What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

[dunpeal2064]

I tried playing Vampire Hunter D for the ps1 the other day. I figured, being a huge fan of Bloodlust (which is the setting for this game), how could I not love it? Even with shitty and slow controls, it should still be enjoyable.

I was wrong. Not only does it play fairly poor, but the story is all kinds of fucked up. I'm gonna give it another try sometime in the future, but for now I am fairly disappointed.

Why the hell are there grenades laying around the mansion? Why is D drinking blood from capsules? It makes no sense.

[Icarus]

Homeworld (PC/Mac). Such a brilliant game, and a massive timesink. Once I'm done with this, it's on to Homeworld: Cataclysm and Homeworld 2.

[psy]

Silent Hill. Shit scary game with a great plot and a particularly notable soundtrack.

GTA SA:MP. Not a lot I can really say about this, I've been playing it for years. It's always been my solid constant.

Killer7. Something I regret not checking out sooner. Stylish graphics, awesome characters, cool music, intriguing (if confusing) story and interesting gameplay style that can be described as 'elegant cum linear'.

[TransatlanticFoe]

I need to pick up Killer7 at some point, I've heard its stylistically similar to No More Heroes.

At the moment I'm going through the old-school Resident Evils, having only briefly played them on friends' PSXs at uni. I started with the remake of the original (on Wii, which is basically the same as the Gamecube one), which is probably why I found Resi 2 to be such a breeze because it's much shorter and more linear. Code Veronica is owning me at the moment though, mainly because there are so many more enemies and I don't know how much I should be conserving ammo.... and I keep getting beat up by bandersnatches because the bowgun is shit in this without explosive ammo (and I'm trying to save that for the inevitable tyrant battle)

[psy]

Yeah, No More Heroes and Killer7 were both written and directed by Goichi Suda (a.k.a Suda51) who is also the CEO of Grasshopper Manufacture (the house that developed them both).

[captain ahar]

Minecraft, almost nothing but Minecraft.

[maxlords]

Am playing the shit out of Outland on the PS3. What a hell of a game!

BTW....what IS the appeal of Minecraft?? I tried it and all I did was dig holes and stuff...

[captain ahar]

BTW....what IS the appeal of Minecraft?? I tried it and all I did was dig holes and stuff...

Minecraft is entirely what you make of it. A sandbox in the purest sense as far as I'm concerned. Look at my pics. Nothing tremendous I know, but all of it I did just for the satisfaction of doing it.

Apparently, I am also playing Team Fortress 2 right now. I love the Heavy.

[Skykid]

Right at the end of Oboro Murasama.

[Weak Boson]

King's Field IV. It's far from perfect but at least it feels like a real adventure. Although it's slow paced, it's difficult enough to keep you on your toes while you figure out how to progress. The combat is peculiar (the best tactic to see if you can tempt enemies into a position where they just spin around on the spot) but the environments are well done and it's fun to explore. I've just found my way into a large crypt where I'm severely outnumbered by skeletons.

[ZOM]

^The level-design gets more interesting the "deeper" you venture into the Ancient City. Keep it up, it's a great game.

[sjewkestheloon]

I've got a King's Field 4 playthrough on the go which I'm really enjoying but I certainly have reservations about the combat. Hopefully it gets a bit more satisfying as time goes by and I don't have to resort to odd hit and run dashes against single enemies lured away from the pack the whole way through.

I am currently messing about on Rock Band 3 which to be honest is not at all satisfying. The track listing is pretty boring and a lot of it is seriously easy to fc and gold star on a first attempt. I don't have the real guitar because a) it doesn't seem to exist in the UK, b) it is really expensive and c) I play the real guitar already and I'd rather play a score attack computer game thanksalot.

Also got Dragon Age 2 for next to no money so I'm doing a 1, Awakening and then 2 run through so that I can track everything as it unfolds.

[JJXB]

Rainbow Six: Vegas + Vegas 2
Blazblue: Calamity Trigger + Continuum Shift (CSII on PSP too)
Mass Effect 2
Garou: Mark of the Wolves
Marvel vs Capcom
Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike
Killzone: Liberation
Dissidia: Duodecim
DJMax Portable 2
DJMax Portable Clazziquai Edition
Rengoku II

[CMoon]

Playing Mass Effect 2. I really think this generation of consoles shines in its 'labor of love' titles. If your looking for super tight or ingenious game play, get outta here, but if you're looking for hours upon hours of someone's personal life-long fantasy, the current gen has got that. Maybe not everyone's cup-o-tea but it's hard not to indulge when the developers clearly DID!

sjewkestheloon> I've heard the Dragon Age games are crap (which I was disappointed to hear since I'm enjoying Mass Effect 2); I'd be anxious to hear your opinion when you have the chance.

