What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

[Squire Grooktook]

Definitely more lenient. 1 and 2/X at least.

From what I recommended, the 4 examples you listed are reeeaaally random. Sol in particular is too random.

[Blinge]

Eh? The final boss and the zombie clone bit aren't memo at all, they're just really intense (and imo a whole lot of fun). Sol Dae Rokker isn't memo either, just very tough.

None of the other games in the series have anything like those anyways, iirc.

I guess memo isn't the best term for final boss, I kinda rushed that post.
Still, trying the final boss without knowing how to in-out in-out means you're the one getting fucked..

I do think the zombie chase is memo, I can't see anyone beating that without a practiced strategy.

[Enzo03]

Getting my daily dose of Duck Game in. I've been too addicted to this game for far too long, but the Duck Game train has no brakes.

It's a bit silly that some people take this game seriously enough to ragequit from it, too.

[MintyTheCat]

I tried Pulseman for the first time on the MD the other night. Seems a bit uneventful play wise but looks quite pretty. I prefer Rockman on the famicom to that or Power Blade.

As usual, I seem to gravitate back to playing Gain-Ground on the MD, no idea why but I love this game

[qmish]

Gain Ground has great songs!

[Ghegs]

Must've been two years or so ago when I picked up the Aurail PCB, and I'm only now starting to play it with any real effort. I can get to the fourth boss on a credit now, so progress has been pretty nice so far. Though the tunnel-sections aren't my favorite thing in the world, they became a lot more manageable when I realized you can move back and forth even during an enemy encounter. So the basic tactic is to zoom past enemies so that they're all on one side, turn around and fire at them while moving backwards.

[mamboFoxtrot]

Panzer Dragoon Orta came in the mail today. Even after doing about 6 stages, I still haven't really gotten a handle on dodging things. Seems like you really need to be Wind Dragon form if you wanna bob-and-weave like Star Fox. Using the Boost/Brake system to maneuver around bosses and evade certain attacks is certainly more interesting than what you do with it in Star Fox. Overall, seems a pretty cool game! Apparently the original Panzer Dragoon (or, the PC version of it) is an unlockable in there as well, so that sounds cool, too. Assuming the emulation is accurate enough, that's 60+ bucks I don't have to spend on the Saturn version!
(Also, I should totally mail in that GamePro magazine offer that was in there with the manual!)


I also completed a playthrough of Dust: An Elysian Tail on Tough mode, which I wouldn't really recommend to anyone trying the game out. Dust is pretty overpowered compared to what he has to deal with, so Tough mode is basically just "sometimes you goof and get killed in one hit by somebody" mode, but is otherwise a bit mindless. The game looks and sounds great, enemy paper-dolling and high-school DeviantArt-level talking portraits aside (Fidget's wing-flapping is pretty impressive, though), and is generally fun to control, but I honestly felt that the game just throws too many damn enemies at you, really just padding the game out. Also, there's no getting around that I feel the final boss is the only one that really feels like a boss fight, and even then that's more because of his annoying random-blocking (even when in hitstun o.o) and all the mooks he summons. The dialogue is also pretty excessive at times, and I found myself skipping or at least speeding up a lot of it near the end of the game. As a largely-one-man project, it's pretty impressive, but as a general playing experience it's just okay.

[BrianC]

Assuming the emulation is accurate enough, that's 60+ bucks I don't have to spend on the Saturn version!

If you have a means to play imports, the JP version is under 30 dollars.

[mamboFoxtrot]

Yeah, but I would rather the cutscenes be subtitled in English, rather than looking up a translation of them after the fact. A very stupid and petty thing to pay extra for, but I guess that's just the kind of person I am.

[Leandro]

I also completed a playthrough of Dust: An Elysian Tail on Tough mode, which I wouldn't really recommend to anyone trying the game out. Dust is pretty overpowered compared to what he has to deal with, so Tough mode is basically just "sometimes you goof and get killed in one hit by somebody" mode, but is otherwise a bit mindless. The game looks and sounds great, enemy paper-dolling and high-school DeviantArt-level talking portraits aside (Fidget's wing-flapping is pretty impressive, though), and is generally fun to control, but I honestly felt that the game just throws too many damn enemies at you, really just padding the game out. Also, there's no getting around that I feel the final boss is the only one that really feels like a boss fight, and even then that's more because of his annoying random-blocking (even when in hitstun o.o) and all the mooks he summons. The dialogue is also pretty excessive at times, and I found myself skipping or at least speeding up a lot of it near the end of the game. As a largely-one-man project, it's pretty impressive, but as a general playing experience it's just okay.

