Topic: What are you playing?

[shingi_70]

GFG is nowhere near on the same level of selection as PS+. Don't put them I'm the same league.

This is the point where TJ Spyke runs in and argues the fact that you can't keep the dozens of games a year you get from PlayStation Plus completely nullifies its existence.

I never said they were in the same league. I said they're similar purchases. Intresting to note all the games picked thus far have sequels coming out soon or is a big franchise.


Halo 3- Halo 5 and Halo TV hits next year. Most recent game was spartan assult.
Assassins Creed 2- AC4 hits this year and this was probably a ploy to get AC3 out of peeps minds.
Dead Rising 2 stuff- Dead rising 3 is a launch title.

[azeke]

Unreal Tournament 99
Played a bit on LAN (Oblivion map) on work. Our corporate network fell apart so we couldn't get anything done anyway.

Had a great time. It was so sad seeing this series going down the drain with half-assed U3.

Retro Game Challenge (aka "that game with Arino")
This game (and Sakurai's games i guess) are living proofs that achievement based gameplay is as legitimate way to enjoy games as any.

The game is structured by games, and you're progressing by achieving artificial aims in them one by one.

The games are all supposed to remind of the early Famicom games. I really liked Haggleman, at first i didn't even knew about the flipping mechanic and just jumped and used my ninja stars. It was a really nice suprise when i read about the tricks with wall flipped in alphabethical or reverse-alphabethical order. And each of the game is like that -- all of them have enough content to be published as full releases in 85.

I also liked shooting games.

Boy constantly remarking on your game gets kinda grating though. I imagine it gets just as annoying with Arino's voice in japanese version.

Kid Icarus: Uprising
Speaking of Sakurai's games and achievements. It's really amazing what this game does with them. I really wish Sakurai's "achievement wall" with hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of side goals for you to do in a game became Nintendo's standard.

I don't even care if anyone else knows how many achievement i unlocked, i just want to have this kind of wall in say Mario games.

I didn't even played the game, i was just messing around fusing weapons to get specific weapons for achievements.

Assasin's Creed: Brotherhood
That was a baaaaad ending if i ever saw one. ACII was fantastic, it was completely out of the left field and left more questions than answers. And Brotherhood's ending was the same but it lacked that all-changing Minerva addressing Desmond moment, of course i was still surprised when Desmond killed Lucy but it just wasn't the same. It was a bad kind of WTF.

I didn't liked how you couldn't play during credits like in previous game. Ubisoft credits are so ridiculously long.

On the next day, i booted up the game to finish up some quests at 10AM and... finished at around 9PM (yeah, i know, i was as shocked when i looked at UPlay timer). And i still didn't get everything. I completed "The Truth" and it was okay, but it still didn't made the ending better.

Shop quest to get that last type of armour is bullshit. It requires shrunken head and you get one only if you invest 1 000 000 into weapon shops. Which would be fine by itself considering i now have a stable income and bought most of the landmarks in Rome, but you can invest only once in 20 minutes. And you can only give 5000-7000 florins at a time. Do they really expect me to spend 200 * 20 minutes to get that last armour?

Also names of tradeable goods are kinda funny. Budhist beads, shrunken heads, tomatoes... I am sending my four top-class assassins to Constantinople to get one tomato? Also, no game, Constantinople is not the island in Mediterranean sea.

Two of the Michelangelo's war machine missions are so broken. Controls are super clunky, which is understandable for medieval machines i guess, but they really shouldn't have put additional bullshit Full Synchronization requirements on top of it. I don't i will ever be able to do Tank mission and Flying Machine mission with 100%.

Cristina mission were meh. They tried to tell this love story throughout events of ACII, but it would have been better if they tried to integrate it more to the main story. Loading screen with Ezio constantly chasing Cristina was a nice touch though.

Overall, great game which falls a bit by the end. Few bugs here and there. But it's still worth it. ACII and/or Brotherhood are my easy recommendations for everyone.

