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Exhuminator wrote:@Sarge - I can't help but laugh that despite recently acquiring a PS4, it's NES games that you're burning through. I don't know if that says more about the PS4 or the NES.

It says I have too many open-world games, after putting 80 hours in on one of them.

Same here! I have about... 9-10 open-world games... unplayed on PS4. Maybe more, certainly more on PS3.

Meanwhile I can beat Bionic Commando in an afternoon (Rad Spencer needs love too)

1. Oni - PC
2. Donkey Kong 64 - N64
3. Yoshi's Story - N64
4. Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide - PC
5. Forsaken 64 - N64
6. Bloodrayne: Betrayal - PSN
7. Fire Emblem Seisen no Keifu - SNES
8. Fire Emblem Shin Monshō no Nazo: Hikari to Kage no Eiyū - Nintendo DS
9. Valkyria Chronicles 3 - PSP
10. Ready 2 Rumble Boxing - DC
11. Rise of the Tomb Raider - PC

I've been looking forward to this one. I first picked up Tomb Raider 2013 a couple years ago when it was on deep sale and found the gameplay to be excellent. I actually ended up buying the Legends trilogy as well for more of that explory platforming goodness to tide me over until this came out. But now it's here and I just finished my 100%.

Mechanics-wise the game for the most part just builds on what Tomb Raider did. The main changes are that instead of just collecting scrap you need to collect a variety of resources to do your crafting and that you have the option of picking up small items in the world and either throwing them as distractions or crafting them into bombs; importantly they are use it or lose it. I ended up not using the latter feature much because when I was in combat I preferred to just bow snipe everything down. The addition of different resources also means that hunting animals now is more than just a scene to show Lara becoming a survivor; they drop hides and lard and antlers that you need to make your gear.

One thing I noticed compared to its predecessor is they've really toned down on the number of QTEs and death slides. While several times the ground might collapse under Lara it just turns out to be a quick slide down the path with maybe a jump at the end. The segments in Tomb Raider where you'd slide for a long way and need to dodge stuff and do QTEs or die seem to be gone. There are still several Indy escape sequences where you need to move through an area quickly while nailing a bunch of jumps or climbs, but I always found those to be fun; maybe it's because you expect everything rather than having to guess that a button prompt is coming up. Additionally, from a narrative perspective it's clear that Lara has moved beyond just being moved around by shit as in the first game and being an active agent. She doesn't really seem to be phased as much by craziness happening to her and for the most part it feels closer to the style of the Legends trilogy in terms of how the exploration feels.

This is definitely a solid adventure and if you liked the first you should definitely pick this one up. The overall game is a bridge between the survivor of Tomb Raider and the "Lara goes to get an artifact before the bad guys use it for evil" of the older games, and the ending sets up either the next game or at least a story between this one and the next game.

I want to play that Tomb Raider game so badly. But my computer won't handle it, and I'm not buying an XB1 for it.

Sounds like it's time for someone to mosey into the PC Hardware thread and get some upgrades going.

It'd have to be the whole rig, because my current gaming platform is a five year old laptop. (Not a bad one, but modern releases just won't make the cut, most indies are fine, though.) I have been thinking about getting a mid-range gaming desktop, the laptop is still fine for any work-related stuff I need to do.

(For the record, it's an Alienware M11x R2. Before anyone says "Alienware is overpriced", I generally agree, but this was a nice deal at the time for the size/battery/power.)

PartridgeSenpai wrote:After playing Project X Zone I really wanted to get into it, but like EVERY game in that series that even came out in the states is hella expensive. On top of that, any import I looked at I couldn't even tell what the game was, let alone if it'd be a genre I could manage to stumble through with a fairly limited knowledge of Japanese. What kind of game is it? Some sort of Robo-fighter? A strategy game?

I don't blame you, it's not easy jumping straight into a series that's been running for 25 years while releasing around 1-2 games every year. To sum it all up the series is about robots (from either anime series or originals created by the developers themselves) battling it out with animations crisp as toast. The games plays like SRPGs, so you do the commands and watch them do the attacks (which is half the fun since these attack animations are insane in many cases... did I mention the animations?)

As a starter most people in the SRW-community recommend starting with the game "Super Robot Taisen: Original Generation" (SRW OG) for the GBA since it's in english. If you know around N2-level Japanese alongside some military lingo, then I would probably recommend going for the PS2 remake of the same game (called "Super Robot Taisen: Original Generations) which is a remake of the first two OG games from the GBA.

1. Dog Island - Wii
Our first beaten game of the year is one that my girls have been working on for a little while now. They decided recently to finish it up and knocked it out when they were home from school, one with strep and one had it off. They really liked it and proceeded to start up a new game with a different dog. The sniffing quests got old but they also got easier as time went on. We've started on Zack & Wiki so hopefully that'll happen sometime soon.

1. SSX 3 (oXbox)
2. Mario Kart DS (NDS)
3. Fairune (Android)

4. Streets of Rage (Gen)

Played through this in co-op mode with an old friend that visited over the weekend. We played a number of co-op Genesis games and I have to say that this one took the prize for the most enjoyable of the bunch (and not just because it was the only one we beat).

Especially when I consider the age of this game, this game really holds its own. The controls are very solid, there is very little slowdown that I can recall, the enemies are fun to beat on and they are rarely cheap. I hadn't played this one much before and I really found a rhythm to it right away. The last level did take a toll on me as the last few enemies before the final boss did get a little tough, but as a team we managed to roll the credits.

Lots of fun, a few laughs(some unintentional beating on eachother) and some tension in the last level. Next time he comes up for a visit I hope to have SOR 2 so we can rekindle the magic.

Sarge wrote:I want to play that Tomb Raider game so badly. But my computer won't handle it, and I'm not buying an XB1 for it.

The 360 version holds up pretty well from what I hear. You can find those for about the cost of the game these days.