What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

[blackoak]

I tried Rogue Legacy since Nuclear Throne was so fun, but it was a definite "meh." BareKnuckleRoo made some criticisms of it awhile back, that it felt too much like a thinly veiled grindfest, and I'd have to agree. Moreover though, I just didn't like the controls, the big sprites, the artstyle... why did I play this again? haha. I did beat the first "loop", but I can't see myself going back to it.

Nuclear Throne, otoh, continues to amuse. Looking forward to co-op when I get back home.

[cicada88]

Capcom's Willow on the NES. Really enjoying this game and mapping it out on paper.

Still need to get back to Rockman 4, 5, and 6.

[stryc9]

Powerslave on PS1. It's awesome, love the platforming. Just finished SOTN and digging into Forsaken and Wipeout 3 (JP).

So yeah, some PSX lovin'

[Squire Grooktook]

I tried Rogue Legacy since Nuclear Throne was so fun, but it was a definite "meh." BareKnuckleRoo made some criticisms of it awhile back, that it felt too much like a thinly veiled grindfest, and I'd have to agree. Moreover though, I just didn't like the controls, the big sprites, the artstyle... why did I play this again? haha. I did beat the first "loop", but I can't see myself going back to it.

Nuclear Throne, otoh, continues to amuse. Looking forward to co-op when I get back home.

I quite like the way movement feels in the game. Running and attacking feels very smooth and free.

There's not really any grinding involved, due to the way things scale. My record is beating the game from a new game with only 3 deaths. It's quite fun to play it "arcade style" like that.

[NYN]

I think by removing the witch time mechanic entirely the game becomes incredibly shallow. Most of your moveset is too unsafe to use outside of witch time, making your best neutral attack pattern well timed dodge-offset.

I see.
So do you suppose playing as Jeanne is boring too?
She's got no Witch Time exept through parry and Moth Within.
Unlocking her in the sequel is easy, though in the original it's a smidge more challenging.

I'm not trying to be cute here. Just interested.
Rare to find fresh impressions on a game in its sixth year since release.
Not being a shooting game that is.

[Satan]

This week I've come off 265hrs of MGS 5 since release with 100% completion and a Platinum Trophy straight into Dead Space 2 where I completed Normal and Zealot and now I'm about 7hrs into GTA 5. I'm glad I played MGS5 first because now I see that Kojima lifted from GTA 5, wholesale. I'm loving GTA 5, but I feel like I have unfinished business with Dead Space 2 - it's such a good game and I feel like I could do Hardcore mode (only 3 saves allowed and no checkpoints). I used a glitch on chapter 14 (which I'm convinced is intentional) last play-through and farmed enough nodes to fully upgrade everything, and have a safe filled with full energy tanks and ruby semiconductors. As long as I keep an eye on energy I think I could do it in an afternoon.

[professor ganson]

Got back to my old Ys Seven file and finished the game.

Cool, that's a game that I really enjoyed at the start but got sidetracked, so it's long been high on my list of things to return to.

Currently having great fun with Fire Emblem Awakenings lunatic-casual mode, so wtf am I going to do on Friday when Fates/Birthright comes out? No idea.

[ACSeraph]

So do you suppose playing as Jeanne is boring too?
She's got no Witch Time exept through parry and Moth Within.
Unlocking her in the sequel is easy, though in the original it's a smidge more challenging.

I would imagine that in the first game's climax mode she is as boring to play as Bayonetta because of the way the combat mechanics work. Maybe more so, since her unlimited dodge would make it even easier to escape bad situations. The thing that wouldn't change is the relative uselessness of the majority of the moveset outside of the (non-existant in climax) witch time.

If you are talking in general, as-in playing her in Normal/Hard mode then no. Witch time is already reduced to pretty much those scenarios in hard mode for Bayonetta herself, and I thought it made the game significantly deeper. So basically, Normal is a little shallow because it's too easy to activate and kill everything in witch time, and Climax is shallow because you have no incentive to do anything other than dodge offset. Hard mode is basically perfect, giving you just the right amount of risk versus reward for attempting the more dangerous dodges.

I guess Jeanne actually makes Normal mode a bit better, but I can't see why you would want to play normal over hard if you actually were worried about the depth of the mechanics.

