10 Second Ninja DX, redux:
A bug that crashes the game to desktop every time I try to enter the second set of levels is a wall I’m absolutely not committed enough to figure out. I bet I could probably look in the Steam forums and find a fix, but no, don’t care, next game.
trying to level in fortnite and feeling like a badass when i mow down multiple people or one shot folks with a sniper rifle. very stupid game. quests are also very stupid. starting to wonder if i want these cosmetics i already paid for.
Seconded:
As far as transporting things is concerned, if you have any space on your truck, you can use the crane to jam it to whatever can keep the freight in place:
Be aware that you cannot finish a mission that way though, i.e. you need to properly stash it away before you can drop it off.
Re transporting ligs:
Careful, there are different types of logs, and you need the correct trailer for transporting them! You’ll regret not checking that beforehand after digging yourself in and out of the wilderness for 20 minutes, only to realize you have to do that again with a different trailer 
The loosey wanderiness of Forza Horizon 4 drove me back to Gran Turismo 7 and made me appreciate its smooth minimalism more–also I bought a Super Formula car in GT7 and that might be the one I can just time trial zone out with, it’s nice. And I crashed/hung three times in FH4 menus. Trying to optimize the graphics settings was a nightmare in that game (PC/Steam ver): the auto-setter neglected to set a few things like shadow and geometry detail to the max for some reason even though they benchmark at 60, and for some reason you can enable both MSAA and FXAA SIMULTANEOUSLY which must makes the MSAA look worse, har.
The city in FH4 is Edinburgh! Well that’s cool. Kinda genericized and the scale seems odd but the castle view is familiar. (You can buy/rent the castle. ; D) Donutting around in it with the Bac Mono is pretty fun for a while, love that open cockpit and tiny profile; 10 on everything except speed with all the parts.
Think I finally figured out the racing controls I’m going to use, basically pad Trackmania Nations Forever default: gas on [], brake on X. For FH4 and GT7 shifting, R2 up shift, L2 down shift. Hopefully I’m can just work on getting that arrangement down now instead of being all jumbled up in my head between at least two different button layouts and crashing constantly because I’m crossing up my buttons. ; D Also gas on R2 in FH4 was killing my shoulder/neck because I can’t relax or something gargh.
I’ve been playing that new version of We Love Katamari. Other than the levels that were re-used for the PS3 release, I haven’t played this game since it was new. It’s still good, of course.
Kind of dreading the possibility of making another attempt at rolling up Cowbear. All the guides in the world were not enough last time I tried.
i played through catlateral damage remoewstered, i hated having to grind to upgrade my cat but at least it lets you easily do it. aside from that, it was a solid piece of light entertainment and i had fun with it
Been working through Command and Conquer Remastered again. Wrapped up beating all variant GDI missions on Hard, as well as finishing the Nod campaign.
It’s a good thing my parents didn’t let me play the Nod campaign as a kid (because of Kane shooting Seth in the head in the middle lmao) because holy FUCK it’s so difficult. GDI has some tough missions in the middle where you get a base but no con yard and have to manage your vehicles well, but practically every mission from 4 onward in Nod is an outmatched, overwhelmed shitfest. Two squads and a light tank against a whole base kind of bullshit. Even when you’re at the end - where in the GDI campaign they let you play it pretty much straight - they’re hitting you with gimmicks like: build your initial base on an island, get a chinook from a scripted event, use it to drop engineers in a nearby GDI base across the river, and Obelisk-walk until you control the whole thing.
This (Nod 13C) wasn’t even the worst one. The hardest was New Construction Options (Nod 8W), where I had to claim a GDI base only to immediately get pilefucked by Medium Tanks and infantry squads before I have a chance to get any sort of base built. Honestly this is a theme in the whole latter half of Nod. Front half: commando missions with half as many troops as you need. Back half: claim bases that are initially hostile to you and struggle to stay alive while the AI runs you over.
