What Game/s are You Playing? Daily / Whenever Check :) (GAMEPLAY)

[YoshiM]

I *finally* put Super Mario 3 to bed. The last tank with air support battle wasn't as bad as I'd thought it'd be. Bowser's castle I thought was going to beat me to a pulp but after a couple tries I got to the highest door and just a hop, skip and jump I got to Bowser. I lost my fire flower but I was able to keep the anxiety reigned in to let him defeat himself. That felt good. What felt even better was starting over-it gave me a full inventory of P-Wings! I blasted through the first world and I did NOT pick up any warp whistles. Going through each level was a hoot! I started world 2 with about 10 lives and I saved it for the day. I think I might just play through this world by world.

I had some time left, so I fired up Super Mario World. Wow....what a difference in speed! I was used to playing Super Mario 3, which had a brisk pace. SMW feels slow in comparison and that's probably by design as there's seems to be a lot more going on with the levels. I got through Iggy Koopa's castle relatively unscathed except for the boss fight. I was pelting Iggy with fireballs but I wasn't sure if they'd do anything. I lost my fire flower, so I just pushed him off the edge of the platform, which I didn't expect to be tilting! I do find that I'm not a fan of Yoshi, but I'm not sure if it's because of how he's used or the fact that I'm used to his latter abilities like hovering a bit while holding jump. I'll give it a couple worlds to see if it grows on me.

[YoshiM]

I'm putting in the effort to get through Super Mario World. I just arrived at World 3 and it's kinda jiving with me but still not. It's weird and it's a feeling I had since I first played the game when I first had access to a SNES back in the day. It's like "Once you had Mario one through three, these others just aren't for me." I got a little bit of the action jitters getting through some platforming bits (that bit of anxiety where one slip up meant certain doom but then you stick the landing) but not like other games in the "original trilogy" where I still keep coming back for more. It has some more elements for puzzles (like the first Ghost House and then the second world tower) which I really didn't see in the past games.

I'll get through World 3 and then I'll probably go back to Mario 3 for a good compare/contrast.

[Aussie2B]

I'm still playing a little one-handed The Next Tetris on PlayStation here and there. I haven't bothered to pull out a memory card for it, so I just start on the default settings each time and play until I run out of time. I don't think I've passed the set of stages where you have five rows of junk to clear. Getting through three stages like that in five minutes is tricky. Though I could probably do better with a standard controller. Every now and then, I'll mess up where I place I block, even when they're not dropping fast and I have plenty of space before they touch down. I guess, when I'm pressing down to speed things up, I sometimes end up pressing slightly to the right or left. So far, I've been sticking to using the ASCII Grip in my right hand, since I'm right-handed, but when it comes to d-pads, I'm obviously more used to manipulating them with my left.

I also played some Baku Baku on Saturn. I'm not a big fan of the prerendered CG (Donkey Kong Country, this is not), but it's a fun puzzle game. Playing the Saturn version makes me want to get my Game Gear operational again all the more so I can get back to that version too. I usually don't play puzzle games that often, but they've been nice lately as something I can squeeze in with making basically no commitment.

For my birthday, my husband got me a copy of The Jetsons: Robot Panic for Game Boy. I don't care about the license, but he thought I'd like the gameplay. I guess he must've been trying random Game Boy games on his Raspberry Pi at some point and was pleasantly surprised with it. And it is indeed pretty fun, as I'd expect from a Taito release. So far, I've beaten Elroy and Judy's stages and almost got to the end of Jane's before I ran out of lives and wasn't in the mood to restart her stage from scratch at that point in time. It took a little trial and error to figure out what each character is capable of. Elroy is straightforward, but I lost some lives in the process of figuring out the magnet boots and jetpack. I imagine the next time I play I'll be able to reach George's stages.

[YoshiM]

Friday nights and Saturdays the wife and I let the kids play video games for a good while. If we let them play over the week for short bits, we got fighting and arguing so this has been working so far. This weekend I had my daugther, so she could get in on the action. Only problem for her is that she and the eldest twin stepsister bump heads as the sister feels she's an "alpha" while my daughter WANTS to be an alpha. So the sister gets sway over the other girls their age, so they sequestered themselves in the study room to play DS or Nintendo Land on the Wii U. My three youngest boys were playing Amazing Frog? on my computer in the living room so I decided to expose my daughter to "Little Big Planet" on the PS3.

