One Happy Team…

Black Skylands

Overwhelmed by the amount of mechanics in this game.
There’s combat on foot, twin stick top down, kind of like Hotel Miami, but with a healthbar. And you have a grappling hook.
Then there is also piloting a ship, and ship combat, that uses proper broadside mechanics like Rebel Galaxy. A ship also has limited cargo space. You can replace your ship, but you can also upgrade it. And you can also upgrade your firearms, and they even have attachments.
Enemy ships have different turrets which can be destroyed separately. And there are also air currents, that drag your ship.
And it’s all a bit too much, at least for now.

Tags Black Skylands

PS5

PlayStation 5 covers

I don’t like the PS5 looks: the curves that mean I can’t stack it up nicely with other consoles in my collection, the white color (although I do have Wii and Dreamcast) and most of all, the “wings”.
Luckily, it supports replacing covers, and not only official once.
When I removed the original covers, I discovered a few of the legs were already broken, probably by the previous owner trying to clean the console.
While trying to replace the covers, I broke a fingernail, they are really tight. And then I discovered I bought covers for the Digital Edition, while I have the one with disc drive. So I had to remove them again and wait for the correct ones to arrive.
But now, I’m much more satistfied with how it looks and fits.

PS4 PS5 Sony

Soul Reaver

Completed Soul Reaver.
Had to look at the guide to figure out how to beat Dumah boss. All other bosses are fought in an enclosed arena, and you need to use environment against them. Here, you can leave the throne room, and he’ll chase you, barely. At first I thought it’s just a bug. Then I thought that maybe you need to lead him to his statue, but he wouldn’t follow. And if he disappears from your sight, he teleports back to the throne room, which reinforced the idea that’s where you need to beat him. But no, turns out you need to lead him through the entire level.
When people say that Soul Reaver story is great, they either mean that the dramatic voice acting is entertaining or that the overall story of the series is great. Because the story of the original Soul Reaver is bare bones.
The last temple was designed by someone who played Mario 64 too much. You need to rotate switches by running around them, over and over. I’m glad I’m playing with an analog stick.
We are also shown some glimpses from the future, where Raziel kills Ariel to get Sun Reaver and then stands with the red Kain Reaver.
The final boss is one of the easiest in the game: you just need to hit Kain three times, and then he escapes to the past through the time machine portal. So it’s not even a complete story, just half of it.

Tags Soul Reaver

PS4 PS5 Sony

Soul Reaver

After obtaining Soul Reaver, Raziel can finally stop lugging a spear around to dispose of vampires, as while in full health, Soul Reaver can do the same. Doesn’t remind of any other game series at all 🤡
Cathedral is the worst of 90s design. You solve a puzzle, and somewhere else a switch opens. And those puzzles aren’t difficult, but they have endless enemies to distract you as well.
The boss of this dungeon confused me, as I thought that you need to aim with the eggs when he attacks. Turns out, you just need to set the eggs on fire before throwing them.

What’s even more confusing is the entire magic system, which I found about only because I was very confused were to go after the Cathedral. So I ended up finding two spells tucked away in secrets, one of them behind a 6-crate puzzle I was sure I was solving in order to progress the plot.

The Big Reveal is that Raziel and other vampire princes were once human Sarafan, paladin vampire hunters.

The “water temple” is not as bad as the spider temple, but it has a lot of platforming, which is surprising, you’d expect there will be a lot of swimming, but you get the swimming skill only after you beat the boss by jumping on tiny platforms, falling from which means you need to jump 8 platforms back, over and over.

I also found the fire upgrade for Soul Reaver, which is nice, because it allows to dispose of vampires from a safe diatance. Less clunky combat is a good thing.

Tags Soul Reaver

PS4 PS5 PSX Sony

Soul Reaver

Soul Reaver wasn’t supposed to be set in Legacy of Kain universe at all. It just so happened that Amy Hennig, best known for Uncharted series, was helping with Blood Omen, and then decided that the best way for her idea to get approved is to shoehorn it into existing universe.
Another fact I didn’t know is that there are two versions of the game: PC and PSX have the same models, while Dreamcast had them reworked. Then there’s the remastered version from 2024.

