The "What'cha Been Playin'?" Thread

[Gatordragon]

I'm still playing Farcry 3, Hitman: Absolution, Blur, and Rayman Legends on my Xbox 360.

I've also started Halo 4 again, mostly the multiplayer. I still got the touch as I rack up a good amount of kills each match. The loadout I like to use is a battle rifle, plasma pistol (for deactivating vehicles), plasma grenades (they stick to objects), the hard light shield ability (this saved my bacon numerous times), the unlimited sprint perk, and the double ammo perk. I always choose the Big Team Battle mode because not only does it feature 8 vs 8 combat, it allows people to vote for various game modes and settings to play in. My favorite ones are infinity slayer (team deathmatch), King of the Hil, and Regicide. Not many people use headsets anymore, but they still cooperate in varying degrees, especially when using vehicles. The game really likes placing powerful weapons across the maps for anyone to grab. There's nothing more empowering than annihilating the opposition with an incineration cannon or a rocket launcher, or a fuel rod cannon, or a concussion cannon, or a spartan laser, or a saw. It sucks to be on the receiving end of one of those weapons, though.

I haven't been playing my iPad much, but what I have been playing on it is Endless Boss Fight, Punch Quest, My Singing Monsters, The Room, and The Last Door: Chapter 1.

 

[Magus]

Batman: Arkham Origins
Beat Deathstroke. I can imagine this fight being very epic on higher difficulties simply because of all the countering. I can see some people complaining about them, but I like it. I did get hit quite a few times, and eventually got a game over because I was still trying to get used to the controls, and then instead of trying to time the counters I was mashing. So it's good to know that I can't get away with mashing in this game (Funny, you'd think fighting games can learn from this). That said, I am liking this game more and more.

Street Fighter 3: 3rd Strike
My brother-in-law came over yesterday and we ran a set (about 6-7 games). I won one match, but all of them were epic matches except for when he busted out his Akuma against my Dudley. It was my first time using Dudley, so, yeah. Still great games. I wasn't expecting it to be that epic or fun. Anyway, I used Ken, Dudley and Yun while he used Ryu and Akuma. My Ken is still in it's beginning stages, but I did figure out that I'm going to main him and probably make Yun my secondary (or vice versa). What's even better is that I had more fun playing this game more than SSF4 (and we all know how much I like that game). I'm not good at parrying at all, but it just seems better than FADC. Granted FADC is hard to master but fairly easy to use, but for those that uses a regular controller, that stuff is tedious and more complicated than it really needs to be. Anyway, very fun set. Probably get in another by this weekend.

Edit:

Dynasty Warriors Gundam 3
Hmm... I should be having more fun than I am with this game considering I enjoy Dynasty Warriors 8, not to mention Warriors Orochi 3 (probably the best game in the musou series if you ask me). I suppose I went into this a little on the blindside as well considering the only Gundam series I've seen is G Gundam and Gundam 00 (I know of Gundam Wing), so you can imagine where my disappointment is coming from. No Shadow Gundam (but Schwartz is in the game?), and then I went to see what kind of DLC this has, and saw the other Meisters, but wounded up getting Mister Bushido only to find out that you can't play him in the actual story. Gameplay wise, even though I know it's basically the same as any other DW game I can't help but compare this to Sengoku Basara because it feels clunky-ish to me (at least there's no awkward running).

More on 3rd Strike. I'm probably having way more fun using Ken than I should. That's probably because I've been able to land his super from just about everything I can think of, and I probably still don't have them all. I tried using Yang in training mode as well, and to my surprise he's just as easy. For some odd reason I usually can't use characters that does Rekka's, but to my shock I was able to use him pretty well. I suppose all there's left to do is practice my spacing as well as parry, especially parry.

Batman: Arkham Origins
Took a break. If there's one thing I don't really care for doing is hiding from helicopters. I've only seen 1 (at least I'm hoping it's just 1), but that's 1 too many. Anyway, definitely a lot of fun, but I am running into a lot of little freeze glitches. Nothing too impactful but it does kill my drive to want to continue.

 

[Dragnatek]

I have to stick to just one game and finish some that I'm playing. In addition to Valkyrie Profile and Pandora's tower, I have started some more games, mainly because i got a PS3 (My first) amd play station plus yesterday.

I started Shadow of the Colossus today and just beat the first Colossi. Now it took me a while to figure out how the horse is suppose to be controlled, that you only have limited control over it and it actually moves on it's own. Once I figured out how the game worked I made it to the first boss and got squished a few times before I managed to beat him.

On my PSP i am playing Persona, I played it on Playstation but I wanted to play the game with a better translation and the Show Queen plot. I have not started the Snow Queen quest yet. I will wait for my next play though. Right now I'm playing the main quest.

 

[Shawn Hopkins]

I've been replaying Resident Evils. I played Resident Evil 4. And that was fun so I played Resident Evil Revelations. And that was fun, so I played Resident Evil 5. And that was fun, so I went back to play the original Resident Evil.

And I suck at it. I used to be able to run through it no problem, but the new Resident Evils seem to have destroyed my ability to play the originals.

