What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

[EmperorIng]

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

I didn't play the games back in the day, but a few years ago I played through SS and SS2 for the first time and was in for a wild ride.

While I enjoyed SS2, I was really surprised at how fleshed out and captivating System Shock was. I even played it without mouselook (the controls were second-nature after a while). The original is probably one of the most satisfying PC games I've played in quite some time - the large labyrinthine levels, coupled with the amount of control you have over your character, makes for a truly memorable experience. I bet I'd feel the same if I ever finally started a playthrough of Ultima VII or Underworld.

[Immryr]

I don't think I could play it without mouse look. I find it next to impossible to go back to games with tank controls and I was never someone who played pc games - so archaic control schemes there will be even more alien to me.

[qmish]

System Shock 2 is one of games which is called a masterpiece by everyone in my circles but i can't get far into it.
Maybe because i liked BioShock series and i'm tired of that "System Shock 2 elitists" who whine about how much degradation Bioshock was.
Or maybe because i was a Deus Ex fan several years before i learned about System Shock existence.
Or even because internet spoilers of monsters and enemies were too aggressive?

While i like SShock 2's atmosphere, music, setting etc., i start it, play for a while and quit game.
- i really dislike it's interface and interaction with things. Really awkward and uncomfortable
- you can call me "haha what a looser" but i m kinda sure that cold weapon combat is GARBAGE here. Smth that really angers me in feedback from how you control character.

That being said, i'm pretty interested to try SShock 1.

[Xyga]

- i really dislike it's interface and interaction with things. Really awkward and uncomfortable

You're not alone.

[Sir Ilpalazzo]

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?

I've tried multiple emulators and multiple copies of the ROM and gotten the same result every time. Really frustrating.

[BIL]

It's been a couple years, so I may be off, but I don't think any Valken patch ever translated the post-credits scene. I remember trying one (the only?) patch to see what it said, only to get booted straight back to the title screen. It's really only a tidbit for Assault Suit Leynos fans (liek me!), but a lovely universe-affirming touch nonetheless, so it irked slightly. See my replay for GaijinPunch's HAWT translation. Aaand now I'm motivated to fix that fucking audio lag! Especially as my gamepad is FUBAR! Fuck!

First half of Valken you should just punch the shit out of things, yep. If I use Vulcan prior to getting Laser, it's to draw things out a little. You can vanquish st4's grudge match in literally seconds with a sound L3 Punch beating, I like to let him hang around a while for boost/strafe meching action. I wonder if Missile does anything interesting to cave centipede, I'd always L3 Cheeto'd him.

Make sure to search out the cavern thoroughly for another neato easter thingy!

Spoiler

bunnehs! they look a lot like the similarly tunnel-dwelling ones in Masaya's Devil Hunter Yoko [MD], come to think of it. Dunno if any connection. Also, a (likely surplus) P chip stash you can easily kill yourself attempting to reach!

[blackoak]

I really want to do a "punch" playthrough of Valken, especially after doing that interview translation. Top of my list once all my console stuff is out of storage and set back up.

[Sir Ilpalazzo]

Yeah, it's definitely a shame that the post-credits dialogue wasn't translated. I don't really understand why - the US and Japanese versions of the game are mechanically identical, so like 70% of the reason for the translation patch to exist is for the missing scenes (the confrontation with the president and the post-credits stinger) to be restored.... yet the translators went through the effort of cutting the stinger from the game? Baffling.

The punch is definitely the way to go for the first half of the game. Speeds things up a ton and makes pretty much every combat encounter far more visceral and engaging than the vulcan does. And yeah, I had to laugh when I realized how quickly it takes out the stage 4 boss; it's almost comical. Speaking of the stage 6 midboss, I feel like the missile is a bit more comfortable to use against him than the vulcan - plus it requires less powerup chips to fully upgrade, which makes it much more convenient.

[Khan]

Just finished Gears of war 3

It seems they ran out of ideas in this game, and the campaign was ridiculously short with having no real memorable moments infact it took me only 2 days to complete it :O graphics seem improved over 2....I cant really comment on online or horde mode since I have no real desire to play them.

Spoiler

Damn shame about Dom but the biggest tragedy is being reunited with your father only for him to die in the worst way possible poor Marcus

[Squire Grooktook]

Hold on to your bonnets, I'm on the verge of 1cc'ing Alien Vs Predator!

[CStarFlare]

Cleaning up a couple Steam games that have been in progress for a while.

I just finished Sugar Cube: Bittersweet Factory, which I picked up when it was $.99 on the Humble Store a few weeks back. It was super easy and short (<2 hours, even with all of the collectibles) but it was a nice little game considering the price. The main draw (aside from being cute) is that each level is basically a board made up of panels, which flip as you walk over them and reveal new blocks, traps, etc. This allows for some interesting puzzles, though since all stages are a single screen even setups that might benefit from some thought are more easily solved by trial and error. It's simply a pleasant platformer with enough of a twist to make it worth sticking with to the end.

