What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

[null1024]

Ranger-X [Genesis]

Tons of fun. I still wish you didn't lose the EX-UP after 2 stages, the flying support thing you get seems noticeably less useful...

[Obiwanshinobi]

Finished Red Steel 2 at last. Just needed an easy game to play and it came in handy.

Good: looks pretty gorgeous in places (Ubisoft can do most lucent underground levels around), as if they finally made a game looking like XIII was meant to. Weirdly unpolished at that (some places darker than necessary, on a TV set as usual). That said, the endgame brought some vistas as memorable as PoP:TSoT to the table (and the music lived up to the view).
Also, shooting dudes to death in their heads felt right, if looked silly sometimes.

Bad: lacklustre level design disappointed me coming from the makers of XIII (some of my favourite first person shooter levels in that one, played on the PC, mind you), PoP: TSoT (where there was nothing to be gained by breaking stuff, but I kept breaking the jugs for kicks and the AWESOME - with EAX and software acceleration alike - sound) and Rayman 2: The Great Escape (the Dreamcast/PC version). In Red Steel 2 everything that is there for reasons other than just looking good seems like an afterthought. Game design did not live up to the art.
The aiming felt less responsive than is S&P2 or even Dead Space: Extraction. Not game-breaking at the slightest, but disappointing in a Wii Motion Plus exclusive. I know Wii Motion Plus isn't exactly about pointing cursor at things, but still - no hum.

All in all, I don't regreat buying a used copy. Of the two action-adventure Wii games I see discounted in stores, Metroid: Other M deserved better sales if you ask me. Unless you judge games by cutscenes.

[cj iwakura]

Just checked out the Robotics;Notes demo off the J-PSN.


(Sci-Fi visual novel)

Fascinating story, great music, has almost no chance of coming out here.



Worth a look-see if you have a high tolerance for anime tropes and love mecha.

Back to Demon's Souls L1 run!

...D:

[Obiwanshinobi]

One thing about Red Steel 2 that particulary didn't work for me - not "slicing thin air" (the actual kenjutsu practice takes a lot of it from what I know), but you see, katanas are supposed to be wielded with both hands (unless Kozure Ōkami performs a "reverse stroke" or something equally arcane) and the playable character generally wields his sword this way from what I've seen. Wiimote didn't help me to "suspend my disbelief" in this regard.

[null1024]

Virtual On: Oratorio Tangram [DC] and Power Stone [DC].
Both games are brilliant fun, although I really wish I had some twinsticks to play VOOT. Hell, if I could use a DualShock, I'd be happy...

[Aquas]

Starting Lollipop Chainsaw tonight. Should be super fun.

I wasn't a huge fan of NMH, but this looks like some great over the top hack'n'slash action with a heavy focus on scoring and replayability. A modern home/arcade hit in the making?

This is exactly the impression I've gotten of it. At least, it seems to take its design sense from a 90's action game. Reminds me of the good ole days of renting games. Well, I guess some people still rent games.

I've been playing FF XIII and good grief this game is long. The graphical detail is simply astounding. Marvelous. Thankfully I'm nearing completion and I'll be moving onto something else, maybe Resonance of Fate or Lost Odyssey.

[xbl0x180]

Just checked out the Robotics;Notes demo off the J-PSN.


(Sci-Fi visual novel)

Fascinating story, great music, has almost no chance of coming out here.



Worth a look-see if you have a high tolerance for anime tropes and love mecha.

Back to Demon's Souls L1 run!

...D:

I'm surprised a company such as Bandai or Funimation here in the U.S. didn't decide to corner their niche animu market by publishing this junk in North America and Europe. The licensing costs for these things must be huge. For me, it would worth a look if I could understand a little bit of what is going on

Speaking of whitch, currently trying out:

[Marc]

WipeOut 2048. Not impressed I'm afraid. The visuals are impressive tech-wise, but they lack the clarity and cleanliness of older WipeOut games, it looks more like Midnight Club than WipeOut, really horrid art design. The tracks have been widened, I presume because of the overly-busy graphics, combat is far more prevalent, and overall it's a far cry from the purity of HD, or even Pure.

[trap15]

Good series.

[xbl0x180]

Hahah. I already have the first one and then I saw there were two more made afterwards, so I got one more. It's a cheapie, but I get a kick outta seeing this on the NDS

[evil_ash_xero]

Just beat La-Mulana...finishing up a playthrough of Silent Hill 3.

