What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

[Sima Tuna]

Super Hang-On is an amazing game. I think it's better than Outrun, largely because it pushes you harder and demands more mastery of the system. The boost speeds are crazy and also another element it has that isn't found in Outrun. Outrun is more relaxing though.

I used to think Super Hang-On was a mediocre title because it was "just" motorcycle racing. But the pace and breakneck decision making won me over. It's like a prototype F-Zero game.

[Lemnear]

Marathon
I've got 30hrs on the release and 12 on the server slam, and I'm experiencing a serious issue with playing Solos. Almost every run, I down the first Runner I encounter and they down me. We both have to surrender and start a new run. There's a great game there and it's kind of ruining it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5kDLjv0bJk

My impression is that it's become fashionable to smear Marathon... Or to praise From Software's technical incompetence.
The masses have now become accustomed to the same thought process and are forced to like things, or hate them on purpose.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/ ... s-a-sport/
People would rather see legacy studios close than stop playing Chinese Gatcha/Roblox, which somehow isn't the ultimate evil, while an extraction shooter is .

[ryu]

Super Hang-On is an amazing game.

Yes! I loved playing it on the Mega Drive when I was a kid and got really into it when M3 ported it to the 3DS. Still one of my favorite racing games.

I finished Titanic Scion's story a while back and am still grinding super bosses for their equipment. Finally got the weapon I needed to update my heavy build. With it I went from struggling to beat the event boss on easy mode to consistently trashing it on hard mode. It's the little things that count.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Hang-On cleared! And with only 2 secs left on the clock, oof. It's a great game, but I still think Out Run is the better overall experience, Hang-On encourages massive risk taking as with the variance in traffic at times you can be forced to slow down a lot for some turns, and the time is really strict, so you have to be super aggressive at the sections where it's possible to take turns at high speeds.

My first exposure to this was actually before I even knew what Hang-On / Super Hang-On was. There's a full port of Super Hang-On hiding in the Gear Game "GP Rider" in the World Tour Mode, which is by far the best of the 4 or so modes, and it's the one that's at the bottom of the menu! It also happens to be arguably one of the best racing games on the system, with the one nitpick being the total lack of music, but otherwise being far better than the slightly unfortunate Out Run GG port which has such stuttery scrolling that it loses the sense of speed it ought to have (and is frankly harder than either Out Run or Hang-On arcade to clear, the time given is mercilessly low).

If you've not heard of TX-1 it's worth checking out, this was apparently the sprite scaler game that inspired Out Run's course selection. I'd played it for a small game tournament not too long ago and really enjoyed it, 1cc'd 4 of the routes or so (the routes at the far left are insanely hard and I've come nowhere near clearing them, Japan's the highest scoring I've found, France and Monaco are also super doable). Aside from being a multiscreen game (the Darius of racing games), it also has a weird dial-based control system that also punishes you if you steer too hard, which causes you to lose grip immediately and slide violently, so you have to be very careful with your steering! 1CC high scoring vid here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hkhcvNfr0Q

[BrianC]

If you've not heard of TX-1 it's worth checking out, this was apparently the sprite scaler game that inspired Out Run's course selection. I'd played it for a small game tournament not too long ago and really enjoyed it, 1cc'd 4 of the routes or so (the routes at the far left are insanely hard and I've come nowhere near clearing them, Japan's the highest scoring I've found, France and Monaco are also super doable). Aside from being a multiscreen game (the Darius of racing games), it also has a weird dial-based control system that also punishes you if you steer too hard, which causes you to lose grip immediately and slide violently, so you have to be very careful with your steering! 1CC high scoring vid here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hkhcvNfr0Q

Looks like an update to Pole Position? Didn't that also use dial-based steering? Interesting that Atari brought it to the US (like both Pole Position games). Same developer as Speed Buggy/Buggy Boy? I remember enjoying that one quite a bit in arcades.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I believe you're right that Pole Position also used dial-based steering. Dial-based steering is hard to map properly in an emulator compared to actual analog, I ended up fiddling with the sensitivity and just used a d-pad for the TX-1 clears because I didn't have a wheel and couldn't get it to map to an analog controller comfortably.