Bayonetta
Finally made it through first level on hard. Camera in second segment is just so broken, it sways all over the place, it was okay with regular angels on normal mode, but these monsters with lightning claws are just so fast, keep moving all over the place, can hit you almost instantaneously, and if they will uppercut you to the air, they will do three undodgeable hits that will take at least 50% of your health.

This was seriously the hardest challenge game gave me so far. At least i'm glad to know it will get much easier after that.

[Morari]

THIS POST HAS BEEN CENSORED FOR YOUR PROTECTION

--Bureau of Internet Morality

[magicpixie]

Man I had some goooood times in high school playing UT.

I finally picked up a 3DSXL for Shin Megami Tensei IV which proves that I like cutting or something.  Loving the game so far, but coming straight out of Persona 4 Golden, I miss my digital waifus.  Looking forward to beating this game and moving on to Fire Emblem, Ace Attorney, and Pokemon later this year.

Oh, I also took advantage of a promotion over at iRacing for a free 3 month subscription w/ the beginner Mazda MX-5, about 8 tracks, and a few other cars.  Haven't raced online yet - I've pretty much just been testing the cars on the tracks, but so far, I'm really digging the physics of the cars I've tried.  I get the appeal, but I doubt I'll continue with a paid subscription after the 3 month trial.

[azeke]

Almost ten years ago, we used to play demo for Unreal Tournament 2003 on work. It had only one level (bunker or something) but it was all we needed.

Though this weekend i was reminded how backwards their server configuration was and always were, when we tried to set up a LAN game. I remember how confusing it was to set up dedicated server for it. Adding bots required restarting server or something.

Played some multiplayer for Assasin Creed: Brotherhood last night. It took some time to find games (played some Retro Game Challenge while the game was searching for sessions and people say they don't understand the point of handheld gaming at home where they have HDTV and a computer).

The game is more or less game of hide and seek with some tag sprinkled in with elaborate rules. It's pretty okay, though feels very shallow. At least they added some upgrades progression. Still, it's refreshing to play a game online that isn't about shooting people.

[azeke]

Assassin's Creed "somebody, stop me!" Revelations:
I've barely played twenty minutes of the game and already starting to see how's it's worse from previous games. Combat system was touched again and made even more OP. Finishing animation is the same in almost all cases, and a really ridiculous one at that, where Ezio turns to the guy with his back (if he was facing him, he will turn just to do this animation), and kill the guy with a sword over his head. Facial models for some reason got even more funky looking, AC is probably the only series where with each iteration faces looks worse and worse and worse yet.

Ah well, i will try to blast through this game and III as fast as possible to prepare myself for IV.

Bayonetta
Unlocked killgore yesterday. I was like: "ahahaha, what is this?" when i tried this out for the first time. Probably the most overpowered and gamechanging weapon yet. I like it.
The main problem with this game is sequences where you make one mistake and you're dead. And most often than not, these sequences are placed right in the middle of a long level and dying there ruins your overall level score. You can miss one QTE or miscalculate how far the rolling ball from you and you're out.

It was funny when i moved myself towards the projectiles to do Mahaa-Kalaa parrying when i played a bit of Kid Icarus yesterday. Same way you  reflexively keep waggling your 3DS or gamepad in other Mario games after playing NSMB.

[magicpixie]

I think Brotherhood was where I stopped having fun with the AC series.  I'm hoping that 4 does something to revitalize that for me.

I revisited Splinter Cell: Conviction today in preparation for Blacklist later this month.  The game is definitely more accessible than the previous entries in the series; I definitely feel like a ninja most of the time.  And despite the Mark system taking away control from the player, I love being able to plan out my kills and execute marks at lightning speed.  I also really enjoyed the environmental interaction during interrogations.  I'm debating which platform to pick up Blacklist on.  PC will be the best-looking, no doubt, but multiplayer might be better on PS360(likely more players).

