The Gamer's Quarter

[Lestrade]

I downloaded the massive Blue Dragon demo, played it for 15 minutes and became so completely bored that I didn't even exit the game, I just shut off my Xbox. The best part of the game was the pirate chick's boobs. Sorry if that's crass; I'm just being completely honest. It doesn't help that the game is nigh-unreadable on my SDTV.

[mechanoriINtransit]

[dessgeega]

i am going to turn those options off and on, respectively.

i've played three stages with pale wing and i don't really like her. i did managed to unlock a few new weapons for her in the last stage i played, which i havn't tried yet. i will, though!
_________________

[dessgeega]

so, done and done. this is how i expected the controls to work when i picked the game up. the dual joystick, that is. i can't stand using the shoulder buttons to fire and switch weapons and it hurts my hand.
_________________

[mechanoriINtransit]

I can't imagine how you played with the default scheme! I didn't really spend any time with it, but the dual analogue seemed far more competent.

[Crazy Bacon Lips]

Played a bit of Marathon today, after blowing through half of Doom and feeling somewhat empty. Good times! The story is somewhat interesting so far, and the game has a rather tense atmosphere. It's not too challenging, but I'm not in the mood for that right now. It really makes me want to play Pathways in the Darkness, which, I hear, is fucking tense.

[Shapermc]

Hey, I can't seem to find that link to System Shock Portable (the XP port). Does anyone still have links to System Shock 1/2 ports for XP?
_________________
“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!"

[ApM]

Space Quest IV: Most self-referential videogame ever? Certainly the only one I'm aware of which requires you to time-travel to its own sequels, and buy its own hint book in-game. I've always found it kind of a shame that the series didn't last long enough to see the sequels in SQ4 actually get made.

Started it last night, finished up this morning. There weren't nearly so many game-breaking bugs on fast PCs as I remembered. I think the reason I was able to get through this one so quickly without any hints is because I owned the hint book as a kid, and read it cover to cover dozens of times. I'm pretty sure this was only the second time I'd ever finished it, though.

[dessgeega]

i played through the normal stages of pilotwings - including the helicopter mission (which is so perfectly put together despite being viciously difficult) - and then umihara (managing my first ever "perfect" attempt at the tadpole boss - meaning i didn't let a single frog reach the water). in addition to being two of the few superfami games i think are reasonably difficult, they also both have this really chill, downtempo vibe that's so different from what most 16-bit games are doing (flaming metal lazer ninja). another world probably falls in this group, too, and i ought to play it later. earthbound might too. and paper mario, though that's kind of a different animal.

ALSO, i played chompers po pable's copy of dynamite headdy this morning - up to the gatekeeper (actually two different characters in the japanese game), who i can rarely survive. dynamite headdy is, i think, the closest we will get to an adventure game from treasure. there is such an intense focus on presentation (which is so ambitious and so amazing) that it obscures the actually pretty boring gameplay. it's also an example of a japanese game that was markedly improved in localization. much like - dare i say? - contra hard corps.
_________________

[SuperWes]

[squidlarkin]

[Shapermc]

Wasn't there one of these for SS2?
_________________
“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]

[dessgeega]

finally managed to finish the first path of star fox in a single life.

hooray!
_________________

[Swimmy]

I'm playing Psychonauts, and I'm near the end.

Ok, you know how every argument about the quality of this game is basically "It has a good story and several really sweet settings and an amazing sense of humor" vs "It falls into too many sterotypical platformer trappings and there's too much shit to collect"?

Well fuck both of those sides, because the game's too Goddamn glitchy to get to anything substantial. About five times now I've died and rejuvenated to notice the music completely cut out or skipping. The game has frozen. I've gotten trapped in places I shouldn't have been able to get to, fallen short of jumps I shouldn't have, gotten stuck, landed on invisible objects and had to struggle to get free, and slid and grinded on all kinds of surfaces that shouldn't have been of that type. This game's an abysmal glitch-fest. (And yes, the item collection enhances this problem, because it encourages you to jump to places you probably shouldn't.)

