The Gamer's Quarter

[JasonMoses]

Hey dess, does Konami Arcade Collection save high scores?

[dessgeega]

[JasonMoses]

I have done what I promised myself never to do.

Anyway, it sounds wonderful!

[Nana Komatsu]

I've now played through the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade game three times, twice co-op with a coworker and once by myself. I then went back and played the NES port a bit and I can see a lot more differences than just the graphical style.

- The difficulty is turned down in the NES port, but given that you only have a set number of lives with no continues the NES port is actually more difficult.
- The existing levels are twice as long and in many cases there are twice as many enemies.
- The voice samples are gone, but so are a lot of the word bubbles. Things like 'Shell Shocked' and 'Pizza Time!' are gone, but others like 'Duhhh who put the lights out?" are shortened and included.
- There are ads for Pizza Hut all over the game. According to the Wikipedia entry, there were Pizza Hut coupons in the instruction manual but it looks like I used mine since they're torn out -_-
_________________
resetbutton.net: videogames for unattractive people

[Pijaibros]

The NES version is much easier because the jumping swipe the Turtles do when you hit both the Jump and Attack button is instant. Meaning it will hit and kill all non-boss enemies on the first frame and throughout the rest of the attack frames. The arcade version has a wind-up period before it can hit. Raphael has a (pretty useful) rolling kick as his special in the arcade instead of the usual jumping swipe special the others have.

Diving, fast jumpkick is MUCH easier to spam on the NES version. This makes bosses a breeze. Arcade version has different attacks depending on the height of your jump.

The turtles also have different priorities in the Arcade to make them different from one another. In the NES, Donatello's weapon range might be different, but not much else.
Leonardo is the "all-around" character.
Michaelangelo is "speed" type. Combos leave little room for counter.
Donatello is "power" type. Laggy moves, but he has very good range on all attacks.
Raphael is "Expert" since his special doesn't kill in one hit. The rolling kick does allow you to evade attacks on defense and combo your attacks on offense without risk of being countered. Takes some work and familiarity to get good with Raphael (my fav Turtle).

This was the first Arcade game I was ever able to 1CC. I can still do it. Lousy nostalgia.

Also with more players in the game, bosses have more energy and the game throws more foot soldiers at you.

[dhex]

gothic 3 is puzzling the shit out of me.

the best description i can think of is that it feels like a cross-platform developed game, but is actually a pc exclusive. their fighting mechanic is decidedly unsuitable for a mouse and keyboard, but they offer no joystick support oddly enough. very strange.
_________________

[helicopterp]

[Shapermc]

After sitting in the doctors office for a good 5 hours today I only had Dot Stream with me so I got a lot of time to play it.

I like the game a bit more now. I've figured out that it's not really a game about racing at all. It's a game about tracing and rote memorization.

There's two puns in that last sentence!

Anyways, yeah, It's not bad. I like it a bit more than I thought I did before spending so much time with it. I finally got Coloris in the mail today which means that is the last of the Bit Generations games that I have left to receive. I hope that I'm not missing anything really great. I probably should have just skipped Dot Stream and gone for something on the stranger end of the scale.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that the music for Dot Stream is really fantastic. Each race has it's own track, and the sound effects for each are different too.
_________________
“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

[JasonMoses]

Hey Pijaiboros, ex-Atlus localization guy Tomm something-or-other (his name is... somewhere in Trauma Center, I think) made a post on some forum I visit stating that TMNT is "impossible to get better at." I told him he had no idea what he was talking about. I thought you might like to know.

[dessgeega]

i'm not alexander.

by which i mean, my copy of god hand finally arrived. i played up through the first midbosses (you know who i mean), both of whom i killed with the same, god hand-fueled pummel attack while cackling like a madwoman. this game makes me exhausted and ecstatic. if i write about the game, it will be called "i am not alexander". that or "wanna get brokeback, cowboy?"

my copy of nonono puzzle chai-rian also came today, that being a gameboy advance cart including three different puzzle games based around the same mechanic: rotating pieces clockwise or counterclockwise in sets of four.

the first game is the simplest, asking you in each screen to slide a number of pieces into the same number of holes. the good part is that you have just seconds to complete each of the stages, which pop up in semi-random order, warioware style. in the second game, the pieces you're sorting have paths on them like loco-motion, and your task is to ensure an oblivious trotting figure does not fall to its death. one mode has fixed, puzzle-like stages, while the other is an ongoing see-how-far-you-can-get deal.

