• Plastic Was Banned (PWBE 2 Oct 2023)

    From Kendrick Kerwin Chua@kendrick@nospam.io-nyc to uk.games.video.misc on Sun Oct 1 23:09:21 2023
    From Newsgroup: uk.games.video.misc


    No more single-use plastic utensils? I hope this is an elaborate
    mechanism for making chopsticks standard for all British food from this
    point forward.

    Play:
    --=--

    Tokyo Xanadu EX+ (PS4) - Woo, more New Game Plus. Not much to report
    here, except that I'm noticing now how the game subtly spoils some of
    the later plot twists through the friendship choices you get earlier in
    the story. Combat thusfar has been of the not-too-challenging-but-also- not-insulting variety, which means that I still have to pay attention
    but there's no point where I need to summon all my abilities to survive
    a boss encounter.

    Tokyo Xanadu (Vita) - I like the game enough that I'm playing through
    for the first time on the Vita, just to experience the slightly-worse translation and the lack of explanatory side missions. It's really
    interesting to observe that the original release of the game must have
    been cut down significantly, because the stuff unique to EX+ doesn't
    feel extraneous or tacked on in any way. It's very much like a
    director's cut in that there feels like a truer artistic vision at work,
    but also that the original is fully complete by itself. I wish I could articulate that more cleverly than I have done.

    Want:
    --=--

    To play a Switch game (NSW) - I have this brand new Switch control deck
    with hall-effect analogue sticks and... it's okay. It's slightly too big
    and the button surfaces are too smooth and it eats battery like nobody's business, so I don't feel good recommending it. But I just wish there
    was something in my Switch library that commanded my attention like the
    system did two years ago when everything was shiny and new. I may return
    to SMT V or Disaster Report 4 at some point, but it's not unlikely I do
    that on the PS5 instead.

    Bin:
    -==-

    Nothing game-related.

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

    Balance forward - $3,887

    -KKC, who is shopping now but will add it to next week's total.
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  • From Russell Marks@zgedneil@spam^H^H^H^Hgmail.com to uk.games.video.misc on Mon Oct 2 14:18:10 2023
    From Newsgroup: uk.games.video.misc

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

    No more single-use plastic utensils? I hope this is an elaborate
    mechanism for making chopsticks standard for all British food from this point forward.

    It's the only way to eat a full English breakfast.

    Play:

    Minecraft (PS4) - after adding some signposts to my maze of shortcut
    tunnels between portals in the Nether (which was all getting a bit
    confusing), I revisited the Woodland Mansion I'd previously tackled
    (i.e. the first one that I ever tried). I hadn't done things
    especially well there, despite having already returned at least once
    before. So this time I went around clearing the place and lighting the
    rooms, as well as finding a sneaky hidden chest that I'd apparently
    missed before.

    I also did a bit of filling-in of my existing maps (which are at the fully-zoomed-out level and usually have unexplored patches) which
    wasn't terribly eventful but did mean I found a few shipwrecks. I
    still don't handle these very well, I tend to just make a tiny base on
    the surface and keep diving down to check out any chests. I mean, it
    works and only needs very basic items, but it always seems a bit
    risky. The two I found entirely above the water were less risky. :-)

    Want:

    More Minecraft features like the treasure maps you often find in
    shipwreck chests - pretty basic stuff really, but a nice idea.

    To play a Switch game (NSW) - I have this brand new Switch control deck
    with hall-effect analogue sticks

    Some part of my brain was expecting that to say "hall-effect
    thrusters". Presumably for a new orbital Switch variant.

    Bin:

    Nothing.

    -Rus.
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