New EU Member Play Want Bin (PWBE 18 Dec 2023)

[Kendrick Kerwin Chua]

I wonder what would happen if Britain showed up at Brussels with glasses
and a fake moustache and asked to be considered alongside Ukraine for
(re)new membership.

Play:
--=--

Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name (PS5) - So the
competitive arena thing isn't critical path, but it's interesting for
how it brings in old favourite side characters (and weirdly, some boss
characters from Yakuza: Like a Dragon) and also feels like the
culmination of all the side content from all the previous games. The
deathmatch fighting arena was always an imperfect thing in previous
Yakuza games, occasionally tedious but also with questionable rewards.
This time around they've tied a story element to your completion success
instead of a combat bonus, which means that anybody with an interest in
the narrative has a more pure motivation to see it through to the end
even if they've completed the main story.

Bomb Rush Cyberfunk (NSW/PS5) - This is... moderately disappointing.
It's quite a bit more 'chill' than Jet Set Radio, and that's not doing
the game any favours in terms of setting up stakes to care about. It's
stylish and lovely to look at though, and I think the PS5 is where it's
at in terms of properly enjoying the game because the Switch loading
times are pretty dire. It is just a sequel to JSR made with design and
technology of the time, so don't expect anything new or groundbreaking
going into it.

Cratermaze (TG-16) - So the Analogue Duo finally came in, and while I
don't have loads of buyer's remorse I do understand instinctively that
I'm not going to enjoy this as much as I would have if I were younger
and had more free time. Even so, I made time this weekend to run through
a lot of my existing media and rediscovered a few gems. Cratermaze is
the one that stuck with me the most, a riff on Bomberman where you have
to run a maze to collect the things, and you dig little holes Lode
Runner-stylee to trap enemy monsters. The game is so charming for the
way it sets up each level, where everything draws in from either side
and your little spaceman character flies in on a jetpack via sprite
animation that one would be able to make a good case for being the peak
of the artform. I love this platform and I wish NEC had done a better
job of licensing and preserving their games.

Want:
--=--

To enjoy more games - I'm not sure if this is ennui or fatalism
striking. It happens with the streaming television services too, where I
spend a few minutes browsing my options and then decide the best use of
my time is to go take a half hour nap instead. It's a little
disconcerting to finally be able to afford all the things I want and not
have the energy to enjoy any of them.

Bin:
-==-

Nothing gaming-related.

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

Balance forward - $6,409

-KKC, who hopes the Hungarians see through their head of state.

[Russell Marks]

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

> I wonder what would happen if Britain showed up at Brussels

Laughter.

> Play:

Minecraft (PS4) - according to chunkbase.com I should end up with a
trial chamber only 500 or so blocks from my main base under a zombie
village. Speaking of which, those appear as zombie villages from the
start, so it's arguably not clear whether they're villages now full of
zombified villagers or just... villages for zombies. Presumably for
those that like a bit more social cohesion with their brain-eating.

Anyway, I had a look around the area and it's fairly mountainous, so
hopefully there's a good chance a trial chamber really will appear
there (underground) when they make it into this version. But even the
new copper-based blocks it uses are still only an "experimental
feature" AFAICT, so that might take some time yet.

I also poked around under my main base some more and ended up finding
a dungeon I hadn't previously spotted, though this is more
understandable than in e.g. Minetest Game - Minecraft's dungeons are
(still) just a single room.

> Want:

Nothing.

> Bin:

Minecraft's anvils, which are expensive, confusing to use, poorly
documented, and prone to failing entirely when you least expect it.
I'm as shocked as anyone that this could be true in something sold by
Microsoft.

-Rus.