Summer Games Challenge 2016

Post by **Ack** » Fri May 20, 2016 9:57 am

Turok: Dinosaur Hunter

Boom, levels 1-5 are done, including the giant praying mantis boss fight at the end of five. So far, I think 4 and 5 have been my favorite levels. They were designed in such a way that they felt like massive hubs I had to run around and explore fully to find everything. Tons of secrets, interesting level design, and a hell of a lot of fun to conquer. Level 6 is far more linear unfortunately, and also much more precarious with a heavy emphasis on platforming. I'm playing the enhanced rerelease by Night Dive for this which changes the draw distance, but this level replaces that with fog to keep the same effect of barely spotting a ledge in the distance and then throwing yourself at it in hopes that it is something you can make.

While the Night Dive version does alter the draw distance so you don't feel like you're running through a cloud and provides far more options for customization, I've also discovered that it also increased the attack ranges of the enemies. In older versions, enemies had the same limited sight distance that you did. Now ranged enemies start targeting the player from much further out, so I have to content with a lot of sniping from guys with pistols or blowguns. It's an interesting change that has caught me off guard a few times when I didn't realize I was getting pinged by a guy who ordinarily wouldn't be able to see me.

Anyway, I have the first key of three for level 7, and I'm just outside the area for the next key. I am hoping 6 is fairly linear so I do not have to come back and redo all of those jumps, but I bet I'll miss the chronoscepter along the way. This place just feels huge. I'm still loving this game though.

Post by **alienjesus** » Fri May 20, 2016 3:28 pm

1. Fire Emblem: Ankoku Ryuu To Hikari No Ken (Famicom)
2. Final Fantasy III (SNES)
3. Super Aleste (SNES)
4. Mario Golf (Nintendo 64)
5. Mystic Quest (Game Boy)
6. Shinobi (Master System)
7. Sega Rally Championship (Saturn)
8. Shenmue (Dreamcast)
9. Samurai Shodown (3DO)
10. Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger (3DO)
Strikethrough = completed
Red = In progress

Game number 2 taken down - Sega Rally Championship is done.

The trick to beating the game seems to be that the requirement for performance per track is inversly proportional to the difficulty of the track. The easy Desert stage basically demands perfection, the tricky Forest Stage requires a solid performance, and the difficult Mountain stage requires you to turn in a OK performance and not fuck up too badly. The very tough Lakeside course which you ONLY race if you place 1st on the other 3 courses actually doesn't even require a particularly great performance at all to stay in first.

If you were wondering Prfsnl_gamer - you get credits for placing 1st after the Mountain course - Lakeside performance isn't essential to getting credits. EDIT: I also just replayed on Normal and didn't notice any difference in the opponent cars - I suspect the difficulty just affects time between checkpoints. In that case, I recommend playing on Normal throughout - a winning run will be more than fast enough to not run out of time, and if you come first on Lakeside on Normal you unlock an extra car!

My times on my winning run:

Desert: 57:37 (Finishing in 10th overall)
Forest: 1:20:75 (Finishing in 4th)
Mountain: 1:16:62 (Finishing in 1st)
Overall time: 3:34:54

Lakeside (not counted in final time): 1:20:97

I like Sega Rally a lot. It's fun, controls well and the short courses make the game feel like a great 'one more go' kind of game. It could have done with a few more tracks (possibly arranged into seperate cups to keep the game focused) though - You can beat the whole game in less than 5 minutes, as you can see from my times above

I plan to get back to some Mystic Quest this weekend, and taking on either Shinobi or Fire Emblem as my next game otherwise. Are you ready to go on Fire Emblem Bone?

Post by **prfsnl_gmr** » Fri May 20, 2016 3:47 pm

alienjesus wrote:If you were wondering Prfsnl_gamer - you get credits for placing 1st after the Mountain course - Lakeside performance isn't essential to getting credits.

Nice! It sounds great, but since I am not a huge fan of racing games, I don't want to sink too much time into it. (Racing used to be one of my favorite genres, and I randomly sunk hundreds of hours into Gran Turismo 2 and Gran Turismo 3 over a decade ago. Doing so, however, apparently sapped all of my desire to play racing games for the rest of my life.

)

It is incredibly dreary outside today, and it supposed to be an incredibly dreary weekend. (It is also incredibly cold for this time of year...I thought Charlotte, NC was supposed ot be in the 80s and 90s in late May...) After all of the work that I did last weekend, I am completely primed to spend two days indoors pounding through some of the random arcade games on my list!

Post by **prfsnl_gmr** » Sat May 21, 2016 12:59 am

Double Post!

I knocked out Ikari Warriors and Fighting Vipers tonight. I will write more later, but Ikari Warriors is designed to eat your quarters - it cost me nearly $8 to beat it - and Fighting Vipers is a solid fighting game that is mostly easier than Virtua Fighter 2...until you get to the final boss, who is pulled right out of the SNK playbook. (Also, Jane and Picky are the best.)

Post by **alienjesus** » Sat May 21, 2016 10:30 am

I got stuck into some more Mystic Quest, AKA Final Fantasy Adventure today. Really loving the game so far, it's fast paced and interesting. A contender for one of the best games on the original Game Boy so far.

I picked up from the inn where I rescued the girl from the vampire, made it to the next town, watched her get kidnapped yet again, then met some dwarves, passed through a cave who didn't like how I tasted apparently, raided an airship, explored a desert, found a dictator run town, found Medusa's Cave and turned a parrot back into a man. It's been a busy morning!

I'm now exploring the aforementioned dictators house. I think I'm about half way through the game?

