What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

[Moniker]

Bioshock Infinite (PC)

A little late to the party, and still early on, but had to make note of when Elizabeth opens the portal to Paris, Revenge of the Jedi is billed at the cinema. Awesome.

[Ed Oscuro]

The previews mentioned that. Still haven't gotten or played the game, and probably won't have it for a while.

I've played Resident Evil 4 on Pro again (Madness!) and a few things - mid-game was very easy right up to the Salazar fight, which caused me problems for some reason. I think that despite having half the damage potential that the semi-auto rifle helps keep the tentacles at bay - I had a couple deaths due to the main chompers not being notable while in scope and the lack of a dodge for that doesn't help either. Accuracy is key here. I decided to end Salazar with the Broken Butterfly, which meant I only needed to stun him once.

I think I'm up to about 13 deaths now - 7 through castle (some were for really silly stuff; the first one was deciding to see if I could stop the first ramming truck - on the entry approach to the castle - with a pistol), 8 mostly due to Krauser. It's been a while since I failed any cutscene QTEs but I lose one to Krauser here, horrors. No deaths to the laser defense grid. Krauser was a bit of a pain in his stage, especially when he decided to show up on my second tries through areas (watch for the blob shadow around corners!), but his actual boss fight wasn't too bad (although I died at least once and restarted manually a few times), especially with the Broken Butterfly / Knife combination at hand.

I'm not sure what's going on but certain enemies seem far more resilient against weapons than they did last time around. Aside from Salazar, "It" was shrugging off close-range blasts from the fully upgraded Striker, which I don't think I even had by that point in the game. TMP worked great though.

A lot to work on still. I got a couple 5-star ratings with Krauser in The Mercenaries in hopes of unlocking the Handcannon - unfortunately (and ironically) Krauser is the only character I have great success with in the game. Not exactly sure what the hell HUNK is supposed to do against shield enemies in the castle stage, other than maybe spam handgrenades. I did this all before on the GameCube but it was probably just brute force replaying the levels repeatedly.

[spadgy]

Pikmin 3. Yep, I'm using my Wii U.

It's a bloody wonderful game. Strangely, I'm reminded of Amiga game Cannon Fodder, in that loosing a Pikmin feels horrendous; makes me want to start over every time.

And I love the way it gives you a RTS-style game re-skinned as a cute, accessible tale of alien invasion.

[MOSQUITO FIGHTER]

Mario Kart 7. It's can be fun, but it still has all the same problems as before. Rubber band AI and blue shells. I think the kart customization is a good addition. I does make good use of the 3D effect. Most of the courses are are very good. Maka Wuhu and Neo Bowser City are really awful though.

You gotta love getting bopped with a blue shell right before the finish line and losing. This game feels more like trying your luck with a slot machine than a racing game sometimes. Are the blue shell gods in my favor today?.... Probably not. You see all kinds of ridiculous stuff online because of the messed up item distribution. I remember one time while playing online I was braked waiting right before the item boxes with two other players trying to get a quality item. I've noticed that the other players online will often just pass item boxes sometimes also. I guess it's so the person behind them gets stuck with a worse item. It's fun, but if you try to play it seriously the flaws with the game really start to come out. Still, it's better than most of the games that I've played recently. I do think the older games in the series are better and they could have put more effort into the game.

I guess what I'm saying is that, I want to see a Mario Kart game that doesn't punish you for being good at it. I guess the first one is the only one that actually does that though.

[stryc9]

Almost had the 1CC of Splatter House 3 last night, but I have never fought the mask before and lost my last couple of lives to him.

Great game, more depth than you think initially like the purpose of the short throw.

[Obiwanshinobi]

After many years (more than I'd like to admit) I gave Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic another chance and unfortunately the impression wasn't much better than the first time around. It may be a more developed game than HoM&M3 or Disciples II, but without those games' pleasant presentation and user-friendly interface, I have a hard time getting into it. I also expected a European developer to come up with somewhat less... Forgotten Realms settings.
As I type this, it dawns on me that I'd rather be revisiting Etherlords II about now. (Still undone with the original Lost Kingdoms, but mechanically those games are so different from each other it shouldn't be a problem.)

[CMoon]

Well since Amazon seems to be in no hurry to ship my pre-order of SMT4, I've gone down the rabbit hole that is Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate on the 3DS. Feel bad I never got into this series before, but I feel like capcom has gone to a lot of work to make sure it never comes out on a console I own.