Or maybe it's just the PS2 version. But damn. What a crappy game. Except for the good parts.

Edit: Oh yeah, the best was after the battle with the big brain tank, right before the last brain world. You're supposed to jump into the tank. It plays a cutscene. Then you're supposed to lob yourself back into the tank. When I did, it played the same cutscene, then showed what it was supposed to have showed for about half a second, then switched to a completely black screen in which I could do nothing but open the pause menu, load, and fight the boss again. This game is glitchy and terrible.
_________________

"Ayn Rand fans are the old school version of Xenogears fanboys."
-seryogin

[Cycle]

Huh, I played the PS2 version and don't remember any problems like that.
_________________

[Isfet]

i played Dead Rising for about four hours with a friend the other night. that game is really a lot more fun when someone's around, i've found.

[dessgeega]

played through the first two expert lessons of pilotwings again. i love the helicopter missions and i want to play the second, but i feel as though i have to earn it. i've never managed to pass the final lesson. this time the penultimate lesson - the one with the best videogame sunset ever - proved beyond my ability. first i missed certification by a single point, then six points, then four points. after that i just lost my inertia and needed to take a break.

so i played umihara and finally managed to pass field 18. the stages following are wonderfully hard; they introduce glass, which is a slippery texture that the fish hook absolutely will not stick to. i recorded a replay of field 24 to give you people some idea of what i'm up against; i'll put it up after i get it off the vhs tape. i fell into the sea within moments of starting field 42.

then i played star fox. i took the second path, managed to fully power up my twin blaster, and confronted the bane of all my second path runs: the stage four boss. the one with the arms. using my twin blaster, i whittled its energy down to nothing. at the end, it has a last-ditch ramming attack, and it hit me full on, destroying me at the last possible second. i lost my will (and my twin blaster). my remaining lives crumbled like leaves. i'd been hoping to see the highway chase stage again.

edf2 is on hiatus because my ps2 pad has gone fucking haywire.
_________________

[dessgeega]

field 24 is hard.
_________________

[SuperWes]

I finished Transformers last week and have been randomly playing through older stuff. I played some Bullet Witch on Hard after realizing that the game never realized that I already finished it on Normal. I'll never understand the hate that game gets. I might actually like it better than Lost Planet.

I also made the terrible mistake of picking up Pokemon Battle Revolution and Planet Puzzle League. Pokemon is so bare bones that it falls into the "I can't believe they're charging $50 for this" category of most of Nintendo's Wii games. The single player mode is essentially a string of random battles with no story and no exploration. It's terrible!

Puzzle League isn't bad, it's just a bit disappointing that it's a slightly more sterile version of something I already own 5 copies of. I was hoping for something a bit different, 'ya know? I highly suggest Magnetica to anyone who's been enjoying it though, as Magnetica is totally amazing.

-Wes
_________________

[Shapermc]

Well, I finished floor 1 of System Shock, and it seems to have aged very well. There was a TON of crazy nostalgia going on while playing that game. I mean, I was remembering way more than I thought I did.

I don't think I'm going to play much more of the game though. It glitches out way, way, way too much. If it's not running at with some major slowdown, then it's fine, but about everytime I reload a save game the game drops so I have to re-load the game (which involves me needing to tell the damn program to ignore access to the COM1 and COM2 ports). The game will also suddenly drop drastically in speeds making me need to re-start the game anyways. It doesn't help that I have no idea what the hell any of the options are for the game (if you're playing the Portable version enter 2 on the DOS prompt to see what I mean) so I don't even know what to turn on/off to help me get speed. Also, strangely enough if I switch the sound from 4 speakers to 2 speakers the game dies too. I can't seem to win.

So, in the end it's probably more trouble than it's worth. The enviroments are still perfect as is the voice acting and story. It's a shame that I was spending as much time trying to get the game to work as I was playing it.

Oh, and god those controls are horrible!
_________________
“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!"