She never played it (too young at the time I was still with my ex) and I couldn't remember HOW to play it, so it was a good opportunity to start at the beginning again. We accidentally hopped into an online session but just were spectators. Two of the players, whose Sack People were decked out in outfits, opened their Pop Its and were showing some thing like an icon for the sack person-like they were telling us we needed to get them dressed or something. We hopped out and started the regular game. We then dressed our Sack People (mine a Shakesphere wig, red and white striped swim trunks, a curly mustache, glasses and a wolf tail. Hers was mostly the Merris [?] character's hair and outfit from Metal Gear Solid but with a wolf tail attached). The experience was a lot of fun as we both got to play with each other rather than others and no feeling of having to jump off if someone else was jonesing to play. We got to one of the challenges where there's a lot of trapese like swings before it was time for me to stop to make supper.

I forgot how cool that game was and now it's upgraded to "awesome" as the multiplayer was great! Unlike relationship-ending games like Rayman Legends or New Super Mario Bros Wii/Wii U and the like, you weren't given stupid motion BS that could break your play. In LBP, at least thus far, it was standard controls-we just had to work together to get through the puzzles. We almost had our swinging rhythm down on that trapese part in the challenge as she or I would grab onto the other's Sack Person during the jump and then swing our guys simultaneously to get to the next trapese.

[jb143]

A recent play through of the Portal games got me wanting to finally go back and play the original Half-Life...which I only played for a bit probably like 15 years ago. I wasn't sure if it would even work on a Windows 10 PC but I quickly discovered I could enter the CD-key into Steam and add it to my library for "free". I somewhat quickly got to the part I remember getting stuck on when I quit the game before (the blast pit) and am now at the rail/rocket part. For being a 20+ year old FPS game, it still really holds up well today. When I finish I'll probably move on to Half-Life 2 which I've owned for many years now but never gotten around to playing.

[YoshiM]

I had a personal friendly reminder not to play angry. Long story short-long night of cooking, cleaning and then doing after hour work which lead me to being tired. Today I get a call from home that we have to pick up my second eldest step daughter from college TONIGHT as she's not comfortable with the lack of masking or social distancing and the school said she has to go this very day. So I'm looking at a total of four hours of just driving after working until 5. Needless to say, my lunch break was cut short as I had to clean out my car but I got a little Super Mario World in.

Not a good idea.

Level 3 wasn't so bad but I was making some bone headed mistakes. I was more "run and jump" than slowing down and checking things out. I'm one stage before the castle and I called it quits. I shoulda played "Animal Crossing: New Leaf"and just shook trees to help pay off my house.

[YoshiM]

Super Mario World Log...stardate today.

Got through Level 3 and 4. The game mentioned something about a "red switch" and I was thinking "WHAT red switch?" I saw red outlines of squares but I was thinking that a switch block was coming up and that I could probably go back to take care of things. Come to find out, with a little reading, that I blew past it in Level 3. I'm so used to Mario side scrollers being linear that I never thought to pick up a P-switch, carry it BACK in the level to a wall of stones, hit the switch and then go down into a pool of water where a key and keyhole are. Then the switch palace is unlocked. Now I'm starting out in the Illusion Forest or whatever it's called. I am now officially farther than I have ever had been in that game in my life.

It's definitely more puzzle and platforming than the NES games. The only time I associated solving puzzles in a Mario platformer was Super Mario 64 where the 3D forced you to explore. On one castle, I had to contend with big spinning spiked balls that blocked my way. I was able to dance around the different balls that came from behind and in front but I could not figure out a pattern to get past. Then I thought I saw a potential way-can Mario duck UNDER the ball as it passed over the block it was chained to? The answer was YES- I had Mario pulling his hat down over his head and that big, cavern filling ball flew over his head by a few pixels. Dang-this game forces one to use some eagle eyes.

The question I'm asking myself is-am I enjoying the game or am I playing it out of compulsion to finish it? Hard to say.

[Aussie2B]

I'm still just casually playing The Next Tetris on PlayStation as I wait in this awkward, in-between phase of trying to go about day-to-day life while knowing I could go into labor at any minute. I'm getting better at taking into consideration how some blocks can split apart. Still not getting much of any further, though. Sometimes I get a bad run of blocks and end up wasting too much time.

[YoshiM]

I put Super Mario World to bed. It's just not grabbing me. After playing SMB 3, this just feels a little pale in the play department.

