Scavenging Play Want Bin (PWBE 10 Feb 2025)

[Kendrick Kerwin Chua]

I only report on it infrequently, but it's sometimes fun to describe how
my son (who is now seven) enjoys games. He recently got into Roblox and
Fortnite, but those seemed to be fleeting interests in the face of what
we both understand to be superior single-player experiences. Just this
Sunday he asked to put his Dreamcast back into action, and spent a few
gleeful hours getting to know both Sonic Adventure games again. It makes
me wonder what exactly the live-service vendors think they're doing and
if they've gamed out any kind of presence in their market beyond the
next month, or even the next few weeks.

Play:
--=--

Freedom Wars Remastered (PS5) - Woo, finished all the offline game and
got all but one of the offline trophies. They put out an update on
Friday (just before the big PSN outage, as a matter of fact) that
totally nerfed the big currency exploit and so made it harder for other
players to grind for money. Not a big burden for me, as the big
challenge now is to obtain all the parts I need to keep upgrading
weapons into the post-game. There are a lot of bosses that require
specific strategies for confrontation, and I'm just merrily standing a
postcode away and sniping at them with my big laser cannon. That works
for single giant opponents, not so much for when there's a big boss
rush. 76 hours in now and I sort of miss the old mobile-styled crafting
system that made you wait 10, 20, or 30 minutes of real time for the
results of your crafting to become known. That was more satisfying
without really being annoying in the way that mobile time-limited
crafting usually turns out to be.


Want:
--=--

Forza Horizon 5 (PS5) - I have the Xbox disc already, and I do also want
it on PS5 but I want it on a disc. All indications are that it will only
come out digitally, which is a sure way to get me to spend that money on
something else.

Bin:
-==-

Nothing game-related.

-KKC, who needs more sleep.

[Russell Marks]

Post by Kendrick Kerwin Chua
I only report on it infrequently, but it's sometimes fun to describe how
my son (who is now seven) enjoys games. He recently got into Roblox and
Fortnite, but those seemed to be fleeting interests in the face of what
we both understand to be superior single-player experiences. Just this
Sunday he asked to put his Dreamcast back into action, and spent a few
gleeful hours getting to know both Sonic Adventure games again. It makes
me wonder what exactly the live-service vendors think they're doing and
if they've gamed out any kind of presence in their market beyond the
next month, or even the next few weeks.

The Dreamcast-playing child demographic does seem inexplicably
underrepresented in their approach.

That said, arguably online games do parasitically assume a level of
game-playing competence acquired by other means. It's just as well
that no parallels can be drawn from that to other aspects of society.
Tomb Raider (2013) (PC) - did a couple of tombs I'd somehow managed to
miss, but mostly more collectible-grabbing. I think this doesn't work
as well in some very linear areas where you really are just following
a path, but it's still nice to have another look around the island
without being shot at quite so much. I just wonder whether the few
baddies I've been running into while doing this were stragglers I
hadn't noticed originally, or newly-spawned target practice.
To actually get a GRIP (PC) installer downloaded finally. I suppose
the fairly mixed reception this one got is still managing to put me
off it slightly, even after buying the thing. :-)

Post by Kendrick Kerwin Chua
Forza Horizon 5 (PS5)

This needs to have a car with a combined Mario, Sonic, Master Chief,
and Kratos decal to convey maximum impossibility to any bewildered
time travellers visiting this highly implausible future.
Nothing.

-Rus.

[Jaimie Vandenbergh]

On 10 Feb 2025 at 11:59:50 GMT, "Russell Marks"

Post by Russell Marks
To actually get a GRIP (PC) installer downloaded finally. I suppose
the fairly mixed reception this one got is still managing to put me
off it slightly, even after buying the thing. :-)

I liked it and played it a bunch, but it wasn't as cleanly fun as
Rollcage and Rollcage 2 were. Probably just too much detail obscuring
the speed lines. If you have VR kit and a strong stomach give it a try
in that, it's a blast.

Cheers - Jaimie

[Russell Marks]

Post by Jaimie Vandenbergh
On 10 Feb 2025 at 11:59:50 GMT, "Russell Marks"

Post by Russell Marks
To actually get a GRIP (PC) installer downloaded finally.

I've done that much at least.

Post by Jaimie Vandenbergh
I liked it and played it a bunch, but it wasn't as cleanly fun as
Rollcage and Rollcage 2 were. Probably just too much detail obscuring
the speed lines. If you have VR kit and a strong stomach give it a try
in that, it's a blast.

I only just barely have a strong enough stomach to read that last
sentence without rediscovering my breakfast at the thought. :-)

-Rus.

[Jaimie Vandenbergh]

On 10 Feb 2025 at 00:44:50 GMT, "Kendrick Kerwin Chua"

--=--

Skies of Arcadia (DC) - got the teething troubles where its HDMI mod
wouldn't talk to the new TV sorted out (using another screen and
wifi-based firmware updating) sorted, and first thing to do was of
course check if Skies worked despite the bloody developers not ticking
the "enable VGA" box. Fortunately the new firmware fakes that and it
does indeed work nicely! I am now 15 hours in and only mildly resenting
the insane number of random battles while traversing. I'd forgotten a
lot since last time I played, which was apparently 2012 going by the
savegame record. Also got the new VM2 microSD-based VMU up and running;
it kindly has a "new virtual VMU file for each game by gameID" setting.
It charges up its internal battery in about 30 minutes from being
plugged in, or ten minutes by USB-C, so playing the little Pinta's Quest
VMU game doesn't chew up CR2032s either.

Divinity Original Sin 2 (PC, PMG) - Currently 44 hours into a
four-player run, middle of the last chapter (probably). Came up against
a mainline story fight that we were grossly underleveled for (ie they’re
18 we’re 17, D&D rules being what they are) so had to hit allllll the
other available fights/quests to level up, just managing to get to 18
before running out. And nearly got the fight first time! Then killled
second round. Then killed first round. Then killed first round...

Hit up the internets for tips and a whole bunch of people are “this
fight stopped the game for me, couldn’t pass it and quit”, which is a
bit hmm.

The bastards were totally cheating. Not only targeting through stone
barriers, but a new wave of enemies would fly in on their demon insect
wings, and get a ridiculous amount of actions and also push to the front
of the turn queue. Sudden total party kill? Well, ok then.

Lead bad critter would get enough action points to kill half the party
in his first round, we counted 8 or 9 when a normal enemy (or us!) gets
three or four.

We finally made it with very careful strategising and an accident - we
got two party dead and another one teleported outside of the combat. He
realised we could resurrect the deaders outside the combat too… where we
could heal up and refresh buffs and head back in. Even with our own
“cheating” we still only just got the big bad down, and that was with
massive help from an NPC who kept it busy (through one of those
impenetrable-to-us walls, no less).

So we spent a total of three hours on that one fight over two sessions.

Oh, the new TV made the PC fans ramp up to my surprise - then I realised
what it might be, and a look in settings confirmed it had taken
advantage of the 4k120 mode. Set that down to 4k30 and blissful silence
from the machine again. It's a five year old 2080ti and an 8 year old
i7, it's not up to these modern modes!

--=--

Better health. The monday PMG sessions are being a struggle: I charge up
during the week, me and mrs go out and do stuff at the weekend using up
all my battery, then Monday night I'm almost always kinda rubbish.
Usually make it but not always.

-==-

Atrophy, both within the Divinity statuses and my personal cardiac
troubles. It's much worse in Divinity - a character with Atrophy status
will take damage from healing.

Cheers - Jaimie