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 I've been playing this in my off time since the middle of last year, after watching MoominBiscuit and SuperGraffiti gently caress around in it during their Terrible PS2 Games Thread, and honestly? It's not nearly as bad as people think. The controls are pretty poor, and the combat is terrible, but getting past that major thing is possible and behind it are a lot of interesting and funny enemy designs, with each level having at least 2 unique enemies and some levels not sharing any foes with any others, fairly distinctive boss fights, although the second one can go gently caress herself, and unique levels. There are 4/5 major hubs (the 5th may just be a final boss but I think it's more levels first, don't know yet) and each hub has 3 levels and a boss. The levels share a theme, but are otherwise totally different to each other so you only do each type once and this means that they don't wear out their welcome. There is a loving maze level. I never got lost in that level, always managed to find where I needed to be. That's a good maze. So here is the first level, as I explain the basic mechanics and you can see for yourself just how clunky the game is. Ace Lightning Level 1 - Googler's Big Top: Ring of Fear Ace Lightning Level 2 - Googler's Big Top: Wandering in the Walkways I haven't beaten the game yet, but I am close to the end, with only one level to go in Hub 4, so I'm fairly confident I can finish it. However I am putting it in this thread in case I hit a wall that cannot be passed, and it is an experiment with Live Commentary. The hosed up PS2 logo right at the start was a recording artifact. BioEnchanted fucked around with this message at 20:16 on Mar 28, 2018 |
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Mar 24, 2018 23:50
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Alexeythegreat posted:Ah, I tried recording this on my PC and could never get the cutscenes to record properly. The game is absolutely not a difficuly game, except for one particular stage, though, so I don't see you hitting a wall. Yeah, I got past the last wall earlier - one of the bosses has a gimmick that is interesting but has a nuance that is hard to notice due to the random nature of the non-existent physics engine.
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Mar 25, 2018 11:27
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I just wanna give the game a fair shake for at least being interesting, although the final boss is giving me trouble on practice runs, because there aren't a lot of videos about this game, and the only video that had any late-game footage misrepresented it to make the game look worse than it was by claiming that he had to backtrack through a platforming section - that very rarely happens, and especially not in the section he was showing, because at the end of most platforming paths there is a final platform that takes you back to the start of the room for a shortcut. Either that or you can survive the fall to the start. also there are no full walkthroughs of this game, and one of the full LPs stopped after spending multiple videos stuck in the hedge maze. It's not that hard to navigate.
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Mar 25, 2018 12:35
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Alexeythegreat posted:I actually see some differences between PC and PS2 versions now. I think I'll upload some PC footage if I ever get it to not gently caress up the cutscenes I am genuinely impressed that it pulls the trick of masking Loading times with cutscenes, even though the cutscenes are terrible, because not many games did that - a lot of it's contemporaries just had the loading screens. Ratchet tried masking with the Rocket Flight scenes when arriving at planets, but Spyro just flew on a background for 2 minutes.
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Mar 25, 2018 12:47
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Ace Lightning: Part 2! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wosXYwpY4lU We explore the second level, and I discover just how awesome the Lightning Bolt powerup is - L2 activates the shield, R2 activates the Lightning Stream weapon which does a lot of damage very quickly. I never figured out how it worked until the penultimate boss on my first playthrough so this is my first time using it.
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Mar 28, 2018 20:14
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GamesAreSupernice posted:
To be fair Passion it does make sense for a Bus Stop to be there considering how isolated the driving school is - how else will the students, who cannot drive yet, make it to that school without taking a bus? Walk the 30 miles out of town?
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Mar 30, 2018 05:00
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 Ace LIghtning: Level 3 and Googler Boss Fight OK, here is the first Boss of Ace Lightning! Googler the jester! Grating voice and dumb puns aside, the boss mechanic is at least trying something. It's a gimmick but at least it's not just a hard enemy - generally the bosses in this game aren't too bad outside the final one, they are attempting to be interesting and even though some of them are things we have seen done better in better games, they are at least distinct enough from each other that it's not just "Shoot it till it dies while dodging attacks". There are variations. If the sound is a little tinny sorry, I forgot to leave a couple of seconds of blank air to use for denoising so the music may have got caught by the process.
