What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

[Obiwanshinobi]

In all fairness, GBA connectivity was meant to be a substantial enhancement. Who actually played through WW with another person?*) Or Four Swords for that matter.
I suppose the most played of such multiplayer games was Pac-Man Vs., if only because all it took was one GBA with a cable (on top of a 'Cube and at least two people of course). Wasn't it the last game designed by Miyamoto that did something this fresh?

*) According to the manual, co-op was the feature's main purpose.

[Squire Grooktook]

Actually I did play through Four Swords (Game Cube) with a friend. It was amazing.

[Obiwanshinobi]

I can only guess GBA connectivity in WW was meant to draw non-gamers in. Let them participate while you're hogging the TV and they don't mind watching you doing so.
Which is a pretty sweet idea, I must admit. Much like Ico (not the original US/C print) can be played in co-op second time around. At least sounds better than co-op in S&P2 or SM Galaxy...
Oh yes, assuming World of Goo on the Wii is any good, it just might be THE point & click co-op game on the console. Other than gun games of course.

[dink]

The New Zealand Story
Kabuki-Z (same hw)
good times

[Strider77]

World Heroes Perfect... it's true, I admit it.

[Squire Grooktook]

World Heroes Perfect... it's true, I admit it.

Good times.

[Skykid]

World Heroes Perfect... it's true, I admit it.

It's great.

[Blinge]

To re-state the obvious, Demon's Souls owes Monster Hunter a lot. Isn't it all for the better?

I've never played Monster hunter, can you elaborate?
Bear in mind Souls is the progeny of the King's Field series, and From Software have been making challenging niche RPGs forever.

Zelda WW does not deserve the praise heaped on it. You can sleepwalk the entire game, it's a big empty ocean of nothing. The combat is meh even by OoT standards. But ZOMG Link has facial expressions and waves goodbye to his grandma!!! immersive emotional storytelling!!!
Twilight Princess is underrated I think, It just has IGN tier reviewers saying it's an OoT ripoff. Skyward Sword made me want to never play the series again. Spirit Tracks was even worse, Hell I've probably ranted about it here already.

[OmKol]

Got 1LC clear in Gunforce 2 for arcade. Good run'n'gun but it's so weird it doesn't have a ending.
Now I'm waiting for Steam release of Super Cyborg which is comes today.

[Some-Mist]

Zelda WW does not deserve the praise heaped on it. it's a big empty ocean of nothing.

speaking of a big empty ocean - that was the worst part in the game

Spoiler

having to go on a deep sea treasure hunting quest midway through the game

[Satan]

Playing the PSN Classic version of God Hand on PS3 - I have a lot of love for this game and it looks surprisingly not horrible on my 5y/o 50" Plasma.

[Ghegs]

Daytooooonaaaaaaaaa

[null1024]

Burnout 2 [PS2].

haven't played in forever
it shows, I really need to get back into this

Forgot how much damn fun this game is.

Driving the Warthog is fun in the PC port of Halo, using mouse and keyboard. Pretty unusual controls, but Hostile Waters did something akin to it before and it was amazing.

it really is
the Halo CE vehicle controls are wonderful [they do encourage the vehicle to fishtail a bit though]

[Obiwanshinobi]

I've never played Monster hunter, can you elaborate?

Combat engines and grinding for upgrades in both feel alike (the timing required, the way stamina gauge works, various attacks' range, the lot). Similar pacing, similar time your average "run" takes before you have to retry.
I'd say 60 fps Capcom slashers felt more like fighting games (which they essentially were, if not 1vs1) in how they rewerded twitch reflexes. Those are the games where I perform considerably worse when tired.
Monster Hunter's combat was a grossly different beast and no wonder it had stricken gold (I suppose its fanbase is wider than, say, DMC's). The one I play (sometimes) is Tri on the Wii and when I got to play Demon's Souls, it felt almost like Monster Hunter painted black. Frequent loadings in Monster Hunter make the biggest difference to me; otherwise, the gaming experience is a lot like Demon's Souls. Action games where a bit of thinking can make up for your sub-optimal performance.
You know those times when you're no good at given arcade game? When you can't seem to make any progress in those, you can still hope to make some in MH or Demon's Souls, but not absent-mindedly.

[Blinge]

I sense this is about to descend into an argument. My rampant fanboyism makes me as volatile as a Demon's Souls NPC..

