And here we are, at the start of the final month of 2022, and on the
eve of an entirely new year. What will the future hold for us, in the
next thirty days or 365 days? Who cares! We have to discuss what games
we've played during the past month, not worry about what's coming
next. Look behind, not ahead, that's the rule for this thread!

So, looking behind me, I see:

The List
------------------------------
* Stray (new)
* American Truck Simulator: Texas DLC (new)
* Dead Space 2 (replay)
* Major Stryker (replay)


The Novel
---------------------------------------

* Stray (new)
Let's be blunt about it: the reason to play "Stray" is because you
like cats. If you aren't a cat-lover, this game is an adequate
experience at best, but otherwise a boring slogs. But if you do
properly worship the whiskered overlords of Earth, you'll have fun
time.

Well, maybe. The feline protagonist is undeniably adorable to we
fellow toxoplasmosis-infectees - an achingly soft ball of orange fluff
- but he lacks any real character beyond his incredible, fuzzy-wuzzy
cuteness. But despite being the game's main actor, he isn't really the
game's main focus; that honor instead falls to the game's setting,
which is a beautifully rendered underground city with a cyberpunk feel
to it. Exploring its nooks and crannies - as only a cat can - is the
best part of this game, and it's wonderful use of light and color
creates a very atmospheric experience.

Certainly the gameplay isn't the game's biggest hook; at it's heart,
"Stray" is largely a "walking simulator" with that genre's requisite
lack of challenge or options. There's some light stealth and
puzzle-solving, but these are exceptionally easy and seem included in
the game less to provide any challenge or variety than to simply break
up the endless wandering. Some reviewers have praised the city's
occupants - its humanlike robots - but as few of them ever had more
than one or two lines of conversation, I found them fairly flat in
personality and they served more as quest-givers or information dumps
than engaging conversationalists.

I enjoyed "Stray", but again that was mostly because I liked the
'being a cat' aspect; the adorable mews and walking sounds, the
lifelike animations, the opportunity to knock bottles off tables...
how could I resist? I also liked exploring the vividly detailed
environment and discovering - through carefully doled out narrative -
of how it came to be in its current ruined state. But beyond that
"Stray" was a rather humdrum and unexceptional example of the
'narrative game' genre, and if you're not a fan of those types of
games - or cats - you'll find little to convince you of the worth of
either.



* American Truck Simulator: Texas DLC (new)
I bought the Texas DLC day one, of course. Montana - the previous DLC
- was a gorgeous journey and an excellent investment of my time and
money, so why shouldn't I get Texas?

But even as I laid my cash on my barrel, I was already reconsidering
the purchase. I've been to Texas - the non-digital version, I mean -
and I wasn't impressed. Although there were some nice parts, on the
whole I found it an ugly, flat scrubland filled with ugly, fat people.
I've no love for the geography of the American West (give me the
wetter forests of the temperate regions, thank you very much), and
Texan's recent actions in American politics were almost as offensive
to me as Russia's actions in Ukraine. I'd not have been disappointed
if the developers had abandoned their plans for Texas DLC the same way
they did Russian expansion. But they didn't, and leaving Texas out of
my ATS map would have left a gaping hole. So I reluctantly bought the
DLC.

And, honestly, Texas met all my expectations. Mechanically, the game
is fine; it's another big map with lots of highways and rest-stops and
place where I can lug cargo to and from. But it's dull and
characterless, especially compared to recent ATS expansions. It's
primary feature is its size; there's (unsurprisingly, since it's the
largest state) a lot of map to explore. But it's an issue of quantity
over quality, and long before I'd visited all the map's hotspots, I
was bored of it. There is nothing memorable about the state; it's a
melange of all the least-interesting parts of all the rest of the ATS
maps combined. There are a lot of places to visit, but very little to
see. I suppose I could acknowledge its impressive highway system,
although mostly what's most impressive is just how much of it there
is. Texas is a car-owner's paradise, but if you prefer landscapes over
asphalt, not so much.

I can't fault the developers for any of this, though; all the above is
pretty true to the real Texas too. I wish the developers hadn't been
so accurate to the real thing, and made this DLC more palatable. But
the more I explored, the more I yearned to re-visit Wyoming or Montana
or Colorado or even New Mexico; anything but Texas. This would be an
excellent expansion... had only it been set anywhere else.



* Dead Space 2 (replay)
This is really a game I should have played back in October (that's the
spooky month, after all, and Dead Space is horror franchise) but "Dead
Space 2" is great no matter when you play it. Good visuals, good
atmosphere, good voice acting and sound, good level design and solid
gameplay. It's actually sort of hard to say anything about this game
because it does everything so well. How can I complain about all the
obvious flaws when there weren't any? The version on Steam didn't even
need EA's Origin client to be running.

Okay, sure. The genre isn't going to be everybody's cup of tea. It's
fairly slow-moving, methodical action, and if you want frenzied
twitch-based gaming you'll be a bit bored. The game is heavily
scripted, and there's no open world to explore. The story is as
trope-heavy as anything in the slasher genre. If these things bug you,
you aren't going to suddenly fall in love with them just because "Dead
Space 2" does it so well. But the game doesn't pretend to be anything
more than it is, and the developers made the effort to do as good a
job within the limitations of the genre as possible. And it's aged
remarkably well; aside from some flat lighting and textures, it's hard
to believe the game is over ten years old at this point.

So, yeah, that's all I have to say about "Dead Space 2"; it's good.
I've played it before and I expect I'll play it again. 'Nuff said?



* Major Stryker (replay)
"Major Stryker" is not a good game. Not really. At best it's an
average shooter, even taking into consideration its age. Even in 1993,
it was noticeably behind the curve even amongst other PC shoot-em-ups,
much less the genre as a whole. It was visually primitive, and its
gameplay was slow and lacked novelty.

But the game remains a guilty sin of mine. It is nostalgic and safe.
It's not exciting or even all that challenging, but that is perhaps
some of its charm. It's a game I know I can get through without having
to work too hard at it. It doesn't tax the reflexes or the brain. I
can just hold down the fire button and occasionally twitch left or
right to dodge incoming fire, and I can be pretty sure I'll get to the
end of the level. Plus, the soundtrack is pretty good too. Thirty
years on and I can still whistle it.

"Major Stryker" isn't the sort of game I'd recommend to... well,
anybody. It doesn't have any historical value. Its visuals are
laughable. Shmup fans won't be impressed. The most ardent retro
gamers will barely give this game a look. Even I can only stomach it
so long and so often. But I'm happy that it remains available for
those odd times when I get a craving for something simple. It doesn't
happen often, but when it does, "Major Stryker" isn't a bad choice for
me.


------------------------------

Well, that's me done looking back. I'm going to start looking forward
again. But don't you start, not until you tell everybody...

What Have You Been Playing... IN NOVEMBER 2022?

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

What Have You Been Playing... IN NOVEMBER 2022?

Pentiment
An excellent adventure game that has you consider the depths and passage
of time in a small medieval village. I finished feeling very satisfied with
the experience (and it is an experience, rather than a puzzle or
shooter-fest). The richly-colored 2D illuminated manuscript styled graphics were always appealing, and I enjoyed the parchment manuscript editing flourishes in dialogue boxes, and numerous details about medieval life,
culture and religion spread throughout.

Here is a few worthwhile related links for the game: https://pentiment.obsidian.net/ has a lovely overview of the game's approach and artstyle. https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2022/11/10/recommended-reading-of-medieval-history-from-josh-sawyer/
has a list of related books to check out, and I will put The Return of
Martin Guerre movie on my watchlist.
Launch Week Beer with Pentiment art. Looks like it's still available!! https://www.reddit.com/r/Pentiment/comments/z6l97l/baltasars_weihnachtsbier_scharwzbier_beer/

Players who enjoyed The Name of the Rose novel or movie will love Pentiment
for sure. Took me 22hrs to finish, which is on the high end.

rms

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Thu, 1 Dec 2022 15:16:15 -0700, "rms" <rsquiresMOO@MOOflashMOO.net>
wrote:

What Have You Been Playing... IN NOVEMBER 2022?