Not sure about after that.

[Marc]

Just picked up WipeOut Pluse on Vita. It looks like shit, jaggy, with really fuzzy textures. However, a few races brings sharply into focus just how lacklustre Vita's 2048 really is.

[Ruldra]

Just beat La-Mulana...

Without spoilers?

[Ed Oscuro]

Tons of fun. I still wish you didn't lose the EX-UP after 2 stages, the flying support thing you get seems noticeably less useful...

I like that the other thing (EX-UP EOS) sends down damaging laser beams when you are below the forest canopy. Otherwise, yeah, it takes way too long to get into the machine to change your superweapon type.

Thanks for the post, it spurred me into playing some worthwhile Genesis games for once (Quckshot is the other - great game).

The Steam accouncement of Rune Classic (Rune + the standalone expansion, Halls of Valhalla) finally got me to play this game I'd been interested in for a long time (along with the 1.07 patch - the expansion has an unofficial 1.08 patch - and the kentie.net DX10 renderer). It's not terrible, but this is another game for which I almost regret no longer being able to consider it as pure mythology, but as the imperfect and sometimes ugly (and buggy) game that was actually made. Alas, dreams and reality rarely match up.

I've been abusing savestates a bit, but it has some good qualities. Maps, although generally spartan (lots of sheer polygonal faces in many levels, especially those inside glaciers), might have multiple pathways through which though nonessential still have some points of interest. That's the Unreal engine at work. Combat is very straightforward - depending on the enemy and your weapons you might fight with rapid engage-retreat motions, or with side-to-side dodges. The big gorilla-faced beasts are real trouble before you get a particular weapon, at which point you can take them down with only one hit at worst.

My first impression was quite bad - the entry map (Ragnar's village) showcases some of the game's least endearing qualities, such as ugly texturing and messy construction, not to mention a lack of pathfinding. Soon after, it showcased the game's ability to drop you through floors and a shoddy method used to trigger transitions (protip: don't quicksave unless you are actually safe). Some of the levels have tricky passages, but I was able to pass most of these without much thought (even some puzzles). Can't say I really like the game and really can't recommend it, but it does have a pretty lengthy playtime, at least, and there are a number of little touches that make me smile occasionally. However, I won't eat any humping lizards. Both this game and the Legend Entertainment-developed Wheel of Time use some of the engine's abilities well, but WOT did much better in many areas, especially the use of special graphical abilities (portals!) and other shiny things. However, its combat was rather atrocious, if for no other reason than that every thing that you understood could do something in Unreal was replaced by some nebulously-defined spell diddling, although there were some really good spells in there. However, WOT has nothing on the sheer smashability of the Rune world. Neither game really has the look of a persistent world I'd like to have seen - but then again, as the venerable M'aiq says: "People always enjoy a good fable. M'aiq has yet to find one, though. Perhaps one day."

[null1024]

Crazy Taxi [DC].
Just arrived in the mail, damn it's fun.

Also, the soundtrack is pretty rockin, but the songs are depressing as fuck if you listen to the lyrics in any of them... Especially Way Down The Line, jeeeeez.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Virtual On: Oratorio Tangram [DC] and Power Stone [DC].
Both games are brilliant fun, although I really wish I had some twinsticks to play VOOT. Hell, if I could use a DualShock, I'd be happy...

The original Virtual-On got excellently remade for the PS2 and released in the Sega Ages series (you can enable the "jump cancelling" or however it's called, so not only the graphics are updated). Needless to say, you can use twin sticks as well.

[null1024]

Virtual On: Oratorio Tangram [DC] and Power Stone [DC].
Both games are brilliant fun, although I really wish I had some twinsticks to play VOOT. Hell, if I could use a DualShock, I'd be happy...

The original Virtual-On got excellently remade for the PS2 and released in the Sega Ages series (you can enable the "jump cancelling" or however it's called, so not only the graphics are updated). Needless to say, you can use twin sticks as well.

That would be great, although my PS2 is totally unmodded, so I can't play imports.

[DragonInstall]

Virtua Fighter 5 FS. Best $15 dollars I've spend from xbox live.

Also without a doubt, this game has the best netcode I've ever experienced in fighters. I can play Japanese players with virtually no lag. It's actually astonishing how well it works, and makes me question how other fighters fuck up so much when it comes to online netcode.

