What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

[Sumez]

I feel the same about Zero Time Dilemma, such a huge letdown. Not even a big plot twist to make up for all the time wasted watching stories with absolutely zero relevance or emotional impact.

[Squire Grooktook]

I think it's interesting how lots of skilled players have difficulty with DDSOM.

Maybe each one of us have some natural affinity for some games?

This is absolutely true and something a lot of people forget within the constant advice to memorize more. Different people do have different skillsets and different learning rates for different games. It's subtle, but it's there.

But as Vuldi said, I attribute most of my failures in the game so far to not knowing the particulars of its engine and boss strats. I'm still somewhat 50/50 on Man Scorpion and Harpy, but I'm slowly working my way up. Almost got Dark Elf Dude down.

And yeah, I found 1cc'ing AVP much easier, even though most people say SOM is the easier of the two.

[Shoryukev]

Gargoyle's Quest - Gameboy

Played a bunch of it last night on my SNES through the SuperGB cart, this game is quite a bit of fun. The beginning was a little frustrating with your projectile fire being so slow and only one allowed on screen at a time, but once the ball started rolling I got addicted to it....which kinda sucks since it's probably going to make me want to buy #2 on NES and Demon's Crest on SNES which are both very expensive games LOL

[kaicooper]

owlboy

awesom game

[Vludi]

Revisiting some D&D Tower of Doom, I'm a bit rusty but still remember the important stuff. Troglodytes in this game are sadistic but fun, they should have added some in the final stage.



I think I will try a Elf no shop/inventory run later for the sake of a challenge.

[Some-Mist]

@kaicooper: your post reminds me... I 'beat' virginia, and although I loved the theme, it was a piece of shit.

[kaicooper]

@kaicooper: your post reminds me... I 'beat' virginia, and although I loved the theme, it was a piece of shit.

Virginia atmosphere is v.good but the game-play is BULLSHIT

[soprano1]

Well, for some reason Skyrim keeps having too many crashes, so i'll just postpone it until i can get it working better. The game world is pretty amazing, the opposite of Fallout. I'll start a new game of Dragon Quest VIII for now.

[lilmanjs]

A bunch of races in Gran Turismo and Gran Turismo 2 with my dad last night. Somehow all we had to do was dust off the old playstation, and it worked. We haven't used it in years, so we didn't think it would even work. We had a bit of fun going race after race, still somehow having saves for both games on the memory cards.

[Leandro]

GRan Turismo 2 is awesome. I want to buy an used PS2 just to play the sequels

[Durandal]

My uncle and aunt came to visit yesterday for my mother's birthday, and in usual parental fashion they dumped their seven-year old cousin on me to keep him entertained.
I tried playing some co-op Dariusburst Chronicle Saviours with him, although young kids aren't all that skilled in shmups for some reason.
We ended up skimming over whatever games I had installed, and out of all games I had he liked Duke Nukem 3D the most. Graphics surprisingly didn't bother him at all.

We'd take turns playing a level (on the easiest difficulty), as i showed him how it's done while he was still getting acclimated to FPS controls. He'd die a lot, but he was slowly making progress. He'd even learn how to find some secrets after watching my playthroughs. It was also quite funny seeing him react in disgust to pixelated halfnaked strippers (he told me to shoot them all in the Red Light District level).

It also reminded me that I never completed The Birth, so I'm on that right now. Hopefully Episode 5 works in Eduke32 too.

[Tregard]

Tell you what I'm not playing anymore: Battlefield 1.

I made the foolish decision of buying a PS4 just for that game (all my friends were playing it, there was a deal on, I figured it was time I joined the 21st century, yadda yadda), but I can't get into it. Planes, snipers, tanks, grenades, flamethrowers and horses can all one-shot you, and the same may as well be true of normal infantry since in most cases the victor is the person who spotted the other first. That would be fine if it were some kind of intimate tactical shooter, but the maps are enormous open sprawls where chaos reigns and people roll in from all directions.

I realise this is a staple of most multiplayer shooters from the last decade, but as someone raised in the arenas of Quake and Unreal Tournament it feels sluggish and frequently unfair. Being shot in the back or sniped from a distant rock with no chance of fighting back gets old really fast.

Is there anything else worth picking up on PS4? Bloodborne is on my Christmas wishlist.

[iconoclast]

I can't stand the Battlefield style of FPS either for similar reasons. I vastly prefer small teams, even starts, and a higher TTK than any military FPS, so I'm not a big fan of any online shooter besides Halo 5. Overwatch and Titanfall (1, haven't played 2 yet) can be fun too tho.

