On a Mission

[Mako Crab]

CV: Lord of Shadows is Konami's attempt to reboot the CV franchise with an entirely new, unrelated universe, right? It should have no bearing on the rest of the CV series that came before it. Gabriel doesn't count in my book. Also,

Spoiler

that plot twist at the end was just dumb. Not my cup of tea.

[Gomess]

Some guy at Konami USA said it's a reboot. I'll withhold my opinion until I actually play it, which'll probably never happen, or until IGA makes some sort of statement. Even that I might ignore. It just looks *dull*! It's got that generic "gritty" flavour that's omg soooo next gen u gaiz. Yeah, I'm not really fussed whether it "fits" in the story.

As for the twist, I'm officially getting bored of twists. Never mind the fact that Castlevania already did that exact one only eight years ago.

[Onslaught Six]

I dunno. I like the way it looks because it's basically European God of War. Besides, it's not like CV hasn't been trying to be on the "gritty adult" side of the spectrum since, oh, the NES days.

[Gomess]

it's not like CV hasn't been trying to be on the "gritty adult" side of the spectrum since, oh, the NES days.

Oh yeah, "samefaced bishie vampires swooshing about in fur-trimmed capes and posing when you press up on the d-pad" certainly says "next gen gritty" to me.

[Onslaught Six]

It was the 80s, man. If Contra is Aliens (or Predator for that matter) then surely Castlevania is Conan.

[Gomess]

80s, sure, but once SotN hit Castlevania was all about the neo-gothic. Not a grim, square-jawed hardly-talking brickhouse in sight. So I guess Lords of Shadow has brought the series back to its "roots".... Yay?

At least Judgement didn't catch on.

[BWprowl]

Was gonna post this as a reply in the Hauls thread, but figured it was more at home here.

Bought Starfoxsixtyfourthreedee today, because it was payday, and this game is awesome (You know what would be more awesome? If Nintendo would get off their asses and release Star Fox 2 on the Virtual Console).

Isn't it unfinished? I remember the beta ROM was floating around but isn't it essentially just a shittier version of SF64?

Also, is Command any good? The last SF game I played was Assault on the 'Cube and it was...passable.

The game in the state it got to was about 99% finished. In the case of the ROM that surfaced, all the people who put it out had to do was tape over some corners and translate what little dialogue there was into English, and you can hardly tell that what you’re playing is technically a beta – it’s a fully realized game with all of its then-revolutionary features intact.

It’s funny you should mention Command in the same post as SF2, since while the sequel does have plenty of stuff that wound up in 64 (All-Range Mode, homing charge lasers, Star Wolf, etc.) the overall structure and playstyle is far more similar to Command, having you move around a battlefield map to go down and execute specific missions, or intercept and shoot down missiles as they head for the base on Corneria. Plus it’s also got the thing where each character’s ship is tuned differently for a different playstyle. It’s also *mind-blowingly* advanced for an SNES game, featuring the aforementioned free-roaming 3D combat in both space and on planets, with large environments/enemy bases for the latter. One of the coolest features that showed up that has never been in an SF game again is the ability to *transform* your Arwing into a walker mode on the planet missions, allowing you greater free-roaming control. There’s some awesome stuff in here, and if you liked the original SNES Star Fox, you’ll likely be impressed by what they crammed into this one.

Command is alright. It’s got some serious length to it, being surprisingly story driven and letting you take many, many alternate paths along the way (several of them letting you ditch Fox altogether and take some of the other characters off on some crazy tangent arc). The gameplay is quick bursts of time-based all-range mode mini-missions structured around maneuvering your squad of characters over a map and taking out installations and intercepting enemy attacks on your base/the Great Fox. The missions can get kinda repetitive, since they’re almost all some variation on ‘Shoot X enemies down in Y seconds’, and you’ll be seeing the same ones a lot as you repeat story portions to attempt new paths, plus the all-range mode-lock means you don’t get a lot of the exciting environment dodging and blockade running that made SF64 so awesome, but the many, many playable characters and their diversified playstyles make up for it a little bit. It’s a solid flight/shooting game with some interesting ideas, but nowhere near as much of a blast as 64, and I think I even liked Assault better, if only because the pacing felt brisker and it didn’t feel so monotonous at times.

