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Post by Sarge on Aug 13, 2020 15:33:06 GMT -5
Interesting that you mentioned Tin Star, as I gave it a go last night. Ended up stopping at stage 2-1 because I got my head handed to me. But yes indeed, it supports the SNES mouse, and that's how I was playing. I bet it'd be even more fun with a Super Scope (or other light gun), though. I loved the aesthetic of it, though.
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Post by EasyHard on Aug 13, 2020 18:28:19 GMT -5
Cleared Hard Mode in Wild Guns with Annie (the girl). She moves a little bit faster but has shorter jumps and rolls. Longer rolls don't seem like an advantage (and might be a disadvantage honestly). Hard mode did not feel significantly tougher after having cleared Normal mode, and I think I mastered the strategy of many of the levels a bit more this time (especially the final one). The final boss actually feels no harder than the others once you get used to him.
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Post by Sarge on Aug 13, 2020 18:36:17 GMT -5
I think what got me in that last stage was taking on the two robots at the start simultaneously, although there were some other things that also kept me from recording a quick victory. You're right, though, in that there isn't a ton of randomness, so if you can get it all down and react to threats quickly, things can go easier.
Actually, one thing that really does help out is if you can get that super meter maxed out at just the right time. Sometimes it's in a section that doesn't help at all, but I'm pretty sure I triggered it on the last boss one of my attempts, and it really, really helped.
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Post by EasyHard on Aug 13, 2020 19:10:29 GMT -5
Sarge : Yeah, the super meter/vulcan gun at the right time can really turn a slog of level attempts into an easy level clear. I think its an interesting mercy mechanic to encourage the player to keep playing, and it feels unique how it operates across continues (rather than giving the player some kind of mercy boost on their last life). I also like that you don't lose bombs when you lose a life. It's not something that draws attention to itself, but the absence of all that negative enjoyment is obvious when I stop to think about games with conventional shoot 'em up mechanics. For the last stage that starts with two robots, the main trick is to fight from the left corner. One of the robots won't follow you all the way to the side of the screen, and since one of their strafing gunfire attacks always moves right to left it is better to be on the left side. It also took me a while to figure out that you want to use a vertical double jump to dodge once you get into the corner. Without physical space to roll into, dodge rolling the white bullets isn't very safe. (You theoretically could work around that problem by making headway towards the center periodically, then dodging left when you have to. But that is tough and I didn't master it.) Using a bomb is a decent choice too. One bomb makes the first robot die much sooner, and the stage doesn't have many great places to use bombs anyway. I like the bombs for the final boss. As an aside, there is a telegraph for the robot's deadliest "four aimed bullets" attack: they only use this if they start an attack animation immediately after jumping sideways. During the double robot fight this information isn't too helpful though, because you probably won't be keeping track.
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Post by Ex on Aug 14, 2020 0:50:53 GMT -5
I think I've reached the final stage of Red Dead Revolver tonight. But I just saved there, because it's a big slog of a stage and I was out of gas for tonight. To say this game has balancing issues would be putting it lightly, but I hope to have RDR beaten tomorrow night. I'll be glad to have it behind me.
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Post by Ex on Aug 15, 2020 0:39:25 GMT -5
Red Dead Revolver is a third person shooter developed by Rockstar San Diego, and published by Rockstar Games, in 2004. RDR was only released on PS2 and Xbox originally. Many years later it was ported to PS4. But this game hasn't seen a PC port in the sixteen years since its release. This game also began what is known as the Red Dead series. It's a small miracle that RDR even released at all, because it spent four years in development hell. This game's development was initially instigated by Capcom in 2000, as the company intended to create a spiritual sequel to their 1985 entry Gun.Smoke. However, during development of RDR, Rockstar bought the studio that Capcom had contracted to make the game (Angel Studios). Shortly after Rockstar ended up owning the RDR IP, and financed the completion of Red Dead Revolver. RDR's plot is centrally one of revenge. The title character Red wishes to avenge his family's death against a one armed man (yeah really). As the plot continues, many more protagonists are added to the mix, which the player controls in their specific missions. Originally RDR was entitled S.W.A.T. Spaghetti Western Action Team, and intended to have a rotating cast of heroes. That's where all these extra protagonists came from. That said, their purpose into the finished plot is barely decipherable via the base gameplay. Rather to make sense of the plot, RDR expects the player to read text journal entries that are unlocked by spending in-game currency. Hardly ideal, and something I didn't bother with. As mentioned earlier, the basic gameplay is third person shooting. Though shooting in a very arcadey unrealistic manner. This is a game where you can shoot a bad guy in the head two or three times and he just keeps coming. Enemies move very quickly too, and generally run around like cocaine addled rabbits. To spice up the rote shooting, the ability to cover shoot and use bullet time exists as well. Cover shooting is generally useless, and tends to get you shot more often ironically. Bullet time doesn't matter much when you shoot that bad guy five times in slow motion, and he's still alive regardless. And as was vogue at the time, there's also forced stealth sequences occasionally. (Maybe you thought you were going to be a badass bounty hunter, but right now we need you to be a sneaky Native American and shoot arrows from the shadows.) The cherry on top is a quick-draw showdown mode, where occasionally Red has to target and shoot an outlaw in slow motion. The implementation of the showdown from a controls perspective is incredibly clunky and annoying. There's other half-baked stuff like a hub town that's hardly used, a paltry shopping system, oh and everybody's favorite... weapons that degrade and have to be repaired. Yee-haw!
