Gabriel

Super Robot Wars V (PS Vita) = Deep into this one. I've been playing this as much as possible since I got it. Stranger of Sword City (PS Vita) = I bought this on sale quite some time back. I just now tried it out. Only played for a little under two hours. Seems OK so far. Fate/Extella (PS Vita) = Dynasty Warriors type game with Fate characters and a lot more story. I got it because I like Dynasty Warriors games and I think Saber is cool even though I have no interest in the Fate franchise. I've only played the first battle. No game breakers yet.

Today I will say the remake of Defender for the PS2. It takes everything about the original classic and shits on it. The original had colorful graphics. The remake just has everything be brown. The original was incredibly fast paced. The remake has no sense of speed whatsoever. The original has incredibly tense gameplay with enemies out for your blood. The remake is about as exciting as a drive through a featureless desert with only the occasional object to rarely break up the tedium. (The enemies can't even hit you) So, yeah, the remake is awful. It adds nothing and only manages to be insulting. One of the worst games I've ever played. Even Ravenloft Iron & Blood was head and shoulders above it.

And he bought little stands for them all as well? That's some dedication.

I have seldom been as enraged as this game made me. I did eventually fish the game out of the trash. I tried playing it a bit more thinking, "It can't really be this horribly written and designed, can it? It has to get better, doesn't it?" Even someone I know who loved the previous Personas said 5 was unbearably awful. Oh well, not my problem anymore. I'm playing with Gundams and the Yamato now, so to hell with that damn cat.

Metal Squad - Lightening Force - Sega Genesis Lightning Strikes Again - Lightening Force - Sega Genesis Title Screen Opening - Gemfire - Super Nintendo Intro - Streets of Rage 2 - Genesis Dreamer - Streets of Rage 2 - Genesis Too Deep - Streets of Rage 2 - Genesis Wave 131 - Streets of Rage 2 - Genesis Back to the Industry - Streets of Rage 2 - Genesis Ending - Streets of Rage 2 - Genesis Wilderness - Golden Axe - Genesis Satukora, Sassa! - Golden Axe - Genesis Vampire Killer - Castlevania: Rondo of Blood - PC Engine Super CD Rom And maybe I'll list more later, because there are several still from the Castlevania series, and I haven't even gotten to Final Fantasy 6, 7, or Chrono Trigger. Then there's Soulstar....

Back in the day I definitely didn't view them as anything like how I view Windows, Linux, or Android today. They were just something I needed if I wanted to format a disk or needed a copy utility. So, yeah, I viewed them like I would any other utility.

I tried to play Persona 5. I think I've given it every possible chance. And to be fair, the game is fun when I get to dungeon crawl. I enjoy the combat systems and the exploration. I can even get into the more purely mechanical relationship bonding and skill increasing. The catch is, the game doesn't want to let me do that. The game doesn't want me to be able to do anything. I felt more freedom in Final Fantasy 13's endless hallway. I'm reminded of Star Ocean: Till the End of Time. Like that game, Persona 5 has long cutscenes which end, pretending to let the player have control, only for the only possible option be to trigger the next cutscene. Nothing about the story or characters is compelling enough or even interesting. In fact, I find the whole thing to be extraordinarily poorly told. I'm tired of having the same things be said over and over. Like many people, I'm tired of the cat. The cat is just a reminder that I have no participation in the game. It's the designers making fun of me that I've wasted my time with the game. The saddest thing is, I like the game when it lets me play. But those doses of play time are rationed out in a miserly manner. I like the visuals. I like the mechanics. This has been the ONLY RPG where enemies have been visible roamers in the dungeon where I've ever felt that mechanic adds anything to the game. And it's buried under this endless shit story where I never get to do anything and a cat constantly tells me to go to bed. 25 hours in, and the tutorials are still coming. 25 hours in and it is clear the game is never going to open up and let me do anything on my own. That's it. I'm done. I'm tapping out. And since the world has gone insane and Persona 5 is being hailed as the "GREATEST JRPG EVER" and since that will probably mean it sets the template for everything going forward, I'm out. As in, I am done buying RPGs. If this is how things are going to be from now on, I want no part of it. The worst part is, I sat down intending to play Persona 5 for most of the day today. I thought it had to open up. I felt it had been opening up and letting me do more. Surely I was past the worst and now I could start enjoying the game. NOPE. I just got to watch day after day on the calendar tick off as programmed event after programmed event played, and each time I desperately hoped I could have my character leave his room to do ANYTHING only to have the cat order me to bed. I thought, "any moment now, it will quit doing this, and I'll be able to return this DVD I rented in the game." NOPE. I was so craving any kind of agency I was looking forward to returning a DVD in the game, and then the date I was to return the DVD passed without the game allowing me to do so. That's when I turned it off, took out the disc, and threw it in the trash. The game is so railroaded, I CAN'T EVEN RETURN A DVD RENTAL. More than that, I have so little agency I WAS LOOKING FORWARD TO RETURNING A DVD RENTAL. I'm trying to end this post, but I'm just broken. I honestly don't feel like I'm ever going to enjoy a game ever again. This game has damaged me.

