What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

[Ed Oscuro]

Your PREVIOUS PC? What was that, a Tandy that you tried to upgrade with a Voodoo 1?

I think by now we should all know that system requirements lie...if you're not getting consistent FPS in a PC game your system is too slow for it.

[M.Knight]

Ah, so you think the game wasn't very well optimized? Thanks for your answer. I was a bit worried you were talking about some problems that were related to game mechanics.

What I really loved in this game was that it indeed really conveyed the idea of racing in a crowded environment. You have to be careful of the traffic, but you can also take advantage of shortcuts and alternate paths to go to the next checkpoint. Races where the checkpoint order is not fixed greatly benefited from this design philosophy as well and had a bit of a puzzle element in them as you had to come up with the optimal order.

Also, the music is great. And you can race in Paris' streets!

[trap15]

Edit: Arasoi says Sword Master is a hidden sequel and much better game.

Sword Master looks really nice, and it seems like it plays well albeit being hard. I intend to pick up carts of both Dragon Unit and Sword Master soon-ish.

[Ed Oscuro]

Funny thing is that I managed to get to the second boss in Castle of Dragggons the first time I played - Sword Master's first boss killed me.

The whole "always keep your guard up" thing is interesting; not many games do that.

Really don't like dancing with skeletons (or anything else) as this game has you do it, though.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Your PREVIOUS PC? What was that, a Tandy that you tried to upgrade with a Voodoo 1?

I think by now we should all know that system requirements lie...if you're not getting consistent FPS in a PC game your system is too slow for it.

Let's just say if that particular game run badly on my system at the time, it was a poor port. Same with GTA III - Vice City and San Andreas run way better than that.

What I really loved in this game was that it indeed really conveyed the idea of racing in a crowded environment. You have to be careful of the traffic, but you can also take advantage of shortcuts and alternate paths to go to the next checkpoint. Races where the checkpoint order is not fixed greatly benefited from this design philosophy as well and had a bit of a puzzle element in them as you had to come up with the optimal order.

At least on the PS2, the icing on the cake was that the game had practically one loading per sitting. Once you were out in the city, it was all gameplay. IMMEDIATE restarting - one thing it shares with the original Moto Racer (on PC anyways) that I've missed dearly ever since. I don't think Burnout Paradise does it (everything needs to be loaded/streamed back into memory from what I remember). The only other racer that for my money came close in terms of continuousness (if that's a word) was Time Attack of Burnout 2. That is, game engine allowed for it since the original Burnout, but prior to 2 something was always missing in that respect. I'm talking about the impression the game not ever stops for a moment; nothing distracts you.
We all know even OutRun 2006 is not like that; no way you forget about loadings and menus whilst playing it.

Also, the music is great. And you can race in Paris' streets!

Different framework, but you get to drive though Paris (alas, no tunnels) in OutRun 2006, and you should. Feels more like a theme park (think Onimusha 3) than genuine city, but still makes for quite a ride.
Come to think of it, don't tunnels in one of the first Burnout's urban tracks kinda resemble Paris? The series sure owes the Ronin flick a thing or two.

[Ed Oscuro]

Let's just say if that particular game run badly on my system at the time, it was a poor port.

No, let's not do that. Publishers saying that you could run a game at some level of requirements isn't the same as a statement that it would run a smooth 60fps - and that was nothing new to the vaguely aware consumer 10 years ago. Good luck on getting your Dreamcast to run that stuff full speed, by the way.

Also, it's just you: In 2013 nobody else is having these issues because they don't think that the way to resolve tech angst is by trying to hobble along with ancient, outmoded systems.

And it's also just you using such outdated data points to tell somebody off a game with a vague (and as it turns out off-point) dismissal - that's really not helpful.

[Obiwanshinobi]

If the game says my system meets recommended, but isn't really playable on it, I get a strong suspicion something is wrong with the soft- rather than hardware. Whether it's the code game comes with or some drivers I installed before, I don't consider it well ported.
Those were the days of many bad PS2/Xbox-to-PC ports: MGS2, Onimusha 1&3 and so on - that would not always run better on faster hardware.
By the way, I doubt Midnight Club II was meant to run at 60 fps on any system. GTAIII-VC-SA certainly weren't.

[Ed Oscuro]

Don't be dense.

I'm not talking about "not fullspeed on any system" ports though - of course those are a special class. Have you any reason to try to shift the discussion to those, other than "I didn't try playing this game on adequate hardware so I'm going to try to change the discussion?"