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Mar 30, 2018 15:38
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Alexeythegreat posted:You can just stun the clown, though I didn't know if the standard ammo using gun could do that as well and it takes forever to switch to the stun gun after running out of ammo, so I never thought to use it on the clown. Especially because the stun gun is useless on the other bosses. The fight still went well regardless, but thanks for the tip. I'm actually curious if anyone else ever played a different terrible licensed game - a few years ago I played through the entirety of a terrible Action Man game on Gameboy called Search for Base X. The controls were terrible and the enemy placement absolute bullshit, but hte structure had interested me, as each level had 3 subobjectives down different paths. You had to go in order because the game was absurdly linear but you could pick the stage from the start, it was just kind of trial and error. Each path gave you an outfit (like the Scuba outfit that allowed you to explore underwater tunnels), weapon (like a drill for breaking rocks) or cleared a formerly dangerous path (like turning off electricity somewhere so you didn't get shocked). It was pretty interesting. Almost unplayable though, I didn't have much fun with it like I did Ace Lightning. I had to badly abuse savestates. BioEnchanted fucked around with this message at 07:02 on Mar 31, 2018 |
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Mar 31, 2018 05:58
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 Ace Lightning Level 4: Garden of Illusion - Horror Hedge-Maze We navigate a relatively confusing level, but one that generally I don't have much trouble navigating. This isn't a bad maze overall, I rarely get lost here and the Youtube LPer that apparently did get lost (and subsequently gave up), well they're just bad at the game 
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Apr 7, 2018 06:31
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 Ace Lightning Level 5: Garden of Illusion - The Well This is the easiest and shortest level in the entire game, sandwiched between two of the hardest. It's a nice breather before throwing ourselves at the long hard level ahead of us, and a boss that can be fairly tricky.
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Apr 8, 2018 08:15
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 MacFarlane's Evil Prophecy (Blind) Part 1 I know a triple post isn't really kosher but I've decided to try a Blind run of a game I'd never heard of. Here is my first video of MacFarlane's Evil Prophecy. It's fun so far, but may get repetitive later. This isn't replacing Ace Lightning, just something I figured I'd try to chill out. Still gonna Finish Ace, although depending on if this game gets crap or dull I may not finish MacFarlane, hence putting it here.
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Apr 8, 2018 16:16
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 Ace Lightning Level 6: Garden of Illusion - the House of Illusion If the Hedge Maze was a test of our combat skills, this is the true test of our Platforming, with some tricky encounters towards the end. This is truly where it becomes obvious that the game wants us to avoid enemies as much as possible - in some places the coins snake in such a way that if you follow their path you'll dodge the enemies in the area easily. This is a personal favourite level of mine. The boss however will wait, because she is annoying. For her and the final boss, although just them because the others are easy enough, I'll be recording ahead of time and savescumming. Then I'll edit and commentate on the footage resulting in a smoother experience for you. Everything else is straightforward enough for live-commentary, but those fights will require concentration. On another note, a recommendation for GamesAreSuperNice, given we have similar tastes - the Knight Rider game on the PS2 is really fun, recommend giving it a go. The controls take some getting used to but when you get them down it's fairly fluid. Here's a vid I made a while back showing off my favourite level: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9_hKir7nRg BioEnchanted fucked around with this message at 22:42 on Apr 14, 2018 |
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Apr 14, 2018 21:04
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GamesAreSupernice posted:The car jumps? I'm sold. There is a chase sequence where if you get it just right you can jump on top of the other car and do enormous amounts of damage - that level is really annoying, so that's a really satisfying thing to pull off. Also the bosses are neat - the first one is a big truck being driven by Gabriel's rival that's too heavily armoured to hit head on so you need to tilt KITT and grind your undercarriage along it's body to do more damage. My favourite one is the first boss fight against KARR because it's really just a race: About halfway through the game KARR challenges you to a race around the old testing track (that serves as the games tutorial level prior to this), and to make it fair/make KITT play along, he has his own ballast. What he means by that is KITT is being weighed down by some useless human along for the ride, so he is evening the odds - the primary mechanic and woman who helped build him is being held hostage in his back seat. If you lose the race, he will jettison all the oxygen in the car and kill her. It's a surprisingly pure motive for an evil car, he just wants to race his little brother to see who's better at driving, the new version or the prototype. Of course the track is set to the hardest difficulty for the whole race so loads of obstacles are coming all the time. You really need to have mastered the controls to beat that level.
