What You've Been Playing This Week

[QualityChimp]

I played through Portal with my son too, such a treat. I think Portal and its sequel are sublime. Even the closing tracks by Jonathan Coulton are brrrrilliant.

Obviously more EDF5. It's nice playing with Prin, RandomBS and Katsu, but there's a decent selection of players.
Ended up with some 100% whales and they're doing a lot of damage, but I swear they've got hacked saves.

I'm at the point where I'm just chipping away through the completion percentage. I'm at 83% and about 7ish runs left on Hardest difficulty, then on to Inferno.
I'm determined to 100% it just in time for EDF6 to start the cycle again!

As for other games, I was going crackers because my daughter was watching other people play Luigi's Mansion 3, when we actually have Luigi's Mansion 3!
I said I'd rather she play it though with me than do that, so I reconnected the Switch to the projector and we started playing together.
It's co-op after the first few sections, which meant I played the first section whilst she gave me hints on where to go, then when available, I became Gooigi and she was Luigi and it's lovely because she's definitely more confident as we're progressing. Even my son (who has completed it) was giving advice so it was nice that the 3 of us were getting involved.

She plays a very different style to me, though where she'll race through and I'll explore every nook and cranny!
She literally walked into one room, couldn't see anything and walked out and I had to suggest me might have a mooch first and then found loads of gold and a gem!

[wakka]

I got VisualPinballX up and running last night after a fair bit of tinkering (the Mac port that exists now is pretty poorly documented so I kind of stumbled my way through but it was gratifying to get everything working correctly).

It's setup by default to work with an Xbox pad, with the launcher and tilt mapped to the d-pad and flippers on the bumpers. Rumble is also enabled, so you get some nice force feedback from everything that happens on-screen.

It's great! I put some time into Medieval Madness, which is such a superb table, and the physics feel really weighty and authentic. I just love that game, too. JOUST....PEASANT...DAMSEL...MULTIBALL MAAAADNEEEESSSS!!!

Apart from the gameplay, the humour of the voice acting on that table is a lot of fun and has a great vibe. The different 'Kings' who own the castles that you have to destroy - including a Frenchman who keeps threatening to turn you into 'french fries' or 'french toast', and the New Jersey style mobster one - and of course the 'Valley Girl' style damsels, are really well written.

I've also downloaded Attack from Mars and Addam's Family but haven't put much time into those yet. I'm not familiar with those tables at all but the former in particular is reputedly up there with Medieval Madness in terms of quality, so I'm looking forward to spending more time with it to learn it.

[QualityChimp]

Sounds really good fun and surprisingly well-written for a pinball game, but how are you playing them?

I'd be tempted to make something like this:


Holy smokes, look at this one - imagine the shmup opportunities too!

[Dogg Thang]

I'd be tempted to make something like this

Check out this setup a friend of mine made: https://www.instagram.com/jamfactory/p/CuWvn-atnUX/

[wakka]

That Duplo one is amazing and would be so cool for a playroom if you have kids. I really like the 'build with what you have' ethos, too.

I like the second one you posted too QC. That would actually fit in pretty well in a home, too.

I'm just playing on my desktop monitor I'm afraid, using an Xbox pad. I did try disconnecting my laptop from it and TATEing the laptop onto its side and playing that way, too, which worked pretty well, but then the dot matrix display disappears from view (plus there isn't really room for it since the playfield takes up the whole screen). The software is incredibly customisable so I'm sure there's a way to fix that, but it's not user friendly at all - at least, the Mac port isn't, since it runs from the command line. Documentation is pretty bare bones, too.

I don't really have room for a cab right now and I'm not very handy with building stuff, either, so I'll just have to stick with my basic setup at present having fun though. I really want to try some newer Stern pinball tables next, as I've mostly just played classic 90s stuff on Pinball Arcade, Pinball FX, and now this. The Godzilla and Metallica ones look really cool.

You guys should install VisualPinballX and give it a try. I think it's easier to get running on Windows, which I believe you both use, too.

[QualityChimp]

Godzilla and Metallica?


I might check it out. Do you get it via Steam then buy more tables?

I want to get the Universal PSVR tables for Jaws and BttF.

[wakka]

No, it's completely homebrew. All of the tables are made by fans and released for free. For that reason it's in legally questionable territory, but the community doesn't make reproductions of new tables (they always leave it a few years, I think), and they won't make reproductions of tables if they're specifically asked not to by the manufacturer (which is the case for tables by at least one producer).

You can find out more here:

https://vpuniverse.com/files/file/9845-visual-pinball-x-official-releases/

The tables are all available on there too. For each table you need a VPX file and the ROM file. You can find the VPX files on VPUniverse, and it will tell you which ROM you need on the table page. Just google for it and you'll find it.

