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A gem from one of the afore-mentioned magazines: Norman Cook in his post-caravan of love, pre-fat boy slim period:

"I write everything in C, because there are no black notes."

(To answer your next question: A minor)

And Sniff

May. 22nd, 2025 07:08 pm
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One of the things I've been doing this year is rebuying magazines I had in the 90s. Magazines are a lost art. They were so dense! Often obscurely so, full of little injokes for those who bought every issue. They're also often very slick, with high production values (which means they have survived pretty well over time). I know they technically still exist but back then TENS OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE would buy them. My main magazines of choice were:

Doctor Who Magazine - mainly up to late '93, with a few more following the TV Movie
Amiga Format - Pretty religiously until mid '92, then I fell off hard for some reason
Q - mainly the "late Britpop era" of '96 to '98
Official UK Playstation Magazine - late '97 to sometime in '99.

Of course in addition to ones that are familiar, buying big job lots means you often get ones you didn't have which can be a fascinating snapshot of the time.

Some odd highlights:

Someone used a letter from a Financial Advisor as a bookmark. They didn't sign and send off the contract part so I don't know if they ever received financial advice.

A lot of the scratch-n-sniff perfume adverts are still v. pungent.

The DWMs often had the free gifts intact, including the Absolom Daak flexidisc ("I'm gonna kill every damn stinkin' Dalek in the galaxy!") and many posters and postcard sets. I kinda want to leave them, or I could blu-tac all the posters to my bedroom wall exactly as I did with the originals. One time a moth landed on Sylvester McCoy's face and made him look like he had a Hitler moustache.

The Playstation mag gets steadily more sexist over time, all while doing editorials where they crow they are the least sexist playstation mag

One playstation mag had a Parappa the Rapper cut-out-and-fold diorama thing which the original owner had left alone. I just don't understand some people, though I am grateful.

Another owner, though, had carefully cut out his favourite PS1 lead characters from about five issues. He particularly liked Barrett Wallace.

Q liked to take the piss out of David Bowie every chance they got.

Isopropyl Alcohol is very good for returning the front and back covers to their original shine

Anyway, magazines was pretty much all I spent my money on during the 90s, so I probably now re-own virtually everything I bought. Remember, we didn't have the Internet. Well, we did, but it was shite.
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So Sony are celebrating 30 years of the PlayStation brand, and good for them. To enter for the first time into a crowded marketplace and put out two of the biggest products ever is pretty impressive and while returns have certainly been diminishing since then, it's worth stopping to note just how cool the first two PSs are.

The PS1 (or PSX as we called it at the time, for reasons I can't remember) is a console I've rather neglected over the years. Sure, I've played the early Tomb Raiders and Resident Evils endlessly, and I've even returned occasionally to the over-praised FFVII, but a lot of the second rank of the system - games like Pandemonium, Parappa the Rapper, Devil Dice, Rage Racer, Broken Sword, Spyro the Dragon, Oddworld, etc - I've been content to rest in memories. Partly the reason for this is how transitional the PS1 was, with its flimsy, cardboard textures so insubstantial that when Lara climbed on a box you were always surprised when it didn't collapse under her weight; but the PS1 was revolutionary, being the harbinger of the cinematic, free-roaming atmospheric adventures of today, and deserves celebrating as much for its shakey newness as in spite of it. While the N64 was focussing on 3D versions of its colourful, cutesy adventures, the PS1 was experimenting with Wipeout, Silent Hill and the aforementioned Final Fantasy. One thing you couldn't fault it for was a lack of ambition.

But I'm not the only one to rather neglect the console. The PlayStation Classic mini console came out in 2018 with a whimper, hampered by a mixed-bag of games and a lack of future possibilities for addition. No PS2 mini console has yet followed it. Sure, we get remasters and remakes from time to time, though the degree to which they capture the feel of the original varies enormously. And that may hold the key to the problem - games since the PS3 era have become increasingly bloated, cosmetic and pretentious, focussing on their frankly generic settings and characters at the expense of actual gameplay content. Is it any wonder that Sony don't, right now, truly appreciate their own history?

Enter Astro Bot! A game that's a sequel to a free game that I never played doesn't sound that promising, but it turns out to be enormous fun. Based around the concept of rescuing hundreds of robots who often bear uncanny resemblances to well-known PlayStation mascots, the game has the feel of an early Ratchet and Clank, with a large number of short, linear platforming levels in which you are assisted by various cool gadgets. Shorn of the contemporary crust of stats upgrades, consumables and skill trees, Astro Bot is lean and efficient, perhaps a little too lean and efficient. The settings are minimal; you can't, for example, adjust the controller volume to balance with the main volume, leading to a slightly excessive assault on the senses at times. But in other ways, the crispness of the game pays dividends. There is no health / lives system, for example. Make one mistake and you're history. That's not a big problem early on due to the frequency of checkpoints, but the later levels have no checkpoints (and some have strict time limits too). Expect trial and error to be your constant companions. At around 25 hours of content with little to no repetitive busywork, it's not too short or too long, and the homages to PlayStation franchises past and present is charming. There's a trophy for getting rolled up in a Katamari; there's a level where you can fling Kratos's frost axe at some spectral ravens; a cute little Jill Valentine bot is labelled the "master of unlocking". It's all quite adorable. Perhaps, having now rediscovered how good PS games can be, we might see a renaissance of quality. Or maybe just another fifty games of hunter-gathering in crumbling city ruins. Who can say?

Origami!

Jul. 24th, 2024 10:46 am
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As they say in the videogame Katamari, "Origami!!!!"

I have been getting back into paper folding, partly for A Thing that is currently A Spoiler. But also, I wanted some quick DIY way of making pockets for View-Master reels. This is because I think that I have sort of started to become a View-Master reels collector. Anyway you often buy them loose so some protective wallet would be nice.

TURNS OUT you can make a square envelop from origami paper that is about a quarter the size of the sheet you start with. This is MY OWN DESIGN!!!!!! though technically (a) it is an adaptation of a couple of other designs I saw and (b) it's so simple that it probably isn't that original anyway. But still! I AM AN ORIGAMI DESIGNER.

