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

[Avaitor]

Yeah, I gave up on collecting everything a while ago. Some of the trophies and stickers seem impossible to obtain.

I decided to dust off my SNES and play SMB3 again, but the damn copy of All-Stars lost my saved game. What's even weirder is that my previous save of SMB2 is in tact. But the game is so fun that I don't mind playing from the beginning again.

[gunswordfist]

Today I brought N+, Perfect Dark, Gunstar Heroes and Doom II. I played N+ with my little brother that wanted it this

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Today I caved in and downloaded Sonic Adventure off of XBLA. I've been thinking about getting Gunstar Heroes as well, but then I figured I'd take one thing at a time. Of course, that's granted that I haven't finished Castlevania: SOTN yet, but getting SA was more of a nostalgic temptation than me being done with Castlevania, so I'll still be going back to that game and finishing it up eventually.

As for SA, I've gotten through the first 4 stages as Sonic, and....yeah, I still can't help but enjoy the fuck out of this game. You can rag on it for all of its flaws and shortcomings, and I never denied that the game was loaded with problems, but when it comes down to it I think its still a damn fun game with really good level design. Now that I've been playing it for at least over an hour myself, I can confirm that all of the complaints about the controls being godawful are full of shit. They aren't the best, but they are responsive to everything I do and when I die its usually my own fault (at least thus far). The camera can be annoying at times but it hasn't actually caused me to die yet, either. My only problem is the glitches in this game, and I swear that most of the few deaths I've had in this game so far can be attributed to some glitch where Sonic falls through the floor. I can also swear that I don't recall this glitch happening at all in the Dreamcast version of the game, but maybe it did and I just don't remember that it happened to me. If I don't remember it, though, it couldn't have happened as often as it does in this version of the game (which isn't to say that it happens frequently, but I've died at least 4 times so far due to that glitch).

At any rate, I'm almost half-way done with Sonic's portion of the story, but I still have a lot of ground to cover with the other characters in the game. I'll play some more of it tomorrow, and probably at least get done with all of Sonic's levels.

[Foggle]

I still love the Sonic levels. I think most people do. The others don't really do it for me though, and Big's stages are horrid.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Well, while many Sonic fans consider the Adventure games to be the only good (or at least decent/passable) Sonic games from last-gen, there are still many more who would say that they are garbage, which is fine in and of itself except I think a lot of the complaints about Sonic's gameplay specifically are overexaggerated to the extreme or flat out wrong. The control and camera are not nearly that bad, and I think that the game has good level design for the first true 3D Sonic game (I'm not counting the faux 3D ones on the Saturn). Minus the admittedly boring and useless hub world, the actual stages are pretty well designed and most of them have some hidden goodies to encourage replay, with a few standing out as having alternate paths akin to classic 2D Sonic games, and the actual level designs each looking distinct and fun in their own way.

I have yet to go back to the other characters, but at the very least I think that Sonic's gameplay in the SA games is still fun to this day. The game has a ton of flaws to be sure, but I don't buy the nonsense that any enjoyment derived from these games is nothing but nostalgia. I feel like the people who say that either loved the game way too much when they were younger and were shocked by how much lower in quality it was than they remembered, or they just can't deal with a game that's not super-polished and has flaws, even if it can still be fun if you look past those things (in other words, people who can't play anything other than AAA games).

[talonmalon333]

I'd like to go one step further. Not only are Sonic's levels fun in SA and SA2, but I remember them also being decent in Unleashed. Course I haven't played that game in a while, but from what I remember, it was mainly the werehog levels that dragged it down.

[Foggle]

I'd like to go one step further. Not only are Sonic's levels fun in SA and SA2, but I remember them also being decent in Unleashed. Course I haven't played that game in a while, but from what I remember, it was mainly the werehog levels that dragged it down.

That seems to be the general consensus, actually.

[gunswordfist]

Get in a few levels on Doom II. Found the Super Shotgun on the 2nd level. Ah, fuck yes.

[Nel_Annette]

Aaaand Paper Mario Sticker Star is beaten. I'm not compelled to 100% it, so back to Red Dead Redemption, I suppose.

[talonmalon333]

I'd like to go one step further. Not only are Sonic's levels fun in SA and SA2, but I remember them also being decent in Unleashed. Course I haven't played that game in a while, but from what I remember, it was mainly the werehog levels that dragged it down.

That seems to be the general consensus, actually.

That's interesting. Glad to know I'm not alone, then.

Seems to be the problem, really. Sega kind of got down Sonic's gameplay in the 3D games. But, to put it one way, it wasn't quite enough (like, not enough for the games to stack up to the classics). So instead of fine-tuning and polishing up Sonic's gameplay like they should've, they decided that the key to fixing it was to try to bring in storytelling and all sorts of different kinds of gameplay with other characters, in the hopes of beefing up the games. But instead this backfired and ended up as tedious fluff.

Of course, this refers to the main games besides Sonic 2006. That garbage was doomed and plagued by apocalyptic issues that destroy even the Sonic segments. It also doesn't include the recent games which seem to be getting the hang of how to do 3D Sonic.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Sega got too caught up in trying to force gimmicks into the game to flesh them out and make them longer. The thing about Sonic games in general is that, they aren't meant to be really long games. I can tell how much time and effort it takes for the developers to craft a good Sonic level, and by nature each level will only last a few minutes, despite the months of work it takes to put each individual one together, form its conceptualization to its coding and fine-tuning. The result will be a pretty short game, inevitably, but if done well it'll be very re-playable, and still a great game all-around. Sonic Colors and Generations proved that you don't need all of these gimmicks to make a good Sonic game. You just need good level design, controls, a camera that actually follows you, and general gameplay mechanics that suit Sonic, and only Sonic.

Sure, Colors did have the wisp gimmick, but that gimmick actually fit in perfectly with Sonic's style of gameplay and they were used more for uncovering hidden items and alternate paths through levels. With Generations the gimmicks were all in the challenge stages, but aside from having to complete 1 of those per zone, the rest were completely optional, so it never got in your way and bogged down the experience. Sega needs to be making more Sonic games with that sort of mindset as opposed to just shoehorning in all of the other characters to play as, or gimmicks to prolong the game, at the sacrifice of good gameplay and actual competent design.

[Kiddington]

I haven't touched the Adventure games in ages (and I never did end up beating Adventure 2; dunno why, but I lost interest half-way through), so I can't really say too much there. I remember generally being okay with most of the games, but it was the non-Sonic stuff that always killed it for me.

The Dreamcast is packed away somewhere atm (just don't have enough space in my current setup for everything), but I should dig it out one of these days when I'm bored, just to give 'em another go. I've also been meaning to pick up Power Stone again as well.

[Foggle]

Anybody want 5 DRM-free games for $10 total!?

http://www.gog.com/pick_5_pay_10?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=game_subject&utm_campaign=pick_5_pay_10

There's stuff on there that pretty much any PC can run (like To The Moon & Gemini Rue), so this is worth looking into no matter who you are! And of course, you can always get the games for super cheap now and then play them if/when you ever get a better computer.

Personally, I recommend Alan Wake's American Nightmare, Torchlight, and Geneforge. And I know Spark would probably recommend Mutant Mudds and Trine.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Last night I played all the way up past Red Mountain. Twinkle Park, Speed Highway, and Red Mountain are all great levels, and I managed to get through that last one without taking a single hit from any enemy or obstacle.

[Foggle]

I fucking love the music in Red Mountain. Both tracks are amazing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9FcTTBh-oI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bWHRXzI85g