What are you playing right now?

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It'll get more Doom-like as you go along; the number of monsters just keeps increasing at a damn stupid rate. I'd been playing it recently myself as well... I had Hexen64 as a kid, and I never was able to really get anywhere in it. So recently, figured, let's get the PC version, and finally beat it. Currently, I'm in the Heresiarch's Seminary, where the accursed Dark Bishops start to appear. The third hub, that.

Only area I really got stuck on at all so far was in the first hub, in the Guardian of Steel specifically, where one very specific section just confused the heck outta me, though I eventually got it. The bit with that big sliding.... thing.

Playing on a hard difficulty too, of course. I forget which. Using the fighter, because he's fast and I'm impatient.



As for other games, Minecraft today.... the new changes to the game are really starting to appear now, particularly the combat changes. You cant just spam attacks with your sword or whatever anymore... it wont hardly even do any damage at all if you do that. You have to wait for it to recharge before swinging again. And the various other tools have their own properties, attack values, and recharge times as well... they actually have a use in combat now. And swords can no longer block attacks, you need a shield to do that. Shields are interesting.

Also, dual wielding.

Among a bazillion other changes. Today's session mostly consisted of dying alot. I hadnt expected the changes to affect me THAT much. And skeleton arrows seem to be a bit slower now, I found myself actually jumping over some of them. Though mostly, there was just alot of running away.

Worst moment: died at one point in this damn cave, so I gather minimal supplies at spawn, and boat my way back over. Navigate through the tunnels, avoid the monsters that were just spawning like crazy, I spot my items laying on the ground, I dash over to them, aaaaaaaand.... JUST as I'm about to hit them, they all blink out of existence. I did not find this very amusing. Was about ready to punch the screen, really. And then skeletons happened. Again.

Maybe you'd prefer Heretic? That one's a lot more straightforward than Hexen...and no crazy "okay, I have no idea what that switch did, but hopefully I can go to the next level now" hub stuff.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, there's also Strife, which I remember being quite awesome (haven't played it in ages).

I've played Heretic, and it's pretty good, but I actually kind of LIKE how lost I can get in Hexen. It also fascinates me on a technological level, with all the cool stuff they managed to add to the Doom engine. Strife is pretty cool too, though like Heretic, I haven't played that one in a while either.

That all said, right now my current addiction is Front Mission, specifically a fan-translation of the original Super Famicom version. I can virtually spend hours customizing my Wanzers, geeking out over their specs, testing different builds in the colosseum... The actual strategy-RPG part of it is pretty good too, and the plot is decent enough, but they both play second fiddle to the sheer amount of customization. I also really like the music, it's honestly some of the best I've heard on the SNES/SFC IMO.

Splatoon.

I get on, and am greeted with.... Autobots and Decepticons. ....wut.

I just... I dont even.

Have I mentioned I want to punch whatever damn idiot put the "special weapon" button the right stick?

Because I do.

Ah! I forgot about Hexen! I wonder if they have Brutal Hexen? I'm gonna look that up right now!

The original Paper Mario :3

I've been playing Heroes of the Storm for the last few months.

And I'm in the process of learning Starcraft II as the Zerg. It's a different game than what I'm used to, but I really enjoy it.

Ah, HotS is really good, yeah? I love that they actually took the genre formula and went somewhere unique with it, instead of just copying League like most do.

I havent played it nearly as often myself though... I tend to get some anxiety when doing competitive games (that arent fighting games), which I havent entirely gotten over yet. Though, games like Splatoon are helping me get past that nicely.


Speaking of Splatoon, that's what I was playing here a bit ago. Level 20, yay. And then the levelling system gets all funky after that.

I'd play it more, but my pain level is waaaaaaayyyyyyyyy too high right now; I need a game that's less frantic and tense.

Yeah, I really like HotS because of some of the changes they made to the formula. For me, it was a lot more comfortable to start out with (I still have trouble with League, and I don't like some it's last-hit mechanic). I don't really play competitively because I get the same way. I mostly just play games with others against bots. If some friends want to do a player vs player match, I'll do it, but I don't like doing it by myself. People start to get testy the higher you climb up, which why I try to avoid the higher ladders.

