Topic: What Games Are We Playing

[Rew]

Super Mario 64.

A bit shamefully, I've never beaten this game. As in, ever. I came pretty close when I first played it back in 2000. I'd gathered around 50 or 60 Power Stars and had beaten the first two Bowser battles. But I was interrupted when my brother introduced me to that Zelda 64 game, and I never looked back.

Until now! I've been at it since Thanksgiving and currently have 112 Stars. (I'm determined to collect all 120 before I finish.) I cleared Tick Tock Clock tonight, and that place is beastly. All that remains now are Rainbow Ride and Bowser in the Sky!

After this, I'm moving on to Super Mario Sunshine, a game that I've never so much as touched before. (I only hope the play control is better than in SM64.)

[TerraEsperZ]

After this, I'm moving on to Super Mario Sunshine, a game that I've never so much as touched before. (I only hope the play control is better than in SM64.)

It's not so much the controls that are bad, but the stages that are. Most of them are rather generic compared to SM64 or Galaxy 1/2 but all are massive, very challenging and usually quite obtuse as to what you need to do.

[Rew]

Oh God, that sounds like the worst. >_<

Yeah, I'm currently going back and playing all the main series Mario games, and Sunshine was one of the few I haven't been very excited about. In happier news, I have 120 Stars in SM64, have sent Bowser packing, and reunited with Yoshi! This game has always been horribly difficult for me, so despite people's warnings about SMS, after 100%ing SM64, I sort of feel like I can do anything right now.

[Peardian]

Actually, I love Super Mario Sunshine's setting. Sure, the entire game takes place on a tropical island, but there is still a lot of diversity in there. After all, it could have been a lot worse by having only sandy beaches and jungles. With Sunshine, you still have the obligatory sandy beach, but you also have an amusement park, a snazzy hotel, and a busy harbor. Perhaps my favorite aspect of it is that, at almost any given time, you look out into the background and see the other locations on the island in the hazy distance. Unlike SM64 or SMG, where each level is essentially isolated, Sunshine always makes you feel like you're exploring part of one, big, coherent island. Of course, there are also the isolated platformer stages that you can find hidden in the main areas. Hopefully there is enough diversity to keep you entertained, though it helps if you have a love of tropical-themed settings like I do.

One of these days, I want to make a big map of the entire island.


Oh yeah, and I beat the final boss of Paper Mario: Sticker Star. I'm only missing one(!) sticker and five things.

[TerraEsperZ]

It's not the tropical theme that annoyed me. I absolutely loved the first StarTropics game because of it and it managed to make every chapter quite distinct yet still fit some tropical setting like the inside of a whale, a pirate ship, a volcano, etc. It felt magical in a way that the second game never came close to capturing.

Anyway, the variety in terms of tropical areas is actually there and it all looks very good. It just doesn't *play* that well, which is a crime when it comes to a "main line" Super Mario game. It's way more difficult that SM64 or SMG1/2 and achieving 100% completion requires being a huge self-hating masochist or something. I mean, I'm not that good a player, but I managed to finish Super Mario 64 with 100% and I'm 3 stars away from doing the same with Super Mario Galaxy. I don't remember how much % I reached with Super Mario Sunshine, but I remember trying to get everything in the beginning, before quickly giving up because most of it felt like a *chore*. I did the minimum required to beat Bowser and never touched it again.

Look, I'm not trying to discourage you from playing it. If you like lengthy games with plenty of things to do and collect, and love a challenge, then you'll love it. I just felt the game wasn't for me unlike the previous Mario ones; there were too many things/secrets that I could never figure out and those secret levels made me come close to throwing my controller at the TV more times than I can remember. It's the most hardcore Super Mario game I've ever played.

[Rew]

62 Shines in! (Well, 76 if you count my 140 uncashed blue coins.)

I definitely like this game a lot more than I thought I would. And it beats Super Mario 64 on the basis of controls and inventiveness, I think. I really like the blend of main tropical settings, then those separate secret levels where the game developers really went all out for uber-platforming experiences.

I've totally cleaned out Bianco Hills, Ricco Harbor, Gelato Beach, and Pinna Park at this point. We'll see how I do with Sirena Beach, Noki Bay, and Pianta Village (and of course Corona Mountain after all that).

[Rew]

Just beat Super Mario Galaxy! Heh, only took me over five years to actually start playing this true gem of a game.

And I feel I've hardly scratched the surface! I have 105 Power Stars, so now I need to get the 15 Purple Comet stars. Then after that, I have to do it ALL over again as Luigi, all 120 (I hear everything is harder as Luigi?). Then there's some sort of post-game award I think that awards each brother an additional Power Star each, bringing the grand total up to 242. Whew!