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Apr 15, 2018 04:41
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 Ace Lightning - Part 7: Boss 2, Lady Illusion Here we are, the biggest roadblock for me, Lady Illusion. I was stuck here for months when first trying to play, largely because I wasn't savestating. When you load a save, you start at the hub. This means that you need to go through the level first, then say you want to proceed to the boss lair. That's 20 minutes wasted replaying the funhouse. At least the other bosses are nicer in that they are easy, and the final boss is just the fight, no levels associated with it. It's nice to pass here.
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Apr 15, 2018 14:43
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GamesAreSupernice posted:BioEnchanted, have you ever taken a look at the Miami Vice game made by the same developers of Knight Rider? It's also on PS2, and I thought it looked very bad, but maybe you could see something in it that I didn't I haven't, may emulate it. If you do go for the Knight Rider game, just know that the mechanics take some getting used to, it took me forever to get through the tutorial, but it was much easier to do the tricks in the other levels due to having more freedom, and practice helped too. Some of the platforming gets fairly difficult, especially figuring out how to get to where you need to be. Funny thing is I've never seen Knight Rider, that game is the only exposure I've had to the whole IP. To be fair though it was a bit before my time. Of course, despite my reputation I do have standards - while I may mess around with the Charlies Angels game some day due to curiosity about the absurd Monument Thief plotline (although I haven't yet) I have no intention to approach Bad Boys 2's incredibly racist interpretation, and while some of the missions in the Planet 51 game are cute and charming, the game feels so slow for a driving game it's just too boring to continue through. I'm halfway through and kind of done with it. BioEnchanted fucked around with this message at 20:03 on Apr 15, 2018 |
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Apr 15, 2018 19:44
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Honestly given our eclectic tastes, we'll probably end up like Jack Sprat and his wife - between the two of us we'll end up LPing the entire PS2 library. 
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Apr 15, 2018 20:05
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 Ace Lightning - Part 8: Cowboy Crossroads, Nevershine Mine We start Cowboy Crossroads, the third hub. This first level is a fairly basic one, but with a neat gimmick in the branching paths, just one I don't care to explore. I do like the little trap though. 
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Apr 16, 2018 20:27
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 Ace Lightning - Part 9: Cowboy Crossroads, Ghastly Gulch Here we have a fairly neat level with some interesting, if tricky, enemy types and some neat gimmicks. I like the setpiece at the end with the Hotel. It's a fun fight and neat idea, if an overdone trope. also love that the final cactus is in a Sombrero.  the Cactus Men
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Apr 17, 2018 20:59
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By the way Games, I've been playing the HeMan: Master's of the Universe PS2 game, based on the 2002 revival. - it's pretty fun. Just got past Triclops and to level 2. I'm now riding battlecat, which is kinda neat because while in the first stage x and square both physically attack with the sword, on battlecat X becomes a claw swipe from the kitty while the sword moves entirely to the square button. I was waiting until I beat Triclops before recommending it because he was a pain in the rear end to do but it was annoying in an appropriate way (given that in the show he had a different eye beam type for each eye)- you approach him in a massive arena with him at the centre, trying to avoid his beams, of which he has loving annoying to avoid homing shot and a normal laser blast, but when you get to the little bit in the middle where he hangs out meleeing him is way more manageable. I just kept dying during the approach and getting pissed off.
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Apr 18, 2018 21:03
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GamesAreSupernice posted:Since Alexey recommended it, I have no choice but to believe it's good until I experience otherwise Hear hear! Also a little thing you may find amusing - I played Tron Evolution a few months ago, and for the boss that you knocked off the Solar Sailor at the end of the V3 video, mine broke very differently - I was having trouble countering him when his AI totally broke and he just stood there motionless as I threw my disk at him for about 3 minutes. Pretty funny.