[Lestrade]

I'm still playing RWii4. Unfortunately I'm now inside the castle (now on 3-2, I think), and this is of course where the game forgoes any pretense of revolutionizing the RE series and just hops back into terrible clichés.

I mean, I really hate the utterly random room layouts with drawbridges and platforms and switches, etc. Everything up to this point is great and feels mostly natural, but now I'm ankle-deep in Contrivance World.

Also, my other complaint is the same one I had when playing the game on PS2; if the game is going to let me believe that I can carry three guns, a rocket launcher, a grenade launcher and an assortment of items in a little "attaché case" (that I never, ever will see during the game), then the very notion of giving me inventory limitations is utterly ridiculous.

I really hope RE5 gives you real-world, discernible limitations on inventory. I want to be able to carry, say, a handgun and one large weapon (on my back), plus have a utility belt or some sort of backpack for items and herbs. I want to see all this. So when I try to pick up a first aid spray and the game declares me unable to carry anything more, I'll believe it. I want to be weighed down (made slower) when I lug a rocket launcher, and enjoy speed and agility (i.e. the ability to strafe) if I'm toting only a handgun.

Think about it: running away from those fucking rabid-looking African parasite-victims (I'm assuming) from the E3 trailer would be terrifying if I knew that my equipment was weighing me down, and my only recourse was to drop the grenade launcher I worked so hard to acquire.

Actually, fuck it, I'm starting a thread about this.

Anyway, playing RE4 for Wii is something of a revelation to me. I could never go back to the same kind of game with regular Dual Shock-esque controls. It's just way more fun this way. Case in point: in the sewers, one of the invisible insect things got the drop on me from behind. I turned instinctively and literally shot from the hip—I was so startled that I reflexively pointed the Wiimote up and blew its freaking head off with a shotgun blast.

"Whoa!" I cried without even realizing it. It was a natural physical reaction—jerking an itchy trigger finger in response to a surprise attack—and it worked! The best part was, I was physically not aligned with the screen (I only play RE4 standing up now), and when I shot from the hip I actually turned towards the TV, so it felt like such a great Western movie moment, as I won an impromptu duel with my multi-limbed adversary. The responsiveness of the controls and the fact that my body's natural instinct actually kept me alive was both impressive and exhilarating.

And that is why I love my Wii.

[Shapermc]

Hey, Lestrade, have you ever seen the movie The Serpent and the Rainbow? It seems like the source material for RE5 to me. (It's a pretty decent movie too)

Anyways, yeah, after you leave the Village RE4 drops from the greatest game ever to... well, I don't know what. It made me stop playing the game for like 1.5 years though. When I finally picked it back up I was still in the castle and had the most ridiculous part coming up next (mobile statue!).
_________________
“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!"

[dongle]

[Scratchmonkey]

[Shapermc]

[Shapermc]

[Lestrade]

[Intentionally Wrong]

[Harveyjames]

[Cycle]

[dessgeega]

after many attempts, i passed the second-to-last lesson in pilotwings. now i'm at the last, with good old big al. i love big al. i missed by 26, then by 20, then i decided it was time to move on. tomorrow!

i finally got to explore field 42 in umihara. it is devious! i love it. i will never pass it.

then i played cameltry, partly because it is one of my favorite games, but also because it seems to fit this kind of aesthetic i've been interested in lately: 16-bit games that, instead of asking you to run from an exploding battleship, just want you to sit down and chill out with them.

last i played star fox. i passed the boss with the arms, then made it to my other nemesis: the giant crushing things that crush me. will i ever see the highway stage again?
_________________

[ApM]

Yeah, I played through SQ5 and SQ3 as well over the weekend. SQ3 is tight, tight, tight. Took me less than an hour to finish it. No filler at all.

SQ5 was interesting to me because both Scott Murphy and Mark Crowe have gone on to say in interviews that it was terrible (though Murphy had no involvement with it), but I had nothing but fond memories for it. Well, I played through it, and I still really enjoyed it.

