#23. Xbox controllers

[gamingheadsets-1]

FOR MORE PRODUCTS CONTACT US AT https://gamingparadise.in/

[1990mx5]

Goddamn you know video game creators will put a singular (1! Lonesome! One and only!) woman driver in a racing game made in the good year 2023 and men will say that they don’t like that because it’s “unrealistic”.

[demifiendrsa]

Disney Epic Mickey: Rebrushed | Release Date Reveal | Collector’s Edition Trailer

Disney Epic Mickey: Rebrushed will launch for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch, and PC via Steam on September 24, 2024 for $59.99 / £49.99 / €59.99.

Digital pre-orders are available now and include 24 hours of early access to the game on September 23, as well as the downloadable content “Costume Pack,” which features “Steamboat Willie, “Brave Little Tailor,” and “Football” costumes for Mickey Mouse. The “Costume Pack” can also be purchased separately for $4.99.

About

Disney Epic Mickey: Rebrushed brings the magic of Disney to life in a vibrant 3D platformer. This beautiful remake sends Mickey Mouse on an epic journey through Wasteland, a realm of forgotten Disney characters. As Mickey, you will dive into a fantastical world and, armed with paint and thinner, shape your adventure and the fate of this alternate world.

Every stroke of your magic brush matters! Use paint to restore beauty and harmony or thinner to alter your environment and uncover hidden secrets. Your choices influence Mickey’s destiny and change the outcome of this artistic odyssey. Will you become the epic hero Wasteland needs?

Encounter various iconic characters like Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, Walt Disney’s first creation, as you travel between lands in Wasteland. Collect virtual Disney pins, tackle creative challenges, and uncover secrets, all while exploring classic platforming levels inspired by animated films and shorts.

Originally envisioned by Warren Spector, reimagined by Purple Lamp, Disney Epic Mickey: Rebrushed employs state-of-the-art visuals and improved controls to breathe new life into a beloved classic. Experience new movement skills for Mickey, such as dash, ground pound and sprinting. The game’s compelling story makes it an unforgettable adventure for long-time fans and newcomers alike. Join Mickey Mouse and unravel the mysteries of Wasteland in this homage to Disney’s legacy.

Key Features

Explore a reimagined Wasteland, full of Disney’s timeless characters and stories.

Wield the magic brush: Paint to create, thinner to alter. Every choice shapes your story.

Meet Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, Disney’s original star, in a rich, narrative-driven world.

Enjoy advanced gameplay with new abilities and enhanced visuals in a classic setting.

Mickey has new moves such as dash, ground pound and sprinting.

High replayability with multiple endings based on your unique playstyle and decisions.

[satoshi-mochida]

Disney Epic Mickey: Rebrushed launches September 24 - Gematsu

Disney Epic Mickey: Rebrushed will launch for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch, and PC via Steam on September 24 for $59.99 / £49.99 / €59.99, publisher THQ Nordic and developer Purple Lamp Studios announced.

Digital pre-orders are available now and include 24 hours of early access to the game on September 23, as well as the downloadable content “Costume Pack,” which features “Steamboat Willie, “Brave Little Tailor,” and “Football” costumes for Mickey Mouse. The “Costume Pack” can also be purchased separately for $4.99.

Here is an overview of the game, via THQ Nordic:

About

Disney Epic Mickey: Rebrushed brings the magic of Disney to life in a vibrant 3D platformer. This beautiful remake sends Mickey Mouse on an epic journey through Wasteland, a realm of forgotten Disney characters. As Mickey, you will dive into a fantastical world and, armed with paint and thinner, shape your adventure and the fate of this alternate world. Every stroke of your magic brush matters! Use paint to restore beauty and harmony or thinner to alter your environment and uncover hidden secrets. Your choices influence Mickey’s destiny and change the outcome of this artistic odyssey. Will you become the epic hero Wasteland needs? Encounter various iconic characters like Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, Walt Disney’s first creation, as you travel between lands in Wasteland. Collect virtual Disney pins, tackle creative challenges, and uncover secrets, all while exploring classic platforming levels inspired by animated films and shorts. Originally envisioned by Warren Spector, reimagined by Purple Lamp, Disney Epic Mickey: Rebrushed employs state-of-the-art visuals and improved controls to breathe new life into a beloved classic. Experience new movement skills for Mickey, such as dash, ground pound and sprinting. The game’s compelling story makes it an unforgettable adventure for long-time fans and newcomers alike. Join Mickey Mouse and unravel the mysteries of Wasteland in this homage to Disney’s legacy.

Key Features

Explore a reimagined Wasteland, full of Disney’s timeless characters and stories.

Wield the magic brush: Paint to create, thinner to alter. Every choice shapes your story.

Meet Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, Disney’s original star, in a rich, narrative-driven world.

Enjoy advanced gameplay with new abilities and enhanced visuals in a classic setting.

Mickey has new moves such as dash, ground pound and sprinting.

High replayability with multiple endings based on your unique playstyle and decisions.

Watch a new trailer below.

Release Date and Collector's Edition Trailer

[nerdsleaze]

Four-player Co-op Comes to Wizard with a Gun TODAY in the Free Better Together Update

Wizard with a Gun Better Together DLC is out right now!

The free Better Together update - which is available now on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S - finally brings the game in line with Galvanic’s original vision, letting up to four Gunmancers join forces in the Shatter and battle the forces of Chaos together. Better Together arrives alongside 50% discounts on Wizard with a Gun's full price:

Steam (Discount available until May 23): https://store.steampowered.com/app/1150530/Wizard_with_a_Gun/

PlayStation (Discount available until May 22): https://store.playstation.com/concept/10004448

Xbox (Discount available May 14-21 via Deals with Gold for both the base game and DLC): https://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/store/wizard-with-a-gun/9P436CQCTNGW

Source @nerdsleaze

But don’t get cocky. Chaos won’t back down just because you have more firepower. Quite the opposite, in fact: more wizards means more danger. You’ll have to work closely with your posse, and make smart use of your magical arsenal, to take down the Shatter’s toughest foes.

Better Together also adds an arcane array of difficulty modes to Wizard With a Gun: Ranger (Easy), Gunslinger (Normal), Sheriff (Hard) and Outlaw (Very Hard). This has been a highly requested feature from players and Galvanic are delighted to finally make it a reality.

Or you can tweak a number of variables to create your own custom difficulty modes, making the game as easy or as hard as you like. Wizard With a Gun has never been more accessible—or more challenging. Play the game your way, no matter what your skill level is.

Wizard with a Gun is an online co-operative sandbox survival game set in a magical wilderness wrought with dangerous creatures and arcane mysteries. Embark on a journey alone or with a friend to collect, craft and outfit your wizard however you see fit as you explore the unknown. Carefully design weapons, bullets and furnishings for your tower home, but try not to burn it all down as the magic you wield escalates beyond your control.

Wizard With a Gun’s massive and totally free Better Together update is available now on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S.

[pocketbelt]

Steam Next Fest, October 2024

Would've done this on the blog like the last one but now there's a broken login screen (despite being logged in) that locks me out of image uploads specifically, so, fuck it, tumblr it is from now on I guess.

The haul was mixed, this time, just 23 or so games. The algorithm was against me most likely and seemed to prefer showing me rogueslop and barely coherent UE Asset Store piles roughly shoved into the shape of a game. I also, perhaps, was more judging this time, as I'm currently minimising what I pick up as I play through all the Yakuzas and try to winnow down my backlog (it's 174 or so through Steam alone, and that's not counting shit on the wishlist (79), though over half of that isn't out).

The lows were quite low but the highs were quite high.

The Book of Buja

Developer & Publisher: I.J. White Release: TBC

I like to note where devs come from just to highlight how widespread and diverse the gaming scene is these days. In this case, the developer is a solo independent from America.

The Book of Buja plays like a 2D Zelda, and by this demo it's shaping up to be a pretty good one. Jury's out on if you get equippable items but there are ones that augment what you do, such as the boots that let you jump over 1-tile gaps in the demo, which help keep things simple, and the little optional puzzles in caves for extra hearts are decently clever given how simple the moveset to work with is.

It feels pretty good to play, you can jab fairly fast (though enemies have post-hit invuln which is a little annoying), movement is very orderly and the grid-based environment (though not your movement) helps keep combat and moving smooth and quick. The music's pretty good, the story set-up is rather intriguing and I really like the takes on sprite art and animation here, it hits on the dichotomy of NES games like Ninja Gaiden with their very elaborate cutscene sprite art versus the simplified in-game ones. A promising little game, this.

