IC Forum Archive

the blueberry hill · Posts: 458

Awww... I'm so happy I got to make my thread again.

Hopefully someone will start a good topic soon... anyway...

I got myself a PSone. It came with Vib Ribbon, which I have played more than anything recently. Is it just my copy that shifts the tracks out of order when I play with my own CD? It gave me hope for a DS game, where you can insert your GBA games in the other slot, and it builds levels based on them.

Anyway, that game made me cry, so I don't want to go on about it.

I'v also played a lot of GunGage, and found Mattasaurs name in a FAQ for it.

And I've started Silent Hill, it's sitting in the PlayStation right now.

But really, I havn't had games in my head, just needed to post something... oh, there was some Donkey Konga 3 in there too...

dessgeega · Posts: 3317

while the forums were down, i played the first shenmue from start to finish.

gunroar, meteos, and starflight have also been popular.

today i played ancipital for the commodore 64.

Mr. Mechanical · Posts: 1890

I played this and that. Some Killer7 more recently, and I just got done getting into Fable really heavily for about two or three days now. I'm about to beat it. It was pretty fun the whole time.

PepsimanVsJoe · Posts: 105

Let's see...

Nightshade, Princess Crown, Kakuto Chojin(haha), Spiderman 2, Deathrow, and a bunch of other shit.

Lasa Kon · Posts: 245

Well, Brothers in Arms, Notrium, Jedi knight Academy, Tekken 5 and Final Fight 3(Yeah, I don't know why myself).

Mr. Apol · Posts: 279

I'm about to play GunZ

aderack · Posts: 5018

Still playing lots of that Transformers game from Melbourne House. I think I might go interview them for GamaSutra later. Maybe. This has inspired me; hadn't thought of them for a while beforehand.

Here's some stuff I said to Toups:

I wrote:

Still playing Transformers. The second half of stage four takes place inside a giant aircraft carrier thing. This is after half a stage of driving around on mud flats in the middle of the ocean. So you drive around on these mudflats, in the rain. Then you hang-glide onto the aircraft carrier and blast your way through its hallways. Eventually you get to the control room, and disable the aircraft carrier --

Then... it transforms. And it's FUCKING HUGE. And it's the boss.

You then scamper around the mudflats, shooting at this huge thing stomping around after you, trying to hit it in the head. Which is hard, because the head is so high up and your weapons only have so much range... It's pretty cool.

Sort of weird, though -- you get the ability to glide (a very powerful ability) before you get the power to jump high (not very powerful but very useful -- somewhat less useful after you have the glide ability). I mean, you don't jump THAT high -- just enough that you don't have to grumble every time you try to jump up onto something and miss because you're not lined up exactly right. Not that this is a big problem -- it's just. You can't always jump as high as you think you can.

I'm thinking just maybe the fifth level was supposed to go before the fourth -- especially given that there are only two items to get there, one of which is mandatory, and especially given the boss. It's just such a weird level that it would make more sense if it were to come later. I think it's just there to put more space between the two ice levels.

Toups wrote:

How is it for a non-transformer fan? (Anal rape at the hands of a wolf, I mean)

I wrote:

About the same as for a Transformer fan, I expect.

The game should be... not as thrilling as a person might demand. The videogame part is adequate and well-enough-executed to carry what the game's really doing -- which is LETTING YOU PLAY AS FUCKING OPTIMUS PRIME and feeling actually like you're kind of controlling Optimus Prime, doing the things that Autobots do.

Let's see. You can unlock public service announcements which include Bumblebee explaining to a kid why he shouldn't run away from his parents just because they're mean and Seaspray explaining to another kid the reasoning behind weaing a lifejacket when you're on a boat. Because knowing is half the battle!

Which... they actually say.

These are, of course, from G1. Early '80s. NOTHING AT ALL to do with the game itself, which is supposed to be based on Armada.

That says a lot about this game. I think that says more than anything.

