What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

[Stevens]

Went through the Genesis Collection on the 360 and starte earmarking shit I need to play, I'm starting with Ristar and Dynamite Headdy. Both have been on backlog for far too long.

[Obiwanshinobi]

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).

Decent Ninja Master's and Ninja Commando versions are on ADK Tamashii collection for the PS2. Scaled up to 480i and filtered, but only Twinkle Star Sprites suffered badly from that (and slowdown).

[ACSeraph]

Scaled up to 480i and filtered

Usually the filters can be turned off in those kinds of NG collections. Was that not the case in Tamashii?

---

A good night at the arcade playing DOA5 has sucked me back in and now I've been playing pretty much every day. It aint perfect, but god I love this game. I can't deny that it's poor man's Virtua, but I prefer the speed of it and the way things flow. I've also never found a character in Virtua that I truly love to play. Hit A rank with Ayane last night, but there's still a long way to go.

[JBC]

Tetrisphere on 64. Man I frickin love this game. It's just fun to zone out to & feels like a real extension of Tetris, unlike the majority of spinoffs from the era.

[Leandro]

Just finished Arkham Asylum and now I'm playing Arkham City.

Great interpretation of the Batman lore, these games are. Incredible atmosphere, enjoyable narrative...
A bit too easy and very simple combat, but that is to be expected from modern games I guess

[ArmoredCore]

Xrd & USF4

[Ed Oscuro]

Ninja Commando (Neo-Geo): Not bad for one of the early NG games.

I'd say ADK's early Neo Geo attempt was Ninja Combat. By 1992, that kind of ugliness wouldn't cut it anymore. It's been a while, but it also seemed that game didn't really have it in the gameplay department either, even compared to the many later cookie-cutter-with-gimmicks-sometimes scrolling brawlers on the system.

[iconoclast]

Alien: Isolation - Completed this the other day. If I had to quickly summarize it, I'd say it's a 20 hour long game of hide & seek with lots of back tracking and fetch quests. It's enjoyable enough for a playthrough if you're a fan of the series (particularly the first movie), but it's really boring to replay because most of the time you're just slowly walking through samey environments to complete repetitive mission objectives. At any rate, it's still better than Alien 3.

Halo MCC - After a solid month of patches, this game's multiplayer has finally become functional (with lots of bugs still). The most recent patch made some major improvements to the Halo CE netcode, and they just released the 2v2 playlist for it the other day, so I've been playing that a ton. I just hate how sometimes it gives you 3v3 matches because a lot of the maps are too small for that. It just leads to constant spawn killing.

[MOSQUITO FIGHTER]

Ultra SFIV - Trying to get good with Elena. Interesting challenge so far. I have yet to win a match using her online. Not giving up yet. After all I got pretty ok with Viper eventually. Playing low tier is pretty fun/frustrating.

[null1024]

had a huge-ass post that I think I never actually did submit and now it's gone
did hit the preview button, and here's the tl;dr version of what I wrote earlier anyway:

Mega Man 2 [NES] [I'm bad, but the game is still kind of easy, fuck the Quickman lasers though].
Project Diva F2nd [Vita] [it's good! the graphics are better! star notes aren't ass fucking retarded anymore because you can use the sticks! the charts are a lot of fun! silly things: why does Kagerou Daze not have the in-game translation? I looked the lyrics up first thing and it didn't seem like anything that would need to be cut, the game was rated T].
Project Diva f [Vita] [some of these tracks on Extreme are actually killing me].
Tales of Hearts R [Vita] [apparently, I'm almost done? the game keeps saying shit that sounds like it's coming to the end, I'm 30 hours in][/b].

[JBC]

I haven't & never have had any idea why Mega Man 2 has a reputation for being the hardest of the bunch, much less hard at all. I breezed through it on my first rental as a kid & a hundred times since. I think I even beat it before I had ever finished part 1. Awesome game though.

I recently tried out X7 & X8 for the first time. 7 had it's problems but 8 is really impressive.

[null1024]

I haven't & never have had any idea why Mega Man 2 has a reputation for being the hardest of the bunch, much less hard at all. I breezed through it on my first rental as a kid & a hundred times since. I think I even beat it before I had ever finished part 1. Awesome game though.

I recently tried out X7 & X8 for the first time. 7 had it's problems but 8 is really impressive.

I've never heard anyone say 2 was the hardest, that's odd. Usually, I hear people say that about MM1.
also, I kind of need to go back and play X8 -- I started a bit ago, and then dropped it out of nowhere

Never touched X7 before, heard it's made of problems.

[Immryr]

I started playing shenmue today and holy crap, the stilted dialogue is like a David lynch film or something. It's hilarious.

[Stevens]

I started playing shenmue today and holy crap, the stilted dialogue is like a David lynch film or something. It's hilarious.

Revolutionary at the time. Sadly, imho, the game has not aged well at all.

[JBC]

Never touched X7 before, heard it's made of problems.

Oh yes, but there may be a good game hidden beneath it all. If there is, I haven't been patient enough to find it yet.

[soprano1]

Never touched X7 before, heard it's made of problems.

Oh yes, but there may be a good game hidden beneath it all. If there is, I haven't been patient enough to find it yet.

No there isn't, sorry. I own it
X8, while not being as good as previous X games and having that weird character design, feels much better to play than X7.

[Mortificator]

The upgrade system is X7's a major misstep. I'm not a fan of them in action games in general, and here, the characters feel particularly hobbled until a half-dozen or so power chips are spent on them. I'd say to download a complete save, if you can, and start a new game from that.

[broken harbour]

Ultra SF4 and GGXrd.

