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

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I beat DMC3 on normal mode on my first full run through the game. Mission 18 was just shameless padding, but at least in this case you weren't forced to fight all of the bosses over again like how you were in DMC4 (though, I actually did fight all of them again, anyways). Arkham wasn't too bad of a boss once you figured out his obvious pattern, but the really cool part of that boss fight was being able to fight alongside Vergil during the second half of it, which is something that I wasn't expecting. Then came the final boss fight with Vergil which was A LOT harder than the first 2 times that I fought him. The first time was so easy that it was almost a joke. The 2nd time was a bit trickier since he had more tricks up his sleeve and could use Devil Trigger, but it was pretty easy after a few tries. The 3rd time had him utilize everything he had done before, except his attacks were more powerful than before and his combos were longer and trickier to get down as well. Even using the trickster style didn't guarentee that I would dodge his attacks since he could be a bit unpredictable and immediately link into another combo. Still, the fight was fair and eventually I got down the best ways to avoid all of his patterns. I also saved my Devil Trigger for whenever he entered into his Devil Trigger state, so that way I could still combat him on even ground as long as I knocked him out of Devil Trigger mode before I ran out of it myself. It was a great final boss fight and easily one of the most challenging ones in the game.

Thus marks the completion of my first run through DMC3, but the thing I love about this game is that completing it once only just feels like the beginning, much like how beating NGB on normal and beating the game are 2 completely different beasts altogether. In this case, I have the higher difficulties to tackle as Dante plus I can play through the entire game as Vergil on top of that. Believe it or not, though, I'm not going to go straight into replaying the game as Vergil. First I want to tackle hard mode as Dante and continue to upgrade the rest of his arsenal of weapons. On my first run through, my focus was on beating the game, so naturally I played it safe and stuck to the 2 main weapons I was most comfortable with, Rebellion and Agni & Rudra. But now that I'm entering subsequent playthroughs I have the ability to switch things up and be more experimental with my weapon combos. In this case I just want to have fun with the game's combat and don't mind dying a bunch of times until I get better at the game and can really master it.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

So, I replayed a bit of DMC3 on Hard mode. Honestly, the jump in difficulty seems barely noticeable from normal, at least so far. To be fair, DMC allows you to take all of the upgrades that you've earned through your previous playthroughs into the higher difficulty settings, so I'm sure it'd seem a bit harder if you had to tackle the difficulty with all of your base stats right from the beginning (which is in fact what the original North American version of DMC3 was set to), but even so, I didn't find it any harder to evade enemy attacks or to take down any of the enemies in general. In fact, I got through the first 2 missions without taking a single hit. That said, I'm sure later parts of the game will get harder and even if they don't its still fun enough to experiment with all manner of combos and try to upgrade the rest of my weapons. I'm also sure that the higher difficulties beyond this one will offer me up plenty of challenge as well. As it stands I managed to max out my upgrades for Cerberus, making it so that I've fully upgraded a total of 3 of my 5 weapons (Rebellion, Cerberus, and Agni & Rudra). I'm half-way done upgrading Beowulf, but I'll just upgrade its Rising Dragon and then move onto maxing out all of Nevan's upgrades since I'll save Beowulf's Air Hike for last, being that I already have 2 other weapons with that ability unlocked, and I only ever need to have one of them equipped at a time.

I also played a bit more of Halo 4 today. I ended up getting through most of Reclaimer on Heroic. That last fight I went through in which I had to go through the trenches and then make my way into that forerunner base was hell, though. There were a ton of enemies, namely those annoying as fuck jackal snipers. Thankfully unlike in Halo 2 and 3 they can't OHK you in this game (I hear that this is true even on Legendary in this game, which is great), but they are still a pain to fight, nonetheless. I managed to pick off every single one of them with my own sniper rifle, and then I ended up having to take out a few regular jackals, a shit-ton of grunts, and way too many crawlers. There were also 3 Knights that I had to kill, though they weren't too bad in this case as I managed to finish off all of them with my remaining sniper rifle ammo. I swear, though, while I only died once on that section, it was a really frustrating death. I had to be so cautious during that battle and I ended up spending well over 10 minutes picking off every enemy. I got close to the end on my first try, and then I died thanks to some stray grenade lobbed by some stupid-ass grunt that was right next to me. I was so pissed when I realized how far back my last check-point was. I had to redo almost all of the battle again, and then I finally managed to make it through the entire battle in one piece with just a few close calls. The thing is, I know that there are ways to use the level to your advantage to skip battles like that, but I'm kind of OCD about taking out all of the enemies in a fight in any Halo game (if its feasible), and in this case I wouldn't feel right completely skipping out on the fight, so I stuck with it and it at least feels really rewarding to have gotten through it all. The rest of the level should be a cakewalk from here, though the next level will certainly be a nuisance as well. The funny thing about that level, though, is that if I really wanted to I could finish it in just over 5 minutes thanks to a huge skip found by a well-known Halo speed-runner. But, then there's that thing about me and finishing an entire level properly, so it won't happen on this run through, but eventually I'll come back to the level to try out the skip for myself.

