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Pooh-Bah

Part of the Furniture Now
Apr 21, 2023
661
6,137
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Central Maryland
Found some leaves on a shelf while I was....borrowing....some things from the shop. puffy
Now y'all've got me wondering: Does Cyrodiil have cigars where the caps are sweetened with moon sugar?
Y'know. For the catfolk, and those that want to dabble in the world's sweetest (literally) narcotics without drinking skooma until their teeth rot out?
 
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Jun 27, 2016
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Picked up some physical copies for my PS3:
Journey (+Flower, & I guess it has 'Cell' on it, too), Okami (from Japan), & Wipeout HD Fury (from England).
IMG_7039.JPG
I've never played Okami, & never got more than the single-course Wipeout HD demo from the online store, even though I should have downloaded it for free when Sony was giving it away as compensation for their network hack. Still, I'm happy to have the physical copy, even though it wasn't exactly cheap.

Also added some more titles to my Dreamcast GDEMU, all 'shmups' this time. Also figured out how to add/update box art thumbnails.
IMG_7016.JPG

X-O Mega-Man =)
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Dreamcast Wipeout is still getting updated with refinements, up to Ver. 2.5 now. (I didn't update the metadata when adding the box art, so it says 1.0).
IMG_7012.JPG
 
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Had a chance to load & update my new PS3 discs & realized that I mis-stated the title of the third game on the Journey disc, it's called "Flow" & not "Cell", & it's an interesting game but I'm not really into it.

There's a cool Journey day/night cycle dynamic background theme included which I switched to. I bought Journey on disc mostly just to have it on disc, & my original game save goes back to my digital copy.

The Okami game seems like it could be really cool. I played through to the first save point & will return to play again. Couple of issues, it uses irritating "Charlie Brown" voices for the characters. That got old quickly. I found that turning down the SFX volume around a quarter lower than the music volume helped a little, but what they went with for that is definitely a negative. Also, it runs at 30 fps max, but it still looks very good for the short time I've played it. Controls, music, & sound effects also seem very good so far. I got a Japanese copy, but it automatically runs English text (save for the first cut scene) based on the region of the console.

Wipeout HD Fury is fun & looks great. I used to have the HD non-Fury version digitally back in the day, on my old PS3 which YLOD'ed. I think someone may have shared their digital copy with me because I wasn't able to just load it back onto my replacement PS3. Ran some laps & I guess I forgot that PS3 face buttons are pressure-sensitive because I was slow for a number of races until I noticed I was only at half-throttle until I pressed harder lol.

Also, I checked out some videos of the Front Mission 3 updated version for Switch, & while the graphics looked good, I could tell right away that they've screwed it up. The epic first cut scene with updated graphics looked really good, but it's just a cut scene. The main problem that I noticed was that the gameplay animations of the battles all looked 'off', like they were moving too quickly & as if there was no weight behind anything. That's a great aspect of the original, & I wasn't seeing it in the remake. Sad!!!
 
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Waning Embers

Captain of the Black Frigate
Nov 12, 2014
47,718
128,971
How has Kena : Bridge of Spirits not gotten much attention? Easily on par with Zelda games.
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karam

Lifer
Feb 2, 2019
2,710
10,253
Basel, Switzerland
Done with Lies of P, great, amazing first try by the studio. Doesn't quite stand up to Dark Souls at their best, but it's far better than they are at their worst. Really well made.

Now started Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 which is a totally different animal, demands proper attention because it could well be a masterpiece.
 
Jun 27, 2016
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Upgraded my PS3 HD to an SSD, & have been playing a lot of Gran Turismo 5. I've already gold-trophied all championships & races in A-Spec, except for a couple of the shorter races at the Nordschleife, a silver at the NASCAR race at Grand Valley & a 12th (last) at Daytona, as well as not having done anything in the F-1 Formula Gran Turismo series, so I wanted to try doing better at those things, as well as a number of the Special Events with no trophies.
I started off by earning all silvers through the two hardest Nordschleife Mercedes Special Events, & then going into A-Spec to get golds in the couple of Nordschleife races where I hadn't done so yet. From there I jumped over to the F-1 series & ran in the wet races at Monza & Suzuka, taking golds there. I started working on car setup to race in the dry at the other four tracks in the series but wasn't having fun, so moved over to NASCAR & golded the race at Grand Valley from silver which was easy, & then golded the Daytona race from last place, which was not as easy. Car setup & working the bump-draft & defending against the bump draft is the only way to win that race at Daytona. After all of that my hands hurt so went into the nearly pointless Top Gear Challenge races for a break, & since I had no trophies there. The first & third races are slow & the easiest to win, but the second with the Lotus cars is tough & I was only able to get a silver there, & probably won't bother to do better there because it is an irritating race. Some of the more interesting Special Events that I wanted to hit were the Toscana Rally & Toscana Tarmac Night races within the Grand Tour section. I was able to silver both of those, & plan to go back to them to try & do better because they are fun. From there I headed to the Sebastian Loeb Challenges, where I had not yet gotten any trophies yet, & not for lack of trying. This time I was able to bronze them, & I had to work to put those runs together. I'll go back to try & do better there in the future because they were fun to do. From there I headed over to the Gran Turismo Rally Challenge races, where I needed to try for golds in the first & third expert races. Somehow I was able to have won gold at the second race years ago, but couldn't do better than last at the first & third races. This time I bought the Loeb car & ran that, & golded both pretty easily after an engine & turbo upgrade, & then changing the top speed in the gearbox & choosing between mid-range or high-end turbo depending on what the course looked like (more straights or more twisties). I saved some replays & messed around with the photo editor.

