What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

[Marc]

Metal Slug XX. How the fuck did one of the best run and guns of all time end up and ugly, cheap, push scrolling mess?

[null1024]

Hatsune Miku Project Diva Extend [PSP].

Didn't expect to enjoy it, but I am. The music ranges from dear lord, why does this exist to reasonably decent.
I'm a bit more forgiving of how the Vocaloids sound because getting one to sound actually realistic requires way more work than reasonable.
Although, some of them are "no effort, just throw some lyrics and a melody on, don't even attempt intonation or anything".
And even barring that, you could just go the "full robot voice" thing, which is easier and would sound pretty cool.

It's a rather solid rhythm game. I am currently experiencing the feeling of suddenly getting overwhelmed in the middle of a song with the Extreme charts.

[Obiwanshinobi]

About the Ghost Squad Wii port, does continuing reset your score in this game? My highest score so far is for the time when I contiuned. By the way, it's the first home version of a coin-op game I play since Guardian Force where counting down can't be sped up.
I have yet to play it with headphones (the cab has probably got a 2.1 soundsystem), but as demo plays in background I ought to appreciate the sound of gunfire. Games with my favourite gun sounds so far would be the PC versions of Rainbow Six 3 and Soldier of Fortune II, with hardware sound acceleration (and in case of the former - software stereo surround sound enhancement, since I like my FPP games played with headphones). Wii may not have what it takes to match those, but still - pretty decent job.

Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure, then. Looks like a spiritual successor to half-Wind Waker, half-Ōkami, with a hint of Gregory Horror Show. At the beginning there's a lot of talking and precious little interaction, but something about it feels very fresh. To begin with, Zack keeps running rather than walking (not even double-clicking is necessary). There's a tangible Sucht about him. His candy bar hogging whenever he's left inactive reminds me of chain smokers longing for a smoke. Overall the game seems more lively than PC point & click adventures of recent times; also, doesn't rely too much on weedy puns.
Not all interaction is as elegant as that of FFCCh: The Crystal Bearers (very different adventure, though). This game won't let me forget I'm holding a Wiimote, but the presentation more than makes up for it. As usual, it's not Nintendo that makes best looking games for their platforms. Capcom, however, did not compromise the graphics at the slightest. I can only hope they will make some of their polygonal 2D fighters look this good one of these days. Practically what I wanted from Tatsunoko vs Capcom, graphics-wise (sadly, I doubt TvsC had this kind of budget).

[Daigohji]

I've spent most of the evening playing the much-anticipated PS3 exclusive, The Last of Us. It makes an incredible first impression, with an emotionally draining prologue, tense gameplay, and quality script and acting. And I don't mean 'good for a game' acting, I mean genuinely good.

Unfortunately, it then made a terrible second impression when I fell victim to the bug mentioned in this article, which resulted in me losing all saved progress (about 2 1/2 hours). It has (apparently) been fixed now. If so, that's an impressively quick response to the fault, but it still left a bad taste.

http://uk.ign.com/articles/2013/06/14/s ... last-of-us

Update: Sony released the following comment to IGN. In short, the problem was actually on Naughty Dog's servers, and it should now be fixed.

Some players may have been encountering an issue with The Last of Us which affected the autosave feature, which can result in a loss of progress in the single-player campaign. The team at Naughty Dog has been diligently investigating as soon as we heard from our community, and we have determined the cause to be on servers for The Last of Us which were capturing player statistics. We have made a change to ours to address this issue. All players should quit any game in progress out to the XMB and restart The Last of Us. All players can now enjoy single-player and online multiplayer matches as normal.

We will continue to monitor forums and social media, and investigate any other issues that may present themselves.

The original story is below.

I awoke this morning to a deluge of Tweets from IGN readers who picked up the eagerly-anticipated PlayStation 3 exclusive The Last of Us overnight. Many of them have run into serious auto-saving issues in the game, in which the game never actually auto-saves. All progress can be lost if you don’t manually save your game. (Update: I'm being told that you can't manually save once the auto-save glitch starts. Not sure if this is true for everyone.)

