[Marshmallow]

[gooktime]

road avenger has been mentioned, obligatory:

[kiken]

Played Mushihime-sama last night and finally managed to SCC Maniac Mode (with a really shitty score of 89 million).

Shortly after, a buddy of mine showed up and he and I spent a good 2 hours in Final Fight CD's Time Attack Mode (set to Mania difficulty). We topped at a team total of 79 kills (still trying to break 80). Haggar & Cody FTW.
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"Amidst utter chaos lies strict order."

[glossolalia]

i downloaded a bunch of stuff from the mono gb thread.

burning paper is real cute and arcade-y, has there been anything like it since? it'd work great on something with a touchscreen. awesome, awesome theme music, too.

[secondpillow]

[Mikey]

Downloaded the Bike expansion for Burnout Paradise.

The bikes are kinda meh.

The day/night cycle is really disappointing. I'm in the countryside and it's dark and I go "sure that makes enough sense" and then I drive into the heart of the city and the only lights on are the fucking stop lights. All the buildings are dark, the lamp posts aren't even on.

That's some weak shit. I think BP has finally gotten stale for me and it's time for a trip to the trade-in zone.


On the other hand, the demo of Fracture was actually more fun than I expected to be. I may be tempted pick it up.

[Brooks]

Had a fiddle with nitrome.com's latest batch. A tad sluggish, as seems to be the studio's norm, and still the kinds of game I'd rather run on a DS/PSP to kill some commuting hours with than dedicate what little leisure time I have of an evening or weekend to back at HQ.

[haze]

[zombieman000]

This probably doesn't belong here but the PS3 Folding@home client/program was updated to this "Life with PlayStation" thing. It looks like the only real addition is a Wii News Channel clone (can access some news headlines from the nearest big cities, haven't checked if full articles are available).

Also, I think my Shiren DS cart (or the DS itself) is broken. :( It turns on and plays, but there's some weird distortion on the middle of the left edge of the screen, also the arrow icon at that spot (used to move Shiren left with the stylus) occasionally lights up, forcing me to move left until I hit a wall or room entrance. I have to save and quit, then restart to get back to normal but sometime later the arrow lights up and I get yanked westward again.

[rye]

[Dark Age Iron Savior]

[Loki Laufeyson]

simple ds series vol. 39: the shouboutai is a pretty fun 3d fire-fighting game.
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http://lunaticobscurity.blogspot.com/ - newest post: Snezhaja Koroleva (Arcade)
http://lunargarbagehell.blogspot.com/ - newest post: Batman: Digital Justice

[Moogs]

Did SNK tweak the AI in KoF '98 Ultimate Match, or was the AI in the Dreamcast version gimped?

Cos I'm seriously having problems, here.

[glossolalia]

so as far as i can tell, there's never been anything like burning paper before or since, and it's fallen completely into obscurity. which i can't fathom because it's a great and natural way to introduce puzzle-like elements into a fixed shooter. i think i know what my next project is.

[Lurky]

I got to Airman with a fire flower. I still lost. :(
That Airman, he is one tough man to beat, if you don't cheat.

God I love this hack.

[dementia]

Battle Fantasia is fun and charming

[Renfrew]

I just beat and thoroughly enjoyed Actraiser. Maybe I should finally finish Soul Blazer now.
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[BalbanesBeoulve]

God Hand is kicking my ass. I should have played it on easy.
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[Mikey]

I've found the best way for me to keep Persona 3: FES from becoming tedious is to charge through, doing as little level-grinding as possible. To this effect I have settled on one solid group of 4 characters, disregarding the others completely.

This results in both a steady stream of progress through the game's story and some grueling (but very gratifying) boss battles.

You know, I played through the entire original quest without once using Aigis' Orgia Mode? Now I find myself using Metis' Orgia Mode and a lot of support items more than I ever did. It makes the battles seem a lot more tense.

[Felix]

My friends and I finally co-opted Karoshi 2 last night. I can't really imagine Venbrux's stuff every being "auctioned" on XBLA, no matter how much of a genius he is. On the one hand, this is exactly why I've all but quit closed platforms; on the other, everything commendable about his game design philosophy doesn't run much deeper than the surface level.