[BrianC]

I think the Atari 2600 driving controller is also dial based. It's definitely not analog and only one retail game was made for it, Indy 500. Developers also have a hard time making use of it and the paddle controllers are used much more often for games.

[AGermanArtist]

Marathon
I've got 30hrs on the release and 12 on the server slam, and I'm experiencing a serious issue with playing Solos. Almost every run, I down the first Runner I encounter and they down me. We both have to surrender and start a new run. There's a great game there and it's kind of ruining it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5kDLjv0bJk

My impression is that it's become fashionable to smear Marathon... Or to praise From Software's technical incompetence.
The masses have now become accustomed to the same thought process and are forced to like things, or hate them on purpose.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/ ... s-a-sport/
People would rather see legacy studios close than stop playing Chinese Gatcha/Roblox, which somehow isn't the ultimate evil, while an extraction shooter is .

There are a few things at play. Judging by the low level of discourse around the game, there are a lot of people playing ARC Raiders who quit COD, pivoted to BF6 and then to ARC Raiders, when BF6's launch disappointed. They see Marathon as the other game - the enemy game. These people are notoriously tribalistic, they don't play other games other than their chosen online shooter and a sports title. They're the annoying rats and shoot on sight PvP players who flex endlessly about how they're superior to those playing the game as intended. The devs have said it's not a shooter. It's a PvE game where the tension lies in the ability to betray.
Anything else is for nerds with these people. They aren't 'gamers' - to them gamers are nerds. Marathon it seems, is the gamers extraction shooter. The funny thing is that Marathon is ultra fucking hardcore and if they actually played it, they'd likely love it.

[Lemnear]

Marathon
I've got 30hrs on the release and 12 on the server slam, and I'm experiencing a serious issue with playing Solos. Almost every run, I down the first Runner I encounter and they down me. We both have to surrender and start a new run. There's a great game there and it's kind of ruining it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5kDLjv0bJk

My impression is that it's become fashionable to smear Marathon... Or to praise From Software's technical incompetence.
The masses have now become accustomed to the same thought process and are forced to like things, or hate them on purpose.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/ ... s-a-sport/
People would rather see legacy studios close than stop playing Chinese Gatcha/Roblox, which somehow isn't the ultimate evil, while an extraction shooter is .

There are a few things at play. Judging by the low level of discourse around the game, there are a lot of people playing ARC Raiders who quit COD, pivoted to BF6 and then to ARC Raiders, when BF6's launch disappointed. They see Marathon as the other game - the enemy game. These people are notoriously tribalistic, they don't play other games other than their chosen online shooter and a sports title. They're the annoying rats and shoot on sight PvP players who flex endlessly about how they're superior to those playing the game as intended. The devs have said it's not a shooter. It's a PvE game where the tension lies in the ability to betray.
Anything else is for nerds with these people. They aren't 'gamers' - to them gamers are nerds. Marathon it seems, is the gamers extraction shooter. The funny thing is that Marathon is ultra fucking hardcore and if they actually played it, they'd likely love it.

I thought it was like that (and it is), then I jumped on the official Marathon Discord hoping to find a community of some kind, instead there are a shitload of kids, half of which are 30+ years old, and they are all trolls and toxic. I don't think I've ever hoped for bad things for anyone but some people owe me the air they've breathed
I tried Server Slam, and yes it's hardcore! And it's super cool!

I'm starting to believe that democracy must be eradicated. It's democracy that has brought the undeserved right to vote to many, that has allowed Trump to be elected twice, and that is driving public opinion to unprecedented depths.
We have given everyone the right to speak, while ignoring the fact that most people don't deserve that right .
Then we wonder why the world goes to pieces.

[AGermanArtist]

I'm starting to believe that democracy must be eradicated.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uB2ep0WPyE

You don't have to fix elections if all parties serve the business class.
On both occasions the media attacked Trump. To create the impression he was this outsider saviour to the base who supported him. All the while, he's fucking kids with Epstein and co and has done the complete opposite of every point he campaigned on. It's what they do. The public are too passive. The problem is the politicians (regardless of 'side') and the donor/business class they serve. You don't have a Democracy, You never have. You have an illusory Democracy in service to an Oligarchy. The politician's job is to deceive the public so they keep getting up for work in the morning.

