What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

[sjewkestheloon]

Finally got the internet on at my new house. Encountered two instances of idiocy on the 360 as a result of not being connected to Live, first of all Rockband 2 telling me to 'destroy' my save data because it was for a previous version of the game and I didn't have the internet to redownload the patch and Fallout 3 DLC not working because I am not online. Welcome to the future.

During the down time I:

Finished Doom 3 on the BFG edition, which was great fun and an improvement over the PC version in my opinion. Less survival horror and more blasty blasty with some decent lighting and an excellent torch and gun combo. Started the expansion but not got far.

Picked Cross Edge back up. The game is seriously great, but also totally lazy and stupid. I have no idea who most of the characters are for a cross over RPG, but I am familiar with Etna, Prinny, Morrigan, Lillith and Dimitri. The battle system is turn based and on a grid. You position your characters on the 3x4 grid and take actions based on AP. You restore AP by passing to the next turn, and you can double your starting AP by skipping a turn altogether. There are a billion different types of skills and an absolute ton of characters, and certain skills in certain orders produce combos which you then need to chain up to start dealing real damage. It is totally obscure and finicky in every way but when you start getting a better grasp of the combat system it starts to get really fun. The game will constantly make you take a certain character that you probably haven't even looked at into hard ass boss fights and you then have to figure out exactly who you can take in with them to get combos to trigger. There are also a ton of title and costumes to unlock which give item rewards and up stats, and every enemy in the game has about 4-5 drops that you can get by doing different things, and these items are used in the synthing of new gear which you can upgrade and then attach other items to to improve them in different ways. Stupidly deep and excellent strategy focused RPG.

I have been putting some time into Theatrhythm, trying to get all the Ultimate Scores done but some of them are really tough. I have also been dabbling in DQ9 which is a lot of fun but hasn't quite grabbed me yet.

[Ed Oscuro]

Popped in that nice Flame Gunner board from dayo again, played a bit with each of the characters. Figured out a few things. Aiming feels sluggish with the male characters. Found myself losing my enthusiasm a bit for the game A shame there's no way to keep the highscores alive when the system is off, because there are so many of them.

MAME does a pretty decent job with the FG experience, except the rather recent builds I played it in were prone to freezing up in this game, around mid-game.

Neat game, easy to play for a long while on a single credit. It's a bit slow and plodding though. Still gonna mess around with it more, though!

[AweOfShe]

4 hours of commuting a day made this go by really fast, in DJMax Technika Tune.

Whenever I'm not playing it, I'm still sinking time into Fire Emblem Awakening. My 3DS Activity Log says that I spent 120 hours on this game. I'm on my second play-through, and still trying to finish up as many support conversations as I can. I really enjoy reading the character interactions.

[MadScientist]

Beat Endless Forms Most Beautiful with a score of 1043. Wooho. Probably need to take a break from it now... Have to check out Locomalito's most recent game, the Ghosts N' Goblins homage Maldita Castilla now which looks pretty cool;

http://www.locomalito.com/maldita_castilla.php

[sjewkestheloon]

4 hours of commuting a day made this go by really fast, in DJMax Technika Tune.

Whenever I'm not playing it, I'm still sinking time into Fire Emblem Awakening. My 3DS Activity Log says that I spent 120 hours on this game. I'm on my second play-through, and still trying to finish up as many support conversations as I can. I really enjoy reading the character interactions.

I am jealous. I will be sticking with the DJMP games on the PSP until I can afford a Vita, but I would love to try that game out. Undoubtedly when I finally get a Vita I will end up paying a fortune to find a copy of Technica. I am still trying to track down reasonably priced copies of DJMP 1 and 2 but they seem to have completely disappeared from the face of the earth.

[Ed Oscuro]

Bloons TD Battles

Awesome. Nothing like sending waves of camo leads towards your opponent when they think they're better set up than you. Ninja X/3 is the best when paired with other ninjas.

