What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

[O. Van Bruce]

General education strike against the government for their public education reform (Yay, let's make the public ed even shittier!).

So now I'm about to start a game of Victoria 2: Heart of Darkness... I'm feeling a little guilty because I'm not playing shmups.

[R-Gray 1]

Pop n music - dreamcast
very nice music and fun. 7 keys is really fun but not easy
I have to play again beatmania

[Obiwanshinobi]

Some Revenge of the 'Gator now and then. Not too "big" a game, but it's very early GB stuff (1989 in Japan).
P.S. Huh, so HAL Laboratory published it by themselves.

[Ruldra]

Captain Commando 3cc get. That's 2 credits too many.



Still trying to figure out how to kill the last 3 bosses without dying. Once those are out of the way, the 1cc should be in reach.

[Mortificator]

Good job! It's a four-player-simultaneous game, so you still cleared it under tighter parameters than the game was designed.

[rapoon]

League of Legends - played it for ~5 hours straight then uninstalled it. it's fun but requires a significant time investment that I don't have. if I were younger, still in college, etc. I'd prob feel differently.

Hawken - played Starsiege a lot when it first came out. Hawken is fun, fast paced but buggy as shit. Mechanics (disabling an enemy mech via shooting it's legs, guns, weak point) that are
present in a lot of mech games are absent here. I just started playing a few days ago so I'll give it more time. Looks like a lot of customization is available.

[O. Van Bruce]

League of Legends - played it for ~5 hours straight then uninstalled it. it's fun but requires a significant time investment that I don't have. if I were younger, still in college, etc. I'd prob feel differently.

Hawken - played Starsiege a lot when it first came out. Hawken is fun, fast paced but buggy as shit. Mechanics (disabling an enemy mech via shooting it's legs, guns, weak point) that are
present in a lot of mech games are absent here. I just started playing a few days ago so I'll give it more time. Looks like a lot of customization is available.

If you don't like the grind to get new heroes try playing DOTA 2. You get all the heroes unlocked from the start and a matchmaking system. There is no ELO though.

[Ruldra]

There you go guys, Captain Commando 1cc!

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL ... zZzJ_L3fUp

Random comments:

- This is probably the first game I ever saw that gives you NO point extends. You have 2 lives to beat the whole thing and that's it. Pretty unforgiving.
- I never found a way to beat the stage 8 boss withou dying, so when I lost a life earlier I thought the run was over. But I got really lucky with the food drops before the boss, usually you just get a bunch of useless cherries. That pretty much saved me.
- Final boss fight is pretty anticlimatic, but I'll take safety over showing off any day. In case he escaped my grab, there's another way of killing him, but involves running around like a madman and hitting him with running attacks. Takes a lot of time and one mistake means a quarter of your life lost. Very risky.
- Last 2 stages have epic music.

Pretty happy to have this clear under my belt

[Hagane]

Congrats! It's a tough game. Will you do another Capcom beat'em up? AvsP, Punisher, Armored Warriors, etc.?

[Ruldra]

I can actually reach the final stage of Final Fight on a single credit, but everything falls apart from there. I want to get back and finish it at some point.

[Leandro]

I assume you have already cleared Cadillacs? That's one game that touches the heart of every brazilian who plays it

[MOSQUITO FIGHTER]

Playing Forza Horizon. Looked at my playtime and I've got about 40 hours out of it so far and haven't even really started racing online yet. Pretty good. Then I checked out the Etrian Odyssey IV demo and was really impressed with it. I always like getting a lengthy demo to play. I'll probably end up getting that eventually.

[Ruldra]

I assume you have already cleared Cadillacs? That's one game that touches the heart of every brazilian who plays it

I...actually don't like the game that much lol. It's not a bad game but it just didn't click with me.

Now, one beat-em-up that I truly love and want to finish someday is Shadow over Mystara. Being a former D&D player that game is like a dream come true. Never got far in it though.

