What are you playing?

[PartridgeSenpai]

Started up GTA4: The Lost & The Damned today. I thought I'd at least give it a try before I started The Ballad of Gay Tony (the real reason I bought Liberty City Stories). My first impressions are that the VA is quite good (at least on the main characters) and the story seems interesting, but good god is this an UGLY game on 360. Just a whole world dipped in Vaseline and beige food coloring. The gunplay is also absolutely horrible, but at least the driving is alright so far

[noiseredux]

There's no BIG games coming out in the near future that I'm super excited about, so I had been in a sort of not-sure-what-to-play state. Normally I'd start the next Together Retro game, but I don't have access to any Konami Genesis games. The combination has really gotten me in a zone of going back and playing some classics. After finishing up Super Mario World on New Year's Day, I launched into Super Mario Bros 2 last night. I feel like I'll be able to finish that one off tonight, so after that I'm not sure. I've got a bunch of old classics in mind.

[Xeogred]

There's no BIG games coming out in the near future that I'm super excited about, so I had been in a sort of not-sure-what-to-play state. Normally I'd start the next Together Retro game, but I don't have access to any Konami Genesis games. The combination has really gotten me in a zone of going back and playing some classics. After finishing up Super Mario World on New Year's Day, I launched into Super Mario Bros 2 last night. I feel like I'll be able to finish that one off tonight, so after that I'm not sure. I've got a bunch of old classics in mind.

What happened to the RE fan noise I used to know? January 25th!!!

[Markies]

I started Radiata Stories on the Sony Playstation 2 this evening!

I am a rather large fan of Tri-Ace, the developer behind Star Ocean and Valkyrie Profile. They have some of the most extensive, beautiful and intriguing games I have ever played. My friend bought me a copy of Radiata Stories and I've always wanted to play. This year, I made it a resolution to finally play through it.

The game doesn't feel like a Tri-Ace game at all. It is way too funny for it to be a Tri-Ace game. The original Valkyrie Profile had so many emotional moments while Radiata Stories is genuinely funny. I chuckled several times at the dialogue. Also, the game seems much easier than other games by them. I am rolling through the battles with little problem at all. Just bashing attack for the win. The music is very catchy and the graphics have this time less look to it.

I wish the button layout was a bit better and I hope there is a better way to control time.

However, I quickly became addicted to it and I am very excited for what the game holds. So far, it is living up to the anticipation that I built for a while now.

[Arenegeth]

So in Shenmue I hit a bit of a dilemma.

During the part where you break into the warehouse, if you keep failing (wasting an entire day in the process) you eventually get help by the old bum, which includes a map and several updates to the map.

The map is an actual item you get to keep all the way to the end of the game, and the scenes with the old bum, could be considered optional cut scenes.

So I wasn't sure, if I should do this section as effectively as possible on the first try, or if I should keep failing on purpose so I could get the complete map and all the cut scenes.

I originally decided to fail on purpose, because at the very least, and assuming you still get your allowance for those days, the skipping of days would have solved my money problem pretty much for the rest of the game, it would have also landed me either at, or right after Christmas. But while I was in the process of doing it, I just tried to make a run for it and actually manged to get in the warehouse without getting caught on the first try.

For the time being I'm keeping it this way, I'm not sure if what I'm trying to accomplish here from the start, at least at a time frame which allows you to do the quest in the second game, is even possible.

Though there's many people out there who did a complete Notebook run or all the collectables, or max out all moves, doesn't look like there's many (or any that I could see a record of) that tried to do everything at once...

So for now I'll keep going this way, and if I see that I have the time to spare in the future I may go back to my save right before that section and do everything all over.

Good thing that Shenmue, just like the Yakuza series, is one of those games I'm never getting bored of, though I'm sure by the end of this, I'll be putting that to the test.

[noiseredux]

What happened to the RE fan noise I used to know? January 25th!!!

ugh I know. This is the one that's kind of killing me right now. Since I found out my wife is expecting I've been going through a sort of 'nesting' thing where when I find time to game, I tend to want to be hanging out with her in case she needs anything from me. So that's why I've been so focused on Switch/WiiU/3DS stuff - because I can play them outside of my game room. RE2 is the one game I'm super excited about, but not sure if I'll actually play it right away now. I was kinda hoping for a Switch port, haha.

[prfsnl_gmr]

Yes. I understand this completely. With a baby in the house - congrats, again, Noise! - portable gaming is the way to go.

I am so happy for you and your wife! Becoming a father is one of the best things that has ever happened to me, and while you have a few sleepless nights coming up, you have some really amazing times ahead of you.

[Xeogred]

What happened to the RE fan noise I used to know? January 25th!!!

ugh I know. This is the one that's kind of killing me right now. Since I found out my wife is expecting I've been going through a sort of 'nesting' thing where when I find time to game, I tend to want to be hanging out with her in case she needs anything from me. So that's why I've been so focused on Switch/WiiU/3DS stuff - because I can play them outside of my game room. RE2 is the one game I'm super excited about, but not sure if I'll actually play it right away now. I was kinda hoping for a Switch port, haha.

Dang, well I'm sure I'll rave about it immediately haha. I'm stoked it comes out on a Friday too... my weekend plans are set.