[Tokyo Rude]

After the Halo stint yesterday I messed around with the PS3. I started Tales of Rebirth a Tales of... game that I don't think got released anywhere in the west. It really is gorgeous. I'm surprised how much of it I understand considering it was almost unplayable a year ago. It's still a Jay Ar Pee Gee through and through. I'm not sure how much of it I can handle.

It's already had two moments where the beauty was replaced with ugly. After being introduced to the sprite work we see a black screen with motionless character portraits talking for about 15 seconds. It seems to only come up when you do party talk. It's still unforgivable because the character portraits are no where near as pretty as the rest of the game.

The second was right before I turned off the overworld is hiliarious PS1 area 3D. By hiliarious I mean tragic.

Then I played the Force Unleashed demo again and said FUCK YEAH.

[Cossix]

Finished Jak and Daxter (the first one). It really is amazing just HOW different this game is from its sequels. Gonna play Jak 2 next.

I still need to finish Tales of Vesperia :(

[CubaLibre]

Been workin my way through the id pack. Beat Doom 3 and expansion (which I've spoken of before), then Return to Castle Wolfenstein - an utterly mediocre game if I've ever seen one - and now I've started in on Quake 2. FRANTIC ACTION FEELING in drab brown corridors. This game started a (non)revolution.
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Let's Play, starring me.

[invisibleyogurt]

About halfway through the game on my third playthrough of BOF: Dragon Quarter (playthrough meaning I gave up and started over the game twice from the Give Up option. haven't beaten it.).

The battle music is driving me insane but these endless dark tunnels and ambient echoes are starting to seriously depress me in a good way. Also that ticking percentage on the top of the screen is creeping me out.

Rin is cool. I mean she has attacks called "There!" and "Outta my way!"

[Marshmallow]

[CubaLibre]

I'm aware of RtCW's multiplayer draw. The singleplayer was just so... flat. These huge polygonal environments with five or six guys in em and a quickly-depleting, slowly-refilling sprint bar so you can't even run around. The enemies do a LOT of damage, even on normal, but their AI is incredibly easy to cheese. And the last boss has only melee attacks so he's actually easier than uh, most of the enemies in the game. Surreal almost.

It pains me to say it, but the stealth level was actually the most interesting part of the game.

Doom 3 I think is underappreciated. I dig what it's going for with the horror aesthetic and everything - it's not "DOOM" or whatever, but it's a quality game in its own right. The engine is fantastic. Sure I enjoyed the expansion since it's more actiony and a "return to form" or whatever, but if the original game had concentrated on the survival horror aspect instead of occupying this weird middle-ground between horror and straight action I think it could've been really great. It's more fun than Quake 2 at least.
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Let's Play, starring me.

[Dark Age Iron Savior]

Cycle, I figured you'd like RtCW simply due to all the SS breasts and that lady who does the naked ceremony or whatever before she gets turned into a zombie.

Playing Metroid Fusion....I'd forgotten how different things in it were. The narrative is more chessy than I remember, no bomb jumping, enemies do more substantial damage but always drop recovery powerups, including one that can totally refill your eneregy/weapons. And the kind of weird music.

I wonder if someone has ever tried to hack the games to have a Castlevania-style map-percentage stat.....
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[Marshmallow]

what are you getting at, dais

Metroid Fusion would be one of my favourite games ever if the dailouge wasn't so cheesy :(

[CubaLibre]

The more I think about it, the more I think that RtCW is the most thoroughly average game in existence. It's a singular zeitgeist of late-90's FPS design methodology. It's stunningly uncreative and ploddingly solid, the ultimate one-star ABDN game (although just because of that I bet Tim'd give it half a star). It's like watching an entire era in 10 hours. Surreal indeed.
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Let's Play, starring me.

[Mr. Mechanical]

Beat Marathon! Started Durandal just a few minutes ago, made it as far as the first save point. These games have their hooks in me with these blasted terminals. I thirst for the standard scifi trappings that Bungie so shamelessly employed when making their little FPS series.

