The Video Game Thread: What are you playing?

[Elec]

I can't speak for Syberia, but I can tell you why Prince of Persia sucks on the DS. Ubisoft, the guys who make those games, don't take Nintendo and they're consoles seriously, so when they make games for us they end up being especially tailored for very very young kids, I'm talking 5 - 8yrs. It's been a big complaint of mine for the past year and a half, but there's not much I can do about it. :\

Like, the Assassin's Creed port was dumb dumb dumb and broken broken broken, and with the first PoP reboot they ported it to the DS, but as like some strategy game and I just get so frustrated when they take a game I want to play, transfer it to a system I own, but make it totally different.

For example, I want a straight-up 2D fighter basically and they make King of Fighters...a card game! Because that makes perfect sense. Or Guilty Gear Dust Strikers, which is a little closer to the mark but just doesn't play quite right.

So I mean there are plenty of games I enjoy for DS of course, just, for my fightah needs I just stick Guilty Gear X, King of Fighters, Street Fighter II, or SF Alpha 3 in my GBA slot.

 

[a-amanitin]

I can't speak for Syberia, but I can tell you why Prince of Persia sucks on the DS. Ubisoft, the guys who make those games, don't take Nintendo and they're consoles seriously, so when they make games for us they end up being especially tailored for very very young kids, I'm talking 5 - 8yrs. It's been a big complaint of mine for the past year and a half, but there's not much I can do about it. :\

It's not just Ubisoft. I've seen the pattern with other companies as well. Why spend additional time, money, and energy on a game when it's going to end up selling the same amount anyway? "Casual" games take far less resources to create and lo - they're selling far better than the popular franchises we grew up with. Also, anything built these days that shows any sign of difficulty or originality only seems to get noticed by a specific niche market. Or it'll eventually get ported to another system.

I'm really happy for Mega Man 9, but after 2+ years nothing that's been released on the Wii has reflected what gamers were chattering about when news of the console was first leaked. As exciting as it sounds now I have very little hope for the Motion+. I wish something would happen that would cause Nintendo's little bubble to pop so that they can start creating really good games again.

Flowers: Now that you're done with Majora's Mask, I would suggest starting on F-Zero GX. Try it out for a little while at least.

 

[flowersofnight]

Flowers: Now that you're done with Majora's Mask, I would suggest starting on F-Zero GX. Try it out for a little while at least.

Hey, I gave it a good 10-minute try when I first got it

I'm about 70% through Prince of Persia now, so I'mma work through that one first. I've also been playing Mario 2 ("Lost Levels") over on Disk System, doing the Mario Challenge one more time for real. Maybe I can fit in F-Zero after those. Maybe.

 

[a-amanitin]

Flowers: Now that you're done with Majora's Mask, I would suggest starting on F-Zero GX. Try it out for a little while at least.

Hey, I gave it a good 10-minute try when I first got it

I'm about 70% through Prince of Persia now, so I'mma work through that one first. I've also been playing Mario 2 ("Lost Levels") over on Disk System, doing the Mario Challenge one more time for real. Maybe I can fit in F-Zero after those. Maybe.

Fail.

I have sands of time but I stopped playing after I got about ten percent of the way through. I'm not sure why I quit.

Oh! I keep forgetting that Mario and Luigi RPG 3 for the DS is released in a couple of months.

Anyway, I'm currently working on Guitar Hero World Tour, World of Goo (still), and I'm finishing up Rhythm Tengoku Gold for the DS.

Also, if you hadn't had locked the previous VG thread but gotten rid of it completely like all the random threads, I would've lost like 200 posts. XD

 

[Edgey]

Still Guitar Hero World Tour.
I like playing the bass on both GH and Rockband and I have to say... Tool's song Schism is so damn fun to play!

I'm currently playing hard mode and I'm getting way better then when I first started on it.

 

[flowersofnight]

Any Prince of Persia (Sands of Time) experts in the house?
I'm at "On the Ramparts", 75% of the way through, on top of the castle walls. And wherever I go, it gives me an automatic game over when I walk too far. I don't see anywhere else I can go. Is this a bug or am I just missing something?

 

[Elec]

"Casual" games take far less resources to create and lo - they're selling far better than the popular franchises we grew up with. Also, anything built these days that shows any sign of difficulty or originality only seems to get noticed by a specific niche market.

I slightly disagree with this; building a memorable casual game I think is quite hard, and casual gaming suits certain peoples' demands much better. Casual gaming is why we've seen the DS and Wii become so successful.

Also you wax nostalgic "popular franchises we grew up with" in the same breath that you lament that originality doesn't get noticed, which doesn't make a lot of sense to me. And I think the success of games like Katamari Damacy or other sort of "strange" games proves that you can be original and do well. And if your specific niche market is rabid enough that alone can justify a game's existence.

 

[Berserk]

So I've been dying to play this game ever since I've read about its purported awesomeness in comparison to its successors, but it's so dang old I've never been able to get it to run (the last time I've seen it in action was probably when I was like six years old watching my dad play it).

Well 1 DOSBox and several alchemical formulas (a.k.a. DOS commands that I'm just beginning to wrap my head around) later and...

Ta-Da!

 

[flowersofnight]

"Casual" games take far less resources to create and lo - they're selling far better than the popular franchises we grew up with.

This actually doesn't worry me all that much. Pretty much every system has had a mountain of throwaway games (like all the licensed movie/comic/etc games for SNES) but it hasn't crowded out the "main attraction" games so far. There's still no prestige attached to making "Wii Sudoku" after all.

Also, anything built these days that shows any sign of difficulty or originality only seems to get noticed by a specific niche market.

