What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

[ED-057]

I did a run through Keio Yuugekitai 2 (2D platform game with two shmup levels mixed in). The game has nice art and a lot of bizarre stuff going on. But it`s also kind of long for not having codes or save points (damn, I`ve become spoiled), pretty easy, and not that great. There is a bunch of omake that can be unlocked, I`m not sure exactly how though, or what it is.

[spadgy]

I'm all over Shock Troopers right now. Trying for a 1CC on the mountain route.

Great great game. Get that clear!

Fingers crossed I will! Shock troopers feels more luck a shmup to me than any other run 'n' gun I know, and the only thing that detracts from its purity in that regard is the slightly hard to define/read hitbox. I can now 1-life it to the stage four boss, but after that misjudgements of hitbox are ruining me on stage five.

[Ed Oscuro]

Deus Ex: Human Revolution

I'm in the second hub area, wandering around in the obscure bowels of the place, and I see two pipes. Very distinctly painted in red on each are two detailed Chinese characters, with enough detail despite their smallness that you can probably rub your nose against it and still see no grain or slurred detail. This generally holds true everywhere - I jumped behind an unattended storefront and I could see distinct little details on the transparent amber cash register's display. When the game's graphics are fuzzy, it's generally because the developers have nothing more to say - like an advertisement with the brand and price blurry, or some floor textures. So detail is applied at times in surprising ways, but rewarding ones. One of the most interesting techniques is the use of a sort-of-depth technique in normal maps applied to windows of floors you can't get into - these show a somewhat detailed interior view without using extra polygons or a very detailed texture. There of course are some construction kit areas, but they only become noticeable if you seek them all out at the same time (like running through all the shops with closets in the second hub area).

The gameplay is very focused now, but doesn't seem to be exactly where the Deus Ex fan wants it. The sneaking game, as a genre, is well-defined these days, so there's little surprise and I find that you really don't need any of the special augmentations to play it successfully. It is better than Deus Ex in this area by far, but it also seems to miss the point of what made people (at least like me) enjoy Deus Ex in spite of the tedious sneaking portion of the game. That huge portion of the game becomes somewhat superfluous as a result; what you are left with is a fairly competent but mostly unchallenging cover-based shooting game (with little practical difference between lethal and nonlethal options, in terms of weaponry). What seems missing is the sense of the truly unexpected or even the bizarre found in the original title. Everything is now very well-honed in its use, so no longer do you need to worry about carrying different melee weapons - it's all baked into the character's abilities (the double takedown ability is very useful, of course). You don't need to backtrack for health; most ammo is plentiful (although hoarding for inventory can still be a self-inflicted chore as much as in previous games - thankfully the game does not force you to choose between health and ammo, however, but unfortunately those cyberboost bars are required for energy replenishment, which is in turn almost always required for triggering melee), and you don't need to worry about circumstances as much when incapacitating a character. It's fun (more fun) upgrading weapons than it used to be (and more intuitive too), but for everything gained, it seems the game has become only more spartan, even though there are a good variety of non-lethal options.

The augmentation system doesn't include some of the standard (and I dare say silly) types found in the previous games, but instead rethinks them. Vision enhancement is spread out and expanded across a few disciplines; some pretty useless skills are dropped. One awesome new option is the Icarus Landing System, which briefly turns you into a meteor. Jump height is now only one skill option, reducing the incidence of Deus Ex's Floaty GodNugget and Tomb Raider's Angel of Darkness (aka I Don't Know How Long This Jump Is Going To Be Because I Get Better After Every One) syndromes. Yet there are plenty of useless ones - most of the sneaking ones are just crap; silent running requires energy when you're moving, and the hacking information one is useless (hacking stealth is required though). Basically, it seems that at the beginning of the game there is pressure to get augmented in a few select ways (get more height on jumps, get hacking ability - soaks up a fair number of Praxis - and a couple other ones are good) and the rest of the time you're probably going to be thinking "eh, I've got more Praxis to blow now, better get it over with."

[Obiwanshinobi]

Still hooked on the first Burnout. "Internal" (not quite) view seems like the "right" way to play it now.
Interestingly, I've yet to see a Burnout 3 gameplay vid with such a view and when I was playing it systematically years ago, the external view felt so natural... Very different games indeed.