[broken harbour]

Lately I've been playing a few PS1 classics from my long box collection...

Warhawk - This game blew my 13 year old mind when it was new, but doesn't really hold up today. The FMV sections are unintentionally funny, and the final level doesn't mesh well with the controls. Soundtrack is absolutely fantastic however.

Tekken - I kind of suck at the original Tekken, but it is fun, I really like the silly announcer voice and the arrange BGM is soooooo good. Character design is great, especially Jack. The difficulty gets a little obnoxious in single player, even on easy.

Jumping Flash - It's got some archaic controls, it's easy, and can be completed in less than an hour, but there's just something so likeable about this game. It's very whimsical and fairly ahead of it's time. The corridor shooting sections are weak, but the rest of the game is just a fun romp, I don't know of any other game like it. I should pick up the sequel at some point, I've never tried it.

[XoPachi]

A fuck ton of first person shooters.
Turok 1
Tribes Ascend
Modern Warfare 3
Half Life 2
Drunken Robot Pornography
Blacklight Retribution
And Serious Sam 3

[BareKnuckleRoo]

A fuck ton of first person shooters.
Turok 1

You ever play Turok: Rage Wars for the N64? Wasn't as good as Perfect Dark was, but it has a much faster-paced, Quake sort of feel to it.

And you could run around clawing people as a raptor or nibbling on people as a swarm of mites. Awesome.

[Ed Oscuro]

Rage Wars felt super bare-bones, if I'm thinking of the right game. That reminds me that I still want to play that last Turok game on the N64 sometime. Very cheesy production values but felt more like a proper quest than the previous games. Turok 2 looked great but its maze levels quickly became unbearably annoying.

Some GB titles via KiGB:
Alone In The Dark - The New Nightmare
Batman - Return of the Joker
some other crap

Alone In The Dark is one I wanted to mess with for a long while. It didn't really disappoint given my expectations, but that's not to say it's good. You get a nice variety of differently themed areas and you get really poor shooting combat in a top-down minimap area. The Big Bad is a terrible joke here, but I had to reload a number of times due to taking too much damage or using too much ammo in the regular creature features. The backgrounds seem OK for what it's running on; you can kind of make out details that must be truly exciting in the full version. Unfortunately there's some silly backtracking with no obvious reason - early in the game you are forced to leave a central area to fetch an item, and then come right back - but there's no obvious reason you couldn't have done the task right away. Sound is somewhere between interesting and really atrocious. I was kind of glancing at a walkthrough for a few points but aside from one or two parts I didn't need much out of it. I never did find the crossbow, and while I wanted to try backtracking to get it once I realized I'd missed it, the ways back seem sealed off. The game's easily completed just switching between the revolver and shotgun, and in fact I didn't realize how to switch weapons until the game was basically over. Given how weird and cut-down this game likely is compared to the full version, I don't think it was a bad idea to try playing it. However I will try to find some time to go back and play the games in the right order.

Batman: Return of the Joker on Game Boy has some really tricky platforming. I kept trying to activate the grapple by jumping and then hitting up - for a while I didn't realize that Bats just throws the grapple every time you press Up. That makes things more bearable but this is still difficult. Beat the first boss on my first attempt by repeatedly juggling him with the grapple punch. I feel that the challenge between enemy combat and the platforming is off here - but I suppose that's OK if you wanted a game that was a challenging platformer that also happened to have some enemies.

[null1024]

Virtual On [PS2].
Did really well in arcade mode, and then suddenly forgot how to fight facing fucking Bal-bas-bow. Siiiigh. Took long enough during that fight, so I'd probably have fought Jag and died if I continued. Siiiiiiiiiiigh.
And crank that baby up to 60fps. 57.9? No sirrree!


Going to the arcade tomorrow. My buddy pummeled my ass as Fei-Yen last time we went. I play Viper II [and dabble with Temjin, but he's booooring and I'm also not nearly as good with him]. What do?


The Saturn version has somewhat different timings and weapon properties compared to the arcade and PS2 versions, and I really wish I had a working Saturn so I could play it again.
...once I get some money...
I really shouldn't hold off so long, it's only ~$50 for a US one. It'd be a bit more if I wanted to get a sexy white JP Saturn, mostly because international shipping, bleh.