[KBZ]

Finally got around to trying Steam for Linux. Still really early but shows good promise.
Mostly valve and casual titles with a few 3rd party gems in between like Crusader Kings 2, Amnesia, Killing Floor, etc.

However, I seem to mostly just be playing Ys II via wine

[BulletMagnet]

Picked Cross Edge back up. The game is seriously great, but also totally lazy and stupid.

Idea Factory just loves to do that to us, for some reason: some of their ideas and systems make you say "That's pretty great!" while others just leave you shouting "Who the hell greenlit this?" You always have to be willing to put up with some bafflingly bad decisions to get to the good stuff, though the latter is often worth more than most outlets give it credit for.

As for myself, I'm still clanking away at the post-game for Tales of Graces F, but the other day decided to finally give Vesperia another try, and at least for the first hour or so I found it just as a rough a go as the last time. Combat here feels a lot more clunky to me (slippery movement, no dash/sidestep, a load more recovery lag after attacking, inexplicably bad targeting), and combining this with a somewhat more limited magic/healing system than Graces' doesn't sound appealing, especially in the long run. I've been advised to stick it out until I've gained more combat moves, but I still feel like Graces might have spoiled me too much to get into the rest of the Tales games...anyone have any words of insight for me?

[iconoclast]

I no miss'd Hard Corps: Uprising with Bahamut. It wasn't a very clean run; I got hit a few times by some stupid stuff and I accidentally picked up some weapons I didn't want, but you know, shit happens.

I hope ASW gets to make a sequel some day. Ideally, it should have better pacing (both autoscroll stages are dull; several sections of the game drag on for too long), better weapon balance (everything is overpowered lol), less 1ups (how about 3, instead of 30), a scoring system that isn't completely broken, and autofire (why doesn't this game have autofire god damn). But even with all of those flaws, HCU is a lot of fun to play because the mechanics and controls are so good. I'd love to see another run and gun that has sprinting, dashing/air-dashing, tackles, bullet reflection, wall running, vaulting/evasion, "ambush shot", double jumps, or any combination thereof.

I also bought the Leviathan DLC character. It seems like he was made for expert players who want to do some stylish speed running. He has a few special abilities (a slide, backflip, and grenades) and he's a lightweight, so he runs faster, jumps higher, and dashes further than anyone else. The major downside to that is how he only has a single bar of health and one weapon slot, so you're really not given any breathing room whatsoever. He is fun to use tho.

[null1024]

As for myself, I'm still clanking away at the post-game for Tales of Graces F, but the other day decided to finally give Vesperia another try, and at least for the first hour or so I found it just as a rough a go as the last time. Combat here feels a lot more clunky to me (slippery movement, no dash/sidestep, a load more recovery lag after attacking, inexplicably bad targeting), and combining this with a somewhat more limited magic/healing system than Graces' doesn't sound appealing, especially in the long run. I've been advised to stick it out until I've gained more combat moves, but I still feel like Graces might have spoiled me too much to get into the rest of the Tales games...anyone have any words of insight for me?

Vesperia is known to have clunky fighting, as a direct reaction to Abyss's "I can run and dodge 90% of things because I move pretty fast and most attacks aren't made to deal with that" combat. But no one likes clunky combat, that's why everyone hates Legendia [and a few people I know don't like Vesperia becaude of that].

and it's really not only the fact that you can run fast, you can hit and run fairly easily

I've barely played Vesperia though, thanks to never having owned a 360 [and I'm getting a PS3 anyway [that supposedly shipped yesterday even though I ordered it a week ago ] because that's what Xillia's on].

[soupbones]

Just downloaded Bit Trip Runner 2 on the WiiU.

SOOO good. Was a fan of the first and was going to pass on this because I figured it was the same game with a different art style...

For the most part i was right, but it's actually a little deeper and and a all around much better package than the original. Music and graphics are awesome, and the added techniques, secrets and bonus games make the whole game feel new again.

