What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

[professor ganson]

Two battles left and I'll have beat Disgaea (PSP)! I'd like to beat the game in under 100 hours, but some serious grinding remains and I'm already at 90 hours.

Is that as in having beat the main storyline, or as in having beat the level 9999 guys at the end? I think it took me about that long for my first playthrough on the main story, but I also ended up spending way too much time in the item world.

Yeah, I'm just talking about the main story. Did you go on to do the entire thing? I think I'll just move to Disgaea 2 rather than continue on, though I'll definitely take a Disgaea break once I get through these last couple battles.

[Vexorg]

Two battles left and I'll have beat Disgaea (PSP)! I'd like to beat the game in under 100 hours, but some serious grinding remains and I'm already at 90 hours.

Is that as in having beat the main storyline, or as in having beat the level 9999 guys at the end? I think it took me about that long for my first playthrough on the main story, but I also ended up spending way too much time in the item world.

Yeah, I'm just talking about the main story. Did you go on to do the entire thing? I think I'll just move to Disgaea 2 rather than continue on, though I'll definitely take a Disgaea break once I get through these last couple battles.

I never got around to finishing every last little thing, but I have beaten several of the optional bosses (Priere, Adell and Rozalin, Zetta) and I've managed to get a couple of Yoshitsunas. I think when I left off on my first save I had Laharl and several other characters around level 2,500 or so on several transmigrations (I never really felt like doing the grinding it would have taken to max out the levels.) I think I had 260 hours on my first Disgaea save before I went back and started a second one. The second time around I abused the heck out of the glitched Foresights on the PSP version and managed to level up my guys a lot faster, but I stopped playing that one when I got Disgaea 2.

All in all, I don't like the story in Disgaea 2 all that much (a bit too predictable,) but there's so much more content there that it's hard to imagine going back to Disgaea at this point. There's a whole bunch of extra fights in the PSP version that the PS2 version doesn't have (and most of these become new playable characters,) The item world is a lot more interesting with more variety and equipment customization options, and there's harder versions of everything as well. If there's one thing I don't much care for in D2, it's having to collect felonies to speed up leveling rather than being able to collect statistician specialists. I also thought Axel mode was a bit of a waste of time, but you have to play through it once to unlock some stuff (but that may be because I don't care much for the character of Axel in the first place.) There's also a number of paid DLC characters (and apparently a couple of free ones) available as well. They were released a couple of weeks ago, but have since been pulled due to bugs and pricing issues.

[null1024]

Pokemon HeartGold [well, not really, just sampling, especially because the translation patches out there are barely done] and Pokemon Pearl [FUCK YOU, I THOUGHT I SAVED BEFORE THAT FIGHT AAARRRRGGGHHHH].

Oh, and Sonic Advance 1.

[throne_of_wolves]

Splatterhouse - Wanpaku Graffiti, and loving every minute of it; smooth controls, beautiful 8-bit graphics and a perfectly suited soundtrack make for one of the best Famicom games I've played to date.

[KMM]

Lately I've been playing a handful of non-shmups; I went through the first two paths of Fate/stay night a few days ago, and I picked up StepMania again on a whim shortly after that. I've also still been playing Umihara Kawase, Disgaea DS, and Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor.

I just bought Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 (not FES) yesterday, and I've got a couple of console Dance Dance Revolution games I'll be playing soon enough. Fun times are being had, at any rate.

[CptRansom]

I love Stepmania. I wish I could find some decent songs with good charts. Everything I find that's unofficial either has terrible music or really horrible charts that aren't fun at all. =(

I need to get a good USB pad and start playing again.

[t0yrobo]

I started Zelda Spirit Tracks. It's really not doing anything for me so far but I'm gonna give it awhile longer before I give up.

[null1024]

Pokemon Gold and F-Zero X.

[professor ganson]

I never got around to finishing every last little thing, but I have beaten several of the optional bosses (Priere, Adell and Rozalin, Zetta) and I've managed to get a couple of Yoshitsunas. I think when I left off on my first save I had Laharl and several other characters around level 2,500 or so on several transmigrations (I never really felt like doing the grinding it would have taken to max out the levels.) I think I had 260 hours on my first Disgaea save before I went back and started a second one. The second time around I abused the heck out of the glitched Foresights on the PSP version and managed to level up my guys a lot faster, but I stopped playing that one when I got Disgaea 2.

