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Weekend Players' Club 1/21/23
StoneColdSpider Jan 21, 2023
G'Day everyone……. Its a nice sunny Saturday here today……. Its been an ok week….. Not much has happened…… Been quite hot so ive been spending most of the time indoors…… Been going out for walks early every morning before it gets to hot……. There was one day of rain…….. It rained in the morning and then stopped….. So I decided to go for a walk……. Only get half way down the road and have it piss down rain……… So I didnt get far that day…….

Managed to get the car out for a run today…… Been a few weeks since ive taken it out…… Living in the town you dont really need a car…… Unless you work outside of the town then you absolutely need to have a car/motorbike…….. As there are no trains or buses or taxis or ubers or anything like that here…… There are train tracks and a train station here…… But the government shut down the train service here about 30 years ago………

As for gaming this week I played…….

Arcade

Desert Assault (1991 Data East) - Run and Gun
Gokujō Parodius! (1994 Konami) - Shoot 'em up - Horizontal
Insector X (1989 Taito) - Shoot 'em up - Horizontal


Console

ESPN NFL 2K5 (2004 Sega) - Sony PlayStation 2 - Sports (Football)
Kirby's Dream Land 3 (1997 Nintendo) - Super Nintendo Game Boy - Platformer
Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour (2003 Nintendo) - Nintendo GameCube - Sports (Golf)
Mario Power Tennis (2004 Nintendo) - Nintendo GameCube - Sports (Tennis)
MotoGP 08 (2008 Capcom) - Sony PlayStation 2 - Sports (Racing)
NCAA Football 11 (2010 EA Sports) - Sony PlayStation 2 - Sports (Football)
Tecmo Super Bowl 2023 (2022 TecmoBowl.org) - Nintendo Entertainment System - Sports (Football)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: The Manhattan Project (1992 Konami) - Nintendo Entertainment System - Beat 'em up


PC

OutRun 2006: Coast 2 Coast (2006 Sega) - Sports (Racing)


NCAA Football 11 Steve Austin Road to Glory

Another nice little touch with NCAA Football 11 is that it has fan letters sent you from fans…… There is usually one a week and they either talk about how great you are or what a waste of space you are…… You sorta get to know how your career is tracking by the letters…….. Its a nice little touch and shows why Madden/NCAA games are held is such high esteem unlike the current day Madden games…… Which are all about the mad money making screwjob that is Madden Ultimate Team……...



Two fan letters for Steve Austin……..

This week the undefeated Boise State Broncos (3-0) would travel to New Mexico to face the winless New Mexico State University Aggies (0-3)…….

As per usual…… Austin spent 1 day studying and the other 4 days training…. And put all new skill points into speed…… Speed is now maxed out at 99…… And any new points now will go into agility for the next week or two to make his jukes and spin moves even more dangerous……. Before focusing of acceleration…….


Lee Corso picking the Boise State Broncos to beat the New Mexico State Aggies……....


Steve Austins attributes…..

Steve Austin rolled into New Mexico State University on a very hot 82 Degrees Fahrenheit day with a chip on his shoulder…… What about??…. No one knows……. But he was merciless as he decimated the Aggies defense…….. 12 carries for 12 touchdowns and 684 yards…….

The maxed out speed has made Austin a monster of a running back who is near unstoppable once a hole is made by the O-line……. He is so quick that hes able to zip through the hole like the Road Runner before the D-line has a chance to close it……..

Austins first touch came part way through the 1st quarter after the Aggies won the toss and elected to receive the ball first……. After a short pass to the tight end was just short of a first down the ball was handed to Austin to finish the job……. Through the hole he went with the greatest of ease and spun out of a would be tackle by the safety to get the touch down…….

The Broncos defense also needs a lot of credit for the wins….. They have not allowed any points to be scored since the 1st round and are now the the #1 ranked defense in the country……. I can only control Steve Austin so the defense is doing this all on their own…….

With Austin able to score almost at will……. The opponents get stuck behind the 8- ball and start playing more and more hero ball as they fall further and further behind in the score….. And the Broncos defense is just eating them up……..

