What Are You Currently Playing? 5.05: You Are (Not) A Gamer

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Speaking of Street Fighter, I saw footage of the new characters and mechanics for USFIV. What interested me the most is that you can apparently have both of a character's ultras equipped in a match, but I hope they aren't implying that you can chain both ultras together, because I could see that potentially breaking the game.

Putting that aside, I was actually interested by the new characters. I don't care what anyone else says, I'm looking forward to this DLC.

[Grave]

Speaking of Street Fighter, I saw footage of the new characters and mechanics for USFIV. What interested me the most is that you can apparently have both of a character's ultras equipped in a match, but I hope they aren't implying that you can chain both ultras together, because I could see that potentially breaking the game.

Putting that aside, I was actually interested by the new characters. I don't care what anyone else says, I'm looking forward to this DLC.

That is a definite no, since you can only use ultra once (twice at most, maybe three times, but I've only seen it used 2 times) per round. It's basically giving you more options at your disposal. Take Ryu for instance (bastards buffing him even more by letting him Shoryu-ken > FADC > Ultra 2), you let him get a full stock of everything (DON'T JUMP and ALWAYS BLOCK), you're now at risk of eating big damage across the board simply because he has access to both ultra's. You jump = Uppercut > FADC Ultra 1/2, You jump = Ultra 2 (anti-air). The bad side to it is that picking the option to use both ultras weakens the damage when used (although Capcom is thinking about changing that). Hell, grapplers are freaking me out even more, especially Zangief.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

FUCK the boss fight with the Senator, and FUCK whoever designed it! Good god, I was really enjoying most of MGRR up to this point, but fighting the final boss on fucking normal mode with no healing items is proving to be ridicuoulsly frustrating. It's not a fun boss fight in any way (the Metal Gear made a far more FUN boss fight, and should've been the finale), and it really highlights all of the games flaws in one fight. I've been attacked off camera, had my Zandatsu completely miss its mark because I so much as twitched my finger (the aiming on that thing is way too sensitive, IMO), and generally I've been stuck in ridiculously stupid situations, especially whenever I get stuck on the narrow end of his fire-wall. It may be a challenging boss fight, but nothing about it is the least bit fun.

I mean, as much as I love the rest of this game, this fight is going to leave a bad taste in my mouth. And no, I STILL haven't beaten it. I'm the type of gamer who usually sees a hard fight through to the end, but at this point I had dealt with this BS for long enough. For a reference point, an example of a good (as in actual fun) challenging boss fight is Vergil from DMC3 or Doppleganger Ryu from Ninja Gaiden. This shit is more like the Arkham fight.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I finally beat Senator Armstrong. He was a fucking terrible boss. I could have gone back and stocked up on healing items for that fight, but that would be like admitting defeat, so I stubbornly fought this boss without the use of items. Other than that and the scripted running sequences and that one room in the game, most of the rest of the game was awesome. I'll be replaying it soon. Overall, this is the most appealing Metal Gear game that I have played because fuck stealth.

For now, though, I'm going back to focusing on finishing off my DMC3 DMD run.

[Rynnec]

Armstrong is actually a pretty decent boss once you find out you can simply dodge the debris he throws at you instead of using Blade Mode on them.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I already found that out myself. I still found the boss fight frustrating, though. Mostly it was because of how the block mechanic works in this game. You have to constantly press the direction toward the enemy along with the attack button. In most cases I could do that just fine, but with the camera constantly moving back and forth throughout the battle, I inevitably screwed up at least once throughout the battle, and as it turns out, one time was all that it took in each attempt at that battle in order for him to utterly punish me with a full combo. He could easily take out more than half of my health in a moment if I so much as twitched in the wrong direction because of a sudden camera shift, even if my timing was perfect. That combined with the fire-wall shenanigans really drove me up the wall.