Pentiment
An excellent adventure game that has you consider the depths and passage
of time in a small medieval village. I finished feeling very satisfied with >the experience (and it is an experience, rather than a puzzle or >shooter-fest). The richly-colored 2D illuminated manuscript styled graphics >were always appealing, and I enjoyed the parchment manuscript editing >flourishes in dialogue boxes, and numerous details about medieval life, >culture and religion spread throughout.

Pentiment looks glorious and I came /very/ close to buying it. It was
largely the price that chased me away; I just don't want to pay full
price anymore. But I'm definitely going to get it - and play it - once
it goes on sale.

(Looks longingly at the store page on Steam.)

(Well, it /is/ only $19.99. That's almost like it's on sale...)

(NO! Resist the urge! Wait for the sale, wait for the sale...)

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

December already? :O I played more of Skyrim, NARUTO TO BORUTO: SHINOBI
STRIKER (copied and pasted its all caps title)'s free weekend, etc. BUSY
times again. :(


Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

And here we are, at the start of the final month of 2022, and on the
eve of an entirely new year. What will the future hold for us, in the
next thirty days or 365 days? Who cares! We have to discuss what games
we've played during the past month, not worry about what's coming
next. Look behind, not ahead, that's the rule for this thread!

So, looking behind me, I see:

The List
------------------------------
* Stray (new)
* American Truck Simulator: Texas DLC (new)
* Dead Space 2 (replay)
* Major Stryker (replay)

The Novel
---------------------------------------

* Stray (new)
Let's be blunt about it: the reason to play "Stray" is because you
like cats. If you aren't a cat-lover, this game is an adequate
experience at best, but otherwise a boring slogs. But if you do
properly worship the whiskered overlords of Earth, you'll have fun
time.

Well, maybe. The feline protagonist is undeniably adorable to we
fellow toxoplasmosis-infectees - an achingly soft ball of orange fluff
- but he lacks any real character beyond his incredible, fuzzy-wuzzy cuteness. But despite being the game's main actor, he isn't really the
game's main focus; that honor instead falls to the game's setting,
which is a beautifully rendered underground city with a cyberpunk feel
to it. Exploring its nooks and crannies - as only a cat can - is the
best part of this game, and it's wonderful use of light and color
creates a very atmospheric experience.

Certainly the gameplay isn't the game's biggest hook; at it's heart,
"Stray" is largely a "walking simulator" with that genre's requisite
lack of challenge or options. There's some light stealth and
puzzle-solving, but these are exceptionally easy and seem included in
the game less to provide any challenge or variety than to simply break
up the endless wandering. Some reviewers have praised the city's
occupants - its humanlike robots - but as few of them ever had more
than one or two lines of conversation, I found them fairly flat in personality and they served more as quest-givers or information dumps
than engaging conversationalists.

I enjoyed "Stray", but again that was mostly because I liked the
'being a cat' aspect; the adorable mews and walking sounds, the
lifelike animations, the opportunity to knock bottles off tables...
how could I resist? I also liked exploring the vividly detailed
environment and discovering - through carefully doled out narrative -
of how it came to be in its current ruined state. But beyond that
"Stray" was a rather humdrum and unexceptional example of the
'narrative game' genre, and if you're not a fan of those types of
games - or cats - you'll find little to convince you of the worth of
either.

* American Truck Simulator: Texas DLC (new)
I bought the Texas DLC day one, of course. Montana - the previous DLC
- was a gorgeous journey and an excellent investment of my time and
money, so why shouldn't I get Texas?

But even as I laid my cash on my barrel, I was already reconsidering
the purchase. I've been to Texas - the non-digital version, I mean -
and I wasn't impressed. Although there were some nice parts, on the
whole I found it an ugly, flat scrubland filled with ugly, fat people.
I've no love for the geography of the American West (give me the
wetter forests of the temperate regions, thank you very much), and
Texan's recent actions in American politics were almost as offensive
to me as Russia's actions in Ukraine. I'd not have been disappointed
if the developers had abandoned their plans for Texas DLC the same way
they did Russian expansion. But they didn't, and leaving Texas out of
my ATS map would have left a gaping hole. So I reluctantly bought the
DLC.

And, honestly, Texas met all my expectations. Mechanically, the game
is fine; it's another big map with lots of highways and rest-stops and
place where I can lug cargo to and from. But it's dull and
characterless, especially compared to recent ATS expansions. It's
primary feature is its size; there's (unsurprisingly, since it's the
largest state) a lot of map to explore. But it's an issue of quantity
over quality, and long before I'd visited all the map's hotspots, I
was bored of it. There is nothing memorable about the state; it's a
melange of all the least-interesting parts of all the rest of the ATS
maps combined. There are a lot of places to visit, but very little to
see. I suppose I could acknowledge its impressive highway system,
although mostly what's most impressive is just how much of it there
is. Texas is a car-owner's paradise, but if you prefer landscapes over asphalt, not so much.

I can't fault the developers for any of this, though; all the above is
pretty true to the real Texas too. I wish the developers hadn't been
so accurate to the real thing, and made this DLC more palatable. But
the more I explored, the more I yearned to re-visit Wyoming or Montana
or Colorado or even New Mexico; anything but Texas. This would be an excellent expansion... had only it been set anywhere else.

* Dead Space 2 (replay)
This is really a game I should have played back in October (that's the
spooky month, after all, and Dead Space is horror franchise) but "Dead
Space 2" is great no matter when you play it. Good visuals, good
atmosphere, good voice acting and sound, good level design and solid gameplay. It's actually sort of hard to say anything about this game
because it does everything so well. How can I complain about all the
obvious flaws when there weren't any? The version on Steam didn't even
need EA's Origin client to be running.

Okay, sure. The genre isn't going to be everybody's cup of tea. It's
fairly slow-moving, methodical action, and if you want frenzied
twitch-based gaming you'll be a bit bored. The game is heavily
scripted, and there's no open world to explore. The story is as
trope-heavy as anything in the slasher genre. If these things bug you,
you aren't going to suddenly fall in love with them just because "Dead
Space 2" does it so well. But the game doesn't pretend to be anything
more than it is, and the developers made the effort to do as good a
job within the limitations of the genre as possible. And it's aged
remarkably well; aside from some flat lighting and textures, it's hard
to believe the game is over ten years old at this point.

So, yeah, that's all I have to say about "Dead Space 2"; it's good.
I've played it before and I expect I'll play it again. 'Nuff said?

* Major Stryker (replay)
"Major Stryker" is not a good game. Not really. At best it's an
average shooter, even taking into consideration its age. Even in 1993,
it was noticeably behind the curve even amongst other PC shoot-em-ups,
much less the genre as a whole. It was visually primitive, and its
gameplay was slow and lacked novelty.

But the game remains a guilty sin of mine. It is nostalgic and safe.
It's not exciting or even all that challenging, but that is perhaps
some of its charm. It's a game I know I can get through without having
to work too hard at it. It doesn't tax the reflexes or the brain. I
can just hold down the fire button and occasionally twitch left or
right to dodge incoming fire, and I can be pretty sure I'll get to the
end of the level. Plus, the soundtrack is pretty good too. Thirty
years on and I can still whistle it.

"Major Stryker" isn't the sort of game I'd recommend to... well,
anybody. It doesn't have any historical value. Its visuals are
laughable. Shmup fans won't be impressed. The most ardent retro
gamers will barely give this game a look. Even I can only stomach it
so long and so often. But I'm happy that it remains available for
those odd times when I get a craving for something simple. It doesn't
happen often, but when it does, "Major Stryker" isn't a bad choice for
me.

------------------------------

Well, that's me done looking back. I'm going to start looking forward
again. But don't you start, not until you tell everybody...

What Have You Been Playing... IN NOVEMBER 2022?

