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Jamestown+ (PC) Review

Developer: Final Form Games | Publisher: Batterystaple Games || Overall: 8.5/10

Overview:

Jamestown+ is the remastered release of 2011’s Jamestown with all of the content released as DLC included in a complete package. Additionally there are two new levels, new ships, and other general improvements to the game.

The idea of the game is to blow shit up with lasers and missiles and stuff. It is an arcade style “shmup” (shoot-em-up) reminiscent of the SNK boxes you’d see at the pizza parlors or other similar restaurants. The “games” section of those restaurants let the kids play while parents threw back another couple Bud Lights while griping about how stupid their kids are.

Anyway.

Graphics:

The graphics are great, as previously mentioned, it looks like an old arcade games from the 90’s. What is fascinating about the title though, is the theme. Imagine colonial Britain/imperialist Europe from the 1600’s and 1700’s. Then put them on Mars with space ships and lasers and shit. That’s basically what is happening and it is a glorious amount of WTF.

There are story interludes to world build, but most of it is essentially tongue-in-cheek nonsense. The Spanish conquistadors are generally the villains here, but throw in aliens and other-worldly fauna and you’ll get an idea of what else you’ll encounter.

Sound:

The sound is well designed and gets the right feeling in basically all aspects. The music accentuates the adrenaline and when a boss fight starts, the mood typically shifts to be more ominous, as it should.

Gameplay:

Jamestown+ prides itself on its difficulty and variety. Although there are only about 7 actual levels to play, there is a multitude of ways to play them. Difficulty ranges from “Easy” to “Legendary” and as you progress, you’ll have to beat previous levels on the higher difficulties to unlock more levels. There are also challenge levels that put you in a specifically designed scenario to beat. The nice thing is that even your failed attempts help you with unlocking new things, so nothing feels like a “waste of time.”

A major part of the variety is the amount of ships/weapons available. There are four different ships with four different loadouts, with one loadout being able to be customized in twelve additional ways. Each is progressively bought with gold unlocked in the store, but at a slow enough pace where you can try out each ship long enough to learn what you like and don’t like, or how it can be specifically useful. Some ships might feel redundant at times, but when playing with 4 players, the slight amount of overlap isn’t very important.

Crappiest Part:

The worst part of the game is definitely the grind. At a certain point you’ll stop playing new levels or new difficulties because you’ve hit your wall. I’m not very good at shmups in general, especially the bullet hell kinds. The lower difficulties are VERY lenient since the hitbox is pretty small, but when enemies get harder and more bullets are flying everywhere, I’m not really into it anymore. Since progression is tightly tied to difficulty, that’s also a drawback.

Conclusion:

Jamestown+ is a fun game for sure, and is definitely worth playing if you love those old arcade shmups. The bosses and levels are well designed, and the extras will keep you playing. Replaying levels isn’t even all that bad because the art is so interesting to look at, and the increasing difficulty will keep you challenged.

Local Exchange: An Eruption of Stupidity

Based off the following post:

https://squackle.com/22567/screwed-up-chronicles/daves-kingdom/scam-call-from-local-exchange/

Harry Brown and Mildred Jacklesmith once had a great idea.

“Why don’t we scam people?” Harry Brown said.

Mildred, obviously in agreement, shouted at the top of her lungs.  “YESSSS!!!!!”

And so a company was born.  It was named Local Exchange and it was in San Dimas, California.  Or maybe it was in Villaverde.  Is that even a city?  To tell you the truth no one really knows what city it actually is in.  Not that it matters because absolutely all of their business would be conducted over the phone.

Local Exchange invested in a phone number that provided unlimited calling and texting.  Obviously, to scam people you need to call them unlimitedly and text them non-stop.  Otherwise, the whole scam thing doesn’t really seem very scammish!

The first order of business was to create the scam.  The scam of all scams.  A scam that everyone would believe but only the smart people would question and only the smart people would see it was a scam.  People who were smarter than them, even.  But that’s not the target market, now, is it?