[null1024]

Virtua Racing [PS2].
Gah, I'm ass at this game. Also, vehicle collisions bother the shit out of me, you both just come to a standstill and spin around. It's annoying as hell. Neither the Genesis or 32X versions do that shit, and it really screws everything up. The arcade version does, but you don't come to such a sudden stop, so it's infinitely more bearable.

I did a run through Keio Yuugekitai 2 (2D platform game with two shmup levels mixed in). The game has nice art and a lot of bizarre stuff going on. But it`s also kind of long for not having codes or save points (damn, I`ve become spoiled), pretty easy, and not that great. There is a bunch of omake that can be unlocked, I`m not sure exactly how though, or what it is.

I love this game, but it's definitely pretty easy, and relatively long.

[trap15]

Strider 2

ストライダー飛竜２アレンジは進捗中。

[Moniker]

Rented Dishonored (360). Played through 4 or so missions over past 2 days, will probably return it tomorrow. Like a lot of reviews say, it's pretty much a mash-up of Bioshock and Deus Ex: HR. Some pretty cool powers (esp blink and possession), and much better level design than DE:HR, but I didn't find it all that compelling, probably due to playing too much of its influences. The stealth play is somewhat marred by the often wonky blink/teleport power, so even if you plan a perfect route, there's a good chance you'll miss a ledge and end up surrounded by soldiers. The setting is also pretty cool; somewhere between renaissance and steampunk. Main source of power is whale oil, and they threw in a lot of Moby-Dick references, which is obviously awesome.

Overall, worth a look, especially if Deus Ex: HR didn't exhaust your patience for its brand of stealth play.

[Ed Oscuro]

Gun Bros! A superbly incompetent take on Smash TV with large hand-drawn (sort of) maps and an item store.

I should mention the item store first, because it clearly was the most important thing to the developers: You can grind for crap items (why?), requiring the in-game meseta ("explodium") and for you to have reached the appropriate level (takes forever...hours and hours of continuous play, definitely); you can play online to earn 2 War Bucks per 1000 meseta after some arbitrary time period, or you can just buy the far better pay-only items from the start. A good set of armor might increase a specific stat by 20% if you're lucky, but ONE piece of some of the best pay-only armor will raise ALL of the three stats by 20% BY ITSELF, and there's three such pieces. The kicker is that they aren't asking you to buy it for a dollar; no, to get the armor and maybe one or two of the best pay-only weapons, you'll want to get that armor. Let's assume the armor costs 45 War Bucks * 3 pieces, and the gun costs another 45 (this is accurate). Of course, you can buy War Bucks in packages 5, 30, 65, 170 (close, but no cigar), 350, or 710. The 170 War Buck package costs $35.99, real-world. The 710 Buck package is "The greatest value in the universe!" at a lower $ : War Buck ratio, and costs only $99.99. Again, real-world.

Okay, you don't have to buy that shit. The music is kind of nice and there are cute ghetto art girls here and there with fat lips; they're kinda fetching, I guess. There are little homages to Contra and Aliens in weapon names especially; even Guile's hair is for sale (named the "Sonic Broom," with the description stating that it hides a satellite dish), but it seems like the developers learned ABSOLUTELY FUCKING NOTHING from any of these games about what matters to perhaps two Gun Bros players at any given time: Gameplay is exceptionally slow and tedious for most maps. Enemies wobble towards your position from the edges of the screen (across the generally sprawling levels cluttered with mostly worthless obstacles and some player-friendly items, like explosive barrels or turrets, depending on the map). Most enemies you'll face will die instantly and so you spend a lot of time just standing in one place and shooting in the direction of the blue enemy approach direction indicators, waiting for something bigger to come by. The waves are long, and it takes FIFTY DAMN WAVES to pass a "revolution," whereby you get to do it ALL OVER AGAIN, against improved enemies. How many revolutions are available for a planet? Ten revolutions. I'm going to be conservative and say a wave passes in somewhere between half a minute to a minute (it'll be longer sometimes, especially if both a bad guy and his offscreen direction indicator get lost). Do you have 250 to 500 minutes to keep your finger on your left mouse button? There's some fairly good, if generic, music in this game, but the same 30 second loop will be playing without cessation through every moment of those 250 to 500 minutes.