At first I tried the original. I can see how this game is the precursor of the entire action adventure genre on PS2, with its acrobatics, almost mandatory finishing moves and gathering of souls out of dead enemies to replenish your health. Nowadays, though, it’s mostly unplayable, since it was designed before twin sticks became the norm. So camera is an issue.

And since the only way to permanently dispatch of enemies is to throw them at hazards such as water or sunlight, without second stick it becomes a pain.

And you can’t even look up or down. So Remaster it is.

I quickly discovered that the easiest way to dispose of vampires is to always carry a spear with you. Once you impale one, you can always reuse it.
Box puzzles are a genre staple. But it’s actually rare to see you are allowed to get boxes over obstacles and stack them to solve puzzles.

The game shows its age: the locations are pretty small to fit PSX memory, and the view distance, albeit better than in the original, is still quite limited. The blood effects are on PSX level as well. When you traverse corridors, camera follows Raziel closely, so you wouldn’t feel discomfort when you couldn’t control it.

Tags Soul Reaver

*.BAK

Ninja Zerostick ceramic frying pan

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date April 30, 2026
No Comments on Ninja Zerostick ceramic frying pan

I’ve been disappointed by IKEAs pans durability, despite buying their 365 line, which should be the best one. I have thrown away my second 365 pan, and I’ve only bought it in October 2025.
I didn’t want stainless steel pan, as it produces too much smoke. So I decided to try a ceramic pan from Ninja. Have their electric kettle, very happy with it.
First impressions: it works, maybe slightly less smooth than teflon, and need to adjust to temperature. The real question is of course, will it hold at least a year?

Tags Ninja

PSX Sony

Blood Omen

Completed Blood Omen.
I must give credit where it’s due, they actually managed to recreate a battle pretty well. Two or three full screens covered in red and white soldiers, actually fighting and killing each other, with the king fighting at the front.
Then we transported to the past, to kill William the Just before he became Nemesis (another “inventive” name). The nice play there is the huge statue. At first we pass by it standing, then in the past we see it half finished, then once we are back it’s shattered.
Turns out this was all Mobeius plan, so he could hunt all the vampires in present. Although I’m not sure how Nemesis prevented that, as Mobeius was also manipulating him.
The Mobeius fight is weird, because it’s almost the end of the game, and he sends a few whimpy villagers at us. Also, you need to be very specific where you step, or he wouldn’t open the gates to the next arena for you.
The necromancer that resurrected you turns out to be also the one who sent assassins after you, which makes no sense, as Kain was a random minor noble. You beat Mortarius once, he turns into a daemon with a single attack, you beat him again, and given a Dark Souls kind of ending, where you can either restore the world or take control of it.

This was one of the worst games I managed to complete without dropping. Probably the most annoying aspect is that Kain is useless without mana, as he can be easily interrupted or even stunlocked, but mana recovers slowly, and there are no mana potions, only this orb that gives you infinite mana, then brings you back to zero again.
But yeah, I wanted to experience it, I experienced it, it was bad, very bad. The constant need to switch between weapons through the menu, because with half of the weapons you can’t heal or cast spells. So you see an enemy, switch to single handed sword, cast shield, go back to the menu, switch back to two handed 🤦‍♂️.
The collision detection, the lack of feedback, you don’t know if you’re hitting someone or not, which is annoying especially with bosses, the visuals, everything is bad. Can’t recommend at all, even as a joke.

Tags Blood Omen, Legacy of Kain

PSX Sony

Blood Omen

Malek is killed offscreen in a cutscene, but you still pitted against two magicians at once. Not a bad idea, although the Druid just places water puddles, which is hilarious. I suspect that they rolled those bosses together due to time constraints, since when Kain brings their “mementos” to the pillars, he repeats “and the pillar accepted” three times in a row.
Because there’s no experience or currency in the game, fighting enemies is just a waste of time. Moreover, the further you get, the more annoying the enemies become, often stunlocking Kain with ranged attacks or poisoning him, while there’s a limited number of antidotes available. Kain has magic shield that completely negates ranged attacks, and mist form that ignores most melee attacks and floor spikes. Both require mana. If you don’t have mana, it’s best to wait around the corner for it to replenish, since enemies AI is lower that ghosts from Pac Man. They would literally try walking towards you through a wall.
The boss of the cathedral, Azimuth (sic!), is terrible. She fires homing missiles that have a knockback of a missile, and teleports before you even manage to get close. You just need to get lucky to hit her with the Soul Reaver, which you also get in the cathedral.

