Racketboy forums’ Summer Games Challenge 2019

[MrPopo]

I suppose what I'm trying to figure out is... is this game's reputation resting on the fact that most players tried it when they were kids, when we weren't always knowledgeable enough to tease out what a game was demanding of us? As an example, when I was little, it never occurred to me to map where I was going in a video game because I just expected the programming to provide me with all the tools I needed to succeed in-game. "If I needed a map, they would have given me one on the options screen!" was my thinking. Had I played this as a child, I am almost positive I wouldn't have been able to realize things like, "Oh, this random mook only has a vulnerable spot on their head when their shield is in the lower block position" and similar such.

So I'd played it a couple times as a rental and was unimpressed as a kid because I didn't have much time and it's easy to get lost in, on top of the combat. Then in HS when I had emulation available I went back to it, knowing a bunch of things about the game. And I still wasn't a big fan. Link's extremely short reach makes the combat feel bad to me, and early on you're so weak that mistakes are drastically punished. I think the game gets a lot more playable the further in you get, but you have to stick with it long enough to get there. It was only post college that I decided to give it a "I'm going to get through this no matter what" try, and I was able to do it. And the game got better as it went on and you unlock important moves. But it never reached a point of "I am looking forward to more of this" for me.

[alienjesus]

Some updates from me:

Bold = in progress, Strikethrough = done
1. ActRaiser (SNES)
2. Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War (SFC)
3. GoldenEye 007 (N64)
4. Mario Party (N64)
5. Mario Tennis (N64)
6. Castlevania: Circle of the Moon (GBA)
7. Mother 3 (GBA)
8. The New Zealand Story (SMS)
9. Shenmue 2 (DC)
10. Metal Gear Solid 4: Ghosts of the Patriots (PS3)

So, over the past few days I've finished up a couple more Summer games. First up was Circle of the Moon, which I completed on Saturday. I had a pretty good time with it, and the length was just about right for me. It's probably the weakest of the metroidvania style Castlevania games I've played, but I still enjoyed it, and the only other games I've played are often regarded as the best of that style anyway (Symphony of the Night and Order of Ecclesia!).

Today I finished up Mario Party,which I've played through in it's entirety with my wife. We had an OK time, but the first Mario Party is definitely a flawed experience, even in the perspective of it's own sometimes flawed series.

Next up I plan to replace them both with comparable home console and portable titles to make progress in - Mother 3 for the portable game which I'll play on my commute, and probably ActRaiser as my next console title - I do need to get back to Fire Emblem, but at this point I know it'll easily take the rest of the month, so I'd rather make a dent in a few other games before I get back into it!

[pierrot]

(Symphony of the Night and Order of Ecclesia!)

Those are exactly the only two I've ever played, also. I didn't really care that much about Oder of Ecclesia, personally. SoTN is always great, though.

So I'd played it a couple times as a rental and was unimpressed as a kid because I didn't have much time and it's easy to get lost in, on top of the combat. Then in HS when I had emulation available I went back to it, knowing a bunch of things about the game. And I still wasn't a big fan. Link's extremely short reach makes the combat feel bad to me, and early on you're so weak that mistakes are drastically punished. I think the game gets a lot more playable the further in you get, but you have to stick with it long enough to get there. It was only post college that I decided to give it a "I'm going to get through this no matter what" try, and I was able to do it. And the game got better as it went on and you unlock important moves. But it never reached a point of "I am looking forward to more of this" for me.

Well, this is awkward, Popes. It seems we have nearly identical opinions of Zelda II, then.


