From Newsgroup: uk.games.video.misc


At least one news outlet is noting that left-wing electoral victories in Canada and Australia can be attributed mostly to common people's distaste
for Trump and what few international allies he has. It's almost as if
America is accidentally making the world a better place by serving as a
bad example.

Play:
--=--

Lunar Remastered (PS5) - First two hours down. It's interesting how the narrative only unfolds properly if you follow the unwritten rule of
attempting to go down every blocked path first before you're properly
allowed to go down them at all. That means barging into your adopted
sister's bedroom so that you can be admonished not to and learn that she
lives in your house. This is clearly a port of the PSX version, rather
than the slimmed-down GBA or (arguably) graphically superior PSP build.
I'm just on the cusp of entering the big city after a slightly too-hard
boss monster encounter in the forest so that I can meet the first of
many silly side characters.

Soul Calibur V (PS3) - Well this is nice. Having a proper story mode
with RPG narrative is the next logical step beyond the funny dungeon
crawling and RTS of the previous entries. I like that this young kid is
so clearly being played and manipulated too. It's a shame that it's all wrapped up in this online live service nonsense that isn't even running anymore, although interestingly the servers are still operational even
if you can't download the DLC to support any of it. There's something
chunky and off about the actual fighting engine, which I imagine is the rudimentary netcode that's in place to support stuff like rollback and playback. I really do miss the days when the arcade experience was meant
to be the authoritative version of a fighting game, rather than the
online version.

Lode Runner (SG1K) - Hey, it's my first Sega SG-1000 game! This is a
straight port of the 8-bit home computer Lode Runner, right down to the
funny slowdown that happens with the more complex levels. This is a
notable home console version because it doesn't have the little squidgy
Hudson character sprites, and instead uses the original rotoscoped
character model. I say model, singular, because it's only colour that distinguishes your hero-with-the-laser-drill from the thieving bad guys.

Disgaea 4 (PS3) - Why do I have save data for this game even though I
don't seem to own the disc? I probably did buy it at some point in the
past and lost track of it, so now I probably have a redundant copy. For
cheap, mind. I keep forgetting that Disgaea's narrative is much better
than it pretends to be, and that I should probably go back and play
through the whole series on some easy, parent-friendly difficulty just
to get caught up. The idea that your anti-hero in D4 is deep in some
kind of depression-induced denial about his awful circumstances is
really interesting and I kind of wish it didn't need three hours of
tutorials to make the point to you. If any series needs proper
remastering and streamlining, it's Disgaea.

Want:
--=--

Catherine Full Body (PS4) - I kind of missed the boat on what
constitutes a decade-after remaster of the game with new plot elements. Playing the original Catherine on PS3 now some two years after I tried
it first on the 360 is somehow different, because my first impressions
all that time ago were that Vincent was a terrible person not worth
getting to know. It's strange that I should be just as cynical but
inclined to have only a little more sympathy for him and his merry band
of fuck-ups. Or maybe there's something about playing on Sony's platform
that makes it seem more approachable.

Team Buddies (PSX) - The American-region disc goes for stupid money,
something like $300 in good condition. But I'm after the EU region
version, which has borderline racist portrayals of various ethnic groups
in a way that could only be described as self-effacing and not malicious
in any way. Unrelatedly there's a Steam port coming soon, but I never
buy Steam versions of games unless I own a permanent copy on some other platform.

Bin:
-==-

Nothing game-related.

-KKC, who also has a fresh copy of The Last Story to try out.
--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: uk.games.video.misc

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

At least one news outlet is noting that left-wing electoral victories in Canada and Australia can be attributed mostly to common people's distaste for Trump and what few international allies he has. It's almost as if America is accidentally making the world a better place by serving as a
bad example.

Possibly, though despite the chaos, for me Trump 2: Trump Harder just
feels like an uninspired rerun which lacks the novelty of the
original. We would never recycle such tired old material over here.

Play:

Lego City Undercover (PC) - some random bits and pieces in the
sandbox. I probably won't go for 100% in this version. Probably.

Mr. Driller (DC) - did reasonably badly on this, but with some
half-decent failures at least. There's something oddly compelling
about being quite so literally crushed by your lack of foresight.

Want:

To play the rather ancient Driver: Parallel Lines (PC) somewhen
because, well... it was cheap I guess. And I think it has both 70s and
not-70s settings. Presumably covering both having and eating of cake.

Bin:

Nothing.

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

From Newsgroup: uk.games.video.misc

In article <rF8SP.55219$o31.18390@usenetxs.com>,
Russell Marks <zgedneil@spam^H^H^H^Hgmail.com> wrote:

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

Play:

Mr. Driller (DC) - did reasonably badly on this, but with some
half-decent failures at least. There's something oddly compelling
about being quite so literally crushed by your lack of foresight.

I was very surprised to learn that Mr. Driller is reimplemented (in
various permutations) in Roblox. My son is apparently all powered up and
able to do... something very interesting with his platinum drill.
Probably. I'm not really paying attention.

Want:

To play the rather ancient Driver: Parallel Lines (PC) somewhen
because, well... it was cheap I guess. And I think it has both 70s and >not-70s settings. Presumably covering both having and eating of cake.

I presume you're aware that this is available on GOG now?

https://www.gog.com/en/game/driver_parallel_lines

I've not played it but none of the reviews seem to indicate performance issues, only that some newcomers were disappointed that it wasn't just Assassin's Creed with a car.

Idea forming.

-KKC, observing a short hop to Assassin's Creed IN SPAAAAAAAAACE!
--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: uk.games.video.misc

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

Russell Marks <zgedneil@spam^H^H^H^Hgmail.com> wrote:

[...]

To play the rather ancient Driver: Parallel Lines (PC) somewhen
because, well... it was cheap I guess. And I think it has both 70s and >>not-70s settings. Presumably covering both having and eating of cake.

I presume you're aware that this is available on GOG now?

I probably could have made things clearer, but yes, I already bought
it on there. :-)

I've not played it but none of the reviews seem to indicate performance issues, only that some newcomers were disappointed that it wasn't just Assassin's Creed with a car.

In my case it's one of those games I considered getting on the Wii at
the time but never did, so it'll be a bit strange to finally play it.

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