[Ed Oscuro]

fucking around with shit

Zombies: Day of the Dead-based, sorta, DOOM II mod, made in Britain with an early digital camera and strangeness. Played via PrBoomPlus, which is proving to be rather crash-prone on my system. (Just one crash here though; I'd trade this mod's performance with crashing to get Batman DOOM crash-fre again.) Lots of repetitive combat against melee and ranged "zombies," all sprites replaced with digitized photos - some interrrrestinnnnng zombie designs here, which aren't like the usual zombie flick or game designs - most of the ranged enemies just seem to be normal cops / mall ninjas / TRENCHCOAT MAFIAS etc. who still speak to you. There's many new digitized textures as well. Kind of neat for the time, the graphics giving off a kind of Lethal Enforcers / TekWar vibe which is always fresh (don't listen to the haters). Most of the maps are terrible in some way or other, but have their moments; there's a few somewhat alright set pieces here. The last map with enemies (that you can see and kill, anyway) gives you tons of ammo (including for the very weird plasma gun replacement, which looks like a bit like a nailgun or rivet gun in first person, and like an AK with the barrel sawn off past the foregrip in the pickup sprite; it sprays highly damaging shots all over without much accuracy) and then just throws you into one final area with about two dozen bad guys in it, which can all be easily defeated. Then you go off to a desert island with four unseen monsters, and a storyboard tells you that there's nothing to do but wait for a cruise ship to show up or a zombie to say hi. Unlike the so-lovely MIDI rendition of "Hotel California's" chorus playing incessantly in that level, you will find it very easy to leave this mod. Still, not objectively terrible in every way. Just some awkward teleportation-based level design "tricks," fussy key-hunting gameplay, and a great example why you should never replace the "empty wall hit" grunt noise with a lengthy spoken phrase. Also, the shotgun has been replaced with a "riffle," which fires about twice as fast as normal, and the size of ammo pickups has been doubled - a mainstay weapon. The soulsphere with an exotic dancer showing breastflesh. Pickup message: "JUST HAVING SEX"

Hexian & Hexian 2: I played just a little bit of the original Hexian before its primitiveness and lack of a theme drove me to quit. The sequel seems immensely improved, having some kind of pretense of a plot, and some attempted continuity between areas, as well as some pretty interesting set pieces. Monsters are an unholy mashup of Heretic, Hexen, and DOOM monsters on DOOM monster logic (really odd to hear one kind of Disciple making Cacodemon pain noises, while the other sounds more normal). Continuing the theme of sonic annoyances, some maps use ambient dings and dongs and whispers and whatevers that you'll recall from Heretic and Hexen, but playing almost incessantly - gets a bit old at times. There's a recommendation to use a NIN music wad, which I couldn't get working except as a single IWAD for DOOM II...I know I've used it before, hearing Closer as MIDI didn't trigger a sense of deja vu until later. I think Herian 2 works better without music, anyway. Looking forward to spending some more time with this one, even if it is also rather uneven with map flow and design (I've already found one level where it's not possible to progress if you go for a secret early on, because you won't be able to get keys from that level). A long WAD, too, with map replacements for every DOOM II map.

Looking to check out some new (to me) classic Quake expansions and TCs:
Shrak
Malice (OH SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT)
Abyss of Pandemonium (-game impel) Sticking it to the man?
Quoth (-hipnotic -game quoth, Fitzquake recommended by mod authors, sticking with darkplaces 'till death of course)

[Leandro]

Now, one beat-em-up that I truly love and want to finish someday is Shadow over Mystara. Being a former D&D player that game is like a dream come true. Never got far in it though.

I have a love story with SoM, I was really addicted to it at some point. I remember my first clear was using the Cleric, and from there I got it with the Magic User, then the Elf and later with the Thief. I never bothered to learn Fighter or Dwarf.

