What game are you wasting time on?

[Tyranicon]

I'm hoping they go into what became of Leandros. Squealing Chapter business to the Inquisition can't have gone down well.

He is going to appear in the game, but they didn't say in what context.

99% chance of having fallen to chaos. Space marine plots are not known for their surprises.

 

[NecroLord]

I'm hoping they go into what became of Leandros. Squealing Chapter business to the Inquisition can't have gone down well.

He is going to appear in the game, but they didn't say in what context.

99% chance of having fallen to chaos. Space marine plots are not known for their surprises.

His blind adherence to the Codex Astartes makes that rather unlikely.
More than likely he got his dumbass killed or something...
Retards like Leandros tend not to last long, even if they are Space Marines.

 

[Tyranicon]

His blind adherence to the Codex Astartes makes that rather unlikely.
More than likely he got his dumbass killed or something...
Retards like Leandros tend not to last long, even if they are Space Marines.

The other 1% is that he's the one who got promoted because of drama points. If they haven't mentioned who got promoted, this becomes much more likely.

It's not even bad writing, it's just overdone. Still can be good.

Whatever, I will probably buy this game at some point but it's not a D1P for me.

 

[Ezekiel]

"Looks like I've got some things to do."

Now I know that Spyro has the lamest first line of a video game protagonist ever.

I've never played a game structured like this. There's no hub and it's not linear. You just keep warping into different areas that are connected like a spiderweb. Interesting. Connections seem impossible to keep track of in head. Edit: Oh, each world does have a hub. Didn't have that impression at first.

Enjoy the simplicity.

Music's decent. Mellow.

L2 and R2 rotate the cam. Big miss not letting player center it behind by pressing both.

 

[Ezekiel]

Charge/sprint with left button, best for metal enemies.
Blow fire with right button, best for soft enemies.
Glide by holding jump.
Roll left and right with bumpers, which I haven't put to use.
Rotate cam with triggers.

Burn these weird looking chickens (Everything looks cubic and charmingly weird.) to feed butterflies to your firefly, who then takes damage for you.

Simple. No upgrades, not needed.

A few fun flying levels to break up the ground gameplay.

I know that if they made this game now for the first time it would be over-designed (with either too many systems or far higher difficulty, since everyone wants to be FromSoftware), even from a smaller studio, and most indies can't because they don't have the money for a serious soundtrack. The squeezing and deforming of characters is above almost all indies too, despite it being 26 years old, because money.

 

[NecroLord]

I've been playing some Arcanum with a Chad Dwarf Technologist character.
Pyrotechnic Axe and high Strength go BRRRRRRRRRRR.

 

[Cael]

I've been playing some Arcanum with a Chad Dwarf Technologist character.
Pyrotechnic Axe and high Strength go BRRRRRRRRRRR.

"I hit you 3x for 3x 70 damage!!!"
- tech guy with pyro axe

"I hit you 20 times for 20x 30 damage."
- magic guy with dagger of speed and +dex sustain.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

I've been playing some Arcanum with a Chad Dwarf Technologist character.
Pyrotechnic Axe and high Strength go BRRRRRRRRRRR.

"I hit you 3x for 3x 70 damage!!!"
- tech guy with pyro axe

"I hit you 20 times for 20x 30 damage."
- magic guy with dagger of speed and +dex sustain.

"I'll hit till you're dead. Can't count more than ten anyway"
t. Barbarian

 

[Carceri]

Playing some Tropico 4 since GOG is currently giving it away for free, and I haven't played any Tropico game past the original one back in the day.

Is it worth picking up the dlc bundle, it's on a 50% discount right now?

 

[NecroLord]

I've been playing some Arcanum with a Chad Dwarf Technologist character.
Pyrotechnic Axe and high Strength go BRRRRRRRRRRR.

"I hit you 3x for 3x 70 damage!!!"
- tech guy with pyro axe

"I hit you 20 times for 20x 30 damage."
- magic guy with dagger of speed and +dex sustain.

Dagger of speed is for pansies.
Just two or three good hits from a Pyrotechnic Axe will drop most things dead...