The problem apparently has something to do with its day one patch – patch 1.01 – as well as its connection to the PlayStation Network. While none of this has been confirmed yet, it appears that staying offline while playing does the trick. For some people, staying offline with the patch installed solves the problem. Others stayed offline and deleted the patch to get auto-save to work.

Naturally, this isn’t a problem those who played the game on a debug console encountered, as patch 1.01 – the likely culprit – was not available before the game was released to the public. We’ve reached out to Sony to see what the issue is, and when we can expect Naughty Dog to deliver a fix.

[Ed Oscuro]

More good news for "it's in the cloud," huh?

[Leandro]

I'm playing Quake... It's always fun to make the monsters fighting each other and watch the mayhem. Fiends vs Zombies is so fun, it goes on for a long time until the Fiend eventually succumbs

[Obiwanshinobi]

Some players may have been encountering an issue with The Last of Us which affected the autosave feature, which can result in a loss of progress in the single-player campaign.

How odd - Jak X - technically very polished game otherwise, as expected of Naughty Dog - has glitchy autosaving that may even damage a memory card. Also a pretty developed game engine, late in the console's lifecycle.
The workaround is playing without memory card in a slot, only inserting it to save manually.
New console games market collapse might be as different from the one of early nineteen-eighties as WWII was different from WWI.

[null1024]

Ridge Racer 2 [PSP].

Trying to hit 3:20:xx on Downtown Rave City and completely failing at it. After that, I went and did a few runs on my favorite Ridge Racer track, the Intermediate stage from Ridge Racer Revolution to relax.

Hatsune Miku Project Diva Extend [PSP].

Cleared every song on Normal, started doing it on hard. Not even going to bother getting all Extreme clears, shit's fucking hard for some songs. I've been able to clear only 3 songs in Extreme, and they were easier than some of the Hard charts.

...and then I spent a good 2 hours trying to install unofficial DLC stuff before realizing that it should go in the GAME folder, not SAVEDATA...
Why I spent so much time doing that, I don't know. But I did, and it's installed now, so hey.

uninteresting fact of the day: every polygon in the game is completely unlit, all lighting is prebaked

[Obiwanshinobi]

uninteresting fact of the day: every polygon in the game is completely unlit, all lighting is prebaked

Sounds like PSX. Possibly a thing of nostalgia.

[TransatlanticFoe]

Myself I'm trying out GunGriffon for the Saturn. So far I'm really digging the fast-paced action, even if the graphics are a little primitive.

Is MechWarrior 2 on the Saturn any good?

Check out the Gundam Side Story games if you haven't already. GunGriffon 2 also seems nicely playable in spite of everything being in Japanese if you fancy more of the same.

MW2 is one on my list, doesn't look too far removed from the PC version but in an old review I have, they've supposedly put in power ups and the like - so it's probably much faster paced.

[Ed Oscuro]

I played through a bit more of Resident Evil 4 on PS2. Holy cow, I am dying repeatedly...I'm at 3-3 or something (i.e. to the clock tower, having passed the goatsnakeduck wall) and have racked up 12 deaths O_o

I'm not dying to some things that would have killed me before, and vice versa. Misjudging parasite abilities or just not moving far enough back caused me to lose my head to kneeling or stunned suits of armor in the Ring of Death three times, but I've only been scratched once by the second of the two Garradors (blind fighters), which both have gone down to four quick shotgun blasts. No deaths to the rolling stones in the early game. Died a few times between both El Gigantes, mostly due to difficulty judging where the second one was in relation to the boulders above (bad to drop them behind him or on yourself). A few deaths to the miserable insects in the sewers, but I eventually pulled together a nice playthrough taking just one hit. Still I can't help the feeling that I am just blundering my way through. In some cases the game's slow controls and some setups have caused me grief (i.e., aiming directly at a close enemy only to go back to the relaxed phase after a skippable mini-cutscene) but mostly I should be paying closer attention. The first time you meet the nasty dogs I destroyed them with ease (using a rifle) but in the garden maze they managed to get on top of me a few times.

Being forewarned about coming weapons has allowed me to be better with weapon upgrades and holding off on useless ones - I replaced the old shotgun with the Riot Gun but I have held off on upgrading its capacity (it's still at 7) in anticipation of the Striker.

