Games that you've been playing recently

Super Console Wars: Original Generation
Post Reply
User avatar
takenoko
Team Baron
Team Baron
Posts: 36658
Joined: Mon Dec 10, 2007 8:33 pm
Gender: Toast
Favorite series: All of them
Alignment: Neutral
My boom: stick
Quote: <Lunagel> That's Toei's dumb fault
Type: ISFJ Protector
Location: Yami ni umare, yami ni kisu
Contact:

Games that you've been playing recently

Post by takenoko »

One rule for the thread: You have to express an opinion about a game. I don't want to see a one liner that has a game name and that's it for a post, because that doesn't make for good discussion.

Actually two rules, since this is a freeform thread, let's be sure to spoiler tag stuff for people who haven't gotten to certain points of the game.

So I've played some really good games over the last month. I recently finished up Assassin's Creed 2 this weekend, and a couple weeks ago I finished Bioshock for the first time. And I've been playing games like Fallout 3 and Batman Arkham Asylum on and off (for the trophies).

Man have games been really good with getting the atmosphere right. From a fallen objectivist city under the sea in Bioshock to the lively cities of Italy during the Renaissance in Assassin's Creed, you definitely feel like you're in another world. As an escapist activity, this is really good. The music for AC2 was so good that I went ahead and bought the soundtrack off Amazon's MP3 download. You know a game's on your mind if you look at a church bell tower and go, "Oh yeah, I could scale that and reach that viewpoint."

Plus both of these games have really good stories that get you invested in seeing how things turn out for their protagonists. You find a story of how a city fell into decay, or you're a young man who's on a quest for vengeance. As out there as some aspects of Assassin's Creed is, I have to say I really bought into it and am pretty psyched about playing Brotherhood eventually.

I played a little Little Big Planet. Didn't really get into it. I also have Infamous, but I don't have the harddrive space to install it. I guess if these were games that I was interested in playing, I would have bought them? I dunno. I guess it's nice that I get to try them for free.

So what have you guys been playing?
User avatar
Lunagel
Mofu~
Posts: 11162
Joined: Sat Jan 12, 2008 9:09 am
Favorite series: Magiranger
2nd Favorite Series: Gekiranger
Location: Japan

Re: Games that you've been playing recently

Post by Lunagel »

I just finished Alice: Madness Returns and really enjoyed it. It also has a very infectious atmosphere that starts out very fantastical and appropriately Wonderland-esque but somewhere on the journey ends up disintegrating into a nightmare and it's hard to tell when the line between the two is crossed. The plot is excellent, well written, well executed and very good at letting you put the pieces together without explicitly telling you what's going on. The platforming is difficult enough to be a challenge but never hard enough that you throw down the controller in frustration.

My main gripe is the targeting camera, which likes to lock on to the enemy closest to you instead of the enemy you want. So say there's a room with a huge enemy that takes multiple hits and can breathe fire and infinitely spawning little worm things that take one hit to kill and only take off half a health unit if it actually gets you but the camera tends to focus on the worms instead of the giant monster that is now lobbing fireballs at your head, you tend to get a little frustrated. I was only playing on Easy to start and there were still some fights that were really hard because the camera wouldn't lock on to the target I wanted.

This isn't to say the game isn't worth your time, it has a definite emphasis on plot and platforming so the combat can be forgiven and I'm only waiting to try again on Normal difficulty so I can read a walkthrough and find all the items I missed first time through.
User avatar
XIII
The Conspiracy
Posts: 5511
Joined: Tue Dec 18, 2007 12:10 pm
Favorite series: Garo
2nd Favorite Series: KR Faiz - Kab
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
My boom: Devil Z
Location: UK

Re: Games that you've been playing recently

Post by XIII »

Uncharted, only started on this after people have been saying that it is an awesome game, and I cant fault them on that judgement, I've only played a small amount so far, but I have found it very engaging and very tricky at times, especially when it comes to the hanging jump routines, I missed the jump points so many times when learning how to do this, still miss it every so often.