I put the 3DS in the drawer and decided to try something different in the control department. I pulled out my DSi XL (as I don't like playing regular DS games on my New 3DS-for my eyes the resolution doesn't make the games look great on the 3DS screen) and fired up Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks. I played Phantom Hourglass but I hated the controls. I recently picked up Spirit Tracks as I liked the premise (and lack of the same timed dungeon you had to go through all the time) and I wanted to try the stylus control. I gotta say, I'm enjoying the ride (no pun intended) so far. I just got the Forest Track Tablet and saved my game at Whittleton after getting turned around trying to find Gabe in the woods. For whatever reason, the combat is clicking for me and I'm liking the ability to switch between being Link and controlling Zelda to possess things.

If I get through this I might just get Phantom Hourglass again to add to the collection.

[YoshiM]

Just took care of the Forest Temple and acquired the Snow area tablet in LoZ: Spirit Tracks. My train has been updated with a cannon, which has been a fun little add-on (note, do NOT shoot the innocent Lon-Lon looking livestock sitting on the tracks-they charge) I found the Bunny Sanctuary (?!) and acquired the Bunny Net and nabbed my first snow rabbit. I stopped at the first town to save my game as my lunch break flew right by while I was playing.

The puzzles so far aren't fiendish but you have to pay attention and experiment. In the Forest Temple, I couldn't figure out for the life of me how to hit this switch right at the beginning. The only thing I didn't do (which I found out when I looked it up) is that while holding a throwable item, I could tap on a target and Link will throw the item directly at the target. I was trying to toss the acorn thing in the direction OF the switch-never occurred to me to tap on it. So hopefully that'll be the last time I look things up. I got run down by a Phantom back at the Spirit Temple because I ASSUMED he was going to be walking in a circular pattern but didn't sit and actually WATCH his movements. I ran from a safe point to get the next light pearl-thing and he and his buddy were on top of me. THEN I looked at his movements and slapped my forehead.

[jammajup]

Tutankham (Atari 2600)
Uniwar S (Arcade)

[gbpxl]

I put Super Mario World to bed. It's just not grabbing me. After playing SMB 3, this just feels a little pale in the play department.

I put the 3DS in the drawer and decided to try something different in the control department. I pulled out my DSi XL (as I don't like playing regular DS games on my New 3DS-for my eyes the resolution doesn't make the games look great on the 3DS screen) and fired up Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks. I played Phantom Hourglass but I hated the controls. I recently picked up Spirit Tracks as I liked the premise (and lack of the same timed dungeon you had to go through all the time) and I wanted to try the stylus control. I gotta say, I'm enjoying the ride (no pun intended) so far. I just got the Forest Track Tablet and saved my game at Whittleton after getting turned around trying to find Gabe in the woods. For whatever reason, the combat is clicking for me and I'm liking the ability to switch between being Link and controlling Zelda to possess things.

If I get through this I might just get Phantom Hourglass again to add to the collection.

I didnt know there was anyone who didnt like SMW. To me its a masterpiece. The game is a little more accessible to me than SMB3 was. I have a hard time with some of the Bowser levels as well as the final world in SMB3. The nut things you have to keep jumping on to move along the bolt always trip me up.

[YoshiM]

I didnt know there was anyone who didnt like SMW. To me its a masterpiece. The game is a little more accessible to me than SMB3 was. I have a hard time with some of the Bowser levels as well as the final world in SMB3. The nut things you have to keep jumping on to move along the bolt always trip me up.

I've always had that feeling since it first came out. I was so entrenched in the "original Mario Trilogy" that his 16 bit debut left me cold. I dunno. Though the SNES wasn't a fave console for me- I became more a Sega guy with the Genesis as I was into arcade style play. I didn't play anything Mario again until the N64, which I love to this day.

[YoshiM]

On a more modern note, I finished "Firewatch" on the PC Friday night. I liked the story and how it played out but the ending deflated things for me. I read an article about why the devs did what they did, which, to not give away the ending for those that want to play it, is kind of like bringing up something one needs to face in the real world when really they play games as a way to escape. In a less cryptic sense: lets say you are playing an "Indiana Jones" game and you're leading him on an adventure to solve a mystery whose road is fraught with life threatening peril. You spend your time weaving in and out of danger until you get near the end and then you find out that the treasure isn't really what the clues led you to believe and the mystery isn't really much of a mystery but was a fable to place the veil over something much more mundane. Then you're basically told that you should go back to the university and actually teach your students history.