Anywayz in case I forget I have made a little tutorial:

1) Starting with 20cm x 20cm paper, make a diagonal corner to corner mountain fold on the non-plain side, then open it up and make a crease halfway along an edge.



2) Use a line from the crease to a corner to mark a cross point that is 1/3 the way up the paper.



3) Refold the mountain fold and use the cross point to fold one wing across.



4) Fold the other wing to match and make another light crease halfway across.



5) Fold the front flap down so the point matches the crease you just made and tuck one wing into the other.



6) Place up to three View-Master reels into the pocket you have formed.



7) Fold the remaining flap down and tuck it into the pocket.



8) Turn over and write important information on the front.



ETA: As usual with origami, looks best with duo paper:

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The Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has announced that he is taking up the Labour whip, becoming the latest in a long line of Tory defectors.

The defection took place immediately before Prime Minister's Questions when the House of Commons was stunned to see the Prime Minister take a seat right at the back on the left, my left not your left, in-between the Liberal Democrat MP Sarah Camwhore and the Scottish Nationalist Rip Supergran.

When asked why he had taken this move, the Prime Minister began by saying that in addition to his duties in the house he had had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others, and that he would have further such meeting later in the day. That entirely pointless piece of boiler plate nonsense uttered, he was then asked much the same thing again, and this time he also didn't give a proper answer but without excuse. "I think you'll find my views are not dissimilar from current Labour party policy," we think he said. He was quite far from the microphone.

It was then the turn of opposition leader Kier Starmer to ask the first of his questions. "Is the Prime Minister not embarrassed at how many high profile Tories are defecting to Labour?" he asked, to much mirth from his own backbenches, including Rishi Sunak. Sunak then ran down to the dispatch box on his little legs to parry the attack.

"I don't think this latest defection is a great loss," he said. "Rishi Sunak after all was behind Eat Out To Kill Nans, which only Suella Braverman thought was a good idea and even then only when brown people died." He then scurried back to the opposition benches to await the next salvo.

"Isn't it true that the Prime Minister is only defecting now because the writing is on the wall and he expects to lose his seat in the next general election?" asked Starmer.

When Sunak had returned to the despatch box, a little out of breath, he responded: "He asks about writing on walls, why don't the Labour party tell us their policy on graffiti? We on this side have a plan, but they have no plan at all!" He then cross the floor again, jeering at himself and shouting that he never gave a straight answer, to much support from his fellow Labour MPs.

Starmer gave his final question. "His former party are leaderless again, surely now is the time to call a general election!" This provoked much uproar from the house, including new Labour MP Rishi Sunak who shouted "Yes, call a general election, you coward!"

The Prime Minister returned to the despatch box and took a large drink of water. "The public don't want a general election, they want us to get on with the people's priorities, which are getting inflation to where it was before we put it up, cleaning up the rivers that we pumped shit in, building hospitals to replace the ones we closed, putting our fingers in our ears to make trans people go away, and bopping the stoats." He then collapsed from exhaustion.

When asked what effect this would have on economic stability, "Still not as nutty as when Liz Truss was in charge," was the response of the Financial Markets.
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"I heard his maiden speech in the Lords, and I saw his maiden over at Lord's. In my view you cannot truly trust an Englishman until you have seen him deliver two maidens."
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So I made the mistake of getting my hopes slightly up about FF VII. I didn't care for Remake - it was slow, meandering, with generic side material and a messy, everything-and-the-kitchen-sink combat system with little coherence or tactical management. It did at least have the massively gay bit in the middle which I loved, but otherwise... well, I tend to replay FF games once every couple of years and I keep trying to talk myself into replaying that one and then I remember that tedious motorbike guy, or how you could remove chapter four entirely and no one would notice anything was missing, or those puzzles with the giant mechanical hands, and I think... naaah.

BUT. I heard that Namura was not in charge of the next one and instead it was the XIII guys - Kitase, that bunch. They made Lightning Returns which, if it had had the budget of a mainline entry, would be my undisputed favourite. Even with it's slightly sketchy aspects it's probably second or third after XII and maybe X depending on how I'm feeling about fixed cameras that day. I'd heard - and it makes sense, given Act Two of the original game - that it would be more open world, which boded well.

So a demo came out, and... nope. It's got the same problems as the last one. The combat is still a chaotic mess - perhaps even more so. There are still lengthy featureless treks through generic environments to stretch the thing out to three games. It still has awkward dialogue and stilted voice acting.

I happened to be replaying Forspoken a few weeks ago and really, the gameplay is night and day. True, the village of Cipal is rather bland and you want to get out of there asap, but once you do, it's a never-ending romp through the weird world of Athia. The combat is pretty deep, but everything lines up - controls make sense, you can, for the most part, do what you want to do when you want to do it and the results are easily parsable visually. So, Squeenix can do it, they'd just rather not. Instead we get stupid ideas - why can't I use a item if ATB isn't charged up? At one point we're told about an essential companion move, but I couldn't find it in the menu. Turns out, for no good reason, they just put that one thing in a different place to all the other similar things. It's kind of like that. Moves just thrown together with no logic, no consistency to button presses. In the end I just kind of spammed whatever worked and got through it, but more than half the time if something worked I didn't know why it did. That plus the camera spasming all over the place made combat a curiously arms-length kind of thing; I seemed to be doing OK at it just jabbing at buttons, so I ended up not really paying that much attention. I had similar complaints about XVI, but by comparison that was reasonably streamlined.

So yeh, I'm not buying it. Maybe at some point in the future after I've replayed Remake and maybe the original just so the story is fresh in my mind. But I'm in no hurry.

Anyway, it's time for Squeenix to announce what's coming next. Enhanced remasters of XIII-series seems the obvious choice, and perhaps they could even announce XVII, since they won't have to actually release it for a few years. Otherwise it seems it's going to be very quiet on the FF front, since I feel like XVI hasn't had the legs they were presumably hoping for.

Oh well, off back to Forspoken.

Who

Dec. 9th, 2023 08:38 pm
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Some Doctor Who thoughts, including some SPOILERZ.