The broncos mascot almost died of dehydration thanks to Steve Austin……. The mascot had to much dancing and celebrating to do after every touchdown from Austin that it ended up being much for him and he was not seen in the 2nd half at all…….. Meaning the cheerleaders had to pick up the slack…...


The Boise State Broncos mascot dancing up a storm in the hot New Mexico sun…… Before being replaced by the Cheerleaders after half time…...




Boise State Cheerleaders



Boise State celebrate touchdowns by Steve Austin……


Steve Austins rushing stats again the Aggies…….


NCAA Offensive and Defensive Players Of The Week…….


Steve Austin still #1 on the Heisman watch list……


Campus Gazette issue 6…...

Next game Boise State will be at home against the Toledo Rockets…..


MotoGP 08 Stone Cold Spider Career


Round 3 at Circuito do Estoril…….

Its time for round 3 of the 2008 125cc World Championship in Portugal……..

After the short qualifying period I put the bike on pole again….. Only just……. The AI is much better in the wet……. They can carry much more mid corner speed than I can……..


On the grid waiting for the lights……

I actually got a good start and lead into the first turn before I lost the rear end slightly in the wet and had to slow down and recover before I fell of the bike…….. dropped me down to 3rd place……. I managed to get back into the lead by the end of the 1st lap and there I stayed…… I did not have any other problems I just stayed in the lead and have a very boring race……… I never had much of a lead thought as the AI is better in the wet……. But I managed to hold on and take the win by 1.52 seconds……

I hope there are not to many wet races in the championship……...

I extended my points lead in the championship to 19 points…...


First page of the race results for round 3……


First page of the Championship standings after round 3…..




Some nice images of the cool down lap………

Next week I am off to the Shanghai International Circuit in China for Round 4…..


Insector X


Yep…… Its just what you would expect from a game called “Insector X”

What a weird and wonderful game this is……. Play as a guy on a rocket/helicopter thing…….. And shoot bugs and other critters in this weird and wacky shoot ‘em up…… There are flies and bees and lady bugs and spiders and snails with rocket silos on their shells and mushrooms with rocket pods as well…….. Who ever designed this took a lot of drugs before hand…….. And the art team was on the same shit……. The whole game is like a fever dream……. Its right up there with J. J. Squawkers……... It plays just fine….. Nice and responsive and even the hitbox is very fair……. Well worth it for anyone who wants to play a shoot ‘em up but is sick of the space ship is outer space trope……..


Spider boss……

Well thats it from me…… Have a good week everyone……

Now for my bad joke of the week……
I just read the book “100 Things To Do Before You Die”……… I was very surprised that “Yell for help” was not one of them……..
*ba dum.... tssssh…...*
Pengling Jan 21, 2023

Having only played tiny snippets here and there since I got it, I'm only now nearing the end of my first pick for this weekend, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge (PC, native Linux), and it's been an absolute joy throughout.

This is actually my first TMNT game, making it all the more special. Thanks to neighbourhood busybodies who took it upon themselves to enforce the UK ninja "ban" back in the day, I was never allowed any of the games - a couple of TMNT toys were fine, but VHS-tapes and games? No, absolutely not. I was allowed rubbish homegrown UK animal-ninja games because apparently those were ok for some reason, whilst it was believed that a video game version of the American franchise would somehow magically turn British children feral and violent upon exposure. Goodness only knows what those sorts of people would've made of Bomberman!

Anyway, this game is great and anyone who likes the Turtles and/or beat-'em-ups really ought to check it out. Extra points for it having native Linux support on day one, too - always nice to see!


My other pick for this weekend is July 2022's spooky-themed Cops & Robbers tag/chase game, Bail or Jail (Obakeidoro!) (PC, Proton) (originally released on the Nintendo Switch in 2019 just as "Obakeidoro!" - a pun on "Obake", referring to ghosts, and "Keidoro", the Japanese name for Cops & Robbers), because I want to put in some time to get better at it.

