Topic: What are you playing?

[Adrock]

I was about to finally play Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles - The Crystal Bearers, but the batteries in my Wii Remotes are dead and I currently don't have any extras at home. It's possible in the near future that I post in the "What is your most recent gaming purchase?" thread that I dropped $40 on Nintendo's Official Wii Remote Charger.

/first world problems

Anyway, I just got back into playing Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D. I finally beat the temple stage that repeatedly frustrated me to the point where I put the game down for months. I'm currently in the Forest.

[azeke]

I was about to finally play Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles - The Crystal Bearers, but the batteries in my Wii Remotes are dead and I currently don't have any extras at home.

AAA batteries in game controller are such a hassle to deal with. Replacing them, keeping track of them, recharging them. My rechargeable batteries i got 1-2 years ago are now going dead, so now i'm have to buy eneloops, because they apparently last longer.

Assassin's Creed 4 (Wii U):
Just started it, will come back to it after i deal with Liberation.

Game's nice, lots of improvements all around.

Circular menu(s) to switch weapons is gone. Two weapon circles (Revelations added second wheel) worked okay, but you needed to go into a separate screen to manage it, using just d-pad right from the game is much faster and smarter.

Artstyle is bright and colourful, which is good after dour III. Colours are so intense you can even feel how houses are scorched under the sun.

Framerate seemed okay at first, but has started to dip to III levels. Console-gaming...

I like separate sub window showing how many collectables you got in this area and how many are missing. These guys sure know how to pander to their audience. Good, because i am one.

I also loved how you could start collecting, syncing and jumping from high places right after you start the game. In earlier games it could take you a while to start the now all too familiar routine.


Super Mario 3d World (Wii U):
Just trying to finish Champion's Run with remaining characters (no power-ups). While doing that i checked out time attacks. Learned a few new things about how running works (THIS GAME, man).

Running physics is actually rather different from Super Mario 3d Land, rolling jumps are NOT faster than long jumps and regular jumps with running boost on are faster than anything else (trying to do anything else but regular jump will stop your running boost, so don't do that).

Another thing about running boost is that cats apparently get to it faster than regular characters. Running on all fours has it's advantages.

I messed around on the first level trying to minimize my time and best i could do is 53 seconds with Cat Toad. Then i checked out speedruns youtube. Oh man...

Stuff these guys do is absolutely bananas. And this is done with Peach who is usually slower than any other character! It's almost like Jungle Beat speed-runs where players never touch the ground until the very end of a level.

Ninja Gaiden Black (Xbox 360):
Basically spent all my weekend playing it. Didn't notice i stayed up until 4am today.

Bosses are actually not super hard, they have patterns, the hard part is staying alive because if any of their hit usually you will take up to 75% of your health.

You need to drink elixirs constantly to replenish health. I wish i didn't have to press Start everytime to do it, but what are you going to do. They could have used d-pad for that, but they didn't. Ah well. Switching weapons on the fly with d-pad would also be nice.

The segment where you need to blow up tower with arrows was very annoying, because of archers who keep shooting you back. You have about a second to aim for the tanks on a tower before archers will shoot at you and you can't even kill all archers because they respawn.

One thing i like about 3d platforming in this game is how slashing your sword during the jump adds a bit of forward momentum, similar how it works in recent Rayman games.

I loved how ingeniously the game showed me i could do that. The button for sword slash and opening crates is the same (X). There was a balcony that can only be accessed using this trick. They put a crate right on the edge of it, almost like tempting me to try to open it while jumping near it. I tried to do that and i did slashing in the air trick. Niiice.

[Stogi]

REMEMBER ME

It's a game revolving around, you guessed it, memories. You use them to solve problems and traverse the story. For example, you steal a guards memory in order to access restricted areas. My favorite part about the game though is remixing memories. The game has you go into a persons memory and change little things that ultimately change the entire memory. For example, you'll remix someones break up. The break up originally was 'peaceful', meaning the woman just walked out. But when you're through with it, changing small things like the location of a chair to, more importantly, the safety on a gun, it ends up incredibly violent. This in turn changes the real world consequences and allows you to progress.

But even after all the cool little things you do, the game is a bit empty. It never really busts through the barrier into awesomeness. Even the fighting, which is pretty damn cool, could have been way better.

I'd like to see a sequel if only to have them less restrained by the conventions they placed in the first game and to experiment with the mechanics they built.