Actually thankful there is a WiiU game drought going on, otherwise I would have skipped this game.

[null1024]

Star Ocean 3 [PS2].

I'm in that training facility place that I have to go rescue whats-her-face with the red/pink hair after she went to go rescue those other girls.

Just got some key, assuming I have to go back downstairs and use it to unlock that one door that doesn't open.

[AweOfShe]

4 hours of commuting a day made this go by really fast, in DJMax Technika Tune.

Whenever I'm not playing it, I'm still sinking time into Fire Emblem Awakening. My 3DS Activity Log says that I spent 120 hours on this game. I'm on my second play-through, and still trying to finish up as many support conversations as I can. I really enjoy reading the character interactions.

I am jealous. I will be sticking with the DJMP games on the PSP until I can afford a Vita, but I would love to try that game out. Undoubtedly when I finally get a Vita I will end up paying a fortune to find a copy of Technica. I am still trying to track down reasonably priced copies of DJMP 1 and 2 but they seem to have completely disappeared from the face of the earth.

Technika Tune is still pretty reasonable at Play-Asia (at $45). I grabbed one of the 1000 LEs they brought over to the US version. No regrets at all.

Good luck on the DJMP hunt. I've pretty much given up, and settled with Fever, Black Square, and Hot Tunes. Contemplating grabbing Trilogy for PC still too.

[Ghegs]

I no miss'd Hard Corps: Uprising with Bahamut. It wasn't a very clean run; I got hit a few times by some stupid stuff and I accidentally picked up some weapons I didn't want, but you know, shit happens.

I hope ASW gets to make a sequel some day. Ideally, it should have better pacing (both autoscroll stages are dull; several sections of the game drag on for too long), better weapon balance (everything is overpowered lol), less 1ups (how about 3, instead of 30), a scoring system that isn't completely broken, and autofire (why doesn't this game have autofire god damn). But even with all of those flaws, HCU is a lot of fun to play because the mechanics and controls are so good. I'd love to see another run and gun that has sprinting, dashing/air-dashing, tackles, bullet reflection, wall running, vaulting/evasion, "ambush shot", double jumps, or any combination thereof.

I also bought the Leviathan DLC character. It seems like he was made for expert players who want to do some stylish speed running. He has a few special abilities (a slide, backflip, and grenades) and he's a lightweight, so he runs faster, jumps higher, and dashes further than anyone else. The major downside to that is how he only has a single bar of health and one weapon slot, so you're really not given any breathing room whatsoever. He is fun to use tho.

Oh wow, good job. I didn't have the patience to deal with the game's issues, the most I could see myself doing was a Sayuki run. A sequel that fixes the problems would indeed be awesome. There's very few run 'n guns released nowadays.

And damn, that's an insane Leviathan play. Very cool, makes me want to pick the game up again and play as him.

[BIL]

Better Protip: to defeat the Cyberdemon, bounce grenades off his head until he dies.



Since clearing Vanilla DOOM's four episodes on Nightmare years ago for completion's sake, I've disliked enemy respawning as it necessitates more running than shooting. BDOOM's semi-broken, erratic respawn is actually really fun, though. Monsters respawn (or not) without any discernible pattern, setting up lots of potential nasty surprises when backtracking and keeping things vital right to the end of a map. At the same time, the vast majority of what you slaughter stays that way, avoiding the "why bother?" effect of VDOOM respawn.

It works best in E2, with its tendency for circuitious levels and tight, winding paths. On the new Black Metal setting with its fast, 2x-damaging monsters, the last two maps before the Cyberdemon (Halls of the Damned and The Spawning Vats) become pretty tense.

If bored or masochistic, enable "no monsters to exit" in Gameplay Options and try to hit the switch before some fucker on the other side of the map pops back up.

