MOSQUITO FIGHTER wrote:Almost there. I'm totally going to try for a 1cc on this after I get the hang of a few more areas.
RE: stages, I definitely recommend getting Act VI down before making a serious run at clearing the game. It'll take the edge off the rather nasty boss rush knockback, and also help you get there in better shape.
Tregard wrote:Actually BIL, it's you who got me into BDOOM. I was lurking on this board, took one look at your thread, and 3 minutes later had it all up and running and was laughing like a maniac at the obscene carnage. So I salute you and your fine taste!
I've only played through Doom 1 so far - been waiting for v20 before I tackle Doom 2.
Always glad to hear the exploits of BULLER MAN weren't in vain.
Sonic Generations [Steam].
nice to see it running so smoothly now
The keyboard controls are awful, this game needs another patch [title card texture corruption is still a thing and directinput controllers don't work nicely -- sidestep gets pressed at random].
Crazy Taxi [Steam].
literally < $200 away from getting 10k again god damn shit ass fuck
I need to get consistent at it. I want to get to 20k now, but I should probably focus on at least hitting 15k consistently before thinking so far ahead.
Right now, I'm consistent at getting $7-8k in a run.
Trackmania Canyon [Steam].
tried the demo, I really want to buy it, probably going to do it next week [spent a lot of money this week, got a new laptop [Macbook Air, very nice so far other than the keyboard and mouse being shit for Windows] amongst other things]
it's so much fun, hot damn
like, I've played Trackmania DS, but I didn't enjoy it THIS much
Come check out my website, I guess. Random stuff I've worked on over the last two decades.
Quite a bit to cover over a period, including a lot of obnoxious install time on the Xbox 360 20GB hard drive. Thanks, MS.
Skip down to the bottom for some early musings on a rare and apparently unemulated game (for the N64).
Ninja Gaiden II: Got to Venice, and that's a hell of a greeting. Put aside for the moment but still installed.
Vanquish: I'm a few chapters in and reserving judgement, but a few things immediately stood out in a way that I didn't like: The 30fps. The upgrade system distracting me from playing well - on Normal it rewards playing badly for grinding upgrades at the game's opening stages, and this can also lead to unbalanced play (max assault rifle, but where's the optical gun or LFC?). The Gearsness and blandness of the gameplay on the whole. It might be anime colors but (aside from the important note of the cool enemies) it's still as unimaginative as Gears - possibly less, as even the original Gears of War has some standout setpieces, while Vanquish is nothing but loading platforms and tunnels so far. Cutscenes too: Save a guy, lose a guy. Hey neo-Carmine! The ring shape of the space station is interesting for the title screen and that's about it. That said there are some things I like here; as a goal, I'm looking forward to using the boost mechanic more in conjunction with damaging weapons like shotguns for more personal combat. Overall, though, I find the main mechanic's downside - triggering slomo and dealing with cool-down time - more of a bother than I find it fun.