My only gripe so far is the weapons, the Uzi is just terrible even when you aim it right at the persons head you end up missing them by miles, and then there is the grenades, near on impossible to throw when your being hammed by pirates, its made hard by the controller motion that you have to use, it uses the sixaxis technology of the controller, which is hard to use in a rush in a fire fight. The 9mm and AK-47 are the best weapons ive used for mass killings, the shotgun is fun for 1 shot kills if your in a pinch.

Other than that I have enjoyed blasting people in the head as I fight the way through the levels, not to mention the treasure hunting on the side. It is a game I would recommend to people, very fun and the graphics are good as well.
Live for the Moment, for the Moment is Eternal!
User avatar
Draiken
Faiz
Posts: 637
Joined: Sat Mar 28, 2009 2:11 pm
Alignment: Chaotic Good
My boom: Magic: The Gathering
Contact:

Re: Games that you've been playing recently

Post by Draiken »

I only own my computer and a DS, so my gaming is rather limited.

Still going through "The World Ends With You" on my DS and should probably have beaten the game by now, but I like mastering the pins to get as close to a 100% completion as I can without starting the game over. The play style takes a bit to get used to since you're controlling two characters on two different screens, but with certain pins, fighting the Noise starts becomes more manageable. If there's anything I really enjoy about this game, it's the storyline and the character interactions, especially the latter since a lot of my fiction writing has a strong focus on character interactions.

My big focus recently is "Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin" for the DS. I don't have a lot of experience with the Castlevania series, but so far, I like the game. You get a partner that you can use to fight with you, to swap with if a monster is resistant to your attacks but not your partners, or to give you stat boosts (loving the Luck boost to get monsters to drop their items more frequently). I also like how the game isn't restricted to Dracula's castle either, giving you a new area and scenery whenever you travel into a portrait and progress through the game. One aspect that makes me prefer "Dawn of Sorrow" though is that one gimmick where you can swap between two equipment setups, but I guess with the two-character gimmich in "Portrait of Ruin", there wasn't much space for anything else. XD
User avatar
Phoenix512
Rising to the Top
Rising to the Top
Posts: 6804
Joined: Tue Dec 11, 2007 4:29 pm

Re: Games that you've been playing recently

Post by Phoenix512 »

Towards the last few days of May, I started back up playing Metroid Prime on hard since I didn't get all the items and scans on the first playthrough. I managed to beat it on hard and started on Metroid Prime 2: Echoes. The first game had the Metroid feel from previous games in the series but in first person instead, the second game adds an aspect from Link to the Past which you transported between a light world (normal) and a dark world. In the Link to the Past if you recall, initially you couldn't do most of the normal things in the dark world until you got the Master Sword. In Echoes, the dark world slowly drains your life and it's something that stays with you until very late in the game. I really like some of the effects of the dark monsters have and the new suit designs are probably the best ones in all of the Metroid games. My main thing about Echoes is that most of the sub and main bosses had tricks that make them very easily to defeat once you know them. Only a few boss fights are challenging in Echoes compared to the first game when even knowing the way, it's still hard to defeat them. The last thing I mention about Echoes is how you get ammo for a couple of weapons. Basically to get one type of ammo, you had to defeat or destroy something with the opposite type of ammo to get the type of ammo you want. It doesn't make sense to me but it's still a fun game.

So after beating Echoes, I played the final game in the Metroid Prime trilogy, Corruption. Unlike the other two where I had the Gamecube versions of, this one was on the Wii so it has a different control scheme. You use the Wii Remote to aim while moving with the analog stick on the Nunchuck. It gives better control overall but makes charge shots less effective to use. Unlike the organic looking suits in Echoes, the new suit in Corruption is just ugly even though it slowly changes in appearance as you go through in the game. This one isn't isolated to one planet but at least 5 planets and a couple of spaceships. You travel using your spaceship and it isn't just a moving save point but it has other uses in the game which I love. Corruption really expands on the Metroid universe and would like to see more of that in future Metroid games. Again the boss fights weren't challenging once you know the trick to them for most of them. Also I didn't like the integration of new beam weapons and prefer to have it like in the previous two games. Corruption is probably a game I would try again on Hyper-Mode or at least Veteran since I have a feeling that Normal difficulty made it a bit easy than it seem.