[JJXB]

Playing Mass Effect 2. I really think this generation of consoles shines in its 'labor of love' titles. If your looking for super tight or ingenious game play, get outta here, but if you're looking for hours upon hours of someone's personal life-long fantasy, the current gen has got that. Maybe not everyone's cup-o-tea but it's hard not to indulge when the developers clearly DID!

sjewkestheloon> I've heard the Dragon Age games are crap (which I was disappointed to hear since I'm enjoying Mass Effect 2); I'd be anxious to hear your opinion when you have the chance.

concerning dragon age, the first one is slow but solid. the second one is dumbed down and uses some ME2 elements in the worst way possible.
and are you playing ME2 with or without any DLC?

[CMoon]

Playing the PS3 version of ME2 with the download bundle that came with the game. I haven't downloaded any of the weapon or armor packs. Played through the comic book intro which was a nice touch.

[JJXB]

Playing the PS3 version of ME2 with the download bundle that came with the game. I haven't downloaded any of the weapon or armor packs. Played through the comic book intro which was a nice touch.

My Girlfriend is a ME fangirl. so she bought everything. beaten it once myself as an engineer and now doing a playthrough as an Infiltrator. Lost count of how many playthroughs my girlfriend has done though

[ZOM]

I've got a King's Field 4 playthrough on the go which I'm really enjoying but I certainly have reservations about the combat. Hopefully it gets a bit more satisfying as time goes by and I don't have to resort to odd hit and run dashes against single enemies lured away from the pack the whole way through.

Yeah that's pretty much the gist of KF's melee combat. Using magic adds a lot to it, especially if you take your time and go through the boring process of levelling up your spells, but MP is so hard to come by at first that it's really difficult to use it as a supportive attack method in most of the game. This betters once you're able to fill a bunch of crystal vials with golden water and once you have your teleport points set up.
Also, once you learn sword magic you can play much more on the offensive, but that's pretty late in the game too.

Judging from your comment, I'd highly recommend to check out Shadow Tower Abyss... thing is, it's Japan only and is disappointingly short. Gameplay is great, though; much more advanced than King's Field while still keeping the same basic gameplay-structure.

[R-Gray 1]

last weekend i was playing Contra Hard corps for Sega genesis, trying to finish this game with only 3 lives.
I died in the stage with enemy soldiers behave like cheerleaders xD, after beat the doctor and the robot in the sea.
is a great game, lot of fun

[ryu]

aw yeah. that'll do for now.

[Alec]

Fallout 3 on Xbox 360. This game is a total time-machine. Every time I play it I look outside and it's tomorrow already.

X-Men Vs. Street Fighter on GGPO. These Brazilian dudes actually know how to play the game. I haven't had a good ass whoopin on this game in years. Feels great, I'm improving as well. Lag sucks. Macros suck too, I just know some of these Magnetos are fake as fuck.

My shmupping is being done on Xbox 360, mostly revolving around ESPgaluda II.

[RNGmaster]

SMT Nocturne again. Just got a Red Rider with Life Drain, which should lead to even more game-breaking fun. Tried out the Dante chase scenes, which are really really fun.

[JJXB]

Fallout 3 on Xbox 360. This game is a total time-machine. Every time I play it I look outside and it's tomorrow already.

X-Men Vs. Street Fighter on GGPO. These Brazilian dudes actually know how to play the game. I haven't had a good ass whoopin on this game in years. Feels great, I'm improving as well. Lag sucks. Macros suck too, I just know some of these Magnetos are fake as fuck.

My shmupping is being done on Xbox 360, mostly revolving around ESPgaluda II.

...fallout 3 i found a letdown as a fallout game. new vegas has that "something" that 3 was always missing because of bethesda.

and i play a friend regularly on GGPO in garou and street fighter III: 3rd strike. kicks my ass every time but damn fun.

[BIL]

Been revisiting Shinobi (PS2) the last couple of weeks. It's a shame this game's level design wasn't tightened up a bit. The simple combat, "score or die!" ethic and action/platformer style are perfect, but should've been paired with arcade-concentrated pacing. The overlong levels stretch things a bit thin - Stage 7-A is the only really bad offender, luckily. The life drain could've still been intense in shorter levels, just make it quicker and increase the penalty/reward for lame kills vs monster bloodbaths.

It's a testament to how good the system is that it's still addictive as hell, going from pecking away at individual enemies to wiping out roomfuls of them in explosions of life-extending gore (provided you're playing the manly NTSCU version, which doesn't have the JP censoring or PAL difficulty nerf).