On a more fun-for-me note, I got to see Skyrim on my rig and it was a thing of beauty. I defeated the first (?) dragon near Whiterun and was awarded the title of "Thane"and was given a nifty Axe of Whiterun (or whatever it's called) and some sort of "war maiden" or whatever her title is. However, I had so much loot that the axe put my encumbrance over the edge so I had to slowly trudge to a general store to unload some of my crap. I think I'll actually finish this game when I'm like 55 or something.

[jb143]

I finally got through Half-Life. It certainly was worthy of all the praise it received back in the day. If I have any complaint it's that it felt way too long. Now maybe that's because I bought it for $4 at a thrift store 15 years ago and didn't feel like I needed to get my moneys worth, but there were several places that I was sure was about the end, only it wasn't. Then when I finally got to the end and thought it would be a boss battle, it just kept going with a whole new confusing series of levels.

I do plan on starting Half-Life 2 soon, but first, as a palate cleanser I decided to play through the 2004 version of Sid Meier's Pirates!...since I'm sort of on an older-ish PC game kick right now. I've played it several times in the past, and enjoyed it quite a bit. But never felt like I ever did very well. I think I just wasn't playing it right so this time I'm planning on going all out and seeing how well I can do.

[YoshiM]

I'm now going through the Snow Temple in Zelda: Spirit Tracks. Getting to the temple wasn't hard but I got another taste of the "hey-we're going to extend this game by making you have to find someone to tell you the path on how to get to the temple". They did this with the Forest Temple and now again with the Snow? It wasn't bad but just ate up more of my time. I hope the other realms won't pull this. The pairing of the Aoukiri (or whatever they are called-da snow people) had me for a bit as I couldn't see the proper pairing but I got that figured out. My notes weren't the best-should have done it more of a table style.

The temple itself is good with more environmental puzzles. There are parts where you need the fan, but the sucky thing with that your control reverts back to moving rather than blowing when a puzzle is solved. So if you're on a platform where you could fall, get injured and respawn where you started, your sudden shift of control could cause you to fall and then having to start at the beginning of the puzzle area. Another control gripe was during the boss battle, which I couldn't finish as my break ended. The "roll"action didn't always want to activate when you gestured and sometimes how you were positioned on the screen prevented fast movement in the direction you wanted while close to a wall. You can get attacked from different angles so trying to navigate that with a stylus is kind of a pain. If I had D-Pad control I could zig and zag easily, so I was internally screaming at Nintendo for forcing players to use the touch screen for sole control. That boss is a really neat puzzle itself, so I can't wait to try and give it another whirl on Friday (hopefully).

[YoshiM]

I beat that Snow Temple boss after another try. It seems like the action slows down during the fight as I'm running around trying to avoid getting burned or frozen. Not like in the NES slow to a crawl but like the frame rate drops. It just felt like Link was just jogging, even though I was able to avoid getting hit. Another nit pick is when I used the boomerang to hit a torch and then attempt to hit the boss, it wouldn't target the boss. I was even drawing circles on him and there was no indicator that he was targeted. Then I let the boomerang fly and it just zoomed around his person harmlessly. There were a couple of times where I got clobbered because of this. Not sure why the targeting wasn't working when it should have. I manage to beat the boss and move on.

The third bit of the Spirit Temple was a bit of a head scratcher but I got that figured out with the lights and such. I now have the Ocean(?) segment unlocked but I need to get a bridge builder. I stopped at that point.

The Friday before last I got some Skyrim time. I went on the quest to find "Nettlebane" that some priestess needed to get sap from this special tree which has a name that escapes me. It's been a while since I accepted this quest so I didn't quite remember what a "nettlebane" was. I assumed it was a plant I had to get from this remote location. So I stumble out there and sudden come across a pair of witches flinging fire at me. Lydia and I dispatch the first pair and then further up the road a second pair attack. Once they were dealt with (and after leaving their corpses out in their underoos so I can sell their magicky cloaks), we are suddenly slammed by huge fireballs. I made my way around and I see this harpy-like-witch-thing slinging flame. I hid behind a convenient tree that's big enough to be a shield and take pot shots at the thing, depleting my arrows. After I died and restarted a few times, my approach worked, widdling the creature down while it ran out of juice to throw the big balls about. I run across a log to the platform and slay the thing with my frost sword. I discovered Nettlebane is a sacrificial blade and saw the body of some sort of woodland spirit creature on a type of altar. Ahh....makes sense now.