I also began Bayo 2 Climax (with Jeanne) the other day and find it quite excellent. Witch time is still possible to activate in 2 though the timing is difficult, and the standard moves are also generally more useful than in the original while offset is heavily nerfed. Bayo 2 Climax is essentially hard mode with very little room for error, and is what I had hoped for in the original game.

On a side note, I did kind of end up breaking Bayo 2, as I figured out you can constantly "buffer" counters by rhythmically pressing the stick towards whatever you are fighting. Doesn't work as well against big mobs, but against one on one bosses you can almost just sit there mashing X repeatedly while buffering counters and never even need to dodge. And yes, this works in Climax too.

[mamboFoxtrot]

You can do that in Metal Gear Rising, too. Does Bayo2 have the same "press towards enemy + attack to parry" mechanic?

- - -

I started playing Sin & Punishment 2 on Hard mode today, and... well... maybe it's because I haven't played it in a while, but so far I'm not noticing too many changes. Hell, the Orion Tsang fight seemed to only change one attack, and they made it easier! Guess I'll just have to keep with it to see what they did to the later stages, if anything.

[Obiwanshinobi]

I found Hard in S&P2 PAL way harder than Normal, but I can't think of any other changes than damage the attacks cause.

[NYN]

@ACSeraph

Thanks for your comments. Very lucid.
I unlocked Jeanne for the original just recently and played only with Bayonetta on the sequel.
So I can't share some deeper insight at the moment. Maybe just enjoying myself playing.
But I'll keep yours in mind.

Does Bayo2 have the same "press towards enemy + attack to parry" mechanic?

I'd say it's similar but different.
They both ward off any attacks, depending on the exact frames to counter attack.
In Bayonetta you also activate Witch Time with it. Moving the stick is enough. No button needed.
MGR makes it mandatory, the witch game doesn't.

I better stop right here.
The thought of the shortcomings in MGR just honks me off.

[M.Knight]

Hell, the Orion Tsang fight seemed to only change one attack, and they made it easier!

Yeah, that change is still a mystery to me. It's so friggin' obvious the Hard pattern is easier that it feels like they inadvertently mixed the patterns up but couldn't be bothered to switch them back.

It has been a long time since I last played it myself, but I think stage 5's final ground mine patterns are different, though I am not 100% sure. And I sorta remember stage 7's Hibaru Yaju fight having those spinning blades on the edges of the arena spawn right at the beginning of the battle instead of halfway-through.
Trying to pick up on those differences could be a good excuse to get back to this game, as I have yet to 1CC it on Hard Mode. Well, I haven't even 1CC'ed some individual stages in this difficulty.

[broken harbour]

I don't know what's wrong with me, as I generally prefer older, narrative driven single player stuff, but lately I've been playing Battlefront, Destiny and SFV, all of which are multiplayer-only online games on current-gen hardware. Weird.


Battlefront is still brilliant, but starting to burn out on it a bit now, the level grind is a bit too grindy... maybe it's because I'm not that great at it, but I'm 20 hours in and at level 26 of 50. That doesn't sound like a lot of hours but with zero story and just gameplay it feels like a lot longer than that. I've gotten most of the good equipment and star cards however and I'm reasonably competitive in most modes now. Private matches with 4-8 friends are hysterical fun. Playing 2v2 on some of the maps is intense, since the maps are so large you can go a significant amount of time without seeing anyone.... which somehow creates more tension.


Destiny - I was not into this when it launched, it just looked like a FPS MMO from the makers of Halo... *yawn*, but I bought it recently on the recommendation of a friend who has good taste. He played it at launch and agreed it was broken and overcomplicated, but Bungie has since fixed most of the issues. Its... actually pretty good, the game has problems, it throws you into the middle of the game with zero explanation of how the systems and menus work, so it took a few hours to get used to it, and it's light on story, at least at first, since I'm just a few hours into it. I generally only play this co-op with my friend, don't do much with this game solo.


Street Fighter V - Single player is.... barely there, Story mode is basically 3 single round matches that can be won with your eyes closed.

However the engine feels solid, a little slower and less flashy than USF4. There's less of a noob safety net, there's no revenge meter anymore. Overall if USF4 feels SSF2T, the SF5 feels like SF2T, if that makes any sense. V-skill is a neat mechanic as well, and they changed a bunch of charge moves to QCF motions, so some useless characters like Vega all of a sudden are now viable options.

