Hmmm... I'm no die hard SHMUP fan but really dug Aegis Wing and have been wanting something along those lines ever since. That's pretty slow paced. How does it compare to that one?

Aegis Wing is definitely more fun, with more character and felt more fast-paced to me than Söldner-X. And AW was free, so there's that. But part of what hurt Söldner-X for me was it's sluggish controls on the PC, which may be completely different on a console.

Any game with two umlauts I buy, period. I've been waiting for Söldner-X ever since it was announced.



Also, I think Eden is one of the hardest games I've ever played. The good news is that it does have a learning curve and eventually you do get better, but it's a hard, long, uphill climb.

I stopped playing it once Fallout 3 and LBP came out but I think I was in the Top 500 worldwide.

I don't get the hate for Eden. I'm on garden 7 and have gotten every Spectra so far, and I'm just now starting to feel the difficulty pinch. Echochrome, on the other hand, is much more frustrating. White hot rage frustrating. And I've only done maybe 10 puzzles, tops.

I think there are three things that are really frustrating about echochrome. First the rules of the world sometimes seem inconsistant -- sometimes you'll think you can fuse two platforms and you'll find you can't. Second, the jump mechanic is off. It's sometimes impossible to tell where you'll land until you take a leap of faith. That can be pretty annoying. Third and most importantly, I hate the timer. There's no reason why the game kicks you out if you don't finish a level by some arbitrary time -- give me a penalty or a zero score, but to play a level for 10 minutes and then get kicked out just before completion is super-frustrating and seems to be a really bad decision by the game designers.

Having said all that, I still really like the game.

The timer is my biggest complaint so far. I redid one level 3-4 times before I finally got within an inch of touching the final 'dummy' marker only to have time run out a split second before he touched to end the level.

I just downloaded a 63mb "update" (v2.05) for Pixeljunk Monsters.

I have no idea what it updated (no new levels, no setting update, no additional trophies), nor can I find any info online. I've had the trophy patch since the release in October.

Any clue what this was for?

New update in the store. The big item is Lumines Supernova. I don't know how this version is different from previous ones. It's $14.99, which is $5 more than the XBLa version, but they do have the holiday skins for free and they're 400 points on XBLA, so that makes up the difference right there.

There are free downloads for High Velocity Bowling including a Turkey ball. Free character in Hot Shots Golf as well. Sumo wrestler for Pain for 99 cents.

Jeopardy dropped to $9.99 but I don't know if that's just temporary.

It's permanent.

Castlevania Chronicles and Suikoden have also been recently added to the PSone download section. I'll probably buy Castlevania tonight.

What does Lumines play like? I watched a few videos on Youtube and got a vague idea, but I didn't care for the concept of that horizontally travelling "beam." Is that a crucial part of the gameplay or is it only in a certain mode?

Lumenes is friggin' awesome. In a nutshell, it's falling blocks like Tetris, but the blocks are all 2X2 and of two colors in any of the possible combos (1 red, 3 white squares, 2 red next to 2 white, checkerboard red & white, all white, ect). You try to make a solid block of one color and the larger the block you make, the bigger the bonus. The blocks don't clear instantly -- instead they clear by a sweeping vertical line that moves in time to the music. This can allow you to get better combos going if you hurry. The longer you play, the more "skins" you open with new backgrounds, block colors and music. I just love the game, even though I'm not at all good at it.

I love puzzle games but just couldn't get into Lumines.

Lumines is the best puzzle game since Tetris.

I have had this happen several times now. I usually figure out what I need to do the first time and can complete on the second try though. Thankfully Pixeljunk Eden will add a continue feature soon to kill some of the constant irritation I have with the timer in that game.

Getting Suikoden was an awesome surprise. Bring on the second one Sony. I hope they can start adding at least one PS1 game a week from now on.

Hmm, alright, that's mostly what I gathered from the videos. I'm just not crazy about the hurrying... Always played my puzzle games on the lower speed settings since I like being able to think about setting up big combos and whatnot. It's too bad there doesn't appear to be a Lumines demo available other than for PSP, which I don't have. The lack of demos is one of the more glaring problems I have with PSN; I'd be a lot more willing to spend $10-$15 on some of the games if I could try them first.

Yeah, the lack of demos is a big problem on PSN. I have no idea why they won't provide them on games where the XBLA version has one (like Lumines). It really makes no sense to me, but a lot of the things Sony has done make no sense to me. No question - The Last Guy would have totally tanked if not for the demo that let everyone see how great it was.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/11900/

Suikoden was one of my favorite RPGs in the PSone era. Highly recomended, Suikoden 2 is my favorite RPG of that era, if not all time. Buy the first if you are a fan of JRPG.

Has anyone tried out Crash Commando yet? It looks like it could be a lot of fun, but I'm just not sure without a demo out there.

In the spirit of laziness, I'll repost something I wrote on another forum about the game:

"Just wanted to give a little love to Crash Commando, a recent PSN release. It's a pure online deathmatch sort of game where you control a little soldier in a "red vs. blue" war. You can either play standard deathmatch or two types of objective games. There's a good selection of weapons, and some maps have vehicles. Everything controls well and it's a very funny, over-the-top experience. So far I've only played against bots as I learn the basics, but I'm planning to jump into the online play once I finish the tutorial bot levels.

It's $10, and unfortunately there's no demo. I'd recommend at least checking out the trailer on the PSN. If you're not sold on the game, Sony tends to have fairly regular sales, so you might be able to snag it for $5 at some point down the road."

That's my idea -- wait for the next $5 sale and snag it then.

It seems like a prime candidate for a future PSN sale and I would highly recommend it at the $5 price level.

Two puzzlers up on PSN today for $10 each.

Cuboid
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Mahjong Tales
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Cuboid looks like a must (the gameplay mechanics remind me of the Dreamcast's Lost Golem game, which I loved) and I could be swayed into buying Mahjong during a sale. I tried Lumines and disliked it immensely, so I'm really in the mood for a puzzle game I can enjoy.

Definitely want Mahjong. Love playing Mahjong solitaire games so its a must in this package.

just as a follow up re: PJE

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/944/944735p1.html