What are you currently playing? 4.0

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Well, from what I've played of it, RE5 is fun if you're playing with a human partner, no doubt. However, having to deal with Sheva's AI constantly getting in trouble and you needing to rescue her makes it a lot less fun and a lot more frustrating an experiences than it needs to be, IMO. Besides, I feel that going solo suits an RE game better than co-op, personally, but then again RE5 wasn't even trying to be a horror game in the least (its a pure action game from start to finish) so I guess that's pretty much the experience that they were going for.

[talonmalon333]

Well, from what I've played of it, RE5 is fun if you're playing with a human partner, no doubt. However, having to deal with Sheva's AI constantly getting in trouble and you needing to rescue her makes it a lot less fun and a lot more frustrating an experiences than it needs to be, IMO. Besides, I feel that going solo suits an RE game better than co-op, personally, but then again RE5 wasn't even trying to be a horror game in the least (its a pure action game from start to finish) so I guess that's pretty much the experience that they were going for.

Sadly, people play RE for survival-horror.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Well, I mean after all it IS the series that started the whole genre to begin with, so its not unreasonable for people to be a little disappointed when it completely abandons the genre that it began.

[Spark Of Spirit]

I beat Splatterhouse. A pretty lengthy game at 12 "Phases" (they're pretty long, though) and had a sew pretty good tricks thrown in to mix it up. The only stages I wasn't a fan of was the last one (too many enemy gauntlets of the game's toughest enemies) and several sections where you're meant to God Of War/Uncharted style jump around without any previous indication. As far as mindless beat em ups, this was fun and did it's job right. If it wasn't for the whole Bottlerocket Studios fiasco during the game's creation eating up most of the budget, I'm sure the niggling flaws would have been polished a bit more. Critics still would have complained, though. These types of games never review well.

Phase 5 and 7 were just terrific, however. They managed to nail the whole Splatterhouse feel and atmosphere from the 2D games in this and the non-licensed music by Mr. 'Sonic 3 & Knuckles' Howard Drossin is a great mixture of horror class and doom metal (the licensed death metal totally works against the horror feel, though. They shouldn't have bothered with that crap), and I totally salute them on how much the team obviously cared. The little touches throughout really added up to me. Especially making the weapon pickups like the old games where each have a different feel and effectiveness on certain enemies. I'd love a sequel, but that's obviously never going to happen.

Still, warts and all, I'm glad this game was made.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

So, I didn't get much time to play today, but I did manage to get past the boss fight with El Gigante. I thought it was a really nice touch how the dog I saved from the trap earlier came back to help me during that fight by acting as a distraction for the boss. I like when games pay close attention to little details like that.

[talonmalon333]

Well, I mean after all it IS the series that started the whole genre to begin with, so its not unreasonable for people to be a little disappointed when it completely abandons the genre that it began.

I know. My apologies. My wording in the above post was awful.

[Spark Of Spirit]

HUGE sale on XBLA this week

Highlights include Outland, Shank, Moon Diver, Serious Sam, both Bionic Commando ReArmed games and Monday Night Combat for around 50% off.

Check it out if you've got the points.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Those are some pretty tempting offers. Unfortunately I have no MS points on me at the moment, and I just spent money to get RE4, so it looks like that's yet another great deal that I'll just have to pass up.

Maybe I'll get a bunch of XBLA points for my birthday and finally download a bunch of stuff that I've been wanting to get, but I was already planning on getting Arkham City, and its so hard to choose between games.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Well, the sale is until next Tuesday, so no rush. There also might be ANOTHER sale on Friday, so keep your eye out for that.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I just got past the fight where you and Ashely barricade yourselfs in a small house and get swarmed by enemies from all around. That's some pretty intense action packed into one major battle, but it was a lot of fun to just unload on the enemies since I had a ton of ammo stocked up and needed to clear some space in my inventory, anyways.

Now there are 2 gates I can choose from to go through (though with the way I play, I'll just end up doing both of them regardless of only having to do 1). That said, is it weird that I imagine fighting El Gigante again to be a hell of a lot easier and less annoying than being swarmed by a bunh of Gonados? I especially find the chainsaw enemies to be the most challenging to deal with (especially if I have to protect Ashley while fighting them).

[Spark Of Spirit]

After Splatterhouse I turned my attention towards Vanquish.

... And I instantly wonder why this bombed. The way the suit moves alone guarantees a lot of variety in the game, but then you have the creative weapons and weird moves you can do and it's just awesome. I also appreciate the regenerating health in this game because otherwise you would probably die a lot due to the sheer carnage and ammo flying towards you all the time and the regeneration gives you time to correct an ill timed move by giving you a chance to save yourself with a proper one in slow motion.

It's Gears Of War on speed.

[Foggle]

The El Gigante route is far easier. You can actually avoid fighting him entirely if you're quick enough at shooting locks off doors and searching huts for items.

[talonmalon333]

The El Gigante route is far easier. You can actually avoid fighting him entirely if you're quick enough at shooting locks off doors and searching huts for items.

But then you miss out on a lot of gold. I personally find it easier to just take out the Ganados and steal their treasure. They are no harder then the swarms you fight before this part anyway.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I know that there is a boulder that you can shoot to stall him since I watched a friend of mine play RE4 a few years ago and I specifically remember that part, but when I watched him play it I also learned that its just as easy to kill him. The trick is that after you shoot down that boulder that's supposed to stall him and give you time to escape, you can instead just wait in front of it until he breaks it. After he breaks through it he is momentarily stunned and you can shoot him with your sub-machine gun to weaken him enough to start cutting out that infection-thingy that comes of his back. After that he'll be momentarily stuck in some recovery frames, and then you can just shoot him with the sub-machine gun again and you can immediately get him back into that state and finish him off without even giving him a chance to fight back. That's at least how I remember my friend doing it, so I'm going to try doing that (especially since you get 15K for each El Gigante you kill, and I can't pass up big-time dough like that).

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Incidentally, I only just realized that you can combine certain treasures to make them worth far more than they would normally be as individual pieces....Damn....I missed out on a hell of a lot of gold by selling all my shit immediately after I got it up until now. I'll make sure to save the treasures that I found from now on until I make sure that I have completed them by combining them with other compatible parts.