What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

[gbaplayer]

Over the last 1,5 months i finished Tales of Hearts R and Ys Memories of Celceta. Right now iam 2 hours into Persona 4 Golden.

All for PS Vita, all 3 great games nobody should miss!

[broken harbour]

Almost done with Metroid Prime, just have the final battle against Prime and then it's wrapped. The game hasn't been overly difficult so far, I actually haven't died a single time, but nearly did against Meta Ridley, that battle really got my blood pumping.

I really liked the game, but after 18 hours or so.. not really sure I want to jump into it's sequels right away. Not sure what game I want to play next, I have a massive backlog, considering Majora's Mask, a number of Tales games, Final Fantasy 9, a number of shmups on my backlog, or just play a crapton of arcade style Dreamcast titles I've been buying but not playing much.... hmmm....

[MOSQUITO FIGHTER]

Are there any 'domestic terrorists' in it?

If robbing a bank is domestic terrorism then yes I guess so. Same kind of thing as Payday. Cops and robbers. Probably is a little insensitive though.

[Ed Oscuro]

lol, dat Ninja Gaiden ranking. Straight through from the start to Han's Bar (picking up everything along the way) = Greater Ninja ranking. Huuuh? I used the first save point a few times to get some health back and extra essence - maybe that had something to do with it.

"What a strange-looking machine... suddenly Ryu's body feels charged with energy..."

[lilmanjs]

Eufloria
Nearly done playing this, but ended up going to sleep instead of trying for the 3rd time to beat the final area in the game. Quite a simple but still very fun RTS and love the soundtrack.

[Sir Ilpalazzo]

lol, dat Ninja Gaiden ranking. Straight through from the start to Han's Bar (picking up everything along the way) = Greater Ninja ranking. Huuuh? I used the first save point a few times to get some health back and extra essence - maybe that had something to do with it.

"What a strange-looking machine... suddenly Ryu's body feels charged with energy..."

Honestly I think the ranking system in Ninja Gaiden is extremely rudimentary and not worth paying much attention to. The only thing you're really being ranked on is your ability to take enemies out with ultimate techniques and whether you can reach the end of each stage with full ki (you can even use items to replenish your ki right before the end of a stage and the game will give you a full ninpo ranking, lol); the game doesn't care about how much damage you take, how many items you use, or how aggressively you play (and the time ranking is lenient enough that it doesn't really matter).

I mean, I still think it's one of the absolute best games in the genre, but it's not like Devil May Cry or Bayonetta in that playing for high ranks is interesting.

[JBC]

Metroid II is a strange game. I'm down to 29.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Finished my second Freelancer (Story) playthrough and - although I read a word that it blooms fully once the story's out of the way - I'm not quite feeling it. Not sure if it was any more fun than it was merely compulsive... and now it's more of the same, except even more inflated (another game like Dragon Quest VIII in acting "big" while not being all that big after all).

Finished Advance Wars campaign - one game I didn't want to end so soon, so I started the Advance Campaign. I don't quite like the sound of AW2: Black Hole Rising - if it adds a new type of unit and new type of terrain, who really asked for either? Simplicity was half the reason why Advance Wars rocked so hard. As Kalashnikov said, simple things are most challenging to design; it's easy to design something complex.

[Ed Oscuro]

Honestly I think the ranking system in Ninja Gaiden is extremely rudimentary and not worth paying much attention to. The only thing you're really being ranked on is your ability to take enemies out with ultimate techniques and whether you can reach the end of each stage with full ki (you can even use items to replenish your ki right before the end of a stage and the game will give you a full ninpo ranking, lol); the game doesn't care about how much damage you take, how many items you use, or how aggressively you play (and the time ranking is lenient enough that it doesn't really matter).

Strange, I'm not using any ninpo at all. Maybe I didn't fill the ki slot I unlocked.

[Sir Ilpalazzo]

Strange, I'm not using any ninpo at all. Maybe I didn't fill the ki slot I unlocked.

That's what you're being scored on. The ninpo category scores you based on what percentage of your ki you have full at the end of each level, and you get more points the more you have. (The game doesn't care how much ninpo you use in a level, just whether the meter is full when you beat the level or not - so it's easily exploitable and a pointless category.)

[Sir Arthur ahf]

Over the last 1,5 months i finished Tales of Hearts R and Ys Memories of Celceta. Right now iam 2 hours into Persona 4 Golden.

All for PS Vita, all 3 great games nobody should miss!

Cheers Marcel! Great stuff!