[Ruldra]

F*CKING DRUMCAN!

[Davey]

Somehow Magical Drop III got added to GGPO last year and I didn't know about it until now. I guess that's what I get for not being part of the fighting game scene. I've been trying to play as much as I can, but the lobby is usually empty. Regardless, I've had some pretty great games.

On a similar note, somehow I've lived this long without knowing about Windjammers. I only found out about it because it's in GGPO. I've been playing that against the AI, and I'm embarrassingly bad, so I haven't challenged anyone online yet.

Virtual On: Oratorio Tangram [DC] and Power Stone [DC].
Both games are brilliant fun, although I really wish I had some twinsticks to play VOOT. Hell, if I could use a DualShock, I'd be happy...

Using twin sticks is definitely way different from using a pad, but I don't think they're really necessary to fully enjoy the game. Some of the best Japanese players on XBL use a pad.

Crazy Taxi [DC].
Just arrived in the mail, damn it's fun.

Also, the soundtrack is pretty rockin, but the songs are depressing as fuck if you listen to the lyrics in any of them... Especially Way Down The Line, jeeeeez.

VOOT and Crazy Taxi? That's 40% of my Gamercard at any given point in time.

Most people get tired of that soundtrack pretty quickly since it's only four songs by two bands, but I just don't feel like I'm getting the full experience if I don't hear those songs. I even set up a playlist on my 360 to play them since that port has a different soundtrack.

Although I always wondered, since they're using The Offspring, wouldn't Bad Habit have been the better choice? Oh, and Bad Religion was off by about 3 billion people.

The original Virtual-On got excellently remade for the PS2 and released in the Sega Ages series (you can enable the "jump cancelling" or however it's called, so not only the graphics are updated). Needless to say, you can use twin sticks as well.

The original Virtual On isn't nearly as good IMHO. VOOT is generally considered the best in the series, although the other two have their fans as well (I'm not counting Marz ಠ_ಠ). I think the PS2 port is like the XBLA port of VOOT where you can use the two analog sticks as twin sticks, but that doesn't work as well in practice as you'd think. I don't know of any VOOT players that actually use that setup.

[null1024]

Goddamnit, I'm trying to play Crazy Taxi, and I discover that my DC laser is probably going. Stuck in Rez, disc read issues. I flip the damn thing over, and it works.

[EDIT]
While I was typing this post, I found a tutorial on calibrating the Dreamcast laser, so it works now. Managed to find a sweetspot by sheer accident, because I didn't have a ohmmeter on hand. I suspect that I will probably have to tune it again or get a new Dreamcast soon.

[lrdr]

Limbo



Completely terrible - it's basically the platformer equivalent of old-school 'put the rock in the elf's left sock to make the red gem appear in the bathtub' style text adventure games - but so very, very pretty, especially in the early forest stages.

[beatsgo]

Good old Final Fantasy Tactics. Currently spent 60 hours of gameplay and getting close to finishing Chapter 3.

[Zaarock]

The original Virtual-On got excellently remade for the PS2 and released in the Sega Ages series (you can enable the "jump cancelling" or however it's called, so not only the graphics are updated). Needless to say, you can use twin sticks as well.

The original Virtual On isn't nearly as good IMHO. VOOT is generally considered the best in the series, although the other two have their fans as well (I'm not counting Marz ಠ_ಠ). I think the PS2 port is like the XBLA port of VOOT where you can use the two analog sticks as twin sticks, but that doesn't work as well in practice as you'd think. I don't know of any VOOT players that actually use that setup.

Yeah VOOT is generally considered by vo fans to be better than the first game, but I haven't played it so idk what to think apart from that VOOT has a lot more mechanics/possibilities and apparently OM was very imbalanced competitively which sounds bad as it would be for any fighting game. Virtual-On Force/VO4 is great, I'm a big fan of it.. but it's not a 1v1 game so I wouldn't compare it to VOOT. Ironically though, there are lots of tricks to make VO4 play much more like VOOT than people expect, and they in a way buffed melee because it's still as fast, and quicksteps are super easy. Too bad the game has absolutely no western community, I'd love to play it again..

But yeah I'm playing a lot of Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown until I get frustrated at it or something. Feels like something you need to concentrate on and hardwire the controls to your brain like VOOT, not sure if I can play multiple games like that at once lol.

