Xeogred
Location: KC
by Xeogred Thu Feb 09, 2017 9:21 am
Blast Corps rules. It reminds me of those older overhead helicopter free roaming shooters, where you could rescue people and blow up buildings. Mech Assault was kind of like these too. Whatever this genre is... I like it.
HLTB | PSN Trophies | RFG (WIP)
by Sarge Thu Feb 09, 2017 12:39 pm
Shining Force CD is cool stuff. It's one of the first games I played through when I got my Sega CD. In *ahem* burned form, sadly.
I'd love to have a legit copy, but I suspect that's not in the cards.
Hardcore Retro Gaming - Talk about games ten years old or older. Now with a modern gaming section!
noiseredux
by noiseredux Thu Feb 09, 2017 3:10 pm
1. Fire Emblem Heroes
well, I beat the main story anyway. Great game. I'll write more about it on my blog/site thing when I have time.
BogusMeatFactory
Location: Farmington Hills, MI
by BogusMeatFactory Thu Feb 09, 2017 3:13 pm
noiseredux wrote: 1. Fire Emblem Heroes
Can't wait to hear your thoughts. I reaaaaallllly need to update my beaten list as I have beaten a bunch of games since my last post.
Ack wrote: I don't know, chief, the haunting feeling of lust I feel whenever I look at your avatar makes me think it's real.
-I am the idiot that likes to have fun and be happy.
1.	Captain Toad (WiiU)
2.	Lost: Via Domus (PS3)
3.	Modnation Racers (PS3)
4.	Tron: Evolution (PS3)
5.	Dead Rising (PC)
6.	Fire Emblem Heroes (Android)
When booting up Modnation Racers for the first time, I was hesitant. Could there be a kart racing game that could honestly compare to the likes of Mario Kart? Knowing that it had a heavy focus on level editing in a style similar to how Little Big Planet was for platformers made me concerned, but those concerns were easily assailed by a fun and refreshing experience.
For those that don't know, this game was the first from development studio, United Front Games, who went on to work on Sleeping Dogs and also Little Big Planet Karting and it is clear why. The game has a fun campaign mode as you play as Tag, a kid who wants to make it big in the karting world and bring color and fun back to racing. The story is simple, with witty commentary by two sports announcers and the cast of rival racers are very unique with their own personality. As simplistic as the story may be though, the campaign mode really is a segue into unlocking parts to customize your car, your character and the tracks that you build.
While I stuck to the campaign mode exclusively, I was surprised to see that in my hub world, the online community was still going strong. I had no trouble finding people racing around and looking to play and saw new tracks being featured. It really was remarkable to see people in an online game after 7 years since its release.
For those that are looking for a good alternative to Mario Kart, I highly recommend it. The power ups were pretty straightforward. You could get mines, missiles, chain lightning or boosts that can be upgraded in power by collecting more of the item boxes without using the item. You also could use nitro boosts, a melee smash against oponents and a shield protection that both used up a gauge that could only be refilled by drifting, doing tricks and drafting. While you could customize your kart, it really was cosmetic only, leaving the skill of the game entirely up to knowing shortcuts, using your weapons wisely and managing your energy wisely. It was very challenging, but I could not recommend it more.
I want to first let it be known that I am a HUGE Tron fan. I have watched the movies, the TV shows and played all the video games... except this one. I came in with VERY low expectations as it is a movie tie-in to Tron Legacy, but I couldn't have known just how bad it really was.
The game takes place years before Tron Legacy and is a sequel to the Wii game, Tron Evolution: Battle Grids. As, The Monitor, you work with Tron to keep the grid safe from a growing virus that is infecting programs and causing overall chaos. You witness Clu's betrayal to Flynn and are being hunted down as you run across the Grid trying to warn the ISOs about the upcoming purge.
The game consists of 4 different modes of play, Free Running, Disc Combat, Light Cycles and Tank Battle. The bulk of the game though is platforming in a parkour style Free Running around the grid climbing platforms, jumping off of walls and using a grappling hook to swing around the virtual space. The problem is that the game has a poor camera and insanely finnicky controls that leave you missing crucial, yet simple jumps constantly. What makes matters worse is that the checkpoint system is wonky, placing you in instant death experiences randomly, or starting you off with the camera in a stuck position, or with your character facing the wrong way and it can be extremely annoying. This mode of play was the best, mind you.
