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Re: Games Beaten 2016
Posted: Sat Aug 27, 2016 8:04 pm
by Exhuminator
95. New Super Mario Bros. 2|3DS|2012|platformer|4h 58m|7/10New Super Mario Bros. 2 isn't very new, really. If you've been playing Mario games for a while, you've already seen everything this game will throw at you. The designers shamelessly regurgitate old concepts from Mario platformers of yesteryear. The one big "new" idea I guess, is to try and collect as many coins as possible. You're encouraged to collect one million coins, actually. I suppose that activity may be enjoyable for somebody out there, so if you like to collect coins in Mario games, you will be in heaven here. For the rest of us Mario veterans, New Super Mario Bros. is just brand new déjà vu.
You're THAT bored.
Re: Games Beaten 2016
Posted: Sat Aug 27, 2016 8:15 pm
by ElkinFencer10
Exhuminator wrote:95. New Super Mario Bros. 2|3DS|2012|platformer|4h 58m|7/10New Super Mario Bros. 2 isn't very new, really. If you've been playing Mario games for a while, you've already seen everything this game will throw at you. The designers shamelessly regurgitate old concepts from Mario platformers of yesteryear. The one big "new" idea I guess, is to try and collect as many coins as possible. You're encouraged to collect one million coins, actually. I suppose that activity may be enjoyable for somebody out there, so if you like to collect coins in Mario games, you will be in heaven here. For the rest of us Mario veterans, New Super Mario Bros. is just brand new déjà vu.
You're THAT bored.
I got NSMB2 when it first came out, and that game marks only the second time a SMB platformer has let me feeling disappointed (after SMB2 US).
Re: Games Beaten 2016
Posted: Sat Aug 27, 2016 11:27 pm
by noiseredux
1. The Match Of The Millennium (NGPC)
2. Pocket Tennis Color (NGPC)
3. XCOM 2 (PC)
4. Street Fighter V (PC)
5. Spelunky (PC)
6. Gone Home (PC)
7. Day Of The Tentacle Remastered (PC)
8. Heroes Of The Storm (PC)
9. The Elder Scrolls Legends (PC)
10. Land's End (GearVR)
11. Hearthstone: League Of Explorers (PC)
12. Metal Slug (PC)
13. Broforce (PC)
14. Metal Slug X (PC)
credit fed through this with my wife today. Great sequel - but wow, a lot harder than the first. Lost track of credits quickly.
Re: Games Beaten 2016
Posted: Sun Aug 28, 2016 12:05 am
by MrPopo
First 50:
51. Ori and the Blind Forest - Xbox One52. AM2R - PC53. Total Annihilation - PC54. I Am Setsuna - PS455. Planetary Annihilation Titans - PC56. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided - PC57. Dark Reign - Rise of the Shadowhand - PCI was trying to beat this before Deus Ex came out, but I ended up still having two missions left. So once I was finished with DX I knocked those two out. And I'm happy I'm done with them.
So Dark Reign came out a month before Total Annihilation and was all set to duel with it for RTS supremacy. Except StarCraft came out a few months later, stomped them both, and TA only managed to hang on as a cult classic. Dark Reign does a lot of interesting stuff; it's got an extensive waypoint system that is created independent of unit orders (so you can add units to a path later on), a fantastically complex fog of war and elevation system, and sophisticated unit AI that was designed to remove some of the micro. Unfortunately, all of those ended up having their downsides; waypoints were rarely necessary, the pure 2D graphics made it hard to tell what direction slopes were going in and you massively suffered from not getting line of sight for attacks, and the Ai orders still required a lot of micro to fully use, only this time it was a different kind of micro.
Rise of the Shadowhand is the expansion to the base game. The base game consisted of 12 missions you could play as either side followed by a thirteenth mission. The twelve would be the same map for each side, but you'd be taking on each other's roles. For example, one mission might be that the Freedom Guard needs to save up 30000 credits while defending against the Imperials, while playing that map as the Imperials will have you trying to stomp that same base. The expansion removes this; instead you have seven unique missions for each side. So in terms of content it's just as much as the base game. Additionally, there are two "new" factions. I use quotes because each one takes one of the base two factions and replaces half the units.
