One Happy Team…

Sony

Playstation 2

One of my best purchases ever was Playstation 2 with an Infinity chip that allowed to play burned games. But burning is a hassle, despite the fact I still have a DVD burner and some blank DVDs.
So when I heard that now you can run games directly from a memory card I had to try it. Turns out this isn’t such a new thing. You could run games from memory card for a few years, using MX4SIO. But the newer cards combine both functions of memory card, storing saves, and DVD emulator.
I got the Bitfunx card which is readily available from AliExpress.
It boots fine into Free McBoot. But would get stuck while trying to boot into OPL MMCE, which is how you run games from the SD card.
After some trial and error, I figured out that I need to actually disabled my Infinite chip (hold Start while booting, then restart once).

Tags playstation 2

PC Gaming

Diablo Immortal

Diablo Immortal added a new class, Druid. Althouth this one is a classic, both from Diablo 2 and Diablo 4. Still, it’s ironic how Diablo Immortal, salvaging everything from Diablo 3, is still head above most other ARPGs in the tactile sense. Yes, there’s same issue Diablo 3 had, most classes feel kind of the same: basic attack, AoE attack, mobility skill, “rage button”.

But turning into a werewolf and summoning tornadoes still feels great.

Only summoning wolves is a bit lackluster, as they “teleport” too much. I haven’t stopped until I reached Westmarch yet again.

Tags Diablo, Diablo Immortal

*.BAK

Springbank 15

As I was visiting Newcastle, we ended up in a gastropub that had Springbank 10 and 15 on the menu. Of course I had to try one of them out, and since the difference between 10 and 15 was just 5GBP, I went for 15 years old. Paid 17GBP for the priviledge.
It’s a nice whiskey, I can’t deny it. It is smooth, a bit sweet, a bit smokey, and leaves a nice warmth in the throat. It just doesn’t worth 200GBP for a bottle. For contrast, Benromach 21 costs 136GBP.

Tags whiskey

Mobile Gaming PC Gaming

Torchlight Infinite

As I love both Diablo 2/3 and Torchlight 2, I decided to give Torchlight Infinite another try. And it squandered it.
One annoying mechanic is timed boss battles. You have 5 minutes to kill a boss, otherwise, you have to try again. You also have a limited number of retries: around 10, I think. This wasn’t a problem until level 38, when I faced Keegan. This one can kill a character in a couple of hits, and I was barely doing any damage. Managed to kill it after a few tries, but that was a major difficulty spike there out of nowhere.
Then I went to a guide and respected (luckily it’s free), and after that, it was much easier. But it’s not fun to play ARPG that you need a leveling guide for.
So, in the end, out of all mobile Diablo clones, only Diablo Immortal is worth any attention, despite all the hate it got when it released (and probably still gets).

Tags Torchlight

PC Gaming

Crow Country

It is clearly inspired by Resident Evil, but doesn’t copy it as much as I thought it would.
The item screen with heartbeat reflecting health and ID are there.

As is the raise weapon mechanic.

But that’s where the differences start, as your camera is not fixed, and neither your aim.
Flashligth and theme park setting are more Silent Hill, though, as is the screen noise filter.

Tags Crow Country

*.AVI

Pawn Sacrifice

I’ve been meaning to watch this movie after Queen’s Gambit, but like always, everything takes me ages.
They didn’t exactly go for physical resemblance. But Tobey Maguire unhinge game is brilliant.

So is Peter Sarsgaard as candy crushing priest.
There’s a lot of russian language in the movie. The bookstore keeper talks just russian, without subtitles. And so are russian chessplayers. Some are better, some, like Liev Schreiber playing Spassky, worse. Spassky is such a fun character, though, as he’s depicted as this superstar macho.

The Game 3 and Game 6 aren’t explained very well. So I’ll need to find a separate video on them.

And it’s interesting that they tried to attribute Spassky same obsessive behaviors, like Xraying the chair because it made strange sounds or talking to the lightbulb, because KGB is listening.

*.BAK

Brew York Ghost Dimension

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date June 29, 2025
No Comments on Brew York Ghost Dimension

Instead of experimenting with Belgian beers, which mostly failed, I now decided to experiment with British and American beers.
This one is a solid Imperial Stout, at 13% ABV, almost black and without any head. The distinction is the extra warmth from chillies and the smoky aftertaste. Still sweet, though.
“Ghost” is in reference to “ghost chillies” used in the process. Those chillies grow in Bhutia, North India. “Bhut” in the local language means “ghost”, so the name caugth up.