--
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full
of grace and truth." ???John 1:1-2 and 14. Slammy coldy Thursday including withdrawing my precious blood and money. Maybe more tomorrow too.
Note: A fixed width font (Courier, Monospace, etc.) is required to see this signature correctly.
/\___/\ Ant(Dude) @ http://aqfl.net & http://antfarm.home.dhs.org.
/ /\ /\ \ Please nuke ANT if replying by e-mail.
| |o o| |
\ _ /
( )

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Pentiment looks glorious and I came /very/ close to buying it. It was
largely the price that chased me away

I would never have played this, but for it being included with Gamepass.

rms

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Thu, 01 Dec 2022 11:10:23 -0500, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action,
Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

[snip]

Well, that's me done looking back. I'm going to start looking forward
again. But don't you start, not until you tell everybody...

What Have You Been Playing... IN NOVEMBER 2022?

40 hours of Picross S8 on my Switch. We Happy Few on the PC. More
Overload on the PC. Trying out my new 3060 Ti RTX card with Quake II RTX.

In the hopper: Cyberpunk 2077, Stray, and Psychonauts 2.

I briefly started up Stray, saw that it wanted a controller for the
"optimal experience," was too lazy to plug in a controller. I am lame.

--
Zag

No one ever said on their deathbed, 'Gee, I wish I had
spent more time alone with my computer.' ~Dan(i) Bunten

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

40 hours of Picross S8 on my Switch. We Happy Few on the PC. More
Overload on the PC. Trying out my new 3060 Ti RTX card with Quake II RTX.

How is WHF? I recall it had a good amount of pre-launch hype as a Bioshocky-title, but faded very quickly. Overload I put a good amount of $ into the kickstarter to make sure it got made, and I still haven't played
it! Kind of bummed they disbanded right after, there was a glimmer of hope
for a Freespace 3 for a short while there....

I briefly started up Stray, saw that it wanted a controller for the
"optimal experience," was too lazy to plug in a controller. I am lame.

I keep one plugged in, but disable it in device manager if a game insists
on defaulting to it, especially in showing button prompts.

rms

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Thursday, December 1, 2022 at 2:16:19 PM UTC-8, rms wrote:

What Have You Been Playing... IN NOVEMBER 2022?

Pentiment
An excellent adventure game that has you consider the depths and passage
of time in a small medieval village. I finished feeling very satisfied with the experience (and it is an experience, rather than a puzzle or shooter-fest). The richly-colored 2D illuminated manuscript styled graphics were always appealing, and I enjoyed the parchment manuscript editing flourishes in dialogue boxes, and numerous details about medieval life, culture and religion spread throughout.

Here is a few worthwhile related links for the game: https://pentiment.obsidian.net/ has a lovely overview of the game's approach and artstyle. https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2022/11/10/recommended-reading-of-medieval-history-from-josh-sawyer/
has a list of related books to check out, and I will put The Return of
Martin Guerre movie on my watchlist.
Launch Week Beer with Pentiment art. Looks like it's still available!! https://www.reddit.com/r/Pentiment/comments/z6l97l/baltasars_weihnachtsbier_scharwzbier_beer/

Players who enjoyed The Name of the Rose novel or movie will love Pentiment for sure. Took me 22hrs to finish, which is on the high end.

Ooh! I've not seen Name of the Rose or read it, but I've oft thought someone should do an rpg with medieval illustration style. I'm not quite sure it's for me,
but another on my wishlist. $20 seems a little on the pricy side for such a short game.

- Justisaur

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Sat, 3 Dec 2022 09:22:20 -0800 (PST), Justisaur
<justisaur@gmail.com> wrote:

On Thursday, December 1, 2022 at 2:16:19 PM UTC-8, rms wrote:

What Have You Been Playing... IN NOVEMBER 2022?

Pentiment
An excellent adventure game that has you consider the depths and passage
of time in a small medieval village. I finished feeling very satisfied with >> the experience (and it is an experience, rather than a puzzle or
shooter-fest). The richly-colored 2D illuminated manuscript styled graphics >> were always appealing, and I enjoyed the parchment manuscript editing
flourishes in dialogue boxes, and numerous details about medieval life,
culture and religion spread throughout.

Here is a few worthwhile related links for the game:
https://pentiment.obsidian.net/ has a lovely overview of the game's approach >> and artstyle.
https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2022/11/10/recommended-reading-of-medieval-history-from-josh-sawyer/
has a list of related books to check out, and I will put The Return of
Martin Guerre movie on my watchlist.
Launch Week Beer with Pentiment art. Looks like it's still available!!
https://www.reddit.com/r/Pentiment/comments/z6l97l/baltasars_weihnachtsbier_scharwzbier_beer/

Players who enjoyed The Name of the Rose novel or movie will love Pentiment >> for sure. Took me 22hrs to finish, which is on the high end.

Ooh! I've not seen Name of the Rose or read it, but I've oft thought someone >should do an rpg with medieval illustration style. I'm not quite sure it's for me,
but another on my wishlist. $20 seems a little on the pricy side for such a >short game.

I quite enjoyed "The Name of the Rose", but - while it's not an extra-ordinarilly difficult read - it does take some effort to
comprehend the amount of details Mr. Eco put into the book. Some of
the religious arguments are quite fascinating, if a bit anachronistic.
But it's definitely one of my more favored novels, and - I think - a
must read for Medievalists.

Its labyrinthine library has also been the inspiration for more than a
few D&D adventures of mine (rarely as actual libraries though). And
I've often considered building a replica of the monastary in
Minecraft.

(There's a movie of the book too. I'm rather lukewarm on it. It
doesn't capture a 10th of the novel's complexities and none of its philosophical ramblings, focusing instead almost entirely on the
superficial murder-mystery plot that doesn't make much sense to anyone
lacking the historical background. Maybe it's a good starting place
for someone who wants to read the book but is dreading its wordy
length as a way to ease into the world... but even then I'd say just
start reading first.)

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 01/12/2022 17:10, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

What Have You Been Playing... IN NOVEMBER 2022?

Steam tells me I only played
* World of Warcraft (Wrath of the Lich King)
* Assassin's Creed IV
* Human Resource Machine

I thought I played more, but Steam tells me that all was in October
already. That month went by faster than I though it would.

I also managed to get some Settlers of Catan in with my kid. And very technically DnD with him as well.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Thursday, December 1, 2022 at 8:10:38 AM UTC-8, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

The Novel
---------------------------------------

* Stray (new)
Let's be blunt about it: the reason to play "Stray" is because you
like cats. If you aren't a cat-lover, this game is an adequate
experience at best, but otherwise a boring slogs. But if you do
properly worship the whiskered overlords of Earth, you'll have fun
time.

Yeah, I'm one of those weirdos that loves both cats AND dogs. I've
had both even at the same time over my life. The last cat we had
was the worst one we ever had though (the personality of a drug
crazed homeless woman who wants to kill you) and that pretty
much cured us of having cats for the foreseeable future. I'll still
happily play with other's cats though as long as I don't have to
take them home with me.

Certainly the gameplay isn't the game's biggest hook; at it's heart,
"Stray" is largely a "walking simulator" with that genre's requisite
lack of challenge or options. There's some light stealth and
puzzle-solving, but these are exceptionally easy and seem included in
the game less to provide any challenge or variety than to simply break
up the endless wandering. Some reviewers have praised the city's
occupants - its humanlike robots - but as few of them ever had more
than one or two lines of conversation, I found them fairly flat in personality and they served more as quest-givers or information dumps
than engaging conversationalists.

And, that's why I haven't bought it yet, almost none of that is
appealing. I'd certainly give it a try for free or really deep discount, but between the gameplay being types I actively dislike and the rather high
ratio of $ to play time, it's a no.

What Have You Been Playing... IN NOVEMBER 2022?

Still trying to learn JavaScript, but it's pretty arcane. I learned 1e
AD&D, so I'll be damned if I let JavaScript beat me. Nothing more to
show at the moment as I've been focuing more on the learning part. My
work has a course so I've been going through that.

Oh yes games, that's why we're here. As usual I can't quite remember
what I've been playing, so looking through steam etc.

TL;DR:

** Resident Evil 2
** Slay the spire
** Okhlos: Omega
** Mechaknights: Nightmare
** Evil Dead (2022)
** Earth Defense Force: World Brothers
*** Earth Defense Force 4.1 Wingdiver the Shooter
**** Vermintide 2
**** Superhero League of Hoboken
***** Dungeon Robber

Put them in the order I like them/would want to play them more, shorter
first.