1) What was the point of all the accents? Was it just to give Barney a chance to show off?
2) I like NPH and I think he pitched things about right, which is a minor miracle given what a tonal and structural mess the whole thing was.
3) Why was Mel there? I like Bonnie but what story function did it serve?
4) Kate Stewart apologised to everyone EXCEPT the gingers. WE NOTICED.
5) The resolution of the story is that the Doc challenges the villain to a game of catch and the villain drops the ball. No, for once I'm not being facetious, that was the literal sequence of events. It's like if the Curse of Fenric had ended with Fenric going "how do the horsey ones move again?"
6) Was that a sly dig at how shit Moff was at writing out companions? Cos people in glass houses and all that. Chibs got off fairly lightly I would say, though it's frustrating that after three years of Fam this and Fam that, the Doc appears to think he's only just acquired family. I mean you can argue Chibs didn't write it very well but it's still not fair.
7) I guess we're never going to be done with Tennant. EVER.
8) Put on some trousers, new guy.
9) I'm not massively keen on new guy so far. It looks like they're going with a vain, preening Doctor again. Sigh.
10) Some nice creepy design here, starting with the doll's hair catching fire. I loved the wife doll bit with Donna and the assistant guy as a puppet with a real head. Very 80s comic strip - arguably more so than the actual 80s comic strip episode. But holy hell, the editing was a royal mess, just random jumbles of shots with no visual continuity or context. Other recent shows have started suffering from this, though not to the same degree. Do directors and editors actually train any more?
11) Some just plain barmy plotting. Without reference to a stave those notes could be any distance apart, and we're being very selective in picking only the peaks of the wave anyway. Just like, does RTD make this stuff up as he goes along and no one is willing to challenge him on it? The first half of the episode was basically characters just saying the first thing that popped into their head and then moving straight on.
12) Why was Mel invited to the family dinner but Kate wasn't?
13) Last week Isaac Newton was under-used and this week Logie-Baird was underused. This at least had a point behind it whereas Newton was just there to kill time and invent that dreary "mavity" joke. Anyway, the importance of television reminded me a bit of The Wire (the Who episode, not the po-faced cop show). Wait, that wasn't what it was called was it? The Idiot Lantern? Anyway, why have the assistant at all? Have JLB go to the shop and get turned into a puppet. You can even cast an actor of colour if you really MUST use them as props in your confected war with other white fans.
14) That'll do for now

Droo

Nov. 26th, 2023 11:39 am
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It is the year of stuff from ages ago! Doctor Who has come back and so far we have had three bold, fresh new ideas: David Tennant as the Doctor, an old comic strip monster, and reimagining Genesis of the Daleks as a five minute farce! Man, where DO they get their ideas from?

The Star Beast was OK as a 60th special. Although Tennant and Tate are amongst my least favourite lineup, they only had a handful of cringy moments and Tate more or less took the thing seriously and was subtle. I would have liked more from Yasmin Finney, who was great as Donna's daughter, but both her and the Meep were a little short-changed. I'm still not sure why she's called Rose. I know there was a line about the metacrisis seeping into her and suggesting it, but it still seems a bit pointless, and of course I can't see "Rose Noble" without picturing Ross Noble so great.

The Meep storyline was the standard Gremlinsesque "cute fluffy alien turns out to be evil" and worked better as a comic, though the practical effects, CGI and Margolyes voice were all good. The "non-binary saves the day" resolution was rather ham-handed, and the rest of the script was full of Davies cliches like characters who must give you their life story without hesitation, and lines of dialogue that start with "because" and "no but" for no obvious reason. Trimming all that rind would keep a script editor in work.

Meanwhile there is DAVROS DISCOURSE thanks to the Children in Need special that took Davvy out of his chair but did so at a point when Genesis was presumably already underway and thus got the backs up of fans who wish writers wouldn't contradict old stories (rather like Genesis contradicted the original Dalek story, but we'll let that go). I don't have a lot to add except that (1) taking all the rubber of Julian Bleach just makes it clearer what an old ham he is and (2) everyone seems to have missed that the Doctor gave them the idea of extermination.

Anyway, I am mad every time I see the BBC put out a photoshop of ALL DOCTORS that includes Tennant Twice but no Jo Martin. Also there was weird heavy breathing on the closing theme that I hope is just for the specials. I expect the ratings will go up at least for the time being and thus Davies' messiah complex will be thoroughly fed, and as such I'm sitting it all out. His original era still leaves a bad taste in my mouth and I don't need fifty HEATED DEBATES on various social media. On the plus side, I do love the new TARDIS interior. Really, was it that hard to do a white one with glowing roundels and a proper console all those years ago? DID YOU EVEN TRY??
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They brought back Big Brother! It is simultaneously as good as ever and not very good. We are at the halfway point so thortz:

a) They put too many housemates in to start. We could live without Tom who is basically just what happens when you put Paul and Matty in a blender and lose interest before you press the button. At only six weeks long, it's weird that they're doing one eviction per week as with the original series, meaning they'll either have to speed up from this point on or there will be ten people in the final. Doing two evictions per week and perhaps saving a couple of housemates to add in now to shake things up might have been better.

b) There are lots of other decisions they've made that suggest they didn't go back and look at what works. They had the first eviction before anyone really had a chance to get to know the housemates properly; in the original series the first set of noms was in week two (usually or perhaps always, I can't be bothered to check). AJ and Will are both adequate presenters - Will more than AJ, I think, who can be a bit wooden when faced with an autocue - but they don't really gel together.

c) They've kind of smushed the main show and sideshow together, for example the eviction interview is held in the sideshow. This seems unfair to the housemates who get the limelight for all of a few seconds before they're whisked to another studio. That said, old eviction interviews could be hard to follow if the crowd were very lairy or unsupportive, so I guess it makes sense.

d) Main episodes seem oddly edited for pace at times. Shots will jump around haphazardly and then we'll get longueurs. It feels a bit like they've given the footage to film school students for an assignment and not given them much direction. In particular, the eviction episodes drag on. Half an hour of recap before the boot is enough, any more and one can get fidgety waiting for the inevitable.

