What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

[PainAmplifier]

I've been replaying Painkiller lately. It's been great, fast and frantic action with none of that 'cover' or 'realism' to get in the way of the fun. Playing it again also reminds me of Yahtzee's Zero Punctuation review of the game, but in a slighty backwards way. Yes, there is a gun that shoots Shurikens and Lightning...but I find that gun is actually the weakest weapon in the game. The shotgun is actually my most used weapon due to it's fast speed and good damage as well as the Freeze secondary. You can use it in just about everything except a sniping situation it's that versatile and ammo is quite common. I'd use the stakegun more, but the reload time on it is too slow for much of the battles you are in. You need a map with fewer/slower respawn enemies in it to get the most out of it.

Huh, thinking about it now and how *old* the game now is, reminds me of how much the 'console generation' has stagnated game developement. Well, either that or we've reached a kind of plateau in how good graphics can get for the time spent on them. (On the PC at least.)

[TransatlanticFoe]

I'd blame the current generation on the graphics front, as most games get a straight port to PC rather than being built ground-up for it. That Crysis is still often considered the graphical benchmark says a lot and, although I can't get it to run in widescreen resolutions for some reason (Deus Ex manages it!), Doom 3 stands up to modern releases graphically.

It's too much effort for too little reward to give PC ports an extra push in the graphics department. I only have a mid-range ATI card and that's not even given a workout by, say, Mass Effect 2 - plus everything looks sharper, smoother and more vibrant than the console releases. On one hand it means I don't have to pump cash into a new card every couple of years, but on the other hand console market dominance is definitely holding things back from a technical standpoint.

[BIL]

Was blasting through Omega Boost for 5 hours. This game is mentioned pretty frequently here, and for all the good reasons. ZoE 2 now seems like a cheap ripoff, especially after the terrific sand planet stage

Everything is right about that stage, and I had to give Omega Boost a few Pixie Omega Hades runs after reading this post. The pitch-black sky, roiling sandstorm, grimy BGM, and consistently weird mechanimal enemies (the boss is like a goddamn diesel-powered giraffe) make it a joy to play every time. Even if the actual gameplay was bland I'd love the experience, but no, the enemy waves are nonstop in attack as well as their variety, and I'm rocketing all over the place one minute and sharpshooting in FPV the next... this along with Silent Bomber is a PS1 game that makes me think "where the fuck was the PS2 sequel?" until I accept the original is more than good enough in the first place.

[Ruldra]

Rented Gran Turismo 5 and spent the day playing. Like I thought, the only things I liked about the game were the kart racing and the license tests. It's a nice game but really not my thing, thank goodness I didn't buy it out of hype.

It's kinda weird that I'm a sucker for Formula 1 but don't give a crap about any other kind of racing game.

Next, I'm renting FF13 to see if it's the turd everyone makes it to be.

[Siren2011]

Tonight I played the following games for the first time and loved them all:

-Samurai Showdown (This is my favorite of the three. From the sprite work to the controls to the sword clashing, this is one of the best Fighters I've ever played. It's only second to Arcana Heart in my book, but this is of course subject to change as I play it more...It also made me realize how many unnecessary buttons Marvel Vs. Capcom has. You only need three buttons to be a great Fighting game!)
-Metal Slug
-Shock Troopers

...and those are just three games out of the entire Neo Geo library of roms that I torrented. Some day soon I hope to buy the actual system and play on a non-crappy monitor, though.

I've been replaying Painkiller lately.

I still need to play that one! I loved Serious Sam, so I'd probably love Painkiller as well.

[Heartwork]

Just prestiged in Black Ops.

Also playing some Dead Space 2. I heard a lot of hype about it, but idk, it's pretty mediocre so far.

[EinhanderZwei]

The only reason why Painkiller didn't appeal to me is the devs shouting 'NO! There'll be NO humor! NO!!!'
C'mon, there's a ton of enemies with skulls for their heads. How can it not be funny

On topic: Now playing the shortest game ever, God Of War: Chains Of Olympus

[Aguraki]

painkiller is the only game I've finished in the last 3 years (and the extension).
ps:for recent games I mean.

[Vexorg]

Been in a bit of a gaming rut lately, where I've got four different games (SSF4, Need for Speed Hot Pursuit, Just Cause 2, Epic Mickey) sitting unopened next to my consoles and don't particularly feel inclined to play any of them. Over the weekend, the only things I spent any time playing were Words with Friends (the usual, I'm on there as Vexatious if anyone here cares for a match) and Picross 3D on my DS.

As for GT5, ultimately I've decided that most of the time it's just more work than it's worth to play. It seems like every time I turn it on there's another 200MB patch to download before I can do anything, the menus are a pain to dig through, and the one track I really want to spend some time messing around on (the Top Gear Test Track) is locked by some ridiculously difficult challenge you have to make 50 tries at to beat. Given the choice, I think I'd rather just go back to Forza 3 and call it good.