but the third game - the numbers game - is probably the most compelling. in this mode, you're sorting pieces numbered 3, 4, 5, and 6. a piece's number is the value needed to match it - for example, a line of four 4s. but upon lining up those 4s, they'll flip over to become 5s. which can then join with neighboring 5s to become 6s. you have a window during the flipping to rotate in new pieces, so the goal becomes to keep a single combo going as long as possible. there are a bunch of modes of this, including a longest-single-combo mode, a versus computer mode that is actually interesting, and a puzzle mode in which you try to find the single move that will trigger a combo which clears the entire screen. it's wonderfully like dominoes.

i will play it on my new micro!
_________________

[Lestrade]

I'm in FPS mode, so I loaded up a random level in Doom 3 for Xbox and played for a bit. It's great that the game still manages to scare me constantly, so that I'm yelling "shitfuckshit!" every few minutes while my wife laughs at me. Even with the lesser textures, this game is still beautiful as all hell (no pun intended), and just feels so right. It's so smooth in the hands; that's the only way I can describe it. Playing it had the catch-22 effect of causing me to want to play it more. I'm still trying to track down the Resurrection of Evil expansion, which I think works on Xbox 360 (does anyone know for sure?). I know that Doom 3 is hardly the second coming, but damn if I don't love the games' mythos (if you will). I even read those terrible Doom novels. Twice. :-(

After Wii Sporting, which invariably makes me go to the gym (good one, Nintendo!), I—well, went to the gym! Then, having done all my work and chores and exercise and whatnot, I popped in Halo 2 to continue from the new game I started some time ago. I have this sneaking suspicion I'm going to go through the entire game again, because I'm not far from the last time I picked up the game (when the second Xbox I owned had a half-complete campaign save on it), and it didn't take me too long to see it to its end from there.

I just—well, I just love the game, what can I say? I see its seams a lot more now, of course, but a lot of that has to do with the fact that when I play any game, I want it to make me sputter in awe like Gears of War does. There are times during the cinematics where a sound effect seems missing, or not prominent enough, so what should be a BWOOMF!-CRASSSH!-BOOOMMMMM!!!! that will send my five-point-one speakers rattling seems weak, or not there at all. But other than the (obviously) rushed non-interactive sequences, the game continues to impress me. I think it's the general aesthetic and spirit of it. The most memorable sequence so far was the combination of the tunnel part (this time I let my squadmates drive the 'hog while I shot from the passenger seat) and the nigh-invincible crawl across the bridge in the Scorpion, as you make your way towards that beautifully illustrated (and unfortunately unrealized) cityscape in the background.

I saved and quit at the first Arbiter sequence because, hey, who wants to be the Arbiter?

[aerisdead]

I really didn't like Doom 3, actually. I really tried to like it, but I got past the first Spider boss and I suppose at least fairly close to the second boss before I realized I should just give up as I didn't like it at all.

Oh well.
_________________
aerisdead

[dhex]

same here. great engine, nice lighting, terrible level design and monster closet bullcrap.

it would have been really neat with no enemies, though.
_________________

[helicopterp]

[Lestrade]

The monster closets are certainly annoying in that they're predictable past the first 10 minutes of gameplay, but for me the joy is in pretending I'm in this awful place, and soaking up the atmosphere. I get so into the zone that all critical thinking melts away and I just enjoy the ride.

If a game lets me sink into that spot, where I can think, "What if this was real?" and I get a little chill, then I'm sold. But I don't review games for a living or anything, so I'm allowed to forgive a game's shortcomings with an easy conscience. :-)

It's funny, when playing Doom 3 I never think, "this level design is terrible." In fact, I never think "this level design" anything. I just think, "Okay fuck the lights just went off and Christ fuck what the hell is that!?" as I squeeze the trigger over and over and my heart's racing—well, you get the picture. I don't notice the game at all, which to me is a pretty successful thing.

But like I said, I'm probably the minority here.

[dhex]

[Shapermc]

[ryan]

[dhex]

you guys might really dig on fear if you like atmosphere. really. i mean it.
_________________

[ryan]

I tried the demo of FEAR on the PC and 360, but I couldn't hit anything for the life of me. For whatever reason, it was like I was able a few seconds behind -- a loose feeling. It should be hitting bargin bin prices on the 360 soon, so I'll have to give 'er another go.
_________________
Come to me, Mordel. We shall depart.