I think the difficulty thing naturally got scaled back as games started to tell more involved stories. Like, it wasn't that big a deal if you never got to 8-4 in Mario 1; you knew you weren't missing all that much. But the more the player gets invested in a storyline, the more of a "rip-off" it will seem if he can never see it through to the end.

And if your specific niche market is rabid enough that alone can justify a game's existence.

I dunno, tell that to the "Earthbound" people

Also, Elec, since I didn't catch this before: you really like "Ecclesia"? I think it's the weakest of the handheld Castlevanias. For me a lot of the fun was exploring one big complicated castle, and that's obviously missing from this one.


Anyway I still need Prince of Persia bug-solving help. Come on, people
EDIT: it really was a bug, no workaround, have to start over

 

[Elec]

Also, Elec, since I didn't catch this before: you really like "Ecclesia"? I think it's the weakest of the handheld Castlevanias. For me a lot of the fun was exploring one big complicated castle, and that's obviously missing from this one.

I feel like Ecclesia played more "smoothly" for some reason... There is a huge castle at the end, of course, but Ecclesia feels much more like actual levels and, as a much more casual gamer, that is so much easier for me to digest. I've also loved any game system where you can pick up pretty much any skill from your enemies, so that won me over as well. Also female protagonist.

What has so bummed me out about Metroid-likes is that there are such long stretches between save spots or health pickups. I liked being able to warp out of a place in a pinch with a Ticket, stock back up in town, and try again.
I realize that most people like Castlevania precisely FOR that difficulty curve, but it kept me away from the series for a long time.

tl;dr: i suck at hard games

Anyway I still need Prince of Persia bug-solving help. Come on, people
EDIT: it really was a bug, no workaround, have to start over

I don't have the game on hand these days or else I woulda tried to remember; that REALLY blows! Oh well; jammin' through all that parkour is what made me stuck to that game throughout college. Hope it doesn't happen again. >_<

I actually never played Warrior Within to the end because it was SO, so buggy. Is this a Ubisoft pattern? Can I blame it on their Quebeqoisity?

 

[flowersofnight]

There is a huge castle at the end, of course, but Ecclesia feels much more like actual levels

So in other words what I hated is what you liked XD Fair enough.
I did get as far as Drac's castle though, and I found it kind of disappointing that it's essentially just another standard level with more annoying enemies.

I've also loved any game system where you can pick up pretty much any skill from your enemies, so that won me over as well. Also female protagonist.

I think the "Of Sorrow" installations did the "steal enemies' skill" thing better though - having to stop and absorb the glyphs before they disappear is an unnecessary nuisance, especially given how rare most of them are. (Note to CV designers: absurdly rare items/powers that you have to "grind" enemies for aren't fun)
Also as I mentioned once before, the female protagonist having to lift up her shirt to absorb glyphs is dangerously close to blatant fanservice

I don't have the game on hand these days or else I woulda tried to remember; that REALLY blows!

In case anyone's wondering, I think it was triggered by saving in a situation where you're too far separated from Farah, which apparently can induce game-over-age. Solution: keep multiple save files and always make sure Farah's not a million miles away when you save.
I re-made about 2/3 of my progress though - this game's a lot shorter when you know what you're doing, it seems.

As for Ubisoft's QA in general, beats me XD This is the only game of theirs I played. I didn't know they were really Quebecois though - I guess that's why my copy came with an extra French manual

 

[Arison]

I decided to give the new Spyro continuity reboot trilogy (The Legend of Spyro) a try since in the new one YOU CAN FLYYYYY.

Not as good as the original Playstation trilogy, but better then what came before it. Except for what they did to Sparx.

I also got the Best of Entertainment Microsoft package a few weeks ago and have been playing Chip's Challenge excessively ever since.

 

[flowersofnight]

Chip's Challenge

Awesome, another contestant steps up to The Challenge. Finish all levels without skipping any!

 

[Arison]

That's the plan! So far I'm up to Level 24 without skipping any and I have a burning hatred of Teeth Monsters.

 

[Taya]

I tried out playing World of Warcraft some days ago via a trial opportunity and I already feel some kind of an addiction.
I have some days left but I generally wont get a subscription as I don't have the money for it neither the time to play (I should be learning for school actually), and I'm not really the skilled player of such games at all. Yet I'm lamenting that they don't use the same subscription system as Guild Wars ... I should take it as an advantage as I don't want to get addicted, especially now. I've heard some evil stories about WoW addicts .

 

[sergeantkitty]

I just got mario bros 1 and 2 on the Wii. Yes, it's quite pathetic that I never beat either of these games, so I'm attempting to make up for my lame-ness. The thing that really bugged me was that when I beat Wart, the screen wouldn't scroll, so I couldn't go out the final door!

 

[lorddj90]

i bought neverwinter nights 2 for 50 mexican pesos (that's like 3 dollars) and im playing that,good role game but bad optimised

 

[Phantom Pabulum]

Is anybody here a pirate?

Has anyone played chrono trigger for DS before? Is it good? Since the pirate copy doesnt work I'm thinking of buying it. (i patched the rom and all my games and sav files were lost in my dstt)

 

[Han'i]

http://cache.kotaku.com/assets/resource ... mirror.jpg

Nothing more to say.

 

[Susan]

@flowers: Somehow I managed to finish Sands of Time without encountering a single bug. But yeah, by the end you're just going through the motions and there's no re-playability. XD

One of these days I'll play Two Thrones...

Sucks the PoP reboot on the 360 is repetitive and short. It's gorgeous and fun, though.