All in all, I don't like the story in Disgaea 2 all that much (a bit too predictable,) but there's so much more content there that it's hard to imagine going back to Disgaea at this point. There's a whole bunch of extra fights in the PSP version that the PS2 version doesn't have (and most of these become new playable characters,) The item world is a lot more interesting with more variety and equipment customization options, and there's harder versions of everything as well. If there's one thing I don't much care for in D2, it's having to collect felonies to speed up leveling rather than being able to collect statistician specialists. I also thought Axel mode was a bit of a waste of time, but you have to play through it once to unlock some stuff (but that may be because I don't care much for the character of Axel in the first place.) There's also a number of paid DLC characters (and apparently a couple of free ones) available as well. They were released a couple of weeks ago, but have since been pulled due to bugs and pricing issues.

Very interesting post, thanks. Now you've definitely got me looking forward to Disgaea 2, though I have a few other games I have to check out first. Tonight I tried to take on the final battle in the main story with Laharl at around level 81, and I fell a bit short, so I'm back to the item world for a few more days. By the end of the week victory will be mine.

[captpain]

Serious Sam: The First Encounter HD. Kill bazillions of monsters; kill giant monsters. Shoot cannonballs at massive charging bulls, or a hip-fired minigun at a seven story tall lava monster. Fuck the whole damn planet Earth.

[sjewkestheloon]

I've jumped back on Star Ocean 3 and I think I'm nearing the end of the first disk. I was initially unsure about the combat system as the attacks didn't seem responsive but after playing about with some different skill setups I've found it a lot more comfortable and controlable. I can usually avoid most attacks and take things down rather quickly which is satisfying. I do, however, prefer the dodge system of SO4 where you can kite around the arenas.

I wish the game would hurry up and settle in to a party of characters that I can switch between and get a bit more comfortable.

I'm hoping to finish the run as well as a good quantity of the extra bonus dungeons/IC/ultimate weapons before Christmas as I have Persona 4 waiting to go and I am really looking forward to delving in. Looks to be incredibly deep and customisable, as well as being a unique format.

[TLB]

Serious Sam: The First Encounter HD. Kill bazillions of monsters; kill giant monsters. Shoot cannonballs at massive charging bulls, or a hip-fired minigun at a seven story tall lava monster. Fuck the whole damn planet Earth.

I should bust those discs out now that I have a handy little netbook. Awesome games.

[Super Laydock]

Critter Crunch on PSN.

It's by far the most additive game I've ever played, and it has co-op & versus too.
I'll admit it..... I am a junk for it.

Demo is free & has online multiplayer so please try and join me for a game...

[MadSteelDarkness]

Playing SMT: Nocturne for real this time.

[Vexorg]

Just finished up a 100% completion run of Shadow Complex this weekend, and I'm just starting to get into Team Fortress 2 (I picked it up during a Steam sale a couple of months ago, but I'm just now getting around to actually playing it.)

[sjewkestheloon]

Due to some birthday spends I've got a bunch of new games.

My brother got me Lego Indy 2 which is a blast. It's nice to have a simple collectathon to mess about on with the missus and the split screen setup really helps. Made me laugh that after playing for about 5 hours the ingame counter said that I'd finished 3.2% of the game... Will take a while to 100% for sure.

Also got hold of a PSP Slim and Light and I'm glad that I did. I'd given up on the PSP after having played on an original but the dpad on this baby is far far better, on a par with the PS2 dual shock. I got Lumines, Every Extend Extra, Wipeout Pure and Monster Hunter Freedom. I've mainly been messing around on Monster Hunter and I think I may have found another potential obsession! The flaws are obvious and it seems you have to just accept them and move on if you want to have fun. Being an RPG junky who loves any kind of item customisation, I'm in gaming heaven. I've played for a number of hours and am still only doing the 1 star Elder quests, and I've only completed one Monster Hunt quest so far, but I'm enjoying grinding on those early quests for materials and gold and kitting myself out with a complete suit of early armour.