Long but read:

** Resident Evil 2
I got this one of the RE series as Spalss suggested it was probably the
best one. The controls were indeed fairly good. I didn't much care
for the very slow walking away from the zombies which inevitably
results in being bit, which I think even in my decrepid old state I
could easily outdo in real life. The bullet sponge zomibes that can't
be killed, they just take a short nap. I also don't like the
'adventure' part of the game where you have to find x thing and carry
it around to open y thing. I probably could've foriven any one or even
two of all those but put all together it was a big old soup of nope. I
did like the atmosphere/story how little into the game I got, but
that's all it had, it was just barely enough to give it 2 stars instead
of 1 but not enough to get through the rest of that steaming pile. I
should just go watch the movies again I guess.

** Slay the Spire
This was something like #8 and the first thing going from 1 down that
grabbed me from the article on the 100 best games PW posted and very
highly rated on Steam. It was on a good sale, so I gave it a try. It's
a card game rpg, I enjoyed Guild of Dungeoneering well enough, so gave
it a go. I used it to play while I was downloading other things to
try, and played through to my demise 3 times. I didn't like being
forced to stick with crap cards or use a far too valuable situation to
remove them, and there were a lot of crap cards. The indy graphics
were pretty primitive and without any charm. It didn't grab me. Can't recommend this, and I've no idea why it was so high up on that 100
greatest games list, let alone on it at all, it felt mediocre at best.

** Okhlos: Omega
Indy greek mob adventure idea grabbed me. This reminds me of Anycute,
but way worse, which is in a way somewhat akin to Syndicate at least
the way I played it (which I really need to play again some time.) I
found it a bit on the difficult and frustrating side since you can only
have so many in a mob and you're prevented from picking up better
bystandards when you have bad ones. If it didn't have such a limit or
allowed you to kick ones you didn't want I'd be much happier with it. I
only paid $1.50 for this I think I played it 4 times. Great idea,
poor execution.

** Mechaknights: Knightmare
Indy single programmer game. I bought this as it was fairly cheap, had
good reviews and I'd discovered it when looking for mech games when PW
asked. I didn't know at the time that it's EDF inspired. You can only
use a Mech though, which is fine. It is more mechlike and a bit slower
than the video on the store page depicts which is good. It's not
really bad, but I can't quite give a recommendation. It's very grindy,
having to repeat missions to earn better weapons etc. I'd say
significantly more than EDF 5. There's only a few missions, I actually
only got to 3 missions, though I played the first over and over to just
to be able to get through the 2nd. Probably the worst thing about it
is the graphics. They use an extremely muddly pallate, the aliens you
fight are barely distingushable from the hills and grass that you fight
upon, and they just look like a worse mess than stuff my kids drew in kidnergarden. Normally I'm not that big on graphics, but this has to be
one of if not the worst looking game I've ever played.

** Evil Dead (2022): Survival comedy/horror.
I played the tutorial, which was fun, and three of the solo missions
(the last I couldn't finish.) I did put a good deal of time into it,
and I appreciate even the clunky combat against the demons and zombies
of the necronomicon. As usual the best part was just the voice lines
by Bruce Campbell. There was a lot more here to discover and enjoy,
but I found the 3rd mission too hard. I did sort of try the survival
mode, as you can play against bots, so I thought I'd try that. I chose
one of the 4 ashes and let loose, the game told me one of the bots
choose the same Ash and put me to some other guy I don't know. I
quickly lost and didn't have the heart to try again. I will recommend
this to at least try if you've got any favor for the Evil Dead movies,
and/or survival horror, as you should at least enjoy the tutorial and
first mission, and since it was given away by Epic yall should have it.

** Earth Defense Force: World Brothers.
squad shooter with block style. Fairly good reviews, mostly by those
who love EDF 5 which I love. Complaints about it only having split
screen on the PS4, not on the switch or PC. As I don't plan to get a
PS4 (though I'm still considering for Souls Games where the cheaters
don't abound and being able to play Demon Souls.) I finally decided to
give it a try. EDF is a bit silly, this takes it to 11, which in this
case is just too far. It doesn't seem to know who it's aiming for, as
it's not really for kids, and the jokes are too dumb and stereotyped
for adults. There's a couple things I like they did, like get rid of
the weapon loot boxes, and they have a ton of different characters to
play. But they screwed those up a bit as you can only get weapons by
farming character unlocks, and there's 4 variations of each character
that are 95% cosmetic, and you have to keep farming to get the
characters leveled up, but they're mostly random which you get, and you
have to stick with the same characters, or you have to farm armor for
them. Way too much farming. I did beat it on hard, that was fairly
short at 25 hours. Like all EDF there's more to the game, and it feels
like you don't get to the 'real' game until you start going through
hardest. I had no interest in playing it anymore though. I'm kind of
bitter on this one.

*** Earth Defense Force 4.1: Wingdiver the Shooter
What a mouthful. This was on deep discount for $1.50 and it was EDF,
which I love some of (see above for the not so much), but it's a bullet
hell shooter, which I've found I generally don't like anymore (except
Vampire Survivors.) It does have mixed reviews too. I figured at $1.50
it was worth the risk. It started out way more difficult than the
other EDFs I'd played, but eventually I got past that hurdle and
started making progress, mostly after I discovered there was a free
'tutorial' DLC which adds some powerful enough weapons if you complete sections for each difficulty. I have to say I really enjoy it, and
played it a bit. Again fairly short, there's only 6 main missions, but there's 10 short tutorial missions for each difficulty with the DLC.
There's farming again, but unlike WB I enjoyed playing the missions
over getting better with both skill and more HP from redoing them. I
finished the game on Easy, Normal and Hard now and am at 16 hours.
Hardest is being extremely hard and would probably require far more
farming than I'm willing to do to get through, so I'm mostly leaving it
for now. I have to say this isn't a game I'd recommend to anyone here,
as even EDF afficianados can't agree it's good, a slight maybe if you
like bullet hell and understand you have to farm.

**** Vermintide 2
Squad mob combat online only. I've spoke enough about this I think,
but I'll put my closing thoughts in. I did buy about $12 worth of
characters and cosmetics, the game itself was free and I got a lot of
play out of it, so I don't feel guilty doing that, especially when it's obvious you don't need hundreds (thousands?) of dollars spent to get
anywhere. It's perfectly playable without spending anything. I had
completed every mission in the game with one character on at least
veteran difficulty, but found going to the next difficulty too hard. I eventually got a bit bored with the repeated missions, and there didn't
seem to be much else to do to make myself better, as I was maxed out
level on that character (witch hunter) and better equipment would
require beating missions on the next difficulty. The other annoyances
I had with the game was hidden items requiring particularly difficult
parkour with really bad jumping. Even after I knew where the item was
it was taking me 5 minutes of failing and falling to get to it, and
you have to do that every time you play a mission to get the
possibility of a better reward. The increasingly long missions (well
beyond half an hour) while doing that and the fact you're forced to be
online without being able to pause even if playing with all bots was a
bit too difficult to maintain, I had to abandon (or I'd loose anyway)
missions several times loosing hours of progress. Still it's a fun
game if you like hacking up or blowing up hundreds of enemies (I DO!)
It's no EDF or Warframe, but it's mostly good. The voice acting of the characters is really good too. Worth checking out. I've a hankering
to try Vermintide 1 again, but it was dead when last I tried it.

