Excellent. Now try this one. 
What are y'all playing? ver 2.0
Das
#282
I had spent hours looking for a way through, traversing mazes of underground corridors in planet Zebes, searching for an answer in endless phosphorescent caves, fighting mutated insects and extraterrestrial monsters, investigating abandoned laboratories, and activating ancient temples and machinery. But nothing came of it. In a moment of frustration, I paused in a transparent glass tube spanning an open cavity between two grottos, and decided to try an unthinkable solution, since I had already attempted everything that might otherwise be thought. Maybe āI speculatedā if I explode a bomb inside this glass tube, the glass will break and Iāll fall through! It had not occurred to me, up to that point, that the digital world could be interacted with in quite this way. But it could and the glass broke and I dropped into uncharted terrain.
Super Metroid, in large part, is to blame for the current popularity of the Metroidvania concept. Dark Souls, as I wrote above, can be counted as a successor, but so can many others, of diverse stripes: action role-playing titles, like those in the Zelda franchise; meditative platformers, like Knytt; and even so-called walking simulators or adventure games, like Gone Home. I wrote, regarding Dark Souls, that an appealing trait of Metroidvania is that players can discover areas before they can actually visit them. This endows locations with a certain mystique, as their inaccessible enigma grows over the span of many hours, while the playerās travels lead her everywhere but there, until she finally finds herself at the center of her accumulated curiosity. Also, players are forced to interact with the environment and observe it closely. Perhaps this is why the genre or concept has grown into such a repeatable formula. It can be grafted onto any type of game, and it provides an excuse to experiment with systems. Players must learn how the world is bound to respond to their actions and must memorize the reach of their abilities. Granted, this also happens when interacting with enemies, but to do so with an environment can be liberating and contemplative. Reflexes and quick thinking give way to other kinds of activities, like exploration and problem-solving. Battle strategy is replaced by landscape design.
Metroidās passage into three dimensions was successful. But when it could only count on two dimensions, it was also more focused and precise, because players could apparently only move up, down, left, and right. With three dimensions, there are innumerably more possibilities for movement, along with a need for clearer signposting to prevent players from wandering any which way. A two dimensional game, on the other hand, can often have denser, more economical, and even more complex environments, because there is an a priori restriction on movement that allows signposting to be weaker and level design to be more ambiguous. Players can more conceivably be asked to survey every inch, because their number is limited by the flattening of the third dimension. That is the case here. The effect is aided by a helpful but sparse map system, which only hints at unexplored paths branching off from seemingly random rooms. Super Mario Brothers popularized the idea of secret areas, existing outside the obvious path, which allow players to personalize their journey or to feel that they have done so. (A conceit, because all alternate paths are planned and laid down by designers. Their charm, however, is that they can be missed. Players feel they own them because to find them it is necessary to expend effort not explicitly demanded by the game.) Metroid, meanwhile, suggests that every area is a secret, every room is special. It can often be very difficult, or meaningless, to make a distinction between the main road and a temporary digression. If many games are matter of charging forth to the end, Super Metroid is about stumbling around until almost accidentally landing on the final stage.
archnemesis
#283
Mushroom Wars: Space! was released today for iOS (free download). Itās one of the few examples of real-time strategy working well with a touchscreen. The only reason I tried the original game was because it was a PS+ freebie.
RpgN
#284
Been playing with Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate. Last time I played it was around 28 September 2014. So itās been a while. Iāve done some missions that involve defeating one boss monster and capturing a type of bear for the first time. Defeating a monster was fun. Capturing a bear took a few tries to understand the timing. Iāve also tried defeating that boss a few times to forge all of its item parts. This also made me explore food combinations in the restaurant to get some temporary boosts. Combining new items, upgrading the village and trying new weapons remains fun. It can get annoying trying to find loot you want though.
OneEightZero
#285
Doom using the Doomsday Engine.
Linkās Awakening DX.
Tecmo Super Bowl.
Iāve been streaming a bit.
RpgN
#287
Played more of Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate on the wii u. Iāve defeated more bosses, capturing has become easier, explored the third area, upgraded weapons and armour, upgraded the farm and ship, started doing trades with that merchant that shows up every few days, almost about to complete 3 star missions and more! Iām getting hooked. Soon it might be time to focus on Blue Dragon again. MH3U is the more challenging one. It focuses on the gameplay mostly and feels more fresh, while BD is the typical and easy one to play when I want to relax and follow a story.
Awwww yis! I wonder if youāre enjoying it as much as I did playing it. It turned out into an interesting game, this one.
archnemesis
#293
I havenāt played any of the Dead Island games, but they all look kind of janky. And not in the good way.
In a couple of weeks I will be shooting werewolves instead. Now thatās innovation!
John
#295
Just finished the first episode of Life Is Strange. Definitely recommend it if you enjoyed the Walking Dead. Itās nice to see yet a game of this vein, and it definitely adds onto what TWD introduced. Iām feeling a new genre here.
RpgN
#296
That means you have a great taste and played it wayyy before me feels less experienced
And by that you mean including its bugs and glitches that WD games are apparently known for?
John
#297
I personally never encountered any bug in TWD. I had the thing where the world choices were broken, but my game never really glitched. LIS did, on one occasion though. One of the characters i could speak to didnāt activate the contextual menu so i thought she just didnāt want to talk. Since i expected that of her character, i didnāt think much of it. But when i replayed it to get all the optional photos the her contextual menu activated and i did talk to her. Turns out she didnāt want to be talked to after all!
DG_Nick
#298
Game of my life here. Everyone else has normal seige numbers, I have over 100 fucking thousand. The only reason their Tychus has more than me was because he had to stay in base exclusively to deal with me. It wasnāt enough, I managed to overpower him and pretty much single-handely win the game.
So yeah Heart of the Swarm is pretty fun, I donāt mind the $40 buy-in and extra $10 for the best hero. Iāll just buy everything else with gold, if I ever decide to use another hero.