e) Far too much of the livestream is censored, and there's no particular reason that the livestream always has to be the same time window since it's online only so it isn't pre-empting any other programmes. They may not have the budget for 24 hours livestreaming but I'd like to see a few morning or early evening sessions, I think the vibe could be very different. I think part of the issue is that Big Brother seems to be doing a large number of shorter tasks rather than a smaller number of longer tasks, and thus there are more potential "spoilers" on the livestream, but I'm not sure I think that's all that important.

f) There's a lot of inconsistency regarding rule breaks, and it seems more like Big Brother decides on a punishment based on what will be most entertaining rather than what is proportional to the offence. I suppose you could argue that that Old Testament capriciousness is fitting, though.

g) Onto some positives: I love the design of the house. It's colourful without being a mess, the geometric shapes and use of the eye motif in unexpected places really works. They usually change the house every year but I'd be OK with them sticking with this one longer term.

h) The housemates too are a consistently good bunch. It's interesting that so far there's been no overlap between the housemates nominated each week, suggesting no clear villains. It doesn't seem like people have been put in primarily to piss off other people. The vibe is much closer to the first three or four years than the later, more aggressive years. Some people are finding that dull but as someone who thinks year three was the best, it suits me very well. It does mean though we lose great housemates earlier than we might usually. Hallie in particular is a big loss.

PROVISIONAL HOUSEMATE RANKINGS AT THE END OF WEEK THREE:

1) Yinrun. The most multifaceted housemate, she constantly surprises with her attitude and her look. Silly one moment and serious the next, her reactions to things are unpredictable and often adorably funny. She wears her heart on her sleeve but can also be sly and cheeky when she wants to. I only worry that as basically everyone's favourite to win, she may have peaked early.

2) Trish. Comes across as the most honest and trustworthy housemate, she plays a straight bat at all times. Wash your hands after touching raw chicken, though, girl, come on

3) Jordan. At first amusing due to his dry observations and deadpan delivery, he's gradually developing into the messiest bitch in the house, alternating playing hot and cold with those close to him and often failing to maintain his studied aloofness. When I've known people like this in real life they've been infuriating, but he's good telly.

4) Olivia. I'm surprised she's this high, but she's sharp and always has a quick comeback to anything anyone says to her. I thought at first she'd be irritating and an obvious first or second eviction, but she's thrown herself into the experience and won me over.

5) Chanelle. She has the makings of a classic early-noughties housemate with her gently amusing Welsh charm. She's low key compared to others, though, and hasn't been involved in many instantly iconic moments.

6) Henry. Made it this high because he's a central part of the Jordan Experience, which is good for him since I suspect he'd otherwise be a bit dull and one note. I'm glad he survived the week two eviction, though.

7) Kerry. I have mixed feelings here. She's a big-headed busybody who's often inserting herself into other people's drama, to the occasional bemusement of other housemates, and she is generally unwilling to throw herself into tasks without a lot of moaning and pessimism. You can't deny, though, that she's got under the viewer's skin, as evidenced by her already being an entire sub-category of memes.

8) Noky. She offers something unique in this house, someone who after three weeks still appears completely two-dimensional. If she were a fictional character I'd be screaming "cardboard!" at the telly. She gives off a rather snot-nosed VIP vibe despite contributing not very much. She is easy on the eye, though.

9) Dylan. Someone on Twitter pointed out that whenever there's a wide shot of the kitchen he's always in there. He's appointed himself lord of the food budget and cooking and gets the hump when someone isn't as grateful as he thinks they should be. It's a shame as his spats occasionally make good telly, but he's not very good value to the viewer.

10) Matty. I can't say I've noticed anything about him other than his involvement in The Jordan Experience. I can't really get a read on his personality, other than his taste in haircuts and clothes is very bad. He's another one where you occasionally think he could break out and become iconic and he just never does. But then, Jordan calls him "Myatteeh", like Ian Richardson in the original House of Cards, and he goes up a place for that.

11) Paul. I don't think I'd like Paul at all on the outside, but to be fair to him he does throw himself into the experience - takes it a little too seriously at times, if anything. He's oddly thin-skinned for a lairy scouser, so here's hoping he explodes at some point and becomes interesting.

12) Jenkin. Tis perhaps telling I failed to include him in the first draft of this ranking. He showed early promise as a potential bag of fun and games, but he's another one that moans his way through tasks. Very occasionally you glimpse his potential - twerking at the Free Yinrun rally, for example - but given there were 18,000 applicants one can't help feeling his place could have gone to someone who would actually enjoy being there some of the time.

13) Tom. Has made almost no impression on me at all, other than sharing Matty's penchant for 80s footballer style. There's still time for him to improve, though.

So the moral of this story is: white men suck except messy ones
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So new B5 came out! And I missed it because it was a low-key release! But now I have it! SPOILERS!

OK so it's a bit of a shame this comes out at a time when interest in B5 is pretty low. Wait a few more years until the 80s nostalgia morphs naturally into 90s nostalgia. Because it's pretty good, probably the best addition to the B5 world post the original series. Certainly it's a lot better than the two-episode straight-to-dvd effort from over a decade ago that was the last piece of original B5.

The choice to go animated was pretty obvious given the ages of the cast and the need to recast a big chunk of roles. But animation can be of variable quality. Thankfully this appears to have much more budget than the 60s Doctor Who stuff. Characters move naturally, backgrounds are detailed and varied, camera moves are fluid and interesting. Inevitably the voice work is a bit more of a mixed bag. Londo sounds perfect, Lockley and Ivanova are almost there but not quite, Sheridan is good in his older version but not quite boyish enough in his younger version. Of the recasts, Delenn is spot on both in terms of voice and in that curious mixture of stateliness and coquettishness that Mira Furlan brought to the role. Equally faultless are Zathras, Zathras and Zathras. G'Kar doesn't sound much like Andreas, but does strike the right sonorous note in the bigger speeches. Sinclair neither looks nor sounds much like Michael O'Hare, which I suppose much of the fandom might be quite relieved about. It's a bit of a shame that Ivanova and Lockley aren't paired up, since that would be a first for the franchise, but the Sinclair / Lockley pairing has some potential.

