Been a while since we've seen a thread like this? What's spinnin' in your systems?

I have:

Persona 3 (PS2) - I got myself into an unplayable position in my first foray into the Persona universe (FES), so I decided to start fresh with the original. After learning the fundamentals of fusing, and discovering an extremely handy trick for leveling my dudes, the game has become almost embarrassingly easy; bosses that once dominated me to the point of being nigh impossible to beat now get knocked around like so much used kleenex. My goal now is to fuse my already well-performing, yet hopelessly overworked, personas into much stronger forms (I'm noting a need to learn third level elemental and healing spells).

Baldur's Gate (PC) - I had been warned of this games' difficulty, and while the first three or so hours were incredibly grueling, it has since become laughably easy. I attribute this to the many, many hours I spent rerolling my stats at the beginning to get the highest possible in as many stats as I could. I ended up with 18 points (the absolute highest a human can go in AD&D) in each category with the exception of intelligence, which is sitting at 11. A fair trade for being the peak of human performance in every other category. I've heard the sequel is incredibly tough, so I figure by getting my character as high as I can go in terms of level and performance, I'll be well prepared to dive head-first into what I'm told is one of the greatest games of all time.

After this, it'll be another round of P3 to do the new game plus to prep for FES. After that, I plan on replaying through the Half-Life series. What about everyone else?

Yes, Baldur's Gate is absolutely fantastic! I think it puts nearly every FF game to shame (with a few exceptions). The first Baldur's Gate is good... but in BG II the game takes off and becomes truly a classic! You need to play this game through to its conclusion (Throne of Baal) in order to get the complete picture. Easily, one of the most satisfying RPGs ever made.

cheers,

-avatar!

At the moment, my gaming is restricted to my daily bus rides.  I'm making my way through Ys 7 right now, and have Ys I & II Chronicles and Tokimeki Memorial 4 ready to go once I get through that.

Lessee, I just about wrapped up FFXIII, although the Last Boss killed me off in such an incredibly cheap and infuriating way I'm not too sure I'm going to try again anytime soon.
Fortunately, Mass Effect 2 has come along to take FF's place, so I'll be playing that instead. Just got in about 2 hours yesterday and it's already a great experience.

On PSP, I'm playing Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep which is so ridiculously awesome I'm hardly progressing because EVERYTHING is so much fun I'm spending more time on mini-games than the main game.
Also, Shimomura did a fantastic job this time. People who were disappointed with the low quality synth in KH2 are definitely going to want to check this one out.

And that's about it.
I still haven't finished Bayonetta despite my ardent love for it though. RPGs just go first....

im playing Mortgage Mania 2010,, there are no save points, you just keep going until you get to the end

I recently finished up a replay of Final Fantasy VIII.  I definitely have much more respect for that game than I did back when I first played it.  When the game came out I totally rushed through it, but this time I actually took it slow and soaked everything up.. so good!  Best overall ending theme from the entire series by the way, wow.  Also, right before FF8 I demolished New Super Mario Bros. Wii and Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, both were incredible (for completely different reasons, obviously, SH for the fun gameplay and Mario for the amazing psychological plot )

As for right now, I'm playing Resident Evil Code Veronica X on PS2.  Believe it or not this is my first time playing it.  As far as the main RE series goes, this and Resident Evil 0 are the only ones I've never played all the way through.  My goal is to finish up Code Veronica so I can move on to Darkside Chronicles on the Wii, as it mainly follows the plot from RE2 and CV.  My friend finished it and said it was excellent and that the soundtrack was top notch, it even has some music in there performed by an orchestra a la RE5.  I went through the first couple levels with him and he's so right.  Walking the streets of Raccoon City and eventually re-visiting the police station in full 3D goodness as the gun-wielding Leon and Claire = awesome.  So I'll be playing that soon for sure.

Then we have No More Heroes 2 coming out any day now, followed up by Heavy Rain on PS3 next month.  It sure is a good time to be a gamer!

I'm currently playing through Killzone 2. When I finish it, I'll be waiting for Mass Effect 2 to come out.

ive been meaning to play ff8 again, I only played it through it twice so im sure it would feel fresh again,, the last being june 2000 when i had strep throat and tore through it in 9 days. the second time i made sure to draw 100 of every new magic i came upon for stat junctioning, then near the end walked around forever on 'island closest to heaven' and 'island closest to hell' to max out on the super magics. the end battle was still hard as hell.

