[jack klugman]

[Tokyo Rude]

Fuck Ninja Gaiden Black in the eye again!

[Jam]

The second Penny Arcade game does nothing to change the formula of the first. What once got by on novelty and some small amount of wit doesn't really support itself on what passes for wit alone. It just shines through as fetch-questing.
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'I just can't believe I am responsible for this'

[MOAI]

[Moogs]

In The Pit

It's one of those community-created games on XBLA. You're a monster that dwells at the bottom of a pit and people are throw down to you and you feed on them.

There are no visuals. You play the game entirely based on sound and controller vibration.

I only played the trial, but it's interesting I guess.
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[Dark Age Iron Savior]

[Drem]

Heavenly Sword was an incredibly polished and impressive game on all fronts. It's also really short, but that works to its benefit as truthfully there wasn't too much variety in the types of regular enemies throughout the game. And that sort of ties in with how it doesn't feel like it has too much replayability; at least not right away. I wish it was better recieved so we could have seen more. As it is, apparently the planned sequel will never be made.
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[Cossix]

[analogos]

[sam]

[Drem]

I guess playing in a group makes every game better!

I'm curious what the big flaws you guys see were, though. I can understand how people can find the combat un-interesting; I'd think this is mostly because the enemies don't really require you to vary your moves or to change up your strategy. Also, I don't think I ever found a decent strategy for most of the bosses, so they could take me a lot longer than one battle should. The the actual fighting system itself seemed okay; it was fluid and allowed for them to keep their focus on being cinematic. It also allows for lots of useless flailing around if you don't really try to do actual combos; maybe most people like a more controlled experience? This is where I found the game's brevity really helped it; had it gone on longer, it probably would have started wearing on me.

The story is take it or leave it; it's just about Nariko trying to rescue her father and then stop the army. It's nothing too fantastical (though it does get touches of that towards the end that show the direction they probably wanted to take in the sequels). The characters are the type of thing you'd find in a fantasy movie (mainly the enemy Generals here), but I found them pretty good, if perhaps mostly for their voice acting. I thought the voice acting in the game was really good. Especially King Bohan, voiced and motion-captured by Andy Serkis (Gollum from the Lord of the Rings (I think he was also the Dramatic Director for the game). He came off as a touch above the rest, probably because just how animated his face was. Kai and Flying Fox were good too.
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[Moogs]

[MOAI]

Playing Castlevania Judgment.

First off, you can use a classic or GC controller in place of the Wiimote+Nunchuk. I haven't even attempted the latter, just been using a GC controller, to which the controls are mapped horribly by default, though it seems you can change them.

The actual fighting mechanics seem to be grounded in the recent strain of anime-licensed fighting games (I've only played a couple briefly, so this is a guess); each character has a fairly simple movelist, and most moves can cancel into others. Every character has a single guard-break move and a super move. There are subweapons, but they're mostly easy to block or evade, making their best use as part of a combo. It's all pretty standard stuff.

The camera angles are kind of annoying. It starts off in the usual fighting game style, but as you circle it tends to like to view from behind one character or the other rather than turning to show one character on each side. It's not really that hard to learn to judge your distance with the angles, as they're at least fairly consistent. The problem with them is that many stages have hazards in them, and with the way the camera works you don't get to see most of them until it's too late (or even after that). In training mode you can turn off the hazards, I've yet to see if that's an option in versus.

There's a castle mode, which is a series of challenges interspersed with save points. If you fail on a challenge, you have to start again from the last save point. Also your health and hearts (subweapon ammo) carry on between challenges, though you get reset at each save point. Some of the challenges seem not very well planned, especially for certain characters. One in particular, where you have to defeat your opponent with a subweapon, is pretty hit-or-miss because it's set in the stage with the most hazards, and the candles (which of course you break to get subweapons or hearts) are spread out across the level. Add to this that you've had to face a few challenges before this, and that the AI is pretty good about defending against most subweapons, and it gets pretty annoying. Also this is only after the first save point.

Not exactly impressed with this game as of yet (but wow, that was a whole lot more than I meant to write), but if anyone here has it during the next few days and would like to play, there's apparently an online mode.

[Tlon]

[MOAI]

To be honest, I think a part of my enjoyment with Spinball stems from the fact that it's a Game I Played As A Kid. Still, there is something weirdly cool about the physics, how Sonic bounces off things and how you can influence his movement at almost all times, and how some parts seem to be designed to allow for some of the unintuitive things you can do (although the glitches are cool too). It's really loose, which gives it a certain kind of complexity, without being completely unpredictable (unlike the Game Gear incarnation).

[extrabastardformula]

[zombieman000]

[Drem]

Are there any typing games better than Typing of the Dead? I think not. I also had my first encounter with swearing in the game, as I encountered the phrase "Hate that bitch." It surprised me quite a bit.




*The only typing games I have played are Typing of the Dead and Mavis Beacon back in elementary school.
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[Tlon]

[kiken]

Otomedius

I went off the deep end and ordered the ridiculous LE version that included the monster joystick (with touchpad!). The stick is phenomenal quality (yeah, for $300 it better be), although I find the touchpad a might sensitive.

The standard game is rather mindless, but the Gorgeous mode plays like a far more traditional Gradius game (6 stages per loop, standard power-up meter, no bombs). Playing through Gorgeous mode nets you gt, which can be spent to purchase new power-ups (you can customize your meter at the beginning of the game).