There are some wrinkles in the gameplay, but nothing alleviates the exceptional tedious gameplay. Either you're being terribly bored - if you play conservatively and start at the first wave of the first revolution - or you'll watch as your supposedly badass loadout only chips away at even regular enemies on the harder waves - and you'll still be bored.

The only interesting level is a fight in a smaller map against a zombie horde, where waves go by quite quickly and difficulty ramps up very quickly. This level, planet Bokor, changes the emphasis from surviving waves without getting hit, to killing as many zombie scrubs as possible without getting touched, so you can build up the score multiplier (I've managed 520 or so and over 1M points; the score ramps up very quickly, and 200 consecutive hits won't go very far in score at all - far less than 300K for instance). Unfortunately, the developers neglected to stash those scores anywhere that I can see, and the game always seems to say "new highscore achieved!" even if you didn't beat your previous score. Totally wasted effort, and the $65 buy-in to get some decent weapons is beyond outrage.

On top of these fundamental problems, the game's Chrome browser implementation is littered with obnoxious bugs, like pistols failing to fire normally for extended periods of time, or the sound effects almost always failing to play (which is actually not a bad thing), and the worst menu navigation I've seen (the screens are obviously set up for swipes, but a mouse click will almost often get stuck, and you can click furiously at the screen repeatedly in an attempt to get it unstuck, which it will only do when it decides to take pity on you and if you're clicking in the right place).

[trap15]

Nicely sized review of Gun Bros

Oh man, that sounds pretty awful, did you seriously play that long!? I pity you, go play some Smash TV to wipe the tears away

[Obiwanshinobi]

Again, real-world.

I've been thinking about it obsessively, how as a rule of thumb, when the old cash cow turns belly up, game designers are forced to come up with new ways of earning dough and how it affects game design. Even freeware is so plentiful that competition for just about anybody's attention must be detrimental to said design. Games need to be tested by somebody else than designers after all. In the end, it's all market.
Make a good game and people will play it, but reality seems to be that for a game to be good, it must be wanted by somebody before. (Just like a human being?)
Maybe kickstarter is a response of sorts. Selling dreams first... Nevertheless, I suppose everybody likes pleasant surprises better than betting on hyped horses.

[Ed Oscuro]

Nicely sized review of Gun Bros

Oh man, that sounds pretty awful, did you seriously play that long!? I pity you, go play some Smash TV to wipe the tears away

Right now I'm at level 45 or something. No, I didn't seriously play for 250-500 hours, I'm not THAT insane. Just insane enough to play it for nearly two "revolutions," which honestly felt like a billion hours. On the plus side, my mouse pointer finger is as thick as a Texas longhorn steer's midriff now

(I think I get away with the length this time because of how foreign this kind of game is...should be...for most of us, especially the gory payment details.)

Again, real-world.

I've been thinking about it obsessively, how as a rule of thumb, when the old cash cow turns belly up, game designers are forced to come up with new ways of earning dough and how it affects game design. Even freeware is so plentiful that competition for just about anybody's attention must be detrimental to said design. Games need to be tested by somebody else than designers after all. In the end, it's all market.
Make a good game and people will play it, but reality seems to be that for a game to be good, it must be wanted by somebody before. (Just like a human being?)
Maybe kickstarter is a response of sorts. Selling dreams first... Nevertheless, I suppose everybody likes pleasant surprises better than betting on hyped horses.

It's not really clear from my review, but lots of nice pieces are in place for this game - some variety in enemies, some vaguely interesting enemy types, and so on. I could even enjoy the ghetto bimbo art (seriously, that's pretty much what it is, some DeviantArt softcore artist's gallery stuff pasted into various loading screens). But the whole of it simply doesn't work as a game very well. However, I probably wouldn't have mentioned it at all if it weren't for the money aspect.

They especially haven't made any provisions for single-player play - you can't even get the higher rates of explodium ore-to-meseta conversion (again, you're locked out of War Bucks entirely, unless you want to pay a huge lump sum equivalent to about 10000 games on Steam); and your AI partner stays at the default level and doesn't get upgraded weapons, and so gets rolled over very quickly without doing much useful (other than stunning mechanical crabs, which fall over with the first hit, sometimes) - he's just useful as a short-lived bullet sponge as he gets revived at the beginning of each wave.

[CDexWard]

Currently playing Mario 3D Land again.

Can somebody tell me if there is any way to see if I got the golden flagpole when I first played a level or do I have to play every single level again to make sure I got it in order to get 200%?

