What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

[Obiwanshinobi]

Also...

OutRun is surprisingly decent, it plays fairly well and has an alternate track layout that goes 123454321.

Not surprisingly to me anymore. Didn't interest me much way back when. But then I got to play Battle Gear 2&3 that are some of the best (as well as ugliest) arcade racers on PS2. As well as TrackMania Wii (not quite ugly, but very "plain Jane" for a car game), which is almost indepletably engrossing to me played utterly singleplayer. Taught me to tolerate very barebones presentation in my car games. If it's called OutRun and it's by Sega, it's gotten my attention.
I've felt lately that any new console, even relatively low-tech, that would guarantee 60 fps in majority of its titles, and also - offer mostly games like those budget remakes/follow-ups (not only by Sega, but stuff like Space Raiders too) would be a console just for me. Remember how PS2 Virtual On remake offered video modes up to 1080i? On PS2, no less. And it was HARDLY ugly a game. Just a small console with durable controllers and a library's worth of such games would be very welcome under my telly.

[AGermanArtist]

Which of those Ages 2500 games are worth a look? I just grabbed Outrun, Galaxy Force and Dynamite Deka.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Which of those Ages 2500 games are worth a look? I just grabbed Outrun, Galaxy Force and Dynamite Deka.

Gunstar Heroes Treasure Box. I've fond memories of Fantasy Zone and Monster World collections too. Although if was to PLAY these on SDTV nowadays, I'd most likely do so emulated on Wii.
Panzer Dragoon is NOT a remake, it is just a port.
Virtual On is pretty sweet if you can dig Virtual On.

[AGermanArtist]

Thanks! I'm going to run them in PCSX2. I didn't realise the Outrun one was so good.

[Obiwanshinobi]

There's NIGHTS into Dreams PS2 remake, IF not quite released under Sega Ages flag.

[vol.2]

I'm finally getting around to playing Outlaws (1997).


There was a moment in the mid 90s where people (including myself) were rediscovering the Spaghetti Western genre; the Leone films appeared on VHS and there were finally high quality CD remasters of the Dollars film soundtracks. I can only imagine that Outlaws was somehow part of all that, although I didn't pick it up back then (I did watch a bunch of the films, including the James Coburn stuff).

The game itself looks and sounds awesome. The Clint Bajakian soundtrack is flawless, and the whole weird 1990s parallel universe Spaghetti vibe is immaculate. The game generally controls pretty well for a Dark Engine game too, but there is one huge and terrible problem. The hit detection is atrocious. Too many times you will be standing directly in front of an enemy, pumping bullets into them and nothing happens. This is a problem to varying degrees in all aspects of the game engine; close up, far away, in a building, on the street, it doesn't matter because the engine just decides arbitrarily if you hit or not. To make matters even worse, there are moments (many moments) where you can and will be one-shot killed by a guy with a rifle that you absolutely cannot see for multiple reasons. Sometimes they will be around a corner or in a building that is not in any way visible to you, and sometimes they will be ahead of you in the dark and there's no possible way to know where to aim. The game does have an "oil lamp" mechanic, that is essentially a flashlight, but it's range is so limited that it doesn't help locate enemies; it only helps you find your way through dark mazes. This wouldn't be as much of an issue if you had a chance to get close to them and see them, but they can one shot kill you in the head from the veil of complete darkness and there's zero way to prevent it. The only way to get past those places is to just restart and hope your luck holds out. The enemy AI is erratic enough that you will generally get through with repeat tries, but it does not feel good or fun to play a game that way. You should be able to get through it on skill and learning the enemy's behavior or positions for future attempts. The only somewhat reliable way to make it through the levels is to go extremely slowly and pick off enemies from a distance while they are barely sticking themselves out. Even this isn't perfect, because the hit detection is so bad that you can sometimes waste a whole round of ammo on an enemy that is directly in your crosshairs to absolutely no effect. Ammo is a limited resource in Outlaws, and if this ever happens, you really need to reload a save, because you can run out of bullets and not be able to finish a level if you aren't careful.

