Parole With Benefits (PWBE 5 Feb 2024)

[Kendrick Kerwin Chua]

Aw. Russian prisoners have to serve through the end of the war now, not
just for an optimistic six-month tour in Ukraine. Who would have thought
that Russia's government would be so crass as to go back on their word?


Play:
--=--

Yakuza Kiwami (XSX) - Oh no, it's Chapter 8 and Haruka has been
kidnapped. For the third time in just this game. It'll be another six or
seven hours before I can get any kind of Achievement that counts towards
Gamepass rewards. What should I do?

Yakuza Zero (XSX) - Oh good, here are some Achievements to have for
relatively little effort. Oh wow, I'm really digging the story suddenly.
And the hostess at the Cabaret Grand reminds me of that character Mayumi
from Yakuza 5. Hey, you know what I want to play now?

Yakuza 5 Remastered (XSX) - Oh good, more cheap Achievements. I am now
one third of the way towards a free month of Gamepass, and all it costs
me is enjoying these games again. Wow, Fukuoka is really nice to see in
silky-smooth 60 FPS.

This is a really weird metagame I'm playing, bouncing through all the
Yakuza games with the structure of how-fast-to-the-next-trophy instead
of just enjoying the story like I usually do. Maybe this is how I
transition into ridiculous exercises like speed runs or no-level-up
attempts.

Dungeon IV (DC) - Technically on VMU, but it's all one platform so I'm
calling it a Dreamcast game. This little Wizardry clone from the Time
Stalkers world is much more fun than it has any right to be, and it's a
triumph of design. I sort of want them to port exactly this game to
almost any other platform, because everything that's primitive about it
scratches all the PC gamer itches I get occasionally.

Want:
--=--

Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth (PS5) - Ooh. A week on and the PS4 disc
is a buck and a half off regular retail. That's almost as insulting as
the 99 cents off of the PS5 and Xbox discs. I'm good to wait another
week.

Bin:
-==-

Nothing game-related.

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

Balance forward - $359

Xbox Series X Controller Charge-and-Play kit (XSX) - $25 (what?)

Total to date - $384

-KKC, who spent too much time this weekend cleaning things.

[Jaimie Vandenbergh]

On 5 Feb 2024 at 00:18:17 GMT, "Kendrick Kerwin Chua"

<kend...@nospam.io-nyc> wrote:

>
> Aw. Russian prisoners have to serve through the end of the war now, not
> just for an optimistic six-month tour in Ukraine. Who would have thought
> that Russia's government would be so crass as to go back on their word?

Quite shocking, yes.

> Play:
> --=--

> This is a really weird metagame I'm playing, bouncing through all the
> Yakuza games with the structure of how-fast-to-the-next-trophy

Comfort gaming with a made-up benefit?

I've been playing a tiny bit.

Remnant 2 (Xsx, PMG) - Angus and I did a lot less poorly last week, with
a considerable amount of surviving. Not 100% no-deaths, but getting
there. We also spent a half hour being puzzled, until I worked out that
the reason was that we hadn't spotted that we were actually *in a
puzzle*. Once that conceptual barrier was leaped, we finished up that
area and I will now be more aware that the game isn't just a co-op
Soulslike but also has actual puzzles not just "find a thing, put it
here". Also the upgrading process is now pretty clear, and isn't a
horrible mishmash of deeply nested menus just to make a pointier stick.
Hurrah!

Divinity Original Sin 2 (Windows, PMG) - we have escaped Fort Joy! So we
immediately went back in again to do some other bits'n'bobs, got
HarpingOn's twin knives massively upgraded so his elfywelf can do proper
damage, and then went exploring the island we find ourselves on.

> Want:
> --=--

At the moment I seem to need all my game playing energy just to PMG, so
I would like more gaming energy plskthx.

> Bin:
> -==-
>
> Nothing game-related.

Yarp.

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

Ah, I meant to keep track but I haven't really. I did get a new PS+ sub
in the 25% off (plus 13% off the wallet credit) sale so that cost me
about £30 I suppose. I don't actually recall spending any other money -
Remnant 2 is on Game Pass - but I'm probably wrong.

Cheers - Jaimie

--
'I use a heap based stack storage system with a sorting
algorithm which has a major sort key being chronologically
determined, and heap hash key being a combination of
gravity influenced kinetic displacement with frictive and
annoyance dispersive elements.'
-- krin_o_o_'s book filing method

[Jaimie Vandenbergh]

On 5 Feb 2024 at 18:29:08 GMT, "Jaimie Vandenbergh"
<jai...@usually.sessile.org> wrote:

Oh - Rus, I made a "Playing" channel on the Discord which has actually
encouraged people to talk about games, so thank you for the prompt! Do
pop back if you like :)

Cheers - Jaimie

--
Being english is like visiting a zoo where all the
animals are other english people, in the rain.
-- Cyriak Harris

[Russell Marks]

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

> Play:

Outrun 2006 (PSP) - some of this again, now back to tackling the
Flagman events. I feel like they're a bit trickier here than in other
versions, but even if I'm right about that I don't know if that's just
me getting older, or if it's the port, or the controls, or if I need
to grind more, or what. Still, the main thing is the driving around of
corners very sideways in what is clearly a highly realistic fashion,
and that's not gone anywhere. A bit like my position in the Flagman
stuff.

> Want:

Nothing.

> Bin:

Gratuitously giving an OT mention to this, about prompting large
language models to give you a shorter answer:

https://zgedneil.nfshost.com/short-answers.html

-Rus.

[Russell Marks]

Jaimie Vandenbergh <jai...@usually.sessile.org> wrote:

> Oh - Rus, I made a "Playing" channel on the Discord which has actually
> encouraged people to talk about games, so thank you for the prompt! Do
> pop back if you like :)

I saw, but like I said before, I figured I wasn't likely to check the
Discord often - in a way it's actually been more frequent than I'd
expected. Hopefully I'll be an occasional lurker, at least.

-Rus.

[Jaimie Vandenbergh]

On 5 Feb 2024 at 22:31:40 GMT, "Russell Marks"

Hopefully! You've improved the place already.

Cheers - Jaimie

--
"What we have done with PCs so far is not natural"
- Craig Mundie, CTO Microsoft