[Obiwanshinobi]

In Geometry Wars: Galaxies (not a bad game, mind you), grinding for drone upgrades feels counter-rewarding. Buying one gives me that warm feeling I'm one step closer to unlocking the game I already bought (boxed and sealed). Achievements and unlocked cars in Excite Truck have never seemed this way (possibly because all of the gameplay-related unlockables are rewards for playing WELL). I'll say it again - Excite Truck gives good candy.

[KAI]

Playing the best music games on earth(Technic Beat and IIDX) and Battle Gear 3 for the Time Attack Challenge on Rolling-Start

[hashiriya1]

Currently playing Mario 3D Land again.

Can somebody tell me if there is any way to see if I got the golden flagpole when I first played a level or do I have to play every single level again to make sure I got it in order to get 200%?

It tells you in the overworld screen. Place Mario on the level in question, and there should be a golden flagpole on the bottom-right corner of the screen.

[null1024]

Pokemon Black 2 [DS(i)].

Pretty good so far, just reached the 3rd gym [Burgh]. So glad you can get Riolu so early on, evolved him into a Lucario a bit ago. Also, I got the Mystery Gift Genesect that's being distributed right now. IIRC, it's US only though.

[Aliquantic]

Geometry Wars 2 due to not having a stick... I've been playing it a bit for a few days and hit 17.5m in Deadline and 40m in Evolved before reaching a plateau

[Obiwanshinobi]

Kirby's Block Ball in the park. Good times.

[Ed Oscuro]

I decided to bruise my brain a bit more and reach my Level 48 goal in Gun Blokes so I could finally retire it, in the Blade Runner sense. Final points concerning Gun Blows: Difficulty ramping versus leveling, and the weapons. These are the things the hardcore gamer care about, more than the useless annoyances like the fact that you need to log in (with Facebook!) to play the game cooperatively or make use of any of the Goodies For Special People (War Bucks). Since I reached Level 48 (unlocking a level requirement for a weapon) and amassed the required amount of explodium/meseta, I was able to afford the Predator Rifle. It fires quickly and also has a helpful homing component. While grinding to get there, I realized just how little reason there was for the 10 "revolutions" per planet and the 50 waves per revolution (additionally, the game keeps track of exactly which waves you've perfected, i.e. passed without getting tagged once, which is nice, but even more pointless and additionally misleading in that it makes you think this might help you level - instead it just goads you into wasting time on waves that pose no challenge).

Why Gun Bros' difficulty ramp sucks: You spend 20 waves getting to the max explodium/"meseta" award rate, which means you ideally wouldn't want to start where you left off or play in short bursts - but this is a mobile game, so those should be options! The difficulty starts to ramp up notably around wave 35, and slowly builds towards the climax around waves 45-50. These waves aren't exactly challenging, unless perhaps you care about one of the artificial incentives the game provides: The 10% explodium bonus for a perfect wave, a little star, and in the list of waves (seen if you ever have to restart) you'll get a gold icon instead of the usual green one. All this means nothing - it doesn't give you any pride to perfect a wave far below your abilities and level - and is actually misleading, because to get to the challenging waves - or ones which pay out good experience, which are not necessarily challenging waves - you'll want to make use of the game's game-breaking option to simply restart at the wave you died at, and slog ahead. However, on the next "revolution" the game will make you fall asleep again - but you get more XP per enemy. Popcorn xp doubles on revolution 2 to 2xp, from 1xp, which makes absolutely no difference; bigger enemies seem to gain 50% or less to their xp, and gain a similar amount of health. The bigger enemies also provide the only challenge, as some are fast and close distance, while others are straight blocking challenges or have tricky ranged attacks that will require good movement to avoid and counter. It's a good thing the game isn't littered with sloppy architecture you can get snagged on...no, wait, it is. The gameplay therefore boils down to funneling as much damage into the killzones between buildings as possible, and that's a shame because it provides a disincentive towards moving around. The game can't make up its mind about what constitutes good playing: Avoiding enemies and playing skillfully, or relying on your level and high-level equipment to brute-force your way through levels despite playing poorly? I didn't mention that you can always restart at the wave you last reached - leaving the game with no argument that it cares about your skill level.

