IC Forum Archive

ReroRero · Posts: 2148

http://www.samorost.net/samorost2/

Moogs · Posts: 928

The best thing about WTF: Work Time Fun is that the back of the case is written entirely in Engrish.

Karoshi · Posts: 968

I recently acquired Contact, I enjoy the sound. Possibly the richest soundtrack I've heard on the DS thus far. I'm actively wearing headphones while playing. Electroplankton was the only other title I previously did this for.

I had Phoenix Wright 2 on pre-order for a few weeks and received it right before the forums went down. I haven't had time to play it yet.
Finally, I found a copy of Chibi-Robo for $9.99 at Sears while purchasing some vacuum cleaner bags and a bread pan. I couldn't pass it up!

Mr. Business · Posts: 1530

Karoshi wrote:

Finally, I found a copy of Chibi-Robo for $9.99 at Sears while purchasing some vacuum cleaner bags and a bread pan. I couldn't pass it up!

A good deal and a good choice, if you want my opinion of it!

aderack · Posts: 5018

A couple of odd games of which I was previously mostly unaware: an entirely decent-for-what-it-is SNK rotary-stick overhead run-n-gun called Search and Rescue --

-- and what seems to be a parody, simultaneously, of Rastan, Bad Dudes, Karnov, and every game with a ninja in it, Trio the Punch:

I'd heard of the latter, I think, even before Brandon mentioned it on the front page. Boy was I unprepared for the actual game, however. They should make it available on Xbox Live Arcade!

stotelheim · Posts: 414

You know, the last time I played that it made me nauseous. I don't really know what to think of Trio the Punch, but I think I'll like whatever conclusion I'll come to.

ReroRero · Posts: 2148

Trio... has too many levels. It starts getting tedious after a bit.

Baron Patsy · Posts: 573

(18:26:09) baronpatsy: Postal 2
(18:26:13) baronpatsy: is everything
(18:26:14) baronpatsy: that i hate
(18:26:18) baronpatsy: about computer and video games
(18:26:21) baronpatsy: all in one fucking game
(18:26:29) baronpatsy: It's a mediocre, poorly-designed fps
(18:26:31) baronpatsy: filled to the brim
(18:26:37) baronpatsy: with sex, violence, and overall vulgarity
(18:26:46) baronpatsy: just for the sake of being controversial and vulgar

Monthenor · Posts: 455

Finished Touch Detective 100% in five days. It's really good for what it is, which is an old-school semi-obtuse adventure game. Y'know, back before "adventure" described games like Ocarina of Time. I may never touch it again, but I don't regret the $30. That's a wishy-washy thumbs up!

I also passed level 4 of God Hand. "Inexplicable Raven Robot" would be a pretty sweet name for a band.

Cycle · Posts: 1574

Im getting a review copy of Touch Detective sent to me. It's nice to hear it won't be painful to play!

simplicio · Posts: 505

Wade Hixton's Counter Punch!

I had a perfect record going until that little raver girl knocked me senseless. She's a quick one.

Monthenor- feel like selling Touch Detective to me? I kinda wanted it but I don't like the $30 thing.

Monthenor · Posts: 455

Cycle wrote:

Im getting a review copy of Touch Detective sent to me. It's nice to hear it won't be painful to play!

Quite the opposite! It's a charming little game and I actually hope they make a sequel. It never hurts to break the fourth wall a little, but only when you earn it.

Broco · Posts: 546

I tried Facade, since it's been on the news a lot lately. I was expecting pretentious trash, but I'm surprised at how decent it actually is. Flawed on the level of player interaction to be sure, but at least the artwork and acting is basically good.

Crazy Bacon Lips · Posts: 783

Plugging through Riveria again, and I like it a lot better this time around. It's nice to know that not only can you raise your teammate's affection for you, but you can lower it as well. Fucking Lina.

Karoshi · Posts: 968

simplicio wrote:

Wade Hixton's Counter Punch!

I had a perfect record going until that little raver girl knocked me senseless. She's a quick one.

Monthenor- feel like selling Touch Detective to me? I kinda wanted it but I don't like the $30 thing.

