What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

[Acid King]

Gears of War: Judgment - Finished the campaign on Normal and Hardcore, now I've started up on Insane. This may be my favorite Gears game for single player and it really shines on the most difficult setting. You can't be downed so there's no way to cheese your way through sections and enemies don't become bullet sponges like in Gears 2 and 3. Each section has a couple different enemy wave types which makes replaying sections less tedious and more difficult.

It's definitely feels more like an arcade game, which is precisely where I want the series to go, but unlike 3 which featured an Arcade mode that kept a running numerical score, Judgment's is limited to a meter that fills and maxs out. It would have been nice to see them implement the Arcade mode score system in to the Campaign or have a similar Arcade mode that cut out the cinematics and Declassified missions and just let you use whatever weapons you wanted. Unfortunately, given the Gears fanboys negative response to the game, we'll probably never see the series go down that path.

[spadgy]

LittleBigPlanet 3.

Same old great fun that's a bit floaty to be considered a core platformer, but packed with enough great ideas and interesting level design to make it an utter pleasure to play.

However, it has become a little too verbose, and a subtle change in writing tone means it's got a little mawkish and excessively jolly for my tests. The loading screen text is like that awful wittering you get on Innocent smoothie packaging and boxes of aloof organic eggs.

[Chaos Phoenixma]

Disgaea D2 postgame. Pretty much the only things I've got left on it are LoC Pringer Z, Baal, and of course all the grinding stuff to get ready for them. The LoC absorbed stats on my strongest character aren't even that high at the moment (around 500k-600k on Flonne at level 1 if I reincarnated her, around 1.3 million with my crap gear, and since I can have up to 3x that since I can add +200% through various boosts and Flonne is easy to boost with her Evility for up to +90% per turn, I can get up to around 3.9 million in stats during a fight which of course isn't anywhere near enough for the actual superbosses)


Still, It's going to be pretty rewarding when I have her killing most things in Land of Carnage easily after I get everything. The game is also a nice break after I get my ass kicked in some shooting games.

[MOSQUITO FIGHTER]

Wolfenstein: The New Order. I'm impressed so far. I'm kind of have mixed feelings on the lean mechanic. I'd sure take this over Bioshock any day. Way better game. The harder modes do have some decent challenge. The levels are pretty great really. I could definitely see myself going through the game multiple times.

[null1024]

Phantasy Star Online 2 [PC].

Just hit level 18. I'm beginning to wish I had a better machine, fucked up a dodge here and there because this is an 11 inch laptop with an i5 in it. As much as I like this machine, I'm beginning to realize just how bad an idea that was, it runs hot as hell [it's too small for any kind of airflow] and ends up forcing itself to underclock constantly. The game's undemanding enough that when the machine is running at normal clock, it keeps 60fps mostly.

Oh, and Phantasy Star Portable 2 [PSP]. It's nice. Picked a newman caster, but at the moment I'm relying on guns anyway because casting takes ages and I can't move.
had this game on my PSP for ages and didn't really touch it, mostly because I was playing God Eater instead

[evil_ash_xero]

Skies of Arcadia Legends

Really late to the party on this one. Enjoying it a lot.

[null1024]

Battle Fantasia [PS3].

well, I'm playing it on the Vita with PS Now, put it on solely to see if the service was any good
And it's a bit better than OnLive was for me [Street Fighter 4 is completely unplayable on OnLive, rather than approaching playability like PS Now]. Lag's still noticeable though. I need to be stupidly close to my router for the Vita to get a decent signal, I think that's just the shit wifi hardware in there, since I can barely connect to the internet with the Vita in places where my laptop or phone would be entirely fine.

As for the game itself, the characters look a lot like ASW ones, but the game doesn't feel like it was designed by them at all.
It's pretty stylish too. Haven't played a fighting game on the Vita's d-pad before, it's fucking perfect for it though. Really feels great.

The pricing is awful for some of the games [there is no reason I should see full-price or nearly full price anything for rentals on a fucking streaming service, someone needs to get slapped and fired over that], and I really think Sony would do better to make a subscription plan option [supposedly, it's in the works]. They also need to do a 15-30 minute trial for games so people could see how well the service works for each game.

[shmuppyLove]

PC Dark Souls
Wii Xenoblade Chronicles
Vita Gravity Rush
DSi Tales of Innocence
Mobile Godus

[Oniros]

Persona 4 Arena Ultimax, trying to platinum that.

