What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

[Squire Grooktook]

I want to see more shmups forum peeps play Undertale.

Mainly because I'm interested in seeing people play it who have the taste to recognize how good it is but the maturity to not write a fucking essay about how it's proof that games are high art after finishing it.

You really don't want to know what I've been seeing on other forums. I actually love the story but some of weeaboos spazzing out about it and saying it changed their lives makes me want to vomit.

[drunkninja24]

I want to see more shmups forum peeps play Undertale.

Mainly because I'm interested in seeing people play it who have the taste to recognize how good it is but the maturity to not write a fucking essay about how it's proof that games are high art after finishing it.

You really don't want to know what I've been seeing on other forums. I actually love the story but some of weeaboos spazzing out about it and saying it changed their lives makes me want to vomit.

Yeah I agree with you there. It's no doubt a great game, and it does mess with you in some interesting ways, but yeah, some folks have been wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy overhyping it.

But storywise, I really do enjoy just how much it connects you to all the major characters in such a short amount of time (the game can be completed in about 6-8 hours on average) in a much better way than a lot of major RPGs as of late.

[Squire Grooktook]

But storywise, I really do enjoy just how much it connects you to all the major characters in such a short amount of time (the game can be completed in about 6-8 hours on average) in a much better way than a lot of major RPGs as of late.

Yeah, it's really good in that regard. That being said, I think I prefer the thematically similar Trails In The Sky (which also has a similar balance of humor/warmth/drama), because the games greater length and meatier script makes a lot of the characters feel really well developed. More reading, but a stronger connection and payoff imo.

But Undertale is more of a fairy tale than epic fantasy/world building game, so I think it's brevity works from that perspective.

[Blinge]

Wolfenstein 3D.. The steam version which is just a dosbox package. Finally getting to see the rest of the game other than the shareware disc I had lying around as a kid.
It's a solid game, I think it still holds up. I'm still stuck in my WASD ways though and holding Lshift to activate strafing, which I then do with the mouse. Makes me very fast and agile compared to if I was using keyboard only. Played 3 episodes, the first one is solid, third is great; tight level design, nothing too bloated. 2nd episode I didn't like as much, large labyrinthine levels and the zombie enemies that can kill you in one shot if poke your head through a door and they're right there.

I've had a craving for really meh sandbox/open world games atm. Recently replaying AssCreed Brotherhood, it's.. okay I guess. Trying to 100% it, some of the challenges are annoying considering the game controls like arse. You may ask "why, blinge? why put yourself through it. " I do not know.

[Mischief Maker]

I've had a craving for really meh sandbox/open world games atm. Recently replaying AssCreed Brotherhood, it's.. okay I guess. Trying to 100% it, some of the challenges are annoying considering the game controls like arse. You may ask "why, blinge? why put yourself through it. " I do not know.

You might want to give Satellite Reign a try. Probably the most beautiful cyberpunk vision of any modern game, ubisoft-style open world, okay gameplay.

[BIL]

Wolfenstein 3D.. The steam version which is just a dosbox package. Finally getting to see the rest of the game other than the shareware disc I had lying around as a kid.
It's a solid game, I think it still holds up. I'm still stuck in my WASD ways though and holding Lshift to activate strafing, which I then do with the mouse. Makes me very fast and agile compared to if I was using keyboard only. Played 3 episodes, the first one is solid, third is great; tight level design, nothing too bloated. 2nd episode I didn't like as much, large labyrinthine levels and the zombie enemies that can kill you in one shot if poke your head through a door and they're right there.

Have you tried the Total Conversion for ZDOOM? For ages I found Wolf3D's lack of dedicated sidestep keys a real pain... grew up playing it keys-only, got into WASD at Quake and had trouble going back. Had a great time with the TC and Spear of Destiny, a couple years back. TBH I find the original six episodes' mazes a bit tiring with their limited level geometry. SOD's higher pace plays to the game's enduring strength of deadly close-quarters shooting with stealthy enemies. The zombie dungeons later on are pure terror on Death Incarnate.

The few inaccuracies I've noticed feel more like improvements. Sliding doors block bullets ala DOOM, so you won't get instakilled by an invisible enemy on the other side of one. Actually pretty fun going for late shots through a closing gap. And bullets make DOOM-style impacts on walls, which I find fleshes out the limited engine just enough. There's also a bit of wall splatter, but it's tastefully restrained and fits right in with the classic low-res grotesqueries.

Other than that it's pretty dead-on. Do make sure to disable the head-bobbing in options!

[Khan]

Castlevania Lords of shadow finished...jebus I did not enjoy the direction the series took in the 3d realm, the sheer amount of puzzles and cut scenes did my head in I liked the combat and the level designs were quite cool heck some of the bosses were nicely done, only problem with the game is similar to God of war, once its done theres really not much else to go back to but while its there its not a bad romp.