I've actually been revisiting a lot of older games from this gen.  I recently started up Arkham Asylum(kept trying to use detective mode in Splinter Cell) and Perfect Dark Zero.  It's amazing how much games have improved over the course of just one(loooong) generation. 

i replayed Uncharted not too long ago, and man, that game's controls still suck.  Combined with the bullet-sponge enemies, it's amazing I ever finished that game.  I guess that's a testament to the storytelling ability of Naughty Dog's writers.

And with Lightning Returns on the horizon, I felt the need to catch myself up on the FFXIII series.  Then I played XIII-2 and I remembered why I never finished it in the first place.  Gads, it's a good thing X and X-2 HD are coming out soon.

[Oblivion]

Skip Uncharted and go for the second one. You'll thank me later. Then skip Uncharted 3 and go for The Last of Us. Once again, you'll thank me later.


(The Last of Us is not an Uncharted sequel, in case I confused ya. )

[broodwars]

I've started playing Dragon's Crown on my Vita, and so far it's pretty OK. It has some stupid UI issues (which seems to be a recurring issue with Vanillaware games), but I'm a couple of dungeons in and I haven't wanted to break something yet or felt tempted to fall asleep.  That's a marked improvement from every other Vanillaware game.  : :

And yes, I'm playing as Boobie Lady right now. And yes, her walking and ESPECIALLY her running animation are downright painful to look at.  She's also kind of a hard character to use because of the way she has to continually stop and recharge her MP so she can continue attacking.  I'll probably switch to playing as the Elf as my 2nd character at some point, as she's another Ranged character and that's my preferred style of play.

[azeke]

Kilgore in Bayonetta are so, so deliciously broken and awesome. I mean it's bazookas that are attached to your each arm AND leg, how cool is that?

Challenges where i had to do limited punches and kicks are now actually doable. Simplest and fastest combo of "punch-kick-punch" can halve even Brave's health meter and just obliterates lesser mook angels.

Kilgore rocket blasts are arguable stronger than actual Wicked Weaves and certainly better in terms of area of effect.

It got to the point where at all times i'm only choosing between two loadouts: guns+kilgores (little bit easier to do combos) or kilgores+kilgores (to do some real quadruple rocket damage coming from all limbs).

Ass: Revelations
Tower defense in Assassin's Creed game? What is this? Why did they do this? It sucks! Why. Why.

Otherwise, it's pretty okay so far. It's good that they changed buttons a bit and fixed some of the UI issues this series had for a while (like when you stand near shop and can't speak to an owner you have to run away from it, come back and then respective action will show up). Putting eagle sense on a left stick push is a definite improvement. I'm not convinced that dividing weapons into two circles per stick is better though. By now Ezio's arsenal is so big it's kinda hard to remember which weapon belong to which circle and which stick you should move.

Not so keen on new bombs feature. I mean it's just bombs. Yet they made entire meta game out of it. Why? There are like few dozens of different types of them in the game... How many different bombs do you really need?

[Adrock]

I bought Dragon's Crown on PS3 yesterday. It's pretty good. I'm still trying to get the hang of the controls. Run and attack are the same button. That's not a new concept, but I'm not sure it works as well in this game since attacking is most of what you do. I admit I'm probably just used to games that either map running to analog sensitivity or by double tapping the analog stick in the direction you want to run.

Searching for treasures is mapped to the right analog stick and moving a cursor around. It's a bit jarring, especially when you have an auto-food item that you don't want to use yet. This is most likely a lot easier to mange using the PS Vita's touchscreen.

The game is pretty tough in the beginning while trying to get the timing on combos right and getting to know the controls. I started with the Amazon. I might try the Fighter next.

The game is gorgeous, but it's obvious where a team as small as Vanillaware is limited, namely the mostly static "cutscenes." The narrator sounds like Edward Roivas from Eternal Darkness. The character designs are indeed initially distracting, but not in the way most people talk about the game. It's more comical than anything else. The character designs are, for the most part, significantly more exaggerated than most Vanillaware titles, but I actually prefer the more subdued designs in Odin Sphere and Muramasa. Still, it becomes less distracting once you delve further into the game. I stopped noticing it because things are too busy getting kicked/sliced.