As for Sunshine, I ended up succeeding at gaining all 120 Shine Sprites in that one. I really liked it! The game was a rousing challenge, and while I'm glad the series didn't end up going in that direction, it (like Majora's Mask in the Zelda series) was a nice departure from the norm. I really liked the tropical feel and how the scenarios stayed true to each region of the island, but then adding old-fashioned platforming in the secret areas. Sunshine actually surprised me by how much I ended up liking it.

But Galaxy might just become my favorite game in the entire Mario series. We shall see!

[JonLeung]

I haven't been keeping up, but then again I'm not sure how interested you guys are in a total log of everything I've been playing.

But I did want to say that ever since last August I've been spending an inordinate amount of time on SimCity Social (Facebook).  And to think I always used to look down on Facebook games for being too casual.  The thing is, this game is far from casual just because it's "social".  I am sort of proud of finishing every time-limited themed quest since I started playing, but I can understand the criticisms that it did demand either a lot of time, or real money spent on in-game Diamonds.  And boy did I spend a lot of time.  Though playing mostly alone for the first few months (most of my real-life friends wouldn't play it, or for long), in January I caved and made friends (on Facebook) with strangers whose only commonality was that they played SimCity Social, to help myself (and them in return) with some of the quests.  I also ended up making some alt accounts as neighbours (heh) specifically to help with this game.

However, and just shortly after the debacle of the SimCity (2013) launch, this morning EA announced that in two months, they will stop supporting SimCity Social.  Now I remember why I have always been cautious about online-only games...because one day the servers will have their plugs pulled, but this seems to be rather quick.  And just a couple weeks shy of its one-year anniversary, too.

EA won't provide credits (or even partial) for anyone who's spent real money.  I don't think EA should be wondering why they've been apparently named the worst company...

Oh well, perhaps the end of SimCity Social is a good thing (at least for me), as I was getting perhaps too obsessed.

I've been itching to spend more time playing "deeper", more "hardcore" games, and now that there's no point to keep playing SimCity Social, maybe I will.  (And if I do keep playing - maybe I'll be tempted to at least finish some stuff off - at least I'll quit by default soon.)

Conveniently, Injustice: Gods Among Us (Wii U) comes out tomorrow, and I probably should have gotten to Tomb Raider (2013) (PC), Resident Evil 6 (PC) and BioShock Infinite (PC).  I should probably finish Professor Layton And The Miracle Mask (3DS) and other loose ends too.

In the meantime, I've also been planning a video game tournament that I am hosting, as well as starting up a video game ministry at my church, so I've spent a lot of time doing work involving video games, though other than SimCity Social, not actually playing them.  >_<

[TerraEsperZ]

You're still doing a whole lot more gaming that I am. Ever since my video card started freezing at random while playing even old, undemanding 3d games, I haven't touched anything that wasn't either an emulated or indie game. It was just too frustrating. I really need to get my stuff together and buy a new PC soon since this one is 7 years old and on its last mile. I have *so* many game to catch up on.

[JonLeung]

I recently finished a couple "penultimate" games...

Professor Layton And The Miracle Mask was okay, I seem to be missing one Hint Coin somewhere though, but whatever.  I do like how while Professor Layton games are for the most part standalone games, that the ending of this ties in with other adventures and leads right into the sixth, which is supposed to be the final one (even though chronologically it's not) - or at least the last one featuring Professor Layton as the main character.  Though until then, I'll also be looking forward to the crossover with Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney.

Resident Evil 6 I enjoyed more than most people apparently did.  I don't understand the criticisms - 6 was most definitely better than the mostly unmemorable 5.  And what criticisms I do understand - that it's no longer survival horror with puzzles and limited ammo, but linear straightforward action where you shoot your way out of any situation - is at this point, not new to the series so 6 alone shouldn't be to blame.  I do like that there are seven characters in four storylines - which makes it feel about twice as large as most REs which have two concurrent storylines.  I get why Resident Evil 7 is expected to be the last, though, you can only do so much with storylines about outbreaks and bioweapons.  Though until then, I'm looking forward to playing the recently-released PC version of Resident Evil: Revelations, which apparently is closer to "classic" Resident Evil action.

Though these two series are both expected to end soon, they both have at least one more side-story for me to play and they both have films down the pipeline, too.  Even when they do end, continuations with other characters (in Prof. Layton's case) and/or reboots (in Resident Evil's case) would not be surprising...

I'm not saying it's a burden to play every game in every series I like, but it can be time-consuming to love so many different series...

[TerraEsperZ]

Still haven't bought that new PC so... yeah, haven't gamed in a while.