Holy crap.
It is exactly one year ago that I found a copy of that in K*B near Dallas when visiting my then-girlfriend during a DJ gig. It was a whopping $5!!!

I really liked this game. I remember the guy next to me on the return flight home taking interest because of the large cartoon-esque enemes.

Also WWE's newest rookie wrestler "MVP" looks a lot like the final boss in Counter Punch.

Mr. Business wrote:

A good deal and a good choice, if you want my opinion of it!

From the limited time i've spent with it, it's very charming. Making music while taking steps/brushing paw prints/fluttering with a helicopter wins big points with me.
There were a few other games for sale that were worth noting, Brain Age and Big Brain Academy were priced at $14.99. I picked up BBA for my girlfriend's nieces (we got them DS Lites the previous weekend for their birthdays) as opposed to Brain Age, because it's more colorful.

Moogs · Posts: 928

I stepped in dog shit in the "Caddy's Quest" mini game in Work Time Fun.

Clash! · Posts: 631

Im about 13 hours into Radiata Stories. Its my yearly attempt at an RPG, and this one has held my interest! Seems like its panned universally by people, at least I assume so since its a SquareEnix game thats only $15 at Gamestop. Not sure why, maybe because its not really all that hard. I love the design, gameplay, and shit ton of characters. Has a very Paper Mario feel to it, and I love Paper Mario. So why the hate?

brainiac · Posts: 941

i have been playing COOKING MAMA. i have gotten 100 points each on about the first 30 recipes. it is a lil bit repetitive but hey you get to make shumai dumplings and boiled eggs and whatever. the only thing that kind of annoys me about it sometimes is that the touchscreen needs to be more accurate & responsive in this game. maybe it's sloppy programming or maybe they just need to crank up the sensitivity setting by 1 or 2 notches, i really don't know. it's just, once in a while it totally yanks me out of the game when it doesn't respond good to my input, okay.

FOR ALL OF MY COMPLAINING THERE, though. it is not quite as good as feel the magic xy/xx (to contrast it with minigame-ish game where all the stuff was really done to near perfection) in terms of well EVERYTHING but yeah, i am enjoying it. if i weren't enjoying COOKING MAMA, i might not care enough about the touchscreen responsiveness to bother complaining.

Moogs · Posts: 928

Peeling vegetables in Cooking Mama is absolutely impossible.

Mr. Business · Posts: 1530

Jeez, some of the weapons in Bushido Blade are really difficult to use. I'm still trying to figure out who is the best character for using the Naginata.

Black Lotus seems as though he has the most special weapon skills of all the characters.

boojiboy7 · Posts: 1104

the naginata is the spear, right? I recall the girl with the big pink pants was killer with that spear, in a really annoyingly bitchy way.

antitype · Posts: 1148

Clash! wrote:

Im about 13 hours into Radiata Stories. Its my yearly attempt at an RPG, and this one has held my interest! Seems like its panned universally by people, at least I assume so since its a SquareEnix game thats only $15 at Gamestop. Not sure why, maybe because its not really all that hard. I love the design, gameplay, and shit ton of characters. Has a very Paper Mario feel to it, and I love Paper Mario. So why the hate?

I dunno, I really liked Radiata Stories. It feels a lot like Skies of Arcadia (despite being entirely earthbound) — Jack, especially, being a lot like Vyse, though a bit brattier. I also I'm a sucker for seeing a standoffish girl warm up to a guy as he proves himself, see, so I thought Ridley made a perfect match for Jack. And the feel of the bustling cities with tons of people going about their activities was great! Actually, it was a lot like Shenmue in that regard, but even more successful in creating a natural and 'alive' feeling (whereas Shenmue was a little too sleepy, and everyone seemed to be in some kind of bizarre trance).

I never did finish it! I got stuck on some job where my party was severely underpowered and some huge spinning alligators kept wiping my party out, and then I started playing DQVIII... Maybe I'll return to it after I've finished FFXII.

