What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

[broken harbour]

Been playing the re-release of Simcity 4 w/Rush Hour on my Mac here and there... so much better than 5. Graphics are kinda dated but region play is still fun, but... OMG its a worse time-suck than Fallout 3. No wonder that I've never really done a region of decent size in the decade + I've been been playing it off and on.

Also been playing the 1st Final Fantasy, the re-make on PS1. I like the SNES-style graphics and music, and the slightly easier difficulty option and memo saving is nice. The game is a bit crude and simplistic compared to later RPG's but it's a fun experience nonetheless.

Been playing some NES Contra emulated on my Mac too. I haven't tried an emulator since the late 90s.. to me the 'real thing' was always what I wanted, but the cost of good condition boxed NES/SNES/N64 games is getting silly, and I'm saving hardcore for a house so screw it, I'll everdrive everything I can and sell my boxed collections, I give up.

[null1024]

Tales of Hearts R [Vita].

Just got it in the mail.
Pretty fun combat. My dumb-ass self never opened the Soma menu until just now, so I just played through 3 hours of the game with everything hitting me nightmarishly hard while my party did okayish damage. I only noticed that I was doing something wrong after completely brick-walling on a boss [she'd kill everyone in three or four hits, and immediately if she hit them after being revived]. One trip to the Soma menu and getting my stats [and artes, I pretty much just used Kor's first arte constantly up till now] up to decent levels, and what seemed like a crazy hard boss suddenly became piss-easy.

Decent-ish visuals, somewhat stylish areas, some of the characters are dumb as fuck but hey [Kor/Shing is oddly likable, even though I want to throw him sometimes]. Still, it's pretty enjoyable so far.

[Bananamatic]

MGR Revengeance with wooden sword only on Revengeance difficulty, beat R-03

it's actually not much harder as you instakill cyborgs, making mecha enemies (and to some extent bosses) the only problem
though ripper mode still seems to instakill stuff and a single perfect parry still does absurd damage

the only real issue was Mistral because you can't cut her staff anymore so you're doing almost no damage, but the fight gives you 2 checkpoints for some unknown stupid reason so it wasn't super hard either
double GRADs are overrated, perfect parry the first one to knock him down, ripper mode the other one to kill it in a single combo then just 1v1 the main one like usual

[Stevens]

I promised the Mrs. I would stop buying Dreamcast games because I have a huge backlog of them. However I couldn't help myself some weeks back and bought Rush Rush Rally Racing. Yesterday when my wife was in the middle of telling me how awesome I was I told her I picked it up. She called me a butt.

I should also probably finish:

Red Dog - About halfway through. It's fun and a really good looking game, but would have greatly benefitted from a mouse and KB control scheme. Some of the shooting (namely the training levels) is just too precise for what they give you.

Toy Commander - Also about halfway through. Enjoying it a lot, and got a kick that I can play it in 16:9. Controls well enough, but mouse and KB would have been a tad better.

Wild Metal - Ugly as fuck, but good fun.

Test Drive 6 - Almost done with the games main mode. The later races take a lot of time though and you have to play through them in one sitting. I will do that damn 24 hour race within the year!

Soul Reaver - I played through the original when it was released nearly 20 years ago. I have never played SR, but a friend who knows I am fond of the DC had it in storage and gave it to me. Probably going to start it today. Kind of hyped for it.

And as always there is Under Defeat and Zero Gunner 2. Man do I love those two..

Now I just have to tell her I ordered a Hanzo. Good thing the holidays are almost here.

[Sinful]

Meh, I messing about with Mass Effect 3 multiplayer every now and then in between working on getting back into retro gaming again... my interests levels in this game are at an all time low even after coming back after a second break from this game. I just know it too well and played it way too much before for me to be able to get another second wind like after coming back to this game after my first break from it.

I'm also not sure if I'm yet ready to leave the Demon/Dark Soul series. This series is like the first example of modern gaming I've seen that reminds me of the good old NES era days. of game design and difficulty (but to anyone who still plays NES/Arcade games, it's really not that hard at all as todays gamers scream it is, lol). Game even loops.