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Apr 19, 2018 21:08
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GamesAreSupernice posted:Oh, did you enjoy Tron: Evolution? That's one of my favorites, definitely. I wish you had gotten the chance to record the glitch, but recording PS3 games is very difficult I played it on 360 and did enjoy it. I may run through to get the rest of the collectibles some day. Also there is a Carmen Sandiego PS2 game you may enjoy, at least I dug it, called Secret of the Stolen Drums. I have a NG+ save file that I'm planning on running through because apparently for NG+ you get a different ending, although the game itself is identical as no powerups are kept from the first play. Carmen has a cute rapport with the main character, like at one point he is looking through a pair of binoculars at her while she stands on a steamship, and she is looking right back at him from her own. Old gag but a cute one. Also some of her clues have little notes to the player character, like "You're gonna need this hon..." attached to a Peruvian hat. Also the framing device is pretty funny - starting with the main character being chewed out for abandoning his post to chase Carmen, as the other agents were sent on a wild goose chase to the wrong location, but as the game progresses the chief starts getting more and more enthralled by the story and what the main character actually did. She gradually becomes less annoyed and more impressed, which is funny.
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Apr 19, 2018 21:45
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 Time for a double bill of Ace Lightning: First of all, we tackle the final Cowboy Crossroads level in: Ace Lightning Part 10 - Cowboy Crossroad Cemetery. Next we tackle the boss of the area, the easiest boss in the game, Dirty Rat: Ace Lightning Part 11 - Dirty Rat boss fight. Also, to continue what me and GASN were discussing: 1) HeMan's first battlecat level has a big problem with ledges with poor or no hit detection, and that's pretty sad, I fazed through the world way too many times. The second level in that segment seems better for that so far, but I worry it may carry across to later levels, so bear that in mind. 2) An aspect of Tron Evolution that I thought was well done was the fact that while you don't defeat Clu, being allowed to kill the Abraxas virus and destroy the big death ship at least helps the game not feel pointless - you at least accomplish something. 3) The Spiderwick Chronicles game is loving fantastic. I loved it. Tells the story better than the movie did because it fleshes out the world more with sidequests. Crap final battle, but many games have that problem and a cute sidequest opens after beating it, so gently caress it. BioEnchanted fucked around with this message at 22:48 on Apr 20, 2018 |
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Apr 20, 2018 22:45
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 Ace Lightning Part 12 - Climbcrag Castle: Firemoat Fort This is a neat introduction to the final set of normal levels - after this video we are 2 levels and 2 bosses away from completing the game! Also, to clarify on calling the Princess enemies "transphobic" I was referring to the old dumb joke of "You thought it was a girl but lol it's a guy!" which is often the calling card of assholes who think that's how transpeople work. I don't think the devs were intending it to come off the way they did, but similarly to the same joke in Toy Story 3 it is still in poor taste, especially nowadays.
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Apr 21, 2018 21:04
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GamesAreSupernice posted:It's usually done out of accidental ignorance, from people who simply aren't aware I know why it happens, they grew up with the joke and just never bothered to think about it. I can still call it out though, especially if it starts cropping up in later games that should know better. Still, a fun level. And the delivery of the joke did make me laugh with the high pitched scream they do, its the same kind of joke as Bugs Bunny getting caught in a shower. So I'll admit to enjoying the joke despite it's age.
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Apr 21, 2018 21:38
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GamesAreSupernice posted:Nevermind, I saw you just did the same thing and I've now responded with my Discord handle. My mistake Thanks. Sent the Friend Request.
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Apr 22, 2018 03:59
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 Ace Lightning Part 13 - The Drab Dungeon. We explore a long, mildly annoying level with a ton of enemies and I lose a few lives due to a difficult platforming section. Welcome to the Penultimate Level!
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Apr 28, 2018 07:43
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 Ace Lightning Part 14 - Tumbledown Tower Actually three towers all starting from the top of the last one, and quite a gauntlet to boot. A cool level, with some aspects of monumental assholery. Also, that Wizard Swarm can go gently caress itself.
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Apr 28, 2018 21:53
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 Ace Lightning Part 15 - Boss 4: Random Virus We fight a boss with a gimmick that really should have been reserved for a game with functioning physics.. Also, a few thoughts on the level design since now we only have one boss to go to finish the game: Something that strikes me about Ace Lightning is it tends to alternate between vertical and horizontal movement, sometimes in the same level. The Big Top is largely horizontal, as is most of Cowboy Crossroads with the only verticality being the end of the Cactus Gulch with the climb to the hotel. However, the Garden of Illusion is a large horizontal level, followed by a deep vertical climb, then the final level having both types of movement in spades. Then the Medieval levels combine them further with a Fort to climb with brief horizontal and vertical sections that switch quickly, a dungeon that is mainly horizontal with some challenge rooms that have some verticality, and finally the upcoming level, a large tower with a few horizontal challenges but that is mainly vertical. I thought that was interesting.
