Games You Played Today: Actress Again: Current Code (Part 1)

[LWJoestar]

very, very few other games have made me literally weep

[daphaknee]

i always name my character in fantasy games (EXCEPT DRAGON QUEST BECAUSE ITS CENSORED) polio so i freaked out looking at your screencap for a split second. the second one is great too! i always say its the most arcadey of strategy rpgs because of how quick the battles are

[Polygonzo]

the most arcadey of strategy rpgs

Maybe this is why it’s clicked with me right away. And it’s just so frickin’ charming (I like how you basically begin your existence as a character in the world by coming to from being knocked out in battle training (idk if that’s a conceit original to this game but it’s neat)).

[loki]

shining force fact: the first time i played dnd, i said “oh, it’s like co-op shining force!”

[wourme]

The last time I played through Rez, I was out of practice but I was still able to shoot down a lot of the enemies. Which of course meant that I got the hard versions of the bosses, and those versions sure can be intense.

I still like original Rez better than Area X or Child of Eden, but I’m glad there’s more Rez-like content in the world (that whale/bird part in Child of Eden is great–all of Stage 2, really) and I hope to see more in the future.

Child Of Eden - Evolution (Stage 2)

[ticky]

Played some more Yakuza 0 last night with our COVID bubble friend over and she observed that I was trying to chase down Club Venus (as it was the last item on my available cabaret club opponent list, I hadn’t really thought about it further) when I’d actually already defeated them (Chika was already on my roster, and starting to level up a bunch), turned out its somehow possible to miss a cabaret club? Oops! So then, with something like 30,000 total fans, it was back to taking on Club Mercury lmao

This game is so good, and the cabaret club mini game is so addicting to me (and that music! jamming the entire time) that I can’t really be frustrated but I do wish the game made it a bit clearer where you’re at in that progression when choosing an area to target!

[MintyJuffowup]

I want to thank everyone who recommended Guilty Gear Xrd to me. My friends and I have been digging into it much further than any other fighter we’ve tried. I think it shares something in common with Smash Bros in that movement is emphasized and characters are all distinct. I’m amazed at the balance the game struck by being approachable but highly technical. I still haven’t settled on one main fighter because I like so many of the different styles.

[dedede69]

yeah stage 2 makes me cry. this alone puts child of eden above most other videogames for me, way above rez.

[jodeaux]

Felt like playing a horror game for Halloween and wanted to start going through my DS back catalog, so I’ve been hanging out with Dementium. Out of all the Nintendo innovations, touchscreen DS controls is the one that really works for me. It feels so intuitive somehow, much more precise than using tumbsticks at times.

Dementium also runs at a buttery smooth 60fps on my old DS Lite, which is amazing. I don’t want to oversell the experience but it’s much more atmospheric than it has any right being and is more Doom influenced than I anticipated. Before mobile really came on the scene, the DS was crushing it. I consider the earlier days of its lifespan to be one of the best periods for any system. So many uncelebrated gems came out on DS during that time.

[MintyJuffowup]

I’ve been too lazy to write, but not too lazy to play video games. So now, you get a double feature!

Fantavision!

I’ve had good times with fireworks, and I’ve had bad. There’s a beautiful rush I got when my friends and I crossed state lines to buy an arsenal more potent than sparklers. Roman candles and bottle rockets are definitely too fun to be legal. We were sitting around my friend’s basement and another friend jokingly waved his lighter near the fuse of a roman candles. Naturally, the fuse caught and everyone rushed to open the door. We couldn’t open it in time so he shot the first fireball into the carpet. Then we made armor out of cardboard and dueled in the backyard. It’s a testament to our collective good luck that only a carpet was permanently maimed.

There is a plane of skillful play in this game that feels totally inaccessible to me. I mean, I was able to complete all the stages in the normal mode, but that’s nothing. I tried to dribble and juggle the sparks but I kept detonating too soon. I couldn’t get a daisy chain above four. I thought about how well I would do if I just focused on one stage. My max combo there was 35. The high score is something like 250? I don’t even know how you’d be able to contain that information in your head.

Ridge Racer V

I never enjoyed racing games until I began to drive. Now, they are the most soothing genre for me. In these virtual spaces, I’m free from the paranoia of angry drivers, Trump flag-mounted pick-ups, flat tires, and dead batteries. It’s just me, the music, and the rumble of the Dualshock.

I had a bit of frustration with this one as the game was originally released on CD-ROM. This means that even burning it onto a DVD, I still encountered problems where it would stop reading the disc midrace. Fortunately, I was able to complete several Grand Prix series, but this was an oddly time accurate pain.