The people who made this thing were REALLY INTERESTED in making it, and interested in the license. You can tell they went "Oh FUCK we got TRANSFORMERS!" And they basically made... a Transformers game. Something that would do the license proud and maybe take their idea of Transformers in a direction Hasbro hadn't bothered to take it before. Which includes a bunch of references from the original series. Things that have no REAL business being there because they're not part of the toy line that they're supposed to be advertising.

Most of them are superficial, but just enough to make people who go in expecting an Armada game but old enough to remember G1 to crack up constantly -- sometimes because it's silly, as with those ads, sometimes because it just works so well.

This is maybe the best "licensed game" -- as far as that goes, as a genre -- I've played. The best I can think off offhand, anyway.

You remember on the NES and -- well, you wouldn't remember the Genesis -- but you remember how licensed games weren't always necessarily crap? Like Disney-licensed games- - they tended to be made by Capcom and Sega. So we got stuff like Ducktales and Castle of Illustion -- a couple of the best games ever for their respective systems. They were just good games, that used the license as an excuse and as inspiration.

This isn't the same thing. Instead, it's a game that really takes its license seriously, and appreciates and understands it, and makes something incredibly faithful to it, that actually adds to the license rather than just leeching from it.

If it happens that if you're interested in Transformers, this is a great exploration of them. It really is something else. If you're not, it's... a game with big robots that involves a lot of exploration.

It's kind of made me revise some ideas I have about the nature of licensed games. About their existential purpose and value. The purpose here is different from the purpose of a "real" videogame. Yet it fulfills it to an almost ideal level.

It's a totally different feeling than I get from, say, EA's Lord of the Rings game. It's got integrity and spirit, as far as what it's trying to do.

Panoptic · Posts: 291

Completed a 2nd run of Otogi 2 - got the Moonlight Sword and the 2nd ending this time around. Also played through Battle of Olympus on the NES, and started into Killer7 and Riviera.

the blueberry hill · Posts: 458

Grrr... OK... don't just list shit, remember where we are. Perhaps I didn't set the best example.

*shakes fist*

BalbanesBeoulve · Posts: 2126

I played the new Fire Emblem, Atelier Iris, Viewtiful Joe, Super Mario Sunshine, and am now playing Dynasty Tactics.

dessgeega · Posts: 3317

i played riviera very very steadily for a while. i found it refreshing how it streamlines the jrpg process - there's no getting lost. then the fights started getting really really hard. that's not why i stopped playing, though.

there's this one battle. the first major boss of the game. this boss has one attack that was able to kill every person in my party, simultaneously. the game asked, "continue?" i picked yes, and the battle started over, without needlessly replaying parts i've already played. this is necessary; the gameplay depends on surprise and good time-management. it needs the player not to replay each scene for the optimum result. so i die, and i start the battle over. streamlined, yes?

indeed. after i'd lost to this person's instant-death move several times, and continued several times, i noticed my opponent's health was starting lower and lower, and my party's special meter was starting higher and higher. eventually my meter got so high and my opponent's so low that i could not lose.

every battle has turned into this. a fight starts, and i know i'm not going to win until all my characters have died at least twice. so every battle requires watching my characters die, once, twice, sometimes many times. and the victories, of course, feel hollow.

maybe i'm supposed to use the "training battle" feature between actual battles, to make my characters good enough to fight the real battles. but in a game as streamlined it feels like i would be needlessly breaking the steady pace of the story by engaging in uneccesary battles. and with no cost! it's the same as waiting for my characters to die.

so i havn't played this game in a while.

EDIT: the new fire emblem, though, is lovely.

LegatoB · Posts: 1546

The other day, I played a game called the white chamber, a decent freeware point-and-click horror adventure with vaguely anime-inspired graphics. It's the usual story: protagonist wakes up on abandoned space station - with amnesia! - and explores it while stumbing across freaky corpses and monsters and shit until she finally figures out what the hell happened. The game claims it has four endings, but two of them are easily-avoided (and rather gruesome) deaths, and don't really count. The puzzles are about as taxing to the brain as taking candy from a mentally-challenged infant, and most of them are old adventure game staples telegraphed a few dozen miles away. It is, however, kinda freaky and nice and gory, and it kept me entertained for part of an afternoon. The graphics are excellent, aside from some slight weirdness in the heroine's walking animations. Might not be worth the 300 megabyte download for modem users, but if you've got broadband and enjoy pointing and clicking on objects to manipulate them or put them into your inventory, give it a shot.

