The Gamer's Quarter

[helicopterp]

[dhex]

doesn't playing games that revolve around hyperviolent representations of war (hyperfantastic settings like shmups and japan exempted for a brief moment) and then complaining about macho-ness kind of line up with listening to music and complaining about sound?
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[captaincabinets]

[Ethoscapade]

[captaincabinets]

[dessgeega]

i played puzzle quest for a little bit before deciding it was vapid and rewarded grinding, and i hated that hint cursor. i would purposefully pick other moves just to spite it.
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[Cycle]

I concur.
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[captaincabinets]

[silentmatt]

Um, guys. That hint cursor is only present for like... what, the first 10-15 minutes of playtime?


Then yer all on your own. At least, in the PSP version.


That game is so damn addictive - even my girlfriend (who generally hates playing video games) decided to make her own character and go at it - although she loathes the RPG elements & just wants to do the puzzles.
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PSN: Twitch_City ||| Wii: 8083 5371 5767 6700
"Jadis, si je me souviens bien, ma vie était un festin où s'ouvraient tous les coeurs, où tous les vins coulaient."

[Ethoscapade]

[silentmatt]

I would agree that it is grinding in the same sense that playing Solitaire or Minesweeper or any of those kind of games is grinding.

BUT! Unlike those games, there is additional incentive provided by the loose overarching storyline and such. Plus some of the situations are incentive in themselves - ie. successfully single-handedly sieging a city that has triple the hit points that you do... is pretty damn satisfying.
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PSN: Twitch_City ||| Wii: 8083 5371 5767 6700
"Jadis, si je me souviens bien, ma vie était un festin où s'ouvraient tous les coeurs, où tous les vins coulaient."

[SuperWes]

[JasonMoses]

[Nana Komatsu]

[Nana Komatsu]

[dessgeega]

[SuperWes]

[silentmatt]

And your HP only increase if you put the points towards one particular skill...
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PSN: Twitch_City ||| Wii: 8083 5371 5767 6700
"Jadis, si je me souviens bien, ma vie était un festin où s'ouvraient tous les coeurs, où tous les vins coulaient."

[dessgeega]

finally managed to reach and defeat the first dragon (technically the second) in monster world II. now i am a mouse.

also cleared the first (technically the second) stage of monster world IV. i replayed the last segment until i could kill the boss without spending a potion. i'd forgotten how gorgeous that game is, and also how demanding. but i like how every possible permutation of a stage is explored. it almost lets me overlook the fact that the stages are fire dungeon, water dungeon, ice dungeon, sky dungeon.
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[Shapermc]

I spent a couple of hours on JetPac last night (ok, somewhere between an hour and two hours) just to get to the top of my friends leader board. I realized that while playing Boom Boom Rocket, that I'd rather be playing a interesting game. JetPac is damn good, and goes really well with Fluffy Porcupine as the background music.

Anyways, I have a huge competitive streak in me for games that lend themselves well to score. When I was working on quite a few arcade shmups to one credit, I would constantly lose track of the delicate balance between score and survival. I would easily hit a minor wall in these games and before I knew it I was working on “ultimate score runs” and completely forgot that these games are much easier if you ignore that crap.

I’m kind of already getting that way with JetPac on the 360. I almost broke 100k on stage one (I got like 98k before I ran out of time). Now I feel like that’s a goal for me: to break 100k on stage one. I recently scored just over 400k as my top score and only made it to level 7. I had broken 200k by level three though. The game starts to really punish you the later on it goes and the longer you hang around a level. Some levels become so insanely congested that just getting to the ship to take off w/o dieing is a hellish feat.

I’ve started to lean the tricks to score, and to survival. Some of these are pretty interesting tactics which I am holding back because Nana is very close to my score.

COME GET SOME NANA! I’m going to go even higher tonight.
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“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!"

[dessgeega]

[dmauro]

I'm playing Puzzle Quest on both PSP and DS right now (I've got a Druid on the PSP and a Wizard on the DS). I recommend this to anyone who likes puzzle games or likes RPG for the focus your stat boosts to create the character you want style of play. I wrote about it on fort90's forum (well, dhex's forum technically), so I'll just quote it here:

[Cycle]

i am playing updated wii browser.

the last boss is hard.
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[JasonMoses]

I'm playing the copy of Layer Section that I bought offa Wall of Beef! I've 1-credited to the final boss about 3 times now and died incredibly stupidly every time. Like nearly every other boss in the game, his really scary and gnarly attack patterns have safe spots that make it almost impossible to die, but I keep choking on the ones that don't and which aren't very difficult. It's an issue I hope to resolve by the end of the week, lemme tell you. Of course, I'm just going to blow up the earth afterwards and cry myself to sleep, but it's a game I've been meaning to properly finish since the 6th grade, so it's a priority at the moment.

[Tim]

I played through Elevator Action Returns three times in a row the other night. I used the blonde guy for a change. God this game is so fun. I really want Taito to whore this game out, releasing it on every console imaginable like they've done with their other games that aren't EAR. I want to play this on PSP.

I want them to keep making sequels to this game for the DS or PSP. You know, just completely "Mega Man"(v.) or "Castlevania"(v.) this game, putting out sequel after sequel until we're tired of it. (by that time they would have released an EAR Strategy RPG and I'll be done with the series)

That would be the best...vacation...ever.

Jeremy Parish mentioned in the latest Retronauts podcast that Sega was releasing Taito Legends 2 in the US. I don't know how true that is...but wait Wikipedia says it's coming out in May!

Then I'll have three versions of it. It'll be awesome.

