MrPopo wrote:The first death was midway through the ninja stage, since that stage has some of the hardest enemies to not take damage on (damn you tigers).
There's a way to nail the tigers, but I don't know if I can explain it properly. After they land from their initial jumping entrance you have to be walking towards them as they rush you and strike right as they take off into a leap. This will knock them backwards through the air. Keep pushing forward and strike again right as they jump. If you keep repeating this -- and it falls into a regular rhythm, you'll get to the point where you just "know" when you're supposed to hit the button -- you'll slowly progress all the way to one side of the screen. The tiger will disappear for a few beats, then do its jumping entrance again. Avoid that, let it run across, then get ready to repeat the walk-strike pattern as it comes at you from the other direction. When I figured this out and could get through the tigers with no damage I felt like I owned the world.
And yes, KRANG. It's always freaking Krang.
God I love that game.
BogusMeatFactory wrote:If I could powder my copies of shenmue and snort them I would
Sonic Chaos was my weekend beat for last weekend as I was away, and needed something very quick and easy.
Sonic Chaos the third 8 bit Sonic title after Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic 2 and as far as I know is the last Sonic platformer release on the Master System (although there were plenty more on the Game Gear)
The game is quite different to the earlier 8 bit sonic titles - it uses new sprites, which are much larger than the old ones, but also much uglier. They're still a step above the awful prerendering in the Sonic Blast titles for Game Gear though. The game tries to impress technically with some kinda neat tricks for an 8 bit system, including previously missing loop-de-loops and a few areas where you run on a slanted wall so you lean towards the camera. I'd love to say these were impressive, but honestly it was kinda forgettable.
As were the level designs. The stages are short and sparse. To enter a bonus stage, you must collect 100 rings, and this is the only Sonic games I know where doing so is quite challenging - you can run through the level collecting every ring you see on the way to the exit, take 0 hits and still be 60 rings short. This means the game encourages exploration. I preferred the more linear paths of Sonic 1 and 2 8-bit.
The game is quite fast, but you'll play it quite slow due to the Game Gear camera. It encourages you to speed up with a goal post that measures your speed (in ridiculous numbers like 638kph) but really, the exploration based gameplay and the need to not lose any rings makes this a very slow paced Sonic game. It is however, still very short and can be beaten in about 30 minutes or so if you're not bothered by bonus stages, or an hour or so if you are.
You can play as Sonic or Tails. I'm sure there are differences, but I just played as Sonic.
Sonic Chaos is a thoroughly 'OK' kind of game. It's short, easy, forgettable and not especially inspired, but it's enjoyable enough. Definitely don't rush out to buy it, but if you find it for a quid or two it's probably worth a quick play.
Sonic the Hedgehog
I normally don't list a game on here if I've beaten it before, but I'm making an exception here because I finally got all the Chaos Emeralds and completed this one fully (a task that was long overdue).
Unlike Sonic Chaos, Sonic the Hedgehog for Master System is a thoroughly excellent game. It's one of the best games on the system for sure, and in my opinion, it's also one of the best Sonic titles out there. I only like Sonic 2 for Mega Drive more.
The game plays a little differently to the Mega Drive games - it's still fast and a lot of mechanics are the same, but the level designs feel more platforming centric. It also mixes things up in a few stages much more too, such as the auto-scrolling in bridge zone and the vertical stage in Jungle Zone. In addition, chaos emeralds are hidden in the stages themselves, and some of them are quite tricky to find - the Scrap Brain one in particular seemed really unfair as it was own a pit that gave every indication it would kill you. Some require some careful thought too, like the Labyrinth zone emerald that is inside some spikes, requiring invicibility to grab it
The game is very pretty for a Master System title, with bright colours, clean graphics, fast scrolling and fluid animation. The game's soundtrack is equally impressive with bouncy melodies and fast tempo. Of course, it should be amazing as it was composed by Yuzo Koshiro and the man knows what he's doing.
The game is very easy overall, but very fun. Some people struggle with the bosses as you get no rings to fight them, but their patterns are all very easy really, although the final boss can be tricky at first. Finishing the game with all emeralds changes the ending in a very minor way.
Despite being an earlier title than Sonic Chaos, having only one character and being less technically ambitious (although still notably impressive for the system), Sonic 1 for SMS is a much, much better game. I recommend this one wholeheartedly. If you're in the US though, just import the PAL version for a quid or two. There's no need to pay a couple hundred dollars for a bar code!
A Story About My Uncle This is a decent game if your looking for a first person platformer. Basically you character is given a gravity tether device which slowly gains new abilities as you progress through the game. Using the tether you are tasked with navigating an alternate dimension which is home to gecko people and a shit load of floating platforms . The story kind of blows, but the voice acting and characters are decent. Graphically it is a very pretty game as well with a nice variety of environments however things start to feel similar due to 80% of the environments being caves. Overall I would recommend it though at least for the whole $0.25-0.50 it cost me in the steam bundle I purchased. The game is also 4-6 hours long which is great because it ends before it's starts to drag and it's a great game to play in spurts thanks to it's check point system which is very generous in most places.