Lumines seems like a really tight and visual/audio pleasure, although I've only played one or two credits. Every Extend Extra seems more like what I wanted from the game than E4 was, suitable to smaller blasts of play and a higher difficulty level. I'd rather play this one for 10 minutes than play E4 for 2 hours. Finally Wipeout Pure is a brilliant game on first impression. I've only tried a few tracks but they seem well designed and the challenge is fairly stiff. I look forward to racking up the golds.

I'm still playing around on my first Borderlands character. He's been 50 for a while now but I want to max out all of his weapon proficiensies which is taking a while unless I run certain areas repeatedly. I think I'll end up making this my grinding character to find better good for the rest of my toons.

Giving Dragon Age a little break so that I don't wear myself out on it.

[EinhanderZwei]

Just beaten Metal Gear Solid 1 on PSP. Hard to say anything new about the game that I know almost by heart

[gs68]

Just played and ragequitted DJMAX Trilogy.

You don't need to hit the right keys no more, you're doin' great!

[boagman]

Just beaten Metal Gear Solid 1 on PSP. Hard to say anything new about the game that I know almost by heart

It's *still* satisfying, though...isn't it? To me, that's the sign of a truly monumental game.

[Vexorg]

I recently bought a PS3, and I'm catching up on some of the earlier games on that platform I haven't gotten around to yet. Currently I'm working on Uncharted: Drake's Fortune (fun game for a while (especially some of the platform jumping sections,) but it gets a bit long and repetitive) and Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction (I'm actually enjoying this one quite a bit, since I haven't played any previous R&C games.) With my brothers and sisters in town for Christmas, I also got a chance to play a fair number of head-to-head races in Forza Motorsport 3, and enjoyed that as well. I actually found the GT5 demo available on PSN rather lackluster in comparison.

[professor ganson]

Vexorg, are you going to play Disgaea 3 at some point?

[Vexorg]

Vexorg, are you going to play Disgaea 3 at some point?

Yes, but I think I'm going to hold off a bit on playing it after putting in 180+ hours on Disgaea 2 PSP within a couple of months. I've still got a lot of the endgame stuff (Land of Carnage, Baal, some of the remaining Dark World maps) to play through on D2, but I've been taking a break from that to play some other stuff for a while and catch up.

[Ed Oscuro]

Just beaten Metal Gear Solid 1 on PSP. Hard to say anything new about the game that I know almost by heart

It's *still* satisfying, though...isn't it? To me, that's the sign of a truly monumental game.

I would probably be deadly bored even playing through Twin Snakes (lol, with that title you don't think they were expecting any players new to the franchise) because it's more of the same.

Anyway, I feel like replaying Medal of Honor. I'd really rather play the immediate sequel, but don't have it available.

I just got through (finally) with Dead To Rights, after being stopped cold at a checkpoint and never giving enough of a damn to make it through. Lowering the difficulty (lol) and learning new tactics made it through (final recorded gameplay time was less than 7:30 hours but gameplay time would've been considerably more due to a good number of restarts. DTR has interesting set pieces and some good ideas, but the execution (no pun intended) of the game is bad. I like to call this one a " Super PlayStation" game because it feels like a PlayStation game being played on more powerful hardware - mostly smooth framerates, good resolution, but really poor geometry, textures, and animation; no jumping (i.e. one step above being on a rail), bosses with inscrutable weak points - just as expected on the venerable old PSX (unfortunately without the charm of PSX-style affine texture mapping, or a good game design). The feeling of monotony wasn't as bad as the seemingly endless succession of Imperial style levels in the middle of Jedi Knight II (also completed recently, will detail a bit more in the FPS thread) but that's only because I blazed through most of it really quickly. It's only hard to get lost in DTR because most of the time you just find more enemies spawning to clue you in to where to go next. Levels also aren't big enough to really get lost in either.

The story won some accolades, but it's nothing special. Some of the quips are pretty good (I guess they felt they had to do something to live up to the "Action Noir" label the back of the box gives itself) in the vein of Beverly Hills Cop. Some of my favorites are "That's a lot of gold, and I doubt Fort Knox was having a yard sale" and "You forgot the apples" when coming up from being hung in a pool of water (although I ought to explain that's in a minigame where you have to prevent yourself from dying from being held underwater for like 15 seconds at maximum, oh noes). There's plenty of other good ones in there. I ought to add that the music, done by an outside commercial studio, isn't especially varied but it's competent to good. Sound effects are all stock and really bad, but the voice and music make up for it (especially the guy doing a really bad fake British accent and taunts).