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Finished Mega Man 5.

It almost had it. Someone finally paid attention, learned from past mistakes and tried to avoid them, while adding new things to the game. So close to being a winner, but then the stages past the Robot Masters cast a shadow on it all.

I figured that the decline of good thematic Robot Masters was inevitable, that it was only a downwards line. I was wrong. MM 5's Robot Masters aren't that silly... except for Charge Man being a literal train and Gyro Man being a literal helicopter... but on the other hand, they're robots made to be like vehicles. That's at least a logical progression. *hums Transformers theme*

That said, I'm torn on the new weapons. Charge Kick makes the slide an offensive action, but it's only useful for one Robot Master. Gyro Attack is a slightly-nerfed Metal Blade, but a slightly nerfed Metal Blade is still really good. But the Rush-weapons got nerfed hard, Rush Coil just don't work anymore and Rush Jet has no guidance. Fortunately there's a Super Arrow which goes a long way towards replacing them.

There's fewer 'gotcha'-scenarios during the Robot Masters-stages (except for Napalm Man's stage) but instead there are gimmicks. Less gravity, inverted gravity, a vehicle-section, vertical obstacle courses, and more. This makes the stages feel fresh and challenging and in a fair manner.

The concept of hidden collectables, introduced in MM 4, is expanded upon. The letters that spell out the name of the game are now scattered across the eight Robot Master-stages. Collect them all, and a new and somewhat unique weapon becomes available.

One stage puzzled me: The Stone Man-stage. In it are hidden rooms that can be found by blasting away hidden walls. I found three such rooms: One contained the hidden letter, another contained a couple of power-ups... but the third only had some enemies and a couple of fatal pits. What's the deal with that room?

A victim of MM 5's "fresh approach" is the music. It's not bad, but it's not outstanding good either. So far every Mega Man game had at least one ace tune, but MM 5 seems to be going for all-round average.

But once the Robot Masters are cleared, it's time for the obligatory fortress-stages... except something went Wrong here. Back are the 'gotcha'-challenges, back are the flickering slowdowns, and the fortress-bosses... what the hell is with them?

Overall, despite its shortcomings, MM 5 rises above all the other Mega Man-games except 2, and it's not far behind it.

On to Mega Man 6...

 

[Unkillable Cat]

I feel I should mention this right away, after a quick look at Mega Man 6: It has no official PAL-release so I'm stuck with the NTSC-version, which plays notably faster. On the upside I finally seem to have gotten the hang of things, and don't feel like a game journalist while playing Mega Man. Another upside is that there's far less flickering about, but that may change.

But I look at the screen with the Robot Masters, and they are so goofy and terribad that I want to stop playing. Only one of them (Plant Man) even makes any kind of sense thematically, but he looks like a clown. The others are so esoteric or repeated in their themes that they might as well be memes.

 

[Cael]

I've been playing some Arcanum with a Chad Dwarf Technologist character.
Pyrotechnic Axe and high Strength go BRRRRRRRRRRR.

"I hit you 3x for 3x 70 damage!!!"
- tech guy with pyro axe

"I hit you 20 times for 20x 30 damage."
- magic guy with dagger of speed and +dex sustain.

Dagger of speed is for pansies.
Just two or three good hits from a Pyrotechnic Axe will drop most things dead...

Except the dagger clears the whole screen. It is a weapon of mass destruction

 

[flyingjohn]

Deep rock galactic coop. Grinding along rails while flaming any bugs breaking my pipelines.

 

[NecroLord]

I've been playing some Arcanum with a Chad Dwarf Technologist character.
Pyrotechnic Axe and high Strength go BRRRRRRRRRRR.

I should've also mentioned that I am using grenades.
Explosive grenades sell for quite a nice sum of money and they are rather cheap to make (Explosive powder + Metal cans).
Stun grenades are OP, as they always were.

Dynamite can be real fun, you can do all sorts of shenanigans with it.

 

[Raghar]

I tried chess after I didn't touch these for several decades. And now I'm undefeated champion against stockfish level 2 who won all games I played so far.

