What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

[Obiwanshinobi]

So resident evil 4 Wii edition plays just as unadventurously as the PS2 version did. Thus I look less and less forward to the rest. Heck, it doesn't even look that much better. Where the hell all the initial hype came from remains unfathomable to me.
As a matter of fact the more I play Wii edition, the more I feel like finishing Onimusha 3 instead. Same story was with PS2 port and Onimusha 2. What the heck all those RE4 apologists played beforehand that shaped up their expectations?

[Marc]

Trials Evolution on 360. Does anyone else play the game? I'd be curious to have more people in my friends list to compare times.

Sporadically, it's a great game but I can get obsessed with running the same track over and over so don't tend to boot it up unless I have plenty of time.

[Ed Oscuro]

RE4 apologists

[Ed Oscuro]

Finished Abyss of Pandemonium. Hmm, some neat level design - but surprisingly short, with just one episode, and not an especially long one at that. The difficulty level tapers off significantly at the end, with the fights against multiple Shamblers at once replaced by a few fights against multiple robots - who can fight against each other, meleeing each other to death and saving you some ammo. All I had left today was "Legonds of Quake" (ugh, the main bad guy - actually a girl - is named Legond) which turns out to be aopend.bsp, the end of the game. Legond is very nasty, and you're supposed to jump out of the level onto this raised dais with a pillar in the middle - it really looks like something you'd see feeding grain into passing trains - and round the pillar, and then...oops! I was smart and realized that splash damage from a rocket would activate Legond, because I didn't really want to mess around with trying to fight this the "honest" way. A one-shot rocket kill attack AND a damaging electric attack which PULLS the player, and can lock on even when the player is behind an obstacle, combines with an enemy carrying tons of health to make this a devastatingly difficult fight if you attempt to do it the old fashioned way. Instead, I kept peeking from around a wall, shooting off lone rockets, and retreating. I possibly could've used the stake gun, but ammo wasn't at issue because I went into the fight with 100 rockets and had 30 in stock on the ledge behind me. I never set foot on the dais during the final fight.

Before I fought, I did discover that jumping off to one's death while holding the bouncing-lightning gun (one of the game's originals) caused the system to accuse you of suiciding with it.

Completing the fight with the big (actually, a bit less than player-sized) boss just gives you an alternate angle of the arena, with a little text describing how Legond wanted to "humiliate, desecrate, devour and torture" you as payback for defeating "the forces of Quake" (we hear about those a lot in the various Quake mods). Kinky. I think it would've been a better plan to try the torture before the desecration and devouring, though. Also, Legond is dressed like a Star Trek DS9 extra, which causes me to doubt whether she was seriously going to go through with any of this. It does explain the magnetic lightning though.

Not exactly a bad game, but seeing floating nailgun boxes and attack dogs in the final level doesn't impress, either. Just an OK mod, with some neat and difficult moments early on.

[Aliquantic]

I've been playing Micro Machines lately with a friend, and it makes me think there has been no good racer like that in a long time, with weapons and chase cams... I've seen a few on Steam and XBLA, but they're all worse than the original.

(Semi off-topic, but it'd be awesome if we had a thread to ask for generic game recommendations, with knowledgeable people... the Internet at large is dire to get advice)

[Skykid]

So resident evil 4 Wii edition plays just as unadventurously as the PS2 version did. Thus I look less and less forward to the rest. Heck, it doesn't even look that much better. Where the hell all the initial hype came from remains unfathomable to me.
As a matter of fact the more I play Wii edition, the more I feel like finishing Onimusha 3 instead. Same story was with PS2 port and Onimusha 2. What the heck all those RE4 apologists played beforehand that shaped up their expectations?

Resident Evil?

Keep in mind you have unfathomably terrible taste and therefore aren't in a position to judge something as sublime as RE4.

[Skykid]

(Semi off-topic, but it'd be awesome if we had a thread to ask for generic game recommendations, with knowledgeable people... the Internet at large is dire to get advice)

Great idea. You could open it you know! I'll make one now for ya.

[Obiwanshinobi]

I've been playing Micro Machines lately with a friend, and it makes me think there has been no good racer like that in a long time, with weapons and chase cams...

Mashed: Fully Loaded (by the makers of Micro Machines, just differently named) - I can't recommend the PC version enough. Even the sinleplayer mode is pretty good (see Beat the Bomb).
A love letter to RenderWare engine at that, moreso than Black dare I say.

In other news, motor saw does indeed sound like cow's "moo" in real life. We heard some other machine sound like a woodpecker on speed some time ago, but it's gone.

[Aliquantic]

Interesting one, I know about the supposed spiritual sequel Wrecked on 360 which is okay but nothing else, but I'd never heard of Mashed before. Thanks, I'll check it out!