At the Eiger-K Trail for the Loeb challenge, big jump!
Eiger Nordwand K Trail.jpg

At Chamonix for the Loeb challenge...
Chamonix Main.jpg

Getting ready to start a Grand Tour Rally Gravel Master stage in the rain...
Liège (Gravel).jpg

Dorifto!!!
Liège (Gravel)_1.jpg

Flat out in the dark...
Toscana (Tarmac).jpg

My Pug endurance racer...
Kyoto - Gion.jpg

Kittah!
Kyoto - Gion_1.jpg
 
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Won a gold in the Toscana Grand Tour Rally stage...
Toscana.jpg
That was fairly difficult. I remember originally you could run a cheeser line through the first section until they patched it quickly with a couple invisible barriers, & I think they may have moved the finish line further out.

I also won a silver at the Eiger Tarmac Grand Tour stage, the one with the red Alfa. I've had a bronze there for forever & was happy to finally do better there. Not sure I can get a gold there, & don't really want to try again for a while.

I also spent some time collecting whatever easily-attainable achievement trophies I still had out there. One wanted me to take a picture of a Honda in front of the Honda building on R246. Another wants you to race-mod a car. Interestingly, GT5 doesn't have many cars that you can actually 'race-mod'. I found an old list of maybe 15 cars, & the EK Civic was one of the cheapest routes, so I bought one, race-modded it, & then drove out to R246 to take the pic.
Tokyo R246.jpg

One funny story has to do with one called the "Beware of Falling Objects" trophy, which wants you to crash your car until a panel falls off. Sounds easy enough, right? Well I'm driving around for 35 45 minutes hitting everything I can think of, & nothing is happening. I hit the pause button & see an option for 'mechanical damage'. Ah! So I turn that on & start demo-derbying again, now my car can barely drive but still nothing has fallen off & it looks fine. By now I'm checking the internet to figure out what is going on. People are saying they don't need to turn on the mechanical damage & they get it done in 5 minutes, but to use a premium rally car. So I'm doing that at Daytona going backwards against 16 cars & the thing looks fine after multiple massive wrecks. I don't know what to do. Then I remember GT5 has multiple different options menus, so I back out all the way to the main menu & start going through that first options menu all the way back at the beginning, & buried in the Arcade settings is a switch for 'Visible Damage on/off' (not mechanical damage), & that did the trick in like 2 minutes lol.

I'm going to head back into the Seb Loeb rally challenges & try to improve on my silver/bronze/bronze lineup over there. I also have the Toscana Tarmac Night Race back in the Grand Tour section to try & win. I've been having fun running the Loeb challenges & the Grand Tour Toscana night racing lately.
 
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I was just curious if any members liked to play games... I've had an off and on interest since I was a kid, but for a long time I would mostly just play ports games or the occasional GTA or whatever. But lately, I've been playing a fair amount of RPGs, which I never would have imagined myself playing. It started out with actions RPGs like Elder Scrolls and The Witcher 3, but I just finished Persona 5 a few weeks ago. A Japanese RPG of all things. Turn-based, even! I actually loved it. Right now, I'm playing Diablo III, which I know is an old game, but it's new to me. I've always been a console guy, so I play the PS4 versions of the games I play.

What about you guys? What are you guys playing, if anything?
A friend of mine recently helped me turn my laptop into a PS2 emulator - so lots of nostalgia of late.

Before this I hadn’t had any gaming set up for a fair few years - I think the PS2 emulator is great as the games are (mostly) holding up to a more modern play through and they seem to have that “soul” also - however I find it pretty easy to play an hour and put it down to get on with the day, unlike more modern games.

Just seems more chill/relaxed!
 
Jun 27, 2016
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Re-discovered the GTR 'Ring Record trophy & spent three or four days putting together a fast-enough lap. You have to get 7:29:003 or better to win the achievement trophy. I remember trying to do this back in the day, & not being able to get it. Has to be done in arcade mode, in the Arcade Only version of the '07 GTR, which has to be on Sport Hard tires or worse, in order to win the trophy. For Driver Aids I turned ABS on to level 4, & Skid Recovery on. All other aids off. I also turned up the steering response to max (7). This car is stays planted for the most part, but can be slightly unpredictable & doesn't want to rotate, hence the Skid Recovery On, & the max steering response setting. Usually I never use skid recovery or any aids besides ABS 1, & maybe some level of traction control depending on the car & conditions, & steering response usually somewhere from -2 to +2, but not usually +7.
IMG_7081.JPG
This is a fun challenge, next I'll turn off the Skid Recovery to see if I can still get the 7:29:003 or better.
Nürburgring Nordschleife.jpg

I also wanted the trophy for spending all of my credits, so I backed up my save file & bought this Alfa for nearly all of my credits, & then spent the rest on tires & car washes to get to zero. Then I reloaded my back-up save once I was awarded the PSN trophy, since I didn't really want to spend all of my credits:
Kyoto - Gion (2).jpg
I might actually buy the car back later on, as it is set up really well out of the box & is fun to rip around in, even though it doesn't have a lot of power.
Autodromo Nazionale Monza.jpg

Now I plan to head back into the Loeb rally challenges & Toscana night race to try & improve there.