Apparently, you have to unlock online multiplayer. What the what?

Unrelated: I wish Vanillaware would port Grand Knights History to 3DS. I would love to play it.

[azeke]

Apart from going crayzee from Wonderful 101 demo, i also played Jelly no Puzzle.

It all started innocent enough. My colleague at work said he was playing Swapper and had a hard time with one puzzle, he then showed me solution which he thought was amazing while i guffawed at it and brought up many other games with much more BS puzzles. Then i remembered that Jelly game and gave the link to my friend.

Soon enough we all played it. I remember how i couldn't get through level 10 half a year ago. I guess i got much better cause i managed to get level 15 in a few hours.

Design in this game very impressive. Extremely hard puzzles based on a few simple rules and yet each and every single one is very unique and looks impossible at first.

[NWR_insanolord]

I picked up Rayman Origins for the first time in probably over a year. Man, I barely played this game back then, didn't even finish the first world. I'm not sure why, because I recall it being very good, and my playtime today solidified that. There are so many 2D platformers these days, but this one stands out with its incredible graphics and really polished gameplay.

The fact that I have so much content left in this one makes it unlikely I'll be buying Legends any times soon, but the more I play the more I'm convinced that if and when I do buy it, it's going to be on Vita. I'm not sure why, but I just really like handhelds for this kind of game.

[azeke]

I finally figured how to use Classic Controller in Wonderful 101 demo. Game became even more wonderful.

Watching playthroughs helped me:

http://youtu.be/eiIWeutoj4Q -- this guy made to platinum using Sword almost exclusively
http://youtu.be/lRdRo5MxaJY -- very useful tutorial

I also found Wonder Pink and Wonder Yellow. Yellow's hammer kinda sucks, it's powerful enough, but it doesn't have any combos or even launcher. Pink's whip i feel is even more useful than Sword, it can cover almost entire screen and it can even fire fireballs somehow.

Reading in-game tutorials helps. I had a real hard time in a stadium with three tanks and they just kept spamming lasers and cannonball at me, Cannonball i could deflect with pudding, but lasers kept destroying me. Thanks to a tutorial hint i now know that Sword can be used to deflect laser beams. Later enemies, scorpions are still very hard.

And they called this mission "Easy A"...

[azeke]

Continuing my Platinum weekend, i was replaying Bayonetta for platinums. Took me many replays and hours but i managed to get platinums on two more levels.

It's looking good for my prospects to get all platinums.

The worst part to get platinums is easily alhfeims (special hidden challenge rooms). First of all they're all hidden and on top of that some of them are extremely hard. I remember how i stubbornly played from 2am to 4am and still couldn't make one particularly devious alfheim earlier this week.

Had to use guide to find alfheims. One of them won't even show up until you destroy one random garbage bin, major bullshit.

Alfheims that put special limitations on you require heavy exploiting of the game mechanics and more often than not -- special weapon or item. They're like puzzles that way, only you're still having trouble executing them even if you theoretically know how to do it.

Still i am so glad i got two more platinums in a day.

I also unexpectedly got a platinum rank on Wonderful 101 demo. This demo is one the best games i played this year already.

[shingi_70]

Just four games currently.


Animal Crossing: New Leaf
Denpamen 2 (its actually what i'm playing right now)
Shining ForceL The Sword of Hajya
Defender's of Oasis


The 3DS has pretty much become my main games machine. Plan to get a Wii U this year so that might change.

[NWR_insanolord]

I've been going back and playing more New Super Mario Bros. U lately. I got this at launch but it got lost in all the other games I bought at the time and then never got back to it.

I'm surprised how much I'm loving this game. It's got fantastic level design, and despite still sticking somewhat to the series' visual style it tweaks it enough to look really fantastic in 1080p.

