2101
General Gaming / Re: What are you playing?
« on: September 07, 2013, 04:32:23 AM »
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.
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.


And, like you, I think it was quite self-aware. Sakurai is good at that...
-- happened
-- didn't happen