Don't have a lot of experiences with Xrd yet, but wow is USF4 awesome, real balanced, great control. Focus and Red Focus system is fantastic. This is the first SF game I can really get into since Alpha 2. I didn't try SF4 until now, I sort of regret missing out on it for the last 5 years. Only thing is that I still wish there were alpha counters.

[Tregard]

I've been going back over old FPS games from the late 90s, mainly because my laptop can't really handle anything else. Just finished Quake 2 yesterday.

I was absolutely obsessed with this game back in '97, but it was really disappointing to go back to. The graphics were the big sell back in those days, particularly the coloured lighting, but with that wow factor now long gone the drabness of the environments stands out painfully. Seriously the whole game is just a giant fucking warehouse. The action also feels like a step back from the original Quake. There's a real lack of memorable monster designs, and none of them are scary or challenging in the same way the Shamblers and Vores were in the original. I think the game's ambition to build a more believable connected world is mostly to blame, as it prevents them from ever really surprising you. No sudden traps, no monster closets, no hellish beasts teleporting in on top of you... and while Quake 2's weapons are certainly powerful they still feel sanitised when compared to the original's nail guns and explosives. Maybe it's the rose-tinted specs here but Quake 1 definitely felt rawer, more desperate, more violent.

Quake 2 definitely did a lot to innovate the genre and move it forward - hub-based levels, mission objectives, set-piece levels like the boss fights and the processing plant (which is still wonderfully sick) - but in doing so it seemed to lose the twitchy surreal excitement which made Quake so special. Still, didn't stop me from playing the hell out of it when I was a teenager.

One thing I did like which you just wouldn't see in a modern game: upon killing the final boss you can venture down underground where the final secret lurks - a corridor full of pictures of the ID team, with weird techno music playing and exploding portraits and all sorts. Can you imagine a modern game throwing such a thing at you right at the all-important climax? It was a nice reminder that back in the day game devs didn't seem to be so precious about what they were doing. Or maybe it was just an ID thing.

[Lord Satori]

Yeah I don't even own Quake 2. My dad played a demo of it once or twice but he never went back to it. Then Quake 3 came out and it was THE SHIT!

[Formless God]

DW8XL. Game's fucking broken but it's kinda fun and I can't stop.
- Get a shitton of attack boosts
- Get a weapon that is weak against the boss's weapon
- Go straight to his base while luring everything on the way with you
- Hold guard in front of him until he starts shitting teal particles
- Press the Switch button for FREE gauge
- Rage up, Musou and make sure nobody falls off the rape express

[JBC]

I think I'll pick up the n64 versions of Quake 1 & 2 soon. I know the original versions are better, but just for nostalgia purposes I think I'll go with the carts. I already have Doom 64, but it's so dark it's nearly unplayable without cranking up the TV's settings.

[Ed Oscuro]

I think I'll pick up the n64 versions of Quake 1 & 2 soon. I know the original versions are better, but just for nostalgia purposes I think I'll go with the carts. I already have Doom 64, but it's so dark it's nearly unplayable without cranking up the TV's settings.

Quake 1 is a bit different - I don't mind it, still need to play more of its levels. Q2 N64 I'm not quite so fond of, but it does have all new levels and so is kind of interesting in its own right. Good ol' Raster Productions did well with that one.

[JBC]

Aubrey Hodges' soundtracks are great in those.

[M.Knight]

Project Diva F2nd [Vita] [it's good! the graphics are better! star notes aren't ass fucking retarded anymore because you can use the sticks! the charts are a lot of fun! silly things: why does Kagerou Daze not have the in-game translation? I looked the lyrics up first thing and it didn't seem like anything that would need to be cut, the game was rated T].

From what I heard about it, SEGA was not able to obtain the rights to translate Kagerou Daze's lyrics from the song's original creator.

[null1024]

all this Quake talk makes me want to go play some Quake now

Project Diva F2nd [Vita] [it's good! the graphics are better! star notes aren't ass fucking retarded anymore because you can use the sticks! the charts are a lot of fun! silly things: why does Kagerou Daze not have the in-game translation? I looked the lyrics up first thing and it didn't seem like anything that would need to be cut, the game was rated T].

From what I heard about it, SEGA was not able to obtain the rights to translate Kagerou Daze's lyrics from the song's original creator.

That seems likely, and I did think that might be the case after I asked. Ah, well.

[Mischief Maker]

all this Quake talk makes me want to go play some Quake now

Obligatory.

[BIL]

Maybe it's the rose-tinted specs here but Quake 1 definitely felt rawer, more desperate, more violent.

Q1's singleplayer has definitely aged better. Played the Scourge of Armagon expansion recently, had such a blast I immediately replayed the original and Dissolution of Eternity expansion pack. It's faster, bouncier and more direct with anything-goes map designs, where the sequel slowed everything down and imposed dourly believable settings for atmosphere's sake. I remember a lot of contemporary PC gaming media trumpeting the sequel's return to Wolf3D/DOOM singleplayer glory after Q1's spartan, deathmatch-focused experience. No surprise that where raw action is concerned, the original is a hell of a lot nearer id's earlier games and similarly ageless.

[drauch]

Yeah, Quake 1 is probably the better game, but Quake 2 is still a damned nasty game. It really carries this grimy, industrial hell about it that I love. That and those flies over the corpses--always loved that.

[BIL]

Have to say Q2 does have a few really neat enemy designs. Still love the robot dogs with human faces and spine-mounted vampire harpoons. Flying zombies in black metal flightsuits and arm-fused VTOL engines look pretty badass as well. Much cooler than Q1's equivalent crummy Rottweilers and flying fishmans. Liked the bigger bruisers' tendency for vicious-looking ungulate tractor legs, too.

I wish they exploded as good as the original's baddies though. Q1 motherfuckers need to cut back on the sodium, that's some serious hyper-pressurised claret!



Bah gawd!