Condemned 2: Bloodsomething: Here's a game that plays worse than Vanquish by most measures, but it's captured my interest still, in large part due to Monolith's strange talent (outside FEAR games) at creating memorable characters and setpieces. Unfortunately, the game is really padded out with the hidden items. There's a strange dance between players and developers when it comes to these things: Hidden items do work a bit for forcing exploration, but most games (including both Condemned titles) really don't give your exploration senses any workout, just relying on mapping skills, patience, and a good dark room to find anything. DOOM didn't rely this much on dark rooms and obscure corners to hide secrets, and we should have been improving the state of the art of collectathons since then! This game's GPS makes exploration easier, but it's still painstaking to deal with warrens of cookie-cutter geometry. The game seems mostly absent on the other important front of provoking skilled play, something that games like Vanquish and Bayonetta and most everything else in these forums expect (for good reason). The only bright spot is the combo / parry system for melee combat, though this feels like "Dark Souls QTE'd" as dishing out slo-mo damage requires not a tap, but a continued press of the shoulder button indicated, for no reason other than apparently provoking a bit more visceral sense of grabbiness and smashing via a tight grip on the console controller. There is apparently some kind of inspecific combo counter progress (25/30 currently), but I'm not sure what that impacts compared to getting Golds on all the missions so far - which just require looking at a walkthrough if you're getting impatient like me. I don't mind a game that's more ambient and even a bit drawn out, but as much as I find this game intriguing, it's obvious that it doesn't progress in gameplay design. This is also obviously running at some kind of low framerate most of the time - and to "help" it looks like the Lith have added a blur effect to Lithtech Jupiter EX here. The disorientation this creates might help the ambience but it doesn't help poor Ethan's face stay shiny. Visually it's very inconsistent - some impressive and even painterly full-screen visual effects coexist with the occasional ugly posterizing ones and a terrible DOF mode for the camera, and staring at the wrong end of a low-rez upturned table texture in Hotel Preston is what most people will remember. Oh yes - annelids, c. 1999. Nice reference if that's what I think it is.
Original Xbox:
170/204 medals on Urban Chaos suits me well enough for now. There's not likely any bragging rights to playing more of this game and I've had my fun already. There are only a couple really difficult moments in the game - and it appears many, and possibly all, can be cheesed through. Angel Heights has a couple tricky moments revolving around the minigun - first you should figure out a way to easily snipe the gunner, and at the end of the stage, you must really be quick with target acquisition or you die horribly (meanwhile, the distant bottle-tossers don't seem able to hit you at all even on the elite difficulty mode). The final "regular" stage is unfortunately a low point for the game, with nondescript areas and little fun. The very final room is downright awful, which apparently infinite waves of baddies even if you head inside a ways, and also a grenade launcher baddie on the catwalk above and right as you enter. After a bunch of failed attempts, I finally ran to the back of the room, with NPC Idiot Who Shouldn't Be Here somehow staying alive too, and the room was very quickly cleared. After the credits roll, and not a huge surprise for me, there's another mission with a lot of tough enemies and a few bits of cool scenery and yet more showing off of the engine, which is a great ending for the game. And after this, you then unlock Terror mode, for yet more medal opportunities.
Same complaint as Condemned (which I actually started playing later - chronological order of these plays is more like Phantom Dust/NGII/UC/Vanquish/UC/Condemned/LLUX, etc., over the last week-ish): Too much hide and seek with items in the environment for game-padding purposes. This is the dark side of the Xbox having a hard drive as standard - people started doing dumb things (hidden items) instead of awesome things (totally destructible environments ala Phantom Dust and Otogi). It is also obnoxious to be on the way to clearing one of the special timed missions, with a minute to spare and terrific stats, only to discover the idiot NPC to rescue is stuck back in an area you can't get back to even to shoot him in his dumb face.
On the flip side, there is a bit of risk and reward here; most stages allow you to easily get both headshot kills and arrests at the same time, though in the final levels I find myself wanting just a few more enemies. I don't feel as if my time spent replaying missions on the Elite difficulty (coming before the "Terror" difficulty) was wasted, as Terror seems much the same and really not difficult if you use your shield quickly; practice makes it easy to zip through most stages with great ease. I also feel the weapon unlocks coincide pretty well - even taking into account the "loop" difficulty of Terror mode - with playing the game at its highest difficulty levels. In fact, unlocking the 60-round pistol meant that I stopped using the assault rifle entirely for long periods of time, even though I unlocked a capable one. My earlier qualms about the repetitiveness of the medal system and gameplay are only partly vindicated: They add constant challenge, though shotguns never become important. It's also important to get headshot kills to keep the game moving at a quick pace and to get the heat off. The challenge level seems about right to me, even with constant unlocks radically changing how the game plays. By this point, I am pretty much over the "neat new" ideas in the game, like the three-healthpack limit, the formulaic hostage scenario moments (they all play out exactly the same, except for some small details like the environmental kill at the end and what weapons / grenades the hostage taker has), and the shield, but there was definitely some good here. The rebreather moments are much better than using a rebreather in Condemned 2 - even given the primitive technology, this game does vision modes and the areas for using them right. Reportedly Rocksteady finished their first, and still only non-Batman title, quickly. Overall I can see that this was an auspicious start for Rocksteady and I'm happy to have knocked this one down before venturing into the Batman titles.
