Yeah so I finished my solo Heroic playthrough of Halo 3. Maybe someone should have mentioned to Bungie that the game’s difficulty curve is completely backward, with the most vicious encounters in the earliest stages — although admittedly the main reason I breezed through the last two missions is because I finally realized that Flood are now susceptible to “head” shots. When twelve bursts from the battle rifle equals twelve kills, those massive melees seem a lot less intimidating.
I was initially annoyed that I didn’t get my Heroic achievement points — I’m guessing because I finished several missions while Live was overloaded, so the servers never got the all-clear announcements — but then I remembered: Who actually cares, anyway? I find that apathy makes so many things in life less infuriating. The point is, I’m done, and now I can spend time revisiting the real Xbox 360 game of the year. I never did get to try out the downloadable harpoon gun.
Up today here in GameSpite land is a review of Blazing Lazers. Or should I say, half-review, half-why-modern-shooters-are-lame screed? A screed fully endorsed by me.
Super Aleste is the best game that nobody but me cares about. I can’t possibly see how this could be better, because such a thing would strike players dead with it’s awesome.
*sigh* Here we go again.
Why is Contra even mentioned? It’s not a ‘forced scrolling’ shooter in the vein of Blazing Lazers, Gradius, or, well, anything else you should be talking about.
Ikaruga requires rote memorization to achieve the highest scores, but is completely clear-able with proper reflexes and familiarity with the system. You also shit on Ikaruga for not having an escape mechanic, when the entire game is built around being able to absorb enemy fire.
In fact, the entire “review” sounds less like a send-up of BL and more of a bash-job on Ikaruga, which is so far removed from Blazing Lasers there’s almost no point in comparing the two (they scroll in the same direction, and that’s about it). A more accurate comparison could have been made to Raiden, or hell, at least Salamander’s vertical stages, since it’s from the same era.
There are other modern shooters out there besides Ikaruga. Perhaps you should try some of them.
The point of Contra and Ikaruga being mentioned is to illustrate how shooters have changed from “fly by the seat of your pants” to “rote memorization” which is something that I have noticed from the, ahem, ‘good ole days’ to now. It is happening with many types of shooters, not just top-down space variety. Now I actually like shattered soldier but its not something that has the same effect as playing the original . With Ikaruga vs BL I was drawing a parallel from my Contra example.
Now I have tried copious shooters on DC and many of them are quite unforgiving and have that whole bullet hell thing to the Nth degree. Are my reflexes shot? MAybe But I only recall of post mortem DC shooters anyway Radio Alergy and Karous being forgiving. Me? I like something along the lines of Gunbird 2 and these Compile Games VS the more punishing and hardcore Stuff like Ikaruga or Psyvariar. And I didnt shit on Ikaruga for not having an escape – I believe I refered to the polarities as ‘brilliant’ as well as prasied it for not being so dependant on power ups. I just claimed it wasnt as much fun, which is, you know, an opinion ;)
Nemo Incognito – I am so ready for SpaceMegaForce // Super ALest, I prefer BL, but where is this one on VC? I am ready to part with 800 points, post haste!
Crackdown!!! Thanks for the reminder. Too bad I just packed up my 360 and sent it off to the UPS store to ship back to MSFT today. There’s a horrible empty space next to my computer desk. Good thing Orange Box comes in tomorrow…
Nice review. Though that exquisite scallop dish you described sounds like something that may overload my palate.
Only thing I disagreed with, aside from Ikaruga, was the apparent dig at Puyo Puyo. You could legitimately take a shot at its many installments, but then again we only saw a few make it over here, so that’s a bit of a moot point.
Yeah, Puyo Puyo (the game) is awesome. That it is crapped out for every single system may get weary, but you could fault Tetris for the same thing.
My relationship with Ikaruga is complex. its a good game that i don’t like. STill have my cube copy though, for posterity…
Megadrive and TG16 had the best shooters. Those two were the last great shoot em up consoles. It went downhill from there.
Also, Parish, you are right about everything regarding Crackdown. More games should be like it in the sense that more games should be fun.
^^ The likes of Mars Matrix disagree with you. I don’t care if it was literally a bullet hell shooter. It was an awesome one.
Also, I just played Super Contra out of curiosity, and I have to say it’s the most amazing Contra game ever (not hard at all, very enjoyable). Also, has anybody else noticed the new MAME has a little built in GUI now? It’s awesome. For some weird reason G-Darius seems to be working properly now, which is good.
Also, Haunted Castle is almost what every Castlevania game should be: Storyline free halloween monster fest with awesome graphics. Too bad the gameplay is horrible.
I think I love MAME all over again.