What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

[soprano1]

Welp, so much for Super Mario 3D Land. Finally found a copy of Bravely Default. So much win.

[Ed Oscuro]

Today is Present Time (in an alternate timeline) for The 3rd Birthday.

[shmuppyLove]

Today is Present Time (in an alternate timeline) for The 3rd Birthday.

Code: Select all

An array of different costumes will be available for Aya to choose from throughout the game, but only after they are unlocked by completing the game in various difficulty modes. Clothing in the game deteriorates due to battle damage, revealing Aya's skin to various degrees.

Damn I should have played this game when I still had a PSP. Oh well I guess there's PPSSPP

[replayme]

The Last of Us: played 20 hours so far, and am still not finished yet. It's not often that I play games for this long, but already I have made my money back (and then some).

[EmperorIng]

I beat Assault Suit Leynos 2 for the Saturn today.

My initial impressions is that it's not as good as Valken - the levels are too loose and the control is not as tight. But it was fun nonetheless. Building up an arsenal is enjoyable given the sheer amount of weapons you can play with, and the customizable layout adds a lot to the game's replayability.

Customization in general is this game's strong point. The number of ways to outfit your mech is impressive, even though I settled into a groove early on and rarely deviated from my loadout.

The game doesn't have the same sweeping scope as Valken, which is a shame. There's less of an epic drive and the characters aren't as memorable (not that I knew what they were saying, lol). They really needed that manga artist guy who did Valken's work. I love the character designs on that one.

It will be fun messing around with the other mechs (though the slow ones don't seem all that fun to play around with). And hey, the ending Japanime song is pretty catchy. Apparently the music is generated from the Saturn soundchip, which always fascinates me when I run across it (to see what the chip is capable of).

I think the price paid for it ($23) is respectable and worth what I got out of it. This has been on my list of Saturn titles I should eventually get. That list is getting smaller and smaller; I have most of the Saturn games I want (that are reasonably-priced). Only took me three-ish years!

[null1024]

I need to sell my copy of Leynos 2 -- that escort mission totally put me off of the game.

I bought Wolf Fang [PS1] off of PSN. Not sure how much I'm enjoying it -- you feel effing huge and it seems like you should have better jump control. The announcer sounds super fucking cool though, and the music [the arcade original music, not the terrible arrange tracks] are nice. MAXIMUM STUN GUN POWER!

Also, I wonder if it's an emulation glitch or what -- there are some enemies that just flash rainbow colors when passing you, like how things look in preliminary MAME drivers when palettes aren't implemented [and it thus uses the default one for everything]. Later in some stages, similar enemies pass by flashing normally. 'S confusing.


Oh, and my local arcade had Dancing Eyes [Arcade]. Shit's fucking weird. Qix-esque sort of game where you uncover things. Like a schoolgirl's skirt, or the barrel around a scantily clad catgirl.

[Ed Oscuro]

Ah, today was actually the date of Present Day in The 3rd Birthday. The final assault on the Babel goes down at something like 19:00 hours. If I get another look at the chronology I'll see if it's feasible for it to have accurately depicted the time - the sun does go down earlier on the East Coast, despite remaining in the same EST time zone. There are, of course, multiple "present days" within The 3rd Birthday; for the game's seven episodes, six of them correspond to timeline changes. For episode 4 (or so) Present Day was Feb. 15, and February 16 for episodes 5 and 6. Interesting choice of date.

After fumbling with the controls a little I played through Episode 0 again (AA ranking on Hard) and didn't go back to the sixth episode (which is the current one for me, appropriately), because I didn't want to struggle through hours of that fight on Deadly difficulty.