[magicpixie]

I loved Remember Me, especially considering it was a new IP from a new studio.  I found the choice of a biracial woman to be both risky, and fresh at the same time.  DontNod went into some sort of restructuring called "Judicial Reorganisation" earlier this year, which a few publications reported as bankruptcy at the time.  I'm not exactly sure what the full story is with their studio, but I am hoping they get another chance to make something.  Remember Me was far from perfect, but I definitely saw some potential in it.

[azeke]

Knights in Nightmare (DS):
This game has three separate submenus for tutorials.

Because it needs them. Such crazy and such crazy complicated game.

While at first the mish mash or turn based stuff and bullet hell shmup sounds pretty cool, they put even more systems on top of that that's just complicating things for no reason. And then they do it yet another five times.

I really dig the idea, i really do, it's super interesting, but come on... Still, i want to crack this game.

Jam with the band (DS):
Had the cart for a while but with recent news of wifi connection going down, i knew i had to downloaded a few tracks until it's too late.

Selection of downloadable tracks isn't super big (around 300+ tracks), though there some really neat songs uploaded by people, things like Queen's songs and pop stuff.

Midi audio quality is disappointing.

The game must be fun in company, where you can divide instrument parts between your friends and then play it all together like an orchestra.

In actual game i'm pretty rubbish so far. I can do the simplest one button stuff (thanks, Rhythm Heaven), but once they add d-pad buttons corresponding to different notes (closer to regular Harmonix type of rhythm games) and i just can't do it any good. I will keep trying.

Ninja Gaiden 2 (NES):
Very random game, new features seem to add more randomness than i can handle.

Shadow copies give me more attacking power but that also means i no longer have reliable and predictable enemy movements. Wind is adding even more randomness now my movement depends on external factor that i can't control at all and have to wait a lot for it to change. My "don't stop for nothing" strategy from first game just crashes and burns there.

I still can't progress further that that wind level...

Don't really like bigger emphasis on on scaling walls, especially combined with wind blowing -- yet another unreliable part of the gameplay added.

And why in the world my UI is all rainbow-like?

Bayonetta (360):
Somewhat randomly felt the need to play it again last night.

Yep. This game is still:

Did level 1 on hard for platinum rank. Then did it again because i forgot to save... Not even slightly annoyed at that because i enjoyed it both times.

While listening impressions about sound design in Lords of Shadow reminded me of Bayonetta's sound effects.

So i rewatched "The Lost Chapter - Under Extreme Conditions" combo video to remind myself how the game sounds like.

(i get so HYPE when re-watching this video every time, my fingers are moving by their own, and that is a mere shadow the HYPE that overwhelms me when i'm actually PLAYING and in the zone and in control of this chaos, i couldn't help myself but to fist pump during moments of especial badassery in this video)

So sound design in Bayonetta. Immaculate. Of course like with every other part of the game it's a part of a gameplay (sound cues that are warning you of incoming enemy attacks), but sound effects also contributes to the feeling of empowerment: grunts Bayo/Jeanne do (think Bruce Lee grunts/screams), even the voice chosen contributes.

It's a commanding voice of the slightly older woman (not in story BS like "she's like 700 years old but looks like seven!". Her voice actually sounds in her thirties-forties. Yes she does sound like a teacher/librarian, but it's a good thing because this is the voice of authority, you almost instinctively cower when hearing this kind of old lady-ish sounding voice. When casting Umbran Elder, they even specifically asked for a very commanding, dry official sounding teacher/school principal voice, and you definitely feel the power and authority when she announces that you died.

I am trying to bring a bit of variety to my combos and learn more techniques, but so far i almost instinctively keep defaulting to my 2-3 preferred old reliables ones. I also want to learn other weapons, so far i employed a whip on alternative loadout and try to pull some enemies towards me and then do the usual combo with regular loadout.

[Oblivion]

Nerd.

[MagicCow64]

Arkham Origins (PC)

Against my better judgment I bit into this one, particularly as I'm not sure I'll be able to get Arkham Knight to run on my computer and I have no intention of buying a PS4 or Xbone at any point. Anyway, the opinions about this game seem to have bounced back a bit, and I recall a number of outlets claiming that it had a better narrative flow than the wobbly AC.

