What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

[MOSQUITO FIGHTER]

I've been playing a ton of Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate. Thankfully the online is much better in ultimate compared to regular DOA5. This game is so fast paced. But once I get warmed up to it I can just zone out on it for hours.

[speedlolita]

Just completed Pokémon Y. Hoo-boy!

http://i.imgur.com/QzVRjbK.jpg

[KAI]

Arcana Fart 3
Any character + Electricity Arcana is broken

Hokuto no Ken: Shinpan no Sososei Kengo Retsuden [PS2]
Every character is broken but nobody cares, fucking love this game.

[BIL]

Gettin mah DORAKYURA on in search of a more perfect second loop



It's been / one hundred years / since IGOR-KUN made his move ♫

[MOSQUITO FIGHTER]

Went through Vice: Project Doom. Pretty good levels, graphics, and controls. It just takes too many hits to die. The bosses are pretty weak and overly predictable too. The driving and shooting gallery stages while being cool and breaking up the action nicely seem to be pretty pointless and easy. I think the amount of kickback after being hit is about perfect. Too many games overdo it on kickback. Don't know if I'll be playing this one again any time soon, but pretty enjoyable overall.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Yeah, Vice's bosses are really about learning the pattern. They're all completely predictable, and the game in general is on the easier side of things for a platformer, namely because you've got such a great moveset (long range whipsword, grenades, duck while running). It's a lot of fun, but it could have used a harder difficulty or something.

[MOSQUITO FIGHTER]

Yeah, Vice's bosses are really about learning the pattern. They're all completely predictable, and the game in general is on the easier side of things for a platformer, namely because you've got such a great moveset (long range whipsword, grenades, duck while running). It's a lot of fun, but it could have used a harder difficulty or something.

The controls are really good. It's really easy to rock the house with those controls. Running and attacking while ducking is extremely cool too. I just think it shouldn't have let the player get away with getting bonked around so much.

[BIL]

Vice/GUN-DEC's crouched running is certainly a great movement option... I wish I'd see it more often in other sidescrollers, it makes even great ones like The Super Shinobis' and Metal Slugs' crouch walking feel so lame by comparison. El Viento has something vaguely similar, but nowhere near as well done (hold down/forward and tap jump for short, chainable dashes you can attack from).

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I bought Vanquish a week ago or so but I haven't had the chance to play it. Just finished installing it.

HOLY FUCKING SHIT I CAN POWERSLIDE AND GO INTO SLOWDOWN AND IN THE FIRST LEVEL I SHOT A ROBOT AND TOOK OVER ITS GIANT ROBOT WALKER OMFG AND THE FUCKING DODGING IS SO GODDAMN INTENSE SHIT FUCK

this is the best fucking third person shooter I have ever played, my god

I am buying the DLC like, immediately even if it sucks, just to support them. How do the extra weapons show up? Are they randomly distributed?

[Hagane]

Pretty much my same reaction when I played it.

[Sir Ilpalazzo]

I am buying the DLC like, immediately even if it sucks, just to support them. How do the extra weapons show up? Are they randomly distributed?

They always appear together in new weapon containers (although I think every so often they might get randomly dropped individually, it's not very common though).

After you beat the game, I strongly recommend you play through challenge mode. It is one of the best parts of the game.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

How game breaking are they? I'm purposefully playing through the game on normal before buying them just in case they make things too easy.

[Softdrink 117]

How game breaking are they? I'm purposefully playing through the game on normal before buying them just in case they make things too easy.

They definitely don't break the game, although a couple of them (the AA Pistol in particular) can be quite powerful in certain situations. In my opinion, they're balanced enough that they feel like they should have been in the game from the beginning.

And yeah, Vanquish is completely awesome.

[iconoclast]

+1 for Vanquish being the best TPS ever. It's not without its flaws (simplistic scoring, checkpoints after every battle, and random weapon drops mainly), but the sublime mechanics, level design, and enemy variety more than make up for all of those minor issues. I've been meaning to play it again for ages now, but keep getting distracted with other stuff. Speaking of which...

I got Pokemon Y earlier today. The new 3D graphics are really nice, much better than the screenshots or even gameplay videos would have you believe. Makes the game feel a little more fresh than another 2D/overhead game would. Should be a fun game to relax with.

[Ed Oscuro]

That sounds really promising. I wonder if there's any chance of a "Gold" or "Complete" edition - seems a bit of a stretch since the original game is getting a bit older now.