Maybe you think it owes MH because you're playing it like MH. You don't need to grind at all to beat a Souls game, I didn't purposefully grind on any of my NG runs. They're designed not to be a massive grindfest like MH seems to be, and D'S is predominantly a single player experience imo.
I can understand with MH's insane popularity in Japan that it probably influences a lot of games, but to say D'S owes a lot to it is a stretch. It implies that without MH there would be no Demon's Souls and I don't see any reason to believe that. To borrow from what ACSeraph was saying; Souls owes far more to Zelda.

I looked up some MH gameplay to see what you meant and came across this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oPHAWfXV9E
It looks repetitive and dull to me, nowhere near as refined. There doesn't seem to be a real penalty for sloppy play, getting hit doesn't look like a big deal. Yeah this might be a noob playing, if you have better footage i'll check that out.

Action games where a bit of thinking can make up for your sub-optimal performance.

Actually in Souls I'd see thinking as a requirement, not an afterthought.

[Shepardus]

If you want to see people who know what they're doing in Monster Hunter make sure you're watching G-Rank quests or at least high rank. The game becomes a lot more challenging then, and proper dodging actually becomes important. Here's the first non-sloppy vid I found (the player activates a low-HP buff in the beginning so he can't get hit after that). Good parties also need to coordinate well to time when they're going to stagger the monster and go for breakoffs and stuff like that. If anything, the combat is more refined than that of Dark Souls, at least in later iterations of the game and when put into the hands of a decent player.

Different weapons in Monster Hunter also offer different playstyles. Very heavy weapons like greatsword are super slow but very impactful if the player times their hits properly and positions well, while lighter weapons like the switch axe or even lighter weapons like the dual blades or insect glaive are more fluid in nature and allow more improvisational dodging.

Grinding in the beginning can help, but it only becomes necessary at G-Rank or towards the upper end of high rank when there's really nothing else to do. In low and most of high rank just playing through the quests as they come will get you most of the materials you need for crafting and you shouldn't need to repeat a quest more than two or three times if you want a particular weapon or set of armor. Besides, the extent to which you can grind in place of skill is somewhat limited by the fact that you can only craft equipment from monsters you've already defeated, and there's no exp or leveling system, just equipment. Unfortunately most gameplay vids I've seen (including the one you linked) use equipment much better than what you can expect to have the first time you do each quest.

I like MH's combat a lot (at least certain weapon types like switch axe) but I don't think it's that similar to the Souls games beyond having a weighty feeling and strategy being just as important as raw reactions.

[Blinge]

Good parties also need to coordinate well to time when they're going to stagger the monster and go for breakoffs and stuff like that. If anything, the combat is more refined than that of Dark Souls, at least in later iterations of the game and when put into the hands of a decent player.

Fanboy mode engage. That video looks anything but refined mate. Christ it's like 10 minutes on one monster too. Also, complications like being designed for online play are the opposite of refinement.
Sitting here yelling "my game is better" isn't my intention but its hard to ignore such comments."monster hunter painted black" seemed a ridiculous statement and that's what I began to disagree with.
I'm curious to know exactly how far obiwanshinobi is in the game, actually.

Different weapons in Monster Hunter also offer different playstyles.

That's another similarity, have you played a souls game?

[Shepardus]

The bosses do take longer than in Dark Souls because there isn't much in Monster Hunter besides the boss fights. In that sense they're paced more like an MMO raid boss with more action than, say, a shmup boss. It admittedly does get repetitive compared to Dark Souls but going for breakoffs mitigates that to a certain extent (every boss has at least one breakoff point and most of the later ones have several), as well as the various phases monsters have (enraged, hungry, limping, etc.). To me it's fun enough that 15-30 minutes feels like a good amount of time to fight a monster, and I like the tension of having to ration out my healing potions through that time, though if you're not a fan of repetition then Monster Hunter definitely isn't for you since the game is in many ways a study of repetition.

Also, the game plays perfectly fine solo, especially if you do the solo quests, which are specifically balanced for solo play. I actually prefer playing solo as positioning and timing's a lot more skill-intensive when there aren't three others to take aggro away from you and manage status effects for you (similarly, I pretty much never used co-op in Dark Souls).

I wasn't saying that Dark Souls doesn't have different playstyles with each weapon (I've played the game through and most of the way through a NG+ run and I tried out enough weapons to know that the weapons are quite varied), I was just saying that watching a single gameplay vid of Monster Hunter isn't necessarily representative of its combat style.