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Apr 29, 2018 11:05
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I kind of like Tails being Mech Boy, it's a niche that the other characters outside of eggman don't fall into so it's his own thing. More interesting than just being "Sonic with a weird butt" which was his original character in gameplay.
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May 1, 2018 05:26
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 Ace Lightning: Final Boss! In this fight we finally take down Lord Fear!... and Pigface... and Anvil... and Lady Illusion again? Yeah, this fight has a lot of players although only three really matter, the last one is just a distraction. Something amusing that I just realised after uploading this is that Lord Fear has a party, like a JRPG character. He is the white mage, Lady Illusion is the Black Mage casting spells from afar, Pigface is the speedy Thief/Rogue, and Anvil is the Knight/Fighter. A Balanced Party. Now that I have finished with this, next weekend I may do the next McFarlane video, so that could be neat.
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May 2, 2018 22:22
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GamesAreSupernice posted:I started watching the Ace Lightning TV show because of your LP, and now I have bought the series on VCD. What have I done 
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May 4, 2018 18:19
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Shoeless posted:Where does Googler fit into this? This is imperative. I meant specifically for the final boss. Googler, Dirty Rat and Random aren't included in that fight, Fear's party is Fear, Illusion, Pigface and Anvil.
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May 5, 2018 02:50
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Alexeythegreat posted:I read synapses You can read minds?
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May 5, 2018 17:49
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That's one thing I like about Creature from the Krusty Krab - the races aren't really races, you're only racing against the clock. No rubber banding, just "how fast can you take the course?"
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Jul 14, 2018 14:45
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On Silver's platforming being overly easy - a game I want to bring up that did multiple characters visiting levels better, is Woody Woodpecker: Escape from Buzz Buzzard Park. That game had 3 characters who's stories got progressively harder, although the latter two also had fewer levels, but the levels were rejiggered for the character's unique gimmicks. Woody was standard platforming, single jump, nothing fancy, just get good at controlling him. Knothead had a kind of surge jump that sent her flying horizontally at a set distance. Splinter had a double jump. The levels that they shared were remixed, not only to be harder via more obstacles and more enemies, but also to fit that character's moveset. For example: code:The game also remixes obstacles in cute ways to make optional paths for caches of lives, like after getting used to the mechanic where you peck your way up a wooden beam, the game gives you another beam later on with a laser along the bottom - this teaches you that you can start those beams in midair, which becomes a good way to extend the jumps in later levels where some platforms have a wooden edge that you need to peck your way up because you will otherwise fall short. The controls in the game are not good at all, but the level design is really good. I may do that game for this thread later.
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Sep 18, 2018 19:34
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I think an important aspect of communication is definition. I inadvertently caused offense by using a technical term that the other person defined differently to myself. Luckily they had the presence of mind to discuss it and we figured out the difference in how we defined those terms, and an understanding was reached on both sides.
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Oct 2, 2018 12:13
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 I figured I'd do another interesting game for this thread, so here is Deadfall Adventures on the Xbox360. Deadfall Adventures Part 1: Sands of Shakarra I really like this game because of it's heavy focus on exploration. Every level has 3 types of treasures hidden around it that allow you to upgrade your character at certain monuments, and some of them are hidden behind interesting puzzles or tricky optional platforming sections. It's really satisfying to find them, although sometimes you can be stymied by a bug, so hopefully those will keep to a minimum. The game is set around the 1930s starring James Lee Quartermain, the grandson of Allan Quartermain from the famous books (King Solomon's Mines, etc) as he helps a colleague to investigate an ancient myth. BioEnchanted fucked around with this message at 08:45 on Oct 6, 2018 |
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Oct 6, 2018 07:25
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It is pretty cool, it knows how to take otherwise dull setpieces and make them super bombastic at times, but we'll see that waaaay later.
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Oct 6, 2018 11:14
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That was part of the reason it took me a while to get around to actually buying it, it looked low effort. However it's got a lot of thought put into it.
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Oct 7, 2018 05:46
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Deadfall Adventures Part 2: Pyramid This level is really big and has a lot of puzzles, most of the interesting ones are the optional ones but they are all built off of things we'll need to get good at later. Also the plot really starts properly here.
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Oct 8, 2018 22:52
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