Also, there's touching... lots and lots of touching. You even get three achievements for touching (touch 5 times, touch 57 times, and touch 573 times).
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"Amidst utter chaos lies strict order."

[dementia]

[Pijaibros]

Still playing Monster Hunter Portable G.

+40 more hours and still no Rathalos Hearts >:|

Playing this over Wifi Max with friends (and sometimes random hunters) is the shit. Four players against one monster just seems so unfair to the beast. I almost pity it. Probably the biggest reason I have soared past the 200 hour mark.

Started playing Culdcept Saga again. Found a way to farm cards which allowed me to get 1000 cards in like a weekend. Now that I have work and grownup obligations this is a nice timesave!

Finished Gears of War 2. Yeah that cliffhanger ending was so expected and it sucked. Felt like Wile E Coyote slamming into the wall after painting a tunnel and having the roadrunner run through it.

Horde mode alone made me feel better again, real quick! I can beat Wave 1 by myself :-D. Squished by Wave 3, dream of getting to Wave 5.
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[282days]

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[Pijaibros]

I just set up a VS match with Ancient God Baltias on a big board that gives out 16 cards as a reward.

Set the game up for 10 rounds. Very important!

Baltias (or any aggressive opponent) will spend any amount of money to bone you in those 10 rounds. Tease him with things to make him use his spell cards.

You stroll along placing cheap creatures, blazing trails with haste and holy words. If you get kissed by ladyluck you may even finish a lap. You will probably win against the CPUs reckless behavior. The whole thing takes 5 minutes; 7 min. at most. Even if by some freak occurrence you take a loss, you still get 8 cards!
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[BIGZAM]

[boojiboy7]

Pijai, once 2G comes out stateside, if you are down for it, I know cowboykim and I will both be in on that, and we could get a live 3 man group running no problem, maybe with like a regular meetup or something to get down on some monstars.
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[!=]

So, since I bought a x360 two weeks ago, I've been playing some gears2 and catching up on the now classic half life 2 and portal. They look a bit dated but otherwise they're really pretty efficient.

I still find amusing the head-in-chest view of the source games, and half-life 2's fighting is kinda obsolete. The way encounters are triggered by very precise events (entering this area/room) feels rather cheap and dated to me now. Arguably all games do that, but maybe the first person view and the otherwise excellence of the package make this all the more jarring.

Also I'm not terribly fond of the A.Is "perfectness" when it comes to fighting.. they have no moments of weakness, show no surprise. That is something I found very well made in gears 2. Not that the AI is more sophisticated or emotional there, rather that we are often set up in a place where we see the locusts without being seen. It gives us the illusion of surprising them.

Only the very videogamy lab act in gears2 show the same problem.

[Toptube]

Episode 2 brings back most of the fun of fighting the marines and large alien enemies from HL1.
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[Pijaibros]

[GcDiaz]

Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo: HD Remix.

Got it for PS3, for the superior dpad. Game looks fantastic, and plays just like it ever did despite the HD redraws. My only complaint is with the music. The new mixes suck, for the most part. I immediately switched back to the CPS2 soundtrack.

It's got a ton of dip switch toggles one can mess with, but that's some Jedi knight shit I don't know enough about. You can replace the HD character graphics with the original versions, but they look like shit at high resolutions.
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Wii Code: 2490 9909 8512 0280
PSN: GcDiaz

[firenze]

[SuperWes]

I was wondering if you jerks were going to talk about this. I went 360 since my Street Fighter crew has only 360s, and I'm pretty surprised by how well it handles with the 360 controller. I'm not sure if they just improved it a whole lot since the beta or if I just got used to it, but I'm pulling off everything that I had trouble with before without any problems at all.

I really like the new graphics, but I can't stand the widescreen aspect ratio. I feel much more at home without the life bars and super meters crowding up the character art. Again, this feels better than it did in the Beta, but either way I'm not a fan of the gigantic characters.

-Weş
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[iwontusemyname]

i just beat gears of war 2, and might i say...very good. bravo, dude huge and his huge crew of dudes (and chicks, brah).

also, horde = win. (xbox live name = RONKthebear)

i think i'm going to finally start up with the mother 3 translation, though thanks to my "RPG for newbie" thread, i'm probably going to buy the chrono trigger DS port and work my way through that.
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-c.

[Pijaibros]

[dementia]

I'm shit at ST. Add my gamertag if you need an ego boost.

[analogos]

Hey, all of you sons of bitches. I made a thread for this. I hadn't bought the game yet though because I wasn't hearing much. But on that note I think I'm gonna pick it up tonight and throw down with you guys if you want. I'm still torn on which version to get, though.

[Waffen]

[gooktime]

SSF2T HD ; oh Balrog

Started the original Front Mission on a whim today. Way back when it was new, Super Play (brits will know this) would rave about it a lot, even though it never came out here and still hasn't to my knowledge.

I like Amano's pretty people juxtaposed with death machines.

[PianoMap]

Played Chrono Trigger up until you take the broken sword to go get fixed. It was a pleasure. Also got to taking another look at Passage after reading an article about it and the dude who made it in Esquire.
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o-/< --- o-\< --- o-|-| --- o^-<

[Leau]

[MOAI]