The PS4 has a lot of good games. I'd recommend all of these, from best to worst (roughly):

Spoiler

Street Fighter V
Earth Defense Force 4.1
Yakuza Ishin
Caladrius Blaze
Dead Rising - DR2 & OTR are also good, but the original is a masterpiece.
Devil May Cry 4 Special Edition
Dark Souls III
Bloodborne + DLC
Metal Gear Solid V + Ground Zeroes
The Evil Within
Resident Evil HD + 4, 5, 6
Dark Souls II
Valkyria Chronicles
The Last of Us
DmC: Definitive Edition
Gravity Rush
Odin Sphere
Doom
Dead or Alive 5
Ratchet and Clank
Assault Suits Leynos
Rise of the Tomb Raider
Until Dawn - More of an interactive movie than a game, but it's a fun rental.

I'm sure Guilty Gear, BlazBlue, and KoFXIV are great too but I'm not going to play them over Street Fighter.

[Sumez]

I made the foolish decision of buying a PS4 just for that game (all my friends were playing it, there was a deal on, I figured it was time I joined the 21st century, yadda yadda), but I can't get into it. Planes, snipers, tanks, grenades, flamethrowers and horses can all one-shot you, and the same may as well be true of normal infantry since in most cases the victor is the person who spotted the other first. That would be fine if it were some kind of intimate tactical shooter, but the maps are enormous open sprawls where chaos reigns and people roll in from all directions.

This sums up just about every single multiplayer FPS experience I've had since Unreal Tournament.

[Tregard]

Thanks man. Played quite a few of those before but Doom is a good shout, that looks class. I might also nab DS3 once they release the complete version.

Caladrius Blaze looks cool but the loli tits are a bit off-putting.

This sums up just about every single multiplayer FPS experience I've had since Unreal Tournament.

Let's hope that the new UT and Quake Champions keep it real, because then we're gonna party like it's 1999!

[BulletMagnet]

Caladrius Blaze looks cool but the loli tits are a bit off-putting.

In case you didn't already know, the clothes-tearing cut-ins can be turned off in the options menu.

[Some-Mist]

beat owlboy and thoroughly enjoyed it even if it was a bit short.
the cannon was a pleasant difficulty spike/section
the story & characters had me laughing and on the verge of tears
a lot of item collection where 100%ing the game would add to the play time

the final "forest" cave was my least favorite part of the game and the final boss was a bit anticlimatic though the scenes that followed pulled me right back in.

probably not worth it at the $22 (or soon to be $25) price point, but oddly refreshing for the type of game it is.

[Tregard]

Caladrius Blaze looks cool but the loli tits are a bit off-putting.

In case you didn't already know, the clothes-tearing cut-ins can be turned off in the options menu.

Does it completely remove all the lolis? Honestly my wife already has a thing about video games being childish distractions; I really don't need her to see me playing a game where every boss is an underage Japanese schoolgirl flashing her panties.

[BulletMagnet]

I don't think you can turn off the portraits entirely (just the silly "costume damage" ones), but IIRC dialogue can be easily skipped. I'd hafta double check to be sure.

[Tregard]

I'll probably pick it up regardless. Gotta support the genre!

[null1024]

was playing some BlazBlue Central Fiction [PS3] with some friends earlier today

fuck nu because she's mindnumbing to fight against
also, fuck celica
laughed my ass off when one of my buddies literally recovered his entire healthbar near the end of the match playing as her

To be honest, I'm pretty sure I don't even like BB that much [I really don't play it at all], kind of just wanted to relax and play Revelator and pretend I know how to play as Ky and Millia -- but they were playing BB, so I sat down and joined in.
Decided to pick Es. Was ridiculously delighted at the Tales of Eternia palettes she had [Farah and Meredy's colors]. She's fun. Took a fair few rounds for me to stop trying to pretend she was Ky.
Wanted to get into Naoto, and he seems like he could be fun, but he's high on execution and getting in is a nightmare.

[Dangerous_D]

Dynasty Gundam Warriors 3 for PS3

[Leandro]

Finished the XII chapter of Lords of Shadow. I liked the game, but my experience with these hack'n slash genre is zero (I never played any DmC, or God of war or Bayonetta or Ninja Gaiden), so didn't have any expectations. Some gorgeous art when approaching those castles

Just reached the last chapter and the later half of the DLC final boss... What a shitty battle, I give up...

edit - finished the fucker

[Mischief Maker]

Brigador

It's an isometric action game with an 80s aesthetic in the style of the helicopter strike series on the Genesis. You pilot a variety of mechs, tanks, and hovercraft taking out the orbital defenses of a colony in a three-way civil war after its dictator-for-life dies.