I also finished up Drakan: Order of the Flame, a rather short game...somebody went crazy with their terrain modeler here. I really want to smash the person who said "EVERY GAME NEEDS A TOWER OF TRIALS!11" in the face. The game goes nuts with setting up completely unobvious progression routes and environmental puzzles in the late game, too. For example, in the famed TOWER OF TRIBBLES one of the first switch rooms has four switches in a square pattern, and your next switch is clearly visible beyond an impassable gout of flame which ceases when you hit the fourth switch - for a while.. God help you if you autosave once you get beyond that flame - it's not enough just to run with absolute precision from switch to switch; it is mandatory to jump for a speed boost. Otherwise you will just barely get to the flame on your return trip and then WHOOM, instant gibs! Later rooms have you trying to dodge instant-death whirlwinds (which at least seem to reset to a small size if you quickload) and lightning (which cannot be avoided completely; you just hope it doesn't shock you repeatedly enough so that you die in a second), and dealing with "clever" no-approach or no-touch switch puzzles. Lots of suspicious things about this game, like the little air jog at the end of a forward side flip.

Combat...so bad. Lots of hitting enemies in the knees, lots of swinging repeatedly at armored enemies stuck on the other side of a lamppost or sleeping on the other side of a stone coffin lid. Many weapons (especially magic attacks) are apparently literally worthless. Lightning crystals never seem to do any damage, and the time wasted trying to get some use out of lightning attacks is better spent doing actual damage instead of clearing out your inventory. I spent the first part of the game hacking enemies apart with the default toothpick; later on I expanded my arsenal to include arrows (the game does a good job giving you adequate ammunition to take out troublesome enemies, particularly if you scout well, though you might want to consider carrying two weapons), and of course when you have the dragon all you need to do is rush an enemy, no matter how big, and hit it with a gout of secondary attack flames to kill and probably gib it instantly. Works even on the final boss, and I had good (?) times listening for cries of pain on the other side of walls or floors above me. Unfortunately, it's not a very good replacement for having a thoughtful design.

There is a lot of impressive technology on display here. There's some physics stuff going on (rolling boulders onto enemies unfortunately isn't seen much after the introductory level). Enemies might explode into gibs after the first strike with a lucky hit. It's also satisfying to strike a blow which amputates an attacker's arm or even their face (only happened to me once); you can just run away and watch the blood spurt out until they suddenly convulse and die. Unfortunately it seems pretty much completely random how things will turn out, because aiming with swords mostly consists of "can I swing low enough to hit this guy," with no real fine control, which would have been greatly helpful. Useful button combo attacks (like the lunge) weren't controllable for me, though they are supposed to be. I liked the El Gigante-like enemies (at least the concept) that are an upscaled version of a human-sized enemy type (just like El Gigante), which like to throw their small "masters" around at you, stomp them (done in one of the first appearances, which is reminiscent of the first appearance of El Gigante in a few ways), and which may crush you if they fall on you when dead. I didn't like their instant death-causing grab though. I also didn't like that strategy consists solely of circle-strafing them to death while hacking. I beat the final boss first by secondary-attack blasting its heads with fire (instant death for each), and then I tried to retreat from the boss' final form and fell off a ledge because the goddamn game designers are idiots. Second try, more of the same but with being more careful. Got blasted a few times by a stream of magic which kills you before your character knows it (no death animation in midair, unless you get gibbed instantly I guess). Next try, I finally got to zig-zag my way away from the final form, back down the approach bridge, and back to my dragon, where I waited for the boss to close within range so I could toast him through the wall. Yay!