The scam had been planned out in a matter of days.  First, they would call a random number and ask to speak to the “owner of the phone” to make it sound official.  Once they had the owner of the phone, they would tell them about the grand prize they had won and how everyone knows them locally but to get notoriety in different parts of the country, they were expanding their random 6-day cruise prize to different areas of California.

Once the person had given them their credit card information and social security number, they would hang up and begin to apply for credit cards and home loans with their information and take out cash advances.  And then they would invest that money into online payment systems.

Yes, life was grand in the most successful scamming company of all time.  Local Exchange posted huge profits and Harry and Mildred bought huge mansions once owned by drug dealers who fell victim to the scams.  Poor drug dealers lost their drug dens, but they weren’t the only victims to the grandest scam of all time.

I will now tell you about a lady who was down on her luck.  She thought she was the luckiest person in the world and won a free 6-day cruise to New York from California.  Oh, what a joyous occasion it was.  And all she had to give them was her name, address, social security number, and driver’s license number.  Overnight, this wonderful, nice lady had transformed into a blathering hobo asking for change at bus stop benches.  The day before she had been a worker at McDonald’s but when it came about that another Emelia Prancasa applied for a job at Burger King across the street with the same information as “Our” Emelia, that’s when McDonald’s fired her.  They couldn’t have a worker working at two fast food restaurants at the same time.  That would be espionage in the making!

Poor Emelia.  She can no longer work at any fast food restaurant because she became the most notorious fast food restaurant quadruple agent ever to be known.  Too bad she wasn’t hot cause she was quite ugly and not very attractive to boot.  Sometimes ugly people can be attractive, but sometimes they are just stupid.  Like Emelia.  Because she thought she won a 6-day cruise when in fact she won nothing and lost it all.

The end.

Moral:  Don’t give away your private information to random people who call you on the phone telling you you won a 6-day cruise.

Am I Confident?

Are you confident?  Answer the next 5 questions, and tally up your results at the end to see your fate.

Before a test you have studied for, you:

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When shopping for clothes, you:

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When you're at a restaurant, you:

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Would you say your friends in general are:

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What do you think are the realistic chances of achieving what deep in your heart you want to do when you are an adult?

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If you scored 12-15, fuck you.  No one likes a liar.

A score between 8-11 means you’re probably normal, but who are you really fooling?

If you score between 5-7, you’re low on the confidence scale.  Don’t worry, it’ll only get worse from here on out.  I could tell you all this sanctimonious bullshit about how it could get better, but really, you’re probably depressed and the only thing that will make you better are drugs.  And lots of them.

If you scored less than 5, you’re probably already doing drugs.

Joke #18675

A man goes into a restaurant, sits down at a table and an attractive young waitress comes for his order. He gives her a smile and says, “I want a quickie.”

She turns red in the face and ahems, “Sir, I don’t know what kind of restaurant you’re used to eating in, but I can assure you you’re not going to get a quickie here!”

“How disappointing,” the man replied. “Could you ask the chef to make an exception?”

“He doesn’t have anything to do with it!” says the waitress indignantly.

“Hmmm,” do you know anywhere around here where I could get a quickie?”

“I’m SURE I don’t know,” answers the waitress loudly.

A patron from the next table leans over and taps the man on the shoulder, “I think it’s pronounced QUICHE.”

Joke #18547

My wife and I were having lunch at a fashionable eatery in Annapolis when we noticed what looked like a familiar face at the next table. Screwing up my courage, I asked, “Excuse me. Aren’t you Marlin Fitzwater, the former White House press secretary?”

“Yes, I am,” he acknowledged, and graciously interrupted his lunch to talk to us.

As we were leaving the restaurant, I remarked to the hostess, “Do you know you have Marlin Fitzwater on the terrace?”

“I’m not sure about that,” she replied, “but we have Perrier and Evian at the bar.”