What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

[Super Laydock]

Just have had a great time with old time favourite Bubble Bobble through Arcade Archives on PS4.
Remains brilliant!

Rainbow Islands too, I beg you.
It's mandatory entertainment.

[Tarma]

Revisiting '90s classic Die Hard Hard Trilogy on the Saturn

[broken harbour]

Revisiting '90s classic Die Hard Hard Trilogy on the Saturn

That's actually one of the few Saturn games I don't own and have never played. Well... I vaguely recall playing it in the arcade 20 + years ago... or I could have hallucinated that... hmmm....

[qmish]

Eh, in arcades you have Dynamite Deka, not Die Hard Trilogy.

[Ed Oscuro]

I've played a bit of Die Hard Trilogy on PS1 recently-ish. I wonder how similar they are. For that matter, I wonder why Fox went with these "trilogy" games? Right off the top of my head it reminds me of the name of Alien Trilogy, which I haven't played.

In North America, Dynamite Deka was just called Die Hard Arcade, which is a similar name. I think it makes far more sense than Dynamite Deka, anyway, because it's clearly a license game (well, the "official" story seems to be that it's an original property later licensed to tie in with Die Hard, which just happens to be nearly ten years older and a perfect match for the game's setting and cast). One of the fun ones, too.

SUCCESS!

Oh, and thanks to Sega Bits, we can now understand that the ideal length of an arcade game is north of 3 hours. Whaat?

[atheistgod1999]

Far Cry 3 on Master difficulty. It's a fucking cakewalk. Playing NES is seriously improving my skills .

[Tarma]

Die Hard Trilogy on the Saturn and PlayStation are the same game from Fox Interactive - and same for Alien Trilogy.

Die Hard Arcade, aka Dynamite Deka, was on Saturn only, until it was released on PS2 as part of the Sega Ages range. They're totally different games.

While Die Hard Arcade is still a lot of fun to play (despite the dated visuals), Die Hard Trilogy is a frustrating mess hampered by outdated controls and questionable collision detection and some dodgy impressions of Bruce Willis and Samuel L Jackson.

[broken harbour]

[quote="Tarma"]
Die Hard Arcade, aka Dynamite Deka, was on Saturn only, until it was released on PS2 as part of the Sega Ages range. They're totally different games.
quote]

Oops, I thought that's the game he was talking about...

[Ed Oscuro]

Die Hard Arcade, aka Dynamite Deka, was on Saturn only

And STV, naturally. I should pick one up sometime, should be dirt cheap.

[Obiwanshinobi]

There's a pretty handsome Dynamite Deka remake on PS2, just saying.

[Tarma]

There's a pretty handsome Dynamite Deka remake on PS2, just saying.

Indeedy. I always play with the PS2 graphics (the Saturn original is included in the game), it's pretty neat.

[qmish]

My fav Deka is Asian Dynamite, main reason why i hope i would own Naomi one day in the future

[JoeAwesome]

My fav Deka is Asian Dynamite, main reason why i hope i would own Naomi one day in the future

It's on my to buy list as well.

Right now I'm playing Oriental Legend on the PGM. Somewhat simple in it's appearance, but fun nonetheless.

[mamboFoxtrot]

Gonna try playing through Ocarina of Time with an Ultra Racer controller. First dungeon down, rest of the game to go... Nothing bad can possibly come of this.

Also playing Onimusha (PS2 version). Liking it somewhat so far, annoying moment with a timed sliding puzzle aside. Samonosuke's moveset is sparse, but practical. Why more videogame protagonists don't have the option to simply thrust their weapon is beyond me. The tank controls are weird, but manageable so far.
I have to ask, though: how is the Xbox version's performance compared to the PS2's? Specifically, the brief (and sometimes not-so-brief) pause when switching between camera angles? I honestly can't say I understand why that even happens. I mean, how intensive could it possibly be to move a camera and swap out some 2D background graphics?

[Ed Oscuro]

Now that DOOM is out, let's play Powerslave EX, where you spend most of your time hitting pots and scorpions with a machete. Also picked up the RC1 of the Ancient Aliens DOOM megawad, find it here. Looks pretty sweet. qtest1 also had its 20th anniversary recently so I ran it in DOSbox for old times' sake. No strafe left or right or even fixed mouselook...man, that one never ceases to shock me.

"Hell Yeah," some puerile shit Sega offloaded onto all of us who did that whole "Make War Not Love" promotion. It's basically a bunch of diffuse maps where you plog along and kill stuff by repeatedly shooting them, then executing a "fun" finisher minigame. I'm sure the humor will appeal to some - it's got some moments - but overall, bleh.

Strider, got along with part of the recent Capcom humble bundle. Well, it's not too bad but they really shouldn't have tried talking cutscenes. Does some clever things.