A curious thing I discovered - the first time you go through the area with the Broken Butterfly kept in a kind of chapel that you can only unlock by boosting Ashley through a window, there's also a bunch of ravens. Some are in a fountain and can be swatted with a flash grenade as usual. However, most of these birds are in the open stone windows of a covered staircase. Shooting them or throwing a grenade doesn't give the same effect as in the GameCube version; they merely fall through to the ground far below, and don't leave any items for you. That sucks. It's probably not much money - maybe 3000 pesetas - but it's the principle of the thing, you know.

I am really wishing I had a 480p display for this.

I'm playing Quake... It's always fun to make the monsters fighting each other and watch the mayhem. Fiends vs Zombies is so fun, it goes on for a long time until the Fiend eventually succumbs

I set one of these up recently, couldn't wait for it to end. It becomes more fun to try to launch an attack that gibs them both at once. It would be interesting to try that with a quad damage and not an explosive weapon...I know the super shotgun can dispatch a zombie (with the quad damage) but not sure if you could do enough damage to gib both at once.

[null1024]

Still playing Project Diva Extend [PSP]. Cleared every song on Hard [there are 5 that I used a helper on, where the first 10 sad/safe become fine, which was useful on songs where most runs were just shy of hitting enough to clear]. Going to attempt all Extreme, although there is that one song that is braindead [it wants you to mash superfast], with 9 red stars.
I've cleared 4 extreme charts so far.

I played through a bit more of Resident Evil 4 on PS2. Holy cow, I am dying repeatedly...I'm at 3-3 or something (i.e. to the clock tower, having passed the goatsnakeduck wall) and have racked up 12 deaths O_o

Is there a reason to play this on PS2 over GC? I haven't actually gotten around to getting RE4 yet [yes, I am overdue like hell].

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Is there a reason to play this on PS2 over GC? I haven't actually gotten around to getting RE4 yet [yes, I am overdue like hell].

PS2 added a few more things in terms of gameplay (namely the scenario where Ada is playable), but it's graphically weaker than the GC. PS2 version's cutscenes are all pre-recorded videos (so your character costumes won't show) whereas the GC's cutscenes are rendered real-time via the game engine, but you get more gameplay-wise to make up for it on the PS2 version. They've both got advantages and disadvantages, so just weigh which matter more to you.

[Ed Oscuro]

Finally played a few minutes of Contra SS. Fun game. With the weapon system it feels kind of bare-bones though, no chasing after powerup icons - but the variety really helps shake things up. Finally worked out a strategy to kill that multi-part boss without leaving any parts...still have to be careful I don't take a couple deaths. Now to figure out the snow worm thing.

PS2 has: 30fps (stable), a new mission for another character which reveals more of the story, proper 16:9 widescreen as opposed to GameCube's letterboxed 4:3, two new (lame) outfits, and a new weapon.

I haven't been noticing graphical problems with this version. There have been a few places where things seem a wee bit less than in comparison with the original, and there are a few places where textures seem kind of ugly and there's plenty of N64 Castlevania-style creepy texture mirroring. I don't recall if the GC has a lot of that, and I also don't recall if the seam between mipmap levels (which can be seen quite often in the PS2 version when approaching a door or any kind of vertical wall in front of you) was seen on the GC. Even on the GC, I believe Leon always used the regular pistol (even if you had sold it), although his new outfits do show up. Not really a big deal for me.

The gameplay seems a faithful recreation of the original.

Some chapter one breakdowns:
Chapter 4-1: 7 deaths (ouch, that took me to 19!)
4-2: 0 deaths
4-3: 0 deaths
4-4: 3 deaths, all to the exact same attack from the boss, which I wasn't paying attention to. Once I got that out of the way it was smooth sailing again.

Took a death or two to the dual Garradors, although I did restart a couple times to get a tidy playthrough.

Currently I'm back with just Leon at the Island, having just seen the "throne room" cutscene. Beretman coming up, just who I wanted to see. Not! Eat boiling lava you toiletful of poop.