Splatoon looks really fun too, and I like how it did something different instead of being another generic shooter that floods the market these days. I haven't played myself because I don't have a Wii U, but I do like to watch other people play it.

I finished Metroid Prime Hunters (DS), at 10 hours and 5 minutes, 20 deaths, 70 Hunters and Guardians Defeated, 81% done, but it also says “Gorea Battle time incomplete”. With “mission complete…?” on the top of the screen, I think there is something I did not do to properly get an ending, which is really, weird, I have not seen anything like that in any other Metroid game.

Okay, apparently the lore stuff I was finding in the game was supposed to hint at something I was supposed to do to unlock the final boss’s second form and properly finish the game. Kind of annoying because reading those lore stuff really felt like a waste in slowing me down from moving on, so I was not reading them. I got a “Mission Complete!”, with a Gorea battle time of 15 minutes and 51 seconds, which managed to improve my overall play time by about 6 minutes. Now that last bit of information indicates that I beat the final boss faster in fighting two form than I did with one previous, and that is because this final boss is a pain in the ass, actually first I might have to describe actually what this game’s deal is with bosses.

There are technically a lot of bosses in this game, 6 types of them appear multiple times not even in boss rooms, but really they are what are referred to as “Hunters” where they seem to be other bounty hunter like aliens similar to Samus with varying abilities. Now Samus herself can actually get their weapon types as powers that all work with a collective ammunition, they all work very differently from each other and on the DS on general it is just too cluttered to have them all. What those powers do offer is that they can be extremely powerful if used right against certain enemy types, which is not exactly obvious. Use these powers right and you could kill a hunter extremely quickly, especially the sniper rifle weapon.

Alternatively there are about 8 other bosses that appear in the levels (not counting final), but in truth they are largely just 2 different bosses with slight variances. A couple of these were actually pretty tough, especially before I found out some required switching to a specific alternate weapon, which again is not obvious. And a number requiring good strafing not very easy on the DS, what with the touch pad being used to control aim, a good thing I have already had practice with Kid Icarus Uprising, and a longer stylus around to avoid hurting my hand. Some were a bit satisfying, some had you learn the movements so that you became more proficient, some were very frustrating, and not exactly interesting.

The final boss has you in Metroid Prime fashion use all of the abilities you have got till now, where the boss switches between weapon types and weaknesses. Admittedly I died a couple times before reading up that I should be using the alternate weapon type that it colour changes to, my bad really. But here is the kicker, not all the alternate weapons are actually that useful at causing much damage or easy at hitting where you need to, and if you do not take out the second weak point soon fairly quickly after taking out one, it regenerates so you pretty much did not accomplish anything. And that the weakness it then has to allow you to damage it is carried on from what it last had, you might be stuck trying to hit it with a low damage weapon that drains ammo and lose health from being in danger. The real trick seemed to be the sniper, where you have a tiny window to where the sniper weapon is hard to hit with, but will instantly destroy the parts to leave it vulnerable if it hits and will allow you to do moderate damage. Second form was largely uninteresting except kind of annoying.

To talk about the game in general, it is kind of too clunky for as a DS game. You get a couple enemies on screen and the frame rate drops dramatically, unfortunately it seems to be a problem with a DS cartridge because I was using my New 3DS XL. Graphics were kind of hard, there were probably some good things in there that were eaten up how pixelated it was, this 3D Metroid game does not go too well on the small screen. And lucky my 3DS has a kind of thumb stick like thing instead of relying on the D-pad which did not work well. Platforming was especially a problem, and the majority of my deaths could be attributed to this where some areas would instantly kill you from falling (unlike at least some later Prime games), and one awful race to not die that was really hampered by the controls. And that is not escape game moments that are usually at the end of 2D Metroid games (of which there were 8 in this game).