[lilmanjs]

Been playing the re-release of Simcity 4 w/Rush Hour on my Mac here and there... so much better than 5. Graphics are kinda dated but region play is still fun, but... OMG its a worse time-suck than Fallout 3. No wonder that I've never really done a region of decent size in the decade + I've been been playing it off and on.

Don't ever visit the simtropolis forums then. You'll waste even more time downloading custom stuff that makes Sim City 4 shine more. I rarely have the game installed on my computer just for that reason. I end up spending the good part of a day building a city and trying to keep it going without losing all my money. Best of the series by far!

[iconoclast]

Sunset Overdrive
This just had a 24 hour free trial on XBL, so I downloaded the game and played it all day, finishing the story and a good chunk of the sidequests. The game is pretty fun, but the mission design is almost as repetitive as Destiny's. Nearly every mission has you either defend something or run out into the city and collect or kill X amount of whatever. It's like playing an MMO. But that doesn't bother me much because the traversal and combat are enjoyable. I even liked going after the collectibles because it's fun to simply navigate the city. It reminds me of Crackdown or Gravity Rush in that sense, although I'd say SO is better than either of them.

Hmm, what else. The graphics and art are awesome, the soundtrack is nice and it fits the game perfectly, but practically every song sounds exactly the same to me. I'm not a fan of the writing either; it's way too meta for my tastes with the constant pop culture references and 4th wall breaking. It never annoyed me or anything, though.

I'd buy this if were on sale for $30~ for black friday, but it doesn't look like there will be any good deals. I might just start up gamefly again to complete it. For now, I'm back to waiting for 343 to fix the broken mess that is the Halo collection.

[null1024]

Tales of Hearts R [Vita].
"I'm sorry I ate your lunch."
That's where I am in the game.

Spoiler

that scene would actually be sad if 1: it wasn't the most expected thing ever [called it from a mile away], and 2: that line wasn't the most embarrassingly hilarious thing to say for your last words.

the scene right after is pretty problematic though, with the spine stomping

Still having a damn lot of fun. Fights seem to randomly fluctuate between "Heh, this is easy!" and "Fuck fuck fuck, why is everyone dying mere frames after waking up?!"
Some of the puzzles are far more annoying than anything though. Some of the dungeons seem a bit silly, too [why the fuck is there a MAJOR church that's crawling with monsters].

the music also ranges from hilariously awful to actually really nice
But it's mostly pretty bad/lazy, with some of the worst synth choices I've heard in a commercial game that plays a PCM track for music.
why the fuck is that supersaw even there half of the time

literally why

Sunset Overdrive

Neat to see that it's pretty enjoyable. Shame I'll probably never get to play it...

[JBC]

Disaster Report. Always wanted to play this. I just made it off the bridge in the beginning & am already in awe.

[Ed Oscuro]

The fuck is up with Korean games and baloney chance rounds?

Just got a perfect score in my first attempt at Hammer (obscure carnival lightgun game in MAME with nice production qualities) and failed (?) at the slot machine round. WAH WAAAH

srsly get the fuck outta here Korea
probably all these people work for Nexon now

[Obiwanshinobi]

Wild Metal - Ugly as fuck, but good fun.

That article made me purchase the PC version some time ago. Do the DC controls hold up? Nothing that wouldn't seem portable to digital gamepad (if Virtual-On could, why not this?), but I read Virtual-On is more intuitive with twin sticks, so maybe Wild Metal Country has also lost something in the process?

The other day I had another go at Metropolis Street Racer. While the "make your own CD compilation of music tracks" option may seem unnecessary (won't make those tracks any better), it might be the only way to make the music palatable at all. So bad I feel perversely hesitant about turning it off completely, but the radio stations are a bit too much for me.

