What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

[Ed Oscuro]

Still playing Haggleman 2, still trying for the clear. I'm over 200K though. Working on getting 5000 point (+ extra life if I'm lucky) bonuses in various stages.

[sjewkestheloon]

Started Mass Effect 2 last night and it's an absolute gem. Lots of action and far more weighty, with streamlined RPG that works a lot better than the previous one.

[Zejiro]

I've been playing Dante's Inferno today.. I guess I've beaten like 80% of the game, so it's not very long.. and it's not very good either. Feels like a God of War clone, basically. A few new elements, but not enough to make it feel like a completely new game.. I can't believe Sony is letting them release this!

Can't wait until God of War 3..

[Shatterhand]

I played Portal today for the first time. I finished it in one sitting, it's a hell of awesome game. Its lots of fun to play with the portal gun, I really laughed at many parts of the game, and the puzzles are really brilliant most of the time.

It's a shame it's such a short game... I wish there were at least more levels, or maybe another campaign or something like that. But it's still a brilliant game the way it is.

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.

Don't you dare to screw up with my childhood memories. I was a big fan of Thexder when I was a kid (At least the MSX version), I even remember to this day it's main song and the game over theme... the game over one was a very sad tune.

Though the game indeed aged terribly. I haven't played the PSP version, but truth has to be said, the general idea of the game is very flawed... the spaceship was very hard to control properly, the auto-aim of the robot was stupid, and the whole game was about managing your energy/shield, which hardly makes for an enjoyable game experience.

But as a kid I didn't mind, I was just a freaking transformer blowing up stuff up until I saw the game over screen

[PainAmplifier]

Ugh. Finished Ninja Gaiden Sigma the other day. Beat a few challenges in the Mission Mode, but I'm heading back to Disgaea 3 for my main gaming right now.

By the end of NGS there were some things that really ticked me off. The Ghost fish was one of the worst. Their ability to spike you for major damage and prevent you from attacking back was pure cheapness. Especially since they attack in swarms. All the faqs I had read while working past some of the more obscure wall jump/run sequences seemed to also think the Ghost fish were good ways to farm essenses. I heartily disagree, the damn things are too crazy hard/random for that. I found at least two big essense farming sections long before I ever saw a ghost fish, and when I did find the fish I never wanted to see another one again.

I think the worst fish experience I had was right after I beat Doku for the last time. Seriously, you go to cutscence, end chapter and when you start the next level you are immediately swarmed by a ton of fish! There is barely enough time to equip the flails, much less being able to evade the fishes first strikes. So of course I died that first time and had to redo the battle with Doku all over again! And Doku is a pain to fight. He's got some majorly cheap attacks that are painful to evade and counter against.

I also had to redo the run/jump sequence right after the Emperor's second form where you grab the dragon blade then race to reach Rachel way too damn many times. You don't have much time to look around or the game automatically kills you when the 'cave collapses'. Needless to say, after doing that section way to many times I was *really* motivated to not have to redo it again. Thus I actually managed to beat the final boss on the first try. He's got the usual stupidly cheap/damaging attacks and I had just a couple health type elixers left after the precious bosses super cheap attacks...but I had almost a full stock of Ninpo elixers. So once I got Murai down below 50% health and my own was almost gone I started spamming Ninpo out of desperation. To my surprise it only took one full stock and part of the refill to kill Murai without taking any more damage.

If you have never played one of the last two Ninja Gaiden games, you might wish to rent before buying. These games really do walk that fine line between genius and insanity. Somewhere between brutally hard, seriously cheap and outright awesome the NG games really stand out. They are definately hard, and yes the camera has as many flaws as benefits, but the game IS beatable even for those of us who aren't super controller relex geniuses. And perhaps despite the difficulty or cheapness, the combat is satisfying and rewarding when you do win over the odds. Or it may be because of the difficulty/cheapness that winning is that satisfying.

I suppose it doesn't hurt that NG is the one game where you can truly "flip out like a Ninja" either. Jumping in, out and around enemies while slashing, cutting and decapitating is one of those guilty pleasures...even if you get slapped down hard by enemies in brutal, cruel and sadistic ways far too often.