I also started Shinobi yesterday. Unlike the 3 games I've played so far which I've really been into, I'm not getting a good feeling from Shinobi. It seems frustrating and a little unfair on occasion, and I'm honestly not even finding it to be particularly fun. I'll keep at it for now, but I'm not sure I'll be bothered to finish this one to be honest.

Post by **BoneSnapDeez** » Sat May 21, 2016 11:20 am

I've finished the arcade Shinobi, but the SMS port is indeed much harder.

I really want the NES version, if only because the artwork looks badass with the Tengen black.

Post by **Ack** » Sat May 21, 2016 12:36 pm

With Turok: Dinosaur Hunter down, I'm moving on to my next game from my list. I mentioned this fact to my girlfriend, and she immediately demanded that she get to pick. I named off the games, and she made her selection. Her choice for my next game?

Post by **prfsnl_gmr** » Sat May 21, 2016 2:13 pm

alienjesus wrote:I'm now exploring the aforementioned dictators house.

That's just about half way. The game has a pretty extensive second half.

You will soon get a weapon that will allow you to take mattocks out of your inventory permanently, but you must keep at least 8 keys on you at all times. (The point of no return at the very end of the game is not well marked, and you don't want to get stuck or be forced to grind drops from skeletons in the final dungeon.). You should also be well stocked on x-ethers at the end game too.

Post by **Exhuminator** » Mon May 23, 2016 9:17 am

That's right folks, it's time for more uplifting Shadow Tower screenshots, anecdotes, and a progress update...

As for progress, I've got about 13 hours in Shadow Tower. I have to judge my progress by how many worlds I've cleared. So far I've cleared the human world, earth world, fire world, water world, and I'm almost done with the illusion world. The stat screen tells me there's two more worlds after that. So I'm hoping I'm at least over halfway done now. I'm still enjoying Shadow Tower, but only in a challenge sense. This is not a "fun" game in the classical sense of the word. Ha ha, oh no. I'm enjoying it the way someone might enjoy climbing a mountain, because they will enjoy reaching the top and saying, "Holy shit I climbed that bastard ass mountain". Considering I don't personally know anyone else who's climbed this particular mountain, it's also an expedition. I hope someday others around here will make the climb as well.

Post by **Ack** » Mon May 23, 2016 10:27 am

Thief Gold

With my first game done, I decided to get into my second and knocked out a couple of levels. The first, a relatively short job to nab a scepter out of a noble's manor, is actually one that I had played a while back, and I remembered enough to sneak in and get things done relatively quick. I still made a couple of stops on the way to swipe a few things, but I didn't go all out to explore every nook and cranny. Instead I did that on the second level, which caused it to take about an hour and a half, so I could explore the whole thing top to bottom.

I like stealth games. I've played my fair share, and my friends who have watched me find my process both painful and fascinating because of how much I explore both my patience and the limitations of the game. I don't mind waiting for the perfect moment, I don't mind slowly inching across a room in such short movements that my character doesn't even bother entering a walking animation, and I don't mind manipulating and abusing AI for the purpose of victory. In college, my friends held a couple of parties where the central attractions were wings and watching me play through Tenchu using only a single poisoned rice ball, and the Hitman series' costumes and piano wire meant I was a ghost. In these games, I preferred not leaving survivors.

Thief, on the other hand, doesn't want me to kill people so much, but it gives me a handy dandy blackjack for the purposes of taking folks out. The first couple of times I used it, I wondered if it was a short stun or a permanent condition for the duration of the level. It appears to be relatively permanent, though funny enough you can still drown unconscious people, as I discovered by dumping several knocked out guards face down in the sewer. Eh, accidents happen. No worries, I stayed in the shadows, walked up behind patrols, and easily took out the necessary problems for the first level. Then I got to the second.

Huh, there are undead in Thief. I'd heard there was a horror bent to this game, and as soon as I heard my first moan in the mines, I realized those folks were right. That's fine, I slink in shadows and wear horror's skin. I know its tricks and tactics. When I spotted my first corpse, I made sure to poke it with my sword. When I spotted my second, it moaned at me, and I smiled. Congratulations, zombie, I now know your smell. I saved my game, pulled it, and fought it tooth and nail to understand how it works in combat. After taking a few blows and dealing them out to end my little education session, I discovered I could not at this time kill that which is already dead. It laid on the ground and moaned at me. Then it turn its head and looked at me while still lying on the ground, just waiting for me to come over and wake it up again. Easy enough though, it also told me I could herd zombies as necessary. Everything is education in a horror game.

Unfortunately for the zombies, I learned a few minutes later that holy water arrows obliterate them as obstacles. I merely shoot it with two arrows or drop it to the ground and shoot it with one. So long as I have access to either vials of water or a holy water font, I can destroy them. Well, now I know I can manipulate and destroy. I also discovered that the guards don't like the zombies and will fight them a bit later, which means I can set them upon each other as necessary. I am a cruel bastard.

Anyway, I worked my way up to the prison above, stuck to the shadows, knocked out the patrols, and then leapt over the balconies to take out the guards watching the cells. I then chose to free all of the prisoners to create chaos while I raided the above levels of goods and gold. The other criminals died so that I might facilitate my thievery. Hey, whatever, they had their chance to escape. I pocketed my ill gotten goods and moved on to the next level.

I have now entered the bonehoard. Zombies greeted me from the start, but I know them now. I understand how to avoid, manipulate, and annihilate them. I do not fear their ways. Instead I look forward to what new tricks and challenges the game throws at me. I will learn from them too. I will crawl inside this game and absorb its guts first hand until there is nothing left and only I remain.

Summer Games Challenge 2016

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