lol if he likes the airboat section i cant wait to see what he thinks of the coast. I loved that shit!!
2 Likes
halo 2; im so bad, the vibes are terrible
crimson skies: i am death incarnate
battlefront 2: having npc mobs you can shoot at makes things go a lot better
4 Likes
Solving tile swapping/rotating puzzles in the PUZZLE mode in The King of Fighters 2000 (DC).
Solving the puzzles unlocks secret stages from other SNK games, and larger versions of the artwork in the GALLERY mode.
Solving the 31 CHALLENGE and SPECIAL puzzles took me 6 straight hours. ; ) Pressing START shows the completed picture so it isnāt quite as confusing as it looks (I didnāt know about START when I did the first one ; D).
11 Likes
Later, when I was putting him to bed: āYou know, these old games are really good. Better than the games they make now.ā 
23 Likes
i hate sliding block puzzles. i think you must have more patience than god
1 Like
ok now youāre verging on ruthkanda forever
16 Likes
I have no idea if I like them normally. They move fast and make really satisfying noises as you slam them around in this. Possibly I just enjoy the image recognition aspect but I dunno.
3 Likes
Iāve never lied to you.
1 Like
I played a few minutes of Necromonads which is just a Defender clone. Itās competent, I guess, and has a zombie infection mechanic that I guess is supposed to add some interest but, meh. Honestly I never really loved Defender so I think this one was never going to do much for me.
1 Like
I have, of course, been spending all my game time with Football Manager 2023. Zeldaās out, Baldurās Gate 3 is out, the PlayDate finally shipped, Iāve got literally hundreds of games at my fingertips that Iāve either never touched or touched for like five minutes, andā¦Iām playing FM23.
The year is 2046.
(Those who read a really old post in the Sports Game Campaign thread might remember I started out this save as a coach with no prior experience or coaching badges at FC Tatran PreÅ”ov in the Slovakian Second Division ā I got them promoted, and managed to get them to where they were qualifying for European competitions, then got offered the manager job at Legia Warsaw, won a Polish title with them, was heading toward another when I then got offered the job at Lazio[1] in Italy. I, because Iām the best football manager in the world, gradually turned them into one of the best teams in the world, culminating in a season where I won literally every competition we were in, including our 12th Serie A title in a row and our third Championās League in a row. Iād achieved everything I could, it was time to move on, and since Porto had been dominating the Portuguese league the way I had been doing in the Italian league and Sporting Club de Portugal needed a manager, I went there.)
The year is 2046, and Sporting is playing Porto in the TaƧa de Portugal semi-finals, the TaƧa is the Portuguese equivalent to the English FA Cup, where all the clubs in a country enter into a giant bracket with a single winner, running parallel to the league competition. Sporting are both the defending champions of the TaƧa de Portugal, and are three days removed from being crowned the league champions for the first time in 20+ years[2]. Porto are a club struggling with a fall from glory. They havenāt won anything in three years, having watched their great rivals Benfica win the league, followed by Braga winning their first league title ever, and now their other, slightly less great rivals, Sporting, win the league as well.
The TaƧa semi-finals are held over two legs, the first leg hosted at the EstĆ”dio JosĆ© Alvalade in Lisbon. In a match played in the driving rain, we (Sporting) dominated the match, taking a 2-0 lead late, only for Portoās electric striker Alexandre Maciel to run onto a far-post cross and slot it home to give them a precious away goal going into the second leg.
And this, finally, is the match that Iāve been playing this morning. Further north up Portugalās coast, Porto play in the EstĆ”dio do DragĆ£o, a gorgeous airy stadium built for the Euro 2004 tournament[3]. Porto strike first, Maciel again racing clear in only the second minute and slotting the ball past Russo in the Sporting net. The score is now 2-2 on aggregate, and with Porto having an away goal, they would now go through if the game ended this way.
Most of the rest of the first half passes without incident as Porto are controlling things, although their deep-lying playmaker Fernando Islas, one of four Mexicans in Portoās starting lineup, has to be taken off with an injury in the 11th minute[4]. While Iām not worried per se, I would like us to at least start generating some chances, I tell my players to get forward more often and instead of dropping back into our defensive positions after losing the ball in the opposing third, to instead gegenpress (counter-press), swarming the opposition ball-carrier for 5 seconds to try and win the ball back, before then dropping off.