Yeah, I love how the game looks, but the gameplay is so boring. It's a pity

[Obiwanshinobi]

Apparently the original Panzer Dragoon (or, the PC version of it) is an unlockable in there as well, so that sounds cool, too. Assuming the emulation is accurate enough, that's 60+ bucks I don't have to spend on the Saturn version!

I doubt it's technically emulation (more likely a port). By the way, I see the PC Panzer Dragoon offered for peanuts all the time and it run well enough on a 32-bit WinXP system when I tried.

[NickPalmerDegica]

I've been playing Deus Ex: Human Revolution again. Or I sort of played the beginning again. Not sure if I plan on continuing at the moment. I like the game a lot but there are some really slow parts. And then a few games for work, but those, while fun, aren't just "for enjoyment" things.

[Ed Oscuro]

Who was asleep or drunk at Remedy when they set up that insane motion blur effect on Alan Wake? Just booted it again for the...probably just the third time, and the motion blur immediately started annoying me like nothing before, even the worst DoF effect implementations I've seen are nothing on this.

So, if you have the game on PC, just get this: http://community.remedygames.com/forum/ ... lur?t=7974

[soprano1]

Shantae had amazing music, not so amazing gameplay. Still can't find Bravely Second. Think i'll continue my Final Fantasy 7 save on the PSP.

[Leandro]

Playing Resident Evil 6 and started Final Fantasy XIII, both on Steam.

FFXIII looks gorgeous, Im impressed. Too bad it frame drops frequently on my machine

[Squire Grooktook]

Whoa! Just spent some time with Proxy Blade Zero on steam, and I gotta say so far this game is pretty much everything I've wanted in a 3d hack and slash lately:

-Jet Pack brings high mobility and lets you zip around constantly. Games like this need more spacing and movement focus, and this one is delivering.
-Any attack can be cancelled into a parry, which provides rock solid defense, but you still want to space so you don't have to do tricky parries, and the counter attack skill requires good sight reading.
-Arcadey game set up. Should be possible to 1cc this and well paced for it.

Just wish I could replace the ost with some guilty gear or falcom stuff, this sci-fi beep boop stuff ain't getting me into the sword-god-murder-rampage mood~

[mamboFoxtrot]

Hey, that one's been on my backlog for while now! I kinda forgot I even bought the thing lol.

But man, the last boss of Orta is a pain in the ass! The game keeps track of how many times you've played each stage, and since I've only played the game once so far, that pretty much just makes it the "attempts per level" count. Most of the stages were somewhere between 2 and 4, but Episode 10... 17. It took 17 attempts to kill that bastard! Worst part is, it's really only the laser attack of his last form that killed me. Everything he does leading up to that is barely even Stage 1 Boss material, and that's probably the more annoying part. Every failure at his third form is another 5+ minutes slogging through his first two forms. Gah.
The rest of the game's still pretty cool, though. So, now to start playing the original PD, and probably check out the Sub Scenarios.

[Shepardus]

Since Disgaea came to PC I've been playing that; just got to Chapter 9 (Captain Gordon, Defender of Earth). Even though the game's on PC now I've actually been playing the PSP version through an emulator since sadly enough that runs a lot better on my laptop than the PC port and boasts conveniences such as fast-forwarding. This isn't my first time playing through the game, but I'm starting from a fresh save this time. It's interesting to notice that, not even counting the post-game content which I only got partway through when I played this before, there's a lot of stuff I didn't notice or take full advantage of, most notably the stealing mechanic, the capture mechanic (throwing enemies into the base panel), and most of the monster classes. I don't have a well-leveled thief in my party though and my party's not strong enough yet to reliably capture much, so those will have to wait for New Game + in which I'll try to capture every enemy I come across.

