What VIDEO GAME(s) have you been playing?

How about those Sword Quest games...fireworld and such? Could anyone make heads or tales out of that line? I never beat any of em.

Yeah, that era was something else though. Psychadelic ideas that felt genuine and earnest. I'm sure drugs were involved, but flying that robotic fly in space felt like serious business. It was a different level of gonzo than silliness like rolling meatball kid or whatever ironic game is hip.

Likely I'm just old though...

The NES generation. ..blades of steel, double dribble...straight up classics. We also played the heck out of this wwf game ....superstars or summerslam or something. Not that awful wrestlemania title. It was 4 player I think with tag matches. Also tecmo bowl...

KNEEL BEFORE ZOD

Look at this shit I was enjoying. My nostalgia knows no bounds.

www.hardcoregaming101.net/questfortherings/questfortherings.htm



This was $50 in 1982. My parents' divorce really paid off on this front.

Ahhhhh!! It's like the dragon is actually IN my living room!!

Hi Ameritrashers.

Devil Daggers on Steam:

store.steampowered.com/app/422970/

Lo-fi Quake visuals, Cave Evil style monster design, quasi-shmup action (a lot of split second target prioritization & herding, and your hit box can feel pretty small). Death is a blip and you instantly reload to try again. Fantastic directional sound design; in fact it's probably the most engrossing aspect of the game since it simultaneously telegraphs enemies but also ramps up in intensity as the sheer amount of stuff being rendered keeps growing and swarming. All of your plays are temporarily recorded and your highest time is more permanently recorded, allowing your friends to watch your run if you approach or beat their time. I've only managed to last 56 seconds so far.

Aside from dying a lot, I've also been playing & enjoying Earthbound, which I'd missed back in my college days when I had no time or money for games. I can see why it received such a cult following. It has a strange combination of off-kilter humor, RPG parody, 90's suburban Americana, and a lot of little design elements that exhibit some rethinking of RPG tropes or mechanisms that took advantage of the modern setting. For instance money doesn't "drop" from enemies but accumulates in your bank account as your (curiously perpetually absent, phone-in) Dad regularly wires money (not sure if this is based on encounters or just a slow trickle of income over time). Some music tracks are also impressively... ambient (?). I'm not sure how to describe it. Some of it sounds like the trance-y vaporwave stuff that's being composed now, only warmer & without the element of ironic remove/nostalgia. I found myself just pausing every once in awhile to listen to a few more loops before moving on. Check out "Buzz Buzz's Prophecy" which kicks in right before he leaves, at dawn:



Or "Paula's Theme" which starts right as you enter her school for the first time:

I like how if you don't call your mom frequently, Ness becomes homesick and less effective in battle. It's an odd, yet charming touch to a game filled with moments like that.

You're dead on about the music in the game. The kids and I comment on it frequently as well. They want us to stop at some parts simply so they can enjoy it, but on the flip-side my 5 year old wants me to turn some down because it's 'too scary'.

Threed (with zombies) gave her the chills.


The bouncy lightness of Saturn Valley was a welcome reprieve.

I remember going into a Wal-Mart when I was a kid and seeing one of those big dump bins they now use to put $5 DVDs in, the thing filled with copies of Earthbound. It was on clearance, $20. If I ever got my hands on a time machine, I'd be making a stop at that point while on my way to 1988.

A friend of mine went to Japan last week and he brought back some bizarre stuff for me like a tiny figurine of a girl spilling a tray of coffee and a little pug with a human baby head. In my bag (from Puro Puro Land) was also a Ness keychain. Hooray!

Frohike wrote: Devil Daggers on Steam:
I've only managed to last 56 seconds so far.

Add me on Steam (Disgustipater). I need someone to compete with on the leaderboards. Assuming you get better, of course.

Well, if anyone beats your record it won't be me. My son has already gone over 60 at this point, so he's more likely to be the one chasing your score

The sad thing is I haven't even come close to getting that high again.

So Berzerk was made by Stern Electronics. As in Stern Pinball.