Here's a drastically scaled down version of a screenshot from the site to show you how it looks. The actual game runs in 1024x768.

Judge Ito · Posts: 284

I revisited my Animal Crossing town after being away for a full year (the weeds... *shudder*), and I've been improving my high score in the PS1 port of Strikers 1945 II (known simply as... Strikers 1945).

dessgeega · Posts: 3317

the designers of the white chamber like silent hill a little too much for their game's own good. i got the "redemption" ending, which meant i got to wear a bikini. have you gotten the other ending?

LegatoB · Posts: 1546

dessgeega wrote:

the designers of the white chamber like silent hill a little too much for their game's own good. i got the "redemption" ending, which meant i got to wear a bikini. have you gotten the other ending?

The "other ending" (I think it's called "damned") is pretty lame, and not worth getting. For the curious: It's basically just some text saying "You didn't regret your sins by choosing that prompt at the start of the game, so you get to do it all over again forever and ever! Go get the Redemption ending!" The death endings are both very easy to get during the course of the game, so they're not much to write home about either. I hear rumors the "international" edition will add more content to go with other languages - hopefully that would mean alternate endings worth going out of your way to get.

Swimmy · Posts: 147

Dragon Warrior VII and Ninja Golf.

Scratchmonkey · Posts: 2229

I've been alternating between two games, for the most part, for the past week or so.

The first game is Football Manager 2005. This game used to be known as Championship Manager, and it's basically the Civ of sports management games. It attempts to simulate, as best as possible, the role of being a manager of a soccer team to a degree of complexity that borders on the surreal. The manual lists only the basic features of the game and how they're accessed, going into no real advanced strategy or how to play the game.

It's 70 pages long.

FM uses real teams and has pretty all of them from around the world. In my game, I'm coach of Fortuna Dusseldorf, who start out in the Regionalla Nord, the German Third Division. I have them up to the Bundesliga.2 after one season of play.

***

The second game is Dragon Quest VI. I really like this game. There's something about the art and music direction that cuts through the fog that I usually have when playing games. It's simple and sincere. I play it on my PSP before I fall asleep, which seems to be the perfect way to play this game.

LegatoB · Posts: 1546

That reminds me. On a whim, I downloaded Dragon Warrior 3 (the Gameboy Color version) and put it on my PSP. It's a lot more fun than I expected. Just wandering around killing monsters and buying better gear for my party to tackle dungeons becomes something of a zen experience. Maybe there's something to the Japanese people's obession with this series after all.

dessgeega · Posts: 3317

you know. after watching a lost in blue trailer i was compelled to play survival kids. it's pretty rewarding, actually.

WarpZone · Posts: 396

I finally completed Final Fantasy 9....after six months. What helped alleviate a lot of the dungeon trekking was playing it in 2-player mode, taking turns as certain characters. It may have the most charm of any game I've played in the series, and was a nice farewell to random-battle RPG's. At least, I've had all the random battles I can stomach for a while, given such a simplistic system.

I'm playing MGS2: Sons of Liberty now. It has a lot more...gameplay than people led me to believe, at least in the first half or so. In terms of some scale and structure, it also reminds me of Metroid Fusion and Luigi's Mansion, which is interesting (and beneficial...).

nothingxs · Posts: 148

I've been playing the everlasting shit out of GunZ: The Duel. It's this sort of Third Person Shooter where lots of stunts are available.

It features glitches that make the gameplay deeper by introducing additional moves, much like combos and two-in-ones made Street Fighter what it is now. Most of them involve mobility between slashes, cancelling slashes into weapon switching and cancelling slashing into blocking.

Pretty deep for a random game coming out of Korea. I recommend it wholeheartedly.