I don't think I really understand what you mean by refined, to me Monster Hunter feels more refined because of how different moves combo into each other and how monsters react to your hits, while Dark Souls' movesets feel more restrained, though to be fair I'm not very good at either game.

And for the record I do disagree with Obiwanshinobi that Dark Souls combat owes much to Monster Hunter, about the only similarity they have is that attacks are slow compared to something like Devil May Cry. Demon's Souls feels like it grew more out of From's previous games and the atmosphere of the game itself than Monster Hunter.

[Blinge]

*calms down*

Alright.. I will get around to trying MH Tri eventually. As shmuppers, none of us are strangers to repetition .

[Ed Oscuro]

Played a bit of SWAT 3. It uses the Gabriel Knight 3 engine, so it makes sense that just clearing the first stage involves a LOT of doing things completely manually and with a poor UI - I kept failing the first mission because I didn't use the radio, even though I dealt with the suspects. No doubt this was something of a gigantic annoyance back in the day, but then again there were big paper manuals back then. But in short: 1.) use tool to open doors; 2.) avoid civilians, yell at them for compliance, cuff, and use radio to evac; 3.) secure weapons lying about; 4.) force suspect into compliance, cuff, and evac; 5.) use radio to announce mission completion (if it actually is).

If you ever wanted to yell GET DOWN ON THE GROUND at a Gabriel Knight 3 character or see chips flying out from a wall behind a wood barrier (whoa!), this is your game. It's a pity there aren't any tactical games on the market that actually promote non-lethal approaches like this game does. Also, this game is so '90s* it's not funny - world peace via a nuclear abolition treaty, lengthy text about Safariland and Leatherman and random character bios that must be navigated via tiny buttons, a history of the SWAT peppered with unannotated '80s PR photos, and of course that feeling of "whoa, many polygons, much detail" in tiny maps.

*technically, it's from 2001, the last year of the '90s.

Monster Hunter [...] a study of repetition.

This is why I'm digging Dragon's Dogma so far: Similar landscapes, a fair amount of crafting (not as in-depth or user-guided as MH, especially as far as weapons are concerned, for good or bad), a good variety of enemies including big monsters you can climb on. Also, exploration is pretty good, and if you don't like something, you can just sprint past it.

There is some mention of parrying in the game, which I haven't really played with yet on Assassin. From what I understand, you can either press LB or just get a skill to auto-parry; overall the game doesn't seem very technical in gameplay execution, but instead on pre-planning. It does set up more attacks, but you can use other attacks to avoid getting into parry scenarios altogether (like using a dash attack), so it's unlikely to be as much of a general utility as DaS' parry and riposte. In a way, this isn't a bad thing, since it's nice to be able to move quickly and dish out damage. Since there's a lot of respawning mobs, it's nice to be able to clean them up quickly, and I still have to be careful around bosses.

In subtle ways the game seems like a love letter to various Capcom hits of the past: The text fonts, shop UI, and the general look of landscapes call RE4 to mind, while the sense of scale is definitely reminiscent of MH. The south-west part of the map, to the west of the starting area, includes a narrow ravine / canyon with a few ledges, which looks almost like a copy of one of the areas at the start of the first Monster Hunter (at least the PSP port). The general attack style probably calls to mind any number of MMOs as much as DMC or whatever, but so far it doesn't feel like simple button mashing despite not being terribly demanding on execution (at least, you can set it up that way).

There's some flaws here and there: Having to save before/during/after encounters is aggravating. Skippable quests are aggravating (I knew one important break point was coming, but still managed to miss it anyway), especially since quests will have you going all over in a way that feels random, overly long, and aimless at the start; there's a definite push to go north at the start which dissuades players from checking out some important skippable quests. Finally, all pawn inclinations can lead to some undesired behavior in the right circumstances, and some inclinations prove totally useless for some players (I personally like having Pioneer on my main pawn, since I'm a hoarder by nature in these kinds of games and it helps save me some time - though we'll see how I feel if he starts looting during high-level mobs that I can't take out with the other pawns or by my lonesome).

The inclination system in general is the result of some deliberate fence-sitting; it's obviously designed to make it unclear how much your pawns have self-guidance, and how much you can guide them. Unfortunately the control methods are either bad (using d-pad commands appears to force inclinations on all pawns, when you've spent so much time assembling a good team) or come down to re-rolling or grinding. Sending away regular pawns in the Nexus allows re-rolling there; the guidance chair is a poor tool for freely changing your main pawn's inclinations, and the inclination potions don't always seem to work - not to mention they are very expensive and there's a fair amount of totally unmentioned strategy in using them (must use potions in reverse order of importance, must use more potions for the inclinations you want to be set the hardest - i.e. 3-5-7-9 potions is a standard formula, which of course would cost a LOT of rift crystals).

