Hard Corps for PSN/XBLA (Konami published/Arc System Works developed)

[iconoclast]

BC Rearmed 2 froze on me a few times as well. I think the game is just glitchy shit. It was pissing me off too since it kept freezing in the exact same spot at the end of a long spiked hallway you have to swing through in order to get a power up.

But anyway, I've been playing more of this. I've made it up to stage 6 without a death so far on my best run, but I fucked up and lost my weapons. I know I can do stages 7 and 8 without a death, so I'm sure I can get the achievement for beating arcade mode without dying. Just need to play perfectly for an hour and a half straight.

I think this is my favorite game of the year so far. Even more so than MvC3 and Dead Space 2. Amazing game, easily one of the best on XBLA.

[The Sceneman]

yeah the freezing is really prevalent for me, happened 3 times last night. It sucks cos I just wanna 200 it and get it out of the way. I might just take the plunge and buy Hard Corps. Me and quietID were struggling on stage one  game is brutal but I should get at least halfway decent with some practice

[iconoclast]

42 hours and 71,000 kills later, I'm finally done. One of the hardest & most satisfying games I've ever completed, right up there with DoA4, SF4, and NG2. Overall, I'd say this is one of, if not the best game on XBLA, and on top of that, it's my favorite run and gun shooter since Metal Slug 3. It's not a game for everyone though -- the high difficulty will probably turn a lot of people off, but obviously I'm someone who likes challenging games, so this was right up my alley. I loved almost every minute of it (the "grind Rising mode" achievement was a little boring).

I need to play the PS2 Contras soon, but I need a break from these games for a while. Still, this is my favorite Contra game. Or at least, it's tied with Contra 3.

[Bebpo]

Damn, 42 hours.  I'm pretty sure you got your $10 out of that game!

[demi]

only the japanese would put grinding in a shooter game. DOWN WITH JAPANESE DESIGN

[Beezy]

This game is hard, but amazing. If there was only arcade mode and no rising mode though, I'd be pissed off.

[iconoclast]

only the japanese would put grinding in a shooter game. DOWN WITH JAPANESE DESIGN

Rising mode is kinda RPGish. Meaning, your score gets converted to money, and with that money you can buy a whole bunch of upgrades for your character (which only apply to Rising mode). There's an achievement for maxing out both starting characters, Bahamut and Krystal. It's easy since the scoring system is abusable and you can get 300 million points in 30 minutes (which is way more than what's necessary to max someone out from scratch), but since you just sit there killing infinite spawning robots, it's pretty boring.

Damn, 42 hours.  I'm pretty sure you got your $10 out of that game!

$17.50 actually! $15 base game and $2.50 Sayuri DLC. Though that is still a great price, since this game could EASILY pass off as a PSP game since it has tons of content and high production values. And the online play is solid.

[originalz]

Eh, I guess I'll get it when it goes on sale.

[bork]

I finally tried the demo and bought the game.  What is up with the 30 second stage load times?  Also bought Sayuri since playing with her reminds me of Strider.  Seems like a fun title.

[originalz]

This game is on sale so I bought it.  It's definitely a much better deal for 600 points.  Game does get better after the first stage but still has too many flaws and I don't understand how damage is decided.  I also keep pressing the wrong buttons on the controller which causes worthless deaths.  Oh well, somewhat satisfying to just dash nonstop throughout the level.

[iconoclast]

If you get hit while dashing, you lose 2 bars of health. Otherwise it's just 1 bar no matter what you get hit by IIRC.


And one protip for you: The laser and machinegun are super powerful - try to protect them at all cost. If you do get hit, most of the stages aren't hard to get through with the basic peashooter, but the laser and machinegun make each boss 10x easier.

[originalz]

Yeah, I noticed that.  The boss fights are a real drag if you lose a good weapon, and some of the boss fights take too damn long as it is.  First thing I unlocked in rising mode is the autofire, makes the game a lot more bearable but you can't use it in arcade mode.