What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

[Pringer]

It's still pretty cheap on master ninja, though not for the same reasons as NG2. Instead of metric tons of exploding shurikens, now a grab, any grab, is a one hit kill.

Dogs suck...

[sjewkestheloon]

Missed one bloody chest on Star Ocean! Now going to have to backtrack across the whole game in the hope that the one chest isn't in a place that has blown up in the story.

In other news I've just kicked the hell out of Gabriel Celeste on Universe Mode and nearly have a full lvl 255 party. I've got about 10 quests left to finish off and all of the item creation, as well as the last bonus dungeon which is going to take quite some time.

As I want the full IC in this play through I am going to have to go back and fight Gabriel Celeste and Ethereal Queen 5 times each to get the required items. Consequently I'll be synthing a lot of different suits with the goodies that I pick up.

Having so much fun with this one. Seems I am getting a lot out of games widely considered mediocre these days while I'm neglecting the bigger titles.

[Engineer]

Persona on the PSP. Really good so far. I've played all the other Persona games so it's cool to go back and experience the original. Plus they fixed it from the screwed up version that we got on the PS1.

[Solarus]

It's still pretty cheap on master ninja, though not for the same reasons as NG2. Instead of metric tons of exploding shurikens, now a grab, any grab, is a one hit kill.

Dogs suck...

I haven't played Sigma 2 yet, but being a HUGE NG fan, that doesn't sound too bad. The IC spam was a pain in the ass for the first 2 levels, but once you got the claws, it and pretty much the entire game was over. For any ninja enemy, simply chain wind run -> Izuna Drop for huge invincibility frame uptime and insta-gibs. Likewise, against every other enemy in the game (with the exception of the big humanoid mechs and those annoying pokemon dinosaur things), just chain 360 lunar ETs (the 1 essence UT) to decapitate everything, and you can literally go through the entire game with 2 moves (this doesn't apply to bosses obviously, but they were usually a lot easier than the levels themselves).

The grab bit seems to be a lot easier to deal with simply because you don't have to worry so much about those first 2 levels. You can chain wind run + flying swallow to keep I-frames up, while at the same time distancing yourself from enemies. Using 3 light slashes + 1 heavy slash + cancel into shuriken + heavy slash is a really good quick kill against most enemies in those levels as well, and would be effective in this case.

I could be wrong though, having once again not played the PS3 game yet I'll have to get a feel for it myself probably (waiting for my PS3 to get mailed from home >_<)

[Zweihander]

Left 4 Dead (PC)

Missed one bloody chest on Star Ocean! Now going to have to backtrack across the whole game in the hope that the one chest isn't in a place that has blown up in the story.

If it makes you feel any better, I didn't name my dragon in Panzer Dragoon Saga when I had the chance, so I was consequently unable to get one of the best berserk spells in the game.

[sjewkestheloon]

Left 4 Dead (PC)

Missed one bloody chest on Star Ocean! Now going to have to backtrack across the whole game in the hope that the one chest isn't in a place that has blown up in the story.

If it makes you feel any better, I didn't name my dragon in Panzer Dragoon Saga when I had the chance, so I was consequently unable to get one of the best berserk spells in the game.

That is a frankly odd design choice to be sure. Like the utterly stupid 12 chest thingy in FF12. I like secrets and things but when they are so completely arbitrary and pointless it looses appeal.

I think I need a rest from SO. I've got all the way to the end of Universe mode and now have to run the Wandering Dungeon many many times to finish everything up. It takes between 3-5 hours to clear once with no save points. Last night I spent 5 hours getting to the end only for the boss to own me. Back to the drawing board eh?

[CStarFlare]

Elemental Gearbolt

I'm loving this game and just wish I could have some sort of competition to keep driving me.

[Marc]

Bubble Bobble. I've forgotten any strategies I ever had for half the screens, and I'd forgotten how badly it starts to cheat when you're doing well. Round 25 is my best on 1 credit ATM. Still possibly the most frustrating, but certainly most playable single-screen platform games ever created.

[Solarus]

Hexic HD... Getting the grand pearl pooh-bah is pissing me off!!! Any tips for how to set up the master's grid effectively?

[Elixir]

Persona PSP (meh, too easy)
Final Fantasy I PSP (decent)
Monster Hunter Freedom Unite (because my 35 hour savedata corrupted on me, so I'm starting over)
Yakuza 2 (awesome)
Yakuza 3 (on hold until I've beaten 2)

Honestly the only one that I care about right now is MHFU, and I've been playing that gradually since August.

[StoofooEsq]

DMC3 SE (PS2) -- Cleared Bloody Palace for the first time with Dante at around 3:01:00. I was expecting to fight DMD Vergil 3 at Level 9999, but his AI only seemed to be on Hard/Very Hard. Imagine my relief when I didn't see him use even one Summon Sword. Next up is VH and DMD with Dante, and H, VH, and VMD with Vergil.

Aside from that:
League of Legends Beta (PC)
Civilization IV (PC)
No One Lives Forever GOTY (PC)
Jagged Alliance 2 (PC)
Doom WADs (PC)
Company of Heroes Gold (PC)

[Marc]

Strider 2, I'd forgotten how awesome this is. A sequel would be most welcome.

[Zejiro]

Brütal Legend!

Jesus christ this game is awesome! I've only played it for half an hour or so, but this is so sweet! Since it's a metal game, the only way to play it is in DRUNK MODE! Rum & Coke + Beer is the winner! (Not mixed together).

