Play:

Tetris Attack (SNES) - a bit of Time Trial mode on this. I then went
on to compare my best score with my high scores from the 90s, which
was highly amusing and/or a horrible mistake.

Want:

Nothing.

Bin:

OT, but - AI/LLM developments seeming absurdly fast right now. Which
may also end up being highly amusing and/or a horrible mistake.

-Rus.

>Play:

Metal Max Xeno Reborn (PS4) - So this is another pretty generic
post-apocalyptic action RPG with vaguely time-sensitive turn-based
combat. You have amnesia and wake up in a world where humanity is nearly
extinct and the world is overrun with giant animals. The ruins of the
21st century lie under acres of sand that suggest nothing less than a
nuclear disaster, and it would be oh so tedious if it weren't so
matter-of-fact and straight to the point. There's no voluminous
backstory, it's just 'here game, play game' and I find that utterly
charming in a way that, by comparison, Nier Automata and Shin Megami
Tensei V failed to achieve. I really want to see what comes next, and
making the whole game interface low-friction in exactly that way was
just what I needed.

Tales of Graces F/Tales of Symphonia Chronicles (PS3) - I played through
the first ten hours of the original Tales of Symphonia on the Gamecube,
and damned if I don't remember a minute of it. I do also own Dawn of the
New World on the Wii but I've never ever played it at all. And Graces is
new to me, so it's great that I have all three games together on one
disc for one singular platform where I'll also never play it. Truth be
told I gave all three games a good hour or so of play, and they're
charming in spite of being quite clearly primitive by any modern
standard. I didn't realise that Dawn of the New World was an actual
sequel, as all of the art and design seemed to suggest that it was
happening concurrently with the original game.

Tales of Vesperia and Tales of Zestiria (PS4) - Running through five of
these silly games all in one weekend really hammers home how silly and
weird the English-language scripts are for these games. It doesn't have
to be Shakespeare, but they could at least aim for something approaching
standardised English without having to make up a million billion new
fantasy words. I own Vesperia on 360 and I recall that the music was the
best part, since the technology of the game was kind of old and stilted
and the story of class-conflict and found family was familiar if not
also warmed over. Zestiria I hadn't played before and I was genuinely
surprised by the initial plot twist that you get just after the tutorial
dungeon, and of all the Tales games I've played thusfar this is the one
I'm most inspired to stick with.

>Want:

A PS4 camera (PS4) - I have a vague urge to see how well House of the
Dead Remake on PS4 handles the Move controllers as input devices. Sadly
the upgrade on PS5 doesn't seem to work with any non-control pad input.

>Bin:

Nothing game-related

Expenditure:
-----=-----

Balance forward - $2,027

-KKC, who had way too much to do as the week started.