The Last Game You Beat and What are You Currently Playing

[Russzilla]

Well, me and the wife finally got the Playstation 4 off Amazon Prime. We're both very pleased with it. The interface is smooth, sleek, and fast. My first game is Need for Speed Rivals as I love driving games like this. And it looks gorgeous. My wife is waiting for Infamous: Second Son while I'm waiting for The Order: 1886. Gonna play Lego Marvel Superheroes in between also. On a side note, from everything I have been reading and hearing, it looks like Sony is on its way to winning this Console War between the PS4 and Xbox One.

[Dr Kain]

I started playing Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze, but to say that I am disappointed is an understatement. I played the game for 6 hours and have not even made it off the second island. The game relies way too much on trial and error than anything else for most of the levels, and it took me 11 tries on one level just to find all of the puzzle pieces. Not just that, but I spent 33 tries to get a puzzle piece and one of the letters in the first mine cart level. Donkey Kong Country Returns is my favorite Wii game of all time. It had tough moments that required skill and precision, but this game seems to require you to just experiment over and over and over by dying and redoing it than being good at what you are doing. I am stuck in level 2-K due to this as there is a spot where you need to shoot out of a barrel and just bounce off the heads of these bird creature over a large pit, but they expect you to be able to bounce off one head and fly halfway across the screen to land on the next, and if you don't, it's back to restarting the level over again from the beginning. This isn't skill, this is just based on sheer luck and it is really bringing my enjoyment of the game down. I played this level 26 times tonight before I finally said, "Screw it," and took a break to continue Game of Thrones.

[ILL GREEN]

Believe it or not but I'm still playing Infamous 2. Its been a couple months now but I'm collecting everything in the game before I confront the Beast. I beat the first title a few months back and really enjoyed it.

Can't wait for Second Son!!!

Oh and Ninja Gaiden Z is now on preorder

[Dr Kain]

I just got 100% completion in Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze. The game was very frustrating but quite good. There are moments I felt like they made areas of some of the stages hard just for the sake of it instead of implementing a good design, but for the most part, the game was solid all around. Unfortunately, even though it was great, I must have hyped myself up too much for it as it was the game that I was ultimately buying the Wii U for and it was not THAT good. In fact, I kind of prefer Returns. My favorite area of this game though was the Savannah as those levels rocked. Overall, I give it an 8/10.

[Tom R VanSlambrouck]

Besides Bravely Default and Witcher 2; I've been kind of addicted to Temple Run 2 on my Windows Phone. Though the past week I really haven't had time to play games besides on my phone here and tere.

[XvGojira]

I've got some friends who played the Titanfall beta on PC and have pre-ordered. I've watched the Rooster Teeth guys' Let's Play of it and I'll be damned if I'm not tempted to do so as well. I really don't want to support EA but god damn it, they have me by the balls. Between that and a new Battlefront, I feel like I'm making a deal with the devil.

[Heiseigodzilla425]

I've been playing several different games lately, but last year's SimCity has been my main focus. A lot of the issues from the games launch seem to be fixed now. Building a sustainable large city has proven to be very difficult, as I'm still slowly figuring out how best to zone and manage mass transportation. It's also pretty hard to play alone since you really can't build a city with all the bells and whistles that sustains itself, you'll likely need support from neighboring cities. I find it cumbersome to switch between cities, and coordinating between neighbors doesn't seem to be a priority for other players (I don't have any friends on EA's Origin service which makes things worse for me.) So if anyone else has SimCity and wants to play, send me a friend request at Spooner425.

[Dr Kain]

I started Metroid Prime 2 today and the game is vastly superior on the Wii. The majority of the problems I Had with the controls seemed to be fixed thanks to the use of the motion controls. I was able to beat the Jump and Boost Guardians with ease for a change.

[Dr Kain]

I finished Metroid Prime 2 today and it was my first time every getting 100% in it. For the most part, the game is really good, but it is extremely flawed, especially compared to the first installment. I liked the more story driven aspect of the game, getting to see that Samus is not the only human who actually does anything in the universe (even if all of the Space Marines were dead), and it was nice to have a story that was centered around the Space Pirates. Graphically, it is fantastic, especially when outside of the Sky Sanctuary. Unfortunately, it is the gameplay mechanics and boss battles where this game really takes a dive in quality. There are so many boss battles and a ton of them are just flat out boring. The big bosses for each area are fine, but it is the mini bosses where things are chaotic. It also doesn't help that the lock on system does not always work, especially on the Jump and Grapple Guardians, making it a great thing the Wii remote is fantastic during those moments (and I remember them being nearly impossible with the GC controller) as it at least helps. Another issue deals with the camera angles, especially in one specific section of Torvus Bog when trying to get an energy tank as the camera moves BEHIND the wall you have to spider across so you cannot see what you are doing nor where the moving platforms are. Whomever designed this section hopefully was fired for sheer stupidity. The other problem is the timed boss battle against Dark Samus. It isn't bad enough she has to be beaten in less than 8 minutes, but she will encase herself in that freaking Phazon bubble for a good 45 seconds and you have to just stand there and wait for her to leave it. It is VERY ANNOYING!!! Finally, because of the Light and Dark world stuff, there is just simply way too much back tracking in this game. It is easy to get lost or miss something and not realize it until you have already transferred to the other world and then have to spend 10 minutes going back to a specific spot. Those stupid Temple Keys are the worst atrocity of this. I'm not exactly sure what was up with Nintendo during the Gamecube era, but they seemed to love doing this as both Metroid Prime 2 and Wind Waker are plagued with this extra stretch that really slows down the game. With that said, I give this game a 7/10 as it has some many great things for it, but its negatives really hurt it.