[Sparky]

Pokemon Omega Ruby - Nintendo 3DS

This is my first journey into the world of Hoenn. After playing this game for 5 hours I feel underwhelmed. I missed playing this generation when it first released for the Gameboy Advance so I cannot make a comparison but it seems a bit too easy. My starter Pokémon, Torchic, has been tearing through my rivals and has evolved quickly into an over powered beast.

I have almost no need to switch Pokémon during battle unless I want to change my routine a bit. At the moment I have collected three badges and I am making my way to the fourth gym leader. Another negative besides the difficulty is the music. It all seems too homogenous and repetitive. There have been times where I simply mute the 3DS and play other music in the background.

One good point is that you get Exp. Share (share experience points) early on in the game which helps reduce grinding. I was not looking forward to spending time on that. I will finish my run just to get it over with but I doubt I will enjoy it much more. This series just may not be for me anymore.

[null1024]

Pokemon Omega Ruby - Nintendo 3DS

This is my first journey into the world of Hoenn. After playing this game for 5 hours I feel underwhelmed. I missed playing this generation when it first released for the Gameboy Advance so I cannot make a comparison but it seems a bit too easy. My starter Pokémon, Torchic, has been tearing through my rivals and has evolved quickly into an over powered beast.

I have almost no need to switch Pokémon during battle unless I want to change my routine a bit. At the moment I have collected three badges and I am making my way to the fourth gym leader. Another negative besides the difficulty is the music. It all seems too homogenous and repetitive. There have been times where I simply mute the 3DS and play other music in the background.

One good point is that you get Exp. Share (share experience points) early on in the game which helps reduce grinding. I was not looking forward to spending time on that. I will finish my run just to get it over with but I doubt I will enjoy it much more. This series just may not be for me anymore.

Exp. Share in 6th gen is completely broken. I had looked up how it worked after beating Y with almost zero effort. It's really, really silly:
100% exp to participating Pokemon, 50% exp to those who didn't fight. This is similar to how some other RPGs handle experience, but Pokemon wasn't balanced around it at all. It doesn't just reduce the grind, it amplifies how much EXP you get total, based on how many party members you have. It makes your party a decent bit overleveled by the time you get to certain parts.

This is different from Gen 1's Exp. All, which gave half experience rounded down to the combatants and then divided into the rest of the party [and also rounded down], and different from Gen 2-5, where the Exp. Share member would get half experience, and the rest of the participants would get the other half.

actually, I dunno why they took out the Gen 5 experience system, where weaker Pokemon would get more experience from fights and stronger ones would get less from fighting weaker Pokemon, that was nice and let you bring up your weaker ones more quickly without it being busted

Still, I'll be getting this game next week, once I get paid.

[Sparky]

Exp. Share in 6th gen is completely broken. I had looked up how it worked after beating Y with almost zero effort. It's really, really silly:
100% exp to participating Pokemon, 50% exp to those who didn't fight. This is similar to how some other RPGs handle experience, but Pokemon wasn't balanced around it at all. It doesn't just reduce the grind, it amplifies how much EXP you get total, based on how many party members you have. It makes your party a decent bit overleveled by the time you get to certain parts.

This is different from Gen 1's Exp. All, which gave half experience rounded down to the combatants and then divided into the rest of the party [and also rounded down], and different from Gen 2-5, where the Exp. Share member would get half experience, and the rest of the participants would get the other half.

actually, I dunno why they took out the Gen 5 experience system, where weaker Pokemon would get more experience from fights and stronger ones would get less from fighting weaker Pokemon, that was nice and let you bring up your weaker ones more quickly without it being busted

Still, I'll be getting this game next week, once I get paid.

That makes sense it does feel like a balancing issue. I also beat Pokémon X with very little effort as well. I will complete the game over the holiday break coming up. I have a feeling this will go back on the shelf as soon as I am done though. The next games to play on my Nintendo 3DS backlog are Fantasy Life and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3DS.

[Stevens]

Wild Metal - Ugly as fuck, but good fun.

