VideoGame_Discussion

benstylus wrote:

The Flash Bomb was pretty good as weapons go, and they made a swimming stage that was pretty fun. I can commend them for that. Plus, who doesn't love snowboarding?

The birthday fun begins tomorrow. Do you think you'll join in? If so, what game are you going to play first?

I was just going to go in order of the original post, but I'm itching to play some Twisted Metal, so that may be my first game out of the gate.

I got DMK2 in the mail today, so I may as well start there. I haven't looked at video footage of the game, so I'm going in completely blind!

I think Megaman 2 will be the first game I'll play. Got the legacy collection on the Switch not too long ago and this is a great reason to jump in. It's also short enough that I shouldn't have any problem finishing it.

Looks like fun. I have twisted metal and the MM collection I can play. I just completed Grip as it was free on PS+, but got removed (which is why I finally played it before it got pulled). Not really in a position to be buying games, so it will just be those two for me unless the others are on PS+/gamepass.

It's October 1. Game on, everyone!

Remember the basics:

1. Follow the Frank School of Playthrough Verification and post a photo of a "spoiler" (ending, credits, etc.) while holding up a piece of paper with your handle and the date on it. For the few games that support it, feel free to link to your achievement on the official Xbox/PlayStation site.

2. You do not need a second playthrough, if you complete the gilding objective during your first. Gilding a badge earns you an extra "ticket" in the game completion raffles.

3. All prizes will be sent out in early November and are cumulative, unless stated otherwise. No reason for this, other than it being less work to send out one three-month subscription instead of three one-month subscriptions.

Have fun!

I booted up Twisted Metal: Small Brawl last night and made it to Level 5 with Shadow. I don't remember where the bosses pop up in this game, but hoping to finish this one off soon, if I don't reach Dark Tooth levels of frustration.

How exactly is Max's jetpack supposed to work? I don't have enough to fuel to ascend the whole corridor, and now that I'm trying again, I can barely make it 1/4 of the way through. Am I doing something wrong?

I haven't played MDK2 in a while, but it sounds like there are two possibilities:

- The jetpack is supposed to be used sparingly as a booster between long jumps.

- There are fuel pickups somewhere.

Maybe I'll take a MDK2 detour tonight and see if I can figure it out. I don't remember having trouble with the game back in the day until the Dr. Fluke puzzle levels.

While I wait to progress in MDK2, I blew off some steam by beating Mega Man 2 on Difficult mode.
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Game's pretty great! There are some annoying bosses (cough cough Crash Bomb walls), but it definitely stands as one of the good Mega Mans. Gild me and toss 1 month of subtime on my pile!

SupremeSarna wrote:

Mega Man 2 is like frolicking through a rolling green field, and that Crash Bomb boss is like landing in a big steaming cowpie after a particularly majestic leap.

Renaissance2K wrote:

I'm up to level 4. PLEASE tell me the jetpack is used infrequently. The issue seems to be the speed at which the PS2 runs the game--sometimes it runs quickly and increases my acceleration, sometimes it moves at average speed, but othertimes it runs slowly and kills my ascension. It's a serious difference: I reached the first platform with 80 fuel on fast, 65 on average, and 40 on slow. The only way to reach the top of that segment of the shaft (there's even more afterward) is to fly to each level with fast processing, then use the last drops of fuel to land on the one outcropping that has a fuel refill. There are three outcroppings and they all look identical from underneath. So I hope you picked right, or you must descend and try again!

Then you get to do the exact same thing again. I really hope Max's levels improve, cuz I'm thoroughly over this one.

The first slices of cake are handed out. SupremeSarna gets a gold Mega Man badge for finishing Mega Man 2 and is on the way to adding a MDK one as well, if he doesn't send Max to that puppy retirement farm up north first.

As for me, I finished Twisted Metal: Small Brawl with Shadow, earned a black Twisted Metal badge, and took a game off my backlog that's been there since grad school. I'm not really sure why I didn't finish the game back then. The final fight wasn't all that tough.

https://twitter.com/Renaissance2K/status/170907364...