Oh well time to pop Lords of shadow 2 into the mix

[qmish]

Thats a pity coz those devs made Blade of Darkness in 2001 and that was damn masterpiece.

[MR_Soren]

Yggdra Union on PSP - A strategy RPG that plays very differently from most games in the genre. It's a nice change of pace from the Emblem and Tactics clones.

Culdcept Saga on 360 - A decent card game / monopoly hybrid. Only downside is that I wish I could speed up enemy turns or combat animations a bit or that the game wasn't so long. Playing through the single-player campaign and spending 3-4 hours on one match (Venice) to have an upset two turns from victory is rather painful. Played it again the following night and was steamrolled, and it still took 2-3 hours just to lose. Regardless, I think it's a cool game that seems to have a lot of potential.

[null1024]

Doom [PC].
actually using the original 1.9 EXE in PCem under Windows 95 -- significantly smoother than using Chocolate Doom [it could be running a tad faster than it should, maybe], but I need to run it at low graphics to keep that smoothness, heh
I'm forever grateful to whoever wrote novert.exe, mouse forward/backward movement is really fucking awful

Not as smooth as ZDoom, but you need to futz with a bunch of shit to get something that's close to how you play Doom properly there, and it feels kind of wrong anyway. (G)ZDoom is for mods.
Episode 3 is making me hate cacodemons. I used to love the fucking red and blue fuckers, they were easily my favorite monster design.
and now Episode 3 is using them in some pretty damn dangerous ways, if you get boxed in by a couple and you're low on ammo, you're fucked

the berserk pack is so satisfying that I wish it was your normal punch strength, but it'd be busted as fuck then
but gibbing all these low-level peons into chunky salsa is so god damn satisfying

[kaicooper]

just finished playing Metal Gear Peace Walker on PSP Emulator
amazing..i think its even better then 3..

i'll start playing SOMA today

[lilmanjs]

Wolfenstein 3D.. The steam version which is just a dosbox package. Finally getting to see the rest of the game other than the shareware disc I had lying around as a kid.
It's a solid game, I think it still holds up. I'm still stuck in my WASD ways though and holding Lshift to activate strafing, which I then do with the mouse. Makes me very fast and agile compared to if I was using keyboard only. Played 3 episodes, the first one is solid, third is great; tight level design, nothing too bloated. 2nd episode I didn't like as much, large labyrinthine levels and the zombie enemies that can kill you in one shot if poke your head through a door and they're right there.

I've had a craving for really meh sandbox/open world games atm. Recently replaying AssCreed Brotherhood, it's.. okay I guess. Trying to 100% it, some of the challenges are annoying considering the game controls like arse. You may ask "why, blinge? why put yourself through it. " I do not know.

Looks like you need to check out the Wolfenstein 3D dome site and check out some of the awarded mods. As limited as the engine for the game is, there are some amazing mappers in the community. Glad you enjoyed the original. Wolfenstein 3D Reloaded and Spear of Destiny Reloaded are amazing updates to give a more modern wolf3d feel with the state that the advancing features were in at the times. That mine cart ride in SoD Reloaded is quite fun.

[Squire Grooktook]

Castlevania Lords of shadow finished...jebus I did not enjoy the direction the series took in the 3d realm, the sheer amount of puzzles and cut scenes did my head in I liked the combat and the level designs were quite cool heck some of the bosses were nicely done, only problem with the game is similar to God of war, once its done theres really not much else to go back to but while its there its not a bad romp.

Oh well time to pop Lords of shadow 2 into the mix

My main problem with LOS series is that it's basically a generic god of war clone with none of the appeals of the franchise.


Strict, commitment based attack timings like in the old Classicvanias? Nope. Mash and cancel everything all day.

Exploration like in the Metroidvanias? Nope.

Nice Michiru Yamane soundtrack? Nope. Bunch of wannabe Hans Zimmer crap with the same leitmotif repeated over and over. They don't even (?) do any callbacks to the old ost's in the first game.


The game really offends me honestly. It's a bunch of upstart western aaa developers taking a time honored franchise and ressurecting it without any of the things that made it special. There are so many unique things to love about the old games, and all you have to do to see them is to just apply a rudimentary level of analysis to them. It feels like the guys who did LOS just assumed the 2d games were outdated and thought they could make everything better by making it a qte filled, story driven, god of war clone. Ugh.

[Obiwanshinobi]

If the devs don't think much of the legacy bestowed upon them, it can't be helped. I suppose Konami decided to do anything with the franchise and sought out a studio cabable of making a modern mainstream appeal action-adventure game cheaper than Japanese studio would. I doubt an insincere tribute would do any good. Being honest always comes at a price.