It's much funnier than SQ4 -- the death animations are actually cartoony and amusing, rather than just a brutally morbid animation of Roger writhing around in agony before slumping to the ground, dead. There are some gags that get old really quick -- the farting noise every time you sit in the captain's chair is about as bad as it gets -- but for the most part it's enjoyable slapstick.

It's maybe structured differently from previous Space Quests, in that the puzzles are mostly about putting out fires. You go somewhere, some shit hits the fan, you deal with it. It's always extremely obvious once you've wrapped up in one place where you're to be going next. Personally, I kind of like knowing what to do next, but maybe Scott Murphy thinks that part of what makes Space Quest what it is is wandering aimlessly, basically helpless, in a completely hostile environment?

For comparison, SQ4 has a structure that could be described almost in its entirety as "wander at random to the ends of space and time for a fucking matchbook and a cigar". SQ4 has the occasional moment of blinding genius -- when you return to Space Quest I and it's in its original 160x200x16 colours, for example -- but the game is not so much "designed" as it is a string of setpieces in which you flail around trying helplessly to find any action that gets you further into the game rather than killed. The premise is incredible, but seriously, THIS is their magnum opus? Jesus.

[Harveyjames]

Not sure of the chronology, but I thought Monkey Island 2 had already done that 'go back to the previous game and the graphics are still primitive' gag before SQIV. Maybe not though.

Would it be fair to say Space Quest 4 is to the games the preceded it what Leisure suit Larry III is to the first two Larry games? That is, the game is much more ambitious but in the process it becomes slightly cold, and loses the fun tone of the originals.

Man, Larry III, that's an ugly game. I used to play those games a lot when I was a kid because my dad would bring home pirate copies from work, and I've grown to detest Al Lowe's sleazy, tacky world of cocktail bars, bad comedians, bean dip, gold credit cards, silicon valley software companies, lawyers and bad sax. Either Al Lowe is a genius writer or the world he inhabits is exactly like that of the games, which paints a grisly picture of the life he leads. I feel dirty just playing Larry 3.

[ApM]

Monkey Island 3 had a couple of throwaway easter egg-type gags where you would show up in scenes from Monkey Island 1. Here's one of them in German; can't find screenshots for the other one. MI1 and 2 were both 320x200x256 colours, so the joke wouldn't work nearly so well.

In SQ4 you actually get to wander around SQ1 for a bit. This video shows the entirety of the SQ1 sequence, starting from about the 2 minute mark. You can TASTE the wasted potential!

Larry 3 is the one with that horrible workout sequence, right? It's been a long time since I've played it, but I seem to remember losing for dumb reasons and really not enjoying myself. So, yeah, probably pretty fair.

[Cycle]

I love the Larry games! I have especially fond memories of the first game.

The third game is incredibly unforgiving, though! I still enjoyed it and played the whole way through, though.
_________________

[Harveyjames]

Yeah, I used to love playing them, too! I think my favorites were the first two. Larry 3 made me hate it with its 'dying of thirst' bullshit, and that ridiculous puzzle where you had to make hemp rope.

Wow, you really do travel through time and space just to get a book of fucking matches in SQIV. Thanks for the link!

I thought there was something quite beautiful about that ending where [spoiler] Roger discovers he will find true love and have a son, and possibly die in an unspecified way. I mean, as clumsily written and staged as it was it was sort of moving.

I'm watching a lot of playthroughs now! Leisure Suit Larry 3 has a parody of that insane whale-tongue climbing scene from The Perils of Rosella, during the ending sequence. Cool.

[ryan]

I'm currently trying to plow my way through Icewind Dale 2 as a solo fighter/mage, which is proving to be incredibly difficult. I might stop before I get too far after finding a Forgotten Realms collection at GoGamer that has all BG, IWD, NWN, and some other titles in a DVD collection. I think I would like to play through the first of each series and progress from there.