The second biggest portion of the game was disc combat, where you would face off against enemies that really just amounted to you spamming your special moves to beat them. You earned new Disc abilities that had their own set of moves that boiled down to ranged attack, melee attack, an area effect bomb attack, and a power attack. Some moves were essential to hurting enemies and were a real pain in the butt when facing off against 4-6 enemies all at once. When using these special attacks you would use up energy and the only way to regain energy is to... get this... jump off of objects like trash cans, chairs, and computer consoles. Want to regain health? You have to wall run on glowing wall panels. It was ridiculous and a pain in the ass to have to do.
With Light Cycles, you were treated with a train wreck experience that can only be described as mind-numbingly infuriating. Hey! Do you remember how cool light cycles were in the Tron Movies? Remember the arcade game? That was great right!? Well in Tron Evolution you don't do ANY OF THAT! You simply drive in a straight line from point A to point B dodging obstacles that fall on top of you, or gaps in the road! Once in a lifetime you will come across another light cycle with a rival program trying to stop you. Want to know how to beat them? PRESS SQUARE!!!! Just do it once... you throw your disc and the person magically dies. No light trail....no strategy...just press square. It was the WORST!
A game like Tron Evolution: Battle Grids had hands down the most fun light cycle experience of any Tron game and is well worth owning the game for, but regular old Tron Evolution's Light cycles are just garbage! They don't even have an online multiplayer Light Cycle mode... just Disc Combat! GAHHH!!!!!
Last....but certainly not least... the tanks... my god the tanks. Here is how tank combat works. You drive around with the left thumbstick... it isn't tank controls... it is the same controls as your character. So back makes it move back, left and right makes it slowly rotate left or right and start moving in that direction. You aim with the right thumb stick and that will also make your tank rotate as well. Your tank will always....and I mean ALWAYS be rotating slowly and you will never go anywhere! Even more fun fact... if you get hit twice...your tank explodes. You will always be fighting more than one tank... your rate of fire... is insanely slow. The only way to beat the other tanks is to cheese them. Just try and snipe them from super far distance before they know you are there. It is RIDICULOUS!
As a Tron fan it makes me wheep to see such nonsense come from the franchise that has the MOST potential to be a great game series. Pass at all costs.
Let's try and forget that nightmare of Tron Evolution shall we? Let's go back to simpler times....when all you wanted to do was hang out in a mall and destroy Zombies. I remember in my youth getting out of high school, living on my own and hanging out with friends playing Xbox 360. I remember working Blockbuster and always bringing games home to play and Dead Rising was a VERY memorable one. It was the first game that mae me really think that the 360 was a good system. Even though I sucked at the game, there was nothing more fulfilling than putting Servbot heads on Zombies and watching them saunter around clumsily. It was great. In the short time I played, I never beat the first case file of the story and never really survived past the first day.
Now though... is a different story. With the introduction of a mouse and keyboard for the re-release of the game, I dominated the game and I loved every single minute of it. In Dead Rising, you play photographer and reporter, Frank West, who sneaks into a small town quarantined by the government. You find out that Zombies are running amok and you have to cover it! You have three days before your rescue chopper arrives and you have to find out what is going on and save as many people as possible.
The majority of the game takes place in a mall and you have to use everything the mall has to offer as weapons to stop these lumbering beasts. Everything from soda cans, to the CDs to golf clubs and lawn care hardware. It really covers the gamut of materials and each one has their own unique feel and usefulness.
As time progresses you have to solve these story-based case files within certain time limits or else the trail runs cold and you fail. Normally, I would panic under the pressure of a time limit in any game, but for some reason, this was not the case for Dead Rising and I handled each challenge with ease. These story moments though rely heavily on gunplay and that was where problems arose in my youth. I couldn't handle shooting with a game controller. Now with a mouse and keyboard, there were zero issues and I was walloping enemies with ease!
I had completed the game fully, beating the main story and getting the true ending in overtime mode and it did not disappoint in the slightest. It was a blast!
Nintendo games on a smartphone. How did we get here? Who would have thought this a possibility ten years ago? It definitely would not have been me. This is reality though and Nintendo has made now three games on smart phone devices. Is Fire Emblem Heroes any good? Or does it fall prey to in-app purchases?
Full disclosure, I have never played a Fire Emblem game in my life, so this is a novices perspective on the situation. Essentially, Fire Emblem Heroes is a compact strategy experience. With a team of four heroes, you battle on a small playfield to destroy your opponents. The game is easily adapted for a touch screen and matches last from 1-5 minutes depending on how well thought your strategies are. There are tons of modes to play that include a training tower where you can play randomized battles to beef up your characters, a story mode where you experience the bare bones narrative and earn Orbs for unlocking new heroes to craft your team from, daily challenge maps to earn a new Hero each day and an arena mode where you fight other players' teams in AI form.