[TransatlanticFoe]

Octopath Traveller 0
As a big fan of the prior two games, I was excited to play this one - it mostly lived up to expectations. A retooling of a gacha mobile game, it's surprising how well this comes across. And it's big. I clocked 130ish hours having done everything. The story takes a while to really get going, initially it feels as if it'll be a bitty set of loose-connected stories (as per usual for Octopath) but it does a fake-out credit roll and then the main story unrolls. There's an odd mistep with how an antagonist is "redeemed" but otherwise it's engaging with some fun twists and unexpected moments.

Instead of 8 characters, you have a custom silent protagonist and 30-odd recruits (although loads get thrown at you as you approach the endgame)... including the cast of the original game. The "Octo" now refers to having up to 8 characters in battle - though it seems as a concession to this flexibility, a lot of characters have fairly useless skills. I found myself using the extra skills you can assign to characters more than their standards, as they frequently let you cover off weaknesses AND deal massive damage.

It wouldn't be Octopath if there wasn't an awkward disconnect between your party and the story. Aside from a few key story players (most of whom you get towards the end) your party members simply aren't important to the story and barely have anything to do beyond fight. You'll recruit someone and they might have a story side quest 80 hours later, otherwise they get the odd bit of town banter and shout catchphrases in battle. I feel like a few throwaway lines for each party member through the story would help against this but it's kind of unavoidable with a 100+ hour story AND the gameplay built around having a huge active party.

Otherwise it's more of the same and if you didn't vibe with that last time, this won't change your mind. Gameplay is identical to Octopath I as are a lot of the graphical assets, so it looks a bit dated vs. Octopath II. It offers a method to stop experience gain so as to not end up overlevelled, but you will quickly gain a core favourite team who get loaded with stat boosts and end up a bit overpowered anyway. A solid experiment and a nice overall experience.

UFO 50
This is a weird one. On one hand, it's lovingly put together as fake lore (the physical package comes with reversible art for the "first" UFO game and a fake promo flyer advertising the games, like the kind you got packaged with Sega titles). On the other, a good number of the games are thinly put together and not representative of the 80s era.

A lot of the games suffer the same two problems: period accurate dreadful collision detection, and extremely period inaccurate difficulty (often to cover up the lack of game). Case in point, a few of them will give you one life in a genre which never does that (belt scroller, shmup, arena shooter). Others will give you a breezy intro level and then throw you straight into balls-hard that's just confusing as to how you're supposed to progress. The "old games were really hard" meme is bollocks so its disappointing this leans so hard into that that it's easy to bounce off a lot of this collection.

The stuff that works best is styled after home computer games (albeit these might not go down well unless the player has some nostalgia for that) - Barbuta's flick-screen adventure, Bug Hunter's flexible strategy, Planet Zoldath's top-down puzzle adventure. They're all tough but come with a feeling of progression that was typical of the era - you play a bit, discover something or learn a strategy, then quickly come back to improve on last time. There's a few neat modern ideas done in a retro style - Mortal's 100 lives to sacrifice your way through action/puzzle stages, Party House's quirky deck builder risk/reward strategy, Rail Heist's wild west stealth puzzling. Although all of these are brutally difficult rapidly or outright straight away (Rail Heist can be irritatingly trial and error brute force speedrunning, with its overly strict time limits), but in such a way that it often feels you're not progressing. Party House is especially strange as even its first scenario's win condition is ridiculously hard, making it at odds with how fun the moment to moment gameplay is.

While there's a lot to love, there's a daunting number of games and too many are simply not good or so poorly balanced it's hard to enjoy them straight away. I feel it would definitely benefit from having half the number of games so more time could be spent on better balancing the genuinely good ideas - most of these could use a couple more levels/content that presents a more gradual difficulty progression.

[Marc]

I'm tackling Hang-On and Super Hang-On's arcade versions currently. My impression is they're fun, but vastly harder than any Out Run game Sega's made, for a few reasons.

