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30 years of platforming: Platformer appreciation thread

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  • Lindsay LohanLindsay Lohan Registered User regular
    skeldare wrote:
    I didn't really mind Gex 3D that much. I wouldn't say it was a top tier game, but it was alright. I always liked the spoofing other other genres/games thing that Gex did. I liked the Garfield Sega Genesis platformer for the same reason - I like games that bounce around being themes/genres.

    I don't know why but I thought Gex was awesome back in the PSX/N64 days. I'm sure if I went back and played them today I'd find that they haven't aged well though.

    I know part of the reason I remember liking Gex 3d was also because I was strictly a PSX gamer and it took awhile for developers to use the optional analog controller that got released. Games like Croc that used tank Resident Evil style controls were all around, so if a platform game controlled even remotely well it was a treat.

  • elkataselkatas Registered User regular
    edited December 2011
    I'm assuming you're only familiar with 3D Gex, which could be called the Bubsy of 3D platforming, but the original 2D 3DO Gex is awesome, one of my absolute favorite platformers. It's got a great difficulty curve (the later stages are very challenging), excellent graphics, and the voice overs are actually funny, unlike Bubsy. The voice clips in bubsy aren't funny at all ("Oh sure, blame the bubster" -- that doesn't even make sense without context) while a few voice clips in gex made me laugh (while swimming in the sewer, "I hope that was a candy bar").

    Well, at least it wasn't like in Awesome Possum. "I'm Cool!", "I'm Awesome!". Early 90's were really strange times for platformers, when every second rate developer tried to copy Sonic's success just by making extremely fast (read: unplayable) platformer. Awesome Possum, Bubsy, Rocky Rodent, Road Runner, Speedy Gonzales, Frantic Flea, Zool, Superfrog, Jazz Jackrabbit, to just name few. Outside few cases, all of them turned crap.

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  • Brainiac 8Brainiac 8 Don't call me Shirley... Registered User regular
    Bucky O'Hare for the NES was awesome though.

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  • ContentContextContentContext Registered User regular
    Just started getting back into Super Meat Boy. You'd think that months of inactivity leave me rusty, but I've been beating new levels and getting more A+ runs. Still fun, after 13k+ deaths.

  • mntorankusumntorankusu I'm not sure how to use this thing.... Registered User regular
    Jazz Jackrabbit was awesome

    Croc actually had good controls, I thought. Anything but modern, but it's still really playable. I gave it a shot a few months back after having forgot about it for 12 years or something, and it was a good time after I got used to the controls again.

  • Brainiac 8Brainiac 8 Don't call me Shirley... Registered User regular
    Ty for the PS2 was pretty fun. Generic but fun.

    And did anyone else play Haven: Call of the King for the PS2. Super crappy ending but it was fun most of the time.

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  • Linespider5Linespider5 ALL HAIL KING KILLMONGER Registered User regular
    edited December 2011
    I'm just gonna talk about Rayman Origins here, because I've been playing it for the past 4 days or so, and it bears some discussion.

    First off, I can hardly believe this game was actually made, but Rayman games must do well enough for this one to come out: Origins is just about literally a love letter to Rayman 1. That's right. One. Aside from being a completely unashamed 2d platformer with hidden collectables to acquire, it also brings back forgotten enemies, and, more importantly, a glorious preference for ideas that are absurd in all ways but still enhance gameplay.
    What's that? A giant, floating fork jabbering to itself with a slice of orange on its prongs? Just fine in Rayman Origins. No explanation. We don't learn there are fork-people that don't socialize or some bullshit backstory to justify there being anthropomorphic talking forks. What's important is that fork has a giant orange slice on it, and you can stand on that orange slice, but for a little while-if you stand on it too long you'll weigh the slice of orange down and force it through the fork and thus get stabbed by it. So you must jump from fork to fork and not loiter. It doesn't matter why, gameplay-wise you understand instantly.
    Lots of Rayman 1 references. I wouldn't expect many people to know (or care) who Moskito is, or that the rock golems even I forgot about make their return after 15 or so years, or the Magician, or Betilla the Fairy, or...anyway, this is very much Rayman 1 writ large, with generous portions of the Rayman 2 tropical melange and the Rayman 3 Teensie elements thrown in. Curiously no inclusion of Rabbids thus far, but, well, no doubt for the best.

