Chatterbox Thursday

You'll also need an External HDD for PS4 games and  an NVME stick for PS5 games.

The PS5 internal storage is less adequate than a Boris Johnson excuse. And a spare controller and headset.

The actual cost of a PS5 is £800-900. The headline price is only 50% of the set up.

Plus it will make you want a new TV so you can double that again.

Yes. At a glorious 30 FPS in most cases. Peasants.

Have you heard about 4k monitors?

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2022/may/26/the-guardian-thursday-quiz-general-knowledge-topical-news-trivia-57?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

11/15

32" and turn based RPGs.

I have no idea how to tell if my telly has 4k, or if so how to activate it. I assumed the PS5 just being better than the PS4 would be enough.

Isn't a monitor just a telly with less functionality?

32 inches is really where you notice the 4k resolution compared to 1440p, plus it's not too big you have to sit too far back. You will want a nice IPS or VA panel as these have richer colours and you probably don't mind taking the hit on the response times. I assume you are not bothered about curved or super-wide, not that there's anything wrong with them.

Really the biggest factor affecting price now is the refresh rate of the monitor. I would always recommend at least 120hz, but this is where prices rocket. If you are happy with 60hz (which is fine for turn-based games) the following might be worth a look for a start:

www.overclockers.co.uk/benq-32-ew3270ue-3840x2160-4k-va-60hz-freesync-widescreen-led-backlit-gaming-monitor-mo-133-bq.html

www.overclockers.co.uk/lg-32-32un880-3840x2160-uhd-4k-ips-60hz-freesync-ergo-stand-widescreen-led-backlit-gaming-monitor-mo-15u-lg.html

www.overclockers.co.uk/benq-32-ew3280u-3840x2160-4k-uhd-ips-60hz-5ms-widescreen-led-gaming-monitor-mo-134-bq.html

www.overclockers.co.uk/viewsonic-32-vx3276-4k-mhd-3840x2160-4kuhd-va-60hz-4ms-widescreen-led-backlit-gaming-monitor-mo-08g-vs.html

I've stuck with Overclockers as you should get a free packet of Haribo with the order.

You could ask on reddit/monitors too, but generally speaking people will try to push you to more expensive monitors.

I did perk up.
Then realised overclockers aren't on the dark web.

God I want a 4k TV.

Aren't massive 4K tellys considerably cheaper than massive 4K monitors? My 4K monitor cost about the same as the TV and is about a quarter of the size.

And some people say that I live in the past.

That Keef article gave me an instant sense of déjà vu.

The observation I want to make is that the only 80s games that I actually played in the 80s are the top 2 - Pac-Man and Tetris. Make of that what you will.

The other game on the list that strikes a chord is Maniac Mansion (number 15). Sometime in the early 90s I got my first home computer, a second hand Atari that came with Maniac Mansion on a floppy. This got me very excited because my only access to games like it had come in the form of a library book with what we would call walkthroughs. So instead of actually playing those games I could only read about them.

To this day I don't know whether I was doing things wrong or - more likely - my copy was bugged. No matter what combination of characters I was using, once I was inside the mansion nothing was working and I couldn't interact with anything. I didn't have access to the internet at the time, so there was no way for me to figure out what was going wrong. 

A few years later I had my first laptop and was able to play Day of the Tentacle and Sam and Max Hit the Road on it but only with difficulties, such that I couldn't save any progress. I was aware at the time that Day of the Tentacle included a playable version of Maniac Mansion as an Easter egg. Although I was able to access it, again I couldn't get it to work.

I still haven't played it. Maybe one day I will.

Btw, this and several other experiences like it are the reason why I'll always be a peasant and never the master race.