[Mero]

Losing repeatedly to the final boss in Phantasy Star 4, looks like I'll need to do some levelling up (again). Currently level 61.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Outrun 2006. Just beat the 15 Stage Continuous OR 2 route in the built-in port of OR2SP. The default difficulty setting for the port in the options is Very Easy for some reason (which gives you absurd amounts of extra time) and it took me a while to realize that (normally Outrun games give you just enough time to beat them so long as you don't have a serious crash). Changing it to Normal difficulty made it much more satisfying - even with no major crashes you'll run out of time on the 15 stage courses if your stage times aren't good (going offroad a lot, etc). Barely had 2 seconds left entering the last stage, had a great run with one or two minor speed reducing bumps against traffic, ended Cape Town with 6 secs remaining.

The satisfaction was somewhat spoiled by discovering my newly bought (refurbished) graphics card decided to go completely apeshit during the ending. No issues during gameplay, but the character models suddenly started growing jagged spikes in the ending.

[BIL]

Scary. That's some John Carpenter's The Thing shit.

[Ruldra]

Losing repeatedly to the final boss in Phantasy Star 4, looks like I'll need to do some levelling up (again). Currently level 61.

Did you get the MEGID spell? It's not really required to beat the final boss but it could help you out.

[ED-057]

Losing repeatedly to the final boss in Phantasy Star 4, looks like I'll need to do some levelling up (again). Currently level 61.

Did you get the MEGID spell? It's not really required to beat the final boss but it could help you out.

Should be a breeze at level 50, let alone 61. On your first turn use barrier and deban (or warla if you took Kyra). IIRC the third form has an ability to cancel all of your stat-boosting effects so you'll want to use barrier again to reduce damage from megid if that happens. Equip Rika with the silvr-tusk since it has a "holy" attribute that doubles damage against the boss. Use shift on Chaz and have him do crosscut for over 500 damage. Have Rune attack with efess or legeon, and wren with positron bolt or flare. Have Rika use nasar as needed and Wren use recover on himself.

[null1024]

And so, I did lose like a motherfucker at Virtual On [Arcade]. Got one first-to-three match won, and got trounced 6 to 8 other times.
I was using Raiden when I won, happily tanked Fei-Yen's bullshit, and I got a lucky start-of-round laser in once or twice.

Oh, and I played some Chaos Code [Arcade]. Damn fun, it feels right. CvS style rolls too! Beautiful game. Might be the only [public] cab in the US, over at Arcade Odyssey.
I enjoyed fighting as Cait & Sith the most, but their low health did make winning against people a bit difficult. First time playing today, hopefully the cab will still be there when I go back, it's lots of fun.
I dunno what the AI difficulty is set to, I reached what seemed to be the last boss without much effort.

[broken harbour]

I decided to fire up the original Panzer Dragoon for Saturn today.

My god is Episode 1's music the most beautiful score ever created. I could listen to it for days.

Damn is this game challenging, downright tough. Great visual design, the game really needs an HD re-release.

[null1024]

I decided to fire up the original Panzer Dragoon for Saturn today.

My god is Episode 1's music the most beautiful score ever created. I could listen to it for days.

Damn is this game challenging, downright tough. Great visual design, the game really needs an HD re-release.

Yeah. The rest of the soundtrack is brilliant too, but the first stage BGM really stands out. I'd adore an HD re-release.
If this was the Saturn's pack-in game [instead of Virtua Fighter with a draw distance that's shorter than the width of the stage], I think more people would have bought the machine, it's really impressive for a Saturn launch title. Hell, it looks better than a large percentage of the Saturn's 3D library.

[Davey]

The Saturn version has somewhat different timings and weapon properties compared to the arcade and PS2 versions, and I really wish I had a working Saturn so I could play it again.

Yeah, I never got into the original Virtual On, but from what I understand there were some significant changes in the Saturn port. Probably fine for most people, but not suitable for practicing high-level play. Although I remember hearing that the game wasn't very balanced anyway since Temjin was way overpowered.

[Obiwanshinobi]

If this was the Saturn's pack-in game [instead of Virtua Fighter with a draw distance that's shorter than the width of the stage], I think more people would have bought the machine, it's really impressive for a Saturn launch title.

Word is on the internet Virtua Fighter was the real system seller in Japan. Like, a killer app. Something must have sold Saturn better than any other Sega console over there.

[Mero]

Losing repeatedly to the final boss in Phantasy Star 4, looks like I'll need to do some levelling up (again). Currently level 61.

Did you get the MEGID spell? It's not really required to beat the final boss but it could help you out.

