What are you playing? c'mon, tell me punk!

[Kriven]

Capcom is having a pretty awesome sale on Nintendo platform right now, so I thought: "Hey, I'll get on board with this Monster Hunter thing all the VGR peeps like since it's less than fifteen bucks. While I'm at it I might as well get RE: Mercs 3D just to see if I dig that."

Then I thought: "Wait, Resident Evil: Mercs is just RE4 and RE5 content without a C-Stick."

At the last moment I bought Life of Pixel instead, which was discounted to the same price as RE:M3D. RE would have netted me more My Nintendo coins (which, to be honest, was part of my motivation in the first place), but I decided to just go for something newish instead.

Not regretting this decision at all. Life of Pixel is a pretty darn good "micro-platformer" (that is, the levels aren't as expansive as you'd find in Mario or Donkey Kong or Sonic). Sometimes the physics are a little buggery, but actually a lot less annoying than the "Oh whoops, this platform was SLIGHTLY SLANTED so you fell down" bullshit I just put up with in Runbow. From a gameplay perspective, it's almost what a platforming Pac-Man game should be... eat all the dots to open the end gate, but also you can eat the fruit for extra shit! I'm also really loving how each "world" is designed on different game software so they're all different and give you that "new" feeling even though they play the same, and since the levels are so short no particular theme overstays its welcome and some levels are a real treat to go back and play, which makes finding all the things a more enjoyable task.

I recommend, particularly while it's only five bucks.



Oh, also, if you do play this game... don't be afraid of the blue pixel guy when you get to the Atari portion. I know he looks like a grumpy-faced Anti-Pixel shadowclone bastard, but he's actually just the tutorial guy letting you know that there's a secret to find in the level. I didn't realize this until I got to some of the more well-define art styles.

Edit: Oh yeah last week I played Runbow and shit that game made me frustrated. I'm going to review it sometime whenever my life stops being a roller coaster. Because of the anger. But also because it was mostly good with some noticeable bad, but eh, I guess I recommend it for multiplayer and if you're a nerd who likes to see all the indie characters in one place like INDIE GAME AVENGERS (IF ALL THE AVENGERS WERE CAPTAIN AMERICA).

[DarkGrievous7145]

That looks/sounds like an interesting game

[Jermungandr]

So I've been playing Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam lately, because I got the game for free, so why the hell not, right?

I'd say the game isn't as good as the first three M&L games, but at least it's definitely way better than Dream Team was. I'm not disliking the game, but I feel like it is noticeably way more bland than previous entries.

I mean for instance, when you think of a M&L game, what kind of details about the game seem very distinct to you? You can probably name a few things, but I bet one of the top things anyone would mention is the weird, quirky, and unique enemies that you encounter. There are a lot of enemies invented just for these games that are completely off the wall and have really distinct personalities in their attack patterns. You never really know what to expect when you encounter one for the first time.

Paper Jam's enemies? Literally just the same tired classic Mario enemies you see in every game. Goombas, Koopas, Buzzy Beetles, Spinies ... you know the drill. And also there are paper versions of each enemy, so you basically get two variations of the same enemy, minimizing the amount of brainstorming Nintendo has to do. Hell, I haven't even encountered a unique boss enemy yet. So far they've all been faces you've seen time and time again; Petey Piranha, Giant Pokey, Wiggler, The Koopalings, Kamek ...  I get the impression that Miyamoto's ruling that Paper Mario games only use established Mario enemies has extended to the M&L games as well.

The environments in the game suffer from blandness as well. While in previous entries we got interesting environments like a volcano made out of thwomps, or egyptian-like koopa ruins, or a beach covered in giant teeth, so far in Paper Jam all I've encountered has been ... generic plains ... generic desert ... generic forest ... generic icy mountain. Are the creators of these games just suffering from a drought of creativity? Jeezins.

Oh, and there aren't any interesting NPCs either. No Broque Monsieur types in this game no sir. Aside from Peach, everyone is literally just toads of varying colors. You could argue that there's Toadette, but let's be honest here, she's honestly just another colored Toad. They couldn't even throw in some established Mario NPC characters to give it a bit more flavor. Where's Toadsworth? E. Gadd? Hell, I'd take some generic Piantas.

ON THE POSITIVE side, I will say this much, I really like Paper Mario's "copy" stacking gimmick in this game. I feel like if they were to use this feature in a true Paper Mario RPG they could expand on it considerably; there is a lot of interesting potential here that isn't getting used, although understandably because they don't want to make the game too focused solely on Paper Mario himself.

