The Gamer's Quarter

[dessgeega]

tingle's rosy rupeeland is viciously clever.
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[Shapermc]

So, your little write up fails to mention if you enjoy the game at all.
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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]

because it's irrelevant.
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[Shapermc]

[dessgeega]

it is a game about zelda bullshit.

it is the distilled essence of bullshit.
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[dessgeega]

it's better than contact at least.
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[helicopterp]

can i get an amen?
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Like you thought you'd seen copter perverts before. They were nothing compared to this one.

[Shapermc]

It only got published in the UK though, right?
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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]

as far as i know, yeah.

so, remember how i wanted the people who made that excellent konami arcade collection for the ds to make collections like that for every publisher? well, they are.

there are no replay recording options this time around, but all the other options are there (including switching individual dip switches), and each game has a "score attack" mode that plays the game with the default options. dig dug isn't there, but the fantastic and underappreciated dig dug ii is, along with mappy and a bunch of games we already own.

but probably most interesting is that the game allows you to play pac-man versus without a gamecube and a bunch of gameboys and wires. between this and phantom hourglass, i'm glad that idea is being revisited without the crazy hardware costs.
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[SuperWes]

I can actually answer all of your questions shaper!

It was only released in the UK.
It was $50 plus shipping from ncsx.com
And, probably most importantly, you'd hate it.

I, on the other hand, kind of like it a lot. Like dessgeega says, it's the distilled essence of bullshit, but it's actually pretty addictive. The reason I say you'd hate it is that it's set up so that if you don't play it exactly right you've got to do some grinding. It goes along with the theme of the game, but there's no doubt that it's grinding. Grinding in Tingle's world consists of beating a few enemies so that they drop certain items, taking those items home and using them to make potions, then putting those potions in bottles and taking them to the nearby store to sell them for big profits. It's tedious, but it's kinda fun in the same way that Harvest Moon is kinda fun.

I think the big reason I don't mind the grind is that you're not really grinding for arbitrary numbers, you're grinding for HP, which also happens to be money, which happens to be keys/items/pretty much anything you need in the game. This makes it a lot more freeform. In fact, it's so freeform that you could probably just grind from the very beginning of the game and eventually make your way to the end of the game without ever finishing the first "dungeon" if you were so inclined.

So you might think that it sounds interesting so far, but in reality unless you're totally driven by the concept or actually enjoy Zelda games I'm not sure there's much someone would take away. It's very much a second tier Nintendo game seeing as it's not really anywhere near as good as any of the actual Zelda games. You can either play the game by constantly resetting every time you spend an unnecessary rupee or play it by overspending and then grinding for cash later. I think dessgeega is playing the game the first way and I'm playing it the second, and while having the potential for both makes for a pretty neat design, both ways ask you to work for your fun. In that way, it's a videogame for people who have nothing better to do than play videogames and I have a feeling most people aren't going to dig it.

Then again, it kind of reminds me of Majora's Mask, so maybe some people will end up digging it.

-Wes
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[dessgeega]

[extrabastardformula]

I picked up Katamari Damancy for the first time today. Few games have disappointed me so much in recent memory.
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[JasonMoses]

Bummer!

[simplicio]

[Shapermc]

[extrabastardformula]

I think the music was the biggest turn off for me. That and I absolutely hated the King. I played up till the point where you have to male your Katamary one meter across and being interrupted by a fullscreen of the King telling me I reached a midpoint goal and to keep going actually made me angry at the game.
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[dhex]

wow. katamari is just about the only game music i think isn't terrible.
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[SuperWes]

[dessgeega]

i've started playing mother 3 with the aid of a script translation.

it's, wow, really good.

here are some things i like about it:

the "sound battle" system is great. it adds just enough skill and nuance to the game, and makes you pay attention. scoring a 16-hit combo feels really good.

the way text is presented. so many jrpgs have huge text boxes that pop up regardless of how much text is appearing in them, leading to lots of wasted space. when a character speaks in mother 3, the screen is letterboxed and two lines of dialogue appear on the bottom. presentation matters!

the animations. every action that any character performs is fully (and wonderfully) animated, which is a wonderful change from jrpgs of mother 2's era (where characters dance by facing different directions rapidly). the characters are all distinctly and beautifully drawn.

and the music is great.

and the story is, yeah. i just finished the first chapter. wow.
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[Shapermc]

[dessgeega]

a text file containing the translated script.
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[Pink Teddy Bear]

Well, I can't stop playing TF2, if anyone even cares about that. I heard people talking about Half-Life, so I figured people might like to hear that TF2 is good.

TF2 is good in its own way though. All of my friends that league TFC can't stand TF2. It's a much different game, but a lot of my friend and I enjoy it muchly. I recommend the look if you've got the cash and enjoy the genre.

[ryan]

[helicopterp]

[Shapermc]

[Pink Teddy Bear]

[Intentionally Wrong]

I'm also replaying Mother 3. In all the hours I've spent with it, I think I've only gotten a full sixteen-hit combo two or three times. I'm too impatient.