Gameplay takes some obvious cues from Max Payne, John Woo, and probably Shenmue (and others listed below). Max Payne's influence: On the GameCube, the X button is mapped to a jumping dodge / midair forward roll which looks goofy and which may be used to slow time; time also slows when tossing a "canister" or fire extinguisher to be shot), and the overall theme of a giant conspiracy (there's no creepy drug in the backstory though, and Slate's hero - man, I keep wanting to call him Gabe Logan - just has his dad offed). John Woo action flicks (as credited on the back of the box): For the rather horrible "drop guns the instant they are empty" gameplay shtick. The intent was apparently to prevent players from sticking to only one weapon type and instead having a more well-rounded arsenal, but in truth you end up wasting a lot of your (invisible, until told "you can't pick up any more weapons) inventory on weak, slow, or inaccurate handguns and submachine guns, or stuff that is too specialized to be useful. Also, you have an attack dog through most of the game who you can instantly sic on somebody provided they are relatively close to you and more or less on your level (it doesn't matter if they're in a locked floating cage so long as you're on a walkway nearby). Of course, at many, many points throughout the game you lose your guns, often because the hero thinks it'd be fun to go trade punches with a former pro boxer or somebody three times his size.

There's half of your Shenmue reference - the forced (often) brawling (it's fun during these sequences to use Shadow to insta-kill enemies; it really feels like a cheat on a timer). The other part is that the dude looks a hell of a lot like Ryu and even wears a similar jacket (with a canine paw on the back, I assume it's Slate's K9 unit jacket). Somewhere in that list belongs the human shield-taking option mapped to Y during gunfights (which doubles as a grappling option for melee combat, essential or required for some boss fights) which serves as a "get a kill free" button when somebody's in range - instead of shooting them, just press some combination of buttons and instantly kill them. So, shit, I guess that's a Tenchu influence too - unfortunately, very poorly done here, because not only is it not necessary to do fancy disarm and dispatch maneuvers (simply pushing X works almost every time - occasionally some enemies bat you away the first time), but also because you have to remember a specific button combination for each one. It saddens me that a significant portion of the animation budget must've gone to creating a variety of moves nobody needs to use and which I could've forgotten existed entirely upon coming back to the game.

The general look and style of the game is a lot like the Syphon Filter games (minus the goodness), right down to your targeting crosshair turning red when an enemy is guaranteed to take a hit. You don't get anything of the sort though - take cover or get hit. There's nothing as awesome as the SH taser, unfortunately (there was a flamethrower I picked up and which the hero promptly discarded along with the rest of his inventory after the short tunnel I found it in). SH titles also seem to have a lot more variety than this game. Somewhere in there they also put a primitive cover-fire mechanism; hug a wall and pop out around the corner. I don't think I ever used it.

I also should mention that some of the bosses have very specific ways of being defeated, all of which make the battles infuriatingly repetitive. The only boss battle I think is a winning idea is the ex-boxer who challenges you to a bout inside a prison's gas chamber with only one gas mask between the two of you. Another, which admittedly was fun because I knew what the secret was from a walkthrough, involves getting a huge guy to swing a combo at you (I'm not even sure you'd see the combo if you just tried to go toe-to-toe with him; you'd just get flattened quick) and then become vulnerable to choking (lol). The final boss's two last forms (the whole fight is appropriately reminiscent of Commando, except the hero doesn't quite take charge like Arnie) were pretty easy with my hard-won grappling hax, but before that you have to "play matador" in a fountain for a long, long while (argh).

Ironically, I see that the game is getting a ground-up remake for the current-gen consoles, which I always thought it needed. It remains to be seen whether it will be much of a leap beyond this one, though (I'm assuming the sequel and the PSP game aren't any better); graphics generally look okay but I'm guessing the gameplay is still kind of primitive.