I'm pushing through it. Having to restart a lot more frequently than I would like, but it's still engaging when it's not frustrating me.

Has anyone here played this game? What are your thoughts on it?

[BIL]

Which of those Ages 2500 games are worth a look? I just grabbed Outrun, Galaxy Force and Dynamite Deka.

The Space Harrier II Complete Collection - which was really just an excuse for M2 to do a proper SH1 port - was AGES 2500's watershed. Everything before it is 3D remakes, everything after is more AC/console ports, with the odd outliers like Dynamite Deka's PS2 arranged mode (basically reskins the S-TV game, plus adds some costumes from Makoto Uchida's previous works Altered Beast and Golden Axe), and the genuinely special Fantasy Zone II: The Tears of Opa-Opa arcade port. (translates the previously console-original FZII to arcade hardware)

Galaxy Force II has a really rad widescreen mode, hence its moniker "Special Extend Edition." Treasure Box is worth a look imo, you can disable the sprite limit and slowdown on Alien Soldier. The MD cart has vanishingly little of either, but it's still a cool detail.

This is going back a bit, might be off on some details. TLDR: the pre-SH2 discs are what you wanna check out for remakes. The post-SH2 are generally very disciplined ports. Not all of them were by M2, IIRC. I don't think Deka's was, for example. Still great to have around though.

[KAI]

I would like to add the Tetris Collection aside from those you mentioned. Its a great collection of the arcade branch of the tetris arcade games, and New Century, the original game developed by M2 for it, it was the best alternative to the TGM series we had on consoles back then.

[AGermanArtist]

Thanks lads, will have a look at all of those

[vol.2]

Finished Outlaws.

It's a fun game; really enjoyed it. Once I got used to it's quirks, it was easy enough that the problems weren't too difficult to put up with.

That being said, I will double down on the hit detection issue. Especially compared to Dark Forces, which this game shares the engine with, it is terrible. Having played hundreds of hours of Dark Forces, I'm intimately familiar with the implementation and there is nowhere near as many problems as there are in Outlaws. If I had to guess, it's because Outlaws has much more detailed 3D levels; the general level design is a lot more ambitious in terms of objects placed in the maps, and significantly more complex branching level designs. It feels to me like the hit detection is a result of this complexity, in which they have issues with object occlusion and NPC interaction. For example, when an enemy is close to the edge of a wall or floor, the engine completely fails to register a hit by line of sight, and it gets worse the farther away from the target you are. It's as though there is some kind of angular math error that is compounding with distance as it fans out away from the origin.

And the darkness mechanic is awful. While the western world aesthetic is in keeping with the story, it's not particularly varied or colorful to begin with. When you consider that the vast majority of the game is played in caves and basements, it ends up being oppressively dark. Using the oil lamp (flashlight) helps the appearance of the game a lot, as it makes the colors pop, but it actually ends up being much worse to use the lamp because it makes enemies more difficult to see; the throw distance of the lamp is so short that it creates a kind of bubble of bright light directly around you that, in turn, creates a much higher contrast between the area immediately around you and the area a bit further in the distance where enemies will be. This makes it a poor choice to ever use the lamp until you have completely cleared out an area of enemies and you just want to sweep for items and secrets, or to find the path forward.

I know that darkness makes sense with the way they created the levels, but I think they probably should have had more levels above ground in the wilderness or in well-lit structures like houses and such. The levels didn't really effect the overall story progress at all, they were just "the next place you had to fight through," and they could have literally been anything that makes sense in the old west. Choosing to make them overwhelmingly dark was a mistake.

[Sumez]

I played a ton of Outlaws back in the 90s - but it was always the deathmatch mode on a local network, which was a lot of fun. I don't think I've ever touched the singple player mode

[vol.2]

I played a ton of Outlaws back in the 90s - but it was always the deathmatch mode on a local network, which was a lot of fun. I don't think I've ever touched the singple player mode

Looking on the Steam forums, it seems that there is actually a Discord for Outlaws, and online multiplayer is part of that. You could probably relive your Outlaws glory days if you so wish.

