What game are you wasting time on?

I survived Hard Corps: Uprising.

This fucking game is going to be in my nightmares right next to Touhou, Ys and Metal Slug as some carpal tunnel inducing shit. The game is essentially a Contra spiritual successor with the graphical facelift of the guys who make Guilty Gear and BlazBlue. It lives up to the name, let me tell you. So you're a ragtag group of rebels facing off against some big bad fascist army - y'know the usual. There's some writing between stages that's different for each character you play as, which is kinda neat. Writing is good enough for an arcade-platformer, but that's not what you're playing the game for. What you're there for is to die endlessly from hordes of bullshit enemies and traps. The devs knew it was pretty much impossible that anyone but 1CC Contra fans would be able to beat the Arcade mode (3 lives, limited continues, no saves) so they added a stage select slash cheat mode (Rising Mode - basically an upgrade menu for added health, lives, etc) for those lesser beings such as myself.

So - gameplay. You can run, jump, shoot, strafe, dash, air-dash, double-jump, deflect, the usual Contra stuff. Okay, seriously, the amount of movement options is amazing, with them even taking a cue from bullet hells with the deflect option. It'll take a while to get used to, but all the advanced inputs make the game feel more like a true improvement using modern technology. Although there are caveats, such as the fact that your character can stick to walls and ceilings, which means that sometimes you'll be trying to rip your character off like a sticky ball and end up falling to your doom. That happened. A lot. Devs made sure bosses that centered around climbing were short, but it did still feel like bullshit when your character couldn't get his grubby mits off. Enemies are fun to kill, and there's a wide variety of them so they never get stale, and learning their patterns (same goes for the bosses) is some of the most fun parts of the game. Surviving with your wits, reflexes, and a bit of memorization is key to winning. It would be much easier with a friend, but I'm on the Codex so that ain't happening. Bosses range from fun to just kill me so they did that well. Graphics are freaking ace, again, Arc System are darlings when it comes to 2.5D and the PS2 era anime intro/outro are really something to behold. Music was good, a lot of good rock riffs and some electronic stuff not exactly anything too memorable though sadly. I think the voice acting (in English!) was done in-house in Japan, so it was wonky but it added to the charm.


TL;DR:
+ Solid stage design
+ Variety of fun enemies and bosses
+ Character movement is advanced and polished
+ Graphics are amazing
+ You can play as Duke Nukem through DLC*
+/- Much better with a friend
- Movement can be wonky
- Rising mode is necessary for mortals
- Only on PS3 and Xbox 360

* (open) * (close)

 

Lately i've been playing a lot of minesweeper

 

Game is great, and it's a nice bone for Contra fans like myself who haven't had any games since I think Contra 4 on the DS?? Too bad Konami is all about that pachinko money because I would love for them to let Arc System do a sequel since that 3DS Contra game never got made. I've been meaning to replay it, and to beat it on Arcade mode, but I'd like to try to do in co-op if I can find anyone who would be willing to suffer with me.


Atm I've been playing BloodRayne which is a serviceable hack-n-slash. I dig the open levels, but like a lot of games (esp. modern ones), there really isn't worth much exploring. No hidden secrets, or cache of weapons that I can think of, at least nothing that's well-hidden where you have to go out of your way to find it. Combat is so-and-so, you just use 1 button to attack and as you progress through the game you extend that measly 2-hit combo into eventually 5. Game also has a "blood rage" mode where everything slow downs, screen goes red and you just automatically dismember enemies with 1 hit with the exception of stronger enemies, bosses and the "sub-bosses" of the game. There's also guns you can pick up and use which don't really have much use except when you're low on health in a boss fight. Other than that the only situation I've needed to use the guns for is when there is 5 or more enemies grouped together, it is just easier to shoot them down than to slash them to death, watching those same 4 awkward animations play out over and over again.