[sjewkestheloon]

I've been playing the crap out of Rock Band UnPlugged. I'm moving up to Hard at the moment which is mostly fine except for the odd annoying trill here and there that really doesn't need signposting (from a musician perspective).

[EinhanderZwei]

Just beaten Metal Gear Solid 1 on PSP. Hard to say anything new about the game that I know almost by heart

It's *still* satisfying, though...isn't it? To me, that's the sign of a truly monumental game.

MGS is one of my all-time favorite franchises. When I first played MGS1 as a child, this game changed everything for me. Actually, I haven't seen many other games that would be SO adult. I'm not talking about violence or nudity, but the adult problems and themes raised by Kojima-sama in the whole series, for example 'should the attempts to change the world for good always be peaceful?'. I will always take this game and it sequels seriously, because they take ME seriously. There's no stupid shit like 'oooh, you're dead? c'mon, here's your Maximum Armor' like in fuckin' Crysis. Metal Gear Solid is not the game rewarding you for beating it. It is the game rewarding you for listening to it. And its commercial success back in 1998 has proved it - those 8 millions of people all over the world had the same thoughts and worries as Hideo Kojima did, and damn I'm proud to be one of them!

Bottom line: Marathon trilogy changed my vision of the world's future. Max Payne changed my vision of the world's today. Metal Gear Solid changed my vision of the world's tomorrow

Necessary sarcasm: Even if Hideo Kojima will make new MGS where all the characters will be just sitting down taking a shit - I will buy a limited edition anyway

[1up]

Currently on my first ever playthrough of Final Fantasy 6 for SNES. I hate random battles, but this game is one of those 'greats' from the golden era of JRPGs, so I had to play it. Random battles are not annoying me as much these days as it did back in the late 90s, so im enjoying this quite a bit

Im currently in the world of ruin and am stuck at the Wrexsoul boss. Only need to find a few more characters before we hand Kefka his ass.

Also, just finished New Super Mario Bros Wii. Excellent game. Loved every bit of it. Didn't play all levels or collect all the star coins, so theres something to do when I feel like popping that back in.

Recieved my Total Control Plus converter for my dreamcast, so i will probably dig that out again and give it the attention it deserves. I bought this little wonder back in 2005 for £8 including shipping and it plays imports/backups and is unmodded. Love it

[nande]

Street Fighter and Mario & Sonic, back to the old school games

Also I've been playing Xenogears on PS 1, its a pretty cool game =)

[CptRansom]

Currently on my first ever playthrough of Final Fantasy 6 for SNES. I hate random battles, but this game is one of those 'greats' from the golden era of JRPGs, so I had to play it. Random battles are not annoying me as much these days as it did back in the late 90s, so im enjoying this quite a bit

Im currently in the world of ruin and am stuck at the Wrexsoul boss. Only need to find a few more characters before we hand Kefka his ass.

Definitely one of my favorites. =D

I got rid of Borderlands, because after about 30 hours I was bored out of my mind (I should note that I'm not a huge fan of FPS to begin with). Not even the zombies could pique my interest again. =(

Picked up a PS3 last week with Demon's Souls (which is bar-none one of the most awesome games I've ever played and is ALONE worth picking up a PS3 for) and bought the God of War Collection and Katamari Forever. I love Katamari games. I played GoW 1 and 2 before, but I flew through both of them because they were the first games in a huge stack of games I wanted to play at the time, so I never took the time to really appreciate them. Hopefully this fixes it. If anyone has any other exclusives they'd like to recommend, I'm all ears (well, eyes).

[jonny5]

rival schools

[professor ganson]

Vexorg, are you going to play Disgaea 3 at some point?

Yes, but I think I'm going to hold off a bit on playing it after putting in 180+ hours on Disgaea 2 PSP within a couple of months. I've still got a lot of the endgame stuff (Land of Carnage, Baal, some of the remaining Dark World maps) to play through on D2, but I've been taking a break from that to play some other stuff for a while and catch up.

Sounds like a good plan. I too am taking a Disgaea break after recently finishing Disgaea 1. Next stop is definitely Disgaea 2 (PSP version), but I'm currently playing:

Crimson Gem Saga
Phantasy Star Zero
Wild Arms XF

and a few others.