[Steven]

Tales of Eternia is coming, yay~ I just bought this fucking (awesome) game a few months ago, yay~

Well, this isn't a surprise considering PEGI messed up and posted it on their website like 2 months ago. New version has no multiplayer, so I'm glad I picked up the PS1 version in any case. Now I wonder what will happen with the ending song that got cut from the PSP version, which I am sure this was based on. Wonder if this is running fully natively. They have at least part of the PS1 source code, so it would be nice. 60 FPS only, but I didn't expect that from a PS1/PSP game, especially if they don't have the source code. Thank god the weird and ugly new graphics can be disabled. They remind me of that nasty smear filter that some emulators have in case you want to make your games look super hideous for some reason, which is even weirder because the character sprites aren't affected by it, so they look out of place when they are mixed with the new graphics. The original graphics are extremely beautiful anyway, and I have no idea why anyone would want to replace them with whatever this crap was supposed to be. 100% cool with the new textboxes and high-resolution text, though. Those can both stay!

Hm... anyway, on the 3D remakes of 2D games, I was thinking primarily of games that were originally completely 2D and then became fully 3D beyond just using polygons, like... I don't know, going from Sonic 1 to Sonic Adventure, if Sonic Adventure was a remake of Sonic 1. So, basically, from 2D sidescrolling to having 360 degree movement obviously including the z-axis. That said,

I thought Gain Ground's was surprisingly decent, and worth having for its utterly killer S.T.T. arranged soundtrack.

Holy crap this makes me want to go play some Gain Ground! I like Gain Ground and I'd like to spend some more time with it, and maybe get the 1CC eventually. I might have to look into this PS2 remake; I tend to forget the PS2 Sega Ages 2500 games exist. Some might say that's fortunate since, like you said, some of them were not exactly well-received. M2 got involved later in the process, and Quartet and SDI got released as part of the lineup.

Never played SDI, but it looks cool and I want to play it, and I ABSOLUTELY LOVE Quartet. Something about the music in that game does very good things for me, but the gameplay is excellent too and the silly voice acting makes me laugh. I REALLY wish it had a nice modern rerelease. It was on the Astro City Mini, which is how I discovered it, but I sold mine a year ago. It was on the MiSTer for a while but got removed for some reason. I should go check to see if it ever got reimplemented...

Actually, even AB and SH's 32X ports are great.

Yes they are! They support the XE-1AP, too! Mine's broken and I have no idea how to fix it, but I do want to get it fixed somehow and someday. Anyway, the 32X versions are quite good, almost as good as the Saturn versions, and, in a hypothetical scenario in which the Saturn versions don't exist, I'd be satisfied with only the 32X versions, even though After Burner Complete is only 30 FPS. I don't actually have 32X Space Harrier, just After Burner Complete, but I do have the MegaSD, so I have played it using that. I have a late revision Saturn and I've never been able to find a bugfix copy of Saturn Space Harrier, so I can't play the Saturn version right now anyway lol

Trails in the Sky Remakes.

Yes, this was very much like what I had in mind! I did play the demo for the first one for a little bit, so I feel moderately bad about forgetting about it, but that's how it goes.

[BrianC]

Quartet wasn't removed, but it's one of Jotego's cores, so the main updater might not pick it up. There were a couple times where games were removed by accident from update all and I had to redownload manually.

[Marc]

Which of those Ages 2500 games are worth a look? I just grabbed Outrun, Galaxy Force and Dynamite Deka.

Space Harrier is ugly, but very good, don't pass on that.

[AGermanArtist]

Which of those Ages 2500 games are worth a look? I just grabbed Outrun, Galaxy Force and Dynamite Deka.

Space Harrier is fully, but very good, don't pass on that.

I have the Switch Ages version. I'll have a look. Is it a remake?

