The "What'cha Been Playin'?" Thread

[Gatomon41]

Spectral Force Genesis (GBDS)

My local K-Mart is going out of business, but I did find this Strategy RPG Hybrid for rather cheap. SFG is set in the world of Neverland (not to be confused with Peter Pan), that is basically your traditional Japanese RPG setting - Elves, Dwarfs, Cutie Beast Monsters, Ninjas, mages and the like. Only this time, the world is divided into 40 countries, and it's up to you to unite them all.

So basically WWII with Magic.

In any case, it's certainly a different type of strategy game than I've seen before. It crosses nation building and Real time strategy with RPG elements. The problem is that the game doesn't quite excel in any of these categories. however, the gameplay is passable and does provide an addicting experience.

 

[Gatordragon]

I've been playing a lot of games on Steam lately. This includes Gunpoint, Tiny and Big: Grandpa's Leftovers, Castle Crashers, Psychonauts, Don't Starve, and Team Fortress 2.

Gunpoint is a sidescrolling stealth game where you play as a private eye hacker. Like most stealth games, it requires patience and problem solving to succeed. One thing I like about the game is the ability to hack into the circuitry of buildings and rewire them. This means you can do things like connect a light switch to a door so you can unlock it with the switch.

Tiny and Big: Grandpa's Leftovers is a 3D platformer where you play as a nerd named Tiny who is on a mission to get his late grandpa's pants back from a bully named Big. Ironically, Big is actually smaller than Tiny. The gameplay consists of using three gadgets to alter the environment to make it more manuverable. Your gadgets are a grappling hook to pull things, rockets to push things, and a laser to cut things. This makes for some creative battles when fighting Big. Is a rock hurtling your way? Instead of running, why not laser it in two? It's tricky, but it feels awesome.

Castle Crashers is a cartoony sidescrolling hack n' slash created by Dan Paladin and Tom Fulp of Newgrounds.com fame. You play as a gallant knight who must rescue four princesses that have been kidnapped. There are several knights to choose, but I chose the blue knight because blue is my favorite color. Plus the blue knight has ice powers! Not only does this game have solid gameplay, it is quite humorous, if crude at times. I've had my eye on this game for a while and thanks to the Summer Steam Sale, I was able to buy for a fraction of it's regular price.

Psychonauts is a 3D platformer where you play as Razputin, a dabbling psychic who came to a psychic camp to hone his powers. This is one of those games that despite critical acclaim, it sold poorly. Back in the day, I tried getting it for Playstation 2, but no game store I went to had it in stock. Thanks to Steam, I got it for PC during the Summer Steam Sale.

 

[Magus]

Halo Reach
It's been a while since I've played a Halo game. And it feels only natural to start with what I feel is the best in the series. While none of the Noble teams are Master Chief, I still like them regardless of how empty they are. They're my type of characters. Anyway, I've been slowly slipping into another funk with games (fandoms don't make it any better either.) almost needing to step back from gaming in general altogether. Hoping Halo will pull me out of this little funk.

 

[Gatordragon]

This week, I've been playing Awesomenauts, Psychonauts, Guacamelee!, Tiny and Big, and Castle Crashers.

Awesomenauts is a 2D MOBA game that can be described as Team Fortress 2 if it was a sci-fi 80s cartoon. I've played for about two hours and I really like it! Like Team Fortress 2, it's a lot of nutty fun and the characters are extremely diverse. I only unlocked a few, but my favorite characters so far are Leon the stealthy chameleon, Voltar the gadgeteer brain in a jar, and Gnaw the hungry bug.

Guacamelee! is a 2D metroidvania game where you play as Juan, an agave farmer turned luchador who is on a mission to save his friend from an evil necromancer. I like luchadors, and this game does not disappoint when it comes to combat. I love racking up combos being a whirlwind of smackdown.

 

[Viper]

Here's what I've accomplished:

Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep, Aqua's Story--I completed Treasure Tussle at the Mirage Arena and even though I didn't complete the Skull Command Board yet, I DID pick up the Photon Charge Shotlock for Aqua.

Final Fantasy XIII--I completed Chapter 10 and I completed my first side mission at the Grand Pulse in Chapter 11.

Kingdom Hearts: Final Mix, Beginner Mode--I'm halfway through Traverse Town and I just defeated Leon. I'm trying to clear the Story in Beginner Mode with 2 achievements: clearing it without using a continue and without changing equipment. As for the Speedstar achievement, I'll have to wait until Proud Mode to finish it in less than 115 hours. It'll be worth the wait.