[dessgeega]

so there's a ds sequel to devilish now, by the simple series people (with the european version published by 505 game street).

devilish, if you don't know, is an amazing mega drive arkanoid-type game. it does lots of fantastic things with the setup, like provide two paddles (one of which can move freely around the screen, the other of which just moves left and right) and scroll in multiple directions (the free-moving paddle can actually turn on its side to hit the ball left or right). the smartest thing it does, though, is scroll. you don't have to clear all the blocks on screen, you just need to clear a path to hit the ball upwards - making the game much less tedious than most breakout clones. and it's all done up in a gothic fantasy veneer like devil crash (the second stage is a castlevania-style clock tower, which culminates in a battle against a giant clock face).

the ds version is, regretfully, terrible. the presentation is bland - the stages are monocolored and enemies have that pre-rendered plastic quality. and everything's too big. big paddles, big blocks, big ball, big screen. the area the dual screens afford should be a boon, but what was tight and fast and hard becomes slow and easy and boring in the ds version. it's disappointing.
_________________

[SuperWes]

[Cycle]

I bought Stalker! The were sold out of the collectors edition at the online store I usually go to, so I had to actually go outside which was nice because it was a sun shiny day. Anyway, I bought the collecters edition from EB which has a few interesting things I wanted, but don't need, but for only another $10 it seemed worth it to me. I hope it runs ok on my computer because the guy who sold it to me said lots of people were having problems with it, but it was mostly people with shitty computers so I should be alright. I'll let you know!

I also saw the PS3 in action for the first time! Boy, was it unimpressive. At first I thought the guy was just playing an average 360 game, or even a PS2 one until I noticed all the PS3 signs around it. The game was Resistance, which really wasn't visually impressive, and it was also pretty boring. I managed to get a good long turn and had a conversation with the guy about it, who said that he thought it was unimpressive and it's pretty terrible for a flagship title. Then a monster grabbed me and started eating my face and I had to shake the controller to get him off. We both laughed and said it was pretty cool, and I made a sarcastic joke about it showing of what the Wii could do.

I also played Motorstorm, which was more my thing. It looked more impressive than Resistance but still not that great, but it really reminded me of Powerslide (one of my favourite racing games, made by a local company before they were raped to death by midway) but with a less interesting world and more consistent (ie less interesting) track design. It was pretty fun, but not as great as I expected. If I had a PS3, I'd get it at a discounted price for sure. Oh, the wireless controls are awful though. The guy said Excitetruck did it way better, so I stuck with the good ol' digital pad.

This experience also inspired me to pickup Excitetruck, finally. I'm looking forward to firing this one up. I love my off road racing.

Some guy walked in with dyed black hair, spiked up like an anime character, sporting a KISS tattoo on his right, toned arm. He complimented me on my mario shirt and went on to say that he has a tonne of shirts you can't even get in Japan (anymore). He then started ranting on to his friend behind the counter about finding a sealed, original copy of Kingdon Hearts.

I walked out of the store confident I was the better man.

Also, I got my haircut. It's snazzy.

Ok, time to see if the Stalker installer crashes my computer.
_________________

[Lestrade]

[Nana Komatsu]

Holy hell, Jellyvision rises from the dead (or something). The web version of hte game takes all the multiplayer fun out of it, and they got my least favorite of the hosts to return (although if I remember correctly, he was one of the founding members of the team, so it makes sense he's still around).

They're also selling updated versions of the games that will run on XP (which do me no good owning a crapton of the original releases ;_; ). Of these, the one I recommend the most is the first volume XL edition, since while the sequels piled more insanity on (see The Ride), this one was probably the tightest package overall.

Edit: I just played the first episode of this online. It's kind of amazing that flash has developed to a point where the entire game can be run inside a browser, but the whole thing just made me nostalgic for the original.
_________________
resetbutton.net: videogames for unattractive people

[Lestrade]

Stalker impressions please!

[Winged Assassins (1984)]

[B coma]

[Cycle]

So yeah, Stalker is both radtastic and pimptacular. Poorly written description of first couple hours below.

I started out in an underground vault after my life was saved, the person infront of me offering me a job to "partially" repay for my life. I go along with it and head up the stairs to see the world for the first time. And this is a world that has truly decayed. I immediately found myself in the remains of small town where the Loners faction have set up a camp. I go talk to the leader who has more information for my mission. On the way I see a man playing a guitar, sitting around a campfire with some companions. Between songs they talked and shared (russian) jokes and laughed. From what I soon saw, these small moments of happiness are rare for the inhabitants of the zone.

The leader tells me he needs some information from a Loner who has been captured, and there are already scouts at the location. I go over to them, and ask them what activity they've seen. They tell me how many people they have seen, and their patrols. I had the choice of going in alone and calling them in if I needed them (I don't know how that would work though) or going in all together.

We went in all together. This was a great fire fight. The AI was clever, flanked us, fooled us, but we managed to take them out. I found the person I was looking for who gave me the information, in addition to revealing the location of an artifact in gratitude of saving his life.