I found a way around slow menus: you can set CD-ROM speed to x8, which improves it by a lot. Setting CD-ROM to x16 breaks the game, though, menus stop opening altoghether.

Tags Blood Omen

*.BAK

Advent Calendar

13th is Noble Rebel Smoke Symphony. I guessed 40GBP and Scotland, because who else smokes whiskey? It’s 37GBP and indeed from Scotland. Taste is not bad, not fantastic. But for 46% ABV has plenty of warmth in the throat.

14th is Milk&Honey Classic from Israel. I have their Milk&Honey Elements, which is the sherried whiskey, which I think is great value for money. And I might even reviewed the Classic once already, as it’s sold in Ben Gurion. This one is very sharp, both on the nose and palate. Still, if I was told it’s a 10 years old Speyside, I would believe it. It has plenty of sweetness to it, and a lot of warmth for 46%, but not something I would personally buy.

Tags whisky

PSX Sony

Blood Omen

Malek castle is quite terrible, but at least it has a point: there are no one alive, so there’s nowhere to get fresh blood. I’m lucky I stocked on healing items.
The fight with Malek is one of the worst boss fights I can remember. He has literally a single attack with windup.
I was puzzled at first that while using axes, Kain can’t cast spells. Are those anti-magic axes? No, turns out he needs a free hand.
First time I got really stuck was in Vorador’s Mansion. There’s a bridge where you aparently need to take control of a human, but how? Turns out you can walk on water in your mist form, which isn’t explained anywhere.
The Mind Control itself implemented very amateurishly. First, when you hit someone with it, their corpse sometimes appears. Then, you have to travel with the mind-controlled person between screens. But when Kain travels between screens, enemies respawn. So you can bump into “yourself” when you come back 🤡

I’m playing the PSX version, because I wanted shaders and save states. But it has its own problems. First, there are no subtitles, so you forced to listen to repetetive audio for any clues (although I think the subtitles in the PC version are a fan made patch as well). And second, each time you switch your weapon, it takes you to a loading screen, and each time you switch your form, the game just freezes for a couple of seconds. Annoying.

Tags Blood Omen

*.BAK

2000 vibes

As I’m playing games, I sometimes also update their wikis.
I did so with Jagged Alliance wiki as well. The game from ’95 that 3 and a half people play.
I didn’t expect to get 2000 vibes from the Wiki admin:

“Do you know who I am?!”

PSX Sony

Blood Omen

While people rave how good Legacy of Kain games are, I’m puzzled by how bad this game is. You have no indication if your hitting your opponents or not, no indication if people are hostile or neutral.
The intro is confusing: some vampire kills some mages, while a knight runs to save them? And that knight is either immortal or made into immortal as punishment for not saving them? Then some woman is stabbed? Then we play as another knight, that walks out of a tavern, gets killed, then is resurrected by a necromancer that descends into hell where he’s bound and pulls the sword that impaled him our of his back, which turns him into a vampire, although he doesn’t seem to be hurt by either sun or rain, despite saying he is.
Then you find 9 pillars, and a ghost of a woman that was killed in the intro tells you that each pillar is connected to a mage, and you need to kill all of them to restore balance.
What is this? Student’s project? Also, the writing:
“The wind was carrying screams from the west. I smiled. Someone was suffering more than I”. So edgy 🤡
At it’s core, it’s Legedend of Zelda. You get disposables, like shourukens, you get some spells, and you have different forms. Although one of the forms is basically just fast-travel, and one of the spells is basically return-to-checkpoint.
The first boss is environmental boss, I’m not even sure it has HP. It fires walls of projectiles at you, but some of them dissipate, so you need to dodge through the gaps multiple times to get to him. As a reward, you get a mace to break stones. Just like in Zelda games.

