What game are you wasting time on?

[Maxie]

Destroyed Cyberpunk 2077 after ninety fucking hours, probably half of it just cutscenes. Need some detox, playing Psychonauts now

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Gave Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening on the Game Boy a go, since a friend of mine kept bugging me about how it's the best Zelda game (he's ever played).

I take it he hasn't played many of them, then.

There's nothing wrong with the game, per se. But it managed to annoy me to no end. Pressing buttons to forward the dialogue would often lead to Link starting the dialogue over again, leading to even more button-pressing. Sometimes I only needed to be near an item that's too heavy to lift by myself, for the hint-window to appear to inform me I can't lift it... which leads to even more button-pressing.

I got as far as the first dungeon before quitting.

Not my cuppa, this one.

 

[BLOBERT]

BROS IM TIRED OF BROWSING REDDIT AT WORK

MOTHERFUCKERS GIT RID OF THE PERSONAL NETWORK DRIVE WE USED TO HAVE NOW I GOTTA START DOWNLOADING GAMES AGIB CAUSE THEY ARE ALL GONE

SO THECOMPANYPL NOW MAKES YOU PAY FOR MOST GAMES LOLOLOL BUT DAMAGE THE SADISTIC BUTCHERING OF HUMANITY BROS IS STILL FREE

I PLAYED THERTEENTH FLOOR OVER AND OVER AT WORK AND ALIEN LEGACY TO

IN THE OLD DAYS I COULD INSTALL GAMES FROM INDIE BUNDLE SITES I PLAYED CONQUEST OF ELYSIUM TREE AND BINDING OF ISAAC AND FTL AND RISK OF RAIN BUT CAVE DO THAT ANYMORE

DCSS IS SO FUCKING GAY RESTARDED NOW I CANT DEAL WITH THEM FUCKING UP THE GAME EVERY YEAR

ILL SEE WHAT I CAN UPLOAD TO GOOGLY DRIVE MAYBE ILL UPLOAD MY AMIGA AND C64 EMU SETUP

I GOT HELHERRON DOWNLOADED AND TRIED TO GET NATUK

 

[Brainerdie]

Completed Icewind Dale II. Nice atmospheric game, aside from the amount of RTWP combat. Liked the references to the first game.

Now playing Alpha Protocol, almost finished with it. Even with all its flaws, including retarded mini-games, it's so much better than The Outer Worlds. I miss old Obsidian.

 

[Jvegi]

aside from the amount of RTWP combat.

Agree, there is way too little combat in IWD2. Have you played with EE installed?

Dark Messiah is still crap and I'm still playing it.

 

[KeAShizuku]

The Alone in the Dark game is good and I'm sad that it got so many bad reviews.

It feels like an old school PS2 adventure game. It has good production values, great art and the developers clearly gave a shit.

Fucking Alien Isolation all over again.

 

[Drichi]

I'm finishing the Diablo 2 LOD (original) again

 

[ds]

Destroyed Cyberpunk 2077 after ninety fucking hours, probably half of it just cutscenes. Need some re-braining, playing Psychonauts now

 

[NecroLord]

Just finished Hexen while playing as the Fighter.
Now I'll play it as the Mage.
Hexen is one of those games where I know I'm going to have a good time every time I play it.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Playing on the Game Boy got me a little nostalgic, so I'm trying to recollect what games I played back in the day, and deciding whether they're worth revisiting after all these years.

Then I remembered one in particular. I remember it quite vividly because it gave 12-year old me the biggest tantrum I've ever had. There was a boss monster in the game that I just couldn't beat, and it literally enraged me to tears. The reason for that was because I hadn't learned an important lesson yet - hardware limitations can screw up games.

The game in question? Gargoyle's Quest.

Note the cover image, showing a very green gargoyle. This becomes somewhat relevant later on, especially considering this is a monochrome Game Boy-title.

12-year old me learned my lesson - games can be hard, and sometimes it's not their fault. So I pressed on and beat that boss, then played and beat the rest of the game, and said "I'm never playing this one again!".

