From Newsgroup: uk.games.video.misc


I really shouldn't joke about flooding in the UK. We get enough of that
in the States and at just as great a scale. And if you own a business
that's been underwater it's hard to care about climate change when
you're staring down business loans you can't make good on and employees
you can't pay.

Play:
--=--

Silent Hill Homecoming (PS3) - I'm done. It's not a bad game by any
stretch, but the checkpoints and saves are spaced too far apart. There's
one point in the game where you can have three enemies gang up on you in
a dead end, and since the game withholds ammunition and combat items to encourage you to run away from hard fights, this part of the game felt
both not fun and unfair. I read the spoilers and I'm confident that
there's a very nice narrative in here, but it's wrapped around a game
that's pretty opaque and otherwise unfulfilling. I may come back to this
at some point and play in old-man-with-no-spare-time difficulty, but for
now I'm turning away.

Transformers Devastation (360) - My kid is now making his way through
the whole game a third time, and playing as different characters. It's interesting to see him use the same combat strategies and get different results, and very slowly the light comes on over his head about how to
head off frustration and seek success in a different way. It makes me
wonder if the majority of gamers learn those same lessons about
resilience and persistence, or if they're just looking for cheap
satisfaction with no effort.

Marvel vs Capcom Fighting Collection (PS5) - It is stupid that I
remember all the controls and all the character movesets. My go-to team
in MvC2 is Ryu, Rogue, and Sakura, and I was able to drop right back in
where I left off on the Dreamcast 20 years ago. It is idiotic that I
still remember how to do the shinkuu-hadouken or any other special
finishing move. The original Marvel Super Heroes is sort of new to me
(even though I'm pretty sure I own the Saturn disc) and I'm sort of not
on board for how stately and reverent it seems to be in terms of
depicting a comic book hero conflict. Thankfully the JPN-region version
of X-men vs. Street Fighter is here so we can experience Norimaru in all
his nerdy, messenger-bag-carrying glory.

Want:
--=--

A bunch of stuff - So it is extraordinarily unlikely that Amazon will
agree to my condition for any new orders, that they print on all their shipping containers in large letters 'Jeff Bezos is a spineless coward
who doesn't deserve to own a newspaper and no number of successful
rocket launches will ever allow him to regrow his hair' so I'm seeking
out alternative video game sources. I am kind of shocked that I never
made a habit of ordering from Video Games Plus in Canada, where the
exchange rate favours me and also has the benefit of sidestepping any
new tariffs that might impede direct commerce between the US and any
Asian nation. Fifteen new games are wending their way through the system towards me. Well, Shenmue 1+2 for Xbox One isn't new, but for $8 it
seemed impolite not to have a copy.

Bin:
-==-

Nothing game-related.

-KKC, who meant to repair a TV this weekend too.
--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: uk.games.video.misc

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

Play:

[...]

Marvel vs Capcom Fighting Collection (PS5) - It is stupid that I
remember all the controls and all the character movesets. My go-to team
in MvC2 is Ryu, Rogue, and Sakura, and I was able to drop right back in where I left off on the Dreamcast 20 years ago. It is idiotic that I
still remember how to do the shinkuu-hadouken or any other special
finishing move.

You'd never catch me revisiting an ancient fighting game, let alone
more than one.

Monster Hunter Tri (Wii) - so... playing MHP3 had me strangely wanting
to play this for a third time (appropriately enough), albeit just in offline-only low rank as the servers are long gone. It starts very
slowly and is missing a whole lot of conveniences from newer games, as
well as having some slightly clunky player movement at times. But it's
still pretty decent, and for better or worse it'd been quite a while
since I last did any underwater fights.

Monster Hunter Portable 3rd (PSP) - tried one of the newly-unlocked
pair of monsters, and kinda got flattened. I suspect that one might be
somewhat tricky to solo.

Want:

Nothing.

Bin:

MHP3's farm being somewhat interesting yet (IMHO) a tight-fisted and unrelenting grindfest, while Tri's farm (and fishing fleet) is boring
yet fairly generous and convenient. Tri is more my speed in this
respect, but seeing such differing approaches having been taken is
just bizarre.

The original Barroth being an absolute brick wall to fight initially
in Tri, a big spike in the difficulty curve. Even over a decade later
I still found it a bit tricky with the crappy gear you have early on,
despite using a lance and being very familiar with the muddy funster.

-Rus.
--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: uk.games.video.misc

In article <4Om3P.54815$BbX6.49609@usenetxs.com>,
Russell Marks <zgedneil@spam^H^H^H^Hgmail.com> wrote:

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

Play:

Monster Hunter Portable 3rd (PSP) - tried one of the newly-unlocked
pair of monsters, and kinda got flattened. I suspect that one might be >somewhat tricky to solo.

The PS3 disc for this game is super cheap and lets you transfer save
data. It is super nice to have all of 3rd Portable up on a big HD
screen, although they do nothing to upscale the textures or any of the
models.

Bin:

The original Barroth being an absolute brick wall to fight initially
in Tri, a big spike in the difficulty curve. Even over a decade later
I still found it a bit tricky with the crappy gear you have early on,
despite using a lance and being very familiar with the muddy funster.

I can claim honestly that the Barroth was never a big problem for me,
but that's because I've only ever played as a gunner. All of the
Barroth's tells are really distinctive from a distance, and being a
gunner means you can lob a few slow-but-high-damage shells in its
direction and then haul your tiny hunter arse off into the horizon as it
does its big headbutt or chemical spray attacks. Dodging is worthless
when you're dodging straight into a puddle of Barroth body fluid. I
think 3P/Tri might have been when the game design started to steer you
into exploring certain specific builds intended for each boss, rather
than making it possible to bring your own play style and strategy to
each. And the game is poorer for it, I think.

-KKC, who notes VGPlus still has MH1 reprints for PS2 for sale.
--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: uk.games.video.misc

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

[Re: Monster Hunter Tri]

I can claim honestly that the Barroth was never a big problem for me,
but that's because I've only ever played as a gunner. All of the
Barroth's tells are really distinctive from a distance

True enough, but I think there's something about how aggressively
Barroth will charge at you which feels a bit out of place at that
stage in the game. Going on to the Rathian fight, it actually seemed
easier. :-)

-Rus.
--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2