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Exciting, challenging, and full of fantasies...

The Coma Recut is an updated version of The Coma: Cutting Class which is an indie Korean survival horror. The game meshes Lovecraftian horror with a uniquely Korean twist, which is great! First thing you'll note, the graphics are beautiful. This is you -- You are a typical very stressed-out Korean student -- note that part of the game is based upon the developers actual high-stakes high-stress high school experience in Korea. You have a crush on the very buxom teacher Ms. Song -- Things quickly take a dark twist when you end up in "The Coma" -- without spoiling anything, it's an alternate reality. One with very Lovecraftian vibes -- Unlike Silent Hill, which to be fair is NOT an indie game, your character has NO weapons! I feel this is refreshing. So, what can you do? You can dodge, you can hide, you can regain health, and regain stamina. That's about it! Also, you're limited to what items you can carry, and you purchase items at a vending machine -- The vast majority of the game, you will explore your surroundings while attempting to not get killed. At the start of the game, most "enemies" are easy to avoid, but quickly you come across the main antagonist -- Here is where the game starts to get a bit stale. First, the "Killer" above is unstoppable. This is not new, Resident Evil certainly used that plot device as well as other games. Nothing wrong with that. However, the Killer shows up at random places at random times! If you are hit, you lose anywhere from a little health (early on in the game) to a LOT of health (later in the game). In fact, later in the game you can take one hit, the second will kill you. To make matters worse, the game is not very responsive. Youngho (the protagonist) feels clunky. What you need to do is run, then hide, then wait until the killer vanishes, then continue to explore, then rinse and repeat. The game would have greatly benefited if the Killer only showed up at certain instances. However, again, it's entirely random. There's not that much for you to do. You basically learn the lore of the game from notes -- The story is okay, nothing particularly exciting. I will note that the story is MUCH improved and fleshed out in the sequel (The Coma 2). And in fact most everything is improved in the sequel! That said, this first game has a certain charm, and a certain frustration. The game is also short, you'll finish it in about 5 hours, perhaps less. There are multiple endings and achievements, so there is arguably some replay value, but very little. There are some nice cutscenes throughout the game, again the artwork is fabulous, but the gameplay quickly becomes rather mundane. Also, with regards to the music, it's very forgettable. The music and sound effects are adequate, but nothing more. You certainly will not be rushing to purchase the soundtrack. At the end of the day, I would recommend this game to fans of survival horror, but most people will probably find it rather uninspired and arguably a bit dull. Final Grade: 6.25/10 Bottom Line: Worth playing if you are a fan of survival horror, but other than the lovely artwork there's nothing particularly inspiring about the game.

Well I appreciate your thoughts which I feel are very ruminative

2 men charged with blowing up woman's home, planning to use large python to eat her daughter https://abcnews.go.com/US/2-men-charged-blowing-womans-home-planning-large/story?id=108073142 Two men have been charged after allegedly bombing a woman's home and planning to release "a large python into the victim's home to eat the victim's daughter," according to prosecutors. Stephen Glosser, 37, and Caleb Kinsey, 34 -- both from Richmond Hill, Georgia -- are alleged to have used electronic communications to place the unnamed woman under surveillance from December 2022 until January 2023 "with the intent to kill, injure, harass, or intimidate," before using an explosive device to blow up her home, according to a statement from the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Georgia. Can't make this up!

Just saw this -- https://www.ebay.com/itm/395263040237 I have not seen these before, but of course this stinks. Now diluting actual games with Chinese fakes... wonder when the floodgates open just like that shithead did with the TG16 -- PCEWorks. I have no problem with reproductions, so long as it's obvious they are reproductions. Clearly, not the case here.

Migrant Children Sell Candy on the Subway. New York Has No Solutions. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/13/nyregion/migrant-children-selling-candy-subway-laws.html Of all the manifestations of human misery that the two-year-old migrant crisis has brought to New York City, few trouble the conscience more than the sight of children selling candy on the subway — sometimes during school hours, sometimes accompanied by parents, sometimes not. On trains and on social media, New Yorkers have asked: Isn’t this child labor? Is it illegal? Shouldn’t someone be doing something to help these children? The state Labor Department said it was “difficult to determine” whether the practice of children selling candy in the subway would violate labor law, which generally “regulates employment relationships (i.e., between employers and employees).” The city’s child welfare agency, the Administration for Children’s Services, said that anyone who sees a child in a situation that seems unsafe can call the state child abuse hotline. But the State Office of Children and Family Services, which runs the hotline, said that a child selling merchandise or panhandling would not be considered maltreatment or neglect unless there was a specific concern about possible harm, like “children selling candy at a dangerous intersection.” Children's Services in my experience is basically a waste of money. I knew people that were abusing children and when called CS did NOTHING. It was so infuriating. This happens over and over. Something as obvious as helping kids like this, and what does CS do? Again, NOTHING. Not surprised NYC has no solutions, they have had no solutions for most things for decades. But hey, as long as the money is flowing in...

