What are you playing?

[Exhuminator]

Go Vacation!

This game is seriously awesome for what it is. A huge island resort with all kinds of environs you can explore at free will, by foot, 4 wheeler, car, horse, etc. You can have your own house and decorate as you like. You can have your own wardrobe too. But what is really cool is there's like 50 some odd activities you can do all over the island. Such as surfing, kayaking, roller blading, and tons of other things. What's really cool is the game is up to four players simultaneous split screen. Which means you all can run around and do your own thing on the island. But you have to play the mini-games together, the game can't render a mini-game in one window and the island on the other windows. That's fine because the mini-games are more fun with more people doing them. My ONLY complaint is that some of the mini games require you to disconnect the nunchuk while playing, and then plug it back in afterwards. Why in the world Nintendo wouldn't let you just leave the nunchuk plugged in and not use it, I have no idea. Safety concerns I guess. It just gets kinda old unplugging and replugging the nunchuk constantly. Other than that, a top tier Wii game that kids are certain to love and probably you too.

[prfsnl_gmr]

Nice! I'm sold on it and have added it to my Wii "want" list. (I think a local pawn shop has a copy; so, I can hopefully pick it up for just a few dollars.)

[retrosportsgamer]

Not to be a negative Nancy, but to give my honest opinion: Earlier this year I played DKCR Wii version co-op with my fiance. Between the sloppy waggly platforming physics and death inducing tug-of-war camera, we had a bad time with it. We especially hated the later rocket barrel sections. By the time we reached the "Volcano" world, neither of us wanted to play Returns whatsoever anymore.

Yeah, this is where our co-op adventure stopped as well. There's a really challenging rocket barrel level I just couldn't beat but by that point I felt we at least got our money's worth with enjoying the game together.

[dunpeal2064]

We agree too! It's freaking perfect and untouchably awesome! It's got monkeys in it for fuck's sake!"

[Gamerforlife]

Donkey Kong Country Returns is garbage. Sorry, but it just is, I don't mince my words much these days when it comes to games. It's only superficially similar to the SNES games. It doesn't have their spirit AT ALL.

DKC in name only, and another example of why some franchises need to stay dead...especially when you put them in the wrong hands(Retro Studios sucks)

[dunpeal2064]

Donkey Kong Country Returns is garbage. Sorry, but it just is

No need to be sorry for your opinion, man.

I agree its DKC only in name. For me, that's a plus for the game, though I can see why it would be a letdown for others.

Looking forward to seeing what Prfsnl_gmr ends up thinking about it

[Exhuminator]

Looking forward to seeing what Prfsnl_gmr ends up thinking about it

I am interested in what he thinks of it once he reaches the cliffs area and beyond. And what his kids think of it after that point as well.

-

To keep thread on topic... I reached the final boss of Project Phantasma last night. Didn't beat it outright, gonna have to build a custom mech for that one, but it shouldn't be much of an issue. As for the arena part of the game, I'm sitting at number 7 out of 50 right now. No idea what to do when I'm fighting against a flying mech who can kill me in 2 hits with his freaking laser swipe blasty sword thing. Gonna have to get creative to get past this douche. I've been taking screenshots and I'll probably post some tomorrow in the gaming shots thread.

[BoneSnapDeez]

I didn't like DKCR and I'm not crazy about Tropical Freeze so far - though I'll withhold any further opinion until I try it out with a Pro Controller.

Original DKC ftw. Brilliant game.

Been going through Ys Origin, playing as this charming lass. I'm about 65% of the way through, I'd wager. I've really enjoyed this game so far. Honestly I've enjoyed Origin more than Napishtim or Felghana. Here's hoping the end game stays as good.

I plan on finishing Origin, Ys V, and Celceta this fall. Good games.

Yunica rules.

[Erik_Twice]

Thanks to my GCW Zero I've been playing an awful lot of games lately.

Magical Drop III is still as addictive and fast-paced as I remember. I can make it to the 9th stage (High Priestess) without much of a problem but she kicks my ass and I really struggle to fight her pattern, not something I should complain when right now she's also my favourite character. I've made it past her twice and lost to Tower which is just too fast for me.

However, even if I could beat Tower, I realized my game would end there because after Tower comes the secret match against Black Pierrot that nobody has ever managed to beat and scoring over 150K to trigger him is trivial. This makes me think I should make the jump to Magical Drop V, but I can't play that one on a handheld. I also don't think it got a physical release.

I wanted to try some Sierra adventure games and I was told King's Quest VI: Gone Today, Heir Tomorrow is the best entry of its series so I decided to check it out.

It becomes clear from the start that it follows a very different philosophy compared to Lucasarts games and I was surprised by the game not having any dialogue options at all! Rather the game seems to be based on riddles, tricks and a healthy dose of paranoia, which fits the fairytale setting very well. It's also a fun game to listen to, the deadpan narrator and Alexander's naiveté pair very well with the sense of danger.

I'm very scared of getting stuck or missing an item, though, and the way I've found a couple objects makes me wary. But I'm told the game is much fairer than previous games in the series and actually has multiple paths and multiple endings so it's harder to get stuck. Still, I'm saving fairly often.

Xenonauts is still kicking my ass and I'm considering dropping the difficulty for my review because by the midgame I either had air superiority but got my troops killed or had nice troops but not enough airplanes to fight the invasion.

Fire Emblem (GBA) is still feeding me forced tutorials and boring, cliché-ridden exposition after multiple missions but the difficulty seems to be ramping up and the actual gameplay is enjoyable. Hope it gets better after the fact.

Virtua Racing's Mega Drive port isn't great, but the game is good and it's fun to play on a portable. It's like a gear-less Daytona USA with a different drafting system and if you aren't bothered by the graphics I'm sure you'll enjoy it very much. I wonder if I should get a copy of the PS2 remake.

I wish I could play the 32x port instead but it doesn't go beyond 5 frames per second. What a shame.

[prfsnl_gmr]

I wanted to try some Sierra adventure games and I was told King's Quest VI: Gone Today, Heir Tomorrow is the best entry of its series so I decided to check it out.

It becomes clear from the start that it follows a very different philosophy compared to Lucasarts games and I was surprised by the game not having any dialogue options at all! Rather the game seems to be based on riddles, tricks and a healthy dose of paranoia, which fits the fairytale setting very well. It's also a fun game to listen to, the deadpan narrator and Alexander's naiveté pair very well with the sense of danger.

I'm very scared of getting stuck or missing an item, though, and the way I've found a couple objects makes me wary. But I'm told the game is much fairer than previous games in the series and actually has multiple paths and multiple endings so it's harder to get stuck. Still, I'm saving fairly often.

KQVI is a great game, but it is much, much harder than any of the LucasArts adventure games. You can get stuck; so, be sure that you have several "recovery point" saves so that you never have to backtrack too far.

Virtua Racing's Mega Drive port isn't great, but the game is good and it's fun to play on a portable. It's like a gear-less Daytona USA with a different drafting system and if you aren't bothered by the graphics I'm sure you'll enjoy it very much. I wonder if I should get a copy of the PS2 remake.

Yes. The PS2 port/remake is awesome and runs at a silky-smooth 60 fps.