[sjewkestheloon]

I really want to play Sigma as I loved NG on the Xbox. There were some cheap moments I disliked but overall I loved the combat system and got good enough to tackle the hardest enemies without losing health. Lots of fun!

NG2, however, was dross in my opinion. The camera was a lot worse and every damn enemy spammed projectiles to the point where you had no time to breathe. I ended up giving up as I felt like I was fighting the camera and flaws of the game more than I was fighting some bad ass enemies.

Mass Effect 2 is a great game. I have only one character slot empty and 3 loyalty missions to do before I get on with story and I really hope it isn't going to end as soon as I think it will. Having a right blast acting the bad ass, headbutting Krogans, punching people in the neck, and I'm really impressed with how much better the level design and gunplay is compared to the first game (which I loved).

They've trimmed the fat some as well. Whereas each character in the previous game had a lot of useless skills that made the characters interchangeable, each character is now taylored to a specific play style and you can switch and chhange as you need to.

When I've finished up with this run through I'm going to load up ME and play a female Shepherd through both games back to back. The trilogy is going to be epic.

[Drum]

My go-to game at the moment is Spelunky, but I have a pretty ominous pile of unplayed games and I'm not sure which one I want to tackle next. If anybody wants to help me decide between Civ IV, Burnout Paradise, Knights in the Nightmare, Bayonetta and Tatsunoko vs Capcom, be my guest.

[Acid King]

By the end of NGS there were some things that really ticked me off. The Ghost fish was one of the worst. Their ability to spike you for major damage and prevent you from attacking back was pure cheapness. Especially since they attack in swarms. All the faqs I had read while working past some of the more obscure wall jump/run sequences seemed to also think the Ghost fish were good ways to farm essenses. I heartily disagree, the damn things are too crazy hard/random for that. I found at least two big essense farming sections long before I ever saw a ghost fish, and when I did find the fish I never wanted to see another one again.

Really? I had trouble with them the first handful of times I encountered the fish, but once you get the rhythm of using the flails and how they attack, they're cake. You just have to tap the button and only attack in chains of x or x,x because if you go futher than that the pause at the end of combo leaves you open to getting pinned. This was Ninja Gaiden and Ninja Gaiden Black though so I dunno how/if they tweaked the fish for Sigma.

[Radiant Cinnabun]

I've been replaying Final Fantasy XII in preparation for XIII (which is probably a bad idea because XII is my favorite and how can this new one possibly measure up) but I'm having a really good time. I sunk hours into this back when it first came out and I'm still enjoying it. I just got to the part where they head off to Jahara.

[PainAmplifier]

By the end of NGS there were some things that really ticked me off. The Ghost fish was one of the worst. Their ability to spike you for major damage and prevent you from attacking back was pure cheapness. Especially since they attack in swarms. All the faqs I had read while working past some of the more obscure wall jump/run sequences seemed to also think the Ghost fish were good ways to farm essenses. I heartily disagree, the damn things are too crazy hard/random for that. I found at least two big essense farming sections long before I ever saw a ghost fish, and when I did find the fish I never wanted to see another one again.

Really? I had trouble with them the first handful of times I encountered the fish, but once you get the rhythm of using the flails and how they attack, they're cake. You just have to tap the button and only attack in chains of x or x,x because if you go futher than that the pause at the end of combo leaves you open to getting pinned. This was Ninja Gaiden and Ninja Gaiden Black though so I dunno how/if they tweaked the fish for Sigma.

I tried that, but I can't seem to get any sense of timing out of the flails. The same tends to go for the other weapons too, it's hard to keep combos from running into each other. Trying to keep [][][] from [][][][] for instance. Or how about [][] <pause> [][][] being timed to be [][][] <pause> [][] instead? Same problem with mixing [] and /\ combo attacks. There's not enough feedback on inputting the combos to keep up with the frantic combat to make it 'simple' to match the fact that there are only two buttons in use.

God of War seemed to have a slightly better system, at least so far as it was much easier to keep track of where you were in the chain so you could avoid the recovery from finishing the full combo.

