What Are You Playing (Fall 2012)

[A Robot Bit Me]

Those Star War platformers are terrible games. Low is right. They throw a ton of unavoidable damage at you and shower you with health items to compensate. The alternative would be to actually design levels, though, which is a hard thing. I understand why they opted out.

[MechDeus]

They really have some of the worst level design known to man. I'm consistently surprised at how bad they are every time I try them out every couple years, always thinking, "They couldn't be as bad as I remember." Then it turns out they are and I get a little sad.

[jyoung]

Final Fight 3 (SNES) -- I rented this once as a kid and my opinion on it is still the same. Too short, too easy, and completely uninspired enemy/level design. They even short-changed the music as a bunch of tracks repeat themselves across multiple levels. The only cool moment in this game is the final boss' death scene, which was just as badass as I remember and probably the reason why they had to get a "Teen" rating on this game. I guess the cart is just so expensive because it's rare, as the game quality is pretty weak.

[gameoverDude]

I haven't played 1943, but I can verify that 1942 sucks ass.

1943 > 1942 by miles. 1942 is drag-on boring and the main BGM sounds like someone spitting into a mike and spamming a dog whistle. OTOH the boss theme isn't too bad. There isn't enough variety in the enemy types throughout the levels. I did 1cc it once for 11.6M, but would rather not touch it again. This fucker took 75 minutes to clear (TBH I did die several times but had about 13 extra lives stockpiled, I guess it could be done in 65 minutes on 1 life.). Like Street Fighter, it's another case of a lukewarm Capcom game spawning some impressive sequels.

Final Fight 3 (SNES) -- I rented this once as a kid and my opinion on it is still the same. Too short, too easy, and completely uninspired enemy/level design. They even short-changed the music as a bunch of tracks repeat themselves across multiple levels. The only cool moment in this game is the final boss' death scene, which was just as badass as I remember and probably the reason why they had to get a "Teen" rating on this game. I guess the cart is just so expensive because it's rare, as the game quality is pretty weak.

Length was OK for me but I did blaze right through it on Expert. A max of three enemies on the screen at once is a joke. It's even worse when their AI is not near the greatest, making the special moves give you an unfair advantage. Capcom should've tried to get 7 on the screen at once somehow. Maybe a proper FF game is too much for SNES to handle. This one (hell FF2 also) really begs for M2 to make a CPS version given the "what if" treatment they did on FZII.

[Diff-chan]

Halo CEA. For a 11 year old game this holds up amazingly well. In fact, it could come out today and still be pretty great. I know PC fanboys have been shitting on this game for ruining their precious hobby since it came out, but it's a much better game than its contemporaries.

Also, I know I am completely late to the party on this one but the Reach Anniversary playlists are the business. So much better than stock Reach.

[jyoung]

Length was OK for me but I did blaze right through it on Expert. A max of three enemies on the screen at once is a joke. It's even worse when their AI is not near the greatest, making the special moves give you an unfair advantage. Capcom should've tried to get 7 on the screen at once somehow. Maybe a proper FF game is too much for SNES to handle. This one (hell FF2 also) really begs for M2 to make a CPS version given the "what if" treatment they did on FZII.

There is actually an elevator sequence where you fight 5 of the little Blanka looking guys at once. But I think is just a special instance because that particular enemy's sprite is so much smaller than the other enemies' sprites. Under normal circumstances it seems like they stick with the 3 to 4 enemies at a time spawning, which is still pretty good considering how huge and detailed the sprites are in the game.

That said, you can tell Final Fight 3 is really pushing the limits of the SNES technically because when you try to play the Auto 2 player mode with an AI partner the game is a slowdown fest.

The AI is pretty awful both for your teamate and for the enemies. I'm guessing they put all the available memory into the graphics instead of into the AI coding, because the AI is brick dumb compared to Final Fight arcade.

[Yoshi]

Halo CEA. For a 11 year old game this holds up amazingly well. In fact, it could come out today and still be pretty great. I know PC fanboys have been shitting on this game for ruining their precious hobby since it came out, but it's a much better game than its contemporaries.

Is the "A" at the end the PC version? I had Halo 2 on PC but never the original.

In terms of when the console version came out, it had some really weak competition that year, so your statement may be true by default. I'd still take AvP2 over it though but probably not Return to Castle Wolfenstein. Undying I don't really consider a FPS, or that would be on top too.

[Diff-chan]

Anniversary, the 360 port. The updated graphics are great.

I would say the game is far better than the ones you listed. But it's a different sort of game. The wide open play style is still not as popular as I wish it were.

[Yoshi]

Ah, I forgot that existed.

[gameoverDude]

Pac-Mania (arcade, JPN) 349610 pts.

Used the Namco Museum Vol. 5 version on PSP. IMO the best one of the Pac-Man series, and jumping over 3-5 ghosts at a time gets fun.

(re: Final Fight 3)
The AI is pretty awful both for your teamate and for the enemies. I'm guessing they put all the available memory into the graphics instead of into the AI coding, because the AI is brick dumb compared to Final Fight arcade.

Sega CD FF1 does have a 4 enemy cap, and its AI seems way closer to the arcade. Even that suffers a little slowdown, IINM. FF3 should have been saved for a 32-bit launch release.
I did try a CPU teammate game once and was taking about three quarters of the kills. Bombergames put very good partner AI in Streets of Rage Remake, but obviously had more memory to work with. Streets of Rage 2 & 3 win the AI battle.

Super Double Dragon has 3 enemies at once but far better AI than FF3. That one actually was a challenge. The only bad thing is that the third enemy in the group tends to turtle until one of the other two gets put down.