So, to sum up: Open-world feel is nice at times but there is very little to do. Dragon is nice for removing tedium and controls quite well, though the stupid designers constantly expect you to put him into spaces too small to navigate properly (I CAN'T FLY HERE I CAN'T FLY HERE, oh and god help you if you get him stuck on a boulder in the first area he's in). Collision is just a problem in general. Regular on-foot combat execrable. Most weapons (particularly short ones and most magic types, with the exception of the incredibly plentiful magic arrows and fire crystals - some other types might be useful too but you won't need them) worthless. None of the dragon breath upgrades are useful (except for the long-range fireball breath altfire, which is useful in taking out green shock tower globes quickly - at the expense of not being able to fire anything else off for a while). Auto-aim causes arrows to head straight for an enemy's crotch, instead of allowing careful aim (strangely there's no crosshair when using the bow, either), so sometimes you just get lucky and destroy an enemy quickly, and other times you'll waste a bunch of arrows just getting on target. Inventory management is a pain. Level design super inconsistent - some areas look like straight out of a heightmap editor, nice islands later, weird caverns, blocky ruin hallways, occasionally some inspiring architecture, and then you have to deal with jumping on sickle-like platforms rotating at 60 miles per hour (seriously). Dumb-ass story and even worse cinematics with floaty people and other stupid garbage. On the other hand, old PC gamers will feel a bit of nostalgia on recognizing the heroine's voice as being the same as the Unreal Tournament announcer. She only shows marginally more emotion here, though, and the script is so wooden and bad that it would be hard to get much more out of it anyway. Music is best classified as a mind virus - not great stuff but nevertheless you find yourself thinking of snippets of it much longer than you'd like.

If you do want to try the game, my tips are simply this: Find the Drakan 10th Anniversary fan patch website, and follow its instructions (which amounts to installing the last official patch, and then the single 10th anniversary patch). Don't get hung up on keeping around a wide range of swords and maces (I wouldn't ever ditch an indestructible weapon, though; I went through the whole game and never dropped any), but do make use of things with secondary fire attacks, and think about keeping two bows and an extra suit of armor (though by the point you run into things that can shred armor with ease, you also probably have a weapon that can recharge your health off the enemies, so...). Never press the "use" key to pick up an item when you can just jump on it instead (this will actually help you escape a late-game trap quickly). If you want to go a long distance, up + left or right + jump. (The sneak + jump reverse jump is useless as far as I can tell.) Jumping while running makes you go faster, though it doesn't seem like it. Finally, never pass up an opportunity to "roast some evil scum," especially ones hiding just inside a doorway that your dragon can't fit through (but his flames respect no barriers). Overall, though, it's like an uninspired and clumsier version of Darkened Skye, Heavy Metal FAKK 2, or American McGee's Alice, bodged together with a dragon flight sim demo. Neat stuff but they really didn't work out most of the issues here. I hate to think of trying to find my way through the environments at 640x480 resolution - only 1920x1200 (or similar) really lets you see little details in the distance.

[EmperorIng]

I need to sell my copy of Leynos 2 -- that escort mission totally put me off of the game.

I bought Wolf Fang [PS1] off of PSN. Not sure how much I'm enjoying it -- you feel effing huge and it seems like you should have better jump control. The announcer sounds super fucking cool though, and the music [the arcade original music, not the terrible arrange tracks] are nice. MAXIMUM STUN GUN POWER!

The escort mission is definitely the hardest in the game (the first run, anyhow), and you more or less have to truck it far ahead to take out threats before they reach the tanker. Those jetpack enemies at the end are also a pain.

Going through the first two levels again, they definitely feel a bit sloppy (not altogether unlike Leynos/Target Earth's levels), where the emphasis is on combat as opposed to positioning and careful shield usage (ie such as the way you play in Valken). Not bad, per se, but it makes me wonder why they went with the Leynos style as opposed to the Valken style for the 32bit installment. Still enjoying it though.

Wolf Fang I can describe as "dumb fun," it's best to sort of play through the game as if you were in jr. high again booting up your sega genesis or SNES, jumping around and shooting everything. Mainly because I don't know how you can really approach the game tactically for the 1CC, because there are a lot of random enemy barrages, and it never feels like your melee attack does all that much damage.

I usually kept to the vulcan shot, and used the grenade launcher on the bosses, though the C weapon is pretty cool too. The laser is next to worthless, imo.

On music: While some of the arranged tracks are nice, they pale in comparison to the arcade tracks, definitely.