Break Wolf

Developer & Publisher: RE Atelier Release: Q4 2024

By their site, RE Atelier hail from Korea. I am of the age and sort that seeing Break Wolf's visuals triggered that scene from Ratatouille in me, where the critic flashes back to his childhood, and for me that flashback was to my childhood and early teenager hood where games and animations and comics with this sort aesthetic (all white and black, with some key colours for emphasis here and there) were not infrequent on Newgrounds or among webcomics and stuff. How fitting it is, then, that Break Wolf is an RPG Maker 2003 game, with the pleasing crunchy sound effects and resolution that implies.

Supports modern Xbox controllers flawlessly though, there's no fucking excuse for others.

Break Wolf delighted me; it's about some criminal super-evil org trying to make combat mutants out of people via Genetic Science, the place is all clinical and industrial but slathered with blood, there's frequent gore, the overt obvious antagonist is pointlessly edgy, your partner is a big titted medic girl drawing from more than a few 90s/00s anime heroines whose names are lost to me but whose faces I know and there's a romance with her with sex scenes, the works. This is a very particular kind of aesthetic that is now, in its own way, retro, and discovering Break Wolf was a treat.

It helps that it's both pretty good and knows exactly what it's about. Combat is simple and real fast, it mechanics are neat (healing is limited by "Protein Points" from feeding the healer girl meat, invariably depicted as steaks, lying around; your attacks grow stronger as the fight goes on but so does a Contamination meter that triggers damage-over-time, etc), the art and animation are delightful. This dev has quite a few such RPG Maker 2k3 games on Steam, and I may well crack into another to see what's up.

Some of its mechanical ideas are particularly interesting (there's a Lives system, where hitting 0 HP fills you back up but you lose a life, which has interesting implications for how the game may go), and hell, it's just well executed all-round, considering its engine limits. It handles full-screening, resolution, controller support and more better than much more elaborate games on modern engines in these Steam Fests do!

CONERU -DIMENSION GIRL-

Developers: HIKE Inc, Eallin Japan Co.Ltd Publisher: HIKE Inc Release: 2025

HIKE Inc and Eallin Japan hail from, surprisingly, Japan.

I've been following the original artist for a few years now on Twitter, having stumbled across their account (though they've spiralled out into a few now for various 3DCG creations), and it's surreal seeing them go from posting stills and little animations about their OCs to developing a whole game and having various other ventures as well. That's happened a few times on there, I've seen artists go from regular posts to being serialised and syndicated a few times.

Coneru is a 2D side-scrolling platformer that actually has some Kirby vibes about it (I have not played a Kirby game since Triple Deluxe, before you start), in that you don't absorb enemies but your powers cycle around as you find stuff and choose to swap up. It feels pretty good to play, though it's crying out for its dash to be useable in mid-air. It's very vibrant and detailed with the carefree and slightly madcap style of this little world the artist's made, and besides progressing by beating enemies, your goal is also to find things like manga volumes in the level to share with Coneru, the titular dimension girl, who's stuck inside your robot frame. The loading screen subtitle is "2D action date" and there's a lot of little dialogue choices in conversations with Coneru when you find stuff, it's precious.

Speaking of, she's always sitting there in the bottom left, making sounds or saying stuff and reacting to taking damage or finding things. It's precious, we've been long overdue seeing the modern revival of having Doomguy's face on the UI in Doom.

There's some interesting systems, like Coneru's support projectile changing to some new random thing, from a big shuriken to a comedy JPEG of a moon that fills most of the screen to big lollipop, or checkpoints that you can use her power to drop lightning on and change your 'stat spread', trading HP for attack power and such. The map is big and sprawling but it didn't exactly give off Metroidvania vibes, it's just big open platformer game screens.

That's kind of what Coneru reminds me of most; SNES era platformers and games in general, when things were often more madcap and there was more willingness to put work into something purely aesthetic to make your game stand out. That doesn't happen as much in this age of Youtube videogame design essays, "Game Design Schools", the complete and total fear of all forms of friction or things not purely and rigidly functional (in developers and more than a chunk of players alike), and Unreal Engine 5 games struggling to display basic images without hideous smearing, ghosting and tearing. It really should, though, I am long tired of "proper", "good" game design in favour of actually good games.

Shine on, you crazy diamond.

Crystal Breaker

Developer & Publisher: TERARIN GAMES Release: 27th November 2024

TERARIN GAMES hail from Japan.

Crystal Breaker rather perfectly encapsulates the zen experience of shmups, I think, at least if you came to the genre from console and arcade shmups and not Touhou. You fly a spaceship through screens of enemies arriving in patterns, you hold down the Fire button always, shit is exploding all the time, a pleasant lady's voice says words followed by "BONUS" for everything you do or don't run into, shoot, kill or dodge, and a fucking great music track is just blaring away all the while. When you're done the screen floods with rolling number totals and yells about score as a girl smiles at you.

All it needs is the ever-present howling hum of DDR cabinets and wails of other players and it'd perfectly summarise an ideal arcade experience. As it is, it's ideal for just lost in and playing some good ass pure shmup time. Interestingly, getting hit doesn't kill you, it just inflicts a score penalty (that likely grows worse as you get hit more, see that x next to my damage count up there), emphasising this is all about min-maxing score more than anything.

I will happily partake, myself, at some point.

PLUG IT IN

Developer & Publisher: unSAME Release: 2024

uNSAME Studio hail from America.

This is a delightfully charming little puzzle game with lovely vibes about fitting plugs into sockets. You can rotate the plugs to suit your needs and don't have to give one shit about wires (which annoys the fussy part of me), you just have to make sure all sockets get filled and that each plug can sit in the socket it's going to.

The nuances from weird shapes, orientations of the sockets themselves (the three-prong ones up there, for example, may be rotated so the bottom prong is to the right or left, for example), and tricks like being able to fit two-prong plugs in three-prong sockets as long as the holes and prongs line up offer quite a bit of variety, and the potential for a lot of trickery. The soft visuals and delightful music make it a great thing to just zone out in. The sort of thing I put a podcast on in the background and just work at like a rubix cube or something.

Rogue's Hexagon

fuck this level, man Developer & Publisher: Aaron Ziganek Release: 2024

If I found the right guy, Aaron Ziganek hails from Austria.

Rogue's Hexagon first deserves applause for being a game with Rogue in the title that isn't a roguelike/roguelite ("rogueslop" as I'm increasingly fond of calling them).

It's a puzzle game about sneaking your little rogue to a golden coin and then to the level exit without being killed by the guards, using throwing knives with various types of power found in the level to dispatch guards or make quick escapes.

This one has some real good aesthetic vibes going on; there's no text past the title, no explanations or dialogue or anything, just an opening set of levels to display the basics to you and leaving the rest to your discovery, interpretation and figuring. With the moody lighting and good sound-scape, it's got a real atmosphere.

It's also a bastard: many levels have optional goals shown through symbols on tokens next to the clear one (a waving racing flag). Rogue's Hexagon takes the daring path of explicitly making these not always align with each other, usually requiring multiple playthroughs of a level for each clear condition, instead of trying to find the one solution that threads them all (though that can be done for some). For example, a level whose optional goal requires killing all enemies with poison (doable only by the provided poison throwing knife), but there's also a second goal of not using any knives.

That level comes after the above, Level 11, whose optional goals are, by my understanding, Clear In 11 Moves/Don't Be Seen/Don't Backtrack, and trying to do all three of those will drive you mad. It may very well be possible, but I couldn't fucking figure it out. Hell, I still don't know how to do it without being seen.

It's a real good'un, looking forward to it.

=================================

We now come to our second tier of games, those I liked but was not enraptured to write a lot about or specifically highlight. I liked them all, some a fair bit, but they may have issues or just weren't as pleasing as the prior set.

Cyclopean: A Lovecraft-inspired dungeon crawler hearkening back to the Old Ones, by which I mean the rightful and real old ones, Ultima and Wizardry. Rad, I am tickled by such games, but this is still very early days. It's a game jam project slowly expanding, so worth a revisit down the line when it's more fully formed.

Knights In Tight Spaces: I played Fights In Tight Spaces in one of the first Steam Fests years ago, and never got around to it. It was cool as hell with a smart idea, using its card-based turn-based combat to emulate choreographing a secret agent's fights with terrorists and ninjas. This is that but with a fantasy theme, and new mechanics like magic attacks and control of multiple party members. It's just as rad.