I love the old mid 1990s FPS games because they're so easy to play with out a targeting reticule. That and a good lot of them were just downright charming and quirky and colorful. Marathon was pretty dark, though Durandal sure isn't! The first level of Durandal alone has more color in it than the entirety of Marathon, it's a bit overwhelming at first.
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[CubaLibre]

Quake 2 crashes when it tries to load out of the Big Gun level :(
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Let's Play, starring me.

[Mr. Mechanical]

[Martial Loh]

Too Human.. beat it in co op mode (without having played through the single player campaign). I haven't been wholly impressed by the skill trees, but I am a loot-whore..so I do enjoy playing this!

[Brooks]

[CubaLibre]

I beat it last night (by simply using the console to skip to the next level), but I am ALWAYS DOWN for late-90's co-op FPS action. I haven't got Evolved yet but if you can make it work report back here and we shall organize thusly.
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Let's Play, starring me.

[Mr. Mechanical]

I just checked really quick but I didn't see anything about co-op with q2e. Wouldn't rule it out, though you might have to find another mod for that sort of thing.
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[kiken]

Earlier, I had switched gears with Mushihime-sama, and started playing Arrange Mode again. Finally beat that fucking end boss.

Now I'm switching back and forth between Layer Section/RayForce/Galatic Attack/GunLock (for STG 08 Week 3) and some Ticket to Ride on XBLA (the 1910 expansion just came out recently).
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"Amidst utter chaos lies strict order."

[UnitedBiscuits]

One of my roomates purchased the ION Rock Band 2 drums.

"Yellow" as the hi-hat works so much better now.

[invisibleyogurt]

Played the Mercenaries 2 demo today and it's Just Cause 2, right down to the obnoxious bloom filters and vaguely stereotyped Latin America setting.

This is not a good thing.

Except Just Cause was actually fun because you could skydive from 3000 meters up and land unscathed by opening your parachute the instant before you hit the ground. I think there's a similar trick in GTA IV.

It kind of seems like they were specifically trying to market it as a T-rated alternative to GTA with all the 13-year-old-boy humor ("OH NO YOU DIDN'T!" "An RPG. Time to blow stuff up!")

Also there's this one point where you can unrealistically grapple onto a helicopter hundreds of feet above your head by pressing the Action Button and you kind of instantly connect to it and rappel yourself up at a jarring speed and I was like WTF.

I wonder how broken the PS2 downport is! Not that the game's not already.

[GcDiaz]

Street Fighter 4.

Good shit, man. Real good shit. It definitely feels like old-school SF2, not SSF2T but just a faster, more fluid SF2 Classic. I don't know if that makes sense, but it's the feeling I got from it. Real deliberate. I did play SSF2T right after I was finished and it was not similar at all, if that helps. Even in 3rd Strike (after learning the SF4 system) my timing was all out of whack. The arcade was empty enough (guess the regulars are in school or something), so I was actually able to get in some versus rounds, and even finished the game. The last guy, Seth, looks like a mix of Gill and Twelve, and seems to have some move from every other character. I saw DPs, spinning pile drivers, even cross-screen low punches like Dhalsim. Some "pull-in" moves too, those are real nice when you have no idea what's gonna hit you as you jam on the LP button.

The graphics are amazing, 60fps all the way. Anything you've seen on youtube sells this game short. The graphical style also allows for some cartoonish stuff, like Seth's super (he throws you against the screen - funny as shit when you die from it), and most facial movement. I can't wait to have this on my 42".

For my trouble I got 17th place on the score list. Until some other fella rocked it hard with El Fuerte and knocked me down a peg.

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Steam/PSN/Xbawks: GcDiaz

Let's bring sexy back!

[gooktime]

Beat Dragon Quest IV DS's final, sixth chapter. I didn't bother to do this with the Japanese release.
Can't really explain why, but it's probably my second-favourite in the series... the 15 hour length and portable nature may have something to do with it.

lol jrpgs