What are you currently playing? 4.0

[gunswordfist]

First time I've ever watched one of these http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-c0m-js-fs 

[Avaitor]

Went to the flea market today, and along with a copy of Natural Born Killers and a particular CD I plan on doing a talkback on later, I got a copy of DK 64. I got all of these without spending one red cent.

When I get more time, maybe later this week, I plan to replay it.

[Angus]

Anyone try that dancing game that comes with the Kinect? I'm fairly impressed. Good game for the little ones.

[Avaitor]

So far DK64 is okay. I'm two worlds in and have four out of five Kongs. It's definitely an inferior version of Banjo, which even then isn't too bad. If anything, it's too straightforward. I always have to take a day off before I go back to playing it, and after I solve half of a world, I get bored.

I'm not regretting my purchase so far, since it was basically free, but I probably wouldn't have paid too much more for it otherwise.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I bought DMC4 used for $10 for my XBOX360, and started playing it tonight. I got past the first 4 missions so far. I'm a bit disappointed that the game isn't that challenging (at least on its default difficulty settings; and I am playing on Devil Hunter mode, which is the harder of the 2 difficulties initially available, for the record). That said, the game has been fairly fun once I got used to the combat mechanics. The enemy AI on the lower difficulties is almost non-existent (seriously, they almost feel like practice dummies, sometimes), but at least the bosses are fun and have a bit more challenge to them. I especially liked the giant frog-thing boss (whatever its called), since it was the first thing in the game that actually caused me to die. It was fairly challenging for my first time facing that boss, and it was one of those more classic feeling boss fights in which he followed a distinct attack pattern and I learned how to evade each attack, one-by-one, with each attempt, and slowly got better at fighting the boss. The first time I died I used up all of my vital stars, then I realized that I had to by more after re-spawning at the checkpoint, and then I ran out of red orbs so I had to go through the boss fight without any healing items at all, but I gradually got better at fighting it and after about 4 attempts I beat it on my 5th try with just a sliver of health left. I hope the game has more boss fights like that. Granted that, the fight wasn't really difficult as much as it was hard for me personally because I'm not used to DMC's mechanics, since I've been spoiled by the combat systems of games like Bayonetta and Ninja Gaiden (which I honestly feel are a step above where DMC is currently at in terms of its combat system).

I think the big turning point for me with that boss, though, was that I didn't realized that when he had his little glowing antenna dangling at me, I only had to damage one of them and then grab it with the devil bringer to bring him back into view. Once I learned that on my 4th attempt, I was pretty set for the next try (since I found out about it too late, when I was already really low on health during that try).

Overall, while its not as fun as Bayonetta or Ninja Gaiden (at least not yet), DMC4 is pretty good. Still, I really want to play DMC3, as well as the 1st one (I've played a few hours of each game before, but I want to be able to own them so that I can beat them fully, all of the way through).

[Foggle]

Been playing the fuck out of Yakuza 4. I absolutely love it; best in the series, by far. Most engaging storyline the franchise has ever seen with the tightest combat and the coolest music... absolutely fucking great. My only complaint so far are the training challenges. I raged so fucking hard at Saigo's Suicidal Combat (an enemy extremely good at blocking your attacks ventilates you with a machine gun non-stop while his two bodyguards repeatedly shoot you with handguns... fun, right?) that I was never able to beat it. The Master's challenges are not much better; I'm only on the second one and I'm already ready to throw in the fucking towel, because it is neither fun nor fair (you'll see why when you get to it).

Completely immersive and badass experience otherwise, though. Akiyama may very well be one of the most likable protagonists in gaming history and Saejima's story is quite gripping. Once you unlock the former's 13-hit combo and balls-kicking move you will feel like a god.