[broken harbour]

Having a Street Fighter get together thing with friends at the end of the month, so I've been brushing up on my SSF2T and SFA2G skills.

Now I have a blister on my left thumb. Stupid Shoryuken's...

[null1024]

Now I have a blister on my left thumb. Stupid Shoryuken's...

Yeah, I hate that after not playing fighting games for a while. Shit hurts.

[broken harbour]

Now I have a blister on my left thumb. Stupid Shoryuken's...

Yeah, I hate that after not playing fighting games for a while. Shit hurts.

That's why I love the saturns dpad so much, the segmented dpad on the playstation controllers destroys your thumbs.

[Bananamatic]

continued ZoE2 on Extreme mode

The fleet battle has a really cool exploit - you can actually shoot a battleship down without having to fight it if you are close enough, so i just cleared out the cannons on the first one and shot the vector cannon at the second one to sink it instantly
then I went for the hardest 5th one in the rear and shot down the 4th one from it, so I only had to actually fight 3 out of 5 battleships which made it a lot easier, as some of the turrets do 50% in one hit and the main cannon is a straight up 1 hit kill now. You can also Halberd absolutely everything thanks to the energy drops everywhere.

Zakat got a whole bunch of annoying upgrades, his huge laser now isn't dodgeable so you have to use Decoy or grab one of his parts to shield from it, the vacuum orb now has a lot more hitpoints and the floating mines are hard to clear out with no damage taken
He seems to have an AI exploit where he only uses the floating mines if you are close to him, so I backed off instead of hitting him until he does something (but not that far so he wouldn't charge me) and he used the laser spin 80% of the time which is pretty much free damage.

[nosorrow]

I've just started Ys Book I & II for the Duo. It's not as exciting as I remembered it to be in the late 90s when I first dabbled with it. Though it might just be because I have no attention span anymore and only play (retro) action games/shmups in short bursts. I haven't played an (action) RPG in years, IIRC.

Music is still glorious though.

[BIL]

Have you played Ys I & II Complete on PC? They were my first exposure to those two games, and still my favourite versions. Fast, arcadey and violent combat made levelling up a joy. Hell, it made escort missions a joy. Some tense boss encounters too.

[drauch]

The transition from 2D Ys to 3D Ys is quite the difference. I love the original bump/attack games, but goddamn, the 3D counterparts play so amazingly well. Grinding a bit in either game isn't much of a chore, but it's definitely much more fun in the later games as you get options to jump and slim, combo, etc. The reason why I prefer the ARPG to turn-based any day of the goddamn week.

[BIL]

Felghana's one of the few action RPGs I replay sheerly for its action. Feels so goddamn good chainsawing through hordes of hyperaggressive monsters and doublejumping all over the place. One of my favourite action games period, really. Silent Bomber levels of hyperkinetic joy.

The bump 'em ups always feel a bit primitive on returning, but I do love how the inability to jump, tight mazes and often startlingly fast enemies make them feel like Pac Man: Gun & Knife Label

[drauch]

Hell yeah! Felghana is a blast. Some of the most beautiful PC cases around as well if you go for the original physicals. Need to return and chug through Xanadu Next. Put it off for unknown reasons and deeply regret it. Almost sort of a dream game for me. Mixing Diablo and Ys is almost sexual gratification for this boy.

[nosorrow]

Never played Ys on PC.

I am seemingly one of the few people who loves Ys III on the SNES (Duo version is too damn choppy). I might just prefer side-scrolling games though, as I also quite enjoy Falcom's Faxanadu, a staple of the action RPG genre as far as I'm concerned.

As for Ys I & II, I don't have a problem at all with the bumping mechanics. I'm just at the beginning and I died quite a few times already when leveling up, haha (those damn dogs in the third or fourth screen...). I need to save more often, lol.

[Mortificator]

I'm also a fan of Wanderers from Ys, though I play the Genesis version. To take a brief side-ARPG tangent, I've been meaning to see if MAME can do the multi-cab co-op of Cadash. There's something magnetic about two players being able to simultaneously tackle different parts of a big 2D world. See also: Kirby & the Amazing Mirror.

But like Bil, the PC remake of Ancient Ys Vanished was my first step (towards war).