I often like games that make, "Know thy enemy," a key part of the combat, but along with the short reach (and the fact that most of the tricky enemies don't even take damage from the energy shot out of the sword at full health), I find the enemy attack patterns to be kind of absurd. I don't think anything epitomizes that more than the boomerang hurlers. It would be one thing if they only threw the boomerang at the two heights that Link is on, when grounded, but the fact that they also throw them above Link when he's standing (which either hit unblocked when he's standing, or can be ducked, but will return and need to be blocked from the other direction while standing), or below him (which have to be blocked while crouched, facing away from the hurler), on top of the fact that having to block one of those boomerangs on the return path opens Link up to being hit by some of the more direct throws-- on top of the fact that they can throw out any of those four types at random, makes it feel like there wasn't really that much care put into them at all. It doesn't feel tactically advantageous to actually sit around and parse out those kinds of patterns on an enemy by enemy basis. It's much simpler to just get up in their faces, and hope that their randomness meshes with my randomness enough that I don't take too much damage. The Dark Nuts are an enemy type that I kind of feel like I was able to hack, though. At least until the blue ones. I could spend time waiting around for an opening, and hope I'm fast enough to take advantage of it, while not getting hit too much myself--or I could just bunny-hop over their sword swings, and hit them in the forehead, where they're always vulnerable. I feel like I can see what the game wants me to do to fight the enemies, but I don't have the patience for it, because I'm convinced they come from a completely different game, and it seems too inefficient to be worth my time, anyway.


On the subject of mapping things, I'm always kind of impressed that you map these things out, Key. I have this physical repulsion to the idea of mapping anything. I essentially refuse to do it, and the day that I can't keep mental tabs on these things is the day I need to be put down.

[Key-Glyph]

Ack, I know nothing about the Far Cry series, and was really interested that right off the bat you seemed to be able to pick a fairly detailed background for your character. What kinds of choices do you have for your character's affiliations/history, and has it had much of an impact on your playthrough yet?

I hear ya, pierrot. The boomerang goriyas were a major pain, for sure. Among other things. I have my own personal least favorites, haha.

I'll think about posting some scans of my dorky maps.

[Ack]

Ack, I know nothing about the Far Cry series, and was really interested that right off the bat you seemed to be able to pick a fairly detailed background for your character. What kinds of choices do you have for your character's affiliations/history, and has it had much of an impact on your playthrough yet?

At the start of the game, you're offered a selection of preset mercenaries, which includes some biographical information about each. Nearly all are characters who have been impacted by war or colonization in some way. The impact isn't major, but it does change your character model (which you will see in occasionally graphic detail) as well as which other mercenaries you can find in the world to be your buddies. I wish it had a bit more impact, such as voiced lines (you're a silent protagonist) or some sort of stats regarding weapons handling or something. Sadly, it does not. It has no real impact on the possible choices you can make during the plot either.

Also, for some reason the female mercenaries are not selectable playable characters.

Here's the list of options:

=============
Marty Alencar
=============

Age: 28
Nationality: Nationalized U.S.
POB: Sao Paulo, Brazil
Height: 5ft 10in
Weight: 190 lbs
Hair: brown
Eyes: hazel
Exp: USMC (Force protection); SOUTHCOM
advisory group Colombia, Peru (ret.)

History:
----
Marty’s family immigrated to the US when he was 14. He joined the US Marine
Corps out of high school and made corporal. He re-enlisted at age 21 after
completing two years of college and went through Security training before
being assigned to a Force Protection Brigade at the US Naval Station in
Hurghada, Egypt, with the rank of sergeant. Alencar mustered out at age 25
and moved back to the States with his Egyptian-born wife. The two divorced
a year later, shortly after Marty landed a job with an Atlanta-based
private security firm. Alencar transferred to an overseas posting for one
of the firm’s corporate clients and has been busy ever since.


============
Xianyong Bai
============

Age: 24
Nationality: Chinese
POB: Urumqi, Xianjiang
Height: 5ft 9in
Weight: 140 lbs
Hair: black
Eyes: green
Exp: Contraband smuggler; informant, FIA,
ISI; stop-loss consultant, Cameroon, Zambia

History:
----
Xianyong Bai is a former smuggler. As a teen he was involved with
trafficking people, narcotics, and arms between western China and Pakistan.

After several months consulting for the Chinese government in Cameroon and
Zambia, Bai began cultivating useful contacts in local black markets and
using his official credentials to move medical supplies, particularly
malaria meds, into impoverished areas. He left his job (and broke his
probation) after evidence of his “extracurricular” activities surfaced;
friends working inside a nongovernmental organization (NGO) assisted his
departure and arranged transport for him to the failed African state, where
he spent a few months helping out in the logistics of aid shipments. During
the second civil war, Bai was unable to evacuate with the other aid workers
because of his lack of proper travel papers; he used his own resources to
slip out of the populated centers and hide out in the desert frontier
regions.