So it looks as if I've been playing it wrong (putting aside playing it singleplayer): To level as fast as possible you should probably stay at the front of your unlocked waves, pushing forward into waves where even popcorn enemies will start to take annoyingly many hits to kill, where the grinding element of gameplay becomes much more obvious as your weapons need more time to chip away at enemies. It's clear there isn't a happy medium between replaying levels below your equipment level and playing for too long, and spending more time waiting on the enemies to die, restarting when they finally overwhelm you. And beyond that - if there was a happy medium, the game doesn't make it clear where that is. As mentioned before, the perfect ratings just waste your precious lifespan.

Where Gun Bros almost shines: The zombie planet is as close as the game gets to classic and furious Crimson Land-style gameplay, and does a better job increasing difficulty - but it's still not perfect. (Ignore that the map is small and it's insulting to have to replay the same small amount of content repeatedly just to have some fun.) There's a few obnoxious enemy difficulty ramps at the beginning, as the tough enemies go in just a few waves from dying in a handful of shots to needing concentrated fire for a ridiculously long period of time. If you're paying attention, you'll notice that most of the horde is just popcorn, and killing them will get you past the level. Ignoring per-enemy scoring, focusing your attention on the popcorn and avoiding getting hit will help you build your chain multiplier faster - which does lead to more score per enemy - but avoiding the bigger monsters will still leave you in some parts with too much HP to chew through when the bigger enemies literally block your route. Still, once you figure out that the bigger enemies ought to be avoided (especially since they are often insta-killed once you hit enough enemies per wave), it appears as if the difficulty increase per wave starts to taper off once you get around horde waves 5-9, because the popcorn still dies in one hit and killing enough of them will temporarily clear the screen of the big guys. There is one final sadistic wrinkle here - the item spawn points for this level are right at the edges, so running over to them during a wave will typically result in your getting hit by an unseen enemy, or one that has just spawned, and when you're hit you can't pick up items. Smooth.

The weapons are easy to sum up: There are some big shotguns (far too short-range and slow), rockets, pistols, machine guns, and spread guns. I just calculated DPS (hoping the weapons' in-store stats are correct) and bought the most powerful weapons that fired quickly, which means I have bought just one shotgun (which was a disappointment), and have used handguns and assault rifles (machine guns) all the time (except when they won't fire). You can carry two guns at once, and switching between them takes far too long - it will get you killed in pretty much any map, but especially at the zombie planet, where you need to fire constantly (high RPM is necessary there as well). As I mentioned at the start of the post, the Predator Rifle has an interesting and useful homing component, so it felt like a nice incentive for sticking with this shit game so long. Add in its horde-busting 500+ RPM count, and it almost looks like a bargain. Handguns were interesting because they provided a slight spread effect and decreased the pinpoint accuracy needed, due to their being shoulders' width apart, while still allowing you to put all the shots on a big enemy and make use of their DPS. However, the last one unlocks at level 31, and they become obsolete afterwards. At the very top end of the weapons store, there is a War Bucks-only weapon that is a five-way spread. It seems like a reasonable investment for attacking hordes, but in most modes you need to spend a lot of time against big enemies. In all modes, you will need one good all-purpose weapon, and only the machine guns (or to some degree the handguns) really provide this, maximizing DPS while allowing you to kill many enemies. And at any given unlock level, even the top end, you'll find that there are only a few types of weapons to choose from, so you don't really have a choice of weaponry - sacrificing DPS for a spread effect is not an option.

[Marc]

Nobody else on here playing Dishonored? It's fucking amazing. It's like the golden age of late '90s PC gaming, the kind of thing most publishers think people are too stupid to handle these days. The freedom of choice is astounding - it's not like Human Revolution (which I loved) which basically gave a player a choice of stealthy/hacky/shooty routes, these are sumptuously designed mini-sandboxes where basically anything goes. The most striking thing - and it's been a long while - is that it's the sort of game where I will save constantly and reload if I fuck a section up - not because the game insists I've done something wrong, but because the whole vibe has already infected me and made ME choose the way I want to play, and I'm quite happy to play sections over and over again until I finally pull shit off the way I want it to go. The artistic direction is fantastic, there are definite nods to HL2 and BioShock, but it feels far more cohesive than either, and the various powers and abilities are genuinely useful - unlike BioShock, yeah electrocuting water was a nice idea, but when a wrench to the head was more powerful and less fiddly, what was the point. Internet nerds are squealing that the game isn't long enough - apparently it can be completed in 12-15 hours, and has already had a 3 hour speedrun - yet I've played 10 hours and haven't yet finished the second proper level. Seriously, just go get it.