    So it's a little strange. You'll jump right in, and the plot is sort of there but not written down. The enemies themselves are not particularly dangerous or even made to be evil-they're just living obstacles that can hurt you for the most part. You start to realize that although there's a finite ending to the game, it's not about getting to the end of the level so much as mastering the challenges that are scattered along the way. For example, there are lums, which you gather, but there are also lum-kings, or some such thing. When you grab a lum-king, it begins singing, and during the duration of its song, every lum turns red and is worth double its normal value. It become necessary to plan how you grab the lums to get the highest score out of this song while it lasts-all the while avoiding the death traps that you'll now be compelled to rush through quickly rather than just do carefully and competently.

    You begin intentionally killing yourself in order to perfect a jumping puzzle, rather than just getting to the level's end. There are no lives, you just restart, because it's about doing it right. You can progress without getting everything in a level, but you WILL want everything. If you're having a really hard time, like in the underwater ocean world, the game will even offer to let you past the level. You'll want to go back, to break every cage, to find every hidden goodie, to complete every medallion...because it can be done, and you will be compelled to learn how.
    Some oddness. The hidden cages aren't hidden quite the way they used to be...additionally, collecting lums can earn you a spot on the medallion when before only cages could do that. If that matters to you, or if you cared about how Rayman 1 played, you might feel an odd dissonance about this...if only because the flow feels a bit odd in this respect at first. When two or three of the spaces on a medallion are through lum collection rather than cages, and you can count on getting at least one cage in a level run-through, because each level always ends in a cage, it feels a little odd, almost like you don't even earn that one. But you get used to it. It's all tied into the lum system, and with the co-op function it makes more sense.

    There is a lot of Rayman 1 here. I'd also almost say that it's got some of Sonic 3 and Donkey Kong Country also, in terms of the mechanics, the collection system, the jumping puzzles (and the puzzles that involve jumping on multiple enemies in a row), the wall interactions, the running, it's very...those games, I'd say hardly anything reminiscent of a Mario title in Rayman. Along with getting the medallions, there are also Teeth, one for each world, that are harder to collect, and you give this to the Reaper, who in turn lets you into what I assume is the final setting in the game. Also, I want to mention this because I fell in love with the game completely when it happened:
    I'm serious, this is awesome, so if you're playing it already or are planning to, don't look at this spoiler
    After you make your way through all the major worlds, the guardian fairies will mention their concern for the fate of the rulers of these worlds. You return to the world map, and suddenly each world has a second node to it, with just as many levels in it as the first part, effectively suddenly doubling the size of the game. It takes serious balls to do this, and it's exactly the kind of thing I want to see in my games. You've been lead to think you've seen it all, and then you know you haven't seen half of what's there.

    Seriously. Buy this game. It's the best platformer of the year, and I want to see them get the go ahead to make another one in 2013 or something, because what's demonstrated in Origins is fantastic but also seems like the groundwork for something that hasn't been done this well in a very long time, and, having proven what's possible, this team deserves getting to really apply those lessons to a full-fledged sequel.

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  • anoffdayanoffday To be changed whenever Anoffday gets around to it. Registered User regular
    edited December 2011
    Brainiac 8 wrote:
    Bucky O'Hare for the NES was awesome though.

    The NES has so many awesome platformers. Batman and Power Blade are two that come to mind for being awesome.
    Arteen wrote:
    Maybe not the most high-profile game, but M.C. Kids was one of my favorite NES platformers. Unfortunately a tool-assisted speedrun is the best youtube video I could find of this game. The game is too often dismissed as a "crappy McDonalds game", despite being well-designed and clever.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCK8SKN8nNg

    I second this. M.C. Kids has a lot of stuff in it that surprised me. It had some cool ideas for it's time. Also, like everyone else has said Duck Tales is awesome.

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  • elkataselkatas Registered User regular
    edited December 2011
    anoffday wrote:
    The NES has so many awesome platformers. Batman and Power Blade are two that come to mind for being awesome.

    Last stage of Batman was so completely unfair that it isn't even funny. First you fight against Firefly and then the Joker without any kind of breaks. Interestingly enough, it seems that this was last minute change, because on prototype that was send for review purposes, cutscenes are completely different, and you don't fight The Joker at all. Instead, he is killed on the cutscene. On video below you can see the cutscenes:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtLVxW0T9HE
    Engrish, engrish, hur hur, herp derp. :P

    It was either Warner Bros or DC Comics that didn't like the cutscenes, and I personally believe the latter was responsible for the changes. Some of the prototype cutscenes are directly borrowed from Alan Moore's "Batman: The Killing Joke", and SunSoft had only rights for the movie, not the comic.

    elkatas on
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  • VicVic Registered User regular
    Hey, I recognize Heart of Darkness! I loved that game, it has been ages since I thought about it.

