What Video Games Are You Playing?

[Jim H]

Shadowrun on the Sega Genesis
Fallout New Vegas

That's an awesome twofer.  Love'd em both.  Shadowrun on Genesis might be my fave 16-bit RPG.

I'm playing Mass Effect 3.  Enjoying it quite a bit, though I worry about the ending.  Like 25 hours in.  Want to beat it soon, so I can stop worrying about the ending being spoiled for me and can actually concentrate on school work!

[Couchtr26]

Mass Effect 3, Metal Gear Solid HD Collection PS3, Uncharted 1 + 2, and went back to Bayonetta haven't played it in awhile.   Also, started some pc games missed some things from '97 - now.  Mostly, looking at Baldur's Gate Series, Planescape Torment, Fallout 1 + 2, Chinese diablo clones Seal of Evil and Prince of Qin (actually pretty good).

[Jack]

Been playing Vanquish.  It's really a fun sci-fi shooter.  You're a futuristic soldier with an armored suit that's got a little rocket pack in the back - you can't fly but you can zip around the environments at about 20 mph.  You've got your usual guns and also some sci-fi stuff like an EMP gun that shoots out a blast wave, very handy for groups of enemies right in front of you.  Also a lock-on laser that shoots four little rockets at four separate targets simultaneously.  The enemies range from your average man-sized robots all the way up to huge bosses where you have to shoot out the elbow and knee joints and finally blast away at the core until their health hits zero.  And a good variety of other robots in between. 

The setting is a huge space station and most of the battles take place in fairly open spaces, giving you plenty of options for cover and plenty of room to make use of the rocket pack.  Or you might be riding on a monorail and shooting at another monorail that's moving around beside you, above you, then on the other side.  Lots of flying stuff to shoot as well.  It's got a cool slo-mo thing where you can slow down the action and score some good hits on your enemies. 

I think what I like the most is the atmosphere of it.  It reminds me of PS2 games where stuff was very creative and crazy.  It's got a wonderfully cheesy tongue-in-cheek feel to it.

[InformationGeek]

Replaying the last case in Phoenix Wright: Justice for All because I realized I have yet to finish it!

[Jack]

Finished up Vanquish.  That was a very fun game, but very short as well.  Glad I only paid $20 for it.

Now I started on Damnation, this thing is comical.  Your enemies will run back and forth between two points, like little ducks in a shooting arcade     Cutscenes have graphics that would be embarrassing for a PS2 game and characters often pop into existence right in front of you.  But the gameplay isn't bad, lots of climbing and jumping in vertically oriented environments.  Shooting is very mediocre with clumsy mechanics but the thing seems to have a bit of a lock-on feature built in - I often find my sights lined up on a target even though they really shouldn't be.

It's kind of entertaining I guess.  For twelve bucks.   

[bob]

Madden 03 on my Gamecube 

[retrorussell]

The Speed Rumbler, 1986 Capcom.  Another arcade game I'm making a video of for YouTube.

[Jack]

This Damnation game is like the Manos:  The Hands of Fate of video games.  There were two guys standing next to each other - I shot one in the chest, then shot him again and he died.  Then I shot the second one a whole bunch of times and he died- during this whole time neither of them moved so much as a millimeter.  That's the rule, not the exception.  If you take cover behind something, you can get the crosshairs lined up on a target but you'll just shoot whatever you're hiding behind because the crosshairs are at eye level but the gun is at chest level.  There's a railroad spike gun that sends enemies flying backwards and impales them against whatever they hit, but more often than not they just end up impaled in mid-air  

Then I tried to jump onto some pipe, but I guess it wasn't something you could jump to, so I fell to my death.  Then the game restarted - with me falling to my death.   It restarted about 5 times before it finally put me back on a platform.

Meanwhile the two people accompanying me disappear because they just ran through a wall and glitched out of existence.

Oh man, this thing's just a riot.

[Jack]

Got the plat for Damnation



Think I'll start on Alice:  Madness Returns tonight.

[Jack]

Been playing Alice:  Madness Returns for a while now.  It's pretty fun.  Basically a 50/50 mix of platforming and combat.  The environments in Wonderland are quite creative and fantastical as you might imagine.  The platforming is your usual stuff with lots of jumping from one platform to another, some of them moving, and you have to use a sort of ultra-violet vision type thing to see some platforms which are normally invisible.  The controls are excellent and that's all quite nice and fun.  The combat is good too, as each type of enemy requires a different strategy to defeat.  With the crabs for instance, you have to drop a bunny bomb and then detonate it to tip them over, then you can hit them with your vorpal blade to do some damage.  With the three-faced monsters, they shoot a projectile at you and you have to open your umbrella just before you get hit, bouncing their projectile back at them.  So you might be facing three or four different enemies that require three or four different strategies - and do it all at the same time.  It keeps it quite interesting.  You can also level up your weapons by collecting teeth which you get by defeating enemies and breaking various containers located throughout the levels.  Same with your health packs.  You can also shrink yourself down to about one-fourth normal size to get into various hidden areas (going through keyholes actually) and pick up collectibles.

My only complaint is that there's basically no story at all, so you don't feel like you're proceeding towards any ultimate goal.  And the main character, Alice, isn't developed in the slightest.  She's just kind of there to speak a few lines of dialogue.  Graphics are perfectly fine and the frame rate seems to be rock solid throughout.

[RobFilm]

Been playing MotorStorm: Arctic Edge, picked it up second hand for 2 bucks!

[Nightowl]

Madden 2012. Playing franchise mode with The Packers.

[Doggett]

Silent Hill 2.
The Thing.
The Warriors.
Spider-man 2


Just lots of PS2 games as my x box broke.

[Nightowl]

Just lots of PS2 games as my x box broke.

Oh, that sucks. Just bought an Xbox myself and loving it :)

[Rev. Powell]

My only complaint is that there's basically no story at all, so you don't feel like you're proceeding towards any ultimate goal.  And the main character, Alice, isn't developed in the slightest.  She's just kind of there to speak a few lines of dialogue.  Graphics are perfectly fine and the frame rate seems to be rock solid throughout.

Sounds just like the Tim Buton movie.