The Gamer's Quarter

ryan · . Joined: 20 Feb 2005 Posts: 999

Hour of Victory is painful. I think I finally figured out how to beat the main boss, a frail older gent that can take about 20 rounds to the chest, but by the time I did I had to leave for an appointment. I made it to him last night but had to go to sleep, so now I know that I have to replay the entire level just to make it to that checkpoint again. Ugh. I'm getting some wii points or something with this piece of shit.
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Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

If you can play imports, it may be worth it to bug (a different) PAL member of the forums to track you down a copy. It will cost less than $20 and be in English.

Also, Michigan is one of the rotating banners for the forum from the first set that I ever built for it. I've talked about this game before, but it only came out in PAL regions within the last year.
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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!"

aerisdead · . Joined: 03 Dec 2006 Posts: 254 Location: Toronto, Canada

SuperWes · Posted: Thu Jul 19, 2007 1:53 pm Post subject:

Cycle · Mac daddy Joined: 08 Sep 2006 Posts: 2767

Just press down once, then x, when the game first loads up and hey presto! I play it in NTSC mode.

Also, shaper, it cost $30, thanks.
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aerisdead · . Joined: 03 Dec 2006 Posts: 254 Location: Toronto, Canada

Winged Assassins (1984) · Posted: Thu Jul 19, 2007 7:58 pm Post subject:

I started a thread on Michigan back in the old insert credit days but that fell into neglect because I stopped playing it. Maybe I should go back to it like I should all the other games I stopped playing.

EDIT: PROTIP! You can warp to the final stage by getting all the reporters killed.
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Cycle · Mac daddy Joined: 08 Sep 2006 Posts: 2767

Yeah, I figured that could happen! I've been trying to keep this one alive though, she's pretty cute.

So I finished the game today, with Carla remaining alive. It's a very interesting game! Actually, it's not much of a game, but I still enjoyed it.
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SuperWes · Posted: Fri Jul 20, 2007 1:51 am Post subject:

Today I signed up for an XNA Creator's Club account and within a half an hour I had a game I've been working on in XNA up and running on my Xbox. Totally awesome. So yeah, I've been playing "Pipe Bomb" today, and slowly improving it in the process!

-Wes
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not a zombie · . Joined: 21 Jun 2007 Posts: 21

OutRun 2 is a day dream. Playing OutRun mode with anything other than a convertible doesn't feel right.

Lestrade · Posted: Fri Jul 20, 2007 8:24 am Post subject:

Hey Wes, that's pretty freaking cool! Will we be able to see screens or details of your work? Exciting!

I am almost through the castle in RE4. I had forgotten how ridiculous the game gets. I'm happy to be packing a shitload of good weapons, all crammed in an XXL (or whatever it is) attaché case. I used way too much ammo on that approach to one of the castle towers via bridge.

Also, it's taken me this long (what, 10 hours of play?) to realise that you can just swing your knife anytime by waving the Wiimote (i.e. you don't have to hold the "knife" button). I am so stupid; it's much easier now. Also, if you do this near an enemy or breakable object, the game auto-aims for you, so you don't have to m-look to strike small boxes on the ground, etc. Very handy.

I'd forgotten that the Ashley segment was actually entertaining, especially when the game goes all Silent Hill for no reason whatsoever, and suddenly Ashley's pulled a flashlight out of nowhere and has to explore some genuinely creepy rooms. When those knights come alive, it was actually a bit unnerving. Last-gen visuals or no, the game is still effective.

SuperWes · Posted: Fri Jul 20, 2007 9:14 am Post subject:

dhex · Posted: Fri Jul 20, 2007 9:37 am Post subject:

i'm playing arcanum and really enjoying it. i think if someone dug fallout or bg2 this would be very far up their alley. learning curve aside...
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Mr Mustache · . Joined: 26 Oct 2006 Posts: 167 Location: Queens

I played through a good portion of Hell in Doom3 last night. This section of the game is pretty fantastic. It really stands out from the slower, less diverse sections preceding it, which is actually a neat effect.
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Harveyjames · the meteor kid Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636

Kinda just makes me want to play the original Doom, though. Also it doesn't change the fact that the rest of the game is bilge.

Cycle · Mac daddy Joined: 08 Sep 2006 Posts: 2767

I finished Report From Hell with the first reporter, which means I've seen every level (but some events differ with different reporters, apparently). It's a very flawed game, but well worth playing once (or twice in my case, it's pleasently short, and lets you skip EVERY cut-scene, but you have to watch them for max S points) to see the good ideas it has in there. It's not painful at all to play, but I'll discuss the game more when more people have played it.