Album? I guess I'll go with Invisible Touch. It looks like that has the most of what I think of when I think of their songs. Bible Verse Genesis 4:9 "And the Lord said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother's keeper?" Moment from Star Trek III The shot as the Enterprise passes over as it approaches the Genesis planet Mega Drive Game I probably have to say Streets of Rage II MegaDrive hardware the Model 1, either variant

You play them straight off the everdrive with no adapter.

Just standard Nintendo, fanatically anti-customer.

I think Growl had the basic parts it needed to be fantastic, but lacked the polish. It's also hampered by a Genesis home port which, like the SNES Final Fight, removes multiplayer co-op. This is a game where you can play Indiana Jones and rescue elephants who trample your opponents into gobs of meat! Grenades fly fast and free. There's a pretty decent selection of weapons, including guns. Oh and TONS of enemies attacking at once. Growl is also gonzo as hell. It probably should have played up on that just a little bit more. Not too much because then it would have become too silly, but perhaps a few more WTF moments would have been good.

I agree with your opinion on bullet hell shmups. I don't think they're fun. Beyond the initial shock of "lookit all dem bullitss!" I find nothing compelling about them. However, the ones I've seen are much the same as the pattern recognition games which dominated the NES library. They're also freakishly and disturbingly focused on optimization of play to the point where they simply aren't fun for anyone who isn't deeply hardcore into shmups. That said, watching someone who has practiced and knows how to play this games is freakin art. I've seen people no hit complete bullet hell games which look flatly impossible. Me, I'm not big into shooting accuracy. I prefer holding down the fire button and watching the energy beams fly when I'm playing shmups. I'm more of a scenic shmup fan. I want to enjoy the look of the enemies and environment while blowing crap up. That's probably another contributor why I don't like bullet hell games. A decent percentage of them abdicate any interesting backgrounds in favor of hypnotic bullet patterns. But my preference for scenic shmups is probably why Lightening Force and Raystorm are my favorite games of the genre.

Zaxxon Super Game (Colecovision SGM) Star Trek: Strategic Operations Simulator (Colecovision) Defender (Colecovision)

Golden Axe (Genesis) = First game friend and I played it glitched out in the final battle with Death Adder. We played it again later and completed it. Time Killers (Genesis) = Good lord, I actually WANTED TO BUY this game back in the day. WTF was wrong with me? Very bad Genesis fighter. However, we took the game as a joke and laughed as such. Growl (Genesis) = I had played the arcade version on a Taito collection disc. The only time I had ever played it on the Genesis was merely to make sure it worked and only played the first screen. This was the first time I played all the way through the game. First play through on default settings with Indy, I got to what I assume was the final boss. Probably not anywhere near the best brawler of all time, but I had a lot of fun. Indy with the whip is godly, and watching elephants turn your opponents into meat chunks is great. Too bad it's not 2 player on the Genesis.

Very mild preference for Vertical. However, i don't like vertical displays. I'd prefer a vertically playing shooter with a horizontal play area. Pretty much like you get with some adaptations of vertically scrolling shooters to home systems where they use the full screen.

If the cart works, which may not be the case, then you probably need a real Genesis for it to function.

I was disinterested in the NES when it was current. I didn't even get one for myself until 1994, and I purchased it mainly to play older RPGs like the Dragon Warriors and Ultimas. My Apple IIc had died, and the NES was the only way I could afford to get back to playing Wizardry and Ultima IV. In terms of action games, I didn't bother acquiring many of the games others would consider signatures for the system. I'm kinder to the NES in retrospect, but I didn't like much for the system back then.

Just in case anyone is wondering, because these three games come up a lot on these kinds of topics. A friend of mine had Slot Machine. Yes, it sucks. But it's also still more fun and interesting to me than Pitfall II and Swordquest: Earthworld. I owned Basic Programming back in the day. Yes, it sucks. I still enjoyed tinkering with it more than playing Swordquest: Earthworld. Nothing is wrong with Laser Blast. It's a great game to play while zoning out to your rage related to Pitfall II or Swordquest: Earthworld. Kill, Kill, Kill, pause, Kill, Kill, Kill, pause, Kill, Kill, Kill, pause, Kill, Kill, extra man sound, Kill, pause, Kill, die, longer pause, Kill, Kill, pause... etc.

