From Newsgroup: uk.games.video.misc


I hope that everybody kept warm and dry through the unusual weather. I'm
not anxious to make jokes about flooding and loss of property.

Play:
--=--

Castlevania: Circle of the Moon (GBA) - This is... not as good as I was expecting? The initial impressions aren't great, especially if you're
coming in with more modern Castlevania shaping your expectations.
There's too many enemy types that you can't quite hit, and the character
jump action doesn't really work in the way that it works in other
Castlevania titles. I am quite motivated to stick with it, but I may
just as likely switch to a different GBA Castlevania just because.

KISS Pinball (PSX) - Well, the kindest thing I can say is that it's
exactly what it claims to be on the tin. The problem is that the screen scrolls much too fast for you to get a good handle on where the ball is
going to be, and I'm not sure what magic other pinball games use to make
sure you can keep a bead on the ball when the whole table doesn't fit on
the screen.

Excalibur 2555 AD (PSX) - Exquisitely terrible. I don't think I knew
when I bought it that this was a Sir-Tech joint, so now my regret is a
little less than it would have been. When they sold it back in the day
they claimed it was a Tomb Raider clone, but the only thing it has in
common with Lara Croft's story is a completely stubborn insistence on
its own control scheme. This is very much like an old Zork-style text adventure, but where every movement and interaction is translated
clumsily into a graphical interface for an action RPG. Even the combat
is very much of the 'you hit him, he hits you' variety in that it might
was well be turn-based because it's sure not happening in real time. It doesn't even have a proper save system, giving you clunky passwords to
chart your progress. And that's the indicator that there isn't really
anything of an RPG in here, just a linear hop from points A to B to C.
This is the sort of game I think of when I wonder why they don't remake
the games that were great ideas but terrible execution, because there's
the germ of a good story in here somewhere.

Want:
--=--

Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man who Erased His Name (PS4/PS5) - My discs
are on track to be shipped on or before the launch date. Probably. I
fully expect the hilarious result that I will have gone to all this
trouble to source the game on traditional media and then they'll
announce a limited print run in the west at some later date.

Bin:
-==-

Not having electricity in the kitchen (RL) - I have reconnected the
electrical circuit feeding the outlets in my kitchen after much hemming
and hawing. Also after discovering that there is a shortage of
electrician labour in the States, which is fantastic when you want a
large population of motorists to adopt electric vehicles. I did it
wrong, in that I flaunted a few safety steps in the name of expediency,
but the result is up to code and so far hasn't started any fires. Armed
with new confidence I will tackle the other two electrical failures in
my house later in the week.

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

Balance forward - $3,935

Castlevania Circle of the Moon (GBA) - Free! (Traded in points for it)
Klax (MD) - $7
World Cup Golf Professional Edition (PSX) - $3
Crossroad Crisis (PSX) - $4
Rainbow Six (PSX) - $5
Formula 1 (PSX) - $6
Kiss Pinball (PSX) - $7
Bogey Dead 6 (PSX) - $7
Blast Chamber (PSX) - $7
Critical Depth (PSX) - $7
TOCA Championship Racing (PSX) - $12
Excalibur 2555 (PSX) - $14

Total to date - $4,014

-KKC, who has too much work to tackle on a Monday morning.
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From Newsgroup: uk.games.video.misc

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

Play:

Minecraft (PS4) - more adventures of the falling-to-avoidable-deaths
variety, albeit with minimal item-loss. The one where the game decided
to magically clip me through the floor just because I ate something
was particularly enjoyable (and a little frustrating, because I was
very high up with a water bucket and might have had time to save
myself using that if I'd realised what was happening a bit more
quickly). Aside from that, I mostly just ended up doing something I
did a bunch of in Minetest, i.e. building a raised glass bridge from
one base to another for no good reason. Having it about 200 blocks
above sea level was maybe a bit too raised though, it starts going
beyond "nice view up here" into losing arguably too much scenery due
to draw distance and fog.

Want:

Nothing.

Bin:

Gravity.

It isn't the Nineties and there is time for...

Klax (MD) - $7

-Rus.
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From Newsgroup: uk.games.video.misc

In article <yAJZM.538912$pyw.484743@usenetxs.com>,
Russell Marks <zgedneil@spam^H^H^H^Hgmail.com> wrote:

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

It isn't the Nineties and there is time for...

Klax (MD) - $7

This was a notable gap in my Megadrive/Genesis collection and one I
intended to plug with a complete copy, but for now all I have is the
cart. I seem to recall the Gameboy Colour one is the one to have though,
for all of its weird mini-games and the solo-dev doing the porting
dropping his wedding proposal into it.

-KKC, who needs to rip the sound effects out of this game.
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