**** Superhero League of Hoboken:
How I never even heard of this game in it's time. I've never had any
luck going back to games this old that I never played back in their day either. I had bought this game on a whim years ago, but the fancy
never struck me until now. I didn't realize it's really a
wasteland-esque post apocalyptic game, with the childish humor of
Garbage Pail kids, and 'super' hero mutants that are more like Mystery
Men third stringers. If I had I probably would've rushed to buy it.
Poor marketing? Combat is like JRPGs, it's been mostly easy, if one of
your superheroes goes down, he just gets back up after combat as long as someone survives. The exploration isn't terrible, but definitely feel
it's age. You can use your mouse to get around in the maps and menus.
It's fortunately much simpler than typical RPGs of the time, but that
does make it feel a bit shallow. The humor is way out of date and also
very stereotyped, but I'm more able to forgive an almost 30 year old
game, vs. one that came out in the last coupe (looking at you World
Brothers.) It's really an adventure game with the rest tacked on. You
need to find stuff to fix some problem without any hints as to what or
where. There's a limburger bomb you have to figure out how to disarm,
I tried a number of things but nothing worked, until I stumbled on
something in some tile far away in the world at a merchant that was
extremely obvious once I found it, I'm just a bit irritated there was
nothing pointing there, it seems like something that could easily be
missed. Only the square peg fits in the square hole, and someone sold
the square peg to a pawnshop two towns over. Adventures are not my
cuppa, but it didn't seem too bad, I did manage to solve four of the
mission puzzles, and haven't so far looked up any spoilers. Eventually
I was hemmed in by a number of obstacles that prevented exploring any
more, hills, forests, flooded city and extremely tough monsters I have
no hope of defeating. I gave up at that point, the game a little too
simple and a little too needle in a haystack. I still love what I
played of it, and it's on the edge of my thoughts of going back to.

***** Dungeon Robber (boardgame/rpg)
You all know I play the computer game of this off an on, and I'm even
trying to learn JavaScript just to build a clone of it and expand on
it. But this is the boardgame version. There are rules for it here: http://blogofholding.com/backings/dungeonrobberrules.pdf
You do need to buy the poster separately which is $5, or have the old
AD&D tables (which I do of course.) I'm playing the boardgame
virtually though, with others, or rather GMing it. I started up a game
on rpol.net on Wednesday, and it's been going gangbusters, We've already
got over 250 posts, which is insanely fast for play by post. I'm
making house rules of course and trying to pull in rules from the PC
game and bits from D&D. Here's the link to the game if you wanted to
look
https://www.rpol.net/game.cgi?gi=77741&date=1670094147
I'm pretty overwhelmed with the response though, so not adding anyone
now, but would add anyone if they wanted (I really don't expect anyone
here to join let alone even click the link and just add it for
completeness.)

- Justisaur

ø-ø
(\_/)\
`-'\ `--.___,
¶¬'\( ,_.-'
\\
^'

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Sat, 3 Dec 2022 10:47:06 -0700, "rms" <rsquiresMOO@MOOflashMOO.net>
wrote:

40 hours of Picross S8 on my Switch. We Happy Few on the PC. More
Overload on the PC. Trying out my new 3060 Ti RTX card with Quake II RTX.

How is WHF? I recall it had a good amount of pre-launch hype as a
Bioshocky-title, but faded very quickly.

"We Happy Few" probably would have been a much more memorable game if
the developers hadn't jumped on the 'procedural generation' bandwagon
to create their levels. Mechanically, it's an okay game and its
offbeat setting is just quirky enough to be interesting, but the poor
level designed killed any hope of good pacing or putting the mechanics
to good use. It's one of those games I'd only recommend playing if you
like analyzing a title to see what works and what doesn't, rather than
playing for the challenge or enjoyment.

The game suffered a lot from its early releases not matching up with
the final product, and the developers not doing a good job on
expressing to potential players what their vision was. For instance,
the narrative elements - what many consider the game's strengths -
were only added late in development, and there were constant changes
made to the gameplay, with survival elements and perma-death modes
being added and then removed. This divided the game's audience even
before it had really gathered one, and when the final product came
out, this resulted in very mixed reviews.

The end product was thus something that felt... well, not unpolished,
but uncertain as to what it wanted to be. It felt very experimental to
me, a mishmash of ideas that didn't quite gel together all that well.
It's interesting and not altogether unenjoyable, but it takes some
effort to find the fun.

The usual acronyms apply.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 12/3/2022 11:22 AM, Justisaur wrote:

On Thursday, December 1, 2022 at 8:10:38 AM UTC-8, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

The Novel
---------------------------------------

* Stray (new)
Let's be blunt about it: the reason to play "Stray" is because you
like cats. If you aren't a cat-lover, this game is an adequate
experience at best, but otherwise a boring slogs. But if you do
properly worship the whiskered overlords of Earth, you'll have fun
time.

Yeah, I'm one of those weirdos that loves both cats AND dogs. I've
had both even at the same time over my life. The last cat we had
was the worst one we ever had though (the personality of a drug
crazed homeless woman who wants to kill you) and that pretty
much cured us of having cats for the foreseeable future. I'll still
happily play with other's cats though as long as I don't have to
take them home with me.

As a child my family always had two dogs, two cats, I would have a pet
rodent and my sister usually had a pet rodent (I think) plus there was
whatever wandered into the back yard from the adjacent undeveloped open
space (usually deer looking to eat my mother's rose bushes). So I'm a
very animal friendly person and deeply miss having a pet as an adult.

--
I've done good in this world. Now I'm tired and just want to be a cranky
dirty old man.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

kyonshi <gmkeros@gmail.com> wrote:

On 01/12/2022 17:10, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

What Have You Been Playing... IN NOVEMBER 2022?

Steam tells me I only played
* World of Warcraft (Wrath of the Lich King)

Huh? WoW is on Steam too? When did that happen?
--
Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty." ???John 6:35. Where R my new reports, answers, $, etc.? So slammy these days. :(
Note: A fixed width font (Courier, Monospace, etc.) is required to see this signature correctly.
/\___/\ Ant(Dude) @ http://aqfl.net & http://antfarm.home.dhs.org.
/ /\ /\ \ Please nuke ANT if replying by e-mail.
| |o o| |
\ _ /
( )

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Saturday, December 3, 2022 at 1:20:24 PM UTC-8, Dimensional Traveler wrote:

On 12/3/2022 11:22 AM, Justisaur wrote:

On Thursday, December 1, 2022 at 8:10:38 AM UTC-8, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

The Novel
---------------------------------------

* Stray (new)
Let's be blunt about it: the reason to play "Stray" is because you
like cats. If you aren't a cat-lover, this game is an adequate
experience at best, but otherwise a boring slogs. But if you do
properly worship the whiskered overlords of Earth, you'll have fun
time.

Yeah, I'm one of those weirdos that loves both cats AND dogs. I've
had both even at the same time over my life. The last cat we had
was the worst one we ever had though (the personality of a drug
crazed homeless woman who wants to kill you) and that pretty
much cured us of having cats for the foreseeable future. I'll still
happily play with other's cats though as long as I don't have to
take them home with me.

As a child my family always had two dogs, two cats, I would have a pet
rodent and my sister usually had a pet rodent (I think) plus there was whatever wandered into the back yard from the adjacent undeveloped open
space (usually deer looking to eat my mother's rose bushes). So I'm a
very animal friendly person and deeply miss having a pet as an adult.

I grew up with vacant lot right next to our house in suburbia.
I have kids now, and it's funny how important that space was to me as
kid, and I feel sad for my own that they don't have that, not to mention
the fact if there were kids playing in a vacant lot now, I'm sure CPS
would be called to take them away. I'm sure most people in the
neighborhood saw it as an eyesore as it was always overgrown with
weeds too. Of course if it was now it'd probably have a homeless
encampment.

I did pass buy there once more than a decade ago and a house
had been built there.

- Justisaur

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Sat, 3 Dec 2022 10:47:06 -0700, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action, rms
wrote:

40 hours of Picross S8 on my Switch. We Happy Few on the PC. More
Overload on the PC. Trying out my new 3060 Ti RTX card with Quake II RTX.

How is WHF? I recall it had a good amount of pre-launch hype as a
Bioshocky-title, but faded very quickly. Overload I put a good amount of $ >into the kickstarter to make sure it got made, and I still haven't played
it! Kind of bummed they disbanded right after, there was a glimmer of hope >for a Freespace 3 for a short while there....

Neat little totalitarian, dystopian setting. I like the voicing. I like
the quirky, and sometimes grotesque, presentation. Graphics are at least
a generation behind, but effective and moody.

Gameplay is a bog standard stealth/melee game so far.