I also appreciate the way that the game is divided up into many different mini-missions. Even though a lot of the missions simply consist of finding all the paper Toads in a given area, getting to see a "MISSION COMPLETE" message as you progress does a nice job of making you feel like you're actually making progress through the game as opposed to just meandering about pointlessly, which some of the earlier M&L games are guilty of. So kudos for that.

[Goemar]

Competed Uncharted 4.

Spoiler

why on Earth is the dog on the epilogue like the best looking thing in the game? Assuming the Last of Us 2 will have a dog in it

Probably going to start Turtles soon.

[TomGuycott]

Been playing the hell out of Kirby: Planet Robobot. The Arena is no joke when the other modes are complete, I have trouble reaching the end without Archer to hide behind cardboard or the amiibo UFO. I got to what I assume is the end only to choke.

By far one of my favorite Kirby experiences ever. The new gameplay elements are a blast and fanservice levels are off the charts.

[miyabi95_]

Played through the Game Boy port of Real Bout Fatal Fury Special from Takara. Easily one of the best fighters for the handheld (excluding GBC cuz it has slightly better capabilities than its former). Basically it's a pretty direct port of the arcade version with a couple neat extras (and compressed graphics, of course). After you beat Krauzer, there's an "Extra Battle" against Geese (surprisingly pretty easy lol), then a "Hidden Battle" against Iori from KOF. I thought it was pretty fun and not too glitchy like other fighters for the GB.
Played this on an emulator, but if it were still the early-mid 2000s and I still carried around my Game Boy, I would totally buy myself a copy on eBay! lol

[DarkGrievous7145]

found ANOTHER DAMN MMO WTF! to play...

http://www.kongregate.com/games/Clipwire...-west-town

and immediately, the graphics screamed "RIP ME!"
So, another freaking ripping project pushed to my pile 'o projects /:

I wanted to find a farming game on kongregate, that was the only one that interested me.
I think once this game bores me to death I'll start playing Hemp Tycoon on adult swim again

[Kriven]

I'm giving Earthbound another shot, this time the Wii U VC version. Hopefully the saving doesn't bug out on me and I can finish the game this time...

Also wishing I'd finished the playthrough I had going with my actual SNES cart before I sold it. Got the furthest in that version.

[Garamonde]

I also started playing Earth Bound for the first time the other day. No I have never played it before. Gonna go after MOTHER 3 after this.

[Goemar]

EarthBound just fills me with the stupidest amount of childhood joy, from the title to the last battle it's just an utter joy to play. Mother 3 is also, imo, the best RPG ever made.

I finished Turtles. That game is such a shame. It looks great, the combat is fine but the huge empty environments, crappy missions, and ai turtles just let it down so badly. It would be so easy to make a great game with what they have but they just got lazy. What a shame.

I think I'm going to go back and actually complete Shovel Knight next.

[puggsoy]

Finally been able to play The Witness! It's really cool, pretty much exactly what I've been expecting, if not more so. The island is beautiful, the puzzles are neat (but hard!), and I'm just having a really nice experience.

I'm also playing Advance Wars again, on my phone using an emulator. It's been a while but it's still a top notch game in many aspects.

[Goemar]

Not really sure if it counts (as it was just the demo) but - holy shit did they go balls out on that Odin Sphere remaster.

I mean the game looked gorgeous anyway but man, have they made it look better. There's a lost less 'morphing' effects and more frames of animation so everything just looks even more jaw-dropping-ly gorgeous than before. And the combat, like holy hell, it's been changed so so much. Reminds me a lot of Smash Bros with the direction + attack combos etc, even a bit 1v1 beat 'em up with the juggling and combos you can do.

Like I had no interest in buying this game at all (as I spent hours on the original and didn't think it could look any better) but it just plays so, so much better. Definitely worth the download to check the demo out.

[miyabi95_]

back to playing fighting games again. i decided to work on my (very casual) skills in super street fighter ii. My mains are chun-li and cammy. it's...really difficult. i set the difficulty to the lowest setting (via service mode thanks to my MAME), but i can't get passed around 4 opponents. Especially if I end up against blanka, he may as well be the equivalent of Sonic in SSBB - so annoyingly fast and cheap.

[Goemar]

Been a long long time since I've played but I remember spamming sweep kicks worked pretty well against Blanka.

[Lemonray]

I find it difficult to play any TES game that isn't Morrowind these days. It's just so wonderful.