[null1024]

Streets of Rage II [Genesis].
Ah, such a good game. I need to get a bit less sloppy around Stage 4 though, I was doing some shit and taking some hits that I really shouldn't have. And then I had to shut off before with four lives in stock so I could go to work. Blah.

And today, I found out that Jet is a piss-easy boss [just flying kick him in the face when he dashes across], I used to always lose a life to him due to that crazy grab of his. Actually, Axel's flying kick is simply excellent as a move.

I got Pokemon Y earlier today. The new 3D graphics are really nice, much better than the screenshots or even gameplay videos would have you believe. Makes the game feel a little more fresh than another 2D/overhead game would. Should be a fun game to relax with.

Man, I can't wait until it comes in off of Amazon. I considered downloading it, but the 3DS download system is braindead and tied to a system instead of an account.

[Ed Oscuro]

Oh heh I guess an update is in order

Voodoo Friends: Excellent puzzle-action game in the style of the old 'uns, with lots of worlds and puzzles to look at. It's in my top three browser games for sure. I found it a long while back but only got back into it very recently - very fun. The only disappointments I've got are a front-end bug, ambient noise cutting out after a while in the city stage (which looks and sounds great, with the faint church bells and wind in the background), and the apparent lack of varied graphics sets to match some of the level collections (which are collected into "books" with nicely-drawn covers and a name that suggest some kind of theme), which Angry Birds (for example) did fairly well (although still not as well as I would like).

Super Mario Sunshine: I didn't think I was really annoyed by "cutesy" stuff. I probably can still say that. What annoys me is the infantile and ridiculous plotting, annoying characters, annoying voices, a tendency to make you have to collect shit in order to actually get your platforming on, and the tendency of the game to have Mario do context-sensitive things when you don't want them, when you often can't judge Mario's precise location. The camera is unhelpful at times too. Definitely a much harder game than Super Mario 64, but sometimes for all the wrong reasons. It's not especially airtight, either; the second Shine Star in the harbor bay (the Caged Shine) apparently is meant to be reached by running the girder forest and jumping in the funnel-like cage from above, but riding a crane boom and using the hover nozzles allows you to latch onto the underside of the cage and flip up into the cage, for a very easy Shine completion. Also, don't get me started on that huge assortment of hidden panels in Noki Bay.

Music - a mixed lot here. Some of the remixes are great, some drive me up the wall when I pay attention to them (i.e. most of the harbor stage). 30 stars in, I am getting very sick of the stages and the hub level. I've only played it a fraction as long as many other players might have to get the same progress, on account of savestate abuse. Note to Dolphin users: Overwrite any savestates you might try to use immediately after saving anything in-game - like blue coins or shines.

Eternal Darkness: I'm literally only five minutes in - long enough to get control back. I like the lack of handholding - there was a tense moment at the start of the game where I had to figure out what to do (I got through it without getting tagged once). Now I've just gotten control back and I've found a key already. I noticed the game's interest in the time "3:33" immediately; maybe somebody at Silicon Knights was a David P. Gray (of the Hugo games) fan?

The writing in the first cutscene wasn't exactly believable - close but no cigar - and the models fare worse. I actually really like the style of things, but I can see how Silicon Knights might have had trouble adjusting to the current-gen level of visuals. But I think this will be a thoroughly enjoyable spooktacular.

[Zaarock]

How game breaking are they? I'm purposefully playing through the game on normal before buying them just in case they make things too easy.

They definitely don't break the game, although a couple of them (the AA Pistol in particular) can be quite powerful in certain situations. In my opinion, they're balanced enough that they feel like they should have been in the game from the beginning.

And yeah, Vanquish is completely awesome.

They definitely should've come with the game. My biggest gripe with the game is that without the DLC it's impossible to not run out of ammo if you avoid random weapon drops(which ruins scoring and speedrunning). The laser cannon in the DLC fixes this problem and is very technical to use. It promotes melee since overheating recharges your energy just as fast as recharging from 1% & you can use it to overheat on purpose when in forced slow-mo, among other things. Too bad it doesn't also have the HMG melee attack (jump button)

[trap15]

Pokemon X [3DS]
is about the only possible way to describe.

They basically fixed every complaint I had about the games before (the absurd amount of grinding essentially required to make more than one Pokemon decently strong, and the penalization for performing the "main goal" of catching Pokemon at all), raised the theming (so much French, I cannot take it, oui oui), all wrapped up in a package with great aesthetics. Good job Nintendo. Now if only you would constantly keep 60FPS, I would have literally 0 complaints thus far. Better than most of the previous games in that dept. though, at least it does hit 60FPS

[speedlolita]

I'm having a ton of fun with the vanity stuff right now..