 

[Gatordragon]

I had a crazy fun time in Don't Starve yesterday. I'm currently playing as Wigfrid the fake Valkyrie and I was having a ball with her during winter. I prepared all autumn for the cold, so I didn't have to worry about freezing to death. Which is good because I only had to focus the other dangerous things that winter brings.

I encountered two giants that I only heard about. The first was the Treeguard, which I saw before in another playthrough, but they were non hostile. This time it emerged when I cut down a bunch of trees. This massive creature never let up chasing me, but I tricked it into fighting some tentacles in a nearby swamp to soften it up. It killed the tentacles, but was weakened enough that I could kill it quickly. I ended up getting a pile of living logs from the encounter. I like how they scream when I toss them into a campfire.

The second giant I encountered was the Deerclops. This legendary creature came at me like something from a horror movie. I was just exploring when I heard this growling moan. Confused, I ran toward the sound and then the ground started shaking. Then out of the blue, I the Deerclops appears and it gives chase, plowing through everything in its way. I tried to lure it into a trap like I did with the Treeguard, but the Deerclops went offscreen and never returned. Shame too, because it looked like a fun creature to fight. This is what the Deerclops looks like.

Before the winter ended, I ran into a particularly weird event. While exploring, I ran into a pair of Scottish walruses and their pack of ice hounds. These walruses are MacTusk and his son, Wee MacTusk and they love to hunt people. I easily killed their ice hounds, but the two wlaruses kept their distance and and shot at me with a blowgun. Fortunately, I had a blowgun of my own and went for the MacTusk first. When he went down, his son ran off and didn't come back. With victory being mine, I got a walrus tusk and a tam o' shanter from the blubbery Scot.

Oh and here is a summary of winter in Don't Starve.

[video=youtube;C61XNqoeFdY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C61XNqoeFdY[/video]

 

[Jinbo71]

I just completed The Walking Dead Season 1 and my god, I was blown away. Also, I got my first platinum trophy off of it. Does anyone know if saved data from say, the PS3 version of Season 1 will transfer over to the PS4 version of Season 2?

I've also been playing Tearaway on my PSVita that I got last month. It's quite a good game, certainly worth your time if you got a Vita. I'm currently at the laboratory that you reach after clearing the canyon full of Wendigos.

 

[Pac-Attack]

So I beat the Pac-Man/Ghostly Adventures game last night, man the final boss (Betrayus) was a joke, like it was only hard at first because I had no idea what the heck to do. Even Spooky from Pac-Man World 2 was harder than this, or even that game in general.

 

[Gatordragon]

I finished Psychonauts today. Now that was a very good and funny game that's only mildly frustrating at times. It's amazing how much stuff the developers put in this game (Try using clairvoyance on everyone you meet, even the enemies.). It's also a darn shame this didn't sell well.

I heard that the Tim Schafer, the game's creator, wants to make a sequel. Unfortunately, he can't find a publisher that wants to help him. I hope Schafer finds a willing publisher someday, because I would like to see a sequel to this game.

I also finished Guacamelee!, another game I enjoyed. Before fighting the final boss, I went to find these optional five orbs of power. They were hard to find, especially the Orbs of Old School Platforming and New School Platforming (New School Platforming is like Super Meat Boy). My reward for finding all five orbs was unlimited double jump in chicken form (this made some bits ridiculously easy). After defeating the final boss, I got the final sixth orb and unlocked the good ending. It was a very satisfying and heartwarming conclusion.

 

[Looney Turtles]

I've been playing some Dead Rising 2: Off the Record and trying to level up on it.

 

[Magus]

Halo Reach
I think the last place I left off was shutting down the covenant's shield on the big ship. I may be getting ready to fly into space soon, can't remember.

Borderlands 2
Gonna start up a solo run as Zero. Only tried out about maybe 20 minutes of a solo run and then got side tracked by Street Fighter. Anyway, with Destiny around the corner I've been in the mood for these games dealing with looting and customizing.

 

[Mister Mayhem]

Compatriots,

[FONT=&quot]quantum of solace [/FONT]short and forgettable. despite taking place in several locations practically every level felt the same. there was a sniper escort mission and one where you had to chase somebody down at a construction site but other than that it was mostly the same ol kill everybody or sneak past them to advance. the areas where you just had to put a few enemies to sleep were okay but the the ones were you had to turn off switches to deactivate the cameras were terrible. i never quite got a handle on sneaking so i just went in guns blazing most of the time. the qte portions were pretty annoying but its rare that i like those in games. there were only a few cut scenes so most of the story played out through cell phone messages and schematics with the characters disembodied voices. graphics were some of the worst i've seen for a ps3 game that's pretty common for movie tie in games. i got it for a few bucks though so i can't complain too much.