Honestly, I am kind of happy to have this finished, but I guess I had fun, there were some interesting ideas in here, and I think I got a feel for why the later Prime games did not go so overboard on alternate fire types. Maybe I could have taken the time to read the extra lore, but with how it is presented on the DS is not interesting. I actually do have a strange connection with this game as it is partially my first Metroid game as when I first got a DS it came with a demo of this game, only all these years later that I have played the actual game.

I only have one Metroid game left to play now, the Infamous Other M. I will give an update when it is done.

Patch 2.3 of Diablo 3 just came out and brought some significant changes to the game. Now that the strongest monk specs is not based on Dashing Strike I can go back to play with mine and I'm so happy for that. Also the huge amount of new difficulties will probably keep me busy for a while (or at least I hope so).
I might also have to play "Until Dawn" because two friends actually bought the game for me and insisted that it will be fun for us to play together this weekend. I hope that I do not fall asleep while trying.

Oh yeah, people really do get snotty in full PvP in mobas like that game or any other. It's.... so annoying. My problem though: the AI bots are usually not very bright, and it doesnt take too long to reach the point of being able to crush them without much challenge. So I get a bit bored just doing that myself. Granted, they're MUCH better in HotS than, say, the braindead lumps that pass for "AI" in League, but still. So, gotta go PvP if I want more of a challenge, but... ahhh, I still get kinda nervous about it. But it's such fun, too.... but if I wanna do that, yeah, gotta put up with the jackassery.

I've heard players from other games (usually Dota) say that in these they'll often jump onto the solo queue, start a game.... and then just insta-mute the entire team, so they dont hear ANYTHING said by them at all. Because they dont enjoy the game otherwise, the yelling and swearing is too much. I can understand this, definitely. Yeah... pretty bad.


As for Splatoon, ahhh, it's great! A system-seller, that one. If I hadnt already had the console for Smash and a few other things, this game would have finally sold one to me. Sooooooo very good. I mean, a shooter that actually emphasizes movement/mobility, for one thing, is rare enough.... yeah, you can snipe in this, but your range is limited, and no matter what, you're probably going to have to switch your position OFTEN. And the game telegraphs the hell out of sniper attacks; you can *always* see their aiming beam when they're charging the shot. So I really like that bit, that there's no damn focus on invisible snipers and BOOM HEADSHOT. Yet the things are still useful. And I think one big thing they did is actually the simple fact that the game encourages you to fire your weapon CONSTANTLY. Alot of FPS games, there's alot of running, but the actual shooting is just a couple of brief seconds, and then there's a big pile of running again. Splatoon, you just constantly shoot absolutely everything, because you'll be screwed if you dont. And it's quite fun/satisfying to do so. Very good level design in the game too. And I love all the interesting weapons. Though I'm SO tired of rollers, and the accursed Inkstrike special; I hate that thing. I hate USING it. Too many weapons have it.

My only problem with the game: The bloody Amiibos. There IS actual game content locked behind what are some of the hardest to get Amiibos so far; a whole set of weapon-based challenges to do (such as taking on the final boss with a charger, or loopy things like that) and unlockable gear, AND additional minigames. This irritated the hell outta me, it really did. I like the concept of the amiibos, and I like the idea of figures of favorite characters (an actual Bowser figure, finally!), but.... this sort of lame marketing trick, locking content behind these... ugh. I hate that.

Aside from that though, yeah, it's brilliant.

Only other shooter that has come out at all recently that I found to be creative and interesting is actually Plants VS Zombies: Garden Warfare, which is also really darn good. Getting a sequel, that one, I cant wait.

I still need to beat that one. I liked it a lot (single player, at least), but got stuck somewhere around 70%. I was going to give up and check a walkthrough, but I never got around to it.

I actually thought that game looked halfway decent on the 3DS XL with the stretching enabled. Usually I don't like bilinear scaling.

I was playing Splatoon.

Port Mackerel (as in, literally the only map it put me on, and I haaaaaaaaate the place) and the Splatfest's bizarrely terrible matchmaking happened.

Yyyyyyyyyep. Back to Isaac I go.

About to play Animal Crossing New Leaf for Nintendo 3DS. If anyone wants to wi-fi sometime let me know.