What games are you currently playing?

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

Had I given him some time with the manual, he probably could have gotten into it, but we just sort of jumped into multiplayer free-for-all. He did OK on 1-1 and 2-2, but the castle on 3 was a bit much. Even with the manual, though, there are things it doesn't teach.

Plus you gotta keep in mind he only played Pac-Man and Galaga back in the day and just barely played NES stuff (cuz his 9-year old was hogging that). I was thinking of getting the recent Namco Museum Megamix, but that would leave my stepmother out. And she's strictly Solitaire and Mahjongg. They're on a Wii Sports level, so WoF was a bet that paid off.

My stepmother even told me she had thought about getting it when she was shopping, so yeah, looks like I have them both pegged rather well. Developers might actually finally be getting the hang of the "casual" thing on the Wii, because the game show stuff is a very practical translation.

[TheGrandMom]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

I'm rather enjoying Y's the Oath of Felghana.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

Haven't got far into Ys III yet, I got it back when Goldeneye Wii came out and played it a little then, but I wasn't in the mood for chatterbox characters spelling out the paper-thin plot for 40 minutes, so the instant I had a save point, i saved and turned it off.

At home I'm still working on Muramasa (Momohime's campaign) and Mario Galaxy 2 with a little Phantasy Star Portable 2 worked in.

EDIT: OK, finished Momohime's story, now I can do Kisuke's story, though I might save that for later since there's multiple endings for both paths and s ton of swords left to be unlocked.

[Ufgt]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

I got back into MTGO after many many MANY years away from it. Probably a bad idea, but I live remote so I have no one to play against with my physical cards anyways.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

Finished Mario Galaxy in the "credits rolled" sense. I still have much left to do there, but I'm gonna take it slow. Good times, there, though.

[TheGrandMom]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

Fallout New Vegas...my god I haven't even touched the main storyline in 3 days! The side quests are entertaining and there are an assload of them! lol My biggest gripe are the glitches.....and there are plenty of them. But the game is too damn much fun not to play even with them.

[Goemon]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

Arkham Asylum was amazing... my favorite game in years. Everything was just sheer quality-- voice acting, controls, graphics. It was like playing a dark, noire-esque Zelda game. I'll probably play through it again on a harder difficulty.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

Dunno what it is, but after months and months of having no real interest in playing No More Heroes, I'm tearing my way through the ranks now. First couple of times I started, got to Dr. Peace and then stopped. Finally started over and spent my time getting the hang of it. Finished Dr. Peace, then Shinobu earlier this week.

Now today I did Destroyman, Holly Summers, Letz Shake and Harvey (i'm just calling him Harvey).

Either Harvey was the biggest wimp in the game or the Tsubaka Mk II is just that crazy powerful. He never killed me once. It was a fun fight, though.

The game reminds me of Metal Gear Solid in some respects, mostly in that all the bosses are memorable in some fashion. Only in this case more absurdly so. They don't drone on and on and they're not meant to be totally fleshed out characters, but they all leave an impression.

I am now rank 4 and Travis is well on his way to becoming #1 and (at least in his head) getting some action with Sylvia. I think she's up to something >.>

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

Picked up Lost in Shadow for the Wii today.

Its more or less classic Prince of Persia meets Echochrome with a dash of Ico or SotC's visual style.

You play a shadow that's been separated from its body, the boy the shadow belonged to is imprisoned at the top of a tower. An evil-looking knight separated the boy and his shadow with a strange sword and tossed the shadow off the side of the tower.

That's about as deep as the story gets, but if you liked stuff like classic PoP or Out of this World, its pretty close to that sort of game. You use a Navi-like fairy to help the shadow boy solve puzzles in the "real" world and be reunited with the body he belongs to as a shadow.

Everything takes place in the shadows cast upon the background, which is pretty cool. so what looks like a brick wall with a closed gate turns into a platform with a spiked pit due to the angle of the sun. And you can only progress where there are shadows cast, so it on you to find or manipulate a situation that creates them.

I guess you could also say that its a 2D platfomer that relies on you manipulating 3D objects on occasion to progress.



So yeah, yet another platformer for my Wii, but I have to admit, its at least has a unique take on platforming and fun visual gimmick. It'll go down an unappreciated gem, most likely, but one worth looking at.