That article made me purchase the PC version some time ago. Do the DC controls hold up? Nothing that wouldn't seem portable to digital gamepad (if Virtual-On could, why not this?), but I read Virtual-On is more intuitive with twin sticks, so maybe Wild Metal Country has also lost something in the process?

I played through the 1st two levels and liked it a lot. Then I got into some other games and it got pushed to the back burner.

It controls well enough with the standard DC controller, but combat is a lot of trial and error finding the correct angle. Definitely playable though.

[ACSeraph]

Been playing Onechanbara Kagura ZII Chaos on PS4. About to finish violent difficulty tonight.

This series is my guilty pleasure. As far as mindless fan service and killing goes I don't think many series do it better. The reason is because it perfectly straddles the fine line between mindless musou slaughter and technical command intensive sword fighting action. It's basically a hyper-violent, sexualized musou game that requires high levels of concentration and timing to play effectively. For those that haven't played it, the moves come out based solely on timing. So to execute the more powerful attacks in your arsenal you have to work into them timing each slash as your character actually does it like a rhythm game. Too fast or two slow breaks the momentum and prevents you from doing your full combos, meaning that mashing will get you absolutely nowhere. Like musou though, if you are timing everything perfectly you are basically a walking slaughterhouse, so the end result is this zen-like mix of intensely mentally focused but almost subconscious destruction. If DMC, NG, and Musou were ground down into a fine powder and snorted, Onechanbara would be the resulting fever dream.

That's not to say it's perfect; far from it. While the first Kagura was a really really solid, almost professional game, ZII comes off more like the older budget made titles in the series. Despite being on PS4 the graphics engine is the same as the original with very minor tweaks. I'm not really sure why it's a PS4 game to be honest. It's also got quite a few (often amusing) glitches, but nothing that really breaks the game. That's not to say it isn't breakable though, as strategizing a bit with your equipment and skill usage you can render yourself nearly invincible if you know what you are doing. If I had any real complaint about the game it's that the camera is a huge step back from the first Kagura, one of the most unwieldy in the series in fact, though it doesn't ruin the game. Pretty much all other issues with the game and it's low production values I can forgive given how euphoric the combat is, and combat is basically the entire game.

tl;dr version:

Kagura ZII is a decent game in an awesome, under appreciated series. More so than the fan service the combat system itself is porn for hack and slash lovers. A stupid budget game clearly made with love and care, I'll take it any day over AAA bullshit.

[null1024]

still playing Tales of Hearts R [Vita] -- everyone is now in full friendship mode and it makes me want to stop playing, just got to the point where I can fly [and realize how small the world map is]
Seriously, I know Tales loves it's whole "yay, friendship" thing, but this is too much.
At least Gall hasn't stopped being cool, even if he has fuck-all plot relevance because he wasn't in the DS version of Hearts.

I'd have honestly just stopped playing if the damn fighting wasn't so much fun. I kind of want to just always play as Kohaku, being able to do decent physical damage and then switch to casting is pretty nice. I end up being boring and playing with Kor or Kunzite [who gets a large portion of the bog-standard Tales movelist, shit like Demon Fang and Tiger Blade and the like], since Kohaku is currently the only one that knows Resurrection [hell, I dunno if the other two healing members can learn it].

also, I'm about to restart Pokemon Y [3DS], going to see if I can get some kind of challenge out of it this time around

[CStarFlare]

Been playing InflationRPG today. My brother recommended it and I'm curiously enjoying it. ios grinding and autobattle are so much fun~

[nosorrow]

Me and my pal did some PS2 gaming this evening and I finally converted him to OutRun 2006 (he wasn't so enamoured of it on PC back when; ended up borrowing my PC copy) and Burnout 2 (the ever-loopy Time Attack wins over just about everybody). Good times were had. We did some 2 player Crash too (first time I've experienced it in a party situation).

Outrun 2 is freaking awesome!