@ mamboFoxtrot: Quick Google search brought this up:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjo9Am-ARaw

Xbox Onimusha has 480p (as best as I can tell) and better textures, which may be your selling points right away. Man, I need to search this one out. I played the PS2 version and it wasn't bad, but this does look improved.

As for the PS2 scene-switching lag...well, I don't think there's streaming going on, but it's also got to move the 3D models as well. Something to do with the compositing? Or maybe to prevent the reentry to action from being too sudden? Or maybe the backgrounds have to be decompressed? There seem to be a lot of them loaded into memory at once.

[mamboFoxtrot]

I doubt too many, if any 3D models need to be moved when changing angles, but you're probably right about it needing to decompress the images in real-time. Those images are quite large. Looking at some YouTube footage, it seems that the Xbox version does improve the speed of the camera angle switching quite a bit. Compare the heart-attack the PS2 has here to how it is on the Xbox (sorry, Let's Play footage is what YT threw at me for Genma).

Anyway, looking at the changes, both cosmetic and mechanical (like not having to upgrade your sword's strength and ability to open doors separately!), it having apparently no issues when playing on a 360, and the fact that it sells for peanuts makes picking this up a no-brainer for me. Next time I have some spare change, I'll definitely get this and Onimusha 3, to complete the series.

"Hell Yeah," some puerile shit Sega offloaded onto all of us who did that whole "Make War Not Love" promotion.

Oy, yeah, I got that too and tried it out. It ran at an unplayable framerate for me, though. You'd think a laptop that can run AsteBreed on medium settings, or Crimson Clover WI on max settings would be able to run something like this, but... apparently not. Oh well, it's not like I'm missing out on anything!

[Ed Oscuro]

Hmm, I'm obviously not fully awake here

I do suspect that something to do with the large backgrounds is probably largely to blame here, but I thought I'd take a second shot at my other theory: In today's hardware and software, it's pretty easy to render even multiple views of a scene simultaneously. Onimusha's 3D scenes are relatively simple; there shouldn't be too many (if any) effects that need a lengthy set-up time, not even different LODs to switch to (and, of course, LODs are meant to be switched in real time anyway). But possibly there's something that needed to be set up or restarted when switching scenes, all the same. The fact that the Xbox has more than twice as much RAM probably is the determining factor here.

By the by, there's a fourth Onimusha game - Dawn of Dreams. I haven't gotten a copy yet.

As for "Hell Yeah," a bit more explanation: It's kind of "metroidvania" - like, but the two gameplay modes (on foot, or in a chainsaw wheel) don't really have a compelling gameplay hook. There is a bonus mode, "The Island," which I guess is supposed to be a bit like Tamagotchi. You assign monsters to tasks, and...that's about it.

I should mention I've gotten a free game, "Khimera: Destroy All Monster Girls," whose humor goes down easier, and it has a pretty decent set of levels, moves, and enemies, with pretty nice controls (lots of air control, but at least it doesn't feel super laggy). Did I mention it's free? It also has a couple interesting modes, too. Lots of replayability for a free game!

[mamboFoxtrot]

Weird. Why is that game free? Oh well, might as well check it out!

And yeah, I actually already have Dawn of Dreams. It's kind of a funny story: I bought New Super Mario Bros. Wii from a local Gamestop, but when I popped it in the Wii, it didn't work, so I brought it back and they gave me a different disc, but then that didn't work either. So after that (and also one wasted trip where I forgot to put the game back in the disc before driving up there ) I decided to just get a store credit refund and raid the PS2 section, since they had a phasing-out sale. Managed to nab Onimusha 1, 2, and DoD, along with a bunch of other games.

[JBC]

New Doom gets pretty good a few minutes in. I definitely feel like I'm playing a 2016 version of the originals.

I normally hate stuff if I play it when tired from work, but I was kinda digging it. Gonna spend a few good hours with it tomorrow after some rest.

[BulletMagnet]

I should mention I've gotten a free game, "Khimera: Destroy All Monster Girls," whose humor goes down easier, and it has a pretty decent set of levels, moves, and enemies, with pretty nice controls (lots of air control, but at least it doesn't feel super laggy).

I tried this the other day, and it's built on a solid foundation, but a few things annoyed the living daylights out of me. First, when repeatedly using light attack the game seemed to sometimes let me rapid-fire it pretty consistently but other times threw in just enough lag for an enemy to sneak in between punches (or maybe it's a hitbox issue); Second, the way enemies bounce off of your attacks (and frequently off of a wall and right back into you if you're too close) came across as an unnecessary frustration; Third, if baddies can get past your fist and sit directly on top of you (which they will do, often) you will continue to take damage until you move away, since your fist will miss if you try to fend them off with an attack.

