Games you are currently playing or recently beaten

[baphoon]

How... how many hands do you HAVE???

Play it. That's all I will say. Well that's not entirely true. See, where Monkey 1, they established the world and characters, in Monkey 2, they found their humor. Oddly enough my first exposure to the series was Escape, which I imagine I tried on a whim because the cover art was quite silly, and I worked at Blockbuster at the time, hence free rentals. One of my favorite games I've played, and not sure why it hasn't been brought up like since its original release. Neither Curse nor Escape got any special edition treatment, or re-release, near as I can tell.

Anyway, yeah, pick up Monkey 2. The special edition version that I picked up on PSN has voice acting, by the same folks that did the rest of the series.

I only have two hands I just couldn't talk my wife into letting me have the bionic arm implant even though it would well benefit her too lol. I usually pick about 10 games per month or two to rotate and play through. This is the only way I have been able to stick with certain games long enough to complete them and clear out some of my back log. I have a bit of an addiction buying games when I see them on sale and never really playing them. I try to justify it by saying I am a collector but again my wife would disagree lol.

[baphoon]

Nearly finished with Monkey Island 2, and I must say, it holds up quite nicely. That part with using Jojo the monkey with the pump... love it.

Up next will likely be the Telltale Monkey Island game, at which point the only one I haven't played will have been Curse of Monkey Island, which to my understanding was PC only.

I love the monkey island series. I prefer the old point and click adventures I felt like the TellTale Monkey Island (Tales of Monkey Island) was just not as good. The story was okay and the puzzles were ok but I feel like it just lacked the overall charm that the older games had.

[miketheratguy]

Play it. That's all I will say. Well that's not entirely true. See, where Monkey 1, they established the world and characters, in Monkey 2, they found their humor. Oddly enough my first exposure to the series was Escape, which I imagine I tried on a whim because the cover art was quite silly, and I worked at Blockbuster at the time, hence free rentals. One of my favorite games I've played, and not sure why it hasn't been brought up like since its original release. Neither Curse nor Escape got any special edition treatment, or re-release, near as I can tell.

Anyway, yeah, pick up Monkey 2. The special edition version that I picked up on PSN has voice acting, by the same folks that did the rest of the series.

You started with the last game in the original series? That's interesting. I guess you don't have to have played the first three games to enjoy the fourth but I would imagine that so much of it would make less sense (not to mention you wouldn't be able to enjoy all the nostalgic touches and callbacks to the earlier games). It's cool that you stuck with it though.

My first "experience" with Monkey Island was when I read a review of it for the PC in an old issue of Game Players magazine (an issue that I regularly check for here on the site because of the great memories I have of reading that review). It just seemed so full of comedy and character, not to mention looked like the kind of game that I'd never seen before (with the exception of Maniac Mansion, which I loved). With all this in mind you'd think that I would have moved right along to the sequels, but for some reason I never did. The only Monkey Island game I played after the original was, coincidentally, also Escape From Monkey Island.

[aloram]

Played Ice Climber and Pinball on my Everdrive N8 the other night!

[te72]

I only have two hands I just couldn't talk my wife into letting me have the bionic arm implant even though it would well benefit her too lol. I usually pick about 10 games per month or two to rotate and play through. This is the only way I have been able to stick with certain games long enough to complete them and clear out some of my back log. I have a bit of an addiction buying games when I see them on sale and never really playing them. I try to justify it by saying I am a collector but again my wife would disagree lol.

Haha, still very impressive man. I try to stick with one at a time myself, so as to avoid confusion and getting characters from one game into another in my own head.

You started with the last game in the original series? That's interesting. I guess you don't have to have played the first three games to enjoy the fourth but I would imagine that so much of it would make less sense (not to mention you wouldn't be able to enjoy all the nostalgic touches and callbacks to the earlier games). It's cool that you stuck with it though.

Honestly I don't think I had ever heard of Monkey Island until I saw that game. Lucasarts had a fantastic library back then, so I took a chance on it on a whim. Don't think I had ever really played a comedy game before that, unless you count the Gex series.

Even as a complete stranger to the series, it was a great game to play. Could tell there were throwbacks to previous games ("That's the second biggest monkey head I've ever seen!") but it was always fun.

Played Ice Climber and Pinball on my Everdrive N8 the other night!

Speaking of point and click games, what is the game in your avatar picture?

[miketheratguy]

Speaking of point and click games, what is the game in your avatar picture?

His avatar is the NES version of Maniac Mansion, one of the best games ever.

[aloram]

His avatar is the NES version of Maniac Mansion, one of the best games ever.