After Corruption, I went back to playing Super Mario Galaxy which I stopped playing at one point. I managed to pick up right where I left off rather easily even though I forgot a couple of moves that were necessary when I did the purple coin runs. Super Mario Galaxy doesn't really get boring as it's something different from galaxy to galaxy. It doesn't feel like you're doing the same thing over and over again. It can be rather annoying sometimes completing some of the levels but once you do, it just feels so great because you really battle for it. I got all the stars as Mario but I still have to do it as Luigi though.

So currently my main games will be Ocarina of Time 3D and Twilight Princess which are Zelda games with some Pokemon White here and there. I got both Zelda games last night and played a bit of them. Twilight Princess starts off rather slow but it's a nice game to look at though. There were tutorials for almost every aspect of the game except for fishing which I spent so much time on because the game doesn't explain it very well. You had to catch two fish in order to advance the storyline. I got at least to fight a bit and completed the first mini-area and stop after Link transforms.

Ocarina of Time 3D looks amazing on the 3DS. It's been a long time since I played the original but it's rather easy to use the controls. The touch screen does an effective job with how the inventory screen works. You can easily change equipment and items there. I managed to complete the mini-dungeon and just got out of the village.
Image
User avatar
Gunzy
It's Time for Buster
It's Time for Buster
Posts: 1324
Joined: Sun Apr 27, 2008 3:51 pm
Favorite series: Ryukendo
Dreamy: Sayaka Isoyama
Favorite Band: Clazziquai
Alignment: Lawful Neutral
My boom: Video Games
Type: INFP Healer
Location: (X,Y)
Contact:

Re: Games that you've been playing recently

Post by Gunzy »

So I've been playing a handful of old games that I haven't beaten or played in the past year and the experience has been pretty overwhelming, but I decided to take a quick break and talk about a few that I put a couple hours in.

On the DS, I've been playing Phantasy Star Zero vigorously since I started this gaming binge. It plays pretty much like the classic Phantasy Star Online MMO but shrunken down into a small scale version which still holds my interest just as Blue Burst did for me a few years ago. I currently have beaten all of the main story and side missions on the Normal Mode of the game with my LVL 50 HUCast (Hunter Cast) with almost 50% of the game's in-game Titles unlocked, so I decided to make another character. The game does have an online option where you can play with up to three different people and take on the missions as a group but I haven't found anyone who has it so if you do, don't be afraid to ask to play a quest or two.

Demon's Souls and Wipeout HD +Fury are the two games I'm trying to conquer on the PS3 at the moment.

Demon's Souls is definitely live up to it's title as being one of the best and hardest of the RPGs that have came out in the last few years. I'm currently trying to overcome the bosses in Stage 3-2 without falling to my demise but it's not turning out so well for me. The only problem I have with the game is the fact that you really can't hold a candle to certain bosses if you don't have a proficiency in a class you care less for like magic, but I hope they improve on this when Dark Souls comes out.

Wipeout HD+ Fury has been a pretty fun learning experience since I got my hands on it. People have been telling me that the game relies on the use of weapons to the point where it is playable but that's only a problem whe you're playing with unskilled players. I like the the game does make use of the SixAxis' motion controls but I really don't prefer them for casual races or online tournament races, also I like the fact that I can actually create a custom playlist from the music saved on my PS3 HD makes the racing a bit more enjoyable. (not saying the soundtrack is bad or anything, it's pretty amazing) If you get a chance to play these two games you should have a good time playing the two.