I ran into a weird instance where I must have hit a secret exit at one point so that I ended up in World 7 after only beating 1-3. And since the worlds aren't numbered in this game, they've got the weird food names, I didn't realize it was world 7 until I beat it and went back to the menu and saw the flag icons on my save file.

Really, I think this game is spectacular. I've argued that each NSMB game has been an improvement over the previous one, but I think this one takes even more of a step. I fully believe that this game deserves to be in the discussion for best 2D Mario game along with Mario 3 and Mario World.

[toddra]

I gave up on Fall Out New Vegas, I reached some sort of dead end before the game even got interesting so I will have to start that one over from the beginning when I get around to playing it again.

I tried to get into FF12 but it is not happening so far, the story is so boring and the battle system is not much of a system. it is like just an interactive movie but all you have to do is go from one checkpoint to the next nothing to fun there.

I did try this game called Maximo and so far I am really loving that. It is a PS2 I guess remake or modern take on Ghosts N Goblins or something like that anyways its awesome and lots of fun. I like those types of games pick up and play no BS getting in the way. I like a game to have a deep story but not to get in the way of the actual game.

As soon as I get bored with that I will be either trying God of War next or if I get my 3DS before then whatever games I get with that. I took too long of a break from gaming I missed out on so much.

[magicpixie]

Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn open beta is this weekend, and I played a bit earlier today.  They're having a bit of trouble with their servers, but I managed to get in after a bit of initial frustration.

The game is gorgeous.  Obviously, it isn't as technically proficient as something like Crysis 3, but the artstyle really helps to mitigate some of the compromises the game has to make in order to accommodate the MMO infrastructure.  I played FFXI for way longer than I'd ever care to admit, so I'm looking forward to giving this a shot.  I didn't get a chance to play when it first released, since I wasn't PC gaming at the time, but I did get a quick look in just before the game went offline for the big overhaul.

[Silenced]

Been playing some Halo 4 matchmaking, as well as some Reach and H3 here and there (Reach only for the zombie mode, Flood is awful, and H3 for the ridiculously unbalanced Battle Rifle).

[azeke]

Last Sunday, my friend came over for a few hours. He wanted to check out my 3DS, and i gave him

Kid Icarus
He said "wow!" during intro video of the game, so i guess Iwata was right in the end.
He got the hang of controls easier than me, being right handed and everything. He played most of the Viridi level (probably the most visually stunning level in the game) and died in the middle of TPS segment.

I also keep thinking about "switch the dialogue off" option that you get after beating the game. It's probably easier to concentrate fully on the game to pull of higher difficulties and/or beat some hard treasure hunt challenges with no dialogue, but i feel like i miss the banter a lot.

He also played a bit of Gunman Clive, Ducktales and because it got him all nostalgic i mentioned i have that Contra game that is very similar to NES game and we can play it together. So we played some Contra 4. So good.

Find Mii II
It's annoying how limited this game is. It's free and i don't mind it much, but it's quite fascinating how limited they made party management in these games. Sword - magic - next and that's it. You can't even view your party fully before battle starts. When battle starts you might want to use poison magic or buff magic first, but if respective cats are in the tail of the line i have keep pressing next rotating the line to get to them.

II is still much better than I because they added team ups and potions. Team-ups are great addition, i've got fifth level green Iwata and it's very handy when i get green cat to pair him with it. Didn't do much with potions, because when i start a battle i am already all out of coins i get from daily walks.

Overall, both games feels like F2P bullshit mobile games, only they extorts streetpasses and footsteps from you instead of actual money. You can only play them a few minutes a day and they're about as shallow these IAP infested mobile games.

Ducktales: Remastered
Love it. When i watched Quick Look i thought i will hate super long cutscenes, but i ended up loving them. They added to nostalgia feeling massively and added even more character to already colourful game. Cutscenes even managed to get emotional when Scrooge decides to give up all treasures to save his nephews closer to the end.

Have absolutely no beefs with design of the game, people may call it outdated, but i play NES games all the time and this game felt more natural to me than many modern games i played in the last two years.