However, we are grasping at what chances we do have, and shortly before halftime, disaster strikes. Porto have a deep free kick in our half and as the ball is floated into the box, our keeper, Russo, comes flying out and with his arms flapping in the air, misses the ball completely. Portoās Cristian Medina heads it into the empty net and the half ends with Porto up two - nil and in complete control of the match.
I am a little ashamed that I yelled. I asked if they knew which sport we happened to be playing and if they did, could they please remember that theyāre supposed to be decent at it. After tearing them down, it was time for a little building up. I went to them in small groups and said, look, youāve been bad; I believe in you. You can turn this around.
Two minutes into the second half, mirroring in time the Porto goal from the first half, we have our own free kick that comes to nothing; however, we collect the ball in the aftermath, and our teenage starlet, Antonio da Silva, is played in on the right side of the box. Having only turned 18 four months ago, heās been in the first team for a year and a half, and all the coaches agree that heās still only half as good as he could be. The defenders rush toward him and as they do, he gently lofts the ball over them and to the far post where gigantic defender Marcos Carabajal, still upfield from the freekick and 6ā7" of muscle and aggression, heads it in. The defenders howl that the first ball to da Silva caught him in an offside position. It goes to VAR (Video Assistant Referee) and heās onside. The goal is put on the board.
It is at this point that I have to sheepishly admit that I lost track of the balance of the tie. Astute readers will note that the score of the second leg is now exactly the same as the final score of the first leg, which puts us at an equilibrium, and if the game ended this way, it would necessitate extra time and, if nobody scored then, a penalty shootout to determine the winner. Instead, I urged the team forward, to run at the opposition. They were on the back foot and I wanted to take advantage. Okay, and I thought we still needed another goal for some reason. It worked out though, as Portoās Diego Arbreu, already on a yellow for a silly challenge in the 30th minute, dives into a scissor tackle in a nothing situation out near the halfway line and now Porto will have to play the rest of the game with 10 players!
Immediately, I make changes to our approach. Instead of aggressively rushing to get the ball into the box and creating chaos that we can hopefully take advantage of, I tell the players to slow things down. Use the entire width of the pitch and knock the ball around, draw their defense out of position. I also take off Rucheendro Rojer, the Dutch shadow striker we bought in January, as heās been struggling to make an impact, as well as Alain Boucka, the mercurial French winger who either has a great game or a horrible one[5]. I brought on Marco, a Brazilian teenager with a tendency to blast in curling shots from range (and admittedly not much else) and Ćmaro Bari, an older striker, also from our academy, who didnāt start because heās refusing to sign a new contract. He thinks heās worth much more than he is, and will likely be sold in the summer.
The pressure keeps ratcheting up without a breakthrough happening, shots flying around the Porto goal and theyāre barely able to get the ball past halfway. in the 80th minute, our wingback, Hochmeister, is hacked down close to the corner flag and we set up for a freekick, which Hochmeister takes and lofts toward the far post. The Porto goalkeeper, Nuno Nasciemento Silva, was a former player of mine for Lazio. He was a third-string keeper with a ton of potential that never really realized it and badly outclassed by a Brazilian who was even younger, I moved him on. Heās had quite a good career at Porto and now, at age 28 and with 12 caps for Portugal, he rushes off his lineā¦and the ball sails over his outstretched arms and onto the head of Iuri Ramon. Our other centerback heads it into the empty net, the game is tied, and if it stands, we are through to the final.
Two minutes later, Porto desperately pump the ball upfield, Iuri Ramon casually winning a header out to the flank, where the ball is played to Marco, who cooly swivels his hips and turning my words to ash in my mouth, loops a delightful pass over the top of the Porto defense and onto the boot of Bari, who runs clear and slots the ball into the side-netting past Nasciemento Silva and sealing the victory. We then pile on the pain even more as Bari has another easy finish deep into injury time, celebrating as the Porto fans stream from their seats, the mocking chants from the away fans ringing in their ears.
The year is 2046, and this is why Iām still playing Football Manager.