Little Big Adventure: Twinsen's Quest: A loving remake of the 1990s French adventure game, which I never played but have heard often of. You can tell by the art style, honestly, it's neat to see the visual throughline in French art like this through to stuff like Ubisoft's Beyond Good & Evil. It's rather charming but the demo is rather glitchy, the game releases soon so I hope this is just an older show demo.

Nivoz Running Canned: A third-person shooter that bucks standard control schemes for a curious one where you have to turn with LB+RB/L1+R1, and can't aim directly, being dependent on homing attacks or moving your little roomba buddy near enemies to make a direct shot at. It's got a lot of curious ideas, has hilarious comedy jazz and silly cutscene animations, and is a bit of a buggy mess but the character and charm show through. I champion it, the standardisation of control schemes for a lot of things is useful in many ways but has drained the excitement out of a lot of games. Nivoz Running Canned has immense "strange Dreamcast/PS2 game you found on a rack one day" energy, and makes me long for the days of unique control schemes like the pre-PW/5 Metal Gear Solids.

Senseless: A step platformer emulating (fairly well!) the visuals and display and general capabilities of a ZX Spectrum game, with obvious fudging for resolution, better controls and smoothness. Deeply charming little thing, but its map doesn't work for controllers so I eventually got lost and called it. But I'll definitely come back for it; not too much more to say!

Reach to Tsukuyomi: A simple but decently slick 2D platformer with nice controls, good game feel and cute sprite art. It has a better grip on hitboxes and the reach your attacks should have in a 2D game than the two Soulslike boss-rush games I played and didn't feel a buzz from, though it is a pure classic platformer. I'm delighted by it, I'll be back.

======================

And now, finally, a curio and some data follow-up:

This is Chimera Capsule, an auto-battler with (not real money driven) gacha for units that either generate resources or go clear dungeons. Super Auto Pets with other types of idle games built into it, basically. Art looks pretty neat, doesn't it? What makes it a curiosity?

Well, it's that it doesn't exactly look like that, it looks like this:

It's a multi-window game! The different chunks of idler game are given their own small windows (480x256 pixels) and just ping a notif when they're done or have something needing attention. I'm not the most fussed on idle games (I prefer idol games), but games that use multiple windows like this are quite rare indeed. The idea is you can multi-task more easily by separating them up.

There's just one problem.

You get to see how the sausage is made a little here, but can you grasp the problem? Perhaps you will when I note that this isn't even the full size of my screen, nor anywhere near its full resolution.

On my big fucking TV and shiny 1440p Windows resolution, these windows that can't be resized are unusably small. It's kind of tragic, but it highlights a recurring thing, particularly of quite a few games this Steam Next Fest; a lot of them have absolutely tiny forced resolutions and window sizes, or at least start with them, and more than a few struggle with fullscreening; Book of Buja isn't fullscreen, it's a maximised window, for example.

Is it me? Is everyone just on 13-17 inch laptop screens that only sometimes go over 1080p, am I the freak? Or is getting games to full-screen actually a remarkably tricky task?

Now, the other point, about data. Last SNF I went a bit crazy while amassing a particularly huge pile of games; I also counted and recorded the names of every individual roguelike that Steam showed me around the other games. Any game that was visibly a roguelike, or described itself as such, or used the tags for "roguelike" or "roguelite" got counted.

This isn't an indicator of quality or anything of the sort, just a count. At the last SNF, hot on the heels of the Summer Games Fest 'E3' presentation streams where various organisations assemble lineups of trailers to present, there was a bit of a debate on Twitter about how prevalent roguelikes are and whether people are "right" to be tired of them or whatever. I simply wanted to demonstrate that regardless of what you thought, there are so many of these fucking things that you absolutely can't blame someone for being sick of them.

I did the same thing again, deciding to cut off my search for actual demos when I got to 100. I then decided to push one more "page" (when you scroll to the bottom of the big list of games on the SNF page on Steam and hit "show more"; there are 50-52 a page, thereabouts, or were for me). For my trouble I got 2 more games and 14 more roguelikes.

I decided to be fair and also count some other kinds; namely, Metroidvanias, Soulslikes, and "cozy" games (if they used "relaxing", "wholesome", "cozy" or "chill" as a descriptor/tag/in the name), as those are also big trends in indie games at the moment. I used the same criteria; if it was in the description, tags, name or if I could visibly clock it as such from its screenshots and rollover trailer, not from going into each and every individual game's page. This is the "from the back of a galloping horse" test, basically.

To the 114 roguelikes, I got shown 5 Metroidvanias, 20 Soulslikes and 24 wholesome games.

Here is the new list.

Now yes, this is dependent on what the algorithm throws up; there's way more than 5 Metroidvanias this fest, Steam reports 67 with the tag in the SNF pool:

I have played a fair amount (~18 hours) of Rabbit and Steel this year, one of the very few roguelikes I actually like, so that's tilted the algorithm at least a bit. How much is debatable; recent time in Warhammer 40K Darktide (~15 hours), Dokapon Kingdom (~8) and Baldur's Gate 3 (5 in the last fortnight, ~43 tops), or the ~180 hours of Helldivers 2 from earlier in the year don't seem to be tipping the scales much any which way despite the overlaps shared (turn-based combat, gore, multiplayer, RPG). Also, Steam's algorithms aren't the sharpest around and aren't always the best informed - it tells me to wishlist things I have wishlisted or that I might be interested in games I've bought and played, sometimes.

But it's indicative, I think, of how these things truly do outnumber any other sort of game and how yes, it is undeniably fair and right (it would be anyway, but if by chance you were feeling indignant about it) to be sick of how often they come up. I think Steam's algos generally favour things selling well or being popular, only occasionally deferring to relevance to preference and so on, so perhaps that causes an upswell in this genre being recommended so often and in such numbers.

Pair that with show-runners for things like Summer Games Fest obviously biasing towards them and also vying for DLC or expac announcements for existing popular ones like Dead Cells, and over-exposure isn't just guaranteed, it's plainly observable. The showrunners for those streams are awful tastemakers and also often don't know how to run a show so they'll bunch them together or pair up very similar ones, which just makes things worse.

In my June 2024 post, I also noted that many of them are using a practice of getting lovingly animated nice-looking trailers that then cut to a game that looks nothing at all like the animated segment except in like character design, and it's like everything in the industry is trying to make people sick of these things and resent them and whoever makes them.

And just to drive the point home, let me answer the important question you probably have about the pair of roguelike lists I made: no, there isn't a single game shared between them. The roguelike lists are both 100% unique end-to-end, meaning across two Steam Fests I saw about 70~ things I was interested in, to 251 unique roguelikes.

There are too many of these fucking things, and they shouldn't be centred or staged anywhere near as fucking much as they are. And these are just the ones that I saw, myself.

You don't even know the half of it.

The next Steam Fest should be in February 2025, a frantic time. I hope for a better harvest then, and I don't know if I'll continue my tracking and accounting of the rogueslop plague, but we'll see what my mood is then. These posts will all be on here from now on because I can't be fucked with more platform-hopping and fussing about features and themes and so on. Tumblr's a blogging platform, or claims to be, it'll have to do.

See you then, if I can be fucked to do it.

[scribeforchrist-blog]

Fixated On Seeking God 

MEMORY VERSE OF THE WEEK

=========================

+ Galatians 3:26 For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith.

=========================

VERSE OF THE DAY

========================

+ Psalm 119:2 Blessed are those who keep his testimonies, who seek him with their whole heart

=========================

SUBJECT: Fixated On Seeking God 

=========================

** SAY THIS BEFORE YOU READ; HERE’S SOME CHRISTIAN TRUTHS **

I AM SEEKING GOD

I AM CONTENT

I AM NOT PULLING AWAY

I AM HOLY

********************************

THOUGHTS:

=======================

    When we seek God, it's with our whole heart, it means we let nothing take us away from him A lot of times, we allow the world to distract us and pull us from his loving arms to do other things outside of his will, and sometimes that causes us to love him less or even to seek him less, but when we seek something it means we seek and seek until we find it.

    I had this controller one time. The Xbox Pro controller it had all these pieces to change the analog sticks, so I had a favorite piece. I was cleaning my controller, and the next thing I knew, the replacement part flipped off; I got on my hands and knees and looked all over the floor. I swept the floor, pulled everything away from the wall, and did everything, but I still couldn’t find it. I was so upset because it was my favorite piece, but the thing is that when we seek him, we don’t have to go to great lengths; we don’t have to worry about him disappearing.His word says this: Jeremiah 29:13: You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.