You can get a lot of insight into the game's rep by considering that the game will toss away any unsaved loot if you retry, though keep the area cleared; it'll take away your fancy 300,000 credit 1HKO arrow if you restart, but it WON'T keep your list of summoned pawns if you retry. In reality, though, these kinds of annoyances are mostly easily dealt with, and the rest of the game is pretty good. Overall, though, the huge amount of game design choices and interactions make things rather complex to set up and understand in comparison to a Souls game.

[Shepardus]

*calms down*

Alright.. I will get around to trying MH Tri eventually. As shmuppers, none of us are strangers to repetition .

MH Tri's a good intro to the series (I say so because it was my own intro), though it starts off even more slowly than most Monster Hunter games and, being the first in its generation of Monster Hunter games, has a lack of content compared to the later MH games in each generation (Monster Hunter Freedom Unite for 2nd-gen, Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate for 3rd-gen, Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate for 4th-gen), missing things like G-Rank quests (the most difficult tier) and several weapon types such as gunlance and dual blades. If you end up liking Tri and are looking for more, try one of the aforementioned games if you can, since they're more "definitive" iterations of Monster Hunter. In fact, if you have a 3DS it's probably best to jump straight in to Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate.

[mamboFoxtrot]

When are they going to make a Monster Hunter game with local co-op? :'(

I got some PS2 component cables and HOLY SHIT I CAN SEE THINGS AND READ TEXT NOW! For games like Burnout 3, it's like night and day going from composite to component. I can actually tell the difference between the road and the walls and other cars and shit. So... I guess I'm going to be playing a shit-ton of PS2 games now.

Also, my sister, who is normally unfathomably terribad at video games, somehow managed to COMPLETELY ANNIHALATE me in Cleopatra Fortune (via Taito Legends 2). She wasn't even bothering to rotate the pieces! Man, I knew I was bad at Tetris-likes, but shiiit... Trying to rotate pieces was probably my downfall, though, as I'd sometimes end up with pieces sticking out at weird angles and such.

[Obiwanshinobi]

I failed at the second Boletaria Palace's bossfight once (Phalanx went down at my first attempt). No idea how many hours in, nor would I know in what terms my advancement in Tri should be described (most likely fewer hours than Demon's Souls).
These days any game I'm told takes a long time to complete sort of sits there, staring at me. I only got to make some progress in either lately thanks to a few weeks' worth of redundancy and soltitude (made bigger progress in King's Bounty: The Legend still).

The sense of similarity comes from the - undeniably similar - combat engines and the proportions of things to do in both. I happen to find their gameplays very alike each other. Even the game engines' inadequacies are of comparable gravity (the camera in MH Tri, the wishy-washy lock-on in Demon's Souls). Can't help feeling they are of the same family.

I'm pretty sure the combat of Demon's Souls owes Monster Hunter more than the combat of any 3D Zelda. Not that I've played the Wii ones, but isn't Skyward Sword the universally least played, quickest forgoten one to this day? Couldn't it have something to do with the gameplay being too much of the same at last?

You'll find Monster Hunter refrains itself from making you feel super-human. In that respect, it's equivalent to "cinematic" platform games: Prince of Persia, Another World, Flashback... Fantasy TPP action games are typically eager to give you superpowers, half-demon origins and other such excuses for you performing deeds no-one else in depicted world could. In Monster Hunter, however, you are unmistakably one of many. That's the crucial series-defining trait Demon's Souls shares with it. No the first "action RPG"*) to go there, mind; Monster Hunter reminds me of the first Gothic in more ways than one.

*) A term commonly applied to games with the one and only route leading to completion, but since Demon's Souls isn't among those, I feel it's justified here.

When are they going to make a Monster Hunter game with local co-op? :'(

Monster Hunter Tri has got split-screen 2 player. I assume it's co-op, this being Monster Hunter.

Was the original Mobile Suit Gundam: Federation vs. Zeon coin-op 2 player split-screen or dual screen?

[Immryr]

While there are similarities in the combat of MH and souls games they feel very different to each other. The general flow and progression in the games is where they're most different. Souls games to me are similar to super metroid where your first play through will be quite slow and deliberate, exploring everything and feeling your way through the world. On subsequent plays it becomes a much more focused and slightly arcadey experience. This is a bit different in demons souls with its level based structure though...

