[:plant:] The GFF Game Club [Now Playing: Max Payne] Now with less spoiler tags

I'd like to join as well. Here's the backloggery page.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I was looking for something new to play since the next big console release I'm getting isn't out until March, so this should fit the bill perfectly. Luckily I managed to find a new copy a few years back for $10, so I should be starting this relatively soon.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

I too started but never finished the game, and though I definitely like it enough to keep playing and eventually beat it, it's hard for me to get motivated enough to play it more than a few hours at a time. I agree with Soluzar that the "cutesy anthropomorphic animals" and overall whimsical feel of the game kinda kills the setting a bit, and I think if it was a bit more serious I'd be willing to play it more (as it is now it feels like Disney trying to make Mirror's Edge or something).

But even that aside, I still have quite a few gripes about the game. I don't want to get too detailed until I finish the game proper, but so far my main gripes would be that the combat isn't that great and the partner A.I. seems to be borderline retarded. The game is not terrible by any means, but so far I don't see what's so great about the game that it gets as much praise as it does.

As for the amount of time we had, I think it was fine if you you're not really playing much else, but looking at most people's Backloggery pages can we really say that's the case most of the time? I don't know exactly how long the game is, but I think with another week or two I probably could have finished it (for the record, I'm about seven hours in, at the factory soon after Pey'j is kidnapped). Admittedly I could have played it more than I did, but for a game everybody calls short it didn't seem that way to me at all (even though it only says seven hours on my save data, I know I played more because I loaded several parts to replay them over again). Maybe it's because I'm anal about collecting everything and just exploring the world in general, but I could easily see myself putting a lot more hours into this, far past the definition of what I'd call a short game. But again, maybe that's just me.

So yeah, it's hard to determine what the correct amount of time should be for each game, but I think it should always lean towards more rather than less. This is especially true of next month, as it's a pretty big month in terms of game releases, and I can't imagine anybody not picking up at least one game. As it states in the opening post, you can always discuss the game (in spoiler tags) if you finish early, and I'm sure most people here have plenty of other games to play if they just need something to keep them busy until the next game is announced, so I don't see the harm in giving people more rather than less time to finish the games. I personally wouldn't mind if it turned into a once a month thing (announce the game at the start of the month, finish it by the end of the month, repeat), though I get that varying game lengths may constrict this from working all the time.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Ikaruga is a game I've always wanted to try, but I've never owned a DC, GCN/Wii, or a 360, so I guess it's out of the question for me. It's probably for the best though between this busy March and still needing to finish up BG&E.

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I definitely would have been up for trying the game out, but like I mentioned in my earlier post I just don't own a system that can play it. I don't have anything against shmups as a genre, I've just never actually played them much. I really don't think it was the game as much this month as it was how busy everyone was with the massive amount of new releases. It more than likely would have happened regardless of what game was chosen, so I wouldn't take it as a knock against Ikaruga or shmups in general (but then again, maybe GFF is full of shmup-hating bastards).

As for a suggestion, maybe we could give Max Payne a try? I admit that one of the main reasons I'm recommending it is because I need motivation to start on it again (I was about halfway through it before my PS3 died and thus I lost my save data), but quite a few people around here seem to like it and probably wouldn't mind playing it again, and I'm sure there are some others who have been wanting an excuse to give it a try as well. I guess it also helps that it should be pretty easy to get a copy (the PS2 and Xbox versions are like $5 at GameStop, and I'm sure you can find the PC version just as cheap on Steam or wherever).

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I kinda liked that most of the games have been easy to acquire for cheap (ICO probably being the only exception, though luckily most people seemed to have owned it already), but doing a recent release would definitely change that. I'm not totally against it, especially if enough people have bought or are planning to buy a recent release, but I kinda like how price hasn't really been a barrier to entry for the most part.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?