Should be a breeze at level 50, let alone 61. On your first turn use barrier and deban (or warla if you took Kyra). IIRC the third form has an ability to cancel all of your stat-boosting effects so you'll want to use barrier again to reduce damage from megid if that happens. Equip Rika with the silvr-tusk since it has a "holy" attribute that doubles damage against the boss. Use shift on Chaz and have him do crosscut for over 500 damage. Have Rune attack with efess or legeon, and wren with positron bolt or flare. Have Rika use nasar as needed and Wren use recover on himself.

Right, I've done it now. Maybe I was just unlucky before but on my previous attempts against him he'd just keep spamming Megid almost every turn, meaning that when Rika's TP ran out it was game over. This time I took Raja with me to make sure, since he's the only other one who knows Gisar and Nasar. Apart from one character getting knocked out it was plain sailing and the boss hardly used Megid at all (and yes I did have megid myself, though I didn't use it).

[ACSeraph]

Been playing the current gen Splatterhouse tonight. I'm really enjoying it despite its flaws, it certainly feels like what a modern take on the series should. Only particularly frustrating thing is the occasional platforming and game-over-if-you-miss QTE. Everyone hates bad platforming and QTE yet it still makes the cut in so many games. What's up with that?

[KAI]

Ridge Racer Revolution, love the game, hate the slowdowns, now I understand why they included the 3rd person view, the rear-view mirror is too much for the PSX processor.
Also playing Ridge Racer Turbo. I'm practicing and practicing but I can't get close to Ghegs

[null1024]

Ridge Racer Revolution, love the game, hate the slowdowns, now I understand why they included the 3rd person view, the rear-view mirror is too much for the PSX processor.

Also playing Ridge Racer Turbo. I'm practicing and practicing but I can't get close to Ghegs

Slowdown is pretty rare in my experience in RRR, unless you manage to get 4 or 5 cars on screen. I've had more slowdown in RRT, especially in the first tunnel of the course.

also, I semi-gave up on RRT because of Ghegs
At least until I get myself a neGcon, doing some of the corners optimally with digital steering is not going to happen.

[Ghegs]

also, I semi-gave up on RRT because of Ghegs

[Ed Oscuro]

A couple days ago at this point, but I pulled myself back to Onimusha 2 for a bit and had some fun with it, even while grinding. I can pull off the regular standing Issen sometimes (although my in-a-row record is just 3) and I played a couple sessions - once to finish upgrading the weapons, another to make progress in the game. I didn't mind revisiting the castle locations from the first game, but it does make the game feel a lot smaller than it probably should. Some of the new stuff is fantastic and some is ho-hum. I like the airship, which is far too short, but don't really care for the various maze areas throughout the game (caves, the place with the eerie painting, and another labyrinth later on). The old stuff sometimes has the feeling of eclipsing the new content, which is a bit of a shame. I don't think I will jump to play the other characters' playthroughs right away, if ever; there's plenty of other things for me to tackle.

I also spent a bit of time with some GB/Color games via KiGB.
Blade - I wanted to revisit this one after starting a playthrough some years ago. Japanese developed game (HAL Corp.! and some other studio whose name I don't recall) with enemies that look straight out of River City Ransom, in Halloween costumes. Blade himself has a lot of motions and there are three "types" of gameplay: Shooting gallery, "kung fu," and sword boss battles. You also have to juggle attribute improvement to improve your damage in the various game types and your resiliency. This is done via a shop menu, which doesn't make much sense in this game as the only person allied to Blade Snipes in the game is Kris Kristofferson. There's a final category, "stamina," which I almost completely ignored until I had maxed the other categories. It might increase your health; not sure. Armor seems a safer bet.

The game's primary flaw is that, despite the variety and the nice two-button and directional context combo system for the "kung fu" action sequences which make up the meat of the game, the game is usually exceedingly dull. Mashing the block button repeatedly during the main level gameplay (via kung fu) will always block an enemy and then do a counterattack. There are some neat combos which require a smidgen more of finesse to pull off than I can reliably summon - like doing two punches and then throwing the enemy, which does more damage than just straight combos and can mean the difference between doing doing one or two combos - but the enemies don't put up much challenge. Occasionally the game sends in enemies from the other side of the screen to surround you, in which case you can either do a spinning kick or just dash through one enemy to put both on the same side of you.

