What Games Are You Playing?

Been playing Shadow Complex over the weekend. It's a scrolling 2D shooter/platformer heavily influenced by Super Metroid, with a huge underground military base to explore and lots of power-ups, items, and other crap to collect. Awesome.
 
@devilrules - Sorry, missed your post there. These new episodes are living up to the Monkey Island name, I loved some of the script in this one - making fun of the game mechanics always makes for hilarity:

"Mr Winslow! Set sail for the Jerk Bait Islands at once!"
"Sir, the map."
"What?"
"I er, I like it when you point on the map..."

But they are pretty damn short. I completed each in less than three hours, which isn't that great for a fiver a piece.
 
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fabricatedlunatic said:
Been playing Shadow Complex over the weekend. It's a scrolling 2D shooter/platformer heavily influenced by Super Metroid, with a huge underground military base to explore and lots of power-ups, items, and other crap to collect. Awesome.
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Same, it's a lovely romp through some classic retro gaming. There are some MINOR control frustrations, mind, and the game locked me out of getting all the items (I was going for one when I stumbled across some plot and ended up blowing up the only route to it).

All in all very worth the £12 pricetag.
 
My only real complaint is that sometimes aiming at enemies in the background can be fiddly and inconsistent. Oh, and the boss battles are somewhat underwhelming compared with those in Metroid and Castlevania.

I already had 200 points, so I only needed to spend £8.25 to have enough for the game \o/
 
fabricatedlunatic said:
My only real complaint is that sometimes aiming at enemies in the background can be fiddly and inconsistent. Oh, and the boss battles are somewhat underwhelming compared with those in Metroid and Castlevania.

I already had 200 points, so I only needed to spend £8.25 to have enough for the game \o/
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The bosses are, indeed, a little underwhelming, and I also agree that background enemies are a liiiiiiittle fiddly but I can excuse it those eccentricities for just the overall value of the game as a whole. Tried any of the challenge rooms yet? They're rather....silly.
 
My final Rogue Galaxy thoughts, taken from GameFAQs:

Mini-update: I'm done with Kuje Desert. The only thing I have to add is how bad the dialogue is.

Jastor's mum: I'm your mum.
Jastor: So you're...my mother?

Jastor's dad: I'm your dad.
Jastor: So you're my dad?... No, that's impossible!

Seriously, Jastor repeats what was said a second a go, every time. Whoever wrote this *beep* deserves to be shot. The short Jastor's dad clip was actually good, though not original... until Jastor started speaking.
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Still playing this, though not much. The final dungeons have sucked away nearly all my drive. I can't tell you how painful it is to have to keep walking for hours around a cave that repeats every few steps in order to unlock the power of the heart and transform that power into a sword... and, after that, have to walk around in another cave that keeps repeating itself. The ghost ship dungeon can kiss my arse - there's no way I'm playing this ever again after beating the last eight (can't wait) bosses.

As for the plot, retarded sums it up. *SPOILERS* The heroes - who are supposed to be pirates - are saving the universe by first unlocking the seal that was keeping it safe. The people of Eden needed the Star King to save them... yet all they really needed was a sword of the heart (not at all corny), otherwise the Star King would've been useless. And, to top it off, the strongest sword in existence turns out to be weaker than other swords in the game.

Also, where the hell has Valkog gone? Despite being the only villain for 90% of the game, has he been forgotten about? And what about the galactic war that was never shown - is the plain lead supposed to end it without there being one battle shown?

There is so much stupidity in the story it pains me. If it isn't fathers coming out of the woodwork, its a father first warning someone about the dangers of Eden - how going there will destroy the world - and then going on to add that he actually knows nothing about Eden. And don't get me started on how he knew Jastor would save the world by looking at the dull son of a lady as a baby. How could paid professionals come up with this rubbish?

At first enjoyment alone carried it, but the game gets increasingly boring the longer you play and the story only gets more /facepalm worthy with every new detail. The end of the story and endless (as well as pointless) dungeons have made me lower my score to 6/10. I'll never play it again after beating it.
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(There will be spoilers in this post. Just a heads up.)

I beat the game yesterday. It was as much of a waste of time as running through the endless cave dungeon and the endless lava cave dungeon. The bosses were easy (I had to be careful not to waste a lot of time against the last one, though) and, in true RG fashion, many of the 1 vs. 1 bosses were repeated over and over. I killed like five of the machine bosses with Lilika because it wasn't made clear there was another target in the background - I thought my game had picked the worst time to glitch.

