Games you are currently playing or recently beaten

[urko948]

Currently playing Skies Of Arcadia for gamecube . I've been wanting to play it since the dreamcast magazine Demo Disc. Finally getting to

[te72]

I would argue "relatively" cheap. Sure, the core price of games is a little less than it used to be at one time (I remember having to pay $70 bucks for SNES titles like Street Fighter II Turbo and Secret of Mana) but they're also more than they were at a different time (NES games were about $50, Playstation games were $40). The fact that prices aren't much higher these days is actually kind of amazing, since so many other things have gone up with inflation.

At the same time, they're gouging us in other ways. To get a full title anymore you all but have to drop a hundred bucks for both the core game and the DLC that completes it.

I was more referring to how you can get games on sale, at least digitally, fairly often. Back in the day, getting a game for $10 or even $20 was a score! Now though? That's a weekly thing it seems.

However, you've pointed out the elephant in the room, with DLC. It is part of why I rarely buy a game at launch anymore. Finish the darn thing, THEN I might want to buy it. Seriously, my last launch title purchase was Gran Turismo 6. That came out in December 2013...

[HowardBware]

Playing Street Fighter V.

The Graphics, and game play are second to none. If you are a Street Fighter fan you will not be disappointed with either of these aspects. The levels are beautiful, and while graphically cleaned up and modern they feel like the original. If you had a friend sitting in the same room as you that also loved Street Fighter literally hundreds of hours of some of the best Fight gaming will be had.

That being said here's the bad. The rest of the game is just kind of poorly thought out. The interface is confusing and weird to want to navigate. There really is next to nothing happening for single player mode. Sure each player has their own tossed together story mode that is quite simplistic and not very challenging . We are talking like three or four fights each with none of the fighters putting up a decent fight. The regular "Tournament mode" that we have all come to know and love about the street Fighter series does not exist. There is a survival mode that allows for more meat on the bone in the way of game play. But still leaves you unsatisfied.

So this leaves the only other option being "Online Play". Fair enough, that's what gaming has become. I have embraced it, and love knowing that the person I am fighting against is somebody else rather than AI. But the set up to play online is so clumsy, and awkward. First you set up your online settings which includes choosing your favorite player, Level and uniform colors and what not. Great but that's it. You are then stuck for the duration of your online play with those choices unless you back all the way out of online play and change them. And signing on to the capcom server for online play takes a significant amount of time comparatively speaking to where moder gaming is today. And then waiting for a match seems to take for ever, and once you find one the actual start of the match takes for ever. So you are then stuck reluctant to use unfamiliar characters because of all the time you will burn switching them around. Very poor design. Not sure why I can't change the Character, uniform options, and level on a whim between matches without signing out to do so. aggravating. I spent a bout a half hour playing online last night and only played 4 matches with Two different characters. I should have been able to play like 15 matches with limitless characters in that amount of time. Soooo disappointing.

This game has so much potential that I hope some patches will fix.

[aloram]

Started playing Shining Wisdom on my Rhea a few days ago. It's pretty decent/mediocre thus far, though I'm only an hour or so into it.

[te72]

Howard, SF5 still offers local vs, surely? I think a story mode in a game like this is best just focusing on characters with a history. They two on one battles in the Alpha series were some of my very favorite, as were the battles between your character and their nemesis or rival. Hopefully V retains things like this?

As for Shining Wisdom, can't say I played it. Loved the Shining Force games though, early predecessors to the tactical rpg genre.

[SirJell]

Playing through a ton of RPG's right now, (FF7, FFX, Persona 3 FES, Persona 4, Persona Q, etc.) I can't help but keep starting new games. I've also been SUPER into nintendo games recently, nameably Super Mario World on the SNES, and just about all of the Zelda games. I just beat Majora's mask 3D, Link between worlds, Wind Waker, Ocarina of Time, and I'm currently playing through Skyward Sword. After that I'll probably get to Twilight Princess. Can't decide between HD or not for that though.

[te72]

SirJell, welcome to the forum. I miss playing so many rpgs like in years long since past, but adult responsibilities, a lack of summer vacations, access to the internet, and other interests (primarily our cars and driving them) conspires to keep me from taking on any more of the longer games... That said, Super Mario World is kinda like Jurassic Park for me. If it happens to be on when I walk by, I know what I'm gonna be doing for a few hours. My mom was the same way with Dr Mario, now that I think about it.

Anyway, I finally came up with a list of ten games I want to play next. In no particular order:

-Batman Arkham City

-Earthbound

-Alundra

-Breath of Fire 3

-Darksiders

-Gran Turismo 6

-Fez

-Burnout Paradise

-Deus Ex Human Revolution

-Suikoden 4

Probably gonna take me a while on that list... but it's on paper now. Runners up include Last of Us and Legacy of Kain Blood Omen.

[mariobro]

I just finished Castlevania 3 for the NES. Man, that game is murder. 25 years ago, it took me months to beat it. I still remembered the enemy patterns from playing it so much. Great game. Next up is Super Metroid. I never finished it when it came out, so it'll be a good challenge.

[SirJell]

Thanks te72! But yeah, life responsibilities tend to keep me from finishing games as well. That's why I have so many started right now, haha. Also, I'd say definitely play Arkham City! I think it was the first game I ever completely finished, as before then I had gotten into the pattern of starting things but not finishing them. Anyways, it's a fantastic game, with a fantastic story, especially if you're a batman fan. If you like that, definitely move on to Arkham Knight. Darksiders and Deus Ex are also both great games.Also, if you have a ps4, I'd definitely recommend Bloodborne, as well as Infamous Second Son.

[te72]

Arkham Asylum was among my favorites on PS3, so I'm looking forward to City. No PS4 just yet, have upwards of 200 some games on the PS3 that I'm still getting around to, so no real need of a 4 for now.