The Shadowhand is the Imperial replacement, which removes most of the hover technology in favor of cyborg walkers. This gives you more flexibility in terms of how you can attack but you end up losing out on harass. It also replaces the Sky Fortress with a bomber that shoots incendiary missiles with a large damage radius. I found them to be more usable than Sky Fortresses, so a win there.
the Xenites are the Freedom Guard replacement. This replaces the best vehicles and infantry with this horrible system of alien creatures. There is a basic melee alien and a heavy ranged alien. They do a lot of damage, but they are also feral. The only way to control them is with special control units. The low level control unit is an infantry unit with no attacks. The high level control unit is the heavy ranged alien with a guy on top. This mechanic is awful, and I ended up just making the high level control unit so I didn't have to dick around with the whole system.
The other thing about the expansion is that most of the maps are "gimmick" maps. They all seem overwhelming at the start, but in each mission you end up getting an ah-hah moment where you realize the exact sequence of steps you need to get up a couple of heavy base defenses. Since base defenses are hilariously amazing in Dark Reign once you get a basic defensive perimeter up you can sit back and build the necessary army to steamroll. The only deviations are the commando missions (ones where you don't get a base, so in every game where these show up they have some sort of gimmick), the first Freedom Guard mission, and the last Imperial mission. The first Freedom Guard mission's gimmick is actually the fact that you don't come under the threatened timer until you attack the com stations while a unit is on their plateaus. Using a Scout on the slopes and a brace of artillery lets you clear it out at your leisure, and you don't get attacked much. The last Imperial mission is actually neigh-impossible to set up a defensive perimeter on because your base is surrounded by hills and valleys. Instead you just blitz to air units and get a handful of the bombers before you run out of your starting units and use those as defense, as the enemy doesn't send any threatening anti-air units on attack.
Personally, I can't recommend the expansion to people who've played the original. I feel like the missions in the original were more interesting. But at least now I'm one of the foremost authorities on the expansion's single player content, considering just how little information there is about Dark Reign out there. Maybe I'll get bored and write something for GameFAQs on it.
Re: Games Beaten 2016
Posted: Sun Aug 28, 2016 12:09 am
by PartridgeSenpai
noiseredux wrote:1. The Match Of The Millennium (NGPC)
2. Pocket Tennis Color (NGPC)
3. XCOM 2 (PC)
4. Street Fighter V (PC)
5. Spelunky (PC)
6. Gone Home (PC)
7. Day Of The Tentacle Remastered (PC)
8. Heroes Of The Storm (PC)
9. The Elder Scrolls Legends (PC)
10. Land's End (GearVR)
11. Hearthstone: League Of Explorers (PC)
12. Metal Slug (PC)
13. Broforce (PC)
14. Metal Slug X (PC)
credit fed through this with my wife today. Great sequel - but wow, a lot harder than the first. Lost track of credits quickly.
In my experience, Metal Slug X is just Metal Slug 2 that hates your freaking guts. As someone who owns an MVS cabinet and system though, I feel that it's worth mentioning that it is a totally different experience playing Metal Slug emulated compared to the original hardware. Most of this is because of the MASSIVE amounts of slowdown that game had on the original hardware. It makes for a lot more time to digest when and where bullets are coming from because it makes a sort of de facto bullet-time for you when things get crazy. It's for this reason why I know for a fact I die a LOT more when I play my Metal Slug Anthology versus when I play it on my cabinet.
Re: Games Beaten 2016
Posted: Sun Aug 28, 2016 11:06 am
by Exhuminator
MrPopo wrote:But at least now I'm one of the foremost authorities on the expansion's single player content, considering just how little information there is about Dark Reign out there. Maybe I'll get bored and write something for GameFAQs on it.
If you go that extra mile, I think you should also play through Dark Reign's other expansion "Battles of the Outer Rim ", and include a FAQ for it as well. That would be holistically inclusive and I'm sure people would appreciate it.
Re: Games Beaten 2016
Posted: Sun Aug 28, 2016 11:43 am
by MrPopo
I'd have to find it first. As you're well aware the GOG release doesn't include it and the download off darkreign.ws doesn't have it either, so I'd have to dig up a physical copy. I'm not sure I enjoy Dark Reign enough to do that much searching.