First, there's no coasting to a checkpoint; you game-over the moment you run out of time. Second, and related, the time is way more strict; even with no major crashes, you need to be absolutely flying to reach the finish line. Too many minor bumps or simply going too slow will cost you the race.

Third, Super Hang-On requires you to use the boost. If you're not using it aggressively enough, you won't be going fast enough to win, the time's that strict. Compare this to something like Rad Racer where the time is forgiving enough that you don't really need to be boosting the whole time, and the boost can be used at much lower speeds for more aggressive acceleration, rather than needing to be at your top speed already.

Fourth, the game's traffic doesn't stick to the middle of a lane and is quite difficult to read compared to something like Out Run.

I've 1CC'd Super Hang-On's beginner course, and lost right before the finish on intermediate as well as on Hang-On. Tough games, but fun!

This exactly. I managed the first two courses on SHO back on the X360 port (on a 3D TV which looked ace!) but never got more than halfway through the third and fourth, while I've managed every route on OurRun new/old versions. The sense of speed SHO gives us such a rush. Might pick it back up on 3DS.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I will say that playing Super Hang-On extensively has helped me appreciate Rad Racer more; Rad Racer basically used the same turbo button to boost thing, but instead of needing to be at top speed, it can be used as soon as you're at 100 km/h out of 255 km/h. This much larger threshold means it can be used to control how aggressively you accelerate at lower speeds, as well as deliberately lose grip in a turn if you want to slide more to avoid traffic in front of you. Super Hang-On only allowing the boost when at the normal top speed makes your options significantly different and more limited.

[AGermanArtist]

Another one for Super Hang On. I play it quite a bit in MAME and on Dolphin with the Wii Virtual Console version. I love a lot of Sega's superscalers, but over time this is the best one. At the time I spent more coins on Outrun, Enduro Racer, Space Harrier and After Burner, but none of them quite reach the thrill of pulling off a long boost in SHO. I only wish I played it more in arcades. I play the Limited Editon version in MAME. I'm not sure what the difference is.

[Lord British]

Bought it 4 years ago, but I finally got around to playing Hades this week. Made it to Hades a few times so far, but I still have a lot learn, especially since I've only mostly used the spear. Only drawback is the game is killing my carpal tunnel.

[ryu]

Speaking of Super Hang-On, they added a themes from the game and various other classic Sega arcade racers to Sonic Racing: Crossworlds. Hell yeah!

[To Far Away Times]

Super Hang On is a special game, for sure.

Ground Kontrol arcade near me has a stand up version of it in pristine condition, and I make sure I play it every time I go over there.

The 3DS version is quite nice too. I have around 20 hours sunk into it. Pretty heavy time investment for a mid 1980's sprite scaling racing game.

[Marc]

Just finished up Resi Village on PSVR2. God damn that was good. Stunning visuals, incredible sound design, dripping in atmosphere, and physically handling the guns just adds another level of immersion. Enjoyed it much more than 7 as the bosses were less tanky and annoying, and although it's not massive, I really enjoyed how the village itself gradually opened up. One of my favourites in the series for sure.

I'm going to have you replay RE4RE in VR now.

[Sumez]

UFO 50
A lot of the games suffer the same two problems: period accurate dreadful collision detection, and extremely period inaccurate difficulty (often to cover up the lack of game). Case in point, a few of them will give you one life in a genre which never does that (belt scroller, shmup, arena shooter). Others will give you a breezy intro level and then throw you straight into balls-hard that's just confusing as to how you're supposed to progress. The "old games were really hard" meme is bollocks so its disappointing this leans so hard into that that it's easy to bounce off a lot of this collection.

I think pinning the games as aiming for anything period accurate is misunderstanding what Ufo 50 wants to be. Yes, it's using the premise of an alternate history 80s console as a framing narrative, but I don't think that should be seen as anything other than a goofy throughline connecting the games. The years attached to the games feel wildly random, in no way representing that era in the real world - and like you're saying, most of them feel like modern game design.
The (rather inconsistent palette) seems like it's mostly an artistic choice, or more of just a self-restriction - and the presumed "technology" driving these isn't even trying to be representative of the 80s. Gupy (the submarine game) can't even avoid slowdown on a Switch, lol.

