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pierrot
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Re: Games Beaten 2017

by pierrot Sun Apr 09, 2017 12:19 pm

noiseredux wrote:well, I finally beat Portal 2 picking up the save that I started... four years ago. It turns out I had played all the stuff that felt like Portal with funnier writing. I hadn't actually gotten to all the twists and turns that made the second game insanely unique and incredible. So yeah, I loved this.

Are you trying to say that you were only just introduced to your new lord and savior, Cave Johnson?
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noiseredux
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Re: Games Beaten 2017

by noiseredux Sun Apr 09, 2017 2:39 pm

Yeah I had only done the more traditional chambers prior.
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Xeogred
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Re: Games Beaten 2017

by Xeogred Sun Apr 09, 2017 3:25 pm

1. Duke Nukem 3D: 20th Anniversary World Tour (PC)
2. Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter* (PC)
3. Serious Sam HD: The Second Encounter (PC)
4. D4: Dark Dreams Don't Die (PC)
5. Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight (PC)
6. Deadcore (PC)
7. Yakuza 4 (PS3)
8. Hyper Light Drifter (PC)
9. Doom 2: Valiant (PC)
10. Resident Evil 7 (PS4)
10. Doom 2: Ancient Aliens (PC)
11. Doom 2: Vanguard (PC)
12. Doom 2: Doom 2 The Way id Did (PC)
13. Doom 2: Community Chest Pack 4 (PC)
14. Doom: Doom The Way id Did (PC)
15. Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 1 (PC)
16. Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 2 (PC)
17. Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (WiiU)

* replay

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25 Hearts
2 and 3/5th Stamina
106 Shrines
254 Korok Seeds
79:14

Posted a little here after I beat it: viewtopic.php?p=1091625#p1091625

No need to really go too into the mechanics or gameplay aspects as I'm sure others already covered that by now and you kind of know what you're getting into with this one. So this is mostly just my personal experience with this journey.

First and foremost I am not shy at all about my severe open world fatigue. I am very bored of this genre by this point, as someone who was there when GTA3 dropped laying the foundations for many games to follow, as the small incremental improvements came, the worlds continued to get overly bloated and huge with no end in sight for the onslaught of menus and systems layered on systems. This genre has become a complete chore, an artificial like experience that feels like when you look beyond what you're actually seeing, you are simply playing a spreadsheet simulator filling in all the checkpoints to push some kind of narrative forward. Waypoints clutter your screen and the games tell you to go to these dozens of points and you feel obligated to do so. Your freedom is false. The general level design of these kind of games has felt increasingly boring and lazy to top it all off.

Now to something else, Ocarina of Time is one of my favorite games of all time (with Link to the Past and Super Metroid being the tag team #1). With the exception of not liking Wind Waker as much as most, I still think it's quite good compared to other games, and overall I have absolutely loved this formula of Zelda. So with my waning interest and lack of patience for open world games, along with my love for the Zelda OoT blueprint, I was extremely skeptical about Breath of the Wild. Just as I was with Metroid Prime going first person. And just like my surprise with Prime, Nintendo completely proved me wrong again and crafted one of the best games I've ever played in my life.

Breath of the Wild feels like it obviously pulls from many games over the last decade for its influences, but in the very end Breath of the Wild exudes nothing but absolute confidence and tried not to be anything else but its own master. Nintendo didn't try to make Skyrim or The Witcher here. They made Zelda and they knew it.

I've been saying this a bit too much lately, but it applies all too well with Breath of the Wild's philosophy: Less is more. Gone are tech trees, systems upon systems, menus longer than the Bible, icons that clutter your map, NPC's that force you into specific directions, and so forth. While you can load up on pages of ingredients for food eventually, nothing about this game in any capacity ever felt exhausting to me. In addition to that 70 hours is usually my threshold for longer games nowadays, but this easily could have kept going and I wouldn't have minded at all. A rare breed.

The game has these hidden little nudges that tug you along the way at times and from there you create Hyrule. Does that cave, tower, or broken down building look interesting? You mark it on the map. This is the most fun and creative I have ever felt managing a map since I played Ultima Underworld. You are the cartographer here and by the end of the game, it's utterly sublime to look at all the korok seeds collected, shrines defeated, and other icons discovered by your own hand. This Hyrule was my Hyrule.