[Obiwanshinobi]

I said the port was poor. Being of some use for someone in the year 2013 doesn't make it any less gash by its time standards.

[Leandro]

Final Fantasy VI. Already finished it some years ago, always thought it was overrated. I'm playing again to see if I was wrong, some 11 hours in and my opinion on it still persists. Decent game but it's the weakest of all the FFs I've played (IV, V, VI, VII and X)

[replayme]

Final Fantasy VI. Already finished it some years ago, always thought it was overrated. I'm playing again to see if I was wrong, some 11 hours in and my opinion on it still persists. Decent game but it's the weakest of all the FFs I've played (IV, V, VI, VII and X)

So what's your favourite?

Also, what machine are you playing the game on?

[Leandro]

Favorite is V

[Ed Oscuro]

I said the port was poor.

Your standards were and still are misleading and actually irrelevant, especially when you have to parse it like this to make it appear dignified.

[soprano1]

Favorite is V

Don't forget IX
Getting back to the PSP, starting Growlanser WoT. Still stuck on the huge dungeons in Tactics Ogre LUCT, but i can't stop now, or i'll regret it later, i'm sure. I also got my hands on Unchained Blades, seems pretty and a nice "light" dungeon crawler with a system similar to the Grid System in FFX.
Brutal DOOM was godly gory and great, challenging fun!

[gs68]

beatmania IIDX 15 DJ TROOPERS (PS2)
Broke my joystick while playing it, this shit is too intense.

I would consider investing in a IIDX controller if I were you, unless you don't plan on playing to a competitive degree.

[null1024]

Virtual On [Saturn].

Mmmm, that's the stuff. 9'39"39 as Viper II. I think that's my fastest time, but since I can't check my Saturn, since it's busted [also, the save battery is probably dead, I stole one from my VMU, although the save is probably still backed up on my Action Replay cart]...

most disappointing thing: SSF crashes when the logo comes up, and I think the somewhat stuttery effect where it zooms in looks so damn cool, but now I can't see it anymore [until I buy a new Saturn]. The intro video plays, and then the game crashes if you don't press start before the logo comes up.

Your PREVIOUS PC? What was that, a Tandy that you tried to upgrade with a Voodoo 1?

I think by now we should all know that system requirements lie...if you're not getting consistent FPS in a PC game your system is too slow for it.

actual most disappointing thing: I can play SA2 fullspeed in NullDC on this machine. Really nice, that. The Steam port has slowdown out the ass [at least on Sonic stages, Knuckles/Tails ones seem fine] on the same machine. Seemingly for no reason too [and the game doesn't frameskip, it's constant time locked to 60 [causing issues if your display runs higher, of course]]. If it did frameskip instead of outright slow down, I don't think anyone would complain.

I'm still wondering how one manages to go from "perfectly fine on a 200MHz SH4/400MHz PPC" to "slows down on an i5". Or how one manages to have more overhead than emulation with native code.

Sometimes, a port is just unoptimized as hell.

also, this has no bearing on what you and obiwanshinobi are going on about, I just felt like this would be a good segue into that

[Obiwanshinobi]

Halo: Combat Evolved (PC) - now this is one that always seemed not as badly ported to me as made for computers of the future (for no apparent reason; boy, does it look dated). I remember that when Stubbs the Zombie came out for the PC (three years after the Halo port), the engine was just as eyebrow-risingly slow. Heck, Halo seemed underperforming on GF 6800 XT, but maybe that was just something peculiar about the engine, dunno, terrain updated at different rate than character models?
Still gives me some strange feeling (capped at 30 fps, as the menu suggests, to stay on the safe side), but what piqued my interest was one of the Gearbox workers saying that, difficulty-wise, the only difference is that they disabled auto-aim in the port. So I had to examine it.

I can see better now why it felt like a breath of fresh air for some. Somewhat "leftfield" for its time, a bit like Project I.G.I. (not that they are similar to each other). A.I. more playful than usual cannon fodder (but man, did someone have a beef with Ewoks). I feel more forgiving of the artistic direction this time. Over a decade and numerous CoD uptades after, not many first person shooters appear to look anything alike (not even the colourful ones: TF2, UT-what's-the-number or Tribes: Vengeance).
Almost anticipates Zeno Clash (acquired taste perhaps, but it's outlandish alright).
All in all, just like with Republic Commando, I feel inclined to give the makers credit for more things than before.

