I wonder what the next dominant species will be. Maybe the honeybee
shortage is actually an accelerated selection process and the ones that
remain have language and tools. Or maybe cats have finally found out how
to process meat and mine for clay, which means they don't need humans
anymore. Or maybe the whole system has just collapsed and the place just
isn't suitable for life at all now. Let's talk about games!

Play:
--=--

Demon's Souls (PS5) - It's a marvelous remaster, full of little
improvements and additions that somehow don't negate the original
experience in an attempt to update the game. I'm doing what I always do
which is to play a slightly overpowered spellcaster type (the Royalty
class, if you must know) which means that I can stand a bit further back
from the action than most other Souls game players do. I seem to recall
that it was easier to grind for experience in the old game, which means
either that I'm remembering wrong or that they've rebalanced in ways I
haven't noticed. Onward to a third attempt at the Tower Knight then.

This might be fatigue from the COVID vaccine booster more than anything
else, but I don't feel like I'm having quite as much fun this time around.
This is functionally a decade-old game being presented with a fresh coat
of paint and a new engine, but it's still fiddly and smells wrong and
handles funny the way old cars^H^H^H^H games tend to. I'm going to have
some free time coming up later in December where I can actually sit and
enjoy the thing for more than a couple of hours at a time, so we'll be
able to see if the appeal lasts.

Yakuza: Like a Dragon (PS5) - Just checking out the updated game at 60 FPS
with the English dub, which is very nice to look at. It's worth mentioning
that in the western language version they case George Takei as Masumi
Arakawa, the fearsome boss who is the center of Kasuga Ichiban's world.
Say what you want about his performance in Star Trek, but Takei is giving
it his all here in the type of role we don't get to see him do very often.
I really wish the New Game+ mode saves transferred from PS4 to PS5,
because I just want to power my way through and see all the story bits
with him in it.

Want:
--=--

My Evercade Vs (Evercade) - DHL, lying crooks that they are, can't even
seem to tell me if the parcel has made it onto an aeroplane or not. I
remain sceptical that they can deliver anything to my house in decent
usable shape. I should have spring for expedited shipping through another
company.

Bin:
-==-

Transferring save data from the PS4 to the PS5 (PS5) - What a stabbing
pain in the tuchus. Some game data wouldn't convert cleanly, and the PS5
had a nasty habit of not actually reporting when all the required data for
running a game was actually present locally. There was quite a lot of
manual downloading from PSN to do in order to make every last title I own
playable. Because you never know when the urge to play Onechanbara or
Gozdilla or </checks> Cladun Returns might strike.

Expenditure:
-----=-----

Balance forward - $5,035

-KKC, whose spellchecker doesn't know 'tuchus'.
--
-- "People with happy families don't become spies. A bad | kendrick
childhood is the perfect background for covert ops. You | @
don't trust anyone. You're used to getting smacked around, | io-nyc
and you never get homesick." - Michael Westen, /Burn Notice/ | .com

Kendrick Kerwin Chua <kendrick@nospam.io-nyc> wrote:

> Play:

Hitman 3 (PS4) - finished the story and replayed a few levels, ending
up with Silent Assassin on most, five out of six I think. The levels
were a bit of a mixed bag, especially the final one which was arguably
too much like something out of Absolution (albeit understandably given
the context). For me Hitman 2 was probably the best game of this
trilogy overall, but really all of them were generally good with some
nice levels. And I do like that Hitman 3 lets you play every level in
one place.

I also had a go at some old DLC I don't think I've played before,
mainly the Patient Zero missions from the Hitman 2016 GOTY upgrade
(which apparently everyone with that game was given access to in
Hitman 3, whether they bought that version or not). Reheated Hitman
2016 levels unsurprisingly, but with curious spins on the last two -
Colorado became a sniper-only affair (which was a relief frankly), and
Hokkaido became almost like a zombie level, with an infection
spreading that you need to contain (true to the Patient Zero name I
suppose). With this being a Hitman game, it's probably not hard to
guess the containment method. Kinda hoping Boris isn't taking notes.

> Want:

Nothing.

> Bin:

A really neat way of doing Hitman 3's penultimate level (that I pretty
much stumbled into) seeming incompatible with a Silent Assassin
rating. One of the more memorable moments in any Hitman game, all the
same.

-Rus.

On 29 Nov 2021 at 09:33:26 GMT, "Kendrick Kerwin Chua"
<kendrick@nospam.io-nyc> wrote:

> I wonder what the next dominant species will be. Maybe the honeybee
> shortage is actually an accelerated selection process and the ones that
> remain have language and tools. Or maybe cats have finally found out how
> to process meat and mine for clay, which means they don't need humans
> anymore. Or maybe the whole system has just collapsed and the place just
> isn't suitable for life at all now. Let's talk about games!

The worlds in my only game this week are very post-collapse. No rats or
cockroaches visible, but I am traversing through it at anything up to
the speed of sound.

> Play:
> --=--

Exo One (Game Pass/Xbox, plus others) - it's a 3D Tiny Wings
functionalike, but in the style of a 65daysofstatic SFnal album cover
with bits of Solaris (movie) and 2001 (movie) in as well. It's very
pretty! Super stylised, and really pleasing to play. I spent last night
skip-skimming across an ocean, rather than the previous levels of
marble-rolling down hills with a 10G accelerator. It's also apparently
very short, which is nice. I have not finished it yet.

> Want:
> --=--

Um. 3D printing to be faster? 12 hour print runs are a bit dull. Also
PLA being hygroscopic is annoying, I can't use the colour I want because
I'm drying it out.

> Bin:
> -==-
>
> Transferring save data from the PS4 to the PS5 (PS5) - What a stabbing
> pain in the tuchus. Some game data wouldn't convert cleanly, and the PS5
> had a nasty habit of not actually reporting when all the required data for
> running a game was actually present locally. There was quite a lot of
> manual downloading from PSN to do in order to make every last title I own
> playable. Because you never know when the urge to play Onechanbara or
> Gozdilla or </checks> Cladun Returns might strike.
>

Was there not a 'download everything from the cloud' button? I'm sure I
remember a 'download everything' button...

Cheers - Jaimie

--
The Daily Mail should be forced to print the words
'The Paper That Supported Hitler' on its masthead,
just so that there is something that's true on the
front page every day. -- Mark Thomas