=============
Frank Bilders
=============

Age: 36
Nationality: Northern Irish
POB: Fermanagh, Northern Ireland
Height: 6ft
Weight: 170 lbs
Hair: blond
Eyes: blue-grey
Exp: Prov. IRA (direct action); loan-shark;
inmate ‘The Maze’; police informant;
contraband smuggler, Morocco, Yemen,
Chenya

History:
----
Growing up, Bilders had little contact with his father, who was serving a
life sentence for his involvement in a Belfast bombing only a month after
Frank’s birth. Frank was recruited by militants in his neighbourhood while
still in public school, and began his career as a courier. By 19, he had
moved into intimidation and enforcement rackets, developing a fearsome
reputation. Bilders was arrested when he was 22 and sentenced to five years
for “membership in a proscribed group.” While in the notorious prison “The
Maze,” he was linked with at least four inmate deaths. His time behind bars
ended after he was attacked and kneecapped in a machine shop. Frank was
released after serving three years and spending six months in rehab, then
abruptly disappeared from Ulster amid rumors that he’d turned informant.
Between 1995 and 1999, he resurfaced in Spain, Morocco, the former
Yugoslavia, Yemen, and Chechnya, involved with virtually every facet of the
illicit economy. Immediately following 9/11, Bilders attempted to retire
and briefly settled down in South Africa.


============
Warren Clyde
============

Age: 33
Nationality: U.S.
POB: Tulsa, Oklahoma
Height: 6ft 3in
Weight: 230 lbs
Hair: black
Eyes: brown
Exp: Registered security permit Florida
State; VIP protection Dom. Rep, Ecuador;
civil aviation license, Bahamas

History:
----
Warren Clyde grew up on an Arapaho reservation in Oklahoma. As a youth,
Warren worshipped his eldest brother, who served as an Army Ranger in
Panama and Kuwait. Earning a scholarship, Warren delayed enlisting himself
to attend Tulane University, where he played football and worked toward an
aeronautics degree. His military hopes were derailed by a sports injury
that kept him out of jump school. Disappointed and bitter, Warren applied
to several police departments but was disqualified when his psych
evaluations exposed instabilities. Later obtaining private security
credentials in Florida, Clyde worked for several years in the Dominican
Republic and Ecuador, doing personnel protection for a US drilling company.
He was eventually dismissed on disciplinary grounds. A year later, he was
detained and deported to the States after attempting to enter Cuba on a
false passport. After the loss of his certification, Clyde attended a civil
aviation school in the Bahamas and began flying twin-engine planes for a
small charter company. In 2005 he was hired as a copilot for a now-bankrupt
Liberian airline.


==============
Michele Dachss
==============

Age: 35
Nationality: French
POB: Bayonne-Anglet-Biarritz, France
Height: Unknown
Weight: Unknown
Hair: blond
Eyes: brown
Exp: Unknown

History:
----
Michele Dachss is a “snatch-back” specialist, helping reunite parents with
their abducted children. In 2007, Michele was investigating military
exploitation of children in Burundi, the Central Asian Republics (CAR),
Rwanda, the Sudan, and Uganda. At first this was a private initiative, but
later Dachss received the backing of several NGOs and the tacit support of
a number of governments. This effort culminated in her illegally entering
Uganda, where she was arrested and put on trial on several charges ranging
from passport fraud to assault and violations of weapons restrictions. She
made a calculated decision to turn her trial into a platform for presenting
evidence of state-sponsored child exploitation, which resulted in her
testimony being sealed and her being deported immediately back to France.
That same year she entered Zimbabwe and was arrested in connection with a
shooting in Harare. She rotted in a women’s prison for two months before
she was able to bribe her way out.


=============
Nasreen Davar
=============

Age: 33
Nationality: Tajikistani
POB: Gorno-Badakhshan, Tajikistan
Height: 5ft 4in
Weight: 120 lbs
Hair: black
Eyes: Green
Exp: Unknown

History:
----
Davar was born in the former USSR, in an autonomous region sandwiched
between China, Afghanistan, and the CAR. She has extensive military
training and experience having spent most of her teen years growing up in
insurgent camps. During the buildup to the US-led invasion of Afgahnistan,
Davar was approached by a CIA officer tasked with assembling a roster of
deniable, native-language assets for use in clandestine operations. For two
years, Davar conducted “extrajudicial actions” against suspected terror
networks in Iran and Pakistan. Her relationship with the CIA ended badly
after the nature of her missions shifted, and she disappeared in
Kurdistan in 2004. She was arrested while attempting to enter Somalia and
held at a US military brig in Djibouti for six months without charges.
Davar escaped during her secret “rendition” to Kuwait and hasn’t been seen
since.