[Blinge]

Finally got around to trying Castlevania 3.

I'm really impressed so far!
Grant will take some getting used to..

[mamboFoxtrot]

Grant is my favorite character by far, but man, the way wall and ceiling clinging works can feel pretty weird sometimes. Especially the whole business of getting from underneath to the side of a block.

Hell, the Orion Tsang fight seemed to only change one attack, and they made it easier!

Yeah, that change is still a mystery to me. It's so friggin' obvious the Hard pattern is easier that it feels like they inadvertently mixed the patterns up but couldn't be bothered to switch them back.

It has been a long time since I last played it myself, but I think stage 5's final ground mine patterns are different, though I am not 100% sure. And I sorta remember stage 7's Hibaru Yaju fight having those spinning blades on the edges of the arena spawn right at the beginning of the battle instead of halfway-through.
Trying to pick up on those differences could be a good excuse to get back to this game, as I have yet to 1CC it on Hard Mode. Well, I haven't even 1CC'ed some individual stages in this difficulty.

Haha, maybe they did mix them up!

It's kinda weird what's changed and what isn't. Having played up to start of stage 4 now, I've only noticed these changes:
Stage 0: has more lasers during the jetpack-tutorial part
Stage 1: Orion Tsang's second attack is easier
Stage 2: Transforming fish guy has kamikaze planes while you're shooting down his blobs between forms, and the whale phase has more red rings. Or, at least I think that's new.
Stage 3: The satellite flies shoot a LOT more bullets, and create giant fire columns when the hit the ground; the sawblade rack that you have to move by shooting has some turrets on it; I think the little turret guys that ride the walking table things shoot more bullets.
Everything else seemed identical. I'm not even sure if things really do more damage. I'm playing this on Isa & Kachi mode (aka Isa mode, guest-starring Kachi's charge shot), which gives you two health bars to work with, so if there's a damage increase, I'm being cushioned against it.

I was actually pretty happy being able to get up to sword-girl before dying. Too bad I completely forgot how that fight works! I also forgot the juggalo-titan boss fight pretty bad, too, and died a couple times on him.

I probably should really try to no-death the stages sometime, individually anyways. I used to try and play this game with a 1CC mentality, but it's just too damn long, man! Though, to be fair to the game, trying to get all the secret bonuses in the stages actually keeps the stages interesting when replaying for the umpteenth time (most of the boss fights, not so much).

[ACSeraph]

Street Fighter V - Single player is.... barely there, Story mode is basically 3 single round matches that can be won with your eyes closed.

Does it at least still have a standard arcade mode with a final boss and simple character endings? That's really all I ask for from a fighter regarding single player, and it's become depressingly less common over the years.

[MRydralle]

Most of my current time playing video games right now is spent playing the Hyperdimension Neptunia and Ys series, in this order of priority.

Currently playing Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth 1 (got both endings, all that's left is unlocking three out of four secret characters and getting the rest of the achievements) and Ys II (doing a Normal run while getting the enemy/NPC info down to get the highest possible amount of achievements, and then I'll do a Nightmare run).

For the Ys series I picked this order to play through: I, II, Oath in Felghana, Origin and VI. I only own the Steam games.

Outside of my regular home play time, I go to a friend's local game store to play some Street Fighter V.

[broken harbour]

Street Fighter V - Single player is.... barely there, Story mode is basically 3 single round matches that can be won with your eyes closed.

Does it at least still have a standard arcade mode with a final boss and simple character endings? That's really all I ask for from a fighter regarding single player, and it's become depressingly less common over the years.

Nope.

[M.Knight]

mamboFoxtrot : Now that you mention them, I remember those changes. It is true that they aren't that numerous.
That said, trust me on the damage increase, it is real and it is the reason I haven't cleared some stages yet. The more powerful attacks can easily remove 20HP, which is insane outside of Isa&Kachi mode given how scarce the life-up items are.

Before 1CC'ing the whole game, work on the individual stages and make sure you really master them before tackling the full challenge. You wouldn't want to die on the very last fight, after a 2 and a half hour-long run.