[Kailea]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

Finished my TV stand part of my arcade cabinet, and I am still playing Disgaea2, once done with that game though (done as in I get an ending lol) I will go back to Alan Wake, and some of my other games in my horror/suspense collection.

[Absentia]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

Will be turning my Wii on for the first time in about a year to play Donkey Kong Country Returns and Sonic Colors. :3

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

On the cusp of getting 120 stars in Mario Galaxy 2. I'm at 118 with only two prankster comets on the final two levels remaining.

Looking foward to the next 122 green stars, lol

[Kailea]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

Well finished Disgaea 2, loved it, now playing Alan Wake, and love it as well, and the arcade cabinet is coming along quite nicely.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

Picked up Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together.

It is pretty much everything FFT: War or the Lions should have been as a remake. I guess you could say payback's a bitch. We never saw a US release for this on SNES, but there was a port released after FFT debuted on PSX, which made this TO game look bad back then even though it was made by the same people.

They came in and innovated parts of the existing experience while taking some notes from elsewhere, other aspects were rebuilt from the ground up and there were characters added with new senarios while others got expanded. This is one of the most impressive remakes I've seen.

For example, one cool update is that units of the same job class level up together - they just skill up differently. This is kinda like how Valkyria Chronicles II did it. Its just nice you don't have to start from the bottom with a new hire or recruit on the level grind. If fact, some recruits might have innate skills they knew, they just won't unlock til they level up. There's still a ton of micromanagement with skills and gear, though, that didn't change.

Each class has been refined so each role has a distinct purpose and they did away with gender restrictions on certain classes. There are new characters and new scenarios, practically double what the Super Famicom and PSX versions had, in fact.

TO has always had branching paths based on choices (which noob game journalists compare to Mass Effect because, like, Bioware totally invented choice in RPGs, right?), but this time out after you reach a certain point in the game (well, OK, you have to beat the game first), you can use the World Tarot feature to turn back the clock to a particular branch in the story and see what it would be like if you had made a different choice. Who becomes an ally, what friends leave based on that choice, etc. And you keep all your levels and skills for your units, though guest characters will change.

In SRPG combat situations, a similar feature called the Chariot Tarot can be used. This allows you to optionally rewind the battle to within the last 50 turns. This sounds like it makes the game easier on paper, but for every different choice made, the AI changes its decisions, too. Or sometimes it doesn't because your new strategy doesn't change things enough to prevent a particular unit or set of units from getting wiped. Plus 50 character turns is used up pretty quickly as you get more units on the field.

It doesn't make the game easier, but it can give you insight on building better strategies. Another cool thing is that the Chariot Tarot also tracks where the decisions in those last 50 turns branched. So if something worked better before, you could go back to that.

Permanent death penalties remain a series staple, but they're softened a bit here. In addition to the Chariot Tarot mitigating some of the deaths, each unit has three lives. No 1-Ups, though. If you can't revive a unit in three turns, they're taken out of battle, but at the expense of one life. Use up those three lives and they're goners. Permadeath.

But as per usual, if the hero gets struck down, its game over. You have Chariot to make sure that doesn't happen so no whinin'.

Guest characters can die in one go, though. If they are not revived in three turns they are gone and whatever storyline that could have happened with them is gone, too. At least until you have World Tarot and are able to revisit the event later.

Think of World Tarot as a sort of New Game Plus. You'll keep your levels and skills, but whatever hired units died between the original event and jumping back in time are still dead. Time travel only works for the living

Another good example of streamlining a game without dumbing it down, really. Also nifty is that they let you take in-game pics like you could in replays from Dissidia: Final Fantasy.

Niftier is the pre-order bonus - a full deck of Tarot Cards featuring Akihiko Yoshida's take on the 21 major arcana themed after his art style for TO. The EU version got an art book and CD soundtrack in a limited edition. US just got cards for the pre-order bonus. Japan got all of it (jerks).



Here's the 1-Up review

http://www.1up.com/reviews/tactics-ogre-review

Edit: Also, the game does track whether or not you use the Chariot Tarot in its records. There's no real penalty for using it, it just goes on the record by counting how many battles you've had and how many you didn't use Chariot Tarot. So if you want to chest-thump about not using it, I guess you can.

[Malacite]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

Been playing Star Ocean: Second Evolution on my PSP.

I really do hope Last Hope isn't the last one after all, SO is such a great series with the Private Actions and genuinely fun battles.