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ElkinFencer10 wrote:I, personally, loved Golden Abyss, but I'm also a fan of the Vita's control sticks, so that probably colored my opinion a little more positive.

Among Thieves > Drake's Deception > Golden Abyss > Drake's Fortune

I am only a few hours into A Thief's End so can't rank it in the series yet, but the whole of the series is pretty damn solid.

The first one suffers from some late game narrative stuff and (comparatively) less refined design, but I'd happily recommend any of them to anyone here. If you tried the first and didn't like it, it is probably still worth trying the others.

That looks like my ranking as well, dsh. Although I really did enjoy the first game as well.

I like that the Vita has control sticks, but I don't think they're all that great. Passable, but my primary issue with them is that they're small, which means they don't have much throw to them; it really reduces your dynamic range. Well, at least your effective range. If you've got the thumbs of a surgeon, I'm sure minute movements are easy as pie, but as it is, I don't really think they're any better that the Circle Pad on 3DS; in some ways I actually prefer that instead.

They're a huge step up from the PSP analog, though. Especially if you have the old PSP-1000.

Games Ex has beaten in 2016:


69. Earth Defense Force 2025|360|2014|3rd person shooter|22h 38m|7/10

Pretty fun (and long) co-op gameplay full of shooting giant bugs and huge robots.

Please tell me the level naming scheme still goes like this...

Caves 1
Caves 2
Caves 3
Caves 4
Caves 5

No, it's more like:

Mission 1
Mission 2
Mission 3
after over 22 hours
Mission 85

Caves are downplayed compared to previous versions of EDF. Most of the game takes place in large cities and countrysides. My favorite levels were always shorelines.

1. Oni - PC
2. Donkey Kong 64 - N64
3. Yoshi's Story - N64
4. Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide - PC
5. Forsaken 64 - N64
6. Bloodrayne: Betrayal - PSN
7. Fire Emblem Seisen no Keifu - SNES
8. Fire Emblem Shin Monshō no Nazo: Hikari to Kage no Eiyū - Nintendo DS
9. Valkyria Chronicles 3 - PSP
10. Ready 2 Rumble Boxing - DC
11. Rise of the Tomb Raider - PC
12. XCOM 2 - PC
13. Shadowrun Hong Kong Bonus Campaign - PC
14. Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest - 3DS
15. Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright - 3DS
16. Lagrange Point - NES
17. Fire Emblem Fates: Revelations - 3DS
18. Cybernator - SNES
19. Outwars - PC
20. Resident Evil - GC
21. Resident Evil 2 - GC
22. Resident Evil 3 - GC
23. Resident Evil Code Veronica X - GC
24. Dino Crisis - PSX
25. Resident Evil 5 - PC
26. Dark Souls 3 - PS4
27. The Banner Saga 2 - PC
28. Bravely Second - 3DS
29. Star Fox Zero - Wii U
30. Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - PC
31. Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Winter Assault - PC
32. Doom (2016) - PC
33. Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Dark Crusade - PC
34. Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Soulstorm - PC
35. Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine - PC
36. Doom 64 - N64
37. Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II - PC
38. Super Empire Strikes Back - SNES

And that marks me finishing the Super Star Wars trilogy. I first beat Super Return of the Jedi many years ago as a rental, then Super Star Wars last year. Empire is definitely the hardest, although it didn't take me as long to get through as Super Star Wars did thanks to the password system. It turned an otherwise frustrating experience into a series of nail biters followed by a payoff.

Super Empire builds on Super Star Wars in a few ways. While you don't get to select your character anymore (for story reasons) the three heroes have been fleshed out. In addition to his lightsaber Luke gains Jedi powers once he gets to Dagobah. Han gets grenades which deal area damage and are fairly powerful (though shot for shot Plasma is better). Chewie gets a spin maneuver which makes him invincible and does crazy damage. However, it drains an energy bar that refills fairly quickly but can't be used while recharging.

The other thing Empire does is break things into a larger number of stages, though many are smaller than the stages in Super Star Wars. This allows the passwords to really help you feel like you're making progress, rather than being punted to the beginning of a long grueling level every time.

Something I noticed is that the game doesn't have much in the way of visible powerups; most of them are invisible until shot/sabered, so if you don't know they're there you will miss them. This makes the almost Gradius-like painful continuing even more painful on a new stage because you won't know where to get blaster powerups to get you back into the game. I ended up beating most of the bosses unpowered; the only time I got Plasma was when I discovered a hidden room with Han that had two blaster powerups and I already knew about a third one later in the stage.