Pretty bizarre experience. On one hand, I was compelled to play through the whole thing based on the exhumed Rocksteady skeleton, but I also hated myself for doing it at points. I actually didn't mind that most of the map was recycled, as the tone of the environment was sufficiently different, and the focus was on missions (though it was laughable that they included the steel mill again). But boy, did they bork the combat. Counter system felt borderline broken, and given the huge emphasis on large crowds it was extremely difficult to keep combo chains going. I did manage to get the 30x challenge, but the 50x was in no way worth trying for. I eventually gave up on approaching the combat skillfully and just crutched by on the electro gloves.

Riddler challenges were 9/10ths insanely easy to the point of bafflement. Like, just blow open a plywood shed, or literally just press a button nearby. Crazy how half-assed the implementation was. Why even bother? Also nuts is the sequential challenge tree system, the a-la-carte AC version was leagues better. How is level 9 of combat "knock down two guys while sliding" and level 4 of stealth "complete a predator room without being seen"? Did they assign different teams to each tree?

And the story and writing were completely awful, to the point of distraction. It makes AC look like it was written by Warren Ellis. And the boss fights were either straight terrible (Deathstroke, Copperhead, final Bane) or super dull (enemy gauntlets). The actual missions were okay, if a bit uninspired design-wise, but the super-long hotel sequence almost got me to walk away. And I am truly ashamed of myself for going back into the hotel to grab missed enigma packs. Never again, I say to bullshit collectibles, never again!

I'd skip this one. Arkham Knight is pretty much guaranteed to be much better, even if it's on par with City. Asylum: 9, City: 8, Origins: 5.

[broodwars]

Bayonetta will have its time with me eventually. I have the game installed on my PS3's HDD. I just haven't gotten around to it, largely because I had a really bad experience with the demo. In the demo, it felt like the game relied on dialing-in an endless list of combos, and that just didn't click with me. However, the new Devil May Cry and the Lords of Shadows games show that I can really get into those games if I'm in the right mood and the game is designed so you don't have to remember & execute flawlessly 5 billion combos like a fighting game tourney player.

But yeah, my recent experience playing Lords of Shadow 2 really reminded me of just how much impact really strong sound design and animation can have on a gameplay experience. I'm not sure if it really came across well in the podcast, but movement in the LoS games has a real weight; momentum; and power behind it that you really don't see often executed well in games.  And when you strike something in that game, the sound perfectly conveys that (particularly the synchronized block, where the game slows just a tad and there's a loud, ringing "CLANG!" that just sounds so satisfying).

As for what I've been playing, I've been playing some Final Fantasy X HD on my Vita and I just started Infamous Second Son last night. I'm saving a lot of my thoughts for the next show, but FF X plays very well on Vita. The way that game was designed, it's a very natural fit. As for Infamous, I'm really enjoying it...but the Open World stuff is pretty obligatory and it's pretty clear from the glitches I've already seen that this game came in pretty hot.

And by the way, Sony REALLY needs to find a better button icon to display onscreen to indicate the Dualshock 4's touchpad than a big black box. Seriously.

[marvel_moviefan_2012]

The only game I been playing is that FreezMe demo someone posted a link to, other than that I will be in my own place again next weekend so my PS3 is coming out of the closet finally and will get some real use. My backlog is real long at the moment so I have plenty to look forward too. And I try to get around to AVGN Adventures once a week but I haven't this week. Only because its the only game I can play without internet and I have a connection but it is too slow to do much with. Even Netflix times out most of the time.

[azeke]

La mulana (PC, Steam):
Yesterday, i read a wikipedia description on some other unrelated game (Alien Soldier). It's said that this game is known for having "unprecedented" number of boss battles. Whopping 32. I don't want to doubt a game that i didn't played (yet), but why La Mulana isn't as known for it's boss battles then, if it has more sub-bosses and that's WITHOUT counting 8 main bosses? And you can't dismiss them because they're "sub" bosses: some of them can easily be final bosses in some 8/16-bit game.

Ah well.

Chakram (ring boomerang) is amazing, i should have used it more last time, it's VERY powerful and it comes back to you after bouncing off the wall so you don't have to buy many of them (1-2 is more than enough). Very useful against sub- and main bosses. Chi Yu and Neptune sub-boss were extremely hard to beat with regular weapons as i remember. It became much easier to kill them with chakram rings.