The stages' length is a bit off-putting indeed, but even moreso if you are after the high scores. You didn't find those bosses fun to replay? Enjoy milking them until the end of time!
Seriously, some stages are longer than a full arcade shmup, and some milkable bosses' timers are just out of this world. That's one of the reasons I prefer the original S&P.

[mamboFoxtrot]

Yeah, I remember seeing Mr. Monkeyman's score run of Stage 3 on YouTube, which was two half-hour-long videos. An entire damn hour on one stage! I'm pretty sure I watched that video and was just shaking my damn head at Treasure. Shame, though, because outside of the milking I think the scoring system is actually pretty good. "Shoot stuff, don't get hit" at the base of it, time bonuses, and then secret medals and also taking every opportunity you can to reflect enemy projectiles into stuff for coins - that's what I had focused on when I played the game, and enjoyed that immensely. I didn't know about the "at the buzzer!" bonus or the "stand on the ground for points!" thing until later, and for obvious reasons I'm going to continue to ignore it!

e: wait, no, it was two 13-ish minute videos... what the hell crack was I on to think it was two half-hour videos? Some of the milking is pretty silly, but not that much!

[Obiwanshinobi]

WET (PS3) - recent impulse buy. Less disappointing than Red Steel 2 so far (although I might have expected more of the latter), but I doubt I'll get serious about harder difficulty levels (game engine too grating for my liking).

[iconoclast]

I liked WET. It's a solid TPS with more mobility than usual, and the grindhouse aesthetic was pretty cool. Would've been nice if they made a sequel.

[Obiwanshinobi]

WET reminds me of Total Overdose (play that on PC with mouse & keyboard if you will).

[qmish]

Devil Daggers.

Looks Quake I.
Plays 80s arcade.

RPS nailed it nice in article:
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2016/0 ... rs-review/

[ryu]

Been playing 3D Super Hang-On on and off for many months. Still haven't cleared the senior course, although I've been trying since sometime in november iirc. Almost made it today for like the 4th time, but I got bumped into an obstacle right before the final checkpoint. I had time left and made it to the checkpoint, but it wasn't enough to clear the last stretch before the goal. :/

[Mischief Maker]

Been playing Ring Runner: Flight of the Sages this morning.

Man, this has got to be the best asteroids-style overhead spaceship game ever made. Not only is the ship customization the best I've ever experienced, the actual handling of the flight model is so complex and nimble (depending on your ship loadout) that games like Galak-Z feel impossibly slow and clunky in comparison. It's just too bad the guys who made this game have zero sense of aesthetic and made all the ships dark red against a muted-color outer space.

[Obiwanshinobi]

MAYN, either I'm this out of it, or WET (PS3) can be one puzzling game as to what on Earth I'm supposed to do. I'm sure it's nothing intentional of the devs. Took me a good while to figure out arena combat... keys can be disabled with just pistols, not only the sword. Because they take SO many bullets to be put out. Oh boy.

[Ed Oscuro]

Jazzpunk - not the best game ever but it's made me crack a smile occasionally.

Aban Hawkins / Volgarr - both were on sale recently. Tough games, gotta spend more time with them. Hawkins is good for having the bonus modes, otherwise it feels a bit too much like the same thing repeatedly. Still just trying to wrap my mind around Volgarr's controls.

Nosferatu - The Wrath of Malachi - was on sale for $0.99 today. Note you gotta run a custom executable (from WideScreenGamingForum, WSGF) on newer versions of Windows, though.

Pure FPS section: I'm taking my time with these games, aiming for 100% completion of everything. For the old games, that means no leaving a level until everything's been done (enemies, pickups, secrets), but I'm not loitering. I'm doing every one of these on the second-hardest difficulty.

Wolfenstein - The Old Blood - just need to play the last mission on Uber, then get Gold or Ubergold on the last two challenges, and then I can put this one to bed. Mixed feelings about this one due to the content and presentation, but overall I really like most aspects of it. I did this one before The New Order on purpose. If TNO is like more of this, even if it's a bit less advanced in some respects, I think it'll be grand. Can't fathom what all the complaints were about.

Shadow Warrior - after I beat much of Hard Reset and found myself enjoying the endgame the best, I got the Shadow Warrior reboot. It's quite slow starting and the story / characters mostly drag it down, but this dev house really knows how to put on a show. Once you drag yourself through the first 6 or so chapters, I think things get much better. I'll be interested to see how this looks with more eye candy turned up and at a higher resolution; the foliage details are quite harsh with shimmering on low-res displays and no AA / filtering. (DSR would help that too, but I'm not sure I have the horsepower for that.)