Then again, watching some NGS on youtube for tips just seems to confuse me as well. I watched someone take out the 3 Knightmares at the pyramid using the Daibilharu and counter-attacks but I can't do that for crap. To me, the first attack either breaks my guard and thus I get stuck in the recovery animation non-stop or the Knight gets a second attack in before I can complete the counter. Same for the OLC and UT stuff, I watched someone pull those off, and yet for me if I even try 9 times out of ten the mobs will dash in to break my charge *immediately*. Half the time mobs just about stand there doing nothing while I watch people charge up, and I wonder why I get the hyperactive monsters instead! Even when I'm trying to essense charge, the mobs dash at me faster than the essense gets sucked in most the time.

Heck, I watched a Chap16 vid, and it's bizarre how the fish will dash in but *miss* while the player leisurely serves up some UT's with the Daibilharu. Sure he gets hit some, but nowhere near the constant rape spam those things manage even when I'm wailing the flails. I can only wonder if they are playing Ninja Dog mode or something.

[Kiken]

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?

Sonic Heroes is such a poorly designed game. It's not just the stage length, it's also the ridiculous amount of suspended rails over bottomless pits (with no sure fire way of switching rails like in Sonic Unleashed). The only team that's even remotely fun to play as is Team Rose, since their stages are about a third the length of the other 3 teams plus they get handed Special Attacks like they're going out of style.


I'm stuck on level 9 of PN03 (Normal Difficulty) at the moment. I can get up to the second boss battle, but it's so damn time consuming and one mistake will pretty much fuck you.

Just for the fuck of it, over the weekend I played through Sonic Adventure 2 Battle. Sonic/Shadow stages are decent, Tails/Eggman stages are tolerable, Knuckles/Rouge stages can die in a fire. The final stage is ok until the part where it switches to Knuckles, and then the difficulty just skyrockets (swimming through timed gates). Spotty lock-on dashing with Shadow makes BioLizard far more difficult than it should be...and the final boss is some of the most retarded shit ever (seriously, the "Ultimate Lifeform" is a giant lizard with a space station rammed up its ass).

[EinhanderZwei]

Alright gentlemen. Now everything is serious. I have downloaded DosBox for PSP and flawlesslyl aunched Commander Keen in it. Yeah, Commander Keen

It's not just another game series, no matter how awesome it is - and it will never be. And I'm not really a sentimental person, and I will never be. But the fact that right now, in this exact second, while typing this post with my left hand, I hold my PSP in the other, and I'm playing Commander Keen 4, has simply made me drown in tears of nostalgia

It's not a childhood memory. THIS IS CHILDHOOD!!!

[BrianC]

I have been playing Wonder Boy in Monster Land on SMS. It's the transition game of the series. Still very arcade like, but has the neat RPG-ish elements, as well. Very nice game.

[Ed Oscuro]

I made some progress in Haggleman 1 (via Retro Game Challenge). Before today my highscore was 146,240; now it's 191,270. I've only spent 4:18 hours with this game, most all of it before today. I'm pretty sure that 200K+ is possible (I died too early on one of my grinding runs, and other stages presented opportunities I can't make use of). The only thing I have left to figure out are the scrolls; I believe I need to use the stun one more often so I won't be holding them in reserve often anymore. I say this because I got a top bonus of 500 x 5 off one of the short cloaked ninja enemies by stunning them all near the divider of a map and then stomping them all. 7500 points all at once. It was beautiful, wish you could've been there. Unfortunately I wasn't able to keep that run because I forgot about the hidden bonus in the very next stage.

Getting door bonuses in Haggleman 1 is a lot harder than in Haggleman 2, and head-bouncing is pretty tough too due to the level designs. Despite the relative ease of getting 5000 points + one-up bonuses from doors in Haggleman 2, I've only got 208,490 and still no clears despite putting 8:38 into it.

Can't wait to pick up a copy of Ninja-Kid II: Ashura no Shou sometime. Hope to save up for a copy of the arcade board eventually.

[Drum]

I have been playing Wonder Boy in Monster Land on SMS. It's the transition game of the series. Still very arcade like, but has the neat RPG-ish elements, as well. Very nice game.

