What are you playing today?

[M.C.Dillinger]

There's a big sale of everything Sega on steam. So I'll likely be playing something like that in edition to my slow progress through Disgaea 4. A bundle of 40 Sega Genesis games is an obvious purchase, but is Sega and Sonic All-Stars racing worth it at $10 or should I ignore it?

[Segaholic2]

No, the PC version is shit. Get it on 360 or PS3.

[Farmer]

Shit even with a gamepad, or is the problem deeper?

[K2J]

PC version lacks online. Even the Wii version has that.

[Farmer]

Fucking seriously? Even on Steam? What were Sega thinking?

[Wombatwarlord777]

The selection of SEGA games on Steam is pretty embarrassing anyway. Aside from the Sonics and Sega All-Stars Racing and a handful of other Genesis titles (like Ecco and Gunstar Heroes), nothing jumps out at me as being especially good. And why, why did they pick Sega Bass Fishing to include on the Dreamcast Collection instead of something like Jet Set Radio? I realize the latter hadn't been ported to the PC yet, but neither had Space Channel 5: Part 2.

Speaking of which, is Space Channel 5: Part 2 a good game? It's the only other one I'm tempted to buy.

[Cuckooguy]

I love Part 2. If you played and loved the 1st, the second pretty much trumps the 1st in terms of like improving everything, I can't even play the 1st one without the nagging feeling in the back of my head of how inferior it is to Part 2. The gameplay is the same, but a lot of subtleties, such as the improvements in animation and its timing, plus the fact they got rid of the FMV backgrounds allowing for more dynamic, lively, and better camerasmithery, make Part 2 a much more refined and better experience.

If you never played the 1st, then yes, it's a good game if you like rhythm games. If you know what is and how a metronome works then it's really easy to pick up. Other rhythm games I've played are Gitaroo Man, which was okay but I disliked how little your ingame button prompts did anything to influence the mood of the current task, it never invoked a sense of frustration or accomplishment. In Space Channel 5, if you did terrible, the game makes you feel terrible by having depressing dance moves and instruments, but if you did great it makes you feel like a God.

I also like Elite Beat Agents for similar reasons, though I don't really like it as much as SC5p2.

[G.Silver]

For the price they're asking on Steam if you even think you might like it then you should absolutely get it. Echoing Cuckoo's sentiments 100%. It's an incredible thing, and I think the first two levels especially are just wonderful things that everyone should experience.

[Senbei]

Most importantly: Space Michael. Hoo!

[Majestic Joey]

Space channel 5 part 2 had some of the best lines in music game history:

"ulala let's go, let's shout!" -Space Micheal

and

"Commence dance dimension X!" -Purge

[Green Gibbon!]

So this thing called Sideway turns up out of nowhere on PSN. It's a platformer that takes place in a 2D graffiti world on 3D polygonal buildings, so the orientation changes every time you switch surfaces. It's a cool idea, but it's the only idea, so it is a one-trick pony. It's the sort of gimmick that would be one world in a Mario game, except here it's the whole game. Fortunately, though, (unlike, say, Kage no Tou), it looks short enough that it won't overstay its welcome.

Good lord, though, that soundtrack is grating. I guess I've got too much upper middle class white American in my blood, but I despise hip hop. I guess it is fitting, but there's only like three tracks that repeat continuously in every stage, and these stages are fairly lengthy, so you've got time to hear each song at least three or four times per level, which would be torturous even if I liked the music. And they're censored, too, so everytime they say "fuck" (which is often) you get a disconcerting gap in the beat.

Other than that, though, it's the best thing I've seen on PSN in a while.

[Jingles]

I've recently discovered Raskulls, on XBLA, and it's amazing. It's a puzzler/platformer/racer with fantastic characters and levels. Your little Skeleton must race to the finish line by breaking blocks Mr. Driller style. I've only tried multiplayer once, but it's chaotic and fun all the same.

[Arcade]

Mario Kart DS, haven't been so hoocked to a Mario Kart game since the 64 one, Oh and Colors too, why are the Boss battles in Colors so EASY?