I like the block/parry mechanic in this game for the most part, but I prefer the Royal Guard mechanic from DMC. The latter allows you to block ANY attack in the game no matter how big or small it may be, and it only requires a single button press per attack without a directional input accompanying it. This ensures that the angle your character is facing doesn't screw you over. The compromise, of course, is that the timing for it is way stricter, so it prevents it from breaking the game.

But aside from how much I detest that boss fight, I really do like the game on the whole. I wouldn't quite say that it's on par with Ninja Gaiden Black, Bayonetta, or  Devil May Cry 1 or 3 (though it certainly has the potential to be with a sequel if it improves the noticeable flaws with this game). To me it's more comparable to Ninja Gaiden 2 or Devil May Cry 4, both of which are great games that just fall short of the best in the genre due to their own set of problems holding them back.

[Nel_Annette]

So, how's Dr. Luigi? Worth $15?

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I'm still having trouble with the 2nd Vergil fight on DMC3's DMD mode, so I'll have to look up a guide for good ways to take him down. I might have to go back to using the Quicksilver style like I did for the 3rd boss fight with Vergil on Very Hard mode so that I can knock him out of his Devil Trigger state as quickly as possible. The main problem with it on this difficulty is that he rapidly recovers health while he's in that state, so it'll negate most of the damage that you did to him unless you knock him out of it quickly.

Other than that, I started replaying MGRR on hard mode. The game definitely feels smoother the second time around when you get used to the mechanics. I do find it kind of lame that I couldn't use any of my upgrades for Mission R-00, though. I know it's mostly a prologue chapter for story, but even so there are enough actual fights in it to make it useful to have your upgrades handy. Other than that, though, I've been liking the game better the 2nd time around. It's still flawed, but when everything clicks together, it really delivers on some amazing action. It's very telling that when I went back to playing some of DmC after this game, it felt painfully slow in comparison.

I've been playing through a good chunk of Gears of War: Judgement. I like it better than the first 2 games, but I haven't decided if I like it more than 3 yet. But, yeah, it's a Gears game, and despite it seeming like the type of modern game that I would rag on, I actually like these games, for the most part. This one is actually not made by the original development team, but rather by the same developers who made Bullet Storm, People Can Fly, and the difference shows, for both better and worse. What I really enjoy about the game is that it has little to nothing of that cinematic bull-shit. It's just pure gameplay through-and-through, and the mission structure of this game, despite making it feel disjointed compared to the other games in the series, gives it an arcade-like feel that really compels me to keep playing in a way that the other Gears games couldn't quite do. It's very telling that I like this game so much, yet this is also the least critically well-received Gears game. I chuckled a bit when Adam Sessler showed his disappointment in this game, and complained that it lacked the "dramatic story" of Gears of War 3 (yeah....), whereas this game was clearly geared more towards replayability and co-op (he referred to those elements as if they were a bad thing). I guess it just goes to show how different my tastes are from the modern gamer's mentality, but it is what it is, I suppose.

The only reason this isn't automatically my favorite Gears game is because some of the mechanics have been changed for the worse. While I don't like the story in Gears 3, I also don't care about it. But it definitely has the most finely-tuned mechanics in the entire series, so that's why it's still my current favorite game in the franchise. Still, Judgement is a lot of fun, and it's refreshing to see a AAA TPS besides Vanquish that actually doesn't cater too much to the casual crowd who'd rather play through a movie than an actual game.

Oh, and speaking of Vanquish, I finally started playing it. Yeah, I know, pretty late to the party, aren't I? Many of this game's aesthetics remind me of MGRR,  but on the whole I actually like the look better for how crisp and interesting the environments look. I remember Desensitized complaining about that aspect of the game before, but I'll have to respectfully disagree with him on that. I LOVE this type of futuristic look. Maybe there's a lack of color, but it works for the art-style that they are going for, and everything just comes off really crystal clear, and each environment looks very distinguished. With something like MGRR, I found the environments to be less creative and more boring, but admittedly that game had some highlights as well. As for the gameplay, I've made it all of the way through Act I, and I absolutely love it. This is a game that I can see myself instantly replaying once I'm done with my first run through it, but that's Platinum for you.

