whatchu playing now

Is Balatro too easy? Feel like with these rogue-likes it’s so much luck of the draw, can land on a perfect set of circumstances in a given run and clean up. I got really far in one of my early runs, but haven’t gotten close to that since.

Cool game. Not sure I’m as hooked on it as most seem to be, but I see the appeal.

I just beat HUNTDOWN, which is a throwback side scrolling shoot em up with an 80s cyberpunk/outrun aesthetic and 16 bit-ish graphics. Main character makes some horribly corny Duke Nukem-esque movie quote quips occasionally that grate, but it was genuinely a really fun little game. Like to try 2 Player at some point.

As an old Contra and Metal Slug head, it scratched that itch. If y’all know of anything else in that wheelhouse, let me know.

** After finishing "Far Cry 5," I tried the 3 related DLCs (one is in Vietnam, one on Mars, one is zombie-themed) for maybe 30 minutes each and wasn't motivated to finish them. Probably won't get back into the FC universe any time soon.
** Played a few hours of "A Plague Tale: Requiem" over the last few weeks - voice acting and graphics are good, but the gameplay and combat were just not fun for me, so I abandoned it. ("Dishonored" and "Dishonored 2" have a similar plague vibe, but are far superior games IMHO.)
** Started "Rollerdrome" yesterday - this is really really fun! Roller-skating + guns in a dystopian near-future arena competition thingie. To replenish ammo, you have to do tricks, so you are constantly doing flips and grabs and grinds and stuff. The graphics are comic-book style (like "Sable") and look fantastic.

xp i was joking, theres like 10 more difficulty levels and lots of other decks besides the starting one that make some of the more obvious strategies less achievable

xpost How was Far Cry 5? I have that one and 4 to play at some point. I assume they are more or less all the same? I thought the separatist compound in "Hitman" (3?) was fun, so I kinda suspect I would enjoy 5 over 4. Maybe it all comes down to the antagonist, but everything I read made a big deal of Vaas in Far Cry 3 and he was pretty stupid, so I suspect the story/baddie doesn't matter much, either.

I found the FC5 ending to be extremely disappointing, so much so that it kind of makes me regret putting 60 hours into it (I did a fair amount of side quests). The basic story idea had promise, and they blew it. The gameplay is fine - similar to FC3 and FC4. I enjoyed FC3 and FC4 more than FC5, all things considered. I'd say I liked FC3 and FC4 about equally, and there are some welcome trippy/psychedelic FC4 sequences and fun features, such as riding an elephant to trample people. Note that the outdoor settings of FC4 look pretty similar to FC3, so it might not feel like a terribly different game in that respect, if you need variety.

As an old Contra and Metal Slug head, it scratched that itch. If y’all know of anything else in that wheelhouse, let me know.

Huntdown is the only EAR-like i'm aware of but in the R2RKMF side-scrolling tradition here's some i've read good things about:

GnG Resurrection <- game of the decade tier
Tanuki Justice
Blazing Chrome
Steel Assault
Shinobi Non Grata

these are all recent ones, if you're willing to dig into Arcade Archives titles or emulation there'll be much more

Awesome, thanks!

There's a new Contra game coming out this year

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pXSRjVS9IM

one more since it's on a 90% off sale right now for PS4 and PC: Assault Suit Leynos (2015 remake)

I see the publisher's also slashed the price on the remake of Assault Suits Leynos (Target Earth), the predecessor to Assault Suits Valken/Cybernator—the doujin dev that made this remake is long dead, so once it's delisted, it's probably gone for good https://t.co/4rNvMP4cia

— GSK | https://cohost.org/gosokkyu (@gosokkyu) March 4, 2024

As an old Contra and Metal Slug head, it scratched that itch. If y’all know of anything else in that wheelhouse, let me know.

Did you try Broforce? I played all the way through on coop and it was a mega blast - just a bucket load of action movie parodies.

been playing a lot of In The Hunt, an Irem arcade game from 1993
a scrolling submarine shooter, really beautiful pixel graphics which remind me a lot of Metal Slug
also it is HARD, boy was this was designed to munch coins!

https://i.imgur.com/JmplXzq.jpeg

just looked up the wiki and

In the Hunt was designed by a group of Irem employees that would later go on to found Nazca Corporation, the creators of the Metal Slug series.

welp that explains that then

Good recs all, thx. Obv no shortage of this thing, been around forever, was just curious about new spins on it. Was wondering if there were any Streets of Rage 4’s of the genre that passed me by.

Down with remakes and out-of-the-ordinary old stuff too. Assault Suit Leynos is completely new to me, playing it now and it’s wild. I dig it.

Broforce is on Gamepass, grabbed it. I have played Into the Hunt and I remember it just kicking my ass.

choice recent beat'em ups are Ninja Warriors Once Again, Fight n' Rage and Final Vendetta.

like everything else Tengo Project have been doing, NWOA is an improved remake of the SNES game; the other 2 are original indie games

fight n’ rage is a goat contender imo. the full package

trying to replace my full fat msg (apex) addiction with diet msg (balatro) instead. it has such a pleasing look - that was always one of my issues with slay the spire. amazing game but so ugly

Fight n Rage is dope. Picked that up a while back, highly satisfying beat em up.