[Wombatwarlord777]

I'm guessing because the game is primarily intended for kids and because beating the boss battles are required to open up new areas. I never liked how easy they were either. It's kind of frustrating that there are some really clever ways to damage bosses using Wisp powers, but then it's almost always more efficient just whale away at them with the homing attack. Rotatatron and Refreshinator in particular are complete push-overs.

[Arcade]

I'm guessing because the game is primarily intended for kids and because beating the boss battles are required to open up new areas. I never liked how easy they were either. It's kind of frustrating that there are some really clever ways to damage bosses using Wisp powers, but then it's almost always more efficient just whale away at them with the homing attack. Rotatatron and Refreshinator in particular are complete push-overs.

Not even the Rush games had Bosses so easy, and Colors lacks a hard mode, I guess they where really rushed to release the game fast? Cause I seem to remember Sonic Rush Adventure had some kind of hard mode at least.

[Gaz]

So, I've just started playing the latest Zelda game. Skyward Sword.

When it was announced I didn't really take much interest in it. The last few Zelda games have been underwhelming to say the least and Skyward Sword didn't really look that different to previous titles. Despite that, I still ended up preordering it mostly because I wanted the limited edition and I knew it would probably be a game I would want to play eventually(unless it ended up a Sonic 06-esque disaster).

So far, I've just finished the first dungeon. The first thing that struck me was that this game starts off really slowly. The first hour or so is pretty boring. I don't remember previous Zelda games taking quite so long to get going. Once it does get moving it gets a lot more interesting. The main twist this time is that Link and Zelda live in a sky world above the clouds with a surface world down below. Link uses a giant bird to travel around the sky area. It works quite well but I can see it being annoying if overused which so far it hasn't been. The other most notable thing is the motion controls.

Obviously, motion controls aren't new to Zelda but they weren't very well handled Twilight Princess. They were great for aiming weapons but the sword combat was crap. This time around the game uses motion plus. With sword combat Link actually mirrors your movement with the Wii remote. Flick the remote horizontally and Link will do a horizontal slash. Flick it vertically and he'll slash vertically and so forth. For the most part these controls work quite well. I have had the odd problem where it wouldn't register a movement properly or I'd just move the remote slightly and Link would do an attack but I haven't had too much trouble. The thing that really surprised me is how much extra depth these controls actually add. A lot of the enemies require you to defeat them in a certain way or try to get around their defenses. It doesn't just feel like a pointless gimmick. That said, I've been having a lot of trouble with moves that require nunchuck movement. I don't know if I'm alone with that problem or it's a common thing but it does add a bit of frustration.

Other than that, I am ultimately liking this game so far but it still has a feeling of overfamiliarity. I'm reluctant to comment further at the moment until I've made more progress.

[P.P.A.]

OutRun 2006: Coast 2 Coast (PSP): I bought this a few weeks ago, and have been playing it in short bursts a lot whenever I needed some distraction or a break. While the PSP's analogue stick isn't as responsive as the 360's one, or, if you can even compare them, the steering wheel of the arcade machines, it's still quite playable, although the graphics lose a little bit of their splendour. Nonetheless, it's heaps of fun.
 I had mostly been fiddling with the Coast 2 Coast mode, which includes all sorts of gameplay modes and features not seen in the arcade game, like races against CPU drivers along unique assortments of courses, or missions based on Heartbreak mode, but more difficult.
 Save for the drifting missions, a lot of these tend to be a little tedious and even frustrating though. Being one to want to complete everything, I played them without thinking any further about it. Another grievance is that in Coast 2 Coast mode (and normal singleplayer in general), the different cars actually have different properties when it comes to handling, acceleration, speed, and so I often suffer the agony of choice: Better handling but lower speed so I don't crash into something at the end of a race and am overtaken by everyone, but also take longer to get to rank one? Which car is suited best for this gameplay mode? And so on.
 A few days ago, however, I finally realised what should have been obvious—that this has nothing to do in OutRun. The point of the game is to drive, to have fun, and to have fun driving, without stressful races, fiddly missions, or fine‐tuning.
 And thus I remembered the “OutRun 2 SP” option in the main menu, which is just that—the original arcade game, raw, where every car handles the same and drives at the same speed and the only criterion by which you need to choose is their looks and your taste, and where you don't have to worry about anything and can just drive, drive, and feel good (and try to see all endings or hunt for a highscore by perfecting your driving, but at your leisure). After a single playthrough, I realised how much I missed this, and I have rarely ever touched C2C mode since.