N64: Finally broke out the NOS Japanese N64 (why not break out the tabs in a US one? Reasons) and tested my copy of (programmer voice) "Last Legion UX." This one has intrigued me since Nintendo Power featured it in 1997, in the only issue I had for years and which I read repeatedly. The game's story is apparently about time traveling robots. I gave the dial a spin at random to choose my first character, and it settled on Lieabouts, which was fine. Won two matches, lost to the third guy. Tried the default character, with both a fast but weak rifle and then a three-round burst rifle, and then barely lost again on the third match - which is the default robot character with a damaging laser rifle and power attack.
Backing up a moment, Last Legion UX is (as I had expected) 1-on-1 battles against robots. In Story Mode, that's you versus an AI robot once you've mashed past the last text box. Controls aren't exactly what I expected - Double jumping and firing your main weapon (which apparently includes swords if equipped) on the A and B weapons, shields for some blocking capability (given the block % shown and the different shields, I'm guessing this is just a % damage block, not total, and they also impact speed), and the C button cluster deals with a lock-on and homing missiles or piteously short-range thrown bombs (on the two characters I've tried out so far). Most usefully, there's some button to hold to put your character into a slide, which really gives off an Armored Core vibe, and helps improve the game speed. Finally, the Z button can be held down when the screen-center icon flashes and your special weapon is charged - these seem to put out tons of damage. I also discovered an old piece of paper - somebody's handwritten notes? - inside my game box which seem to mention a few more button combos.
On paper there's a lot of variety and other good stuff: One of the robots (I think the first opponent in the game) has a cloaking ability (but certain beam shots can still home in on it easily).
There's some odd things too - Lieabouts' design seems melee-centric, but his claws seem just for show. More critically, the ranged combat is quite dull and it seems easy and profitable to stay at range and just shoot enemies. Up close, it can be hard to get or follow a lock, while even at range the fast strafing and jumps of your opponent mean that you're often waiting for them to settle back down for a moment to get a shot in. Close quarters combat would be my preference, but the first two areas seem entirely open arenas - easy to Perfect with ranged robots, but probably difficult with melee fighters. Strafing some good speed, but regular movement is slow. Movements seem to have some lag in them to emulate the weight of robots, even though the game itself seems speedy and responsive otherwise.
Still it seems like it has some play left in it - I haven't seen or found any prompts to create game data saves yet, and dying throws a Continue countdown onscreen. I'm just worried that the gameplay isn't there in this early 3D mech game.
Vanquish:
I've been speed running this a lot recently. My current best in-game time on Normal is 2 hrs 17 minutes. I'm steadily trying to whittle that down to right around the 2 hour mark. Most of it boils down to not making any seriously stupid errors and powering-up the Heavy Machine Gun and the EMP Grenades in the first couple of sectors as much as possible. Obviously the randomness of the item-drops can influence a run greatly... but the game normally heaps Assault Rifles, HMGs and both types of grenades early on. That being said, the game does have a tendency to find some way of killing me at least once during a run.
Interesting comment there. I think my stumbling block with the game is that the core mechanic doesn't really excite me, and "sniping skillz" don't seem to amount for much in 30 fps with the Xbox 360 controller in this game. I wish they had gone a bit farther with the action premise and found a way to junk the cover shit entirely.
Ed Oscuro wrote:Interesting comment there. I think my stumbling block with the game is that the core mechanic doesn't really excite me, and "sniping skillz" don't seem to amount for much in 30 fps with the Xbox 360 controller in this game. I wish they had gone a bit farther with the action premise and found a way to junk the cover shit entirely.
