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[moi]

CSI the videogame, the trilogy.
Not the game of the century, but rather relaxing. And very efficient if you just want to empty your mind after a hard day of work.

[PoV]

Inhuman urge to play C64 Neuromancer.



Changing floppies is awful, yet I was still compelled to play.  I left off last with 4-5 AI's left to kill.  I don't know why, but I love this game.  Pre-Internet Internet browser (1988, though technically, it could be considered BBS like. "Link Codes" versus phone numbers).  Need for a Pen+Paper.  Detective work in "corporate networks" and "hacker forums".  RPG'ish cyberspace combat.  Moody synthy fx goodness.  HUD and GUI flaws a plenty, but tollerable.  Awesomeness.

Master of Magic C64 a few weekends ago too.  Classic stuff.  Both games have a mood I've never seen replicated.  I think it's the music/sfx, as both games I remember for their essentially 1 song in all it's SID/Chiptune glory.  Or maybe it's the badness of the graphics, that encourage some odd imagination reaction that purty graphics of today detract from.

[Jimbob]

Aww man, Neuromancer is awesome. I only found it after reading the book (also great) on The Underdogs, although apparently its the graphically inferior PC version. Still had loads of fun selling my lungs for computer software and hacking via coffee shops...

[rey-o]

i downloaded the puzzlequest pc demo, that in itself is pretty satisfying but i'd also like to get the full version.

im waiting to trade in some games before i get my pokemans on.

until then i'm playing alot of advance wars ds and age of mythology (old stuff, i know!)

[Outer God]

man i wish i had odin sphere.  playing rainbow six: vegas and star craft: brood wars...i never played the expansion before.

[Chris Whitman]

Something about Odin Sphere strikes me as resoundingly un-fun. I mean, are we playing the same game, or did the kid at Electronics Boutique just sell me the shitty version? Everyone seems all up on this game, but I think maybe I just don't get it.

It's got good animation, sure, but the art is the same bland anime-style stuff that Japan has been getting underpaid Korean animators to churn out for the past fifteen years or so, and the gameplay is basically non-existent. It's a bit like someone said "Roleplaying games are great except for the part where you need to explore things or look at things or do anything other than press a button, so let's just put the game on rails." You have some character progression in the form of gaining levels, but I got about five hours in and the only qualitative gain was a couple of new magic attacks, so it basically boils down to, 'hit guys, eat food, watch a number go up on occasion.' Repeat that for about ten minutes and you're rewarded with some poorly paced and poorly written dialogue about faeries. It's like B.F. Skinner teamed up with J.K. Rowling to form a four-armed mutant who hates fun, and then someone had the bright idea to put this monstrosity in charge of game development.

Also, someone needs to explain to the designers working on these things that I cannot be expected to care about their characters as long as they remain vapid nonentities. If you want to make a beat-em-up, that's fine by me, but keep in mind before you add approximately six years (by my count) of dialogue that wouldn't make the cut for a supermarket novel that Final Fight was only about three hours of Mayor Mike Haggar punching the same six thugs in the neck and it was EXCELLENT.

I'm not adverse to games having stories: I'm just adverse to games having stories that are stupid.

Edit: Wow, apparently I get pretty ornery when I'm under the weather. I'm going to blame the Nyquil on this one.

[Alec]

Final Fight was only about three hours of Mayor Mike Haggar punching the same six thugs in the neck and it was EXCELLENT.

QFT

Oh, and I want that on a TShirt too.

[Derek]

http://three.fsphost.com/junkboy/

[rey-o]

while haven't had the oppurtunity to play much of odinsphere i sat with a friend that was going through the first few parts of the game.

i agree with cake about the unoriginal aspects of the game, but for what it does, i think the game does it well. typical anime style? yes but its really quite lovely in the game. especially when you meet the gods like odin, he's just completely ridiculous/awesome.
typical gameplay? that too! in many ways the game appears to be a step back in some aspects (walking along a single track)but i kind of think that the simplicity is refreshing. i'm tired of other rpgs filled with stats and really obscure gameplay rules. this game takes much of that away and resembles, as you say, final fight.

and as a matter of fact, odinsphere reminds me more of another capcom beat em up, probably one of the best ones i've played, the arcade game dungeons and dragons (and its sequel). even the way you filter through the items reminds me it!