I'm too much of a lurker these days Skykid to start threads

[Marc]

Started Metro 2033 last night. Linear, but quite fun. It's got atmosphere in spades, and the weaponry feels meaty, reminds me of Stalker condensed into corridors. May not make it through as I tend to get bored of FPS's very quickly these days.

[CStarFlare]

I finished Majora's Mask, so started in on my bootleg copy of Dragon Quest VI. At some point I decided I was going to beat every mainline Dragon Quest game; this might be one of my favorites so far (done 1, 4, 9 and now 6; I got through most of 3 on GBC but I don't count it). It's a great RPG with fantastic SNES graphics, and Dragon Quest games are always challenging enough that I usually finish boss battles by the skin of my teeth which makes it more exciting than most RPGs.

It's a shame the ROM never got fully translated and cleaned up; missing text and the occasional bug are everywhere. It takes away from the experience a bit, but it's really a joy to find a "new" game from my era and I've become really fond of Dragon Quest since I started playing them a couple years ago. They're pretty long though, so I'm sure by the time I finish I'll be ready to move on for a few months.

[Moniker]

Just played World 1 of Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams (PC)

Freaking awesome level design and visuals. It starts off pretty tame, but by the time I hit the World 1 boss, my brain wasn't computing that a modern game would expect me to beat this with only two hitpoints. The devs definitely have spent some time SMW hacking - it has that kind of feel. So far so good.

[Hagane]

Starting to play some credits of Armored Warriors while I still try to refine AvsP. Such a great game... probably the best presentation in a Capcom title. Superb art / character design by Kinu Nishimura, epic metal/hard rock music that perfectly suits the setting, gorgeous spritework... I also love little touches like how you cut enemies in half if you finish them with Fordy's saw attack. It's flawless in this regard.

And the game is just as good. It's hard and extremely punishing. In other Capcom beat'em ups you can get pretty far with sloppy play since there are lots of health pickups, but here they are extremely scarce, usually don't recover much health and the damage is brutal. So, plan everything and be on point with your execution or you will get crushed in seconds or be severely handicapped for the rest of the level.

The mech customization system is great, you get a lot of variety in abilities depending on what you equip for your arms, legs or projectiles, and every part behaves very differently from the rest. My only gripe is that the method for inputting special attacks is a bit awkward; something like AvsP would have been much better. Still, you eventually get used to it.

Combos revolve mostly around (devastating) OTGs, there's very little in the way of juggles. I like how pretty much everything you do hits, jumps and dashes included. Speaking about dashes, I love Fordy's mobility. It balances the brutal penalties for messing up since you can move around so fast to avoid being surrounded and line up your enemies rather easily.

So far I have been playing two or three credits tops, and got to the stage 3 boss. I don't have a strategy for him yet and every time I try to attack him I get countered. I'll try some different part combinations since picking the treads helped a lot for the second boss.

[system11]

I just finished Metro: Last Light. Despite trying to be a good guy, I got the bad ending - apparently killing humans (even bad ones) drags your score down, and I killed a /lot/ of bad humans. Really enjoyed it despite a few rough edges and some bugs. Actually just bought the book the game series was based on because I like the setting so much.

[Zaarock]

Virtual-On: Oratorio Tangram (XBLA)

Starting to mess around with raiden as a sub, largely because prediction lasers are a specialty I have with cypher and raiden is obviously the god of lasers. I'm terrible but it's fun. There's some silly restrictions they put on him that just make you need to jump through some hoops: ground dash cancel has a freeze(so you just do instant jump cancel), sliding crouch attacks are pointless.. jump lock-on works differently but it just makes prediction lasering easier(rotation during jump cancel is the easiest way to aim lasers) Once I get better I need to check out how you do laser attack cancels on pad and try to get it into muscle memory. Cypher still feels like one of the most versatile VRs to me because of having great attacks of all types apart from explosives, and crazy mobility which obviously means more options when you have the execution to exploit it (apart from tanking hits lol)

[trap15]

Been playing OutRun 2006 Coast2Coast a shitload recently.

[null1024]

Virtual-On: Oratorio Tangram (XBLA)

Starting to mess around with raiden as a sub, largely because prediction lasers are a specialty I have with cypher and raiden is obviously the god of lasers. I'm terrible but it's fun. There's some silly restrictions they put on him that just make you need to jump through some hoops: ground dash cancel has a freeze(so you just do instant jump cancel), sliding crouch attacks are pointless.. jump lock-on works differently but it just makes prediction lasering easier(rotation during jump cancel is the easiest way to aim lasers) Once I get better I need to check out how you do laser attack cancels on pad and try to get it into muscle memory. Cypher still feels like one of the most versatile VRs to me because of having great attacks of all types apart from explosives, and crazy mobility which obviously means more options when you have the execution to exploit it (apart from tanking hits lol)