The end of the story was as terrible as what came before. Ever notice how 'Rune' is repeated over and over, yet it's never explained what it actually is? Well, wouldn't you know it, Rune isn't destroyed at the end of the game. The battleship somehow destroys the bit on Eden (killing Mother didn't, just to allow Valkog to die in 30 seconds) but, according to Star King, only a fraction was ever in the RG galaxy. The way Valkog suddenly showed up after being pushed aside and then died in 30 seconds highlighted how pointless the game was - I spent most of it battling against the guy, and then he was ignored before being discarded!?

On the characterization front, what highlighted how bad it had been during the ending was Kisala randomly going, "Screw you, I want to be queen. You may have raised me, and you may be my love interest because of a single scene, but I want a tiara. I'll never see you again and I won't shed a tear. Bye-bye!"... right after she had no problem leaving her mother to jump 10,000 years into the future - great stuff. At least the remaining crew decided to kidnap the b * * * *... though the team were too lazy to show that scene and ended with text.

Talking of Kisala, remember how she kept coming close to vanishing early on? Do you remember an explanation? No? Neither do I.

All in all, RG is a boring game because of its repeating dungeons and easiness and a terrible game when you look at the story and characterization. I'll give it 6/10 because it was fun at first, has some lovely CG cut-scenes and a good soundtrack, and I'm being kind with that score.

This will more than likely be my last post in this section. I'm done with the game and want to move onto something else. Cheers for reading my posts and I hope you get more out of the game than I did!
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Batman: Arkham Asylum. The most awesome piece of awesome I've ever come across. Everything just... works. So much to discover and hilarious Joker (and Quinn) commentary. One of the best games I've played in a long, long time.
 
Jayme said:
Batman: Arkham Asylum. The most awesome piece of awesome I've ever come across. Everything just... works. So much to discover and hilarious Joker (and Quinn) commentary. One of the best games I've played in a long, long time.
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Listen to this man for he speaks the truth.

I'm loving Arkham Asylum, it's just so much fun to play.
 
The biggest bastard of a mission on Valkyria Chronicles. Six goes and counting - that massive tank only took me two.

For anyone who knows, it's the one where you have to get Welkin and (injured, therefore next to useless) Alicia though the forest full of landmines while having mortars dropped on you. The problem is when I get to the clearing with two scouts and a shocktrooper - How the hell is Welkin supposed to take all them on his own? They never come to you so you can't lie in ambush, and shuffling Alicia is to slow to enter their range of fire without being killed...

Well, I'm off to look for strategies.

Edit: make that nine goes. Using a guide. T_T
 
That mission is tricky first time. Use grenades & stay crawling in the grass. Also, remember to get Alicia's ankle healed using the ponisera, which is those blue glowing flowers. Also, save mid-turn before you engage enemy shocktrooper & scout. The shock is an enemy ace also, & has more HP than a normal shock. Just remember to stay crawling & use grenades on them.

If you want to make it easy, do skirmishes until you can level your scouts up to lv11, then you get the grenade launcher attactment for your scout rifles. This lets you fire grenades over a much greater distance, & over obstances too, allowing you to hit enemies you cannot see directly.
 
You can save mid-turn..?
...

Well, that'll teach me for buying a copy which was cheaper because it didn't have a manual. At least I can take some solace in the fact that I've been playing on self-imposed haado modo by playing each level through straight in one go...
 
ayase said:
The biggest bastard of a mission on Valkyria Chronicles. Six goes and counting - that massive tank only took me two.

For anyone who knows, it's the one where you have to get Welkin and (injured, therefore next to useless) Alicia though the forest full of landmines while having mortars dropped on you. The problem is when I get to the clearing with two scouts and a shocktrooper - How the hell is Welkin supposed to take all them on his own? They never come to you so you can't lie in ambush, and shuffling Alicia is to slow to enter their range of fire without being killed...

Well, I'm off to look for strategies.

Edit: make that nine goes. Using a guide. T_T
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Really? I got it done relatively easily. There are harder missions for sure. Just save regularly mate ;) :)
 
Just you wait until you are inside Citadel Ghirlandaio; that one is in my opinion the hardest mission in the game.

I played on an involuntary hard mode myself; I didn't realise on the R&D menus that you could scroll down to reveal more levels to upgrade. Beat the game twice & EX skirmish 9 with only 4 armor upgrades bought. XD Not to mention that without the upgrades, my tanks were poor compared to my lancers.
 
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