<rant>*And* they bolted on crafting because that is the new hotness and
all games *must* have crafting. Guess who doesn't like pointless busywork
steps to get necessary inventory items? I like the days when I could just
pick up a first aid kit, not make one from scraps and rubbing alcohol in
a clickity total interruption of immersion and game flow.</rant>

Get it on sale. Play it for the setting and art style for as long as you
find it enjoyable, and remember to take your Joy!, and you may well
forget how forgettable the gameplay is.

It's worth a look, tbh - the setting is really slick - but I probably
won't finish it. If you don't need to be there (personally, I do) a let's
play will do just fine.

--
Zag

No one ever said on their deathbed, 'Gee, I wish I had
spent more time alone with my computer.' ~Dan(i) Bunten

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 12/3/2022 4:54 PM, Justisaur wrote:

On Saturday, December 3, 2022 at 1:20:24 PM UTC-8, Dimensional Traveler wrote:

On 12/3/2022 11:22 AM, Justisaur wrote:

On Thursday, December 1, 2022 at 8:10:38 AM UTC-8, Spalls Hurgenson wrote: >>>

The Novel
---------------------------------------

* Stray (new)
Let's be blunt about it: the reason to play "Stray" is because you
like cats. If you aren't a cat-lover, this game is an adequate
experience at best, but otherwise a boring slogs. But if you do
properly worship the whiskered overlords of Earth, you'll have fun
time.

Yeah, I'm one of those weirdos that loves both cats AND dogs. I've
had both even at the same time over my life. The last cat we had
was the worst one we ever had though (the personality of a drug
crazed homeless woman who wants to kill you) and that pretty
much cured us of having cats for the foreseeable future. I'll still
happily play with other's cats though as long as I don't have to
take them home with me.

As a child my family always had two dogs, two cats, I would have a pet
rodent and my sister usually had a pet rodent (I think) plus there was
whatever wandered into the back yard from the adjacent undeveloped open
space (usually deer looking to eat my mother's rose bushes). So I'm a
very animal friendly person and deeply miss having a pet as an adult.

I grew up with vacant lot right next to our house in suburbia.
I have kids now, and it's funny how important that space was to me as
kid, and I feel sad for my own that they don't have that, not to mention
the fact if there were kids playing in a vacant lot now, I'm sure CPS
would be called to take them away. I'm sure most people in the
neighborhood saw it as an eyesore as it was always overgrown with
weeds too. Of course if it was now it'd probably have a homeless
encampment.

I did pass buy there once more than a decade ago and a house
had been built there.

In my case this land was "wilderness", mostly hills with grassland and
woods that was purchased by the county specifically to be set aside as never-to-be-developed open space recreational land. Enough to support
enough deer for there to be a cougar population in the county. (Its a
wealthy suburban county with a substantial diary farming industry.)

--
I've done good in this world. Now I'm tired and just want to be a cranky
dirty old man.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Been playing Bioshock Infinite.

I freely admit that Elizabeth gives me
a strong woody. Her beautiful big eyes
and dainty figure make me have to jerk off
after playing the game. If gorgeous Elizabeth
were real, I would clean her ass with my mouth
daily, and let her fill my mouth with pee while
I lick her clit.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 03/12/2022 23:31, Ant wrote:

kyonshi <gmkeros@gmail.com> wrote:

On 01/12/2022 17:10, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

What Have You Been Playing... IN NOVEMBER 2022?

Steam tells me I only played
* World of Warcraft (Wrath of the Lich King)

Huh? WoW is on Steam too? When did that happen?

It's not, but you can add games that aren't and use the Steam overlay
and do screenshots. It doesn't show complete playtime and it keeps
losing the cover I set for it manually, so it's not that useful all in all.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 04/12/2022 00:54, Justisaur wrote:

I grew up with vacant lot right next to our house in suburbia.
I have kids now, and it's funny how important that space was to me as
kid, and I feel sad for my own that they don't have that, not to mention
the fact if there were kids playing in a vacant lot now, I'm sure CPS
would be called to take them away. I'm sure most people in the
neighborhood saw it as an eyesore as it was always overgrown with
weeds too. Of course if it was now it'd probably have a homeless
encampment.

I did pass buy there once more than a decade ago and a house
had been built there.

I was fortunate that where I grow up although it was suburban there was
a quite a few green spaces literally with in a few minutes walk. If the
weather was ok then we'd pack some food and some matches, to make a
small camp fire, then walk twenty minutes or so to get to part of the
South Downs which is basically the countryside. We'd spend most of the
day there (my mother was pretty insistent that we did!) playing and
amusing ourselves.

Things have definitely changed but honestly some of the things we did
were just dangerous. I remember a building site near us with a number of derelict houses, what a fantastic play area. So go up the stairs and
then jump through the ceiling on to a mattress we placed below.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Sun, 4 Dec 2022 11:46:35 +0000, JAB <noway@nochance.com> wrote:

On 04/12/2022 00:54, Justisaur wrote:

I grew up with vacant lot right next to our house in suburbia.
I have kids now, and it's funny how important that space was to me as
kid, and I feel sad for my own that they don't have that, not to mention
the fact if there were kids playing in a vacant lot now, I'm sure CPS
would be called to take them away. I'm sure most people in the
neighborhood saw it as an eyesore as it was always overgrown with
weeds too. Of course if it was now it'd probably have a homeless
encampment.

I did pass buy there once more than a decade ago and a house
had been built there.

I was fortunate that where I grow up although it was suburban there was
a quite a few green spaces literally with in a few minutes walk. If the >weather was ok then we'd pack some food and some matches, to make a
small camp fire, then walk twenty minutes or so to get to part of the
South Downs which is basically the countryside. We'd spend most of the
day there (my mother was pretty insistent that we did!) playing and
amusing ourselves.

Things have definitely changed but honestly some of the things we did
were just dangerous. I remember a building site near us with a number of >derelict houses, what a fantastic play area. So go up the stairs and
then jump through the ceiling on to a mattress we placed below.

Ah, the joys of being a free-range child. No parents and no guidance,
beyond "be home by supper and try not to get killed or arrested in the
mean time".

Fortunately, this sort of parenting is making a bit of a comeback,
after several decades of tight parental control. There's starting to
be a realization that scheduling out a child's every move from birth
to majority has some serious consequences to independence, critical
thinking, and emotional maturity. While there is still too much 'but
what if little Thomas gets hurt?!?" fear-mongering, there's also an
awareness that sometimes Thomas /has/ to get hurt if you want him to
become a functional adult.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Sun, 4 Dec 2022 11:46:35 +0000, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action, JAB
wrote:

On 04/12/2022 00:54, Justisaur wrote:

I grew up with vacant lot right next to our house in suburbia.
I have kids now, and it's funny how important that space was to me as
kid, and I feel sad for my own that they don't have that, not to mention
the fact if there were kids playing in a vacant lot now, I'm sure CPS
would be called to take them away. I'm sure most people in the
neighborhood saw it as an eyesore as it was always overgrown with
weeds too. Of course if it was now it'd probably have a homeless
encampment.

I did pass buy there once more than a decade ago and a house
had been built there.

I was fortunate that where I grow up although it was suburban there was
a quite a few green spaces literally with in a few minutes walk. If the >weather was ok then we'd pack some food and some matches, to make a
small camp fire, then walk twenty minutes or so to get to part of the
South Downs which is basically the countryside. We'd spend most of the
day there (my mother was pretty insistent that we did!) playing and
amusing ourselves.

Things have definitely changed but honestly some of the things we did
were just dangerous. I remember a building site near us with a number of >derelict houses, what a fantastic play area. So go up the stairs and
then jump through the ceiling on to a mattress we placed below.

Indeed, I'm amazed at how hard it is for young kids to get themselves
killed.

At a certain age, your bones are elastic, and you have too little mass to
cause much damage to yourself. It's an evolutionary triumph that beats
any degree of helicopter parenting and protective equipment by leaps and bounds.

I believe what you did was far less dangerous than you might think.