I see UFO 50 as an interesting experiment in how you can make 50 clearly distinct games, and draw inspirations from various classics while always maintaining unique ideas as well. If it were just 80s facsimile (like the Game Center CX games on DS), it wouldn't be as interesting to me.

I feel it would definitely benefit from having half the number of games so more time could be spent on better balancing the genuinely good ideas - most of these could use a couple more levels/content that presents a more gradual difficulty progression.

Someone I talked to about the game said something worth noting. That the game's main gimmick is quantity - and that's probably the least interesting thing you can offer in the current video game market. Most people would probably agree that one fantastic game will always outmatch 50 decent ones. It also brings back the old topic of how you evaluate a compilation of games against a single game? Typically, logic would dictate that a collection of games is only as good as the best game in the collection.

But once again, I think to appreciate UFO 50 you'd need to look at it as something slightly different than just 50 different games.
That fact that there is so little overlap between each of the games, in spite of their excessive quantity, is honestly admirable. I don't even think they feel half-baked, and you could argue that trying to spend more time putting more stuff into more of the games might in fact be damaging to them. Almost every single game, down to the most basic platformer, features unique ideas that either make out a really fun mix of concepts from different other games or eras, or occasionally just feel wholly original. UFO 50 feels to me like a set of self imposed constraints (keep them simple, and don't make the same game twice) which caused some really interesting results.

Ultimately, of course, UFO 50 *is* 50 different games, so I do understand your point of view. And it's definitely a hard sell for someone just looking for "a good game" to play. But for what it is, I think it's super cool that it exists.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I see UFO 50 as an interesting experiment in how you can make 50 clearly distinct games, and draw inspirations from various classics while always maintaining unique ideas as well.

I always thought it was supposed to be "what if we made Action 52 but it wasn't completely shit". UFO 50 has a number of decently fun games, even if it has a few more mediocre ones, so I think it largely succeeded there.

[TransatlanticFoe]

My main frustrations with it come from genres I enjoy most (belt scroller, shooter) being represented by fairly poor games; and often nice ideas (Camouflage, Pingolf, the crazy horse betting game) are spoiled by seeing everything it has to offer too quickly, often with harsh difficulty trying to make up for it.

It is definitely at odds with itself over what it is, because in my opinion it succeeds most often with games that are the most period accurate/styled.

Different people will vibe with different things in UFO 50 and that's to be expected, but the sheer amount of stuff in it means it's a little too daunting to find it. But there are definitely games in here that can be binned - Big Bell Race, for example, is just awful. More attempted alien racehorse doping plz!

[Steven]

Done with Fatal Frame II remake as of a few days ago. There are some things (probably a lot of things) that I am missing, but I got all of the endings, so I'm calling it here. I don't really have much to say about it; the gameplay is fine, aside from being super easy even on the highest difficulty, it's very straightforward about telling you what you have to do to get most of the endings, and there is some other stuff that I wanted to talk about but can't remember. So, yes, it's good.

I'm supposed to be playing Tales of Berseria... the new port's been out for over a month now and while I got through all of the rest of the games save the awful Arise in a week or two, I really don't care about Berseria at all and stopped playing it a few days after release. It's not horrible and I made it to act 2, but it's mostly just mindless button mashing, at least when you're Velvet, and there is nothing here that I care about. Will attempt to slog through it eventually, and while it needs to be on at least hard difficulty to have some semblance of interesting gameplay, I may reduce it to normal just to get it over with faster. I don't remember if I mentioned it before or not and am too lazy to go check, but this game annihilates the Steam Deck's battery surprisingly quickly for some reason.

I am still playing the shit out of that Star Trek Voyager game, though. I still manage to find new stuff even after 80 hours of play time. Crazy game. Still pretty glitchy, though, and I think the implementation of manual saving has severely damaged the game's balance, but the solution is the extremely obvious "don't save scum". I still have never built at least 60% of the various facilities and whatever, so I'm trying to build those now. Turns out that upgrading the shuttlebay does nothing except let you have more shuttles, but having more shuttles is very good because it significantly reduces the chances of shuttle accidents while also significantly increasing the possibility of getting the best result. Not sure how that works, but I'm not going to complain. Now shuttles are my preferred method of basically doing anything that can involve shuttles. I did finally manage to completely skip Basics, too, so yes, that can be done.