Celceta is one of the best - if not the best - Ys ever

[ACSeraph]

After quickly getting the Splatterhouse PCE 1cc out of the way this morning, I've been back into Project Diva F 2nd all afternoon, and I finally just got Excellent rank or above in every song on extreme. Gekishou was such hell I swear to god. Luckily that shmup player tenacity (stubbornness?) saw me through to victory. Fuck getting all Perfect though, that's crazy-town and I got other shit to play.

But speaking of stubbornness and loft gameplay goals, I was wondering earlier why I even put so much blood and tears into my games. In the end I'm not even that hype when I achieve something, instead it feels more like a weight has been lifted from my mind and I am finally free from a games shackles. In a way I feel like I've been cursed by my collection, and I fight against it to simply be free of it. And seriously, I fucking hate losing.

[Ruldra]

But speaking of stubbornness and loft gameplay goals, I was wondering earlier why I even put so much blood and tears into my games. In the end I'm not even that hype when I achieve something, instead it feels more like a weight has been lifted from my mind and I am finally free from a games shackles. In a way I feel like I've been cursed by my collection, and I fight against it to simply be free of it. And seriously, I fucking hate losing.

I know this feeling. You buy a game and feel the need to play it even when you don't really care about it anymore. You play more out of obligation so it doesn't feel like you wasted money.

My suggestion: take a hard look at your collection and see what you REALLY want to play, accept that you're not interested in the rest and sell/dispose of them. And think thrice before buying something new.

I have been doing that for some time now and it's a burden off my shoulders every time I sell a game I'm not interested anymore. And I'm especially careful not to get caught in the hype train and buy stuff I don't really want (looking at you Steam sales).

What you own consumes you.

[juonryu2nd]

Phantasy Star for the Master System, I had good fun mapping one of the dungeons. To be honest I never played any Sega games before, except a few Sonic games

[Obiwanshinobi]

Not sure what game I want to play next, I have a massive backlog, considering Majora's Mask, a number of Tales games, Final Fantasy 9, a number of shmups on my backlog, or just play a crapton of arcade style Dreamcast titles I've been buying but not playing much.... hmmm....

Sounds like you could use some computer gaming with mouse and keyboard, or just anything that, for whatever reason, isn't/doesn't work on consoles. I'd been in a similar situation as you until very lately, when I got right back into desktop rig entertainment. Turns out I simply don't feel like playing on consoles anymore.
(I can't even be bothered checking out how old my own Metroid Prime savestate is.)

GBA is another piece of the puzzle altogether. I know what left me slightly unsatisfied about Advance Wars (Campaign); normally, in my turn-based strategies, I expect various campaigns played as different parties. Advance Wars only let me play some mission allied with second party AI before the enormous deus ex machina Final Battle had arrived, where some dude (hostile CO) is all face and talk, but no explanation whatsoever who the hell he is and why we are ganging up on him (?) all of a sudden is delivered.*)
Sure, the game wasn't very serious about its lore 'till then, but made some sense (if you have ever been a kid anyway).

*) No, really, there's none. There was a mystery why the countries attacked one another, and in the end we still don't know jack (except that Some Dude™ is behind it all; you don't say).

[Ruldra]

I now what left me slightly unsatisfied about Advance Wars (Campaign); normally, in my turn-based strategies, I expect various campaigns played as different parties.

They fix that in the sequel. There's a number of missions in each country, each with their own COs. IIRC after the first 3 missions you can pick any of that country's COs to complete the remaining ones.

You really need to play AW2, it's superior in every way.

[broken harbour]

Sounds like you could use some computer gaming with mouse and keyboard, or just anything that, for whatever reason, isn't/doesn't work on consoles. I'd been in a similar situation as you until very lately, when I got right back into desktop rig entertainment. Turns out I simply don't feel like playing on consoles anymore.
(I can't even be bothered checking out how old my own Metroid Prime savestate is.)

I used to be an avid PC gamer, but recently switched from Windows to Mac, which really cuts down what I have access to, I also used to have my PC hooked up to my home theater and loved playing games like Crysis in 60fps 1080p glory on a 60" screen, but after building multiple high end PC's over the years and dealing with things breaking, driver issues, etc.. I just can't be bothered. Most of the stuff I like is old, and I prefer the collecting of console games anyways, I like physical product and nice packaging and everything organized on my shelves. When I was a pc guy almost everything I had was on Steam or GOG. in FPS games tho there is no replacement for Keyboard/Mouse, I'm actually surprised the modern consoles don't have this as an option, seeing as they are all USB - compatible anyways.

Having said that I wouldn't mind a tiny pc to fit into my home theater to do Mame and XBMC.

[Obiwanshinobi]

My PC is pretty old and the thing about old computer is, you will never be done with its library of games... so you can forget about any completion and relax playing anything. Liberating truism.