[cj iwakura]

I assume you're talking about RE4 in the latter half of that. IMO, there is no PS2 version, just a rush-job until they released the Wii version. I never played it, but it looked pretty dire to me.

[Ed Oscuro]

I never played it

It's a fine version, really. (And yes, I have played it.) The difference is less than you can achieve choosing different detail levels in many PC games, and basically unnoticeable.

I'd like to try the Wii version some time, yeah. It will be nice to finally play the game without having a vortex of noise running near me, and with HDMI output. But it's fine for what it's running on.

Contra SS thought:

"How do we stop players from breezing through the levels, shooting things as soon as they appear?"
"Make your only distance weapon a peashooter which fires in only one direction!"

Great, it's difficult, but it doesn't really feel like Contra anymore. I'm not enjoying the checkpoint system either - it's not particularly enjoyable to slog through the same minibosses repeatedly because you made a handful of mistakes or because you don't have a good strategy for the boss yet.

There are some good ideas in here but that is limiting my enjoyment. PS2 load times only compound it.

[null1024]

More gameplay means the PS2 version is probably the way to go. I'll pick that up eventually then, cheers!

[Ed Oscuro]

If you have a Wii, that really does sound like the way to go, though.

Edit: I'd forgotten that the GC version has some "lighting and water transparency effects" that the PS2 lacks. But really, more gameplay. MORE GAMEPLAY!

Wii version has no drawbacks in this area - it also has the 16:9 mode.

I'm not sure what the Wii's new controls are like, but apparently some people like them for allowing faster aiming.

[null1024]

Oh wait, there's a Wii version, and it's got the extra stuff the PS2 one does? I'm doing that then, cheers.

[Ed Oscuro]

Wii version has all the good stuff, and some extra flexibility with control options (you can do some waggle stuff, but I don't think it's ever required except perhaps in the case of some quicktime events). I might go ahead and get a Wii just for that version.

[TransatlanticFoe]

You can even plug in a GameCube controller if you're so inclined. B trigger to aim rather than fire is a bit disappointing but barely noticeable once you get into it.

In terms of motion controls, the only thing that doesn't have a button combo mapped is the quick knife attack, which is weaker than a regular knife attack anyway. Otherwise the only time you have to waggle is during some QTEs.

[Ed Oscuro]

Thanks for those confirmations.

In terms of motion controls, the only thing that doesn't have a button combo mapped is the quick knife attack, which is weaker than a regular knife attack anyway.

I don't recall ever seeing a quick knife attack in the GC or PS2 versions, anyway; it must be new to the Wii version.

[BulletMagnet]

Currently messing around in two titles that lie a bit outside my usual comfort zone:

Etrian Odyssey IV: I've chatted about it a bit in other topics, but despite still not being very far in (no Game Overs yet, but that innkeeper must be utterly sick of me at this point), I'm surprised that I've stuck with it, since "pure-ish, hard-for-the-sake-of-hard" dungeon crawlers have never appealed to me much. I couldn't say how many concessions this one makes compared to earlier series entries, but so far I'm being coaxed along nicely, figuring stuff out a bit at a time and eager to keep going. Still a bit worried that once the game clamps down on me I'll have backed myself into a corner by not planning properly, but so far so good, at least.

Brutal Legend: I'm not much of a heavy metal fan and thus figured I wouldn't be able to get into this, but I picked it up cheap and tried it out on a lark. Part of me is surprised at how, in a way, it's as similar to Psychonauts (which I enjoyed) as it is: the latter drew up a neat world to mess around in with some rough gameplay edges, and this one goes even farther in both directions, as the art direction/characters/etc. are even more eye-catching and engaging, but the interface has additional frustrating parts. So far I've been able to more or less just plow through everything, including the pseudo-RTS parts (the "Facemelter" solves most problems), and kind of hope I'll still be able to farther in, since directing units is a pain...either way I never thought I'd be so eager to visit Ozzy Osbourne and hear what quip he has to describe the new item in the shop.

[Obiwanshinobi]

IMO, there is no PS2 version, just a rush-job until they released the Wii version. I never played it, but it looked pretty dire to me.

