What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

[Shocky]

I see now. As I've saved into one slot, I'll have to start the game all over again. FUCK

Feel sorry for ya, dude

I've gotten so paranoid that I save always to different slots, and when they're full I'll start from the beginning again. Unless the game is somehow simple, then I might alternate between two slots. With emulators, I try to be extra cautious. I played Resident Evil 2 on the PS3 (original PSX disc) and the fucker froze when I tried to load my latest save, all because I had killed zombie-Barry and unlocked the extra uniforms for Leon and Claire. Getting those uniforms caused the game to crash, otherwise it worked fine to the end.

What am I playing now:

Nintendo DS - Horror games.

Just finished Nanashi no Geemu ("Game without name"), a weird hybrid of FPS survival horror and 8-bit rpg. Now starting the sequel Nanashi no Geemu Me (and feeling an urge to get a DSi, because of the downloadable Nanashi no Geemu platformers)
Mite wa ikenai ("Don't look") - A simple but fun game in the style of Japanese horror movies. The goal is to find ghosts in photos. You know, zoom in, pan around, then suddenly notice a ghostly face staring from a window, peeking behind a person or an extra hand, legs that go nowhere, three shadows for two people etc. Creepy.
Also tried Twilight Syndrome, but it proved too Japanese-heavy for my skills. Nice Nintendo DS spiritism/ouija board sessions though!
Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin - I thought I had finished this, but turns out I got the bad end, and there's a whole lotta new places to visit once I defeat the Vampire sisters peacefully.

PS3/PS2 - Trying to finish old games in a mad rush before their sequels are released.

God of War 2: Argh, 43 hours of playtime, does this game never end? Stuck somewhere after defeating the two Sisters of Fate. A long, winding corridor with waves of enemies. The sadistic thing is, that after routinely spending a lot of time destroying the first two waves, these Gorgons appear and at some point always manage to petrify me and smash/shoot -> instant death. Then it's back to wave 1 again.. fuck. Still, love the game. Somehow the playable demos of GoW 3 didn't impress me nearly as much as this true piece of art.
Yakuza 2 is up next.

PC

Policenauts. Was very busy when the translation patch was released and had to put it on hold. Now I picked it up again .. spent too much time trying to get over 550 points at the shooting range , even with mouse control I only got some 350. Maybe I'll just finish the game and get back to grinding the score later (or just find a video of what happens ) It's just so slow to play, because I have to examine every damn thing twice to get to read all the valuable text!

[Shatterhand]

I've been playing Mass Effect the last 2 weeks. What an amazing game! Really looking forward for its sequel, I never thought a "western RPG" would hold me like that... I usually don't dig RPGs at all, but I got really addicted with this.

I've logged about 22 hours of game so far.

[sjewkestheloon]

If you like Mass Effect I recommend you try Dragon Age: Origins. Although the combat is very different (strategic crpg similar to Baldur's Gate) the character interactions, locations, quests, etc are similar in feel to Mass Effect but just have more detail and better pacing. I have had a huge amount of fun with both games, but I am an RPG junky so you may want to look at it closely first.

[Battletoad]

Trackmania Nations and Stronghold, both on PC.

[Vexorg]

Been a bit short on gaming time lately (2 hours of commuting a day will do that) but I've been spending a fair bit of time on Forza 3. Also ended up picking up Disgaea 3, but haven't been able to get into it as much as the other two (then again, I think that it's the type of game that works a lot better on the PSP due to the portability and the "Pick up and play" aspect, which is exacerbated by some inexplicably long load times on D3.

Oh yeah, I also picked up Critter Crunch off PSN earler this week when it went on sale. Not bad for what I paid for it.

[Zaarock]

Persona 3.. bought it for 30e without knowing about FES, sorta annoying. oh well, seems the stuff they added into the original part werent that big so I'll buy FES when I finish it if I like it.

Just at the start, already died a few times on my second trip to the large dungeon (all enemies attacking main char in a row.. lol) Liking it so far.

[Dale]

I've been playing modern warfare2 and Saints Row2 since my 360 came back. I've also been playing some Flicky and Melty Blood as well.

[SockPuppetHyren]

I just picked up Baroque today and gave that a little bit of time. It's not that bad so far, though I guess I'll have to get a lot further than 3 floors to start seeing some story events

[No_not_like_Quake]

Contemplating getting back into Borderlands, which I put aside for awhile, before I get Mass Effect 2.

[null1024]

Rakaguki Showtime and Megaman 8.
Sucking at both, but I always sucked a bit at Megaman games.

[ZOM]

I just picked up Baroque today and gave that a little bit of time. It's not that bad so far, though I guess I'll have to get a lot further than 3 floors to start seeing some story events

Great game. Story is sparse, hidden within NPC-monologues and confusing at first but what's there can give you a nice "now I get it!" effect once you puzzle all the pieces together.

[Davey]

Rakaguki Showtime

I had a lot of fun with that game back in the day. In case you haven't dug around in the menus yet, there's an option to increase the game's speed. Crank it all the way up and let the ridiculousness ensue. It's certainly not the most balanced or serious game in the world, but the craziness makes up for it.

[ROBOTRON]

I've been playing Dungeon Siege with friends on the pc, Shatter on PS3 and Melty Blood Actress again on PS2.

[Shatterhand]

If you like Mass Effect I recommend you try Dragon Age: Origins. Although the combat is very different (strategic crpg similar to Baldur's Gate) the character interactions, locations, quests, etc are similar in feel to Mass Effect but just have more detail and better pacing. I have had a huge amount of fun with both games, but I am an RPG junky so you may want to look at it closely first.

Thanks for the recommendation. I'll look into it and see if I like it

[Dragoforce]

Resident Evil: Code Veronica (GC)

I think it was a really good thing that Capcom changed the concept for RE4. It gets kind of repetetive...

