What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

[gs68]

3D Galaxy Force II (3DS).

As a lefty I approve of Circle Pad Pro compatibility. Plus, using one pad for movement and the other for throttle is great.

(I miss the 360-rotating cabinet, I never took much interest in it as a child when arcades actually existed in 'murrika.)

[null1024]

Playing the original Shenmue on the Dreamcast.
One of my alltime favorite games. I make it a point to fire it up during this time of year since it brings back so many fond memories of gaming and Christmas time for me.

Heh, I guess I should start playing it. I've been meaning to for a while, even loaded it up and saved the first possible moment that I could so I didn't have to wait through the intro when I was ready to actually play.

[BrianC]

On another note, does anyone have anything to say about the 3DS version of Sonic Lost World? Just played the demo -- it's slow, but pretty fun, but that's only the first stage and a half. Is it at least the kind of Sonic Rush like "flawed level design but enjoyable" sort of game?

Don't quote me on this since I only played the demo, but impressions I read of the game do make it sound like it's the "flawed level design, but enjoyable" sort of game. I'm on the fence of both the Wii U and 3DS ones since I heard mixed impressions of both. I'll probably wait for them to go down in price like I did with the Wii Colors, though I ended up liking that one quite a bit.

I have picked up some of the SEGA 3D classics recently as well. I mostly played Space Harrier (mainly because I got it first), but I like the others quite a bit so far too. Because of the interview, I gave the motion controls in Super Hang On a try. While I had to adjust the settings so the game image didn't move with the controls, they do work extremely well. I was impressed with Sonic and Galaxy Force II. Amazing how they got the framerate at 60 FPS in 3D for Galaxy Force and how good Sonic looks in 3D.

[manatworks]

Tactics Orge :LUCT (psp)
uhhh, they seems to like to make Ninja class too powerful aren't they? , apart from that it's nice sRPG . I really like the game's atmosphere with tons of content to dig around.

[Acid King]

Shin Contra

Finally made it to the final boss rush in the search for the 1cc. I've got the first flying guy down, as well as the space frog, but cosmic jelly fish keeps knocking off a life or two. I've yet to make it to the alien heart jizz machine with enough lives left to take it out. I'll do decent damage to the core but keep slapped down by the floating spermies when they decide to attack.

[soprano1]

Tactics Orge :LUCT (psp)
uhhh, they seems to like to make Ninja class too powerful aren't they? , apart from that it's nice sRPG . I really like the game's atmosphere with tons of content to dig around.

Wait till you get more archers...

[mosey]

NDS Clubhouse Games: real cheap and quite fun, and has one-cart multiplayer!

[gs68]

Clubhouse Games is how I learned to play bridge (lol old people games) and hanafuda/koi-koi.

[BIL]

Shin Contra

Finally made it to the final boss rush in the search for the 1cc. I've got the first flying guy down, as well as the space frog, but cosmic jelly fish keeps knocking off a life or two. I've yet to make it to the alien heart jizz machine with enough lives left to take it out. I'll do decent damage to the core but keep slapped down by the floating spermies when they decide to attack.

Jellyfish is probably the game's most random boss (actually one of its only random ones), I love it. I find it best to proactively shoot down a few pods with the charged flamethrower, to carve out a safe niche for jumping over its horizontal charge. Standing dead center with the flamethrower on stationary aiming is a good idea for warding off the jizz onslaught while damaging the core.

Great game, I always miss my PS2 when it's brought up.

[null1024]

KOF13 Steam Edition [PC].

Fuck the PS3 version. This is where it's at.
That is to say, netcode that actually works.


if SNK really loved us though, there'd be 2002UM Steam Edition

[professor ganson]

Pokemon Conquest - Such a shame that they didn't have difficulty options. I'm going to have to stop playing after only a few hours because it has become way too easy. There really were some creative things going on.

[Formless God]

Ys I&II are four american dollars on Steam fuck

[Sir Ilpalazzo]

Ys 2's boss fights alone are worth that much.