Scott Pilgrim VS The World :The Video Game has been taking up a bit of my time on the 360. I'm pretty much just going over the game to pick up some achievements I missed and to mainly 100% the game for completions sake. I really wish Ubisoft would have released and update to the game where you could play the game online, it would definitely give the game more longevity than just the few hours of gameplay that it gives you. It would have been nice if they could have released some top quality DLC like a campaign based of the comic book version of Scott Pilgrim but the game's past it's prime now. It makes me feel bad because as much work visually and mechanically good this game is it's pretty much like any other movie game that come out to coincide with a movie's theatrical release.
ImageImage
User avatar
Arigomi
Save the life
Posts: 2563
Joined: Wed Jun 18, 2008 12:45 am
Alignment: Chaotic Good
My boom: Board Games

Re: Games that you've been playing recently

Post by Arigomi »

I've been playing Spiral Knights, a "free-to-play" action/dungeon style MMO published by Sega and developed by Three Rings Design (people often refer to them as OOO :lol: ). New players often complain the game puts too many limits on how much you can play each day but I find being only able to play about 2 hours a day prevents me from burning out. I find it fun because you are encouraged to use the equipment that best fits your play style.
User avatar
gh0stwrit3r
Kamen Knight
Posts: 544
Joined: Wed Mar 11, 2009 8:59 pm
My boom: Grounded

Re: Games that you've been playing recently

Post by gh0stwrit3r »

I've been into FPS games lately, though I do enjoy other genres quite a bit.

Currently playing: FarCry (which is a bitch to play, btw. I haven't had time to play it lately, with school and the job) and Ninja Saga, an RPG-style facebook app where you get to play as a Ninja in a Naruto-inspired world.

Finished: the Painkiller games, the Red Faction games, Quake IV, Bioshock 1 and 2, Portal 1 and 2, Left4Dead 1 and 2 + DLCs, and many more I can't remember atm. I also played Obscure 1 and 2, which were great, though the story got pretty tired in the 2nd game.

In the middle of that, I got into a couple of MMOs, the first one, WoW(i know, i know. it's great fun though!), and this obscure title called Battle of the Immortals.

Been meaning to get Duke Nukem Forever, FEAR3, Dungeon Siege III and Alice:Madness Returns soon, but I have to focus on school.
User avatar
XIII
The Conspiracy
Posts: 5511
Joined: Tue Dec 18, 2007 12:10 pm
Favorite series: Garo
2nd Favorite Series: KR Faiz - Kab
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
My boom: Devil Z
Location: UK

Re: Games that you've been playing recently

Post by XIII »

Now that ive finished Uncharted 1, I have moved onto inFAMOUS, I wasnt sure what to expect with this game when I got it from the Welcome Back pack, but its been a blast so far, only about 20% done on the first story run,

The game has that difference in that it gives you the choice if you want to do a good deed or a bad deed, this has been pretty interesting to see the two choices you can make and how the story mode shifts depending on the choice you made, I've been playing the evil card on the karama choices I've come across so far and its been interesting to see how people treat you and the news snippets that you catch as you run around the city.

As you progress the story mode you get new powers the more you interact with the city grid, youll understand what I mean when you get there, as an added bonus you can upgrade these powers with the XP that you earn for knocking off the bad guys, this comes in handy with some of the more stubborn to kill bad guys, Conduits can be the biggest pain in the ass to kill given their attacking style.

The gameplay of how you traverse the city is pretty sweet, it takes a bit of time to get to grips with the way that he moves, its abit strange, but he can climb a building pretty quick and you do need this quite a few times, especially when you get ambushed by mobs, I guess the easiest way to describe his movement style is "free running" and its pretty well developed, and it gets more enjoyable when you get new powers like power grinding.

Its defiantly worth playing as its a free flowing fast paced game that keeps you engaged, and doesn't make you think you arnt achieving anything cause with every mission and side mission you complete the better your powers get.

EDIT: Ive finished the Evil campaign, very enjoyable, although by the end you are so hated you have no choice but to run the roof tops to get anywhere

Started on the good campaign, and low and behold I am hated from the offset, plus its annoying to not have all the powers that I did have, I keep going to static thrust the jump only to realise I dont have the power unlocked yet, oh well, more fun to come.
Live for the Moment, for the Moment is Eternal!
User avatar
takenoko
Team Baron
Team Baron
Posts: 36658
Joined: Mon Dec 10, 2007 8:33 pm
Gender: Toast
Favorite series: All of them
Alignment: Neutral
My boom: stick
Quote: <Lunagel> That's Toei's dumb fault
Type: ISFJ Protector
Location: Yami ni umare, yami ni kisu
Contact:

Re: Games that you've been playing recently

Post by takenoko »

It's movie encoding time today, so I've killed time on the PS3 with the first episode of the Back to the Future game.