Spending your money in gallery feels like monkey work. Why do i have to press a bunch of buttons to get all these hundreds of individual art pieces one by one? It's still a cool thing to have, i just wish it was all there in one piece without the hassle of buying everything individually.

The biggest problem for me is spotty hit detection (?). I'm not sure if it's by design or it's a bug, but it seems you can't kill enemies by pogo jumping when they're in certain animations. Like when skeleton starts to stand up, and you jump on him during that animation, YOU will take damage instead of him. It just feels weird.

Game is pretty hard, i remember how in the first two days i set it to hard and couldn't beat a single level, on third day i gave up and set it to normal.

Pikmin: New Play Control
When i got Pikmin 3 i played about an hour of it and then stopped because i wanted to play previous games first.

I beat first game and started second one. It took me one weekend and two workdays. Watching speed run helped me a lot, guy was getting four parts in one day, i felt good about myself when i was getting two parts in one day! Before watching this i didn't even used horn/march ability, but it's actually crucial. Pressing A so much to do mass attack is annoying.

Camera rotation in P3 felt too jerky, almost gave me motion sickness. First thing i noticed in first game that camera controls much more smoothly.

In diary it's quite funny how serious and no bullshit Olimar is despite his cutesy appearance.

Took me awhile to get the trick for the final level, i think i wandered around it for a good hour or so...

Final challenge has that humming background noise which with lively tune makes for a unsettling eery feeling, similar to how Majora's Mask town music feels in final hours.

It took me three game days to beat final level. At first i tried to set up bridges and fight final boss, but it became apparent that defeating the boss might take entire day. So i set up bridges in one day, went to sundown and had entire next day to defeat final boss.

That boss is hard. Took me like four or so replays. I guess you're supposed to feed him bombs (or yellow pikmin carrying bombs, heh) and when he swallows it and it detonates inside, shocking him for a few seconds, and then use LOTS of regular, no-bomb pikmin to do usual tackle attack while he's dazed.

Anyway i beat him, he gives up the final piece of the ship (piggy bank! really?) and i'm out of time. Had to use third day just to pick up the last piece.

Interesting that ending video showed me entire bestiary and there were monsters i never saw, i looked them up and apparently they're only available in certain locations for limited period of time, don't think it's worth replaying some levels just to see them especially when i know they're still in sequels.

Monsters in Pikmin get scary at times, but these two bonus monsters were especially unsettling: smoke monster that comes crawling to your base and leaves poisonous trail behind it and that rock thing with eyes.

Overall, Pikmin 1 feels kinda barebones in presentation, options and content, but it's still a great, charming game. It feels like that time constraint mechanic was put in to force player to replay levels again and again and inflate playtime that way. And it worked, i think i replayed every day at least two times, first time just for reconnaissance and to plan my actions in second playthrough.

Pikmin 2: New Play Control
Just started this. Played until day 4.

Right from the start, from the intro logo game looks tremendously better visually. Intro has different seasonal variants and even the game's logo is alive. Lots of options in main menu compares to measly three in first game -- i didn't even checked them out yet, but i guess it should tell you this game is more fully featured than first.

Jump in production quality between 1 and 2 was huge. Starting cutscene looks much more elaborate, the entire game looks much better.

I like Piklopedia, it pretty neat that you can interact with illustrations in it by throwing carrots and controlling camera.

They've also touched on a game mechanics a bit, like plucking pikmins from the ground takes less time because you have two characters and throwing pikmin feels a bit faster.

[broodwars]

Lately I've only been playing a few games:

DuckTales Remastered - I really don't get where all the whining is coming about with this game. It's a prettier version of an old NES game, and I really don't think WayForward ever pretended that it was ever going to be much more than that. I've only completed one stage so far (the Moon), but so far I'm enjoying it.  I could do without some of the cheap deaths I've had, but once again...HD remaster of an old NES game.  The cutscenes do go on too long, but so far they haven't bothered me too much.

