What are you playing at the moment?

[Matt]

Let everybody know which games you're playing at the moment and what you think of them! Post as much and as often as you like.

I'm currently working my way through Phantasy Star on the Master System. It's a bit of a slog and very grind heavy at the start, but it really picks up when your party begins to expand. Not a big fan of the first person dungeons, even if they are technically impressive.

[Direbear]

HI there.
New to the forums so i guess this is as good a post to start with as any.

Well at the moment I have been really into my gun games on the NES in my bedroom, so I've been playing a lot of Hogans Alley and also fulfilling my "Back to the Future" cravings with Wild Gunman. They are both REALLY good and as much as Duck Hunt has a special place in my heart, they are both just more challenging and fun.

Also on the PS1 out in the living room I'm playing Diablo 1. It's interesting playing it with PlayStation controllers instead of the mouse and keyboard, but I'm getting used to it. My only complaint is when I'm playing multiplayer with my friend, you don't get any of the Unique weapons or armors that are supposed to drop. Things like the Butcher's Cleaver Only drops from the Butcher in 1 player mode. Took me and my friend 4 kills of the Butcher before we decided to Google it to find out what was going on.

Today (yes my postman sometimes delivers to me on a Saturday) i got a brand new copy of Carmageddon 64. It was nice to open the box and see the cartridge still in its plastic sleeve. Tonight i'll give the NES and gun games a miss and have a bit of a play with Carmageddon on the N64 before falling asleep.

[Matt]

Carmageddon 64 has a pretty bad reputation, curious to hear what you think of it.

Last night I wrapped up both Dragon Ball Advanced Adventure (GBA) and Pac-Man World 2 (GCN). I played Dragon Ball through in Japanese when it first came out, and I hadn't seen the entire series then so I figured I was missing out, but the English version doesn't really add anything. Still a great little platformer.

Pac-Man World 2...talk about your difficulty spikes. Game had me cussing like a sailor. Platforming is a bit glitchy, boss fights are demanding and the whole thing's just not that great. It'd been sitting in the backlog for 8 years for a reason. However, it does have emulated versions of pretty much every Pac-Man game released up til that point (2002). I bought the package for Pac-Man Vs. which is criminally underrated.

[smid]

Right now I'm moving so nothing just at this moment. But this weekend when I'm all settled down, it's Zelda. I have never given that game an honest chance so it's about time. While growing up and all my neighbors played Zelda, I was more of a Mario kid...

[Frank_fjs]

The last few games I've played on consoles that I own are:

Final Fight CD - Mega CD (favourite console port of the game)
Gain Ground - Mega Drive (I find it quite an addictive game)
Bomberman 93 - PC Engine (favourite Bomberman game on the PC Engine)

I don't have a C64 so tend to play those games on my Wii via emulation. International Karate always gets a good workout.

Most of my retro game playing is done on my Dingoo A320, usually when I'm on the go or laying in bed on sleepless nights. I love it, mostly play Neo Geo and Capcom games on it.

[Tim]

Just finished a playthrough of Lylat Wars (Starfox 64) (N64) today. Forgot how good that game is.

Thinking about trying to finally finish Persona 4 (PS2) before the anime starts.

[smid]

It didn't go very well with Zelda, didn't even try it but I will! I got stuck playing Chip n Dales instead

[kadeath]

Let everybody know which games you're playing at the moment and what you think of them! Post as much and as often as you like.

I'm currently working my way through Phantasy Star on the Master System. It's a bit of a slog and very grind heavy at the start, but it really picks up when your party begins to expand. Not a big fan of the first person dungeons, even if they are technically impressive.

Hi Matt,

Can you give any subtle hints on this Phantasy Star?
I have never played RPG games in my life from what I can remember, but me and my daughter (she is 7 years old) started to play this one, only because she liked it so much. We found it as an unlockable on the XBOX 360 SEGA MEGA DRIVE Ultimate Collection.
We made the map of the land, which for us looks to be complete and detailed maps of all the dungeons that we could get to (I think there are a couple which are locked). Also there is a forest on the south which needs a compass to travel through (which obviously we don't have!). We've found a stone man in one of the dungeons. I gather when you turn him back into human, he will join you.
We are a bit stuck at the moment and except making quick trips into forests to fight and quickly back to the town to heal, there's not much we can think of, and these fights get a bit repetitive after awhile.
Can you give a subtle hint on how to get going again?