Beat final boss again. It is rather easy now that i remember all the patterns. So my final time is 14+ hours (this time doesn't count replays, so actual total time should be longer, around 30 hours, because sometimes i redid some parts trying to make better time). Couldn't get achievement for beating the game in 10 hours but making it in less 20 is nice enough.

I set up the ideal software combination that upgrades my character to the max. NOT coincidentally it fits computer's entire memory exactly, leaving zero MBs. Very cool, very japanese design, everything just falls into place.

Final boss itself. Some of her forms and the way she ultimately dies are VERY disturbing. Entire game is kinda like that. A mix of religions and myths all over the world with a bit of "ancient aliens" story to spice it all up. Cool and kinda scary.

Of course as you kill the final boss entire ruins start to crumble and here the funniest part starts because you need to run for your life across all the levels back to the surface.

OF COURSE the most obvious exit gets blocked, then you remember one random hint NPC says to you and go there.

OF COURSE the most obvious route to this place also gets blocked. I laughed as my body got crushed by a trap that wasn't there before. Oh La-Mulana, you so crazy!..

I figured it out on third try, though i think i used an other way year ago when i beat it on Wii. And it's one of the great things about the game, extreme non-linearity, huge sprawling levels all interconnected with each other in mind-bending ways.

And this final escape is the ultimate test of your knowledge, because you need to figure the fastest way through different levels. I remember how i went for groceries yesterday and kept making routes in my mind while i was going to the market.

And with final boss gone here starts the actual reason i started replaying the game on PC. Hell temple. It wasn't available on Wii release.

I unlocked it. Read the instructions how to do it from the wiki and as per usual with this game, there is NO way one can figure it out by himself -- SUPER obscure and arcane stuff. Even simply getting there is nearly impossible.

If you can't tell by it's name it's an extremely hard additional level. Well it's not that bad. The moment where you fall down in the pit the first time and the writing HELL gets written on the wall is even pretty funny.

Enemies while tougher than usual, are not that bad, puzzles as per usual are the hardest part. I figured out the puzzle with a grenade and but now i am stuck on the room with four pillars.

At least i after i beat the game i can forget worrying about time and just keep solving Hell Temple room after room at my own pace.

Shinobi III (Genesis):
The game is kinda "cinematic". I really love the beginning, when you first go in the forest, leaves are flying around, and then you enter a cave and torches light up on the walls. And the entire game is like that: forest, then cave, then horse chase, then volcano and so on. Great variety of environments.

Jumping is kinda stiff and wall jumping requires some practice. Took me some time until i learned how to do the elevator level.

Also i constantly forget i can block in this game.

Flying brains in the lab level really like to exploit your moving deficiencies, constantly doing "cross-ups" and flying at you when you jump from below and can't block.

I got to Alien brain boss and it killed me. Pattern is kinda hard.

Ninja Gaiden II (NES):
Hey, i can actually scale walls up and down! That changes EVERYTHING.

I was having a lot of trouble on wind level because i thought i have to jump to scale up the wall because that was how it was in the first game. But now i can just freely scale up and down everywhere!

I got to the level with water streams flowing everywhere. Yet another mechanic to screw up my movement, ugh...

[azeke]

Spent last night trying get through two Gamecube games for the Nth time in years.

F Zero GX:
Still stuck on story chapter 3. How?!. I'm doing okay until second lap, but then they start boosting i am left behind. If i do the jumping on platform trick i can gain something but then they still overcome me.

As far as i can see from youtube videos, i need to glide down to minimize my air time during jumps. Okay, i did that. For some reason controls just don't feel good when i do that (also doesn't help that it's done in very brief segments and kinda hard to practice) and i am pretty sure after i do that once, during the next jump game thinks i am still tilting the stick down when i am not and that just messes me up completely.

Viewtiful Joe:
Still just annoying as i remember. I understand the game mechanically (after all i got to level 5), but nothing feels good.

I am completely baffled on what i am supposed to do when enemies circle you from both sides and do attacks BOTH low and high with no opening, what can i do then? Jump out of the way? But WHYY, that makes no sense!.. Why can't i stay there and do something?.. Is there REALLY no other way?

[azeke]

^ small update on both games from last night.

F Zero: beat story chapter 3. But i didn't feel like i achieved or learned anything: i was doing the same thing, just got lucky i guess.

