What are you playing?

[Ap2000]

http://www.gamestar.de/news/pc/strategie/e...r.html#comments



I couldn't find any english news, but it's basically an official announcement that the next Total War game is going to be Shogun 2.





FUCK YEAR, this is what I've been waiting for since the pre-Medieval 2 announcement.



First ciV and now this... the strategy genre just got better.

[al kusanagi]

Best XBLA week ever! Earthworm Jim HD AND Neo-Geo Battle Colosseum? Hells yes!

[Geof]

[quote name='Al Kusanagi' post='80782' date='Jun 10 2010, 11:04 AM']Best XBLA week ever! Earthworm Jim HD AND Neo-Geo Battle Colosseum? Hells yes![/quote]

How much was Battle Colosseum? And what exactly is it? The PS2 version's been sitting in the $5 bin at Toys R Us & I've been debating the purchase.

[al kusanagi]

it was 10 bucks for a HD remix that's a cross between the arcade version and PS2 version. It's basically their answer to that Capcom Fighting Jam game, only it plays a lot better. Play control style is like KoF, minus the hop jumps, with a tag system like the Capcom VS games. The characters are from all of SNK's games, so you get a few from KoF, a few from Garou, Last Blade, World Heroes, Metal Slug, Kizuna Encounter, and a few others, even Cardfighters Clash. Totally worth it at 5 or 10 bucks.

[Geof]

Ahhh, sold then! For some reason, the box art & text was somehow giving me the impression that it wasn't a fighting game. Maybe I just wasn't seeing how Metal Slug would fit in, but now I'm definitely picking it up.





And speaking of best XBLA (and PSN) weeks, this fall looks like the start of a series of pretty fucking great ones.

[neshcom]

Been playing the hell out of Homerun Battle 3D on my Evo and I just bought the full version it's so good. You can play online (over mobile or wifi networks) against other people in realtime (with PiP!) The game is super simple too; tilt your phone and then just touch the screen anywhere to swing. Plus, there's a whole buy-equip-be-better system that isn't very exploitive, though it's notably easier with the paid version (you can play online for no "gold ball" cost). I believe it's available on the iPhone and Android OSes, but it's fully 3D, so hold on to ya butts.

[Geof]

Been playing Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker & so far it's surprisingly thorough for a PSP game! I thought the system of assigning captured soldiers into different departments to run & build your Mother Base was going to be an unwanted chore, but it's actually pretty satisfying when you start getting results & your Base expands. Looking forward to trying out the wifi mode & using the code I got with my Uniqlo t-shirt.



What I'm NOT playing, but wish I was, is the newly redesigned XBox 360 that was given to each and every attendee at their E3 press conference today. Subtlety! But god I wish I was there to get one, haha.

[Melon]

I play Assassin's Creed 2 on weekends. Ps3 version so I can link it up to the PSP game and get a couple of weapons. Ah, I'm so pathetic about things like that. But it's new ways to kiiillllll <3



And I am still not finished with Sakura Wars. @_@ Maybe sometime next year I can finish it.

[Zounder]

241 Stars on Mario Galaxy 2, I need 9999 Star Bits to unlock the last one, it's really annoying. <img src='http://mm-bbs.org/public/style_emoticon ... dammit.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':sick:' />

[Ap2000]

Finally finished Tropico 3 yesterday.

It took me about 35h to get through the 15 Missions and it was sooo much fun. Haven't had this much fun with a builder strategy game in a long time !

I'm thinking of buying Absolute Power now, but it's still 20€ on Steam. (I have the Steam version of Tropico)





Also, at long last I bought Bad Company 2 yesterday. 30€ incl. (UK) import is an ok price, since it's still 38€+ everywhere here in CET.



Yesterday I saw the Monkey Island 2 remake will be released in early july already ! I thought it was going to be released some time in Q3.

[al kusanagi]

Transformers: The War for Cybertron is far more awesome than it has any right to be. I only wish you could customize the appearance of your characters more. Still, you can change their names, so I'm now representing with Altra Magnus and Alvatron!

[Ap2000]

Received (via UK Import) Bad Company 2 on tuesday.

It's not a good idea to buy a highly addictive game when you're supposed to learn for exams...