Design wise and atmospherically, I actually felt that there was a lot more similarities going on between my time with Breath of the Wild and Demon's/Dark Souls, which are without a doubt some of my favorite games of all time... somehow a series born out of the last gen ranked its way through my nostalgia up to the pantheon alongside Zelda and Metroid. It's all about the subtlety. Right after you get out of the Great Plateau area in Breath of the Wild, arguably the prologue, I felt a drowning sense of wonder. The bruised up world of Hyrule with its broken and burned down villages spread throughout, every step I took felt like a heavy step through dense history. It's hard to put such feelings in words, but this world felt massive beyond a physical sense and rich in lore, the world was very very alive, and your imagination was the limit. No words needed to convey this magic.

Now, to put my mind back down on Earth, the game isn't completely perfect. The voice acting was not its most pleasant moment. Zelda of all people annoyed me and did pull me out of a few scenes. I wish it was dual audio, so I could continue to believe that Zelda was in an alien tongue. I also never would have guessed Goron's sound like that. It was fine but I certainly would have done things differently here. The story itself is thin and far from the best in the series. This is especially contrasting coming out of Skyward Sword, which to me had the most likeable interpretation of Zelda ever and a very fun and enduring story. But while Breath of the Wild fails a bit on its direct narrative, it makes up with atmosphere noted above. All the Zelda games generally give me those feelings but Breath of the Wild really took it to another level. I literally had a few 10 some hour long sessions on some weekends and was sometimes just simply exploring the world and wandering around. It's proof that my NES/SNES/Genesis DNA still runs strong and I value gameplay above everything else, as this game simply lets you run completely free to your own devices and in an essence much like the Souls games, this is basically one giant dungeon crawl. The pacing was perfect for me.

Aonuma has said this is the new blueprint and I am more than okay about that. They can work out the minuscule little kinks here and there. It will be extremely hard to top this masterpiece, but I can't wait to see what they cook up next. Yes, I cannot wait for another open world Zelda. For once I can honestly say, I would not mind if they take Link to a new land with new lore and continue this path into new territory. I still missed the big labyrinth dungeons and would like to see those return in some form, along with more runes for expanding the puzzles even further, but the shrines and Divine Beast dungeons in this were amazing. The new composers did an incredible job taking up the torch. I can't get some of the music out of my head lately and I love that. And I can't praise the art direction enough.

SSS Rank Masterclass 10/10.

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Re: Games Beaten 2017

by REPO Man Mon Apr 10, 2017 12:29 am

D&D: Shadow of Mystaria, via Chronicles of Mystaria for Xbox 360, as the Magic-User.

It's the second of two excellent hack-n-slash beltscroller beat-em-ups from Capcom based on the legendary pen-and-paper RPG. Released in 1996, it'd be Capcom's penultimate arcade beat-em-up, with 1997's Battle Circuit being the last.

Both it and Tower of Doom (the first) add RPG elements, such as an inventory system (albeit a rudimentary one) and leveling up. Aside from the Japan-only D&D Collection for the Sega Saturn (which only supported 2 players), we wouldn't see a home release in the States until 4 years ago with the Chronicles of Mystaria collection on the 360, PS3, WiiU and PC, via Steam.
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Sarge
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Re: Games Beaten 2017

by Sarge Mon Apr 10, 2017 12:24 pm

January:
1) The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition (PC) (8.5) (1/1) (~5.5 hours)
2) ActRaiser (SNES) (8.0) (1/2) (~4 hours)
3) Bonk's Revenge (GB) (6.0) (1/3) (~1 hour)
4) Tiny Toon Adventures: Babs' Big Break (GB) (6.5) (1/3) (~1 hour)
5) Blackwell Legacy (PC) (7.0) (1/5) (2.6 hours)
6) Blackwell Unbound (PC) (7.5) (1/7) (2.2 hours)
7) Blackwell Convergence (PC) (8.0) (1/7) (2.4 hours)
8) Blackwell Deception (PC) (8.0) (1/8) (4.7 hours)
9) Blackwell Epiphany (PC) (9.0) (1/9) (6.5 hours)
10) Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (PS4) (8.0) (1/22) (~55 hours)
11) Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 (360) (8.0) (1/28) (~.5 hours)
12) Deep Duck Trouble Starring Donald Duck (SMS) (6.5) (1/31) (~1 hour)