[Immryr]

I'm playing jet set radio for the first time as I just got a dreamcast. really liking it so far, but damn, the chase levels are really annoying. the poison jam one wasn't too bad, but the one in benten cho is wearing me down. I just had to give up for the night after I 10-0'd one guy almost right away, then spent the rest of the time aimlessly chasing the other two and only hitting them three times total.

also been playing a bit of power stone and soul calibur, which are both great - but I haven't spent that much time with either yet. all in all I'm really pleased I finally got myself a dreamcast and I was amazed at how much nos stuff there is on ebay at reasonable prices, got jsr and chuchu rocket for under £7 each as well as a bunch of peripheral stuff. probably gonna get Shenmue and skies of arcadia after Christmas, though I doubt I will get those sealed.

[BIL]

first step (towards war).

I cleared the MD version of Ys III after I/II Complete and prior to playing Felghana, basically on principle. It's certainly not a bad game (could've used more hitstun and generally beefier attack animations). Just kinda forgettable next to the Pacmannish bloodbaths and super slick 3D action of the PC games that bookended my expedition.

As always with Falcom, the music elevates it at least a few notches. I need to finally play Dinosaur/remake and a few Brandishes at some point. Feels a bit poseur blasting their OSTs all the time but they so damn good

>The Lost Ones
>HEADLESS

Of the late 80s/early 90s sidescrolling ARPGs I've played, probably my favourite is Kenseiden (Mark III / SMS). It's not without its flaws (mainly technical - it doesn't always keep its spawns to the screen edges, most damagingly). But it intertwines action, exploration and character building really seamlessly. Rather than arbitrarily levelling up by killing gophers and pigeons, you gain more moves by taking down bosses, and buff up defense by clearing optional training areas. There's no items to grind for either, instead you find stuff in the action stages. I also like how the game progression is left up to you, pretty much. You can head straight for the last boss with minimal preparation, or clear out the map for ultimate densetsu samurai man, or anything in between.

[null1024]

I'm playing jet set radio for the first time as I just got a dreamcast. really liking it so far, but damn, the chase levels are really annoying. the poison jam one wasn't too bad, but the one in benten cho is wearing me down. I just had to give up for the night after I 10-0'd one guy almost right away, then spent the rest of the time aimlessly chasing the other two and only hitting them three times total.

also been playing a bit of power stone and soul calibur, which are both great - but I haven't spent that much time with either yet. all in all I'm really pleased I finally got myself a dreamcast and I was amazed at how much nos stuff there is on ebay at reasonable prices, got jsr and chuchu rocket for under £7 each as well as a bunch of peripheral stuff. probably gonna get Shenmue and skies of arcadia after Christmas, though I doubt I will get those sealed.

aw yeah
I love my DC. Been playing it a bit recently.

For some reason, I decided to pop in Phantasy Star Online. I'm playing offline. I'm a newman force [can't remember the proper PSO1 designation, but that's exactly what it is anyway].
I spent like an hour cheesing the fucking dragon boss by running near its feet in a circle while spamming ice [and beat it with like 4TP to spare after using all my monofluids]. Playing a force isn't much fun when you don't have autoregen TP.

would have been nice if the thing was weak to electricity, would have been much less hassle of a fight [yay for 360 degree range]

oh, and everything kills me in like, 2 hits
Do status effects not wear off or something? Because getting paralyzed is really fucking nasty if you don't have antiparalysis or a telepipe to go get healed. Same with poison, although you can at least just cast Resta every once in a while/use a monomate.
I still have little enough HP that a single monomate heals me entirely...

would be nice if there was a way to bring a CPU partner along just to give me the tiniest bit of support [other than some missions]
would be really nice if the game had splitscreen multiplayer like Ep2 on the Gamecube too, but that's just wishful thinking
no pause at all in offline mode is pretty awful too
it'd be really nice if I could bind Y to something useful as well, since there's no point in having a chat menu offline


On an unrelated note, how the fuck do I not get hit so much by Bradtos in VOOT
there has to be a way to dodge his shit

Also, the only time I do reasonable damage to the thing is with Grys-Vok [although that's probably entirely due to the fact that he's my main, nothing like sending MISSILES AND MUSHROOM CLOUDS EVERYWHERE, so fucking cool, he hits like a truck and feels mobile enough and I know what his moves actually do unlike the entire rest of the cast bar Temjin, who I'm still bad with other than just going "fuck it, surfing ram" which is pretty much as good as Viper-II's SLC dive in original VO [Cypher's SLC in VOOT is no where near as good...]].

also, Tangram is a pushover of a boss, VO is like that pretty often [fighting Jag [if you're slow like me, although I could skip him in the Saturn version well enough] is awful in the original, but Z-Gradt isn't too bad at all], the midboss is usually the hardest thing in the game. If I ever encounter Ajim in VOOT [I rarely do, unless I try], I just get wrecked. Been trying to unlock the bastard.