[gunswordfist]

I started my playthrough of Ultra-Violence in Doom 2 after beating the last level Episode 3 in Doom 1 in like 30 seconds...and then Spider Mastermind got his revenge after I straight up mollywhooped his ass in Doom 1 by showing up in a basement of  a level in Doom 2 out of nowhere. I believe that's the only time he has ever killed me.

Also, got to Doom 1 episode 3's secret level that I had to look online to find yesterday. Helluva surprise when I got to the exit after being irritated for an obvious reason.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I finally got my fightpad in the mail today!

I actually haven't played through any of SSF4 with it, though, aside from trying it out in training mode. It offers me up plenty of precision on my special moves, but while it takes some getting used to in order for me to adjust to the new button layout, I think that in the long run it'll prove to be really useful to have all of my LMH punch and kick buttons featured as face buttons rather than having HP and HK designated to shoulder buttons (however 3P and 3K are still designated as shoulder buttons, which is really fine, though). This controller is also somewhat reminiscent of the 6-button Genesis controller, which is definitely a good thing since, as I've stated before, that's my favorite controller for 2D games.

I also think that this controller will be good to use for all of my 2D gaming on the XBOX360, in general, so I'm pretty happy about that. What it has really helped me improve my gameplay in, though, is Garou: Mark of the Wolves, in which I had way too hard of a time pulling off any special moves with the XBOX360 d-pad (and my analogue stick had a sensitivity problem with that game in which if I used it, characters would inexplicably start moving to the left without me putting in any input whatsoever). I was finally able to get past the 3rd stage of the game without having to reduce the difficulty, which is saying a lot, and now I can work on finally playing through all of arcade mode without having to resort to the game's easy mode. For now, though, I'll probably go back to playing SSF4 and try to improve my gameplay quality as much as possible with this new controller.

[Spark Of Spirit]

If you're still playing old games on the PC, I recommend using it there too. The d-pad makes a world of difference.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

If you're still playing old games on the PC, I recommend using it there too. The d-pad makes a world of difference.

Yeah, I just tried it out earlier today! I was able to play Super Castlevania IV, Super Metroid, and Sparkster perfectly with it. Now I finally have an optimal way to play 2D games on my PC, which is especially handy for the types of games that I listed which utilize 8-directional attacks. And in Sparkster's case the shoulder buttons really come in handy.

[Kiddington]

Did I ever tell you guys that, some months back, I actually took apart the cases to my Pokemon Gold/Silver carts and replaced the battery inside (pretty sure I did, but maybe not)? Well, here we are, all that time later... and it still holds a save. Just like new. 

...so yeah, today marks my official re-start of Pokemon Gold, now that I'm sure I'm not wasting my time with a save file that'll delete itself the next morning. Man, I've missed these games. Still my favorite Pokemon titles.

[Grave]

Still taking a break from SSF4: AE and UMvC3, and now Warrior's Orochi 3, I decided to start playing Ninja Gaiden 2 and Halo: Reach once again. Gotta get used to the controls for Ninja Gaiden. While I haven't died yet, I am expecting to on chapter 2. Reach on the other hand I've come close to dying twice. It's been almost a year since I've last played both games.

I'm also getting ready to start playing the Gears of War series. I've only beaten GoW2. So I can finally look forward to that as well. While I'm at it I might finally start playing Uncharted 2 as well. So many games to get to.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I finally got into playing Super Metroid (Metroid 3) today. Now that I finally have a pad to play on, the game is actually fun and controls smoothly. I haven't gotten that far yet, but I did acquire the morph ball, bomb, and rocket power-ups, so now I have quite a few more areas opened up for me to explore.