LegatoB · Posts: 1546

The big problem with GunZ is that I've played The Specialists, which is better in every way if you've got enough people to play and they're not faggots. I should round some dudes up and play TS again sometime soon.

TU · Posts: 12

First, I played and finished Republic Commando. It's a pretty fun game, especially for Star Wars fans. Then I played The Sims 2 a bit. I like it because it's a good inbetween games game. My gf likes it too so playing it gives us something to do together. I finished Final Fantasy II US (the American version of FF4), which I've been working on for nearly a year. I kept getting side-tracked by other games. I liked it a lot. A bit predictable, but maybe it wasn't when it was new. I played a little years ago but never got far. And lately, I've been playing Earthbound and Kingdom Hearts. Both are fun and should hold me for a while. Although, I am looking for a new Palm OS game to play when I'm pretending to be doing something productive.

DarkTetsuya · Posts: 152

Panoptic wrote:

Completed a 2nd run of Otogi 2 - got the Moonlight Sword and the 2nd ending this time around. Also played through Battle of Olympus on the NES, and started into Killer7 and Riviera.

Battle of Olympus huh? In one sitting I assume?? (With the indicipherable password system, I don't see how you could do so otherwise)

As for myself, lately I dusted off DDRMAXUS and have been playing the heck out of that. Also I've been playing a lot of Super Mario Advance 4: SMB3. I managed to get to the last world but the last bridge level and the floating platform levels are hanging me up.

DT

Panoptic · Posts: 291

DarkTetsuya wrote:

Battle of Olympus huh? In one sitting I assume?? (With the indicipherable password system, I don't see how you could do so otherwise)

Two sittings, actually. I saved up enough money to go to Crete and buy the Salamander Shield and that Power Bracelet, but ended up fucking dying about 2" (on a 34" TV) away from the door to the fountain to heal up. The bad part is it was one of the midget knights that killed me. Got pissed, nabbed a password, and finished it the next day.

Was borrowing a digital camera from someone at the time, and its screen was large and resolute enough to read passwords from the game, so I just used that, though I did have to guess and check with a few of the characters.

icycalm · Posts: 442

I've been playing the fuck out of Famicom Wars DS. Cause I am away from home. And all I have is a pure white DS.

dessgeega · Posts: 3317

i did play pc genjin 1 & 2 for the first time, ever. i liked them a lot. the second one is more polished and possibly playable, but i like the way the first is layed out more. which i guess means that i should really play the remake.

also, psychic 5 is what earthbound/mother would be if it were a platform game.

also, this.

Moose · Posts: 6

legatob wrote:

The other day, I played a game called the white chamber, a decent freeware point-and-click horror adventure with vaguely anime-inspired graphics.

It's good, isn't it! Perrin and co at StudioTrophis are working on a bizarre homebrew DS title at the moment, sounds a bit like Alone in the dark - only you have to draw things to use in the game.

Out of interest, did you stumble on this over at TIGSource?

I've been playing Pokemon Sapphire possibly a little too much. It's been a few years since it came out, and even though I bought it the day it hit UK shores I didn't bother with it for more than about an hour. Too many good GBA games at the time, I guess. Anyway, for anyone that's ever enjoyed a Pokemon title, it's really good fun - lots of new things to do scattered on top of older hallmarks. Pokemon talent contests are particularly amusing, as every single move in the game has a whole different use in this environment. It's enough fun to make me want to get Pokemon Emerald and one of the Fire Red/Leaf Green remakes too...

Otogi 2 - is this universally recommended? I've been thinking of picking it up for a while, and UK branches of GAME are having a crazy sale on pre-owned Xbox/PS2 software.

Persona-sama · Posts: 1145

Pokémon Emerald is a much better game than Ruby/Sapphire.

Ruby and Sapphire were the unfinished games that had to be wrapped up and shipped in order to make deadline. Emerald is like the true successor to the Pokémon line.

...and Fire Red and Grass Green are like the bastard stepchildren Game Freak had to help them plow and till their fields.