If there's been one staple in my gaming diet during the past fourteen months, it's Super Street Fighter II HD Remix.  It's the only game I've found myself returning to on a weekly, sometimes day to day basis.  I love my SFII.   If you see me on Xbox Live, chances are I'll be playing HD Remix.  On PSN, not so much; the number of people still playing the game on said service has tapered off dramatically.

Despite my nearing the end, I've decided to go back and start Valkyria Chronicles over again from the beginning.  There were several unfortunate casualties met because of my unsteady tactical hand, and some leveling up choices I wished I could take back or change around. 

Darkside Chronicles went dirt-cheap real fast, so I'll probably nab it soon myself.  A shame the game doesn't offer online co-op; I definitely would've been your partner in arms, Mike.

I think XLord007 is playing the exact same game.  Maybe YOU guys can do with some co-op play.

It's an interesting game, no doubt, but the there are lot of additional microtransactions that they don't tell you about on the back of the box.  Plus, you have to do a lot of busy work and fetch quests between story missions.

I'm currently stuck on Prof Layton and the Diabolical Box for DS, mainly because I just watch too much tv to play video games.  I have a smattering of other games I've started but not finished yet as well.  Add to that a humongous backlog and it's a pretty sad situation. =p 

What I really need is like a month's vacation from work so I can just sit down and game hahaha.

A month off to play games? I could do with that. The only big screen game I've played in the last six months is Uncharted 2. Just no time to sit and play games and that's just not right.

Over the last two days, I have played through the new Silent Hill three times. I think I love it.

Before that, it was Zelda Spirit Tracks. I didn't finish it. There's nothing wrong with the game but I just didn't feel involved or something. I'll probably finish it another time. Also got briefly addicted to Holy Invasion Of Privacy Badman.

I actually did that once, around 1999, since a company I was working for at the time had to file Chapter 13 (Bankruptcy Re-Organization) and they eliminated over half the company.

With no warning, we went into work that day like every other day, and by lunchtime we were all tossed out on the street, without even a single day's notice. It was like getting sucker-punched right in the face, with everyone just looking around in a daze.

With a combo of alternating shock and rage at our betrayal, I was in no state to even think about job hunting, so I said F-CK THOSE CORPORATIONS: I'm gonna sit here with my PSX all day. 

So for about a month I just kicked back and did nothing but play PS1 games. Of course at the end of that month I was totally starving and completely broke, so I went looking for anyplace that was hiring, and FAST.  It was fun while it lasted.

Been there, and it was awesome. I used my time off between jobs a few years back to get through some serious gaming backlog. Somehow it just made much more sense for me to quit my job and play Viewtiful Joe 2 in my pajamas all day.

You switched those intentionally...right?

...

Ar-Tonelico 2: I really ought to finish this game one of these days; I'm right before the final dungeon, but the glitch with one of the last boss battles in the game has me discouraged from pursuing it further.

Persona 3: I've sunk about 30~40 hours into the game; y'know, all I really need are just a few long games I can really sink some time into, and enjoy, as opposed to a bunch of short games that aren't really fulfilling. Well, then again, sometimes I really enjoy short games over really long ones, something I can just finish really quickly in order to feel satisfied...hmm....

Poison Pink / Eternal Poison (U.S.): I dread SRPGs, and this one especially, the battle system seems like it's going to be pretty basic. I'm going to read more into it, though; soundtrack's kick ass, I'll tell you that much! But the plot seems like it's going to be pretty disappointing...for games which're just vaguely more complicated versions of Chess, they either need to tack on great strategic gameplay mechanics, or a really involving plot...

Soul Nomad & The World Eaters: On one hand, this's probably one of the best SRPGs NIS has ever created; the whole concept of dystopian, medieval world has me sold, but it's been 10 hours, and the plot hasn't progressed much, but I'm really holding my hands out for it. Also still largely getting a grasp of gameplay mechanics; walkthroughs have been helpful about me winning, but I don't understand why I'm winning; I'm just following what the walkthrough tells me to do....

Valkyrie Profile 2: Been through the first 2 major dungeons and boss fights, but honestly, I'm having trouble giving a shit about the plot or characters, since they've been pretty sparse about plot and character details; it's supposed to be based on Norse mythology, but it seems like they're taking shittons of artistic liberty with it. I'm really enjoying the battle system, even if it is a bit of a button masher, and I'm at least enjoying the settings, atmosphere, and graphics.