Shadow Warrior Classic - whoever said that the levels can descend into tedium was right. Still, there's a lot to like and many levels turn out to be quite fun. The very different weapon balance also leads for more streamlined play than Duke 3D - gotta love the fast-firing shotgun and grenade launcher over their more deliberate Duke forebears. 3D Realms was already venturing into the more oriental-themed stuff even with Duke 3D so they've just let their crazed imaginations run wild on this one. Pretty harmless, and most of the real satirical jokes are about America.

Duke Nukem: Megaton Edition - same deal here, looking back on it, I feel that 3D Realms' level output was somewhat overrated. I don't mean to say the developers were overrated; a lot of them went on to make great maps for other games, and some of the content here is really good - just not as much as I'd like. Duke 3D was fairly experimental in places, but I think it suffers for it. I was able to blast through Lunar Apocalypse quickly, and just get it out of the way - there's very little in that episode I like. Shrapnel City isn't quite as fun as I remembered it being, either, but it's a start in the right direction. I'm fairly interested to see what the bonus episode from the "Atomic" edition looks like; I only had the standard three-episode version 1.3 before. Overall, I'd have to say this game sits a good notch below Blood and Redneck Rampage.

One interesting surprise: A lot of enemies teleport in constantly, especially in some maps. It gives things a very mild "Nightmare" feeling. If Duke 3D maps weren't so hard to start but so easy to finish, I'd probably bump up the difficulty (one or two shrinker hits takes care of any Battlelord).

I've been playing the content in reverse order from the menu, doing the expansions before the main game:
Life's a Beach - wish I had the money to buy that one back in the day - has a few fairly decent big idea levels, with, surprisingly, occasionally good level design. This is balanced somewhat by terrible "we can do this!" additions; there's too many levels themed after the worst parts of a McVacation, and the beach babes with their rudimentary AI and Kong-like looks.
Nuclear Winter - the most amateurish of the Megaton content by far, but there's a fair bit of good stuff in here all the same and most maps have a good gameplay flow. "Feminist elves" take the prize of being the faction least likely to ally with the Duke baddies. The first couple of levels, which are partial edits of the first two LA Meltdown maps, are pretty fun and not a bad concept, though they are also really difficult to start with (snowman tanks + starting loadout = wha?)
Duke It Out In DC - I actually enjoyed this a fair bit, despite its rep for big meandering levels. It is funny to see the California bear (seen on many plaques in Duke 3D) re-used for things that are supposedly in DC.

Half-Life 2, a while back. Was mulling over a thing Opus13 said about it - that it was a "dead end." To be sure, Valve has already released games that play with some of the fundamental forces of the universe; where do you go from there? Same problem Skyrim has - once you've made shouting dragons out of the sky and riding them boring, what do you do next?

HL2 actually holds up pretty well, but on the hardest difficulty I noticed a huge difficulty spike during the area where you first find the .357 Magnum. Running around and up into the warehouse filled with Metrocops and manhacks, taking shelter briefly from the human-style gunship, it's very difficult to survive unless you find the perfect spot to camp. In my case, there's a bit of plywood up and above the entrance to the right, which you can reach by sprinting up the stairs. Other tactics just failed me repeatedly. After this part, things didn't get tough again until the "Follow Freeman" / "Our Benefactors" chapters.

[Leandro]

I'm continuing Resident Evil 5. I stopped at chapter 4 some months ago and just got back to it this week.

Now I'm at chapter 6-1, chapter 5 was intense! I hope the lasts levesl aren't too difficult, my throat hurts from cursing

I curse a lot to this game. Still hate how small the inventory is and how Sheva gets the green herb before me and use it right away when I'm hoarding the red herb to mix it!! Daammmn

[Ed Oscuro]

Fill Sheva's inventory with all the junk you can, and use the "cover" command to make her hold off picking up items. "Attack" makes her run around and pick up stuff like crazy. Of course, she'll still take herbs sometimes, but this might help a bit.

I ought to play it coop with somebody, sometime, it's a lot more fun than waiting for the damn AI to get to the door.