What are you currently playing? 4.0

[gunswordfist]

I beat Assassin's Creed 2 within the hour. What the fuck at that ending. Good game but the weapon fighting still needs a lot of improvement, it's ridiculous how many times you have to punch people to knock them out and that indoors stealth at the last level sucked.

[Kiddington]

So the other day, I finally got around to using this Walmart gift card I'd been sitting on for ages, and promptly bought Epic Mickey for $20. I'm not sure why it was so cheap - it wasn't a Player's Choice edition or anything - but I guess they felt so inclined to clear out extra copies or something, so it gave me the perfect reason to finally use this thing up.

Now granted, I only started playing it today so I'm not very far in, but so far, it is completely lost on me why people hated this game as much as they did. Is there something inherently wrong with it later on, like a bad late-game glitch or what have you, that I might need to worry about down the road? Because right now, in the early stages, I'm just not seeing where the hate is coming from. It looks like a solid, fun little platformer. What exactly were people expecting here; Kingdom Hearts minus Square? I don't get it.

[Foggle]

Warren Spector's track record is legendary, so it's likely that people just expected way too much from the game. Diehard fans of his past work might consider a game that's merely "good" to be below par for him.

I haven't played Epic Mickey yet, so I can't really say anything else. But this is the same reasoning that caused Invisible War to be so hated upon release (and, in some cases, Deadly Shadows; though I, personally, love that game).

[Avaitor]

I still haven't touched my copy of Epic Mickey that I got two Christmases ago. Dunno why.

The second one looks pretty cool, though. I'll have to play it before that comes out.

[Commode]

Now granted, I only started playing it today so I'm not very far in, but so far, it is completely lost on me why people hated this game as much as they did. Is there something inherently wrong with it later on, like a bad late-game glitch or what have you, that I might need to worry about down the road? Because right now, in the early stages, I'm just not seeing where the hate is coming from. It looks like a solid, fun little platformer. What exactly were people expecting here; Kingdom Hearts minus Square? I don't get it.

The most common complaint I hear is that the camera is crappy, which to a point I agree with.  But it wasn't enough to ruin the game for me.

I eagerly await a sequel, and more importantly a handheld iteration.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Epic Mickey is basically an N64 platformer with modern visuals and controls. It has all the strengths and weaknesses of every collectathon from that era. Unfortunately, N64 platformers are not actually popular right now, so people dogged it for that.

The game sold extremely well, though, so I guess the internet nerds are once again the minority.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Kid Icarus has tons of content. Geez.

The land controls (mainly the camera) are a little hard to get used to. I tend to just hold R and have it lock behind me. Other than that, the game is fun... and wow is there a lot to do.

[talonmalon333]

Epic Mickey is basically an N64 platformer with modern visuals and controls. It has all the strengths and weaknesses of every collectathon from that era. Unfortunately, N64 platformers are not actually popular right now, so people dogged it for that.

The game sold extremely well, though, so I guess the internet nerds are once again the minority.

While I'm sure the game's good, that makes it sound kinda "meh". Most N64 platformers were good but a step behind SM64... which is 100 steps behind SMG.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Epic Mickey is basically an N64 platformer with modern visuals and controls. It has all the strengths and weaknesses of every collectathon from that era. Unfortunately, N64 platformers are not actually popular right now, so people dogged it for that.

The game sold extremely well, though, so I guess the internet nerds are once again the minority.

While I'm sure the game's good, that makes it sound kinda "meh". Most N64 platformers were good but a step behind SM64... which is 100 steps behind SMG.

That's why it's so divisive. Some people love those style of games and some don't.

I don't really mind because they sort of fell off really hard back around Jak & Daxter 1's release, and there haven't really been any since.

[Foggle]

Jak & Daxter 1 is by far the best collect-a-thon I've ever played. Whereas I find most games in the genre to be at best tolerable and kind of decent, I actually legitimately enjoy J&D. Great series.

[Spark Of Spirit]

I liked it because the focus of collecting was kept on the platform challenges (Uh, driving ones aside which weren't TOO hard to figure out) whereas a lot of the games like Banjo Tooie and Donkey Kong 64 were more focused on minigames to collect things and less on platforming challenges.

Epic Mickey was kind of both, so it was refreshing. It was his first platformer, though, and it shows. So hopefully a sequel will flesh out his ideas.

Still, at this point I'm more interested in the 3DS one until I see what the game really offers.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

So, after the colossal disappointment that was NG3, I decided to play some old 2D and 3D NG games just to remind me that the series still has great games in it and why those games were so good to begin with (basically what Team Ninja forgot when they were making NG3).