Intentionally Wrong · Posts: 673

I'm suffering some pain from the name of this topic.

Rain · Posts: 130

dessgeega wrote:

i did play pc genjin 1 & 2 for the first time, ever. i liked them a lot. the second one is more polished and possibly playable, but i like the way the first is layed out more. which i guess means that i should really play the remake.

I happen to have the remake, haven't had time to play it much yet. But from my first impressions, this is a damn good remake - nothing more and nothing less. Much better than the weak SNES versions........ I just remembered PC Genjin (the character) also made a cameo in Saturn Bomberman, which rocked. *sigh* Is it just me or are Bomberman games not the same as they used to be? The last decent, normal Bomberman game was Bomberman Online. What the fuck happened to the guy after that? He went karting, golfing, baseball...

Er, back to the topic. I'm playing Wario Ware on the GC. It's good. And hard. Note: frantic.

chazumaru* · Posts: 480

jiji · Posts: 780

Played a fair amount of Romance of the Three Kingdoms X, until I turned my back on Cao Cao for half a second and he invade Xuchang. I haven't booted it up since to kick his ass back out. I tried IX some, too, and while I like the troop movement and combat, I'm not sure if I like the less-relaxed play style. Will definitely try it again, though.

I tried Suikoenbu Fuunsaiki (Water Margin-based Saturn 2D fighter by Data East) thanks to a certain Count_Hihihi, and it's actually not too bad. It could be a hell of a lot more polished, but I've been enjoying it for what it is.

Lately I've got myself onto a moderate pinball kick with the release of Flipnic. Flipnic's first table is uncompelling and frustrating to me, especially since I have to jump through a series of very small, widely-spaced hoops on it in order to unlock the next table. The other tables are much more interesting to me, but you can't play for more than five minutes on them without unlocking them (never mind that every other pinball game with multiple tables lets you play any of them from the start araghga). So, the frustration led me to pull out other pinball games (like Necronomicon and Last Gladiator) and pick up others (purchased Pinball Hall of Fame, and I've got copies of True Pinball (SAT) and Timeshock! (PS) on their way).

Other than that, it's been perennials, like VF4evo and Espgaluda. Mushihimesama's impending release reminded me that I still haven't finished the latter. I finally figured out that going nuts with medals in Espgaluda increased the rank, so now I can see a clear path to a 1cc.

Oh, yeah, RE4.

chazumaru* · Posts: 480

jiji wrote:

Played a fair amount of Romance of the Three Kingdoms X.

Is that the new one you were highly expecting on namakoteam ? Isit avaialbe in english already ? What's the price ?

winkerwanker · Posts: 2414

I have both Silent Hill 2 and Killer 7 waiting for a time when I can devote my attention to them. I do not see this happening soon.

Mainly I've been playing Resident Evil 4 as a 4 player game. It's one of the few games I've seen thats effective as a spectator sport. The village in particular is extremely entertaining, especially if it's a first timer playing it and you tell them where to get the Shotgun.

The QTEs and insta Plaga death manage to give each player aturn without too many breaks and don't result in the player complaining as they know they should have been paying attention during that cutscene. or not taken 4 monks heads off with their last shotgun round.

This multiplayer expeirence was attempted with TTS and it failed miserably.

nocturnedelight · Posts: 430

I've mostly just played Halo 2 on Live.

Though, friends have been over, and wanted to play Mario Kart (they are girls!!!!! girls like nintendo!!!). And I put in some Ikaruga and Donkey Konga [1] while I was at it.

Two nights ago, I was very tempted to play Fatal Frame on XBox for the first time. I got so far as actually opening the game (I've had it for a year or two).

eeemmecks · Posts: 124

Ugh, I managed to beat GTA: San Andreas, despite how mediocore the all parts of the game are.

I've also logged about 30hrs on SMT:Nocturne, as well. For the first five and last five hours I've played the game I realized how shitty it is, though somewhere along the way I forgot and kept playing. Every dungeon save one is based on guessing which path to to take. Guess wrong, and you get sent back. And monster fusing and shit. Yeah. Same broke-ass RPG stuff, except monsters are your friends!