[FONT=&quot]yugioh millennium duels [/FONT]where do i even start. for the price i wasn't expecting it to blow me away but i also wasn't expecting it to be so underwhelming either. first there's no story mode. i know these games aren't known for their story (i actually liked the story for some of the ds games) but just having a robot guide repeat the same few lines gets old. it’s nice that they included 80 characters from the first four series with modern takes on their decks but not having them talk or change their expressions during the duel makes everything feel completely lifeless. there's only 3 music tracks when dueling and they were taken from one of the psp games from what i hear. with such a large library of music i don't know why they just chose 3. the duel field is always the same unless someone plays a field card. the cards briefly glow when doing a special summon and 16 specific monsters have their card artwork pop up when played but other than that nothing flashy happens onscreen. dp isn't earned after completing a duel, instead you receive a random assortment of cards with the quantity depending on how long the duel lasted or how many spell cards were used and stuff like that. the problem with this method is that it’s practically impossible to build a competitive level deck or even a halfway decent one unless you pour hundreds of hours into the game or buy the overly expensive dlc packs.

normal mode isn’t too difficult to finish with a non theme beatdown deck and some low tier spell and trap removal but your deck will have to be overhauled to take down some of the tougher opponents like marik, bastion and yubel. expert mode is pretty difficult and I’m not sure if I’ll continue to play that mode. it would be easier if I had some decent synchros and xyz monsters but they’ve been hard to come by so far. another annoyance is that the cards you win don’t show up in your trunk in order of newness like other games so you have to use the cumbersome search method each time. online play is still slow as hell and definitely not casual friendly. you can only look at the restricted cards and there’s no codes or special mode that allows you to play them. there’s also no single player turbo or tag duels. one of the worst things is that there’s no way to turn off the “would you like activate a card now” prompt so you spend half the duel constantly pressing circle. the few positives are that 5000 cards to collect without buying dlc and you don’t get additional copies beyond the first 3. also there’s no lag during offline play and saving is near instantaneous. beyond those few things there’s really nothing this games does that several other yugioh games don’t do 10x better. which is incredibly sad considering this came out in 2104 i read the duel carnival game was also underwhelming so i hope the konami team gets their butts in gear for their next outing.

 

[Viper]

I just started playing One Piece Unlimited World Red (PS3) and it's a pretty enjoyable game. It took me a while to get the hang of the controls but the action is great and the story is very original. I don't even mind the Japanese dialogue. So far, I cleared the Prologue & Episode 1 where I rescued Zoro & Franky. I also managed to rebuild Transtown's tavern. Next time I play, I'm gonna try the fishing net for a while and see how I do.

I also started playing Sonic & All-Star Racing Transformed (PS3) and it's a lot of fun. I'm very glad they brought back Space Channel 5"s Ulalala because I like her a lot! It's also fun to play as Wreck-It Ralph! It'll still take me a while to get the hang of it, but I'm very glad I bought this game!

 

[Gatordragon]

This week, I've been playing The Screecher, Don't Starve, Bastion, and Mark of the Ninja.

The Screecher is an official mod for Don't Starve. It turns the survival game into a horror game similar to Slender. Unlike Slender, this has more of a story. I'm pretty hardy nowadays when it's comes to scary games, but there was one part that made me yell (though it was more like a moo). mostly because I let my guard down. I was so close to beating the game, but I fell for a trap and died. I played this game with a friend at my side (he doesn't like scary games). My friend had his eyes covered, so he wasn't paying attention to the screen.

In Don't Starve, I lasted a long time as Wigfrid. I made it through Winter and a few days into Spring, I met another giant. This time it was the Moose/Goose, a massive cross between a moose and a goose (the game alternates between calling the giant a Moose or a Goose). Instead of running, I fought her and I underestimated the thing. The Moose/Goose a had a special attack where she honks so loud, it knocks the weapon out of my hands. I died, but I respawned at a touchstone I activated when I first started the run. When I found the Moose/Goose again, she had just laid a huge egg by my campsite. Instead of taking her head on this time, I lured her to the nearby swamp and let the tentacles kill her for me. But the war wasn't over yet. A few days later, the egg the giant laid hatched into a bunch of Moslings. They were not as dangerous as their mother, but they could spin like the Tasmanian Devil. With some effort, I managed to kill all the Moslings. The spoils from the battles were lots of meat to eat and feathers to make a fan out of. It was the most exciting playthrough of Don't Starve I've had so far.