During an average run I spend about 3% of the game in cover. Most of the time I use cover to have Sam quickly 'snap-to' a barrier which I can then vault over (which effectively helps him maintain speed). Learning how to manage AR during backflips, tumbles and vaults is helpful. Another important tactic is to never expend all of your AR... you want to avoid over-heating at all costs. Not only do you lose movement speed, but you're more easily killed and refilling your AR through scrambled damage takes a fair amount of time.
There are a lot of other little tricks to utilize... a very important one is reload cancelling (either reload during a tumble/roll or if you're in the middle of firing, quickly switch to a different weapon and then switch back).
One hour of Perfect Dark on the N64 = headache
Half of the time I'm thinking "oh, that's really cool" and the other half I'm thinking "wtf were they thinking?"
This was my NOS copy I got a while back, and I see why I dropped from playing it. Challenge 20 is just blllllllllllllllagghhhh
Thankfully I see there is a way to manipulate the (very bad) menu system into thinking you're playing the challenges anyway.
I've also got to take my transfer pak and the GBC game, which I bought just for unlocking stuff in this game, and make use of them.
What I really need is a modded N64 for extra speed, though.
I tried the demo for Kirby's Rainbow Curse at Best Buy. I really loved the game. It's genuinely making me want to buy a wiiu. The only drawback that I noticed was that it was way easier to play it while looking at the screen on the controller than the TV. I practically ignored the TV the whole time that I played it.
Tried out the Captain Toad demo too. It wasn't nearly as impressive. Maybe it gets better later in the game.
The Axiom Verge demo on PS4 was ok. Plays a lot like the original Metroid. Except a little more dumbed down. Had some nice sprite work on the bosses. I'd like to play more of it.
I thought Drive Club demo was pretty weak and didn't seem like it had much to make it stand out from the pack.
Seiken Densetsu 3: It wasn't painful to play, yet never became especially fun either. I could have stopped some hours before the end and not missed much of importance. The later game throws no less than six filler dungeons at you in succession. Much time was spent just watching spell animations complete, though I think if I'd went with a physically-oriented party, I just would have been watching characters auto-attack instead.
Legend of Mana: Absolutely stunning art. Such a shame that the battles are dull and the supplementary systems are obtuse.
Sword of Mana: I have to agree with Brian, it's not as good as the original.
Children of Mana, Heroes of Mana: Garbage of Mana.
RegalSin wrote:You can't even drive across the country Naked anymore
I quit the series entirely after Sword. I actually enjoyed Legend a lot back in the day, but it's got some weird systems and can be utterly broken because of the crafting system.
I can't seem to get into any large scale games lately, and with the Splatterhouse series good and thoroughly finished I've been back into fighters. I pretty much gave up on Under Night, I just hate it, and I don't think any amount of playtime will change that.
But DOA upgraded to LR so I've got that at least. They erased everyones rank with the update though, so rank match is utter chaos right now. You go from steamrolling fools to getting steamrolled yourself by "F" rank players who clearly used to be S. Kind of amusing actually, but I feel bad for the actual new players. It'll all smooth out in a few weeks I guess.
The other thing I picked up was a copy of Shin Koihime Musou Otome Taisen. I actually had really low expectations for this, and wasn't able to pick it up earlier because it was hard to find from pretty much day one in Japan. I've been really surprised by it though; it's actually a really interesting and unique game in the vein of Samurai Spirits. It's a work of genius compared to UN. Kind of depressing that this was so obscure and dead from Day 1. I'd probly put some real time and effort into it if it actually had a community.
