What Are You Currently Playing? 6.65: Neighbor of the Beast

[Spark Of Spirit]

Oh, I thought you meant that you preferred to play as a guy with a whip over Alucard.

Alucard was fun to play as. I don't even have a problem with all the new systems they implemented in other GBA and DS Castlevanias, I just like my whip users. It's what gives Castlevania such a different feel to other similar games.

[gunswordfist]

I do them too but it has a lot to do with how loose Alucard moves compared to many of the others and not just the fact that he uses swords and shields and whatnot.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

So, I'm close to done with completing Gears of War 2 on Hardcore difficulty. After that I'll replay Gears 3, and then finally get around to finishing Judgement, which will be the last time that I play any game in this series for a long time. After that I think I'll go back to complete my DMC3 S-Rank run (on Easy mode, naturally, since the achievement allows for any difficulty), and then clear all 10,000 floors in Bloody Palace mode to earn that game's final achievement.

Once that's fine, I'll either try to tackle Vanquish on Hard mode, or attempt to go for an all S-rank run of MGRR in Revengeance difficulty, which I'm really not sure if I want to go through, although since the game has some very lenient checkpointing, I've heard that it's surprisingly a lot more manageable than it seems to do. The game is also incredibly short, so it shouldn't be that aggravating to go through the whole thing.

[gunswordfist]

Played more Mortal Kombat early this morning. I'm getting my ass kicked a lot but the story mode still has my full attention.

[Foggle]

The Evil Within is the real deal. I'm a little over 2 hours into it and it's so good. SO GOOD

1. It doesn't play like Resident Evil, classic or modern. It feels like a real *survival* horror game, because you can't just gun down or melee the enemies left and right. Gameplay is a careful blend of stealth, ammo conservation, item collection, and trap avoidance/usage.

2. It's actually scary, and not in the haunted house skeleton pops out kind of way. At one point, I was trying to figure out how to make ammo for my crossbow, and had hidden myself off in the corner. However, I didn't realize that using the inventory screen fails to pause your game, so I breathed a sigh of relief when I closed the menu and found myself still safe. But when I turned around, there was an enemy lumbering silently toward me, terrifying perpetual grin plastered on his face. He was literally just a couple of feet away from me when I was done fiddling with my inventory. That entire moment was unscripted and terrifying. Also, every stealth sequence is completely nerve-wracking.

3. Normal mode is tough. I haven't died too many times, but I've come close repeatedly. Aiming is purposefully difficult and enemies are fast and relentless. You go down in only a few hits.

4. You can level up your character like in RE4. There are crimson heads like in REmake.

5. PS3 port gives off a terrible first impression with lots of screen tearing, graphical pop in, glitchy animations, etc. The first level is very scripted and Id Tech 5 on last gen hardware just can't keep up. However, after that, it's just fine. Haven't noticed any issues with tearing or frame rate drops since I hit chapter 3 - which is where the game really gets going, anyway.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

That's good to know! I can't wait to play it!

Although, like I said, been if I get it for my birthday, I won't really be able to play it until Christmas.

Anyways, I managed to beat my Gears of War 2 playthrough. Compared to the first game, this one was MUCH more manageable and had far fewer cheap deaths. It still had some balance issues, but there was no single part that literally took me dozens of tries because of incompetent ally AI (they still aren't perfect, but at least they are actually somewhat useful in this game) or ridiculously overpowered enemies with unfair advantages. There was one particular section that was horrendously broken, and a massive oversight on the developer's part. In Act 5, there's a turret section where you have to destroy 6 Reavers in a limited amount of time. On co-op, it's fine because your partner can help you out. On single player, though, your AI partner doesn't use turrets, so you'll repeatedly lose that part because it's nearly impossible to kill moving Reavers since they fly way too fast and your turret's aiming speed is abysmal. You literally can only rely on luck, since in rare cases, a bunch of Reavers will land on the ground where you can easily take them out, and that's literally the only way to do this section by yourself. It's incredibly frustrating and flat-out bad game design. How the fuck did this shit not get cut out after play testing?

Anyways, I'll be moving onto Gears 3 soon, which is easily the best of the bunch, overall, IMO.