=============
Hakim Echebbi
=============

Age: 38
Nationality: Algerian
POB: Constantine, Algeria
Height: 5ft 9in
Weight: 190 lbs
Hair: black
Eyes: brown
Exp: Lt. Cmdr, Navy (ret.), maritime
counterinsurgency; real estate broker, UAE;
marine freight security consultant

History:
----
Hakim spent two years in the US at the Naval Postgraduate School before
returning to Algeria to command a maritime counterinsurgency unit. Echebbi
was involved in the Ad Dakhla incident, in which the patrol boat El Chihab
engaged in a battle with a Moroccan vessel while extracting a commando unit
from the Western Sahara. After narrowly escaping an assassination attempt
that claimed the lives of his sister and brother-in-law, Echebbi was
granted an indefinite leave. For a year, his movements were erratic. He
moved back and forth between Paris and Zurich and Tripoli, and at one point
was linked to a car bombing at a train station. Returning to Algeria long
enough to tender his resignation, Echebbi invested a substantial personal
fortune into Dubai real estate. He exploited the emirate’s lenient rules
regarding foreign ownership to incorporate a security company there, and
began providing services to ships traversing the pirate-infested waters off
the Somali coast. Shortly after the outbreak of the Iraq War, Echebbi’s
firm became embroiled in a multimillion dollar insurance suit. He emptied
out his accounts and disappeared.


===========
Paul Ferenc
===========

Age: 34
Nationality: Nationalized Israeli
POB: Budapest, Hungary
Height: 5ft 11in
Weight: 170 lbs
Hair: light brown
Eyes: blue
Exp: Corporal, IDF (ret.); contraband
smuggler

History:
----
Prior to his family’s immigration to Israel in the 1980s, Paul spent his
childhood moving back and forth between Hungary and Czechoslovakia. During
the first year of his compulsory Israel Defense Forces (IDF) service,
Ferenc was an unrepentant jobnik, dismissing the volunteer infantry as
expendable “marks.” He requested a transfer to an armored unit and played
the system until he was sent into the southern Lebanon security zone during
the waning years of the occupation. Unofficially, Ferenc went AWOL in the
aftermath of an extended firefight with Hezbollah forces less than four
weeks before he was scheduled to muster out. Officially he was listed as
MIA.
Under various aliases and on numerous passports, he relocated to Cyprus for
several years before jump-starting a wildly successful pipeline for stolen
cars through Turkey and the Black Sea ports of the former USSR. The Turks
eventually ordered Ferenc out after he was picked up in a security sweep
aimed at PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) finances. Concerned that he might
face extradition back to Israel, he used false credentials to broker a
tractor parts shipment to South Africa and boarded a freighter bound for
Durban.


=============
Flora Guillen
=============

Age: 39
Nationality: Cuban-Angolan
POB: Matanzas, Cuba
Height: 5ft 8in
Weight: 140 lbs
Hair: black
Eyes: brown
Exp: unknown

History:
----
Flora was born into a post-revolutionary Cuban military family. Drawn to
the military even before her compulsory service, Flora entered the Career
Officers School at age 16. She excelled in her ideological education as
well as military drills and was offered an opportunity to serve abroad. She
selected an exchange program in Angola, which, though ruled by the Cuban-
backed MPLA (Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola), was still in
the midst of a civil war. When the decision was made to withdraw Cuban
forces from Angola, Flora was among the thousands of Cubans who elected to
stay. She eventually accepted a commission with the Angolan Armed Forces
(FAA). Guillen spent most of her professional life battling sporadic
insurgencies. She was seriously wounded in the 1999 offensive against
UNITA, not long after being promoted to captain. She struggled through
rehabilitation, but by the time she was deemed fit for active duty, the
insurgency had disarmed and joined the democratic process. Flora officially
retired in 2002 but immediately began taking training contracts with
various armed groups in Africa with whom she felt ideologically aligned: in
Eritrea, Liberia, Uganda, and most recently Somalia, where she fought
against the Islamic Courts Union (ICU).


