Games You Played Today VIII: Journey of the Cursed Poster

[Rudie]

Almost free of the PC Engine mines I’ve been dabbling with VOID STRANGER which ensures your sessions are short. This is good. It’s good. I felt like I haven’t run into the weirdness and mystery other folks have, yet.

I finally started Firmament which is like if Amelie explained Destiny Lore to you as you played Bioshock. I kind of hate it. The puzzles so far have all felt like busy work. A Cyan game with upgrades seems like a betrayal in a way. Maybe I am missing something I’m stuck on a tram puzzle. The other two puzzles I’ve finished have felt like busy work more than using my thinkem’s. I find it compelling to return to as I mumble under my breath how much I hate it.

Then thanks to PSPlus I’ve been playing Ico on my PS3. I was a hater on this game for years. Or just felt like it left me cold. Don’t know what the heck was wrong with me. Here’s a big coherent world with a story not shoved down your throat. It is always gentle. It is never “cute.” It lets you get lost sometimes. The sound design and visuals are unstoppable. A girl with nowhere to go and a boy who doesn’t know where he is going. And then it’s like done in 5 hours. I have been taking it as tiny chunks right before bed. A delight. Ico is as good as video games get!

[wourme]

I don’t think any video game since has surpassed ICO, and of course that game is also a major reason that Demon’s Souls exists.

[wourme]

@Mikey

I’ll be a little bummed when I’m finished with them.

You can do like me and listen to the soundtracks to those games when you’re between replays.

Wizard

[Rudie]

I will say I can’t even tell I am streaming Ico from some PS3 in Tokyo (I assume this is how it is working) outside of the Right Analog stick controlling the camera will sometimes vibrate violently. Which might be present in the PS3 port.

Also some sound stuttering. But overall works fine.

Did you know you can play Demon’s Souls this way? You’ve been able to play Demon Souls on PS4/5 for years!

[Mikey]

The soundtrack to these games is phenomenal, sometimes I feel bad about finishing levels quickly

[smbhax]

The Making of Karateka (PC/Steam)

My friend showed me this on his Apple IIe when we were kids. Only just now played through. Surprisingly short game–that one death trap aside ‘p’–uh especially when you save scum–but plays so nice–the Apple II version, that is. C64 and Atari 8-Bit versions being restricted to one button for both punch and kick just can’t do it right.

~

Capcom Arcade 2nd Stadium (PC/Steam)

The Speed Rumbler

I used to play this all the time in the local arcade as a kid, never played through it though.

The first stage or so is super fun, just cruising through a miniature post-apocalyptic town dodging around tiny little “terrorist” gangsters and their mad-max-ish cars.

Then you get ever-evolving one-touch-kill indestructible moving barriers, and you start to run up against the hard 4-minutes-per-stage-or-restart time limit, and it just turns into a stressful nightmare.

Oh well. At least the ending in Zap Town is nice.

~

Super Street Fighter II Turbo (various)

Very rough comparison of input delay on my set-up in various Super Turbo versions:

PS3 - HD Remix - 5 frames of delay
PC - Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection - 4 frames
PC - Capcom Arcade Stadium - ~4.25 frames
PC - MAME 0.119 (30th Anniv ROM) - 7 frames
PS2 - Capcom Classics Collection Vol.2 - 6 frames
PS1 - Street Fighter Collection - 3 frames

The PC versions had Vsync off. Capcom Arcade Stadium was set to 59.94 Hz. CCC2 had progressive scan on. After the poor result in MAME 0.119 – current MAME won’t run the ST ROM dumped from 30th Anniversary with the Game Extraction Toolbox) – I tried Final Burn Neo (see entry 1663), but FBNeo wouldn’t run it either.

Delay in 30th Anniversary was highly variable, from 3 to 5 frames. It was somewhat unstable in Arcade Stadium, but not quite as much.

So it would be the PS1 version for me! Except it looks like I can get ONE frame of delay w/ the DC version in Flycast. So…goodbye $$ = oo

[sleepysmiles]

ive done this rarely with other media but Ico is the one and only video game ive ever completed and then almost immediately played through again, the second time in one sitting

Ico - Heal

[hellojed]

Raiden?