Until now. I felt like conducting an experiment. It took me weeks, months even, to beat the game back in the day. Since then I've gotten gud at games, surely I can beat it again with impunity? So I went and did precisely that.

GQ is a hybrid lite-JRPG with platforming elements. There's a Final Fantasy-esque overworld to explore and interact with, and also side-view stages in between which must be cleared to proceed. You control Firebrand, a gargoyle summed to the Ghoul Realm to save its inhabitants from the evil Army of Destruction. Sounds very samey, but the one gimmick is that you're a monster, saving a realm of monsters, from some other monsters, and every item, place or thing of relevance has a monster-y name to it. You can have up to nine 'Talismans of the Cyclone', when in fact everyone else calls them 'Lives'. Were it not for the monochrome graphics this game would be a good contender for a Halloween-themed gaming session. And the difficulty level. Despite everything this is NOT an easy game, and the primary reasons are due to the Game Boy's limited hardware.

Unlike most Game Boy-titles of the time, GQ uses large and pretty graphics for the side-scrolling sections. Meaning the player's range of vision is very limited, and most of these levels consist of flying through passages filled with traps, spikes, monsters and more. So basically you're flying blind most of the time. One level in particular has you descending into a pit, that one is gonna eat up a lot of lives as you try to find a safe place to perch.

But the hardware limitations also apply to the monsters. Basically if they're off-screen, they don't exist. This becomes a factor in the boss battles, as most of them tend to move about, but if you know where they are and fire off-screen, nothing happens. This is why that boss in the Gremlin Tower frustrated me so much, as one of the four things you must shoot is located away from safe platforms, in a room covered with spikes. So you have to jump and fly to the right, shoot at it while it's on-screen, wait for the projectile to hit (this is key) then quickly fly back and land in a safe spot before your flight time expires and you crash into spikes. Repeat until it dies.

But I'm also no fool. This time I wasn't gonna waste about with playing fair. I dug up some maps, abused save states and just went in as hard as I knew the game was gonna be to me. Time to beat it: Just over three hours. It is a very small game compared to what came afterwards in gaming.

And it was many years after I beat it, that I learned that this game is part of the Ghosts 'n Goblins-universe, starring that red bastard that attacks the player half-way through the first stage. (At least, he's red in the arcade version. Back then I played Ghosts 'n Goblins on the Amstrad, and he's orange in that one.) And that's why I brought up the cover for the game: The game assumes that Firebrand is very red (to the point that he's officially named 'The Red Blaze' at the end) but when the cover art is misleading and in-game is monochrome - let's just say it's a hard sell.

I'd rate this game somewhere around 4/10 - it's only worth playing for masochists and GnG-fans, and in the case of the latter I'd think twice.

But now I'm curious if anyone reading this has any suggestions - are there any decent Game Boy-titles out there, still worth playing after all these years? I feel obligated to give Monster Max a try, but beyond that I'm stumped.

 

[Hellraiser]

But now I'm curious if anyone reading this has any suggestions - are there any decent Game Boy-titles out there, still worth playing after all these years? I feel obligated to give Monster Max a try, but beyond that I'm stumped.

I liked Donkey Kong Land, it's more or less the same kind of platforming fun you can get from DKC1 on the SNES. Liked it much more so than I did over 20 years ago when I last played it, but if you are playing it on an OG gameboy with the green dot matrix screen it can be quite difficult to see shit since Rare dropped the ball regarding the color (well shades of gray) palette. Not sure how a GB Pocket screen would fare with it, GBC and GBA or emulated on some device won't have this issue. Supposedly the sequels do not have that problem, but I have yet to check them out.

Super Mario Land 2 is still great although short.

LoZ: Link's Awakening (DX) is still good.

Wario Land 1 is kind of meh, not sure why I liked it 20 years ago. Guess it was the lack of anything better to play back in those days.