[gunswordfist]

I'm scared to play the game now.

[Foggle]

I'm scared to play the game now.

Don't worry about it, it's only scary some of the time (like Resident Evil).

Anyway, got a bit further. Stealth's fallen by the wayside now in favor of more action. Hopefully they continue to strike a good balance between the two throughout. Easily the best new game I've played this year so far.

[gunswordfist]

I saw this coming. I said scared not too scared.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I finished Act 1 of Gears of War 3 on Hardcore difficulty. This is definitely the most refined game in the series. Your AI squad mates are finally useful to you, and this is also the easiest of the first 3 games on this particular difficulty since you have a chance to get revived if you get downed, rather than just suffering instant death from everything. To be fair, though, even Gears 2 didn't have that many excruciatingly frustrating moments. It really is Gears 1 that was maddeningly hard due to how unbalanced certain enemy encounters were.

[gunswordfist]

I've been playing more Mortal Kombat. I'm pretty sure this is the 2nd funniest game I remember playing. I literally spit out some of the water I was drinking while listening to Jax and/or Cage.

[Spark Of Spirit]

I got lost in the sewer in COTM then realized I wasn't supposed to be there yet. No wonder I was getting demolished.

This game is a lot of fun. It's a real shame Igarashi no longer works at Konami. But then, nobody from the golden years works there anymore.

EDIT: Kojima aside, because I know someone is going to bring him up.

[Foggle]

I just played chapters 6 and 7 in The Evil Within. There is absolutely no contest now: GOTY. #6 plays almost exactly like a more intense and tactical version of a Resident Evil 4 level, while #7 houses an absolutely amazing boss battle. An interesting thing about chapter 7 is that it's basically the best level from Resident Evil 6 except about a million times better. Between that and the chapter 5 boss - which is very reminiscent of the first boss from RE5 if it was actually challenging and creepy, - I'm getting the impression that TEW is Mikami's way of taking post-RE4 Capcom to school. I'm loving it.

It certainly could become bad later on, but so far this game really is proving to be the second coming of Resident Evil 4.

I finished Act 1 of Gears of War 3 on Hardcore difficulty. This is definitely the most refined game in the series. Your AI squad mates are finally useful to you, and this is also the easiest of the first 3 games on this particular difficulty since you have a chance to get revived if you get downed, rather than just suffering instant death from everything. To be fair, though, even Gears 2 didn't have that many excruciatingly frustrating moments. It really is Gears 1 that was maddeningly hard due to how unbalanced certain enemy encounters were.

Would you recommend Gears 3 to someone who only mildly liked the first two?

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Perhaps if you could find it for real cheap, I guess. I don't think that you'd like it that much more, to be honest. I simply appreciate how Epic managed to iron out most of the bullshit from the first 2 games on the harder difficulty settings. That said, it's not a substantially better game. Just a much more refined one. As someone who casually enjoys this series, it's worth a playthrough or two, IMO, but it's not necessarily a great game, either.

As for The Evil Within, gamers truly shock me. People have already managed to beat it on AKUMU difficulty, where everything kills you in one hit. TS17 is already almost done playing through it and recording his footage for his guide, and the insane thing is that by no means is this difficulty a breeze for anyone. The people who have done it confirm that it's as fucking tough as it sounds, yet they've still managed to get it done this fast, all the same. Some gamers are something else, I tell you.

[Foggle]

As for The Evil Within, gamers truly shock me. People have already managed to beat it on AKUMU difficulty, where everything kills you in one hit. TS17 is already almost done playing through it and recording his footage for his guide, and the insane thing is that by no means is this difficulty a breeze for anyone. The people who have done it confirm that it's as fucking tough as it sounds, yet they've still managed to get it done this fast, all the same. Some gamers are something else, I tell you.

Holy shit what!?!? The game just came out two days ago and is by no means short! I'm not even halfway through yet and I've been playing for over 7 hours.

Survival difficulty is fairly tough at times, but never frustrating. I've died quite a bit, and have had to replay 5-10 minutes worth of game on occasion, but it's just constantly fun. The balancing and challenge in this game are both perfect on the Normal setting IMO.