The game itself is beautiful. I’m surprised by how much of the structure still resembles the first game. There aren’t much more than four tracks and they are all variant routes in the same city. I respect that focus a lot as the tracks themselves are really well designed and filled with detail. Each car feels different in satisfying ways. I stuck with grip style cars for most of my run and really grooved with the Rivelta Mercurio. I wish the disc worked well enough for me to win Pac-Man, but I’m thankful for what I have.

I’m going to jump back into Evergrace for a bit. While I do, please take the time to vote for the next three games I play. The games of Summer 2000.

Summer 2000

• Armored Core 2
• BCV: Battle Construction Vehicles
• Dynasty Warriors 2
• Orphen: Scion of Sorcery
• Surfing H30
• TVDJ

[meauxdal]

oooh dynasty warriors 2!!! DYNASTY WARRIORS 2!

and ac2 i guess. I GUESS

[MintyJuffowup]

I have some old memories of riding a tiger?? Let’s go!

[meauxdal]

uhh… yeah… hold fast to those memories because dw2 in particular is not going to be the one to fulfill them lol

there are horses. yeehaw

[captainlove]

I still vote Tekken Tag Tournament.

[zombieman000]

Interested in the JP version of Surfing H30 because it had a plot about aliens running a surfing tournament and a surfboard attachment that fit on top of your analog sticks I guess like one of these (Yanya Caballista), but both were scrapped (and control scheme altered/worsened accordingly) when it came out overseas.

[Mikey]

Died to a boss in The Messenger and the respawn only brings you back with three health. And like, could I, through repetition, skill/luck my way through that boss battle with only three health? Sure, I could.

But I uninstalled the game instead. This is really pure salt on my part but I think I’ve gotten about what I wanted out of the game and the backlog beckons (if I can tear myself away from M:TG any time soon).

[Rudie]

More than that the J-plot is that Aliens Are crashing asteroids into Earth to cause the narliest waves.

[Father.Torque]

After about 5 hours, I think I’m done with Total War Troy. Even though in theory it should be absolute cubanip, it turns out what I find interesting about Homer isn’t elementary Mycenaean battlefield tactics. I kind of resent the way modern Total War has refocused the game on the boring strategy layer away from the fun tactics layer, and figuring out “how precisely good are ranged units in this game” has lost its charm. The best TW games are still Medieval 2 and Empire because of their scope and variety.

[BustedAstromech]

I think Total War tactics is something you can absolutely get a lifetime fill of. The Warhammer games pump a lot of life back in with important, interesting special units. The Three Kingdoms game doesn’t do much with combat but the strategy layer is better than it’s ever been, with readable AI personalities and historical parallels making much, much better post-hoc narratives.

[VastleCania]

Playing Hotline Miami again for the first time, if that makes sense. I played it and sweated myself to death with anxiety when it first came out. I had undiagnosed anxiety and depression and didn’t know i was NB, and I think this game’s hostility really hit me the wrong way. I loved playing the game but hate-hate-hated the ending.

Now that I’m older and properly diagnosed and out, I’ve got far less stock in my self-image and therefore the idea of the game criticizing me for playing it is a little less sharp and makes me less defensive. But I also don’t think this game is as perfectly designed as I did when I originally played it! It’s interesting.

In any case, I think that Hotline Miami is deconstructing game narratives in an interesting way. It’s very dreamlike. Games are already sort of dreamlike, of course, and I think that taking this dreaminess and leaning into it is a smart move. It’s also very opaque about everything other than the second-to-second play. Like, the grading of your performance, how your score is calculated, what the narrative is trying to say, the ending…none of it makes any sense, or if it makes sense it’s much harder to pull apart than I’m willing to care about. It all adds to this sense of “I can move around and do stuff, but nothing connects together in a meaningful way,” much like a dream.

One of cactus’ previous games (and yes I am vaguely aware that cactus sucks or something, but i think this is worth talking about) is Psychosomnium, a game where the protagonist dies very unexpectedly near the beginning of the game, and the character on the screen takes over as protagonist, and this happens like 5 times throughout the game.

I think that Hotline Miami is playing with this concept of the Wrong Protagonist - the first playable character, Jacket Guy, is acting on behalf of unknown agents and kills the narratively interesting character about halfway through. That is to say, Motorcycle Guy is the one driving the stereotypical Protagonist Narrative, but halfway through the Jacket Guy meets him and kills him without learning anything from him. There’s no narrative satisfaction, because you killed the narrative.

But if you do continue searching for narrative satisfaction, you find out that even the motorcycle guy learns nothing, it’s just a couple of janitors fucking with you. Of course, if you do even more digging, it turns into this nonsense about US/Russia relations. Equally unsatisfying. (At least, this is how I remember it. I have not finished the game again)

So yeah, I think the way it undermines the concept of narratives existing at all is very fascinating. I also think some of the level design stinks, and it’s not nearly as precise to control as I remember it.

Looking forward to finishing it again, eventually.