We're one-third of the way through another delightful year on Earth and I
can't find anything uplifting or ironic to cite here in the introductory
part of the Play Want Bin post. I think I've finally achieved a complete
understanding of what adults in the 1970s were all thinking, particularly
the ones who thought it was a fine idea to build some kind of personal
bomb shelter in their gardens.

Play:
--=--

Gran Turismo 5 (PS3) - On three screens! Usually. I finally had some time
and space to try out multi-screen GT5 and it's quite impressive. It also
doesn't work half the time and it'd be better if the monitors I used were
all identical sizes and colour profiles. And I can't really justify doing
it all the time because it takes up so much room to get three PS3 systems
going, to say nothing of the power requirements and the noise it makes.

Yakuza 5 Remastered (PC) - I put 12 hours into it over the past week, and
worked my way through most of the taxi driver missions. While most are
here for the Initial D-inspired racing action I'm here for the moderately
sad story of the men who are winding down their lives after youthful glory
and youthful regret, and I don't think I fully appreciated that when I
played through the first time in a big hurry. I like that you're able to
power through all of the side story content in a virtual day early in the
plot, because it's obvious that the intent was for you to be able to fit
it in whenever you wanted to.

Want:
--=--

All the Tokyo Xtreme Racer games (PS2) - Holy crap the two on PSP and 360
still command collector prices because they had the wrong names and didn't
sell well and now they're considered valuable rarities.

Bin:
-==-

Nothing game-related.

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

Balance forward - $1,842

Gran Turismo 6 (PS3) - $30
Gran Turismo 6 (PS3) - $30 (Yes, I bought it twice so now I will own three
copies. Guess why?)
LA Noire (PS3) - $4
Dungeon Siege III (PS3) - $9
Tokyo Xtreme Racer Drift 2 (PS2) - $6
Tokyo Xtreme Racer Zero (PS2) - $10
Dungeons and Dragons Gold Box Collection games that I'm too lazy to list
here (PC) - $60

Total to date - $1,991

-KKC, whose blueberry bushes aren't quite ready for harvest yet.
--
-- "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 in
news:4sydnQliN8_i_Pv_nZ2dnUU7-UnNnZ2d@giganews.com:

>
> We're one-third of the way through another delightful year on Earth
> and I can't find anything uplifting or ironic to cite here in the
> introductory part of the Play Want Bin post.

Damn you, Kendrick. You were supposed to be still asleep.

Tim (tm)
--
Gaming journals: http://xexyz.blogspot.com
Economics blurb: http://www.economic-truth.co.uk

In article <XnsAE84694D040FFeconomictruth@144.76.35.252>,
Tim Miller <news@economic-truth.co.uk> wrote:
>Kendrick Kerwin Chua <kendrick@nospam.io-nyc> wrote in
>news:4sydnQliN8_i_Pv_nZ2dnUU7-UnNnZ2d@giganews.com:
>
>> We're one-third of the way through another delightful year on Earth
>> and I can't find anything uplifting or ironic to cite here in the
>> introductory part of the Play Want Bin post.
>
>Damn you, Kendrick. You were supposed to be still asleep.
>

I thought we established that I'm some sort of emergent AI that doesn't
require rest. I think we need to do the research to see how long ago it
was that two people both attempted to start the weekly thread at the same
time, because this sets some sort of benchmark record for us given how few
people are still reading the group. :)

-KKC, who will now respond to the other thead as is traditional.
--
-- "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:

Taisen Tokkae-dama (Arcade) - puzzle game by Konami from 1996,
effectively a mix of Tetris Attack (tile-swapping and tiles rising
from the bottom), Puzzle Fighter (differing character attack drop
patterns and emphasis on countering), and Magical Drop (large animated
character backgrounds, tile swapping to/from the cursor, and emphasis
on speed). But the games released at similar times (all 1995/6 it
seems, with Magical Drop being earliest oddly enough) so there was
probably some independent reinvention going on. It's a bit of a
hit-and-miss sort of game, certainly good in some ways and with some
nice character animations, but unfortunately it has a few too many
problems when compared with those other games.

> Want:

Nothing.

> Bin:

Taisen Tokkae-dama's most obvious problems:

- You can't swap tiles while they're clearing, which gives play a
really awkward stop-start feel.

- The tile-swapping is quite strange, you swap one held by the cursor
with one underneath the cursor. TA's swapping of two side-by-side
tiles is much clearer and easier to deal with.

- No proper home port. It seems there was a reskinned version (PS1
Tokimeki Memorial: Taisen Tokkae-dama) and another reskin as part of
a minigame collection (GBA Minna no Ouji-sama). I imagine these lost
much of the character, but they might also have lost...

- A big difficulty spike on the last 2 or 3 opponents, something else
it shares with the Magical Drop games.

-Rus.