Storywise... well, I wasn't too optimistic. The trailer made it look like Slaughterhouse 5 but with all the philosophical stuff removed. And in truth it is a little disjointed and bitty, and might have been better split into half-hour episodes so that each setting could get its own story with a beginning, middle and end. Sheridan is fairly passive most of the time and that saps the story of a little momentum; you don't really feel like it's all adding up to anything until quite late.

That said, though, it held my interest throughout and didn't feel overly long or meandering. Each chunk is only as long as it needs to be to get the point across and the varying tone helps to stop it getting monotonous. One slight missed opportunity is that the scene on "the rim" would probably have fitted Galen more than G'Kar. I'm not sure whether Peter Woodward didn't want to return or whether JMS just didn't think of him but it feels very much like a Galen / Sheridan scene from A Call to Arms and whatever that episode of the DVD thing with the Centauri Prince Regent was called. It would also have been nice to get Robin Atkin-Downes in, not necessarily for Byron (although the idea of a charismatic cult leader who manipulates vulnerable people is, you know, kinda topical) but because he's a premiere voice artist now and is in just about every video game you play. Overall I'd say that the desire to put together a potted history of B5 in 90 minutes, showing not just bits from the entire series but possible "what ifs" as well, is probably the sound thing to do after so much time, and allows every viewer to be on the same page without masses of info-dumping.

So yes. Worth a watch, and I hope it leads to more. It probably won't, because this is B5 fandom and we can't have nice things. But if this does turn out to be the last original contribution to the franchise, it's a worthier way to end than Crusade, Legend of the Rangers or the DVD one.
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I thought I'd challenge myself to see how quickly I could get to the credits from a cold start in Pikmin 4. Just under five hours! I'm sure I can shave off another half hour but beyond that... hmmm.

SPOILERS:

There's some shenanigans in that castaways that you need to access later areas do not always hide in the same hole. I *think* you get them in a set order regardless of the caves you go down, suggesting that going down the quickest ones to complete would be best. But I also think that the key one, Bernard the sexy pilot, is always a leafling so possibly you can only find him via Dandori battles and / or challenges. This time I did three battles and two challenges but went down many fewer holes overall. So it might be possible to make a bee line for those types of caves and avoid others entirely (though getting 20-30 ice pikmin is still a good idea). Also I think world three is best for getting the blue onion, there doesn't seem to be one on world two and the one on world one is a faff. On three you just have to climb the sandcastly thing and be there post-meridian with a squad of 20. I made heavy weather of this by assuming you needed 20 blue first, but this wasn't entirely my fault - a bug meant that the area didn't appear drained the first time I went there PM. There again, do you really need the blue onion? It helps with some caves but those ones may be avoidable.

Beyond that, no need to return to earlier areas once you have enough sparkly-yum to move on. In particular, you can avoid everything in world four, just get two of the three playing cards, switch on the fan (you don't need to kill the boss near the switch) and guess the third number. One playing card is near the entrance before you even see Moss, and another in accessed on the steps via the slidey thing. You can then beat Olimar and take him back to the onion in much less than half a day. I *think* Oatchi's rush move needs to be upgraded to get the first playing card down, since I think when I tried to rush it first it didn't come down.

I did four night missions which were all fine enough, but I'd rather see if I can get that down to three by not getting any leaflings other than Bernard and Olimar, but that may not be feasible. Alternatively, do one of the double-reward ones even though they're a bit harder, but perhaps they weren't unlocked early enough? Speaking of unlocking, not getting Oatchi's swim skill until what, day four?? is a pain when you're trying to dandori the whole thing. Why I couldn't be allowed that on day two I don't know.

EDIT:

Got it down to 4 hours 20 minutes. Didn't bother with a blue onion. The reason the water doesn't drain is because the onion is plugging it, for which you need 20 blue. It also seems like Bernard is always the leafling from whichever dandori battle you do third? So it's a double waste of time doing the challenges, because in addition to never being Bernard, they pile up leaflings to cure meaning more night missions. Reckon I could shave off another half an hour that way. Also I forgot to switch the fan on but it was already on, so the switch must not control all fans??

EDIT 2:

Final attempt, just under four hours. I could have shaved off the odd minute here and there but I think that's close to my best possible time. Did no Dandori Challenges (and in one battle I got around 200 more than Olimar!!), though I only did single-lumiknoll night missions so could have saved a few minutes there. (For comparison purposes, one pro reviewer claimed it took her twenty hours to do the same thing, though there's no shame in taking a more exploratory approach if you'd rather, since there isn't the ticking-clock aspect of 1 and 3.)

According to the Internet Oatchi learns to swim two days after struggling in the water, which I understandably tried to avoid. Not the only instance of the game penalising you for playing better or rewarding you for playing worse (example: if you do night missions when structures aren't built, enemies have to take a longer route and sometimes won't even get near the lumiknoll by the end of the night).
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Pikmin 4 came out! About a century after Miyamoto said it was nearly finished! IS IT GOOD?

YES. YES IT IS. (Mild spoilers)

Firstly, it's a brilliant gathering of ALL OF THE BEST OF PIKMIN. There are direct homages to the premise and objective of the first one, the brutal bosses and memorable cave maps of the second one, and returns of winged and rock pikmin from the third one. Indeed, all previous pikmin appear somewhere in the main game rather than being relegated to side stuff as purple and white were in 3. The game also follows tradition and introduces two new types, and while that aspect is a bit of diminishing returns - purple, white and winged are still best - they do their job fine. Perhaps the central raison d'etre of 4 is incorporating ideas previously found in mission / challenge modes into the main game, thus giving much richer and deeper gameplay than the short and fairly easy story of 3.

Not that 4 isn't a touch on the easy side at first; reaching the first set of credits won't tax most players, and it seems this is intentional, given the TV advert that pitches the game as a casual, Angry Birds-style game ideal for relaxing on the patio with your pets and a nice cup of tea.

But then. HOLY HELL does the game get tougher. There's a final boss which, while not directly comparable to that of 2, is clearly inspired by it. That comes at the end of lengthy cave that is essentially a boss run. There are bosses you've seen before in the series (from 1 and 2, Nintendo seem to agree with me that the bosses from 3 are best forgotten) but the developers know how you cheesed them before and have made changes to prevent that. There's a particular infamous boss that players never want to see again, so HAVE TWO OF THEM AT ONCE.