   When we seek him, we will find him; we often go after things in life that don’t work out, or we start a new hobby, and it doesn’t last or do things that doesn’t make sense, but everything makes sense when we seek him. We must stay focused; things in life will come and will try to block us from our actual call and mission, but we can't let them taint our hearts or ruin our relationship with him.  

   That is why the bible tells us things will come, trials and tribulations will too , but take heart. He said that he has overcome a lot, and that’s what we must write on our hearts: no matter what we go through, he is here for us , and we can’t complain about what we go through I mean we can but it won’t help , it doesn’t change anything . All we can do is place God at the head of our lives, and he will take care of the rest.

  Proverbs 23:26 My son, give me your heart and let your eyes delight in my ways,

  Every time we give and give ourselves to God, it means something to him; it means we are dedicated and that we only want him to mold us because there are so many influencers, so many pastors, so many teachers, so many sermons and these things can change the way we view his word but when we allow him to teach us. We allow him to show us the way we will delight in it.

   At first, when we do this, we won't delight in it; sometimes we won't, but if we can be transparent, it takes us a while to get used to living the way he wants, which is holy and a lot of us must peel back some things so we can get to this road. Still, if we do it in his ways, we do it in his strength, we can, but we must keep pushing no matter how hard it gets; that’s why the verse says give me your heart and let your eyes delight in my eyes let your ways enjoy my way of doing things.

  Just like everything, it’s a process, and sometimes that process is longer. It depends on how much we are willing to let go. That’s what we have to do to completely walk in the light, to accept him and accept his ways fully; we have to let go so we can love him because as we grow, we start to realize we do need him and we start to realize his way is better, but it takes time, if we are rebellious of letting go of the things of the flesh it will be harder to adapt to stepping in the spirit.

 Psalm 128:1 Blessed are all who fear the LORD, who walk in His ways.

   When we walk in God, we have a certain amount of fear, and when we walk in his ways, we also walk in his will. A lot of times, when we say we follow God, some of us follow him a little bit and do our own thing; some of us follow him, walking upright and obeying his ways, but when we do this, we are blessed, our ways our blessed our life is blessed. We might not have what we want, or what we like to eat, or work where we want to, but! We are blessed; we don’t need everything in this world to make us happy. We don’t need what the world says we need to feel complete ; all we need is the love of God and his will.

  ***Today, we discussed how this world can be distracting, and dealing with the clutter and distractions is hard . What causes us to be distracted is when we take our eyes off God, and no, it’s not easy seeking God when we can binge-watch TV shows, go shopping, vacations, working. All these things are in our lives, but when we seek God, take that time, and place that time STRICTLY ON God, we can become more focused and do it with your whole heart.

  Another thing we talked about is giving God our heart, sometimes our heart is fixed on other things, and we give ourselves to other things and people and not realize that we are being pulled from God; we can’t ever be pulled out of God’s hand by him , but we can be pulled from God by our own doing! In our way, what pulled Adam and Eve away was their fixation not on fruit but on the idea of being like God; that’s what pulled them away. We must be careful of what our thoughts are and the ideas we allow to stay and what ideas and thoughts we allow to pull us away. Stay focused on God and his will for you, and you will be blessed in the way the lord sees fit. ©Seer~ Prophetess Lee

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PRAYER

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Heavenly Father, thank you for allowing us to experience your word and take it in. Help us to take your word and apply it and be doers of your word, lord. We are lost without you and desire to know your will for our lives. Help us seek you with our whole heart, not with half but all. Lord, give us strength not to be distracted, not to look at what we could have, and to look at what we do and be content with everything. Lord, we love you, and we ask you to forgive us of the sins we have done. In Jesus' Name Amen

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REFERENCES

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+ Psalm 119:80 May my heart be blameless in Your statutes, that I may not be put to shame.

 

+ Isaiah 56:2 Blessed is the man who does this, and the son of the man who holds it fast keeps the Sabbath without profaning it, and keeps his hand from doing any evil."

 

+ Ezekiel 18:17 He withholds his hand from iniquity and takes no interest or profit. He keeps My ordinances and follows My statutes.' Such a man will not die for his father's iniquity. He will surely live.

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FURTHER READINGS

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Proverbs 9

Luke 16

Jeremiah 47

2 Chronicle 25

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[andrevasims]

This is news to me since I'm not a TS4 or console player, but huh.

TS4 for consoles was updated in January 2023 with control changes to make it similar to the PC version, but the changes moved all the mapping for the established controller layout, and ended up making a keyboard/mouse the most feasible way to play the console version.

Both people who were just used to using a controller as well as people with disabilities that affect their hands found the changes rendered the game unplayable.

Why is a controls mapping change from January still relevent? Because as of now, despite having 3 additional patches since then, the accessibility issues of TS4 console's controls haven't been addressed.

One of the patch notes from 5/30/23 says "Resizing objects in Build Mode is possible again" then specifies the controller buttons to do that, which seems to mean there were/are game features completely impossible to use in the console version unless you plugged a keyboard into your Xbox/Playstation.

[yeonchi]

Koei Warriors Retrospective Part 8: Dynasty Warriors 5 Spinoffs (Empires/Vol. 2/Mahjong/DS/Online)

Dynasty Warriors 5 Empires (真・三國無双4 Empires) Platforms: PlayStation 2, Xbox 360 Release dates: Japan: 23 March 2006 USA: 28 March 2006 Europe: 23 June 2006

Now that Koei had established the Warriors game franchise, the spinoffs would continue being rolled out by the quarter as they continued refining old concepts and experimenting with new ones, even in the midst of a transition between console generations.

What spinoffs would be inspired by the peak of the classic Warriors games? Let's jump into the spinoffs for Dynasty Warriors 5.

Dynasty Warriors 5 Empires

Where DW4E experimented with the hybrid simulation/hack-and-slash format, DW5E refined the format and put more control of the kingdom to the player.

Empire Mode now allows you to select from six scenarios to start off, one of them being the fictional scenario that assigns officers and kingdoms randomly. After selecting your kingdom, there are more settings that you can choose from; aside from the map switching and the difficulty, you can choose whether you want to carry over character experience earned throughout this game, a time limit of 200 turns (50 years), have edit officers appear in the playthrough, how you annex a kingdom (by occupying their capital directly or after isolating it), officer limits or officer deaths (enabling this will allow you to execute captured officers but officers will die of old age 90 years after their debut in historical scenarios).

In the Political/Strategy phase, you now have the option to pick your own policies in the form of strategy cards instead of consulting your officers for two policies. Having different officers in your kingdom will allow them to suggest different strategies, and if you pick an officer's set of policies with a policy you haven't used before, a new strategy card can be unlocked. Consulting an officer or picking a policy takes up an order/move; you start off with one and you can get up to five as you keep conquering territories and getting appointed to higher positions. Depending on your situation, it may be more advantageous for you to consult an officer as you can use two policies for the price of one.

Moving onto the Battle phase. When you invade or defend a territory, you can deploy a relief general and/or lieutenant who will appear as reinforcements during the battle. Before you begin the battle, you can also employ tactics obtained during the Strategy phase whereas in the last game, tactics selected through consultation are valid for that turn's Battle phase only. Some tactics are implemented for the entire battle (like time limits or reinforcement speeds) while other tactics are activated in the Pause menu after being equipped (like launching fire attacks or rallying your troops).

As you increase your weaponsmithing skills, you can unlock stronger weapons for your characters. After each battle, you can upgrade your player officer's weapon with attributes gained during it. Fourth weapons are initially unlocked by reaching tech level 4 (for a character's weapon class) and obtaining 500 KOs in battle. In subsequent playthroughs, you only need to reach tech level 4 to unlock it if you decide to carry over player experience.

Items are no longer restocked after a certain amount of turns, but they need to be manufactured by spending money. There are three new items exclusive to this game and there are four items that are exclusively obtained through trading; after capturing Xiliang, Jiaozhi, Nanman and Beiping, you can spam the trade commands and you can get an exclusive item from there.

During battle, you can order your officers to attack or defend a base or officer through the Unit Info menu. You can also use the d-pad to order all your officers to attack (up), defend (down), gather (left) or do whatever they like (right).

Each scenario will have its own event battles. Aside from the Yellow Turban Rebellion, Hulao Gate and Chibi, there are two new event battles set in Guandu and Yiling. The Battle of Yiling is triggered as a second event battle in the Flames Over Chibi scenario, while the Divided Land scenario does not have any event battles.

