What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

[opt2not]

Not a shmup per se, but a shooter nonetheless, I've been playing a bunch of Helldivers on PS4 lately. It's a pretty solid fun game, so far. A bit repetitive, but to a oldschool gamer this isn't a problem for me. Just hoping it opens up in the late-game with better scenarios/missions, and perhaps some more epic-sized enemies.

But so far I'm liking it, and the price was right.

[Immryr]

Yeah, and many of the sections are best solved with a speedrunning approach too. Wonderful game, the sequel is also definitely worth playing. You take on the colormancer boss yet?

yeah the whole game feels like you're practicing a speed run, even if like me you're dying a lot. I didn't play on it too much today, so I only made it about two continue points further than I was. I think it must be just before the 3rd boss.

[Immryr]

Holy balls this boss is hard. it probably doesn't help that i'm a bit colour blind.

-edit- ok after taking a break and coming back to it i beat him after a couple of tries. the star pattern was the one that was really killing me, i kept running out of space and couldn't get the cut through down. fortunately i didn't get that attack when i beat him.

[joeks]

Hotline Miami 2!

[S20-TBL]

Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate. I can't put the game down. Charge Blade is too good, though I also like the improvements to Gunlance (it's now possible to do a near shelling-only run).

I have yet to touch the Insect Glaive, but I've seen people club White Fatalis to death with it on 4G (Japanese version) within 12+ minutes.

[cicada88]

Made it to the final boss on Zelda 2, hope to beat it today.

What should I play next?

Choice A: Battle of Olympus

Choice B: Crystalis

Choice C: Faxanadu

Choice D: StarTropics

Choice E: Willow

[KennyMan666]

Crystalis is excellent. Battle of Olympus is basically if you wanted all of Zelda 2 to be the side-scrolling sections.

Myself, I started playing Earthbound on Wii U yesterday. It's not the first time I play the game, but I never did beat it when I played on emulator back in the day. Time to correct that.

[cicada88]

Crystalis is excellent. Battle of Olympus is basically if you wanted all of Zelda 2 to be the side-scrolling sections.

Myself, I started playing Earthbound on Wii U yesterday. It's not the first time I play the game, but I never did beat it when I played on emulator back in the day. Time to correct that.

early bird gets the worm--Crystalis it is

I am going to beat all of these for the first time in the next couple of months.

[KennyMan666]

I've played more or less of all of those except Faxanadu, and I can't really call any of them bad. But, yeah, Crystalis is probably the best one. It has the biggest joke of a final boss though.

[Ed Oscuro]

Hot off the heels of slinging a rebuke in the direction of Big Games Journo, let's see if I can do better:

Perfect Dark (XBLA):
This is an astonishing mix of things good and ugly. It's hard just to lose myself in the wonder of traversing a fully polygonal world these days, so the residual control and other hitches in this game bite more than they would have back in the day. The smooth frame rate and overhauled visuals are a real treat, though. I swing between having great fun with this, and swearing constantly. The progress and rewards intent of the game is commendable - what isn't so good is dealing with the quite lousy aiming (especially when dealing with the dynamic guards in single player, or the extremely quick-firing bots in the high level challenges) or sliding doors that refuse to open if you catch your shoulder in a decorative panel. Srafe-running is also an awful relic I'm happy to leave behind.

Ninja Blade:
I've gone back and forth on this one with mixed feelings. The scenario starts out seeming as bland and stereotyped as they come, with yet another whitey threatening to unleash a WMD on Japan, and the levels are unremittingly black, blue, and dark grays. However, things get better from there. I can't say I really love the QTEs or some of the other specific control tweaks here - "ninja vision," ugh - but it does things differently from Ninja Gaiden II. It is nice that I can end play sessions without feeling as fatigued as I do after playing through Ninja Gaiden II - From Software have erred on the side of letting you just plow through with restarts even if you aren't doing terrifically. Sometimes, this is just the thing, and still I note that on various difficulty levels From has some very easy end-of-level targets to reach an overall A. For example, I was able to restart Stage 7 a total of 8 times and still get an overall A rating on Normal difficulty...hmm!