The controls are mouse-WASD, but have a pretty significant learning curve because the mouse pointer isn't the crosshairs, rather the game traces a parabolic path for both your weapon systems and you need to line up those parabolas with the enemy to hit.

I like it because it really brings across the scale and destruction of a godzilla-level rampage that's missing from so many other mech games.

[soprano1]

Well, for some reason Skyrim keeps having too many crashes, so i'll just postpone it until i can get it working better. The game world is pretty amazing, the opposite of Fallout. I'll start a new game of Dragon Quest VIII for now.

Almost done with Dragovian Trials... Guess i'll start a new game of Dragon Quest IX.

[Durandal]

Tried out Rainbow Six: Siege during the free weekend, and went ahead and bought it
It really quite surprised me, considering Ubisoft has recently done nothing but constantly defecate on the standards of videogames from both technical and design standpoints (save for some examples such as Blood Dragon and anything involving Michel Ancel), and the premise of a multiplayer-only Rainbow Six with classes didn't do much to moisten me. Yet I heard some good things about it, and after downloading the 20 or so GB I had already spent my entire weekend on it

The game does actually require some team effort (which wasn't all that apparent when playing with F2P randoms such as myself), but you gradually learn the unspoken rules over time. Everyone picks their own operator, which has its own gadgets and weapons. Operators are divided into attackers and defenders, with only the attacking team being able to choose attackers and the defending team being able to only choose defenders. However, there are no such things as hard counters, and your operators won't always save you if your basic skills are shit. While each operator does have certain advantages, most of the game comes down to careful positioning, peeking, situational awareness and hard reflexes. On the start of each round, the attacking team has 45 seconds to locate the enemy's position and objective using land drones, which also brings a neat element of hide and seek as defenders will try to destroy your drones, and drones can also be positioned as cameras. Meanwhile, the defenders can make use of static cameras placed around the map in order to find out where the attackers are, which of course the attackers can destroy.
Something unique to this game is the element of environmental destruction. As an attacker, you can attach breach charges to walls and trap doors from above so you can create an additional entry point to the objective. Of course, the defenders can reinforce walls and such to prevent them from being breached, on top of each defender having gadgets like boobytraps and other defensive measures which make each encounter unique rather than repeatedly running into the same chokepoint over and over.
The maps are often four times as large than the area where the action happens. This is because the location of the objective changes with each round which also requires some teamwork during the drone phase to spread out as much as possible.

Siege is thankfully not P2W, as you progress by getting Renown from playing matches, which lets you unlock new operators. Each weapon has attachments like sights or muzzle brakes/silencer which are ridiculously cheap anyways. There's some cosmetics like (cancer) weapon skins and cute little charms, and your headgear can be customized as well. Hopefully they won't go into full costume changes as it'd more than likely ruin the look of the game. The new operators can be obtained by buying the season pass, or just grinding for more Renown. It's not essential to get them anyways.
Now, sometimes the hitboxes feel rather messy, and the netcode makes it appear like the enemy is reacting faster than they really are at times. That, and to some the lack of CoD-style progression might make the game feel repetitive.

anyways, I'd recommend everyone to give it a shot (I probably should have posted this while it still was in the free weekend)

[TransatlanticFoe]

Finished up..

Recore

Fun enough game but clearly incomplete. It plays well but has some major issues when considering the game as a whole. The loading times aren't as bad as reported but once you're off exploring you will be hopping around fast travel and your base so you will see A LOT of them.

Pros
+ Fluid combat, mixing up enemies and their abilities keeps you on your toes for most of the game
+ 3D platforming is really well done in the overworld and core dungeons
+ Plenty of scope for exploration which is actually good fun
+ Your corebot companions have plenty of character, the dog is especially cute

Cons
- Looks like a middle-era 360 game and still manages some horrible framerate drops in confined indoor spaces
- Buggy as hell - map inconsistently shows things, enemies wander into walls and occasionally rooms don't load fully (which might force you to restart dungeons)
- A fair amount was obviously cut from the game, you can even reach a cut dungeon fairly easily... although it's boring and simplistic
- Poor pacing - the story goes quickly then it's "explore and do the optional dungeons for prismatic cores to open doors, and yeah you need to level up too", all of the side dungeons are pitifully linear and contain zero plot elements
- The (albeit excellent) backstory is via a series of audio logs, including one batch that's in a made up language which you can't decode in-game... but someone has gone to the effort in an FAQ and it gives key (and rather cool) plot points. WTF. Most of these are also well hidden. WTF
- Endgame tower stages require trial and error timing, just as well there's no meaningful penalty for falling...
- You frequently run into obstacles you need a specific corebot to pass. You can change your team at (a handful of...) fast travel points but if you need to activate a specific corebot... it's back to your base, then back to a fast travel point. And if you then come across something that needs the very corebot you just swapped out? FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
- The levelling up and crafting doesn't really have a notable effect, you mainly go back to base to do it because your inventory has filled up

Currently halfway through...

