What we’ve been playing: week of 8/7/10

Note: No women actually work for Sega Addicts

We here at Sega Addicts love videogames as much as you guys do. When we aren’t furiously pounding our keyboards to let you know about the latest Sega news or the best dry cleaners around town that will get the “bleach” stains our of your custom Silver the Hedgehog fursuit we’re playing games! Let’s see what our stalwart crew (at least the ones that answer my e-mails!) has been soaking their brains in this week.

I’ll start.

This week I made it to the third disc of Shenmue. It’s bothered me for years that I’ve never beaten it and thought it was important to my nerd cred. Apparently on the third disc there’s a common but game-breaking glitch that causes you to relive the same day over and over Bill Murray-style. I didn’t know it was a glitch and spent weeks in game doing this. After reading how to fix it, I tried the resolution once and it still happened. I thought it was important to the safety of my game and my Dreamcast that I just turn off the console and back away for a while before someone gets hurt. After that I switched over to Yakuza on the PS2 and have been loving the crap out of that so far.

Josh Newey writer of With Great Power Comes Great Games and Underappreciated Gems:

I’m getting into a bad habit here.  In my quest to unearth the more obscure corners of the Dreamcast, I’ve found myself starting a whole lot of titles that I need to finish, and there just aren’t enough hours in the day to get through them all.  I’m just about finished with Super Magnetic Neo, but the awkward Maken X has just not aged well enough to keep my attention.  Instead, much shinier toys have distracted my ADD-ridden eyes, namely my two favorite DC horror titles, Resident Evil Code: Veronica and Illbleed. Switching back and forth between an RE game and the goofiest horror title in history is one trippy experience, hear you me.  On the Genesis, I’ve been playing the Hulk game and, inspired by this week’s puzzle podcast, The Lost Vikings.
I also just received an Activator in the mail.  No, that’s not a joke.  I honestly can’t wait to try it out on Eternal Champions next week… Don’t worry my curtains will be closed.

Alexander Sargeant writer of Retro Reviews:

I have been playing Phantasy Star Universe, which shall come as no surprise whatsoever. Found out that everyone plays pretty much two missions at the moment, which award silly amounts of EXP or Mission EXP. That or the Advanced missions, which are the only way to get AEXP and AMP. AEXP because it can be traded in for AP too, of course. Sorry, I just realized that with Photon Art levels too your character has at least seven different pools of experience points and my mind cracked a little. However yes, consider myself power-leveling right now, although I am fetching some pretty sweet loot too. Also played the fan translation of Dynamite Heady, mostly out of the novelty that it actually exists (some parts were changed in localization that have since been restored

Andrew Galbraith writer of Contemporary Alternatives and Miscoded Confidence:

This week I’ve been Playing Starcraft 2, but realistically, who hasn’t? The game definitely has the completeness of a full on release and doesn’t feel like one-third of anything. On the Sega front, I’ve thrown six double A’s back into my Game Gear to spend some time running through Sonic – more or less because I wanted to play with the hang glider mechanic – since it really is just as much fun as I remember it. Also, it bears mentioning that I clocked a lot more time with Urban Strike this week than I think is healthy for a normal human being, primarily because the game is fucking ridiculous in how cool it still is, which I’ve covered in my Miscoded Confidence this week. Otherwise, just grinning and bearing my way through the summer drought until Fall rolls around.

Kris Knigge reviewer and podcast co-host:

So this week’s podcast put me on a bit of a puzzle kick. After being reminded by the internet that I’m terrible at Puzzle Fighter, I decided to play some Puzzle Bobble for Neo Geo Pocket Color. It’s a surprisingly solid port! Also, I decided to give my Saturn a little love and played two of my favorite games of all time: Vampire Savior and Cotton 2. Still haven’t 1CC’d VS on the hardest difficulty nor have I yet beaten Cotton 2 on Normal, but hey, I still love them. Also, I played some Valkyria Chronicles for… Reasons…

Pat Reddick Community Manager and writer of Forum News and Not-so Classics:

This week has been a really slow one for me as far as video games go. All I’ve really had a chance to play for my own enjoyment was Sakura Wars. I’ve also been playing an unfortunately large amount of Columns and Super Thunder Blade for my feature. I also played about 5 minutes of Kid Chameleon one day. That was a good day.

Bret Hatfield community manager and writer of Megadriving:

Played a bunch of Sonic Unleashed and Bayonetta this week, for some trophies. I think I’ve reached my limit on trophies for Unleashed now, since the rest are hot dog missions that I just can’t do. ASR got a few minutes of play too, just so I could see how it looked in HD (not much better if I’m honest!). As for the portable side, I mainly stayed with Bleach: The 3rd Phantom (very good, although very… boring at times) and Sonic Classics Collection (the lack of normal savestates for that cart infuriates me). And as for arcades, I played a past Megadriving title in Hydro Thunder (still in a love affair with it) and a future one in NASCAR Arcade (Cannot wait to write about that!).

Alex Riggen Editor in Chief and podcast host:

I finished my second play through of the original Condemned earlier this week. I haven’t played it since it’s original release and it was fun re-experiencing everything and seeing how well it held up. The graphics weren’t as impressive as I remembered but the tension and atmosphere certainly were. The department store and farm house levels still remain some of my favorite horror game moments ever.

I also played a little of The Club before recording our podcast this week. It was fun although I’m always left with the feeling that the game never met it’s true potential.

The most exciting thing I’ve been playing is all the Panzer Dragoon games on Saturn. I’m getting married this very day and my wedding present from my fiancée was a copy of Panzer Dragoon Saga! Nice, right? So, I decided to play through the original two games and then started in on Panzer Dragoon Saga. The first two games are incredibly impressive especially for a console that wasn’t built for 3D. As for Panzer Dragoon Saga, it’s one of the most original and best RPGs I’ve ever played. The developers did an amazing job of fleshing out the world and creating a turn-based combat system that feels like the real-time combat of the original games. Unfortunately, my memory card decided to corrupt my save file yesterday so I have to start over from scratch. I wasn’t too far in and the game is fun enough that I’m not too upset but it still sucks nonetheless.

Good work everyo- wait what did Alex just say? Happy wedding day, sir!
That’s what we’ve been playing this week. What about you? Let us know in the comments.