[sjewkestheloon]

Vexorg I would recommend that you break open SSF4 and Need For Speed Hot Pursuit as I find them both a lot of fun. I've been playing NFS a bit over the last week or so and I'm really starting to enjoy it. I was initially a bit put off by the handling model but after some time I'm seeing the benefits. I particularly like the drift happy Porche 911s. It's also fun in multiplayer but the fact that your 'level' dictates how good your powerups are sucks.

I'm currently replaying Tales of Vesperia with the missus and having a lot of fun. I'd probably place it as my favourite JRPG from this generation of home consoles. Sure it's cut scene heavy but I actually quite like the characters and the skits make me chuckle.

I got a nice score on some cheap PS2 games at the weekend, Viewtiful Joe, God Hand and King's Field 4 in a 3 for 2 deal. Played the hell out of VJ years ago but got lost in a purge, now I'm hoping to unlock all of the characters. Not played God Hand before but going to wait until I can devote some time to it and learn the combat system. As for King's Field 4 it's schooling me like a little boy.

[null1024]

Pokemon Gold, fighting Team Rocket in the Radio Tower.

It's amazing how many times I can restart this game and never get tired of it.

EDIT: don't feel like bumping for more Pokemon, so...
Pokemon Black!
Just got to the second town. Loads of niceness so far, but I don't like my pathetic selection of Pokemon in the field so far [excluding your starter, there are 4 different types you can find until then, none of them recognizable].

[RNGmaster]

Just got Nocturne!

[Marble]

Over the past week I've got a couple of new games for my SNES. The first is Ganbare Goemon on the SFC (I would've gone for the PAL version, The Legend of the Mystical Ninja, but the Japanese version is more readily available and Konami didn't bother to fix the speed on any of their old PAL games anyway). What really ruins this game are the JRPG/action-adventure style town segments, since you can keep killing the same enemies for coins and then buy all these overpowered items to make the game a lot easier. That, and they're just not as interesting as the side-view action stages (which are still a bit on the easy side). I hoped I could play the game speeding through the towns and ignoring most of the things in them, but there's actually a part where you have to pay a certain amount of money to progress, and that's fucking bullshit. There's a few other things that piss me off, when your weapon is fully powered up it's actually worse against certain enemies because its' slower and has a smaller contact area, and jumps in the town stages work exactly the same as they do in the side-view stages (so when an enemy jumps they are treated as being higher on the screen instead of just airborne, lol). It's a shame because this game has a lot of great music and cool sights.

The second game is Pocky & Rocky, and it's excellent so far! I love how fast paced the action is and how diverse the levels are. One minute you're fighting a fire breathing mini-boss in a (beautiful!) bamboo forest, the next minute you're floating on a raft as all sorts of enemies come at you from the air, the water and another raft. And to where I've been able to get up to, this kind of excellent pacing has kept pretty constant throughout. Awesome stuff.

[IlMrm]

Dead Space 2 & Severed
Bonded Realities - Xbox Indie

[TrevHead (TVR)]

Deadspace 1 PC its a fucking scary game but would be even more scary if it wasnt such a piss poor and buggy console port

[Siren2011]

Just got Nocturne!

The Third Person Shooter by Terminal Reality, or Shin Megami Tensei? If it's the former, that game was so fucking cool (and creepy). The Stranger has such an enigmatic personality not many game characters have.

Are you enjoying it so far?

[Aquas]

Nocturne is amazing... shame I haven't finished it.

I've been playing Shenmue II on the DC. It is amazing. Oh yeah, Outrun Arcade too.

[TransatlanticFoe]

Would you like to try a game of lucky hit?

The start of Shenmue II is so annoying. The only reason to carry your save across is if you've got a load of figurines - you get a tonne of them if you start a new save file though. I got stuck somewhere where it wouldn't let me leave the area or redo what I failed until morning, I gave up at that point... might go back someday.

[Siren2011]

Bakumatsu Roman - Gekka No Kenshi on level 8 difficulty is kicking my ass! The sprite work is flawless, the music is great, but the moves are nowhere near as satisfying to use as those in Arcana Heart. I just like the overall flow of that game more.

And while you guys are on the subject of Terminal Reality games, here's another gem that uses the Nocturne engine (I still haven't gotten around to playing the full version):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCiwq2Rq ... re=related

Notice how advanced that lighting is. This was released in trilogy form in 2000, for those of you who don't know. I wants it. My precioooooousssss.