It's not terrible, but so much of it ends up being middling that the combat gets tiring halfway through the game. I remember the 2nd game having better combat, but way more linear levels. Which is fine by me. Other than having room to really move around, the level design doesn't have much worth exploring for. That's not to say that there aren't moments when it uses that level design to its advantage and makes the game enjoyable when you progessing because it does. The downside is that enemies respawn, and with the combat getting so tiring at one point I just decided anytime I had to backtrack I would just run past enemies instead.

 

Crooked Bee

I def. gonna play Oath and Origin. But AFAIK 1/2 remake still uses the original "bump into enemies" combat system. How is this shit, compared to Ys6 system?

 

Was playing Starbound, but now I shall wait for the bugs in the new release to get patched.

Between trolling posting on here, I'm playing Infra Arcana. Dying over and over and over and over.

 

I thought WTF is that shit at first, but then I actually ended up enjoying 1/2 a lot. The combat was extremely simplistic but also weirdly compelling and, well, fun; it's also a pretty charming game overall. Like I said, extremely simplistic though, and obviously nothing like Ys6/Oath/Origin. Just give it a try if you want and if it doesn't click for you, just forget about it and move on.

 

Bastard Bonds

The good:Alot of choices when creating your character, alot of different characters or creatures to make a part of your party/camp, development of camp, exploring the maps/stories, turn based combat.
the bad: once you take over a map it becomes secure, after awhile it becomes not secure again and the same level and type of monsters show up on it as before (makes recapturing it boring), turn based combat could use some more skills or tactics.

 

At a glance you fucked up in the bottom right because the cluster of 2s lets you solve that part, but the upper left looks like it was essentially up to luck. But you still wasted your shot on somewhere you didn't need it, and in a place where you had a 40% chance of hitting a bomb, instead of like that upper left 4 where it's only a 30% chance.

 

Having beaten System Shock 1 for the first time I went back and replayed SS2. I gotta say, I was kinda disappointed. There's a lot of things I think the first one did better, and they quickly add up to make SS2 the inferior game.

Let's start with the game's RPG elements. I'd previously played through SS2 with a bog-standard Standard Weapons build, so this time I went Psi + Exotic weapons to see how differently things would play out. The good news is that the Adrenaline psi ability is monstrously powerful and provides a completely viable melee approach to the game. It's enjoyment is somewhat hampered the game's awkward melee system, which was a step down from the simple animations in the first one. Even so I had a lot of fun one-shotting enemies with the wrench/shard, especially with max agility and the agility boost active. That said, this pretty much trivializes the game on normal (and probably on higher difficulties as well). It's also pretty much the only viable approach that going psi gives you, aside from an exploit involving the invisibility and ring of fire abilties that lets you kill enemies with impunity (I abstained from doing this, or getting invisibility for that matter). There's only 4 attack abilities none of which are very effective nor are fun to use. Lots of abilities seem to have been thrown in just to round out the number of abilities at each rank because they have seemingly no practical application. Notable exceptions are the healing ability (practical but forgettable) and the rank 5 shield. Likewise the exotic weapons are complete garbage with the exception of the crystal shard which is just a spiky thing you hit people over the head with. All in all, I went in expecting to play as a mage but ended playing a straightforward warrior (who needs to constantly buff himself). I knew melee was going to be powerful, but I didn't realize it would be pretty much the only thing I'd ever use.

Then there's a bunch of miscellaneous criticisms I have to make. First off, inventory management in this game is a fucking bitch and completely out of place in a game as simple as this one. It's busy work with few to no interesting decisions to make. The first SS had the good sense to give you a virtually infinite inventory whereas this one's RPG aspirations led it to make mistakes like this. Oh, and if the game really were an RPG it should be using a weight-based inventory system anyway. Second: while I like that the map automatically highlights things like replicators I hate the fact that it fills in huge chunks of the map as soon as you enter them. I much prefer the mapping out process of the first one. The actual levels were more memorable in the first one as well. Third: hacking continues to be shit, but of a different kind this time. Where the first game had an overly involved and completely shit minigame this one errs on the side of simplicity and RNG. It still adds nothing to the game and simply wastes your time. I honestly prefer Bioshock's hacking plumbing to this system. Fourth: the story felt much more Hollywood-esque than it's predecessor. Also some things just didn't make sense, like how Shodan betrays you at the end despite having no problem with raising a cyborg army in the first game (and recruiting Diego specifically). Finally: the game just goes on for too long. There wasn't enough gameplay variety to keep me engaged all the way through and I actually had to force myself to finish it. This was not the case with the first one.

