Games Beaten 2015

[MrPopo]

1. Painkiller - PC
2. Front Mission 4 - PS2
3. Wasteland 2 - PC
4. Arcanum - PC
5. X-COM Terror from the Deep - PC
6. Military Madness - TurboGrafx-16
7. Unreal - PC
8. Shadowrun - SNES
9. Warcraft III - PC
10. Dungeon Keeper - PC
11. Final Fantasy X-2 HD - PS3
12. Descent - PC
13. Quake Mission Pack 2 - Dissolution of Eternity - PC
14. Quake 2 Mission Pack 2 - Ground Zero - PC
15. Sokobond - PC
16. Hybrid Heaven - N64
17. Sonic the Hedgehog - Genesis
18. Castlevania - NES
19. Super Castlevania IV - SNES
20. Castlevania III - NES
21. Castlevania II - NES
22. Castlevania Rondo of Blood - Turbo CD
23. Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders - PC
24. Fractal - PC
25. Kirby's Adventure - NES
26. Pillars of Eternity - PC
27. Bioshock 2: Minerva's Den - PC
28. Command & Conquer Generals: Zero Hour - PC
29. Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves - NES
30. Punch-Out!! - NES
31. Doom 3 - PC
32. The Even More Incredible Machine - PC
33. Contra - NES
34. Dark Forces - PC
35. Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II - PC
36. X-Wing - PC

Made several attempts at the trench run last night, but after the third time where the game just decided to randomly kill me (probably some bad collision detection with a pillar) I set it down and went to bed. Then this morning I had an apostrophe; who says I actually need to fly down the trench? So I targeted the nav buoy marking the intended entrance, flew at a safe height to nearly where the exhaust port should be, then reinforced the shields and dove. I entered the trench and the port is right there; a quick shot and a victory cutscene is my reward.

X-Wing is a lot of fun if you're into combat space sims. There's a good mixture of assault and defense missions, and frequently one turns into the other midway through. The game also doesn't try and railroad you on The One True Path to mission success. If they give you a mission objective all that matters is that the objective is met, not how. Skipping the trench was one good example, another is the mission two before. That one requires you to fight your way through a large starfighter screen to take out a com satellite. One attempt I accidentally hit the hyperspace button and the outbound vector is right towards the com sat, and the jump gets aborted midway through because a Nebulon B frigate is in the way. It let me skip the entire fighter screen, take out the sat with a torpedo and boogie out to hyperspace. Sure, my mission score was shit, but all objectives were met.

It does have some flaws though. If you've played TIE Fighter or XvT you'll notice that several UI elements are more primitive. Instead of a 3D model showing facing of your target you get just a small blueprint. There is no subsystem targeting, which makes the mission where you need to destroy a Star Destroyer's shield generators quite a bit harder, as you need to get close enough to line up the shot manually. Instead of being able to see a ship's shield, hull, and system levels you instead get a single status string which is either OK, SLD DN, HULL DMG, or DISABLED, which just keeps you from knowing vital information about your target's status (friendly or enemy). Finally, the missile lock indicator is a little light on your dash, not a box on your reticle, and there is no being fired at indicator. It's all the little things that were clearly improved in the sequel. I do have to give them credit for maintaining those flaws in the port to the XvT engine (which is what I played), as it keeps things authentic.

The bigger thing that irked me, though, was the way respawns were handled. During a mission there might be a couple of groups of TIE Fighters, Alpha 1-3 and Beta 1-3. Many times if you destroy all fighters in a group then a new set of fighters will respawn. However, in all but a couple cases these respawns only happen when you kill every fighter. If you only kill Alpha 1 and 2 and leave 3 alone then Alpha squadron won't respawn. Several times I ended up exploiting this to block respawns of a dangerous enemy; it was much easier to just keep a single guy off my tail than three. But I didn't like having to do so because it felt like the game was penalizing me for dogfighting well. Many times you'll have a situation where there's some fighters screening a squad of bombers. You knock out the fighters to get to the bombers, then midway through killing the bombers the fighters respawn and start nipping at your heels. And some missions have unlimited spawns (or simply a huge number) which makes fighting them feel rather pointless.

But all in all I enjoyed myself. Now I have two mission packs available, each of which is 20 missions (with a few missions that have a choice between two engagements). The base game had 38 missions, so the two combined equal another full game.

[Ack]

...do you mean you had an epiphany?

[MrPopo]

...do you mean you had an epiphany?

Lightning struck my brain.

[Fragems]

...do you mean you had an epiphany?

Lightning struck my brain.

[CFFJR]

1.Alien Isolation - Xbox One
2.Super Mario Bros. 3 - NES
3.Popful Mail - Sega CD
4.Final Fantasy - PSP
5.Super Mario 3D World - Wii U
6.Actraiser - Snes
7.Final Fantasy IV - PSP
8.Batman: Arkham Origins - Xbox 360
9.Contrast - Xbox 360
10.Deus Ex - PC
11.Ghouls 'N Ghosts - Genesis
12.Earthworm Jim - Genesis

Summer Game Challenge #2. Posted here.