Having played the PS2 port first, I must say the Wii version (with a 'Cube joypad) plays about the same. Both versions are worth having for The Mercenaries.
Although Wiimote controls work a treat, I'm afraid Wii version has a bit more input delay than the PS2 port. Or it just tells me to press A before it's ready to detect input (I don't recall ever pressing X to soon in the PS2 version). I have no means to measure it objectively, so don't quote me on that.
Quick knife attack isn't really quicker than normal knife attack, but in The Mercenaries it's useful for barrels and boxes breaking.
Wiimote is the real treat here. Makes the game easier, but I've scored five stars only with one character on one map so far, thus it can be still quite a challenge.
Last but not least, I would tell the game to fuck off whenever it told me to waggle the stick (even in Viewtiful Joe, if it wasn't just for one boss there). Luckily waggling the Wiimote is less of a chore. Wii version is an improvement in this regard as well.

[Ed Oscuro]

I noticed that El Gigante will GNP you if you press a button before the prompt comes up, or at the moment it does perhaps, and it turns out to be the wrong input (i.e. pressing X when the correct input is square). The reasonable way to try to do a lag comparison would be to try and notice the feel of aiming with each, because it provides constant feedback to judge lag on, rather than just one event, and you don't have to be at a boss to test it out.

Glad to hear you're enjoying Brutal Legend, BM! Have to get that sometime.

Coming to grips with PS2 Contra a bit more, although that damn first stage boss's green vomit attack is deceptive. Not sure if you have to jump over the puke from the top rail, or whether you can get away with crawling on the floor.

[BIL]

Coming to grips with PS2 Contra a bit more, although that damn first stage boss's green vomit attack is deceptive. Not sure if you have to jump over the puke from the top rail, or whether you can get away with crawling on the floor.

Enjoy it while it lasts, Ed! Getting happy memories here. :[ Shin Contra's controls and weapons give it more of a learning curve than the earlier games, but once you get stuck in the overly patterned stage/boss design becomes apparent pretty quickly. Not a lot of enduringly challenging stuff in that game, outside of two or three nastily unpredictable boss attacks that'll become the bane of an S-Rank attempt. Game has character, though. I don't think I'll ever be able to watch Slave Beast Taka squash Super Mr. Heli enough times. It's The Hard Corps +1 in these regards.

It can be a pretty compelling game to play for speed and/or style, post-clear, since once survival is secured you can show off a fair bit. In particular, you can really demolish bosses with the charged flamethrower once you're comfortable with the controls and patterns.

Didn't PS2 RE4 also limit the number of onscreen enemies? I remember avoiding it for that reason. Compared to the GC version, the only differences I remember standing out on the Wii (playing with a GC controller) were a lack of slowdown when Mercs got overly crowded, and door load times being a tad quicker, though neither was very noticeable on GC to begin with.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Aiming with analogue sticks doesn't sound like a great lag indicator to me (to begin with, deadzones would have to be equal). On top of that, Wiimote aim (as stated before) doesn't seem to wait for 3D model to move. Again - God Hand it is not.
The way Digital Foundry of Eurogamer measures lag involves a 60 fps camera and some device flashing a light when button is pressed. Not the kind of gear I have here.

Didn't PS2 RE4 also limit the number of onscreen enemies? I remember avoiding it for that reason. Compared to the GC version, the only differences I remember standing out on the Wii (playing with a GC controller) were a lack of slowdown when Mercs got overly crowded, and door load times being a tad quicker, though neither was very noticeable on GC to begin with.

Can't say Wii Edition FEELS any more crowded than PS2 port of my memories (although there's a bit less slowdown in the former). Not in The Mercenaries anyway. I read two people claim to score higher on GC than PS2. One gave GameCube pad (apparently better fitting his small hands; nothing about analogue sticks' qualities) credit for it, the other one indeed found the 'Cube version more crowded in places.
I say the gameplay is well ported, the graphics look good enough (for a game originally designed exclusively for a different platform), the sound is worse (reasonable compromise I believe).
I might add that those who found Wii Edition less playable with Wiimote than gamepad were doing it all wrong. Makes me wonder yet again who in the very Nintendo has any idea how it should be done.

