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DLC announced:

I have no idea where this belongs, but PlayStation Studios, Kojima Productions and Filmworks are collaborating on a Kojima documentary: Okay Geoff saying that he's probably the most well known game creator in the world seems a little hyperbolic (surely it's Miyamoto?), but he's certainly up there. Either way, looking forward to this! I've said it before, but I would love more documentaries on the minds of creators/teams/studios in gaming (as well as, you know, maybe things like Nintendo vs PlayStation as a docuseries).

There are rumours that Messi might be going to....Inter Miami?! What the fuck? Apparently it's some sort of deal like the one Beckham had where he gets the opportunity to buy a franchise afterwards or something, but the whole thing is just too bizarre imo. One of the best players currently playing (a contender for another Balon D'or) going and playing in the MLS? It's such a wet fart ending to his career, it's so strange.

Radical!

New TV spot for Ahsoka featuring some of the footage shown off exclusively at Celebration in April, as well as a release date: August 23rd. Yep, still looks awesome This comes following some new images from and interviews with Empire, with Ahsoka being their story for the month: Eh, I think it's less on you and more on the storytellers. I thought it was weird to use BBY for two reasons: it's incredibly meta to use, but also, does anyone casually watching actually know what it stands for? So I totally agree. I think they could (and probably) have taken steps to make it more accessible to casual viewers, it would take all of 30 seconds at the absolute top end! Totally get what you're saying about it not having the level of distinction that day the prequels and originals had, and I'd say that just how similar the sequels ended up being compared with the original films is perhaps it's biggest failing, and I don't just mean in terms of repeating similar beats (it is what it is), but the overall vibe: similar themes, and similar looks. While we did get some cool new ship designs...X-Wings, but newer? TIE fighters, but newer? Come on! I know they've retroactively justified this with flavour text in the encyclopedias, but as someone who loved how the prequels went out of their way to design ships that would serve as precursors to these staples we all know and love, it just all seemed a bit...risk-averse. And obviously, I'm not saying this is on the Lucasfilm folks, because these sort of calls are made from the top and trickle down. It's such a shame because the sequels could have been the Cold War to the original trilogy's World War II and Vietnam, and I think that would have been awesome. Instead we're now getting that in the books that will bridge the thirty year gap.

Obviously American prices and retailers but this article explains the various different Blu-ray options: https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/6/23751170/super-mario-bros-movie-blu-ray-release-date