Free Mode is also included in this game and in this mode, you can play any invasion/defence scenario or event battle with any ally and enemy lineup you choose, even though you are still limited to the limited general/lieutenant lineup. I think it's an essential mode for Empires games because this mode truly allows you to embrace the sandbox nature of the game outside of the randomised kingdom lineups of Empire Mode.

When you boot the game for the first time with DW5/XL data on your memory card, you can unlock some bonuses from the start. Playable characters are unlocked in Free Mode, the first 96 posters in the gallery are unlocked (2 for each playable character), you have all the basic items at level 10, all outfits in Edit Mode and your settings from the vanilla game. In addition, your custom characters in XL can also be ported over to Empires. This functionality is part of the reason why I would have liked to see Edit Mode continue in future games so that I don't have to waste time creating a bunch of characters in Empires when I already have some I can import from the vanilla game.

This game also has an Xbox 360 port which once again, supports 720p and 5.1ch Dolby Digital sound. Unlike 5 Special, 5 Empires is the first Xbox 360 port to be available in the West. Additionally, background music from older games is also available and you can select a game's playlist to prioritise in battle. The encyclopedia from the vanilla game is included in Empires as well.

Dynasty Warriors 5 Empires improves on 4 Empires and makes it the definitive Empires experience for its time. Samurai Warriors would begin an Empires spinoff of its own by using this game as a base. If you played both this game and Samurai Warriors 2 Empires, you will definitely see how the latter game was influenced by the former.

Dynasty Warriors Vol. 2

Dynasty Warriors Vol. 2 (真・三國無双 2nd Evolution) Platforms: PlayStation Portable Release dates: Japan: 23 March 2006 USA: 24 October 2006 Europe: 17 November 2006

Like how 5 Empires was an improvement on the last Empires game, Dynasty Warriors Vol. 2 was an improvement on the first PSP game. This game finally gets a moniker to differentiate it from the other games, though it's very easy to mistake this game as Dynasty Warriors 2 when it's actually Dynasty Warriors Vol. 2 or 2nd Evolution. As is obvious, character designs and movesets are taken from Dynasty Warriors 5.

Once again, Musou Mode is defined by kingdom, but there is a bit of a twist. Each kingdom's Musou Mode is divided into four paths, the first three being five stages long and the final path being four stages long. The first stage of the second path is unlocked after clearing a Musou Mode once, while the first stage of the final path is unlocked after clearing the final stage of the third path (with 100% completion in Wei's story). Most stages have two victory conditions you can choose to clear the battle. For example, for the Yellow Turban Rebellion, you can defeat Zhang Jiao or occupy all five altars to win the battle. Achieving the former condition will take you on one path and achieving the latter condition will take you on another. Thanks to this, you don't have to pursue Lu Bu at Sishui Gate or Hulao Gate.

Free Mode allows you to play a pseudo-Musou Mode of up to 8 stages, with all the battles divided into 8 eras. It is also in this mode where you can play stages for the Other characters, with each faction (including Zuo Ci) receiving two stages each. Because of the way the Other stages are grouped in the eras however, you can only play 6 of them in succession and not 8. Those stages are unlocked by achieving 100% completion in stages against the Other factions to unlock the first stage, then achieve 100% in that unlocked stage to unlock the second stage. Zuo Ci is unlocked by achieving 100% in eight Other stages. Only Easy, Normal and Hard difficulties are offered with no Chaos option available.

Open fields are either allied or enemy territory and not the reappearing patrol battles they were in the last game. This means that if a unit goes onto an open field that belongs to the other side, they start with one less bar.

Areas are not liberated until both the enemy morale runs out and all enemy unit leaders are defeated. Some people may see it as a drain if they find it hard to defeat unit leaders, but as someone who likes playing on Easy and defeating all officers on the battlefield, it's a plus.

Attack and defence bases are introduced as additional area types. They have a base morale of 2, but they also raise the morale of neighbouring areas belonging to that base's side. I've seen areas that are linked to three bases, but never four if I remember correctly.

Villages and treasure troves are new area types as well. In a village, you will have 60 seconds to complete a mission and liberate it, which involves killing bandits or protecting villagers. When you clear the mission, you can obtain some supplies and recover your health, Musou and Rage. Treasure troves are hidden in battlefields and there will be a high-level guest officer guarding it. Defeating that guest officer quickly will add them to your list of officers, which is easier than just leaving it to chance like in the last game. Completing the village and treasure trove missions (along with satisfying both victory conditions) are the key to gaining 100% on a stage.

Mountains and rivers are also included in this game, but this time, there are also steep mountains and deep rivers that cannot be crossed at all unless you have a Ranger or Ferryman among your officers or a mount with the Climber or Swimmer ability.

The bow function from the previous game is removed as the R button now serves to activate Musou Rage when the bar is full. Levels no longer determine what attacks you can perform as it is now determined by your weapon.

Yes, like in the main game, you can now have up to 8 weapons and mounts to equip into battle. There are no fourth weapons in this game, but you can work towards obtaining a strong third weapon. Elements are also determined by the weapon and weapons can have up to 5 attributes and support for Evolution Attacks. Mounts, namely horses and elephants, can be obtained during battle and some of them also come with an ability as well depending on their reputation. Mounts are developed as you continue to use them. There are also four special horses that can be obtained in the game as well. Most mounts except for the special ones will rear up when attempting to trample enemies other than soldiers or maybe even base captains (depending on the background of the mount), but all horses will rear up when attempting to trample the enemy commander.

Moving onto officers now and the system has received a few tweaks. Not all officers will have activatable skills, but officers can have up to three abilities. At the end of each battle, you are given growth points to distribute to officers, which will raise their rank, stat buffs and unlock skills. Characters' control values will also develop with their other stats, so you will be able to equip up to two playable and/or guest officers per battle.

Guest officers are unlocked in treasure trove missions, with officers coming from Samurai Warriors 2, Water Margin, the early Han period (characters like Liu Bang and Xiang Yu also being featured in an old Koei game for the SNES, namely Rise of the Phoenix 項劉記) and others such as Jiang Taigong (aka Taigong Wang), Genghis Khan, Yu Ji and Hua Tuo. Li Shi Shi and Cai Wenji have been removed in this game. There are a total of 300 officers to be collected.

Exclusive to this game are officer combinations, which will give you additional stat boosts. The combinations range from familial bonds to frenemies to mentors and students and so forth. For combinations between two player characters or a player character and a generic officer, playing as one of the characters can take them out of the equation so it will only cost you whatever points the other officer costs. You will definitely need to do this for the combinations of Garden Oath, Illusionist Trio and Strategist Legacy because they involve three player characters and you will not be able to accommodate all three of them within your control point limit.

This game also features a multiplayer (VS) mode for up to 4 players using the PSP's ad-hoc connection capabilities. Game modes include Battle Royal(e), Bombs Away, Sudden Death and Time Attack. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to get it working on PPSSPP between my computer and phone (I used to be able to do it before for something else) and nobody has cared enough to post gameplay footage of that mode, however the trailer for this game does have some footage and tutorials for each game are included as well. If there was an option to play against the computer then I might have given this mode a chance. Ad-hoc connections are also used to open rooms to trade officers between players instead of swapping Memory Sticks like it was in the previous game.

As stated at the start, Dynasty Warriors Vol. 2 is more icing on the cake that was the first PSP game. It's another perfect port of the main game cut down for a portable console while also being modestly sized for Memory Sticks. You can fit both of the Dynasty Warriors PSP games or the first game and Samurai Warriors State of War onto a 512 MB card or all three games onto a 1 GB card.

Of course, the argument still remains that cut-down spinoffs like this are wasteful when Koei could have ported whole games to the PSP since other publishers have managed to do so with their games even at the console's launch. You can rest assured that future Warriors games for the PSP would do just that.

Dynasty Warriors Mahjong (Jan Sangoku Musou)

Dynasty Warriors Mahjong (雀・三國無双) Platforms: PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, Nintendo DS Release dates: Japan: 23 March 2006 (PS2)/28 September 2006 (PSP/DS)

If there are two things in this world I'll never understand (how to play), it's cricket and mahjong. At least with International Cricket Captain you can just press a few buttons and the game plays itself even if you can't comprehend how a team can win by X amount of runs or Y amount of wickets. As for mahjong, it's really something that people in Asia and first generation-migrants (including older generations) are more familiar with. How could a second-generation migrant like me even know how to play mahjong?