The shooting gallery sequences are a bit too clumsy to control even if the concept is sound. One button shoots into the background, and the other shoots to your sides. Weapons get flung at you from either place, needing to be shot down, and you also can double-tap left or right to quickly spin over to confront a menace to the side (but aiming at bats is still too slow since they approach diagonally above). These segments are quite difficult without high armor and ammunition, and I savestate abused my way through these. I don't mind the idea of having to deal with multiple threats at once, but the slow cursor movement added to a bit of ambiguity about where the background shooting cursor is (it gets sent back to the middle of the screen if you shoot to your sides, which can be confusing, and makes it impossible to quickly attack an enemy, switch to another target, and immediately start attacking the original enemy in the background plane) makes it very slow to deal with these.

The boss fights are a kind of take on the kung fu system, but with less variety. I couldn't find much in the way of combos, just a two-button jam that makes Blade jump into the air and then execute a forward dash (rarely, he seems to just execute the dash; I'm not sure what causes that), which can be useful but often leaves Blade wide open to reprisals. A tedious and dangerous way to play, and if you put a lot of points into the sword skill, it's still tedious but fights often end before you expect.

Overall an interesting game with some good ideas and nice looks, but the execution is flat and bland.

Another game which is markedly worse - Spawn by Konami. Developed in part by Konami of America people, with some input (possibly music) by Japanese developers. Really haphazard level design with platforms jutting out of the sides of buildings for no apparent reason, and poorly marked ledge endings. The look of the game is apparently intended to be a kind of low-res naturalism. Characters have their features well-defined - pixels outline all the spikes on Spawn's arm guards or the strings on a hooker's top - and characters are also given proportions that are intended to be realistic to scale. Coupled with some decidedly below-mediocre background texture work, and it looks rather similar to an old PC game in many respects. Boss enemy encounters are also preceded by a series of comments (I can't say it's always a discussion) voiced by Spawn and the enemies. Pretty well done really, even if at least one of the voices was done by an artist or programmer (Dave Matthews, who I am pretty sure is not the famous singer). The problem with this game has already been hinted at - bad platforming gameplay. You get a really uninspired set of enemies pacing back and forth along their spot of turf, who have one attack, and you have Spawn who is barely more flexible - he simply punches, ducks and kicks, or does a flying kick when you jump and kick. The jump kick seems great because it allows you to rapidly close with an enemy and usually knock them down with twice the damage of a punch, although the distance gained isn't really that amazing and some enemies will still quickly take revenge on you. Watch the pixels - great. There's also pistols and a gun. Doing a flying kick with one of these and continuing to hold the button when you land will loose off a shot, which will almost always be wasted.

Boss fights are silly. The first time I met a boss I thought "oh great, this clown guy is going to be my quirky confidant go-to-guy for the game, neat!" Nope, it's just a short guy who basically rolls about the stage. Laugh and grow fat version 0.1? Any time you hit most enemies, they fall or fly off somewhere else for a bit before returning, which makes fights very tedious - although some of the big ones will basically walk into a hail of bullets to their deaths. Again, very haphazardly designed.

There have been a couple things I've liked about the game. First is the cyborg guy's death animation. The second is the second stage where Spawn rides on a sport cycle, ramming fat bikers and other sport riders off their bikes. It's not perfect but it's as close as this game gets to entertaining. Don't really care for the surreal boss encounter with the dude who loves ice cream and screaming.

When I started the game, I checked out the options menu. It defaults to Easy, and I thought "this game looks bad already - I can deal with this," and you can basically run through most levels and tank hits, especially if you just pause to seek out bullet weapon icons (floating M or G icons, naturally). When I finished the fourth stage, the game awarded me with a message like this: "Ready to go to hell? Try out Normal mode." Gee, what a thoughtfully designed default setting, Konami, thanks for expecting me to run through your shit game twice. I really don't want to see what Spawn's idea of Hell is like, but I know I'll end up spending another hour or so to see it. Sheesh.

[system11]

Playing Yars Revenge on XBLA tonight, I've missed this one - it's unusual, nice pace. Could have been great.

I was on top form on COD tonight though, perhaps I should have kept playing for a nice ratio boost.

[MOSQUITO FIGHTER]

I was playing Black ops II while drunk and decided to buy the season pass like an idiot. The only map I'm impressed with is the Mob of The Dead zombies map which is pretty good. It's almost good enough to be a Left 4 Dead map. Disappointed mostly though. Seems like most of the multiplayer maps are rehashes.

In the spawn.