I'll probably give Disgaea 2 a try later on too.

[louisg]

I've been playing a lot of Jam It, a new Commodore 64 basketball game that is extremely impressive and really fun. Had this been released back in the day, it would've had everyone talking about it. Other than that, lately I was really into Roadkill on Amiga but haven't had as much time as I'd like to play it.

[Some-Mist]

beat costume quest + dlc and 100%ed achievements
beat costume quest 2
about 90% the way through stacking and about 90% the way through achievements

next will probably be the blackwell games or psychonauts.

pretty bummed that I'm almost done with all the easy but hilariously fun double fine games. really looking forward to the day of the tentacle remaster even though I've beaten it, and then Candle by daedalic games releasing in April.

edit: started with blackwell legacy last night and I think I'm almost done. I think I have to

Spoiler

find the deacon

[professor ganson]

I'll probably give Disgaea 2 a try later on too.

I loved grinding in the item world in Disgaea 2. Really great fun. I haven't tried Disgaea 5 yet, but Disgaea 4 is a very good game. It's got some nice challenge if you avoid grinding.

[HIB]

Dark Souls 2 as a warmup for DkS 3

[Blinge]

Haven't felt like playing any shmups for a while =/
In the meantime I've had FFVIII on the go. Enjoyed the story for the first disc or two.. but now it's really shat the bed.

The game seems mechanically fucked, most random encounters have wayyy too much health. Everything is long, attack animations are long, magic is long, summons obviously looooong.
Squall is overleveled cause you're forced to use him for most of the game, now his melee attacks are dealing around 5X more damage than other party members casting Ultima
The weird xp allocation means the others won't catch up unless I knock squall out and grind them while carrying his dead ass about, which I'm not going to do because time.
I don't care about the world or sidequests cause the core gameplay isn't gripping me. At this point I'd even say XIII is better.

All the positive reviews on the wikipedia page are somewhat amusing. You'd never suspect the game has the bad rep it does.

[soprano1]

Haven't felt like playing any shmups for a while =/
In the meantime I've had FFVIII on the go. Enjoyed the story for the first disc or two.. but now it's really shat the bed.

The game seems mechanically fucked, most random encounters have wayyy too much health. Everything is long, attack animations are long, magic is long, summons obviously looooong.
Squall is overleveled cause you're forced to use him for most of the game, now his melee attacks are dealing around 5X more damage than other party members casting Ultima
The weird xp allocation means the others won't catch up unless I knock squall out and grind them while carrying his dead ass about, which I'm not going to do because time.
I don't care about the world or sidequests cause the core gameplay isn't gripping me. At this point I'd even say XIII is better.

All the positive reviews on the wikipedia page are somewhat amusing. You'd never suspect the game has the bad rep it does.

Enemies level up with you in 8, not sure if you know that. So don't grind levels, you will only make it hard for yourself in the long run.

[Blinge]

Yeah most of them scale with your party's average level. So they'll be tougher cause squall is pushing the average up I guess. Which compounds the problem of him being the only damage dealer.
I haven't been grinding.

[soprano1]

Yeah most of them scale with your party's average level. So they'll be tougher cause squall is pushing the average up I guess. Which compounds the problem of him being the only damage dealer.
I haven't been grinding.

Abuse the Card command and Enc-None. It doesn't make the game very fun, but that's just how it is.

[Jonathan Ingram]

Levels have a negligible effect on your character stats in FFVIII. What really matters is what kind of magic you assign to what stat and the quantity in which it is assigned. Disregard leveling and farm some decent spells to quickly boost your party.

[Blinge]

and the quantity in which it is assigned.

ah SHIT.
I'd thought I might be missing something..

[Xyga]

Levels have a negligible effect on your character stats in FFVIII. What really matters is what kind of magic you assign to what stat and the quantity in which it is assigned. Disregard leveling and farm some decent spells to quickly boost your party.

FFVIII draw_grinding, good times *yawn*

[BIL]

FFVIII special forces captain abandoning post during crucial danger situation to apologise to someone across town and getting her squad locked in an office leaving it all to the elite sniper who has panic attack about shooting people and blows the operation