Rock on! \m/

EDIT:
The best thing about being drunk when you play games is that you can play through the game for the first time twice

[Damocles]

Hexic HD... Getting the grand pearl pooh-bah is pissing me off!!! Any tips for how to set up the master's grid effectively?

If you're just going for the pooh-bah I would tell you not to bother. The Alchemy trick works wonders.


I personally just started Sacred 2. Good god this is going to be a long game...

[Ed Oscuro]

Too many games on my plate...let's see, Thundercade, Daioh, Flying Shark, Fire Shark, RF Jet US, Cyvern (JPN). There's others, some Seta, Fire Hawk (ESD is an ironically well-chosen name), and so on. I also want to work on Super Aleste some, gotta find the time.

[gabe]

I finally removed the shrink wrap from my copy of Octomania (aka something something puzzle Tokoron)... It's been a while since I've played a good puzzler, and this one has me hooked for the moment.

[Marc]

Playing lots of Hydro Thunder on DC over the weekend. Excellent fun.

[TLB]

if my 360 is up, i'm playing Ninja Gaiden 2, Bioshock, Dead Space...except it hasn't been for anything besides movies in many weeks.

[Ed Oscuro]

Finished with the really pretty shit Duke Nukem: Time to Kill, was so happy to be done with it I deleted all the related files before I even looked into ripping music (pSX 1.13 has trouble with this game; won't play cutscenes or music). Looking forward to kicking the Redneck Rampage games to the curb too - I guess I have a sense of obligation to complete Route 66, even though it's terrible. Next up, hopefully Vagrant Story, been interested in that one since Billy posted about it here a while ago.

[Mero]

Still going for the one credit finish on Liquid Kids, got to 7-3 last night

Does anyone know a decent strategy for the level 5 boss? I cannot no miss him

[Battletoad]

When I have the time (and these games need a lot of time ), then I´m busy on Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver (DC) for the first time and another Gothic II (PC) playthrough, my 4th I guess. Too much action in the last time, needed some "relaxing" games. ^^

[neist]

Mega Man ZX that I recently bought in the trading boards here.

This game is significantly harder than I would have imagined.

[null1024]

Osman. Man, I really suck at arcade platformers.
It has bombs though, which is cool [and wastes bosses in no time at all].

[Marc]

When I have the time (and these games need a lot of time ), then I´m busy on Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver (DC) for the first time and another Gothic II (PC) playthrough, my 4th I guess. Too much action in the last time, needed some "relaxing" games. ^^

Is this any good? I've had it on DC for years but never played it. I don't have the time to spend a few hours on something only to find out it's a bit crap.

[Battletoad]

When I have the time (and these games need a lot of time ), then I´m busy on Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver (DC) for the first time and another Gothic II (PC) playthrough, my 4th I guess. Too much action in the last time, needed some "relaxing" games. ^^

Is this any good? I've had it on DC for years but never played it. I don't have the time to spend a few hours on something only to find out it's a bit crap.

Well I only have 2-3 hours behind me in this game. Looked promising and really good. If you like adventure games where you run around a lot, explore the world, fight some enemies and solve riddles (for example while moving blocks or switching dimensions), then you should check it out.

[dave4shmups]

Persona PSP (meh, too easy)
Final Fantasy I PSP (decent)
Monster Hunter Freedom Unite (because my 35 hour savedata corrupted on me, so I'm starting over)
Yakuza 2 (awesome)
Yakuza 3 (on hold until I've beaten 2)

Honestly the only one that I care about right now is MHFU, and I've been playing that gradually since August.

I wish Yakuza 3 would get a US release! Because I'm guessing it requires a lot of English. At any rate, I'm playing the first Forza game, and the first Project Gotham Racing on my old XBOX, and really liking both of them!

[who]

Manic Miner

[null1024]

Halo. At school. My tag was "a baby" [people had names like "safe sex", so you'd have some pretty funny lines when people died]
Totally wonderful, as I won 2/3 matches, running out of class time before the 3rd was over. It takes too long to start the damn thing, and we have to wait until the teacher goes into "no longer giving a damn" mode. It's a programming course, but she doesn't teach. I'd have gotten a switch, if it weren't for the fact that we could play Halo.


"> SIDS killed a baby"
"> a baby killed SIDS"

[TLB]

Going to be playing FF1&2: Dawn of Souls if I ever get around to it.

[PainAmplifier]

Aion : Just ended my first month actually. I will not be subbing to this game. The forced pvp is just too endemic in a game where you can get ganked by higher level enemies too damn easily. It was nice that NCsoft is actually doing something about gold spammers...somewhat, but the economy is still pretty broken by design and implementation again, so that was another strike against it for me. All that and the leveling speed is '4 year old game' fast and from patch notes it's supposed to be getting faster due to quest XP getting boosted. It's like all the bad flaws of WOW and Korean Grinders stuck together for one game to fail under the weight of both. The tiny world and mob rubberbanding doesn't help any either.

Disgaea 2 : Finally got time to go back to this one. Snapped it up earlier this year after finding a copy after a long search, just too many other things going on to play it then. I like the slower combat in this one compared to the extreme one hit kills in Disgaea 3. The item world stages seem more varied as well, even if the colors are a bit too strong compared to your targeting overlay.

Brutal Legend : Rented this one...oh god the pain. I love metal, and the story...but the gameplay is horrible. It's not just the RTS strapped over top of things, but also how weak each of the seperate parts was slapped together with some shockingly poor controls. Ninja Gaiden (Sigma) had better controls than this game, even though it had the same kind of camera issues to start with. I'd much rather watch and listen than play this game.

Wizardry 8 : Just going back and replaying this game, testing a few mods and thinking about working on one myself.