[Ruldra]

Karateka (2012)

This remake plays very similarly to the original. You essentially run in a straight line, fighting baddies along the way to rescue the damsel in the end. This time around however, you have 3 guys. When the first one dies, the second one shows up and the game keeps going. It's only a gameover when all 3 are dead.

Game is easy to complete using all 3 guys, but the main challenge is to beat the whole thing with only the first guy. It's pretty tough since he's the weakest of the three.

I think this game suits well with the shmup crowd. It's all about replaying the game until you memorized all the enemy patterns. One playthrough lasts about 30 minutes.

The trailer is awesome: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfcU9QWitOY

[iconoclast]

Oh wow, good job. I didn't have the patience to deal with the game's issues, the most I could see myself doing was a Sayuki run. A sequel that fixes the problems would indeed be awesome. There's very few run 'n guns released nowadays.

And damn, that's an insane Leviathan play. Very cool, makes me want to pick the game up again and play as him.

Sayuri is a little overrated IMO. I think the game is actually easier with the standard characters as long as you have a level 2 or 3 weapon (even a level 1 weapon can be more useful than her sword in certain situations). The game is a little more forgiving with her though, so I'd say she still has a slight advantage overall.

[Ed Oscuro]

The trailer is awesome: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfcU9QWitOY

Who is this Playscope trailers and why are they too good for the U.S.?

[ArmoredCore]

Shin Hokuto Musou. Trying to max out my fave villian Souther ^^

[Hagane]

I finally 1CCd The Punisher. It was a sloppy credit and I'd like to polish my play a bit more, so I'll still play it for a while.

[Vexorg]

I've been playing a fair bit of Hawken (mostly straight deathmatch) lately. Been playing mostly with the Assault mech (pretty middle-of-the-road in most areas) and have gotten reasonably decent with it, but I also recently bought a Reaper (a light mech designed for long-range and occasional sniping) and I'm starting to really like that one. As I've mentioned in another post on another thread, you could eventually buy all the mechs and all the functional upgrades with in-game currency if you play for long enough and earn it, but anything cosmetic requires the real-money credits. A new mech runs around 6,500 credits and most upgrades are somewhere between 1,500 - 5,000 credits, and you make about 150 or so in a good round, so it will take a while. Fortunately, if you know where to look you can get those really cheap right now, thanks to the nVidia promotion that includes $50 worth of in-game credit with a new GeForce card. I got one of those codes for $15, which should be enough to last quite a while. I'm still not a big fan of freemium, but in this case the game is good enough that I can justify putting some money in to support the developers.

As for the game itself, it's a bit on the slow side compared to some of the more manic FPS arena games, but it still plays quite nicely. Shockingly, I even manage to do reasonably well at it sometimes, even managing to win a round or two.

[null1024]

Tales of VS [PSP].

Nothing like being dropped onto the field and the first thing that happens is a touch-of-death combo on you. Do not want.
I'd love a proper Tales fighter. This isn't it. It's an arena fighter in the vein of Smash Bros, but feels just wrong [unlike Smash Bros, or even Playstation All-Stars].

[Ruldra]

Karateka beaten. Now I'm focusing on playing games on my backlog.

Starting out with the God of War saga, only played the first game back in the day and always wanted to play the whole series. Finished GoW 1 again today and next week will start playing the sequel.

The final fight looked like something out of an Ultraman episode. Grow in size and stop the monster destroying the city!

[Moniker]

Fallout: New Vegas (PC)

Don't know why I have such a boner for this game. After getting frustrated w/ all the crash bugs in the X360 version, I sold it off. A few days ago I got the PC version off steam w/ all DLC. Used Project Mojave (ongoing community bugfix mod) and haven't had a single problem. Just finished my first playthrough on Hard as a "neutral-good" regular-gun user, focusing on stealth and crits. I can hardly wait for my next playthrough as a "lawful evil" energy weapon user. Probably with some melee for roleplaying purposes. Haven't decided about cannibalism... I probably only touched 1/4 of the game's content so far.