[te72]

Finished up the Tales of Monkey Island series. I enjoyed it, particularly the last chapter.

Moving on to Fez tonight.

[DjKniteX]

Playing Street Fighter V and Brawlhalla atm. For my MMO fix I'm currently replaying PSOBB and waiting for Tree of Savior to come out next week

[aloram]

Started playing the English translation of Final Fantasy V on my SD2SNES a few nights ago. I'm about five hours in, and it's awesome.

[te72]

So, probably about 2/3 of the way through Fez, and I gotta say... it's a LOT more complicated than appearances lead you to believe. I figure it sucks you in with simple gameplay, but to get through the whole thing, you really have to start using that brain. To say it scratches the archaeological itch is a bit of an understatement.

Full disclosure, I've had to resort to looking up about 4 or 5 of the secret rooms so far, and one of them is flat out confusing. Speaking of the 6-cube tetronimo puzzle room if you're familiar with the game. The solution really didn't make much sense, given the clues you have. Entirely possible I just missed a clue, but man, there's puzzling bits of games, and then there's downright cryptic in places.

[lalalei2001]

I recently beat Yu-Gi-Oh: The Falsebound Kingdom! It was the first RTS game I ever played.

[te72]

So, finally opened up Gran Turismo 6 the other day. Started off by checking for updates. Eleven GB later, I start the game up. Now it's installing... and installing... and installing. Man, this is worse than MGS4 here. I've been staring at a progress bar suggesting that there are "0 secs remaining" for about five minutes now.

[Ivan]

In the last month I finished GTA V.

[twiztor]

finally finished up Kid Icarus: Uprising for the 3ds.

9 hours, 13 minutes of playtime, spread out over about 6 weeks.

When i bought this game, my buddy told me that he called it "Hand Crampicus" because of the awkward way you have to hold the 3ds to play. He was 100% correct. I wasn't able to play more than one "chapter" at a time, and thus it would usually sit for a few days to a week between levels. There are a total of 25 chapters.

the gameplay was pretty neat, as there are two different control schemes, and you use both in each level. Pretty novel, and rather fun too.

The game itself was quite easy. there's a sliding difficulty scale that you can set each time you start a level. i played at 3.5 ("advanced" or something) and didn't have much trouble. what i DIDN'T like was that if/when you died in a level, the difficulty automatically got easier and you started practically at the point you perished. i felt it cheapened the challenge too much. on the other hand, the only thing the difficulty does is make the enemies take more hits and you take less before death.

One thing that really stood out is the fact that the main character, Pit, is CONSTANTLY talking to whatever various gods are involved. like, non-stop. every single level, every waking moment. just jabbering on and on and on. it leaves the game very little time to "breathe" because there's a constant assault on your senses.

on a scale of 10, i'd probably give it a 5 1/2. nothing worth going out of your way to play, but a fun use of time.

[te72]

Forgot to point out that I finished up Fez. Great game overall. Best way I can think to describe it is if you took an early Legend of Zelda game, took away the combat, and gave the player all but one hint as to how to complete the game's puzzles. Oh, except you don't tell the player what ANY of it means directly. It was honestly rather refreshing, not being held by the hand at all, and told to figure it out.

First impressions of GT6:

-It's quite pretty

-The opening video is quite different from what you might have expected if you played previous games

-The game funnels you into what IT wants you to do a little too much for a SIXTH entry in the series. Now, sure, it's entirely possible that there are a lot of first time GT players joining us, but forcing me to buy a particular car with the initial funds you get in the game is irritating. Sure, the Honda Fit is a nice car in real life, but I can think of far more entertaining entry level cars that could be bought with your initial money. Other than that, I'm having fun.

In the past with GT games, I tend to upgrade my way to victory. However, proud to say that I've beaten the initial races without purchasing a single upgrade. I'm trying to appreciate the challenge of the game this time, and even the Novice level races have proven fun this way.

[te72]

finally finished up Kid Icarus: Uprising for the 3ds.

Ever play the original on NES? If you're looking for a difficult game, I'd recommend it for sure. Not even "cheap" difficult like a lot of NES games were, just well designed, but difficult.

[twiztor]

Ever play the original on NES? If you're looking for a difficult game, I'd recommend it for sure. Not even "cheap" difficult like a lot of NES games were, just well designed, but difficult.

i own it, and have played it before, but never in depth. it is for sure on my list to attempt to conquer this year tho.

[kitsunebi]

i own it, and have played it before, but never in depth. it is for sure on my list to attempt to conquer this year tho.

It's the only game I've ever played where the first level is the most difficult one and it gets easier the further you advance (assuming you are powering up as you go).

[te72]

i own it, and have played it before, but never in depth. it is for sure on my list to attempt to conquer this year tho.

Good luck!

It's the only game I've ever played where the first level is the most difficult one and it gets easier the further you advance (assuming you are powering up as you go).

There's more than one level? Hah, I kid, but seriously that's one tough game. Only ever beat the first level a few times. Had better luck with that than the turbo tunnel in Battletoads though...

As for me, still working on GT6. Of an interesting note, I played it for about 2 days now, and have over 7 million credits. Money in this game comes WAY easy... but you know what? I like that. While "grinding" certain races would make you good money and helped you master a few tracks, it got old in GT games of the past.

[lalilulelo]

does fighting games count? Heh.

The last game i truly finish was new super mario bros u on the wii u. fun games, takes me back on the nostalgia train. hahha

[DefaultGen]

I played through 10-Yard Fight last night, first time I bothered putting that one in in a while. I needed a break after playing Battle Kid 2 which is kicking my ass. I beat the Super Bowl on my first try, 14-0. It might be the easiest NES game I've ever played.