[1] - You may say, do you have conflicting feelings having coached two of the most notorious right-wing oriented clubs in Europe, even in a virtual format? Well, as a Lazio-supporting housemate once explained to me, itās more complicated than that. Also: yes. I deliberately selected as many players of African origins for both teams as possible.
[2] - I didnāt even realize weād won the league until Iād advanced after a game and a news item dropped unceremoniously into my inbox noting that weād done so. Apparently our latest win over Portimonense combined with poor results from Porto and Benfica mathematically pushed us over the line.
[3] - It was not the stadium that was used for the Final, where hosts Portugal lost 1-0 to Otto Rehhagelās Greece, in one of European footballās most titanic upsets.
[4] - Please draw your eyes away from the red foot icon that indicates that I had instructed my players to tackle Islas, who was carrying a slight injury coming into the game, as aggressively as possible.
[5] - No guesses as to how he was doing here.
10 Likes
When it was clear nobody else was really going to show up to this thing someone suggested playing Halo Reach Co-Op, since they had dropped out of Halo after the disappointment of Halo 3ās launch. I hadnāt played it in a long time and forgotten most of it, but remember being impressed somewhat. I think the impression was that itās a much better āstoryā game because it has a ādownerā ending even though we (the player) know the ultimate ending.
Itās very much Bungie doing a Call Of Duty game, the halo rings and forerunner stuff is all absent. Lots of military brain stuff. Big spaceships show up and blow things up, and then bigger spaceships blow them up. It was smart of Bungie to do prequels to Halo 3, having finished up the main plot arc.
Thereās a variety of weapons but they mostly all do the same things. With 3 or 4 other players it still works surprisingly well. The game throws squads of different baddies at you and we mostly chewed through them. Sometimes we didnāt know where to go and the relentlessly paced combat encounters slowed to a crawl as we tried to find where the fuck to go.
Halo 1 was good because you had absolutely no context for anything, by the time Reach happens you have context for everything and then some, and by Halo Infinite, the entire series is just context and backstory now. With a lot of these games it really feels like youāre analyzing pond scum and just someone somewhere was allowed to .
We played some Midnight Club LA too! One of the furries there has multiple modded 360s and a big screen that takes multiple inputs, so we were able to hack together a high def 4 player split screen where everyone had their own 1080p corner of the screen. This game felt exactly like every other midnight club felt, down to the stupidly twitch physics and the outdated checkpoint system. We did have a lot of fun with the keepaway and capture the flag modes. Except in order to race multiplayer you have to use a car from your inventory, so we all raced with the terrible starter cars.
9 Likes
whoa
whoaaaaaaaaaa
8 Likes
In case anyone was wondering whether the āTower of Terrorā mission is ridiculously difficult in Yars: Recharged, I can tell you that it is indeed.
The game is very good, though, and half off right now. I had been looking forward to it but I totally forgot about it until I saw a thing about Internisus playing it in my Steam activity feed.
One thing I really like about this game is that one of your primary attacks is to gnaw on objects until they break.
Edit: Okay, I finally beat that mission. The key was learning that you can chew on turrets from the other side of a wall if they are touching the wall.
5 Likes
Echo: Flynnās Route
Ok, I got busy hereās the last one. Flynn, a giant gila monster, has been lurking in the background of everyone elseās route. He gets foregrounded more in Jennaās, but everyone kinda does. Flynn is an asshole heās blunt and keeps poking at the death of his best friend, Sydney, to get some closure.
Heās also megahot if youāre me. Iām me. I think I mentioned before Iād heard this was the best route, and it is, although annoyingly two of the best pieces of writing are completely optional (I missed them my first time through, itās easy to go back and see the other way thought). Flynn is also the best written character in the game by the end, and I think his vibe would resonate with a lot of folks here.
Also remember all that stuff about explicit scenes? Yeah, this one isnāt pulling any punches. In more than one way. Anyway, Spoilers ahoy:
The continuing theme of every route has been letting you see little things Flynn is doing. What his agenda is has been vague up to this point. It turns out itās pretty simple: He wants to live his life, and he wants to find out the answer to Sydneyās death. While also wanting everyone to actually be honest with each other.
Flynn is an asshole, and he is an asshole, but he also calls folks out on their bullshit. He actually points out the fucked up dynamics of Chase and Leoās relationship, points out that everyone coddles TJ, and also points out that nobody actually knew Sydney. Heās a mutli-layered character, he literally gets railed in the back of seedy bars, will chew you out for fucking up, and will bend over backwards to make sure youāre safe.
