What Video Games Are You Playing?

[CaptnTripps]

Just finished Fallout 3 for the second time, I cant get enough of this game!

[AnubisVonMojo]

Good news on the Oblivion front: I can indeed use my character with the Game of the Year edition! Woohoo! Thanks again for pointing me to the message board Ash.

As far as what I'm playing now, I should have started Conan so I can send it back to GameFly when I'm done, but instead I picked up Earth Defense Force 2017 on a fellow bad movie lover's recommendation to my fiancee last week and haven't been able to put it down the last few days except for nourishment, showering, sleeping, and the occasional social obligation. It's a quirky yet beautiful-in-its-own-way title from a few years ago about a military group that reminds me a lot of Ultraman's Science Patrol, only less about the science stuff and more about the shooting monsters stuff. I'm a little over half way through the missions and I've had the pleasure of killing waves of giants ants, giant spiders, giant robots, alien motherships, and even a massive Godzilla type killer dinosaur. Though you can access tanks, choppers, exo-skeleton mech armor, and speederbikes, nothing beats running up to a giant robot on foot, aiming your rocket launcher skyward, and blasting its shiny steel taint into mechanoid hell!

Though the graphics aren't great despite it being an XBox360 title, the sheer scope of the levels combined with the aforementioned awe of being a simple military man in a futuristic helmet running around at the feet of giant monsters more than make up for it. The levels don't carry time limits (the objective for each is simply "kill every red blip on your radar"), and though you get a team of support soldiers to back you up you don't get penalized in any way if you let them all die while you just run around gathering power-ups. Sometimes it's better to let them die anyway just so you can avoid the repeating lines they shout through your comm unit like "I'm running out of ammunition!" or "If you come over here, I'm going to kill you". The power-ups in question consist of new weapons, additional hit points to your character's total damage meter, and something that looks like a Red Cross issued Top Ramen noodle bowl that refills your health.

There are a few weird things though: the humans aren't sure at first if the alien invaders are friendly or not (making a point in the opening scene to mention that), yet they still decide to name the creatures "Ravagers"... is there possibly a positive connotation for the term "Ravagers"?! That's like calling someone a baby-killer because you like the ring of it before you even find out if the person in question has ever actually come into contact with a baby before, let alone killed one! Also, whether you're being stepped on by a giant robot, falling from the sky because of a glitch in the game, or having an exploding mothership dropped on your head, nothing physically hurts you in the game beyond actual attacks committed by the enemies or rocket explosions caused when shooting an enemy standing to close to you with a damn rocket launcher. Also, if you're feeling generally destructive for no real reason, you can blow up entire buildings in the city levels with nothing more than a single rocket launcher shot. Pick the biggest structure against the skyline and no matter how tall or wide it is, it's rubble after one shot.

As far as XBox achievements go for the game, there are only six, so they're worth big scores. Five consist of completing each of the 50+ missions of the game on its varying difficulty levels (Easy to Inferno), while the final involves collecting all 150+ guns in the game, a few of which are only available after you beat the game on the varying difficulty levels while most of which are picked up at random throughout the levels. Do to the Japanese love for randomness, you don't know which guns you've retrieved until the end of each mission, so be prepared for frustration sometimes when you spend 30 minutes just running around a single stage and collecting hundreds of gun power-ups from re-spawning giant ants only to find that you haven't unlocked a single new weapon.

Though flawed in parts, the game itself is so much fun to play so long as running and gunning is your idea of fun. The potential for what could be put into a sequel (which will no doubt never happen at this point...) is staggering, especially if the designers were to include stuff like commandeering civilian vehicles to travel inside the levels (sometimes running around these massive stages can get tedious), the ability to actually scale some of the bigger enemies to perform mini-game type special attacks (ala other games like God of War), the ability to explore some of the buildings in each level, or continue with the Science Patrol "homage" and give the hero the power to turn into a giant monster fighting disco alien himself for limited times or during boss battles!

Though hard to find in most retail outlets, EDF2017 is a budget title and you can usually find it online through sites like Amazon if you've got an extra $20 and always wanted to take the "man on the street" eye view of giant monster invasions!

[Torgo]

I'm not quite that blown away by Street Fighter IV but it is still a whole lot of fun. I give it an 8 out of 10.

[Joe the Destroyer]

Well, my overwhelming list continues.  I beat Castlevania: Curse of Darkness recently, but now I'm playing a whole butt ton of games:

Zak and Wiki (Wii)
Dragon Quest IV (DS)
Boktai (GBA)
Half Life II (Xbox)
Eternal Sonata (X360)
Soul Nomad and the World Eaters (PS2)
Onimusha II (PS2)
Klonoa II (PS2)
Geist (NGC)
Final Fantasy V (PS1)

[Rev. Powell]

My 10-year old nephew has recently roped me into playing Rock Band with him on the Wii.  I suck at everything but vocals, but find it a lot more fun than I would have guessed.

[Torgo]

I started working through Guitar Hero Aerosmith on the PS2.   I especially how they have the interview segments with the band sprinkled throughout the game.

[InformationGeek]

Well, I got distracted from playing this game a while back, so I've decided to give Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood another try.  It's fun, but it sure is time consuming, in a good way of course.

[Torgo]

I picked up 5 PS2 games this past weekend used for only 40 bucks total. I got R: Racing Evolution, the three Prince of Persia games (Sands of Time, Warrior Within, The Two Thrones) and Way of the Samurai.  They're all excellent games. My friends are still trying to pressure me into buying a X-box 360 but I just can't justify paying 60 dollars for a new game anymore.  Also, there are still a ton of games on the PS2 that I want to play through anyway.

[Psycho Circus]

[CaptnTripps]

Wow! That takes me back. Karma!

[Psycho Circus]

^ Yeah I've dumped so many PS1 games from years ago, but I would never part with "NC", I just wish they'd start up again on the third game. Who knows, it might make me buy a PS3... 

[Wag]

Given how much time I have spent playing games troughout the years, how can I not have even heard of this, or its sequel?

[Psycho Circus]

Check it out...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLQPKJ1_UDM

[Wag]

Check it out...

Thanks. It looks good - from the clip, it looks a bit like Devil May Cry (which I love). And you have this?   

In other news, I played Burnout Revenge today for the first time - quite impressed.

[CaptnTripps]

Any Warhawk players out there?