It worked perfectly out of the box via Proton on my GPD Win Max 2021 running Xubuntu and given its 3-minute match format I imagine it'd be a fab fit for the Steam Deck, though for some reason it's only marked as Steam Deck Playable and I'm not sure why that would be - even the default resolution inexplicably being set to 1920x1080 on a 1280x800 machine doesn't seem to cause any issues with readability. Maybe they're taking into account how local split-screen would look on the handheld display, in this case, even though you'd be more likely to use a dock for that?

As a Nintendo expat who enjoyed the Cops & Robbers mode of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe on the Switch but got annoyed with not being allowed to choose to only play that mode when playing online with randoms (you're forced into whatever modes the game cycles through in Battle Mode, which isn't fun if you don't enjoy the other options as much - Nintendo, you don't know better about what I want to play than I do!), I've found myself getting on really well with Bail or Jail because it's a much more focussed experience. In many ways, it's better, since you're not having to wrestle with go-kart controls whilst effectively playing a game of tag, and this game has a personality all its own that's tailored to its setting and genre.

The game is published by Konami and got some freebie Castlevania tie-in DLC in October of 2022, so I've been playing as Alucard, since he's a pretty cool guy. It does have online play, but I couldn't find a match when I tried it out. That said, I bought it mainly for local play, and you can also play solo with AIs if you don't have anyone around for local multiplayer, so for me the online is merely a nice bonus. I would definitely recommend this one if you need a new addition to a collection of local multiplayer titles and are willing to wait for a discount - it's got a lot of personality and it deserves to do well when it's available at a fair price.


Last but not least, I've been continuing with my efforts to reach the ending sequence of Alien Crush (PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16), and my score currently sits at 123,489,500 out of 999,999,990.

Last edited by Pengling on 21 January 2023 at 10:05 pm UTC
peta77 Jan 22, 2023
So I was playing the first part of the Witcher. As with work currently there's not much time for gaming or I don't have the motivation for that in the evening, it was a slow progression. Which is not ideal for this game I think, because you quickly get lots of quests / tasks assigned and everytime I opened the game I had to re-read most of the journal to get an overview what the current state is. It's rather something which you should be able to play regularly to not lose oversight of what's happening and what you're supposed to do etc. But that's OK.
What really got me upset, that (shortly after doing a clean-up of the tons of save-games; I do like to save very often) I've somehow come to a dead end (literally). I'm faced with a headhunter that is invincible and I don't have the money to pay him off. If you try to fight him, you're dealing zero damage and when he hits you, you're almost immediatly dead. Why? Accuses me of attacking / killing a city guard. What I remember is that one came running after me and attacked me. So I fought against him and killed him. Why did he attack? I don't know. Did I accidentally at some point hit him? But if I'm not supposed to fight against them why is it possible then? Especially when those are the consequences. What was the intention of the developers for that situation? Throw away everything and start anew? What were they thinking when implementing that? Well, actually I don't care what they thought, I'd like to have a chance to get out of the situation without having to replay half or all of the game so far. It's a game, it's supposed to be fun, right?
So I put that one aside. Maybe I'll give it another try with a fresh new game at some point, but not now. Later... When I'm not mad at the developers anymore.... Maybe the reworked version is ready by then...

So then I looked through my library for something else and started Relicta. It's a nice, relaxing puzzle game with a story around it. Feels much like Portal but in nature or also a bit like the Talos Principle. The story seems a bit larger (so far) than the one in Portal. It's just a bit awkward how they do fit in all the puzzle levels, but it's OK. You're basically "jumping" between a story and a puzzle section. The puzzles so far are not too complicated, you just need to have a good look around to actually see what's there to find the solution. So far I only had to lookup the solution once in a walkthrough, just to find out I was too dumb to realize that one element of the level was actually usable in that situation and I didn't need to find a way to get the cube closer to it.....
anyway... up til now it's enjoying to play it and the nice thing is, it's also working very good on the deck, so I don't need to stress my power bill too much...
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