Tenchu Z is proving to be like every other Tenchu title. I don't think anyone has learned a thing from the previous efforts. But hell if I don't enjoy dropping down from a rooftop and doing some weird monkey grapple stab move.
_________________
Come to me, Mordel. We shall depart.

[dessgeega]

passed the final lesson of pilotwings, with the help of a bonus stage. i just cannot land the plane for the life of me. the helicopter mission at night is fantastic and fantastically hard. i will work at it some more later.

then i played through the second field of cameltry. yay!

then umihara kawase! i managed to pass the ludicrous field 42, making it as far as field 46. this is umihara for experts! at some point i'll tape some of my replays.

last of all, i finally managed to finish the second path in star fox. one one life, no less - though i broke one of my wings when the huge truck boss rammed me into a column on the side of the sky highway. that highway stage is totally the best thing in the entire game.

i've also been tinkering a bit with dezaemon for the super famicom. maybe i'll start a thread later!
_________________

[dessgeega]

i finished pilotwings. huzzah! i hear there are some secret missions that have to be accessed by password.

played through the third field of cameltry. have i mentioned lately that that game has some of the best level design i've ever seen? i don't think i say that nearly often enough.

reached field 47 in umihara kawase. this is apparently three fields away from one of the game's endings, and it is getting super tough.
_________________

[Swimmy]

After completing 72% of the game and having just finished the 8 special levels, Super Mario World glitched out on me and went black. When I reset, my game was deleted. I don't think I'll be playing it anymore.

But I gotta play something. I can't not be playing something right now. No sir.
_________________

"Ayn Rand fans are the old school version of Xenogears fanboys."
-seryogin

[dessgeega]

played through the last field in cameltry today. i cannot stress enough how brilliant that last set of stages is. they smash the imaginary boundary between level design and art, etc. it occured to me that the ending of the game has never been satisfactorily documented, so i taped it. i need to get around to capturing it off the tape.

in umihara i managed to reach the most difficult exit from stage 11, ultimately reaching the seahorse boss. who i could not pass. i'm sitting on a bunch of replays for this game. i ought to record them soon.
_________________

[Lestrade]

I have a crazy urge to play Mario 64. I want to get it for VC. Also, months after returning from Japan/Hong Kong, I can't find my beloved Mario shirt... :-(

[Lestrade]

I have a crazy urge to play Mario 64. I want to get it for VC. Also, months after returning from Japan/Hong Kong, I can't find my beloved Mario shirt... :-(

[Cycle]

I started playing Cooking Mama after ignoring it the first time I played it a few months back. I really enjoy it now! I especially like that, if you fail, the game lets you keep on trucking but you can go for medals if you want. It's a great pick up and play game. I'd love to do an article where I actually try to cook exactly like the game says, and see how much food posioning I get. I also see the Wii version is out for a decent price. Anyone have experience with this? Mama is so adorable.

I have also been playing this:



It's a pretty amazing game! How have I not heard of it before? I guess I don't pay much attention to this particular scene. It may be a keeper!!
_________________

[Shapermc]

[Cycle]

I was pretty amazed there was a copy of this at the EB down the road from me. Only copy there though, and only one other in all the other stores in the state. So I lucked out. But yeah, it's pretty wow. I don't want to say too much about it or I'll spoil it for when I HAND IT OVER TO YOU, but it's my kind of game, and it's very different and unique and sometimes hilarious and sometimes terrifying. So, you know, it's a Suda game. I hope it stays consistently interesting.

I really like how it lets you fuck other people over for a good scoop. Just, you know, it can back-fire.
_________________

[Lestrade]

Man, do I want information on this!

[Shapermc]

[Lestrade]

Shaper: Yeah, my coworker and I just dug up some info. Odd that I'd never heard of this! It looks fucking awesome; I am currently looking for [not torrents] so I can try it. Hey, the Japanese version is only seventy dollars CAD on Play-Asia! :-/

Also interesting is that Capcom ripped off the typesetting here for Biohazard/RE 4.