Mr. Business · Posts: 1530

But dear god, Black Lotus with Rapier is just beautiful. I also relearned the pounce move. Those on the ground shall now know fear.

bavariankumquat · Posts: 57

Playing a bit of and watching my housemate play Darkwatch, which he rented. What a mediocre game! The melee attacks and vampire powers are sorta neat, but god I hate the cutscenes every 10 seconds of really stupid things, like "oh look sexy girl partner returned", or "sniper!" The loading times too. The art style sorta bores me too. Really, the only western game in the mini renaissance of them recently that has appealed to me is Red Dead Revolver. Say what you want about its flaws, but that game at least had style and feel on its side, especially compared to the strangely generic "Gun".

internisus · Posts: 961

Yesterday, after dominating the nation for about five hours, I managed to suddenly and irretrievably back myself into a financial corner in Railroad Tycoon 2 Platinum. I clearly don't understand finances very well, and it was obviously a bad idea to have a five million dollar deficit balanced by stock holdings while constantly pushing down any positive purchasing power I had by buying more. When my PP went negative and a margin call came up, I tried to sell only to find that my power went down along with the stock value. Of course, that makes perfect sense, but this was my first real attempt to do anything either real or virtual involving the stock market, so. There was nothing I could do. RRT2P is pretty awesome, I think, and the financial stuff is exciting to me. Managing the mundane aspects of the railroad can be a bit tiresome after awhile, though.

I bought Godhand, Touch: Detective, and Kirby's Canvas Curse. Kirby is bloody brilliant and chock full of classic excellence in level design. The first time I came across that field that cancels out your rainbow lines I was a little blown away by what an obvious and terriffic idea it was. I don't know if I would have thought to do that -- to create a level design device that simply nullifies the primary means of player control. I'm up to the seventh level now. The only annoying thing so far is the Super Mario World -like switch blocks that prevent you from obtaining medals earlier in the game, and that's not a big deal, really. For some reason, the game has made me want to play a GBA Metroid game again, as well as Within a Deep Forest.

Touch: Detective is really cute and has some great personality and humor -- most notably in the tutorial when Mackenzie comments on the interface. But her thoughts in the top screen throughout the game occassionally offer perfect little playful comments about... well, about videogames, or design conventions, etc. Even something as small as "This is fun..." is cute in context as a comment on a different character's personality. However, as a Classic Adventure Game Touch: Detective can be rather frustrating. The things you need to do or find seem at times very, very obscure, and there is too much dependance on time-sequenced events. I've become completely stuck more than once, and I'm only on episode 2. The game is more than the hold-me-over I was expecting, but it nonetheless made me want to play Pheonix Wright again. Which I did, briefly. Is it just me, or is the realistic and complex causality that you unravel in court in PW pretty much unique to any visual novel or adventure game? That's the part that makes it so exciting, I think. I suppose I'll play through PW completely yet a third time shortly before the Justice For All release in the States.

Godhand is awesome. I'm not sure what to say, exactly, but it's awesome. The speed and intricacy of your movements are just what the brawler genre needed. It took me about 2:30 to complete the first stage as I learned the ropes, and though I feel pretty comfortable now I definitely have room for improvement. I feel very excited about the game while I'm playing it, but I don't feel excited about going to play it when I'm not already. Or something. My edge takes about an hour or two to warm up when I first start playing, but I start to lose it if I play more than four hours straight. That's fine, I guess. It's pretty awesome, though.

I think, right now, I would really, really like a game that married the tactical steal action and detailed weapons information of MGS3, the thriller pace and plot of 24 on TV, the hacking interface style of Uplink, some simulation elements such as RRT2's finances, and the political plotting of GitS: SAC. Any suggestions?

Ionustron · Posts: 47

and after some plugging away for the past month, I completed Valkyrie Profile 2. It's good. I didn't have high hopes when I began, but it was better than expected! It's definitly a grinding game, as was the last one, yet I didn't mind it. I do kinda wish that the battle arenas could've been more...complex. Once you hit the second and third dungeons, you've just about seen all the arenas the game'll throw at you, and it quickly becomes a circular or square arena with the monsters in the middle and you on a corner. I was kinda hoping for some _really_ outnumbering fights (like getting stuck at a garrison, with a shitload of archers pelting you, but it never happened. I also was wishing that they would have let the enemies combine attacks on you as well, as you do. Course, this would've made the game obscenely hard, but it would've been crazy too!