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

Hell yes, very much like playing the original. Unlike the previous game you can actually shoot without using the immersion-breaking 3rd person cover system. Plenty of non-lethal options, non-linear routes and sneaking around in ducts to get to security terminals. Overworld has a lot to do and explore, and the side missions are great. Only downside so far is a lack of meaningful character interactions. Your team just sort of exist to fulfil cliched roles for story missions and tell you their backstory when you first talk to them. There's no-one remotely of the calibre of Malik from the previous game, who is absent save for an easter egg mention.

[null1024]

Panzer Dragoon [PS2].
Man, what a brilliant game.

shame the PS2 version is kind of jank -- there's a few minor noticeable bits of Z-fighting [why is the z-buffer even being used in Saturn mode], the ground jitters a lot [actually, the ground looks a lot uglier than on Saturn, there's no gradient effect on the ground either, and the nice VDP2 water effect is gone], there's missing transparencies [in particular, the tornadoes around the stage 1 boss], and it actually looks kind of ugly in arrange mode [dragon looks a lot more stilted, texture smoothing makes it look like an N64 game, it'd have been nice if it was more like the Dynamite Deka port where they totally overhauled the visuals and made the game look great, it's more like enabling emulator filter options here]

It doesn't feel particularly wrong in terms of gameplay, but there's way too much wrong visually.
you wouldn't notice a lot of the visual issues if you hadn't played it on the Saturn, but there's still some jank shit that anyone will balk at

It's still a nice looking game with an amazing sense of style despite all the PS2 version's issues.
should probably get a new Saturn so I could just play it on that

[Squire Grooktook]

was playing some BlazBlue Central Fiction [PS3] with some friends earlier today...To be honest, I'm pretty sure I don't even like BB that much

Blazblue is one of those franchises that I like the idea of more than I actually like playing.

I actually really love the "Drive" concept, making each character mechanically different so as to feel like the star of their game. And with 4 games and a ton of revisions, there's a helluva lot of them to play around with.

Problem is, it just doesn't feel as well designed to me as the classics I'm used to. The pacing, the move set design, the mechanics...everything feels functional but just a little "off" and lackluster to me. I find it fun to play at a friends house for an hour or two, but unlike so many other fighters, it never really strikes me as engaging enough to warrant further exploration or playtime.

I was actually thinking of picking Central Fiction up on ps4 for shits and giggles a few days ago, but then I saw the 60 dollar price tag. I really can't justify spending another 60 dollars on an update when I payed the same price for two other installments and didn't get my returns in fun. Seeing 3-4 characters as dlc kinda sealed it too.

[Marc]

Trackmania Turbo PS4

This should be one of my favourite games ever, but again it’s dragged down by some aggravating flaws. The main one is the controls – it simply never feels quite right with either the analogue or d-pad. As a general rule, the d-pad feels over sensitive and the analogue not enough so, until certain cars hit certain surfaces, at which point it can feel completely the opposite. It feels like it hasn’t been optimised for a joypad at all. The buggies are the best (worst) example – while on the road the analogue is nowhere near sensitive enough and the d-pad just a bit too much so, yet once they hit dirt, the exact opposite is true, and moving the analogue more than a mm or two to either side send the thing into an instant 90 degree turn.

Track visibility is the second problem, these are the wildest tracks I’ve seen since F-Zero GX, yet sometimes the game barely seems interested in pointing you in the correct direction. There are times where the road ahead merges into a blur of muddy greys and browns, and areas there a track will emerge into an open area that you’re supposed to take the best line over, without giving a hint as to which direction that line might be.

Finally, it occasionally feels like Rick Dangerous – the racing game. There’s simply no way to earn a medal on certain events without doing exactly as the developers have in mind – and that’s on the earlier cups. Make a mistake too early and it’s almost impossible to correct it further down the line, the controls plus the game’s nasty habit of putting banks, ditches, holes or obstacles immediately at the side of the - often poorly defined –track, means you have to get it right first time, or simply restart.