[Ed Oscuro]

It can be a pretty compelling game to play for speed and/or style, post-clear, since once survival is secured you can show off a fair bit. In particular, you can really demolish bosses with the charged flamethrower once you're comfortable with the controls and patterns.

Yeah, I wish it was more obvious which weapons were useful for what - but as far as I can tell it's just a matter of the flamethrower having some ability to crush or bypass certain enemies' resistance to the other attacks, i.e. shield guys go up in a puff of smoke the moment flames hit them. Speaking of shield carriers,

Didn't PS2 RE4 also limit the number of onscreen enemies? I remember avoiding it for that reason.

The first time you see shield enemies, in the long corridor with pools (at the end of the long hallway you'll need to boost Ashley to turn cranks while you protect her from below), there didn't seem to be any fewer enemies than normal. A bit later on, enemies still come across the bridge in the same numbers as before. And the village fight and house siege seem as crowded as before.

[Daigohji]

Thankfully, the autosave problem in The Last of Us has been fixed and I've just finished the game. Clocking at 14 hours it's a pretty big game that feels neither rushed nor stretched. I could mention that the combat feels more visceral than Uncharted or how detailed and expansive the environments are, but what really matters in this game are the characters.

Some stories are emotional rollercoasters; this is an emotional meat-grinder. It takes our cozy First World notions of what makes someone a good guy or a bad guy and spits blood on them. Like The Road or The Walking Dead, this is a world where people have suffered so long, lost so much, and done such terrible things to survive that they've closed themselves off. Through the course of the game we watch two people slowly allow those defences to come down an inch at a time and care about someone again. Some of the key moments are presented in cutscenes, but the real meat of this development takes place during all the little exchanges between Joel and Ellie during gameplay. To me, this begins to fulfil the promise of interactive drama more effectively than David Cage's (Fahrenheit, Heavy Rain) often ham-fisted attempts.

All of this culminates in an ending that places the needs of the characters before those of the plot. It's a bold approach in a medium where we're used to a 'save the world' plot dragging the protagonist around by the nose.

Definite Game of the Year contender. Hell, this is a Game of the Decade contender.

[BIL]

Yeah, I wish it was more obvious which weapons were useful for what - but as far as I can tell it's just a matter of the flamethrower having some ability to crush or bypass certain enemies' resistance to the other attacks, i.e. shield guys go up in a puff of smoke the moment flames hit them.

Outside of a few very situational examples ("holy crap, multiple tiny targets everywhar!" "good job you brought those homing missiles!") that's about it, unfortunately. If you need something dead with max efficiency it's flamethrower/charged flamethrower 95% of the time. The former is generally the fastest damage dealer when you're near a target (this happens a lot, with all the safespotting), it cancels certain bullets with an ideal whiplike motion, and it kills shield troops dead. The latter plows through anything in its way while dealing heavy damage, making it the obvious choice when you've got a multi-part boss to demolish.

For example, the Contra Spirits airborne troop transport fought in Mission 3's elevator: at first it's safest to shoot down the grenades it spews with the MG, then shoot its weak point eye with the charged FT while it's dropping soldiers. Slow but effective. Once you get cocky enough, though, it'll seem preferable to use charged FT to blast right through the grenades and kill the bugger in no time flat. Same goes for the waterskiing mech at the start of Mission 4. Safer to chip down with MG, but if you dodge / burn its homing missiles while pounding the charged shots, you can cleave it apart in a single pass.

The MG is a good choice for the all-too rare free running areas. I love this game overall, but I've always disliked its lack of focus on that. I think it's actually about even with Spirits and Hard Corps for base time spent running to the right killing popcorn, but they have way more interesting level designs and enemies.

The good thing is that the flamethrower still takes a lot of nerve and skill to use aggressively, so it's not the worst sort of weapon to prove dominant. If it was some Thunder Force V Free Range autowankoff device, I'd have a problem.

edit: LOL, I can't believe this is still on imageshack. <333 XTREEM KONTORAA. Cruelly hilarious boss deaths galore, and when popcorn snipers want to get the lay of the land they just stand on a fuel drum on top of a jeep!