[spadgy]

Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze. Made it to world 6 after many bloody hours. Very similar to the wonderful Returns, gloriously tough, with a great deal more visual polish and a fair bit more of the spectacular bits (as seen in Returns) where the levels kind of unfold in these spectacular sequences. I adore it!

[Acid King]

Max Payne 3 - Being a huge fan of the first two games, I was pretty excited to finally get my hands on the third. While the gunplay is still excellent, and the addition of the cover mechanic is nice, I really hate the garish new approach to the cut scenes and story telling. The effects and constantly shifting camera don't really match the grimly low-key and sardonic voice over. Sao Paulo actually makes a pretty awesome setting for noir style storytelling, but visual style of the cut scenes is way, way too over the top. Also, the pseudo QTEs can get fucked and I'm really missing the accuracy of a mouse/keyboard combo. I'll have to pick up a copy of the PC version so I can play it proper when I get a new computer.

[Snake]

Still playing Nuclear Throne. I keep screwing up promising runs on the scrapyard boss.

Max Payne 3 - Being a huge fan of the first two games, I was pretty excited to finally get my hands on the third. While the gunplay is still excellent, and the addition of the cover mechanic is nice, I really hate the garish new approach to the cut scenes and story telling. The effects and constantly shifting camera don't really match the grimly low-key and sardonic voice over. Sao Paulo actually makes a pretty awesome setting for noir style storytelling, but visual style of the cut scenes is way, way too over the top. Also, the pseudo QTEs can get fucked and I'm really missing the accuracy of a mouse/keyboard combo. I'll have to pick up a copy of the PC version so I can play it proper when I get a new computer.

I enjoyed this game, but I think the industry needs to tone it down with the FPS' or third-person shooters in which you play a white guy who massacres level after level of vaguely-defined non-white enemies. Sao Paolo is a cool setting, now lets kill everybody who lives there. Payne even comments on this in the odd cutscene, but then its right back to exterminating the locals.

[Moniker]

I enjoyed this game, but I think the industry needs to tone it down with the FPS' or third-person shooters in which you play a white guy who massacres level after level of vaguely-defined non-white enemies. Sao Paolo is a cool setting, now lets kill everybody who lives there. Payne even comments on this in the odd cutscene, but then its right back to exterminating the locals.

To be fair, he does flashback to NJ to kill a bunch of Italians, who are usually considered white.

Game does need to be played w/ mouse + keyboard, though. I'm bummed that MP1&2 are apparently impossible to run on modern PCs. At least, that's the sense I got from trying to troubleshoot them after getting them on Steam.

[replayme]

Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze. Made it to world 6 after many bloody hours. Very similar to the wonderful Returns, gloriously tough, with a great deal more visual polish and a fair bit more of the spectacular bits (as seen in Returns) where the levels kind of unfold in these spectacular sequences. I adore it!

This has gotten polarising reviews. A lot of people have argued that it's technically competent, but uninspiring as an experience. I gather you're one of those people who sits in the 9/10 camp, rather than the 7? Am I correct?

[Snake]

I enjoyed this game, but I think the industry needs to tone it down with the FPS' or third-person shooters in which you play a white guy who massacres level after level of vaguely-defined non-white enemies. Sao Paolo is a cool setting, now lets kill everybody who lives there. Payne even comments on this in the odd cutscene, but then its right back to exterminating the locals.

To be fair, he does flashback to NJ to kill a bunch of Italians, who are usually considered white.

True!

Game does need to be played w/ mouse + keyboard, though. I'm bummed that MP1&2 are apparently impossible to run on modern PCs. At least, that's the sense I got from trying to troubleshoot them after getting them on Steam.

I went through it with a PS3 controller on the hard setting, but I couldn't handle anything beyond that. Given how briefly you can leave cover to get a shot off a mouse would make things much easier.