--
Zag

No one ever said on their deathbed, 'Gee, I wish I had
spent more time alone with my computer.' ~Dan(i) Bunten

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Sun, 04 Dec 2022 14:57:25 -0500, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action,
Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

On Sun, 4 Dec 2022 11:46:35 +0000, JAB <noway@nochance.com> wrote:

On 04/12/2022 00:54, Justisaur wrote:

I grew up with vacant lot right next to our house in suburbia.
I have kids now, and it's funny how important that space was to me as
kid, and I feel sad for my own that they don't have that, not to mention >>> the fact if there were kids playing in a vacant lot now, I'm sure CPS
would be called to take them away. I'm sure most people in the
neighborhood saw it as an eyesore as it was always overgrown with
weeds too. Of course if it was now it'd probably have a homeless
encampment.

I did pass buy there once more than a decade ago and a house
had been built there.

I was fortunate that where I grow up although it was suburban there was
a quite a few green spaces literally with in a few minutes walk. If the >>weather was ok then we'd pack some food and some matches, to make a
small camp fire, then walk twenty minutes or so to get to part of the
South Downs which is basically the countryside. We'd spend most of the
day there (my mother was pretty insistent that we did!) playing and
amusing ourselves.

Things have definitely changed but honestly some of the things we did
were just dangerous. I remember a building site near us with a number of >>derelict houses, what a fantastic play area. So go up the stairs and
then jump through the ceiling on to a mattress we placed below.

Ah, the joys of being a free-range child. No parents and no guidance,
beyond "be home by supper and try not to get killed or arrested in the
mean time".

Fortunately, this sort of parenting is making a bit of a comeback,
after several decades of tight parental control. There's starting to
be a realization that scheduling out a child's every move from birth
to majority has some serious consequences to independence, critical
thinking, and emotional maturity. While there is still too much 'but
what if little Thomas gets hurt?!?" fear-mongering, there's also an
awareness that sometimes Thomas /has/ to get hurt if you want him to
become a functional adult.

Way off-topic now, but in the States it's a natural reactionary result of growing up Gen-X. Most boomer parents were out fulfilling their
dual-income consumer fantasies while providing absolutely no answer for
the utter lack of parenting that their absence caused. Other than a key
under the mat, of course. At least they had the sense to lock up the
house.

We didn't even have anyone to tell us not to get arrested. As a result,
all we learned from our young life was how to throw a party or go on a self-indulgent bender.

We learned a hard lesson about lack of parenting that caused us to prefer
to be overengaged in our children's lives, but without any respect for authority or discipline or any idea how to inspire such respect in our
kids. Because our lives featured a gaping vacuum in both.

When we had kids, the schools stepped in to fill the parenting vacuum of dual-income households, became day-cares, and the mission of actually
educating kids began to fail. The schools should not have to spend all
their time telling kids to "make good choices." Now it's assumed that
they will and they do. The discipline requirements of parenting
classrooms of 30-35 children, in the context of hundreds, instead of
parents managing 1-5 kids, turned schools into police states.

Have you ever seen how a traditional, large Irish family manages?
Multiply that sort of chaos by 3 - just in the classroom, not the
lunchroom - with no benefit of the older kids managing the younger ones.
Good luck with that. The only answer at schools was to lock it down hard.

You can see the results. It is important to learn from pain and hard
knocks what is stupidly dangerous while your body is still resilient and
nearly indestructable at a young age. It is important to not be raised by
an authoritarian prescence. These are lessons no future generation has
yet been afforded. The body and the human mind are not designed to
function without those lessons from the school of hard knocks and
freedom.

A kid cannot function when their parenting comes from an effective police
state located in a plastic bubble.

--
Zag

No one ever said on their deathbed, 'Gee, I wish I had
spent more time alone with my computer.' ~Dan(i) Bunten

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On 04/12/2022 19:57, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

On Sun, 4 Dec 2022 11:46:35 +0000, JAB <noway@nochance.com> wrote:

On 04/12/2022 00:54, Justisaur wrote:

I grew up with vacant lot right next to our house in suburbia.
I have kids now, and it's funny how important that space was to me as
kid, and I feel sad for my own that they don't have that, not to mention >>> the fact if there were kids playing in a vacant lot now, I'm sure CPS
would be called to take them away. I'm sure most people in the
neighborhood saw it as an eyesore as it was always overgrown with
weeds too. Of course if it was now it'd probably have a homeless
encampment.

I did pass buy there once more than a decade ago and a house
had been built there.

I was fortunate that where I grow up although it was suburban there was
a quite a few green spaces literally with in a few minutes walk. If the
weather was ok then we'd pack some food and some matches, to make a
small camp fire, then walk twenty minutes or so to get to part of the
South Downs which is basically the countryside. We'd spend most of the
day there (my mother was pretty insistent that we did!) playing and
amusing ourselves.

Things have definitely changed but honestly some of the things we did
were just dangerous. I remember a building site near us with a number of
derelict houses, what a fantastic play area. So go up the stairs and
then jump through the ceiling on to a mattress we placed below.

Ah, the joys of being a free-range child. No parents and no guidance,
beyond "be home by supper and try not to get killed or arrested in the
mean time".

Fortunately, this sort of parenting is making a bit of a comeback,
after several decades of tight parental control. There's starting to
be a realization that scheduling out a child's every move from birth
to majority has some serious consequences to independence, critical
thinking, and emotional maturity. While there is still too much 'but
what if little Thomas gets hurt?!?" fear-mongering, there's also an
awareness that sometimes Thomas /has/ to get hurt if you want him to
become a functional adult.

Well not arrested but as my friend and myself were making a little fire
in a small outhouse of a derilict building, whose head pops up from the
ladder leading to where we were - a policeman. Names and addresses taken
and the dreaded, we'll be speaking to your parents. We trudged the
streets for a couple of hours before we went to our houses to face the
music. The first thing that happens when I get home is my father asks me
to sit down and do I have any thing to tell him. So I spilled the beans
and thought this is going to be trouble. My father's reaction was to
start laughing and tell me not to worry as he used to play in exactly
the same building when he was younger.

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On 04/12/2022 22:09, Zaghadka wrote:

On Sun, 4 Dec 2022 11:46:35 +0000, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action, JAB wrote:

On 04/12/2022 00:54, Justisaur wrote:

I grew up with vacant lot right next to our house in suburbia.
I have kids now, and it's funny how important that space was to me as
kid, and I feel sad for my own that they don't have that, not to mention >>> the fact if there were kids playing in a vacant lot now, I'm sure CPS
would be called to take them away. I'm sure most people in the
neighborhood saw it as an eyesore as it was always overgrown with
weeds too. Of course if it was now it'd probably have a homeless
encampment.

I did pass buy there once more than a decade ago and a house
had been built there.

I was fortunate that where I grow up although it was suburban there was
a quite a few green spaces literally with in a few minutes walk. If the
weather was ok then we'd pack some food and some matches, to make a
small camp fire, then walk twenty minutes or so to get to part of the
South Downs which is basically the countryside. We'd spend most of the
day there (my mother was pretty insistent that we did!) playing and
amusing ourselves.

Things have definitely changed but honestly some of the things we did
were just dangerous. I remember a building site near us with a number of
derelict houses, what a fantastic play area. So go up the stairs and
then jump through the ceiling on to a mattress we placed below.

Indeed, I'm amazed at how hard it is for young kids to get themselves
killed.

At a certain age, your bones are elastic, and you have too little mass to cause much damage to yourself. It's an evolutionary triumph that beats
any degree of helicopter parenting and protective equipment by leaps and bounds.

I believe what you did was far less dangerous than you might think.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it was risking life and limb or even
serious injury but you are going effectively jumping though some plaster
with lots of wooden strips embedded in it. The height, really not a problem.

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Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> writes:

What Have You Been Playing... IN NOVEMBER 2022?

Well, my adventure in System Shock 2 continued. I thought I'd finish it
in November but apparently not.

So, back in October I got so far that I thought I could proceed to the
Command deck. But no. I thought I had dealt with all the simulator units
in Operations but it turned out I had only done the hard one with the
spider trap. So, long walks in the empty corridors to visit those sim
units *again* and putting the chips in. I really thought I had done
that. But then I could finally get to the Command deck.

Curiously, I had no memory of the Command deck. I guess it could be I
reached it only once before, in the play through I actually
finished. Except for the meeting with Korenchkin in his new form nothing
rang a bell and even that was a let down, I had hacked a turret before
and it blew him out of the air for me and then I squished his other half
with my trusty wrench.