I will say that you are stalked by vagina monsters for a good deal of the game. Like, it will expand and grow teeth and use the womans legs to chase after you, the rest of the body dragging behind on the ground. They also seem to target women.

Oh, and it really reminds me of Kenji Eno's games. Killer 7 did too, kinda, but this especially so.

Also, Eastern adventure game logic is way worse than Western adventure game logic.

Shaper, I'm ready to trade now!
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Lestrade · Posted: Mon Jul 23, 2007 5:39 am Post subject:

Cycle: do you think you could post some photos?

Mr. Mustache: I always loved the Hell stage. As someone said before (was it you?), in Hell you finally get some room to move around, and the game feels a bit more Doom-y. All the moving walls and upside-down, crucified bodies add to the creep-factor, that's for sure. I'm going to have to pick up Resurrection of Evil since it's now compatible with the Xbox 360.

Wes: cool!

For my part, I finally finished RE4 for Wii last night (since I got the new TV, I had to keep playing). I'm going out of town this week, so I wanted to wrap it up. Man, the island area really is a return to form after the baffling castle stage. All the environments feel natural and look great, especially once you reach the labs.

Speaking of which, the Regenerators—either in their normal grey version of the deadlier spiky variant—are great enemies. I jumped and yelped almost every time I saw one, even when I knew it was coming. That sickening breathing noise they make—man, it just sends chills down my spine. Also the fact that it looks like they are a sort of ultimate result of Los Plagas is really interesting; it's all so sick and perverse.

I still maintain that the ending credits are the best part of RE4. The little epilogue montage is, dare I say, brilliant, and it spins your opinion on everything that's happened to you a little differently.

dessgeega · Posted: Tue Jul 24, 2007 10:35 am Post subject:

here's that video of the ending of snes cameltry i recorded a week ago. guest appearance by bubblun and bobblun! there's also this video i recorded a few years ago, which shows more of the game.

and here's a bunch of replays of umihara kawase from the past few weeks. including: a better field 42! that conveyor belt stage! using enemies as anchors! umihara being squooshed! and a bunch of futile attempts at the giant seahorse boss. some of the replays are kind of sloppy, but they do offer a peek at some of the later fields.
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ryan · . Joined: 20 Feb 2005 Posts: 999

Titan Quest's last boss is kicking my ass. I'm level 31, after having gone back to level up after round one, and I can't even hurt the thing. I can't say I'm looking forward to going back and grinding my way up to 36-40, so I think I'll be giving this one a break for a while.

Doom II for Windows 95, surprisingly, runs great in XP. My skills are rusty, but I am enjoying it. I was surprised to see that the Win95 launcher lets you select what level to start at. I began from the beginning, and hopefully I'll be able to hop back in soon.

Tenchu Z continues to tickle my love of hanging from rooftops and slicing throats, but I reeaallyy wish it didn't control like two pencils being slapped together.

Company of Heroes is going downtown shortly. I'm on the second to last mission now. Blitzkrieg really prepared me for CoH, so I've been able to make short work of it.
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Come to me, Mordel. We shall depart.

parkbench · . Joined: 02 Jul 2007 Posts: 145

dessgeega, i feel like you've been cameltry since the beginning of time. i mean i always see you talking about it and i'm just wondering how you haven't beaten the game yet, unless i tl;dr'ed and you mentioned replaying it somewhere up there.

watashi ni totte:

i started fallout. and then my dad robbed my computer from me. so there's that.

and still more etrian odyssey. that's basically it right now.

dessgeega · Posted: Tue Jul 24, 2007 11:16 pm Post subject:

i've done all one hundred stages from start to finish in a single sitting with no misses. but i always return to it, because it's everything i want a videogame to be.
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Crazy Bacon Lips · . Joined: 03 Apr 2007 Posts: 88 Location: Ol' Virginny

I have started a new Kirby: Canvas Curse file and will soon be on my way to absolute Rainbow Run domination. Watch out, dmauro. I will ruin you someday.

