What We Were Playing: 11/12/2012

What that? In the distance? It’s What We’ve Been Playing back at ya for another dose of those Sega Addicts writers that you crave so much. You know that thing where we tell you what game’s we’ve been playing? Yeah that one.

Well hit the jump to read that then. Let us know what you were playing in the comments as usual!

Alex Riggen – Editor-in-Chief:
I played through the entire single player campaign of Spec Ops: The Line this week and discovered that it exceeded all my expectations. Before the game’s release I didn’t pay any attention to the game as past games in the series never interested me and neither did the fact that this was yet another modern day war shooter. Then, I started hearing how amazing the story in the game was and decided to give it a try, still with somewhat average expectations. In the end, I have to say it was one of the best told stories I’ve played this generation and completely turns the war shooter on its head by actually making you feel remorse for nearly everything you do and having some truly disturbing moments. Not only that but some of the set pieces and environments are right up there with Uncharted in the jawdropping category. My only complaint is that sometimes the amount of enemies felt neverending and ruined the pacing a little bit but that’s a small complaint in the grand scheme of things.

Other than that I’ve played a couple of hours of Parasite Eve on the Vita. I’ve always been interested in the series and bought the PSOne Classic over a year ago and never got around to playing it. Now I am and so far the game holds up much better than I expected. It’s a unique mix of Resident Evil 2 style survival horror with a psuedo turn-based combat and leveling up system straight out of a JRPG. At times I wish the game just went the full real-time combat route and left all the RPG elements behind but it’s nice to play something truly unique and I’m liking the story and setting quite a bit. My only fear is I’m going to reach some part in the game where my character or equipment aren’t quite good enough to progress and I’m going to get distracted and never finish. That’s what usually happens to me in JRPGs, unfortunately.

Stevie Grant – Features Editor:
I played some Primal Carnage for Press Pause Radio. How did it go? A little disappointing actually. It’s not that the game’s bad, it’s just not as fun as it should be with it’s great dino premise. Oh well, one day we’ll get the dino game the people need!

Also Super Mario World and oh boy does that get hard near the end! I did it though! Fuck you, Bowser!

Scott Morrison – Site Writer:
I’ve been continuing my trek through Mars with Doom 3 BFG Edition. The game is eerily relaxing, so it has become my “chill game” at the end of the night. As dark and spooky as the game is, it’s still so light-hearted to me somehow. This is probably the exact opposite asthetic id Software was going for, but oh well. It’s fun to just play a brainless shooter without a giant cinematic budget behind it. Something about Doom’s simplicity, even while it strives for a deep story, is incredibly charming to me in this generation of “blockbuster games.”

Speaking of charming, I also grabbed the ToeJam & Earl SVC on XBLA since I’ll be reviewing it soon. The first thing I did was try the online play to see if it made sense to add such a thing to a game from 1991. Two hours later, I turned the game off, so I would say the online addition was worth it. Here’s hoping the rest of the port holds up!

Kris Knigge – Podcast Co-Host:
METAL GEAR RISING. Well, the demo at least. I like it, despite how sociopathic the main mechanic of slicing people into a million pieces is. It’s still a tad too easy, but there’s a lot more “game” than there was at E3. The parry system has been distinctly improved, only really rewarding you if you get the timing exactly right.

Naturally, I played some Zone of the Enders HD alongside it. It’s still an amazing game, even if High Voltage didn’t do a brilliant job with the port.

Also more VLR, which I still love, and more Persona 4. I’m about ready to just admit that I will never see the appeal in that game, because the more I play it, the more I get annoyed. I’ve unfortunately saved myself before a boss that I can almost kill, but who always kills me after a few long minutes of combat. That unfortunately just capped off a number of annoyances. I should go back and try again, but I’m not sure if I want to.

And that’s what we played last week! Let me know your game experiences mofo!