I can see the "Otogi 3" heritage now and then. The previous stage ended with lots of bamboo to chop down, and a big rock for a jumping enemy to perch on for a moment, like a Crimson King. However, the real Otogi influence must be with the regular technical hitches in the game: Now and then the game crawls to a halt, black smoke covers the screen, or the gameplay resolution actually decreases for a few frames. I haven't thought the Otogi games were perfect for a long while, but I definitely miss that brand of craziness. I'd throw back all my Ninja Blades for a real Otogi 3.

[cicada88]

So yeah just beat Zelda 1 and 2 for the first time in the last 2 weeks.

Liked both but I'm not in the Zelda 2 is better camp that's for sure. The game's graphic style was super blah unlike the original. I did like a lot of the mechanics in the side scrolling and grinding was actually decently engaging. All of the bosses were easy and boring though. Up until the end of the game, even fully leveled up, some of those jumping dagger throwing knights could take me out, but no boss in the entire game took me more than 2 attempts to beat.

[Squire Grooktook]

Zelda 2 is awesome but IMO the only problem is that exploit where the knights (otherwise the trickiest sword duels in the game) can't block jumping attacks. Completely ruins some of the best combat moments in the game once you start exploiting that.

[Immryr]

While I think maybe zelda 2 might have been better if the boss fights were tougher, hard boss fights have never been something I associate with, or expect from a zelda game.

[Sir Ilpalazzo]

At least Volva or whatever (the penultimate boss, the angel thing in the final dungeon) is really great.

I finished Super Mario 3D World earlier today. I beat the game (as in, the regular eight worlds) a couple of months ago, but over the last week I finally got back to the game and made my way through the last couple of bonus worlds. It's an aesthetically masterful game all the way through, and it does a great job of constantly throwing new ideas at the player (the game's pacing being faster than Galaxy helps keep its levels from feeling empty and slow like that game's, too), but man I wish it had at least attempted to challenge the player a little earlier. I think the game should have at least hit the difficulty level of the third bonus world by world 8.

Champion's Road, the final stage, is a really fantastic level though. I was expecting it to be harder after all I had heard about it, so I was a little disappointed that I beat it after just a few hours of trying - but still, it was some top-class level design. Again though, I can't help but wish there had been more of that in the rest of the bonus worlds.

[lilmanjs]

Rallisport Challenge 2
Going through this xbox game again using cars I didn't use when I first beat it. Should be fun!

[iconoclast]

Ninja Gaiden II
Had a couple good survival runs over the last few days. The other night I got 15+ million with the Falcon Talons, dying somewhere in the fifth loop. That's the highest score I've got with any weapon in survival mode (just edging out the Scythe), which is kinda crazy to me since the Talons are one of the hardest weapons to use imo. I'm pretty sure that's also the second highest legitimate score on XBL, but it's still far behind YROGRVLNT's incredible 24m. I'd guess that he had to looped the game 7 or 8 times to get a score like that since his run lasted 2+ hours IIRC. That guy's awesome.

I got 12.6 million with the Vigoorian Flails earlier today as well. I believe that's also the second highest legit score on XBL, but at least this time I was less than a million points behind YRO's score. I managed to reach the Van Gelf/rocket ninja wave in the 4th loop before getting killed in this run. I kinda got screwed by some bad luck (having one of the mech spiders glitch and spawn in mid-air) and one really bad mistake (going for a UT in the red Gaja/mech fiend wave before a second essence spawned), but I'm still pretty happy with that score. I don't think I'll be trying too hard to improve on it.

Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition
This was on sale for $13 and I've been wanting to play it, so I figured why not. I'm sure I'd like it more if it had more in common with Tomb Raider Anniversary than Uncharted, but so far it's been fun enough.

[MOSQUITO FIGHTER]

Got F1 2010 for only $10. Enjoying it so far. I just wish it had some music. It makes the game seem kind of drab without it. The races are really long too. But I guess that's just part of the style of racing. Haven't had any major glitches happen yet, other than the game freezing up for a few seconds here and there for no reason. I'll probably stick with it. I'm already used to racing it without any assists on. Just using the driving line at the moment. Seems to be a little on the easy side so far.