First I played some classic NES NG2. You know, while the old-school NG games aren't as creative or as close to perfection as some of the best games on the console (like SMB3 or MM2 just to name a few examples), it definitely makes up for it by having a sense of speed and adrenaline that no other side-scroller can quite match, which is what makes it stand out. It has a couple of cheap moments during some boss fights or in some areas with bad enemy placements, but overall the game has extremely tight controls and goes along at a really smooth pace if you know what you're doing. I also actually quite enjoy the stage hazards (with the exception of the black-out one, being that its more of a nuisance and a time waster than the other ones), because they add interesting elements of timing and strategy to the platforming element of the game. I also love the game's sense of speed (and that of all the classic NG games in general), in that you basically have to be really quick and precise and breeze through the stage in order to truly be successful. Just standing around and waiting forever for the perfect opportunity to make a jump or attack an enemy was a good indicator that you really didn't know what you were doing, and the real pros could rocket through almost any screen of the game in the blink of an eye. Before we even had the blue hedgehog to bring the element of speed to platformers, the blue ninja Ryu already had a head start on that element of gameplay. It just feels really good when you get good enough to play the game in that way, as I feel that's how classic NG games were meant to be played at their pinnacle.

After toying around with the first 3 or so acts of NG2 (and then quitting because I had lost so much practice and was getting my ass kicked too hard by the time I got to Act IV ), I decided to start up....NG2....but this time it was the XBOX360 game, of course!

So, I decided to pick up on one of my various save files from the game, and this one happened to be around the last quarter of the game in Chapter 12, where I had been doing a weapon run with the Tonfas. Unfortunately, that was a BAD place for me to start, as I see why I would have left off there and then just dropped it almost entirely for over a year. That was with the 2nd fight with Zedonius, and I must admit, while I love NG2 I acknowledge it as a flaws games, and shit like the 2nd battle with Zed is a prime example of the FLAWED part of it. The game was obviously rushed and didn't get the proper amount of polish that it deserved, and thus we got some horribly designed sections that were clearly never actually play-tested. If this boss fight had simply been removed (along with a number of other terribly designed sections of the game), the game would have been better for it. However Tecmo decided to keep all of this content in despite clearly being unfinished in terms of balancing and polish, and its at times like this where the game is undeniably cheap. First off, while I find camera complaints for this game to be largely exaggerated, this boss fight is among the few portions of the game where even I can't deny the camera can be horrible. Zed constantly flies up into the air where you can barely see him and throws projectile fire-balls at you. Those themselves would be easy enough to dodge if he didn't also summon Gajas to fight you and keep you busy while he was simultaneously attacking you. As if that weren't bad enough, you fight on a small piece of land surrounded by lava on all sides, and its EXTREMELY easy to fall into the lava. If that happens, unless you're ready to expend almost all of your healing items, you might as well just put your controller down and wait for the game over screen, because trying to swim back to the surface is futile being that Zed can just spam his fire-balls at you while you're submerged in the lava, or even worse he can dive in their and pound you to death before you even have a chance to react. What made it the worst was that I was stuck using the Tonfa the entire time which is one of the worst weapons to use in this particular fight, being that its not an idea areal weapon so its almost impossible to attack him in the air in any significant way (and I couldn't switch to a better weapon for this situation since I was doing a Tonfa run for the achievement). Basically I had to rely on pure luck to get me through the battle (in one case he was on ground most of the time where I could at least take him out rather quickly).

After that section, though, I went ahead and fought Volf for the 2nd time, which was a MUCH better boss fight. It was also great because playing the game through with the Tonfa only, I was forced to find a new strategy to fight him that I had not previously used before, and it made the fight all the more interesting. It turns out that even after having replayed the game as much as I have, I can still discover new things about this game, and it turns out that the Tonfa are a REALLY good weapon to use against Volf. Being that he's a close-quarters melee type fighter and the Tonfa are meant for that sort of thing, it makes it really easy to attack him in rapid succession, plus with the Tonfa's ability to combo cancel, it makes it relatively simple to attack him and then evade him at a moment's notice when he unleashes a powerful attack on you while you're in his range. In this regard you can get really aggressive with him rather than having to keep your distance from him except for when there's an opening.

After fighting Volf I played through all of Chapter 13 which was also pretty awesome being that it gives you waves of enemies to fight but only a few of each at a time, which basically makes it free-form combo heaven since you never have to worry about playing it to safe to avoid getting overrun by all of the enemies attacking you at once. I got through the entire level with skill rather than luck (like in the Zedonius fight), and this may have very well been the first time that I was able to defeat Alexei on my first try on a difficulty harder than Warrior (I was playing on Mentor, for the record).

Overall, despite its flaws, the game clearly has tons of substance to make up for it. In comparison, something like NG3 may not have a boss fight as horribly designed as Zedonius, but what's there is so mundane and boring that it also never has anything even remotely as exciting as the thrills NG2 delivers when you're playing a section of the game that clearly had the developers' attention and effort put into it. I'd rather have a game with many flaws but also many strengths rather than a game that's technically more polished by has absolutely no depth or substance to it.

[talonmalon333]

I'm just wondering, what do you guys consider between between NES NG2, or XBox NG2? I just know that, in the current series, you guys like the first game better. But in the NES one, many of you, and myself, think NG2 is better.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

For me, NG2 on the NES is the best 2D game, and NGB on the XBOX is the best NG game, period.

[talonmalon333]

For me, NG2 on the NES is the best 2D game, and NGB on the XBOX is the best NG game, period.

I know. What I'm wondering is what you consider better between XBox NG2, versus NES NG2?