[Foggle]

Glad you're liking Vanquish too! Don't forget to grab the free DLC packs for MGRR though.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I definitely will. I just need to clear some room on my HDD. I'll probably just delete NGB since the downloadable version of the game keeps crashing on me, anyways.

And yeah, Vanquish is awesome. Shinji Mikami definitely knows how to make great TPS games.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Yep, Quicksilver did the trick against Vergil. The main thing to do for this fight is to just play it safe and avoid all of his attacks (which is easy to do as long as you keep a reasonable distance from him) until he leaves an opening for you to attack. Whenever he decides to Devil Trigger, activate your Quicksilver style, and a few well-placed hits on him with Rebellion is enough to knock him right out of it before he recovers too much health. It's still a challenging boss fight, but it's not frustratingly unfair like the fight with Geryon on this difficulty setting.

Other than that I played a bit more of Vanquish and Gears of War: Judgement. Both games are still plenty of fun, but of course Vanquish stands out as the better game for how unique and fun it is to play.

I also replayed through all of the 1st mission on Hard mode in MGRR. As is the norm with these sorts of games, Hard mode barely feels any different from Normal mode. That said, the game is still fun. As for the DLC, I'll probably get around to that next weekend or so, depending on how busy I am with my upcoming rotation.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Man, DMD mode in DMC3 doesn't fuck around in the 2nd half. In the first portion of the game, it was challenging, but it wasn't THAT brutal, for the most part. Everything from mission 11 onward has been chaotic as all hell, though. I mean, for crying out loud, even the Damned Chess Pieces are a nightmare if you have to fight them in enclosed spaces on this difficulty setting.

I'm up to Mission 15, now, which is by far my least favorite mission in the game.

[gunswordfist]

I got Street Fighter 3 and Beyond Good & Evil a couple of weeks ago. I beat SF3 the day I got it but I of course still absolutely suck at the game. I started Beyond Good & Evil this week. I can see it sucking up all my time...so I barely played it.

I also played Street Fighter 2 on SNES (forget which version. Hyper Fighting, maybe??!) and beat TMNT IV: Turtles In Time with the same friend. Actually, the controller was passed around a lot but I still played a good amount and had fun. As a kid, my brothers and I actually never got past the boss fight where Shredder shoots you in 2nd person because we sucked at throwing ninjas at the screen (I still do) so I have always wondered why the hell they called the game Turtles In Time because I thought that was pretty much the last level.

[Kiddington]

Okay, SoulSilver is really growing on me. Like, really growing on me. I haven't been able to put it down all week.

It's nice to know that I can still become addicted to a Pokemon game at this point (it's been a while). Man, this doesn't change the fact that I'm still woefully behind on the series though. I got X for Christmas, but still haven't even broken into it yet. 

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I just beat DMC3 as Vergil. It was on Normal, of course, which is way too easy, but also allowed me to be sloppy and really experiment with Vergil's move-set. That said, in retrospect, I probably should've started playing as him on hard mode.

But good god, it really is amazing just how much replay value this game has. It's no wonder it's my 2nd favorite game in the genre. If the level design was tighter and more creative, and the bosses were designed a bit better, it could've even surpassed NGB as my favorite game ever. Then again, good level design takes a lot of extra talent, and it's clear that the development team focused all of their talent on the combat. NGB's ability to succeed in all of those areas is a testament to how talented Itagaki and company were when they were in their prime. That said, I really don't mean that to deter from DMC3's awesomeness in any way. Even if you take out the fact that it has a fully fleshed out alternate character to play as, there is so much to the gameplay that even playing as Dante alone has netted me over 50 hours of playtime with this game, and for me that's quite a lot. There are few games out there that can even come close to this level of replay value in a game.