Swimmy · . Joined: 16 Sep 2005 Posts: 990 Location: Fairfax, VA

Persona 3 might be the hippest game ever. Check the intro, you'll see what I mean.
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"Ayn Rand fans are the old school version of Xenogears fanboys."
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dessgeega · Posted: Fri Jul 27, 2007 7:26 am Post subject:

that's pretty hot.

this is the game about teenagers that shoot themselves in the head to unlock magical powers, right?
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dhex · Posted: Fri Jul 27, 2007 7:55 am Post subject:

Swimmy · . Joined: 16 Sep 2005 Posts: 990 Location: Fairfax, VA

dessgeega · Posted: Fri Jul 27, 2007 8:30 am Post subject:

we <3 katamari has a great soundtrack.
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Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

Swimmy · . Joined: 16 Sep 2005 Posts: 990 Location: Fairfax, VA

I didn't realize. Sorry!

Wow, mid-August? Harsh.

I'm also playing DWVII, of course. I'll upload more videos soon, I promise. I'm just trying to get the video sizes smaller--such a pain!
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"Ayn Rand fans are the old school version of Xenogears fanboys."
-seryogin

dessgeega · Posted: Sat Jul 28, 2007 6:51 am Post subject:

i have a review copy of odinsphere now. the presentation is fantastic! too bad the rest of the game is tedious shit.

shaper assures me it will get better a few chapters in. i'm up to chapter three of valkyrie.
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dessgeega · Posted: Sat Jul 28, 2007 11:31 am Post subject:

odin sphere is awful. if you like it, you put up with too much bullshit. i'm sorry, but it's the truth. life is too short for this.

where i gave up: after spending at least half an hour (no exaggeration) whittling down the boss of chapter 3's health while planting and growing life-restoring fruits, he grabbed me - he had less than a quarter of his health by this point, i had just less than half of mine - poured wine on my head, then tossed me on the snow. i was stunned. while i was unable to move, he pelted me with hammers. before i could recover, a wandering snowflake came over and froze me. while frozen - still unable to move - he hit me with his warhammer and killed me.

fuck off, odinsphere.
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not a zombie · . Joined: 21 Jun 2007 Posts: 21

The only game I've been playing lately is OutRun 2. Is 4:36 a decent time attack?

GSL · Posted: Tue Jul 31, 2007 2:06 am Post subject:

So about all I have time for anymore is putting in a couple of hours on the DS as I'm lying in bed at night. Sad? Probably.

I've been switching between Hoshigami Remix and Konami Classics: Arcade Hits. I got the original Playstation Hoshigami years ago at a thrift store and never once have I sat down to play it. The DS remake, though, I'm pretty impressed by. It's a little--or rather, very rough around the edges, with things like status windows in typical gradiated RPG blue floating on a black background on the upper screen indicating that a little more care could have been put into the visual presentation, but that's really irrelevant, as the game takes it strategy RPG core seriously and doesn't much care for anything else. Hoshigami is cruel and unforgiving and entirely devoted to the 'strategy' part of the genre--after spending an hour trying to finish a particularly hard battle, I find myself resetting the game a fourth time, muttering, "Okay, so I've really got to take out the archers and magic users at the top of that hill first..." Level grinding is a must, and with a conspicuous absence of any sort of item that can revive fallen characters (there's a later level magic that can do so, which doesn't help at all at the start of the game), I find myself restarting the game a lot when a high-level character falls in the heat of battle.

In contrast, Konami Arcade Hits is all about the presentation, to an almost obsessive degree. The game has 15 excellently-emulated arcade titles, ranging from the good (Contra, Gradius, Track and Field, Rainbow Bell (a conspicuously renamed Twinbee)) to the lousy (Horror Maze), but there are options out the wazoo. Games with vertical orientation, like Contra or Rainbow Bell, have the option of being turned sideways facing either left or right on the top screen, squashed for horizontal full-screen play, or being scaled to the proper vertical aspect on the horizontal screen. The emulation is excellent, and just like in MAME you can tinker with settings such as the number of coins per credit (yes, you have to 'insert' coins with the Select button before playing!) player lives, and extend scores. But get this: when you change these options, you use the touchscreen to manipulate a replica of the original DIP switches on the original arcade board, which I find endlessly amusing even though it's probably pretty pointless. A cool extra is the gallery mode, where you can examine the original Japanese leaflets distributed to advertise the titles, as well as scans of the original arcade boards! The games are fun, to be sure, but it's completely obvious that the team that put this title together had nothing but love for the project.