Metal Gear Solid 2 HD on PS3, at first glance, looks worse that PS2 original on RGB CRT, though it's difficult to put one's finger on why (nothing seems really wrong with the port). Setting real-time cutscenes to letterboxed helps, though (if only makes the rain look wet again), so I suppose it's just that higher resolution and bigger screen doesn't flatter those textures. Not even that high resolution, too (I think its 720x960, whereas I played the - glitchy as it was - PC port in 1024x768 about a decade ago, wich on 15'' looked way sharper, if jaggy).
All the more surprising is how handsomely MGS3 scales up. Even fullscreen cutscenes take it well. Could be that on PS2, 3's native resolution was lower than 2's, so the upscaling is relatively greater here. Metal Gear 1&2 also look decent (even without scanlines). I think the MSX graphics are retouched, but it's all proper pixel art. Kudos.

[mamboFoxtrot]

Strict, commitment based attack timings like in the old Classicvanias? Nope. Mash and cancel everything all day.

I'm pretty sure the magazines and general gaming audience won't put up with anything else these days unless it's specifically billed as an Action RPG.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Wasn't Metal Gear Rising pretty mainstream by its very name? Not a particulary lenient TPP slasher from what I gather. By the way, I saw Nier billed as an "action RPG" more than once, whereas NieR can make God of War seem rather technical.

[mamboFoxtrot]

Eh, kinda-sorta. I remember being able to jump-cancel just about anything except maybe a heavy combo finisher, which you don't even have access to if using one of the "unique weapons". Granted, jumping doesn't get you out of the way of everything, but I wouldn't call it a commitment-heavy kind of game.

[Obiwanshinobi]

What fighting game is without its share of exploits?

[Squire Grooktook]

Eh, kinda-sorta. I remember being able to jump-cancel just about anything except maybe a heavy combo finisher, which you don't even have access to if using one of the "unique weapons". Granted, jumping doesn't get you out of the way of everything, but I wouldn't call it a commitment-heavy kind of game.

All of Platinum's titles tend to have "cancel anything" rules, but that's fine because the games are designed around them.

Classicvania was always a game about commitment. Commitment to unchangeable jumps, commitment to length attacks, etc.

Platinum would be more equivalent to something like Contra where the player is free to dodge and attack at any time they want, and with the timing/strategy element of attacking and defending removed, the game becomes more about increasingly complex, fast, and difficult to read attacks. I don't think LOS has the kind of nuance to pull off that style, but that's another issue.

My point was more that LOS just doesn't have any of the appeals of CV. It doesn't have the music or atmosphere, it doesn't have the unique combat feel of the Classicvania's, and it doesn't have the exploration of the Metroidvanias (I hear 2 tries to remedy this but still kinda sucks, and the aesthetic gets worse and worse with edgy "LOL UR DRACULA EAT THIS KITTEN" moments). It's frustrating to me, because it feels like these game designers didn't even do any basic research on the game they were rebooting, and many of the things that made CV's classic and Metroid influenced era's interesting could work extremely well in 3d. Dark Souls has both the commitment based combat AND the exploration. It's a better 3d CV game than anything with LOS in the title.

[Obiwanshinobi]

I don't think a research is always enough to find out what makes you tick. Metroid Prime is my favourite example of a painstakingly near-brilliant transition from 2D to 3D... that ultimately falls flat in the fun department. They spared no effort, obviously, but for my money only really excelled at the ball controls (gameplay-wise). Well, scanning for text messages can be fun too, but it was new to the franchise. Thinking of the things I really liked doing in said game here.

[Squire Grooktook]

I don't think a research is always enough to find out what makes you tick. Metroid Prime is my favourite example of a painstakingly near-brilliant transition from 2D to 3D... that ultimately falls flat in the fun department. They spared no effort, obviously, but for my money only really excelled at the ball controls (gameplay-wise).

Well, Metroid Prime is another matter entirely.

It plays like Metroid, nobody can deny that. But that doesn't necessarily make it super fun. I think the issue with Prime is simply that the 3d world and rooms are a lot bigger and take a lot longer to traverse, slowing the pace. Would a faster move speed or more tight level design have solved this? Maybe, hard to say without being able to play such a game.

Other issues too, like weirdly long boss fights that continuously shower you with health, unpleasent end-game bactracking, etc. I don't think they're bad games though, as they do have some strengths (particularly the boss fights and combat set pieces that do work are wonderful, and the atmosphere is thick in some parts). And I at least respect them for nailing the series theme and atmosphere, which is more than the LOS developers can say.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Would a faster move speed or more tight level design have solved this? Maybe, hard to say without being able to play such a game.