 

[Light Lucario]

I've been playing Paper Mario Sticker Star. It's really fun. I've already defeated the first two worlds. It's mostly easy, except for the bosses, but I'm enjoying it.

 

[Gatordragon]

Me and my brother have been playing Burnout 3: Takedown for the Playstation 2. We used to play this all the time when we were little. We love racing games and we like how this game allows us to make other cars crash. My brother used to be so good at it, but now I'm beating him a lot. We're going to play some Blur later. Maybe he will beat me in that racing game.

On my Xbox 360, I've been playing Serious Sam 3. It's been months since I've played this game, but I haven't lost my touch. It's a throwback to earlier first-person shooters; the ones that had you carrying numerous weapons and has non-regenerating health. I'm more of a modern shooter person (Halo, Farcry 3, Singularity), but I like this modernized nineties shooter. I think the defining moment of this game was when you're attacked by a kamikaze enemy, you easily kill it and a wave of kamikaze enemies come over the horizon to bum rush you. Better think fast if you want to survive the tons of baddies this game dishes out.

On my iPad, I've been playing EPOCH, Tiny Thief, Cake Bake Blitz, Angry Birds: Star Wars II, and Skulls of the Shogun.

 

[El-Hazard]

Final Fantasy IX-
Finished it two days before Christmas.
Took me about 36 hours just doing the main storyline and not doing any of the sidequests.
Very fun game, and I can very easily see myself playing it again someday in the future.

Dissidia: Final Fantasy-
I've finished all the "Destiny Odyssey" storylines with all the characters, and now I have to do the "Shade Impulse" segments.
4-5 more hours of gameplay, y'all!

Fable III-
I became king, and now I have to manage the kingdom's finances.
Real riveting, I know.

Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack In Time-
Inside Krell Canyon

BioShock Infinite-
Inside the Good Time Club.

Super Mario 3D Land-
World 6

The Last of Us-
I got through a really intense sneaking segment in a subway station.

 

[GWOtaku]

Project X Zone: A mindless button masher that demands almost no strategy or effort to speak of, outside of the player having enough foresight to use plentiful healing items to keep your massive band of crossover characters from getting KO'd by boss characters countering your over-the-top attacks with their own. This doesn't even match Super Robot War Original Generation for the Gameboy Advance, let alone Fire Emblem Awakening, which paces far better and is far more rewarding than this. What pleases me most about this game is that it was bought on sale and that I didn't pay more than $15 for it. The crossover novelty wears off quickly enough that it demands to be enjoyed in small doses over an extended period of time. Play an hour (at best) or more (ack. Read a book!) and it turns into a mind-numbing grind. Without the all-star cast this would be a C-lister, not that the convoluted and paper thin plot really takes advantage of the mashup in any particularly special way.

Well, I can say that I gave this sort of thing it's fair shot. However, I can't imagine buying a second game like this ever.

 

[Shawn Hopkins]

So I finally got back into the groove of oldschool Resident Evil. I beat the first RE with Chris and then I moved on to RE 2, once through in Claire's A campaign and then through again in Leon's B campaign. After all these years it's still really neat how the A and B stories fit together to make a more satisfying game. It's a little irksome that sometimes things Clare did in A aren't reflected in B, though, especially when you resolve the same puzzle to pick up an item Clare already took with her.

And now I'm working on Resident Evil 3, and, man, this is one of the tougher ones. There's no normal mode, just Easy and Hard, so I'm playing on Hard. It's not too bad as long as you don't try to fight Nemesis, who is insane. I spent, and this no exaggeration, three hours trying to beat his first appearance and just couldn't do it. I hit him with 19 shotgun shells, all that I had, and as many bullets as I could and he did not go down.

The problem was I didn't save enough health items for the fight, I only had two health bars and he burns through them too fast because he has so many attacks that are often, in practice, unblockable, and that Jill takes so long to get up when he throws her that a lot of times he can grab her two or three times before she can react. The dodge button should be the key to the fight, but it's just too unreliable for me. I don't always get the timing right and even when I do, if Jill is up against a wall or in an odd position she won't dodge, and even when she successfully dodges sometimes she can't get out of the way in time and Nemesis rewards me with a super-quick punch to the head that does a lot of damage.

I know there's a cheesy way to exploit his AI and beat him, but I wanted to try to do it "legit" if I could.

But I couldn't. So, eventually I gave it up, ran away, and am having a lot more fun with the game.

I would play Code Veronica, RE0, or RE 6 next, if I had those. Well, I have Code Veronica for Playstation 2 and RE0 for Gamecube but I'd have to dig them up. Kinda kicking myself for not buying the HD version of Code Veronica when it was on sale on PSN.

 

[Wonderwall]

I don't remember there be no normal mode in RE3. It's been a reeeeallly long time though since I played it.

 

[Shawn Hopkins]

So I beat Resident Evil 3. If you don't try to fight Nemesis except when necessary this one is actually probably the easiest one in the series, even on the "hard" mode. The enemies are definitely more numerous and aggressive, and it might have the toughest boss fights, but the game practically smothers you in ammo, healing items, and save ribbons, so you can easily handle it without the stress and uncertainty of Resident Evil and Resident Evil 2. After a certain point thinking about running past some monsters to save ammo goes out the window, and if they're in your way you just casually gun them down.