[Geof]

Got Transformers: War For Cybertron today as part of my non-attending Botcon weekend (dog bless you TFW2005 & the Hasbro figures that showed up yesterday!) It's pretty good so far, but it feels like Transformers was just added to an existing 3rd-person shooter. And I suppose that's fine, since the development team's said all along that they wanted to make a great game first & then incorporate Transformers. And they DID make transformation to vehicles a useful feature & something you'd actually WANT to do, as opposed to last year's Revenge of the Fallen game, where it was basically a glorified turbo button.

[Melon]

I keep trying to play Red Dead Redemption. I try so hard, and it's not a bad game. It's just...It looks like my backyard. Hell, some of downtown looks like the towns in game too.

[Vikitty]

Splurged at the Steam sale and bought Gothic 2, Gothic 3, and KOTOR.



But right now I'm watching someone ELSE play LoZ: TOoT on YouTube and it is the funniest shit I have ever seen. The best playthrough ever, I have been dying of laughter the entire time.

[Ap2000]

[quote name='Valerie' post='81425' date='Jun 30 2010, 05:07 PM']Splurged at the Steam sale and bought Gothic 2, Gothic 3, and KOTOR.



But right now I'm watching someone ELSE play LoZ: TOoT on YouTube and it is the funniest shit I have ever seen. The best playthrough ever, I have been dying of laughter the entire time.[/quote]



I also bought some stuff on the summer sale ! 3 games and 2 compilations so far.

I doubt they'll have anything interesting for me in the upcoming sales, since I already have nearly everything what I got. (Steam or boxed release)



Which playthrough are you talking about ?

[Vikitty]

http://www.youtube.com/user/SirRonLionHeart

He's got a ton of playthroughs, but the LoZ one is particularily hilarious.

[Ap2000]

Last day on the Steam summer sale !

They brought several of the specials back from the last few days.

So maybe you've missed something !



I was thinking about buying Borderlands for 10€, but in the end decided not to.

[al kusanagi]

Damn, this game looks gorgeous.

[Melon]

[quote name='Al Kusanagi' post='81641' date='Jul 6 2010, 10:58 PM']Damn, this game looks gorgeous.[/quote]



Yes, yes it does.



I finished Assassin's Creed II. Well, almost. I got everything except the feathers. I found 54 throughout the game, I'm not going to go hunt down the rest unless I break my leg and I'm stuck in bed for months on end. I'm thinking of getting the DLC that should've been a part of the game in the first place (missing memories/broken whatever my shiny metal ass). I do not like this new "DLC" generation of games. :|



Now I'm impatiently waiting for the new Dragon Quest.

[neshcom]

One of my favorite PS2 games, Hot Shots Tennis, has gotten a PSP port as Hot Shots Tennis: Get A Grip and, on the whole, I have more positive things to say about the changes in the game than the negatives.



Positives: You can play the game with either the analog nub or d-pad at anytime (PS2 version could only use analog stick IIRC); you can actually see a crosshair (kinda) of where you are aiming based on whatever you're pressing; there are a lot of outfit choices this time through (PS2 only had alt costumes with colors); your outfit benefits are clearly displayed to you (in Hot Shots Golf: Open Tee 1/2 (PSP) had a similar system and told you they could help you, but that system was so vague and inconspicuous); the game's tutorial/first stages are really good about teaching you how to play the game; there is a story mode that puts all of your matches and new characters into some sort of context; you can actually bring in a human player for your doubles matches in the story mode; and the game mechanics are not changed much.



Negatives: Because you can use the d-pad, when you aim your shots are stuck to the eight cardinal extremes and center (PS2 version could do more precise aiming); the story is a little chintzy (example: the second map you explore is a university where all of the athletes from different sports play tennis to attract a cheerleader and they play tennis because they don't have a tennis team); the in-game display can be dauntingly cluttered. All of the information retracts when you start play, but there's not a clean sense of an uncluttered screen; there are three camera views (up from two), but THERE IS NO MORE FIXED CAMERA CAMERA FFFFUUUU; it looks like the character positioning in a match is grid-based which is conceptually confusing, The PS2 version, basically, let your character travel anywhere on the court, but this version seems to keep you to a number of grid-based positions. You probably won't notice because the cell sizes because there are a lot of positions, but it's weird to not have free move; there is a lot of information on the field at one time. There's the red areas where you are aiming, the purple or green areas showing where you will realistically hit based on your terrible timing, yellow areas for where you can spike, and you constantly get text information from the HUD about earning small amount of points based on good hits. And then, between serves, the text is visually too similar to discern easily what is important beyond the score. Plus, Claphanz used a lot of italicized, brown text this time around instead of colored text.



