What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

[Ed Oscuro]

Speaking of Kickstarter...

Wasteland 2 massive spoilers!

Gotta laugh at Bethesda...well, I guess they're doing OK by the Fallout franchise, but this might be just as good or even better.

(No, I'm just playing the original Wasteland...can't wait for the new one though!)

[null1024]

VVVVVV [3DS]

On that stupid "escort" mission. It would be bearable if you could manipulate your partner with any certainty, but he seems to go where he pleases, when he pleases...

[Elixir]

Dark Souls Undead Parish invading while watching a friend play through Super Mario RPG. SMRPG is probably the SNES' dullest, overrated, nostalgia driven games I've ever seen, I'm literally bored to tears watching it.

[Vyxx]

SMRPG is probably the SNES' dullest, overrated, nostalgia driven games I've ever seen, I'm literally bored to tears watching it.

Agreed. I had fond memories playing the game when I was around 7 years old. Never played it again until recently, based upon fond memories and the many recommendations of people saying how awesome it is.

It was... horribly bland.

[Marc]

Yeah the SNES game was overrated gash. I did enjoy Paper Mario on N64 at the time.

[Hagane]

Except the whole "your super meter drains for no good reason" bit. That's just braindead.

Not really. Guard Cancels are pretty strong in that game, and things would be even more defensive than they are if you could just sit on two guard cancels all the time. Same goes for P.Powers. Chonshu, Geese and Krauser would be really scary if the meter didn't drain.

[BIL]

Finished SH Downpour. Despite the writing lacking even basic consistency, it still manages to come off as preachy at times. Discarding the series' classic ruthless ambivalence? Not a mistake I'd expect from even the farmed-out games. Lame creature designs, cartoonish environments and chipper presentation very much expected and tolerated. Some of the residential areas feel nicely rundown and lived-in. I enjoyed exploring those far more than careening through the looney tunes MC Escher world.

edit: remember when SH environments were surreal by virtue of time and space, not how many giant clocks and waterslides were crammed into them?

I'm also trying to finish Demon's Crest (actually "Demon's Blazon," SFC - there seem to be some version differences) without relying on healing items. You can really cheese your way through with all five flasks equipped. The TLB is a nicely tricky fight on unsteady ground, but the T,TLB is really hell! Very aggressive patterns to get to grips with, there's alway something smacking me from out of left field... it's one of the most hectic fights I've seen on this platform. I'll be happy if I can get a good method down for killing this thing.

edit2: haha, Hagane - everyone should be rocking badass captain's hat avatars and strategy guide sigs like us.

[evil_ash_xero]

La-Mulana on the Wii. Doing TERRIBLY though. Might have to wait until the U.S. version arrives, so I can get some better walkthrough vids. I cannot fight these bosses.

[Marc]

Started The Witcher 2 on 360. I likey, and RPG's are about as far away from my usual taste as can be.

[Moniker]

Been playing way too much Lumines 1&2. After I looped Lumines 1 I sorta got bored of it, since your average game then lasts well over an hour. Looped challenge mode B in 2 a few days back. Thank god, since it means I never have to hear the Black Eyed Peas song "Pump It" again. Although working on A means I've had Gwen Stefani - Holla Back Girl rattling in my head for the better part of a week. In any case, I still think the game design is brilliant. Keep coming up with new tricks and patterns.

I was freaking stoked when they announced Diablo 3 open beta. But I'm not even close to minimum requirements. For some reason I thought it was OnLive-ish... Dear god please let OnLive carry it.

[JBC]

La-Mulana on the Wii. Doing TERRIBLY though. Might have to wait until the U.S. version arrives, so I can get some better walkthrough vids. I cannot fight these bosses.

I'm really looking forward to this game. I have the PC version but wanted to hold out for the Wii's superior visuals. I also found a remake of Maze of Galious for PC around the same time.

[Ed Oscuro]

La-Mulana on the Wii. Doing TERRIBLY though. Might have to wait until the U.S. version arrives, so I can get some better walkthrough vids. I cannot fight these bosses.

I'm really looking forward to this game. I have the PC version but wanted to hold out for the Wii's superior visuals.

Don't get us started

[Hagane]

edit2: haha, Hagane - everyone should be rocking badass captain's hat avatars and strategy guide sigs like us.

Ha! Great Metal Black ST by the way.

