracks even more. Again, though, that's just my own experience.

[Moniker]

Spirit Tracks is heads and shoulders above Phantom Hourglass (I couldn't finish it either). It doesn't have a huge fanbase, but I enjoyed every minute I spent with it. Touch controls are much improved, and the railroad gimmick is actually a lot of fun. It satisfies some sort of primal childhood appetite.

I'd have to personally disagree with that one; Spirit Tracks does play better than Phantom Hourglass in the dungeons (some people don't like the "Zelda in armor" thing, though I never had any major problem getting her to do what I needed), but I found traveling by train, while unique, to be a huge pain in the end; not only does it largely kill any sense of exploration (you can find the occasional out-of-the-way place, but no matter what you're quite literally on rails the whole time), but there are also insta-death enemies rolling around on the tracks, and all you can do is stun them; getting trapped between two of them is utterly infuriating.

For the record I finished both of the DS Zeldas and couldn't honestly say that I "hated" either, but even when you take the Temple of the Ocean King into account (which was, yes, a pretty major drag), I disliked the trains from Spirit Tracks even more. Again, though, that's just my own experience.

Never had much trouble with the train-track enemies.. maybe 2 total over the entire playtime. The lack of traditional Zelda exploration is a downside, but I feel the title made up for it in charm and pure fun. Going full throttle and pulling the horn is just magical. My favorite handheld Zelda after Minish Cap and ALBW (the latter is a masterpiece, IMO). Yeah, that includes Link's Awakening (horribly overrated) and the Oracle games.

tl;dr - Agree to disagree.

[Marc]

I have a love/hate thing going on with Ridge Racer... Loved 4, 64, and the first PSP game, hated all the others. Picked up 6 for dirt and my god it's good. Feels wonderful with the medium drift cars and still looks absolutely beautiful. What a gen this has been for arcade racers. Between this, the Sega Rally games, FlatOut UC, OutRun HD and Hydro Thunder Hurricane, I doubt I'll need to buy another for years unless it's something truly exceptional... like, say, F-Zero GX HD.....

[lmagus]

Fifa 14

[kilauea]

I have a love/hate thing going on with Ridge Racer... Loved 4, 64, and the first PSP game, hated all the others. Picked up 6 for dirt and my god it's good. Feels wonderful with the medium drift cars and still looks absolutely beautiful. What a gen this has been for arcade racers. Between this, the Sega Rally games, FlatOut UC, OutRun HD and Hydro Thunder Hurricane, I doubt I'll need to buy another for years unless it's something truly exceptional... like, say, F-Zero GX HD.....

Just picked up RR6 and Flatout UC on ebay for pennies after reading this. Had a downer on arcade racers for years and stuck to sims. Then I played ridge racer revolution and Outrun SP again and thought wtf am I doing?!

[Marc]

FlatOut is brilliant, bar some occasionally dodgy physics. For the most part the cars handle beautifully, but every now and again ramming scenery or all four wheels leaving the ground suddenly render your vehicle almost Weightless, leading to some race-ruining collisions. Bugbear knew this, I'm convinced, hence no limit on the number of restarts per race, even mid cup. Learn to live with its idiosyncrasies however and it's by far some of I've most fun I personally have had this gen.