Which is not to say that the game is not, overall, more straightforward that 2. Locking on and charge return from three, and now locking on is unswitchoffable, and your companion space pooch, Oatchi, has a "rush" move than can one-shot small enemies and even larger ones once it's upgraded. For quite a lot of the game, enemies are just another kind of obstacle like an electric gate or concrete wall. This worried me as it took all of the tactics away from previous games, particularly 2.

BUT THEN, the game introduces the concept of "dandori". From the Japanese word for planning, it means you are essentially rewarded for how efficiently you play. This idea was present in side material such as 3's DLC, but this is the first time it's front-and-centre in the story, unless you count potentially running out of fruit in 3 or failing to find enough ship parts in 1. But those were entry-level dandori challenges. Here - particularly in the "sage leaf" side quests - you'll be punished for every little inadequacy.

It's like how games used to be, where average players were not expected to complete 100% of the game. I'm reminded of Banjo-Tooie and other games that hid deep, skilled challenges behind a colourful, newb-friendly veneer. It's so god-damn refreshing.

Which is not to say that all "dandori" material is of equal quality. The 1 on 1 battles are less about planning and more about grabbing random power-ups and success feels more arbitrary. Then there's the night missions. Now, this was an aspect I was looking forward to. I've never been keen on the fixed day length of every game and relished staying out, meeting new and perhaps bigger challenges similar to in Lightning Returns. BUT that's not how it works. The night missions are simple tower defence minigames that offer little exploration or variation. The problem with tower defence as a genre is that whatever the superficial trappings, the underlying gameplay is stale. I remember playing Magic Carpet back in the 90s, and while the two games couldn't be more aesthetically different, the gameplay is basically identical. So, while not terribly made, I was disappointed and bored by the nighttime content. (It's also a bit silly - instead of interleaving day and night missions, each takes up a full day, so if you select a night mission everyone is idle until it starts. That doesn't make a difference gameplay-wise, it's just a bit odd and feels not fully thought through, suggesting night mode may have been added late in development). I'd also say, on a subjective level, I never quite found the control system intuitive and basic things like getting on and off the dog, commanding the dog when not on it, selecting items to use and navigating the menus felt laborious.

There are other complaints that can be made. The game embraces the modern fad for RPG mechanics, meaning instead of starting with 100 max pikmin, you have to earn every 10-pikmin increment. Other returning features such as fire-resistance or the plucking whistle have to be purchased with in-game currency. A lot of game material is divided between NPCs as side-quests even though many of them are things like "get a lot of treasure" and "explore everywhere", leading to an unwieldy amount of boiler-plate repetition. There's also not much originality to the terrain of the main areas, with only one offering a backdrop that's distinctive and memorable.

These are minor niggles, though. For the most part Pikmin 4 is the game Pikmin 3 should have been and while Pikmin 2 will probably always be my favourite, Pikmin 4 is not far behind it.

PEEETMIN'S RATING: EIGHT AND A HALF OUT OF TEN
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OK, FF XVI story completed. I have a LOT of thoughts. Let's get into it. SPOILERS AHEAD.

First, you'd better love the battle system, because there's nothing in the game but battles and jogging between dialogue scenes. No exploration, no puzzles to solve, no minigames.

I don't love the battle system. It's not too bad when it's quite contained, but at times it just becomes a chaotic jumble of particles, numbers, camera-whips and noise. Sometimes, including a lot of the final boss battle, I just spammed whatever was available and hoped for the best, because meaningful tactics was nigh on impossible.

Supporting characters can't be controlled (except the dog), but are fairly useless anyway. I didn't notice any meaningful difference between when I had a large party and when I was on my own as far as damage dealt / taken went. There was a good reason for this in XV because only Noctis had supernatural powers and his three buddies were only human. There's no such excuse here, as more than a couple of the characters you fight with have extraordinary abilities.

Clive, Joshua and particularly Jill are rather insipid characters (indeed there were times when I didn't even realise Jill was in the party, she's that low-key). The problem is, to use a phrase I heard recently and rather like, "they have no hinterland". In other words, they are focussed monomaniacally on their objective and care nothing for anything else. Tidus was a loyal guardian, but he was also a professional sportsman. Noctis liked to fish and pose for photos. Even Squall played cards. The span of the narrative is 18 years and in all that time none of them even consider doing any other thing. There's also a romance between Jill and Clive but to say it's a slow burn would be putting it mildly. Between Jill's vapidity and Clive's gruff demeanour, there's little chemistry that isn't forced.

That said, the story has strengths. The various other dominants and their different takes on being a dominant works well. Benedykta is a winning early villainess and Kupka is a good, memorable hard man. Dion is suitably tortured. Ultima himself is a nice creepy design, though he does rather love the sound of his own voice. And that's the big issue with the storytelling - infodumping. There's a lot of lore, a lot of jargon, and early on a lot of interchangable stock characters. They have worked hard to make it accessible - there's a connections timeline available that is pretty neat - but it's all rather tiresome. Thankfully, supporting characters such as Byron and, particularly, Mididol, arrive to liven things up. I suspect some people will lap up the "courtly intrigue" aspect of the story, but I expect on future plays through I'll be skipping a lot of it.

As for references to other games in the series, the two that stand out are XII and Lightning Returns, which should make me happy since they are two of my favourites. There are various little nods to XII, such as the Wall of Memories resembling the Sky Pirate's Den, or the notorious mark board being staffed by a moogle (sadly the only one). But most delightful were the little spinny tortoises. I didn't realise how nostalgic I was for little spinny tortoises. As for Lightning Returns, the central theme and several aspects of the last act of the story are very similar, plus at least a couple of sidequests are basically pasted from there (the "what makes a good knife" one in particular being virtually identical to the Gordon Gourmet sidequest in LR). But LR had more distinctive regions and a better integration of exploration and story, as well as a much more useable battle system.