[Acid King]

I enjoyed this game, but I think the industry needs to tone it down with the FPS' or third-person shooters in which you play a white guy who massacres level after level of vaguely-defined non-white enemies. Sao Paolo is a cool setting, now lets kill everybody who lives there. Payne even comments on this in the odd cutscene, but then its right back to exterminating the locals.

To be fair, he does flashback to NJ to kill a bunch of Italians, who are usually considered white.

He also spent two whole games killing hundreds of faceless Russians and Italians. I think that should earn him the right to murder people in a more exotic locale.

Game does need to be played w/ mouse + keyboard, though. I'm bummed that MP1&2 are apparently impossible to run on modern PCs. At least, that's the sense I got from trying to troubleshoot them after getting them on Steam.

Last time I installed either of them was like 4 or 5 years ago on a Vista system. Max Payne had a weird glitch where none of the voices played but the game itself ran fine, and I don't recall the second having any issues. I still have a copy of XP so if I ever really get the urge to play them I can.

[MOSQUITO FIGHTER]

GTA V online. It's kind of boring and doesn't seem like there is all that much to do online but I still keep playing it. I blew up a bunch of other peoples cars that were parked at the impound. That was kind of fun. Also joined a mission and went out of my way to screw over my teammate. I robbed a bunch of stores using a helicopter as my getaway. Haha.

[gs68]

Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate. Very recently hit HR 3. I dismissed Sword and Shield as garbage at first but now I'm starting to get particularly good weapons in that class (mostly elementals and status inducers).

[Aquas]

Spelunky on X360. Been digging into this one. I know it's been out for a while now but it's pretty refreshing for a side-scrolling dungeon crawler. Still haven't reached any endings.

[broken harbour]

Been playing Fable: Anniversary. Having never played the original, or any of the sequels, I wasn't sure what to expect. Plays kind of like a modern Zelda game, but a little clunky. The game looks pretty good for basically an up-res'd game from a decade ago, but there's weird performance issues, big frame rate drops, random crashes, kind of bush league considering its coming from a big(ish) developer.

It's also laughably easy, but that's probably intentional because of the clunky controls, and it's quite funny in places, if you like british humour, you'll probably dig this.

[Marc]

Tried to play NFS Most Wanted again. It's fucking dogshit. Played some Burnout 2 because I was genuinely starting to wonder if I wasn't looking back at Criterion's previous games through rose coloured glasses. I'm not. Wish I'd never started Burnout 2 again because I won't leave it be until I've finished it again.

[Moniker]

Tried to play NFS Most Wanted again. It's fucking dogshit. Played some Burnout 2 because I was genuinely starting to wonder if I wasn't looking back at Criterion's previous games through rose coloured glasses. I'm not. Wish I'd never started Burnout 2 again because I won't leave it be until I've finished it again.

Aim instead for the latest NFS: Hot Pursuit. Gold.

[system11]

So despite having a small pile of PS4 games, the BF4 disc may aswell be glued in there. I haven't had this much fun for quite a while, I think the really high points for me were:

1) Learning to play the game well enough to hold my own and start pushing a 1+ ratio instead of being a headless chicken in a blender. Finding a gun I felt comfortable with helped, they are all different.

2) Laying land mines outside a base and watching a burning jeep fly past my shoulder after someone tried to perform a 'race in and bail' attack.

3) Driving in a tank convoy around the entire Shanghai map in a very controlled fashion, with people I didn't know and wasn't communicating with. At one point I parked my tank in the way of an ally to soak up some hits and retaliate while he got some repairs. I was sent a thankyou message after the round.

4) Showing a friend 'this is Battlefield 4' by taking a lift to the top of a skyscraper, spotting an enemy at ground level at the other side of the river, smashing a window and parachuting down to attack them. And I quote: "ok, you had me at the parachute."

It's far superior to Ghosts, and equal but different to BO2. I really need to find a permanent group of people to play this with.

