From Newsgroup: uk.games.video.misc


It's the week of the PSN boycott! The only thing more disappointing than
Sony choosing to stop making game discs is the scores of gamers who will
claim to be motivated to protest but will continue to spend money on Playstation downloads anyway. I mean, this isn't exactly the American
civil rights movement or anything. The authority figure in that scenario
would never make long-lasting agreements only to roll them back and
withhold hard-fought privileges when nobody was paying attention.

Play:
--=--

Forza Horizon 6 (XSX) - An impulse purchase, a local retailer had a
number of discs for half off. In that mess of unwanted media was a
single copy of this, which appears to work fine even though I don't have
the paid version of Xbox Network (ugh, what an uninspiring name. Why
would they throw out all the history that went with "Xbox Live' in
favour or something that sounds like a television provider?) Sorry,
where was I? Oh yes, I like how this game subverts the "rich asshole"
problem of previous Horizon titles by making you into just a regular
Johnny who has to earn the right to participate in the festival, rather
than being a privileged doofus who'd be trusted to drive a million-quids
worth of Italian exotica through dirt roads just to show it off to a
crowd that's willing to pay $150 for a plate of chips.

Localisation is weird like it always is. We're in Japan but too many
domestic cars are left-hand drive for no apparent reason. Radio stations
play western indie hits as often as they do licenced Japanese artists.
Make sure your save data is present from previous games so you can get a
bunch of cars added to your garage that you'll never drive.

Yakuza Kiwami (PC) - The original, not the re-release, because this one
has the two-player minigames attached to it still. I boot up the gaming
laptop and immediately my kid asks "Can we do bowling" and of course we
do bowling. It's amazing how a year of growing up has made him a better
loser than he used to be, because now he can score less over ten frames
than me and not throw a screaming fit about it. Sorry, this has somehow
become less about games and more about parenting for some reason today.

Railroads Online Pioneer Edition (PS5) - Wait, what's going on? Why am I
being prompted to buy all this DLC? Can I not skip the tutorial and just
start building? What are all these controls for? Should I plug a mouse
and keyboard into the PS5? I feel like I need to plug a mouse and
keyboard into the PS5. This game is pretty much City Skylines except
with only a train to run and I really need a mouse and keyboard.

The Persistence (PS4/PS5) - Oh hey look, a VR game that has a non-VR
mode built into it on purpose. I'm kind of weirdly into this, even
though I don't much like horror or FPS or survival or crafting. I'm not
100 percent sure if the random maps are a factor, and in fact after considering it I'm almost positive it isn't because this game weirdly
reminds me about the little fun loopy parts of Skyrim more than anything
else. Now that I know how VR stuff works I'm kind of impressed at how
well the game is designed to accommodate all input methods and controls schemes. I'm also kind of annoyed that the PS Move controllers aren't
actually supported in spite of that, in that the game requires you to
use a Dual Shock for movement and other input. I did not expect there to
be a free PS5 upgrade, with ray tracing of all things? Those graphics
are super impressive to see, even though they technically make the game
harder to play because the lighting is authentically inadequate in
places where you might get attacked.

Want:
--=--

Culdcept The First Saturn Tribute (PS5) - Ugh. Release date has slipped
to November. I wouldn't mind much except I bunged in the new Brigandine
game with it in my VGP order, because I always do that.

Bin:
-==-

Playstation Network (PS5) - For a week, anyway. Top tip, your PS5 has to
be off the network completely for games to still run. I blocked my PS5
from reaching the Internet at the router, and because it still could
resolve DHCP it thought it could sit and dial home forever without ever
timing out. That seems like dumb design.

-KKC, who hopes to find some cheap M.2 NVME drives somewhere.
--- Synchronet 3.22a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: uk.games.video.misc

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

It's the week of the PSN boycott! The only thing more disappointing than Sony choosing to stop making game discs is the scores of gamers who will claim to be motivated to protest but will continue to spend money on Playstation downloads anyway.

They should be more like myself, i.e. taking part by default due to it
being more effort not to. The mantle of role model is a terrible
burden - I've no ideal idle idol's idyll - but with great indifference
comes great blah blah whatever.

Play:

Grow Home (PC) - some post-finish collect-em-up. I think this one has
more verticality than the sequel, which is fun, so I'm inclined to
keep poking around for a while longer even if I don't go for 100% or
anything. Also, it would be a bit annoying to not collect the last two remaining Star Seeds.

Forza Horizon 6 (XSX) - An impulse purchase, a local retailer had a
number of discs for half off. In that mess of unwanted media was a

[...]

where was I? Oh yes, I like how this game subverts the "rich asshole" problem of previous Horizon titles by making you into just a regular
Johnny who has to earn the right to participate in the festival, rather
than being a privileged doofus who'd be trusted to drive a million-quids worth of Italian exotica through dirt roads just to show it off to a
crowd that's willing to pay $150 for a plate of chips.

Test Drive Unlimited's car rentals were an amusing take on this
general area, though the trust and how-can-you-afford-Hawaii questions
were left kind of unanswered IIRC. I guess sometimes fantasy just has
to be fantasy, as I often remind my invisible pet dragon.

(Of course, I'm joking. The reminders are occasional at best.)

Want:

Nothing.

Bin:

Grow Home apparently not liking me keeping it offline (something I
just do out of habit given everyone's excessive telemetry fetish, no
special reason for it here), given that I now seem to have an 800MB+ "output_log.txt" which pretty much just repeatedly says "GalaxyUnauthorizedAccessError: RequestUserStatsAndAchievements: not
signed in" - to the point that it can be compressed down to 128k.

-KKC, who hopes to find some cheap M.2 NVME drives somewhere.

Maybe the best option is to sell posters depicting such drives using a
limited number of colours with "HOPE" underneath, then buy a drive
with the profits. Obviously, bonus points for realising that this will
then contribute to further price increases. A common tragedy. :-)

-Rus.
--- Synchronet 3.22a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: uk.games.video.misc

In article <Gh1jS.718067$DOD1.205463@usenetxs.com>,
Russell Marks <zgedneil@spam^H^H^H^Hgmail.com> wrote:

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

-KKC, who hopes to find some cheap M.2 NVME drives somewhere.

Maybe the best option is to sell posters depicting such drives using a >limited number of colours with "HOPE" underneath, then buy a drive
with the profits. Obviously, bonus points for realising that this will
then contribute to further price increases. A common tragedy. :-)

I have actually been scouring the second-hand sites for laptops that are likely to have the kind of storage I need, on the absurd assumption that
I would buy an entire laptop just to harvest the SSD and the RAM and
then throw the rest away. The maths almost work.

-KKC, who will probably just deploy his unused PS5 M.2 unit.
--- Synchronet 3.22a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: uk.games.video.misc

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

-KKC, who hopes to find some cheap M.2 NVME drives somewhere.

[...]

I have actually been scouring the second-hand sites for laptops that are likely to have the kind of storage I need, on the absurd assumption that
I would buy an entire laptop just to harvest the SSD and the RAM and
then throw the rest away. The maths almost work.

This definitely doesn't conjure any images of a desperate future where
we surreptitiously piece together the last remnants of a bygone age
when mere mortals could risk buying computer hardware openly, rather
than all computational power being reserved strictly for the elites as offerings for the Great Machine God. Which is nice.

-Rus.
--- Synchronet 3.22a-Linux NewsLink 1.2