Viewtiful: beat first part of level 5 and got on a train. I watched Viewtiful Joe speed-run on work to figure out why i am so rubbish in it and how i can get better. It's not a good tutorial material though, with all crazy semi-glitches this speed-runner does.

At least i learned how i should use zoom to do extra damage. So the system so far looks like: slow-mo for defense, zoom for attack, and super-speed is to kill lesser mooks faster.

[nickmitch]

Finally playing 3D World.  I got through the first two worlds.  The cat suit feels OP.  I think I've already lost interest in getting all the green stars.  Maybe I'll go back for them.

[terribledeli]

Running through Mach Rider. I had intended to play some Disney Magical World but with only one save slot, I'm giving the opportunity to my wife.

A tad disappointing there isn't more than one slot, and it appears to be likewise for Tomadachi.

[Fatty The Hutt]

Disney Magical World
Finally finished all the "prologue" stickers and the freedom of the game has opened up nicely. I wish the music would change  more often but other than that, the game is scratching my "charming-game-aimed-at-preteen-girls-that-I-am-embarrassed-to-be-playing-but-damn-it-it's-fun-so-screw-you-all" itch.

[Phil]

Like Fatty, I'm also playing Disney Magical World. However, after my first night of playing it, I've been distracted with Theatrhythm Final Fantasy (I went back to it after a two year hiatus, and am loving the crap out of it-- probably my favorite rhythm game ever made), and some Vita games.

I've been creating stuff in ModNation Racers: Road Trip, I beat Resistance: Burning Skies, and I started Tearaway.

[magicpixie]

Still going back to Battlefield 4 multiplayer, which is amazing since I'm still really bad at it.  I still really enjoy the class-based combat, even if a lot of what you're doing is still "See man, shoot man".  The bugs are still there, though, apparently DICE have discovered that their server infrastructure was inadequate for the game, which they say is causing a lot of the issues with rubberbanding, and hit reg, and possibly other bugs.  They are currently beta-testing the new servers, which are searchable in the server browser.  Really shady of EA to publish two major titles within 6 months of each other, at full price, both of which seem unfinished.  Titanfall launched without things like private servers, and custom games, which are being added via patch, and everybody knows what's up with BF.  Shady, but not at all surprising.


Infamous Second Son - I just got my third power, and I feel like the game moves along at a really brisk pace, even when you are trying to 100% the areas.  I feel like many of the complaints I had about the first Infamous game are alleviated by the DS4 controller, which I really dig.  I wasn't overwhelmed by the visuals, but I've been playing on a decent-spec PC for a little while now, but they are very nice.  The particle effects are great, and the framerate, while variable, is fairly steady.  There are definitely moments that the game seems to chug along, but they are extremely rare, in my experience.  I wish the game could do a better job with the morality system.  Everything seems way too black/white, and doesn't really seem to fit any context.


I still have issues with the combat, and the way encounters play out.  There hasn't been enough enemy variety, and the way encounters play out doesn't leave much in the way of strategy.  You basically just "Pew, pew pew" your way through the city until everything is dead/subdued.  The few boss fights I've encountered have been extremely annoying, and the last boss I fought made me want to throw that conduit into a deep fryer.  I haven't even died during one yet, they are just really annoying.

[azeke]

^ i've seen few Infamous quick looks, combat there made AC's braindead combat look good. Speaking of..

Assasin's Creed IV (Wii U):

As i said earlier, ACIV is very, very streamlined, lots of bullshit cut out. Losing the chase is pretty easy and you never become infamous no matter how many people you kill. Teleporting between sync points is a great addition.

Naval battles. I haven't yet got it fully yet, but i think i liked it in III more. Choosing between chain, fire and normal shots added a bit of a strategy to it and in IV you can't seem to do it. Like you could incapacitate one ship with chains destroying it's sails, fight another ship and then come back to finish off the first ship. Another thing is that ship now upgrades like a character in RPG and has levels and damage points, so at first you're very underpowered against ships with higher levels.

I 100%-ed two towns out of three during my first three hours and was even proud of it for a little while, until i zoomed out of city map to global map and realized that towns are but a very small part of a full picture. Carribean is full of Wind Waker-like small islands with random stuff put on them.

I really wish they added ability to just teleport to my ship instantly from wherever i am. Swimming back to my ship after i got one chest from a small island feels like exactly the bullshit time wasting that other parts of the game has slimmed down otherwise.