[Wombatwarlord777]

I'm kind of surprised to hear you say that Skyward Sword starts off slow. This was one of the bigger complaints that people had about Twilight Princess (I was personally annoyed that the game required the player to track down and talk to nearly all the villagers in Ordon). I would have expected Nintendo to fix this for the next game, especially considering the relatively large amount of time between Twilight's release (late-ish 2006) and the reported beginning of Skyward's development (April 2008, according to Miyamoto).

[gr4yJ4Y]

So this thing called Sideway turns up out of nowhere on PSN.

It reminds me of PS1-era platformers - dark polygon renderings with choppy camera angles and somewhat better 2D animation. And it's fairly straightforward outside of its gimmick. The generic hip-hop and urban setting remind me of Tony Hawk. It might be a good pick if you're nostalgic for that part of history.

[Neo]

I'm kind of surprised to hear you say that Skyward Sword starts off slow. This was one of the bigger complaints that people had about Twilight Princess (I was personally annoyed that the game required the player to track down and talk to nearly all the villagers in Ordon). I would have expected Nintendo to fix this for the next game, especially considering the relatively large amount of time between Twilight's release (late-ish 2006) and the reported beginning of Skyward's development (April 2008, according to Miyamoto).

I didn't really read Gaz's post since I only just now started playing the game, but yeah it starts hella slow. I played for almost three hours (at a very leisurely, Zelda-y pace) and I didn't make it out of the starting village. I think the biggest problem is that the game tries to teach everything to the player one thing after the other without giving him or her a chance just to have some fun, kill some baddies, get some treasure, etc.

Right as the game starts, there's an NPC teaching you how to parkour over everything oh my god what is going on, then there's a lengthy cinema sequence, then you get your sword and go through a pretty insipid swordplay tutorial, then you actually get to go through a cave and kill some random enemies which appear with no fanfare and end just as abruptly, without anything in the spirit of a "boss" fight or anything, then you get more cinemas, then the game forces you to learn how to pilot your bird, then as soon as that's done you immediately need to win a tag minigame using said bird, then it's more cinema, then the game teaches you how to fucking open a parachute then more cinemas then Fi randomly shows up and makes you follow her to a secret chamber where you get your second sword! All without leaving the fucking village! Compare to how much time it takes for Aryll to get kidnapped in Wind Waker, and how much of the game you play before you even get your boat, or to how fast Ocarina of Time gets you on your feet and shoves you straight into a dungeon, without bothering how to teach you anything or even explain any of the story. Talk about a fucking step in the wrong direction!

MotionPlus controls are coo', though.

[Crowbar]

I just finished Half-Life. Like, the original Half-Life.

It was pretty good. Headcrabs suddenly jumping out of dark corners when I'm not expecting it can eat my piss. I'll probably continue with Half-Life 2 soon.

[Radrappy]

In a temporary bout of insanity I bought a virtual on : operation moongate arcade cabinet(yes, the two seater) from a dude on craigslist for 400$ and moved it into my apartment last weekend. It's in great condition but was a complete bitch and a half to move. Now the hulking monstrosity takes up a large portion of my living room. Not sure WHAT i'm going to do once I have to move but I can cross one childhood dream off the bucket list.

[Locit]

In a temporary bout of insanity

The hell it was! How much do they usually go for? (Assuming such a figure even exists.)

[Crowbar]

Wow, that sounds like living the fucking dream to me! I can't imagine buying something that takes up so much space; I still haven't figured out a good way to keep the original Fleetway pages I bought off Nigel Dobbyn at Summer of Sonic like two years ago (they're still sitting on top of my spare bedsheets in the cupboard, clean and in good condition but lonely).

[G.Silver]

the hulking monstrosity

Hah! There's a reason why my VO dream involves a VS City cab! From what I've seen $400 is a steal though (I've typically seen them for over a thousand at least--and that's before you figure in freight costs), congrats on the find!