[Marc]

Some 360 Sega Rally. God the handling is sublime, and it's the best use of rumble in any game ever.

[Jason X]

Working my way through New Game+ mode on Arkham City. Just need to finish that, and the campaign challenges for Catwoman, Robin and Nightwing for 100% on the game.

[null1024]

Tales of the Abyss [3DS].

Just fought 2 really easy bosses. I'm wondering what happened to the difficulty, it started off somewhat hard, and now things just die when I tell them to. And I'm not even grinding, I've been avoiding as many fights as I can!

Also, I love how much of a dick Jade is. If he's not explaining something, he's probably being a snarky motherfucker, and I love it.
also what the hell Luke, you destroyed a whole town and watched a little kid drown in an ocean of poison, and then proceeded to actually be likable

and the new battle and overworld music are objectively better than the old one

[Drum]

Dark Souls Undead Parish invading while watching a friend play through Super Mario RPG. SMRPG is probably the SNES' dullest, overrated, nostalgia driven games I've ever seen, I'm literally bored to tears watching it.

It's not just dull, it has wretched gameplay too. Tile based movement, isometric grid with timing-based jumping puzzles ... yuck. Paper Mario was a huge improvement (though it's a little on the sedate side too).

[Zaarock]

Armored Core V (360 PAL) and Trials Evolution (XBLA)

I like ACV way more than I expected.. becoming one of my favorite games. I expected it to control badly for some reason but it's just really fun to play. Though a big thing holding it back right now is the fact that none of the rebalancing patches have been released outside japan yet.. and because people know what gets nerfed pretty much everyone is using the same overpowered weapons and needs to have defences against them. Dueling is a bit dumb because of the defence system but the game is mostly about teamwork anyway.. team battles in free battle ftw. And smart teamwork and piloting still wins most of the time even if the weapons aren't properly balanced.

Having played Trials HD made getting into Evolution really fast.. managed to beat all tracks with no faults until expert tracks in two days. The game plays almost exactly the same as HD though which could be considered a drawback.. they didn't even add any new bikes that handle differently and would be able to compete with the HD bikes. Slowly going for all platinum medals now which I never thought of doing on HD. The public track sharing system works great, there are always interesting new tracks to try out and the editor has a lot of possibilities in it. I'll probably edit some of my own eventually but there being so much to do in the main game and so much offering by other people makes it hard to start working on tracks.

edit: all hard tracks platinumed on trials evo :p

[sjewkestheloon]

I am still pounding DMC HD collection. Finished up DMC 3 on Normal and now about a quarter of the way through on Hard. Dabbled a bit in Bloody Palace but I need to practice the bosses on the higher difficulties. I reached the third boss floor (about 2700) yesterday and fought Doppelganger in a much more difficult form than I was used to and got pounded as a result.

Also picked up Trials Evolution with some free points and a ten minute look ended up being a 4 hours session... Addictive and funny, with some good friendlist competition. Why didn't I get the first one again?

[null1024]

Tales of Destiny [PS1], I like how right before facing a boss, two of my party members get paralyzed. And 1: the one who has a spell to deal with that is paralyzed, and 2: I'm out of items to cure it.

Gaaaaaah. I'll fight him tomorrow, this situation is retarded.

[Moniker]

Was in the mood for a sim game, so I decided to try Recettear. Freaking addictive. Capitalism ho!

[CMoon]

Saints Row 3. I hate games like this; but this is the most stupidly ridiculous shit I have played in a long time. Gets points for utter bullshit.

[Illyrian]

Was in the mood for a sim game, so I decided to try Recettear. Freaking addictive. Capitalism ho!

You must harness "loliconomics" the art of making profit margins inversely proportional to chest size!

[iconoclast]

Ultimate Ninja difficulty was just released for Ninja Gaiden 3, so I'm going to run through it once and be done with this game forever. The DLC is only going to be free for a limited time though, so if you ever plan on getting the game you might want to download it (don't buy the game though, it's awful).

[BIL]

Picked up the Gundam sidescroller for the Saturn, seems pretty neat so far... I love the use of the foreground and background as separate layers enemies can appear in and attack you from - quite satisfying blowing them to bits with the lockon while evading their attacks and battling others head-on, really makes you feel in the thick of things without becoming overly cluttered (ala Guardian Heroes - the clusterfuck effect works great there, but it's not what I'd want from a mech game). I've not seen this feature in any of the more acclaimed mecha sidescrollers, making it especially novel. A shame it uses prerendered rather than hand-drawn graphics, but they're not offensive. The thought of a game like this with Hyper Duel SS's crisp pixel art makes me drool.