I *did* play through the PC version of Fez, a game I was hoping would make it off the XBOX360 ever since I saw the first preview for it. I really enjoyed the whole thing, deciphering the alphabet and numerical system while playing and trying to understand the game's many puzzles (I found almost everything by myself except the solution to the Black Monolith puzzle and a few others). Some people might find the game pretentious but I loved how deep the game world seems and those endings were just beautiful. I wish there was a way to map this game but the day/night cycle with all the shifting colors and the cloud shadows make it pretty much impossible to do it properly short of hacking the game. Some people have made tools to extract most of the game's resources but I know nothing about XNA Game Studio (which the game was made with) so that would be impossible for me. Anyway...

As soon as my new PC is bought and installed, I have many games waiting for me to play.

Games I've bought but haven't played yet:

-Prince of Persia: Sands of Time trilogy
-Transformers: War for Cybertron (yeah, never actually started that one)
-Amnesia: The Dark Descent (really looking forward to be scared to death by this)
-Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
-Fallout 3
-Fallout: New Vegas
-La Mulana
-Vessel
-Alan Wake
-Alan Wake's American Nightmare

Games soon to be bought:

-Ms. Splosion Man
-Quantum Conundrum

I could actually take a one year sabbatical and still not finish them all!

[JonLeung]

Nice picks, Terra!

If there's any reason for your ordering, I do like that you put the Prince Of Persia: Sands Of Time trilogy up top.  Everyone hated on the second one, Warrior Within, but I actually liked that one.  Probably because it's not as linear as the first and third (and "fifth" if you count Prince Of Persia: The Forgotten Sands).  Though it is not part of the Sands Of Time series, I also really really liked the fourth game since the reboot, Prince Of Persia (with no subtitle), which, like the Warrior Within, allows for revisitation of areas to get and find everything...having worlds like that always feels more real than the games where you just get from point A to point B.  Hmmm, seems they like to alternate between linear and exploratory games.  Anyway, I would very highly recommend you add Prince Of Persia to that (and I'd like to hear your thoughts on the ending), but if you've got too much on your plate you can certainly skip the last one, Prince Of Persia: The Forgotten Sands.  It wasn't all bad, not at all, but it didn't feel like it added much that was new and I'm pretty sure it was rushed to coincide with the release of the Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time film - which was decent, unsurprising that it's currently the highest-grossing video game adaptation film.

Why is Transformers: War For Cybertron on your list but not Transformers: Fall Of Cybertron?  I rather enjoyed the second one, probably more than the first.  They certainly take liberties with continuity, so consider them prequels to something like a G1, rather than prequels to "the" G1.

[Revned]

I could actually take a one year sabbatical and still not finish them all!

Tell me about it. I have 28 games that I've bought but not yet played. I used to have a big problem with Steam/GOG sales where I'd buy anything that I was remotely interested in. I've mostly stopped, but I still add about 1 game a month to the list. I'm down from almost 50, so I'm making progress. It takes dedication though.

Nice set of games you've got, though. I'm a sucker for the Elder Scrolls and Fallout games. Alan Wake had great atmosphere, but the gameplay was frustratingly repetitive.

[Rew]

Playing through Super Mario 3D Land right now (only took me a couple years to get to it, ha).

It's a very fun little game so far. I was worried how the mixture of 3D and NSMB elements would mesh together, but it's really nice. It's not quite to the level of the Galaxy games of course, but I probably like it better than the NSMB series. I do wish there was more than one inventory slot, though.

Just beat the game today, so now it's on to the Special Worlds and Luigi mode!

[Peardian]

Despite the fact that I already have more games than I have time for, I went ahead and got Mario and Donkey Kong: Minis on the Move, Mighty Switch Force 2, and plan on getting Mighty Switch Force HD. So far, I've only played M&DK.


It's a cute little puzzle game, and definitely different from the Mario vs. Donkey Kong series. It starts off really easy, with there being pretty much only one way to solve the earlier puzzles, but it soon branches off into four different game styles. Mario's Main Attraction, the primary mode, has you placing tiles that are shoved your way in order to reach the goal. Puzzle Palace gives you a limited set of pre-defined pieces, which you have to place in order to reach the goal, or it will give you a board full of pieces that you move around like a puzzle. In this mode, there is no rush or time limit, which means you have a lot of time to think. Many Mini Mayhem has all of the board already filled in, and you have to manage 2+ Minis walking around. Lastly, Big Jungle only has three stages, but each one is really big and has a lot to collect. Combined with the four fun mini-games it has (most of which involve a slingshot), this little game has of content. I guess that's why it's nearly $10...