For some reason i always really, really liked transitions from on-foot sequences seamlessly to controlling vehicles, whether on screen or in videogames. Like Jackie Chan fights a score of dudes and then jumps into a car (through a window) and speeds away. All within one shot. Same how i fight some dudes, grab what i need, jump off a cliff into the water, swim back to my ship, take the wheel, my crew greets me and i resume with my pirate raids.


^ the first moment when you activate travel speed, camera zooms out to ship view and my crew started singing was really something magical.

Super Smash Bros. Melee (Wii):
How do i smash? No seriously, i can't get it right and do it maybe one time out of three at best.
I think almost accustomed to weird movement of the game with jump put on stick. I should practice a bit more with targets.

La-Mulana (Steam):
Pushing through Hell Temple.

Met the first boss in hell, he is evilly placed to throw me into the pit constantly, i got tired of that and just used time stopper and killed him.

Now i am stuck in yet another puzzle segment. Then one with six blocks floating in the room.

Before that there was a very funny trap where out of a blue a huge arm appearred where the exit should have been, and punched me, sending me down in the pit again. I even got an achievement for this: "Welcome to La-Mulana, part IV: Super Punch".

Dark Souls (PC):
I shouldn't have been that afraid of the priest in the church, he dropped dead very fast. Now facing bell gargoyle on the roof. Even from the cutscene you can tell that this boss is a dual one, all gargoyles on the roof are grey stone, but the two of them are black and only one of them awakens in the cutscene, so i only nodded when second gargoyle flied in when i hit the first one enough times.

Ceasar III (PC):
Got to Miletus. When game gives me choice to choose between peaceful and warring province i always pick peaceful to avoid horrible RTS stuff, though i know i'm only delaying the inevitable because later levels have mandatory invasions in your cities.

The hardest part of entire game is remaining stability in your living areas with balancing food and wares to provide everything to keep it at the same level without downgrading. That's why growing your city is so hard, when you add new districts this disrupts your already working infrastructure and can even ruin it completely.

The cheap trick to finish levels is when you need additional 100 people to meet the requirement for the next level and you instead of growing your city in gradual way, you can just flood the entire area with cheap hovels with no regard to stability whatsoever. Once population reaches required level you just accept the promotion and leave this unstable mess for the next governor to sort out.

Another trick on how you can fight instability when growing already existing districts, is simply not doing it. You can create a simple small self-sustaining isolated village with everything in it sorted out. And then build yet another one away from it completely disconnected from it.

Divide and develop. You can have main living district, the other is industrial district and they have no road connection whatsoever. Interesting thing about this trick that you can still conjoin them somewhat, not with a road but with a building, like road on the left side of a building leads to the living district and road on the right side goes to industrial naval yard area. That way you can place warehouse that will get goods from industrial district and that will later be distributed in living area despite that there are no road connection between them.

[broodwars]

Still playing Knack. I'm trying to make it my 1st PS4 retail game Platinum, a task made fairly annoying by required collectibles that seemingly have a 1% drop rate. Still finding it oddly enjoyable and relaxing despite its faults. Still playing Final Fantasy X HD on my Vita (oddly, I haven't even played my PS3 version yet beyond checking it for installs). Nothing else of note right now.

[MagicCow64]

@azeke

Yeah, naval combat takes some adjusting in ACIV, it's all based on camera movement now instead of switching ammo types, which . . . sort of makes sense once you get used to it, but makes multi-tasking in battle somewhat cumbersome in complicated scenarios like heavily defended forts.

For my part:

The Cave (PC):

Once again I fell for the old Double Fine trick of a seemingly cool concept on paper that faceplants on execution. This was their last chance for me, especially after I paid full price for fucking Stacking. The core adventure game stuff is pretty easy/mediocre, and the powers given to the individual explorers feel like an afterthought. I wouldn't have minded this game so much, except that traversal is mindnumbing and ladder-climbing in particular is maddeningly slow. Skip this!

Resident Evil: Revelujuahs (PC)

Not sure how I feel about this one yet. I dig that they moved back toward a strong sense of place and locked door progression, but the aiming feels slightly off to me, which is especially irksome given how wobbly the ooze monsters are. I gave the first comm officer boss a few shots and got wasted bad, this after the game was super easy up to that point. Not sure if I'm going to go back any time soon. I do like the scanning aspect, but wish it was more robust, with lore and enemy data and stuff included. Also, the flashback episode was atrocious, and what I assume RE6 is like.