God, I want to learn Cypher in VOOT. I can't hit anything with it, and although it's fast, the complete lack of health it has is distressing. In VOOM, I can hit stuff with Viper II, so having fuck-all health isn't an issue if the other guy dies first [and due to VOOM's lack of movement options, I tend to get hit less there unless I majorly screw up [happens more frequently than the wording of that would imply ]]

I love the crap out of Grys-vok in VOOT, somewhat agile and relatively beefy. Lay down the law and tank a little bit.

also, if you can hit someone with the crouching+start nuke [ahaha], it feels amazing and you will laugh like a demon for a good 5 minutes

[Zaarock]

Yeah grys-vok is crazy, case in point.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPtOEPZhDuY A great aph B vs grys-vok replay where the grys-vok uses point blank nukes to counter melee comes to mind too but cant bother look it up :p I need more experience fighting grys actually. There's a great US player that's been online recently though.

Reminds me of how Viper II's vulcan is really powerful. Cyphers is mostly useful for pressure and cancelling the landing freeze but at high level with good rotation you can shoot small streams for some hits when no other attacks would catch the opponent. I think I like it's role as a chip damage tool in VOOT than it being the main weapon (like temjins RW). the lasers are great though.

[Ghegs]

I read through Jordan Mechner's "Making of Karateka" and it's follow-up "Making of Prince of Persia" earlier this week, and it occurred to me that I've never actually played through the original Prince of Persia. So I went and I did. Great game. Aside from the excellent gameplay it has just the right amount of story to a videogame and most importantly the delivery happens mostly within the game itself, not through text or cut scenes. Something game developers of today have sadly forgotten.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Aside from the excellent gameplay it has just the right amount of story to a videogame and most importantly the delivery happens mostly within the game itself, not through text or cut scenes.

Ico does it with aplomb, only to make me wonder why SotC keeps blabbering on with movie trailer voice instead of doing the same.

[Ed Oscuro]

Malice has good music but it is a crappy game - total conversion actually - overall.

At the game start I was digging the "story" bits (the game revolves around the main character, Damage, being repeatedly suckered into doing jobs without getting paid, because Bossman is a fucking cyborg hedgehog without spines but he does have a floating pipe and tons of very nasty looking robot apes hanging around). I also liked how expansive the training course was. "Meh...yeh...bleh...hrm!" A few mapping bugs near the start of the first map worried me a little, but on the whole it was promising-looking. And then...the maps themselves range from "has a few cool ideas, looks kinda shit in most places, maybe a few cool set pieces" to "when you think about it, totally shit." I should stress, though, that the secret Hospital level is really cool, not just for the the surreal copy/paste/minimalist aesthetic look - a lot of "escape the room" type puzzles, leavened with some combat, and...OH SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT...sorry, leavened with some strange puzzles. One involves shooting rockets into a series of portals. Shame you have to be quick to glimpse the rocket moving through all the portals on its way to destroy a wall for you. Many secrets in this game don't register, and there have been some levels where I leave wondering "where did those extra 20 enemies go?" This is one of the very few games that has me totally stumped about some enemy and secret locations (but it also has bugs). Keep in mind, this is after spending 5 minutes or more flying around the level with noclip on to try to figure out what the fuck

All the weapons are new. Well, if you believe "in the future, people will still use Uzis, right?" and "here's the Unreal automag, except our hero holds it gangsta style ALL THE TIME" count as "new" along with the remaining stock of FPS cliches. Unfortunately, 99% of the time all you need to do is shoot enemies (including bosses) repeatedly with the infinite-ammo pistol (basically, a fast-shooting Q1 shotgun that needs to be manually reloaded), so there's little enough incentive to fuck around with the other weapons. Enemies usually are either stunned by the pistol, or can just be sniped at range while they run frantically back and forth, futilely trying to close distance with you.

Shitty new enemies. The omnipresent flame guys (two whole magazines of pistol ammo) are the reason there's fire extinguishers throughout most of the levels. I've been caught on fire two or three times despite seeing these big orange goobers dozens of times now. Another time I was damaged by a dying flamethrower guy being thrust forward into my face when I killed him. Totally useless enemy. I think the most enduring challenge comes mainly from the regular foot troops, which have a rappelling variant, and the "female mercs" (Tomb Raider clones; they even fire dual pistols at you with great speed, and teleport about). The rappelling enemies predate Half-Life by a year. One of the music tracks reminds me a little bit of the ending of the Half-Life expansion Opposing Force (again, a later game), while other tracks remind me of Doom?/Heretic? and another's intro cribs intro notes from the Goldeneye theme and then tries to spin them out into a song. Some of the tracks have quite nice points. The enemies use as an emblem a little golden or red (depending where it's seen) falcon thing seen on crates and walls looks straight out of Contra.