Tags Blood Omen

PC Gaming

Jagged Alliance Deadly Games

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date April 25, 2026
No Comments on Jagged Alliance Deadly Games

Completed Jagged Alliance Deadly Games.
I shouldn’t have bothered.
After the hell of Mission 22, the next one puts you against… 4 enemies. That’s all, that’s the mission. Most of them are still pretty difficult, and the money is tight. The problem is also you can’t predict which missions allow or don’t allow you to sell stuff to get some more money.
One interesting piece of story is that Gus was working for Santino, the villain of Jagged Alliance, but bailed early, never to encounter the protagonist.
I’m not sure what the developers broke, but the further I progress, the less this game makes sense. Jagged Alliance could be annoying, but mostly fair. Here, you have enemies hitting you with pistols from across the map, your best mercs missing 3 shots in a row from two tiles, and getting hit for 40HP while having 60% armor, which should be technically impossible.
For the last two missions, I stopped saving the grenades, and it was just a grenade-fest. Also, I finally managed to hire Mike by selling all my stuff that I accumulated throughout playthrough. Speaking of which, I never had enough scopes or spectra shields for my team.
Final mission is actually on the easier side, simply because enemies don’t come at you all at once, but instead tend to camp, so you can clean the houses methodically. Also helps that I embraced grenades, no point of saving them, and even managed to use “mortar” (it’s more of a propelled grenades really) once.
There isn’t much of an epilogue, except merc congratulating you. I’m calling low budget cash grab.

Tags Deadly Games, Jagged Alliance

PC Gaming

Jagged Alliance Deadly Games

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date April 22, 2026
No Comments on Jagged Alliance Deadly Games

I come to a conclusion that the game is simply unbalanced. The mission I barely managed with 4 people pays 8K. Mission 15 against 3 enemies total pays 13K.
I think I complicated my playtheough by hiring Magic. In the original, there were a lot of locked doors, a lot. So a merc who can shoot and open doors was extremely useful. Here, there aren’t almost any. And his pay really eats my budget.
Speaking of budget, one of the offers I’ve got was quite ridiculous: M16 and 20 magazines. I think that more ammo for M16 than I’ve collected in the entire playthrough of Jagged Alliance 1. But it was a good offer, I’m actually glad I got it. Unlike the one with chainsaw. I was curious, because it is a unique item which wasn’t in the first game. And I actually used it once. But most firefights are at ridiculous range in this game.
By Mission 20 I had to replace Magic with Kelly, because he’s a little cheaper. It’s not very fun, because being paid 10K per mission on average means you can afford 8 bad mercs, or 2-3 good ones, against 8 or more enemies.

By Mission 22 I was save scumming. I counted, there are 16 enemies on that map, each armed better than you, not taking damage from a shotgun, hitting you with pistols when your M16 misses. I had to employ scorched earth tactics, stunlocking enemies with grenades. Not sure why I’m doing that to myself, it ain’t tactics anymore.

Turns out, there’s both a grenade launcher and a mortar in this game: first launches hand grenades, while second looks like a LAW, and uses scarse mortar shells.

Tags Deadly Games, Jagged Alliance

PC Gaming

Jagged Alliance Deadly Games

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date April 22, 2026
No Comments on Jagged Alliance Deadly Games

What I like about Deadly Games is that you can hire and fire mercs easier, it seems. So if someone like Leon isn’t working out, that’s less of an issue. No hard feelings.
There are missions where you need to escort a civilian to safety now. The way it works is that civilian is not part of your team, but you can order them around.

In the original, merc barely gained any stats. Here, I left Fox to train for a day, and she gained 3 points, while she might have leveled once or twice over 15 days in the original. And I’ve rarely seen a merc gain more than a single point in a day.
When you were equiping your mercs, you could give them vests, which gave inventory slots, or a shield vest, which offered extra protection. Now there’s a combination, Ultra-shield vest, that offers less inventory slots, but some protection.

