Discuss games you've been playing

[AndyNPC]

I wanted to listen to both my PC and N64 audio through the same output, and the headphone jack on my TV wasn't working well with my PC as a line-in source. So my solution was to buy a capture card. It worked. I can record from hardware now too, which I guess is neat. Kills two birds with one stone, and one of those birds wasn't even previously up for slaughter.

[Shaz]

I'm playing Monster Hunter World on PC. Might be simpler in quite a few aspects but it's still better than the rest of the series.

[AndyNPC]

A Hat in Time has online multiplayer DLC now. The rest of the DLC pack is kind of OK too I guess. It's a bit short and easy and doesn't really add any Snatcher challenges, but it has tons of new cosmetics to unlock. The main meat is definitely the multiplayer.

[DementedSun]

Getting closer to 100% in Kingdom Hearts 3. Just gotta do some Gummi constellation hunting, and high score some mini-games mostly.

[AndyNPC]

Mario Maker 2 confirmed GOTY.

[Masked Hero]

I picked up that Crash Bandicoot Remake game. I've almost finished the first game, but it took me a good day and a half to get through The High Road. Finally did that today though.

[dragon_kazoooie]

I've been playing through The Urbz: Sims in the City again recently. It was a game I got used at a game store because I always loved the idea of sims but never had a chance to play it. Immediately this one is different by starting you off playing a mini-game, getting kicked out of your house, and thrown in jail. From there you have to talk to the denizens of the town to gain their trust and attain more 'rep' which functions like a meter for the various factions. Every faction has a leader, for instance the leader of the Artsies is Roxie a carefree, top-hat wearing, carny.

The main drive of the game is to deal with the negative effects left by an uncaring billionaire, known as Daddy Bigbux, and hopefully overthrow him via protests, secret meetings, and keeping him from buying up every lot in town. His goal is, in typical super-villain fashion, to buy the entire town and keep it exactly the same but charge admission fees to enter each place for its' authenticity. Think gentrification but more cartoonish. This is accomplished via the mission you receive such as 'Talk to Polly Nomial about attending classes' or 'Reach 100 relationship with Darius'. Of course this is The Sims so while all of this is going on, you'll have meters to take care of as well. Your sim gets hungry, tired, bored, etc. and it's up to you to make sure you're ready to go and you need to plan out each trip out into the world because if you have you're bored, for instance, you can no longer talk to people, play the mini-games for cash, or learn a new skill.

There are ways to make the mood-lets sustain for longer, and skills you can acquire that makes it much easier to talk to people and gain their trust. The mini-games serve as your way to gain funds and there's a few of them that range from shooting hoops (A simple timing game), being a comedian (Tell jokes in the center to generate laugh meter and avoid the tomatoes by walking left or right), or racing dirtbikes (Excitebike basically) so you'll also have to plan to do that because you've got rent, buying better a better bed, eating, and all the other expenses required when you live in the city. These are also only available at certain times Hoops from 5am-5pm for example, so it's another consideration when planning your 'day'. None of these things detract from the gameplay much and it doesn't take long to make the money for rent, in fact I never found myself worrying about money at all since you can gain skills to get 'Promoted' and once you reach the top level you're rolling in it.

My favorite part about this game is how absurd it gets though. Like it starts out slightly cartoonish but relatively normal like The Sims do, but it gets pretty out there eventually. Idk maybe this sounds like something you're interested in, I bet you could find a way to play it on the computer somehow, though I honestly just can't for the life of me figure out how you'd go about doing that. For those that just want to hear about where the story goes let me spoil it for ya'.
~In my blog because I don't want to take up a bunch more space in here!~

[Danny Trabajo]

The Sims console ports and spin-offs were treated as being very low rent at the time of release, but there are a lot of people with fond memories of those early games. Split-screen Sims on GC was a dream

[pastiche]

Originally Posted by Alakazam

confession: i've never played a sims game (sans city)

where should i start? the urbz? pets? spore?

Same also
I watched friends play it at their houses but I never got my hands on it myself

[DarthConker]

I've only ever played Sims 2 on PS2 years ago but enjoyed it thoroughly. I still occasionally get the Nu Metal song stuck in my head to this day.