I've started Mega Man 8, and whooooooooooooooo booooooooy, you folks weren't kidding about that voice acting. Wow.

Renaissance2K wrote:
Not fond of strawberry icing, but I'll manage.

Better, the scrapyard. Darn mutt runs on a car battery.

Reminds me of the time in high school when I gave up on Wario Land 3 at the final boss, then beat it for BaG 2021. It only takes a few tries, but I was so burnt put on it back then.

"Hey, bass, why must I fight you? We are not enemies!"
Have you reached the infamous "Docta Wahwee" cutscene yet? It's brilliant.

SupremeSarna wrote:

Not yet. I do think it's really cool that they got Barbara Walters to do the voice of Dr. Light, though.

Renaissance2K wrote:

The scream scene is underrated, IMO. Mega Man could be renamed "Lung Man" and the name would fit.

image

Mega Man 2 via Capcom Collection on Evercade EXP

Good game, but playing through Mega Man X first back in the day probably hurt more than it helped.

Whoever designed MDK2 did not know how to make fun jetpack gameplay. Who on the team thought, "Oh boy! A jetpack! I wanna use it to slowly follow a fuel canister as it winds around a giant room with a deadly floor!" ? Seems like the extent of their imagination was just having you fly straight upward through tall shafts most of the time.

And sure enough, this particular area ends with a do-or-die ascension segment that might be impossible on my copy for previously discussed reasons. Boo.

What is your stance on the use of cheat codes? I don't think there are any that would me get past this game-breaking bug--the best I could find was invincibility, which would only help me survive upon my inevitable crash landing into toxic waste. But are cheats allowed in cases where the game itself is messed up?

Are you sure its a bug? A quick Google search for MDK2 jetpack bug isn't finding anything... which version are you playing?

Maybe look at a walk through video... it's possible there is a secret fuel refill or upgrade or something.

benstylus wrote:
This is what I was going to suggest. Check out a longplay video just to make sure you're not missing anything.

I’ve been using longplay videos. They always show the player rocketing at incredible speed, making it look like a breeze. My PS2 version rarely reaches that speed. I’ve asked about it (no replies yet), read pdfs of the manual, looked at the in-game controls, but nothing is helping. Maybe I can influence the game to run faster by rapidly moving side to side before starting the flight portion, but I doubt that would affect such a long jetpacking section such as this.

There’s little I can do but pray that the game will work—that’s how I beat level 2 after several hours of attempts. Perhaps the disc needs cleaning? But it looks clean enough to me already.

That's pretty crazy that a dirty disc can affect the in-game physics. I'm super curious now.

I can mail you the disc in November if you want to experiment with it. I doubt I’ll be playing it again, anyway.

SupremeSarna wrote:

Hey, dude. I booted up Armageddon, made my way to the Jetpack in Max's level, and I think I figured it out.

I think the Jetpack uses the Dual Shock 2's pressure sensitivity functionality to control its speed. I had the same issues as you at first. Max just flew too slowly to make it to the next fuel station a lot of the time. I thought maybe it had something to do with double-jumping or trying not to bank in air or whatever.

Then, I just smashed the X button as hard as I could, and Max took off at top speed.

I don't think that's a great mechanic - in fact, both the PS2 and Dreamcast versions of the games have some serious control issues - but that might get you from point A to B without wanting to throw Max into the C.

Renaissance2K wrote:

By far the worst feature of the PS2. I know Tokyo Xtreme Racer Zero uses it as well which is a great way to get hand cramps after only a short amount of play. Want to drive fast. Clench that button with all your hand strength!

On that one I swapped to a DS1 controller to play. The analog sticks don't feel as good though (less resistance) so it still wasn't a great compromise. With most racing games now using the shoulder triggers instead of face buttons I wonder if I would still even have an issue if they let you change the button layout.