Okay, I did get shown how to play mahjong once, but that was many years ago, and even then, mahjong is different in different places. My family plays the Hong Kong variant of mahjong. Dad likes watching a mahjong competition show from Taiwan that has their own variant of mahjong. And of course, this game uses the Japanese variant of mahjong, also known as RICH! RICH! RICH! mahjong.

This game actually uses the engine from Koei's mahjong game series Mahjong Taikai (麻雀大会), originally released in 1987 for the NEC PC-9800, which lasted longer than the Tandy TRS-80 and its successors (up to 2003 as opposed to 1993) and could run up to Windows 2000 (as opposed to Windows 3.x on the Tandy 1000 and Tandy 3000). Hah! Eat that, Alec and Shanna!

("Okay, my lord!" they replied.)

When you start a new game you're guided to name and create an avatar for your save. There are three play modes, namely Musou Play (無双闘牌), Tournament (雀帝位戦) and Free Play (自由対局). The Data Base shows nothing but your play stats for all characters. Rules for the Open Field rules can be set in the settings. Character descriptions can be seen by waiting on the title screen.

In Musou Play, you go through a sort-of-Musou Mode for Wei, Wu and Shu with six stages each against different characters. Once you've cleared all three Musou Plays once, you unlock the Musou Musou Mode where you play 15 stages against different combos of characters from across the Three Kingdoms. Different stages have different clear conditions.

The Tournament mode has you play in a tournament starting with 32 players, with the top two players from each game advancing to the next round. Different rules apply between tournaments which will loop back after playing eight of them. And finally, Free Play lets you choose which characters to play against along with the rules to play with.

This is as much as I can say about this game because like other Warriors games, the gameplay is the same no matter how you play it. As I said at the start of this section, I'm not familiar with mahjong so this isn't a game I'm going to invest a lot of time in. This game is the first unique Warriors game/spinoff to not be localised for the West, which is fair in this case but not for others (such as 5 Special). The original PS2 release was also the same day that Vol. 2 was released in Japan. I'd complain about it, but then you have to wonder how much effort was needed to make a Warriors mahjong game using the engine from a mahjong game you've already made.

Dynasty Warriors DS: Fighter's Battle

Dynasty Warriors DS: Fighter's Battle (真・三國無双DSファイターズバトル) Platforms: Nintendo DS Release dates: Japan: 5 April 2007 USA: 24 July 2007 Europe: 31 August 2007

(The Koei Tecmo Wiki got the Western dates wrong and I almost fell for it had I not checked Wikipedia and other sources to confirm them.)

The first Dynasty Warriors PSP game takes up 150 MB on a UMD that can hold up to 900 MB or 1.8 MB of data depending on whether it's a single or dual layer disc. Nintendo DS Game Cards can be up to 512 MB in size. With this game using 128 MB cards, could it have been possible to port the PSP game's functionality to the DS? Well, no. The PSP uses the 64-bit MIPS R4000 chip that can run at up to 333 MHz with a 166 MHz proprietary Media Engine GPU, while the Nintendo DS uses 32-bit ARM processors.

A beta build of Dynasty Warriors DS was created as a sequel to Dynasty Warriors Advance for the GBA (which was also compatible with the original DS and DS Lite), featuring the ability gauge from that game. And somehow, despite that, we get this.

There is only one mode in this game, unless you care about multiplayer gameplay and even then I'm pretty sure it's the same mode because I'm using DeSmuME which doesn't support Wi-Fi. Multiplayer mode supports up to three players.

You pick from three unnamed characters based on three of the Four Gods, namely Phoenix (Red), Dragon (Blue) and Chimera (Yellow) with no Tiger character (who would be white). The computer will randomly select one of the other two to be your opponent. You're then brought to a map of China where you have 11 battlefields to conquer, namely Wancheng (Castle), Hulao, Xuchang, Hefei, Jianye, Chibi, Shu, Xiliang, Huabei, Chengdu and Nanman. Once you've conquered all 11, you'll fight a final secret battle at the Great Wall.

Before each battle you will need to assemble a Battle Deck of officers who will be featured in the battle. Your opponent will do the same as well. You will have a main officer and up to 6 subofficers. Cards are obtained as you play the game. There are red cards that enhance your stats, blue cards that add effects to your Obstacle Wheel, and rare golden cards that do both. The rare cards are unlocked through special conditions, including some that involve having the Dynasty Warriors Advance Game Pak inserted, which is detrimental for DSi players. Out of the cast from DW5, only 28 characters have unique designs on their cards. 8 more playable characters are also available as generic officers and the rest of the cards are made up of generic officers. There are a total of 120 cards representing 51 officers to be unlocked, with the blue and red cards able to be levelled up with repeated use.

During battle, your objective is to occupy all enemy bases before taking the main camp, but your opponent can take your main camp before all your bases fall (I think) because the gates to your camp are left open. Like with Advance, you have to defeat a certain number of enemies in an area before you can move on or defeat the base defender officer and occupy it. There are also armories and depots that start off neutral but can be occupied in a similar way to bases. Every time you encounter your opponent, you're brought to a battlefield to duel, and the character who loses will respawn somewhere else.

In battle, you're limited to 4 attacks like it was in Advance. Musou Attacks are now performed by pressing X, while the R button changes the bottom screen between the map and the enemy's information screen. Yes, this game doesn't use any touch controls, but it sure makes good damn use of a second screen. For every five coins you collect (stacking to a maximum of nine), you can obtain an effect from the Obstacle Wheel which you can use to affect enemies in your area by pressing Y.

Yeah, look, you could remake the game with another IP and it'd be something, but this really just feels like a Dynasty Warriors game in name only. It didn't live up to the hype that was teased during E3 2004 or 2005. Aside from the voices for the three new characters, I'm pretty sure the few voices for everyone else is taken from DW5. I played this game for a bit many years ago and only revisited it recently for this retrospective. It's only enjoyable if you make it enjoyable, otherwise there's nothing much to it.

Koei Tecmo experimented with the DS as a platform and its limits can't really accommodate the requirements of their IP. This game and Mahjong are some examples of wasteful spinoffs whose resources could have been better used in ports of the mainline games. I hesitate to call this game a disgrace primarily because of its experimental status, but also because we haven't even breached the line of disgrace yet.

Dynasty Warriors Online

Dynasty Warriors Online (真・三國無双Online) Platforms: Windows, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita Service launch: Japan: June 2006 (Windows), February 2010 (PS3), September 2014 (PS4), November 2015 (Vita) Taiwan: March 2008 China: April 2008 USA/Europe: August 2010 Service shutdown: Japan: February 2022 (Windows/PS4), May 2019 (PS3), March 2017 (Vita) Taiwan: May 2016 China: December 2020 USA/Europe: January 2014

This is going to be a doozy to write about.

For a time, Koei Tecmo operated an MMORPG known as Dynasty Warriors Online. It was first launched as Shin Sangoku Musou BB (broadband) in 2006, originally limited to Yahoo and SoftBank before being open to other providers in May 2007. The game's logo style would be adapted for use in the DS game before becoming its current Online incarnation from November of that year.

Become a True Warrior of the Three Kingdoms with Optus! When you sign up for Optus Broadband, you'll get exclusive access to our new game offered in partnership with Koei, Dynasty Warriors Online. You'll also get talking animals, a scary shiver-inducing italic logo and a guaranteed data breach for all our loyal customers. Call now or visit your local Optus shop today! "Yeah yeah yeah... Just say the word, just say the word!" Yeah.

While the game was available to download for free, Koei did sell starter packs for BB and Online. The game went through four major expansions, with the last one being Online Z released in July 2013, which implemented weapon switching from 7 and 8. The game was also available (digitally, I presume) for the PS3, PS4 and PS Vita, but each expansion pack was sold as a disc as well. I honestly have to wonder how the discs work if it's an online game - I presume it installs or runs the files from the disc while also downloading and installing the latest data from the servers. I can honestly imagine what would happen if players didn't buy the latest expansion and the data wasn't automatically downloaded - "Oh, you don't have the version where we implemented weapons from DW8? Nup, you can't play the game until you buy that version!"

Once you create your account you create your character and choose a faction to join. As with other MMOs you can explore the world, interact with other players, buy and sell weapons, upgrade your equipment and so forth. There are many types of weapons available; initially, only DW5's weapons were implemented along with some weapons exclusive to Online. As the years went on, weapons from 7, 8 and even 9 were implemented, along with Da Ji, Fu Xi, Nuwa and Ranmaru Mori's weapons from Warriors Orochi 2 and Samurai Warriors 3.