Good call!

[miketheratguy]

Good call!

Oh, you have no IDEA how obsessed I was with Maniac Mansion back when I was 11 or 12. I drew comics about it, wrote stories about it, recorded the soundtrack on a tape recorder so I could listen to it when I wasn't playing. I read the Nintendo Power cover story over and over, made my own maps of the mansion, played through the game umpteen times on the Apple IIe, NES, and the Deluxe version for PC. Tried watching the horrible tv show...

I'm telling you, Maniac Mansion was my master and I was its devoted slave.

[aloram]

Haha, that's a great story.

[aloram]

The best part of that story was that you "recorded the soundtrack on a tape recorder." That's so awesome, seriously. Do you still have the tape?

[te72]

The best part of that story was that you "recorded the soundtrack on a tape recorder." That's so awesome, seriously. Do you still have the tape?

I used to do something along those lines. I would hook up the PS1 to the vcr using the video and one of the RCA sound cables, then took the output line from my stereo (one of those old Magnavox shelf systems, if you remember those surround systems from the late 90's/early 2000's) and would put that in the other sound port in the back of the vcr.

The effect this would have was that I could mix game audio with my own music. Some games this worked to great effect, but it was definitely a rough effort. Recording that stuff on a vcr was definitely an amateur attempt at video editing, but I was having a lot of fun with it. Sadly, no longer have any of the tapes from that experiment.

In other news, just finished Monkey Island 2 SE. Will be moving on to the Telltale series today I think.

[Magazine]

I picked up The Witcher 3 again after taking a long break from it. I still can't believe I played it for 3 months straight.

[shadefaster]

I stated to replay dkc tropical freeze recently, and I highly recommend it. It has one of thee best video game soundtracks I've heard in a while, no joke.

[KHANV1CT]

Recently beat the Tomb Raider reboot (2013). It's quite old but it was still a very fun game to play thru. That should give anyone an idea of the current state of my backlog lol.

YES! I really enjoyed that game when I beat it last summer. I'm currently working on a ton of stuff. I have a backlog of about 15 Xbox One games, 10 PS4, countless Wii stuff, 30+ 3DS, SOO much crap for 360 and PS3 (especially with the free games I get every month from Live and PS+), plus the Steam stuff. Ugh, I'll never finish. The only games I can really get dedicated to are mobile stuff so 3DS and Vita.

To answer the question of the post: Starfox 64 3D(just trying to gold medal all levels) and Senran Kagura on 3DS.

[te72]

I play Tetris at work, every day.

Does it count if it's metaphorical? I work primarily in shipping.

[twiztor]

I play Tetris at work, every day.

Does it count if it's metaphorical? I work primarily in shipping.

used to work in shipping myself, loading boxes on trucks. made the tetris reference numerous times. great minds think alike!

[te72]

used to work in shipping myself, loading boxes on trucks. made the tetris reference numerous times. great minds think alike!

If I ever end up in a position that I'm needing to hire someone with similar qualities, I'm gonna bust out the NES for their interview. Depending on their attitude and how well they are at the game, would determine whether or not they get the job.

[MetalJuggalo]

Killer Instinct for SNES, Nights Into dreams for Saturn, and Sonic Adventure for Dreamcast are on my docket right now

[shinmai]

Just finished Penarium from the latest Humble Monthly, which I actually had wishlisted because it looked interesting. The game was very dissapointing, though. The pixel art isn't bad, but because of how the game scales and moves assets, it has a ton of scaling and aspect ratio artifacts, and the gameplay is just uninspired and the completely inconsistent difficulty just further decreases it's appeal.

Also playing Jon Blow's The Witness which I'm still very much enjoying and Super Mutant Alien Assault which is easily my favorite game I've played this year.

[Areala]

Some time while I'm off this coming week, I'm going to tackle "House of the Dead: Overkill" on the PS3 just for laughs. I mean, it has strippers and zombies, so what's not to like?

*huggles*
Areala

[miketheratguy]

The best part of that story was that you "recorded the soundtrack on a tape recorder." That's so awesome, seriously. Do you still have the tape?

Wow, I'm seeing this late. Sorry for such a delayed response. This is what happens when I get a reply without quoting my post, lol. I'm using that notification icon like a crutch!