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Too bad it doesn't also have the HMG melee attack (jump button)

Wait, what? You can use the HMG melee to actually dodge attacks? Does the flipkick actually give you that big of a window? :O I currently haven't touched my HMG, so I've gotten like 3 upgrades from picking it up at full ammo.

Is melee-only viable, or is it basically impossible to run up and punch some enemies? I'm just curious because what happens if you run out of ammo and you're in a situation where you can't melee something?

And today, I found out that Jet is a piss-easy boss [just flying kick him in the face when he dashes across], I used to always lose a life to him due to that crazy grab of his.

On higher difficulties he starts appearing with extra enemies. But you can actually prevent them from appearing by moving right just enough to trigger the boss fight, and then hiding at the left side of the screen (Jet can't attack from offscreen from what I remember, so if he moves past you just move up and down).

[null1024]

Pokemon X [3DS]
is about the only possible way to describe.

They basically fixed every complaint I had about the games before (the absurd amount of grinding essentially required to make more than one Pokemon decently strong, and the penalization for performing the "main goal" of catching Pokemon at all), raised the theming (so much French, I cannot take it, oui oui), all wrapped up in a package with great aesthetics. Good job Nintendo. Now if only you would constantly keep 60FPS, I would have literally 0 complaints thus far. Better than most of the previous games in that dept. though, at least it does hit 60FPS

Awwww yeah. So hype so hype so hype. It's been 10 years since I've last been this excited about a Pokemon game. I probably said that already, but I'm so damn hype. I saw a tiny bit of werster's Y stream playthrough [the absolute tiniest, I'd like to be surprised at what few possible surprises there are in a Pokemon game ], and the game's presentation is fantastic. Seeing that clip of him playing looked much nicer than any of the trailers suggested.

damnit Amazon, make the package get here faster

And today, I found out that Jet is a piss-easy boss [just flying kick him in the face when he dashes across], I used to always lose a life to him due to that crazy grab of his.

On higher difficulties he starts appearing with extra enemies. But you can actually prevent them from appearing by moving right just enough to trigger the boss fight, and then hiding at the left side of the screen (Jet can't attack from offscreen from what I remember, so if he moves past you just move up and down).

Huh. I'll keep that in mind. Been playing on defaults for now.

[Sir Ilpalazzo]

Wait, what? You can use the HMG melee to actually dodge attacks? Does the flipkick actually give you that big of a window? :O I currently haven't touched my HMG, so I've gotten like 3 upgrades from picking it up at full ammo.

Is melee-only viable, or is it basically impossible to run up and punch some enemies? I'm just curious because what happens if you run out of ammo and you're in a situation where you can't melee something?

The HMG melee isn't really a dodge, it's just a jump. It's not useful for evasion so much as it for temporarily giving you a great vantage point to use AR and shoot from.

You can probably melee like 80% of the enemies in the game (probably a little more than that, actually). But it's kind of hard to completely run out of ammo; the game is pretty generous in that regard.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Omg, that's awesome. I thought it was kinda weak, didn't even think to try slowdown during the jump, really helpful for pegging enemies behind barricades. That, and going into slowmo when jumping over a barricade and shooting are unbelievably awesome.

I just realized there is a sorta healthbar - the green lines on your suit change colour to yellow and red when you take damage. It seems you can't be killed without being first put into the emergency slowmode, unless you're hit by an attack that's an actual instant kill (the cover ignoring beams of sadness). Also, I think I realize why they made melee cause overheat. It's way too easy on some of the midsize enemies to boost behind them then go into an AS punch fury for silly damage, or run through mobs slide kicking 'em. The disc launcher is seriously really useful for melee as it tears up the larger enemies by stunlocking 'em repeatedly, and uses up a disc instead of causing overheat. The discs when launched aren't bad either, but they're rather unreliable.

I actually maxed out HMG already, but I wasn't too fond of how it's not much better... but knowing the melee is actually not just an attack but can be used as a jump -> shoot maneuver is sexy as all hell.

And you can go into slowmo off a slidekick, my god that's awesome.

[guigui]

One Finger Death Punch on XBLA has me completely hooked.

The game is a mix between rhythm game (tap in correct timing) and Kung-Fu game (break those ninjas coming at you).
One button to hit on your left, one button to hit on your right, (youuuuuu cannot move in this game) and that's it.

Gameplay is absolutely flawless : simple, fast, precise, very reactive, challenging.
Musics, SE and voiceovers are great.