[gs68]

Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate (3DS). Green sharpness or bust.

[broken harbour]

Finally wrapped Lost in Shadow today. Wow, much longer than I expected, almost 20 hours, the game get's better in the final 3rd or so, it becomes a little less tedious. The control still totally blows however. Final boss fight was surprisingly easy, but still fun.

Started Katamari Damacy for the PS2, 3rd level in... so far so good. I love the cheesy music and weird dialogue, what a great little gem so far.

[Obiwanshinobi]

The control still totally blows however.

How did you like the original Flashback (or Prince of Persia)?

[replayme]

So as some of you may know, I bought Homefront for my 360 recently. I've been putting some more hours into the single player campaign (and assume I'll be completing it in another 2 - if reports are to be believed).

It's actually pretty good. Sure, the animation is a bit ropey, and the AI is quite bad, but for what it's worth (about £2.50 s/h), I can think of worse ways to spend your money. The campaign is pretty good, and although it doesn't have enough of those Michael Bay moments to satisfy CoD fans, still manages to evoke a sense of contemplation when the story makes you consider the consequences for your (scrpited) actions. The game certainly has soul, and has a really human component full of tender moments. I'm glad I picked it up for the price of a coffee.

On a side note, check out this article on Polygon. It's a bit old, but it gives you a sense of how painful the gestation period was for Homefront before it came to market. Makes you want to buy a copy on the basis of the article alone...

http://www.polygon.com/2012/11/1/356031 ... tudios-thq

Edit: completed the campaign. Not too sure what everyone was complaining about regarding its length. It's not that short, and certainly doesn't outstay its welcome. I'd given the game a solid 8 out of ten, and am looking forward to a possible sequel from Crytek.

[broken harbour]

The control still totally blows however.

How did you like the original Flashback (or Prince of Persia)?

Its been many years since I played wither of those. I just didn't like how certain context-dependent button presses required you to wait until an animation was finished. For instance, when you approach a switch, you have to wait for the walking animation to stop completely before you press Z to flip the switch. It sounds minor but after 20 hours it gets annoying. Also the 3D control for when you're in the light world is pretty slippery and has some odd quirks, the exact area you need to be in to push a box for instance, is ridiculously precise, but the control is anything but precise, then you still have that stupid 'wait for the animation to stop' nonsense on top of that, in addition to a time limit in the light world.

Stuff like that bugs me, and if the dev's had done a better job with that stuff specifically, it'd been an easy 8.5/10 for me. But with it's weird control scheme, I'd have to knock it down to a 7/10. Worthwhile game, but flawed ultimately.

[null1024]

Xenogears [PS1].
Mechs! An RPG with mechs! Surprisingly super-robot style designs in there, too.

Pretty fun, so far. Not too far in yet, right now I'm looking for the sand sensors underground. One of them was easy, the other, the robot says that it's at the end of the bridge -- crossed it, nothing. Unless it's really, really far back [then I'll be pissed]...

The best/worst thing is how the environments are fully 3D rendered -- makes it harder to visually recognize where you are, but it sure as hell looks a lot better than prerendered BGs, especially if you are running in an emulator at high resolution. Although, I do wish there was a way to emulate PS1 framebuffer effects well and quickly [without just going to straight software rendering, which seems to have much less overhead in framebuffer effect heavy games], things end up getting a little choppy on occasion [especially that really really really cool heat warping screen effect early on, which didn't slow down the first time I saw it, but did the second time I did].

[Obiwanshinobi]

I just didn't like how certain context-dependent button presses required you to wait until an animation was finished. For instance, when you approach a switch, you have to wait for the walking animation to stop completely before you press Z to flip the switch. It sounds minor but after 20 hours it gets annoying. Also the 3D control for when you're in the light world is pretty slippery and has some odd quirks, the exact area you need to be in to push a box for instance, is ridiculously precise, but the control is anything but precise, then you still have that stupid 'wait for the animation to stop' nonsense on top of that, in addition to a time limit in the light world.