  • Magic PinkMagic Pink Tur-Boner-Fed Registered User regular
    Ditto on the Rayman Origins love. It's an amazing, amazing game. All you have to do is try the demo and you'll be all over the Buy button like whipped cream on tits.

  • UncleSporkyUncleSporky Registered User regular
    elkatas wrote:
    It was either Warner Bros or DC Comics that didn't like the cutscenes, and I personally believe the latter was responsible for the changes. Some of the prototype cutscenes are directly borrowed from Alan Moore's "Batman: The Killing Joke", and SunSoft had only rights for the movie, not the comic.

    Hm, I don't recognize any of that from The Killing Joke. Strange.

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  • SmoogySmoogy Registered User regular
    I have to say, I think Mega Man 2 and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for NES bring back the best memories for me of any platformer.

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  • elkataselkatas Registered User regular
    edited December 2011
    Hm, I don't recognize any of that from The Killing Joke. Strange.

    Well, some of the poses, and still pics of Batman. That also probably caused problems, because Batman wasn't wearing movie suit, but the one from comics.

    elkatas on
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  • Brainiac 8Brainiac 8 Don't call me Shirley... Registered User regular
    edited December 2011
    It's funny, Rayman Origins to me is one of the prettiest games of the year. It just looks fantastic.

    As a platformer though, I just can't get into it. It's just sub-par with slippery controls.

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  • maximumzeromaximumzero I...wait, what? New Orleans, LARegistered User regular
    Brainiac 8 wrote:
    It's funny, Rayman Origins to me is one of the prettiest games of the year. It just looks fantastic.

    As a platformer though, I just can't get into it. It's just sub-par with slippery controls.

    The controls don't bother me, but in general there's a weird feeling of disconnect with the world, as if the collision detection is just slightly off.

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  • Magic PinkMagic Pink Tur-Boner-Fed Registered User regular
    Brainiac 8 wrote:
    It's funny, Rayman Origins to me is one of the prettiest games of the year. It just looks fantastic.

    As a platformer though, I just can't get into it. It's just sub-par with slippery controls.

    The controls don't bother me, but in general there's a weird feeling of disconnect with the world, as if the collision detection is just slightly off.


    I got that on the 360 demo but not on the PS3 demo so that's the version I went with.

  • KobunKobun Registered User regular
    edited December 2011
    elkatas wrote:
    It was either Warner Bros or DC Comics that didn't like the cutscenes, and I personally believe the latter was responsible for the changes. Some of the prototype cutscenes are directly borrowed from Alan Moore's "Batman: The Killing Joke", and SunSoft had only rights for the movie, not the comic.

    Also not seeing The Killing Joke there, and I doubt the changes were made just because they didn't like the ending cutscene. Not being able to fight Joker in a Batman game where Joker is the villain is pretty dumb, and I'd imagine any changes made were to fix that error. I always found it odd that Firefly made the game considering it was the movie license, and leaving him in as the main boss would have been a mistake. It does explain why the Joker fight was so lame though.

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  • anoffdayanoffday To be changed whenever Anoffday gets around to it. Registered User regular
    edited December 2011
    Speaking of awesome platformers I just picked up Super Mario Land 2 and VVVVVV from the 3DS eshop. I'm pretty psyched to have VVVVVV on the go now. To anyone who hasn't played VVVVVV, you really should check it out at least on PC. It's hard, but it's not a frustrating hard. It's more of a Super Meat Boy hard. It's never cheap.
    Brainiac 8 wrote:
    This thread makes me sad for what happened to Spyro. :(

    PS1 Spyro is so good. I was just playing it awhile ago on my PS3 because it was one of the free games for PSN Plus, but then it expired and they took it away from me. :( I really should just buy it. Or pick up an actual copy.

    Back in the day before I could afford my own games, I remember playing a Spyro demo on one of those Pizza Hut PS1 demo discs. I played the heck out of that demo.

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  • Page-Page- Registered User regular
    Dustforce has a release date. It's January 17th.

    Despite my problems with--and hatred for--steam I'm seriously considering getting it, though I do wish they were selling it independently as well. Steam will make them the big bucks, though, so good for them.

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