Having a pad in general will come in handy for pretty much all of the SNES games that I plan to play via an emulator.

I've also been playing a bit more of SSF4 lately. Slowly, but surely, I'm starting to get used to the pad and my gameplay is definitely improving for it. Its no substitute for an arcade stick, obviously, but its more than serviceable enough for me who enjoys playing fighting games casually but still wants to have a reliable controller option to pull off special moves with decent precision.

Still taking a break from SSF4: AE and UMvC3, and now Warrior's Orochi 3, I decided to start playing Ninja Gaiden 2 and Halo: Reach once again. Gotta get used to the controls for Ninja Gaiden. While I haven't died yet, I am expecting to on chapter 2. Reach on the other hand I've come close to dying twice. It's been almost a year since I've last played both games.

Its been a while since I've played an NG game as well. With NG2, I could imagine that I'll have some trouble playing it now as well, given that I've spent all of this time adjusting and getting used to DMC's style of control (specifically the DMC3/4 control format), so re-adjusting back to NG could take some getting used to.

As for Halo: Reach, though, I play FPS games consistently enough to the point where I feel right at home whenever I pick up any Halo game, given that most console FPS games in general use the same general control style as Halo, granted that a lot of them have iron-sight aiming and have a different button for grenades a la Call of Duty, but the general gist of the core mechanics is pretty much the same. That, and since I've been playing Halo 4 quite a bit, anyways, my hands are still fine-tuned to the mechanics of a Halo game.

I'm also getting ready to start playing the Gears of War series. I've only beaten GoW2. So I can finally look forward to that as well. While I'm at it I might finally start playing Uncharted 2 as well. So many games to get to.

To be honest, GoW2 is honestly my least favorite of the GoW games. It had some parts that for whatever reason frustrated the hell out of me, and it felt like the most heavily scripted out of all of the GoW games to me. Its still OK (really, the entire series is OK, as I consider all of the games to be genuinely good for what they are, but not really great by my standards). I think I'm more partial to Gears of War 1 because admittedly it had the "wow" factor at the time it came out, which was early on in the XBOX360's lifespan when there weren't a lot of high profile games out for the system. However I suppose GoW3 is the most refined and technically the best game in the series, but either way I feel like the series has played it way too safe in terms of the campaign mode and hardly changed anything worthwhile over the span of the trilogy. I'm sure people could tell me how much the multiplayer differs between the 3 games, but to be honest I downright hate the multiplayer in GoW. Its just flat-out not what I like in a multiplayer shooter, not that I'm really even much of a fan of online multiplayer to begin with (as I've said, Halo is among the few multiplayer games that I've managed to get into, personally).

[Nel_Annette]

Aaaaand just ordered that Golden Nunchuck with my Nintendo points.  Went there the very minute Nintendo put up their Facebook status about it.

[Grave]

To be honest, GoW2 is honestly my least favorite of the GoW games. It had some parts that for whatever reason frustrated the hell out of me, and it felt like the most heavily scripted out of all of the GoW games to me. Its still OK (really, the entire series is OK, as I consider all of the games to be genuinely good for what they are, but not really great by my standards). I think I'm more partial to Gears of War 1 because admittedly it had the "wow" factor at the time it came out, which was early on in the XBOX360's lifespan when there weren't a lot of high profile games out for the system. However I suppose GoW3 is the most refined and technically the best game in the series, but either way I feel like the series has played it way too safe in terms of the campaign mode and hardly changed anything worthwhile over the span of the trilogy.

I suppose that's what happens when you play games for a challenge, maybe? For me, I don't know, I know how to keep myself entertained while playing games. I find little perks in some games that I get a kick out of, and in Gears 2 it just so happen to be in an area where you can snipe a bunch of folks and Marcus is counting off. Little perks like that entertain me (not to mention stomping on faces is so good for anger). I don't know what you look for in games or your standards, but when it comes to shooters I don't really look for much, especially in the campaign. Just give me something enjoyable and I'm satisfied.

Forgot to mention, I have Max Payne 3 on the way. For the most part I'm not a fan of Rockstar games (For some reason I just don't like that company). But I was kinda talked into getting it (Not to mention those little perks).