===============
Andre Hyppolite
===============

Age: 40
Nationality: Hatian
POB: Port-au-Prince, Haiti
Height: 6ft 2in
Weight: 190 lbs
Hair: black
Eyes: brown
Exp: private, NA (ret.); paramilitary;
insurgent

History:
----
Andre Hyppolite grew up in the Cité-Soleil neighbourhood of Port-au-Prince.
During his early life, he was sent away to school to shield him from the
ongoing violence. But that didn’t prevent him from being swept up in the
crime and corruption constantly surrounding him. In late 2003 Andre was
wounded during a firefight with private security forces outside Port-au-
Prince and briefly taken into custody. Shortly after President Aristide was
forced to step down and go into exile, Andre’s release was arranged through
agents of a large investment bank. At the request of a Medellin-based
cartel, Andre traveled to South Africa and began organizing a team to
assassinate the exiled Aristide in Johannesburg.
Suffering a last-minute crisis of conscience, Andre refused to go through
with the hit. Returning to Haiti was out of the question, so he struggled
to find a purpose for himself in Africa.


==============
Josip Idromeno
==============

Age: 48
Nationality: Kosovar Albanian
POB: Prizren, Former Yugoslavia
Height: 6ft 2in
Weight: 240 lbs
Hair: grey
Eyes: brown
Exp: Paratrooper, YPA (ret.); bodyguard;
teamster; guerrilla (KLA)

History:
----
Josip was raised in the former Yugoslavia. The youngest of six children, he
was drafted into the army in the late 1970s, choosing to serve as a
paratrooper for better benefits. With the outbreak of the Yugoslav War in
1992, Josip took any work he could find to provide for his family, often
putting him in contact with unsavoury individuals and organizations. For a
year after the war’s end, he struggled to support his extended family
through various criminal enterprises. He moved with his wife and children
to Sofia, Bulgaria, where he used his business contacts to establish a
small trucking company. Concerned about the cost of sending his daughter to
university in Germany, Josip took a number of lucrative overseas contracts
in high-risk locations. Between 2002 and 2005 he ran various freight
operations in the Gaza Strip, Northern Iraq, and Nigeria. It was while on
an oil company contract in Nigeria that Josip seized an opportunity to
branch out into industrial security.


==============
Quarbani Singh
==============

Age: 45
Nationality: Mauritian
POB: Port Louis, Mauritius
Height: 6ft
Weight: 195 lbs
Hair: grey
Eyes: grey
Exp: Assistant superintendent, SMF (ret.);
instructor, Kenya GSU (ret.); rail security
officer; counter-piracy officer; security
coordinator, Darfur

History:
----
Singh served 14 years in the Mauritius National Police, including several
paramilitary rotations in the Special Mobile Force, where he received
training in France and India. In the mid-1990s Singh was hired by a Kenyan
rail services company as a security officer during a spate of freight
hijackings near the Somali border. Frustrated by the overall lack of
progress in curtailing piracy activity in the Horn of Africa, and under
increasing pressure from his employers, he assembled several off-the-book
troubleshooting teams, drawn mainly from former South African, Kenyan, and
Indian military and police; throughout 2001 they conducted black bag
operations in Somalia, Madagascar, Yemen, and Sudan, and in international
waters.
In 2005 Singh took a new contract as security coordinator for the Red
Crescent in Darfur that lasted for 18 months. Later he attained a security
contract in the failed African state in the final months of the second
civil war, escorting medical observer teams from the African Union (AU); he
bungled the evacuation of his clients after the collapse of the government
ushered in lawlessness.

So yeah, they're all former soldiers, terrorists, smugglers, and criminals. One cool thing about this is that you can find them as friends, and they'll give you quests, side portions on storyline quests, and even come save you when you get shot to shit and help you fight off your attackers. One of my favorite buddy quests so far: go murder a car dealer that ripped him off. Fun times.

That said, they can also die, and their deaths are permanent. When they go down and are too far gone to save, you can inject them with morphine until they pass quietly, finish them off with a bullet, or leave them to die on their own. At the point I'm at, two of the buddies are dead: one I overdosed on morphine after he single-handedly ambushed an enemy convoy (Warren Clyde), while the other was killed by an explosion during a firefight (Paul Ferenc), and I never got the chance to save him.

