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95: Bother Me Anatomically
95: Bother Me Anatomically
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Grand Theft Auto Vice City: packages, police, and pootling

Posted on 25/09/2025 Written by Xexyz

Back in April, when I completed Vice City, I posited that I might try playing San Andreas in “a few months”. It has now been a few months, and I’m not playing it. I have a bit of a mental blocker on that game, partially around the setting, but also because I remember when it was released that there were countless reviews evangelising the detail they’d gone into, with you needing to regularly work out to keep fit, and eat healthily, and so on. It sounded too involved, and even if that’s not the case, it’s prevented me from playing it.

And so I went back to Vice City, to finish off side missions and collect stuff.

My first objective was to collect the hidden packages. Throughout playing the game, I’d found just over fifty of them, but the other forty were evidently too well hidden. I used a map guide to travel around the city and find them, and eventually I came to the end of the list … and still only had 95. I had to retrace my steps, eventually realising that I mist have failed to save at some point after collecting packages in the airport, because there were five of them still sitting there.

Collecting all the packages unlocked a military helicopter at the South end of the first island, so I spent some time flying around and blowing stuff up, including the annoying planes carrying banners over the city. I got a nice big wanted level, which I then got rid of by landing on the roof of my mansion and running in to change my clothes.

I then bought the car showroom, and found all the cars required by its clients, including the ice cream truck and pizza delivery bike. The biggest issue I had on this was with the games in Little Haiti, who all hate me for some reason and blew up two of their gang cars when I tried to steal them.

Sometimes it’s fun to just watch other people’s chaos. Security guards and gang members like to shoot at each other, and then when the ambulance turns up the paramedics can get caught in the crossfire.

And then I went to the Malibu Club and tried to complete the missions there. I got stuck here before – there’s a mission where you have to break someone out of the police station, and I was being shot to pieces as soon as I entered. It’s a lot easier if you go in without a gun in your hand, and then run straight into the locket room to get a police uniform on. Once you open the cells, they still try to kill you – but I had a fast car parked outside, and a route to a pay and spray planned, so I managed to finish that … only to get stuck on another mission where you have to race someone through the city, with the police trying to ram you (and not him) off the road.

I’m nearly done with this now.

Filed Under: Gaming Diary Tagged With: PlayStation 2, Playstation 4

Super Smash Bros Ultimate: nintendogs in the way

Posted on 14/09/2025 Written by Xexyz

I am not good at Smash Bros. I can beat many people, but that is because they are less good, not because I am in any way competent. At Edward’s birthday party some of his friends were asking to play Smash Bros, and we put on a seven-player game, with everyone else on one team and me on the other. I lost, but only just.

It was more balanced when I had a couple of people on my team who had played Smash once before, all up to the point where a giant (ninten)dog jumped up to the screen just as I was starting to fall off the side – and so I couldn’t see where to boost to. Stupid dog.

Filed Under: Gaming Diary Tagged With: switch, Switch 2

September – RSI Pains

Posted on 10/09/2025 Written by gospvg

Play

Fantasy Life I (PS5) - Completed

I should have quit playing this game on the first button-tapping mini game, it just aggravated my RSI pain.
 
Thus for now I have taken a break from gaming & catching up on some TV shows, if you have not watched already I would strongly recommend Shogun (Disney+) & The Penguin (Now TV/Sky)
 
Backlog

I have not purchased anything else, I did spend a bit of time moving from the google spreadsheet over to Backloggd to track what games I have to play.

Want

Nothing

Bin

Mohsin spent a bit of time taking the PS5 controllers apart to fix the stick drift issues, thank you kid.

Fantasy Life showed the lack of disability features in some games are very poor.


Filed Under: Gaming Diary Tagged With: completed, Fantasy Life I, Playstation 5

Super Mario Odyssey: back to the sand

Posted on 05/09/2025 Written by Xexyz

I got Mario Odyssey shortly after it launched – there was some special deal at The Game Collection, I seem to recall – and I played it for a bit. However, at the time I was still deep into Breath of the Wild, and the more expansive and cohesive nature of Odyssey (compared to the more discrete levels of Mario 64, or Mario Galaxy, say) meant that it felt just a little too similar to a large story game for me to keep going at it. Of course, by the time I finished Breath of the Wild – many months later – Odyssey was buried deep at the bottom of the backlog pile. I’ve taken it to various places in the Switch case, but have never been tempted to put the cartridge back in.

Until yesterday, when I was travelling up to London, and realised that the Donkey Kong Bananza cartridge had helpfully been taken out of my Switch 2, replaced with Pokémon Sword. Edward seems to have multiple Pokémon games on the go at any one time, including multiple instances of the same game across different Switch consoles; he makes use of the fact that Pokémon is one of the few games that doesn’t work over the cloud synchronisation service on NSO, and plays on his Switch Lite, my old Switch, and my Switch 2.

Anyway, this is a very longwinded introduction to say that I was planning on playing a platformer, but I didn’t have the game I planned to play, so played Odyssey instead.

I’ve barely scratched the surface of the game. I appeared in the desert, outside the Mexican-inspired village, and tried to work out what I should be doing; luckily the words “The Hole in the Desert” had been shown as the level loaded, and a big light shown from a hole under a large inverted pyramid. Did I make that thing float? I can’t remember.

Why does it have to be so slippery this far underground?

Anyway, after a lot of faffing around with bit and pieces in the level, including finding another moon in a crate which I had to steer a Bullet Bill to hit, as well as experimenting with the controls, I jumped down the hole and traversed the icy platforms underneath, until I reached a boss battle. It didn’t take me too long to work out what to do. The boss comprised a giant floating head and two floating hands, which attacked by trying to hit me, or clap with me in the middle. When one punched the floor, after jumping out the way, I threw my cap at it and possessed it, which then meant I could steer it around and punch the boss in his face with his own hand.

“Stop hitting yourself!”

Overall I added a few more moons to my total, taking me over the number I need to travel to the next area – and I also found a wibbly painting which allowed me to teleport to the metro area early (but only to a very small platform, with no way of getting anywhere else. The temptation is to stay, to find more moons that may be hidden away, but if I do that I know I’ll never progress. Next time I play – hopefully with less than an eight-year gap – I’ll move on.

Filed Under: Gaming Diary Tagged With: switch, Switch 2

Out Run GB: a valiant effort

Posted on 01/09/2025 Written by Xexyz

I previously wrote about Hero GP, a fun little Game Boy Colour game I bought which is pretty difficult given its speed. I have played it on occasion since, since it’s ideal for a very short play session (which can turn into a much longer one with just one more go). The maker of that game has wondered “what if OutRun came to the Game Boy Color?”, and despite his misspellings of both “Out Run” and “Colour”, it’s a valid question. Luckily, he has answered it.

Yes, there are limitations. No branching paths, limited roadside furniture, blocky cars. But it feels like Out Run, with undulating tracks and traffic getting in the way, and if you hit another car or a tree with enough force, the car somersaults in the classic advert for seat belt wearing.

It feels slower than Hero GP, which is probably a good thing given the tighter feel to the track space. The controls are very precise, other than the brake which seems to have too much of an effect. Hitting other cars slows you down a little too much, meaning that two hits is almost enough to mean you fail the first stage, whereas that’s not usually the case until the second stage at least – depending on DIP switch settings, of course. It’s a very accomplished bit of coding, and while it can’t be released commercially for obvious reasons, I hope that Sega keep it available as a curio – it’s free to play from the link above.

Filed Under: Gaming Diary Tagged With: Emulation, Game Boy Colour, PC

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