[Ruldra]

Final Fight 3cc get. That's 2 credits too many.

[null1024]

Virtua Fighter 3TB [DC]. I remember this not being nearly as popular as 2 or 4 were, what was so bad with it [unless it's the fact that it was on the expensive as fuck Model 3 board in the arcade]? And I really need something better than the DC pad [which feels great for everything except fighters...], I'm considering getting one of those PSx->DC boxes so I can use my PS2 fightpad.
And damnit, I haven't played any revision of VF5 yet...

Crazy Taxi [DC], I love how big the city feels. It mightn't actually be that big, but it definitely feels huge, even in a 10 minute playthrough. Also, I like how in the arrange course that you can find a passenger underwater!

Virtual On: Oratorio Tangram [DC], is there a way to get 2 player mode to use more of the screen? I was playing against my nephew and we had these absolutely tiny viewports.


I have a bunch of PS2 games I should get to playing [hello Shadow of the Colossus, hello Zone of the Enders, and [ugh, I promised myself I'd finish this] hello Final Fantasy 10], but I end up going for the quick arcade type games on my DC instead.

And I really should get to playing Grandia 2 on the DC...


also man, I could never have the patience to try to get a beat-em-up 1CC


[EDIT]
Oh, and I got FPse for my phone, so I've been playing a bit of Wipeout 3: Special Edition [PS1]. Great for on the go, and it actually runs properly here, unlike in this other emulator I was using that's got weird inaccuracies [the timer was probably moving at the wrong speed, you bounce FAR more and move FAR faster than normal, and it's the only game that runs near full speed in it, heh]. Go FPse!

[Ed Oscuro]

It's been over a day since I beat out Rune. Final analysis: Hire some competent playtesters / mappers, cripes. When I can break the level scripting by simply killing a goblin behind bars (that will later need to come out and bang on a switch with a club a few times), you're not doing it right. Game's "beaten," anyway, more or less the right way, on medium. The difficulty started to become apparent later in the game but it wasn't anything terribly frightening - if anything, what was frightening was the somewhat random feel to taking and avoiding damage. Usually the only way to get out of being clobbered was to time a retreat exactly on the dot after a slash, but there doesn't really seem to be any cue to get here, and the enemies could either decide to lash out with a two-hit combo (in some places this will kill you in two attacks; the final boss powers up his sword at the end in a way that will pretty much kill you dead from full health straight away) or just look over their shoulder in irritation. Halls of Valhalla! I'm ready, here we go one-eyed floating cloudman!

Edit: Also, this game has a problem with being able to trigger switches and grab powerups through walls - this latter can be done in the multiplayer expansion. Speaking of which - HoV disappoints me, it's purely multiplayer. A few interesting-looking maps, but nothing to do other than go secret hunting and look at the clunky UT-era visuals. A bit obnoxious that Rune fans had to pay twice to get what normally would be a full game (campaign + multiplayer, especially in a game engine renowned for its MP).

[Davey]

Also, I like how in the arrange course that you can find a passenger underwater!

The arcade course has a bunch of underwater customers by the beach. They're actually pretty valuable since they give you long trips.

Virtual On: Oratorio Tangram [DC], is there a way to get 2 player mode to use more of the screen? I was playing against my nephew and we had these absolutely tiny viewports.

It's been a long time, but I thought you can pick between a vertical and horizontal split. IIRC the vertical split is a lot better.

[Marc]

I love me some Crazy Taxi. Shame the XBL port was such a mess, would've been awesome had this gotten the same treatment as Daytona.

[null1024]

Got off my ass and loaded up Grandia 2 [DC].
The battle system is pretty sweet, turn based, yeah, but has actions execute along a timer, so you think about your attack based on whether you'd hit first, and there's a mechanic for turning back the timer for the enemy.

Visually, it's somewhat meh, looks like an N64 game with more stuff on screen [and not with a shit framerate], but still, low poly everything and rather blurry textures.

The story seems as cliche as it can possibly get so far, but I somewhat like the main character, so eh.


Also, Cosmic Smash [DC]. So sexy [I've heard it described a bit like Rez meets Breakout, which is pretty accurate], but every time I try to do anything related to jumping, I miss the ball like an idiot.

also, more Crazy Taxi [DC], I should probably stop mentioning it, but it's so damn good