February:
13) Quackshot Starring Donald Duck (GEN) (7.5) (2/7) (~2 hours)
14) Fire Emblem Heroes (Android) (8.0) (2/9) (~10 hours)
15) Super C (NES) (9.5) (2/20) (~0.5 hours)
16) Contra (NES) (10.0) (2/20) (~0.5 hours)
17) Mickey's Dangerous Chase (GB) (6.5) (2/24) (~1 hour)
18) My Nintendo Picross: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (3DS) (8.5) (2/25) (~19 hours)
19) Mega Man 2 (NES) (10.0) (2/28) (~0.8 hours)

March:
20) Final Fantasy XV (PS4) (8.0) (3/2) (~33 hours)
21) Blaster Master Zero (NS) (9.0) (3/10) (~6.5 hours)
22) Espgaluda II Black Label (360) (8.0?) (3/17) (0.5 hours)
23) The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (NS) (9.5) (3/28) (~70+ hours)

April:
24) Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment (PC) (8.5) (4/7) (~5.5 hours)
25) Hyper Light Drifter (PS4) (8.0) (4/9) (~8 hours)

So, time to talk a little bit about these two games.

First, Specter of Torment is another expansion of Shovel Knight, my game of the year for 2014. I still don't think either expansion has bested it, but darn if they're not fun. Unlike Plague of Shadows, though, the stages are different this time around, with challenges tailored specifically for Specter Knight's abilities.

Really, his moveset is pretty limited overall, but the application of them is what's fun. When you jump against a wall, you'll do a bit of a run up the wall, then flip off of it. You can also jump straight off, Ninja Gaiden-style. And if you're near the top of a platform, you'll go ahead and flip to the top. It actually reminds me a little bit of the implementation of straight-up wall-runs in Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. It can also be a little finicky. You'll tend to cling to walls and whatnot at times when you don't want to, and sometimes you might also instinctively press the jump button when you don't need to due to your instincts from other games. Still, lots of practice, and you'll have it down.

The other major move is the dash-slash. When you're in mid-air, if you're close to an enemy, you'll do a sort of homing attack. The difference between this and something like Sonic is that the angle of your slash is determined by whether you're above or below the enemy, and it only occurs at around a 20-degree incline up or down. Much of the platforming is built around this, particularly snagging the collectibles. You can short-circuit some of this via the Hover ability, but I didn't get that until really late. You'll shred most bosses using that slash, by the way. You can play very aggressively with Specter.

Relics are a little different this time. Once you finish a stage, you spend Red Skulls in the hub to get them, and have to complete a challenge stage sans scythe to actually get them. It's in keeping with the rest of the structure as well, a more abbreviated setup more like a traditional Mega Man game, instead of a Mario 3-style overworld. Along with the skulls, there are Wisp chests in each stage that expand your "Darkness" and "Will", stand-ins for magic and life respectively.

There are optional challenges as well in the hub. I spent a lot of time on Horace's tower mini-game, which is a semi-random tower climb that's just all sorts of tough. It will definitely require you to be familiar with Specter's moveset, but you can also safely skip it, as the only thing you get is an unlocked feat and 1,700 in coin. Not worth it, Horace. Not. Worth. It.

Graphically, it's what you'd expect. Stages use the same tilesets, so that saved some work, although there are some new character graphics and whatnot scattered throughout. The story itself is really interesting in that it exposes some of the history of a lot of the characters. And the soundtrack is full of remixed tunes from the original. Some are better here, some aren't, but new material is always appreciated. I particularly recommend Treasure Knight's theme, a tune I didn't particularly care for in the original.

If you have Shovel Knight, this is a no-brainer. Play it. Even if you don't, the entire Shovel Knight is indeed as its new title states, a treasure trove of riches.