I got it. @Renaissance2K Your comment was extremely helpful in prompting me to do more research on the DualShock 2’s pressure sensitivity. Turns out you need to press the button with Herculean might to fly at the proper speed. Annoying, but now I should be able to realistically beat the game.

I’m now on the bomb deactivation stage. Needless to say, I like it better.

JUMP... JUMP...

SLIDE... SLIDE...

JUMP... JUMP...

JUMP... JUMP...

Renaissance2K wrote:

“I WILL CRUSH YEU! I WILL… BEAT YEU!”
*gets hit with Flash Bomb, immediately falls to the ground and covers his face with his hands*

You feel bad for Frost Man.

@Renaissance2K Can I watch the MDK ending on YouTube to get the gild? Or do I have to play the first game and do it in-game to count?

SupremeSarna wrote:

You have to play the first game, too. If you accidentally play a version that doesn't include the music video, you can watch it on YouTube.

Steam is based on the version with the music video, and is arguably the best version of the game. Late retail releases, the GOG download, and the PlayStation port don't.

Sailorneorune and I ran a reduced version of the OMG!Con game room at Owensboro Comic & Toy Convention this weekend.

In your honor @Renaissance2K we had MDK (PS1), Mega Man 2 (through the NES Mini), Grip Combat Racing (PS4), Twisted Metal 2 (PS1) and Twisted Metal Head On (PS2) all out on the floor for people to play at various times.

Did bring Rollcage Stage 2, but didn't have it out, and didn't bring Warhawk.

We did bring One Must Fall 2097 but it is on sailorneorune's personal laptop so we didn't want just anyone fooling with it.

Had a great time exposing people to new and old games alike. I commentated both of our tournaments (Mario Kart 8DX and Tetris Battle Gaiden) as well. I was planning to be the surprise final boss for the Tetris tournament, but we were already over our scheduled time at that point so the winner got off easy

Did not make it down to the exhibit hall where all vendors were and the guests were selling autographs but I'm not much of an autograph hound, and convention price markup can sometimes be pretty ridiculous anyway.

I beat BAD2: Armageddon. I have thoughts about it.
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MDK2 has a good premise and presentation, drawing from the golden age of comics to deliver an amusing alien annihilation story. The voice work can be decent depending on the character, and the humor made me laugh more than once. Shwang Shwing was an intimidating baddie, and the music was tight! I found a sense of satisfaction and relief for beating each stage. All good, right? Sadly, no.

There are three stage types with three characters, and all of them are flawed in a different way. Kurt has a mini gun and a sniper rifle, but the game likes forcing you to use different gimmicky items to progress. As early as the first stage, I had to use mortar bullets to destroy shielded encampments, but the game gives you no good indication of your bullet’s arc. Despite having that effective mini gun, stage triggers and bosses require you to use the sniper—nothing’s more fun than getting pummeled by several far-off enemies as you gingerly line up one shot. Stage 7 was a gigantic slog after it introduced flying craft that destroy the platforms below you; cloaking Mysterio foes that will get back up if you don’t use headshots; and an enemy gauntlet that subjects you to eight rounds. It’s maddening.

Doc is a weird one. His stages are typically puzzle-based, but with ample combat. Stage 3 has you navigating a very confusing ship, picking up random objects, and fusing them together to make new ones. It’s extremely specific in how you’re supposed to proceed, so I used a guide to figure out what goes where. The rest of his stages aren’t really like that, though—you more or less get all your needed items in Stage 3, so there isn’t any more fusing after that. Stage 6 was my favorite stage, as hitting the right buttons under a time limit was decently engaging. Stage 9 is gruelingly long, but the puzzles were decent (ignoring the maze). His stages were the most appealing, even if they were pretty guide-heavy.