Micro Machines is still fun, but I guess the screen size, dot matrix screen latency or something else make the GB version way harder for me than the Genesis or SNES versions, as I have way more trouble staying on the track in the GB version than in the two other.

 

[Cael]

aside from the amount of RTWP combat.

Agree, there is way too little combat in IWD2. Have you played with EE installed?

Dark Messiah is still crap and I'm still playing it.

There is no EE of IWD2?

 

[Jvegi]

There is no EE of IWD2?

Is this a question?

Yes, there is. Educate urself.

 

[Cael]

There is no EE of IWD2?

Is this a question?

Yes, there is. Educate urself.

By going on to cuckdog's website? No thanks. I live in a world where cuckdog was not able to touch IWD2 and completely woketard it up.

 

[Jvegi]

There is no EE of IWD2?

Is this a question?

Yes, there is. Educate urself.

By going on to cuckdog's website? No thanks. I live in a world where cuckdog was not able to touch IWD2 and completely woketard it up.

It's a mod. A big one. Apparently a good one too. No beamdog involved.

 

[Cael]

There is no EE of IWD2?

Is this a question?

Yes, there is. Educate urself.

By going on to cuckdog's website? No thanks. I live in a world where cuckdog was not able to touch IWD2 and completely woketard it up.

It's a mod. A big one. Apparently a good one too. No beamdog involved.

Mate...

I am not putting that shit on my computer, particularly when they warn you it will fuck up your original IWD2 install.

 

[Brainerdie]

Have you played with EE installed?

Nope, started before it came out.

 

[Average Manatee]

I am not putting that shit on my computer, particularly when they warn you it will fuck up your original IWD2 install.

Have you heard of the modern computer technology called copy paste?

 

[Azalin]

But now I'm curious if anyone reading this has any suggestions - are there any decent Game Boy-titles out there, still worth playing after all these years? I feel obligated to give Monster Max a try, but beyond that I'm stumped.

I never owned a Gameboy and have only played using a borrowed one from friends back in the day or emulation later but I remember Zelda Link's Awakening being top tier,also Super Mario Land 2 and Super Mario Land 3:Wario Land being good also.BTW unlike you I loved Gargoyle's Quest back as a kid

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Maybe I'll give the DX-version of Link's Awakening a go, see if that improves something.

I had (and beat) Super Mario Land 1 back in the day, I may give SML2 at least a go.

Thanks for the recommendations.

 

[axx]

First time playing Planescape:Torment (yeah, a bit late to the party). Started out as a fighter and dumped my attribute points where it didn't matter. Learned about the importance of WIZ and INT far too late into the game for a restart, so I'm using charms and just improvising to get most out of the dialog options. I'm at the very end and I initiated the conversation with the good incarnation with low INT, so I (annoyingly) can't use the bronze sphere. Will have to reload and think this over again. All in all I'm impressed by the game, it lives up to the hype. One of rare games where I actually enjoy reading through walls of text.

 

[Raghar]

Maybe I'll give the DX-version of Link's Awakening a go, see if that improves something.

I had (and beat) Super Mario Land 1 back in the day, I may give SML2 at least a go.

Thanks for the recommendations.

Harvest moon friends of mineral town is decent 2D title with cute graphics.

 

[Zlaja]

Ok, those are some nasty looking big frogs walking on two legs. Ok, those are some big-ass Godzilla looking lizards. Ok, that's a giant illuminary alien god.......wait, what!?

Spoiler

I'm watching a Let's Play of EDF 6

 

[Caim]

I can tell that's your first EDF, then.

 

[Krivol]

Snowrunner and it's... great! I bought it for a few cents, expecting nothing and I'm enjoying every moment of that game. Driving an overloaded truck in the mud, uphill, at night gives me a thrill, especially in hardcore mode (where you can't magically teleport stuck cars /can't even change cars that are far away from the others / and have to pay for gas).

The game has a shitton of DLCs (not a train simulator level but still) but right now I found the base game quite entertaining.