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

[Nel_Annette]

I beat Assassin's Creed Rogue this morning. As I have no PS4, and no immediate desire to play a disaster like Unity, that means... my marathon is done. I'm free. I'm fucking free. Now I can focus my attention solely on beating Captain Toad for now.

I also dicked around with some Kingdom Hearts 1.5 HD ReMIX afterward. I played through the tutorial, did some Destiny Island stuff, but I don't know if I really want to play the first game right now. Just not in a Kingdom Hearts mood.

[Kiddington]

So here's a rundown of every Wii U game I've played up to this point:

Captain Toad -- Love it; it's cute as hell, and an absolute blast to play. I don't see this as something that'll have a ton of replay value in the future, but for the here and now I'm really enjoying it.

Game and Wario -- Ehhhh, strangely not as enjoyable as past installments to the series. And the weirdly off-putting "Gamer" mini-game.....I can do without.

Mario Kart 8 -- By far the most fun I've had with a Mario Kart since Double Dash; everything just looks so gorgeous, the roster is at its best ever, the Zelda DLC is pretty cool (hopefully the Animal Crossing stuff is just as good), the MKTV stuff is way too much fun.....it's everything that a kart racer should be and more. Right up there with Smash as my fav thus far.

Super Mario 3D World -- Really good in what little I've played; they took everything great about 3D Land and amplified it by 10. Although.....strangely enough the soundtrack isn't really doing it for me so far, and I tend to give most VG soundtracks the benefit of the doubt. I honestly thought the music in Land was way better for some reason. The gameplay is leagues better though, and in the end isn't that all we really care about anyway?

Super Smash Bros. -- Okay, what can't I say about this? Game of 2014 by far; beautiful to look at, the roster is at its closest peak ever (aside from the glaring omissions, which I've already ranted at length about.....but you can't have everything), the soundtrack is wonderful, the stages are leaps and bounds ahead of Brawl (don't care what any of you guys say, Great Cave Offensive is awesome).....I can't say enough good things about it. And it utterly and completely blows the 3DS version out of the water; it's a good laugh to go back and read articles from September/October last year and watch everyone calling it "virtually the same game". Pssh.

My biggest hope for Smash is that Nintendo really expands on the DLC; we're already getting Mewtwo, now just find a way to make Ice Climbers work (who even cares about the 3DS version at this point, if that truly was the sticking point to them not making the cut), add in a couple of other little toys like new stages and what all, and I'm good. But I suppose even if they don't, it's hard to complain; it's a pretty damn good game on its own.

Right now I have a ton of stuff to work through still; New Super Mario U (and Luigi), Tropical Freeze, Pikmin 3, Ducktales.....I just haven't had any time off to break into everything just yet. All in all I love it so far though; I've had more fun with the Wii U than I've had with a new console in quite some time.

[Spark Of Spirit]

You've got a lot of good stuff ahead of you.

I just restarted Thieves in Time. I've only played the prologue, but it holds up. Certainly the best Sly game by far.

[Foggle]

I still need to play Sly 4. I can tell from the demo alone that it's the best in the series.

I'm only about halfway through the main story in Saints Row 4, but I've already completed all the side content (still need to find a couple more collectables, though). This game is so fucking fun. It's easily become my favorite title of 2013, and may just be all-time top 10 material for me.

[gunswordfist]

i enjoyed the demo as well.

[talonmalon333]

I'm in the planning process of boosting my gaming area. My television is dying down, and typically I have to play around with the cords for the volume and screen to work. But even that doesn't totally work. The screen tends to flicker a lot, and usually you can hear a light (sometimes heavy) fuzz. I'd like to get a flat screen HD television with some good sound. It probably can't be too big since my gaming area isn't especially big (the TV is between a door and a game shelf). I also intend on shrinking down my gaming station by unplugging as many consoles as I can. Currently my room is home to my PS2, NES, SNES, and Wii, with the PS3 currently situated in my living room for use watching Blu-Rays. I would like to unplug and retire the NES and SNES (as neither works especially well anymore, and they are just taking up room collecting dust) and relocate the PS3 to my room. I can also tell that my PS2 is dying down, so I will likely retire that as well, eventually.