Max’s stages should be awesome, since you can pick up dozens of guns and blast aliens to smithereens. Then the devs decided that he should have a jet pack. What a promising idea! Maybe he could take to skies and gun down opponents in wide open arenas, or fly from platform to platform to hunt down fleeing aliens. Instead, the devs often just devote big portions of the stages to tedious/frustrating time wasters, like flying upward and then refueling to do it again, or following a slow-moving fuel refiller over a deadly floor. Stage 8 sees Max flying up a mammoth structure for about ten minutes, going from one far-off platform to the next, then ascending it even higher afterward. Fun, fun! And as Renaissance2K knows, I had major problems getting the jet pack to work—the only way to ascend fast enough to reach the end of some sections is to crush the button with Herculean strength, something the game and manual don’t explain. I wasted hours trying to clear Stages 2 and 5 without that knowledge. Terrible.

The game has general design problems, too. Most stages are far too long for their own good (props to Stage 7, where they have that eight-wave gauntlet and then still throw a boss after it). Each stage has a memorably terrible part that kills the fun immediately—whether it’s running through a maze full of enemies, being bombarded by infinitely respawning aliens with no clear direction, slowly walking on the outside of a spaceship as an armada shoots deadly blasts from afar, clunkily platforming over bottomless pits, or something else. The game uses tank controls for some reason despite having perfectly good analog sticks on the controller. The graphics are too dark to see things easily, especially in that Stage 8 jet pack sequence I mentioned. The checkpoint system would be nice if they didn’t save you with the exact amount of health and ammo you had. It’s a pain scraping through a tough section only to have it save you with 26 HP and 8 bullets left in your last uzi.

When I got the final cutscene, the game entered a perpetual loop of Doc nodding off and then perking back up, which is only supposed to happen once before showing a conclusion. I had to press Start to skip to the credits (I have a photo of them, too, just in case) and watch the scene proper on YouTube. What a way to cap off the experience! But I took immense pleasure in hearing the characters say “it’s over” in various ways as the credits ended. Woof.

I’m sure you have your reasons for liking this series, Ren. I respect your opinion and am happy this made a positive impression on your life. Don’t let anything I say take that away. But this has been by far the worst gaming experience I’ve had all year. At least the flawed Pikmin 2 has good controls and fun gameplay, and the frustrating parts of FF6 were sprinkled into an epic if difficult adventure.

MDK2 has its moments, sure. But the wackiness and personality aren’t enough to salvage a clunky, punishing, aneurism-inducing mess.

SupremeSarna wrote:
.SupremeSarna wrote:


Sounds like a standard bioware game

SupremeSarna wrote:

To clarify, I adore the original MDK. I love the silliness, the art design, the power-ups, the soundtrack, and to cap it all off, they ended the game with a friggin' French music video while my French nerddom was peaking. (Two years after its release, I bought the original album that the track was sourced from. In France.)

I do not feel the same way about MDK2. I limped through the demo, never ended up buying it (it was a pack-in with some hardware I bought) until my Steam hoarding days, and never finished it. I treat it like an in-law - sure, I love your relative, and you are technically part of the family, but outside of special occasions, we're probably not going to interact that much.

You've probably read some version of this refrain in the Retro Talkshop Thread before, but I'd much rather have a lot of people playing something that vaguely resembles what I'm looking for, than fewer people playing exactly what I want. That's why we're playing with six franchises and not specifically Mega Man 2, One Must Fall 2097, Warhawk, an oddly-specific release of the original MDK, Rollcage, and Twisted Metal Black. Sure, I run the risk of recreating Bionic Commando month in the RTT, where the most accessible version of the game is also the worst, but I get to hand out more cake.

Sorry you didn't enjoy MDK2. In all honesty, I'm looking less forward to playing through it after my jetpack experiment with Armageddon, but I'll be playing on PC so maybe I'll fare better. If you have three hours at some point in your gaming future, the original MDK (in my humble opinion, of course) is much better at surprising you and making you laugh without making it feel like dental surgery.

And congrats on being the first to make it to Level 2. It's... nearly the same as Level 1, but without that weird cheese smell.

Do I get anything special if I beat two MMs, two TMs, and two MDKs? My plan was to beat one each and get 3 months + $10 eShop, but I'm curious what happens if I go further in each series. There's no extra reward for doing that, is there?