I was progressing fine, until I hit Mission 11. This one has way too many enemies. I can afford 4 decent mercs. There are more than 8 well equipped enemies. One time I did manage to beat them all, one of my mercs bled to death, and I still didn’t have enough time to complete the objective. That was frustrating. I did manage to beat it, even within time limit, by running with half of the team into bushes and all the enemies chasing them, while the other half snuck into the compute room. But I didn’t enjoy it at all.

The further you progress, the more the game turns into slugfest. Enemies rarely drop grenades, and I don’t remembered them being offered, so you end up lining your mercs firing at incoming enemies. The problem is that there are always more enemies than mercs, and they are well equipped.

Tags Deadly Games, Jagged Alliance

PC Gaming

Jagged Alliance Deadly Games

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date April 17, 2026
No Comments on Jagged Alliance Deadly Games

I remember playing Deadly Games briefly and disliking it for having limited number of turns.
After the original Jagged Alliance, it’s interesting.
First, you get some new characters, like Leon Roachburn, the father of 3 not so good mercs you could hire in the original. There are also some new weapons, like Uzi, and characters also seen personal growth, Ice and Ivan cost more now.
Some top mercs might be also available on day 1. I hired Magic that way. The problem is of course to pay their bills over time.
Mechanically, enemies can shoot crouched now, in the original crouch looked really awkward, as if they planned to run a sprint. And wounded enemies also leave blood trails. That’s something I wish they had in the original, as hunting the last injured enemy was tiring.
As I mentioned, there’s a turn limit now. But I discovered that it can actually be turned off completely, or, which is the option I like the most, have turn limit for mission objectives, but endless time to loot.
If you don’t find what you need, you also have a shop, which offers bundles of stuff. And you can haggle with the owner.

Tags Deadly Games, Jagged Alliance

PC Gaming

Jagged Alliance

Completed Jagged Alliance.
Day 11. Capturing the last refinery was by far the easiest. I couldn’t believe my luck when I managed it on my 1st attempt with 3 mercenaries. The only issue now is that even with all refineries, I don’t generate enough revenue. I might need to either fire one of the mercs just to keep even at this rate. And I have no idea where the stolen totem is. At least now I have enough upgraded Spectral Shields for everyone.
Day 12. Mechanic with a lockpick is a must. I literally had to restart the day, because last enemy was behind a closed door, and the key was nowhere to be found. Also, at the “Santino peninsula” as I call it enemies carry ridiculous number of tear gas grenades. Gas masks are mandatory.
Day 13. Recovered the burned journal, and didn’t care to reload for it, since I’ve never got the quest in the first place.
Day 14. Some good news, the price for a tree actually went up. So now I can maintain more active mercs.
Capturing last sectors, Santino is surrounded. Since Magic and Spike, two of my best lock pickers, are healing, and Scully can’t pick most of the locks, I have to “knock”. If you fire at a door, enemies usually open it to look for you 🤡
Also, picked the headstones so natives don’t rebel. I don’t know what was to point of putting it on an island in the middle of nowhere, instead of some safe.
Day 15. I wanted to hire Mike, the best mercenary, before storming the compound. The problem is that I progressed too quickly and fired too many mercenaries, so he wouldn’t join until stats improve, which would mean just sitting there 🤡
Even with the best mercenaries, this last sector is so much not fun I’m surprised I ever finished it. Luckily I’ve read that the enemies are almost endless (basically Santino can deploy all his guards), so I didn’t try to ambush them like in other sectors.
Santino talks about the fallow sapling that he’s gonna blow, but nobody ever mentioned it or its importance before.
Also, I felt like in this area all the weapons jam more often. And if it isn’t enough, the game can get stuck mid-mission, probably due to too many enemies.
But I must say I’m very proud of myself for coming up with an idea to use two bombs to blow the wall enough for my entire team to sneak behind the bushes. This, and semiofficial way to save the sapling by Kelly jumping through a hole in the wall Santino left.