[Flake]

1/3: Super Mario Bros 2: Lost Levels (Luigi Run) (3DS VC/NES)
1/4: Super Mario Bros. (Wii / All-Stars)
1/15: Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii)
1/20: Super Mario Kart 8 (WiiU)
1/28: Super Mario 3D World (WiiU)
2/15: Luigi's Mansion 2: Dark Moon (3DS)
2/15: Super Mario Land (3DS VC/GB)
2/16: Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins (3DS VC/GB)
3/3: Super Mario Land 3: Wario Land (3DS VC/GB)
3/13: Dragon Ball Xenoverse (PS4)
3/23: Metroid Prime (Wii)
4/18: Metroid Prime 2: Echoes (Wii)
5/3: Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (Wii)
5/10: Donkey Kong Country (WiiU VC/SNES)

Metroid Prime 3: I've beaten Prime 3 quite a few times but this was the first time I played all three Prime games in quick succession and I have to say, the narrative is best when enjoyed in the context of all three games. I've said a lot of the things that I like about Prime 3 in an earlier post in this thread but I'll leave the game with this: I wish that Nintendo had the guts to deal with Samus and the universe that the Metroid games happen in the way Retro did. Retro put Samus through hell and at the end of it she comes out a real hero. Whenever Nintendo bothers to make a Metroid game, they are too busy finding ways to re-invent Super Metroid to realize what an amazing franchise they inherited when Gunpei Yokoi left the company (and this Earth).

Donkey Kong Country: I finally beat this game solo. The two times I've clocked it before have been in the company of friends who are better games than I am. Here's the thing I don't get - why does everyone bag on the K Rool fight? There are some hallmarks of a great boss fight - and the twist when you 'beat' him is still great. he's certainly not any easier than other contemporaries like Megaman X' Sigma or Super Metroid's Mother Brain.

[Sarge]

Steamworld Dig for 3DS. Got it on sale and it was a pretty great game (which I also own for PC), but...

WHY IS IT SO FUCKING SHORT?

It wasn't even worth the better part of five dollars I spent on it, much less the $10 it usually goes for.

How fast did you finish? I think it took me around five hours or so. I thought that was more than fair.

Speaking of short, I beat Rockman 2: The Power Fighters.

[BoneSnapDeez]

why does everyone bag on the K Rool fight?

People have a problem with that battle? I love it! And the music totally slays.

[prfsnl_gmr]

Steamworld Dig for 3DS. Got it on sale and it was a pretty great game (which I also own for PC), but...

WHY IS IT SO FUCKING SHORT?

It wasn't even worth the better part of five dollars I spent on it, much less the $10 it usually goes for.

How fast did you finish? I think it took me around five hours or so. I thought that was more than fair.

Seriously. It took me a little over seven hours to "complete" the game (i.e., mine every rock and obtain every upgrade). Moreover, the mines are randomly generated, and I am certain that I could try to obtain a better "rank" on a subsequent playthrough.

I thought that the game provided plenty of value...and I paid nearly $8 for it!

[CFFJR]

1.Alien Isolation - Xbox One
2.Super Mario Bros. 3 - NES
3.Popful Mail - Sega CD
4.Final Fantasy - PSP
5.Super Mario 3D World - Wii U
6.Actraiser - Snes
7.Final Fantasy IV - PSP
8.Batman: Arkham Origins - Xbox 360
9.Contrast - Xbox 360
10.Deus Ex - PC
11.Ghouls 'N Ghosts - Genesis
12.Earthworm Jim - Genesis
13.Dragonball Xenoverse - Xbox One

I wanted to love this game and I kinda didn't. Not that I disliked it really, but it left me feeling lukewarm.

I enjoyed the presentation and the story. The combat is fun, even if the best strategy to win kind of comes down to picking a simple combo, applying your stats accordingly, and spamming the hell out of it. Its pretty, if oddly shiny. I always love character creation and customization (yes, I like to play dress up with my dollies), and this fit the bill for that in spades.

But so many aspects of the game are just...tedious. The level grinding, the time sink of some of the side quests, and the random number generator that rules it all. It bothers me that, in attempting to Z-rank some of the side quests, you can complete all of the conditions to achieve some secret goal (for example, a character showing up to fight that wouldn't normally) and still not get it, as that too can be randomized. It also bothers me that over the course of the story, I was only able to complete master training with one character (75% with another). Not for lack of effort, it just took that freaking long.

I think the game would have been more fun if it were simplified, strictly a fighter without the "rpg" aspects. I say that as someone who loves rpgs.

There's a lot more content in this game that I could tackle. But I'm just not enthusiastic about doing it and I'm not sure I'll bother. I'll try to revisit it and see how I feel about it later. Maybe now that I've completed the story and I no longer have the need to drive through it, I can better experience the other stuff without feeling constrained by it.

Not a bad game, but also not what I thought it would be.