PhobosAnomaly

I think that’s a fair comment, and to extend it a bit further, people expect a standard quality of life in games now that either have emerged over the years a a positive gameplay trait (regenerating health, accessibility customisation, the yellow paint guide) or a technical innovation (auto save, autoaim, customisable graphics etc).

I find it really tough going back to play Perfect Dark (the original, not the excellent remaster) and really struggling to play through the brilliant game at sub-20fps; or playing Metal Gear on the NES without the ability to return to the same room on death, seeing as the password system was a bit clunky.

We’ve come a long way, largely for the better.

Oh wow, Perfect Dark Zero had much higher metacritic scores than I expected.

I thought it would literally be a 50 - I didn’t think it was a good game, I didn’t think it was a bad one either - it was the most middle-of-the-road competent shooter I had played in years. I remember it getting largely hammered at release though, I suspect that had more to do with having Perfect Dark in the title and not meeting unreasonably high expectations than actually being a poor game though.

That ending song about a sex act was really weird though. The song was an absolute banger but the lyrics just had little to no context to them.

also branding

particularly the style that gives up on capitalisation and punctuation

this is not primary school

I saw the exhibit and got a little bit emotional if I’m honest when it was revealed near the start of the show.

Partly because of the sheer scale of it right in front of you, but because of where it’s been and how much human ingenuity, experience, and hope was put into it to make it work.

Great stuff. Well worth going to if you’re ever at Kennedy Space Centre Center (man that feels weird).

It was, but as Atari was known for, was just a fancy new shell on eight year old hardware not too dissimilar to the 2600 or VCS or whatever your region calls it.

My parents went down the home computer route, and I ended up with an 800 XE.

It was beautiful. The detachable keyboard, the IBM-grey sleek housing, the pastel console buttons, and satisfying “chi-chuunnnggg” of the spring loaded power button.

I felt like I had the future under the palms of my hand.

hey BB got SIM? 18/m/Florida

join #LagoPoolParty for deets

Game Pass is cool and all, but the rebrands and weird omissions make it a bit of a shambles.

I still have an Xbox One, but I’ve got a chonky internet connection (at least for my area) and Cloud Gaming is a fantastic bit of kit. I was tempted to buy a cheap one-month Game Pass code and play this Black Ops 6 campaign and another game or two… but this isn’t on the Cloud Gaming service.

It’s shit like this that makes the high seas a far more attractive option. I know not every game is Cloud Gaming enabled, but one would expect that certainly all the Game Pass titles would be included.

Oh well, I just won’t play it I suppose, I’m sure I’ll find something else to do with those five or six hours!

When the Xbox 360 was out in stores, I wasn’t really arsed about getting one. My Dreamcast was still doing me just fine.

Mass Effect looked cool (it was), and Alan Wake had taken my fancy and looked great (it was).

What really tipped my hand into spending a couple of hundred quid on a console was… Doom. The XBLA version of the original.

I’m a massive Doom nerd, but the first time I heard the new positional audio of a Imp’s fireball in 5.1, I just about spaffed - and I took a day off work to hoon through Doom 2 and No Rest For The Living.

I think there’s something quite satisfying about playing a game on a device massively overspec’d for it. I played Quake III on a Pentium 3 450mhz with 64mb RAM and a TNT2 M64 card, and every new PC or laptop that I get, I still find it deeply gratifying installing Q3 and seeing it run silky smooth.

I do it for two reasons: partly because it’s fuck all business to anyone else (within reason) what the status of my relationship is.

Mainly though, because it generally messes with folk because they don’t understand what it means, and feel compelled to ask silly questions about it.

Well that’s just fuckin awesome, thank you my friend.

That’ll be a giggle on the weekend 👍

Awesome, so it’s usable without an account now?

Honestly, I never checked after I stored it.

I bought a second generation of Rift (no idea what model it was, but it was the second retail one, not including the CV1 or whatever dev build it was) - and it was fantastic. Thoroughly enjoyed it.

The moment they forced the use of a Facebook account, it stopped getting used. The visor, controllers, and sensors have been sat in a cupboard for a year or two.

I really should see if it has been jailbroken, or if there’s a way to utilise the Rift features without any Meta bollocks.

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Is this the same as plugging an extension cable into itself to get free and unlimited electricity?

One, two, three, four, let me hear you scream if you want some more

Push it, push it, watch me work it, I’m perfect

Underrated banger.

I think even in terms of recent history, I enjoy going through stuff before it goes in the shredder.

I’ve cleared out loads of work files that are outside of their retention period, and most of them are utter dross that have been superseded many times over, but every now and then I see a staff list with long forgotten names, and it’s a reminded to get in touch with the decent spuds that used to work there.

That, or finding an old payslip down the back of a drawer, and wondering just how I used to live on wages from that era, through the lens of 2024’s cost of living.

I think it’s brilliant that people publicise their political affiliations - it’s like a big red flag to either avoid certain topics… or just avoid them altogether.

It’s like Social Interaction for Dummies.

That single long-tone before the discharge roughly translates to “Bonsoir, motherfucker”.

I’m pretty sure a more natural translation would throw in a couple of putains but I’m neither qualified enough nor French enough to comment with any authority.

Banging idea, love this.

Only changes I would make is changing out the SOS for a five-second long-press, and changing reset to a ten-tap - to make sure people aren’t just fucking about turning it on and off.