[QualityChimp]

I watched some videos of the Godzilla and Metallica tables and they look great, but it did remind me how rubbish I am at pinball, apart from Revenge of the Gator.

[wakka]

Honestly, it's really pretty tricky. Because VPX is a lot more realistic than most virtual pinball games, it's actually tougher too (but there's also more latitude for skilled playing, tossing the ball from one flipper to the other, etc).

I've been having a lot of extremely short games where I basically score bugger all, although I did get one okay run on Medieval Madness.

It's a knack, though, I find - once you get into a good flow it's incredibly satisfying. It's when the ball is pinging everywhere and out of control that you die quickly.

[importaku]

Going to be spending a good portion of this easter weekend on dragon quest X offline, levelling up has been a slow affair as i could never find a decent area that had enemies that gave a good chunk of exp and were low enough level that they didn't one hit kill my team and also have lots appear in one battle. Found a little valley where metal knight slimes live & i'm quickly putting them on the endangered species list for the amount i'm decimating as they always seem to appear in groups of 2 to 4 lol.

When buying stuff in this version you get given lottery tickets but i was buggered if i could find where to use them till today while on lunchbreak at work i found a counter that accepted them some of the prizes were pretty good. 4th place gets me a special orb that when consumed it doubles gold dropped for 30 mins. 6th place prize is even better weirdly it's metallic water which for 30 mins will make metal slimes appear more frequently.


Just look at the mass of exp sat there just jiggling away in front of me.


Well that was until i converted them all into numbers just look at that point haul i'm jumping levels like mad. Still have no clue where to go next as the story is now branching off into 5 paths but least i don't have to worry about getting to a new area and instantly been one hit killed by a new monster.


The amount of game in there is crazy and i am only on version 1 with a stupid amount of playtime but it's been real fun so far. Still on the hunt for those elusive king metal slimes.

[importaku]

Finally finished DQX offline, worked out where to use the coins that open the magic labyrinth the metal king coin opens up a battle full of metal slimes including his majesty himself. You can level up a level 1 character right to level 32 in a single battle it's insane & very useful to get a new job strong enough to go out adventuring as the monsters in some areas really don't mess about they will one hit wipe out your team if you are not prepared. The other coin i found opens a battle with gold metal slimes including that not often seen gold diamond this battle generates money instead of exp so a useful battle to do especially if you activate a genkidama to double the gold won.



The final battle was pretty tough as it's multi phase and my characters were a bit too low level so i spent today levelling eveyone up and getting supplies & as good level armour & weapons as i could find/craft.

Have been careful to avoid boss spoilers.




This is the most evil thing, the entire game is in japanese till you get to the end credits and then, here you go lets have them all in full english. I swear they did it on purpose to twist the knife lol.


So now i'm spat back out the evil black hole and back to normal after saving the world, been given a spell to take my character and it's levels into the online version of the game but not unless i cough up some money to get a vpn so the game will let me play. However there is DLC for the 2nd part of the game story so i think i'll get that and see how big the world & story gets expanded as there's parts all over that are locked off or shops not ready yet. Still haven't found the key to open black chests yet either and there's hundreds of them all over the place. Been a hell of a lot of fun though playing even if the language barrier is a bit tricky in parts.

[MonkeyJuggleDX]

Finally picked up Dead Island 2 last monday as it was £22 new in GAME.

I can't believe it's taken me this long to get it(Bloody retro/arcade gaming!) considering how much I enjoyed the first two, getting both UK/JP stacks on PS3 and the PS4 platinums. Right from the start it had me hooked. Not too much deviation from the formula of the prequels which was good news to me. I eneded up getting the platinum on it on Saturday having put in 43 hours throughout the week(Being told to stay off work until my health improves does have *some* benefits!).

[briareos_kerensky]

Completed the main story in Unicorn Overlord in 54 hours, but there are still a couple of loose ends to close.
Started Reverse Collapse: Codename Bakery today.

[Atticus]

Right back into Streets of Rage 4 thanks to the excellent Mr X Nightmare dlc. The best addition for me is Survival Mode. It offers random scenarios along with a scenario of the week. Add to that the mechanic of choosing a new buff after every round (they all stack) and you’ve got an infinite amount of runs and builds. It’s so addictive and so much fun to play (especially on Switch for the pick-up portability goodness). The dlc takes an already amazing game to another level.

[charlesr]

Spent the weekend playing Wii stuff - Wii Bowling / Golf, Tiger Woods in Pro difficulty Tournament Motion Plus mode with Wii Balance board, House of the Dead Overkill.