I really enjoyed playing it, although it's better in the early part when you can explore a nearly "open world" Racoon City. After you leave that area it gets much more linear. The ending area was especially less epic than I remembered.

And now I'm out of Resident Evil games, unless I want to hunt up my PS2 and Gamecube versions or buy Six. But I think I'm going to switch to something else for a while.

 

[defunctzombie]

My favorite part of RE3 is the shell loader. I'd always save up my powder for Magnum bullets (A+B=C, then C+C+C), it makes the end parts a lot easier.

I actually consider running away from Nemesis a bigger challenge than taking the time to shoot him up. So many options. The first fight, you can stay and swipe the chicken's ID (I can't remember his name... Brad?) then run, saving some time; or you can run in and hunt down Jill's ID (then of course running from him again). Lots of fun.

 

[Dragnatek]

Beat the Sixth Colossi in Shadow of the colossus. I am loving this game. I really like the feel of this game, the huge monsters, having to hang on for dear life as you fight them. This game is great.

Beat the Main story in Persona PSP and started the Snow Queen Quest. I'm spiting PSP time between it and Valkyie Profile Lenneth. I just completed cycle seven on hard mode and I am getting Ending A. I got the Loki cutscene and now I am just getting ready for the end game. So cycle eight will be for leveling.

 

[Shawn Hopkins]

My favorite part of RE3 is the shell loader. I'd always save up my powder for Magnum bullets (A+B=C, then C+C+C), it makes the end parts a lot easier. I actually consider running away from Nemesis a bigger challenge than taking the time to shoot him up. So many options. The first fight, you can stay and swipe the chicken's ID (I can't remember his name... Brad?) then run, saving some time; or you can run in and hunt down Jill's ID (then of course running from him again). Lots of fun.

Ha, not for me on hard mode. It gets easier when you've got good ammo, but I always find it easiest to go "LOLnope!" and head straight for the door.

Oh, so that's how you get C rounds. Because I'm a dumbass I forgot, and spent this entire playthrough wondering when they would start showing up. Didn't need them, though. Heck I actually forgot to take my grenade launcher into the final fight, it doesn't really matter because they give you magnum ammo and a freaking rocket launcher with four shots right before it. I also never used the mine launcher.

 

[Wonderwall]

You play any of the Mercenaries mode yet? Those are always fun in how insane they are

 

[Shawn Hopkins]

You play any of the Mercenaries mode yet? Those are always fun in how insane they are

I played Mad Jackal for a while. It is fun, but it's a bit too hard for me. I made it right to the end once but there was an incredible horde of zombies there and I'd blown all my ammo, so the timer ran out, Carlos went boom.

 

[defunctzombie]

Yeah, I can never beat the RE3 Mercenaries mode. RE:CV's is easier, though I still can't beat it with the hidden character (the only reason I bother is because I'm a bit of a fangirl for him...)

 

[Wonderwall]

Me and my brother were able to beat the mode with all the characters but Nikolai was ridiculous since all he has is a pistol and knife for weapons. Just book it as much as possible with him.

 

[Gatordragon]

Since the winter break is almost over, I've been playing more on my iPad. On it, I'm playing mainly Clash of Clans, Colossatron, Jet Car Stunts 2, and Skulls of the Shogun.

Clash of Clans is a free real-time strategy/tower defense game. You start off with a simple fortress that you build defenses toprotect it, while also forming an army to attack other people's fortresses for resources. You can produce your own resources, but it can be faster to take it from others. There's also single player fortresses, but I find fortresses owned by other people more interesting and challenging. Army units are diverse; so far I unlocked the barbarians (standard infantry that's works great in numbers), archers (they can shoot over walls), goblins (they drain resources faster), giants (they take a lot of damage), and wall breakers (bomb-carrying skeletons that blow up walls to let your army through). You have to be careful deploying units because any unit deployed will be expended, even if they survived. Therefore, planning is a good strategy to minimize costs and units. Of course, your own fortress can be attacked as well, but only when you're offline. If you do get attacked, you can check your inbox to see if your defenses won or lost. The last five raids can even be replayed to see how it went down. If you lost, your buildings will regenerate quickly and you'll be immune to being attacked for a few hours. I constructed walls and resource buildings around my defenses so that any attackers will have to go through them first, giving my defenses more time to attack. It's a pretty effective strategy, but I'm always improving and rearranging.

This is Clash of Clans in a nutshell.

[video=youtube;xxYjJ341_Fg]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxYjJ341_Fg[/video]

 

[Gatomon41]

Having saved Japan from Zombie Nobunaga Oda, I've decided to check out Scurge: Hive for the GBA.

Despite a generic SF plot right out of Metroid, the gameplay is enjoyable. It's great run and gun action in an isometric view, the graphics are great for the GBA, and it's easy to learn. Plus, one can level up by blasting enmies, and expanding HP. It's a must for me, since I'm not too good at beating bosses. The downside is that the isometric perspective can get frustrating at times.

Scourge is also available for the DS, though reviews indicate that the game does not take advantage of the system's graphics or touch screen.