What are you playing?

[Head Mutant]

You know, I'm almost ashamed to call myself a gamer... I've never, ever played CS.

[PoolMan]

Neither have I. But at least I own it.

Or, is that "pwn it"?

[Hucklebubba]

A recent family reunion in Kansas necessitated a road trip, and to me "road trip" is just another way of saying "opportunity to scour out-of-the-way places for games I can't get at home."

One of said places wasn't really all that out-of-the-way, though. Babbages, to be exact. And therein, a copy of Freelancer; one of the many games which fall under the "saw it way back when, was intrigued, lacked the computer to play it" category.

Now that I have had a chance to play it, I'm left with only one question: Where has this game been all my life?

Also found a copy of Tron 2.0 in a Dollar General, of all places. I'll let you know how it turns out.

[PoolMan]

I loved Freelancer... I bought a copy and my local EB always has one on the shelf. What really amazes me about that game is that by the time you're done the single player campaign, you've maaaaaybe explored about 5% of the galaxy. You haven't even ENTERED one of the major sectors. Lots to do. It gets a little repetitive by that point, but it's still a very fun game.

Tron 2.0 is fun lil' game, too. I like how you can patch and upgrade your character, but dependant on what kind of system you go into, you only have so much memory to do so. For instance, you get transferred into a PDA at one point, so you have very limited memory for upgrades, and the goal of the level is to get the OS to shut down battery-munching programs.

Dang. Now I want to play Tron and Freelancer again.

[Hucklebubba]

My only mini-gripe, aside from the somewhat excessive chunks of dead travel time, is that the whole shield-type/weapon-type dynamic seems a bit superfluous. That's more strategy than I really want or need, and it doesn't seem to be all that critical anyway.

I suppose I would be more fussy if it actually did make a measurable difference: "Okay, I'm using a molecular shield, which is strong against pulse and tachyon, and weak against spitballs. Or was it rotten fruit? Gyah!!"

While I'm here, I'd like to put in a good word for ToCA Race Driver 3. I don't know where 1 and 2 are, but this one's good enough to make me not care. Ironically, if 3 had been bad, I still wouldn't have cared. Poor 1 and 2!

[PoolMan]

I didn't actually pay a ton of attention to shield/weapon trumps. I never found myself getting so badly killed that I suspected I had a tech mismatch, and the badguys were popping in a reasonable amount of time. Maybe I'm just lucky?

[eatmyshorts]

I am currently gaming Half-Life 2, Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30, Turtles in Time, Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3.

[DTH]

CITY OF HEROES!!!!!!111!

[eatmyshorts]

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2.

[Head Mutant]

Still dabbling between Magic Online (I love making stupidly weird decks that frustrate other serious players) and World of Warcraft, although I'd be very welcoming of a good new game to stomp through my doors. Based on Pooly's recommendation, I might try Gal Civ 2, seeing as how there's really nothing else good that's near to completion.

[dajaymann]

So last week I downloaded (illegally) EVERY SINGLE NINTENDO GAME. At least, I'm pretty sure it's every single one, at least there's 1024 of them, wrapped up into one very convenient torrent.

So I made some startling discoveries:

1. Kirby's Dreamland rocks so hard you don't even know.

2. My daughter likes to play some Hello Kitty volleyball game (I think it's a translated japanese rom). Or rather, she likes to sit in my lap and watch me play, because she's like 2 years old.

3. She also likes to play the Princess in Super Mario 2.

4. I've gotten myself caught up in Final Fantasy 3 (the one that was only released in Japan on the NES, not the SNES 3/6 one) but the translation is incomplete or something because when I pass a certain point in the game, everybody starts speaking gibberish. So I'm on a quest to find a rightly translated version of that one.

[TheOogieBoogieMan]

dajaymann said:

3. She also likes to play the Princess in Super Mario 2.

I've been playing a ROM of SM2, and the Princess rocks. She can friggin' hover in the air!

[Al]

dajaymann said:

4. I've gotten myself caught up in Final Fantasy 3 (the one that was only released in Japan on the NES, not the SNES 3/6 one) but the translation is incomplete or something because when I pass a certain point in the game, everybody starts speaking gibberish. So I'm on a quest to find a rightly translated version of that one.

I was never able to find a version translated all the way through, but that was four or five years ago. Depending on how much it's worth to you, FF3 is being retranslated, retooled with 3D graphics and released for the Nintendo DS at the end of the year (I think).

Al

[dajaymann]

gunslingeral said:

I was never able to find a version translated all the way through, but that was four or five years ago. Depending on how much it's worth to you, FF3 is being retranslated, retooled with 3D graphics and released for the Nintendo DS at the end of the year (I think).

Al

They're out there, apparently. Right now I'm getting caught back up in Theif 2 so I'm not looking so hard, but they exist, I know that.

Plus, getting FF3 on the DS would entail me having to buy a DS so that's right out. Unless they have a decent emulator out there...

[eatmyshorts]

Shatterhand for the NES. Greatest game known to man.