A new gaming thread (march 08)

[Bryan Lee O'Malley]

I just got a nintendo DS for my birthday - my publisher got it for me cause I've been such a good boy.

so far I have Zelda and Elite Beat Agents. I might pick up FFIII at some point, and maybe Revenant Wings. What other games are totally awesome? I'm curious about Professor Layton and I wouldn't mind playing the first Phoenix Wright if i can find it.

I've also been playing a lot of amazing indie games for PC. Check these out if you haven't already.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/content/games/yahtzee/artoftheft
Trilby - the Art of Theft: Kind of a "stealth platformer" where you have to sneak around buildings stealing stuff, avoiding guards, etc. Super-fun with great graphics, although it gets kind of boring/annoying at the end.

http://nifflas.ni2.se/index.php?main=02Knytt_Stories
Knytt Stories: a cute little platformer with great atmospheric sound & music. I've only played the initial level but you can get more and create your own.

http://mightyjilloff.dessgeega.com/
Mighty Jill Off: I just played it this morning. It's a really hard old-school NES-style shortie (i beat it in about 25 minutes). Warning: mild S&M cutscenes at the intro and ending (no nudity). Don't play if your mom is watching.

http://hcsoftware.sourceforge.net/gravitation/
Gravitation: a new game by the guy who made PASSAGE last year. Really beautiful art-game experience.

[triplea]

Advance Wars is fun. Get that game.

[Kirk]

Tetris DS, Meteos, Metroid Prime: Hunters/Pinball. Also, don't forget the huge amount of GBA games out there that are still worth playing, like Astro Boy, Drill Dozer, and the Castlevania series (which are also great on the DS). I use Gamefly.com to rent/beat games on the cheap, so that could be for you as well. Let me know if you consider it, so I can use my referral link :)

[Bryan Lee O'Malley]

I never even heard of gamefly... it's like netflix for games? That's awesome and I'll have to try it. Give me your referral thing and I'll use it when I sign up...

[John FN Seiler]

I got Apollo Justice and Prof. Layton
Both Very good
But if your going to get in to the Ace Attorney games, star with The first game and work your way to Apollo
You'll get a lot more of the storylines and some stuff carries on to the other games


Other DS Games worth getting
Puzzle Quest- Its a RPG Puzzle game. Its awesome
Pokemon Diamond- Its Pokemon with some new stuff. Best game since Gold and Silver
Wario Ware Touched- I think its the best in the series.
Hotel Dusk 215- Nice little Mystery game with some cool ways to play the DS
Cooking Mama- Very simple but pretty fun. You can find it for about $15
and if you can find it
Electroplankton- This game is so fun. You move little Planktons and you make music. Its pretty rare. If you can find it, its worth it.

[AliceQuinn]

happy birthday!
the games that i have played & know are awsome are Elite Beat Agents, Wario Ware Touched, Ace Attorney & the brain age one, if it id for the DS it is my belief that you need to use all the different funtions of the system for it to be worth it, these games are both fun & take advantage of the systems funtions.

[Hugh Stewart]

Everything I've heard about FFIII said that it was mostly a lot of leveling up, so if that's your idea of a good time then go for it.

I actually really, really enjoyed the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon game for the DS, which is a roguelike, but with Pokemon, AKA ITS THE BEST GAME EVER.

I am always broke and I work too much and then I'm taking six courses this semester so I don't really have time to play video games, but when I do find time I was playing Endless Ocean for the Wii. All you do is swim around and draw pictures of genitals on manta rays. It's relaxing and has nice music. I recommend it.

In the 'oh geeze I will drop out of school' category, there is a fancy pants new PERSONA 3 SPECIAL DIRECTOR'S CUT FESTIVAL EDITION coming out that sounds kind of rad. Except that I got about 60 hours into normal Persona 3 and then stopped playing and never beat it and never went back and now it makes me feel tired and depressed to think about playing again so I don't think I'll buy it. That game was really neat though.

Knitt Stories looks great but it doesn't work on a Mac, I don't think.

I'm trying to play less video games right now because I have so little free time as it is and I guess I should be spending it on drawing or art or some real tangible skill.

[Catherine]

I hope that someone gets me a DS for my birthday. If not I may just trade in my GBA and get one anyway :).

[ozwalled]

If you like Tetris-style block puzzle games, then Meteos usually goes for cheap and is surprisingly deep (by virtue of having different "planets" that have rules different enough to make playing each of them a different challenge -- sometimes slightly different, and other times pretty radically different) and it's superfun.

I'd say that I've pumped countless hours into that game, but it actually keeps track, and I'm too embarrassed to say how long I've played for. :o

I'd be even MORE embarrassed though if I didn't say that everyone should play Mother 3 (GBA, but will play on a DS, of course). SURE, it's in Japanese and it's an RPG, but *I* don't know Japanese one tiny little bit, and I played sans translation guide and it's STILL one of the best games I've ever played. Although I most certainly missed out on some ofthe game's charm, I felt the overall plot was conveyed ASTONISHINGLY well through the game's awesomely expressive sprite graphics.

And though (sadly) I've not played it yet, as far as PC games, I'll mention Cave Story, since you seem to enjoy platformers (It's a Metroid-ish style game), and since everyone keeps telling ME I need to play it. http://agtp.romhack.net/project.php?id=cavestory

As for me, I somehow got sucked back in to playing the free Ancient Domains of Mystery (ADOM) -- it's a dungeon-crawling, high-fantasy Roguelike game (or like Nethack in case you know that one) that uses ascii characters for all of its graphics. It's ridiculously, unforgivingly hard, and has me mind-numbingly addicted. I'd post a link, but wouldn't want you to get addicted too and ruin your life. ;)

[Rylee]

Definitely have to second Cave Story. oz you really should play it dude. It really, really is one of the greatest games ever made and that's not an exaggeration. Everyone should play through it once at least. It's got a pretty great story, excellent platforming/action gameplay with cool characters and some cool weapons.

Also, sup oz.
<-- vivi from starmen.net.

[ozwalled]

I really will, I swear! Right now, the old-school lameosity of Ancient Domains of Mystery is owning my soul.

[Ben Berntsen]

As long as we're hawking indie games, http://www.origamihero.com/ has some excellent games by a dude named Bernie. They're all pretty short but incredibly beautiful and fun to play. http://www.konjak.org also has some great games. Everyone who considers themselves a gamer NEEDS to play Chalk. It's more original and prettier than anything the mainstream industry has put out recently. Noitu Love is pretty darned fun too.

[Hugh Stewart]

Because it is exam/essay season, I am spending all my time playing video games.

I have played three (3) games:

Zack and Wiki
Super Smash Bros Brawl
Drill Dozer

Zack and Wiki is like Monkey Island but it is for the Wii. It is fun and a little bit hard and kind of reminds me of Megaman Legends (AKA BEST GAME).

Super Smash Bros Brawl is Just Okay, but maybe better if you don't hate the company of all other people and so have some friends to play it with.

Drill Dozer is by the people who make Pokemon, and it is a platformer kind of like Megaman or Metroid. It is really fun and super cheap now because it is for the Gameboy Advance, but it will play in a DS. The game design was done by Ken Sugimori, and he was probably all excited to get to make a game all by himself. But then it sold four copies and so he had to go back to drawing new versions of Pikachu until the end of time.