And that word distinctive is important. FF has always stood out from other series in weirdness, but here, location after location are generic and forgettable, and - horror of horrors - even the music is very run-of-the-mill. It's not technically bad, but it could be heard in any middle-of-the-road movie or game series, perhaps the first time ever that's been true. Design-wise I'll make an exception for the Fallen architecture, which is distinct in its cool, geometric minimalism, but that's about the only place imagination has been employed. Well, it had to happen eventually. Tomb Raider, Resident Evil et al all sold their souls for mainstream appeal; even FF couldn't hold out forever. It's sad, though. For all that it had a weak story and janky-ass gameplay, XV was the only game in the world where four bros drove around in an open-top car listening to tunes and talking about back-seat fishing. I would hold out hope for the next one - after all, they're all different from one another and XVII may yet be the weirdest, quirkiest one yet - but as I'll probably be in my mid-fifties when it comes out, I'd better not hold my breath.

Also, I don't understand the ending. Clive appears to think Ultima was always doomed to fail (gee, thanks for making me play for forty hours then), seems to think smashing the origin will remove all magic from the world (why, when aether was embedded in the world and the crystals were sapping it?), then washes up on a shore somewhere unknown, then writes a book that implies everything was a legend (so magic was not just removed, but retroactively removed????). It's probably all something to do with primogenesis, but since that was never explained it's hard to be sure. Lightning made Earth and then got off a train in France SO MAYBE DO SOMETHING LIKE THAT, CLIVE ROSFIELD.

PETE TENTATIVELY GIVES IT: A SIX OUT OF TEN.
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So I just finished the FF XVI demo and I have THORTZ. Mild spoilers for the first hour or so of the game.

First: tis very conventional after the batty demos for XV. The Duscae demo was taken from the game but such an early point in development as to tell us very little, and the Platinum demo was a load of random nonsense that had little to do with anything. This demo gives us a short story that opens that game and it feels both complete and intriguing for the full game. That should achieve mainstream appeal but I do like how "Crackers Charlie" FF can get and this is not that. It's a pretty safe short game that fits in well with things like GoW Ragnarok. We'll have to see how it develops but at present it feels like one I probably won't replay every year for the next decade like I have with most of the recent ones.

There's a lot of cut scenes. You have a handful of ordinary fights and a few mini bosses but it feels like you spend a minority of your time actually doing anything and what gameplay there is is linear and lacks much tactical depth. Again, though, you could say that about the start of other games in the series, with XV really being the only recent one that gives you a lot of freedom from near the start. Perhaps my problem is that the story also seems rather conventional, high fantasy with a brutal edge; there's nothing as memorably strange as the zero-gravity water from the opening of X.

Story and tone wise it's a mix of XII and Type-0. Indeed, parts of it feel so XII that I feel like it probably should have been an Ivalice game (it actually might still be).

The best thing about the demo is summon vs summon, which I have been wanting since X. Indeed, we get Amano's illustration in the demo - one might almost say the demo is shaped around it - and it didn't really occur to me before that what we're seeing is a fight between two summons of the same elemental alignment which wasn't allowed in X (you couldn't, for example, summon Ifrit to fight another summoner's Ifrit, except possibly the dark Aeons which I didn't really bother with). The summon vs summon sequence is polished and cinematic, and while it's essentially a glorified quicktime sequence it works. Storywise though I'm a little confused on who exactly summoned Ifrit. It seems to be implied that Clive does, but then he doesn't seem to be controlling it? I guess that will all pan out in time. Despite the masses of cut scenes a few things were similarly unclear, for example who Jill is? Probably she's the little sister of Clive, but perhaps not?

Another interesting point is that quite a large amount of this opening was in that first trailer from a couple of years back, suggesting they've developed the game in story order, which might make the ending rushed (I assume that's why - or at least a big reason why - XV's ending felt rushed). In the meantime they've got a lot better at hair physics, Joshua's flaxen locks are almost Widdecombesque in their tousled golden amazingness. Wait a minute, he wasn't named after Josh Widdecombe was he????? Naaaaah

So that's about it, really. Polished, epic, cinematic, currently lacking in much to actually do. I do however want to know more of the story. A week and a bit before the rest appears in my letterbox.

Meanwhile, in other squeenix game news a DLC chapter came out for Forspoken. It involves Frey quantum leaping all Beckett-like into the life of a guard during the Rheddig war and it is very lovely. You get to play alongside Tanta Cinta for most of it, there is lots of good bantz with Cuff and a couple of laugh-out-loud moments. The backstory is deepened in ways that feel satisfying and make sense with what we already knew. Frey still has a potty mouth yay, though there are no new cats in this one, boooo. Anyway it ends with an intriguing twist that leaves me hoping further chapters are on the way. It's only a shame that "yellow magic" is basically a cherry-picking from the other colours rather than something completely new.
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Church attendances are set to decline thanks to a online swell of criticism of Jesus's perceived "wokeness". Experts are predicting that many churches will have to close as a result. Christ joins Fox News, Chick-Fil-A and Genghis Khan as things that are now considered too lefty.

The American Christian preacher Rockerfella T Clinton Jnr began the campaign with a tweet that read "Just heard Christ said 'turn the other cheek'! This kind of weakness points to estrogen poisoning, since we know a real man would have said 'guns guns guns guns guns'."

This prompted many Christians to read the bible for the first time, where they discovered more of the same. "Love one another, as I have loved you" came in for particular scorn for not explicitly excluding gays and Muslims and blacks and whichever out of women or trans are currently worse. Evangelical YouTube channel ToddlerWithAThesaurus posted a video called "Christ The Lord Could This Be Any More Stupid" in which he went point by point through the Beatitudes, rejecting every one. "The meek? Why should they inherit the earth? Are they a billionaire CEO? I think not!" he railed. "I call upon every true Christian to denounce this Christ."

But some think the movement has gone too far. Conspiracy theories abound that Jesus eats babies, has sex with children and worst of all, voted for Joe Biden. Fact-checking site WhyDoWeBother.com pointed out that Jesus was crucified two millennia ago, fully three months before Biden was even born.

God the Father declined to be interviewed but did issue the following statement: "We had hoped Jesus would continue the family tradition of cruelty, capriciousness and genocide but we understand he must pursue his own path and we wish him all the best. But yeah I totally heard he eats babies, pass it on."
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Spent an hour taking another perfectly adequate but different photo, submitted it, now I'm threatened with suspension.