Star Trek: Starship Creator Original Release: 1998 Developer: Imergy Publisher: Simon & Schuster Platform: PC This game lets you create your own starships. You start off with a popular starship class, such as Constitution, Galaxy, Intrepid or Defiant and then modify it in phases. The first phase is appearance, letting you toggle between different nacelles, hulls and saucers. Next up is the name, followed by internal systems that affect the stats. One you’ve built a ship, you can send it on missions. The missions are fully automatic, so you just sit back and watch your creation at work (or put it in “stealth” mode and do something else). While quite limited, it’s nice to see your creations flying around. I focused on three ships: the first was a Constitution class USS USS Columbia (I didn’t realise it automatically added the USS part), designed to look like a Constitution mixed with the NX class. Then a really silly looking Defiant, the Potato class USS Spud. Finally, a really cool looking Intrepid I called the USS Pathfinder. Monopoly: Star Trek The Next Generation Original Release: 1998 Developer: Hasbro Publisher: Hasbro Platform: Board Game A Star Trek: The Next Generation themed version of Monopoly. These versions of Monopoly don’t do anything with the actual theme, it’s just the basic game with different pictures and player pieces. If you’ve played one licences Monopoly, you’ve played them all (other a small amount of special ones). Monopoly is a terrible roll-and-move trading game. The mechanics were originally designed with a runaway winner in mind to demonstrate how bad landlords are, only for the game to be stolen by someone else and mass produced. The game is also often made worse by people incorporating “house rules”, such as putting fine/tax money under “free parking” – something that just makes the game drag even longer. Almost everything you do is determined by rolling two dice. For the first few turns round the board, there is property you can either buy or send to auction (a rule most people forget) and the it’s the case of trying not to land on ren, although as it’s all dice based, there’s to tactics for doing so, other than not paying to leave jail early (it’s actually beneficial to stay in jail). There’s also a lot of negotiating and trading properties with other players to try and create sets. In order to buy houses and hotels. This version of Monopoly had something special promised: if you linked all four planned versions of Star Trek Monopoly, you can link them together via the wormhole in the corner of the board, but only one of these versions existed and it’s still just Monopoly, just one that drags on even more. Star Trek Deep Space Nine & The Next Generation: The Board Game Original Release: 1998 Developer: Component Game Systems Publisher: Component Game Systems Platform: Board Game While the names suggest that these are different games, they’re part of the same system and are compatible with each other. These are the “Core Sets”, with plans for releasing additional starter kids (new factions) and reinforcement packs. The system for these games is called the “Component Games System” and was initially made for Babylon 5: The Board Game (which seems like it was quite popular), before expanding into more franchises. The company shut down shortly after the Star Trek core sets were released, so none of the additional stuff was made. I do find the names of the games odd as they send the message that these are just basic individual cheap tie-in games. It needed a subtitle to indicate that they’re part of the same system. The game itself is a 4x game. A turn consists of the following: bookkeeping (checking victory, gaining money, paying for repairs), building new ships and bases, moving then combat. It seems like a fairly typical game of the genre. There are different scenarios to choose from in the form of different map layouts, either a singular map or, if you want a proper DS9 experience, you can set up the gamma quadrant separately, using the wormhole to move between maps. For testing it out, I could only find images of a limited amount of pieces, but was able to put together a small 2-player Maquis Vs Dominion game (and even then, I had to borrow a few map tiles from the imagery of the Babylon 5 game – the games use the same rules so you could probably combine them). The game is fine, but doesn’t really do anything special with the genre. Star Trek: Insurrection: Son’a Ambush Adventure Original Release: 1998 Developer: Last Unicorn Games Publisher: Last Unicorn Games Platform: Board Game This board game was given out with Issue Inquest Games Magazine #46 (February 1999), and utilises the simple combat system from Star Trek: The Next Generation Roleplaying Game. The goal of the game is to get at least one Ba’ku to the cave (although I added the extra challenge of seeing how many you can rescue). Drones will try to capture the Ba’ku while Son’a soldiers will attack the Enterprise crew (Picard, Data, Crusher, Worf and Troi). More drones appear at the end of each turn (which can be very dangerous, as if they land on a crew member, the crew member is lost), with three soldiers appearing on turn three. You can only shoot at enemies one or to spaces away. Each crew member rolls a different number of dice (although onl the highest number is counted). The default you need to hit is an 8 for one square away or 10 for two squares away, you can also fire at additional targets, each one adding to the score you need to hit. The character’s phaser skill is added to the roll. One