And your maps aren't dorky! I always enjoy when folks post maps they had drawn here.

[Ack]

Well, I just had a fun moment where a guy in a sedan tried to run me down in Far Cry 2. I sped my little ATV to a nearby building, then jumped through the doorway right as I heard his engine rev. He slammed into the wall a moment after I ducked to safety. This is not an uncommon tactic for some of the enemies in cars in this game.

[pierrot]

Oh, P.S., pierrot: No, the clue that messed me up was not from the old lady of which you speak.

It was the old man in the ghost town, wasn't it. (Oh! Time to listen to "Ghost Town" by Shiny Toy Guns--.)

[alienjesus]

I've been playing ActRaiser this week. I'm not totally sure how I feel about the game - the action sections are pretty janky, partly due to the weird ass jump physics (it's hard to explain, but you commit to a jump like Castlevania or Ghouls n Ghosts. Thats fine in and of itself, but then you can use left on d-pad to pull the jump in - you'll never go backwards in the air, but you can stop movement forwards. However, the second you let go of left again, suddenly all your momentum returns and you hurtle forwards. It's like some weird combination of the worst of both worlds of jump physics). The other issue is the controls which feel super unresponsive - one in 3 of my jumping slashes doesn't seem to actually slash. Not sure if this is a retron 5 issue or the game itself, but it's annoying either way.

The sim parts are better, if a bit underdeveloped. I find them relaxing though.

Despite my gripes, I am finding ActRaiser fairly compelling. I've saved and developed all 6 cities now, so all that's left is the final boss rush. Unfortunately I beat most of the bosses first time round by spamming magic, and I wont have enough to do that on all of them in the boss rush - so now I have to learn the patterns of all 6 bosses plus the final boss to finish the game...

I'm hoping I'll polish it off today, and then it'll be on to GoldenEye.

[pierrot]

That was pretty much my experience with Actraiser, also. Felt like it had stilted, imprecise controls, and wasn't a lot of fun for me. I gave up on it at Aitos. I don't think I realized that was almost half of the game, though. I guess I was planning on giving it another go this summer, but Zelda II has been eating up a lot of that will to play something I don't really want to play, so far.

[alienjesus]

Bold = in progress, Strikethrough = complete

1. ActRaiser (SNES)
2. Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War (SFC)
3. GoldenEye 007 (N64)
4. Mario Party (N64)
5. Mario Tennis (N64)
6. Castlevania: Circle of the Moon (GBA)
7. Mother 3 (GBA)
8. The New Zealand Story (SMS)
9. Shenmue 2 (DC)
10. Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (PS3)

I finished up ActRaiser today - I had a weird time with the final boss rush. It makes you fight all 6 major bosses again, only this time they're way faster then before. I was having a hard time dealing with the speed of their attacks, so I took to Youtube to see how other people were doing it - but every single YouTube video of the the final boss rush on 'Normal' shows the bosses attacking at their usual slower speed. Also, the bosses were doing way less damage to them then they were doing to me with each attack. Surely not every single video was mixing up playing on easy, and yet, thats what it seems like.

Anyhow, I eventually figured out that thanks to my hefty stock of lives and high health, most of the bosses were better handled by just soaking up the hits and continuously attacking. Once I clued in on that, and used magic for the last couple who were more problematic, I finished the game without too many attempts.


In the evening I started up GoldenEye. Everyone tells me it's aged really badly, and I'm not really an FPS fan, so I was a bit apprehensive about starting it. But in actuality, I've had a blast. I can understand some people struggling with the control setup (I switch to control scheme 2, which uses the analogue stick for aiming and the C buttons for moving and strafing, which I find much more intuitive than the default) but the level designs and gameplay have held up great in my eyes. I'm not sure where the game gets it's reputation of being dated beyond 'it uses an N64 controller and it has N64 graphics) to be honest.

Anyhow, I'm playing on bog standard Agent difficulty because I suck at FPS, but I've been enjoying myself. I've cleared 14 levels so far, and am on the Jungle stage - there's only a handful of levels left so I wouldn't be surprised if I finish this one tomorrow.