Magic seems to be much too weak by the endgame.... I also kinda broke the game through stat-ups. You see, as you retrive fallen warriors, level them up, and free them, they give you loads of stat builders. I saved all of them, anticipating some sort of shop of place where I could exchange them. But when I neared a point that I thought was the end of the game (but wasn't) I unloaded all of them on Alicia, making her much too powerful (soloing end bosses even!) Mind you, I wasn't playing by an FAQ, I was only playing by instincts. SPOILERThe game does have a nice nasty suprise in store for you! To my excitement, I get all of the Valkyries on my team! Only to lose them near the last fight! Better yet, Alica attains her real ultimate power, which just happens to drop my max HP to a third of what it was, and every other stat is HALVED! yeash! All is made well though by the Seraphic Gate though. Also, is it just me, or did the ending feel an awful lot like Sailor Moon?END SPOILERS

Thouse who loved the first one, the second one should not dissapoint you! The story does feel very anime this time round though. Paceing on cinimatics isn't too bad (the pauses are deminished than say, SO2.) Interestingly, some cutscenes felt like really fleshed out, shot-by-shot storyboards, while others had the weird anime cut-to-nowhere-in-particular-scenery shots, with jarringly quick extreme closeup shots. Kinda like 2 directors were at the helm in charge of different scenes, or one schizo or something.

For the miscellaneous details, I loved the charecter designs. Most of them anyway. That was what drew me to the first game, and the 3d models wern't as bad as I thought they would be. Too soft though, I wish everyone didn't look like Barbie dolls. No spearmen this time round either.

I also wish that your einherjar didn't feel so much like dressup dolls. Rather, what I mean is that each class has it's own pool of attacks and a single finisher that each charecter of the class uses - on top of that, vocal clips are pooled between the charecters too. Seems like any voice actor/actress's clips are used on arround two to four different charecters, just with pitch lowered or hightened. I found this to be dissapointing, as since their stories are regulated to a couple of paragraphs on the status screens, the extra charecters feel quite useless. While the pooling of resources could encourage the player to release any charecter, as you can't really attach to any of them (aside fum just "that guy looks kind cool, I'll hold on to him for a while,") I kinda wish this system was fleshed out a bit more. As it stood, it's just....well, a system that the first game initiated, but dosen't fit in this game at all. They try to tie into the game as Silmeria collects various Einherjar, so that she can give them a change to be reborn on earth, all because she hates the gods just that much. That's all. As it stands, the system feels like Soulblazer, where you'd free various stuff in zones....but not the important peices that give you keys or armor, it's the peices that are completely useless and can be skiped in favor of speedruns. And again, mention earlier that I broke Alicia's stats with them, the game would've been better without the system as it is. Yet! Like Metroids to Metroid games, Valkyrie games seem to need Einherfar in order to be Valkyrie games....

pardon me if this is incoherent. I need to sleep now...

OtakupunkX · Posts: 27

I played Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on GBA today. Some guy at Hudson Soft sent it to me along with 4 other games I'm probably not going to play because I won some contest I didn't even know I had entered.

Only one of the games, some Frogger thing, was made by Hudson.

chompers po pable · Posts: 325

SotC
http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m29/zrthomas/zachshadow018-1.jpg
http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m29/zrthomas/zachshadow011.jpg
http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m29/zrthomas/zachshadow009.jpg
http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m29/zrthomas/sotc005.jpg
http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m29/zrthomas/sotc002.jpg
http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m29/zrthomas/sotc6.jpg

srry bout the picture quality

last night I played through Panzer Dragoon Zwei taking the hard paths (2,2,3) through the game, finishing with the Solo Wing and a rank of "Winged Death."

Scratchmonkey · Posts: 2229

Played a bit of Final Fantasy XII. I take things slow, which is why I was still in the original city with around 10 hours played (although a lot of that was due to leaving the game in a status menu for a couple hours while I did something else). I was heading to the second city when a power surge reset the PS2. I only lost about 20 minutes and nothing important.