Wasn't there somebody around here who was fed up with mirrored sprites being used for characters facing the opposite direction? Lestrade, maybe? You'll be pleased to hear this game does it right.

The first time I played through via emulation; then I did a quick run through on the Gamecube's Game Boy Player. This time I'm using the DS, and it's kind of interesting to finally be playing this on a small screen. It feels a lot different.

[dessgeega]

i am in chapter four of mother 3, being twarted by a very hard boss.

i like the way this story is told. and i like that the "rolling hit points" from mother 2 are actually a meaningful strategic element here, where in that game they roll way too fast for you to usually do anything about them.
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[Pink Teddy Bear]

Well, I just attempted to play Pathologic, but alas, my cowardice wouldn't allow it. As soon as I entered a building in an infected zone, I had to squint my eyes and have the camera focus a downward a bit so I couldn't fully see ahead of myself.

That game is damn scary with it's atmospheric prowess!

[simplicio]

I bought a game (Picross DS) and turned on a videogame system for the first time in a month! It was not the most thrilling experience, but it was passable.

I also moved my gamefly queue around a little and sent back that PS2 Mana game. I may be getting a copy of Metroid Prime III, except I never even finished the first one so I'm hoping they send me some DS game instead.

I need to send my Wii back for warranty purposes. There's a year warranty on those, right?
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"Worlds turn the new machine to thee. To thee. Though, thine the new machine space."
-Kurt Schwitters, 1919

[dessgeega]

i just finished chapter five of mother 3. this game is great.
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[Intentionally Wrong]

[a_plus]

rambling/confusing i'm sure, and not to be 10-15 years late, or anything, but:

i went and played/beat super metroid for the first time the other day. i had no idea how much metroid prime owed to its predecessor! honestly, they're more or less first- and third-person versions of the same game. i don't think that's a bad thing at all, mind you. prime expands upon super in quite a nice way.
the entire tourian(?)/endgame was really, really, great, and catapulted a game i liked a ton into a game i now love a ton. i'm still trying to decide whether or not the narrative is something uniquely videogame, or if it could be done the same, or at least equally well in another medium. there were definitely some great shocks 'n' horror, though, and i haven't really felt that from any of the metroid games since. (the vapid black background of the nes game really help create the mood)

playing the gba one (metroid fusion, i think?) right after playing super metroid was a big ol' disappointment, though! this subject i know for a fact has been talked about at length, and i suppose i should judge the game on its own merits, but the overt narrative and finger-pointing hints are a major minus.
fusion doesn't get the secrets right at all, either. in the original and snes ones, even though all the secrets are meant to be found, it still feels like you're cheating, almost breaking the game when you uncover them. especially when you get the x-ray specs in super metroid, it feels to me like i'm stripping away layers of the game's very code (and it really does just remove a sprite layer to show you what's underneath, more or less). it's all built in and is supposed to be manipulated in just that way -- fusion makes a lot of these secrets mandatory and obviously videogamey/unorganic. (though in super metroid it took me looking at an faq to figure out i could blow up that glass tube, which in retrospect was obvious). i feel like there's more to be said on this subject but enh, it's late and i should be asleep.

i do wish super metroid had a harder difficulty mode, and that's my only complaint. i got something like 86% in something like 9 hours but it was all pretty easy.

i still haven't played metroid 2, and i think that's next, after i replay metroid prime. also, there was that gba sorta-remix of the original metroid i know nothing about. are either of those worth it? everything i've heard about metroid prime 2 makes it sound god-awful, and i don't have a wii yet, so prime 3 is out of the question. is that all of the series i need to know about?

[a_plus]

also what's up with the gratuitous death animation and increasing scantily-cladiness of the games. (okay, i know the answer, but come on)

[squidlarkin]

Metroid 2 is required playing if you can stand getting lost in games. As for Zero Mission...it's got a bit of what you (and I) hated about Fusion, but toned down, and thankfully no dialogue. It also goes in an unusual direction towards the end which I think some people hated but I rather liked. Quite worth playing, is my vote. And Prime 2 is superfluous in every way, so yeah, then you're caught up.

[dessgeega]

the one thing i like about the death animation in super metroid is that the one wall between samus and the environment is broken away. it always emphasized for me just how toxic and inhospitable zebes is: to be lost in those caves, bare, is death.

i've been meaning to buy a copy of metroid II and finally finish it. i never have!

i like zero mission, but it's not brooding or scary at all. it is the warmest and fuzziest of all metroid games. that's something fusion is successful at: the feeling that you are constantly being hunted. which is not the same kind of fear that the other metroid games create.
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[Ethoscapade]

while fiddling with my flashcart today in and around finally deciding to get going with mother 3, translation patch or no, i put fusion on there - not particularly wanting to play it (or any game that's not mother 3) nowadays, and especially not as some retrospective appeal to having something to do with myself; i'm sure you all know how that goes.

it's nice. is it possible to die of nostalgia, i wonder?