I think the main thing about these two games is that they're shitty in an unobtrusive way. Their flaws are forgivable because the terrible design choices don't really affect how, uh, playable the game is.

Kazu · Posts: 894

icycalm wrote:

I've been playing the fuck out of Famicom Wars DS. Cause I am away from home. And all I have is a pure white DS.

i just started the very first GBA-game for the third time some weeks ago and got interested in it, since i played it at work in my lunch break.
How is the DS-version doing, has it improved a lot?

However it has some strong competitors since i still have to finish Silent Hill 3, Suikoden 4, PN03, .hack//outbreak as well as i should play Sub Rebellion. i got the last one for 14$ and it wasn't played at all before...
has anyone played that one before? your impressions?

ryan · Posts: 297

I've been playing quite a bit of Battlefield 2 (go medic!), Conker: Live and Reloaded, and the King of Fighters on Xbox. Due to my type-s breaking, and the original controller making my hand go numb when used for long periods of time, me and KoF won't be getting much time together for a while. And Conker, well, the single player just isn't much fun. There is also RYL on PC, but I try not to think about it.

jiji · Posts: 780

chazumaru* wrote:

Is that the new one you were highly expecting on namakoteam ? Isit avaialbe in english already ? What's the price ?

Yup, that's the one. I started getting interested in the series *I think* because of the news that X would come out here, and so it wasn't long between my anticipation and the release. It's the usual $50.

chazumaru* · Posts: 480

jiji wrote:

It's the usual $50.

Well, no dollar is usual to me.

It's the one that's heavily focused on roleplay, right ? You made me want to try one out some day...

Baron Patsy · Posts: 573

I rented Touch! Kirby from Blockbuster, so my DS is actually getting used now. Well. It's being used quite a bit.

I've also been diving into all three of the Playstation 2 Grand Theft Auto's. So far, I am almost finished with Vice City, I'm in the middle of the Staunton missions in 3, and I am nowhere near even getting out of the first city in San Andreas.

Playing all three of them at once, like this, has made me realize a lot of things about the series and the differences in how each of the games was designed and put together.

GTA3 is more. . .focused, and polished. It's not obsessed with making things as big as they can be, or as flashy as they can be. It just takes a couple sections of a city, and makes them interesting.

Vice City (the city itself, not the game) just feels. . .empty. It's shallow, and vapid. The city itself is not interesting. When I play Vice City, I actually feel physically uncomfortable. I get irritable, and I feel dissatisfied. It's not nearly as satisfying as 3 or even San Andreas.

San Andreas handles the city(s) in a much different way than the other games. The first city is gigantic, daunting in it's huge size. When I first played the game, I remember being almost overwhelmed by the huge city. However, the city is still unfocused and relatively uninteresting. It's not nearly as bad as in Vice, but I still wasn't as compelled to actually explore the city in SA.

The other cities in the game, however, were vastly unimpressive. It was kind of depressing, actually. I haven't actually reached the cities in the storyline yet, but with careful manipulation of a few cheats, I can explore them at my leisure.

San Fierro is the more interesting of the two other cities. It's still relatively interesting to explore, and I actually like the city itself better than the LA-based city. It was actually slightly interesting, and I just enjoyed strolling around.

Las Venturas is. . .well. I really don't like it. It kind of gives me the same feeling as Vice City. It just feels empty, for some reason. I don't like it. It's very dissapointing, actually.

professor_scissors · Posts: 1033

I had a birthday while I was gone (19 wahoo!), so games aplenty.

Final Fantasy X: Played it from start to finish, and I still can't lay a opinion down on the thing. I like the plot. I dislike the voices. I love the combat system. I hate the characters. I just... don't know. It was fun, I guess, to hate. Mixed bag of the year, for whichever year it came out.

Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner: This game is fucking awesome. I played it from start to finish in about 1.5 sittings. Maybe it's just been too long since I made a robot destroy other robots, but it is just too fun, even when it's frustrating. My only real gripe is that the versus mode is one of the least balanced 2-player experiences I have ever had.

