Games Beaten 2015

[PresidentLeever]

You are also limited in your whip attacks(the timing is very specific, so you will likely have to teach yourself when to attack to hit certain targets), and the hanging whip of Castlevania IV is completely gone. Richter does manage to hit behind and above with his whip, but the timing is tough to perfect. His jumping also sucks; you can either backflip a ways back, do a tiny hop forward, or leap forward, but you can't really control yourself in air, many of the jumps are pixel perfect, and if you screw up, you're going in a pit. Pits and getting knocked about like a pinball due to the limited invincibility time are the two things that killed me the most.

There is a sort of hidden trick to air control - if you hold down the button when jumping and didn't attack, you have a pretty big window where you can go in the opposite direction. But it's rarely useful since you can't attack before doing it.

[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
37. TIE Fighter - PC
38. Bloodborne - PS4
39. Gradius - NES

Remember that debate we had a while back over whether shmups needed to be 1cc'd to be considered beaten? Gradius finds that concept amusingly quaint; if you don't beat it on one life you're just not going to beat it unless you're a master.

Gradius's claim to fame is its powerup system, where instead of enemies dropping a laser powerup or a shot powerup they drop generic powers. Those advance a selection on a bar of choices at the bottom of the screen, and when the powerup you want is highlighted you cash in and get it. This has some advantages and some disadvantages. The advantage is that since the powerups come at a predictable rate you can make sure you have what you want when you want it. The disadvantage is that when you die you really get set far back. But the worst is that one of the powerups is "Speed up", which you need a few of to not move like a bear stuck in molasses. That is the source of why when you die you probably aren't recovering. The game uses a checkpoint system so when you die you respawn a little behind where you died, and in every level beyond the first there's a lot of fast enemies hitting you with tons of fire and sometimes it's literally impossible to dodge at the lowest speed.

The game also has some interesting quirks. The end boss of every stage except the last two is a big core that shoots lasers, starts invulnerable, then becomes vulnerable and you need to fire down a narrow hole in it to destroy a bunch of shields and then the core, and if you don't do it in a certain amount of time it self destructs and robs you of the points. The fourth stage is essentially the first stage turned upside down. The third stage is the Maui head stage that throws a ton more fire at you than anything prior (and was one of the sticking stages for me). And the fifth stage has TONs of slowdown for reasons I don't understand.

Oh, the other complaint I have is when your shield gets hit you don't get any feedback. It's only when there's one hit left that you realize you'd been taking hits on it.

[marurun]

I think the arcade and PCE port both have a little sound to indicate a shield hit, but yeah, shields can deplete REALLY quickly and SURPRISE! You're dead!

[MrPopo]

Possibly, but the NES port certainly doesn't. I had a few runs go south because I took a hit when shields were down and I had the shield powerup highlighted, had I only noticed my shields were down. Something I would have liked would be the ability to use the shield powerup to refresh your existing shield.

[ExedExes]

1. Call of Duty United Offensive Expansion Pack - PC (January 16)
2. Dead To Rights - Gamecube (January 24)
3. River City Ransom EX - GBA (February 21)
4. Call of Duty 2 - PC (February 28) (link missing due to this game's post being wiped during the great RB server move)
5. Quake - PC (March 31)
6. The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay (PC) (April 5)
7. Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon (PC) (April 18)
8. *NEW* Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter (PC) (May 19)

As an FPS veteran, I've seen it all. I've been through the classics (Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Quake, Heretic, Blake Stone, etc.) and even the recent/modern (Serious Sam, Far Cry, Medal of Honor series) but nothing in the world would prepare me for the third entry in the Ghost Recon series, Advanced Warfighter (GRAW).

The graphics reminded me very much of Rainbow Six Vegas, right down to the in-game video briefings and sepia toned cityscapes. Little did I know what I'd get myself into. No ways to save other than uneven and sometimes infrequent checkpoints which required lots of restarts. Dumb Squad AI at times. Hidden enemies everywhere that can kill you without warning.

For all its shortcomings, it added some cool new features to the series. A 3D tactical map. Cross-com system that let you see what your team members see. The ability to direct tanks, drones, and airstrikes. All sorts of weapons with optional accessories. New movement options like the slide-to-cover. I've played the other 2 in the series, but I have to be fair to say this game represented a major upgrade, in graphics, presentation, and tactical options. Its difficulty is unforgiving, its checkpoints were unfair, and you'd need to have played the other 2 games before even attempting this, but I'm going to say overall it was better than average. I think any console port of GRAW might have been easier than this.

[dsheinem]

As an FPS veteran, I've seen it all.

I've been following your foray into the genre these past couple of years with a lot of interest, and while you are doing it up right by marching through the history up to the present, you really have only scratched the surface of what the genre has offered up in the past 6 or 7 years. I don't remember if you have a 360 or PS3 (I know you have a PC, obviously), but there are some pretty remarkable console-specific titles that you need to check out and some more recent cross-platforms stuff that really push ideas of storytelling (e.g. Bioshock and Bioshock Infinite, Metro 2033, Resistance 3, Portal and Portal 2), of art design and graphics (Killzone 2 and 3, Crysis series, Far Cry's newer entries, etc.), and of gameplay (the great FPS/RPG hybrids like the Borderlands series and Fallout 3 and New Vegas, the MMOFPS like Destiny or Titanfall, etc.). Even the hugely popular stuff like the CoD series and the Halo franchise have had a lot of cool entries in the past 7-8 years.

So take heart, you have much more still to see that will potentially make you think the genre has really moved well past the era that you are currently enjoying.

[Exhuminator]

nothing in the world would prepare me for the third entry in the Ghost Recon series, Advanced Warfighter (GRAW).

I doubt anyone else on this board knows what you went through with GRAW PC. But I do. Until someone has actually beaten GRAW on PC, they don't know what we are talking about when it comes to true FPS difficulty. (The console versions of this game aren't even remotely in the same league of challenge.) You did something awesome in beating GRAW on PC, ExedExes. I'm glad I'm no longer the only one around here who's done so. I salute you sir!

[Ack]

As an FPS veteran, I've seen it all.

I've been following your foray into the genre these past couple of years with a lot of interest, and while you are doing it up right by marching through the history up to the present, you really have only scratched the surface of what the genre has offered up in the past 6 or 7 years. I don't remember if you have a 360 or PS3 (I know you have a PC, obviously), but there are some pretty remarkable console-specific titles that you need to check out and some more recent cross-platforms stuff that really push ideas of storytelling (e.g. Bioshock and Bioshock Infinite, Metro 2033, Resistance 3, Portal and Portal 2), of art design and graphics (Killzone 2 and 3, Crysis series, Far Cry's newer entries, etc.), and of gameplay (the great FPS/RPG hybrids like the Borderlands series and Fallout 3 and New Vegas, the MMOFPS like Destiny or Titanfall, etc.). Even the hugely popular stuff like the CoD series and the Halo franchise have had a lot of cool entries in the past 7-8 years.

So take heart, you have much more still to see that will potentially make you think the genre has really moved well past the era that you are currently enjoying.

There's also S.T.A.L.K.E.R., comrade.

[Exhuminator]

There's also S.T.A.L.K.E.R., comrade.

I think Exed's next FPS should be:

Crazy fun shooter.

[Ack]

Hell, I know he's got Red Faction and Painkiller: Black ready to go too.