Playing a couple of things:

Soma- it was on sale and a friend highly recommended it as a smart, creepy sci-fi adventure game. He was correct. At first glance, it looks like a Bioshock-style shooter. Or possibly one of the new trend of "walking simulator" games. But it's really kind of a first-person point-and-click adventure. There is NO shooting, which is great. It's all about exploration, encountering the compelling narrative, solving puzzles, and avoiding the occasional adversary. Because there is no way to fight. It's interesting, by stripping out the "action" of this kind of game, it really does become about other things thematically than LET THE BODIES HIT THE FLO'. The storyline begs to not be spoiled, but it does have a few silly/immature contrivances up front (if you have a doctor's appointment and it is at an abandoned office building where a random dude has a brain scan machine set up, would you go through with it?) but once it gets rolling there's a cool SF story here with some interesting ramifications. Don't know exactly where it is heading, but I really like it so far. There's not really any gore or shock, just creepy/unsettling bits and a thick atmosphere. It's done by the folks that made Amnesia: The Dark Descent and there are some definite similarities.

Fire Emblem: Rebirth- I went with the "easier" edition, I've realized that the permadeath thing is a load of crap in FE because there's no real way to rebound from major loss, and losing key classes early on to stupid one-shot criticals winds up making the game more frustrating than fun. I am not going to get so emotionally involved with these anime characters that I somehow feel a "real sense of loss" when one of them dies. Maybe if I was 12. Anyway, Fire Emblem is always great and this one continues that tradition. There are some things about it that are superior to Awakening, which was a high bar to clear. The story, whatever. The relationships are more fun because of how they impact the actual gameplay than the silly dialogue that is about like what a teenager would write for their DIY manga series. The battles are great, the tactics are great, and this is a long player that shows how solid gameplay in a solid package is what Nintendo does best. I hope to eventually play through Conquest and then the Revelations thing but that is a TON of content.

Broken Age- the big Double Fine P&C game that broke Kickstarter records. It's awesome. I think it is one of the best P&C games I've ever played. Visually, it's just awesome- it looks like a great children's book come to life. The writing is charming, delightful and frequently LOL funny. The voice acting, which includes a couple of B-list Hollywood stars, is outstanding. The two stories are both interesting and I'm just now at the point where they start to come together. The puzzles are sometimes stumpers (typical P&C "wait, there was no precedence for that..." kinds of logic) but so far I've gotten stuck just a couple of times. And its' MODERN so you can do things like skip over tedious, repeated failure animations and backtrack walking.

Ys Book I and II- playing this on the phone, I went through this a few years ago on Wii virtual console and had a desire to see the PSP-era remake. I love this game. It's funny how the buttonless, bump-and-attack battling was viewed as kind of weird in its day, but it really does suit the modern roguelike design sensibility. But it's FAST, and I like that. The music also rules, and you can listen to it in three different formats including the original, PC-88 and the CD music that was in the TG-16 CD version. If you like the TG-16/PC-Engine era of games, this is a great one to check out today.

Plants versus Zombies: Garden Warfare 2- River LOVES PvZ, so we Gameflyed it. It's actually really good! And, strangely, it's like EA actually had a heart and went back on all of the trends toward monetization. Like, there's no YOU MUST PLAY ONLINE ONLY impetus. The entirety of the rewards structure is such that you can play any mode- including all solo options and multiplayer with bots- is open to all players. There are collectible sticker packs and consumables, which made me immediately cringe, but...YOU DON'T USE REAL MONEY TO BUY THEM!!! I couldn't believe it, it's like the olden days. You earn money in the game and spend it. It looks great, it's colorful and the gameplay is lots of fun- and family friendly.

Probably picking up the Twilight Princess HD thing Friday.

Now I know why you guys have so many board games...y'all motherfuckers play a new video game every damned week, it seems like!

Me, I'm still playing Fallout 4, savoring that shit. Still playing Diablo 3 RoS with the wife 'because wife'.

Disgustipater wrote: The sad thing is I haven't even come close to getting that high again.

That's why people get addicted...chasing the same high they got the first time LMAO

My wife pushed me into getting Far Cry: Primal since I was on the fence about it. Mainly because I didn't want to spend the money on it new.

It is surprisingly immersive with the wildlife environment sounds. I see myself spending an inordinate amount of time cr4eeping through the brush to headshot the ememy clans with my arrows and fight bears, tigers, and packs of wolves. moving through the jungle at night with a flaming club and seeing the wolves eyes shine back is strangely satisfying. I don't know what the story is like as I have just been exploring the environment and killing stuff before it kills me. I jumped into a lake and went underwater only to see an alligator. I backed out to the safety of the surrounding land and shot it in the head.