[null1024]

Sonic Generations [PS3].

Great game [seriously, best Sonic in forever, and I'd rank it above Sonic 2 [but not above S3+K because of several silly things present here]], marred by some odd control decisions [Sonic feels so fucking heavy, turning around takes forever, although that's probably because I'm so used to SA1/SA2's control, where Sonic does exactly what your input has, for better or worse; also jumping has this delay that nothing else has]. I'm playing Seaside Hill, and careening off into the distance because I want Sonic to move one way, and he's been moving some other way for the last six seconds... I know Sonic is about momentum control, but at the same time a lot of the times I died didn't feel like my fault at all [even if they entirely were, with how Sonic moves it doesn't feel like you did wrong, it feels like Sonic didn't move when you said].

Well, only Modern Sonic suffers from being a sack of bricks that can move at hypersonic speed. Classic Sonic controls spot on except for the ass-retarded jump delay and accelerating a little too slowly [compared to S1-3]. Having instant spindash is a bit silly, but handy, and the game is designed around it. It doesn't feel like you shouldn't be able to do that.

and the ranking system is stupid: get to the end fastish, don't die, get S-rank
I wish we had SA2 quality ranking, that would be pretty fun.


Also what the hell, PS3s are loud as fuck [it's a non-BC fat, but since I have a PS2 slim right here with FMCB, there's no point in it having BC to me, haha], I thought the Dreamcast made a lot of noise, jeeeeeez. I just got this thing, I'll post pics in the awesome stuff thread tomorrow.


[edit]

Ni no Kuni (Demo) [PS3]
Sonic and All Stars Racing (Demo) [PS3]
Metal Gear Rising (Demo) [PS3]

Each of these demos has made me want all 3 of these games. Especially MGR, although I already hate the camera.
also it's almost 2am, and I played Ni no Kuni for all of 58 seconds, but it's so damn pretty


and I learned that just about nothing supports Remote Play, which is depressing, being able to play PS3 stuff anywhere would be ideal, damnit

I'm pretty sure it's entirely because devs would have to test it just in case something breaks, so by default nothing supports it [there's a way to enable it for most things, but you need a hacked PS3...]

[KAI]

Taromaru [Saturn] and Umihara Kawase [SNES]
Need to 1cc these bitches.

[Zaarock]

Alien Soldier [MD] and Wolf Fang [arcade] , both on emulators though.

Trying to 1cc both games eventually. Supereasy on Alien Soldier should be finished quickly, just a couple bosses I have trouble with really should've tried to play these more before, amazing games.

and some Virtual-On OT matches every other day as per usual :p getting more consistent at pulling off some rotation tricks which are very strong (curved air dashes cancelled into a prediction laser or other attacks, etc)

[Kiken]

Downloaded Darkstalkers Collection/Vampire Resurrection from XBL this morning. I always enjoy revisiting Vampire Hunter. Oddly, there doesn't seem to be an option to switch region versions (the game seems to perform a hardware region detection and then runs strictly in that region's mode... I D/Led the game from the US marketplace but it runs as Vampire Resurrection with Japanese character names and win quotes on my JP 360).

[iconoclast]

I S-ranked Contra: Shattered Soldier. I did use a retry, though. One of those flying bugs in stage 1 followed me into the boss area and grabbed me off of the ledge that you can hold on to. I wasn't prepared for that (since they always back off before that point), so I couldn't kill him before he dragged me off screen.

[BIL]

^Interesting, don't think I've ever seen that happen (SS is such a strictly patterned game that even little deviations stick out to me). Always liked those bastards' uniqueness in the series' history - other than their original Contra III appearance, there aren't many other enemies that don't kill instantly on contact.

My favourite method for that bit is to lock aim to the upper-right and jump forward constantly while blasting the flamethrower; usually you'll cut right through any that happen to grab you.