I really dislike Pitfall II. I had it back in the day, and it disappointed the hell out of me. After the novelty of that infinitely irritating music wore off, it took only a few minutes to see how tedious the game was. I kept on playing it, because, you know, it was the only new game I was going to get for months. It was probably my last new game for 3 years, how's that for a disappointing note? Then I got to that endless tower of bobbing birds where it just goes on forever with no checkpoint and just one pixel off sends you all the way back to the bottom. The game is such an endurance match of boring environments and just the most tedious gameplay ever. Grinding in MMOs is more entertaining. Imagine my surprise when I first came here and realized people liked this turd of a game. More than that, people thought it was one of the best 2600 games ever made. WTELF? God damn, I hate Pitfall II. it's awful, and anyone who likes it is a bad person. Moving on... I've made peace with it, but I've never liked Asteroids. It isn't virulent hate like with Pitfall II. It's just that I think it's such a bad port of the arcade whose game it's labeled with that it can barely be considered the same thing. I actually think Pac-Man and Space Invaders are far better ports than Asteroids. I recall I had been playing the arcade game during that time. I saw Asteroids in Circus World and I had been promised a game. I figured, I can get this game and practice for when I get to play the Arcade game. Then I got it home. The sherbet scoops were to be expected. But where the arcade Asteroids is a game of maneuver, the 2600 port is a game of staying in the center of the screen immobile as much as possible. The sherbet doesn't behave anything like the Asteroids of the arcade. The UFOs are glitchy, especially when shooting them from the side. Nothing about the game is the same other than the vague concept of shooting rocks and aliens. Nothing about the game feels similar or plays similar. Just about every clone game of Asteroids ever made feels more like Asteroids than the official 2600 port. Not a fan of Asteroids. It was named the game I wanted, but it wasn't anything like that. As far as I'm concerned, Asteroids didn't exist for the 2600 until Space Rocks. It's fine though. I can play it and enjoy it. The crushing disappointment of that one has worn off decades ago. I've considered having someone make me a label that says Sherbet Shooter or just renaming it on my Harmony, because really the fact that it's not even remotely Asteroids is my only problem with it. Let's see... can I think of another popular one I don't like? Hmmm. Screw it, I'll cheat. I'll pick a non-popular game, because my loathing of this game knows no bounds. Swordquest: Earthworld I bought the game with birthday money. I was at K-Mart. I thought Swordquest was going to be like Adventure. It had a comic! I bought the game and brought it home. Then I spent the next several hours walking from identical room to identical room, and occasionally playing stunningly awful minigames. Occasionally, numbers would pop up on the screen. The was no exploration. There was no adventure. There was just moving items around. Swordquest isn't even a game. It was definitely sold as one, but it isn't a game. I took the game back to the store and exchanged it. I could have gotten Phoenix or Berzerk, but I still wanted an adventure game. I already had Raiders of the Lost Ark, and I don't think they had Riddle of the Sphinx (which I had played at a friend's house and liked). So, I got E.T. despite my absolute hatred of the movie. And you know what? E.T. was OK. I mean, I could have gotten Phoenix or something, but I don't have any regrets about buying E.T. It's just an average 2600 game, which is many orders of magnitude better than Swordquest. To this day, Swordquest: Earthworld is the worst video game I have EVER purchased. It beats out the aforementioned Pitfall II easily. I've owned the Defender remake for the PS2, Ravenloft Iron & Blood for the PS1, and Ballz 3d*, and all those awful games are better than Swordquest: Earthworld. There's a horrifically broken racer on the 3DO sampler disc called Racing in Hell or something. It was probably programmed in 30 minutes, and it is still better than Swordquest: Earthworld. I like Doctor Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine better than Swordquest: Earthworld, and my efforts to complete that game on the Sega Genesis Collection to get 1000 gamerscore on that game have inspired an undying hatred for Mean Bean Machine. I HATE SWORDQUEST: EARTHWORLD! I didn't even get stuck with it when all was said and done, and it's still the worst video game experience of my life.

In Married with Children, Bud Bundy has an Atari 5200. It's visible in his room in a few episodes.

Played a fair amount of Countermeasure the other day.

I like it! I'd like a writing desk like that.

Best version of Tempest that isn't the arcade original (real or emulated hardware)? 5200 Tempest. Hands down. Easily the best. Tempest 2000 on the Jaguar comes next. X3 and this games other ports come close but are definitely less than the Jag version. All other Tempest ports are just pale shadows.