I think I'm going to have to cover Hyper Light Drifter a little later, got work to do!
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BoneSnapDeez
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Re: Games Beaten 2017

by BoneSnapDeez Mon Apr 10, 2017 2:45 pm

1. Chrono Trigger (SNES)
2. Gyromite (NES)
3. Lucy -The Eternity She Wished For- (Steam)
4. Ys III: Wanderers from Ys (Famicom)
5. Radical Dreamers (SNES)
6. Video Games 1 (TI-99/4A)
7. Portopia Renzoku Satsujin Jiken (Famicom)
8. Exile (TurboGrafx CD)
9. Exile: Wicked Phenomenon (TurboGrafx CD)
10. Xak (PC Engine CD, Xak I・II)
11. Xak II (PC Engine CD, Xak I・II)
12. Neutopia (TurboGrafx-16)
13. Captain Silver (Sega Master System)
14. Märchen Veil (Famicom Disk System)
15. Vanguard (Atari 2600)
16. Kangaroo (Atari 2600)
17. Front Line (Atari 2600)
18. Mario Bros. (Atari 2600)
19. Harmonia (Steam)
20. Donkey Kong (Atari 2600)
21. Jungle Hunt (Atari 2600)
22. Dragon Slayer: The Legend of Heroes (TurboGrafx CD)
23. Gorf (Atari 2600)
24. Neutopia II (TurboGrafx-16)
25. Dungeon Magic (PlayStation 2, Taito Legends 2)
26. The Lost Vikings (SNES)
27. Blue's Journey (Wii Virtual Console)
28. Wizard Fire (Wii, Data East Arcade Classics)
29. Super Mario Run (Android)
30. Dragon Warrior II (NES)
31. Gurumin: A Monstrous Adventure (GOG.com)
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Falcom owns.

Gurumin is one of their more unique games. It's a standalone title, with no sequel in the works as far as I can see. Originally released on the PC in Japan in 2004, the game was subsequently ported to the PSP a couple of years later (this is how I originally played it). 2015 saw a translation of the PC original, and the game is now available on Steam and GOG.com. Finally, there's the 3DS eShop version, Gurumin 3D, which dropped just last fall.

While most of Falcom's masterpieces are known to future a cutesy anime character or two, Gurumin is full-on kawaii. The protagonist, Parin, is a chipper twelve-year-old girl with a sassy disposition and gravity-defying pigtails. Her mission is to restore peace, prosperity, and stolen furniture to the residents of a "Monster Village." The monsters themselves are also adorable as hell. I mean, the first one introduced is literally just a little blonde girl. The game contains a lot of voice-acting, which is a mixed bag. I love Parin's voice - it fits her character perfectly - but some of the NPCs and monsters are pure cringe.

Like Popful Mail, Gurumin is typically called an "action-RPG" and while it retains much of the aesthetics and gameplay of that genre there's no true leveling or XP system. Progression is similar to "quest-based" RPGs like Phantasy Star Online and others. There's only one town, serving as a central hub. Dungeons are scattered throughout the overworld, but most begin "locked" until a specific piece of furniture is returned to a monster (yeah I wasn't kidding about the furniture). The dungeons themselves each take about twenty minutes to roll through. This is a l00t game so it's best to explore thoroughly so Parin can find every chest and item and beat down every foe. Money and items are in short supply at the game's beginning, when they're perhaps most needed, though Parin will inevitably be holding a surplus eventually. The dungeons themselves are pretty straightforward and it's clear that the game was designed to be something of an "easier" alternative to the likes of Zwei!! and Ys VI.
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Gurumin was designed to look "retro" before it was cool. There's something of a late-N64 / early-Dreamcast vibe going on here. The characters are all composed of chunky polygons and the game world has a general sense of "blockiness" to it. The accompanying music is simple, bouncy, and ultimately pretty satisfying. Parin controls well. She can jump, dash, and attack with a drill. Our heroine moves quickly and fluidly and while enemies are numerous they're typically easy (and satisfying) to take out.

Parin's drill is pretty damn versatile. Too versatile, really. There are standard attacks and the typical hold-down-the-button strong attacks. Then there are special moves that are activated by performing fighting game-esque button combos. To learn these they must first be purchased in town. Unfortunately, they're pretty tricky to execute. The game's built-in manual doesn't help much either, as it's written assuming the player is using a mouse(!). There's also a rhythm meter that can be used to time critical hits, though good luck making sense of it. I found it as useful as the "attack gauge" in Exile. Lastly, the drill itself has a "level." Not in the sense that it can be "leveled-up" with experience, but there's a max strength level that is depleted when Parin is injured. Said meter can be restored by scoring critical hits, donning a certain hat, or consuming special items. It's all a bit too much, and despite the supposed intricacies of combat the game ends up being very button-mashy.
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There's a lot of time spent in town. There's an armory that only sells hats, which is apparently all Parin needs to protect herself. These don't grant a defense stat, but instead protect from specific hazards and/or grant a special ability like HP-draining. However, the main reason to buy the hats is because they're adorable as hell. I'm particularly partial to the monkey hat, which nets Parin more money while exploring.