[CMoon]

Thought I'd toss Vanquish in again since I haven't messed around with it since last year. Sure, this isn't God Hand, and the amount of depth is pretty small, but it is a really fun romp, especially if you don't use continues (I restart the level whenver I die, so I have to 'beat' the level to proceed'). There are definitely better games on the PS3, but Vanquish is super solid and polished and if I ever really had 8 hours at a stretch (maybe this summer?), it might be fun to do in one sitting.

My major problem with the game is that during some boss fights (notably the airport) it is possible to run out of ammo and be screwed. This isn't the sort of thing I expect from these developers and I wish they'd worked a bit on a no-ammo option; though that's what the big laser is for. Wish Sam's melee drained meter and didn't totally deplete it; but I guess they really wanted to go all western and ensure this game was all about shooting *sighs*.

[gum_drops]

Currently finishing up Dragon Age Origins and just started on Two Worlds II, which I am still undecided on, will have to give it some more time.

[RNGmaster]

Just got Nocturne!

The Third Person Shooter by Terminal Reality, or Shin Megami Tensei? If it's the former, that game was so fucking cool (and creepy). The Stranger has such an enigmatic personality not many game characters have.

Are you enjoying it so far?

Shin Megami Tensei.

[ED-057]

I recently got Shining The Holy Ark and Dragon Force, both JP versions since the asking price was much lower than for the USA releases. So far I`ve only played the former. The gameplay seems to be straight out of Phantasy Star 1, which is OK but not terribly impressive for a mid `90s game.

[RNGmaster]

Just lost an hour of progress due to a stupid death in the Labyrinth of Amala.
Really enjoying this game so far, but man is it brutal.

[drauch]

Started both Penumbra: Black Plague (first game was amazing) and frickin' finally Red Dead Redemption. I be overjoyed.

[PainAmplifier]

Working on Disgaea 2 Postgame. I completed the Disgaea 1 postgame earlier and am working my way through all 3 before the fourth comes out later this year. In the past I had beaten the story part of the games, but since I aquired all three games before finishing them, I ended up passing on the post game for each before going on to the next.

The second in the series is definately the most irritating, but for me it's not the story/characters. But rather how clunky some of the new game mechanics work, like Lover Specialists and pirates/ing. Also maps are definately much more irregular, so some of the less height and spacing tolerant skills go unused completely. The third game was a fair upgrade to the series, but the change to the damage formulas and class world made things far too generic and/or bland to my tastes.

It could just be me, but I have yet to bother with Magichange in the third game. Maybe when I get back to the post game for that one, I'll try it again. But it never made sense to me to do a one turn magichange when I could just buff my gear/characters more and have the boosted stats on all the time. If the turn limit on magichange was like 3 turns at a minimum then maybe I would have bothered with it. But as it is, I just didn't find it useful.

[EinhanderZwei]

Was extensively playing God Of War starting from Sunday. Great game, and it gets even better as you progress. For the glory of Sparta!!!

[Vexorg]

Working on Disgaea 2 Postgame. I completed the Disgaea 1 postgame earlier and am working my way through all 3 before the fourth comes out later this year. In the past I had beaten the story part of the games, but since I aquired all three games before finishing them, I ended up passing on the post game for each before going on to the next.

The second in the series is definately the most irritating, but for me it's not the story/characters. But rather how clunky some of the new game mechanics work, like Lover Specialists and pirates/ing. Also maps are definately much more irregular, so some of the less height and spacing tolerant skills go unused completely. The third game was a fair upgrade to the series, but the change to the damage formulas and class world made things far too generic and/or bland to my tastes.

It could just be me, but I have yet to bother with Magichange in the third game. Maybe when I get back to the post game for that one, I'll try it again. But it never made sense to me to do a one turn magichange when I could just buff my gear/characters more and have the boosted stats on all the time. If the turn limit on magichange was like 3 turns at a minimum then maybe I would have bothered with it. But as it is, I just didn't find it useful.

In my experience, Magichange in D2: Dark Hero Days was really only useful for leveling up the creatures being magichanged. Most of the time it would do little but lower the heck out of your stats, even if you use your highest level creatures (on my last D2 save Tink was by far the most powerful one on my party, but even with him, Magichange didn't do much good.)

[mortified_penguin]

A mod killed my latest Fallout:New Vegas run, my Dragon Age save disappeared and Deus Ex only runs on half my screen now for some reason. That being the case, I grabbed Painkiller:Black Edition from Steam this morning. Sometimes you just need something simple to vent all that stress.

[rapoon]

painkiller is fucking awesome.

bout to start playing the 2010 AvP. excited about that. Huge fan of the older ones.
Been playing Mount & Blade: Warband a lot. GREAT game. One of the best games I've played.
It could use a bit more customization for your troop formations but overall, it's phenomenal.

Also playing Zeno Clash UE and Panzer Dragoon Orta on my 360. 2 of my favorite games.