Valiant Hearts As others have mentioned this is a great indie game the art style is great and they do a great job of setting up the World War 1 atmosphere. The writing is also really well done with 4 great playable characters all of which have a solid back story even though there is little to no dialogue. They also have sunk a ton of collectibles into the game all of which have nice little history factoids attached to them that are very detailed. Really glad that Microsoft offered this through their Games With Gold program otherwise I probably wouldn't have played it for quite a while.
Now I'm moving on to some Wolf Among US at least until my copy of Halo 5 shows up wish UPS hadn't drug their feet so much with my preorder .
Got the Platinum! Only musou game from Omega Force I've ever done that for. This is their best musou game period. I'm excited for the already announced sequel, and I'm not even a Dragon Quest fan.
This is the game I'd recommend to anyone who says musou/warriors games suck
RyaNtheSlayA wrote: Seriously. Screw you Shao Kahn I'm gonna play Animal Crossing.
The Good: 1. Game play is still solid. 2. Changes to the game play are minimal. Pretty much the main differences are you now have a booster pack which can let you hover while aiming, ground pound, boost dodge, and do boost melees when running. You also constantly have 3 AI or Player characters that stick with you in the campaign and the up direction button gives basic orders like move here or shoot that guy. 3. It looks pretty. 4. You get to see the Elite home world for a few interesting levels and the situation with the covenant from the last game is explained a bit.
The Bad: 1. The game is way to easy. You now have 4 sets of guns in every fight, you can be revived if downed unless you get ran over or hit with a really heavy weapon, enemies are more about numbers then intelligence, and the bosses blow since it's the same guy over and over just with clones to up the difficulty . 2. The AI is horrible. Your only two command are move here and shoot that guy. The bots are just as bad as the enemies and tend to just run around in the open. They are also pretty bad at prioritizing targets and seem to go off and do their own thing as opposed to sticking close to you. 3. They really put all their cards on Locke for every mission you have with the chief 2-3 Locke missions. Literally half of the game Chief and Blue Team is literally walking in circles(pretty much waiting for Lockes story to catch up ) in a facility according to the narrative. 4. There isn't a set piece at the end of the game like you would have expected. Really there isn't any memorable game play sequences in the entire game as far as I can remember it's just average quality halo foot and vehicle sections.
Unless walking/crawling from point A to B counts .
5. This game has the weakest antagonist in the entire series. Mainly because you don't interact with them much. 6. Story is very complex with a ton of characters many of which aren't introduced or explained if you haven't played previous games or read the books. Blue teams entire introduction is they are childhood friends of Chief's their stories don't expand past that. 7. Introduction doesn't really ease you into the game it's straight into the action with only a minor tutorial for the new boost abilities and the one button team commands.
The Broken: 1. Be sure to hard boot your system after install otherwise the checkpoint save system won't work properly. Check points still work it just means you can stop in the middle of a mission unless you want to replay the whole level when you come back.
MP
Haven't played enough to really review it, but so far I'm really liking warzone which is a mix of base control, slayer, and mini side quest with AI enemies. I however am a little worried about the REQ packs which are basically random card packs which give you one time use items(weapons, vehicles, and etc.) as well as cosmetic items and XP boosts. Really I like how the cards work in game with the resource tier system within each match, plus I like the excitement of opening a booster pack or two after each round, but I don't like the fact that they are completely random and can be purchased with cash($2-3 a pop). The cards can really alter the course of a match and the fact that they are stripped out of the arena mode which is what they are basically wanting MLG to stick with shows that there are balancing issues thanks to that.
Edit: Turns out my numbers were wrong about the Chief levels he is only playable in 3/15 missions so 80% of the game is Locke's team.
No conquest to speak of yet, just a gripe on what I'm working on.
In my Animal Crossing: Wild World game it's been a looooooooong time since Tom Nook's store upgraded, so I was beginning to wonder what the deal was. Apparently the final expansion is dependent on finding a friend with an AC:WW cartridge and locally connecting. Connecting over wi-fi might have worked too -- I'm unsure because this game was a serendipitous cart-only acquisition so I don't have a manual -- but that's a moot point anyway, given that the DS servers are gone. There are no alternatives for this. Boooo!
I get that this game was released in 2005 and it's now a decade later, but I don't think it's unreasonable to wish that games like these would refrain from making connectivity a requirement for stuff. It really cripples the experience. I wonder if there are other aspects I'll miss out on? Are there certain bugs or fish that will never show up in my town unless a friend drops by? Will I never be able to complete my museum exhibits for Blathers?!
At least my house is flippin' sweet, I'll tell you what.
BogusMeatFactory wrote:If I could powder my copies of shenmue and snort them I would
Key, I believe the technical term for the solution to your issue is called, "Sequels".
Going forward I don't think it'll be as much of an issue since we have standardized online networks and games being cut off are now due to individual publishers, rather than backbone services. Pretty much everyone is running their own stuff now.
Also, the manual gives no specifics about any of the upgrade systems, just that they're possible.
To be fair, I think Nintendo was very cognizant that they didn't control those online services and didn't make anything reliant upon them that didn't need to be. (Unlike some other online services)
Local play is still possible. Just gotta do the logistics.
Cronozilla wrote:Going forward I don't think it'll be as much of an issue since we have standardized online networks and games being cut off are now due to individual publishers, rather than backbone services. Pretty much everyone is running their own stuff now.
Well, unless your online network is called Games for Windows Live.
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