[null1024]

Halo CE for PC runs at the recommended 30fps on a machine of the era, usually. It really shines on a more recent machine [but at this point, my old netbook runs it silky smooth], although it has this weird thing where animations are locked to 30fps if you uncap the game's framerate, bleh.

also, I love how you can still hop on a server today and play online [even if everyone still playing seems to be from South America]

That reminds me, I should install it on this machine. Shit's fun.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Wasn't there some online-only Halo launching via browser, like Quake Live? With extra weapons from Halo 3 or something like that.

[Ed Oscuro]

I'm still wondering how one manages to go from "perfectly fine on a 200MHz SH4/400MHz PPC" to "slows down on an i5". Or how one manages to have more overhead than emulation with native code.

Anyway I won't try to pee on the discussion you guys are having now, since it's worthwhile in this format.

[rapoon]

Assassins Creed: Black Flag.

Easily the best out of the series. Excellent gameplay. An absolute fuckton to do. Looks phenomenal on PC. It's hard to beat the experience of sinking English and Spanish Convoys while my crew are singing shanties.


War Thunder

WW2 (ish) based flight sim. it's fun. USSR are severely overpowered while Japanese and American planes are "underpowered" in comparison (flight mechanics actually match aeronautical and historical data)

[null1024]

Ranger X [Genesis].
Been a while since I've played.
It's Bulk Slash for the Genesis! Or maybe Bulk Slash is Ranger-X for the Saturn.

it's so good, so good, so damn good
Technically impressive, well designed, holy shit do those little bug/worm things in stage 2 have transparency effects?! Super-neat. And I think the things that come out right before the Stage 2 boss actually zoom! Two things I never really noticed.

Also, apparently I forgot how the stage 2 boss works and lost two credits [even though in any other game, a credit here would a life] to it like an idiot.


[edit]
Jet Grind Radio [DC].
I forgot how irritating the controls could be in this. Otherwise, it's fun.

[Obiwanshinobi]

I like Warthog mouse & keyboard controls in the PC Halo. That is, I don't like the physics all that much, but neither did I like them in Jak 3 and X, which didn't prevent me from enjoying both. More games need to get crazy like these.
The only other PC game where I encountered such vehicle controls was Beyond Good & Evil. First time racing I thought WSAD sucked at vehicular action, but then I realised I should increase mouse sensitivity (in game options) BEFORE the loading preceding the race. Now that was more like it.

Doom 3 (the original on PC) is surprisingly playable in 1600x1200. I don't know the exact framerate I got (it certainly tore like mad), but the, um, point & click interface was respectably responsive. Which is not to say I saw much difference on my CRT between 1600x1200 and 1024x768 (no antialiasing). It's just not a game that needs high resolution badly on a cathode ray tube. Thus I'd rather take more fps, thanks.

Secret Weapons Over Normandy on the PC doesn't have split-screen it has on consoles, which makes no bloody sense. In fact, there's no multiplayer at all. Oddly enough, the speed difference between highest and lowest resolution is as rampant with newer graphics card as it was with the old one. Which makes me think the game hogs CPU quite a lot.
Fortunately 640x480 on CRT looks astonishing in this game. Permanent motion blur smooths out the jaggies (some shall wince, but I liked it in Sky Odyssey and like it here). One goofy game that's astonishing nonetheless.
You see, it looks like a perfect diorama in motion. Very toy-like. Someone called it "Medal of Honor in air" and it's this picture of war indeed (no primary colours in sight, no sir). Add to this the silly writing and you're in for a treat. It does with Hollywood WWII what Rogue Squadron II did with Star Wars. Verily this is a 3D shmup. I have not quite decided yet what controller settings I'll end up with, but gamepad with two analogue sticks and (effectively) 16 buttons is just what doctor ordered.
Oh yes, something about this game (a combination of colours, fullscreen post-processing and dirt spraying high when planes hit the ground) reminds me of Shadow of the Colossus. Think Michel Ancel's King Kong.

[Leandro]

Metroid Zero Mission... First time playing it, finished it in one go, very good game. I know I missed a bunch of armor upgrades that seemed to be handed to me before the final section, going to search for them properly in the next playthrough

[ZaKa-tokyobassist]

I think I might have to put Code Veronica down for a bit. I can't muster up the mental fortitude to make my way all the way to the Tyrant fight on the plane for a third time only to die and restart the fucking game over.