The simplistic and spastic shooting would be fine, except for the fact that the difficulty is all over the place. This is one of the most unbalanced games I've ever played in that regard. To make matters worse, checkpoints are completely arbitrary. Some missions will give the player copious checkpoints, and others give no checkpoints at all. No rhyme or reason I could discern. There is a lot of variety to each mission design, but this also means the player has to constantly learn new gameplay concepts, without having time to adjust to them first. There are occasional tutorials in RDR, but the tutorials are terse and often literally incorrect in how the controls are described. At least in the Xbox version anyway. The graphics are fairly awful. I don't mean the character and set designs, that's stuff up to snuff. I'm talking about the technical side. In the Xbox version, the Xbox's notorious quincunx anti-aliasing coats the screen like Vaseline, and a blurry depth of field effect is always active as well. This has the result of making the graphics look muddy and indistinct. To the point I often had difficulty spotting an enemy in the distance, because their profile was so compromised by the murky visuals. Textures are low in detail, and polygon complexity is also low. As a 2004 Xbox release, Red Dead Revolver is fairly pathetic graphically. The music and voice acting are average for the time. I did appreciate the sense of humor much of the dialogue employed at least.
During RDR's development, Capcom kept adding new ideas they wanted Angel Studios to implement into a cow patty that just kept growing. This lead to a game that was a collection of many different ideas, but none of them cohesive and organic. So when Angel Studios became Rockstar San Diego, they were left with a mess of disparate elements. As a result, Rockstar San Diego forged a loose collage out of what was left. And that's what Red Dead Revolver feels like to play. A stream of random ideas, none particular well developed, interwoven into an experience that is often needlessly punitive, and has no qualms wasting its players' time. Unfortunately, the experience just becomes worse and worse the deeper in you go. And at 27 missions, that's pretty deep. The studio that developed RDR had previously focused on racing and sports games, so it's evident the developers were not experienced in what makes a third person shooter actually fun to play. However, from this mangled mishmash, one of my favorite games of all time arose; Red Dead Redemption. And wow, what a redemption that game truly was coming from this hot mess.
Ex's time to beat: 7 hours
Ex's rating: 4/10
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Post by Deleted on Aug 15, 2020 11:32:05 GMT -5
That was worse than expected, but I'm not entirely surprised. From what little I played, that quickdraw 'duel' mechanic immediately struck me as annoying.
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Post by Sarge on Aug 15, 2020 13:16:44 GMT -5
I gave Outlaws a shot last night. It was okay. Impressive (and really sad) opening sequence - the art style reminds me a bit of Full Throttle - but the game itself didn't feel as involved as Dark Forces... although I've only played through one mission, so I can't judge just on that.
I also noticed this is a Windows-based game (although I think it supposedly uses a similar or the same engine as DF), which means I get all sorts of funky resolution shifts at times. But it all seems to work, so good job, GOG!
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Post by Deleted on Aug 15, 2020 15:05:04 GMT -5
I think it supposedly uses a similar or the same engine as DFIt does use Jedi, same 2.5D engine as Dark Forces. Although the version used in Outlaws has been enhanced to allow for rooms on top of one another, much like the Build engine.
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Post by Ex on Aug 15, 2020 20:47:50 GMT -5
That was worse than expected, but I'm not entirely surprised. I felt a little harsh giving RDR a 4/10, but I just checked Metacritic and even during RDR's time of release, some agreed: That aspect becomes truly terrible towards the end of the game. I mean you'll have literally one second or less to beat an enemy in a draw duel. And if you fail, you'll sometimes have to replay the whole level before getting back to that one second do or die duel. As I said earlier, RDR does not respect its player's time whatsoever. You didn't miss anything by not playing RDR.
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