Gurumin has that same sort of "addictive" "just one more dungeon" vibe I get from the likes of PSO. It moves along at a decent pace, save for the overly-long opening cutscene, and I found myself playing in lengthy sessions. It's also tailor-made for short sessions, should you choose, as you can save anywhere and it's easy enough to just pick away and knock off one dungeon at a time. Some literature boasts of a 35+ hour play time, but this is wholly inaccurate unless you're going for 100% completion or replaying the game on all difficulty settings. Fifteen hours is where we're at here.
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There is one serious flaw with the game though, one large enough to turn many off completely. Gurumin is in........3D. No, this isn't one my generalized rants about retro gaming 2D supremacy. Rather, the 3D viewpoint of Gurumin is awful. Or, more accurately, the camera is. The camera follows Parin but only assumes a helpful angle about 50% of the time. Otherwise it needs to be rotated, or popped directly behind Parin. And it needs to be fiddled with constantly. It's easy to lose sight of enemies and jars, which is especially irritating as these must all be found to achieve a gold medal "S-rank" in any given dungeon. Boss battles can be downright obnoxious at times, as they're super fast and it's so easy to lose sight of them. But the most frustrating aspect of all is trying to get the camera angled correctly during that final stretch of dungeons, which contain tricky precision jumps and godforsaken ice patches. Now, there is thankfully a map available to help with navigation but I can't help but think of how brilliant this game would have turned out had it been created in the Ys VI engine. I suppose the camera rotation business was done to match the overall old-school aesthetics, but some things are better left in the past.

Overall, I dig it. Aside from the big aforementioned issue, Gurumin is pure hack and slash adventuring bliss. And it's nice to play a "moe" game that actually feels appropriate for kids as opposed to being crass and exploitative. It isn't one of Falcom's best games (I mean, it isn't Ys after all) but I'd still rank this higher than most of the recent Legend of Heroes entries. I don't think there's a tremendous difference between the various ports, so check it out any way you can.
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Re: Games Beaten 2017

by BogusMeatFactory Mon Apr 10, 2017 3:53 pm

1. Captain Toad (WiiU)
2. Lost: Via Domus (PS3)

3. Modnation Racers (PS3)
4. Tron: Evolution (PS3)
5. Dead Rising (PC)
6. Fire Emblem Heroes (Android)

7. Yoshi’s Wooly World (Wii U)
8. Stanley Parable (PC)

9. Lone Wolf: Flight From the Dark (Android)
10. Lone Wolf: Fire on the Water (Android)
11. Lone Wolf: The Caverns of Kalte (Android)

12. Lone Wolf: The Chasm of Doom (Android)
13. Lone Wolf: Shadow on the Sand (Android)
14. Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Switch)

15. LoneWolf: Kingdoms of Terror(Android)
16. Plumbers Don’t Wear Ties (PC)

17. King’s Quest IV (PC)
18. Shovel Knight (PC)

19. The 7th Guest (PC)
20. 1, 2, Switch! (Switch)


The 7th Guest - Let's take a trip down memory lane. Flashback almost 25 years ago. My family was a recent owner of a brand spanking new PC with a CD-ROM drive and had been given a copy of Myst by my rich aunt from Rhode Island. The moment they loaded it up and showed it to us, I was both frightened and fascinated. The use of pre-rendered scenery and live actors not only tickled my imagination, but engaged me with the world.

At some point, my mother was bragging to her co-workers about how Myst was both educational and entertaining and one of her friends spoke up with, "You ain't seen nothing yet!" and pulled out a copy of, The 7th Guest and let us borrow it. She said it was Myst on steroids and offered better puzzles, better acting and a better story... all of those things were lies.

I was too scared as a kid to play, but I watched my oldest brother play and there are some pretty risque moments. I watched ghostly awkward sex scenes, cheesy acting and a bevy of mind-bending puzzles. I never understood what was really going on... until now!

I had this on my backlog for quite some time and decided to finally tackle the game and see if the hype it generated in the 90's was well deserved. Yeah... no. The story revolves around this toy maker who made a deal with the devil and his Dolls would suck the souls out of children. He had a mansion and decided to invite 6 people there to solve puzzles and earn a prize of their own desires. There was a 7th guest as well who was a child whose soul was... you guessed it, going to be sucked out of him.