[Obiwanshinobi]

And how many minutes are you given in Monster Hunter to complete a mission? Not exactly the kind of time you can spend dilly-dallying if you want succeed.

[Immryr]

I'm not sure what you're getting at, or how to respond. You seem to have either missed my meaning or are just responding with something unrelated. I was talking about the flow and progression of the game as a whole, I.e. Your first play through of dark souls might take you 50 hours or so but on subsequent play throughs, depending on how you approach the game, you can get it down to 2 to 10 hours, rushing through areas and making it more of an arcade-esque experience (sort of).

[Blinge]

I failed at the second Boletaria Palace's bossfight once (Phalanx went down at my first attempt). No idea how many hours in,

....proportions of things to do in both. I happen to find their gameplays very alike each other. Even the game engines' inadequacies are of comparable gravity (the camera in MH Tri, the wishy-washy lock-on in Demon's Souls).

I'm pretty sure the combat of Demon's Souls owes Monster Hunter more than the combat of any 3D Zelda. Not that I've played the Wii ones, but isn't Skyward Sword the universally least played, quickest forgoten one to this day? Couldn't it have something to do with the gameplay being too much of the same at last?

That's the crucial series-defining trait Demon's Souls shares with it. No the first "action RPG"*) to go there

*) A term commonly applied to games with the one and only route leading to completion, but since Demon's Souls isn't among those, I feel it's justified here.

These comments suggest you know what you're talking about. If you haven't beaten Tower Knight or any other bosses then you've barely begun the game, and I really wouldn't recommend grinding at this stage either.

Things to do in D'S? There appears to be far less to do in Demon's Souls; it's relatively simple. Your objectives are to beat all areas and clear the game, not repeatedly play sections of the game/kill monsters to craft items. A secondary objective I suppose is to piece the story together out of the lore you've found.

I'm not sure what "Wishy washy lock on" is supposed to mean. But I'll assume you mean only being able to lock onto enemies when within a certain distance, and the ability to switch between targets mid combat. That form of targeting in which your movement and actions are now relative to the enemy you're locked onto instead of free form was pretty much invented by Ocarina of Time; the Z-target system. Sure some other game might've had it first but as far as I know this was the best implemented version of targeting in a 3d game at the time.

"Skyward Sword the universally least played, quickest forgoten one to this day?" Really don't know what your point is here. For what it's worth i think Skyward was annoying garbage but it still gets 10/10 ratings across the board and sold well over 3million copies. The gameplay for SS was designed from the ground up to be motion controlled, unlike every other 3D zelda except Twilight Princess, which basically had motion controls as an afterthought to what was going to be a gamecube game. So compared to most 3D Zelda gameplay, Skyward's was different.

No the first "action RPG"*) to go there

*) A term commonly applied to games with the one and only route leading to completion, but since Demon's Souls isn't among those, I feel it's justified here.

lol wut?

[BulletMagnet]

Currently hacking my way through Muramasa Rebirth on Vita - via PSTV it looks quite nice on my monitor (shame about all the reused assets though) and I like a lot about the way it plays, but the fact that the biggest threats to my well-being seem to be 1) Huge crowds of baddies whose movements/attacks are a pain to keep track of at once and can break your blade in seconds if they trap you, and 2) Offscreen attacks from unseen enemies, can get really frustrating. Supposedly the unlockable one-hit-death mode is beatable, but just thinking about it gets me tense.

[Ruldra]

I have this friend who's completely obsessed with empire-building games (e.g. Civilization, Total War, Europa Universalis, etc). He talks about them with so much passion and has so many war stories from them that it made me curious about checking them out. Only game I played in this genre was Star Wars Rebellion back in the day.

I ended up trying out a few demos (Civilization V, Alpha Centauri) and reading about recommendations, which ultimately led me to the Master of Orion series. To this date, Master of Orion 2 is unanimously regarded as the best game the genre has to offer, even though it was released back in 1996.

The first game is available on myabandonware so I'm giving it a try. I had to watch a playthrough and read the manual to understand how it plays (remember when you had to read manuals before playing a game?), but now I'm set. Let's see how it goes.

If I like it enough I'll probably buy MoO2 over at GOG.

[Immryr]

I can confirm, rocket league on ps4 is definitely fun. Just when I was thinking the ps+ games sucked this month.