Thanks.

[Krumm]

Perhaps one of the faqs from GameFAQs might help you if you just read upto where you are.

[kadeath]

What am I playing at the moment?

ATARI ANTHOLOGY for XBOX: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_Anthology

I don't have an Xbox, but luckily this is one of the games which plays on Xbox 360.

Being born in 1976 in USSR, I completely missed the Golden Age of Videogames.
So I only became familiar with Atari classic arcade games through (mostly) unofficial clones on Spectrum in the late 80s. Needless to say that since there were so many better games for Speccy by that time, I wasn't much impressed with these. In fact I couldn't care less about Atari.

Having said that and being much more familiar with the arcade scene in the recent years, I decided to check this one out. In fact I made a point of seriously playing every one of these 85 games which are assembled on this disc. (I am still only half way trhough)
I quite liked the Arcade orginals in this collection. My favourites being MISSILE COMMAND and WARLORDS - these are real decent games and are quite addictive even nowadays. The least favourite would be GRAVITAR - I wonder how people could make themselves put a quarter into this cab?

ATARI 2600 games - there are heaps of those on this disc! I have never seen an Atari 2600 in my childhood so I am missing these rose-tintend glasses altogether! Anyway, I tried to give every one of these games a chance and tried to enjoy them were possible. The only games that I gave a miss were the Baseball and Backgammon games - I hate baseball and I could not get a hang of backgammon.
Anyway, some of these games are not too bad at all. Among the best are naturally the ports of Atari arcade games (especially excellent MISSILE COMMAND). But still why would anyone play these now, when there are far superior originals on the same disc is anyone's guess. I liked ADVENTURE and showed it to my 7 year old daughter to see if she can finish the easy version - she did. Some games are totally unplayable, most of paddle games, such as NIGHT DRIVER and BREAKOUT - I really hope there is a glitch in Emulation here, as I cannot see how can anyone enjoy such poorly implemented controls.
In any case it takes some work to like these games now, but I think where Atari 2600 shines is the two player games - the boredom is removed and the competition is clear. With the games being very simple, you can master them quickly and enjoy a good competition with your friends or family.

VERDICT: A really good value for money Compilation for those who like ATARI arcade classics. When my daughter hears the word "Atari" she goes "Boooring!", but my wife looks out for "mind" games such as ATARI VIDEO CUBE

[Matt]

Restarted Diablo II recently. While I beat the core game, I never finished Lord of Destruction, though it seems I have to start from scratch in order to reach Act 5.

Finished up Sly 2: Band of Thieves and Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves over the past fortnight. Probably wasn't the best idea to play them back-to-back, as it kind of highlighted the problems of the series - that being the repetitive missions (get x items off y guards), somewhat finnicky clinging mechanism and tendency to overstay its welcome in terms of game length.

Restarted Okami tonight. Felt that was a better course of action than attempting to pick up my save file from where I left off five years ago.

[AURORA]

hi all, my first post

Been playing International Karate plus on my west german C128D last night
Also gave MK3 and Super mario kart another whirl in recent days

found my IK+ disc after getting my thousand plus c64 disc collection in order ready for the first retro gaming night in my retro shed next week in south australia

[Matt]

Tore through Urban Chaos: Riot Response last night and this morning. It was the first game from the studio that made Batman: Arkham Asylum and Arkham City. Pretty good - a bit rough at times, but the shielding mechanic was neat, and using a tazer on an opponent until they caught fire was something of a guilty pleasure

Now going through X-Men Legends. Suffice to say that the sequel and Marvel: Ultimate Alliance are much better games.

[sydrocker87]

Just smashed through Die Hard on the NES! About to play Todd's Adventure In Slime World on the Lynx. Can be hard as nails, for me anyhow, but there's always something new to discover in those slime worlds

[bearsfanau08]

I'm playing the Mega Drive classic Phantasy Star IV. This version however is from the Phantasy Star Collection on the Sega Saturn. My Japanese has gotten a little rough though...