dice is the “Drama” dice. If this lands on a 6, you use both that and the next highest roll. Everything is mostly down to Data, with Worf backing him up. If you can get them to be the main wall between the drones and the Ba’ku, you’re set, with Picard, Troi and Crusher getting any stragglers. I ended up getting all but one of the Ba’ku to the cave on my first try, with the very start of the game being the most difficult part. If you lose Data early on, you pretty much have no chance at stopping the drones from taking all of the Ba’ku. Durotta Original Release: 1991 (appeared in Star Trek in 1998) Developer: Blaise Muller Publisher: Gigamic Original Platform: Board Game Durotta is what the game Quarto will be called in the 24th century. Based on the Voyager Season 5 opening episode “Night”, with Tom Paris opening the game with the “Novakovich gambit”. The object of Durotta is to place a piece in order to form a line of 4 with a single matching characteristic. These characteristics are: Tall/Short, Round/Square, Light/Dark and Full/Hollow. As long as one characteristic is consistent across 4 in a row, you’ll win. For example: if you place a tall piece to form a row of four tall pieces, you win, even if they are all a mixture of light and dark. What makes the game special is that you don’t choose what piece you play: your opponent does, which makes the game incredibly strategic as you have to think about what moves your opponent can make when deciding what piece to hand them, but also keep an eye on the remaining pieces when placing one as you don’t want to force yourself to give your opponent the winning piece. We see Tom and B’elanna passing each other the pieces, so it seems like they were following the actual rules of the game (even if they made up names for moves). I only tried this game because of it’s appearance in Voyager, but I really love it. It’s a brilliant game, and the mini version (the one I got) is nice and portable – it also looks fantastic and makes for a great display piece. Star Trek First Contact: Aftermath Original Release: N/A (In development 1998) Developer: MicroProse Publisher: MicroProse Original Platform: PC Not played: No leaked prototypes. After making the Generations game, MicroProse set to work on a game for First Contact. Instead of retelling the events of the film, they opted to make a direct sequel: the Borg Queen had managed to copy her brain to the Enterprise’s computer, and the Enterprise kept some of the Borg (for either study, release or prisoners, it’s not clear). A few months after First Contact, this copy of the queen takes control of the Borg on the ship and starts assimilating. The whole game would have been set on the Enterprise E (although from the screenshots, the holodeck was also used), with parts of the game being random to encourage replayability. You directly controlled all 7 of the main cast, swapping between them at will. You could also give them tasks, such as researching technology to stop the Borg.. There was an additional tactical interface where you order around 49 other crewmembers. The game itself would have taken around 5 hours for a successful campaign, although from the sounds of the game I would imagine some playthroughs might get to a point where beating the Borg would be impossible (due to bad planning), requiring a restart. It sounded like an interesting idea, but was cancelled when a deal with Activision was made for Star Trek games. Star Trek: Birth of The Federation Original Release: 1999 Developer: MicroProse Publisher: Hasbro Interactive Platform: PC Birth of the Federation is a turn based 4x strategy game (think of a turn-based Stellaris). You can play as the Federation (although it’s just humans), Klingons, Romulans, Cardassians of Ferrengi. My first attempt ended in tragedy my science ship was lost to a neutron star pretty much straight away, then a major accident happened at another colony and I seemed to not have the dilithium required to build more. I used the game to learn the other parts of the game ready for the next game. The start of the game is all about colonising systems, sustaining them (either manually or using the handy auto builder). Spacedocks are the most important element as they expand your reach, letting you colonise more star systems. Once you encounter other races, you can offer messages of peace, friendship, give gifts, demand goods or declare war. Unfortunately, the diplomacy is the weakest element. With the major races, it’s pretty much buying time before war, while with minor races if you’re lucky or throw enough money at them, you can get a system and possibly a couple of ships added to your faction as they join you. There are two game types: control 60% of the galaxy or wipe out two factions that are set as your rivals. At some point, you’re going to need to take over systems owned by other factions, and you can only do so by wiping out all life in the system, which seems a bit overboard. This will anger other factions, so the game seems to be building up your recourses and ships enough to take on everyone near the end. The final part of the games (either winning or losing) seems anti-climatic, as it seems to be having a fleet bomb a defenceless planet. Ship battles can be fought though a turn-based tactical screen, with some tactics working well over others. It mainly comes down to having more and better ships, though. Birth of a Federation has a lot of depth, and I suspect would have been great when it came out. The genre has evolved a lot since then, so I wouldn’t recommend it now.