How does that compare with the arcade version? I love that game - had just the right mix of action and adventure for me when I was a kid. They had it on the ferry that traveled between the north and south islands of new zealand, and I'd play it whenever I could (but usually just watch the attract mode because, you know, money). That, Prehistoric Isle, XainD SleenA and Arkanoid were my childhood - I can still smell ice cream, saltwater and cigarette smoke whenever I play them on MAME.

[null1024]

Bloodshot. Pretty meh Genesis FPS.
Wishing it was easier to strafe like I'm used to [second d-pad/stick or shoulder buttons], I hate this "press this button to strafe" thing.

[Ed Oscuro]

Hey, at least it has a strafe option. Back in the day I used to give the Alt key a good workout when playing DOOM.

[spadgy]

Shock Troopers like a madman, and not my new Shock Troopers 2nd Squad cart!

[null1024]

Hey, at least it has a strafe option. Back in the day I used to give the Alt key a good workout when playing DOOM.

;P
Back in the day I used A and D to strafe in DOOM. Worked well enough.

If Bloodshot at least used X and Y on a 6 button pad I'd be happier than the fact that holding action is the only way to strafe.

[EinhanderZwei]

Bloodshot. Pretty meh Genesis FPS.

Heh, which Genesis FPS except of Zero Tolerance wasn't meh?

[Davey]

Tetris Splash.

I got hooked on 40-line mode a long time ago, and I started trying it again out of the blue about a week ago. Then it dawned on me that I now have a Gold membership and a Seimitsu stick (didn't have either of those when I initially bought the game), so I've been playing against other people online. Even though Tetris is a timeless classic, I was surprised that people still play this on XBL, considering it came out over two years ago. I've seen some crazy good people out there.

[null1024]

More Sonic Heroes. I don't know why I'm still going at it...

[Pirate1019]

intermittent bouts of Star Ocean: The Last Hope. My roommate seems to have gotten it in his head he wants us to get 100% completion.

I'll probably start Mass Effect 2 eventually, although I hardly understand why. I hated the first game and everything it stood for with raging passion.

[sjewkestheloon]

intermittent bouts of Star Ocean: The Last Hope. My roommate seems to have gotten it in his head he wants us to get 100% completion.

I'll probably start Mass Effect 2 eventually, although I hardly understand why. I hated the first game and everything it stood for with raging passion.

I've played the crap out of both. SO 4 is seriously derivative and hackneyed but somehow compulsive, ME2 is tight and dynamic and a vast improvement on the predecessor.

[Acid King]

Uo Poko. I think one of the reasons I enjoy this so much is that by only requiring one hand to play, it makes a perfect game for when you're drinking.

[Pirate1019]

intermittent bouts of Star Ocean: The Last Hope. My roommate seems to have gotten it in his head he wants us to get 100% completion.

I'll probably start Mass Effect 2 eventually, although I hardly understand why. I hated the first game and everything it stood for with raging passion.

I've played the crap out of both. SO 4 is seriously derivative and hackneyed but somehow compulsive, ME2 is tight and dynamic and a vast improvement on the predecessor.

SO4 is also easy as shit on default difficulty. The answer to any problem you have is to equip Edge with No Guard and everyone else with Auto Heal, then got get a 140%EXP bonus and grind till you drop.

As for Mass Effect...I don't even know. That game was borderline broken. I've heard good things about the sequel, specifically good things about everything I hated, but I have trouble trusting the quality of anything Bioware touches.

[ExitPlanetDust]

Assault Suit Leynos 2 (Saturn) and the Streets of Rage Remake (PC). Waiting on Bulk Slash (Saturn) to get here.

[handsome_rakshas]

Assault Suit Leynos 2 (Saturn) and the Streets of Rage Remake (PC). Waiting on Bulk Slash (Saturn) to get here.

Best currently playing list I've ever seen.

I'm playing Yakuza 1 and 2 because I was excited about part 3 coming over.

[jonny5]

Uo Poko. I think one of the reasons I enjoy this so much is that by only requiring one hand to play, it makes a perfect game for when you're drinking.

+1.....even aside from drinking its badass!

have you played mushihimetama? its similar gameplay(one handed bubble matching action) with more shit going on...awesome game!!

[EinhanderZwei]

Just beaten Dead Fucking Space! Impressions here: http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.ph ... 3&start=30