[Ruldra]

Got F1 2010 for only $10. Enjoying it so far. I just wish it had some music. It makes the game seem kind of drab without it. The races are really long too. But I guess that's just part of the style of racing. Haven't had any major glitches happen yet, other than the game freezing up for a few seconds here and there for no reason. I'll probably stick with it. I'm already used to racing it without any assists on. Just using the driving line at the moment. Seems to be a little on the easy side so far.

I'd recommend turning off driving line as soon as possible. It helps to drive around a track you're not familiar with, but it quickly becomes a crutch. You'll never truly learn a track unless you turn it off.

Also, go ahead and raise the difficulty or disable more assists if it's too easy for you. You'll get bored pretty quickly if you're always qualifying in first and stay in the lead the entire race. It gets pretty tough when you race with all assists off, use cockpit camera and manual transmission.

A few glitches aside, I like F1 2010 a lot. I actually think it's the best of the Codemasters' F1 games, mainly because there's no KERS or DRS crap.

[MOSQUITO FIGHTER]

^ Yeah, I just got to where I can turn the driving line off. Got all the assists off too. The shifting is pretty tricky though I admit. They have to be changed so fast in F1. My engine kept running to hot the first time I tried it. I'm guessing that bad shifts really eat up a lot of fuel too. I can honestly barely drive from the cockpit camera. You'd really have to know the tracks well to drive from that one. I've been using the above the helmet view. I really like that view though, so I'll probably stick with that one for a while anyway.

But, yeah I'm really enjoying F1 2010. Great game.

I also picked up Grid Autosport for a measly $17. Maybe I just suck, but this game is really kicking my ass hard. I don't even know how anyone can finish the endurance races with assists turned off, the difficulty cranked up, and full simulation damage. The only mode in this game that I can even hang in there on is the open wheeled racing. The AI is no joke either. They will straight up knock you off the road. You really have to give the AI some respect and space in this game or else they will totally screw you over. I mean even with it set to medium I'm barely hanging in there.

Toughest game I've played in quite a while honestly. If you're up a challenge I'd recommend this one. It's much harder than the first Grid and F1 2010 to me. The game probably has the best graphics on 360 too. It looks really great. Don't know if I have the patience/skills for this one myself.

[juonryu2nd]

I wasn't all that fond of Zelda 2's combat. TP's was on the easy side, but I found defeating Iron Knuckles pretty entertaining.
I think the Zelda games with the most fun combat were Oracle of Seasons/Ages. Especially since you could use Pegasus Seeds for a speed-up.

[Squire Grooktook]

^^^Seasons and Ages are both dope and the pinnacle of the 2d side of the franchise imo.

[Immryr]

spent some time playing Little Nemo on the nes recently, i only bought it due to seeing bil recommend it somewhere and the fact it was cheap as chips. i didn't think i would get into it at first but it has grown on me quite a bit. it's pretty brutal once you get past the cutesy exterior. almost feels like you're playing a castlevania game where instead of being a bad ass with a whip, you're a little twerp with a bag of sweets. all of your actions feel really weighty.

[Obiwanshinobi]

I think the Zelda games with the most fun combat were Oracle of Seasons/Ages. Especially since you could use Pegasus Seeds for a speed-up.

Whatever ring makes the spin attack charge faster is also welcome.

[BrianC]

spent some time playing Little Nemo on the nes recently, i only bought it due to seeing bil recommend it somewhere and the fact it was cheap as chips. i didn't think i would get into it at first but it has grown on me quite a bit. it's pretty brutal once you get past the cutesy exterior. almost feels like you're playing a castlevania game where instead of being a bad ass with a whip, you're a little twerp with a bag of sweets. all of your actions feel really weighty.

While it's much easier in terms of difficulty, "castlevania game...(with a) litte twerp with a bag of sweets" made me think of Kid Dracula/Boku Dracula Kun.