No, there's no bonus for playing multiple games in the same series, aside from turning a black badge into a gold one by playing a different game. I wanted to encourage trying out multiple series instead of just plowing through ten Mega Man games.

But I appreciate your enthusiasm! And my satisfaction is its own reward. Right? Right??

I switched gears yesterday and decided to play through Twisted Metal: Black and gild my badge before my PS2s get shipped out to get PixelFX Gems installed. I picked Roadkill, who was my first character back when I picked up the game in 2001. He probably has the least out there storyline of all the characters, but his car is well-rounded and his special attack is awesome.

https://twitter.com/Renaissance2K/status/171196976...

After finishing the back half of the game, I still have nothing but respect for it. Yes, the game is still brutal - a few seconds of carelessness is all it takes to go from full health to scrap metal - but the levels are large enough that running away, seeking cover, and restocking are valid options. Even the final boss, which I have nightmarish memories of, went down pretty fast after I remembered the strategy for bringing down its shields. I'm already looking forward to another playthrough with some more characters, and finishing the rest of the unlocks.

And, if that wasn't enough, after many grueling attempts to thwart Dr. Wie-wee during the final boss fight, I finished Mega Man 8.

https://twitter.com/Renaissance2K/status/171196984...

I think I unfairly walked into this game with low expectations, largely due to my "meh" experience with Mega Man 7 last year and the pile-on from everybody about the game's voice acting (which is, indeed, atrocious in a way only mid-90s Capcom could pull off). Starting with Clown Man's stage didn't help, as both the level and the fight are gimmicky and annoying.

Beyond that, though, I had plenty of fun. Being able to equip both the Mega Buster and a boss weapon is awesome and removed the one longtime annoyance of the series' best mechanic. The upgrade shop is neat, and they're not "optional but not really" like they are in Mega Man 7. The bosses were tricky at first, but once you learn their patterns, they're pretty easy to take down. And I got a lot of practice learning those patterns after many failed attempts at the final boss, which was still pretty tough but nowhere near as bad as Mega Man 7's final fight.

Those surfing segments, though... Never again.

As if @SupremeSarna's exploration of a lackluster sequel wasn't enough, I've started One Must Fall: Battlegrounds and finished the first tournament. Honestly, I think I would have loved this game in its current form if they had simply included a truly badass remix of the OMF theme, but even that - like a lot of the other gameplay details - feels like an unpolished fan effort than a worthy sequel.

Mega Man 2 in the books. Man how I love smaller games that can be completed in a couple of sittings. Heat Man's disappearing platform section was a bit annoying. I'm pretty sure I died 50 times trying to get through that. Ended up using the rewind function to get through it.

SwiftJAB wrote:

That, and the Crash Bomb boss in Wily's Castle, are my two least favorite segments in an otherwise masterful game.

Flash Man's lasers are a close third.

I beat Mega Man: The Wily Wars (originally Genesis).
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It's a solid remake of MM1-3, but its main appeal is the unlockable Wily Tower segment. You can choose eight weapons and three items and then fight through stages made up of hazards from the three games. There are several weird bosses, like ones based on Journey to the West. The pig boss has two health bars!

I was a little let down by Wily Tower, TBH. It's bizarrely easy, even if you don't use your weapons. It also takes too long to unlock it compared to the mode's actual length. On the bright side, you can copy save files, so I just filled out my save slots with ones that have Wily Tower unlocked from the get-go. So I can return to it whenever.

You finished all three games in The Wily Wars, and then the Wily Tower mode? Damn, nicely done.

I played through the Genesis version of Mega Man 2 a while back and want to do the same for the other two games at some point. Not looking forward to the original Mega Man in hard mode, though.

Renaissance2K wrote:

Eh, it’s not so hard if you go to [redacted]’s stage and pick up the secret [redacted] weapon. Then you can one-shot every boss and slowly auto heal!

I look forward to seeing Redacted Man in Mega Man 12.