[beatsgo]

Playing the best music games on earth(Technic Beat and IIDX)...

Oh man beatmania IIDX, those were the days. RED, Happy Sky, and GOLD were probably my all time favorite in the whole series.

GTA IV, just because.

[Ed Oscuro]

Nobody else on here playing Dishonored?

Too poor and stuff, but thanks for the heads-up! If it actually bests those long-running PC AAA+ Shock stereotype missteps, then it'll be something to behold. I'll ask for an update once you get to the later areas.

12-15 hours isn't really bad. Maybe there'll be DLC or something. Unfortunately, the early reports on the game were calling it a "sleeper hit," so along with Sleeping Dogs it's quite conceivable that a couple games will fall into obscurity.

[VixyNyan]

Nicely sized review of Gun Bros

Oh wow that game! I still haven't finished it yet. I'm stuck at lv75 for the moment, Revolution 9 Wave 39. I try to keep staying alive by spending the coins on the green shield power up, very effective against the bigger enemies. I have the weapons Blood Geyser and Coronal Ejector, the armors Cybro Armor, Diabolic Helmet and Plaque Pants. Those are good enough to survive most enemy attacks without spending war bucks or using micro transactions. I hope to finish soon, I started playing way back in July this year with slow progress. ^^;

/phone

[guigui]

I just played some NBA JAM for the Wii. Arcade feeling on it is still very ggod and I like it. Also the voice acting is good :
" Goal tending violation, wack-wack-wack "

[shmuppyLove]

Saint's Row the Third on PC.

It's pretty fun!

Opening bank robbery/helicopter getaway set piece was very impressive. Graphics look amazing and controls with a 360 pad work great.

[Ed Oscuro]

Nicely sized review of Gun Bros

Oh wow that game! I still haven't finished it yet. I'm stuck at lv75 for the moment, Revolution 9 Wave 39. I try to keep staying alive by spending the coins on the green shield power up, very effective against the bigger enemies. I have the weapons Blood Geyser and Coronal Ejector, the armors Cybro Armor, Diabolic Helmet and Plaque Pants. Those are good enough to survive most enemy attacks without spending war bucks or using micro transactions. I hope to finish soon, I started playing way back in July this year with slow progress. ^^;

/phone

Interesting. I admit I haven't been messing around with powerups at all.

Cybro Armor though...in the Chrome port, it makes you slower and didn't have impressive statistics otherwise so it seemed to be a no-go. At the moment I was just using a Praetorian Armor set. If I had War Bucks I'd probably go for that five-way spread, or get one of the 45 Buck pieces of the second Infinity Armor set. (22% increases all around - that's not insignificant.)

Did you find my comments about the difficulty ramping at all like what you thought, or do you disagree? And how does it ramp up past the second revolution? If they get rid of the terrible boredom going from a Wave 50 back to Wave 1, that'd be an improvement. I think the lack of ability to get your 20 waves if you restart right where you died is a disincentive, but maybe not if you're worried about just passing the wave and not the money. I'm rather curious about this. I can say it's bad, but then again I went back to it. It's a bit brain-numbing which I think can mask its true nature sometimes. Interesting comments all around.

The login system makes all this a moot point for me - I don't have Facebook and I'm not getting it, and Gun Bros isn't a good incentive for me to do so.

I wonder if the Windows Phone version of the game is heavily improved over the Chrome port.

[VixyNyan]

I wonder if the Windows Phone version of the game is heavily improved over the Chrome port.

Short answer, I haven't played or seen the Chrome port, but I can't say that the Windows Phone version has that much "improvements" to "brag" about anyway.

One thing I can say about the Revolutions and the Waves, as long as you reached one specific Wave, like example Rev 8 wave 50, you are allowed to start right there and never ever return to the first wave, or you can choose exactly which wave you want that you have already reached. The game saves your progress so it's less of a hassle to beat all 10 Revolutions for a planet.