After I won I actually noticed I didn't move some pieces at all. Does doing castle counts as moving figurines? Because if not I didn't move 9 figurines during play. My black peons were happily watching stuff from back line.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Dynamite [in Arcanum] can be real fun, you can do all sorts of shenanigans with it.

You reminded me of one of my most memorable gaming moments: While playing Fallout 2, I realized I could plant live explosives on other people using the Thief-skill, and get away with murder.

 

[Raghar]

Dynamite [in Arcanum] can be real fun, you can do all sorts of shenanigans with it.

You reminded me of one of my most memorable gaming moments: While playing Fallout 2, I realized I could plant live explosives on other people using the Thief-skill, and get away with murder.

Then they removed explodable thieving children from game.

 

[Cael]

Dynamite [in Arcanum] can be real fun, you can do all sorts of shenanigans with it.

You reminded me of one of my most memorable gaming moments: While playing Fallout 2, I realized I could plant live explosives on other people using the Thief-skill, and get away with murder.

Then they removed explodable thieving children from game.

Only in Europe because the Eurotards there complained.

 

[Raghar]

Dynamite [in Arcanum] can be real fun, you can do all sorts of shenanigans with it.

You reminded me of one of my most memorable gaming moments: While playing Fallout 2, I realized I could plant live explosives on other people using the Thief-skill, and get away with murder.

Then they removed explodable thieving children from game.

Only in Europe because the Eurotards there complained.

I got tag childkiller, and I lived in Europe when I played it. Also I got gravedigger, and scourge of wastes tags.

 

[AndyS]

I just finished a run through Quake, in the enhanced edition. I'm wondering if I should bother with the old expansions or skip ahead to the Machine Games episode.

 

[NecroLord]

I just finished a run through Quake, in the enhanced edition. I'm wondering if I should bother with the old expansions or skip ahead to the Machine Games episode.

Might as well play the expansions.
Be aware that the expansions are even harder than the base game, especially Dissolution.

 

[Ezekiel]

Dang, Spyro the Dragon is already over. Finished with 77 percent. Brings the total number of PlayStation 1 games I've beaten to... one.

 

[Spukrian]

Then they removed explodable thieving children from game.

Only in Europe because the Eurotards there complained.

I got tag childkiller, and I lived in Europe when I played it. Also I got gravedigger, and scourge of wastes tags.

Technically the children are still in the game, they're just invisible.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Finished Mega Man 6.

I didn't think it was possible.

I couldn't imagine that they could do worse than Mega Man 1.

MM 1 has its problems because they were inexperienced and on fresh turf.

Since then they've had six YEARS to refine and perfect the formula... and then they release this slop?

Its redeeming features is that they 'fixed' the Rush-weapons by replacing them with new ones that are actually fun to use - but force the player to watch a cutscene every time they're selected. Even when efforts are made to skip the cutscene, it's still a second wasted.

And... that's it. The Robot Masters are total Clown World-tier in everything, their weapons are rehashes of past Robot Masters, half of the stages in the game have the exact same ANNOYINGLY BAD music (who'd have thunk it, a bad Mega Man-tune?) and the castle stage bosses are also a joke. And it wasn't until after I'd beaten the game that despite my best efforts to sniff out secrets, I'd somehow missed one where I get a Quality of Life-upgrade called the Energy Balancer, where every weapon power-pickup would automatically be used on the lowest-powered weapon. Why that wasn't in the game from the start is a mystery to me.

But at least now I can put these games behind me, and I even have their 'order' by rating:

MM 1 = 6.5
MM 2 = 8.5
MM 3 = 7.5
MM 4 = 7
MM 5 = 8
MM 6 = 5

No way am I moving on to Mega Man 7, I tried playing that a long time ago as well, and everything about it put me off. I haven't played the rest of the Mega Man-games, but some of the fan games look interesting, at least. I also want to give Mega Man 9 a go, just to see how faithful they were to NES-hardware. We'll see how that goes.

Despite the disappointing parts, I had fun doing this. A nice walk down memory lane, learning more about technical limitations of NES-games, enjoying good music.