All these things will earn you items that will heal your team mid-combat, help level them up, or boost their potential(giving them a higher star rating) to give them access to higher stats, a more diverse move set and overall be more badass. As you unlock new characters, you also have the chance to get incredibly powerful 5-star characters. I was lucky that in my first few orb redemptions, I received two 5 star heroes that made going through the story mode an absolute breeze.
I completed the main story in both normal and hard mode and am just a few days away from beating the game on Lunatic Mode with a team that is almost at max level and let me tell you, the game is fun. I have 3 different teams built, two of which I am leveling up and the third which is my main team that has almost hit max. You essentially pick maps to play and they consume energy. You have 50 energy and most of the early maps only cost 1-5 energy. When you get into lunatic mode, though, maps range from 10 - 19 energy. This isn't much of an issue however because nintendo has been very generous in offering energy refills and there are tons of quests that give you 5 potions that refill your energy completely.
When participating in the arena modes, you have 3 swords you can use daily. These swords allow you to participate in fighting the AI and they are a blind team. When you decide to participate, you see only the team leader and have three teams to choose from, a beginner, intermediate or advanced team. Depending on what you pick will depend on what score you receive at the end. You can have a winning streak of up to 7 and your score will continue to increase up to that point and then will reset back to zero. Depending on your final score depends on how many feathers you receive, which are you used for increasing the star rating of your team members. If your AI team successfully beats opponents you will also earn feathers based on their performance. There are items that will instantly replenish your swords and again Nintendo has been super generous in giving them away and also tons of quests offer them up as well.
Let's talk about in-app purchases, though. You can only buy orbs to unlock heroes. These orbs can also be earned through quests and through completing the story mode on all the different difficulties. How much money have I spent on orbs? Zero dollars. How much money will I spend on this game? Zero dollars. There isn't a need to. IF you have 4 star heroes you should be just fine. If you get 5-star heroes, you will be doing spectacular and easily handle the super hard difficulties. Even if you got the worst luck in the world, you can boost a 2 or 3-star hero up to 4 pretty inexpensively with feathers earned from having friends and participating in the arena. The best way to win in the game is to have a team strategy and use heroes that compliment each other. It is that simple.
I couldn't recommend the game more for fans looking for an easy distraction. The story itself isn't complete though and you know more chapters will come in the future. I am curious to know what they do with it and can't wait to see what new heroes they bring.
by Markies Thu Feb 09, 2017 11:04 pm
1. Phantasy Star II (GEN)
2. Guitar Hero (PS2)
3. Adventures of Lolo (NES)
4. Animal Crossing (GCN)
I beat Animal Crossing on the Nintendo Gamecube this evening!
I went into Animal Crossing with some hesitation. I had never played another type of game like it before and I didn't know if I would like it. Boy, was I ever wrong.
I enjoyed the hell out of Animal Crossing. It takes a while, but I quickly became addicted to the game. My Mayor went on vacation for a week, so I had to manually turn the light on in the Lighthouse. I rearranged my life just so that I could do that. I drove home, turned on the light and then drove over to a friend's house.
It was exciting to turn on the game every single day just to see what I got in the mail, what was in the dump and what was Nook selling. It is one of the little games that you play online that keep you coming back for more.
It is not good for long plays. You are not going to want to play it for hours at a time. Also, it gets a bit repetitive especially near the end. However, those are minor nitpicks and vary depending on your style.
But, my sparkling gold statue that I got after paying off my entire debt tells me that I beat the game. I could keep playing as there is no true ending, but that is little to the point of the game. The game is a breath of fresh air, a nice relaxing trip and comes highly recommended.
I'd probably suggest a later handheld game, but the first one is still fun and enjoyable to this day.
by Exhuminator Thu Feb 09, 2017 11:25 pm
Markies wrote: I'd probably suggest a later handheld game, but the first one is still fun and enjoyable to this day.
Yeah Animal Crossing really hit its stride once it came to DS and 3DS. I think when Nintendo releases the smartphone version it will be a huge hit for them.
by elricorico Thu Feb 09, 2017 11:53 pm
1. Crimson Skies:High Road to Revenge (XBOX)
2. Super Smash Bros WiiU (WiiU)
3. Fire Emblem Heroes (Android)
Add me to the list of those that beat the story mode without spending any money. I'm enjoying FEH so far and will continue to put time into the game.