10 hours into Eternal Sonata, this might be one of my favourite JRPG's already. It's not necessary to grind much, the battle system is really fun (though on occasion unfair), feels like a really nice compromise between FF-style turn based combat, and Tales-style button mashing and blocking, and the game is paced great, it introduces new mechanics at exactly the right time. The characters are likeable, visual design is beautiful. My only complaint so far is that it's totally linear, though, in JRPG fashion, that may change later on. I really like the segue's between chapters that feature one of Chopin's compositions while learning about his life, but doing it in a way that doesn't feel like edutainment, very cool. OST is fantastic, there's some really great field tunes on this one, I'm quickly becoming a Matoi Sakuraba fanboy.
The Mana franchise is pretty much a legacy of disappoint imo. Secret of Mana did a lot right but needed some major improvements (magic, bosses, more interesting action late-game)... which never came.
After many years, picked up Crusader: No Remorse again. I'm liking it enough, though the gameplay does wear thin and the movement / map design is very strange. I immediately noticed that some music sounds like beta stuff for Unreal - a couple tracks in No Regret (the sequel) definitely are using the same samples as Isotoxin, except with strange use of the samples (like that signature hiss), see here at 2:16 and 2:36 (h:mm). I get that Andrew Sega must've worked on both, but I'm wondering about the timing: Unreal's Isotoxin (or the original) sounds more polished but might have come first. I wish Crusader had a better sound engine - sound filtering is necessary but kills a lot of the detail in the songs.
The Cheeseman Cometh..! Many thanks to Saucykobold for his awesome related uploads.
In other Cool Forum Member news, actually, make that Cool Forum Owner news, I spent a few minutes playing Comad's Super Duck game, courtesy of system11. It's awesome that things like this aren't being forgotten by MAME. It's absolutely trash from a gameplay standpoint, but I do miss the days when developers had no regrets at all about making hilarious shit with no rhyme or reason like this. Poor Engel. Describing the silly parts more would be unnecessary joke ruination, but on the gameplay side I'll point out that this combines two of my least favorite game trends: The maze collectathon game, and shoddy 3D platforming. The gameplay boils down to stunning enemies with DAT JENK or just avoiding them entirely while hopping about from pad to pad. Even this isn't straightforward, as it is easy to misjudge a safe jump, and on a single-width pad you can actually run up and down a pixel or two, which doesn't seem to add anything to the gameplay.
Still, highly worth a look just for the intro, and also a great reminder to always appreciate Data East games. Call it "The Dogs Must Be Crazy Part XLVI" and slap that sucker in the comedy isle.
Speaking of Data East, I really need to buckle down and get serious about learning stage 3 and up of Psycho-Nics Oscar. Don't know why I've avoided buying more Data East games.
Last edited by Ed Oscuro on Wed Feb 25, 2015 1:07 am, edited 1 time in total.
Ed Oscuro wrote:After many years, picked up Crusader: No Remorse again. I'm liking it enough, though the gameplay does wear thin and the movement / map design is very strange.
Thought about this one myself as I played Zax the Alien Huinter lately (where the gameplay holds up well actually, if something of a single-player Gauntlet).
The rear gate is closed down
The way out is cut off
Sinful wrote:I think it's for both. As I'm pretty sure I have the 360 version?
No, I asked because I needed someone with the 360 version to do a little experiment for me.
Since you have it, can you go to your system locale, change it to Japanese and see if the in-game text also changes with it? This worked for the demo, but want to know if it's also in the disc release.
RegalSin wrote:Then again sex is no diffrent then sticking a stick down some hole to make a female womenly or girl scream or make noise.
blackoak wrote:The Mana franchise is pretty much a legacy of disappoint imo. Secret of Mana did a lot right but needed some major improvements (magic, bosses, more interesting action late-game)... which never came.
I loved the second-to-last boss, but yeah, the rest of the game is not all that exciting. It was still pretty enjoyable, especially since I've played all of it in co-op.
i played through super Mario bros 3 for the first time in quite a few years yesterday. I had forgotten how big the difficulty spike is between world 7 and 8, the whole game is a cake walk then you get to world 8 and start losing lives! i had a lot of fun with it, but I still prefere super Mario world.