[Alec]

WTF:



(Final Fight Revenge)

[sega]

Strangely enough, my only problem with Odin Sphere is that it wasn't simplistic enough!  Doing the resident-evil-juggle on items in order to play alchemist and farmer pulled fun out of the game for me.  Even though that part was pretty original for an action game, I would have forgone it for the ability to do more combos that would be helpful in different situations.  Also, maybe I sucked, but on the non-easy difficulty level, it seemed the game required grinding.  I hope I'm wrong, and just suck at the game, but grinding's never fun.  It just adds artificial hours to a bullet point on the back of the box.

Also, I kinda disagree on it being "generic anime".  Sure many of the main chicks and dudes are, but you can look around at all kinds of enemies, and NPCs that don't use a generic art style.  And again, like rey-o said, even when they do the generic style, it's done very well, and it looks great in-game.

And for those judging the game based on screenshots... you REALLY have to see it on a TV, particularly widescreen.  I was only slightly interested in it visually before I popped it into my PS2.  When it booted up, and I saw it in motion, it took my breath away.

[fish]

i dont mind odin sphere's gameplay.
i pretty much just play it for the art.
i find it to be one of the prettiest things on ps2.
i dont really like RPGs anyway, but i like fucking awesome giant hand-painted sprites.

[Guert]

Eh, I've bought odin sphere but I haven't been able to play yet. I popped it in the ps2, started a game and my girlfriend took the controller from my hand and haven't been able to touch it since

The game looks great but it seems very frustrating, taking from the reactions of my girlfriend. 

Ha ha! That piledriver is great! :D
Later!

[Chris Whitman]

I guess I just feel that if they wanted to do a story-driven game, they should have had a story worth sitting through, and if they wanted to do a fast-paced beat-em-up, they shouldn't have let it get bogged down with endless cutscenes and brutal load times.

There's probably a good balance between the two things, but I kind of feel like they grabbed the worst parts of both.

[shinygerbil]

I gotz mah pokemans! \o/

[Anthony Flack]

It looks nice, although the animation is perhaps a little bit too flash-like rotatey-bits for my taste. But I'm kind of interested nonetheless. How does it compare to, say, Guardian Heroes?

[ravuya]

Been playing ExciteTruck, The Godfather and Double Agent on my Wiiiiiiiiiiiiii.

Godfather is a surprise -- it's a licensed property that isn't crippled by the license. Most of the locations and stuff are in there, and you can garrote people with the Wiimote. Which is, erm, super. Plus, the language is quite a bit rougher than anyone would have ever expected for a Nintendo unit in the past.

Double Agent has a remarkably stupid control scheme that should be taken out back and shot. Despite this, it manages to be pretty fun when you get used to it.

ExciteTruck is... well... it's like Wipeout, with trees and dirt and everyone else needs to die.

[Musenik]

I've also been playing Godfather on the Wii. It's the only game I have other than wii sports. I didn't like GTA III. Godfather's story world is much more interesting. The wii controls go from great brawling, to okay shooting, to weak driving. Got a mob war to stop...

Also playing on the DS: Final Fantasy III, some Advance Wars, Age of Empires, and slowly working through AD&D Eye of the Beholder.

So why am I developing a game about high school girls? !!!

... actually it's been a pretty fun project.

[rey-o]

heya musenik: how is age of empires ds? i here its the next game advance wars fans should go to after they play the crap out of that (which i am pretty close to doing)

[Musenik]

I've just started Advance Wars and have nearly completed Age of Empires. I would say graphically AoE has it all over AW. AW is very elemental in its warfare, and reminds me very much of Military Madness, which I play on Wii VC. AoE has generals and that economy thing going for it, and I like its depth a lot. I prefer it to the real-time version on PCs.

The anime cutesie thing that AW does is somewhat annoying. The history that AoE develops as story is much more interesting, because they pick some really great heros: Joan of Arc, Ghengis Khan, Myomoto,...