Playing the first few Red Alert missions and by comparison they are SO much easier. Less micro intensive, more generous with the scripted events, and just generally a stronger experience all-around. It’s like night and day! You start to see the strong RTS single-player design they would later perfect with the second generation of games.
Next goals:
It’s the weekend which means it’s videogames time which means probably more Mortal Kombat 11 and Warframe.
Don’t think I’m gonna stick with Kitanna too much, I don’t think her and I get along that well… or maybe it’s just 'cause I’m bad 'cause the Medium AI is absolutely whooping my ass.
Over in Warframe, I’m just hunting Incarnon upgrades for weapons and kinda just… really still liking the basic Duviri experience. The Circuit (Steel Path), though, I’m really not sure the whole random 'frame+random weapons thing works so well for. Steel Path puts a lot more emphasis on specializing for mission types and the variety of missions it puts you through (particularly Defense missions) make it obnoxious to push very far, especially if your combo isn’t actually good at that type of mission.
I don’t have deep thoughts about it but I really enjoyed a little VN called Her tears were my light. Charming characters, an enjoyable time loop thing, mercifully brief even if you want to chase multiple endings.
I felt like HTWML is kind of thin in comparison to that dev’s later works like Bad End Theater and especially Syrup And The Ultimate Sweet.
in dokapon kingdom:
a woman asked me to deliver some food to a specific space on the board and it took me about a dozen turns to land on it. the mayor said he couldn’t pay me because i did such a poor job. if you’re in someone else’s town you have the option to play roshambo to take their money. i did
a french bandit npc asked me if i wanted him to steal for me. he stole a main quest item from @miffy for me, which i turned in for one million dollars
a traveling vendor in a cave sold me spells that allow me to move other players to any accessible space on the board or cast doom on them
i used an item to slow my partner’s movement to one space at a time and stole a quest item from her, which i turned in for ten thousand dollars
an epidemic came to the kingdom and put some of us five figures in the red
my partner lost roshambo with a plucky kid NPC but the NPC decided to wipe out her debt out of pity
also? about half of the battles ended in someone getting one-shot and sitting out several turns.
just an incredible time. capricious as hell like good smt. and so brisk it doesn’t feel like you’ve spent a dozen hours playing. rock paper scissors: the long war mod
Those are on my list so I’m looking forward to them
the best part of this was me finessing it from doolittle’s partner immediately beforehand, and then immediately having it snatched from me by the french bandit, and then using everything i had to try to cut doolittle off on the way back to the castle to steal it back and doolittle just peacing out with quest item after i managed to catch her, it’s amazing how consistently the game produces like hilarious and poetic and ironic circumstances i love dokapon so much
my personal favorite thing that’s happened so far is the evil chaos wizard who showed up and went “hey kid wanna see something fucked up” and then handed a giant roach to me, the girl with a roach phobia, who then lived in my bag for a few turns and ate all my items and then left. also the like, very first thing that happened to me in the game was that a level three pirhana randomly one shot me and made me BALD and i screamed like i had just witnessed a murder but couldn’t stay that mad at it because it was really fucking funny. when i had a chance to get my revenge on the pirhana turns later it one shot me again and i just gave up and have not touched the water since
the last time i played was in like 2017 with some friends over parsec on the ds version and that was a similarly wild time, we named all of our characters after popolocrois characters and drew fanart and little comics of all the bullshit that happened in between sessions. the thing i remember most was my friend todd being stuck in combat with a gargoyle? i think? for almost a full in game week, like 5+ turns, because the gargoyle would dodge all of his attacks and prevent him from fleeing somehow, and as soon as he got out of that battle he immediately ran into another that we joked was the other gargoyle’s big brother. anyways dokapon is the best game ever made i nearly forgot how much i loved it
when i finally get like an hour to myself in the evenings i’ve found that instead of getting back into tears of the kingdom or watching succession… i play doom
This is the way.