The creator said he's continuing to take feedback and plans to patch the game, so I'll wait until the next round of tweaks before trying it again; as you said, it does have a lot going for it, especially considering it's free, but IMO it still needs more time in the oven.

[Ed Oscuro]

I didn't notice the lag issue. I did notice sitting on an enemy is bad; I try to avoid that. I don't think this is really too different from NES classics that won't let you sit on top of an enemy, except there you'd likely get knocked back, and the damage seems pretty mild from this. Definitely better than getting bumped into a pit.

My major annoyances were that there's too many buttons for comfortable keyboard play, and some of the functions are pretty worthless (the anchor). Chest is nice but can be a bit difficult to reach. Dashing also works beautifully...except when it sometimes doesn't, rarely. It's very easy to repeatedly dash some bosses to death but some simple pirate enemies seem occasionally able to hurt you when they've been pushed into a wall.

I also did not care for the various projectile attacks. The light punch charge attack is so slow it breaks the flow of the game to use it, and the later attack on punches (from an EX stage) is one of those horrible "have a power until you take damage" things, which never work well.

In other news, Powerslave EX has gotten a lot better now that I've gotten into some of the imaginative stages and can use the bomb freely. I like the "restart the stage on death" design; seems like a counterpart to the "pistol start" designed DOOM maps (which most people ignore). Here, health and weapon power drops are enough to regulate each stage. Overall, a bit plainer than the Marathon games but at least as fun.

[Tarma]

Aliens - the Konami arcade game. Never gets old for me this, such a shame it was never ported, I reckon the SFC could have done a pretty good job of recreating the arcade game... after all they did it with TMNT.

[Some-Mist]

pocket card jockey - it's unfair how addicting it is

downwell - finally hit 5-1 last night and I think I got pretty far. surprised 4-3 wasn't the end. it's super hard to practice this one since everything is randomly generated..
current strat is to base everything on health then gems + flight as boulder style. consumes dead bodies > plus 1hp and upgrade slot > apple > jet pack > gems recharge gunboots > sucks in nearby gems > longer gem high. it's random so I try to take the highest on my tier list. the rest I can care less about since it typically doesn't benefit world 4. I've never taken weapon shuffle either.


dark souls prepare to die - beat the ps3 version on release and replaying on pc for shits. pretty much started last night and got through the gaping demon while cursed... gonna farm before blight town. never played the dlc so I'm looking forward to going in blind.

[Blinge]

The life of an achievement whore. I've got every cheeve from New Vegas now.

Also started Ys:I
Pretty good!

[Stevens]

I had Y's for the SMS as a child. I loved it.

Playing the PCE version? That music is so good.

[Blinge]

SMS eh? it's cool how those games were ported everywhere. Nah I'm playing the steam version, which is the PSP chronicles version I believe.
There's an option to have the PC88 music playing.

[lilmanjs]

Last game I played? Doom 3 of course. Say what you will, I can sense I will enjoy it.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Ys on Steam is ye olde Ys remake for Windows (can be played in PSP aspect ratio now, which makes for even more scaling artefacts), which predates PSP itself (first released as Ys Eternal in the year 1998).

[Blinge]

Pretty sure they've taken other things from the PSP version too, not quite the straight "ye olde" port.
One of the options is choosing music from Chronicles, Complete or PC-88. You can also choose art from Complete of Chronicle.

I haven't noticed any scaling artefacts.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Assuming you are playing in resolution higher than game's original 640x480, the graphics are upscaled which must produce artefacts (that's why bilinear filtering can be enabled in options, which looks plain ugly when on).
The reason why there is demand for fake scanlines when scaling low resolution raster images up to higher is to ease the artefacts produced by upscaling.

This is a problem with not only raster graphics of course. PS2 Metal Gear Solid 2 on RGB or component CRT looks actually SHARPER than "HD" port on HDTV LCD - that's because "HD" in this case is not so high (960x720, I think, that must be smeared upon higher resolution screen). I recommend viewing the cutscenes letterboxed, but even then, despite halved (in said scenes and certain playable sections) framerate, PS2 game looks cleaner to me. At least PAL Substance (50 Hz only, but fullscreen-fullspeed optimised) does.

"HD" MGS3 does improve on the PS2 game's sharpness because the latter was already rendered in sub-native, then scaled by PS2 up to SDTV standard. Them sub-native SDTV games looked acceptable on CRTs (where even upscaling, artefacts and all, is easier on the eye), but that's another story altogether.

In nearest-neighbour-upscaled raster image's case (as in Ys without any post-processing, such as bi-linear filtering), artefact is the rectangular shape of pixels.

Spoiler

Pixels don't look like squares in native resolution; they appear more like dots there.