Noticed this is £20 in Tesco earlier if anyone is looking for it.

Olimar is bad at his job, Louie merely violated the Geneva Convention.

Oh, that's great news! I've never played Tilt N Tumble, despite @Dcubed having access to it. Perfect opportunity, and a good sign for WarioWare Twisted.

A new (short) trailer: Really wonder what the plans are post-Pikmin...but for now, I'll say the customisation looks cool

Kirby’s Tilt N’ Tumble is a big deal. First ever European release and first re-release, period. Great to see. Also means that we should eventually get the almighty Wario Ware Twisted eventually on GBA NSO

Star Trek: Generations Original Release: 1997 Developer: MicroProse Publisher: MicroProse Platform: PC This game is definitely intriguing. It very loosely follows the story of Star Trek Generations, with Soren trying to destroy stars in order to change the path of the mysterious energy ribbon called the Nexus. In this game, Soren needs to destroy multiple starts to get what he wants, and you need to stop him – you can even prevent him from destroying the Amargosa star. Most of the game is played in a first person view. The controls definitely feel very dated, but are one of the things that makes the game interesting. The directional buttons move forward/backwards and turns while the mouse aims the cursor. On the bottom of the screen, you control your inventory, scanning and map. The big square in the middle will show you objects you can interact with when you get close to them, which is a really nice touch. On the top of the screen, your phaser will aim at that part of the screen. It’s very different to the first person controls we’re used to now. In these levels you’ll shoot through enemies and solve puzzles. Sometimes, you’ll even beam down in disguise and can do a lot before you have to resort to shooting. The graphics are extremely charming and are surprisingly nice to look at. When you get hurt a lot, you’ll be beamed up and the mission will have failed – however, you can fail a few missions before you lose the game. Between missions, you’ll use Stellar Cartography to scan planets and stars in order to work out where you next have to go. You’ll also sometimes encounter enemy ships and use a pretty poor interface to fight them with. All the good parts are in the missions. The missions are quite interesting. One has you infiltrate a Romulan base as Troi, one involves Crusher investigating a living planet and fighting giant antibodies (it reminds me a bit of the Voyager episode “Macrocosm” and the Chodak from Future’s Past/Final Unity even pop up. Eventually, you’ll reach Veridian III. As Geordi is never captured in this game, things play out differently. Picard ends up in the Nexus (which is just a flashing blank screen as he asks Kirk for help), then Kirk delays Soren and falls off a bridge. Soren then beams to the Enterprise and initiates a warp core overload. After separating the saucer, Picard beams to the stardrive section and stops Soren from destroying the saucer (although he does enough damage that it has to crash land) before finding an escape pod with a sleeping Spot and watching the stardrive section blow up in a very impressive cutscene that looks like it’s actually using the studio models. Although that’s not the only ending – you can actually fully defeat Soren. He brings a large fleet with him to Veridian III, but if you manage to disable his ship, he’ll self-destruct. The Enterprise D warps off unscathed and Kirk will still be in the Nexus. Star Trek: Captain’s Chair Original Release: 1997 Developer: Imergy Publisher: Simon & Schuster Platform: PC Another interactive CD-ROM, this time focusing on the bridges of the original Enterprise, Enterprise D, Defiant, Voyager and Enterprise E (plus a hidden Klingon Bird of Prey bridge). Each bridge has a lot of locations to view from (in 360 degrees) and you can zoom into every single panel on the bridge. Some of them have buttons you can press, and even a couple of simple games. Sulu, Worf, Sisko, Janeway and Riker all give tours of the bridges, talking about each station. Janeway’s tour is the most fascinating, as it’s written from the perspective of before the ship launched, so the only other character mentioned is Harry Kim (none of the other people officially assigned to Voyager are part of the main cast). It’s also referred to “The Voyager” a lot, which sounds odd. Kotra Original Release: Seen on-screen in 1997 Developer: Abayomi, Dean Jones Publisher: Self-Published Original Platform: Board Game A Cardassian board game seen in the DS9 episode “Empok Nor”, a game about “about bold strategy and decisive action” according to Garak. I manged to find some rules on DeviantArt and have made a few changes to them myself. When you attack an opponent piece, you have to attack it with a piece that is the same or higher rank, or else you’ll use yours. The key thing, however, is that you can’t see what ranks any of the pieces are as they’re printed on the bottom of each piece. You can check yours whenever you want, and both pieces are revealed when an attack happens – so you’ll know what the winner is, but you’ll have to keep track of it yourself. The aim of the game is to attack your opponents capital piece. One clue regarding this is that the capital piece can’t move, so you’ll be keeping an eye for pieces your opponent doesn’t touch – but also be wary as there are also mine pieces that also can’t move and will take out both themselves and any piece attacking them (except for the Garresh, a low ranking piece that can defuse mines). While taking the opponent’s capital ends the game, the winner is the player who got the most pieces based on points earned during the game and the pieces you have captured. The capital is worth a lot of points, but if you aren’t careful you can still lose. Star Trek: Voyager: Retribution Original Release: N/A (In development 1997) Developer: Looking Glass Publisher: Viacom Original Platform: PC Not played: No leaked prototypes. This was an