Also thanking my sweet good judgement I didn't buy the Silent Hill HD Collection. Instead I get to laugh at acquaintances who did, then leave the building and drive miles away. I thought people were kidding when they likened dear innocent Mary's new voice to that of an aged, strung-out hooker. They weren't! "James... you made me happy." /HUSKY SEXY VOICE I feel bad for anyone who actually trusted Konami circa 2012 to not utterly screw this up by proxy. The sheer work that went into the aesthetic of those games on the PS2 never stood a chance of surviving a slapdash hackjob to current gen consoles, but I'm still a little surprised it turned out this bad. (link to piling trainwreck)



LMAO

I'm gonna GOOD END+/Hard SH1 right now to kick off another round of cleansing mental antiseptic over everything SH-related past 2004.

[null1024]

Sonic Advance 2 [GBA].

Pretty fun [and I absolutely love Music Plant], except for the fact that Sky Canyon is a retarded stage with bad level design. It's probably the worst stage in Dimps history, because it provides even less warning about possible danger than any of their other stages. It's like "la de da, oh assfuck, bottomless pit", and even the 2 stages after it aren't nearly as stupid about falling and dying. I know it's in the sky and all, but it's so bad.

Also, trying to get the 7 Special Rings in a stage ends up being really stupid, because none of the stages let you do any significant backtracking if you pass a Special Ring. And you need to get them in one go -- pass the act, lose the Special Rings instead of keeping them for next attempt, like Sonic Advance 3's Chao and all the Sonic games with red rings.
Which is a shame, because ALL THE UNLOCKS in the game [read: Chao Garden, sound test, and Amy] are based on how many characters you got all the Chaos Emeralds with. But since I can't even get into a Special Stage to pick up one emerald...

also, this game clearly wasn't designed with an original GBA in mind, the later stage palettes are somewhat dark, so you can't see shit

[Ruldra]

Been playing some random credits of Final Fight. Someone teach me how to play this damn game, I can hardly get past Sodom.

Sonic Advance 2 [GBA]

Love this game. Unlike other Sonic titles where they mix running and platforming, the levels in this one were made so you can run from beginning to end without stopping. You even run during boss fights, I love that. Even had some times recorded in time trial.

The emeralds are a real bitch to get though. I was never able to get them all.

[BIL]

There's a pretty detailed Final Fight FAQ here, which explains some of the game's more arcane mechanics (Sodom's scary clothelines and overhead chops in particular) as well as basic crowd control strategies. It helped me go from biting the dust at Sodom to regularly reaching Abigail on a credit as Haggar. This guy also has some pretty good one-credit runs up to the last boss with Guy and Cody not using the infinite punch trick, which might provide some ideas.

The biggest problem for me is that goddamn incinerator section, hate it. Hate environmental hazards in beltscrollers generally, at least ones as vicious as that.

Still such a great game. I really dig the simple moveset combined with intensely tactical play, and it's utterly beautiful (massive chunky sprites, Akiman's hulking yet colourful characters and *BOOM* impact sounds - hell yeah). But man, does it flat-out brutalise any and all mistakes. All intense all the time if you're not credit-feeding. I want to get back to it at some point.

[null1024]

Sonic Advance 2 [GBA]

Love this game. Unlike other Sonic titles where they mix running and platforming, the levels in this one were made so you can run from beginning to end without stopping. You even run during boss fights, I love that. Even had some times recorded in time trial.

The emeralds are a real bitch to get though. I was never able to get them all.

I want to like the running boss segments, but approaching the bosses feels like way more work than it should, and getting hit sends every ring you have flying to the left at superspeed.

But I do like how much flow the levels have.

[Ruldra]

There's a pretty detailed Final Fight FAQ here, which explains some of the game's more arcane mechanics (Sodom's scary clothelines and overhead chops in particular) as well as basic crowd control strategies. It helped me go from biting the dust at Sodom to regularly reaching Abigail on a credit as Haggar.

Oh shit, that's a killer guide. That will be useful, thanks.