I'm also at the final boss of Ys: The Oath in Felghana. It's my first Ys since the first one on PCE, and I spent the last quarter of the game checking FAQs to find out how many bosses were left and trying to decide if I wanted to slog through them. The main exploration and combat is a lot of fun, but boss battles are usually such an obnoxious spike in difficulty that I immediately save and quit after taking one of them down. I don't generally mind a challenge and they're not technically unfair, but the boss battles are just out of balance with the rest of the game and it kills the pacing.

(EDIT: By the end of Oath you can easily afford an item that instantly revives you, which actually makes the final boss one of the easiest in the game. lol)

May grab a FAQ and blaze through the rest of Broken Age later today. The first half was fun, but I've felt lost after the first act and making any progress at all is really frustrating.

[Immryr]

I just finished oath in felghana myself, the way I see it is the boss fights are the main point of the game. Everything else works well enough but is pretty perfunctory. I love how galbalan's last attack seems to be saying to zelda games "this is how you do boss fights".

I have no idea how you could easily afford the revive item. I was over 40,000 short at the end of the game. I didn't use a guide and probably missed some gold caches, but I doubt I missed that much? Did you do a lot of grinding or something?

[Stevens]

I romped through Gunlord tonight. One of NG Dev/ Hucast's games that actually delivers.

[Squire Grooktook]

Played 2 credits of Alien Vs Predator today after all my homework was done. Made it to the final boss. Practiced her a bit more, and I think I've solidified my strategies (I'd estimate 80% chance of victory if I make it to her with a spare life, 60% with no lives).

One thing I really love about this game is that improvement comes more from learning all the ins and outs of your characters movesets then it does memorizing stages. Enemy behavior is mostly random, and you see every type of alien by stage 3 (and every type of marine by stage 4), so beating the last stages is more just feeling comfortable with your character (I made it through most of the final stage my first time blind).

I could probably write a lot about my current strats for the final boss, but I think I'll save it for maybe a video or something. I feel like this is really a game that could be played and replayed for better and better runs, though I'll probably take a break once I get the Predator Warrior clear (and come back later for Shaefer, since he's pretty fun to play too).

[Sir Ilpalazzo]

Nice job! I've been playing AvP off and on (largely off) over the last few years and only made it to the final stage a few weeks ago. I've been meaning to finally clear the game before year's end but I keep getting distracted with other games. I definitely agree with your point about improvement coming more from raw skill growth rather than just memorizing the stages; the game's amazing fluidity is what makes it my favorite Capcom brawler.

[CStarFlare]

I just finished oath in felghana myself, the way I see it is the boss fights are the main point of the game. Everything else works well enough but is pretty perfunctory. I love how galbalan's last attack seems to be saying to zelda games "this is how you do boss fights".

I have no idea how you could easily afford the revive item. I was over 40,000 short at the end of the game. I didn't use a guide and probably missed some gold caches, but I doubt I missed that much? Did you do a lot of grinding or something?

As I said, my complaint was more about the mismatch in challenge levels - the game is a series unforgiving boss battles (not necessarily a bad thing) strung together by dungeons you can mash through without any real strategy. Then you hit a boss and you take a half hour to lean to read and dodge its patterns, which change as the battle progresses, often while learning its weakness, swapping between magic and hoping the RNG gives you a break. They're all learnable, but the learning curve is fairly high compared to the rest of the game which is rather tame.

As for the revival item, I didn't do much grinding - finished the game at level 51, and only ground out a couple levels at the end while getting enough ravel to upgrade my equipment. Maybe I was just fighting the right things - there's an area just before the final boss where dragon enemies give good ravel and gold.

[Sir Ilpalazzo]

I definitely have to consider Oath in Felghana a masterpiece of a game just for its boss battles; they are probably some of the best in any action game. I would go so far as to say they are, for the most part, significantly better than anything you find in the Souls games or most of the Devil May Cry games. Regardless, it is a bummer that the non-boss segments are as relatively limp as they are. I really like the standard enemies in the castle near the end of the game; they're all pretty interesting to fight, but that's about it.

I really need to go back to the game sometime and play through Inferno mode.

[Obiwanshinobi]

There are typically checkpoints before bossfights in Ys, which I haven't found in Demon's Souls yet. That should, more than anything, get the point across that bossfights play a slightly different role in each.
Just the way so many Souls enemies play by the same ruleset as the playable character, which is not typical of Ys at all.

[Blinge]

I definitely have to consider Oath in Felghana a masterpiece of a game just for its boss battles; they are probably some of the best in any action game. I would go so far as to say they are, for the most part, significantly better than anything you find in the Souls games or most of the Devil May Cry games.