I think I’m gonna pick up the Konami Contra and Castlevania collections today.

minor PSA for the Contra collection: despite being by M2, the emulation of arcade Contra is slowdown-ridden and Super Contra is missing the intro voice acting; both issues are corrected in the Hamster releases

other than that caveat, the rest of m2's contra collection is superb as expected

New game from Moon Studios (who did Ori) is imminent, looks awesome. No Rest for the Wicked.

Yeah that game looks extremely up my alley. It's technically early access, so IDK if I'm going to grab it now or wait (I'm probably gonna wait).

I beat SOTN finally! I almost gave up until I found a rare weapon drop that made the rest of the game trivial. It was a fun time! My hunger for old Metroidvanias persists, so now I'm hip-deep in Aria of Sorrow, which I'm not enjoying quite as much; mainly cuz it feels *way* too hard.

Been many years, but I remember Aria of Sorrow being a top tier Castlevania game.

is that the first gba one? that was the best one iirc

I believe so. I used to have a combo cart with it and Harmony of Dissonance that I would play on my OG DS during train rides...20 years ago :⁠'⁠(

I never completed either of the og ones and never played the SNES one or Symphony, so playing Aria of Sorrow & Harmony of Dissonance on GBA felt like finally getting Castlevania.

I would rent C2 multiple times as a kid and it felt very mysterious and deep, proto-Dark Souls vibes, has there ever been a good remake/reissue?

Man I'm at the end of ffx and just hit a major "go out and grind" roadblock. Brutal.

Picked up Lisa in the most recent humble bundle. Lotta fun earthbound/undertale like rpg, but sad. high recommend

When I see clips of games or series I've never played, like Final Fantasy or Yakuza or Metal Gear Solid, I have no idea what the f is going on.

I'm like that with clips of mobile gacha games, it's a foreign country to me

you've never played a ff yakuza or mgs!!!!!

You can't be playing far cry 3 (or anything by ubisoft) when y!ou haven't touched any of those series No more western-developed video games this year, only Japanese. They really own the sphere.

had to buy another copy of balatro for my dog since she’s not getting walked anymore

xpost Ha! I'm not a fan of anime or anime designs, and I have an aversion to giant swords. But I do own Yakuza 0, maybe I will play that in 2024.

What's funny is I *have* played some of these characters in Super Smash Bros. but I had no idea who they were.

Me either! But you're not getting any of that in any of those series (okay maybe a touch in FF, but there's so much variation there, there's a FF game for anyone).

I'd recommend MGS, it's the most western-gaming adjacent of the bunch, but yakuza 0 is a great trip.

xp lol

|||||||| if you like balatro, high recommend Luck be a Landlord. Deckbuilder in the casino except its pokies instead of poker. It's such a beautiful little time drain, great great great game

yeah, of those series only ff ever has anything to do with anime, but my instinct tells me that jic’s instinct to avoid them will turn out to have been correct

too each their own (except mgs, that's for everyone)

oh i love them, i'm basing that on his video game opinions that i've read

Hold up MGS is all about mechs, which is an enormous genre within anime (of course anime as a term beyond "animated stuff from Japan" is reductive and useless).

Also I've decided I really don't like most Japanese media, with FF7 Remake being the straw that broke my back, because everything about it missed me on basically every level.

I wouldn't say MGS is about mechs. It'd be like saying Far Cry 3 is about tigers. They're a small backdrop, far down on the list of things I think of when I think of MGS

I think MGS2 is in the top 5 best videogames ever

you've never played a ff yakuza or mgs!!!!!

― H.P, Tuesday, March 12, 2024 4:04 PM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

also this is me

hope you guys are holding up okay

MGS is basically mecha as chekov’s gun

and in the meantime you’ll get multi-generational spycraft machinations that change the politics of the world and create extra-governmental mercenary corps and work with weirdos with names like Revolver Ocelot and field voice calls from people who may or may not be real

There was a Dunkey video about the Metal Gear series that had iirc ... the President of the US in a mech or something? Anyway, seemed pretty silly, I assume/hope intentionally. They're remaking some Metal Gear game, right? I'll play that, unless it turns out to be terrible.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaLiLRVeaZA

(Apparently this is accurate!!)

Entirely accurate.

But seriously, the mgs story shines despite its million twists and turns. It has serious things to say about the control of media and its relation to politics, the military-industrial process etc. etc. It marries its game play with its stories and ideas with cohesion. It's fun, it's silly, it has more philosophical depth than you'll find in any other AAA video game (someone prove me wrong). Just brilliant stuff

2 being the highlight of it all imo, but 1 and 3 following on its coattails

You have to cut through a lot of OTT schlock to get at anything meaty IMO, which hasn't aged well for me, but I've also soured a lot on Kojima since MGS4.

Of course, but thats part of the charm. Yeah I haven't liked anything post mgs4 too