The C1s and C6s of movesets can be changed, amazingly enough, with 4 types of C1s and 6 types of C6s. Each weapon also supports Evolution Attacks, even those that came from games other than DW5. You should also see the names of the weapons given in this game, particularly to the weapon movesets from later games as they had to differentiate them from DW5's movesets. Later games could have really learnt something from Online's weapon systems. You can check out the list here.

There were many game modes you could play and different campaigns you could participate in based on different battles and eras. Apparently bots could fill in spaces when games don't have enough players. If this game could allow you to start a LAN session, join a community server or play solo with and against bots, it could have been like Counter Strike, but alas we'll never know.

Sadly though, this is a game I won't be able to review that seriously because I've never played it and I can't anyway because the services have been shutdown. Although the game was free-to-play with microtransactions, I can only imagine how much the experience would be panned by gamers if it still managed to continue in the West past 2014. But hey, I managed to get a piece of content out of it, which is cool.

Can you believe it nearly took me 20 years to play (almost) all the spinoffs of Dynasty Warriors 5? This may be the end of the classic era of Dynasty Warriors, but we haven't finished covering the classic era of Warriors games yet. We head back to Japan next time for Samurai Warriors 2.

[thegeminisage]

bro i was SO excited to get into coral island. have been waiting on it to come out of beta for literal years - i didn't want to play the early access version because i wanted to be able to enjoy the entire game at once. when it released i read something about like the merpeople romances not being ready until 2024 and i was like ehhhh should i wait but my brother was like no that'll give you something to bring you back to it later you have been talking and talking about this game it's finally out so you would be nuts not to buy it. so i bought it. $29.99 american dollars. that's about 3 hours of cleaning houses. i had some steam money though so i actually got it for $23

there is an "i'm stuck" button in the menu which acts as if you had passed out - you lose cash and stamina. once my game glitched and i ACTUALLY got stuck because the controls would not allow me to open the door. there've been a few other minor glitches here and there - some weird dialogue, or fenceposts vanishing if you put them in the wrong spot. and steam shows me the xbox controller button prompts instead of the ps4 ones. that was all fine. it's an indie game and it's just been out a couple of weeks. i didn't think a thing about it. for the past 3.5 days the only thing i've wanted to do is play more coral island. you might not be able to marry a merperson yet but i have been cleaning the ocean so i can go talk to them, you know?

but this morning moseyed my ass on over to the subreddit, sure i would find cool tips and trivia etc. instead it's every console player on earth talking about how the crashes make the game unplayable. even on the pc version, there's apparently only 3 merpeople you can even talk to and the cleaning the ocean quest ends with a literal "wip" on the screen. the pet adoption function is still in its infancy, you can't dig for fossils, kids don't grow up, and chests keep vanishing with items in them. i felt like i had only barely scratched the surface of this game but in actuality. maybe not.

andl ike. not to be a whiny pissbaby. but i am SO FUCKINGGG TIRED of games releasing when they aren't FINISHED. i thought an indie game that was in early access for SUCH a long fucking time would be safe from this phenomenon but apparently fucking not. i was fine to wait as long as they needed but when i am flat broke - when as a household we are food bank 2-3 times a month one house payment behind BROKE - to spend $30 on an INCOMPLETE GAME during the HOLIDAY SEASON when i have to fucking buy presents for people is INSANE. if i was going to play the INCOMPLETE version i could have paid the much lower early access price. and i deliberately on purpose did not do that and got tricked into doing it anyway!!!

like how can you raise your price and claim it's because the game is complete now and RELEASE IT ON CONSOLE when the game isn't actually complete now? did they need the extra money to continue development? did some suit stick his nose where it didn't belong? and my ass is WAY past 4 hours so there's no way i can return it. i'm stuck with this game now, just as it is, with the money i paid for it.

idek if i will keep playing. it's fucking fun as shit and ik when it's finished i'm gonna love the hell out of it, plus i've got a ways to go yet before i start hitting walls. but man what a way to take the wind out of a girl's sails. "wip." i spent the last 4 in-game days doing nothing but cleaning the ocean. good lord.

tbh going on reddit was a mistake. that was my bad. i would have preferred to find all this out the hard way and enjoy myself until then. or: better: i would have preferred not to buy the fucking game yet! wild how that works! i hate i hate i HATE this economy!!!!!!!!!! that's so fucking evil!!! i literally want my money back!

[hevanderson]

it's technically thursday but. wip wednesday. tagged by nobody and tagging nobody. this is my apology for not gleeposting as much and also a reassurance that i still am autistic about it. inspired by a post i made a bit ago about sinn

It's late when Sam and Finn come into the kitchen. The digital clock above the microwave, a wedding gift, reads 11:23. All windows in the kitchen look out into a dark front yard, the moonlight filtering in through the blinds. Sam and Finn had spent the better part of two hours, alternating between sitting on Finn's twin bed or on the mildly itchy carpet, their eyes glued to the old television in his closet-turned-bedroom. They'd been playing video games almost the entire game, passing the XBOX 360 controller back and forth, since Finn didn't own any multiplayer games.

[jcmarchi]

Immortality's Unsettling Mystery Comes To PlayStation 5 This Month

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Immortality's Unsettling Mystery Comes To PlayStation 5 This Month

Sam Barlow’s acclaimed interactive cinematic mystery game Immortality is making its way to PlayStation 5 on January 23. The game first arrived on Xbox Series X/S and PC in August 2022.

Like Barlow’s previous works, Her Story and Telling Lies, Immortality sees players interacting with live-action footage to solve the mystery behind the disappearance of fictional actress Marissa Marcel (Manon Gage). Once a promising young star, Marcel only made three movies – none of which were ever released – before she vanished. 

Learning what happened to Marcel involves searching out dozens of clips of each film’s behind-the-scenes footage, scrubbing them for clues, and finding related videos using the ability to “match cut.” This mechanic allows players to click on elements within a scene (like a person or object) to uncover new clips featuring that selected element. The PS5 version enhances these mechanics with new haptic feedback and controller speaker features.

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Immortality’s unsettling atmosphere, inventive mechanics, and strong storytelling earned it a place on Game Informer’s Top 10 Games of 2022. Immortality is also available now on Xbox Series X/S, PC, and mobile devices via Netflix. 

[waddleandplay]

New start

Hi to everyone reading this.

I don't quite know what this blog is going to be about or what I'm trying to achieve with it.

I find myself in the midst of some sort of mental breakdown and life crisis, and I thought, why not start some kind of video game blog?

So here we are, attempting to start something that could help me express myself. I'm not exactly sure what that will entail, but perhaps we'll find out soon enough.

So about me: I'm 23-year-old girl from Finland. I'm student and I also work alongside my studies. In my free time, I enjoy playing different video games, watching livestreams, doing anything with my hands, and of course, sleeping.

I'm stydying Information and Communication Technology (nerdy, right?) in University of Applied Sciences. Right now, I am on the verge of despair regarding my sudies. I do want to do this stuff in the future, but my mindis telling me that I'm not capable. It's not like I'm not interested enough, but rather I feel I haven't learned enough.

That's it about the boring stuff! Let's move on to the good stuff: video games.

I've been playing video games my whole life, thanks to my parents for making it happen. I have so many memories from my childhood playing video games. We had this old pc at home, which we used to play different video games with my big sister. One of them was The Sims 2. Mostly, my sister played while I watched, being the younger one and all, she bossed me around, lol.

We also had few Moomin games (of course because we're from Finland and we were obsessed with Moomins). More specifically, we had five Moomin games: Muumit piilosilla (1995), Suuri Muumijuhla (1996) - The Geat Moomin party, Muumit ja taikurinhattu (1997) - The Quest for the Hobgobling's Ruby, Muumit ja näkymätön lapsi (1999) - The Invisible Child and Muumit ja salaperäiset huudot (2006) - The Mysterious Howling.

Those were the most played games on PC when I was kid. Of course, later, I had this obsession with Horse games (Starshine and Springdale Horse Mystery).

Our first console was the PlayStation2 which unfortunately broke down about a year ago (luckly, my boyfriend got one and I "borrowed" it and still have it). The most played games were SSX Tricky, a snowboarding game, and The Incredibles story game. I still love playing those games.