[BIL]

spent some time playing Little Nemo on the nes recently, i only bought it due to seeing bil recommend it somewhere and the fact it was cheap as chips. i didn't think i would get into it at first but it has grown on me quite a bit. it's pretty brutal once you get past the cutesy exterior. almost feels like you're playing a castlevania game where instead of being a bad ass with a whip, you're a little twerp with a bag of sweets. all of your actions feel really weighty.

Great game, glad it's gained a fan. ^__^ I consider it as essential as 2010 Street Fighter, Ningen Heiki: Dead Fox and Red Arremer 2. For all the flak they get over endless Rockman sequels, Capcom put out quite a few excellent, unique sidescrollers in the FC's later years.

Well, can't really call Dead Fox unique with it being a shameless Rolling Thunder ripoff. It is excellent though!

[juonryu2nd]

The bane of my childhood.

[BIL]

Haha, never seen the English manual. Might have to update my ol' FAQ with proper enemy names.

[mamboFoxtrot]

Okay, after Portal, Portal 2, Quantum Conundrum, some Braid, and some more Lup*Salad, I think I've had enough puzzles for a while. Back to beating things in the face!

So, now it's time to see if Maximo: Ghosts to Glory is worth the $6 I payed for it (Like New condition, even!), or if its design is going to be as unsound as the anatomy in some of these promo arts (also that chick's boobs in the opening cutscene wtf). First impressions:
- Holy shit, dark! I need to play this on a brighter TV.
- Oh God 2001-era camera "control"... I keep fiddling the right stick out of reflex, but to no avail!
- Movements and attacks seem responsive enough.
- Running in and mashing the attack button against enemies is ineffective as early as stage 1! These mother fuckers are out for blood!
- Getting the fire power-up is so useful it makes me sad it's random.
- It seems there's a few spots where if you don't know the ground is going to fall, you're probably not going to be able to save yourself, regardless of reaction time.

Also, I decided to google Susumu Matsushita (the Japanese artist responsible for the very American looking artwork) and holy shit he's the Dos Equis guy!

[Pretas]

Matsushita's artwork isn't "very American." Disney was clearly his biggest influence, but all his designs have a distinct Toriyama-esque manga flair.

The man drew the cover for every single mainline issue of Famitsu - he really deserves more recognition than he gets.

[Ed Oscuro]

Spent a bit of time with Outlaws.

Ugly: The FMV / artwork style is absolutely atrocious, and the precious daughter is one of the ugliest things I've seen. In-game, strange graphical glitches and hitches in textures appear and dissapear at the edges of the frame like ghosts, thanks to the now hard to understand choice of Glide for graphics interface, perhaps done to gain higher resolutions. Thankfully GoG has sorted this out well enough with a decent Glide wrapper (sadly, they have bundled an old version, though installing the new version separately seems to work fine). Strafing side to side you can see the front, side, and back of an object (like a horse), which makes no sense; sometimes enemies seem to put their back to you. The soundtrack has lots of fine moments, but I find the relatively unrefined synth sound distracting.
Bad: Level design and appearance is a bit spartan and sometimes a bit uncontrolled - though there are lots of decent ambush setups, so this is mitigated. Perhaps this is due to targeting a lower spec device than the new-for-1997 crop, but it is strange to see that decision coupled with the nVidia graphics card requirement; all Glide achieved was vendor lock-in. Occasionally movement and handling feel awkward (though this is just the traditional number key row formula starting to burst at the seams, rather than something uniquely bad about the game). Also, right now the game's come to a bit of a halt as I take a break from a very ornate and very stupid millrace maze.
Good: Lots. Interesting enough mix of "Western" stereotypical themes at the tail end of the period you could get away with saying that the Westward expansion era was "a time for justice" with a straight face. Dangerous gunplay on "Bad" mode reminds me of the tense death-around-every-corner attitude of Blood. There also are a fair number of nice little touches, like the head bob animation for running up stairs, and a fairly elaborate easter egg is available in the very first level. For the first area you have to go upstairs multiple areas, down into cellars, up again into a barricaded building, and through that into a semi-hidden area before battling a boss character. It's not the smoothest-playing game I've ever handled, and a lot of its flaws come down to its attempts to escape the DOOM / Duke 3D mold, but so do many of its finer points.