[drauch]

All this talk of Fatal Frame had me boot back up the original after many years. Never finished it before. Not sure I'm going to still. I'm a bit on the fence, debating ...is this actually a good game? Overall atmosphere, level design, music/sound is all top-notch, but finding the actual game to be a real slog. Without hyperbole, some of the worst collision detection I've ever seen. I'm constantly getting stuck on nothing, like they made the colliders for every wall or item stick out an extra foot. The odd decision of changing what stick controls movement with the camera open is a real head-scratcher. I assume it's meant to create some sort of tension, but the wandering ghosts that seemingly respawn infinitely is a chore. As the ghosts get faster and more erratic, the clunky controls get even more cumbersome, and before you know it half your health is eradicated, with paltry health pickups in a game with respawns. The more I read about it, the more I'm seeing people getting softlocked in night 3, due to lack of health. Might just eat my losses, accept both my cowardice and my respect for my own time, and continue on with II instead. I do find it interesting that the second game has been remade twice now, yet not the first...

[BareKnuckleRoo]

All this talk of Fatal Frame had me boot back up the original after many years.

and before you know it half your health is eradicated, with paltry health pickups in a game with respawns.

I remember enjoying the sequel a lot more. There's still some nasty elements, like certain specific enemies completely ignoring your auto revival item and instant killing you if they hit, but I don't remember it being quite as unforgiving. Fun game, even if in terms of game balance it's a lot tougher than Resident Evil combat is. Maybe closer in vibe to a Silent Hill game on the Hard difficulty?

I remember as a kid getting softlocked at the final boss on Claire A's scenario due to low health and items. I know now that I could have done it if I'd really learned how to tackle the boss but I figured it'd be impossible for me to kill it with so little ammo and health remaining, and ended up restarting so I could get there with more resources. As it turns out, the reason I had so much trouble is I had no idea the game was originally designed with auto-aim, something that was in the Japanese version by default, and that RE1 removed in its initial USA release, and that RE2 hit behind the control options under Type C. No wonder I wasted so much ammo on missed shots!

[Steven]

All this talk of Fatal Frame had me boot back up the original after many years. Never finished it before. Not sure I'm going to still. I'm a bit on the fence, debating ...is this actually a good game? Overall atmosphere, level design, music/sound is all top-notch, but finding the actual game to be a real slog. Without hyperbole, some of the worst collision detection I've ever seen. I'm constantly getting stuck on nothing, like they made the colliders for every wall or item stick out an extra foot. The odd decision of changing what stick controls movement with the camera open is a real head-scratcher. I assume it's meant to create some sort of tension, but the wandering ghosts that seemingly respawn infinitely is a chore. As the ghosts get faster and more erratic, the clunky controls get even more cumbersome, and before you know it half your health is eradicated, with paltry health pickups in a game with respawns. The more I read about it, the more I'm seeing people getting softlocked in night 3, due to lack of health. Might just eat my losses, accept both my cowardice and my respect for my own time, and continue on with II instead. I do find it interesting that the second game has been remade twice now, yet not the first...

So I like Fatal Frame 1, but it's definitely way easier than it should be to get stuck on nothing, especially when going through doors. Don't know if it's true, but I have heard that the collision detection is even worse on Xbox than on PS2!

It does have a very save scum feeling to it though, especially because there are some enemies that can shoot you through walls while you can't really do anything about it, and I did some save scumming on occasion if I knew I could do better by taking less damage. One thing that helps a little (but only a little) is knowing that you will always be fully healed at the start of each night, so if you're near the end of a night (which is really easy to figure out, even on first playthrough, I think) and your HP is low, you'll get a free full heal upon completion of that night. Alternatively, if you know that there is a mirror stone that you haven't picked up and you have one already, you can risk letting your HP hit 0 to use a mirror stone and then go pick up another. Items disappear on the next night if you don't pick them up, so you might as well if you need the HP for something.