I head back to the guy who saved my life. On the way I encounter many anomalies. I have a detector which goes off when I'm near one, so if I don't see it immediately I slow down and tread more carefully. I also encounter an animal that whimpered and ran off when it saw me. Later I discovered it was going to get the rest of the pack which teared me apart. I came by many people fighitng each other, or animals or mutants. I once saw one guy get killed and the animal dragged the body in the bushes and started ripping it apart. A helicopter flew over my head, hanged and said something in russian over the loud speaker, before moving on. When you have a gun out around people who don't know you, they'll point their own weapon at you, screaming in russian until you put it away (they may shoot you eventually, I didn't risk it). If you help people in a fight, they'll respect you. By the way, saw a pack of dogs running scared just before. Couldn't work out why they charged me and kept on running past until I realised they were running from a military helicopter. The sound must have spooked them. This game has such an incredible atmosphere. I can only imagine the world gets more involved from here.

Man I could go on for ages. I'm really impressed, this game is gonna keep me busy for a long time. When I reviewed Armed Assault not that long ago, I kinda wish I could explore the big huge landscapes and make little discoveries in addition to missions. This is that game and more. There are hundreds of little discoveries I've made already, some useful, some frightening, and some that just make you wonder what the hell happened there.

Crash bugs? Yes. That's why I'm here typing this post. It lasted a good solid few hours before it though, and everything else seems polished and unbuggy, quite surprisingly. I'm gonna go dive back in. Man, this game is great.

Oh. But make sure you have a beefy computer.

If anyone has any questions, let me know! I'm still figuring things out for myself.

Oh, and I haven't been paying attention to any previews of this game or anything for a long time, so I probably wasn't expecting as much as other people.

It's not Oblivion with guns.
_________________

[dessgeega]

quickspot is one of those games that makes so much sense on the ds that it's amazing it took someone this long to make it. it's a "spot the difference" game, with a scene appearing on both the top and bottom screen, identical save for one difference, which you have to circle. there are many different scenes in a variety of visual styles, including lots of namco fanservice (mr. driller papercraft!).

in the main mode of play each scene has a single difference, which you're given several seconds to spot. you're asked to complete about fifteen of these within a time limit to clear a stage. the frustrating part is that it takes a while for the game to reach a satisfying level of difficulty. (pro-tip: you need to clear all five "regular" stages.)

in that first set of stages, the difference is almost always obnoxiously obvious. in lieu of real difficulty progression, each stage introduces an annoying artificial challenge, like rubbing the screen to reveal the picture before you can find what's different, or blowing into the mic to clear leaves off the screen. it's an unfortunate distraction from what should be the real challenge of the game. (spotting subtle differences between two screens!)

possibly the brunt of the game is so easy because it's intended for a more casual audience. it has a brain training-like gauge that assesses your mental capacity based on how you perform. it tells me my intuition is terrible but my judgement and stability are very high.
_________________

[Lestrade]

FINALLYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

[dhex]

lestrade: fear is very low, actually nearly nil, on the monster closet syndrome. everything they do right is done because of atmosphere.

[Cycle]

Ok, so basically, from what I've played so far Fallout + Half-Life 2 = Stalker

But not quite.

This is a good thing.

There are a few things about it that may irk some people, but I'll report more on those tomorrow after I've played it more. I'm really enjoying it so far.

Also, Excitetruck is crazy insane. I like it. Can feel a bit shallow, though.
_________________

[Lestrade]

I want to play Excitetruck AND Stalker. Has there been any word on a 360 port of the latter?

Also, ProTip: Play Symphony for XBLA in Original mode. "Enhanced" mode is ugly, at least on my television.

P.S . I was getting antsy while talking on the phone with a friend, so I booted up Doom for XBLA and plowed through the last few levels in Episode 3. Man, I forgot how satisfying it is just to play a game like this to completion. I also love that smack-hit of the Achievement notice. After murdalizing the Spider Demon (plasma gun + circle strafe = 10 second win), I went through the game's Achievement list.

I wanted to get the Nightmare mode achievement (beat one level in Nightmare mode), so I did what everyone else in the word probably did: I loaded up E1M1 and ran like a motherfucker to the exit. It took me something like 10 or 12 tries, and a lot of luck. The first two times I actually was stupid enough to try to get a weapon and fight my way through! Once I realized that was futile, it was Ben Johnson (minus drugs) time. It felt so good to get that stupid Achievement, that now I want to go through Episode 4 as soon as possible!