I'm also a fan of Wanderers from Ys, though I play the Genesis version. To take a brief side-ARPG tangent, I've been meaning to see if MAME can do the multi-cab co-op of Cadash. There's something magnetic about two players being able to simultaneously tackle different parts of a big 2D world. See also: Kirby & the Amazing Mirror.

I don't think MAME supports multi-cab anything, other than the Sega System Multi-32 games [which were multi-cab in hardware, there was no single-cab version of those games].

this drives me nuts, there are a lot of games that I wish MAME had multi-cab support for, but doing the network emulation is a pain and IIRC there were some internal issues preventing MAME from emulating two boards at the same time in a nice way

[Immryr]

Random dreamcast question: how well does outtrigger play without the keyboard and mouse? Also which driving games are worth getting?

[320x240]

Been playing Psycho Nics Oscar a bit. I remember playing it a bit in the arcades in the late eighties as well. Our arcade provider seemed to have a lot of Data East games and the washed out colors and tinny music so typical of Data East games from that era is very nostalgic to me.

This game have what I like to call a 12-bit feel to it, with the big set pieces and multi-directional scrolling typical of the 16-bit era coupled with the more focused and meticulous level design of the 8-bit era.

[Stevens]

Random dreamcast question: how well does outtrigger play without the keyboard and mouse? Also which driving games are worth getting?

Well enough, but it gets boring quick if you're playing solo. I picked up a copy for $3 so I can't complain.

Racing games?

https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=c ... ng%20games

I have Test Drive Le Mans and Rush Rush Rally Racing. I like them both a lot for different reasons. Sega Rally is also really good and inexpensive. There are some others that I've heard are worth a go, but I don't have them (Wacky Racers comes to mind).

Been playing Shinobi III and Ristar lately.

[Bananamatic]

finished ZoE2 on Extreme

the huge battle was annoying as shit, takes around 20 minutes on extreme, the LEVs die way too fast and waste your subweapon gauge which you need to do anything, the amount of metatron/energy/subenergy you get is just random and the LEVs sometimes steal them from you, then a wave later you get 2 drops with a single homing missile
finished it with over 75% of the LEVs dead
also 360 version = big frame drops here

the compressed space Anubis is a dick, his homing shot is now twice as fast and the only way to avoid it seems to be either being up close all the time(which is hard because the lasers he sometimes shoots force you back and he teleports around all the time), at longer ranges you need either luck or making him shoot it in one direction and then making a well timed dash to the other, and even then it doesn't always work
he also does so much damage(3 hits and you're done) that the first time I beat him I didn't get hit even once

final boss has ridiculous fps drops too and gets really annoying past the halfway point but nothing too hard compared to some other parts

result screen showed 302 continues, didn't get a single trophy or unlock for it so I don't know if this was meant to be actually played without any carryovers or unlocks

[broken harbour]

Wrapped Final Fantasy 1 (PS1 remake) this morning.

That final dungeon where you fight all 4 fiends before the final boss was a bit of a slog, thank god I was playing with a guide, as the game really exhibits some 1980's game design weirdness, like using a lute given to you early in the game to open up a floor block, and providing no clues of what you need to do. How anyone finished it on NES without the memo save option i have no idea, as it saved my ass multiple times after getting killed on the final boss.

Overall, despite some tedium, it was a nice thing to experience where it all started. And at 25 hours, it's not so long that it becomes boring.

[SuperGrafx]

Candy Crush Saga just got ported to the Windows Phone platform. That's what I've been dabbling in the past few days.

[gameoverDude]

Ninja Commando (Neo-Geo): Not bad for one of the early NG games. From ADK, it's somewhat like a Time Soldiers 2 with Ninjas except for no rotary control- but the dodge move and the directed shuriken throw make up for that. All 3 characters have a charge move (Joe's thunder trick is highly useful to clear mobs, but sometimes the shuriken beats it at boss-killing) and two other specials.

Nobunaga Oda is the boss of the Japanese Civil War period (and also returns in ADK's Ninja Master's fighter).