In other words, I'm going to be selling off all of these after I finish them, and hopefully come across games I'll hopefully enjoy more, as opposed to feeling like that they're homework for me to do...

That was one of my major gripes with FFVIII: the string of final battles is insanely long and hard.
I recall the very first time I tried to tackle the last bosses it took me over 2 hours and I still died at the very last one.
It doesn't help that the game's main system of Guardian Forces is rendered useless either.

So what I do now is just draw as much Aura spells in advance as I can find (the last Seifer battle is perfect for this) and just keep spamming Squall's, Zell's and Irvine's limit breaks or whatever they were called.
Pretty much every boss goes down in a jiffy like that.

Yeah, FFVIII is impossible to beat without Squall's Lionheart Limit Break.

Impossible? Hardly. Quistis + Degenerator (able to get surprisingly early, even before you enter the fire cave), Zell + Duel (alternate between up/down and the right/left, don't even bother with the other ones), Irvine + Armor Piercing rounds and you're good to go. Selphie and Rinoa were cut from the moment I had other options.

Even without spamming limit breaks, if you junctioned wisely, you could dominate in that game.

Squall with Auto Haste, Darkside with Drain as my St-Attack for instance, was pretty much my setup for the entire game.

I always thought it funny, that, even though those Stat-inducing spells never worked when used normally, they functioned FLAWLESSLY when you Status-Junctioned them to your attacks, so long as your enemies didn't have immunity to those status ailments.

God, Auto Haste alone was nuts enough if you had a decent amount of speed through junctioning.

Auto-Haste especially kicks ass when you're trying to hunt Cactaurs; they give shittons of AP (20 a pop), but they have high Evasion, and they tend to flee the battle almost as quickly as it's begun.

Squall (with any model gunblade) and Selphie (with Strange Vision) will annihilate cactuars. Get Zell's speed (with Triple) and whatever junctions to Hit% and you'll be laughing your way to a full set of mastered GF's.

yes,, 100 death spells junctioned to your weapon gave an enormously high instant kill rate that worked on all but the most powerful enemies. It was kinda like putting the HADES materia on your weapon in ff7,, if it didnt kill em right away, they'd be a poisoned, confused, mini'd little puss-ball with a death clock over their head.

honestly,, it has been so long,, i couldnt even remember the cowboy guy's name in ff8 until you posted it.. i was thinking "oh it will come back to me, i dont need to look it up on google".

Bayonetta - going slower than anticipated, because I haven't played it often, and I've been refusing to continue when i die (that's just how I play these sorts of games) and nothing ruins a good mood faster than mowing stuff down for 20 minutes and then dying on a QTE I didn't see coming.

Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass - I really suck at this.

Lego Indiana Jones - came with my 360 and I'm only just getting to it. It's cute and all, but it seems way too easy to just stumble off a cliff and to your doom, repeatedly. I wish there was a Mario-style 'catch yourself' ledge grab.

Megaman 9 - trying like hell to get the Conservationist and Peacekeeper achievements before 10 hits, but I keep making stupid mistakes in the Wily stages.

New Super Mario Bros. Wii - fun with a don't-care crowd, but when I play solo and I'm going after all the Star Coins? I just want to punch things.

Raiden IV - pretty much what I expected it to be.

I also recently replayed some of FF7, Megaman 4, and (god help me) Majora's Mask. There's also (as usual) a spate of games I've picked up but not yet tried - Crystal Bearers, 'Splosion Man, Shadow Complex, Sands of Destruction. Finally, I've gotta get my PS3 fixed; I need Shatter back in my life.
As I did last year, I've set up a vacation from work to start on my birthday (tomorrow), so I should have time to get deeper into these...until NMH2 hits later this week, of course. Then all bets are off.

P.S. I've tried about two-and-a-half hours' worth of P3 FES - I'm a bit irritated at this point that I've done more high schoolery than dungeon-crawling (these guys get tired way too quickly). How long would I have to invest before the game becomes more about the latter?

P.P.S. The final battle to FF8 is one of my favorite things about the game, personally. Especially if you nerf your stats beforehand.

avatar!, I completely rescind my comments about Baldur's Gate being easy; I just fought my first mage, and he murdered the shit out of my party. It was just the one mage, I thought I could take him!