My very first summon was a five star hero (Roy) and I probably could have rode his strength through most of the "Normal" difficulty of the story, but about half way through I pulled some more and came up with Chrom and Camilla which made the rest of the Chapters mostly a breeze. I'm now also about halfway through the "Hard" difficulty and plan on working towards finishing that next.
I have to assume the story will continue some time in the near future, as it didn't take very long to get through, and if you wanted to spend money you could pretty easily blow through that in a sitting. There are also a huge amount of Fire Emblem characters they can add over time so the content should continue to expand.
I had been playing Final Fantasy Brave Exvius for a while before this was released, and the premise is basically the same but FFBE just has a lot more time in production so there is more content to chip away at. Since Fire Emblem Heroes arrived I've been going back and forth between the two - spending my stamina in one while the other regenerates. Seems to make for a good combination.
I'd like to pull a couple more 5* characters and experience more of the arena and training portions of this game. I'm also optimistic that I will keep up with completing the story as it is released.
by Sarge Fri Feb 10, 2017 12:10 am
1) The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition (PC) (8.5) (1/1) (~5.5 hours)
2) ActRaiser (SNES) (8.0) (1/2) (~4 hours)
3) Bonk's Revenge (GB) (6.0) (1/3) (~1 hour)
4) Tiny Toon Adventures: Babs' Big Break (GB) (6.5) (1/3) (~1 hour)
5) Blackwell Legacy (PC) (7.0) (1/5) (2.6 hours)
6) Blackwell Unbound (PC) (7.5) (1/7) (2.2 hours)
7) Blackwell Convergence (PC) (8.0) (1/7) (2.4 hours)
8) Blackwell Deception (PC) (8.0) (1/8) (4.7 hours)
9) Blackwell Epiphany (PC) (9.0) (1/9) (6.5 hours)
10) Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (PS4) (8.0) (1/22) (~55 hours)
11) Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 (360) (8.0) (1/28) (~.5 hours)
12) Deep Duck Trouble Starring Donald Duck (SMS) (6.5) (1/31) (~1 hour)
13) Quackshot Starring Donald Duck (GEN) (7.5) (2/7) (~2 hours)
14) Fire Emblem Heroes (Android) (8.0) (2/9) (~10 hours)
And I now join the cadre of individuals that have beaten the story mode on normal. I was really surprised by how fun this actually was, despite all the F2P mobile trappings.
As I've posted before, I was mostly riding on the strength of my 5-star Tiki. Loads of defense, and her clear-out attack once she gets hit enough is powerful enough to absolutely destroy anything. It's how I took out the last boss, actually. One round, even at full health, and that's all she wrote. (It also helps that Tiki is a Red, and Veronica is a Green. Weapon triangle works with spellcasters, too.)
The other thing that got me over the hump was finally getting another decent Green spellcaster. 9-4 is actually pretty challenging, and I had planned on using Cecilia to hit him at a distance, but he was significantly more powerful, and has a healer behind him. So... that didn't work. But it did distract him long enough to get some other folks to pile up, play keep away for a bit, and when he came out I destroyed him with Arthur.
I did think that last battle was going to be hopeless, but I went and grabbed just a few more levels, and got some lucky breaks with enemy alignments, and managed to keep my heavy hitters alive long enough to seal the win.
It's going to be a long haul getting all 5-star characters, and that's probably the only way to really get through the higher-tier content. 4-star isn't bad, but the upgraded attack power on 5-star characters is just unreal. Also, I hear Takumi is insanely powerful, but I never pulled that one.
Anyway, I didn't spend a dime, and had fun with it. Can't complain! Nintendo's got something here, I think.
alienjesus
Location: London, UK.
by alienjesus Fri Feb 10, 2017 8:18 am
MrPopo wrote: AGDQ last year did a run of Blast Corps with Martin Wakeley (the designer) on the phone doing developer commentary.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F47zZaZ92Cs
I must find time to watch this. Does it make lots of use of glitches, or is it just a pure technical skills within the usual boundaries of the game situation? I have nothing against the former, but I have more fun watching the latter!
Xeogred wrote: Blast Corps rules. It reminds me of those older overhead helicopter free roaming shooters, where you could rescue people and blow up buildings. Mech Assault was kind of like these too. Whatever this genre is... I like it.
You mean stuff like the Urban/Desert/Jungle Strike games? Interesting perspective if so. Maybe I should give one of those a try at some point.