I think this game would be much easier if it had an invert y-axis option. Maybe Xbox has that, but PS2 certainly doesn't, and I think it might be worth buying the Xbox version just for that if they did add it. In any case, the controls don't help because they are not very good, or at least rather awkward. Apparently you can press triangle to do a 180 turn while holding the camera. I learned this after I finished it. That certainly would have been nice to know when playing the game... probably should have actually read the manual.

As far as the remakes are concerned, the series creator said in a recent (I think?) interview somewhere that the first game hasn't been remade because it's really short and there isn't enough stuff in it. Uh... okay lol. I can see it, but at the same time, I'd rather not have a remake that adds a bunch of needless stuff for no reason other than to make it longer. A friend is playing the Silent Hill 2 remake right now and he said to me yesterday that the extra stuff added in that remake hurts the game for various reasons. I haven't played it myself and didn't ask for details, but yeah.

The new remake of II does add a bunch of stuff, but it's all optional, and only one thing has a time restriction because you need to do it at a specific time, but that is also the only time that it tells you exactly what to do and where to go, and chapter select makes it effortless to go exactly to that point.

[Mero]

All this talk of Fatal Frame had me boot back up the original after many years. Never finished it before. Not sure I'm going to still. I'm a bit on the fence, debating ...is this actually a good game? Overall atmosphere, level design, music/sound is all top-notch, but finding the actual game to be a real slog. Without hyperbole, some of the worst collision detection I've ever seen. I'm constantly getting stuck on nothing, like they made the colliders for every wall or item stick out an extra foot. The odd decision of changing what stick controls movement with the camera open is a real head-scratcher. I assume it's meant to create some sort of tension, but the wandering ghosts that seemingly respawn infinitely is a chore. As the ghosts get faster and more erratic, the clunky controls get even more cumbersome, and before you know it half your health is eradicated, with paltry health pickups in a game with respawns. The more I read about it, the more I'm seeing people getting softlocked in night 3, due to lack of health. Might just eat my losses, accept both my cowardice and my respect for my own time, and continue on with II instead. I do find it interesting that the second game has been remade twice now, yet not the first...

Yep, that's what happened to me. Saved myself into a corner on the 3rd night then dropped it.

[Steven]

Yeah there probably should have been some way to heal, or definitely should have been if it's actually possible to get softlocked. You can already get free unlimited type-14 film from save points, so being able to pay points for healing or something might have been a good idea. Fourth night is not so bad and possibly the shortest one, so you should be okay if you can get through the third night. Now that I think about it, I do remember the third night being a big and sudden step up in difficulty compared to the second night.

I don't remember how it is in the other games that I have played because it's been too long, but the new remake of II (and it's kind of awkward to realize that I have to specify which one because there are two of them... not that I have played the Wii one) fully heals you whenever you interact with a save point. You don't have to save, just walk up to it and press F or whatever and you get fully healed. It is arguably one of the bigger reasons that the game is pretty easy.

[Stevens]

Super Hang-On is an amazing game. I think it's better than Outrun, largely because it pushes you harder and demands more mastery of the system. The boost speeds are crazy and also another element it has that isn't found in Outrun. Outrun is more relaxing though.

I used to think Super Hang-On was a mediocre title because it was "just" motorcycle racing. But the pace and breakneck decision making won me over. It's like a prototype F-Zero game.

As a lover of Outrun, Super is a game that has been on my radar for a really long time. Are you playing it on Mame?

[BareKnuckleRoo]

As a lover of Outrun, Super is a game that has been on my radar for a really long time.

Yeah, it runs fine in MAME. There's also a good Genesis port, as well as the Game Gear GP Rider which has it sneakily tucked away in the World Tour mode as the best racing game on the system. Just be aware one of the MAME revisions (deluxe sitdown?) appears to do away with the turbo button and just automatically accelerates to turbo speeds, so avoid that one as that's a defining difference with the sequel.

[Sima Tuna]

I play Super Hang-On on 3ds, but any way you can play it is good.