I can't stop playing Football Manager 2005, even though I recently picked up FM2007, with the new more-powerful scouting, etc. The reason that I like to give is that I want to pass Bayern's all-time record of 22 Bundesliga titles (I'm currently playing as Fortuna Dusseldorf). The real reason is that I have a side that goes 3 deep at every position and I like seeing how my stars of the future wind up developing.

I'm continuing to play Dwarf Fortress, although I'm currently stick in both of my fortresses at the somewhat-tedious siege period before the economy starts, meaning that it's a lot of trying to move my infrastructure from right next to the cliff to deeper within the mountain, struggling with the military controls and trying to maintain a decent supply of booze, which should in theory be helped by the new stockpile mechanics which I haven't learned in practice.

FortNinety · Posts: 4591

Played some Devil Kings last night. Neat character designs, but the game is sort of a bore. But its the best Dynasty Warriors clone out there, right guys?

vision · Posts: 472

chompers po pable wrote:

SotC

Very nice! Those places can seem thankless sometimes. Do you also fire arrows in front of you to check for a solid place to stand?

djtiesto · Posts: 170

Drill Dozer... up to the level 5-1 boss... This game got really freaking hard... The boss of 4-1 was a pain in the ass, too.

chompers po pable · Posts: 325

vision wrote:

chompers po pable wrote:

SotC

Very nice! Those places can seem thankless sometimes. Do you also fire arrows in front of you to check for a solid place to stand?

yes. I used arrows to avoid the holes. I rode Loki (the big hawk south of 10's cave) to the south and parachuted down on the plateau across the gorge (the one with the waterfall in the corner). I think that there may be a way to get over to the waterfall itself.

I need a new hobby, perhaps.

Broco · Posts: 546

I played a little (of all things) Alley Cat.

One of those stunning yet vaguely appropriate-seeming twists of life: I just learned that Bill Williams, the creator of Alley Cat, abandoned the game industry in the early nineties to study theology, and later published a moving book of autobiographical fiction on the theme of faith, mystery and the problem of evil, which was published just days before he succumbed to cystic fibrosis.

Uh. Wow. And yet, there's something in the warmth, humor and empathy of Alley Cat that makes this not entirely surprising...

Cycle · Posts: 1574

I knew about all that, but I never actually had a look to see what the book was about.

I think I may need to get a copy.

Monthenor · Posts: 455

I am at work right now for fifteen more minutes but really it's just a countdown to God Hand. I have to finish it before the next game with the initials GH comes out!

Karoshi · Posts: 968

I one credited Shikigami no Shiro II on normal with default teenager in denim jacket. Admittedly it wasn't very difficult, as his type A attack is just "hold down shot button to kill everything with homing samurai ghost." I'm going to work for score now, using korean swordsman guitarist, althoughI want to learn how to use teen-witch & space butler properly.

professor_scissors · Posts: 1033

Karoshi wrote:

I one credited Shikigami no Shiro II on normal with default teenager in denim jacket. Admittedly it wasn't very difficult, as his type A attack is just "hold down shot button to kill everything with homing samurai ghost." I'm going to work for score now, using korean swordsman guitarist, althoughI want to learn how to use teen-witch & space butler properly.

Dammit stop making me interested in this game.

Clueless Gamer · Posts: 19

I can't stop playing Ninja Cop. I found it nine days ago and I stopped playing anything else. I'm now in the second mission on hard mode.

Ninja Cop is amazing! Once you learn how to use the rope it's all about you being a ninja badass (or triying to), jumping and slashing bad dudes.

I don't know what to play next. But I needed to say how I love this game.

internisus · Posts: 961

We all love it too! I think most of us know it as Ninja Five-O, though. Funny you posted that just now, because my tool-assisted superplay video torrent finally finished downloading. It's completely ridiculous, of course. The guy is so damned skilled that I actually would hate to be that good. Nothing would be fun anymore.

Pijaibros · Posts: 968

Monthenor wrote:

I am at work right now for fifteen more minutes but really it's just a countdown to God Hand.

My buddies swindled my God Hand, those fuckers.

While they were kind enough to help me lift some heavy shit out of the house they decided to check this shit out based on the (almost) awesome cover. That and we were talking about Shatterhand and Shadowrun and I brought this up.