I just want to A Rank this game and get the damn Rocket Launcher already so I can move on to the next game. I'm not even bothering with trying to get the Linear Launcher from the Battle Game because I don't have the sanity to play as Wesker only to have Alexia touch me and die after going through 18 rooms with just the knife. Not even worth the effort. I couldn't do it back in the day and I'm sure as hell not doing it now.

Also Resident Evil 4 is ridiculously easy on Professional but then throws you in situations like the cage trap with Wolverine with the dudes on the outside crossbowing you to death or the Del Lago fight on the lake that just makes you want to quit the game because it starts acting like it's Ghosts N Goblins and starts predicating success on luck not skill. Oh well, I murdered this game before trophies existed so I don't care anymore. I'll probably save my energy for Resident Evil Revelations once I get around to it.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Further into Halo and Secret Weapons Over Normandy (both on PC). In the latter, I found the controls layout that suits me best, I think, with a DualShock 2. "Flight stick mode" on, "advanced", sensitivity "realistic" (hardly) at that. Can't get enough of the graphics (with all bells and whistles full on). I read someone called Ace Combat "Gran Turismo of flight games" in terms of the graphics. Well, I for one find SWON second to none, graphically. Again, the omission of split-screen on PC is lamentable.

Finished Inago Rage demo (on default dificulty). My Christmas Demo this year.

[null1024]

Shinobi III 3D [3DS].
I went insane and decided to buy this a week early.

It's so good! Although, I really could have swore it was a bit harder. I still need to not be so impatient on that big-ass sludge monster boss. And is it me, or is that entire fight fought in slow motion? The double jump timing seemed off the entire fight.

Also, the 3D is super-impressive. Very deep feeling, no really obvious "this shouldn't be at this depth" issues.


Super Hang-On 3D [3DS].
Also good. I still wish Outrun was available. I have a feeling I'll probably play this more than the rest of the 3D collection.


On another note, does anyone have anything to say about the 3DS version of Sonic Lost World? Just played the demo -- it's slow, but pretty fun, but that's only the first stage and a half. Is it at least the kind of Sonic Rush like "flawed level design but enjoyable" sort of game?

also, I'm glad they brought back the spindash, but I keep trying to do like in SA1/2 where once you're spinning, you immediately jump and you fucking zoom across the sky at super speed, and you have to wait a lot longer for the spindash to reach that kind of speed here

[Neathyr]

Also Resident Evil 4 is ridiculously easy on Professional but then throws you in situations like the cage trap with Wolverine with the dudes on the outside crossbowing you to death or the Del Lago fight on the lake that just makes you want to quit the game because it starts acting like it's Ghosts N Goblins and starts predicating success on luck not skill. Oh well, I murdered this game before trophies existed so I don't care anymore. I'll probably save my energy for Resident Evil Revelations once I get around to it.

It's fairly easy to escape the cage unscathed while avoiding the Crossbow Zealots in the process. As soon as the cutscene starts, skip it ASAP. Throw a hand grenade so that it's positioned between where the Garrador falls down and the door you're facing. It will stun the Garrador and kill 1 (maybe 2) Zealot(s) standing on the outside. Perform a 180º to destroy the opposing lock and make your way out of the cage.

It's easier than it sounds, really. Then it's your choice whether you want to kill all the remaining ganados or just run past them.

As for the Del Lago fight... yes, you're at the mercy of the boss' behavior, but with little practice, you can no damage it with little effort (especially if you're playing the Wii version).
Whenever he tries to drag the boat into one of those big floating pieces of wood*, dodge it by moving the boat to the right (preferable, though in some cases, you can only move it properly to the left). The same goes when he goes for the quick dive and hit thing. His 3rd and final attack is VERY easy to cancel so... yeah.

*He always does that right after the fight starts, and after doing his 2nd attack for the first time.

[Obiwanshinobi]

I never found the lake monster battle hard (be it on PS2 or Wii). Having cleared Pro on PS2. The cage monster situation is one of the game's high points. RE4 needed more stuff like that, and less of a village of terminally ill people.

[SuperGrafx]

Playing the original Shenmue on the Dreamcast.
One of my alltime favorite games. I make it a point to fire it up during this time of year since it brings back so many fond memories of gaming and Christmas time for me.