[dragon_kazoooie]

Originally Posted by @

Is this the GBA one? I played so much of that one when I was younger. I liked the combination of Sims with an adventure game.

Yeah they're the same game!

Originally Posted by Alakazam

confession: i've never played a sims game (sans city)

where should i start? the urbz? pets? spore?

Hmm it depends on what you're looking for. The Urbz DS/GBA as well as some of the other sims games for the mobile consoles usually have an adventure story with basic Sims gameplay which is light an fun. They usually don't last more than, say 10 hours. Whereas the PC games are more like virtual doll-houses where it's fun to create one or a bunch of Sims and watch them while creating your own little stories for them. For example: I usually just roll with whatever I find my Sims naturally doing so when I created a guy and his wife they started out with nothing. Work in the day and relaxation at night. They didn't have much but it was fun and they had each other. Eventually this led into them having a baby and the tireless nights began. Once the baby grew into a toddler the two decided to get a maid because they saved up enough.

After a while I noticed the dad Sim was flirting with the maid! (and it was actually going well ) Outside the house and they were getting quite close. So he did something terrible and slept with the other lady and THEY had a kid. She hid away in a secret room all throughout labor with all the amenities, and she could sneak out back if need be. But his wife couldn't find out because it would break her heart and tear them apart. His now mistress had a kid. But she didn't actually want a kid so she left them. The dad brought up the idea of adoption to his wife and she loved it. He brought his OTHER new daughter home and the two lived happily ever after in a really dark secret way. UNTIL SHE CAUGHT THE MAID LADY COMING BACK AND SMOOCHING ON THE HUSBAND SO THEY GOT A DIVORCE D: (Really all that happened was the dude was flirting so I continued down that path to it's sad and logical conclusion and just sort of watched the chaos unfold.) Also his wife and her child were both witches because The Sims be weird like that.

Of course you can play it with as much or little guidance to your Sim as you want. So if you like fun emergent stuff that plays out over the course of a long time I'd recommend either The Sims 2 or The Sims 4. Sims 1 is good but y'know, it's old and won't be for everyone. The Sims 3 runs like utter garbage on even a good PC because of how poorly optimized it was. But all of them are good.

Originally Posted by DarthConker

I've only ever played Sims 2 on PS2 years ago but enjoyed it thoroughly. I still occasionally get the Nu Metal song stuck in my head to this day.

Oh yeah! I got a demo for that out of a magazine and I played it soooo much. It was my next Sims experience after Urbz!

I also liked these ones!

('specially around the 1:30 mark)

[Danny Trabajo]

[AndyNPC]

100% Orange Juice is still getting updates and I'm still wasting my precious time in this world playing an online board game about cute anime girls. Now there's a co-op raid boss mode, so all four players get to be unhappy when the AI cheats and rolls a 7 on a 6 sided dice.

I've also been playing Angband whenever it's not my turn to disappoint my teammates. My warrior, Mr. Kill, died. So I've been playing a gnome rogue named Gnorman now. He's doing okay, but he keeps losing all his good armor to acid almost immediately after finding it.

[Danny Trabajo]

Mario Tennis: Power Tour, known in British English as Mario Power Tennis, and in Japanese as Mario Tennis Advance (マリオテニスアドバンス Mario Tenisu Adobansu), is the fourth direct installment in the Mario Tennis series, and the Game Boy Advance counterpart of Mario Power Tennis for the Nintendo GameCube. This is also the final Mario release for the Game Boy Advance. It is very similar to Mario Tennis in gameplay and plot, though it has the addition of Power Shots. Though it is the counterpart of Mario Power Tennis, the two games cannot be connected in any way.

The game is compatible with the Game Boy Advance Wireless Adaptor.

[Masked Hero]

Played through Crash Bandicoot 2: The Wrath of Cortex, Crash Bandicoot: Warped, and Crash Team Racing this weekend. I didn't finish them all 100% though, but I did beat the final boss for all three games. I'm pretty excited for the CTR remake coming out later this month.