Mario & Luigi: Dream Team - I'm up to the desert portion of the game, and it's been pretty solid so far. Characters talk WAAAAAAAAAY too much and WAAAAAAAAY too often, but the battle system's as enjoyable as ever and the 3D's surprisingly good.  This game also has a mini-achievement system, because my OCD really needed that.

The Bureau: XCOM Declassified - I've played through 2 story missions so far, and while it's obvious that this isn't a 9-10 tier game, I've enjoyed my time with it so far. I have issues w/ the suicidal AI and the somewhat bare-bones story, but so far the game's slight strategic edge and more than a little Mass Effect-y feel is really clicking with me.  The game's definitely missing a LOT of polish, though.

[shingi_70]

Animal Crossing New Leaf: slowed down to playng about two hours a day which is a better pace, so I won't burn out.


Dead Rising 2 case zero: Free on xbox live with the main game to hype up DR3. Been playing it mutiple times to get all of the combo cards and hit level 5.


Thomas was alone- Game is charming and simplistic.

[azeke]

Spent entire week chilling at home and playing videogames. So what i was playing.

Burnout: Paradise:
I am constantlty finding myself getting off track during races. The open world city itself doesn't change when you start a race, no arrows or fences so i was taking wrong turns all the time. It took me a while to notice that UI has special flashing signals showing when to take left or right turn.
The other thing bothering me is how you can't retry a race if you fail it. Going ALL the way back to start of the race is too much a bother.
And overall it's kinda weird how game tried it's hardest to hide menus. I am guessing it was an effort to create complete immersion but it got weird at times. Like there is no option to quit a race -- you just stop and stay that way for a few seconds and then game takes you out of the race.
Otherwise, it's a great game. I'm only competing in races and survival modes far. I tried stunt track challenge, and i was eh. Probably need to practice for it properly.

Fez:
An interesting puzzle platformer game. Nice music and sound effects. The fact that it is MADE OF ideas from Mario 64 and Zelda is highly amusing. I like how it's like Metroidvania with lots of interconnected worlds, though right now i am the stage where i'm just wandering randomly between worlds. Still figuring out how 3d map connecting worlds works and how do i go back to my home village.

Assasin's Creed: Revelaitons:
.. or how i learned to stop worrying about Full Synch and love the game. While in Brotherhood i went out of my way completing everything and doing all with 100% sync, with this iteration i kinda stopped caring.
I realize fully how the game is basically a map-pack for Brotherhood, but i still love the core gameplay of just roaming the city, now in Istanbul. Yesterday i had a mission where Ezio infiltrated a palace as singer. It already started good when i finally got a free chance to beat up musicians that previuosly bothered me so much in previous games. Even Ezio loved it. And then he started singing song while dressed as musician. Hilarious stuff. Actual gameplay in this mission was good too, except for some weird camera stuff.
I also played three additional missions on an island with Desmond's memories, they were Portal-like with Desmond recalling his life, it was kinda cool but frustrating at times (par the course for me playing puzzle games).
I think with this one i will just finish main story in here and as less as optional stuff as i can while supresing my OCD.

Link's Awakening:
Finally managed to make a breakthough in Eagle's Tower. Last six months or so it was like this: i try to play this level, get frustrated within 10 minutes and switch to something else. Pretty typical for me and Zelda games. Puzzles just kill everything else i enjoy in them, mainly music and action gameplay.
I destroyed pillars but now i am the last floor (?) and can't figure where to go next...


DuckTales:
Stuck on that last level in vulcano. Sequences with chains just kill me. Controls when you have to jump from one falling chain to the other are just to hard for me. Not sure why, but it feels like it's designed with stick in mind instead of d-pad. Even with a stick it's not a given that won't fall down from a chain for some reason. Everything is worsened by the fact that i you fail to catch just one chain, lava under them will kill you. There three parts with chains in the last level: just before the final boss, one right after the boss and yet another sequence with even more falling chains after that. And in each you lose a life if you fail even one jump from chain to chain. I never got through the first screen of the third sequence...