[AGermanArtist]

Glad I quit ARC Raiders. Wonder why so many people are running Bobcats with Kinetic converters?
Another online game ruined

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Flh76GxMpBM

[vol.2]

Playing the Portal Reloaded community maps. I enjoy Portal, but Reloaded is honestly just feeling too much like work to me sometimes. I am doing fine in it, but it's a heck of a lot of back-tracking and extra steps to get through puzzles. The added element of time has an initial learning curve, but once you get it, the added rules aren't hard to grasp, they are just time-consuming. It feels too much like doing Sudoku once you work out the math to solve for missing lines and squares. Worse, actually, because Sudoku doesn't force you to do platforming in the Source engine. Hot take (maybe?), but I think that platforming in Source games suuuuuucks. I dread figuring out a puzzle, only to realize that it's going to require a really tricky bit of jumping or something. Again, it's not impossible, but it is more annoying to me than it is fun.

That said, I'll finish it because I can't not do so. Once I get started on a puzzle, I find it hard to not complete it. I've worked on a single difficult crossword puzzle for as long as a month before. I often will solve them, but sometimes I end up with a wrong cross or two, especially if I don't know an actor's name or something like that.

[Marc]

Which of those Ages 2500 games are worth a look? I just grabbed Outrun, Galaxy Force and Dynamite Deka.

Space Harrier is fully, but very good, don't pass on that.

I have the Switch Ages version. I'll have a look. Is it a remake?

There's both a port and a remake and the remake, though pig ugly, slows it down, adds bombs and a lock-on, and it really good fun.

[1KMS]

Don't forget Hudson Selection, unless you want to. That was a budget series of PS2/GameCube remakes of Adventure Island, Bonk's Adventure, Lode Runner, and Star Soldier.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Out of enhanced ports of once-coin-op games to PS2-gen consoles, Gautlet Dark Legacy (played in ROBOTRON mode, twin sticks way) as well as Midway Arcade Treasures 3 collection (Hydro Thunder, San Francisco Rush 2049...) can be a good fun.
Furthermore, ESPECIALLY if you have someone willing to play in local co-op with you: The Red Star and Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks, yay!

[XoPachi]

I am playing that BIG ASS demo for Order of the Sinking Star and I am having a ton of fun with it. Really nice Sokoban type game. I love block pushing puzzles in video games and the character switching is great.

[guigui]

I am playing that BIG ASS demo for Order of the Sinking Star and I am having a ton of fun with it. Really nice Sokoban type game. I love block pushing puzzles in video games and the character switching is great.

This reminds me I have yet to beat about 90% of the game Baba Is You

It is curious how it seems like I can solve many fan-made Lemmings levels -- and believe me some of them are extreme hard -- but I am not able to accomodate my brain to Baba Is You. Different types of thinking certainly.

[Lemnear]

Currently immersed in Tekken 8 and Puzzle Bubble 3...waiting for Halo Campaign Evolved (maybe, I don't know yet, it looks really nice though).

[TransatlanticFoe]

Pragmata

Having a great time with this 3rd person shooter. Is it retro now if it feels like something from a decade ago? Having to hack enemies to damage them means things can get a little busy, Astral Chain-style (for anyone who played it) where "oh yeah I can do this" pops up occasionally because there's a lot to keep track of at any given time. It's nice though because you unlock all sorts of perks so you can find playstyles you vibe with and have fun with it on your own terms. Hacking enemies can feel like some sort of badass zen when it clicks, and panicked back against the wall tension when it doesn't - best of both worlds

The overall story is nicely presented, unravels slowly, and the focus is on the heartwarming relationship with your android not-daughter. Which looked like it could've been creepy, but is actually a delight. Big dumb boss fights, mild exploration for bonus goodies - it's of the style of PS360 era games like Binary Domain

The only negative really is the later training simulations. They're not training, stop calling them that. They're challenges - you're stripped down from your progression bonuses and forced to use a particular set of weapons/approaches. Which is the antithesis of the rest of the game, where you're given multiple viable tools to play it how you want to. You don't need need to do them, except for a cheevo, at least

Oh, and the disc build (xbox) is basically flawless. Two fingers up at shoddy v1.0.0 builds or worse, a disc that's a download key

Superb game, more of this please

[vol.2]

Pragmata

Game looks amazing. Looking forward to playing it when I finally have the hardware for it.


