What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

[null1024]

Omega Boost [PS1].
god why is this so good it looks reallty good it sounds good like seriously god damn where did they pull this much awesome out of that grey box

Got to the stage 5 boss, had it down to barely a sliver of health left and it kills me. Second time reaching it though.
Also, first time beating the Stage 4 boss without using that super move thingy.

Such a great game, even though I hate that fucking staircase thing in stage 5. So much.
Also, I have learned the wonders of braking, almost got 100% shotdown rates on the first 2 stages, but things got too messy for 3 and 4.
I always used to keep moving, which doesn't help your accuracy much. Keeps you from getting shot at, sure, but makes it hard to shoot at.

[BIL]

Fuckinell, finally got the MS3 no-miss. The last boss has a truly obscene amount of health, I hit him with a full Flame Shot and Shotgun this time around without putting a dent in him. Nice timing for a Super Grenade to finally show up, haha.

Also, I have learned the wonders of braking, almost got 100% shotdown rates on the first 2 stages, but things got too messy for 3 and 4.
I always used to keep moving, which doesn't help your accuracy much. Keeps you from getting shot at, sure, but makes it hard to shoot at.

The way Omega Boost's levels are designed, you have to treat each enemy wave as a whole and annihilate it before the next arrives for consistent 100% shootdowns. If you let waves overlap, it's nearly impossible to catch fleeing enemies while dealing with attacking ones (this pairs perfectly with the other level rating, speedkilling). Stages 3 and 6 are particularly good examples, with their successive waves of fast, small targets (the former has a wave emerge directly below you, making it easy to miss entirely). At first memorising the waves is a bit of a chore, but once you're obliterating them one after the other between crushing minibosses you feel like a frickin' mecha god. A veritable PIXIE OMEGA ZEUS even, as the game's ranking screen puts it after a good run!

Make sure to use the Viper Boost special on Stage 6's battleship fleet at least once, and try killing the third boss with it too. Nothing like smashing the latter's wings off and watching it plummet to its doom.

[drauch]

^Impressive! I tell myself that someday I'm going to set aside the time and do such a thing myself. I guess that could be my New Years resolution?

[BIL]

Thanks. ^_^ This is actually my first MS no-miss. It bugged me that I seemingly couldn't hold it together, with the last stage being an endurance test more than anything. For me the hardest part is actually the fourth boss's golden pinwheel pattern (once you've pissed him off). Everything else in the game can be mitigated to some extent by strategy and vehicle entry/exit invincibility, but there's no hiding from that one. I finally decided on staying under him just off-center and not blinking. Best of all is when he just doesn't select that pattern, of course.

I like how the last boss has seemingly exclusive possession of the turd. I was wondering where SNK/Nazca had stashed it in this game. Nothing like getting one of those when you're banking on a Shotgun.

[drauch]

Man, I can only imagine. Stage 4's boss is so frustrating and random. If I ever get a good run started it always ends on him.

[mesh control]

Legend of Zelda: LttP on my GBSP.
First time actually playing a Zelda game.

How are you liking this? I absolutely loved this game when I was a kid, but I'd be interested to hear what you think of it playing it for the first time.

It's ok. It's hard for me to get really pulled into games anymore, but I'll probably finish it on the way back and forth to work.
It reminds me I need to finish 3D Dot Game Heroes....

I finished up Crackdown last night. I'd like to complete some of the achievements (find the last 150 agility orbs, races. etc.) and then get back to Dark Souls.

[ChainsawGuitarSP]

I'm getting immense feelings of envy here BIL. I still have yet to get the no-miss achievement for stage 3 & 4, let alone 1cc the damn thing.

[Mero]

Got the ALL on my new MVS cart Spin Master this fine Christmas morning.

[null1024]

Wipeout 3 SE [PS1] and Wipeout Pulse [PS2] [the latter is just being done for the hell of it -- it's running on my 1GHz netbook, so you know it isn't going fullspeed, but due to the fact that it doesn't have shitty Intel video like my big laptop, it runs faster than my 2.1GHz laptop, as the game appears to be slowed down solely due to my lack of quality video hardware -- there are sections where very little of the track is showing where I get 80-90% full speed].

The former, working on clearing everything in Venom class now.


Also, is it me, or were XL and 3 the high point of the series? Whether it be design, control, or track wise, either 3 or XL seem to excel massively over the other entries in the series [especially against the first Wipeout and against Wipeout Fusion].

EDIT:
Documenting my experience with PS2 emulation on this thing here. Like I said, I don't expect anything to run consistently at full speed, or even near it, but hopefully it will help out with seeing what speedhacks and whatnot would allow a game to run better, and to see which games would work somewhat well when emulated on low power hardware. Also, for the hell of it, remember the guy emulating OSX on a 68k Mac?

[BIL]

Still on MS3, working on optimising my run. Figured out how to cut the fiendishly dangerous (or grindingly long) Cocoon battle down to almost nothing by reaching it with 40~ grenades and unloading them right into the bugger. I'll probably never play Slugs for high scores, but I'll definitely never tire of playing them for style. When played in the pushiest, most obnoxious way possible, no other sidescroller has quite this feeling of power, finesse and overflowing destruction. Is it vehicular homicide when you run someone over with a camel?

[Elixir]

Spent the entire night playing Etrian's XIII-2 and now I'm dead tired and have to get some work done. Yes! I rule.

I wrote some crap about it on my blog if you want some feelers.

Other than that 'eerday I'm grinding this poverty ass Castlevania HD on both consoles, or Tales of Xillia. It's pretty much g oing to remain like this until something interesting comes out.

[Eaglet]

Garoooou!

[BIL]

^Nice sig!