Aside from the metric tons of shit trying to kill you in nasty ways, the biggest strike against Empire is the general controllability. They replaced the high jump of Super Star Wars with a double jump (complete with Luke laser swording), but then they doubled down on the tightness of some of the platforming to compensate. There were a few jumps later in the game where the only reason you make them is the game's collision determines you've crossed the threshold and you noticeably slide upward so your sprite doesn't clip into the ground when you stand. But the real bitch of things is the slope physics. Now, I don't remember if they were like this in Super Star Wars, but in Super Empire all the slopes are slippy slidey. While you can walk up them you'll spend most of your time hopping up them. Since a jump ends with you crouched initially you will already be sliding down by the time you stand up. Now, this would only be a massive annoyance except the beginning of the game on Hoth has a ton of them that lead to pits. The worst are the narrow floating platforms where half the platform is a short slope that will dump you off the side if you jump just a little too far.

Oh, and fuck the side scrolling snowspeeder segment right before the AT-AT. Whoever balanced that section should have their kneecaps broken or something. I was doing it on Brave and it took far too many tries. I can only imagine what kind of hell it must be on Jedi.

I could always beat Super Star Wars and Return growing up, but never beat Empire. I think I recall getting stuck in some Han Solo level that was a maze of platforms with pits everywhere.

I beat Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door on the GameCube this afternoon!

Paper Mario on the N64 was one of my favorite games of all time and one of the best on the system. I absolutely loved every moment of the game and I was really looking forward to the sequel.

The Thousand-Year Door not only met all of my expectations, but I think it may have exceeded them. It is almost a flawless game. I adore everything about the game from the art style, the story, the battles, the characters to anything else you can think of in a game. It's all there and it is utterly perfect. My favorite have to be the little touches in the game that just made me smile the entire time.

This game caused so many wonderful thoughts and feelings that I am happy to have played it. It's one of the best games and just utterly perfect and adorable!

I beat this yesterday as well and have to agree. I loved the game and it was so much better than the first Paper Mario on the 64. It took me around 37 hrs to beat. The game did not out stay its welcome and the charm just kept me playing all the way till the end.

I also Redboxed Uncharted 4 on Friday and beat it on Sunday and OMG!!!! The game was amazing. The graphics, sound, game play and so on top notch. I loved the story although it was a little conflicting in terms of story continuity in the series but I absolutely loved the ending to the game. I loved how it tied it all up for the series and it had a sense of completeness to it. If there is never another Uncharted game ( which I doubt since its a huge franchise for Sony ) it went out on a high note which the series is known for by fans. If you have a PS4 go out and either buy it or rent cause it is amazing.

January:

February:

March:

April:

May:
66) Master Chu and the Drunkard Hu
67) The New Ghostbusters II (NES, proto)
68) Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (PSP, via Dracula X Chronicles)
69) Revenge of Shinobi
70) Shinobi III
71) Shadow Dancer
72) El Viento
73) Earnest Evans
74) One Must Fall 2097
75) A Nightmare on Elm Street (NES)
76) Hebereke
77) Contra
78) Wario Land: Shake It!
79) Gimmick!
80) Ninja Gaiden (GG)
81) Wai Wai World 2 (NES)
82) Zoda's Revenge: StarTropics II
83) Uncharted: Golden Abyss
84) Double Dragon (SMS)

I have heard some people say that Double Dragon on SMS is better than the NES version. Those people are wrong. This game is pretty bad. There's virtually no hit stun, you die very easily, and even random mooks use jump kicks far too often and effectively. It gets even worse when your own jump kick won't take down a foe in one shot, leaving you open to a counterattack. The Abobos aren't awful when they take two hits, provided you use the perfect spacing to hit on the ascent and descent while avoiding their punch, but once they get to three hits all bets are off.

I actually ended up cheesing the final battle by situating enemies against the wall. Their AI would stick them there and make 'em easy pickin's.

There's also an interesting quirk in that you can infinitely continue on any stage but the last, but pull a bunch of reverse jump kicks, and you gain the ability to continue again. Weird.

Anyway, I guess folks like it more because of the two-player, but even then, I can't see any good reason to really recommend it. There are far better beat-'em-ups out there, and even on the SMS. I mean, yeah, it's not the 2600 version, but that still doesn't mean it's good.

(I played this because I couldn't decide what to play, so I used random.org to choose a manufacturer, then system, to play on. Came up Sega then Master System. After that, I ended up with PS4 and played a bit of Broforce, then 360 and played Fable Anniversary.)