The game is deeply flawed, and I don’t use that term often. The sneaking mechanic is basically non-existent, the jamming is unpredictable, and so is visibilty and hits. But it is still incredibly engaging, mostly due to its handcrafted nature.

Tags Jagged Alliance

PC Gaming

Jagged Alliance

Day 7, some of the top-tier mercs are available now: Scully and Spike, among others. But same as with Magic, I actually don’t have that much money to pay them.
The reason everyone suggests to allow Santino to kidnap Brenda: once you rescue her, her father pays you a huge bonus 🤡

Even if you know where she’s been kept, rescuing Brenda is extremely difficult. Both of the bridges are mined and guarded, and as soon as guards are alerted, one of them will run to execute her.

This made me wonder, I always thought that when I played the game for the first time, she was killed because it took me too many days to rescue her. But maybe I was just too noisy when I did.

Day 8, mostly freeing the north of the map. There’s no interesting equipment there bar boobytrapped M14. I’m amazed that this game has what seem to be one-off mechanics. Jack says liberating the ancestral grounds made natives happy, but I’m not sure how it reflects on the bottom line.

Speaking of M14, while it’s recognizable in its original form:

I still don’t know as an firearms expert what its upgrade supposed to be:

Day 9. Ice asked for a pay raise, I refused, he isn’t worth that much, so he resigned. Speck resigned as well. Hired Kelly and Scully, two amazing mercs that come with their own M14 and M16.
Day 10. Capturing the 2nd refinery wasn’t any easier than the 1st, maybe even harder. Fire from the windows, enemies blowing the refinery after the first shots. Ironically I managed to capture it after countless attempts, when all my merc got badly injured, but nobody blew it.

Tags Jagged Alliance

PC Gaming

Jagged Alliance

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date April 10, 2026

Day 6, Brenda gets captured. As I kid I completely missed it, and she got killed waiting for the rescue. But even as an adult with the full grasp of English language, it’s kind of confusing: her sector gets invaded from a direction that shouldn’t be possible, and once you recapture it, you can find her coat, but without any indication where to look. Actually, there’s an indication, if you equip her coat, you’ll get a message, but no other item uses this mechanic, all the notes can be read without “equipping” them.

From watching Zemalf’s playthrough

I learned, among other things, that there’s M14 hidden in Sector 10, which I already captured. And I was pleased with myself to discover that you actually don’t need a stone to trigger the trap, you have enough time to dodge it. Rifles in this game are a big deal, mostly because there isn’t much firearms balance. They are simply better in every way.
The encounters are ridiculous at times. Opened a door, one enemy, trying to hit him, gun jam, trying to hit him with the second merc, gun jams, enemy throws a grenade, luckily, one of the mercs had a 2nd gun, fires it, missed, and the duo receives a second grenade as a present. Reload.

Tags Jagged Alliance

*.BAK

CaDA Master C61505W Viva Hypercar (Ferrari La Ferrari)

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date April 9, 2026

First bag out of 7 took me 505 minutes in total.
Realistically a bit longer, because I forgot to resume the timer. But I also spent time coming up with a sorting system, because there are less bags, and a lot of different pieces come together in the same bag.
That was difficult, a lot of hanging parts, but especially because I didn’t know or notice that one piece has a screw that lets you adjust its length.
Since I have to manage my time, I started setting timer and adding extra time if I run out, instead like with Lego build, just finishing one bag in one sitting.
I discovered that Cada has two types of angled connectors, one at 45 and another at 60 degrees. They are both black, so it took me a long time to understand why two components do not fit.
Then not only I got the angles wrong, again, but also that I have one non-rotating piece more and one similar rotating piece less, which means that somewhere inside there’s a piece that might be a bit loose, but also that now I can’t get the part that needs to be rotating to rotate. Had to find a combination of pieces that would produce similar shape.
Then had to fix a few angles, again, and since I was left with a rather small amount of pieces, I decided to finish it in one sitting, instead of spreading it over two, which took me 1:30 hours.
It worked out, although I was left with more spares that I’d expect.

Tags CaDA, Lego