Anyway thanks, yeah, I loved the soundtrack of the NES Maniac Mansion so much that I literally put the little tape recorder (which I got during the same Christmas that I got Maniac Mansion) next to the tv and just sat there on the character select screen, giving a couple of minutes to each one so I could loop their personal themes a couple of times each (favorites, for the record: Razor, Bernard and Jeff). I'd then put the recorder next to my pillow so I could listen to the music as I drifted off to sleep, and sometimes I'd take it with me just to hold up to my ear and listen to on car rides. I only did this with a few games from around that time that had really great soundtracks Castlevania III being a standout - but Maniac Mansion was my obsession.

I really, really wish that I still had the tapes but if I do I've never been able to find them since around that time. It's a shame too, because I used one of them to record a long night of Castlevania III and Mega Man 3 which I played with my friend (and podcast co-host) Howard on New Year's eve, 1990. We were so funny on that tape, and that night was so fun to look back on, that I listened to it pretty regularly whenever I went on a trip. Then I moved on to other things - namely, girls - and when I remembered to go back and look for the tapes again, they seemed lost for good.

I used to do something along those lines. I would hook up the PS1 to the vcr using the video and one of the RCA sound cables, then took the output line from my stereo (one of those old Magnavox shelf systems, if you remember those surround systems from the late 90's/early 2000's) and would put that in the other sound port in the back of the vcr.

The effect this would have was that I could mix game audio with my own music. Some games this worked to great effect, but it was definitely a rough effort. Recording that stuff on a vcr was definitely an amateur attempt at video editing, but I was having a lot of fun with it. Sadly, no longer have any of the tapes from that experiment.

I did something similar when I bought my first CD burner for Christmas of 2000. It was a machine the size of a VCR and cost $200 bucks. Man, how things change.

Anyway I had my cable going through the VCR and the VCR's aux outs going into the CD burner, so anytime that something came on that I wanted to get an audio copy of - say the narration of a documentary, a music video, a favorite movie (Used Cars) or what have you, I'd just have to turn the burner on and fire up the CD-RW.

Like you said it was amateur but fun, and in my case I was actually able to snag a unique prize that made the whole thing worth it: A performance of the bluesy folk song "Waiting On the Cards to Fall" by Guy Davis which I randomly caught one night on an episode of Conan 'O Brien. I would later find out that the live performance was vastly different from (and vastly superior to) the album version of the same song, and the Conan performance also featured a guest appearance by drummer and vocalist Levon Helm. To my knowledge no official recording of that performance or rebroadcast of that episode exist, meaning that my copy of it was the only one in the world (with the exception of maybe the NBC archives). It's a really great performance and I felt really lucky to get it, and when I had the ability to do so I made it available on Youtube. It feels pretty cool to preserve something so rare, and if not for the fact that I happened to be recording Conan at that exact time it would have been lost forever.

Some time while I'm off this coming week, I'm going to tackle "House of the Dead: Overkill" on the PS3 just for laughs. I mean, it has strippers and zombies, so what's not to like?

*huggles*

Areala

My ex-girlfriend became a stripper! That's why she's my ex-girlfriend!

Not a zombie though, at least not yet that I know of.

[te72]

Killer Instinct for SNES, Nights Into dreams for Saturn, and Sonic Adventure for Dreamcast are on my docket right now

I'm was rather bitter that KI only came out on the SNES, and not the "Ultra 64" that the arcade hardware was used to market. Instead we got KI Gold on N64, which wasn't a bad game, but it just wasn't quite as good in my opinion.

Some time while I'm off this coming week, I'm going to tackle "House of the Dead: Overkill" on the PS3 just for laughs. I mean, it has strippers and zombies, so what's not to like?

*huggles*

Areala

Other than everything else?

Just kidding, I always loved the HOD games, very much a staple of my visits to Gameworks in Arizona Mills mall back in the late 90's.

Like you said it was amateur but fun, and in my case I was actually able to snag a unique prize that made the whole thing worth it: A performance of the bluesy folk song "Waiting On the Cards to Fall" by Guy Davis which I randomly caught one night on an episode of Conan 'O Brien.happened to be recording Conan at that exact time it would have been lost forever.

My ex-girlfriend became a stripper! That's why she's my ex-girlfriend!

Not a zombie though, at least not yet that I know of.

Good thing that studios have realized the importance of archiving.

As for the ex becoming a stripper, but NOT a zombie, I dunno about that. Every stripper I've ever known (primarily a couple friends from high school) always seemed to have rather dead eyes, soooo...

[Areala]

Y'all are clearly not dating the right strippers.

*huggles*
Areala

[miketheratguy]

Y'all are clearly not dating the right strippers.

*huggles*

Areala

Lol I try to make it a point not to date any of them!

[Areala]

Lol I try to make it a point not to date any of them!

Leaves more for me then.

*huggles*

Areala