It truly is amazing. I bought it for the PS2 a couple years back. It's now part of my personal holy trinity of racing games, along with F-Zero X and GX.

[Ghegs]

Me and my pal did some PS2 gaming this evening and I finally converted him to OutRun 2006 (he wasn't so enamoured of it on PC back when; ended up borrowing my PC copy) and Burnout 2 (the ever-loopy Time Attack wins over just about everybody). Good times were had. We did some 2 player Crash too (first time I've experienced it in a party situation).

Outrun 2 is freaking awesome!

It truly is amazing. I bought it for the PS2 a couple years back. It's now part of my personal holy trinity of racing games, along with F-Zero X and GX.

I purchased PS2's Outrun 2 SP a little while ago. Not Coast 2 Coast, but the JPN-only game. One of the major differences being that Outrun 2 has wheel support, while Coast 2 Coast lacks it for reasons unknown.

I'd be interested in hearing more about the first Burnout. I'm a huge fan of the sequel, and we've been doing some Time Attack on it over at Rolling Start using the No Traffic mode, which makes the tracks be very different beasts indeed. But I've never actually played the first game in the series.

[null1024]

Crazy Taxi [PC].
Got it in the Humble Bundle, only bought it for this game [already had SADX for PC, already have ASRT, didn't care about the rest].

spent half of today trying to get used to doing the crazy boost with a PS1 pad, I was used to the throw on the DC triggers, and I kept doing the drive gear->accelerate too fast

Sonic Adventure DX [PC].
also was in the Humble Bundle, but I had it already from a different bundle

Is it just me, or is the current Steam version even glitchier than I ever remembered this game to be? It's definitely a bit screwier than the Gamecube release [don't have my Wii anymore, nor controllers, so I can't check].
like, holy fuck:
I've just beaten Red Mountain. I've fallen through the walls 5 times now. The camera kept going to first person in Twinkle Park for no reason. The controls feel off as hell. I'm pretty sure Red Mountain and Emerald Coast are the only good levels in the game at this point [I still think Red Mountain is one of the high points of the Adventure style gameplay, along with Final Rush, City Escape, and Metal Harbor -- SA2's Sonic stages are depressingly better, Ice Cap is full of issues, Windy Valley is not just linear but a boring railroad of a course, Lost World is a pain, Sky Deck is... man, I dunno. Sky Deck is fucked. Final Egg is awful in ways.].

Oh, and some Sega Bass Fishing [PC]. It's Big's fishing stages! Except much more fun.

[Obiwanshinobi]

I'd be interested in hearing more about the first Burnout. I'm a huge fan of the sequel, and we've been doing some Time Attack on it over at Rolling Start using the No Traffic mode, which makes the tracks be very different beasts indeed. But I've never actually played the first game in the series.

Never had a spark of interest in No Traffic because it seemed somewhat forlorn, but since 1 remains one of my most played games on the Wii, it might be only a matter of time before it gives me some business there.

1 is the most action movie-like of the series, but I've already banged on and on about it. Maybe I've yet to say that its long tracks - considered too long by some - need to be this long for you as the narrator to unfold the story.

Possibly already said, but it uses "credits" like F-Zero GX that's one cool touch. Not as relevant as in F-Zero GX (where kills give you extra continues), but still pretty nice.

One more "visceral" quality of 1 - you'll be surprised how hard to earn the boost can be and you'll find boost chaining all the more rewarding for it.