You as the player are tasked with exploring the mansion and encountering the ghosts of all the guests as they reenact the events of that fateful evening, solving puzzles along the way to unlock new areas of the mansion and get more pieces to the puzzle of what was really going on.

These puzzles, albeit not bad on their own, had little to no context to the world at large. In the Myst franchise, everything had purpose and reason and the puzzles naturally fit with the world and with progressing in the story. Here, they are standalone set pieces that don't fit into the world in the least outside of having grisly twists to them. You may be tasked with removing pieces of cake, making words out of cans or moving chess pieces in oddball ways, but they really had nothing to do with what was really going on.

I will admit to some of my ineptitude for the game as I had to cheat on two separate occasions, one out of absolute necessity and the other just out of being severely inconvenienced.

The first puzzle had to deal with playing a game against an AI. On a grid in each opposite corner were two colored blobs. You could move the blobs around to expand the number and your goal was to have the most colored blobs on the grid once everything was filled up. You would also convert the opponents blobs by moving next to them. The problem is that the AI for the puzzle was tied to your system specs so the more powerful your computer, the smarter the AI. So in order to win you would have to make ZERO MISTAKES and that just wasn't happening.

The second puzzle I cheated on was a checkerboard with two different colored Knight pieces from chess all organized in a pattern. The goal of the puzzle was to swap the colors positions on the board by moving them one at a time in the L-shape pattern a Knight is supposed to move. You had somewhere around 10 knight pieces per color and it took FOREVER. With a guide it took me roughly 20 minutes to make all the moves to complete the puzzle and that was THE MOST EFFICIENT SOLUTION! It was maddening.

Outside of that, I enjoyed the puzzles, but they were pretty stereotypical brain teasers that didn't bring too much of a challenge.

As for the story itself, it didn't make much sense. Some folks get possessed by a demon, others go mad and the kid is about to be sacrificed, but your presence somehow saves him and hooray! you won! It was a dull experience, but the acting was hilariously bad.

1, 2, Switch! - I have played every mini-game numerous times and have played the party mode and can safely say I thoroughly enjoy the game. This isn't your typical game, sure and most folks here may not appreciate it, but it is a good game to pull out and play with folks who are unfamiliar with games, or for people who want to look a fool in front of others. I felt that the games are varied and enjoyable and that every person I have played with have loved a very different game than others. It is really interesting to see some folks despise one game, while others felt that it was their favorite.

Also the use of HD rumble is HUGE for me! I was not joking when I said Ball Count (which I call Count Balls...because...balls) was the thing I was most excited for on the system. You genuinely feel 1-9 balls rolling around in your controller when in reality it is just rumble creating that feeling. You feel it slowly slide from one end to the other and it is like nothing I have experienced in a game and makes me excited to see what people do with it.

Yeah, the game isn't for everyone and the price is a bit unjustified, but it is something my wife and I have used on a bevy of occasions that really made it worth it for us. We have played it on the go in handheld mode with others for parties as well as just at home being goofy.
Ack wrote:I don't know, chief, the haunting feeling of lust I feel whenever I look at your avatar makes me think it's real.

-I am the idiot that likes to have fun and be happy.
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MrPopo
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Re: Games Beaten 2017

by MrPopo Mon Apr 10, 2017 4:05 pm

BogusMeatFactory wrote:The first puzzle had to deal with playing a game against an AI. On a grid in each opposite corner were two colored blobs. You could move the blobs around to expand the number and your goal was to have the most colored blobs on the grid once everything was filled up. You would also convert the opponents blobs by moving next to them. The problem is that the AI for the puzzle was tied to your system specs so the more powerful your computer, the smarter the AI. So in order to win you would have to make ZERO MISTAKES and that just wasn't happening.

So that sounds like the game was simple enough that they just implemented a look-ahead search and probably capped the runtime, returning the best move found for however deep it went. So the faster machines got the deeper they could get in the look-ahead, until eventually they can see every coming move. That also means that the first player has an advantage.