I think I need to level my expectations but it just looks mindblowing to me and Capcom's been on a roll lately. I have this hunch it's going to be the perfect blend of everything RE's become at this point, going back to the claustrophobic interior urban buildings and design of the classic games, bringing back those old school horror and mystery vibes, being retooled with the more modern over the shoulder perspective... yet I bet this will be less action oriented than RE4-RE6 and be a bit more slower paced and suspenseful like RE7's style was. I think they even said the classic music is an option you can do, I'm sure Capcom will make some nice nods to the original and respect it unlike some other remakes fail to do.

REmake is like the best remake in the business and I'm hoping REmake 2 is that caliber.

Last year I beat RE2 again doing Claire A and Leon B I believe, might do it again within the next few weeks before RE2R drops haha. So I can make really good observations back to back. Can easily knock out RE2 in a few hours thesedays so yeah, I'm tempted.

But okay yeah, this all coming from a single dude... a kid is definitely way cooler haha. Congrats man.

[noiseredux]

hahaha, thanks man. I'm definitely going to be anticipating your thoughts on it. And we'll see how it goes. I mean, I will get to it at some point. Just not sure how soon.

[pierrot]

During the part where you break into the warehouse, if you keep failing (wasting an entire day in the process) you eventually get help by the old bum, which includes a map and several updates to the map.

I think something very similar to this happened to me, as well. I don't recall exactly, though. I'm pretty sure it wasn't on the first try, but somewhere in between, where I had already gone through one or more failed attempts. I may have just cut it off because I didn't want to waste any more days. I'm not sure. Just another one of those imperfections I was willing to shrug off (like the fortune note that I should have gotten just before talking with the Aji Ichi owner for the first time).

For the time being I'm keeping it this way, I'm not sure if what I'm trying to accomplish here from the start, at least at a time frame which allows you to do the quest in the second game, is even possible.

Yeah, I tend to think it might not be, but only because of trying to also import a "perfect" file into the sequel, and still being able to complete everything in it, as well. I'm still curious to see what you come up with.

Good thing that Shenmue, just like the Yakuza series, is one of those games I'm never getting bored of, though I'm sure by the end of this, I'll be putting that to the test.

Have you gotten into slot house grinding yet? I don't remember if it's mentioned at all in the guide I linked to, or if I saw it somewhere else, but machine #7 is a bit more consistent than the average slot machine in the Slot House. It's the one that always has the guy in the black jacket on it. If you get to the Slot House before it opens, and go in right at 10:00, you can get to it before the other guy does. It's not that difficult to lay claim to, but if you move off of it at all, once you get to it, he'll immediately appear in front of it again. I haven't used it that much, because it's a 5 bet machine, and after getting 6-7 thousand coins, I think it's probably a lot better to move up to the 10 bet. The thing I don't know is if it gets three sevens of the same color more often, or not. I've seen a lot of Super Bars with it, anyway, which are almost as good as green sevens, unless you wanted to collect a bunch of the slot house prizes for shenmue passport capsule toys.

There is the lucky number at Lapis, but it's kind of not that great. All it really tells you is one machine that's guaranteed to get three sevens, at some point, and in my case, usually just the 1 bet machines, which is functionally useless for where I'm at with it. I guess the good thing is, you can save in the morning, then check it once, and reset, and it will always be the same number that day. Other machines still can pay out, with three sevens, though, and I've had them give me three green sevens multiple times in a day. What I'm really looking for is three red sevens on the 20 bet machines, though. I've only ever seen three red sevens once, on the 10 bet ones, I think, and maybe only x500.

Anyway, I fired the game back up again last night. I nearly dropped a brick when I saw red lettering on a raffle ticket, but it was another silver dural (about the 11th one I've pulled), alas.


In my other video game travails, recently, I've had very little ability to stick with one game, and have bounced around between several things, without a lot of consistency. One of those is the unfortunately named Shijou Saidai Soukoban, on the Mega Drive (Shove It! for the Genesis). It boasted that it was the largest Soukouban to date, but only a couple months earlier, Thinking Rabbit had released Perfect Soukoban, which had 306 rooms, compared to Shijou Saidai Soukoban's paltry 250 (and it seems that Shove it! only had 160 for some odd reason). I haven't figured this out for sure, but it seems like Shijou Saidai Soukoban pulls a lot of its puzzles from the original 1982 game, and the later western PC versions. Super Soukoban, for the SFC, however, seems to be based on Perfect Soukoban. At any rate, I've gotten up to Stage 5, of 25. Soukobon is kind of like Picross, and Ochan no Oekaki logic, where I will just completely lose track of time after I start playing it, because I just continue to plow away at the challenges, without much concern for anything outside of the puzzles in front of me. It's a weird addiction that I don't fully understand. So, in some respects, I don't really like that there are so many rooms in this game, because I don't necessarily want to just lose 10 hours, without fully understanding how it happened.

I've also been playing a bit of The Revenge of Shinobi. It's an extremely tough game. I've only really made it to the second half of the boss of stage 6, which is a lot better than where I had always sort of given up before (the first screen of stage 2). I've kind of stopped playing once I have to continue, now, because it apparently resets Musashi's life bar, and that is no bueno. I feel a little iffy on whether or not I'll ever actually beat this game, but a couple of years ago, I wouldn't have really thought I'd get to the end of stage 6. I know there's an unlimited "shuriken" cheat, but I've just been playing with the default 50, because I hate myself, or something, I guess. I just can't bring myself to set it any higher, and a lot of the time I'm still swimming in kunai, anyway.