[Bananamatic]

Zone of the Enders 2 on Extreme difficulty starting with no subweapons/default Jehuty

ridiculously high/borderline unfair difficulty, pretty much any enemy is incredibly dangerous to even try to melee, Mummyheads with halberd are the worst though as it can stunlock you to death in a second

took me over 3 hours to get to the second Nephtis fight, she now has homing orbs that chase you for a good few seconds and they do 20% of your health per hit despite looking harmless
in the second half of the fight with the laser walls she also gets a second charge attack that has absolutely no charge up time, giving you around a third of a second to react else you get hit for 40%

Vic Viper wasn't too bad but his options now actually do serious damage and can shoot gauntlets as well, so if you're hit with a stray projectile you get hit into a wall and then get hit with a fuckton of shots, instakilled me from 80% hp once

the whole Viola AI/Ardjet part and the fleet battle are probably going to suck even more

[Obiwanshinobi]

Another thing about Burnout 1; I wish the replays could be saved (oh, you can watch them alright). Only the crash scenes can (then edited, enhancing the "filmmaking" qualities). Now I'm playing Sky Odyssey, where the replays CAN be saved... and they are just as exhilarating to watch!

[DestroyTheCore]

Zone of the Enders 2 on Extreme difficulty starting with no subweapons/default Jehuty

ridiculously high/borderline unfair difficulty, pretty much any enemy is incredibly dangerous to even try to melee, Mummyheads with halberd are the worst though as it can stunlock you to death in a second

took me over 3 hours to get to the second Nephtis fight, she now has homing orbs that chase you for a good few seconds and they do 20% of your health per hit despite looking harmless
in the second half of the fight with the laser walls she also gets a second charge attack that has absolutely no charge up time, giving you around a third of a second to react else you get hit for 40%

Vic Viper wasn't too bad but his options now actually do serious damage and can shoot gauntlets as well, so if you're hit with a stray projectile you get hit into a wall and then get hit with a fuckton of shots, instakilled me from 80% hp once

the whole Viola AI/Ardjet part and the fleet battle are probably going to suck even more

I started a game on Very Hard a few months ago and I was really worried the Viola AI battle would be hell of a chore. It turned out it was not that hard. I ragequit at the fleet battle though. It was too difficult and it was not worth it at this point.

[Bananamatic]

I started a game on Very Hard a few months ago and I was really worried the Viola AI battle would be hell of a chore. It turned out it was not that hard. I ragequit at the fleet battle though. It was too difficult and it was not worth it at this point.

Managed to get all the way to Inhert now

The train part was surprisingly easy, got it on the 3rd try with over 2 minutes remaining once I figured out how to do it
The 3rd Nephtis was the hardest of the whole sequence, as the Clods are now ridiculous with the constant laser sword spam(aggro two and might as well let yourself die) and trying to grab you almost instantly but she went down fast.
Viola AI took ages but got it down on the 2nd try, the escape sequence was pretty easy too.
The minefield second battle was horrible(Clods with a leader, once you get even sucked in you can't even dash out and they spam homing missiles and the leader tries to chain grab you), took around 10 tries
The descent through the fort city was annoying but you can cheese pretty much all of the waves out of the enemies' range and the cellars don't have infinite respawning

Inhert actually has some new attacks in the second form where you have to dodge into the gaps with about half a second to do so, it's almost like a 3D shmup but he still isn't incredibly hard
Worst bosses so far were Nephtis 2 and 3 by a long shot

Also the Halberd subweapon is really underrated, it consumes a ton of energy but does ridiculous damage

[null1024]

Phantasy Star Online 2 [PC].

Just started. Runs pretty okayish at times on this laptop, framedrops a bit after a while because heat.
took forever to get everything installed, the game is fucking huge and I think I ended up doing the patches like 3 times

and like the rest of the English speaking PSO2 population, I'm on Ship02

[Kiken]

I had been playing Devil May Cry 3 up until a week or so ago. I think I'm to the point in the game where I need to do some grinding to level up some of my weapons more. This past weekend, I downloaded Vanquish and started playing through that.

[BrianC]

Been playing a bit of Bayonetta 2, some Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box, and a lot of old school stuff like various versions of Pac-Man and DK.

[lilmanjs]

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
I enjoyed the hour or so I played of it today for the first time ever. Looks like they couldn't fully fix the screen tearing, but it seems by the end of my playing to day to have started happening less and less. One of the few Fantasy type things I actually like, so I'm sure I will enjoy the entire game and DLC. Glen will have an epic quest!