Game Discussion of The Week: Loaded series

The first game Loaded is one of my fondest gaming memories, and for many reasons. It was my first M-rated videogame I've ever played. In fact I played at a very early age (before I went to elementary school actually). My mom did not like that I played it, and the only reason I can think of why I played it was that my dad was into gaming at the time and this was one of his favorites. At the time I never got past the 3rd level as it was too scary with regenerating zombies (so I only played the 2 first stages over and over again). I have great memories watching my dad play this, and it's a shame he never got into gaming past the 5th gen. Nowadays he only plays Montezuma's Revenge and Minesweeper.

I also love this game because it has co-op. Good times were had when my best childhood friend would come over and we would play this together.

Later, when I was into making gaming walkthroughs on YouTube. This was one of the last games I recorded before I ultimately retired from making videos. And at the time this was the pinnacle of quality I produced (I recorded it with a shitty webcam but I got good with it; no glare on the TV and didn't fuck up the audio).

Back to the game itself: extremely fun, awesome characters, fantastic theme (psychopaths with crazy guns!) and who can forget the kick-ass soundtrack (it was so good they even released it on CD by itself!). 5/5 no doubt

No I won't actually. It's extremely outdated as I did most of them while in 6th and 7th with a 240P webcam with no external microphone.

Good choice, Armored Core Raven. This is a pretty fun game, more so when you take into account the time it was released - the carnage, the psycopath characters are all very 90s, and as a kid that surely caught my attention.

Two iconic games from the legendary 32-bit generation, sadly also two of the most forgotten.

Loaded was exactly what me and my friends wanted back in the mid 90s, it had the gore, blood, guts, action, insanity and morbid grittiness we craved after having been raised with two generations consisting mostly of cute and family friendly platform heroes and other "normal" games with little to no gore to be found. This was a game that alongside other classics like Doom, Mortal Kombat and WipEout helped make videogames something you didn't have to grow out of just because you got older.
We plowed through countless hoards of enemies in the two-player mode and had a blast doing so, and with a good soundtrack it all just came together into an unforgettable classic for us.
Yeah, we had fun with Loaded, despite not getting very far due to the unfair difficulty with endlessly spawning enemies, some being tiny and fast and nearly impossible to hit, a framerate that grinds the game to a crawl a lot of the time and a mostly useless map that doesn't show much of anything, just a basic layout of the walls around you.
The over-the-top characters, action and violence it offered made up for the flaws rather nicely for the time, but going back to it now has proven a bit more challenging for me, I simply can't enjoy it like I did back then, for one I'm playing alone so it's just the game and myself, no buffer in the form of a friend between me and all the shortcomings, and sadly it can very easily turn into an infuriating experience.
It's also not a good game to play through in one sitting, the repetitive nature of it with shooting all the bad guys and collecting all the keys to open all the doors on every level with little to no variety is best suited for taking on one or two levels at a time, three at most, otherwise the risk of growing tired of it and not having a good time at all skyrockets.
I've still never played the Saturn version, only PlayStation.

Shortly thereafter ReLoaded also became an instant favorite, both on PlayStation and PC, and while maintaining all the good stuff Loaded delivered like the gore, action and crazy characters etc., it also evolved, expanded and improved the gameplay formula and ironed out most if not all of the issues that plagued the original. We had as much, if not more fun with this one because of this and ReLoaded quickly became the game we returned to for more of the two.
It still plays very similarly to Loaded but the mission objectives and visual themes are much more varied, no levels feel rehashed and the same, the framerate is vastly improved, the map is more useful showing you where you've been so you can more easily make out where to go next and the playable characters also had proper intros that were very entertaining and helped make them stand out from each other and make them so much more individually memorable as a result.
I can play this and have a great time all the way to the end, regardless if it ends with a Game Over after having run out of continues or the actual end of the game doesn't matter, I always have a blast with ReLoaded, the variety of the missions and lack of annoying shortcomings makes it so much more approachable for a full playthrough and eliminates the need to pace yourself.

I still love both though, I'm glad I have them and I recommend either, or preferably both for those who haven't experienced them yet.

To the people who has played this: who was your favorite character?

Even though Fwank was far from the best character (in the original) I still thought he was the coolest. Teddy bear explosives, a gun cannon that shoots fireballs and his character was a complete psychopath. Totally awesome.

As for the best character it would probably be Momma (most health and best bomb) or Cap'n Hands (moderate speed and health, very good bomb and had symmetrical gunfire).

I'm in the same boat. I actually quickly scanned the screen, and I assumed it said Bases Loaded. From what I've read, it seems to be like Smash TV. I'm a huge fan of that game, so I'll have to check it out sometime.