I travel back to the priestess with the blade, who said she didn't want to touch it. I get sent to the tree to get the sap. I do that after poking the roots that block the way with the blade, forcing them to move out of the way. Then we are attacked by that same spirit type creature, which kill us a couple times. On the third restart, we slowly go down the path and I pick off the creatures from a distance with my bow then bring my shout and blade to bear. We got out of the place alive but we couldn't fast travel as a bloody orc woman was sneaking around us. Lydia spotted her and nailed her with some arrows. We get back to the priestess, complete the quest and I learn more about regenerative magic.

I tried playing some Skyrim today at work BUT my saves didn't sync yet. No way am I attempting the harpy witch again....

[Canija]

For the last 2 months I have been playing Valorant all day long nice shooter from Riot Games (like this studio). Before that I was a fan of CS GO and must admit that Valorant resembles CS GO a lot but still it is a great shooter, my opinion. From time to time need help from pro gamers to upgrade my char's level when I lack time but that happens not often.

[Aussie2B]

I've resumed Densetsu no Starfy 2 on my Game Boy Advance SP, but not under the circumstances I expected. Unfortunately, I had a number of complications during labor, so I didn't touch anything for entertainment the entire time I was in the hospital. Since returning home, I've found my hands are either completely occupied or both free, so I haven't used my ASCII grip since being pregnant. I didn't expect to be able to do any gaming that would require both hands while in the midst of newborn care, and truthfully I've barely had any time to myself that isn't better put toward sleeping, eating, showering, etc., but Starfy has been great for playing in 5-10 minute bursts. Save points are frequent, and the game even makes auto temp saves too. And with it being easy, I can continuously make progress in those tiny chunks. I usually find myself playing after I've put the baby down in her crib and I'm waiting to see if she'll stay asleep before I crawl into bed myself. Or sometimes I'll play while she's sleeping on my chest. I'm up to the eighth area, Tenkai, the sky kingdom where Starfy is from. Even the story is apropos for me right now, what with Starfy having to rescue his mom in this one and the other parenting themes (Ogura creating children who are then the bosses of each area, like the Koopalings, saving the turtle kids, etc.) I'm very pleasantly surprised with how good of a choice this game was for this time period. Now I'm just worried that, once I'm finished with it, I'll struggle to find another game that works so well for me. Any game that takes longer to start up, saves less frequently (or not at all), or puts up more of a challenge would probably be a no-go. Then again, considering how slowly I'm working through this one, maybe newborn care will be a little easier by the time I'm done with Starfy.

[jb143]

I've resumed Densetsu no Starfy 2 on my Game Boy Advance SP, but not under the circumstances I expected. Unfortunately, I had a number of complications during labor, so I didn't touch anything for entertainment the entire time I was in the hospital. Since returning home, I've found my hands are either completely occupied or both free, so I haven't used my ASCII grip since being pregnant. I didn't expect to be able to do any gaming that would require both hands while in the midst of newborn care, and truthfully I've barely had any time to myself that isn't better put toward sleeping, eating, showering, etc., but Starfy has been great for playing in 5-10 minute bursts. Save points are frequent, and the game even makes auto temp saves too. And with it being easy, I can continuously make progress in those tiny chunks. I usually find myself playing after I've put the baby down in her crib and I'm waiting to see if she'll stay asleep before I crawl into bed myself. Or sometimes I'll play while she's sleeping on my chest. I'm up to the eighth area, Tenkai, the sky kingdom where Starfy is from. Even the story is apropos for me right now, what with Starfy having to rescue his mom in this one and the other parenting themes (Ogura creating children who are then the bosses of each area, like the Koopalings, saving the turtle kids, etc.) I'm very pleasantly surprised with how good of a choice this game was for this time period. Now I'm just worried that, once I'm finished with it, I'll struggle to find another game that works so well for me. Any game that takes longer to start up, saves less frequently (or not at all), or puts up more of a challenge would probably be a no-go. Then again, considering how slowly I'm working through this one, maybe newborn care will be a little easier by the time I'm done with Starfy.

Congratulations on the new baby. When ours was a newborn, while my wife got much needed breaks, I found myself playing through the first 2 Warcraft games and a couple point and click adventures since I could hold him sleeping in one arm and use a mouse in the other.

I finished Pirates a week or so ago. Did much better than I ever did in the past, but still feel like I barely scratched the surface with the game.