Overall: nah/10

 

Still playing Magarena. It's very user-friendly for quick MTG fix, but I'm already feeling it's limitations. For example, I can't even make AI pick random deck from specific standard - options are mostly only random deck of specific color(s).

So, I'm trying to move to Forge, even though it's interface is quite confusing.

 

Playing Insanity's Blade which I can recommend for all beat'em up/platformer hybrid lovers, although this is more Golden Axe style than say Valdis Story. Thanks agris playing this, that's how I spotted it.

 

Men, X-PirateZ is fucking great, didn't expect that to be THAT good!

 

Hey, that's cool! Yea, its a good couch game imo.

 

Stranger of Sword City



I'm only 7 hours in, but this game is really addicting. Scrooge was raving about it on shoutbox, so I decided to try it. I have to agree with her, it's the best blobber I've seen in a long time. There is some animu (it's a jrpg port), but it's not over-the-top.

If you are a combatfag, enjoyed the Wizardries, or enjoy blobbers in general, SoSC is highly recommended.

 

>sees Stranger of Sword City recommendation
>Comes with recommendation of "not over-the-top animu" content
>Checks on game on Steam
>Nothing but horrible animu content
>Zero gameplay content shown
>
>

Meanwhile, I took a look at a game called "Stick it to the Man!" a 2D platformer that tries very hard to be Psychonauts, and seems to succeed in places by the looks of things.

Unfortunately I had to quit after 15 minutes, not because I was feeling sick of playing the game or anything, but because this is NOT that hefty of a game graphics-wise...yet it was causing my graphics card to go into overdrive for no particular reason, and I was afraid it would overheat and have a meltdown.

I browsed the options, and my sole options were to disable shadows and Depth of Field...neither of which helped me at all.

Unoptimized piece of crap gets no love from me.

 

That's weird. Stick it to the Man! is not extraordinary but I don't regret playing it, the story is pleasant, the game is funny and the puzzles are easy but enjoyable enough. I hope you'll manage to play it at one point.

 

Right back at you.

If you're too lazy to google (title + gameplay + youtube) you should probably find a new hobby...maybe jerking off and smoking weed?

Anyway, your loss, I'm really enjoying it.

 

Floor designs seemed really bad; I didn't play for very long (a few hours), but in a blobber floor design is the most important thing for me. If the dungeon/maps aren't interesting then it's not worth playing. Don't see myself going back to it.

 

Stranger of Sword City is a great game. Yeah, the dungeon design can be a little too simplistic, but I think everything else is top-notch. I'm no master of the blobber genre or anything though. I just find the mechanics and aesthetics quite nice and addicting.

 

Zombie Night Terror for about two hours. Basically Lemmings with zombies. Good pixel animations and amusing humor.

Still returned it at the 2hr mark. Not worth $11.

 

Stalker Call of Prypiat - because it's fucking raining all summer in Poland (so potatos will grow strong!) and it makes me feel salkery.

Since 3 days I haven't eat anything but canned food, kielbasa and bread. And drunk kossack vodka of course.

 

Heroes of a Broken Land. I just want to finish it. It's hella repetitive, but muh autism makes me finish it.

 

Debating on either getting back to Shadowrun: Hong Kong or giving Wasteland 2 a go as it has been sitting in my library for ages.

 

Everything is better than lameland 2.

 

Ensure you have plenty of time to play Wasteland 2, it's not a title you play somewhat through, put down, then pick up again later.