Gunroar: Not the best of ABA Games, but certainly lots of fun. Especially with a PS2 pad and Twin Stick mode. Since I got it, it has gradually dwindled down from BEST GAME EVAR to GAME I OCCASIONALLY PLAY.

Kirby: Canvas Curse: I played it for 5 minutes at a demo in EBGames. It makes me want a DS. I don't know how much longer I can resist its charms.

Legend of Dragoon: Got it from one of my friends who swore her life on it. It is inescapably a PS1 RPG, which means it is chock-full of loading times and long, drawn out battles with huge monsters made out of about 8 polygons. Nevertheless, I'm finding it kind of fun. The battle system reminds me of a more complicated Super Mario RPG. But with more wings!

Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty: Yes, I've played it before, but the game is really a different beast after playing MGS3. I find myself actually thinking about the stealth parts, watching enemy movement patterns, rather than running around like a wounded duck until I find the radar. The Colonel still is the best character, though. "I need scissors! 61!"

So, uh, I think that's it, for now. I also played some Ur-Quan Masters and Ragnarok Battle Offline, but I have talked about them before.
Speaking of RBO, There's an expansion coming out on August 14, with 2 new stages and tons of bells and whistles. I'm excited.

jiji · Posts: 780

chazumaru* wrote:

Well, no dollar is usual to me.

It's the one that's heavily focused on roleplay, right ? You made me want to try one out some day...

Yes, and it's more fleshed-out in that area than VII or VIII were. Now there are requests you can take on in the tavern of each city, and these can range from quite a few different menial tasks that build character skills, to longer, more involved quests (like winning 10 duels in a row, or going on a pilgrimage to different famous locations, or seeking revenge for the killing of a child's parents) that get you more experience and nice items. Things like character interactions and relationship-building seem less randomized than in VIII, and the new debate system (a simple-but-fun turn-based card-like game) makes tests of your character's intelligence and charisma more than just a stat check. The duel system does the same thing for more...direct means of solving small conflicts.

Oh, and I've been playing (or trying to play) Siren lately. I don't think I have the patience for a game like that...the icky camera, icky pathfinding, inconsistent object interaction, the constant focus on MGS1-era stealth... all those sort of compound to show the game's flaws most right when it demands the most performance out of the player. If the game in its current state was less stealth-obsessed, I think it's something I'd be able to enjoy.

Darklighterx · Posts: 2

Hey, I have not been here in like 3 years? But I had to reregister for some reason. Were the forums down?

Anyway, I had some major ZAMNage (Zombies Ate My Neighbors)! And have been bust with my PSP and its' emulators.

Sub · Posts: 696

RE4 and Killer 7, both on Karoshiccomenndation.

In between I've gotten out Bombastic again, played a Super Robot Wars map or two, and "test-driven" a great many PCE games, only to find out that they cost too much on Ebay. The music in Monster Lair (a quite affordable game actually) makes me nostalgic.

RET'S EDIT: HEY GUYS AFTER A GREAT STRUGGLE, MY AV IS FUNCTIONAL

nICO · Posts: 130

Skies of Arcadia Legends: This is really about all I've played all summer. It's a long game. Just the story took about 40 hours and there's dozens of hours worth of extra stuff to check out if you so choose. And the extra stuff is kinda the point of the game, far as I can figure, so I had to do at least some of it. SoA was good. Great even. It restored my faith in RPGs.

Lumines: Haven't played it a whole lot, but I've messed around in a couple games. It's fun enough, but I don't see myself falling in love with it.

Shaq-fu: Okay, I haven't really played this much, but I did buy it for a dollar! Defender of Justice.