Edit: Good news! Now you can play it on your mobile device!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_7th_Guest:_Infection
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BogusMeatFactory
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Re: Games Beaten 2017

by BogusMeatFactory Mon Apr 10, 2017 4:27 pm

MrPopo wrote:
BogusMeatFactory wrote:The first puzzle had to deal with playing a game against an AI. On a grid in each opposite corner were two colored blobs. You could move the blobs around to expand the number and your goal was to have the most colored blobs on the grid once everything was filled up. You would also convert the opponents blobs by moving next to them. The problem is that the AI for the puzzle was tied to your system specs so the more powerful your computer, the smarter the AI. So in order to win you would have to make ZERO MISTAKES and that just wasn't happening.

So that sounds like the game was simple enough that they just implemented a look-ahead search and probably capped the runtime, returning the best move found for however deep it went. So the faster machines got the deeper they could get in the look-ahead, until eventually they can see every coming move. That also means that the first player has an advantage.

Edit: Good news! Now you can play it on your mobile device!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_7th_Guest:_Infection

Yeah you can get a program that will tell you what your beat move is based on the computer. I came out winning by only a couple spots with it.
Ack wrote:I don't know, chief, the haunting feeling of lust I feel whenever I look at your avatar makes me think it's real.

-I am the idiot that likes to have fun and be happy.
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Sarge
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Re: Games Beaten 2017

by Sarge Mon Apr 10, 2017 5:33 pm

So, the other part of what I was going to post: Hyper Light Drifter.

For folks that have no idea about what this is, it's basically a Zelda-like, but a bit faster and somewhat stripped down. Actually, it's kind of funny playing this right after Specter of Torment, because this also heavily features a dash mechanic.

When you start, your offensive capabilities are actually pretty bad. You can't even finish up a dash with a strike, Devil May Cry-style. But that is one of the upgrades, along with a move that lets you chain your dashes together. This, actually, is the most important upgrade in the game. The ability to quickly get away from bosses is key to success. However, if this sounds button-mashy, rest assured, it's not. There's a very specific rhythm to the combat, and if you venture outside of it, you're going to get hurt fast. It also doesn't help that you have very little invincibility time after getting hit, so you can get mobbed and killed rapidly. Checkpoints are pretty generous, though.

That rhythm extends to the dash mechanic. Pound on the button too fast, and you're going to mess it up. Go too slow, and the same happens. You have to get a specific rhythm, and always try to keep your head in encounters, which isn't always easy to do! Threat management is key. Sword slashes feel good, nice and solid. Gunplay is less solid, with some iffy aiming in my opinion, but it's functional enough. You recharge your ammo by slashing, so often the correct strategy is to pelt from afar, duck in for a quick combo, then hit with some distance again.

I think one of my bigger gripes is that I can't use a d-pad for controls, movement is tied to the analog stick. For a game that feels like it walked out of the 16/32-bit era, it's a little weird, but it's a'ight.

Other upgrades include the ability to carry more life restoratives (basically self-administered shots). You don't actually increase your life meter at all, which creates a lot of tension, because finding a point to inject and get your health up can be tricky. And you can get popped while the meter is filling up, leading to an untimely death.

The bigger thing about the game is the look and feel. It is both simultaneously colorful yet somber, dealing with some pretty dark themes. There is death and destruction everywhere, but none of this is ever really spelled out, with all the story elements presented wordlessly in either the world or through pictorial scenes. It's an interesting approach. The melancholy vibe is emphasized by both the protagonist, in that he has a life-threatening condition where he will occasionally stagger around, coughing up blood, and by the very muted soundtrack by Disasterpeace, who many will recognize from Fez. In fact, quite a bit of the art style reminds me of Fez as well.

An interesting thing I found out after the fact is that the protagonist has the issues he does for a reason other than story, and it's that the main creator also has a heart condition that he has had from birth. It's also why the company was called Heart Machine. Apparently spending a lot of time in hospitals got him into gaming, as well as the less strenuous nature, but he realized he needed to do something else with all the ideas puttering around in his head. So this was it. Definitely a solid first outing!

Anyway, I'm probably still going to delve into finding more secrets, as there's a ton that I missed on despite rolling credits. I don't think the ending changes at all, though. It's especially worthwhile if you find it on sale, but I'm not disappointed at dropping the $35 for the physical copy. I mean, I did the same for Half-Genie Hero, and I found this and it roughly on par. Good, sometimes bordering on great, but not always hitting the mark.
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