adventure game based on Star Trek Voyager and likely would have played similar to Seep Space Nine: Harbinger. The plot involved an away team being captured by the Kazon and over the three chapters, you would encounter two new races. It was supposed to feature the full cast of the show, but ended up getting cancelled. Lots of the sets were faithfully recreated in 3D for the game, likely with the intention to be used for screenshots and converted into the backdrops for the game (the models are far too detailed for computers). It looks like a lot of Voyager was completed, along with an alien ship and planet. The artist, Mark Lizotte, had access to the set blueprints and spent two days on the sets measuring and checking colours against samples to get them spot on. In response to the game being cancelled, a few of the developers (including the game’s writer, Ken Levine) left the company and formed Irrational Games, making System Shock 2 and BioShock. Star Trek Pinball Original Release: 1998 Developer: Sales Curve Publisher: Interplay Platform: PC A very basic pinball game. It features three tables (one exclusive to two players), which are designed to be like real life tables (though not based on actual ones) rather than taking advantage of being a video game. The tables are fairly generic and don’t really make much use of the Star Trek license other than imagery. The two main tables both have the same problem – they have a ramp or button directly above the centre of t Star Trek: The Next Generation: Klingon Honor Guard Original Release: 1998 Developer: MicroProse Publisher: MicroProse Platform: PC This game is an interesting bit of gaming history: the first game ever released using the Unreal engine, coming out before Unreal itself. It uses a beta version of the engine, so is quite buggy, and the gameplay often feels exactly like Unreal, as it’s a first person shooter that uses a lot of the same code – the movement, some level elements (such at mine carts attached to rails above them) and enemy AI are straight from Unreal. You play as a new recruit for the Klingon Honor Guard when your training gets interrupted because the Klingon High Council has been bombed, with Gowron injured. Kurn (Worf’s brother, played by Tony Todd) and a Dahar Master send you on a quest to work out who is behind it. Naturally, this involves killing lots of enemies, which mainly consist of Klingons and Andorian pirates. The graphics are good for the time, although most of the game is dark and full of browns, a lot of the levels merge together. A lot of levels are confusing mazes where you spend most of your time hunting for hard to see keys or buttons to progress. A few standout ones are set on space stations and ships. Because the structure is confined by the outside shape, the layouts make a lot more sense. The game has a lot of levels, and most of them end up merging together. When not aimlessly walking around, the game is a lot of fun. Stabbing foes with a bat’leth is enjoyable, with lots of colourful blood spraying around (there are no humans in the game so it avoids having red blood). Most of the other weapons are fairly boring, with the exception of a disc weapon which launces a bouncing disc that destroys entire rooms of enemies. You can also find some gadgets to use, such as a deployable camera (never found a use for it) and mag boots, which are vital for going on spacewalks in some levels. Klingon Honour Guard is fun in parts, but often frustrating. I feel like it goes on a bit too long, with the most enjoyable levels being close to each other in the middle of the game. It also doesn’t really capture the feel of the Star Trek universe. You see Klingons and Andorians, but they don’t really act like them. The main character also repeatedly shouts “I will cut you up like gach” at your foes, which I found odd because Klingons eat them alive, so there’s no cutting up. Star Trek: The Game Show Original Release: 1998 Developer: Sound Source Publisher: Sound Source Platform: PC A trivia game with some good production values, as it’s hosted by Q and Q. Q is played by John de Lancie with another Q as his sidekick (played by Karen Cornwell, this is her only acting role). All the questions and answers are read out, so there’s plenty of voice acting from the two, including plenty of quips. There’s even an annoying audience member that blurts out the answer if you run out of time. The quiz is split into four sections: Alpha Quadrant, Beta Quadrant, Gamma Quadrant and Delta Quadrant. The show covers TOS, TNG, DS9, Voyager and the movies. In the Alpha Quadrant, the questions are about the characters in Star Trek. A wheel will spin and land on a division and you’ll be asked a question about someone from it. There’s plenty of variety and some interesting questions. In Beta Quadrant, the game reveals five clues one at a time and you need to type in the answer, either an alien race or a character’s name. The clues are quite well worded and there are some very obscure characters. Gamma Quadrant focuses on command problems and how situations in the shows were solved. There’s also some interactivity as you can forfeit a question and send it to another player. Getting a question wrong will get you negative points in this round, so you don’t want to just guess. The final round, Delta Quadrant, has five different styles, one chosen at random in each game, each loosely based on each of the shows (with the fifth representing the films). While most of the questions are interesting and delve into a lot of deep Trek references, I did find one mistake: a question asks what Scotty used to construct the tank for carrying whales. Plexiglass wasn’t an option – instead the game wanted transparent aluminium (which Scotty traded the formula in order to get the Plexiglass). Overall, this is a very entertaining trivia game.

Saw this crop up over the weekend. Gale of Dark Chocolate. Funny the associations people come up with! Well anyway. The white supremacists milky bar kids won the splatfest.