What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

[ACSeraph]

Boktai makes me want the Metal Gear Solid GBC version and wish Metal Gear 1&2 GBA ports existed (I know about PS2 versions, but still).

Definitely play it if you can, it's awesome. I like the originals quite a bit, but Ghost Babel is the best mechanically of the top down games.

[NTSC-J]

Smash Bros for 3DS. My head is spinning with all the modes, not really sure what to play. Pretty fun so far, even with the laggy online battles.

[Moniker]

Smash Bros for 3DS. My head is spinning with all the modes, not really sure what to play. Pretty fun so far, even with the laggy online battles.

Aw man, can't wait for the demo on Friday for us NTSC-Uers. Apparently you can only open it 30 times, so ya. Not turning it off. Damn shame the online is laggy. Hopefully they take steps to correct it.

[iconoclast]

Destiny (6/10)

+ Great core combat. The only reason I put so much time into the game is because the combat feels so good.
+ I like the expanded moveset. Double/triple jumps, throwing knives, super powers, sprint + slide, etc.
+ Beautiful art and graphics. One of the best looking games I've ever seen.

= PvP. I absolutely hate FPS with huge teams, huge maps, and vehicles, so all of the 6v6 playlists are total trash imo. I liked both of the 3v3 playlists, but I guess they are only playable for a limited time since neither of them are available right now. Stupid.
= Weapon variety isn't great. It's pretty much the bog-standard FPS loadout. They're all fun to use, but it would have been nice if there were some more unique weapons.

- Mission design is extremely repetitive. I think every single one of the story missions plays out the same: you run into a large room, have your orb scan/hack/unlock something, and fight off a wave or three of enemies before moving on to the next area. The stage designs are fairly varied, though, so at least most of the combat arenas are different from one another.
- Patrol missions. They're there to try and get you to explore each of the planets (which there aren't enough of), but there's nothing interesting to find on them. All you have are a bunch of simplistic quests that are mind numbingly boring to complete.
- Strikes. These are missions that were designed for three players, with larger groups of enemies and a boss fight at the end. The problem is that there are only like five of them, and you have to play each of them over and over if you want better equipment (from the Vanguard merchants or loot drops). It gets old very fast.
- Bosses are pure damage sponges. They each have maybe two easily avoidable attacks and they walk back and forth through the arena the entire time. Once they take a certain amount of damage, a bunch of minions will spawn. After clearing them out, you can go back to whittling down the boss' enormous health bar. To cap it all off, the bosses don't even drop any loot once killed. They drop some item that you turn in to a merchant for 200 credits, which is pretty much worthless.
- Matchmaking/lobbies are the worst I've ever seen for an online/loot-based game. Want to do the weekly Strike or Nightfall missions, but don't have any friends who are online and appropriately geared for them? Tough shit. Those missions don't have matchmaking and you can't join random lobbies, so go search on some message boards for people who want to play. Phantasy Star Online, a 15~ years old game, is far more advanced than this. Pathetic.
- The story is throwaway. Worst of all, you can't skip any of the cutscenes (at least there are only a few of them).
- Loot distribution is pretty bad in general. In PvE, you're lucky if you get one or two rare items after each Strike or story mission. Enemies hardly ever drop anything but the occasional uncommon item, and I've never seen them drop a legendary or exotic. The higher level weekly events and Raid should give better items, but as I said, only people with a dedicated group can do them. You can also get one or two items (usually rares once you're level 20+) after each PvP battle, but it's totally random. I've seen the best player on a team get nothing while a guy who had a 0.3 KDR get a legendary. Lol.

That's a lot of negatives and only a few positives, but I still feel like giving the game a good score simply because the combat makes it fun to play, even if it has a ton of problems. Maybe it will get better after patches/expansions/DLC, but as it is, I don't think I'd recommend it.

[EmperorIng]

I was really looking forward to Destiny. The less-than-positive impressions and reviews make me want to hold back and wait for a more polished experience down the line, whether through patches or a sequel!

Legend of Mana (PS1)
First time I died in the game; happened about 4 hours in.

Makaimura (Saturn)
Why do I even bother?

[nosorrow]

Super Mario Bros on my top loader NES.

With a regular old school NES pad...those dogbone ones just don't feel the same.

Button placement is indeed problematic. I do the same by the way; I sold my two dogbone controllers and never looked back.

[Marc]

Need For Speed Rivals. And... it's really good. Solves the problem I have with every open world racer ever in that the environments are now, for the most part, long winding desert or mountain roads with plenty of visibility, to getting caught in a collision actually feels like my fault again. Moves at a hell of a pace, looks great (like a grittier OutRun 2), and is just a huge laugh to horse around with.

Haven't started the Cop missions yet, as it's plain to see that the X360 is struggling at times, so may leave off for now and pick it up on PS4 over Xmas.

Started Dead Space. Seems like a fun Resi 4 cover so far.

[Ruldra]

Volgarr the Viking was 75% off on Steam these last few days so I grabbed that.