[talonmalon333]

I finally got into playing Super Metroid (Metroid 3) today. Now that I finally have a pad to play on, the game is actually fun and controls smoothly. I haven't gotten that far yet, but I did acquire the morph ball, bomb, and rocket power-ups, so now I have quite a few more areas opened up for me to explore.

Having a pad in general will come in handy for pretty much all of the SNES games that I plan to play via an emulator.

Looks like you've gotten around to one of my all time favorites. Since the comparison can't help but be made, I'll just say that I like Super Metroid a lot more than Symphony of the Night. In fact, just last year I replayed the entire game in a single day, which is not a common thing for me to be able to do.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I'm taking a break from Halo 4, which I got through the first 5 levels of (which is more than half of the game) on Heroic difficulty. Its just not as compelling for me to replay this game on the harder difficulties as Halo: Reach was, to be honest.

Right now, I'm juggling 3 games, which are Devil May Cry 3, Super Street Fighter IV, and Super Metroid. Normally I'd never juggle more than 2 games at once, but I can make an exception for fighting games since I only ever pop them in for short intervals to get a quick fix and practice with the mechanics a little bit. I'll be spending longer intervals of time playing DMC3 and SM, though I figure that SM won't be too long of a game so I'll likely finish that long before I'm done with DMC3, which I at the very least plan to play until I beat DMD mode with Dante, and at least beat Normal mode once with Vergil. I'd probably go for 100% completion on the whole game if it weren't for the fact that, starting from next week on, college will be getting in the way of my game time once again.

Oh, BTW, I did try out Turbo mode, and it was quite fun. That said, I don't plan on using Turbo mode for the harder difficulties, as I feel that I'll need things down to normal speed in order for me to be able to focus on the combat and having the game move that much faster will most likely mess with my precision in pulling off the combos that I want to when I also have to make sure that I keep track of all of the enemies in a given room and have to make sure I'm adept at evading their attacks. Well, that's for Dante, at least. I'll probably have fun using Turbo mode with Vergil, in which I probably won't get as serious in trying to pull off stylish combos with him, and I'd have no problems using Turbo mode in Bloody Palace which I'd just play every now and then for a quick fix and just to have fun, as I'm not nearly serious enough to try and make it through all 10,000 floors of that mode.

I suppose that's what happens when you play games for a challenge, maybe? For me, I don't know, I know how to keep myself entertained while playing games. I find little perks in some games that I get a kick out of, and in Gears 2 it just so happen to be in an area where you can snipe a bunch of folks and Marcus is counting off. Little perks like that entertain me (not to mention stomping on faces is so good for anger). I don't know what you look for in games or your standards, but when it comes to shooters I don't really look for much, especially in the campaign. Just give me something enjoyable and I'm satisfied.

Well, I do like a challenge, but in Gears of War's case it wasn't that it wasn't challenging when I played it on Hardcore and Insane. It was that it was challenging in a frustrating way for me since it forced me to play it really save and only stick to one strategy, which was sniping enemies with precision weapons. I like it when shooters give you a lot more combat options and actually allow you to utilize them, and I like to use strategy in terms of being tactical with how I move through the environment. I'm not saying that I don't have fun with Gears of War, but its just not a game that really holds too much replay value for me.

Forgot to mention, I have Max Payne 3 on the way. For the most part I'm not a fan of Rockstar games (For some reason I just don't like that company). But I was kinda talked into getting it (Not to mention those little perks).

I'm not much of a fan of Rockstar, myself, but I am a huge fan of the Max Payne games....yet for whatever reason I still haven't gotten around to Max Payne 3, despite the fact that its been out for over half a year. Maybe its because this game seems to bear little resemblance to the first 2 games, but either way I'll still be giving it a try eventually.

[Foggle]

God of War 2 and the PSP games are the only GoWs I like. Their combat is faster and more fluid than 1 and 3 IMO. Oh, you were talking about Gears of War.

Rockstar is pretty cool usually. Max Payne 3 has quite a few problems, but it's still a great game. Not as good as 1 or 2, though.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I should clarify that I have no problem with Rockstar itself as a game development company. I'm just not really a fan of sandbox type games is all. I'm sure that Rockstar games are among the best in that genre of gaming, but its just that the genre itself doesn't really interest me, personally.