I really enjoying reading your reviews! Spot-on. Do you think we should start a "book review" thread?

Muhammad is "fully autonomous" and did not deviate from his "expected behavior," the makers said. This is coming from a country where women were given the right to drive only in 2018! Also, women can't play sports or travel without permission from a "male guardian"... is anyone surprised that the robot did not deviate from expected behavior in such a country!

Nice! feel free to also post stuff like this in the LRG thread -- I didn't even know about this

Nostalgia... I would say today's cars are definitely "better", but at the same time, life was simpler and easier.

Sorry about that It does seem to work for others, and I've never had a problem seeing the pics on various browsers/machines. As @spacepup noted maybe its your setup?

I did play the original Coma, and it was an interesting Korean indie, which is what made it actually worth playing in my opinion. The overall horror elements were well done. However, the mechanics were not great, and it got old just always hiding from an enemy you could not hurt. The worst aspect of the game was the very ending sequence, where (if memory serves) it was instant death if you did not do everything exactly right. Overall, the first game was about a 6.0 out of 10 for me. So far the sequel is much more interesting and streamlined -- clearly they learned

Suspect in NYC subway attack that left woman's feet severed was arrested in violent 2017 home invasion https://abcnews.go.com/US/suspect-nyc-subway-attack-left-womans-feet-severed/story?id=107978186 So apparently this Christian Valdez, the man who tried to kill a woman on the subway was arrested in 2017 for -- Valdez is the same man who was arrested in September 2017 for breaking into an apartment in the city's Bronx borough, stabbing a woman who lived there and attempting to throw her 3-year-old daughter off a fire escape, police confirmed to ABC News. Normal Person: How can someone who threatened to murder an innocent 3-year old be on the streets?! NYC: he'll get better, yeah, that's it. Valdez was convicted in 2020 of second-degree attempted assault stemming from the Bronx attack and sentenced to eight years in prison, according to court records reviewed by ABC News. Valdez was released from the Sing Sing Correctional Facility in Ossining, New York, on Jan. 9, 2023, according to records. He was on parole at the time of Saturday's attack. The police everywhere love to say "murders are down" but no one is feeling safer, and how could you, when there's a revolving door for violent offenders -- https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/04/nyregion/new-york-crime-bernhard-goetz.html Seventy percent of those living in New York City indicated that they were concerned about becoming the victim of a crime, and 17 percent said they had bought a firearm for self-defense during the past 12 months

Can you see pics on other threads? Everything works for me, I'm using Firefox.

How did you like it? How does it compare to say "classic" JRPGs like Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy IV, Grandia etc?

Fair point, but El Salvador is extremely poor -- The poverty rate in El Salvador remains one of the highest in Latin America (28.4% according to 2021 official data). More shocking is that 1.8 million Salvadorans are living in extreme poverty, without access to basic food requirements. Perhaps cryptocurrency will work in El Salvador. But it's certainly not a "first-world" country. Also, I think most of us view cryptocurrency in this light -- https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2023/11/16/cryptocurrencies-have-failed-the-test-of-digital-money-mas-managing-director-says/ But in Menon's opinion, cryptocurrencies have failed the test of digital money because "they have performed poorly as a medium of exchange or store of value, their prices are subject to sharp speculative swings, and many investors in cryptocurrencies have suffered significant losses."

It looks like the Jill of the Jungle CIB in very good condition market has just exploded! Seriously though, you gotta wonder how much an unopened copy is worth...

Interesting! Why did the listing get delisted? Also, what is he trying to sell that he thinks is worth $40k?

Added VGNYSoft and Premium Edition to the first post --

Not yet, heard it's great.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/revolution-software/broken-sword-reforged-collectors-edition

Did he ask you what you thought? If he did, what did you say? If he did not, what would you say?

It looks like the unopened Day of the Tentacle market has just exploded!

I thought about getting a turbo everdrive. Good to know it doesn't work... or I should say, it's unfortuante it doesn't work -- I had heard it did