In Bastion, one of the places I went to was a grassland. What's so special about the grassland was that it was home to an anklegator, an endangered alligator-like creature that swims through land as if it were water. I love alligators so I got excited when I saw this thing. It was a huge, legendary, reptile that was called Queen Ann. Ann was a dangerous foe. She'd burrow underneath and rise from the ground, launching you into the air and doing serious damage. When I finally got the crystal I was looking for, I had a showdown with Queen Ann. I didn't want to kill such an awesome and rare creature, so halfway through the fight, I found a skybridge and left. Fortunately for me, I found an anklegator egg from the grassland and now I have a baby anklegator for a pet.

In Mark of the Ninja, I've been screwing up a lot. Good thing there's restart checkpoint option. The enemies are becoming more interesting now. The are dogs that can sniff you out, even if you're hidden. There are riot shield guards that fire flares to light up the direction they heard a sound from. If that's not enough, there 's also laser systems and sound detectors. All these additions require me to plan ahead, but it feels great when you pass them without being detected.

 

[Miyamoto Musashi]

Batman Arkham Origins
It's a great successor for Arkham City while we wait for the -hopefully- better successor in Arkham Knight. Lacks the polish and finesse of Arkham City -by far the best comic book game, and my favorite- but it has good qualities of its own

Spider-Man Web of Shadows
It has a great swing kick

 

[Viper]

LEGO Marvel Super Heroes (PS3)--I'm halfway through Chapter 5 of the Main Story. The game is fantastic so far!!!

One Piece Unlimited World Red (PS3)--I'm halfway through Alabasta and I rescued Usopp & Chopper. I also built the factory and located the garden in Transtown.

Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep, Aqua's Story (PSP)--I cleared the Keyblade Graveyard by finding all the treasures & both stickers. I still want to level Aqua, find more treasures and clear more Mirage Arena missions before I finish her story.

 

[DarkAngel]

Borderlands 2
Gonna start up a solo run as Zero. Only tried out about maybe 20 minutes of a solo run and then got side tracked by Street Fighter. Anyway, with Destiny around the corner I've been in the mood for these games dealing with looting and customizing.

My brother and I just started this.

 

[Magus]

Batman Arkham Origins
It's a great successor for Arkham City while we wait for the -hopefully- better successor in Arkham Knight. Lacks the polish and finesse of Arkham City -by far the best comic book game, and my favorite- but it has good qualities of its own

I'm probably the only one you'll see this coming from. I actually like Origins a bit more than City and Asylum. Then again, I never really thought Asylum was that great to begin with. Granted it is very glitchy, and it's the same as City, but I actually like that Deathstroke, Shiva, Copperhead get some time to shine. It's more of a character thing for me over a story.

Mass Effect 1
Finally got back into playing this game after putting it off for so long. Going through as an Infiltrator to see what it's like since I've always played as a soldier or a vanguard. It'll be nice to change things up a bit. I'm still on Eden Prime at the moment.

 

[Gatordragon]

Last week, I was playing Don't Starve, Awesomenauts, and Need for Speed: Most Wanted.

Don't Starve's adventure mode is hella tough. Everytime I access it, I get teleported to a random scenario that challenges your survival skills. "A Cold Reception" switches between rainy Spring and freezing Winter every few days. "King of the Winter" is an eternal Winter and you start off with few warm resources. "Archipelago" is a series of islands with the only transportation between them being sanity sapping wormholes. "The Game is Afoot" has a ten day Winter before going into an endless scorching Summer. I find "A Cold Reception" and "Archipelago" to be the easier scenarios and I always try to get either of them as my first scenario.

In Awesomenauts, I unlocked all 14 playable characters and I'm trying to get used to playing as all of them. I'm particularly good with Sheriff Lonestar, Derpl Zork, Raelynn, Vinnie and Spike, and Admiral Swiggins. When I was playing as Gnaw in one match, I was surprised when a player on the opposite team gave me some advice on how to use Gnaw. My team lost anyway, but at least I'm learning.

I played many racing games, but Need for Speed: Most Wanted is the first racing game I played on PC. Since I only have a decent laptop, the game is not as fluid as playing on a console. Regardless, I still find this game intense, especially when I'm trying to get gold in every race. I also like how you can play as a cop and bust speeding racers. It's interesting to play as the other side of the coin.

 

[DarkAngel]

Mass Effect 1
Finally got back into playing this game after putting it off for so long. Going through as an Infiltrator to see what it's like since I've always played as a soldier or a vanguard. It'll be nice to change things up a bit. I'm still on Eden Prime at the moment.

Recently finished a replay of it myself. On Mass Effect 2 now.