Gran Turismo 7 (PS4)
With a Porsche 919 Hybrid and a Super Formula 19 I feel like I’ve finally got back to the time trialing groove I hit in one magical all-nighter with Metropolis Street Racer on Dreamcast back in the day. Was grinding through three Gran Turismos worth it? Yeah I guess so. ^ _^ Anyway, real fun video driving.
I suck at Mortal Kombat, but at least I beat a tag assist tower. Can’t do stage fatalities to save my life, though.
sigh
Wonder how much of this is contoller related. I have a very hard time getting inputs right with the analog stick, and the pad itself is laid out like an Xbox controller so I find using the D-pad awkward at best. It’s fun when I can get my fingers to work, though, and I hit the inputs I want. Every once in a blue moon I can perform a combo that’s a bit more involved than the basic dial-a-combos.
Kinda digging the way Rain plays, though I think I’ll give Noob a try today. He seems like, if nothing else, he might be good at cheesing the AI.
Should really stop myself from attempting Spelunky 2 with its many flavors of death (but can’t)
GETTING JAGGY WITH IT
TEMPEST 2000
a classic! though tbh minter has made better games since this one. it’s still great though, as long as you set up analog controls (or even better, have a rotary controller for some reason). it’s fine with d-pad controls, but i can’t go back to that method after going analog.
RUINER PINBALL
who says nuclear war can’t be fun and sexy?? it’s pinball but with a bleak as hell nuclear war theme and i unironically love that. also the main table is TWO TABLES WIDE (well, you move between tables) and multiball can even make both tables active sometimes. it also does the thing where sprites wander around the playfield, including a hilarious bit where people run for a shelter and you can squish them into a bloody mess with your ball. i have no idea what they were thinking when they were making this.
there is another table included that’s clearly heavily inspired by dragon’s fury, except gorier and titty-ier.
i REALLY wanted to love this, but it has one major problem… there is a huge delay between pressing a button and the flippers actually flipping. makes it basically unplayable. now the emulator has some input lag because that’s the way things are, but this is the only time it’s felt noticeable, and it’s VERY noticeable. disappointing, i really wanted to like this.
RAYMAN
this was the original version of rayman. that’s right, it started as a jag exclusive! this is considered to be inferior to most other ports, but i ended up playing it longer than most versions because the music level doesn’t have ice physics. that always made me quit.
still, i was never a fan of Rayman, and this version doesn’t do enough to change my mind. very pretty game with good music, but i always found it very mid as an actual game. it’s fine i suppose.
POWER DRIVE RALLY
i really like BlombyLikes (overhead rally games), but there aren’t too many of them. luckily, this is a really good one! ended up playing this one for ages. looks great, feels good to control, good feeling of progression. the only problem i had were the technical courses because it wasn’t clear what some of the symbols meant. the manual didn’t help so i had to watch a let’s play… i would have figured out soon enough though, i think.
but yeah, this is great. gets a bit tough but in a way that feels fair, and you can save between every race so you can try again if you don’t get a result you’re happy with.
PROTECTOR
It’s Defender! I’m not a big fan of Defender despite being a big Jarvis fan, and this clone ain’t winning me over. For one, it’s WAY too fast from the get go, making it super hard to control which is frustrating when trying to capture falling humans. Oh and you get a few hits before death, but i feel they had to do that because it’s really common for enemies to just blast right into you at light speed. The radar also isn’t as useful as the one in Defender, and there are no hills for some reason. On the plus side, there are more enemy types and a shop between levels. But ultimately it just doesn’t play well in my opinion.
A 2002 update was released called PROTECTOR SPECIAL EDITION which I played for a bit anndd it’s better in almost every way. Well, the main thing is that it isn’t too fast now, and the controls are less slippery so I can actually pick up falling humans. This version is actually pretty fun, but nothing amazing. Resogun is the only defender I need in my life. Oh, but I need to play more of Defender 2000 to see which of the two Jag Defender clones are better.
RAIDEN
it’s raiden! i’m not really into shooters so i don’t know how this port stacks up, but plays really well, and looking at a video of the arcade version it seems pretty accurate.