I finished the Portal Reloaded mod. The last 5 levels were easier than the rest of the game because they introduced a bunch of new mechanics. I always find that the more complicated puzzles turn out to be much easier simply because it's a lot harder to hide what you need to do when there are things like the light bridges and matter moving beams and stuff. Those things have very defined mechanics and that leads to a solution intrinsic to those mechanics. The main challenge then becomes the OOO, and that's mostly just an organizational task and not really problem-solving.

There were a couple really cleaver levels that I liked because they subverted their apparent complexity in favor of deceptively simple solutions. One in particular that gave made me think a long time was level 20. Probably took me at least an hour to figure that one out, and I was kicking myself when I did. But it's so much more satisfying when the level is genuinely difficult and not just a pain to execute everything.

[AGermanArtist]

Woah holy shit Marathon's amazing.
If you've got it, add me

FUTURESKELETONS#6165

Glad to hearing you're digging it. I think it will find an audience no doubt, but the mandatory wipes kill it for me.

I ended Season 1 at level 72 with a fairly average $200K vault. Season 2 - 1 mth post wipe, I'm level 91 and my Vault is worth 5 times the previous season already. The mandatory wipe worked out OK. The game gets better and better with more events/enemies being added to the maps. It's almost a completely different game at this point. I played solos a lot in Season 1 which I regret now. Trios is where this game excels. The ability to revive dead or downed crew gives the gameplay a tactical edge where you can offer yourself up to a rival crew to distract them (they get excited by the possibility of looting you) while the remainder of your crew takes them out. Then revives you, loot them all and move on.

[AGermanArtist]

Yakuza Hawaii.

Now I genuinely thought I was done with this series. I completed and enjoyed 6, but since then have gotten bored of Judgement, and LAD, and never bothered to start Infinite Wealth, though I did manage to complete the relatively brief Man With No Name spin-off. Truth be told, I only picked this one up because it was on sale and I knew it had Spikeout and both versions of Daytona 2,in its arcade, yet here I am, addicted all over again.

It’s always been a series with ridiculous and whimsical aspects, but without the overarching ‘Yakuza is serious business’ guff, it’s finally free to lean full-throttle into that. Coupled with the more laid-back vibe (it’s the first game I’ve ever played that given me that genuine ‘I’m on holiday’ feel), it all works incredibly well, despite the contrast with the typically wince-inducing combat. It’s still obviously a PS4-era engine, but the additional environment complexity, detail, and rock solid frame rate, together with the blue sky beach setting, means it looks stunning, I’d envisioned playing until I unlocked the arcade and just leaving it there… as of this weekend, I’ve left the first island, messed around with sailing and ship combat, and have now spent approximately 18 hours walking around Honolulu, waving at people, feeding animals, snatching butterflies, cooking, buying outfits, taking photographs, looking for treasure chests, hunting bounties, and completing the aforementioned delivery tasks. I headed back to the ship when I’d collected the required amount of crew and money, but someone on board said something that made me head back to the main island before I’d even set sail, and it’s night, and there are different events, and new people and bounties, and I can tell I’m going to be wondering around here for at least another half dozen hours. There’s an incredible density to the map, there’s something to do, see or fight on just about every street, and I keep finding myself playing for just one more hour. Just fantastic. Game of the series so far for me.

Glad it clicked with you. It really is the best Yakuza.

[Obiwanshinobi]

The only negative really is the later training simulations. They're not training, stop calling them that. They're challenges - you're stripped down from your progression bonuses and forced to use a particular set of weapons/approaches. Which is the antithesis of the rest of the game, where you're given multiple viable tools to play it how you want to.

Dunno, before Onimusha 3 with its training challenges, I would play 1&2 all the way through essentially clueless how I am supposed to play Onimusha. Which meant repetitive grind instead of what Onimusha combat is all about, really. I think someone at Capcom figured out their series' biggest flaw was - being too easy to play through clumsily whilst thinking you really know what those games are truly like.
So, I like when devs DON'T assume anything's intuitive about their games.