[sediment]

I have a copy of Metroid II.

I always found Super Metroid really hard to get into after Metroid II - I love the emphasis on exploration in it, and the many ruined city locations for Samus to trawl through. Also metroid stages of evolution make for some pretty tough and/or interesting boss fights.

Super Metroid just seems really... hasty, like what they want you to do is rush through everything - and of course I know that's the point of all the Metroid games, but Metroid II doesn't convey it the same way.

Also has many more points for you to get hopelessly lost in. Samus Aran, master navigator!
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[dessgeega]

super metroid is also bloated, like a lot of snes games. do we really need a "super" version of every weapon? an x-ray visor? a morph ball jump? do we really even need maridia? and fusion and zero mission proved we don't need a six-button control scheme. there's a lot of excess.
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[sediment]

yeah - with metroid II, everything is two buttons and it works out beautifully. it's very streamlined and polished. some day i'll pick super metroid up again, but every time i play it now i feel compelled to play one of the handheld metroids instead.

also has probably the best sprite animations I've ever seen on the game boy classic.
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[helicopterp]

[dessgeega]

chapter seven is that one episode of live a live done right. at least, part of it is. this boss is tough.
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[Intentionally Wrong]

Chapter 7 is long, and I only played Live a Live haphazardly--which part are you referring to?

If I had to pick a favorite part of Mother 3, I'd probably settle on chapter 7, from when you first cross the sea to the point where it's time to return.

[dessgeega]

the part of chapter seven that takes place at the chimera lab does exactly what the episode of live a live on the spaceship does, only better.
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[Lestrade]

My wife "acquired" FFVII: Crisis Core for the PSP the other day, so I tried to give it a whirl last night. Unfortunately the heavy use of kanji is a bit of a barrier. Theoretically I could use my DS to look up all the ones I don't know, but that would take forever.

The game is beautiful; there's no doubt of that. But the difference in how Square-Enix thinks these days is painfully obvious. The opening recreates the speeding train scene of FFVII, except that when your hero (this time, Zack) leaps ontp the platform and the "infiltration" music starts pounding, all momentum is lost as he picks up his Advent Children cell phone and engages in mystical conversation for two minutes.

The battles seem interesting, at any rate; you can dodge/roll with square, attack with O and [do something with triangle — I can't remember what now]. My favourite part though is that you use L and R to cycle through your available commands, which exists as a little row of icons on the bottom-right of the screen. One icon is for your physical attack (a sword), three are for different Materia (I had ice, lightning and fire spells), and one lets you pick an item to use. When you choose this latter option and then an item, the next time you press O, Zack will use that item.

It's pretty streamlined, actually, and it feels like a good system that could be used in other RPGs. I like that you get to be mobile and fly around the screen.

I only played a short while before the dense kanji confounded me and I wasn't sure what to do. The game was classic 21st century S-E; fine-boned pretty-boys with silly haircuts and oddly baroque costumes. It's like one big yaoi fan fiction.

The game looks beautiful; I just can't get over how good the visuals are, coming out of this handheld device. It sounds all right; it's all recycled FFVII music and the same Japanese pretty-boy voice acting you'll hear anywhere else. And it controls very well. The problem I had was that it right from the get-go, it was pretty boring. A minute of game play only nets you five of CG/dialogue. It's the new Squeenix, that's for sure, but I don't know if I have the patience to continue.

Maybe I'll bring out the DS and use Crisis Core as a study tool.

[dessgeega]

[captaincabinets]

I have just stopped playing Drawn To Life. "Cock" had just discovered the beach gateway, which is about halfway through the game.

The idea and drawing is tres cool. It is neat to see a poorly drawn version of yourself or Phoenix Wright or a heavily veined penis with bat wings, but the rest of the game falls disappointingly short. The platforming, which is the meat of the game, is just so linear and easy - if there is a point where you can go two ways, you can be sure that one way is forward progress and the other leads shortly to a "secret" and dead end. Ad nauseam for roughly 16 levels. The "talk to x", "go hither"-ness in town is never more than just padding (and it is quite frequent), and the dialogue is so painfully close to being irreverent and childishly funny that it is sad to see it never delivers.
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Why am I being boiled into a bright red lobster by this little kid?

[Intentionally Wrong]

[dessgeega]

yes. i was telling shaper today that, unlike most jrpgs, mother 3 just has no filler. it's a relief to play a jrpg that isn't constantly tugging me toward sidequests and chicken-raising contests. it also hasn't forced me to grind at all. i'm apparently underlevel, so bosses are always hard (i usually have to replay boss fights a bunch of times), but they always ultimately yield to strategy and persistance. i have a lot of desperate, absolute-last-minute victories, which is about how i'd like it.

chapter 8. shit and a plush bible.
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[Intentionally Wrong]

Clever tactics and timing can get you through battles that you'd hopelessly outmatched in otherwise. The endgame really, really made me appreciate the rolling HP meter.