I picked the armor items based on other people's feedbacks, and yes it's true that it does slow you down (there are red-colored % values shown next to the Speed rate), but I pick these armor items because of Attack and Defense values, since later on, enemies in large packs will become a big threat, so it's important to be well-equipped when going for the high waves. I don't feel like backtracking to past waves, so I just move on forward while spending coins on health packs and green shield for survival, since if I keep on going, I can gain enough money to both profit and afford those items anyway. And yea I agree that the difficulty does ramp up ridiculously fast with each Revolution. The amount of enemies is crazy in Wave 50 of each Revolution. x.x

In the Windows Phone port, you always seem to start the game connected Offline, but you can later connect Online to gain "BroBuff" stats from XBox Live friends, like +20% extra EXP and other fun things. Not to mention that you gain access to more refineries for your Explodiums, like being able to gain over 400% the worth of gold from what you earned during your last battle session. But for the 400% gain, you have to wait 72 hours real-time (it's OK to have phone turned off or doing other things) to be able to gain that boost in gold. Since I already spent gold on enough armor and weapons to survive, I spend the rest on it for shield items, since there is only so little for me to do in the game, based on achievements anyway.

And the zombie planet helps to gain gold too, standing at the top-left corner, use Coronal Ejector weapon and keep shooting the zombies before they reach you. Within an hour, you can afford many things after using the refineries. Altho Blood Geyser isn't as strong as CoroEject, it's still one of the best Spreader you can buy without spending WarBucks or MS Points (real life money). ^^

[Ed Oscuro]

One thing I can say about the Revolutions and the Waves, as long as you reached one specific Wave, like example Rev 8 wave 50, you are allowed to start right there and never ever return to the first wave, or you can choose exactly which wave you want that you have already reached. The game saves your progress so it's less of a hassle to beat all 10 Revolutions for a planet.

Yes, I mentioned this. My thoughts on it:

- They really expect us to play for ~250-500 minutes to clear all ten waves? That'd be if you weren't ever dying and completing all waves in 30-60 seconds, at that.
- The instensity between waves seemed to vary wildly from wave 50 to the next wave 1, so you spend a lot of time just treading water. You're stuck on wave 39, after all, not wave 1.

It seems very badly designed for pick-up-and-play because you can waste all your time on waves 1-25 of a revolution getting little to no benefit, and not really being challenged. It seems to me the difficulty level should've ramped up more quickly, and the breather waves should be less clumped together. It would be more reasonable to have it something like a couple lower-intensity waves every 10 or 25 revolutions. I don't have a problem with the idea of 500 waves if there was far less down time, and if there were better rewards for actually playing at the highest level. Having some waves at the difficulty level of the weak waves is OK, but not 25-30 of them, so that you're just sitting around.

And level 75 or wherever you're at - the highest level store items are around 49 or so, so the health bonus is it. That's another nasty way for the developers to constantly shift the goalposts on you, which I find bad for game design.

Also, from what I saw, just playing Bro Ops (lol) will get you the chance to transfer your coins into War Bucks.
Chrome port doesn't have anything as fancy as achievements tracking, that I can see.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Revenge of the 'Gator - either I'm not great at flippers, or it's bastard-hard to progress past three screens.
To be fair, I found timing requirements in Kirby's Block Ball to be strict as well, but that game allows me to save my progress. In Revenge of the 'Gator I just got stuck. Still, not bad for a change on the go.
P.S. Oh, there doesn't seem to be much more content. I see why it's hard now. Can't expect every first-gen GB game to be SML-rich, can I?

[VixyNyan]

- They really expect us to play for ~250-500 minutes to clear all ten waves? That'd be if you weren't ever dying and completing all waves in 30-60 seconds, at that.
- The instensity between waves seemed to vary wildly from wave 50 to the next wave 1, so you spend a lot of time just treading water. You're stuck on wave 39, after all, not wave 1.

I shouldn't have said "stuck", more like didn't "feel" like continuing at the time. But today I started Rev 9 wave 39, and I beat 3 more waves from there. Since there are so many other things in life to do, including job and other game things, I do try to find time continuing Gun Bros. It's almost finished, so soon enough I can beat all 10 Revolutions in the first planet.

Also have to keep raising my character's exp so he can finally go past LV75. Each level up gives a max health up, and highest level is LV100 (which also unlocks an achievement). o.o

Not to mention the achievements left to do is to "service" (kill) 1,000 enemies with specific type of weapons (shotgun, handgun, etc) and then a total of 50,000 kills across all game sessions. That one takes the most time.