You know a game is tough when you take 30 minutes just to beat the first level. Very little room for mistakes and you backtrack a lot when you die. Not unlike Megaman games though, things get much easier once you learn your way around. I'm enjoying it very much.

This is the kind of game I want to show my friends but I'm sure they'll just dismiss it as being too ugly and hard

[mastermx]

Volgarr is just a magnificent game. Made it to level 4 the other day. I tried getting my friends into it. And they respect it's old school difficulty, but then they just went back to their easy boring to clear games. Most people don't even know you can skip levels in volgarr once you've beaten em. Mainly because I know very few people who have even beaten the first level.

[Evilmaxwar]

Playing through breath of fire on the SNES for the first time.
It is not bad but I feel it is a bit basic compared to some other RPGs on the SNES.
It does have a few nice moments though. I really like the thief character and I just stumbled upon the Chun Li cameo by pure hazard.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Solves the problem I have with every open world racer ever in that the environments are now, for the most part, long winding desert or mountain roads with plenty of visibility, to getting caught in a collision actually feels like my fault again.

Did you have this problem with Midnight Club II as well?

[Marc]

As far as I can remember, I played one right at the start of the 360s life span and didn't get on with it for visuals that were overly messy at night, and bikes that felt like shit. I do reader System 11 going on about how great it was after I'd junked it and always meant to give it another go, but never picked it back up.

[Obiwanshinobi]

I found the PS2 NTSC version of Midnight Club II better looking than the PC port with its choppy real-time reflections (that I think hail from the Xbox version). Fake reflections on PS2 look better and it runs like a charm (I read Xbox version underperforms and PC port was rather unoptimised).
It's a game where immediate restarting is a godsend (much like TrackMania) and the game engine (on PS2) did something very next-gen for its time (much like Twisted Metal: Black before).

[iconoclast]

Just no miss'd Metal Slug X, finishing with 4,726,970 points. It only took me a couple of tries after taking a break from it over the last week, so that's nice. I can't say I'm surprised to see my .inp desync, though. I guess I'll try to find the rest of the prisoners I missed and do it again.

[railslave]

http://store.steampowered.com/app/255960/

[Some-Mist]

started civilization v for the first time a couple days ago. a co-worker has been guiding me through the strategy process on teamspeak and it's been a blast learning how to play. I was convinced to play by another friend who explained the concept of the game to me - I just thought it was a strategy game based in a couple eras, but the whole development process/time system is very intricate and deep.

[Lord Satori]

http://store.steampowered.com/app/255960/

what in the hell...?

[soprano1]

Tales of the Abyss is going to be backlogged a bit, i'm enjoying Okami too much. Why doesn't the Zelda series excite me as much as this game?
Also, since SMT IV was delayed to October (fuck you Atlus), i bought Denpa Men 3. Funny RPG, i need to play more of it.

[KAI]

Gundam: Federation vs Zeon [Naomi]
This game is so friggin' hard. I just can't 1CC it.

[Some-Mist]

http://store.steampowered.com/app/255960/

what in the hell...?

classic cult point and click adventure. there were many supremely weird ones of that era haha

one of my personal favorites is The Dark Eye (1995)

[null1024]

Samurai Showdown 5 Special [Neo-Geo/MAME].
I don't know if this is a good game or not. It's fun as hell, but holy shit. There are an awful lot of distressingly spammable things that do crazy damage, across the board.
also, anyone know what the AES defaults options, just so I can make sure everything is as it should be?

KOF2002 [Neo-Geo/MAME].
I managed to make my friends get mad at this game. Athena's 2xQCF air super is the safest god damn super I've ever seen [mash C+D on block -- this gets fixed in 02UM, thankfully -- it being safe pretty much means that Athena with meter can do a guaranteed 10% damage with no consequence whatsoever].

My other computer's on the fritz, so I couldn't put on 02UM.

Shadow Dancer [Genesis].
MADE IT TO 5-1! That fire-wheel boss isn't too bad, but it took so many tries to figure it out, and it'll be a while before I can do it without bombing.
and now my PSP is sitting there in sleep mode

I'm on the home stretch, maybe!

[Vurpa]

FF6 (first playthrough ever). Grew on me despite disliking RPG's in general but now just grinding until Kefka tower will be a breeze since I cba remembering which spell does what...

Wish twice the speed of the sprint shoes relic was standard though. Can't remember the dungeons in CT for instance feeling so damn long. Or maybe that's just the random encounters pissing me off.

[EmperorIng]

Shadow Dancer [Genesis].
MADE IT TO 5-1! That fire-wheel boss isn't too bad, but it took so many tries to figure it out, and it'll be a while before I can do it without bombing.
and now my PSP is sitting there in sleep mode

I'm on the home stretch, maybe!

I don't know if you know this, but touching the Fire Wheel boss doesn't actually hurt you. Only its flames kill you.

It's a tricky boss to figure out, but it can go down in a minute if you catch it in a loop.

