My Gaming Week Version 13 (Week of 11-15-09)
14These are the games I played for the week of 11-15-2009.
The Games:
Darius Gaiden (Taito Legends 2 on the PS2)-
I've put a little time in on this one this week. I'm actually quite terrible at Shmups, but I still enjoy playing them. I guess you could say that I like them a lot more than they like me.
The good thing about Taito Legends 2 though is that since it's a port of the arcade game, they give you infinite continues. So if you're teh sux at shmups like I, you'll still have a chance of beating the game. Some people may consider that to be cheating, and maybe it is, but if you're that worried about it, you can always only allow yourself a set number of continues, and stick to it to bump up the challenge.
Castlevania Chronicles (PS1)-
Have you ever played a game where you were convinced that the developers hated you, and wanted to cause you an immense amount of pain? Boy I sure have. I've been playing through the Original mode of this game this week, and damn is it hard. I'm tempted to switch over to the arranged mode which is easier.
What makes this CV game so hard is that every enemy, no matter how big or small takes off four bars of life every time they hit you. That means, that you can only be hit a maximum of four times before you die. This forces you to put in a near perfect run of each level, which is extremely challenging to do. It's especially hard if you die, and start back with a level 1 whip. The developers also seemed to forget to add any health to the levels, so that makes this game even harder.
For those who own a PS3, and are brave enough, this game is available at the Playstation Store. I believe it's $6 or $7.
G Darius (Taito Legends 2 on the PS2)-
Once again, I can't recommend Taito Legends 2 more. I do happen to have G Darius on the PS1, and it's an underrated Shmup on that system for those interested. The appeal of G Darius is that you have the ability to capture and use enemy ships to help you along the way. Different ships do different things, and it's fun to experiment with. The game also has some really epic boss battles. Of course the Darius series is know for that, but the ones in this game are pretty extreme.
R-Types (PS1)-
Talk about challenging. R-Types contains two classic R-Type games. R-Type, and R-Type II.
Both are insanely difficult. I know some of you oldschool gamer out there may call me a sissy boy, but these are two of the hardest Shmups I've ever played. I can get decently far into the original R-Type, but even with infinite continues, I could only get to the second level in R-Type II. It's absolutely insane.
Granted, only after I got murdered like crazy, and returned to the title screen, did I realize that I could adjust the difficulty on both games. The original has two settings Normal (which is what I played it on), and Hard (which only the insane self-haters would play it on. R-Type II it turns out has an easy mode, and a hard mode. I cannot imagine what that game would be like on hard.
Once again, for those brave PS3 owners out there, this one is also available at the Playstation Store for around the same price as Castlevania.
Tomb Raider II (PS1)-
This was my first, and is still my favorite TR game. In all honesty, I'm still a huge fan of the TR series. THe original series, not the bastardized "lets ruin the game by adding lame ass QTEs" new Tomb Raider series. It's weird, but my tastes are exactly backwards of the mainstream on this series. The original series was great, but the new series is just kinda meh to me.
The sad fact is that due to the raping the series has received from the gaming media, who would cry every iteration about the controls, and the difficulty, and say the series added nothing new to the formula (which was bullshit, because ever new rehashed Resident Evil game made on the PS1 got massive praise despite the fact that it's control scheme was piss, and it stuck directly to the exact same formula too.) new gamers who are mindless drones for what the gaming media believes will never see the brilliance of the original Tomb Raider games. The impact of Tomb Raider can still be seen today, and it's level design was impeccable. Sure, the puzzles didn't always make sense, but what's more important, a puzzle that makes sense, or playability?
People also may complain about the switch pulling, or the key getting, but in all honesty, modern games are still doing that, they just disguise it as something else. Why be mad when a game is just more blatant about it?
Anyways, I could write a whole rant on the subject, but I'll end it there.