Oh

I’ve had this on the hard drive for a while, I enjoyed MGS1, I liked MGS2. Time for more…Sneaking

I immediately got stuck in the mud and died

[the_kyphosis_gamer]

“After the end of world war 2 the world was split in 2 2” is an all timer

[username]

I at some point got signed up to the Thinky Games newsletter as I’m always interested in what puzzle games are coming up, but it turns out what I get most out of it is the link to whatever game club they are playing over that two week period. Generally it is a free play-in-browser game (usually hosted on itch) and the one they linked me to this week is neat enough that I felt like sharing it here.

Juurru by Kultisti, solu

At its core it is a basic pathfinding puzzler. Basically you play as what looks like a bunny who digs into the ground where the X is and must connect it to a different X without overlapping over any other lines/paths you draw underground. in this it is unexceptional but solid. I recommend it as the presentation is much stronger than I usually see in games of this ilk/scale. Everything has a fungus/mushroom theme, once things are connected together they bloom and pulsate in a neat fashion. Even the soundtrack is surprisingly evocative. It’s probably at most twentyish minutes long but I found it to be a very effective and enjoyable way to spend that time.

[meauxdal]

@Rudie

Did you know you can play Demon’s Souls this way? You’ve been able to play Demon Souls on PS4/5 for years!

afaik, Demon’s Souls (PS3) was removed from international PS+ Premium streaming back when the PSNow > PSPlus transition occurred, maybe even before that. i’ve never seen it listed since i’ve had the service (beginning of this year), and it isn’t listed now either:

i’m guessing you’re on JP PS+? it might be JP-only

[Wizball]

@Mikey

It looks like Star Fox Command sort of picked up some of this game’s general ideas but I still feel good about having mostly checked out on this series after 64.

I feel like I should enjoy the design of Command and sending out a team of ships to engage in multiple battles across an open map, but for the tactical side of the game to work you have to make every battle generic and inconsequential, which is just so much worse than SF64

@Rudie

Ico is as good as video games get!

Ico has for me quintessential video game architecture. When I think of how objects, buildings, and surfaces should be represented in games Ico’s castle is what comes to mind

[Brooks]

doing some rendering analysis in yakuza 0
majima has just called someone a pissboy
i should go back to osaka one day

[smbhax]

Street Fighter 6 (PC/Steam)

The money-laundering villain! ‘p’ I’m too dumb to do JP’s set-ups and long-range counter game, but I like hittin’ stuff with his heavy kicks and his stick! I tried sticking just to that in some vs CPU against lv 6 and 7 Ken and it was fun!

Watch out for Melee Wizard! #meleewizard = D MW is my 2nd fave so far after Kimberlyyyyy

[miffy]

hi everyone, it’s me miffy. i found a cool new game on line

The Irish Baby Rifleman : Browser by Hammergames_browser

my computer crashed after beating it so watch out i guess

[iguferon]

The two games I played today were irish baby rifleman and baldur’s gate 3. I feel no shame in saying that I liked irish baby rifleman a lot more.

[TheGrimCorsair]

Played some Vermintide 2 with my brother yesterday. We finally knocked out Winds of Magice on Champion, meaning we’re cleared all the story/core/normal runs in the game on that difficulty.

Still playing Armored Core 6, currently trying to beat Balteus with the stock/starter AC and the correct OS tuning points available at that point in the game.

For the record, the changes made to Balteus with the “nerf” patch were to reduce the terminal tracking strength of his missiles by around 25%. That’s it.

[isfet]

reached rank A+ in F-Zero 99. this game has exactly whatever my brain needs to get addicted to something. still using Blue Falcon as my main, although the sheer speed of Fire Stingray is very tempting to try out (just uh…make sure to never slow down…).

i had to use it to clear a time trial that i just couldn’t clear with the Falcon. most of the time trial 1st place rankings feel pretty effortless, but for whatever reason, getting a 2’14" on Port Town II is just…really tough. i kept getting within 40 milliseconds of that time with Blue Falcon, but it was such a struggle to even get there. with Stingray, i managed to get a 2’12" in like 4 tries.

still feel like it would not be as useful in a real race, though, because that’s a time i snagged with no other racers on the track and without ever hitting the sides of the track; things that in a real F-Zero 99 race seem to happen inevitably.

[VastleCania]

i actually ended up having the best luck with the fire stingray in real races, but i also was pretty bad at the game so ymmv. it seemed like it kinda plowed through opposing racers

[falsedan]

tried Control. how far to I have to progress before it gets good? I just recently got Fling/Chuck and defeated the comms guy by squatting behind a planter

the plot is reminding me that I fell asleep watching the first episode of The Lost Room