dongle · . Joined: 25 Nov 2006 Posts: 290

I'm replaying System Shock in anticipation of Bioshock. The control scheme still bothers me a bit but the tension is ratcheted right up. I love the artistic direction. It's ugly in terms of the technology powering it and intentionally by design. It's an unpleasant place to be trapped. I've actually never finished the game; I was 11 when I first got it and the atmosphere was always so oppressive that I'd stop playing after a few floors and. after a few more false starts over the years, I gave up, pleased with the memories but no longer determined to finish. Now that it runs so easily in DOSBox, I figured it was time to give it another spin.

dessgeega · Posted: Tue Jul 31, 2007 5:20 am Post subject:

dhex · Posted: Tue Jul 31, 2007 7:41 am Post subject:

tutankham was one of my fav. 7800 games along with xevious. i haven't played it in at least 15 years though.

i played some fear again last night on the hardest difficulty. the battles are awesome. the presentation is really great. and everything's so dusty!
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helicopterp · . Joined: 13 May 2006 Posts: 1435 Location: Philadelphia

ryan · . Joined: 20 Feb 2005 Posts: 999

I recently finished Transformers: The Game. I hated it. I can't even get a decent cutscene? It's fucking Transformers, how hard can that be? Then again, they did manage to screw up giant robots beating the crap out of each other.

Rainbow 6: Vegas on the PS3 is pretty fun so far. Aside from the odd glitch here and there, I'm really enjoying it. The 1080i/p bug, or whatever it is, is annoying; I'm having to play on my girlfriend's roommate's TV just so it doesn't look muddy, though now the text is next to impossible to read.

Thanks to Goozex, I've been playing Doom II every day since I got it in. I also installed Fallout last night from Interplay's 15-year Anthology somesuch pack. I put in about an hour before I went to bed. Icewind Dale II is sitting in the wings, so I'll get back to it shortly.

I've been nudged by girlfriend and her roommate to pick up Wii play, so I'm sure I'll be trying that by tonight. I do need another remote. If they had wireless here I'd snag Paper Mario, but that'll have to wait until later.
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Come to me, Mordel. We shall depart.

Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

ryan · . Joined: 20 Feb 2005 Posts: 999

I haven't hooked up my PS3 since I got here, which was last Saturday or so. I know on Friday the game looked like hell when hooked up on my TV. The main menu's background was horrible and the faces were very mesh-like. There's a little of that still, on composite, but it's not nearly as bad. Was this something on the 360 version as well?
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Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

I have no idea, I thought that you were refering to the PS3, which had tons of resolution problems when it first came out ("You can use 720, but not on TV brand X and if you downscale from 1080i, but only if you uptransfer your spleen from 540p..." kind of thing) so I thought you were refering to that. I haven't played an R6 game since the DC.
_________________
“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!"

ryan · . Joined: 20 Feb 2005 Posts: 999

Oh, no, Ubisoft did a crappy job porting Vegas. You have to set your TV to 720 for it to not look horrible. There's a pretty good video comparing the PS3 version to the 360 version: http://www.gamingbits.com/content/view/2191/2/ - that one has to have been with the TV set to 720.

Playing it in 1080 kind of downgrades it to a PS2 title stretched over a widescreen display: it's horrible.
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Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

ryan · . Joined: 20 Feb 2005 Posts: 999

I'd like to think that the person who made that post is at work, chuckling, "Hey, Bill, come see this stupid post I just made! It's so dumb!" Then they just all laugh and laugh.
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dhex · Posted: Tue Jul 31, 2007 11:48 am Post subject:

extrabastardformula · . Joined: 08 Feb 2007 Posts: 295

I just finished R-Type for the first time. It was pretty cool once the intro levels were done with but I doubt I'll be diving right into the sequel soon or thatDX arrangement with both together. I'll be fiddling with MMF a lot more since contest the 2bears links to all the time deadline is in two months, and I really needed to get a feel for what the force is and does.

edit: oho! word filters!
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Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

The DX arangement is so-o easy. Seriously, if you can beat R-Type you could pop that in and be done on your first playthrough.
_________________
“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 · Posted: Wed Aug 01, 2007 10:07 am Post subject:

Hey! Apparently Saturn games like Nights and Christmas Nights can run in 16:9 mode. Does anyone know if this is possible through an S-Video connection?

ryan · . Joined: 20 Feb 2005 Posts: 999

Lestrade · Posted: Wed Aug 01, 2007 10:50 am Post subject:

Awesome, thanks. I'm going to try this when I get home from work. I don't know if the Saturn has a 16:9 setting or if the software will recognize the aspect. Exciting that even my Saturn benefits from the new TV.

I really want to buy R-Type.