[Marc]

Tried to play NFS Most Wanted again. It's fucking dogshit. Played some Burnout 2 because I was genuinely starting to wonder if I wasn't looking back at Criterion's previous games through rose coloured glasses. I'm not. Wish I'd never started Burnout 2 again because I won't leave it be until I've finished it again.

Aim instead for the latest NFS: Hot Pursuit. Gold.

I'm just thinking that open world racing simply isn't for me. I've gotten less enjoyment from Paradise and Most Wanted combined that from Burnout 1 or 2. Kind of enjoyed Hot Pursuit, but even there the Cop races were shite.

[Ed Oscuro]

And I quote: "ok, you had me at the parachute."

Sounds like BF2, honestly. Fun stuff though I have been burned out on it for years.

[royalfan84]

Eternal Darkness. The sound in this game is amazing. So far I am also enjoying the Lovecraftian story taking place in different time periods and settings. Very eerie game; not without it's flaws (controls for one) but certainly a unique-enjoyable experience. Can't believe it's taken me this long to get around to this game; but I didn't play my gamecube much other than Windwaker.(Which I've still never completed...one day)

Also played some Shinobi III and got pretty far; classic game.

[Ed Oscuro]

ED started to get a bit samey for me. I was a bit surprised to feel that I missed the storyline and gameplay of a Code Veronica, but ED is nice for being different. However, it isn't different enough from itself over the hours of play, and going into the final stretch I feel like I want something else. Oh, and there is (I guess I should spoiler this)

Spoiler

An incentive for playing the game repeatedly - select different runes with Bad Boy at the game beginning, and play through with every one to get a special ending, or something. Yay pointless gameplay running length padding!

LOVE leaving Alex (or whatever her name is) at minimum sanity for her in-mansion areas though. I am pretty bummed about how the sanity meter thing works, actually, because you can usually just go AW YEA and just pump that shit back up. Good for when there's enemies around, bad for making sanity actually a scary system.

[royalfan84]

Yeah I'm only a couple hours in and the puzzles and combat are already getting a little stale....but that tends to happen in many of the resident evil games as well...ED does scream sequel though...or at least another game with a version of the sanity meter perfected...since they have the patent on it and all.

[royalfan84]

And I don't believe it's as ground-breaking as touted; sure the sanity meter throws you off a few times...but it uses many of the same gimmicks that Metal Gear Solid used like the fight with Psycho Mantis. It's a great idea that could have been executed a little better...but I'm still enjoying the atmospheric and plot aspects quite a bit.

[CoolgyFurlough]

After quite a bit of playing, I finally beat the classic Spelunker on NES.

Spoiler

I have to say that I ended up absolutely adoring this game. I mean I really can't understand why people call this game cheap, I never noticed a cheap section of the game. It just seemed to require a lot of precision. Once you get the controls down, you end up not really getting frustrated at the challenge.

I do wish there were more levels though, and since I don't own a PS3, there's no way for me to play Spelunker HD.

I guess the only thing left to do is to play the less-fun Spelunky (although still very, very fun).

Also I almost cleared the second loop on this same run but ended up losing my last life on literally the last jump...

[gs68]

A few weeks ago, minimalist RTS game Rymdkapsel made its way to Steam. Bought it with some leftover Steam credit from Christmas (thanks to one of the very, very few relatives I care about--namely, a cousin of mine).

While it's nice playing it on a PC and not a smartphone, no attempts were made to streamline the controls for a keyboard and mouse.

The lack of micromanagement, which many hail as a way to make the game more simple and fun, is as big of a turnoff as ever for me. To quote a passage I wrote myself on TVT: You don't get to assign specific units to task nor do you get to assign which buildings to focus on outside of construction. This means, for example, if you have more defense slots open than units, your units may intelligently pair up or a few may go off each on their own to man defense stations, resulting in their isolated deaths.

Steam reports a playtime of 34 minutes for this particular port. I don't see it going above 60 in the foreseeable future.