Aside from some small gripes, like the footage stuttering during a certain intense scene (it's an adventure game, why?) and the awkwardness of moving Marty around, it's a pretty good game. First, Marty can run, but only outside, and he runs super slow. Second, when Marty leaves a scene, the camera angle changes, so you're suddenly walking in a different direction. If you've seen Spoony's Highlander review, it's the same gripe.
http://spoonyexperiment.com/2010/10/19/ ... -macleods/

But the game is still pretty great overall. For the most part, you can go through the dialogue trees and cover everything at your own pace, which is nice. And the writing is great. I definitely have laughed out loud at some of the things that are sad.

The graphics are alright, they're not the main focus of the game after all.

I wasn't too sure about the voice acting, but they were fine. The new guy doing Marty is pretty spot on. I thought it was weird that they had another guy play young Doc, but I got over that pretty quickly.

Overall, pretty fun and well worth recommending if you're a fan of the movies. Also, apparently the dad from Hey Ash Whatcha Playing met Christopher Lloyd.
User avatar
takenoko
Team Baron
Team Baron
Posts: 36658
Joined: Mon Dec 10, 2007 8:33 pm
Gender: Toast
Favorite series: All of them
Alignment: Neutral
My boom: stick
Quote: <Lunagel> That's Toei's dumb fault
Type: ISFJ Protector
Location: Yami ni umare, yami ni kisu
Contact:

Assassin's Creed Brotherhood

Post by takenoko »

Assassin's Creed Brotherhood

So I beat the game, took me 19 hours to get 100% synchronization. Overall, I liked it quite a bit. They took the mechanics of the second game and they just added to it. Overall, I think I like II's story better since that felt like an epic lifelong journey of revenge that spanned decades. This one felt more like "Surprise! The guy you let live is still causing problems, maybe take him out this time. But first, here's a bunch of a million side missions for you to do before you can do it."

This is going to be vague, but it just doesn't have the same polish that II did. There's obvious real bugs in the game. Like giving 100% synch even when conditions are met, failing 100% synch even when conditions are met. I have a friend who can't get the trophy for the last Romulus Lair mission, so she has to replay the game. I also don't like how fiddly some of the conditions are. The Leonardo missions were a lot less fun because of the "don't get hit even once" restriction. Because of how it's set up, you have to repeat 15 minutes of gameplay just to get a chance to replay the part that you failed at. That's just bad design. Finally, some cut scenes skippable, some aren't, but you don't know until you check the menu because that's where the skip cutscenes button is. Every other game that I've played that let's you skip cut scenes has it just be a button that you press.

But those are nitpicks. You're still Ezio and you're still a pretty cool dude who does pretty cool things. The parachute is a nice touch for when you fuck up (although I've died a few times when the parachute wouldn't open for some reason). The variety between the missions are pretty good and they're usually pretty fun. The 100% sync thing is a new challenge and for the most part it's not too bad. But for the ones with real harsh conditions or unfun sections that you have to replay just to try again, they can be really frustrating. It's a double-edged sword.

Finally, I've been real hooked into the overarching story, but I'm really concerned that the writers for Assassin's Creed might not have an endgame in mind. I really don't want the story to go on forever and ever, always ending on a cliffhanger and never getting answers to the questions. That said, I'm definitely thinking of preordering Revelations for when it comes out in the fall.
User avatar
Lunagel
Mofu~
Posts: 11162
Joined: Sat Jan 12, 2008 9:09 am
Favorite series: Magiranger
2nd Favorite Series: Gekiranger
Location: Japan

Re: Games that you've been playing recently

Post by Lunagel »

I've actually been playing an older game lately, Eternal Sonata. It's from 2007 for PS3 and 360, though for some odd reason there's no trophies on PS3 even though there's achievements on the 360. I actually played it through with a friend about a year ago, and decided to pick up my own copy when there was a sale.