[JJXB]

Been revisiting Shinobi (PS2) the last couple of weeks. It's a shame this game's level design wasn't tightened up a bit. The simple combat, "score or die!" ethic and action/platformer style are perfect, but should've been paired with arcade-concentrated pacing. The overlong levels stretch things a bit thin - Stage 7-A is the only really bad offender, luckily. The life drain could've still been intense in shorter levels, just make it quicker and increase the penalty/reward for lame kills vs monster bloodbaths.

It's a testament to how good the system is that it's still addictive as hell, going from pecking away at individual enemies to wiping out roomfuls of them in explosions of life-extending gore (provided you're playing the manly NTSCU version, which doesn't have the JP censoring or PAL difficulty nerf).

i found shinobi alright. but haven't played that far into it. last hard game i played that was "that" hard was either ninja gaiden or ninja gaiden II.

[BIL]

It's not exceptionally hard by post-DMC action game standards. Only the last couple stages of the third and final difficulty tier really crank it up. No floors, hyper-aggressive airborne enemies and accelerated life drain will cause a lot of frustration if you're not playing intelligently. But then, more of the game should've been this way. What marks it out as special is nailing frenetic kill chains on gangs of twitchy enemies amidst often treacherous footing.

It's a great feeling, dashing around for the first few kills, then tearing through the crowd faster and faster as the sword heats up until BOOM! body parts flying everywhere and a swarm of glowing red point items to hoover up.

[ratlhead]

Ninja Gaiden Black and Ninja Gaiden II are much easier to complete in default difficulty (i completed both in hardest difficulty available from the start but i don't recall it was normal or hard actually) compared to PS2 Shinobi IMO. Punishing platforming is non existant, you can exploit the most useful move, Izuna Drop, easily in both games and if you comprehend what weapon is most suitable for which situation you can breeze trough both of them without a hassle. In contrast, PS2 Shinobi has very punishing platforming segments troughout the game (maybe they wouldn't mean so much if distances beteen checkpoints wasn't so apart) , especially in later stages and one of the most annoying final bosses EVER and this boss alone worths the title for this game to be among most difficult modern action games.

[shmuppyLove]

MONSTER TALE on the DS

Seriously, this game is fucking fantastic.

Gorgeous 2D pixel art and animation, multi-layer parallax scrolling backgrounds, great soundtrack ... I can't believe I haven't played this game until now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4gLleFUa0k

Now I'm going to have to find Henry Hatsworth ...

[Obiwanshinobi]

The only significant flaw I found in Shinobi (completed on Normal) was the camera, especially the fact that centering button doesn't reset its vertical angle. That's why I barely found any use for the right stick (had to memorise the stages with the default camera angle in mind).
Beating the final boss just takes a lot of patience and dashing like a madman. I didn't find it frustrating at all.
Funny thing is, I'm pretty sure somebody in the last gen PoP dev team was obsessed with the PS2 Shinobi and kept on trying to make PoP a bit like it. An ill-fated endeavour since PoP has never been a coin-op game at heart (also, its last gen iterations had that half-baked combat to them), but nice try nonetheless.

[Mortificator]

In contrast, PS2 Shinobi has very punishing platforming segments troughout the game (maybe they wouldn't mean so much if distances beteen checkpoints wasn't so apart) , especially in later stages and one of the most annoying final bosses EVER and this boss alone worths the title for this game to be among most difficult modern action games.

Yeah, Shinobi's final boss deserves special mention. I was able to clear the entire game on Super except for Hiruko, and while I might just be quibbling over something beyond my current ability, I think the fight's poorly designed.

* The first phase, where you wear down his shield, eats up a few minutes of every attempt and is insultingly easy.

* Then Hiruko attacks for real and you can hurt him, but "for real" means chooses from a list of five easily-dodged spells and one nasty one, and "hurt him" means if you hit him in the back and squint really hard, you might see the pixel of health you took off.

* And now the real BS starts, as Hiruko summons his legions of talismans to electrocute, burn, and generally gang-bang you. It takes a lot of hits to kill one until your tate starts going, they can fly rings around you, your sword sometimes passes through them, and even when you do get a big combo and are ready to hit Hiruko, he might attack (during which he's totally invincible) or teleport across the map, leaving you with nothing to do but watch your tate evaporate.

The battle's also kind of lame conceptually. Ninja slashes frail human sorcerer in the back, does as much damage as a paper cut, gets beat to death by angry slips of paper.

The rest of the game is a lot of fun, though.