WHYYYYYYY.

ANNOYED

May. 4th, 2023 02:08 pm
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So the Lego Ideas website has a weekly challenge and the current one is to build a band or singer or group or something like that. I submitted the attached image and had it rejected with the following:

---

Please make sure all your photos are:

Crisp and clear
Not too dark or too bright
Not too grainy
Not too blurry
Clear of background clutter (we encourage plain, neutral backgrounds)
Free of borders around the images
Remember you want to make a great first impression with your images toward potential supporters, so make sure it's easy to see your LEGO creation.

Please submit better digital images. We don't accept digitally edited photos or images with jagged, pixilated, or blurry edge lines cropping or compositing. Any text overlays need to be clear and easy to read.

---

(This was the second one I submitted and both were rejected - the first was basically the same but less zoomed in and the background was a little more out-of-focus and the black pieces a little less easy to see but I couldn't really see what was wrong with either version.)

I cannot FOR THE LIFE OF ME see how the picture I submitted breaks any of these rules. I am inevitably limited by the quality of camera and lighting that I own but even so I think the image is fine. What on earth is wrong with it????? This is the third time I've had something rejected for more or less bullshit reasons but at least with the other two I could sort of see what they are getting at. But this one? THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH IT.

FUCK THEM
Perfectly acceptable lego photo
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The singer Taylor Swift has launched a civil suit against the singer Taylor Swift, accusing Swift of plagiarising her songs.

"I heard a song on the radio called 'Boyfriends Are Awful' and I thought, that's virtually identical to my song 'This Relationship is Over'. The chord sequence was exactly the same, the overall structure was the same, the sentiment of the lyrics. It barely counted as a different song."

This caused Swift to go on a deep dive into Swift's catalogue, where she soon discovered more candidates. "'I am Dumping You Today' was another one with the same chords, tempo and arrangement. And then there's 'I'm Mad At My Ex'." Swift's lawyers say they have identified a total of thirty-six songs that are functionally identical.

But Swift hit back, saying "Every pop song is supposed to sound exactly the same as every other. There are only four chords anyway, or at least only four that are easy to do on the guitar." Swift launched a counter-suit against Swift, citing the emotional distress caused by the accusations and how it was similar to the distress of a messy breakup. "I might write a song about it, actually," said both Swifts.

The Artificial Intelligence ChatGPT said, "You want Taylor Swift songs? I got Taylor Swift songs. Fifty quid a pop. I got a million of 'em. Literally."

Forspoken

Jan. 30th, 2023 11:56 am
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I completed the story of Forspoken. It's probably the most fun I've had with a console game in seven or eight years. Thoughts:

1) The final boss is v. hard. I thought I was a bit overprepared but I still struggled.

2) The third act of the story kind of rockets past very quickly. It's not that it's rushed so much that you come to realise you're further through the plot than you thought you were. This leads to a sense that the game is kind of running away from you a bit.

3) There's a twist in the story that I wasn't at all sure worked, but I think it just about does. It's set up pretty well, and there's a decent red herring a little way before it that's enough to have you doubting what's really going on. But what it does do is take away one particular gameplay mechanic that's very useful until you kill the final boss, and although I can't see an obvious solution to that, it does seem a bit unfair.

4) Supporting characters have bad English accents. Dick Van Dyke bad. Thankfully, all the main characters are fine.

5) Frey and Cuff spend a lot of time ripping the piss out of fantasy tropes and video games in general and I love it. Frey is quick to point out that NPCs only talk to you when they want something. The game has an awkward "Yankee in King Arthur's court" thing going on that's quite charming. In particular, townspeople remain salty towards Frey even after she saves the world. There's one guy who names something in honour of her precisely because he knows she'll hate that. You can buy cat treats at this one shop and when you buy everything in the shop you expect some kind of acknowledgement but instead the seller just implies you're a crazy cat lady.

6) It's a cat lover's game. There are normal cats and magical cats. You can pet them all. The magical ones have outrageous backstories.

7) Combat is great; challenging but fair, and satisfyingly solid. You have to develop different tactics for different baddies and keep an eye out for their big attacks because they are usually quick and devastating. Early on you encounter slow zombies and then one of them will suddenly become a FAST ZOMBIE. And not just fast for a few seconds, no, when a baddie is charging at you they KEEP CHARGING.

8) There's a great idea whereby you are encouraged to use all of the different moves and practise your skills. This avoids a problem with a lot of modern games that cram in a huge amount of combat styles but you can get by with just a couple.

9) I'm still not sold on the lock-on mechanism which feels hit and miss. It's pretty much my only complaint about the combat though. Well, the d-pad is a bit sensitive so sometimes when you push down to use a health potion you accidentally push left or right also and switch magic styles. But other than that it's good.

10) The game is surprisingly light on side quests. There are some but most peripheral material is saved for stuff you encounter out in the field. There are different types of side levels including dungeon crawlers and timed challenges. It all plays fluid and fair. For example, you're allowed to leave the dungeons at any time and keep what you got rather than having to clear out the whole thing in one go (shades of Pikmin 2's underground lairs). You can level up your magic during a timed challenge even if you fail the challenge.

11) The environments vary in style, but not so much as to require vastly different traversal techniques. Whereas some open-world games tend to clump points of interest together between vast expanses of Bumfuck, this game seems to be entirely a patchwork quilt made from stitched-together Bumfuck. You will spend most of the time wondering where they hell you are, how you got there and where to go next. On the plus side, spreading points of interest out homogenously means you're never more than a minute's sprint from something to do. On the downside, it takes a lot longer to develop a familiarity with the regions. On balance I prefer this to Final Fantasy XV's more curated world.

12) I get old-school Tomb Raider vibes for the times where you're stood at the bottom of sheer cliff knowing you have to climb it and unsure how to do it. Contrast with God of War where there's only ever one way up and it's fucking signposted. This is not the first time I point out how much I hate the Uncharted influence of hand-holding traversal and long for a deeper challenge. Forspoken doesn't quite hit the bullseye on that but it's the closest for a very long time. Can it please be the first of a generation of such games.

13) Iwannagoplayitsomemore
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