Zombie Incident (3DS eShop):
Neat little game. It has MSX-like graphical style, definitely reminds me of original La-Mulana PC release before it got graphical upgrade with WiiWare version.
Gameplay is pretty basic -- you just jump on enemies a few times until the die. Clear the room, move to then next. If there is a door in the room, it opens up when you clear it. Inside is a star that upgrades your "class" so you can to take down stronger enemies. There is a map on the bottom screen so you see which rooms you cleared.
It's all pretty simple, the only problem when you jumping through upper to upper border you get a glimpse of room above and then you immediate fall down and screen changes to lower room. This flicker with screen switching is very annoying.
Metroid 2 (Gameboy VC on 3DS):
I didn't even realized that rooms in original Metroid NES game only allowed either horizontal or vertical scrolling but not both. It seems like by second game Metroid team overcame this limitation and started to design huge cavernous 2d spaces as a compensation.
It's a cool game and probably better than first, but it still lacks the most important feature -- in-game map. I have like 35 or so metroids left to kill and i have no idea if i killed all of them in the area i am. I printed out spoiler-free map from Nintendo Power, but it's so featureless i can't even tell where i am on this map.
Ninja Gaiden II (Xbox 360):
I think i like the look of previous game, Ninja Gaiden Black better... It was so much cleaner looking, and looked (still does!) like an exceptional looking OG Xbox game, while II looks like dime-a-dozen 360 game with shiny plasticky models and jaggies all over the screen. Garish menus and typography also look weird after simple if unremarkable menus of NGB...
In NGB enemies were much easier to distinguish. Even black enemy ninjas were very easy to tell apart from Ryu, because Ryu's model is very detailed while black spider ninjas used to be so simple in design. Now with the power of 360, all enemies have detailed models and i constantly lose track of Ryu because he is black clad ninja among the crowd of black clad ninjas.
Delimbing is NGII's new feature. Now, when you slash at enemies they sometimes lose their limbs -- leg or an arm. When this happens, enemy goes into suicide mode and tries to get to you and and if he does he explodes. You need to press Y near delimbed enemy to activate finishing sequence, it happens happens automatically after you pressed the button and you're invincible during it.
It is satisfying to do, but not when it happens too often. The effect is greatly cheapened when you just pressing Y going from one delimbed enemy to the other killing them instantly. Sometimes it feels like enemies are made out of dough and lose limbs way too easily.
I originally started on Warrior difficulty but then i saw that there is a specific achievement for completing the game on Acolyte and restarted on that. Either way i didn't feel like i am in danger mostly because of regenerating health and Ultimate Techniques getting significant buffs (UT charging not stopping when hit, charging itself is also much faster than in NGB even with armlet on). I am in the middle of Hard campaign on NGB, so maybe that's why i don't feel challenged. But still, it's stupid when i just do charged UTs and kill the first boss in 20 seconds. Even on Acolyte that is like Kirby levels of easy.
Also the game has super tight analog deadzones for some reason. Both of my 360 controllers are now a bit loose and "drag" but it's not a problem in most games. It only becomes noticeable in Geometry Wars (on PC) and here. So because of that Ryu randomly starts to walk when i am not pushing the stick.
Metal Gear Solid 2 (Xbox 360, HD Collection):
Decided to mess around in the tanker, collecting dog tags. Not sure if i start replaying the game proper non-lethally, but it's tempting because there is an achievement for this...
360 version has a few neat control additions. Where previously it was a hassle to lower your gun without shooting, now you can just click left stick. This trick also makes hold-up procedure a bit easier with less finger twisting. Though i found out that this new control option doesn't work as well in the holds where i am in the dark among hundreds of marines and trying to do hold-up procedure on one of them. You can't afford to make any noise whatsoever or all hundred marines will notice you and you will see a field of exclamation marks:
Metal Gear Solid 3 (Xbox 360, HD Collection):
It's very cool to see how this series keeps evolving. In 3, you have two life bars instead of one. First one is the actual lifebar and it regenerates by itself. Second one is stamina. Lower stamina means lower regeneration, and overall your lower perfomance.
This two lifebars system actually appeared in MGS2, but was BOSSES who had them. Because 2 was designed as the first MGS game where you could do completely non-lethal run bosses had second life bar that could only be depleted by tranquilizer and other non-lethal weapons. Later, it was retroactively included into Twin Snakes.
Now in MGS3, YOU have two lifebars. To compensate for constant regeneration, now there are very few ways to directly heal your lifebar. Compare that to previous game where you could find dozens of rations laying everywhere and you can heal yourself with them anytime. Food that you find increases your stamina but doesn't directly heal you. The best practice is to hunt and always keep plenty of food on you to keep your stamina high at all times.
Inventory and weapons menus are now two-tiered as well. First tier is set of things that shows up in-game. But your full inventory is only available from menu. So you can't pick up a shotgun and use it right away -- you have to go to menus and set this shotgun as one of the eight objects available to you in-game.
Besides inventory you also manage food, camouflage and curing from the menu. You will spend a LOT of time in there doing the simplest menial tasks, like eating, changing your outfits and so on.
I really like how easy it is to slam enemies into the ground, knocking them out instantly. In MGS1 and 2 there were a lot of stupid restriction about throwing (your position, enemy position and even alert status, i think?) and even then it didn't felt reliable. In MGS3 if you run up to an enemy and tap B you will slam an enemy 100%.
I am ten or so hours in, and have fought three bosses so far. There are no try hard philosophy so far and more funny random banter is which is a huge plus. I am doing non-lethal run, which is probably not a good idea for a first playthrough, but whatever.
Topic: What are you playing? (Read 696773 times)