Rockman Pocket · Posts: 50

I'm finally catching on some of my old stuff during this little summer vacation. Last week I finally finished Silent Hill 3. Last time I previously played it was about half a year ago. I just lost interest somewhere in the hospital. Picked up that save game last week and after some brainpain with the hospital's basement puzzle I was disappointed to finish the game relatively soon after that. I figured that since this was the first place - a recycled one at that - you have to visit in Silent Hill itself there would be some more places to visit in the town itself. But no. Oh well. Figured I'd play through it again, though I'm still at the mall. The extra outfits are cute and the light saber is sorta cool, but I'm not really in the mood to play it again. I actually tried to play the PC version, but it won't even start on my PC. Fuck. This did promt me to install Silent Hill 2 on the PC, which does work. So I'm playing through that at the moment. I never noticed Maria's outside idle animation for some reason. Pretty cool.

Played a lot of Double Dragon Advance lately too. Really nice remake of the classic. Really hard too. Haven't finished it yet, keep dying in the cave. Also playing Megaman Battle Network 4 at the moment. This is actually my first Battle Network game (well, not counting the GC version) and it's pretty cool. Nice music too. People say the first 3 are better, so after this one I'll probably play part 3, which shouldn't be too hard to find. Oh, before these two, Kururin Paradise was my main GBA course. Bought it from Play-Asia's summer sale and it certainly didn't disappoint. Never played the original, despite being cheap here in Europe, but Paradise makes me realise the mistake in that. Great game, and perfect for portable play too.

I also tried to play The Oneechan Bara this week, but I really didn't like it. I like the concept, but execution is horribly flawed. Level design is bland and endlessly killing the same harmless zombies gets boring fast. The real killer is you can only save between levels. I gave up during level 2 and I'll probably never touch it again. I guess that's all part of the risk when buying something from the Simple Series.

ApM · Posts: 113

Finally got my mitts on the PS2 port of Psychonauts.

It single-handedly justifies the platforming genre.

I'll talk more later, once I finish it. I'm only starting to get into the really brilliant stuff.

Ataru · Posts: 295

for the past few months, the only thing I've been playing with any seriousness is Dodonpachi (in mame) - nice mix of forgiving and brutally hard. I'm a shmup fanatic and this is one of the all time best, imho. I'm able to one credit to stage 4 on a good day but I'm slaughtered at that point.

I've also played a bit of Metal Slug 5 and Chaos Legion. Both are fun but nothing to get wildly excited about.

I've also been toying with three games that I've long had on my "I want to beat this eventual" list. Final Fantasy Tactics, Final Fantasy X, and Vagrant Story.

Final Fantasy Tactics is goddamn awesome but involves so much dedication that I always get distracted by something else after 10 to 15 hours of it, and then I feel like I can't remember what I was doing and have to restart. Oy vey. I might run through it with one of those ridiculous speed faqs for it just to see the rest of the story.

After reading a couple faqs for information about how to approach the game's intimidating combat system, I played Vagrant Story for an hour and a half last night and I think it finally clicked with me. This is my third serious attempt at playing through it, but this time I think I'll actually stick with it, as I've for the first time made it to and beaten the first boss that you can chain and defend against. Now that I know that the timing is based solely on the appearance of the ! mark above the main character's head, I can actually regularly get 4 to 6 hit chains, so I no longer feel like a doofus. The fact that Hitoshi Sakimoto did the music and that it's quite possibly the most beautiful 3-D game on the Playstation works very much in the game's favor.

I've not played a straight up RPG in a long time and I have Final Fantasy X sitting in my pile of unbeaten games. I realize this must be blasphemy to some, but I really like to just plow through FF games with a faq by my side, consulting with it any time I can't quickly figure out what I'm supposed to do next to progress in the plot. I suspect that FFX will probably get slighted again, now that Vagrant Story has my imagination.

I'm also playing through ASTRO BOY gba again, this time on hard mode, and additionally I'm trying to focus on leveling the punching skill first at the expense of all else. That the second stage is a flying level where the laser skill matters most is making this extra difficult, so I might cave in, restart my game, and level the laser and the boosters one or two stages each first and then focus on the punching. I went through the game the first time focused on the laser and this time I want to play it more as a straight brawler than relying on long distance attacks. This was my favorite game of 2k4, and I'm replaying it in part as a warm up for Gunstar Super Heroes.