[Mako Crab]

I just turned a game off because it was too gory.
I was checking out the Midway Treasures Collection on PS2. Oh my god, there's nothing but crap on that disc. I saw APB. Hey, I remember that game from when I was a kid! Let's play it! OMG the controls suck! No wonder I could never get anywhere! NEXT!
Gauntlet 2! I've heard good things about Gauntlet. Let's give it a try. OMG, 100 enemies attacking me non-stop! I die. Ridiculous! NEXT!
NARC. I remember seeing this in an old issue of Gamepro. Let's play! Oh. Well . . . that wasn't very exciting. NEXT!
Xenophobe? Okay, sounds interesting. OMG, what are the controls?! Enemies! How do I jump?! How do I crouch! I die 3 times before I even know what's going on. NEXT, GODDAMMIT!!
Mortal Kombat 2 and 3? Played them a million times. Pass.
Spy Hunter 2!? I like Spy Hunter! Surely this will be good! Wait, what is this? It's not the overhead view of the old games. It's not the behind the car view of the PS2 game. It's some kind of weird 3/4 view of the car. Okay, whatever. I play it, blast through a few cars and then hit a long, loooooooong stretch of road with no landmarks and no enemies. I continue on this empty stretch for about 2 minutes. UGH! Waste of time! This game sucks! NEXT!
What's this? Total Carnage? This looks like Smash T.V. Okay, I'll give it a try. Hm. This is actually kind of fun. The gameplay works, though they flood the screen with so many enemies and shit, that you're going to die constantly. Every fucking game on this collection is a goddam quarter muncher. I get to the 1st boss and I have to shoot off both his arms, then his head, then his body becomes a giant, bouncing head. I have to shoot until his eyes both explode one at a time, blood is pouring down his face and finally his whole head erupts like a bloody volcano, leaving a gutted corpse that looks akin to a hollowed out pumpkin. THAT. . . was just plain sick. And not in a good way. Disgusted, I turned off the game and yanked the disk out of my PS2.

Poor PS2. *pats it on the head* I'm sorry. I won't make your laser read those evil, tainted codes anymore. But for real! What a load of crap! There wasn't one worthwhile thing on this entire collection. I actually felt glad that Midway has gone out of business after playing this thing. I laughed a sad laugh when I read the history for Gauntlet 2, which said that there was supposed to be so much more to the game until Midway cut development short. It reminded me of the same thing that the Mortal Kombat developers were always complaining about. Way to go, Midway. Quantity over quality, right?

Then just yesterday I was playing around with PacMan S on Facebook. Same game with a few new tweaks to make it more fun and crazy. And that one, simple little game was more entertainment than everything on Midway's collection put together. I really need to quit with all these short diversions and get back to finishing Final Fantasy X-2. At least I know that's a quality game.

[Onslaught Six]

So essentially you're pissed that you sucked at all those games.

I've been going through Sonic's Ultimate Genesis collection with the girlfriend lately, and it has 'tons' of Really Really Hard Games on it, like this random-ass platformer called Decap Attack we've started playing. Hard as shit, and even weirder in concept than its difficulty level. She played the first level, died, and gave up. I said, "That's not how you play video games. You keep playing it. Over and over and over again. You know why? Because this is the only game you have this weekend from your rental. This is one of only, maybe, ten or fifteen games you own, and half of those are boring sports games. This is the only thing you have to play--so you'd better get good at it."

Also, that last game sounds awesome, is it anything like Splatterhouse? I love Splatterhouse.

[Gomess]

Decap Attack was *grate*.

I recently found my old copy of B.O.B. for the SNES. B.O.B. is bloody hard. And LONG. For a run 'n' gun.

Total Carnage is really nothing like Splatterhouse. If I'm not getting it mixed up with some other generic 90s title.