It's a very visually attractive JRPG, with cell-shading and overall extremely pretty to look at. The music is gorgeous, as it should be, since it's set in a very music-centric world where everyone has names like Viola, Jazz, Alegretto and Polka, to name a few. There's quite an emphasis on Chopin music because he's actually a playable character in this game, and a lot of the plot revolves around him. It does have the Final Fantasy tendency to ramble on philosophically about how the human heart is corrupt and if only there were more decent people yadda yadda yadda. But really, if you can make it through the cutscenes (which can be unbearably long at times, though thankfully all of them are skippable), you'll find a very well developed game with honestly the best battle system I've seen in a while. I honestly think I bought it just because I love it so much.

The characters all have varying attacks and abilities based on their weapons of choice (rapier, umbrella, ridiculously huge sword, bow, and chakram, to name a few). Each character gets a few seconds to move around the area and attack, and build up combos, which control how powerful a finisher attack can be. These finishers can be offensive, defensive, healing, or money making, which can differ whether your character is in a light or dark area of the arena. The arenas can have moving lights, monster shadows or clouds that affect the character's abilities or sometimes the monsters emit light or dark, so obviously you need to move your character around in order to take advantage of these things. Combine that with a variety of status effects, monster and arena designs as well as monsters that can change whether they're in the light or dark as well, and it can be great fun to use the terrain to your advantage. There's also a Battle Level system where you automatically level up at certain points of the game, so it slowly eases you into the most challenging as well as the most powerful way to fight. If you want, you can even play with a friend, like what I did when I controlled the character movement in the world while she controlled 2 out of the 3 characters during battles.

The battling system is amazing, the animation is beautiful and the voice actors are pretty decent, plus it comes with a Japanese language track too. If you've got a spare 20 bucks, I highly recommend this game, even if you skip the cutscenes just because the battling is just so damn fun.
User avatar
takenoko
Team Baron
Team Baron
Posts: 36658
Joined: Mon Dec 10, 2007 8:33 pm
Gender: Toast
Favorite series: All of them
Alignment: Neutral
My boom: stick
Quote: <Lunagel> That's Toei's dumb fault
Type: ISFJ Protector
Location: Yami ni umare, yami ni kisu
Contact:

Re: Games that you've been playing recently

Post by takenoko »

I can explain that actually. No trophy system existed on the PS3 till at least 2008 I think. Metal Gear Solid 4 and Ninja Gaiden Sigma don't have any trophies. Which is too bad since I totally could have platinum'd MGS4.
User avatar
OOOKaiser
ZAIA Tool
ZAIA Tool
Posts: 1365
Joined: Thu Jul 28, 2011 6:46 pm

Re: Games that you've been playing recently

Post by OOOKaiser »

the game I've recently been playing is Yugioh 5d's Over the nexus. Its a good game but it doesn't have the same graphics as yugioh world championship 2007 you know with the monsters popping out of cards.
User avatar
Gunzy
It's Time for Buster
It's Time for Buster
Posts: 1324
Joined: Sun Apr 27, 2008 3:51 pm
Favorite series: Ryukendo
Dreamy: Sayaka Isoyama
Favorite Band: Clazziquai
Alignment: Lawful Neutral
My boom: Video Games
Type: INFP Healer
Location: (X,Y)
Contact:

Re: Games that you've been playing recently

Post by Gunzy »

OOOKaiser wrote:the game I've recently been playing is Yugioh 5d's Over the nexus. Its a good game but it doesn't have the same graphics as yugioh world championship 2007 you know with the monsters popping out of cards.
Are there any new features? How is it different from Stardust Accelerator or Revenge of Arcadia? Is Turbo Dueling in the game? WE NEED DETAILS, DETAILS, DETAILS!

Anyways...

I recently purchased Borderlands on PS3 and it's been a pretty fun experience. The game has been called a combination of Fallout 3, Halo and a sprinkle of other FPS with an RPG twist to it. The game also has a great cel-shaded cartoon like feel to it and the characters you meet in the game help accommodate for the design choice. The single player campaign is pretty long but I've managed to get in 20hrs with the game and hopefully I'll be able to get to the end game for the series by the end of the week.
ImageImage
Post Reply

Return to “Games”