[Eaglet]

^Nice sig!

Shhh.
We're about to enter upon silence times.

[Obiwanshinobi]

The Wind Waker for the first time. Some quality Christmas time gaming there.

[system11]

Playing through Space Marine at the moment.

[MommysBestGames]

The Wind Waker for the first time. Some quality Christmas time gaming there.

Good pick for this time of year. I like how cheery and bright it looks, and sailing the seas feels good as well.

I started Bayonetta the other night. Definitely liking the musical selection, though I wouldn't say I normally listen to that sort of thing.

[Shuurin]

Currently playing Metal Gear Solid 2 Substance for the first time from the MGS HD Collection. With a bit of Sonic Generations on the side.

[JJXB]

Flitting between Go Sudoku! on PSP (Time Killer), Modern Warfare 2 (unbalanced yet somewhat fun,) and Descent on my xbox.

[lewisit]

I still have not the slightest idea how to overcome these two guys in Nightmare In The Dark (NeoGeo/Mame)



it's like a curse: as soon as I reach them I lose all my lives without ever even harm them

but I will keep trying tomorrow...

[rancor]

COD:MW3 ...

yeah, I'm one of "those dudes".
It's fun, and I dont take it too seriously. I just got XBOX live gold package (the wife loves Hulu!), so this is my first experience with multiplayer online games. I used to play Castle Wolfenstein back in the day, and its cool to see how much the genre has changed since then. I enjoy it because much like STGs, you can jump in and play for 20 mins and be done with it. Anyhow, if anyone else is up for it lets exchage IDs and we can smoke some fools together. I dont have any friends that play videogames - let alone anything online.

[Moniker]

COD:MW3 ...

yeah, I'm one of "those dudes".

Don't feel bad. I picked up Battlefield: Bad Company for next to nothing last week and it's a lot of fun. Either the matchmaking is superb or I'm actually pretty decent at it. Which feels nice.

[rancor]

Don't feel bad. I picked up Battlefield: Bad Company for next to nothing last week and it's a lot of fun. Either the matchmaking is superb or I'm actually pretty decent at it. Which feels nice.

I wanted that, but apparently its incompatible with a J360. I seem to be pretty decent at COD as well.. I only have a SD 4:3 TV, so playing feels a bit like looking through a toilet paper tube. I have about 45 degrees of forward vision..

[Obiwanshinobi]

Crawled back to Viewtiful Joe in search of some instant action. Keep wondering how on Earth a game this difficult, wich such a fancy score system (easily the least penetrable last gen Capcom game I played), scored so many points with mainstream press. Why not Shinobi or Fantavision or... you know. Way more baffling than the Ikaruga phenomenon.

[null1024]

Little bit of Tasty Static, set up QJoyPad to use my PS1 controller in it.
Great fun.

[Estebang]

Crawled back to Viewtiful Joe in search of some instant action. Keep wondering how on Earth a game this difficult, wich such a fancy score system (easily the least penetrable last gen Capcom game I played), scored so many points with mainstream press. Why not Shinobi or Fantavision or... you know. Way more baffling than the Ikaruga phenomenon.

The unique, endearing characters and aesthetic were more than enough to win everyone over, and you just know that 90% of players never ventured too far beyond Kids mode, which is really very forgiving and not difficult at all. You can rack up a decent score in Kids, enough to almost buy out the shop, without paying too much attention to combos and rankings. The Devil May Cry references (and playable Dante in the PS2 version) couldn't have hurt, either.

Surprised that P.N. 03 wasn't more of a hit, considering that it also had a very accessible easy mode--and a sexy female lead with an unlockable thong suit. Guess it was too drab and generic to win the masses' acceptance, and 3D "tank controls" had already become unfashionable.

Speaking of Capcom, I'm playing Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts for the first time, on an actual SNES cart.

My initial reaction was "why the hell does everyone call this the easiest of the original G'nG trilogy?" Sure, your weapons are better, but not being able to fire vertically cancels out a lot of their effectiveness. Platforming challenges were made much tougher to accommodate the double jump. The powered arrows and axe take out most enemies easily, including the usually fearsome Arremer, but their very slow rate of fire is a huge liability. The levels are much longer, which means the space between checkpoints--and the amount of time that one must survive--are greatly extended. Retrying the autoscrolling raft ride in Stage 2 quickly wore on my patience.

I guess the reason for the distinction is that a lot of the challenge in the first two games was luck-based, due to the semi-random, erratic patterns of flying enemies. However, all the enemies in Super besides the Arremer are quite predictable. Even if the level design is tougher, practice clearly has more of a payoff towards progression, which is of course a very good thing!

[Marc]

Yeah, Super is definitely more learnable than the first two, though still infuriatingly cheap with enemy spawning at times.

Myself, some Sega Rally Online, an utter bargain at 400msp, some Saints Row 2, which is GTA when it was still fun, and some Clash of Heroes, which hasn't really grabbed me as of yet.

[Moniker]

I bought Super GnG awhile ago on the VC. The insane slowdown really put me off. Am I just being shallow? A lot of people seem to be devoted to the game.. I've been assuming it's nostalgia.

[ChainsawGuitarSP]

It was the level design that turned me off SGnG. There's a difference between slow-paced and just playing red light green light. Genesis GnG is good though; It's the only one I made the effort to 2ALL. Though the PCE version is supposedly more accurate, the sound quality is just too painful for me to sit through.

[BIL]

I bought Super GnG awhile ago on the VC. The insane slowdown really put me off. Am I just being shallow? A lot of people seem to be devoted to the game.. I've been assuming it's nostalgia.

IIRC, the Capcom Generation 2 version (PS1) doesn't have any of the SNES's slowdown.