Hark, a shitstorm be comin'

[Sir Ilpalazzo]

Yeah, fair point - it's not a 1:1 comparison, all three games are very different. Still, as far as 3D action games go, Oath in Felghana (and Origin too, I think) both have amazing boss lineups.

[Strider77]

Transformers Devostation.................. been through it twice. On my third, just going through the extra difficulty setting and trying to really sink my teeth into the combat engine.

[broken harbour]

Transformers Devostation.................. been through it twice. On my third, just going through the extra difficulty setting and trying to really sink my teeth into the combat engine.

Is it good? In the few videos I've seen the presentation looks incredible.

[mamboFoxtrot]

After my last "romp" through Mega Man X6, I figured I'd go beat the other X games I haven't played yet.

I beat Mega Man X2 a couple days ago. Not a particularly hard game, but I still like most of the boss fights, stage gimmicks, and even a good chunk of the special weapons. I didn't care too much for the end-game, though. Stage design felt pretty weak (fuck off, stupid Mario Bros direction-switching platforms) and Violen is a really stupid fight. Still had fun with most of it, though.

So now I'm on X3, and wow... this is really dull. The stages have almost nothing special to them, a lot of the boss can be laughably exploited, the others seem like regular X-series boss fights but they can kill you in three hits lol, and even most of the music isn't that good. I think I can almost understand the "X6 isn't actually that bad" brigade playing this. Hopefully X5 won't send me further in that direction.

[Ed Oscuro]

Cripes...thought I'd finally reward myself and play Medievil 2 via pSX.

What a flustercluck. I can't stand to play any more of this. I'm at the second area of the Observatory level, and I'm like "I'm not gonna live forever." Sorry, Dashing Dan.

On the plus side, I did learn about a quirk of the X360 controller hardware and the PSX controllers: The PSX controller LR and R2 buttons are indeed buttons, so pressing them together leads to the console seeing two separate inputs. The 360 controller, probably given Microsoft's PC gaming history, implements them as opposite inputs to the same axis, so pressing both buttons leads to the same output as not having pressed either button. This means that any button combo that needs to see both L2+R2 won't work if you're simply mapping LT and RT.

[copy-paster]

I'm on X3, and wow... this is really dull.

Same with me, why the fuck they doing the same thing all over again (Battle Network games is even worse).

At least X5 won't disappoint you, a huge step of X4, and the boss fights really gives a challenge. I hope you didn't annoyed by "that" navigators and unskippable dialogue.

[BIL]

My thoughts on unskippable dialogue in action games:

Spoiler

Bionic Commando GB gets it right, sadly for its first boss only:

Spoiler

Seamless is best obviously.

Spoiler

[Ed Oscuro]

The fuck is Retroarch (Mednafen core) doing to save files? It happily saved a game, but now on attempting to load the game I get "no saved game data found" and the *.srm file (in the same directory as the game CUE/BIN) is overwritten.

[quash]

I've been on a Ninja Gaiden binge lately. I replayed through Black for the first time and years and it is even better than I remembered it. How people can say with a straight face that they like 3D action games but haven't played NGB is beyond me.

(I could go on about how DMC basically ruined an entire generation of action game players by having its head so far up its own ass by the time the third game came out, but I'll leave that for another day)

I then played Sigma 2 on my Vita, which was a disheartening experience to say the least. Not only is Sigma a gimped version of NGII, but the Vita version is a gimped port! I was playing a crippled game lol. Still, it gave me a good enough idea of what I can expect from the real NGII on 360 when I get a chance to play it. That game has shot up to the top of my queue.

Then last night I finally got around to playing Ninja Girlden, which I prefer to its official title of Mitsurugi Kamui Hikae. It wasn't as bad as I was expecting it to be, but it is still a thoroughly mediocre game. Being able to stunlock hordes of enemies with minimally charged attacks is hilarious. I may just finish it tonight but I think I've seen everything it has to offer already.

[ZacharyB]

Playing Etrian Odyssey. I expected a dungeon crawler; what I did not expect was a jaw-clenching strategy game as the player desperately tries to avoid certain powerful enemies on the map, enemies which move as in a roguelike, one step for every player step. Enemies which advance towards the player's party on the map as random encounters play out simultaneously, which in turn enforces expeditious strategy in battle. Enemies that need to be lured off of scripted paths or outsmarted. Really surprised by this dual game.

[Squire Grooktook]

^^^^I've only played EO3, but it's one of my favorite dungeon crawlers for many of the reasons you mentioned.

Not to mention the gorgeous fm synth soundtrack.

For EO3 at least, there's actually a surprisingly decent amount of atmosphere in the game later on. And the cutesie character art really did grow on me overtime.