There's also this:

[Rosalinas Spare Wand]

I promised my little brother and sister I wouldn't finish 999 until I came back for Spring Break, so that game's being put on forced hold for now. A real pain because I'm finally moving past the same rooms I've been investigating for the past 4 playthroughs. Now I have to go back and finish Bowser's Inside Story, which is fun but my DS likes to signal it has low battery at the worst possible moments. It's only with this game too, so its clearly preventing me from playing for too long.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

If I had a PS3, Yakuza 3 and 4 would be the first games that I would get. Unfortunately, I'll probably never own one, so I'll most likely never got to experience the series unless Sega in some 99.999% unlikely event ever decided to re-release the Yakuza games on a platform that I actually own.

Anyways, while its not technically me playing the game, I let a friend of mine use my XBOX360 (while in my room, of course) to play Final Fantasy XIII since he got it from a friend who already beat it but couldn't return it, and he himself doesn't own an XBOX360. I have absolutely no interest in playing that game, but I watched him play it, anyways. So, apparently there is this black guy in the game who I swear Square Enix crammed every black person stereotype in the book into (he has an afro, talks in a stereotypical accent, his weapons are guns, he holds them in awkward and impractical sideways positions, he apparently seems to be doing some dance moves while he shoots at enemies, he holds onto the main character as if he's attempting to rape her because he's too cowardly to be by himself since she wants to jump off some bridge or something, etc.). Then there is this mother who looks like she's 15 (in fact, every female that I saw in the beginning of the game aside from the main character looks like they are between the ages of 12 to....they mostly look like their 12, except for one other one who looks like a teenager). There's this guy dressed as a hobo who fights soldiers with guns and these machine dogs with his fists for some reasons, even though the cutscenes show him having perfectly good guns to use, and there is this one chick who has some fake British accent for no reason and makes weird perverted sexual noises every time she makes any sort of sound or even talks. Also, there is this emo kid who's sad because his 15-year old mom died, though he looks like he's only about 2 or 3 years younger than her, himself. Ironically he's the most likable character that I saw in the game from the portions that my friend played, mostly by default (my friend himself says that he hates every character in the game). Also, the main character's name is Lightning, which sounds more like an element of magic that would be used in an FF combat system rather than the name of an actual character (though, I suppose its normal by FF's standards of just slapping random nouns onto the names of many of their past character; Cloud, Blank, etc.).

So, after witnessing all of these characters and story elements, all I have to ask for clarification is: Sqare Enix wrote Final Fantasy XIII out as a comedy story, right? I'm just checking, because if so then the writers at up at SE are fucking geniuses. This had me and my friend laughing our asses off more than any other comedy-focused video game stories that we have ever seen.

[Foggle]

I probably would have laughed more at FF13 if it had managed to keep me awake for longer than half an hour.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

But how on Earth could it bore you to sleep? Its comedy gold.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I'm currently on mission 11 of Devil May Cry 4, and while I have been enjoying some segments of the game, I'm really beginning to wonder who among the developers for this game thought that adding in this much platforming and puzzle elements would be a good idea. Now, I love hack n' slash games, and I also love puzzle games and platforming games, and a game that could combine the elements from all 3 genres would make for what is IMO the best game ever. Unfortunately I haven't seen a game that has really done that yet, and DMC4 is definitely no exception itself. I understand that the game is trying to add in an element of variety, but really nobody plays hack n' slash games for anything but the combat to begin with (except for maybe God of War which people like the story for, but personally I'm not really into it). The problem with DMC4 is that its camera and controls were clearly not designed with the elements of a platforming or puzzle game in mind (and its puzzles are really easy, anyways, with their only problem being that they are just tedious). I'd be perfectly fine if it just stuck to action the whole way through, to be honest.