The Magic User is, in my opinion, the most powerful character in the history of beat'em ups, lol. I firmly believe it's the easiest non-versusfighting Capcom arcade game to clear, when using him. I really specialized with the Thief though, as it's my favorite char and the game is so fun to play over and over again.

I never played "real" D&D, however, and neither liked the first Capcom game, Tower of Doom.

[null1024]

Dungeons and Dragons: Shadow over Mystara [Arcade/MAME].

All this discussion has made me start to play it.

[Drachenherz]

Puzzle Quest 1 on the iPad. Gosh, this game is addictive... I had to delete it from my iphone, lest I lose so much time during work...

[Ghenry]

Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate
Incredibly addicting once you get the hang of it and find a weapon you enjoy using. The game only gets even better when you have people to do some co-op play with.

[Hagane]

I...actually don't like the game that much lol. It's not a bad game but it just didn't click with me.

Now, one beat-em-up that I truly love and want to finish someday is Shadow over Mystara. Being a former D&D player that game is like a dream come true. Never got far in it though.

Agree on both. I find Cadillacs to be a bit dry compared to other Capcom beat'em ups. Not bad, but not as fun.

Doing some more progress on Alien vs. Predator. I finally have a good strategy for Mad Predator with Linn (who despite what it may seem at first is the easiest character to learn in the game, since she crushes most bosses with ease). At the start I get in close with a slide, then do a simple canned combo, which makes MP wall bounce, then face away from the wall and air throw him as he comes down. If you do a down + attack while recovering from the air throw, you will (sometimes, I don't know how the combo system exactly behaves here) OTG him, giving you a free airthrow chance again. If you do get the extra airthrow, you will head towards the wall. Bounce from there before landing and come down at MP with d + attack. You will catch him just as he stands and get a free combo again.

If you drop the combo, once you knock him down you must get in close, and jump straight up when he stands. He will always, always try to hit you with a punch. But if you time your jump right he will miss, and you can do d + attack, attack (wall bounces), jump and airthrow (and try the OTG combo explained above or keep abusing this AI exploit).

If you fail at both and let him get away, he will try to jump off the wall and come down with an attack or shooting projectiles. You can always catch him with a well timed airthrow when he does this, and then go for the AI exploit. He's very manageable with this strategy.

Also, Pulse Guns are excellent. Always save them for bosses, they tear them apart. This is key for beating the Power Loaders easily; there are always several pulse gun carriers whenever they appear. Just make them drop the Pulse guns by shooting them, and concentrate all your fire on the Loaders to make their lifebar drop very fast.

With a bit more practice I'll be reaching the final boss frequently. I will need to do some savestate practice there for sure since the Alien Queen battle is a huge difficulty spike compared to anything that comes before.

[BIL]

^Nice writeup! Been enjoying the beltscroller discussion over the last page or so.

[Despatche]

Irem's Blade Master. Seems kinda cool, but a bit too simple. Feels like the game is going to get really cheap later on.

But the draw is the audio. Dear God, every part of the sound is perfect.

edit: Yep, looks like they pretty much stopped development at some point. Oh well, at least the game exists (the sound is a priceless artifact now)

[trap15]

I played Blade Master a while ago. It's definitely pretty cheap... If you watch the ReplayBurners no-miss runs, the guy pretty much runs through everything until he HAS to fight to continue, at which point he starts jumping around like he's on meth while poking the enemies.

BUT OH MY GOD THE SOUND.

*wiip* *bwiii~*

[Hagane]

^Nice writeup! Been enjoying the beltscroller discussion over the last page or so.

Thanks, I hope the strategy discussion will get a few more people interested in these games. They get a lot of negative rep due to the lack of proper info on them I guess.