[TLB]

Counter Strike Source. I need to buy some beer to go with it. I've started playing with people I hadn't talked to in years, and I'm having too much fun.

[EinhanderZwei]

Gunforce 2. SHOOT! KILL! KILL! BOOM! KILL! BLOW UP! SHOOT! SHOOT! SHOOT!!!
Damn I love Irem

[BIL]

Resident Evil: Code Veronica (GC)

Funniest horror game ever. "IT'S A MAN, BABY!"

[Dragoforce]

"You crossdressing freak!"

Whoever wrote the dialog should be paraded through the streets of raccon city.

[Bloodreign]

Pac Land and Pac Mania, mainly the former, but a little of the latter.

[professor ganson]

Jeanne D'Arc - About 10 hours in, and so far I'm thinking that this may be the best srpg I've ever played. It's not perfect, but the graphics/art style, sound/music, gameplay, story are all really impressive. I hope the stage objectives continue to vary. It gives the game a bit of a puzzle-solving character, like in Wild Arms XF, but without the latter's contrived class system. (I can explain this last part in greater detail, but I doubt anyone else here is as obsessed with the minor details of srpgs.)

[Shatterhand]

Shit, since I bought the X360 last month, I feel like I have a lot of new "modern" games to play, I don't know what I should play next. I've just finished Mass Effect, and even though a friend of mine is trying badly to convice me to get ME2 right now, I just want to give it a break and play something else.

I am not sure I should go play Resident Evil 5, Mirror's Edge or Batman Arkham Asylum, which are games I own. Which one should I play first?

[guigui]

Nintendo DS - Horror games.

Just finished Nanashi no Geemu ("Game without name"), a weird hybrid of FPS survival horror and 8-bit rpg. Now starting the sequel Nanashi no Geemu Me (and feeling an urge to get a DSi, because of the downloadable Nanashi no Geemu platformers)

I am interested in the DSiWare Nanashi no Geemu games. Can you explain what kind of games those are. Can I play them even though I dont get a single word of japanese ?

[sjewkestheloon]

Shit, since I bought the X360 last month, I feel like I have a lot of new "modern" games to play, I don't know what I should play next. I've just finished Mass Effect, and even though a friend of mine is trying badly to convice me to get ME2 right now, I just want to give it a break and play something else.

I am not sure I should go play Resident Evil 5, Mirror's Edge or Batman Arkham Asylum, which are games I own. Which one should I play first?

Mirror's Edge for sure. It's great as a quick story title but priceless as a time attack game. You will play it multiple times for sure.

[xris]

On 2nd playthrough of Mass Effect 2, a great game. Kind of a wild west feel to it. Now more like Firefly/Serenity than Star Trek. I'm really enjoying it, feels like an adventure game, not rpg.

[Damocles]

Assassin's Creed 2
Bayonetta
*ahem* Marvel Ultimate Alliance (Gold)

Surprisingly, it's still fun to hop around buildings, and is a nice change from Bayonetta's balls-out combat. MUA is...well...MUA. Good with friends.

[Radiant Cinnabun]

I don't know if this qualifies as a shmup. I don't feel like it does, so I'm putting it here. But first, a story:

When I was very little and would visit my grandparents, I'd always notice a huge game box lying next to their computer. It had a title that I couldn't even begin to comprehend (Thexder) but it had a robot on the cover and I always desperately wanted to play it. My grandfather would, each time, tell me no. Sometimes he would stare off into middle distance as he did so, sometimes he would say, and sometimes he would follow this with a sad "It's terrible. You wouldn't like it."

Now, however many years later, I downloaded the demo for Thexder Neo.

He was right.

It's terrible.

[Ruldra]

What a coincidence, I was browsing the demos section of the PS Store today, saw the cool robot image of Thexder Neo and downloaded the demo out of curiosity.

Terrible indeed.

[null1024]

Sonic Heroes, Sonic Adventure DX.

I really should pull out my GC instead of playing these on my laptop. The camera is TERRIBLE in DX, worse than I remember [and hard to control without the simplicity of trigger buttons, Q and W are too awkwardly placed to be as useful, and they're backwards...], and I keep forgetting which key does what, so I'll have spindashed off a cliff or something.

Oh, and fuck you Heroes, why do stages take 7+ minutes on your first try?


Interestingly, Heroes runs better than DX on this machine, with almost no slowdown despite looking MUCH better.

[PainAmplifier]

Currently slogging my way through Ninja Gaiden Sigma. It's my first time through the game, I'm at the chapter where you play Rachael for the second time. And this game is rough. I like it, but it could use some tweaking to make it a bit less annoying.

1) Remove Enemies at save points! It's bad enough that the respawn range for some enemies is incredibly short, but when those enemies are right over top a save location and you reload/restart there, having them beat on you before you even realize they are there is just pure sadism.

2) Black Spider Ninjas...remove their damn Exploding Shuriken spam. It's usually a chain spam of them hitting you with these things, and them sticking to you and exploding then before you even notice you've been tagged with one. Avoiding damage (and it's a lot!) from those things is a pain. So far these guys are even worse than the red dino things.

3)Add some frames to your recovery animation after being knocked down, so you can at least jump your way out of the inevitable pile O' mobs that is going to swarm you. The difficulty in getting out of a bad spot is a problem given how much damage attacks do. When I end up spamming healing, it's usually because I'm getting chain-knocked down and don't have an opportunity to get up. Or worse, I get hit in mid-escape-jump, end of roll out, immediately or all of the above.

Other than that, the game is pretty damn decent. And other than a monster counter for the challenges so you know how far along you are, I don't have any problems with the difficulty of the game so far.