Videos :
Gameplay trailer
Some random guy pretty good at survival mode, get to the end to see how fast it may go.

Random facts :
- Game is $1 on XBLA
- Game is $2 on PC, note that a free demo is available
- Every button press matters, button mashing will KILL YOU
- Protip : One Finger Death Punch is much more than a game where you beat up a bunch of dudes
- Thunderstorm rounds and speed rounds are my favorites, intense.
- I was once given the opportunity to beat Kung-Fu fighters with a ... broom and a fish
- Normal game has about 250 levels. It took me about 10 hours to beat the "Student" difficulty. I'm currently stuck on Master difficulty, lightsaber round !
- Game sucks because characters are just shadows poorly animated

[Formless God]

Fairy Bloom Freesia. Shit's dope. Shame for the lack of stage design, though.

[Ed Oscuro]

Hrgh, I went from "quite obviously my initial take on Eternal Darkness is all hindsight and not at all validated by what I'm seeing, which is awesome" back to "this really is just Resident Evil, isn't it?" to "this is repetitive and dumb gameplay." The writing is excellent in places (although Pious' relationship with his sponsor god is hilarious to watch), I like the ambiance (most of the time - it does get annoying when the same sound textures repeat in totally different levels). I don't really care for the story so far, and the gameplay is awkward, bland, and repetitive. So it's not really up to the standard of Resident Evil in the way that really counts, so far.

I don't see my impressions changing much when I get more spells, but it's possible. The combat does have some subtlety that's important - it does push you away from just mindless hit 'n' run tactics, although the mass battles against minor opponents are where my complaint mostly comes from. Some boss battles (i.e. the one at the end of the monastery chapter) ask you to strike carefully and at the right time, which is respectable. I'll see if this holds throughout the game or if it just keeps rewarding mindless hit 'n' run tactics for stuff. I really also need a crowd control measure; I am sure there will be one in the form of a spell sooner or later.

[Leandro]

I'm replaying some missions from No One Lives Forever, trying to attain the Super Spy rank in them. I love this game so much.

[tinotormed]

No hate here as I am playing a facebook game Avengers Alliance. NO OTHER facebook game can be as good as this. Btw, Playdom would have the first 5 spec ops heroes recruitable permanently soon.

[Neathyr]

Vanquish is indeed one hell of a game. In terms of pure mechanics, it is easily the most advanced TPS ever created. I'm still in awe when I watch videos from high-level players. It's the F-Zero GX/Ninja Gaiden II of the TPS genre when it comes to gameplay mechanics. Definitely one of the few exclusive PS360 games worth owning.

And on the subject of another TPSish game with Mikami involved... I've been playing a lot of Resident Evil 4 (Wii version) lately. I only played it for the first time in early 2009, and I still feel the need to play it every now and then, not unlike some old-school games. Basically my main "go-to" game: whenever I feel bored or sad with the current state of the industry, I just say to myself "time for some RE4" and all is well. In fact, it was pretty much the main reason for me to get a Wii later on the same year, since the Nunchuck + Wiimote combo brings a whole new world of difference compared to the tedious dual analog aiming. Once played with a proper aim device, it's almost impossible for me to go back.
The potential for self-imposed challenge is INSANE, with a significant room for improvement, and it gets really challenging when you force yourself to kill every single enemy with the Knife as your primary weapon (and the non-upgraded Handgun as the secondary option, when really necessary). Oh yes... the combat. It's just so much fun when you figure out a strategy to deal with a mob without shooting everything with a powerful weapon until they die while using the environment to your favor and not taking any damage during the process, especially in the Zealot Elevator on Pro mode. Such satisfaction is similar to the character action games where full mastery of controls is instantly rewarded after a difficult segment by the skin of one's teeth.
If only it had RE6's amazing combat engine, along with a "Survival" mode (a Mercenaries-like mode, only with no time limit and you're ranked by the number of enemies you killed), a more aggressive A.I. and less QTEs, it would have been the perfect game...

A strong contender for my favorite single-player game of all time.
Seriously considering getting a video capture card so I can finally start recording some specific playthroughs...

I'm replaying some missions from No One Lives Forever, trying to attain the Super Spy rank in them. I love this game so much.

Same here. 13 years later and it still has the best FPS campaign to my knowledge. Never attempted a high-level playthrough, but this post is making me reconsider that.
Man, Monolith was the secret best FPS developer, and I get a little sad everytime I remember the fact that Warner placed them on a corner to make MOBA/"social" games. It's a shame this subgenre died with TimeSplitters' demise.
And people wonder why there's so much hate for this current generation...