If I ever get a high-end computer, it will be the time to think of winter.

I'm playing N64 games (on Project64) that I thought may work well with a flight stick:

Aero Fighters Assault is ruined by its framerate.

S&P is playable (I intend to elaborate in some other post).

Pilotwings 64 doesn't seem bad, but when such games don't give me separate yaw control over planes, it's an immediate turnoff (Aero Fighters Assault happened to give me that, albeit without proper animation and not so "airy" physics). In a world where Sky Odyssey is a thing, Pilotwings 64's near-brilliance kind of stings.

Girl, how I wish there was a decent aircraft game for GBA (have yet to play Wings Advance). After Moto Racer Advance and Super Monkey Ball Jr., it seems like a necessity.

[MOSQUITO FIGHTER]

Bought Minecraft for Windows phone. First time I've played the game before. I'm not really seeing what the appeal is. I built a crappy house and dug a hole to the center of the earth and died. I was pretty much done with it after that. It just comes off to me as a game designed for little kids to play. Really regret buying it.

[Ed Oscuro]

First few chapters of Ninja Gaiden II on the 360, Acolyte...Head, Head, Master so far. Hmm, not sure what to think of the linear stage progression. Even New York manages to escape the samey-sames a bit, but after the opening stage, the next two are almost boring and predictable. I do love the jumbotron videos though! Also not sure what I think of the Ultimate Techniques here. I didn't mess with those in NG1 yet, but here they seem like a QTE, just about. Pretty close to cracking the 100 hit combo.

[Satan]

There's a spot specifically for pulling that off, you'll know when you get there.

[Marc]

Still playing through REmake. Absolutely brilliant game, can see why newcomers wouldn't necessarily like it but for me it's up there with Silent Hill 2. The voice acting though....

Spelunky daily challenge, I hate you.

Playing Strider on and off - it just makes me wonder what might have been had the devs gone for a straight arcade game, it's well polished and there's obviously a lot of love for the original, but I'm just not finding the open world thing all that gripping.

[gbaplayer]

After YS Memories of Celceta and Tales of Hearts R (both VITA), iam playing through Persona 4 Golden at the moment.
15 hours into the game and i barely can stop playing. It is just too awesome and time consuming.

[Satan]

Renegade Ops has been languishing on my Xbox's HDD since its release. I'm having fun, it reminds me of Jackal and The Speed Rumbler (my points of reference are old because I am), although it's not something I'm going to invest any serious time in. It looks nice, it is definitely appealing, but I hate the art style of the comic strip which accompanies it. It's like comic art by someone who's not very good. Much like whoever Qute hire, actually. I might reconsider and give it some more time once I complete it if I had some co-op pals, but I dislike most people intensely and have basically alienated myself from everyone I've ever known.

[Blinge]

I now have all the achievements for Binding of Isaac Rebirth.

I.. erm.. I'm going outside now.

[broken harbour]

Now that I'm done with Metroid Prime I figured i'd give GGXrd a whirl.

Woah... learning curve is crazy, and there's none of that warm Street Fighter familiarity. Went through training mode a few times and then got destroyed by the first opponent in arcade.

I'm scared. Someone hold me.

[Ruldra]

Renegade Ops

Played that game to completion (including the DLC missions) a couple years ago and loved it. I only wish you could play with the helicopter more often. After the 1st mission, you can only use it as a hidden powerup in a couple stages.

[iconoclast]

Persona Q
I'm a little over 20 hours in and the game isn't bad so far, it's just boring. The story is practically non-existent; 99% of it is just pointless banter between the characters. The gameplay consists of spamming Mahama and Mamudo because damn near every enemy is weak to one or the other. Mapping out the dungeons is fun and all, but even that's a little annoying because you have to step on every tile for it to count towards the percentage. The music's good, though.

I'm probably going to drop it and play Monster Hunter 4 instead.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Persona Q
I'm a little over 20 hours in and the game isn't bad so far, it's just boring. The story is practically non-existent; 99% of it is just pointless banter between the characters.

Well, it IS meant to be reminiscient of a dungeon crawler. Those are generally less about plot and more about actually exploring, battling, finding rare loot, etc. The game itself is basically a P3/4 fanservice wankfest. Etrian Odyssey is less known for its plot and more for its massive class system and crazy boss fights.

If you want a really good dungeon crawler with actual plot, Shin Megami Tensei IV is the way to go here. Any of the games in the series really are interesting plot-wise and are good dungeon crawlers to boot.

[Stevens]

I may require a few days off from Mars Matrix.

I picked up Last Blade 2 over Christmas but only recently got my S video cable back. That might be the ticket for a few days before diving back into MM.