I don't have a problem with these quirks, but I don't like the moments when you can't do a thing but wait. Say, waiting for an elevator. Very unlike the original PoP, where you raced against the clock all the time.
Still a good game to pick up now and then when I have an hour or two to spare and am neither in a mood for more violent games, nor am I in a particulary good shape.

[rapoon]

gotta new 3ds sitting next to me and two shiny new games but haven't played.
too addicted to war thunder



one day they'll add the J2M Raiden

[replayme]

Metal Gear Revengeance on PS3. Maybe I'm bad at the game, but I keep dying on the second level on Normal. Also really love the trademark MGS cut-scenes.

Anyway, the game has been in my collection since late September, and I only just got round to playing it yesterday after completing Homefront. It's pretty good. I wish the camera was handled better, as well as the controls, but it's a manic slice n dicer that really does make Raiden look impressive when he unleashes the full fury of his blade.

Edit: I know I'm bad at the game. So I am going to see if I can drop the difficulty to Easy. Not concerned at all about 1CC-ing it or whatever. Just want to complete the campaign and move on.

[Bloodreign]

Lots and lots of Darkstalkers now that I have that PS2 release from 8 years ago that has the entire series in it(plus I opened all it's secret versions of Vampire Savior within 24 hours of owning it).

[Wyrmnus]

Lately been playing the Closed Beta for Aura Kingdom. This has got to be one of the BEST Localizations Ive seen compared to alot of other Korean/Chinese made MMOs.

[MOSQUITO FIGHTER]

I'm getting back into Street Fighter X Tekken. Really like it. Don't know why I stopped playing it. Getting to play Poison and Hugo is super cool. I like the speed of this one much better than IV. Now if I can just get my gems set up correctly.

[null1024]

Ys Seven [PSP].

Well, shit. My PSP's screen seems to have a short somewhere out of nowhere -- it fades to black in a way that reminds me of a Gameboy screen when you power it off. It comes back when you put the system to sleep and bring it up, but it's very easy to touch the spot [right beneath the d-pad] that triggers the short.

So, I'm using PPSSPP right now. Other than framebuffer effects not working [all you see is the screen dim slightly and occasionally go black for a frame], it runs fine. Maybe a bit of input lag that seems to be present on Xinput controllers on this machine too, and I'm not sure if that's why Project Diva seems to be made of problems on it or if that's just PPSSPP's timing being off in some way...

Oh, and I beat the Moon Dragon. Much better early fight, but I practically ran out of health items before killing him [what is a 50HP increase going to do for me ]. Near the end, it gets awfully tricky to dodge while hitting the face.

[louisg]

I've been commuting on the bus a lot and missed the 3DS sale. Soooo.. I've been playing a lot of Match of the Millennium on NGPC along the way. And just ordered Metal Slug 2nd Mission, too!

[Vexorg]

I spent a fair bit of time playing Puzzle & Dragons on my tablet up until it got broken (yeah, needing a $140 repair job on a $200 tablet I bought less than two months ago sucks.) Sure it's a Freemium game, but it's a lot more fair about things than a lot of the Freemium games out there, and is quite playable without having to spend money. Aside from that, I haven't been gaming much (I spent the two weeks before Christmas traveling and mostly offline, and even though I had my 3DS with me I ended up just never using it during that time.)

[hecheff]

FTL: Faster Than Light has me hooked right now.

Clocked in 13 hours within the first 24 hours of buying it during the Steam sale.
Among all the deaths of having my crew burning to death or my ship swarmed by drones at the 'endgame' in that time period, I think I'm developing a sadism I have not felt since self-nuking my cities in SimCity 2000.

[Wyrmnus]

Welp. Finished the Closed beta content for Aura Kingdom =(. Considering trying to get set up with the English patched PSO2.