Other M did that and it worked for me. Digital-only ball controls not as fun as analogue in Prime... but I played both before Ballance (perhaps these days I'd have a lesser beef with Other M's d-padness).
Thematically, Prime seems devoid of the parental (or indeed trans-special) component I consider quite meaningful of other Metroid games, but: a) I haven't finished it and b) some people wouldn't make a big deal out of it, so what do I know?

[Squire Grooktook]

Thematically, Prime seems devoid of the parental (or indeed trans-special) component I consider quite meaningful of other Metroid games, but: a) I haven't finished it and b) some people wouldn't make a big deal out of it, so what do I know?

Well, Prime has a lot of reading about the Chozo, but iirc it's a different tribe or something so the potential parental element between Samus and her foster parents is fairly tangential.

That being said, I'm not sure if I'd consider the parental element to be a central theme or motif of the series, since it's absent from both versions of 1, Fusion, and is only a end-game plot twist in 2 and 3. I think it's an element to several of the games, but one that's subtle enough that it can leave the spotlight from time to time.

[Ghegs]

Just finished System Shock: Enhanced Edition. Didn't really care for the cyberspace bits, but otherwise great stuff, like a sci-fi dungeon crawler. The Enhanced Edition brings a few much-appreciated improvements.

[Immryr]

is that the version with mouse look enabled? I've been meaning to play that for a while, it sounds really great. my pc isn't actually set up at the minute so it always seems easier to just play something else, but I will definitely get round to it.

[Mischief Maker]

Finally people can learn why I consider System Shock 2 one of the greatest gaming disappointments of all time.

[Ghegs]

is that the version with mouse look enabled? I've been meaning to play that for a while, it sounds really great. my pc isn't actually set up at the minute so it always seems easier to just play something else, but I will definitely get round to it.

Yep, mouselook, super-HD resolution of 1024x768 (or 854x480 for widescreen mode), better control options and some bugs fixed.

[Khan]

Castlevania Lords of shadow finished...jebus I did not enjoy the direction the series took in the 3d realm, the sheer amount of puzzles and cut scenes did my head in I liked the combat and the level designs were quite cool heck some of the bosses were nicely done, only problem with the game is similar to God of war, once its done theres really not much else to go back to but while its there its not a bad romp.

Oh well time to pop Lords of shadow 2 into the mix

My main problem with LOS series is that it's basically a generic god of war clone with none of the appeals of the franchise.


Strict, commitment based attack timings like in the old Classicvanias? Nope. Mash and cancel everything all day.

Exploration like in the Metroidvanias? Nope.

Nice Michiru Yamane soundtrack? Nope. Bunch of wannabe Hans Zimmer crap with the same leitmotif repeated over and over. They don't even (?) do any callbacks to the old ost's in the first game.


The game really offends me honestly. It's a bunch of upstart western aaa developers taking a time honored franchise and ressurecting it without any of the things that made it special. There are so many unique things to love about the old games, and all you have to do to see them is to just apply a rudimentary level of analysis to them. It feels like the guys who did LOS just assumed the 2d games were outdated and thought they could make everything better by making it a qte filled, story driven, god of war clone. Ugh.

Totally agree, this one is going straight out of the memory pile and will be the forgotton one (excuse the pun) in the played list. I think if anyones going to play this game who is a fan of Castlevania/Metroidvania to go into it with the thought its a God of war game with the CV name slapped onto it in reality. You make a very good point with the music, everything was forgettable I dont even remember listening to anything in the game that made me want to sit there and listen it as it all sounded pretty soulless, only time I got goosebumps was

Spoiler

Baba yaga's music box, the song you play when your solving the actual puzzle is Vampire Killer

I havent had a chance to buy Part 2 yet since ive not been into town but I already know its going to be more of the same.

[Sir Ilpalazzo]

Assault Suits Valken

I played through this game for the first time earlier this year, and a few days ago figured it'd be fun to go back to it and try to get a no-death run. Definitely enjoying it a fair bit more now that I'm giving it more focus (and totally switching up my weapons; the game is undoubtedly more interesting when you level the punch and missile rather than the vulcan). Still not a fan of the cavern segment though - taking out the little jumping robot enemies with rebounded vulcan shots is kind of fun, but spending that much time in cramped environments with a limited arsenal and (seemingly?) being forced to turtle up in order to avoid enemy attacks gets tedious.

I appreciate the efforts put into the translation patch but it is unfortunately shoddy - weird garbage tiles everywhere in the last few levels (some of which can potentially lock you in a dead end path containing an upgrade, forcing a reset...), and crashes have already killed a couple of attempts that otherwise would have been uploaded. Oh well.

[TransatlanticFoe]

Never had a problem with the translation patch (on ye olde zSNES), maybe it's the emulator you're using or the ROM you patched?