[dhex]

as far as i know there's not going to be a 360 port of stalker.

also, cycle, stop taunting me with delicious tidbits. i feels the sorrow.
_________________

[ryan]

Dammit! I really didn't want Stalker until 15 minutes ago. This really isn't helping me trying to save money.

I will be selfish and hope that it ends up sucking horribly after a few hours.
_________________
Come to me, Mordel. We shall depart.

[dhex]

at least gothic 3 doesn't make you wait for that, eh? eh? EH?

no, seriously, there was probably a good game in there somewhere. stuff just went south. (not so many crashes, though, thankfully. i think memory has a lot to do with stability in this particular case, and 2GB helps out quite a bit.)
_________________

[ryan]

I have 2 gigs myself, but I guess it felt the need to impress me with its instability.

Check this out! *crash* Look what I can do! *crash* hahaha! *crash*

Okay, little Gothic 3, I see, I see.
_________________
Come to me, Mordel. We shall depart.

[dhex]

you runnin' ati or nvidia. nvidia seems to be a lot more stable, judging from the forums.
_________________

[ryan]

nvidia 8800gts. I'm guess it's just one of those things, like how Battlefield 2142 refuses to run for me at the moment. Yay, PC gaming!


But I do love it so.
_________________
Come to me, Mordel. We shall depart.

[Lasa]

Boo to Digital Eclipse for removing the CG cut scenes.

[Lestrade]

Ooooh, that's what's missing! That's okay; they were terrible anyway. I won't miss 'em.

[Pijaibros]

[Shapermc]

Ok, so, like, you know how I wasn't really digging Dot Stream?

I think it's fantastic.

It grew on me little by little and all of a sudden I realized that I was playing it like I would listen to a CD. Then I got past the second GP set and moved onto the third and final GP set.

Oh god! The music and level design comes to a huge climax with these. I only cleared about 3 of the 10 drawings on my first try. But I had a huge grin on my face the whole time.

It's a shame that this isn't instantly aparent in the game.
_________________
“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

[Ethoscapade]

thank you!

making me feel like a simpleton because the only bit generation game that really stuck with me was the one that plunked neatly into a genre.

[Shapermc]

[dessgeega]

i finished stamp mode of clubhouse games, which i've been slowly plugging away at it for months. stamp mode is actually not that bad - it's essentially a tour of all the games on the card, and you make progress even if you lose, meaning you won't have to replay the same game against the computer more than a couple times - for a single-player game on a card designed for multiplayer. doing so has unlocked me a bunch of games which really should have been available to begin with.

in single-player free play, the only thing i actually play is spit - a card game with no turns that might have been designed by james earnest (i know i've seen a copy of the rules with his name on it). it's one of the two games that can't be played over wifi, presumably because clubhouse's wifi isn't equipped to deal with a game where actual timing is important. you can play it via local wireless, but why bother? you could just as well go find a deck of cards and play the analog version.

i think clubhouse's version of bullshit is the other game you can't play over wifi - which is bullshit.
_________________

[dessgeega]

cleared the second stage of god hand.

i like this game so much. i spend most of the time i'm playing either grinning or laughing. it solves most of my problems with brawlers - the fighting system is complex, not a one-two punch, and requires real skill* as well as strategy - while simultaneously avoiding most of my problems with games of its hardware generation. most stages start with enemies a few feet away, ready to fight, instead of a cutscene. it's hard, but rewards replays - everytime i die and start a stage over, i feel as though i'm honestly getting better at the game.

* i actually need to learn the game, not just manipulate the narrow third dimension to approach my enemies from out of reach of their attacks (i.e. final fight). actually, the game made me want to play some ninja warriors return, which has no third dimension, so i did. i still can't pass stage 5.
_________________

[Nana Komatsu]

So it's been a while since Lost Planet came out. Do people still think it's worth a purchase? I'm a lot more interested, I went back and replayed the demo and I enjoyed it a lot more. It's odd but if I didn't know better, I'd say the Xbox 360 is causing me to like shooting games again.
_________________
resetbutton.net: videogames for unattractive people

[dessgeega]

a while ago i said i wanted a stealth-based roguelike. ali baba's cave is essentially that. the goal of the game is not to kill enemies and level up, but to steal as many treasures from the cave of thieves as possible and escape alive. the cave, of course, is pitch black, save for the torches carried by the thieves as they patrol. if they spot you, they'll give chase. ali is not a good fighter, but is faster than the thieves, and can throw potions at them.

so you spend most of the game slinking around the shadows and hiding in corners, just out of reach of torchlight while the thieves move through the cave. it works well. the game was developered for a seven-day coding competition, and i wouldn't mind a full game that builds further on these concepts.
_________________