A part of this plan is that I will probably sell a good number of games. This doesn't affect me too much, because I can play most of those games in ports on my more functional consoles (at the very least, most of the games that I could possibly want to replay someday are playable in newer ports). Even with a console as good as the SNES, it's old enough that its strongest games have been ported at least once. The main sacrifice will be losing my PS2, as it has its handful of games that haven't been ported. But like I said, I don't plan on losing that console yet, so I'll figure out that issue when I get there. And besides, doing the math, I could get well over $700 on used games. In a time where I need money, and in a time where I'd like to buy a new TV and labtop, those are very appealing numbers. And I have to confess, I'd even really want to sell my copy of EarthBound. I mean, yeah, it's a collector's item. But you know, that's the reason why I want to sell it. I have no personal attachment to it (I'll be getting a Wii U someday, so if I ever want to play this game I could just get it on VC for, what, $10?), as I don't collect valuable games for the sake of having them. The only reason I won't sell it is because my brother wouldn't want to.

So yeah, there is basically $700-$800 laying in my house doing nothing, sitting there for broken consoles that remain largely for nostalgia. Factor in EarthBound and that number could easily go beyond $1,000.

[Nel_Annette]

Beat Captain Toad. A few of those last levels had me swearing my head off, but they aren't overly hard. I think I was over-thinking them in my head. And I love that ending. A nice little link to SM3DW. I might come back to it for the extra objectives eventually, but as I said earlier, this game is best served in short sessions, and I'm a bit burned out on it already. One thing I do wish was different about Book 3 was that

Spoiler

both CT and Toadette would be playable during that final level, and take turns taking out Wingo. Book one was Captain Toad rescuing Toadette. Book two was Toadette rescuing Captain Toad. Book three starts with Toadette getting captured, but she escapes partway through and you alternate between the two as they try to find each other. And then right at the penultimate level she gets captured again and the entire final level is just Captain Toad basically redoing the first Wingo fight.

[close]

Also, guess who got Deadly Premonition: The Director's Cut in the mail today?  I don't think I have as high an opinion of it as you guys, but I do appreciate the game in a "so bad it's good" kind of way, and the TBF Let's Play of it back in 2013 convinced me that it was worth owning; I was just waiting for the price to go down. And you can tell Swery was putting love into making the game, even if it did end up a charming hodgepodge.

There's also a bunch of anime weaboo bullshit games on the way. I've no idea why, but I suddenly had the urge to buy a bunch of NIS and Gust games and see how those actually are beyond the pretty anime game covers.

[gunswordfist]

on duke, I am at the level with the 2nd secret exit.

[talonmalon333]

Has anyone played MGS5: Ground Zeroes? If so, how is it and how does it compare with the rest of the series?

[Foggle]

I'm not going to play it until Phantom Pain comes out (I'm absolutely convinced that it will be included with the full release, somehow), but the general consensus seems to be:

1) The gameplay is excellent.
2) The production values are excellent (on next-gen and PC).
3) The story is handled well but disturbing and potentially offensive.
4) It's about an hour long and worth no more than $5-10.

[RacattackForce]

Beat both The Swapper and Shantae: Risky's Revenge in the past few days. The former was a great puzzle game that made me think about the very nature of what makes one human, while the later was just some good platforming fun. The Swapper is currently free via Playstation Plus, so if you've got a Sony console, pick it up.

[gunswordfist]

i played classic ninja gaiden yesterday. i got up to level 3 and stopped myself at 5 continues. i hate using infinite continues to try and beat old school platformers like this. on another note, i love the cutscenes. it's one of the only platformers where i actually pay attention to the story.

[talonmalon333]

i hate using infinite continues to try and beat old school platformers like this.

Why?

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Infinite continues is a legitimate way to play the game since the developers put it in there intentionally.

If it was something added in to make the game easier when the default mode did not allow it, then I would be a bit apprehensive about using it. An example of this is with Devil May Cry 3: Special Edition, in which I just had to at least beat the game once on Normal in Yellow Orb mode instead of the much easier Gold Orb mode, which gave me unlimited checkpoint continues (which I did have to use for DMD mode).

[talonmalon333]

Infinite continues is a legitimate way to play the game since the developers put it in there intentionally.

Agreed.

If anything, I don't like limited continues.