Overall, Get A Grip is a nice revision of HST to keep up with a lot of HSG's more recent features, but the game would have benefited from a few more months of an editing eye.

[Ap2000]

Tales of Monkey Island was totally worth the 12€ special price during the Steam Summer Sale.



And now for some Monkey Island 2 SE !





Also, I've already invested around 30h in BC2. It's really good.

Except for those sniping pieces of shit. But sadly most online shooters have sniping assholes... luckily I found some servers where those jerks are getting banned.

[Geof]

I would totally buy this game if they made it.

[Vikitty]

I just finished playing Dragon Age: Origins and damnit, while the gameplay itself drove me up the wall, the characters and stories were so damn good that I had to play it the entire way through. THAT is a testament to what happens when you have good writers and good voice actors. Bioware has a good team, that's for sure.



Overall, though, I would rate it lower than Mass Effect 1/2 but higher than KOTOR, which seems ancient by comparison, heh.

[Melon]

Currently playing Dragon Quest IX. When the game goes into multiplayer, it's absolute fun! Not as epic as New Super Mario Bros. multiplayer, but there are still good fights to be had over different playing styles. Oh, and since you can change how your character looks, much fun insults to be had. I don't think we play with each other to play so much as to see who can come up with the best one liner. <img src='http://mm-bbs.org/public/style_emoticon ... /smile.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':puppyeyes:' />

[neshcom]

Oh my god, kill me. I've been struggling with HSG Open Tee 2 for the past few weeks. I've been on the final stage of the challenge mode trying to beat the final character. I have just beaten him twice and the game crashes after the unskippable credits. <img src='http://mm-bbs.org/public/style_emoticon ... ryalot.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':puppyeyes:' /> First HSTennis freezes, and then Kenka Bancho is unstable, and now this. This is the biggest let-down of all time. Now what? I can't go back to Open Tee 1!

[Ap2000]

LSD: Dream Emulator

http://www.mac.kadath.org/Areas.html



I have never seen anything like this before.

[Ap2000]

Double-Post because today is the best day in gaming of the year.

Tropico 4 and Stalker 2 got announced.



However, Stalker 2 is also getting a console version.

Hopefully they don't dumb down the PC version at all and take out things like crouch and lean.

[neshcom]

Cool news about Tropico 4! Maybe it'll be more straight-forward that Poverty Simulator: Cuba.



I've been on the look-out for turn-based RPGs for PSP and I settled on two games: Brave Story: New Traveler and Riviera.



Brave Story is a decent story with a nice battle system, but, in spatial terms, the game could be smaller and more detailed. Right now, it's big towns with crap cameras and world maps with three colors. But I absolutely love the battle system; it's got an air of classic RPGs. But there's WAY too much hand-holding and you can't save on the world map at all.



Riviera is a port of a GBA port. The story is about warring between angels and demons and devils and grim angels and a talking cat. I'm expecting a twist ending where it's a prequel to Sailor Moon or something. The battle system is a lot more rigid, though I'm not as far as Brave Story and I think it'll get harder. You can't really pick your target and there hasn't been any sort of free-roaming, but it's a bit refreshing. You can look at just everything, you have to earn TP to examine most things in move mode. The graphics are notably repetative because they're just enhanced GBA images, but the game is almost fully VOed in English AND Japanese. Also, the game has a weird aspect of "points." You just get points. I guess you get a rank at the end of the game.



Both have their traits and I think, if I play them at the same time, I'll get a really good experience.

[Ap2000]

[quote name='neshcom' post='82946' date='Aug 13 2010, 09:54 PM']Cool news about Tropico 4! Maybe it'll be more straight-forward that Poverty Simulator: Cuba.[/quote]



What do you mean with that ?