They simple became enamored with it and it's feelings of badassness and well they took it away from me. I may not see it for a long long time :(

Crazy Bacon Lips · Posts: 783

I'm currently trying to get through that part of Trauma Center where you have to cure five GUILT victims in a fucking row. I can get the first one down in two minutes to a minute and a half, but I don't know if I can keep it up.

And now I have to buy Godhand. Goodbye Dragon Quest 8 and Slime Controller! You will not be missed.

internisus · Posts: 961

Pijaibros wrote:

Monthenor wrote:

I am at work right now for fifteen more minutes but really it's just a countdown to God Hand.

My buddies swindled my God Hand, those fuckers.

While they were kind enough to help me lift some heavy shit out of the house they decided to check this shit out based on the (almost) awesome cover. That and we were talking about Shatterhand and Shadowrun and I brought this up.

They simple became enamored with it and it's feelings of badassness and well they took it away from me. I may not see it for a long long time :(

you can buy mine for $30 paypal plus shipping. i'll send it out at the end of the week. i got tired of it really quickly.

Pijaibros · Posts: 968

That is a kind offer, but the first 2 weeks of the month I'm broke with a mountain of bills to pay off.

I'll eventually get it back. My friends have half of my games already. They usually at least wait to take them until after I'm done.

Clueless Gamer · Posts: 19

internisus wrote:

I think most of us know it as Ninja Five-O, though.

I know, but I think Ninja Cop is a better title. It reminds me all those crappy ninja movies as "Ninja Terminator" or "Ninja Hunter". It's a pity that the european manual lose all the amazing story parts.

internisus wrote:

Funny you posted that just now, because my tool-assisted superplay video torrent finally finished downloading. It's completely ridiculous, of course. The guy is so damned skilled that I actually would hate to be that good.

I watched the video. It's jaw dropping, even knowing that it's tool-assisted. It's sort off "this is how ninjas really are, you moron!"

I think I'll try tomorrow to beat "Unblinking City" on hard in "Gunstar Super Heroes". I tried it before playing Ninja Cop, but Unblinking City is frustrating as hell.

internisus · Posts: 961

Yeah, the video was nothing if not ninja-esque.

Pijaibros wrote:

That is a kind offer, but the first 2 weeks of the month I'm broke with a mountain of bills to pay off.

I'll eventually get it back. My friends have half of my games already. They usually at least wait to take them until after I'm done.

Whatever. Maybe Bacon Lips will bite.

Edit: $30 makes no sense. $25 plus shipping. With media mail that's like $28 total? I played the game twice.

shnozlak · Posts: 704

Goemon (64): Legend of the Mystical Ninja is a surprisingly good and varied game.

if you have some change pick it up some time. (cost me 12usd)

Seriously the minigames like the Mecha fight and the hiding in the cupboard games were excelent side steps from the standard zelda-y gmae play. The first dungeon (transformed castle) wasa little striat foreward but I like that I dont feel ike Im going from dungeon A to dungeon B all the time. The characters and world actually create some greate videogamey comedy, what with the towns people vibrating viloentaly when they speak. Oh and PLA-SUU-MAAAA is the greatest in game hint system ever. Im very sad that the DS sequil will not be translated offically.

gktime · Posts: 116

I picked up Ridge Racer 6 on the 360 for a whopping £19.99, the first Ridge Racer i've played since the original ten years ago.

I quite like it.

Broco · Posts: 546

Crazy Bacon Lips wrote:

I'm currently trying to get through that part of Trauma Center where you have to cure five GUILT victims in a fucking row. I can get the first one down in two minutes to a minute and a half, but I don't know if I can keep it up.

Protip (or, rather, notpro-tip): you don't have to cure all five victims to clear that mission. As I recall just three is enough. Curing more just improves your rank.

professor_scissors · Posts: 1033

I've been playing an awful lot of Shoot the Bullet lately. I've cleared stages 1 through 5 and all but one of the scenes on stage 6, with a couple scattered clears on stages 7 and 8.

I also got an absolutely breathtaking superplay of Imperishable Night's Extra stage. Some of those spellcards are simply unbelievable, and also gorgeous.