[Dr Kain]

I completed Metroid Prime 3 a little while ago with 100%. This was my second time playing the game (yes, I beat it when it first came out and just realized that was 7 years ago, I really need to replay these games more often) and it was better than I remember. Some of the boss battles are a pain in the freaking ass though, but out of the three games, this game has the easiest final boss battles. The story is really well done and I like getting to see more of what the inhabitants of the universe are like rather than just there being space pirates or bird people. I also liked the planet hopping even though I do feel some areas could have been a bit bigger (such as the fire area of Bryyo), but it's no big deal. The pirate homeworld is pretty awesome too as it is easy to see why they try to terraform to other planets.

Strangely though, I could have sworn there was a lore or something that discussed the Auroras being based off Mother Brain or something, but I could not find it anywhere in the game. Or it might have just been a computer voice making mention of it in a data log or something. Either way, it seemed to be missing or I completely passed over it. Graphically it was one of the best looking games on the Wii.

Lastly, I did like how there was less required back tracking in the game, something that is completely opposite from the second one, but I also feel you don't get as acquainted with these worlds as you did with Talon IV and Aether. Nevertheless, I give this game a nice 8.5/10 stars.

[XvGojira]

[Dr Kain]

[XvGojira]

[Dr Kain]

Just spent the morning playing through Metroid II. It feels good to play a game I can beat in just a few hours again, but man do I hate the Queen Metroid. UGH!!! She takes A LOT of missiles to kill. Nevertheless, I do enjoy going through this game every few years because it does have some fun moments in it. I'll give it a 7/10.

[XvGojira]

Saw this comic and with all this talk of Metroid thought it'd be fitting here.

[Dr Kain]

[XvGojira]

HA! Fixed it.

[Dr Kain]

And now I have once again completed the greatest video game ever made, Super Metroid!!! Not only that, but this is also the first time I decided to just take my sweet ass time with the game and complete it with 100%.



Unfortunately, I did something very stupid. I forgot that you get locked out of the rest of the map after a certain point in Tourian, and I ended up saving my game right at the final save point, so now I can never go through everything with all of my items. Sure, it just means I have to replay the game, but my next playthrough will be attempting to speed run the game so I can have a file beaten in less than 3 hours (which I haven't done in 15 years). It is kind of stupid to be locked out of the rest of the world, but whatever.

Of course, that might not happen as in the twenty years I have been playing the game, I still cannot figure out how to do the wall jump or even the mock ball. I watch videos all of the time on Youtube on them, read how people do them, but I just cannot do either of them. For the wall jump, I can usually get one bounce and then that is it. I have no idea how these people are going up entire passageways like they do.

Anyway, the game itself is just so amazing. It is so much fun, has a great use of atmosphere and audio to tell its story. Not to mention there is just so much going on with the world of Zebes itself. The boss battles are great and even twenty years later I am still learning new things about the game. For example, today I learned about the quick way to kill Draygon using the grapple beam. In all of this time, I have been beating him while nearly dying and there was an easy way to deal with him. Go figure. The battle with Mother Brain is just down right incredible and is still to this day one of the best final battles in video game history. Overall, I give this game a perfect 10/10.

Lastly, for nostalgia purposes, I played through the game using this as my controller:

[XvGojira]

[Dr Kain]

That's a third party Wii U Pro controller.

Gamestop had it on sale at Xmas time for $30 while the Nintendo brand Pros were $50. It was obviously cheaper and full of nostalgia so it was an easy buy.

As for the game, yeah, I know I did not sequence break when I first beat it, but I don't believe I made it under 2 hours. I think my quickest time was two and a half. However, that was also at a time when I would replay the game every few months, if not weeks. These days, I tend to play the game every few years, so areas such as Maridia manage to confuse the **** out of me. Nevertheless, I still enjoy the game a lot but I do want to try a sequence breaking bit the next time I play it. Maybe i should do it next week though (if I can do it before we head out to Tuscon on Wed) while I have the map still fresh in my head.

[Tom R VanSlambrouck]

Still working on Bravely Default which is easily one of the best JRPGs if not the best JRPG to come out in the past few years. Simply amazing if you're a fan of the genre you owe it to yourself to play this game you won't be dissapointed.

[Dr Kain]

I did a speed run of Super Metroid today and beat it in just under 2 hours.

[ebirahsmeg1]

Haven't had much time for video games lately, but recently I finished Batman: Arkham Origins....although not as good as Arkham City and Asylum, I still enjoyed this game on its own merits.

[Dr Kain]

I went through the original Metroid.

[Dr Kain]

Metroid Fusion - I played through this game yesterday and today on the Wii U and I'm not sure if it is because I have not played it in 7 years or if the VC version is harder, but the last portion of the game got really difficult. The bosses like the spider creature and Nightmare were just extremely cheap as it seemed like each hit would take at least 2 energy tanks. Story wise, it is okay, and it does seem like it would take place after Other M even though it was 8 years prior, but I don't like how they lock you out of being able to 100% the game after a certain point. It was nice playing it on the TV again since I haven't had the Gameboy Player in years but honestly, the game is quite weak. It is not a bad game, but it being the sequel to Super Metroid, it is vastly inferior, which really takes away from it. The music is hardly memorable and some of the bosses are cheap rather than just challenging. OVerall, I give it a 6/10.

And that brings an end to my Metroid saga playthrough. It was fun to revisit these games again and I hope I don't wait another 7 years to replay through some of them again. Until next mission...