I've also had other consoles when I was young: Nintendo DS and Xbox 360, and I also even had my own computer! The best games on my Nintendo DS were Mario Games! Mario Kart DS was the most played one, and good runner-up was New Super Mario Bros. I also had other games: Littlest Pet Shop Country Friends, Lego Star Wars III, Crash: Mind over mutant, and The Sims 3 (which I didn't like because the controls were bad after playing on PC).

Okay, that's a lot about my game habits in the past! I think there shoud be a separate post where I talk about my current gaming experiences...

This felt very therapeutic to write about these things because I don't have many who share these kind of interests with me. Except my boyfriend, but we've played such different games in the past that it's not quite the same thing!

Also, thanks to ChatGPT for correcting my mistakes, because English isn't my first language! I also have dyslexia...

[flojocabron]

10/11/23: It was a day of mostly $10 at the fleamarket. Wasn't exactly great, but alright. I've gotten more in the past, paying less. I'm excited for Fraggle Rock, though. The first purchase was for $10: one Sega Genesis baseball game and two VHS of Transformers Beast Machines. The next stall had my fave find. The complete series of Fraggle Rock on DVD (unopened!) and an NES plug, both for $9.00! I found anime stuff at the next place. Akira on bluray, Samurai Champloo (complete) on DVD and bonus discs for the videogame Blazblue Calamity Trigger; paid $10 for all. And lastly, $10 yet again got me; a generic OG Xbox controller, a monster cable wii component cable, and a kids Bumblebee Transformer that's a dinosaur. Hooray for stuff!

[satoshi-mochida]

Taiko no Tatsujin: Rhythm Festival coming to PS5, Xbox Series, and PC on November 7 - Gematsu

Bandai Namco will release Taiko no Tatsujin: Rhythm Festival for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, and PC via Steam and Microsoft Store on November 7, the company announced. A demo is available now for PlayStation 5 and PC via Steam.

The game will be priced at $49.99 / £39.99 / €49.99 for the standard edition, which includes the downloadable content “Namco Game Music Pack,” and $79.99 / £65.99 / €79.99 for the Setlist Edition, which includes the downloadable contents “Anime Songs Collection,” “Namco Game Music Pack,” “Pops Collection,” and “Vocaloid Songs Collection.” Digital pre-orders are available now.

In Japan, the PlayStation 5 version will also be available physically. It is currently unclear whether a physical release is planned for the west.

In Japan, accessory manufacturer HORI will release a dedicated controller for the game. It will be available in two SKUs—one compatible with PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, and PC, and the other compatible with Xbox Series and PC.

Taiko no Tatsujin: Rhythm Festival first launched on September 22, 2022 in Japan and September 23 worldwide. The new release will mark the first Taiko no Tatsujin game to support 120 frames per second on consoles, and will include new collaboration music and mini-characters exclusive to the new platforms, as well as the “Run! Ninja Dojo” mode added to the Switch version via a post-launch update.

Here is an overview of the game, via its store pages:

About

Welcome to Omiko City, where everyone’s favorite Taiko elements come together in one place! Together with Don-chan, meet your new friend, Kumo-kyun and aim to become a Taiko Master! Taiko no Tatsujin: Rhythm Festival is a drum-based rhythm game featuring songs from genres such as Anime and VOCALOID, and also a variety of game modes! Have fun playing solo or online!

Taiko Mode

Drum along to the rhythm of your favorite songs and aim to play them from start to finish! Select from four difficulty modes. 76 songs across multiple genres such as Anime, VOCALOID, Game Music, and Pop are available in the game! Songs include “Gurenge,” “My Neighbor Totoro – Ending Theme Song,” “Charles,” “MEGALOVANIA,” “Into The Night,” “Feel Special,” and many more! Have fun playing casually with another player or compete for the highest score! You can also use Improvement Support to help you improve your drumming skills!

Three Types of Party Games for Two to Four Players are Available

Great Drum Toy War – Play along to songs and deploy toys to push back your opponent’s toys and aim for victory!

Don-chan Band – Work as a group of four to perform successful concerts!

Run! Ninja Dojo – Become a ninja and race with up to four other players! Overcome multiple obstacles as you compete for 1st place!

Online Matches

Online Ranked Match – Challenge players from all over the world and aim for the top ranks!

Room Match – Play casually with friends and players from around the world in Taiko Mode and Great Drum Toy War!

Have fun playing Taiko solo, or together with friends!

Taiko Music Pass

Online Ranked Match – Challenge players from all over the world and aim for the top ranks!

Room Match – Play casually with friends and players from around the world in Taiko Mode and Great Drum Toy War!

Watch the announcement trailer below.

PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, and PC Announce Trailer

English

[Twitter Link]

Japanese

[ghost-wolf34]

Werewolf Bucky Barnes

Chapter 23. Leaving for a mission. T.P.C.B.W.V part 9.

Shauna listened to everything that her fiancé had said, as she smiled softly yet sadly as she gently put her hand on his bearded cheek. "He will, I know He will. We are both good people that have done a lot of things that we regret, sinning is something we all do. We're only human, but with God all sins are washed away and we are given a new heart. I know that we will all have to answer for our sins one day, but I have faith that we can still make things right somehow." 

Bucky smiled softly at his mate and kissed her forehead gently, before gently using his metal hand to move some hair out of her face. "I know doll, but like you said we can be forgiven and given a new heart. I love you Shauna and I will do whatever it takes to make things right, for the both of us and for our pups.  You are the one person I cannot live without, which is why I'm gonna see if we can get married before the pups are born and before you start showing more.  I know it's a lot, but I just want to do this the right way. We've done it backwards for way to long, I want to start making things right with God and your family. But nothing and no one will change how much I care about you and the pups." Bucky meant every word, from then on he was going to make things right. 

Shauna smiled as she leaned her forehead against his gently. "I'm more then alright with that, I'm more then willing to make you makes things right with God and my family. Sure we did it backwards, but we're not exactly normal people. I know that we've both done a lot before marriage, but I have faith we can still turn things around and be happily married.  I know that not a lot but f people are happy about my faith, but you are and that's all that matters.  My love for you James and for our pups, will never ever, ever change because you are the love of my life and my friend. I love you so very much." She was going to help her future husband set things right, even if her family found out about the pregnancy before they got married, they would still be married after and nothing/no one would ever separate them from each other or their kids. 

Bucky smiled even more, before pressing his lips to hers gently and kissing her. "And your the love of my life, you have helped me and redeemed me when all hope was lost. You brought me back to everything that I'd...thought I lost. You saved my life, you really did." She really did save his life and helped redeemed him when he thought that he couldn't be saved, she really had. He chuckled softly when he had felt movement from Shauna's belly against him when he had gently pulled her close to him, he sat his hand on her belly and rubbed it gently. 

"My beautiful mate and our pups, I will protect you and them with my life. I swear on it doll, even if I shouldn't swear on it. I will protect the three of you with my life." And he was going to keep that promise, even if it meant him coming home injured on a mission trying to protect her and them.

.....A few weeks later..... 

Bucky had been called on a mission and was getting ready to leave, he was packing his bag for the mission when he heard something falling and his fiancé groaning. 

He stopped packing and immediately went to check on her, he walked out of the bedroom and to the living area of their floor that they had all to themselves. Buck walked to the living area a saw a stack of books along with the tv remote in the floor, along with his and Shadows brand new Xbox controllers. He then looked at his fiancé and rushed over to her, when he saw her bent down with a pained look on her face.

Shadow was in the living room area working on straightening stuff up, when she had accidentally knocked something over. She bent down to try and pick it up, but groaned and sat a hand on her stomach when the twins kicked with a lot of strength. 

She rubbed her belly as she waited for the twins to calm down, before she could pick up what fell but they were really active. She heard very quiet footsteps and got a look of oh crap on her face, before looking up at her fiancé as she saw him rushing over to her. "Doll what are you doing, your supposed to be taking it easy." She heard him say, as he bent down beside her and gently helped her pick everything up that fell. "I know, but I can't sit still. I was just trying to tidy up the living room a bit, I'm..I'm sorry Buck." Shauna said, as she shook her head lightly trying to fight back tears.

"Hey..hey...it's okay, I'm not mad at you. I just don't want to see you hurt yourself, or the twins." Bucky said to his fiancé, as he frowned and helped her stand up before pulling her into his arms. He kissed the top of her head as he held her close to him gently, he smiled a bit when he felt the twins moving against him from inside his mates stomach.

@milanaasblog