The game has some clever items. There's a useless probe which makes a satisfying breaking noise and leaves a corpse when you leave it. There's a minisub which you get just a handful of times (at least as far as I've gotten) which can satisfyingly splatter enemy frogmen with seeking torpedoes - and kill you with splash damage. The big fight I've had with it was against a big fish with tons of health which you were supposed to fight in a goldfish bowl-sized arena (er).

The best thing about the mod is a third item - the hoverboard! You can't use it to ride over lava (you still take damage and die in fire) but you can use it to run across water (although turning and keeping up speed is problematic if you don't jump) and take huge falls without blinking. Jump to bounce a good ways, then jump again while in the air to shoot across the sky! All the fun of noclip, and more, without any of the guilt. Unfortunately the level designers don't seem to have understood what this acrobatic freedom enables players to do, so there's a fair amount of puzzles that are rendered trivial with applied bouncing physics, and maps don't seem engineered to make good use of it at all. I have fun bouncing across huge collapsing bridges you aren't supposed to get across so I can examine the (quite empty) room at the other side, and bouncing on top of buildings. The other main draw of the game is trying to find places where you can fall long enough to trigger the hero's falling yell. OH SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT

Rated 5 out of 10 - "beat it, asswipe"

[Ruldra]

I read through Jordan Mechner's "Making of Karateka" and it's follow-up "Making of Prince of Persia" earlier this week, and it occurred to me that I've never actually played through the original Prince of Persia. So I went and I did. Great game. Aside from the excellent gameplay it has just the right amount of story to a videogame and most importantly the delivery happens mostly within the game itself, not through text or cut scenes. Something game developers of today have sadly forgotten.

Give the SNES version a try, it's even better than the original.

[Ghegs]

Maybe I should, I've heard good things about it. But the original is so perfect in stage design and pacing it's hard to imagine a version that remixes and adds new stages to be superior.

I've also had Prince of Persia Classic just waiting in my 360 for a year or two, went and beat that as well. Though the added acrobatic-ness (walljumping makes for smooth and sweet speedrunning) of the prince is cool, the combat system was overhauled into something horrible so the original is still the better one in my eyes.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

If you're into Prince of Persia, Nosferatu for the SNES is worth a look. The graphics are amazing, it plays very much like Prince of Persia, and it's actually got some interesting combat mixed into it.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Another World, on the other hand... While there is nothing technically wrong with freeware (yup) GBA port and 10th Anniversary Edition (no more up for jump, yay), I found some of the puzzles quite impenetrable (beatable in one sitting with a guide, just... you know). Again, Ico did that kind of puzzles not just easier, but substantially better in my book.
Flashback has aged better, but it's more text-driven, thus not as "pure" at what it does.

[KAI]

Played Gundam Extreme VS on PS3 last night, loved it. Now I've finally played all the games from the Gundam VS, Rengou VS Z.A.F.T. II Plus is still on the top on my list.

[sjewkestheloon]

I went crazy and picked up Metal Gear Rising: Revengence, the MGS HD Collection and then when I realised that I remembered very little about the first game's story I purchased that on the PSN.

I have fond memories of playing the first game about 12 years ago, and I delighted in the the absurd turns of the plot and the odd melodrama as much as I appreciated the methodical gameplay. I decided to pick them all up and work towards playing 4 because they are almost completely different to anything else I have played in recent memory and I need to spend a little time away from my usual RPG and rhythm action diet.

It also gives me a slow paced series to play between runs of what seems to be, so far anyway, another Platinum masterpiece. The story is actually entertaining this time, and the action is great fun. I like the parry mechanic, and the swordplay is deep enough to keep it interesting. I haven't played around with any of the other weapons or items much yet, but I can see myself getting to know them well over the years. I am at the R03 boss and if the game keeps the quality level this high all the way through I think it will only be second to Bayonetta in the Platinum game stakes.

[guigui]

Dark Souls, Dark Souls, Dark Souls. More than 100 hours in it (over 18 months) and still not fed up.

Also, GF offered me Deadly Premonitions Director's Cut PS3, many thanks. Anyone played it and can tell me if I'll be scared ? I'm the kind of fearing guy

[iconoclast]

Also, GF offered me Deadly Premonitions Director's Cut PS3, many thanks. Anyone played it and can tell me if I'll be scared ? I'm the kind of fearing guy

You might be scared by how incredibly bad the game is, but that's about it. It's worth playing for the story & characters though, especially if you're a fan of Twin Peaks.

[dcharlieJP]

Passing Time (vita) strangely interesting, but making me pine for a new SWOS on the go. Back to PSP/UAE for an on-the-go fix i guess.
Ys Foliage Ocean in Celceta (vita) first few hours - slightly clunky in parts, but great so far.
SMTIV (3DS) slight fib as it's only just made it out the wrapper this morning
Bioshock Infinite (x360) extremely heavy work of this.... started off good but now i just want to get it out of the way so i can move on to Dragons Dogma:DD.