Outlast (PC)

This game is wildly derivative of Amnesia, which would be embarrassing, except that I think this game takes the concept and puts it in a more interesting and varied environment with more articulated gameplay and better pacing. In Amnesia, I got bored halfway through once I figured out the essential phantom toothlessness of the monsters and the lack of progression danger. Outlast fixes those problems with persistent enemies and black-out lighting conditions, and creates some real tense situations as you're bolting away from psychos and looking over your shoulder, trying to get to the next whatever to hopefully checkpoint and take a breather before the next atrocity.

[magicpixie]

I played a bit of the demo for Tesla Effect, the new Tex Murphy game.  I've never played any of the previous games, but I got some correspondence from Atlus advertising the game which got me interested.


I enjoyed what I played so far.  It's full of cheese and the puzzles seem like they could be fun.  Unless the game turns out really bad at release, I'll probably be picking this one up.

[Adrock]

Seriously. **** you, 5-K Blast & Bounce.

I finally completed this level again with all puzzle pieces; this time in Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D. Never playing that stage again.

Pro-Tip Frustrated player-tip: Do NOT attempt to play through this stage without Diddy. If you die and have to restart the stage without Diddy, just reset and save yourself the frustration. There are no DK barrels here. You don't have a choice in Mirror Mode since Diddy is inaccessible and you only have one heart. F that right in the face. If you're azeke, just proceed as you normally would. I'm sure you'll be just fine.

[azeke]

^ i don't know where you got the idea that i'm any good in DKC Returns. DK's humongous weight and momentum is killing me there.

Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass:
Welp. I wasn't expecting to play a Zelda game this year, but here i am.

I actually really like it. There is less puzzle bullshit and game moves along at a much steadier pace: i constantly keep getting new gameplay types and new stuff. It's a welcome change, considering usually Zelda games take me years to finish (not metaphorically).

First stealth section was pretty intense but i did it with ten seconds left on first try.

Bayonetta (360):
I am doing platinum run on Hard difficulty. I don't think it even gives an achievement or something, i just do it for fun. As usual, level 3 was pretty tough to get Platinum because of how excruciatingly long it is. On Normal it took me an 1 hour 3 minutes (!), on Hard it was 39 minutes (because i got better + enemies are different).
Boss level right after was a breather, takes just 5 minutes. I got Platinum, but felt bad about it because i found out that i was just a hair off a Pure Platinum there (i needed 10'000 combo points more on combo for Pure).

Tropico 4 demo (360):
While i'm in a city building mood playing Caesar III on work, i wanted to check what options i have if i want to play similar game at home (as in: on a couch with a controller). Tropico 4 is what i found.

Controls are kinda weird and the camera zoom is backwards. Lots of things put on a d-pad which is not ideal on 360 controller. Still it's workable.

With tasks constantly coming in, you feel like you're doing a lot of busy work, it's almost like a Facebook game (not a good thing), especially considering there isn't much to building in this game -- you just put stuff on a map and that's it. You don't have to ponder on it's place in infrastructure, care about road access and manage distribution chains: most of it is done automatically.

I am still interested and i really like humour and portraits in this game:


I have full version on Steam, i might research it's controller suppport or just wait for 5.

Rayman Legends (360):
Completed James Bond world. Stealth gameplay is pretty cool and probably the best original thing in this game which otherwise is kinda lika level-pack for Rayman Origins.

Got a few achievements. A few achievements require me to beat friends' scores on Challenges, but i don't have any friends set on 360. Anyone has Legends on 360 and cares to play challenges with me?

Oh and i had a friend coming over, we played Samurai Gunn and Nidhogg. Both great fun.

[Ceric]

If you had a gaming computer I might suggest the Anno Series to you Azeke.  From what you said above it may be your cup of tea.

[azeke]

If you had a gaming computer I might suggest the Anno Series to you Azeke.  From what you said above it may be your cup of tea.

I have a great gaming PC which i play lots of games on, but i completely lost the wish to play on kb/m setup unless i'm at work where i am contractually obligated to sit staring at the monitor for hours.

My work PC isn't good enough to play even Samurai Gunn and that's excluding other complications such as the need to actually do some work.