Re: Games Beaten 2016
Posted: Sun Aug 28, 2016 12:36 pm
by dsheinem
Games Beaten 2016First 50:
Battleborn -
PC140 -
PCLast Duel -
Arcade (PSP) Alien on the Run -
3DSUndead Bowling -
3DSChain Blaster -
3DSRunny Egg -
3DSBound -
PS4Parasite Eve - PS1 *new*
Total: 59Previously:
2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010So I was inspired by a number of recent posts about this game to finally dive into the series - I think I had this game back around the time of release and have let it languish on the backlog for literally almost two decades: that was a mistake. Parasite Eve is a fantastic game - there's a charm to the artwork, the dialogue is generally solid, the battle system is quite fun, and the inventory/weapon/stat management is very refined and inviting. The final boss gave me more than a few problems, though I was finally able to take them down after some trial and error (the final battles are much different than the preceding ones).
I know that the reviews of II and 3rd Birthday are mixed and that they are all very different games, but given that a lot of the same talent apparently worked on all three titles, I am eager to give them a spin before the year is out.
Incidentally, I think I may have put together a pretty solid Summer Challenge list without even trying. Classes resume this week, and since they ended in the Spring I have beaten these arguably "classic" games:
1. Rampage
2. Outrun (3D)
3. Amplitude
4. Power-Drift 3D
5. Bio-Hazard Battle
6. Last Duel
7. Thunder Force II
8. Thunder Force III
9. Lightening Force
10.Parasite Eve
Maybe I should take the "not going to try and make a list" approach every year
Re: Games Beaten 2016
Posted: Sun Aug 28, 2016 3:08 pm
by Exhuminator
dsheinem wrote:I know that the reviews of II and 3rd Birthday are mixed and that they are all very different games, but given that a lot of the same talent apparently worked on all three titles, I am eager to give them a spin before the year is out.
You're a seasoned enough gaming veteran to look past the little quibbles that bothered less experienced gamers. I'm pretty sure you'll have a good time. I loved all three Parasite Eves. Parasite Eve 2 is a better Resident Evil than quite a few actual Resident Evils are. And The 3rd Birthday takes the strategic enemy possession concept that Geist tried to utilize but actually does a great job with it.
MrPopo wrote:so I'd have to dig up a physical copy. I'm not sure I enjoy Dark Reign enough to do that much searching.
In just a few weeks, I'll be packing up my dork cave, which includes digging all the PC games out of its closet. I've got hundreds if not a thousand old PC games, and I know I've got some Dark Reign stuff in there. If I do in fact have that particular expansion I'll get it to you.
Re: Games Beaten 2016
Posted: Sun Aug 28, 2016 5:26 pm
by Exhuminator
95. XGRA: Extreme G Racing Association|Xbox|2003|racing|4h 37m|8/10XGRA is the fourth title in the Extreme-G futuristic racing series. It continues the series tradition of super fast speed with wildly twisting and turning tracks, but this time with a few new additions. One unique aspect are "contracts", special circumstances the player can fulfill during races, to achieve higher grading points and bike stat upgrades. Also the weapon system has been completely overhauled and is unique. As the player drives through tracks, they can pick up weapon beacons. Every time the player picks one up, the current weapon selection changes, then the player chooses the weapon desired. It's a bit like Gradius in this regard. XGRA has five different cup classes with many variations of a handful of tracks. For example, racing a track on mars with clear weather versus a dust storm are very different experiences.
XGRA's greatest strength is its intense sense of speed, especially in the Supersonic and Ultrasonic classes. Indeed sometimes the player is going so fast they break the sound barrier, resulting in an intense rush of eerily quiet blistering speed. XGRA also has nice graphics and a diverse OST. Amusingly other riders will mock the player throughout the races over a shared radio channel. It's great fun to destroy a rival racer right after they just got done talking smack. There were quite a few futuristic racers during the sixth generation (though nearly none in the seventh), but XGRA is in the upper echelon. It's really the best futuristic racer not named F-Zero GX. XGRA isn't as difficult as F-Zero GX though, so more folks can enjoy this one. But just remember, if you can't beat 'em, kill 'em.