Ms. Pacman:
I am playing it on Namco Museum GBA cart. It's pretty addicting and hard. Definitely feels better and more nuanced than original game. Because of GBA's resolution you run the game either with vertical scrolling (which sucks cause you lose the view of entire maze and can't plan out where you should go next) or in "fullscreen mode" when everything is extremely tiny (ms pacman is barely few pixels high). It works and controls fine though.

With all that said all these games in combined playtime didn't even made a tenth of what i played of


The Wonderful 101:
I started replaying levels looking for all collectibles and hidden challenge rooms. Some of the rooms are absolutely impossible to find. Challenge rooms in operation 4A and in 6A are making me crazy. I knew where they should be and when to look for them, but i guess i am missing for some internal condition and they aren't showing up. It's probably something dumb like in Bayonetta where one challenge room was only activated if you destroyed one random non-descript garbage urn.
I like game's achievement system, where sets of achievements unlock new playable characters. Don't know if i ever be able to unlock Bayonetta considering one of the achievements in her set is the one where you need to platinum everything in the game...

Also have a bit of TW101 picspam from my miiverse:






somewhat offtopic note:
The only reason i've found time to write all this is because i'm in the other city for family event and my five year old cousin took my 3ds to play. Funny thing is, he had some Samsung tablet, but still wanted to play with mine 3DS. He specifically asked for "Mario". I am pretty sure he only knows Mario from Mario 3D Land that i once showed to him.
So here's some anecdotal experience about how tablets overtook handhelds for you.

[azeke]

Injustice: Entre nosotros hay dioses (thanks Costa Rica for a free game!)

The premise of the game was always a turn-off for me (almighty heroic Batman versus evil bad Superman, eugh). I also didn't liked demo on Xbox, combat system didn't made a lick of sense. But a free game is a free game, so i downloaded it.

Plot-wise it is your regular Kingdom Come + Brave New Metropolis (great episode from Superman: Animated series) + parallel universes stuff. Dialogues are full of references to comic book stuff. I really liked some one-liners after the battle was over in story mode. Green Arrow's chapter was especially good with that.

QTEs before some battles are okay, a little bit of variety to gameplay. I still don't know what to think about actual fighting. Most of the times i find myself on relying on one universal combo (back A, down Y to juggle the enemy) that works with everyone instead of trying to make sense of special moves and combos.

Speaking of combos, some are just ridiculous. I couldn't even do few last tutorial combos. Had to beat Supes for 15 minutes or so to execute X, X, back forward Y by some chance.

Because there is no no separate button for blocking, i never do. Just jumping away feels much simpler.

I got used to weird X Y A three button system but B button that switches stances or something feels useless.

I also have problems with executing "back forward" combos on a stick -- my character just jumps instead sometimes. It's probably something with me, because i have the same problem on all fighting games on all systems be it Street Fighter on 3DS or Tekken on Wii U.

Some of the special moves feel pointless, like Cyborg has two special moves with hookshot to jump away from an opponent. Why? What for?

Well at least story mode is still fun. DLC Advertisement in the beginning is annoying though.

Etrian Odyssey: 4 demo
Used one of the three tries, game is rather slow paced, so it took me three or four sessions to finish just the demo.
I really like the music in this game. The art style is also pretty charming, scantily dressed underaged girls or not. That smith girl is pretty adorable.
I was playing on casual and didn't had too many trouble, i still died two times when i got too cocky with FOEs but judging from the demo it looks pretty doable.

Overall i liked it. Might get the full game some later time.

Guadia Quest (DQ-like RPG in Retro Game Challenge DS)
It's cool how they included a full RPG in there. And it's not even the last game. It definitely feels like the JRPG from 80s with all menus and random encounters. Guadia system feels underdeveloped though, once you get your guadia, he just sits there in the slot and randomly attacks your enemies. Or not.

Oh and also some Wonderful 101 and Bayonetta, but really haven't much to say -- i was just going for the remaining achivements and collectibles in both.