What Are You Playing (Spring 2012)

[GohanX]

Wing Commander IV
This is going to take a while. It's really, really, really, really hard. Missiles can end you in one hit and every enemy now likes firing off several during a dogfight. And the odds are regularly 2-on-1.

Use your chaff, son. The game gives you a billion chaff pods for a reason. If you're playing on a harder difficulty level though, God help you, shit is rough.

[Geo]

Rayman Origins (360) - Saved the four nymphs and unlocked the four kings sections. I severely underrated this game, it's great.

Splinter Cell: Conviction (360) - Started playing this recently, beat the campaign over the weekend, and am really liking it. Have played two games of Hunter mode in Deniable Ops, and it plays just as well. I think they could eschew the Sam Fisher storyline completely (especially as it's unlikely to ever progress past terrorists/bombs/whatever) and just build a game on a hefty collection of (wildly) creative and challenging Deniable Ops set pieces. But they probably won't do that.

Gyromancer (XBLA) - Strange that you can only turn clockwise, the game menus are ridiculously cumbersome (definitely attribute this to Japanese design from Square-Enix's side than PopCap), and I could pretty much do without most of the story/cutscenes although they aren't bad at all. Nonetheless I find this game quite compelling with its blend of monster collecting+use and jewel matching.

Torchlight (XBLA) - All the buzz about Diablo III brought me back to this game, which I greatly enjoy. Finished the campaign and then went through a bunch of floors in the Shadow Vault. Got all of the achievements as well as a comfortable margin on the leaderboard in the process.

We're at least a year away from discussing a Torchlight II console port, considering they've got to finish the PC game itself and their focus after that is the Mac version, but I really hope they port it to the 360 or the Wii U (with its increased RAM in comparison).

Gatling Gears (XBLA) - Replacement for Torchlight as a game I can play when listening to music or podcasts with my headphones. Good top-down twin-stick shooter, haven't tried Survival or any co-op yet.

Kid Icarus: Uprising (3DS) - Have played over 40 hours of this and still haven't finished the first board of achievements, nevermind the second and third boards. Started dabbling in weapon fusion not too long ago, though don't have any super weapon to show for it just yet. Stellar game, will be in my Top 10 come year's end and it's going to take one hell of a game to take portable GOTY from this.

Kirby Mass Attack (DS) - Started this recently but haven't played too much yet. My first Kirby game! Fun stuff so far, always welcome a well-made game that's creative and colorful. I dig the veiled layer of increased difficulty they implement by virtue of the gold medals/achievements/unlockables.

Mighty Switch Force! (eShop) - Picked this up in light of the developer offering the free update. It's good, although I was under the impression it was a bit more of a Mega Man-esque shooter than the platformer it primarily is (which the additional time trial feature plays into). Pretty nice visuals.

Also, there has to be a better designation than (eShop), right?

[sleeve]

Kid Icarus: Uprising is a great game. It grows on me the more I play it. Multiplayer is way more fun than it has any right to be. And the loot collection is almost Diablo-esque.

[Korian]

So I gave Phantasy Star II another spin today and I've concluded this game just isnt for me. Im a huge rpg nut and can put up with some below average games but I just can't get into PSII.

I never played the original and I never played PSII until last year. Too many random battles, too much grinding needed to advance and it takes forever to explore areas.

I wonder if this game gets so much love for nostaglia reasons.

It hasn't aged well and the mazes go on for ever with no real hints. Even when it first came out it wasn't as good as the original.

[Korian]

Call of Duty 3, sadly I suck at these games.

Korian I've made much progress using the knife and bla bla to the head in free for all.

[bVork]

I finished Wing Commander IV. The key was learning that leech and fof missiles are actually useful. In Wing Commander III, all the former did was slightly weaken a target, and the latter was unlikely to kill off anything other than a pipsqueak Darket and really only served to scatter enemies. In WC4, hitting a fighter with a leech missile instantly disables it. What's more, the disabled ship is still counted as active, so further waves won't spawn in until it's actually destroyed. This means that leeching even one ship can make things a lot easier, as you can then stop, repair any damaged systems, allow your shields to recharge, and then take out the disabled ship to spawn the next enemy wave. Friend-or-foe missiles don't kill everything in one hit, but even a slight bit of prior damage is more than enough to let them pick off nearly any fighter. The story stayed strong through to the end, thanks to great writing and spectacular direction. I think the final confrontation (done entirely through FMV choices) is perhaps the pinnacle of FMV gaming.

On to Wing Commander: Prophecy! This game is gorgeous. Even now, the colour choices and effects still manage to impress. Origin was almost always several years ahead in tech, and this was no exception. On the gameplay side, it seems to have regressed to somewhere between WC2 and WC3 - larger numbers of ships that take a surprisingly large amount of damage before finally exploding. I'm not sure I like this change, though it is refreshing to not be blown up so quickly like in WC4. I can't say I'm impressed with the FMV. The direction seems incredibly conservative, more befitting a TV series than a movie, and the new actors aren't particularly convincing. Even the CG seems to be worse than in WC4. Chris Roberts left Origin right after WC4, and his absence clearly shows.

[GohanX]

Make sure you are using the fan patches for Prophecy. You can play it at modern high resolutions with widescreen support, use a Glide wrapper, and patch it for DVD quality cinemas.

Prophecy is so great. The gameplay is really where this one shines, you can do so much awesome stupid stuff in flight it is ridiculous. I always miss the ability to select my ship though, the game doesn't always give you the preferred ship for the mission you are taking, and much like Wing Commander 1 I actually prefer the second best ship to the "best" fighter you use at the end.

[AaronChance]

Playing the new Syndicate FPS. The game is really hot and cold. Goes from awesome to terrible back to awesome pretty much every ten minutes. It's cool ideas mixed with utter garbage, great weapons and horrible enemy encounters.

[gameoverDude]

Serious Falcom RPG kick ATM.

Brandish 3 (PC-9801): Yet another part of one of Falcom's more obscure series. There's no English translation, but as with Dark Revenant on PSP the Japanese text has not been too much of a problem. There's not a lot of story in this one- it's more straightforward dungeon crawling like the first two.

Ys Origin (PC): Just got it today and put a couple hours into it. XSEED will always kick ass for choosing good titles to localize.

Trails in the Sky: Took a break and got back on it recently. Right now I've got about 52 hours total put into it. I'm in the later rounds of the Martial Arts Championship, which has been one of the most fun parts of the whole game.

[Compass]

Trine 2

"I'm really feeling this!"

"Yeah, Shulk, get stuck in." ::rotates shoulder::

Didn't care for the first one so much, and wouldn't have bothered trying this one if Plus didn't force it on me. The platforming puzzles write checks the loose controls can't really cash. Not without a lot of controller squeezing anyway. It's also a little buggy. Boss music starting a couple minutes early because I got too close to a wall he was behind. There is a part with a big snail and I don't know what was supposed to happen. I tried everything, then finally reloaded in exasperation, and had been teleported inside him and ultimately made it past without actually doing anything.

But it looks incredible. The levels are really long if you're trying for all the collectibles and there's like thirteen of 'em. Checkpoints are plentiful. Trophies are think-outside-the-box style. Did I mention the graphics? Fun game. Probably worth whatever they're asking.