That said, when the game is focused on what its done best, its quite fun. I do think that Bayonetta does this style of combat better, and I also still prefer Ninja Gaiden's combat system and enemy AI design to any other games in the genre, but I do think that DMC still stands above many of the other hack n' slash games out there. Also, on a more positive note (being that I just complained a bunch about the game), I do have to say that I really enjoyed that 2nd boss fight with Dante. It was fairly challenging and really tested your reflexes and skills at the game, overall. It really reminded me of the evil clone Ryu fight from NGB, which is one of my favorite boss fights ever. I do realize that it would have been easy to beat Dante by exploiting the Devil Bringer, but even so I preferred doing it with more skill-based methods than just spamming the DB over and over again, which would have been plain boring.

[Foggle]

Yeah, that's like how in God Hand you can beat pretty much every boss by spamming Yes Man Kablaam and Drunken Fist, but that takes away all the fun from the excellent fights.

[gunswordfist]

I bought DMC4 used for $10 for my XBOX360, and started playing it tonight. I got past the first 4 missions so far. I'm a bit disappointed that the game isn't that challenging (at least on its default difficulty settings; and I am playing on Devil Hunter mode, which is the harder of the 2 difficulties initially available, for the record). That said, the game has been fairly fun once I got used to the combat mechanics. The enemy AI on the lower difficulties is almost non-existent (seriously, they almost feel like practice dummies, sometimes), but at least the bosses are fun and have a bit more challenge to them. I especially liked the giant frog-thing boss (whatever its called), since it was the first thing in the game that actually caused me to die. It was fairly challenging for my first time facing that boss, and it was one of those more classic feeling boss fights in which he followed a distinct attack pattern and I learned how to evade each attack, one-by-one, with each attempt, and slowly got better at fighting the boss. The first time I died I used up all of my vital stars, then I realized that I had to by more after re-spawning at the checkpoint, and then I ran out of red orbs so I had to go through the boss fight without any healing items at all, but I gradually got better at fighting it and after about 4 attempts I beat it on my 5th try with just a sliver of health left. I hope the game has more boss fights like that. Granted that, the fight wasn't really difficult as much as it was hard for me personally because I'm not used to DMC's mechanics, since I've been spoiled by the combat systems of games like Bayonetta and Ninja Gaiden (which I honestly feel are a step above where DMC is currently at in terms of its combat system).

I think the big turning point for me with that boss, though, was that I didn't realized that when he had his little glowing antenna dangling at me, I only had to damage one of them and then grab it with the devil bringer to bring him back into view. Once I learned that on my 4th attempt, I was pretty set for the next try (since I found out about it too late, when I was already really low on health during that try).

Overall, while its not as fun as Bayonetta or Ninja Gaiden (at least not yet), DMC4 is pretty good. Still, I really want to play DMC3, as well as the 1st one (I've played a few hours of each game before, but I want to be able to own them so that I can beat them fully, all of the way through).

Congratulations on getting the 2nd best DMC and reminding me how awesome the frog boss is. I wonder if you got to my two favorites yet.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Well, my new favorite boss fight so far is the 2nd fight with Dante because he actually had some pretty good AI for his character and the constant evading and timing in trying to strike him at the right moment brought me back fond memories of the evil clone Ryu fight from NGB.

One complaint that I have about the game, though, at least on the Devil Hunter difficulty and the one below it (I would assume, since its supposed to be easier or something like that), is that Nero's Devil Bringer arm is way too overpowered. Just targeting an enemy and tapping "B" brings an enemy toward you or brings you closer to them, and then just tapping B to an enemy next to you without targeting them does a powerful enemy-specific combo that takes off a huge chunk of their health, and in some cases kills them instantly. I wouldn't mind this if the game at least punished you for using it too often, but spamming the DB doesn't seem to hurt your combos on the lower difficult setting and in many cases it actually helps to increase it. Naturally being the type of player that I am I make it a habit to try to not spam it, but then I realize that I should use it every now and then since the game doesn't give Nero nearly as much variety in his melee combat capabilities as Dante, so I get tired of using the same combos. In only one more mission I believe that I'll unlock Dante for a while, so I can't wait for that part of the game.

[Spark Of Spirit]

DMC4 is better than 1? I didn't think people liked it that much.