Rickenbacker was the same mess of narrow corridors which I
remembered. At least a little.

And so I reached the Many's biomass and was welcomed, verbally and by a Rumbler. Kind of lost interest there but I'll try to power through. I
remember this part wasn't easy to navigate and I actually got stuck in
the ridiculous jumping puzzle with the teeth.

I got into this again in early December. Not exactly November but maybe
I can be allowed this?

The fight at the Many's brain was a little underwhelming. I guess I got
lucky. I killed a couple of Rumblers in the narrow leading to the brain
and at least three of the Reavers came to see what the fuss was
about. So I just turned invisibility on and walked right past them. I
squished a couple of Reaver brains but that drew some attention so I
went to the other side squish two more. Then I went to look at the brain
and there was only one spider around. Weird. It was like everyone
decided to have coffee right then. So all I had to do was shoot the
stars and then the brain.

Shodan was similarly underwhelming. Just walked by all the assassins,
went down the weird stairs, I remember those from way back and that was
that. I had brought three Ice-Picks to quickly hack the three terminals
and with a few shots Shodan was done.

Maybe it was just the easy difficulty? I definitely remember there being
a lot more spawning of enemies back when I played on normal difficulty.
Oh well, it's done and now if only those guys would finally release the
SS1 remake.

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Anssi Saari <as@sci.fi> wrote:

Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> writes:

...

Maybe it was just the easy difficulty? I definitely remember there being
a lot more spawning of enemies back when I played on normal difficulty.
Oh well, it's done and now if only those guys would finally release the
SS1 remake.

Yes, I want to play that SS1 remake with better controls. I couldn't handle the original DOS version. :(

--
"Jesus said, 'I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to
the full.' --John 10:7,9-10". So slammy and tired (e.g., slept 10:20 PM to 4:20 AM) these days. :(
Note: A fixed width font (Courier, Monospace, etc.) is required to see this signature correctly.
/\___/\ Ant(Dude) @ http://aqfl.net & http://antfarm.home.dhs.org.
/ /\ /\ \ Please nuke ANT if replying by e-mail.
| |o o| |
\ _ /
( )

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On Mon, 05 Dec 2022 22:05:01 +0200, Anssi Saari <as@sci.fi> wrote:

Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> writes:

What Have You Been Playing... IN NOVEMBER 2022?

Well, my adventure in System Shock 2 continued. I thought I'd finish it
in November but apparently not.

So, back in October I got so far that I thought I could proceed to the >Command deck. But no. I thought I had dealt with all the simulator units
in Operations but it turned out I had only done the hard one with the
spider trap. So, long walks in the empty corridors to visit those sim
units *again* and putting the chips in. I really thought I had done
that. But then I could finally get to the Command deck.

Curiously, I had no memory of the Command deck. I guess it could be I
reached it only once before, in the play through I actually
finished. Except for the meeting with Korenchkin in his new form nothing
rang a bell and even that was a let down, I had hacked a turret before
and it blew him out of the air for me and then I squished his other half
with my trusty wrench.

Rickenbacker was the same mess of narrow corridors which I
remembered. At least a little.

And so I reached the Many's biomass and was welcomed, verbally and by a >Rumbler. Kind of lost interest there but I'll try to power through. I >remember this part wasn't easy to navigate and I actually got stuck in
the ridiculous jumping puzzle with the teeth.

I got into this again in early December. Not exactly November but maybe
I can be allowed this?

The fight at the Many's brain was a little underwhelming. I guess I got >lucky. I killed a couple of Rumblers in the narrow leading to the brain
and at least three of the Reavers came to see what the fuss was
about. So I just turned invisibility on and walked right past them. I >squished a couple of Reaver brains but that drew some attention so I
went to the other side squish two more. Then I went to look at the brain
and there was only one spider around. Weird. It was like everyone
decided to have coffee right then. So all I had to do was shoot the
stars and then the brain.

Shodan was similarly underwhelming. Just walked by all the assassins,
went down the weird stairs, I remember those from way back and that was
that. I had brought three Ice-Picks to quickly hack the three terminals
and with a few shots Shodan was done.

Maybe it was just the easy difficulty? I definitely remember there being
a lot more spawning of enemies back when I played on normal difficulty.
Oh well, it's done and now if only those guys would finally release the
SS1 remake.

Invisibility is the 'cheat code' to the Body of the Shodan. The engine
can only support a certain number of bad guys, and it maintains the
difficulty level by spawning in new ones everytime you kill something.
But if you sneak by all the monsters, the spawning is essentially put
on pause, and the game becomes much easier.

Which, honestly, I'm fine with since I find spawning monsters - and
worse, infinitely spawning monsters - to be a major immersion breaker.
If there's an army of mooks that need to be dealt with, I'll happily
handle them... just so long as they already exist and don't suddenly
appear from thin air.

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Yes, I want to play that SS1 remake with better controls. I couldn't handle >the original DOS version. :(

There is *already* an SS1 with 'normal' controls: https://www.gog.com/en/game/system_shock_enhanced_edition
Get it and play! I have played through the original DOS version with the original control scheme, and became reasonably proficient at it, though it
was easy to spazz out when any quick movement was called for...

rms

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On Tue, 6 Dec 2022 15:07:09 -0700, "rms" <rsquiresMOO@MOOflashMOO.net>
wrote:

Yes, I want to play that SS1 remake with better controls. I couldn't handle >>the original DOS version. :(

There is *already* an SS1 with 'normal' controls:
https://www.gog.com/en/game/system_shock_enhanced_edition
Get it and play! I have played through the original DOS version with the >original control scheme, and became reasonably proficient at it, though it >was easy to spazz out when any quick movement was called for...

Or, if you're cheap and own the originals just find the fan-made
patches that the developers raided to make the enhanced edition.
Mouse-control and higher resolutions were added long before SS:EE
became a saleable property on GOG.

(Not that I'm against buying it on GOG. "System Shock: Enhanced
Edition" is probably the best way to play that game, and it's not
expensive. But if you don't feel like buying the game a second
time...)

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

On Tue, 6 Dec 2022 15:07:09 -0700, "rms" <rsquiresMOO@MOOflashMOO.net>
wrote:

Yes, I want to play that SS1 remake with better controls. I couldn't handle >>the original DOS version. :(

There is *already* an SS1 with 'normal' controls:
https://www.gog.com/en/game/system_shock_enhanced_edition
Get it and play! I have played through the original DOS version with the >original control scheme, and became reasonably proficient at it, though it >was easy to spazz out when any quick movement was called for...

Or, if you're cheap and own the originals just find the fan-made
patches that the developers raided to make the enhanced edition. Mouse-control and higher resolutions were added long before SS:EE
became a saleable property on GOG.

(Not that I'm against buying it on GOG. "System Shock: Enhanced
Edition" is probably the best way to play that game, and it's not
expensive. But if you don't feel like buying the game a second
time...)

Bah, I will just wait for the remake with its prettier graphics. I can't
stand pixels anymore in FPS. ;P
--
[Jesus said,] "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?" --John 11:25. Finally a quieter day 2 catch up yesterday even tho passed
out early last night (10:30 PM during R6: Siege's solo training) & woke up @ 5 AM. Yay, runny mostly clearly h2o returned in the local area b4 its 5 PM deadline. Will hump day B quiet? Boo 2 my dropped iPhone 12 mini's finger holder & window blind's
string broke.
Note: A fixed width font (Courier, Monospace, etc.) is required to see this signature correctly.
/\___/\ Ant(Dude) @ http://aqfl.net & http://antfarm.home.dhs.org.
/ /\ /\ \ Please nuke ANT if replying by e-mail.
| |o o| |
\ _ /
( )

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Completely neglected to mention:
Plague Tale: Requiem
This title made an excellent followup to Innocence, and is even more story-focused than that title, which I'm happy to relate: Many titles go overboard with new combat mechanics etc to fill in a lack of story ideas,
but there was no lack of plot and emotional moments in Requiem. It's also a beautiful game. Highly recommended (but play the prequel first!)

rms

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