Capt. Wolf

Absolutely loved both of them! I think UFO Defense was the first pc game I played on our first 486. It was one of the first games I ever successfully hacked.

Not sure how many people know, but there’s another game from Gollop, Rebelstar Tactical Command for Gameboy Advance. It’s part of the Rebelstar series dating back to the ZX Spectrum. It plays pretty much the same as the original XCom games.

X-Com - UFO Defense and TFTD are definitely my favorite. Fallout 1&2 are a close second and I’ve been meaning to play through them again. Ogre Battle is a distant third, with Front Mission right behind it.

Everblue 2 for the PS2 is one of my all-time favorite games. I play it about once a year. The original was an EU only release thst I didn’t get to play until a few years ago. It also had a sort of spiritual successor with Endless Ocean 1 & 2 for the Wii, made by the same developer. However, the first one didn’t have any of the treasure finding mechanics and there was no real threat to the player at any time. Neither series really let you walk on land, so to speak. The Everblue games do have above water parts, you return to the island between dives to talk to people, sell treasure, sleep and such, but they’re prerendered images that are more like a point and click adventure. There were a couple pc games I played around the same time that were made by independent developers that never really took off.

Intellivision did actually have a Kool-Aid game, but you didn’t play as Kool-Aid Man. You played as a couple kids trying to find the ingredients to make some Kool-Aid. It still had the Thirsties in it, but the gameplay was very different.

Also, I’m pretty sure that, aside from the games, the Thirsties were exclusive to the official Marvel Kool-Aid comics. I remember them in commercials, but I’m pretty sure I’m Mandela-ing myself and what I’m actually remembering is Pilsbury’s Goofy Grape and the rest of the Funny Face characters.

The funny coincidence is that almost all of the Funny Face characters are depicted drinking from straws on their packages. Which kind of makes me wonder if the 2600 game wasn’t a subtle dig at them.

Oh yeah… I got caught up in the Overwatch loot box thing when it was still huge. Never had a problem gambling before or since, but I dropped $300 in my last month playing and who knows how much before then. Soon as I realized I had a problem, I uninstalled the game. Couldn’t even talk about it for a long time without wanting to reinstall. Fuck Blizzard and fuck loot boxes…

One I’ve been waiting for for a while, “It has my face” Admittedly I didn’t find it on the nextfest page. I found it well over a year ago when it was still DoubleMe. The original was super addicting and I like the direction the story seems to be going in the demo.

Also trying to be patient for Clover Pit

And Gone Fishing has some promise to it. Not everybody’s bag, but my buddies and I all found the demo pretty fun.

Hell yeah, Tim Follin is a god.

“Tim, would you mind making the music for our Ghouls and Ghosts Commodore port?”

“No problem, here’s 9 full length tracks spanning 22 minutes including a 4 minute long title screen song. I hope that’s enough. I hope I got the screams right…”

Sure it is, you just implement depth map deformation into the static terrain, totally doable! Then you just tie in a strain system to all the game’s models so they fall when they don’t have enough support, then add destruction animations for every static model and falling animations for every character. Totally easy, they had that back when the original Red Faction came out for PS2, the devs are just lazy! /s

That’s… Actually not a bad idea. Place dummy sets on legitimate servers that then feed into legitimate looking, but flagged, accounts. Sprinkle them into legitimate datasets too. Flood the dark web with fake info that goes off like a landmine when used.

I’m sure that’s something that already gets done. At least, I’d hope it does.

Just another reason to stop buying consoles. Imagine building or buying a pc for your OS to just be like, “No, we think you’re pirating something. We’re going to lock your system and make it entirely unusable. Enjoy your ~$1000 paperweight!”

Must be a slow day in the news if the BBC is just now covering Ben Drowned…

Edit: link to the creepypasta page for the unfamiliar

I also recommend the Godzilla creepypasta for anyone who’s never read it. The ending gets a little too cheesy, but it’s definitely a classic.

Man, just in time for them to release the 108 version of their keyboard…

This is 100% the start of a copypasta, isn’t it? “Legend has it Playstation has a section in their vault that contains cursed games…”

Just FYI, there are a number of controllers out there for people who only have the use of one hand that are relatively cheap. I don’t always have the use of both hands, and I can definitely say that it’s possible to learn to use regular controllers effectively one handed as well. Both the Logitech F710 and the 8Bitdo Pro 2 work really well in my opinion. People have laughed at me, but the 8bitdo Zero 2 surprisingly works really well too, but is much more limited for inputs and thus, more suited to retro games.

There’s “Tip of my joystick” on .ml, but it’s not very active. However, you’re already here, may as well ask.

Definitely the kind of game that you start playing and then suddenly it’s dark out, your boss is mad because you didn’t show up for work today, your parents are calling because you haven’t talked to them in a week, and bill collectors are writing you because you haven’t paid your bills in a couple months…

Highly recommended!

Meanwhile, at Nintendo…

*Sobs in Chrono Trigger*

A long time member of our community passed suddenly a little more than a year ago. Her father appended her steam name with “Rest in peace.” He arranged for an online memorial for her online friends and encouraged everyone to DM good memories to her accounts. Her account’s sat there in my friends list, offline, ever since. It was a great way to honor her, I think she’d have loved it.

I just had the unsettling realization that, over time, our friends lists will literally become virtual graveyards.