[Charly]

I have been playing Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis for the PS2.

It has really highlighted how much I have been babied by modern games. I started the game expecting to be told how to build the park, this was not so. My first try ended with dinosaurs roaming free about the island. My second attempt was far more successful, and now my park is thriving (so surviving my first Twister was a challenge). I really like the game. It holds up fairly well, with my only annoyance being that the game takes too long to recognise that I have pressed a button in the menus.

I'm planning on playing a bunch of SNES games over the coming weeks - I think Secret of Mana requires another playthrough. <3

[em-dubya]

Right now i am replaying FFVII on the PS1, also i recently bought around 50 PS1 games so will take a spin on most of them just to make sure they are all working etc. playing PS1 on a big HD TV is a little hard on the eyes... but i guess if graphics really bothered me i wouldnt be playing PS1 at all!

[AmazingJas]

Ms Pacman on the NES. I never realised till now that it had a coop mode!

[Charly]

I played through Final Fantasy VI for the first time, and loved it. Music, story, characters, gameplay - all so good.

[Matt]

Last night I fired up NHLPA Hockey '93. Why not the supposedly superior NHL 94? Fights and injuries.

My brother and I played the absolute hell out of this game when we were kids, and found the perfect combination of teams (Detroit and Buffalo) and players to cause the most fights as possible. Every know and then I fire the game up with those combinations and see a) how many fights I can cause b) how many body checks I can get and c) how high I can get the crowd meter.

Last night's run wasn't great, but I had a lot of fun doing it.

[mikehamp78]

Played E-Swat on my GP2X last night for 2 hours. Much harder than I seem to remember when I was younger.

Just got the Quest for Glory set from gog, so I dare say that will kill a few evenings. Nice to see the original in VGA, rather than the CGA I remember.

[jayman2142]

had a few editions to my mega drive collection recently so been stuck going through playing them, mainly flashback which is a great game cant believe i didnt know about it as a kid, also ive been playing predator 2...not a great game but i have fond memories of it as a kid

[Charly]

Playing Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga. It is so funny and charming. I'm enjoying all the references to Nintendo's history and other Nintendo/Mario games.

Absolutely adore it. I'm going to finish this game, and get into all the other Mario RPGs I can get my mits on.

[mikehamp78]

I met Tim Schafer yesterday at ACMI in Melbourne !

He very kindly signed my original box for Monkey Island and Grim Fandango !

Going to fire-up SCUMM tonight and play Grim Fandango again.

[Goregasm]

playing through resident evil zero. I didn't think a video game could scare me anymore but god damn this game is creepy. I love it so far. I forgot how hard the whole inventory management is in RE games.. kinda frustrating on a first playthrough

[Charly]

^ The inventory system in Resident Evil Zero drove me a tad crazy at times - what with having to pass items between the two characters and then finding that one of your team was no where near a place to do such a swap. Oh, and then having to go and try to find items I had dropped... somewhere.

I liked the game, though I never finished it.

[Matt]

Charly & I played through World of Illusion on the Mega Drive last weekend. I hadn't finished it in co-op before, only solo with Mickey. That elevator just near the end of the game ended up wiping out most of our lives, but we finished it in the end.

I powered through Yakuza 2 on the PS2 throughout the week, and through Twisted Metal Black last night. I do not get the appeal of Twisted Metal Black - so many American gamers swear its the bees knees, but it lacks the impact that I need from a vehicular action game. Maybe I was spoiled by Interstate '76.

Currently playing Scarface: The World is Yours on the PS2. Skipped it entirely when it came out, but I still find some degree of charm in last gen open world games, even if they are unpolished and overambitious.

[Charly]

I'm playing through Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy for the first time. Enjoying it thus far.

[Charly]

I'm playing through Fable for the first time. I enjoy the premise and the world and combat for the most part, but I get frustrated with the interactions interface (I keep accidentally sneering at people... or worse). I'm playing The Lost Chapters on Xbox.

I'm trying to play more retro or last gen games, as I have accumulated quite the backlog.