What are some other Zuntata soundtracks I should check out? Specifically done by Yasuhisa Watanabe, because I loved the soundtrack for EAR but couldn't really get into other Zuntata stuff I've heard.

[captaincabinets]

[dessgeega]

[Tim]

[Shapermc]

So, I broke 600k in Jetpac Refueled last night! SWEET.

[dessgeega]

you're up to the same boss i am, matt.

the goddamn elevator robot.
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[Shapermc]

[JasonMoses]

Yeah, the stage 5 boss is a total asshole until you figure out that nearly all his attacks can't hit you if you get right up in his face. I mostly wish that the game had a practice mode or something. If there's a feature that newer shooting game ports have spoiled me to, it's being able to practice specific stages.

[Shapermc]

[JasonMoses]

Oh, I keep meaning to ask. What are the video options like in Taito Legends 2?

[Shapermc]

[dessgeega]

this is an important question!

taito memories is excellent, but taito legends is horrible. which will taito legends 2 more resemble?
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[Scratchmonkey]

Random tidbit: Aside from lower/higher maxiumum speeds, the gear setting in Outrun on the Genesis determines how many cars there are on the road.

[elvis.shrugged]

I discovered Tetris Attack two days ago.

It's awesome. But I mean, all of you already knew that. After playing my first game, I wondered why the hell I didn't play it seven years ago, for the N64. Maybe the Pokemon-themed marketing turned me off. Whatever. This may very well be the best puzzle game I've ever played. I can't wait for the DS port this summer.

Also, can anyone recommend me some Sega CD games? I just got the bios files running in Gens. Keio Flying Squadron seems great so far, and I got my hands on Lunar: Eternal Blue but haven't played it yet. I haven't even ever played Sonic CD.

[dessgeega]

you should get the european or japanese version of sonic and patch it for the north american region. the soundtrack is completely different in tone.

keio flying squadron is the bee's knees. starblade you should also check out, and road avenger is fantastic despite being an fmv game. if you've never played snatcher this could be a good opportunity. but don't be afraid to look at a walkthrough.

and definitely try panic!
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[elvis.shrugged]

Thanks!

Yeah, I've been meaning to play Snatcher for a while now.

Wow! Panic! looks completely deranged. And really good.

Are the Sega CD versions of the Ecco games worth checking out? I like the Genesis versions, but they're really hard IMO. Not to mention that they creep me out. I always jump a little when the sky flashes and all the sea life is sucked from the Earth. I imagine that it's a hold over from my childhood, sorta like how my spine tingles whenever I hear the THX logo.

That's sort of embarrassing, looking at it now, lol.

[dessgeega]

the sega cd version of ecco is totally worth playing over the genesis, as it gives you a bunch more checkpoints. i played through nearly the entire game on the sega cd a little while ago.

speaking of which, there's a sega cd thread around here somewhere.
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[elvis.shrugged]

Sounds good. I'll definitely play through it, then. And look for the thread.

[JasonMoses]

I took my TV out of tate mode to play Gokujyo Parodius Deluxe Pack, which I also recieved from Wall of Beef along with Layer Section. I think I'd like the series more if not for the goddamned "Oh!" spot on the power-up bar, which removes all your power-ups, and is frequently hit by accident during a roulette spin. I want to give the game a shot just because of how much personality it's done got, but all my attempts so far have ended with my screaming in anguish.

[helicopterp]

[Lasa]

You know, Ridge Racer 6 really isn't all that bad.

[Shapermc]

[dessgeega]

i've been playing a lot of space dungeon. it's by taito america (who also created zookeeper), and like everything they developed has a strong atari-like vibe to it. in fact, the game plays a lot like robotron - dual joysticks, one for moving, one for shooting. but instead of single-screen stages, each stage is a vast complex of many rooms through which enemies chase you (and one enemy, sinisterly, maintains a fixed position on-screen even when you change rooms).

the "dungeon" of the game's title most likely refers to the predecessor of zork and other treasure hunt games; treasures are scattered through the rooms of space dungeon, and the player can collect them for bonus points. the hook, though, is that treasures aren't "cashed in" until you touch the exit in one of the stage's rooms (available from the start, but farther and farther from the start room in each subsequent stage). if you're hit, you drop all the treasures you've collected in that room and return to the start of the stage.

(there's also a (gentleman?) thief scouring the dungeon for treasures. if you shoot the thief, it'll also drop whatever it's carrying.)

so there's a great sense of risk versus reward in the game. the more you treasure hunt, the more you stand to gain when you end the stage, but the longer you stay in the stage, the more enemies will be on your tail. it's a great dynamic, and it really makes the game.
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[ryan]

I'm currently going through Armored Core 4 and trying to beat the last level of Earth Defense Force. I need better weapons - damn you, weapon grind!

I also loaded Rome: Total War - Barbarian Invasion back up and have been playing it alongside the patched Medieval 2: Total War. As the Western Roman Empire, I'm finding myself poor (in debt to the tune of 60,000+), with a weak army, and with the Vandals invading Northern Italy. In Medieval 2, I'm just kicking ass as Denmark. Tried Imperial Glory, but it didn't really grab me.

It's nearing the end of the semester, so most of my time is spent writing papers, budgets, and studying.
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Come to me, Mordel. We shall depart.

[dessgeega]

my copy of metal storm arrived today! it is such a good game.

now that i have the actual cartridge, i'm allowing myself to really get into "expert mode". it's really vicious, and really shows the game's irem parentage. i used a password to get there - i don't consider this cheating because i'm really sure it's how the game was intended to be played.
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[elvis.shrugged]

Today I got my friend Matt addicted to the original Wario Ware, via the Game Boy Player.

This makes me feel proud of myself.