Crusader's "Hack Mover" (type "JASSICA16", then ~, then H) is really cool. I've been going a bit nuts trying to find something a walkthrough says should be in Mission 5, but I found an apparently otherwise inaccessible area this way. You can basically rearrange entire levels to your liking, and find everything, even annoying little sprite flashers hidden under gratings can be forcibly uprooted and taken elsewhere. Of course you can throw the Silencer himself around with this, too.
I really liked Crusader: No Remorse back in the day. Isometric is still my favorite perspective I think, especially for rpgs/strat games. I remember Crusader being a little hard to control, probably would feel even stiffer to me now. Maybe I just sucked though.
I forgot Halo CE [PC] existed. Still tons of fun [thank you completely broken pistol].
you need to download an update if you forgot it existed like me, since GameSpy is gone
Come check out my website, I guess. Random stuff I've worked on over the last two decades.
Phantasy Star 2.
Well, I just beat one of the most elaborate dungeons ever using only the main character and his cat girlfriend. THEN I found out that you can recruit more party members. http://fantasyanime.com/phantasystar/im ... matrol.png
blackoak wrote:I really liked Crusader: No Remorse back in the day. Isometric is still my favorite perspective I think, especially for rpgs/strat games. I remember Crusader being a little hard to control, probably would feel even stiffer to me now. Maybe I just sucked though.
It's so stiff you have to jump into obstacles the exact right way (sometimes turning helps jog you a bit forward) and just running into things can make you warp around...it's definitely way stiff.
Still fun though. Ctrl+D = infinite ammo good times.
Immryr wrote:i played through super Mario bros 3 for the first time in quite a few years yesterday. I had forgotten how big the difficulty spike is between world 7 and 8, the whole game is a cake walk then you get to world 8 and start losing lives! i had a lot of fun with it, but I still prefere super Mario world.
Some random stuff (MAME):
Karnov - expert autofire protection on that dragon (sub?) boss in the second stage! I always liked the multiple paths in this one.
Kieth Courage 5 minute spit take - Now I understand why this was a favorite over at the Digital Press / TG-16 fanclub. Vaguely reskinned Japanese theme, stupid dialogue, cornball underdetailed graphics and lousy sound, and also terrible gameplay with skid-n-stop and awful platforming. Hammerin' Harry this one into the garbage bin. OWCH
Speaking of spikes, terrible SMS Flash spit take here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nF4RpMp7VmA "GOTTA GO SLOW"
I've played the game some - a bit fiddly at times and while the "huge map with nooks and crannies" design was fun for designers at the time, it translated into weak and unfocused gameplay. How the flash do you pretend to do a flash review (egh) and not cotton to the factoid that this is essentially a Sonic-inspired game, ergo you ought to pay attention to the spin attack for vertical speed? I'm sympathetic on the speed stuff though, the guy at least tried to make it through some of the islands of fire at full speed. Fittlingly for the license, PAL/NTSC issues mean it might have helped if this Brit set his emulator to PAL.
Given the blonde hair on Amanda Pays / McGee in the intro, and Flash's facemask cutout looks right, so this looks like it could possibly be intended as a tie-in with the US series, even though Tricksy doesn't look like Hamill.
I just lost an entire weekend to Lords of Xulima. This is hands-down the best western-style CRPG I've ever played, at least from a gameplay perspective. Not surprising considering the game was inspired by the CRPG Addict blog.
I'm running the standard team of Explorer (mandatory), Soldier, Thief, Cleric, Mage, and Bard. I've already got plans for the crazy team I'll field on my hard-mode playthrough. I've just beaten the first major boss and hit level 10. This is some of the best turn-based tactical combat I've ever played without breaking into SRPG territory.
Two working class dudes, one black one white, just baked a tray of ten cookies together.
An oligarch walks in and grabs nine cookies for himself.
Then he says to the white dude "Watch out for that black dude, he wants a piece of your cookie!"
