Insert vague complaint about American gun violence here.

Play:
--=--

Yakuza 2 Kiwami (PC) - No idea why I'm doing this. I originally spun it up
just to get good Zoom meeting backdrops from the drab office spaces in
Kamurocho and Sotenbori and suddenly I found myself negotiating peace with
the Omi clan and defending Kamurocho Hills from the Colour Gangs and
raising money to keep Sunflower orphanage running properly. I forgot that
there are all kinds of time-displaced call-forward events to things that
will happen later in the series timeline since they were able to retrofit
some of the funny sidequests that way, like how Kiryu predicts being able
to run his own orphanage or become a taxi driver in the future. Apropos of
nothing, my favourite background image is the one just on top of the fried
chicken place on the western-most side of Sotenbori, where you get a nice
view of the street and the neon sign over the gated pathway.

Guardians of the Galaxy (PS5) - What a pleasant game. I bought this
because I wanted to support the positive things I'd heard about its
development and production, and I have to admit that it's not really the
normal type of game I prefer to play. But just working my way through that
initial intro section was enough to put an unironic smile on the otherwise
cortisol-heavy meat mask that I dare call a face. Eidos Montreal seems to
have put so much genuine love into this game, and I don't use the term
'love' lightly when describing the motivation to produce something that
has to slot between art and commercial product. It's a lovely, lovingly
crafted game that really seems to be about human connections and it's
almost devoid of any snark or irony. I really want to see more of it.

Evercade Vs (ARC) - My Founder's Edition console finally game on Friday.
Weirdly, it didn't land in the States until Thursday, having been stuck in
Canadian customs because Funstock couldn't ship it right into the country
for some reason. And they made it go 900 miles across the continent in the
space of 12 hours. It's pleasant and the emulation is perfect and it's
going to go on top of the pile of USB-powered HDMI-output emulation
systems and there's every danger I may not touch it again. It was nice to
see my name in the credits of something that *didn't* have anything to do
with academia or crime research.

Want:
--=--

Gaiares (MD) - Strictly Limited is selling Retro-Bit's reissue Megadrive
cart. Knowing their market as they do, the T-shirt that accompanies the
game comes only in Large or Extra-Large. I'm not sure that I'm willing to
spend 55 Euros on that. I have another two weeks to decide, but if I
didn't think that the Deathsmiles ports were worth picking up I probably
won't get this one either.

Bin:
-==-

Confusing DLC - Stop calling it a 'Season Pass' would you please? Content
is content and is also discrete and divisible. If you don't tell me
exactly what I'm exchanging money for then it's likely I'm going to go
spend the money on something else that isn't confusing or misleading. This
is why I waited three years to get the Fallout 4 expansions, at a massive
discount because I couldn't tell what I was paying for otherwise.

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

Balance forward - $5,035

Fallout 4 GOTY (PS4) - $15
Kingdom Hearts All-In-One (PS4) - $25
Guardians of the Galaxy (PS5) - $27

Total year-to-date - $5,102

-KKC, what an expensive year it's been.
--
-- "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

On 5 Dec 2021 at 23:58:13 GMT, "Kendrick Kerwin Chua"
<kendrick@nospam.io-nyc> wrote:

>
> Insert vague complaint about American gun violence here.
>
> Play:
> --=--

Mmmmmnothing? Wow. Missed our PMG last week due to typical adult
scheduling issues.

> Guardians of the Galaxy (PS5) - What a pleasant game.

I am getting steadily more tempted by this, but it's bound to be a PS+
this year.

> Want:
> --=--

The new Pimiga v2 dropped on Friday, need to download it and try that
out on the Pi400. Deets in the text at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLJk8fTjQLw

> Bin:
> -==-
>
> Confusing DLC - Stop calling it a 'Season Pass' would you please? Content
> is content and is also discrete and divisible. If you don't tell me
> exactly what I'm exchanging money for then it's likely I'm going to go
> spend the money on something else that isn't confusing or misleading. This
> is why I waited three years to get the Fallout 4 expansions, at a massive
> discount because I couldn't tell what I was paying for otherwise.

Also fuck all the game storefronts for hiding DLC bundle content
details.

> -KKC, what an expensive year it's been.

If you will start using modern consoles :)

Cheers - Jaimie
--
C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot; C++
makes it harder, but when you do, it blows away
your whole leg.
-- Bjarne Stroustrup

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

> Play:

Mr. Ee (BBC) - when I briefly played this in the 80s I wasn't really
that familiar with the real Mr. Do, but I do remember thinking it
seemed a pretty good game. And it certainly is, I'd say it plays
better than the SNES port of Mr. Do for example. Not quite a perfect
clone, but really close.

Elite (BBC) - as much as I liked this on the speccy (and the later
Elite Plus on the PC), what always put me off the BBC version was the
flicker. It's been long enough since I played on a real BBC that I
can't really remember if that's an emulation issue or not, though I'm
pretty sure the speccy version draws the 3D area to an offscreen
buffer then copies it to the screen (which I doubt was possible on
something with less RAM). Aside from that the original is mostly
better, at least on the disk version.

Chuckie Egg (BBC) - like Elite this is one I played far more on the
speccy. For me this now looks quite chunky by comparison, but I can't
say I miss the colour clash.

Hitman 3 (PS4) - a bit more of this, unlocking a gun described as
one-handed. I thought that might mean it would be concealable like the
pistols, but apparently not.

> Want:

To try Elite (Electron), which I don't think I ever did despite
actually getting an Electron in the 90s.

> Bin:

The Hitman games having so many weapons which are really only usable
if you play the game in simple shoot-em-up fashion, which is generally
not a good move (and can actually get tricky in the modern games, as
most levels have a population of literally hundreds). As much as I
like the fact that taking an explosive in the shape of a rubber duck
is more likely to be useful than taking most guns, it remains... a
little strange.

Some of the jumps on the third level of Chuckie Egg. I've probably
bounced off things less playing Arkanoid.

-Rus.