His route is also the most tragic by far, you can feel that itās not going to end well. And Flynn himself has to come face to face with the reality of his friend too. The ending isā¦the most explicitly weird and supernatural thing in the whole game though, and I feel weird about it. The more I thought about the twist, the more it felt like it was actually building up who Flynn is in the other routes. On the other hand, itās the most WeIrD sUpErNaTuRaL shit in the whole thing, and pulls one piece of ambiguity of whatās going on out, and raises even more questions about what the hell is actually going on here. It sort of undermines the relatively groundedness of the other routes, although it shares this issue with Jennaās too. That sense of heightened reality that feels a bit more sedate in the original three, even Carlās.
So many little mysteries that had been building up in the other routes are resolved in this arc. And it especially resonates with Jennaās, largely due to both being written by the writing team that took over after the original guy (Howly) moved onto Adastra for his own mental health.
Ultimately though, yeah, original author or no, this one is really good. And it does feel like the right note to end the story on, even if in my head Jennaās is the ācannonā ending for me. Itās sadder, and Echo feels like it should end sad.
Next up: Echo as a whole thing.
11 Likes
Echo as a whole thing
Yeah, this one is great. The complicated, emotional, and bluntly for a game about a bunch of college students, really really adult story really shook me. The tone, probably due to itās five year development time, moves slowly from āhighschool friends go their own ways after college and canāt make it workā to āadults dealing with everything in their past they donāt want to acknowledgeā pretty smoothly.
The fact that it plays in the western adult VN genre space contentiously, both calling out the genreās typical structure (Pick someone to have sex with and and do it five times), but also doesnāt pretend itās better is very unique to me. Characters getting horny, lonely, turned out, and having sex arenāt separated out from the game but are somethingā¦actually incorporated in ways that bring depth? Even if itās sometimes that those scenes happen in bad routes. Not as a moral thing, but as a consequential thing.
Every route has some new insight into every other route, and the web of relationships is staggering. Replaying old scenes feels completely different the second time around because the context changes the tone and meaning entirely in many cases. Every cast member is fucked up and sympathetic in their own ways.
ā¦including the fragmentary side stories you unlock after completing the main game. Each is a little window into the kindness and cruelties of the main cast before and during Chase and Jenna leaving for college. These are excellent, and very short.
It manages to justify itself as a game instead of a comic, instead of a movie, through this branching web structure. And while itās very happy to remind you of itās meta ideas in a few places, it actually works. Iād hold this up with psychological horror movies Iāve watcched, and while itās maybe not as good as like, an actual David Lynch film, it does feel like an honest to god work of art.
ā¦I am curious about the two prequels, a sequel, spinoff, and side projects next. Not sure if Iāll hit up any of those or Adastra from the same folks next. I do confess Iām hankering to find out what the deal with the space wolf guy in that one is, but part of me says I should stay in echo.
After all:
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i was enjoying sonic colours ultimate, until i got to starlight carnival, which might be the worst set of stages iāve ever played in a sonic game.
3 Likes
The last boss was so bad I gave up.
1 Like
Dysmantle (PS5) - alright, i give up. canāt resist this gameās dopamine hacks. it whips. itās also completely unoriginal yet somehow kinda hard to describe? itās not really survival, itās not all-in on crafting complexity, itās not quite a builder, itās not hardcore or punishing; itās really just a jack of all trades open-world explorathon. the world is surprisingly compelling and worth exploring, as well as disgustingly vast. Iāve put in 60+ hours already and a huge portion of the map is still fogged
it all looks like absolute dogshit at first glance. you will probably not be enthused, looking at it. just give it some time to get its hooks in. thing has some direct line to your brain chemicals and you may find yourself looking at the clock in disbelief that itās already 4 AM and what the fuck where did the time go
working on setting up Outrun 2006: Coast 2 Coast with the FXT mod, as well as Outrun 2 SP arcade via Teknoparrot, and doing some comparisons. trying to figure out the pros/cons. obv the arcade doesnāt have the home console content but it might look better than PC when upscaled and such, need to futz a bit
will report back
3 Likes