[Immryr]

I've been playing a fair bit of fire emblem radiant dawn, and I'm surprised to say I'm not enjoying the game nearly as much as I thought I would. I generally love turn based strategy games like final fantasy tactics, xcom, tactics ogre etc but had never played a fire emblem game before. I'm currently about 18 hours in and.... it's just not gripping me. there is no feeling of progression with your team, levelling up feels pointless, I haven't learned a single new skill, there is no sense of selecting which types of units you want to use as for each chapter you get given a fairly arbitrary set of people to use.

are all fire emblem games like this, or is it just a plot device in this game to keep swapping between different groups of people which removes all sense of progress through levelling and team selecting? or am I just doing it wrong? I had been really looking forward to playing this game, fire emblem is one of those series that I've been meaning to play for a long time but never got around to.

[Formless God]

I made extensive use of skills in my game. You must be doing something wrong. Look it up. If you mean active skills then no, Fire Emblem doesn't have any of that.
I don't remember how the SNES games are like, but per chapter unit pools have been a thing since the GBA games. Not sure what you mean by "team selecting". Does the game not let you choose which units to bring into battle? Position them into groups?

[Immryr]

Not sure what you mean by "team selecting". Does the game not let you choose which units to bring into battle? Position them into groups?

sure it lets me choose who I bring into battle, and to position them, but so far I have had no battles where I would do anything other than take everyone who was available to me, and I have no influence over who is available to me. for instance, a big part of the appeal of games like final fantasy tactics and xcom, and things like dungeon crawlers, to me is deciding which types of unit to let into my team and then how to level them up. like getting a new moogle recruit and gradually making him into a gunner/juggler or whatever, or even just being able to make a team full of slow heavy units. here I haven't had any part in choosing what type of units make up my team, and in the 18 or so hours I've been playing no one has really changed in any noticeable way.

the battles themselves I enjoy, but I'm not feeling any sense of progression or ownership over my team.

[BulletMagnet]

Wish twice the speed of the sprint shoes relic was standard though.

IIRC if you play the GBA version you can use a dash button as well as the sprint shoes, which effectively quadruples your walking speed. There are also a handful of extras in it, though the graphics and sound have been downgraded a bit.

[Blinge]

Not sure what you mean by "team selecting". Does the game not let you choose which units to bring into battle? Position them into groups?

sure it lets me choose who I bring into battle, and to position them, but so far I have had no battles where I would do anything other than take everyone who was available to me, and I have no influence over who is available to me. for instance, a big part of the appeal of games like final fantasy tactics and xcom, and things like dungeon crawlers, to me is deciding which types of unit to let into my team and then how to level them up. like getting a new moogle recruit and gradually making him into a gunner/juggler or whatever, or even just being able to make a team full of slow heavy units. here I haven't had any part in choosing what type of units make up my team, and in the 18 or so hours I've been playing no one has really changed in any noticeable way.

the battles themselves I enjoy, but I'm not feeling any sense of progression or ownership over my team.

Currently playing through Path of Radiance myself, and have finished Shadow Dragon in the past. I think the problem here is that as a Strategic RPG, Fire Emblem leans more towards the RPG side- you're on a journey with your characters rather than just having expendable units. So far in Path of Radiance I've only been switching about 4 units around, the rest of my team is pretty much stable but that doesn't bother me.
I'm on chapter 17 atm and the changes i've noticed in my characters is that some started off useless, and now they are not.. I suppose you do have to choose who to spend time/resources leveling right? You can't just buff up everyone.

[soprano1]

Wish twice the speed of the sprint shoes relic was standard though.

IIRC if you play the GBA version you can use a dash button as well as the sprint shoes, which effectively quadruples your walking speed. There are also a handful of extras in it, though the graphics and sound have been downgraded a bit.

There are patches that fix colours and censored sprites. For music, there is a patch for the european version only.
This is only for those who play on emulators, though.

[Immryr]

Not sure what you mean by "team selecting". Does the game not let you choose which units to bring into battle? Position them into groups?

sure it lets me choose who I bring into battle, and to position them, but so far I have had no battles where I would do anything other than take everyone who was available to me, and I have no influence over who is available to me. for instance, a big part of the appeal of games like final fantasy tactics and xcom, and things like dungeon crawlers, to me is deciding which types of unit to let into my team and then how to level them up. like getting a new moogle recruit and gradually making him into a gunner/juggler or whatever, or even just being able to make a team full of slow heavy units. here I haven't had any part in choosing what type of units make up my team, and in the 18 or so hours I've been playing no one has really changed in any noticeable way.

the battles themselves I enjoy, but I'm not feeling any sense of progression or ownership over my team.

Currently playing through Path of Radiance myself, and have finished Shadow Dragon in the past. I think the problem here is that as a Strategic RPG, Fire Emblem leans more towards the RPG side- you're on a journey with your characters rather than just having expendable units. So far in Path of Radiance I've only been switching about 4 units around, the rest of my team is pretty much stable but that doesn't bother me.
I'm on chapter 17 atm and the changes i've noticed in my characters is that some started off useless, and now they are not.. I suppose you do have to choose who to spend time/resources leveling right? You can't just buff up everyone.

i guess it feels for me like i'm too much of a passive observer and not really in control of anything other than what happens in the battles.