[Ed Oscuro]

Old sorta-commercial Quake 1 mod: Abyss of Pandemonium. The techbase levels are done now, and while these were somewhat criticized, I still enjoyed them. I just finished up the last fight in Temple of Moon. This game doesn't fuck around - ten shamblers! Then two vores around the corner! Granted at least a couple Shamblers gibbed right away (happens a lot in this game, enemies sometimes spawn near the ceiling) and I realized you can (and probably have to) cheap it out, by stake-gun jumping back through the window I came out of. (Edit: Oh, now the secret holding a quad damage before that area opens up, thanks.) Yes - many years before Painkiller, this game had a stake gun. There's quite a few custom weapons, and although many are kind of blah, some have many uses and are also incredibly damaging. The stake gun only uses one rocket to fire, and is slow, but just a few rockets killed a Shambler. However, there's also new critters, some of which are fast and vicious. My favorite isn't fast but is very tenacious - the Juggernaut, which looks like a boilerplate mech. It can soak up electric bolts from the Shambler all day long (yeah, speaking of crazy things the game probably expects you to do...) and seems impervious to many other kinds of damage. Its "weakness" is the nailgun (if surviving almost all the nail ammo in a full inventory can be considered a weakness). Strangely, the game is quick to give you many of its unique weapons - you get the flame grenade launcher and the stake gun in just the first few maps, well before their regular counterparts show up, and the same for the bouncy-bolt electric gun (haven't seen a Thunderbolt yet).

Insanely obscure secrets, and a rather nice soundtrack which is somewhere between the original Quake soundtrack, and new-age ambient chill-out electronica.

[Acid_Rain]

Just played a bit of Monaco (XBLA) and its a blast in coop. Chaotic fun with a pacman feel to it.

[Moniker]

Assassin's Creed III (360)

Assassin's Creed catches crap for being annually milked without changing things up. I can't help but enjoy every entry, though. Maybe it's better compared to Mega Man's NES entries - same formula with a slight change in flavor for each game. Anyway, I find endless joy in climbing up to viewpoints, going for full sync, and so forth. The story is laughable, but i just..can't...stop...playing

Just played a bit of Monaco (XBLA) and its a blast in coop. Chaotic fun with a pacman feel to it.

How is it on single player? Reviews say it's still worth it, but from the game's description, I'm having trouble believing it.

[Marc]

Boulderdash XL, retro caves. The rules are simplified a little from the original, but it's somewhat balanced out by the savage time limits. Still an absolute joy to play.

[ACSeraph]

Ever since Fatal Frame 1 got put on the PSN I've been majorly back into the series. Replaying Crimson Butterfly right now and wondering what the hell happened to the horror game genre to go from that to the garbage we have now.

[MOSQUITO FIGHTER]

I played some Dark Souls today. Pretty sure that I managed to accomplish absolutely nothing of any importance in the game. Oh well, at least I played it.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I got my boyfriend to try out the XBLA port of Gunstar Heroes. I was gushing about how it was one of my fave games ever and how it's super fun in co-op! He's not that great at platformers/action games yet so I figured it'd be great as you can respawn whenever you die (at the cost of half the living player's health).

The XBLA removed the ability to respawn. There's no "Press 1P Start" when he died, no buttons did ANYTHING, I literally mashed the face buttons in vain to try and respawn him. What the fuck did I just waste those points on if I get a broken fucking game that got a half assed fucking useless port compared to just emulating it?! Fucking incompetent development team, first and last time I ever buy a port of a game and risk getting a shitty port instead of simply emulating it. If your friend dies in the middle of the level (which is expected if you're playing with someone new to the game!) they get to have 'fun' while you either commit suicide or play the rest of the level solo. The 'steal half my health' was a mechanic that worked perfectly for playing with friends casually so it pisses me the fuck off that they screwed with it. I immediately deleted it in disgust.

I can't believe they'd make such an absurd change. I also notice there's no drop-in play available, so someone can't join in the middle of a run as there's not "Press 2P Start" flashing... what the hell?!

The same idiocy apparently applies to the PS3 port, too (probably the same dev team full of imbeciles).