Tags beers

PC Gaming

If On A Winter’s Night, Four Travelers

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date June 29, 2025
No Comments on If On A Winter’s Night, Four Travelers

Completed it in a single sitting.
A two-hour long point’n’click adventure, but with isometric perspective, which is slightly uncharacteristic. Sanitarium did the same, though, and even had same themes of seemingly bizzare world that had some concrete reasonings. Structurally, it reminiscent of “I have no mouth“, as there are three stories that unravel one after the other.
There’s no inventory management, so all you have to do is click the objects in the right order.
First story is pretty straightforward: gay lover meeting a married man in Rome. It does some picture swaps and uncanny music, kind of like Last Door, but nothing fancy.

The second story is much more impressive. It’s about a woman that is going mad from grief and laundaum. At first, it has this effect from We Happy Few, whenever she drinks laundaum the grey world becomes happy and colourful.

But by the end of the story, rooms become half grey, half happy, as she moves through them, which is innovative for a pixelart game.
They also switch the character models for her, and she starts to shamble as she gets more unhinged.

Third story is about black doctor in Chicago that struggles with memories from the First World War and with being accused of stealing morphine, which he did, but only to help his neighbour dying from tuberculosis.

It would be all pretty grim and melancholic, if not for the epilogues, which clearly took inspiration from Grim Fandango.

Emulation

Cannon Fodder

The evil design continues. In Mission 10 we have a turret that sometimes fires its first shell even before the mission starts, wiping the squad.
In Mission 11, you need to rescue a civilian, but it’s not a civilian, as he will attack and kill you if you get too close.
I managed to get to the 2nd Phase of Mission 12 without dying. But it’s yet another “swim under enemy fire and hope you don’t get hit” monent.
And I feel like I’m done with this game 🫡

Tags Amiga, Cannon Fodder

Nintendo Switch

I was running Atmosphere 1.7.1 and firmware 17.0.1Everything was working fine, except Link’s Awakening, which I wanted to play.
I thought that it might be a problem with the NSP I had, so I got the MiG version. Same problem, the game hangs on the Nintendo loading screen.
So I went and updated Atmosphere to 1.9.1. Luckily this is easy, just replace the files. That didn’t help.
I updated firmware to 19.0.1. Needed to remember how to boot into Title Override again (hold R while booting any game), since the applet mode was giving me an error.That allowed me to play Link’s Awakening and any other game on MiG, but all my installed NSP games stopped working.
Went through the motions again. Installed sys-patch, which is again easy, since it’s just replacing some files. That helped. Now everything seems to be working.
I also patched the hosts file and the WiFi connection, in hopes that the console won’t try to download official updates again, as those display annoying message every time you try to launch any game.

Tags Nintendo

Mobile Gaming

Tacticus

Unlocked Forcas in his release event. Supposed to be good, but I didn’t manage to confirm this yet.

Unlocked Lucien from Blessed Scrolls pull. Reddit tells me that I was actually lucky, since Lucius can’t be farmed. All I can say, he’s rather fun, as you can turn on berserk mode, and the guy will be running killing things off by himself.

Unlocked Nauseous Rotbine from Guild War tokens. This one is actually useful, as it’s the only Chaos healer in the game.

Unlocked Aesoth from his release event. One of the easiest unlocks, as it requires just 100 shards.

Tags Tacticus, w40k

*.BAK

Bosch Professional Drills

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date June 28, 2025
No Comments on Bosch Professional Drills

I’ve been using Bosch green drills for at least 7 years. But after the PSB 1800 combidrill started raising smoke on me, I decided it was time for upgrade.
I wanted to try Bosch Professional GSR FC first, but it wasn’t shipping, so I gave GSB a try, as it was available the next day.
First thing is that the battery system is amazing. After the bulky batteries on PSB, this is tiny battery feels seamless. Although I know the more serious combidrills still have the bulkier battery.
And it’s amazing that GSR is even shorter (both in height and length) than the GSB. Such a tiny and cool device.
Now there’s also GSR HX (yes, the namings are very confusing and not helpful at all), which should be even smaller. But I it is just a screwdriver, not a combidrill.

Tags Bosch

PC Gaming

Disco Elysium

Completed Disco Elysium for good now.

This time I played the Sensitive cop. Out of the three archetypes, this is the most balanced one, as he has plenty of health and morale. I did pick the Revancholian Nationhood thought, though, that damages your morale when you pick the wrong dialogue options without much benefits. That was a mistake.
This time I tried to avoid cryptozoologists on purpose, get my gun and help with the welkins MMORPG game. Also, turns out when you play as Sensitive Cop, your necktie starts talking to you in a crazy voice.
Then I painted myself into a corner with the Hardie boys. There’s a Logic check that you need to pass to start looking for Ruby. And I failed it. Usually, that’s not a problem, as you can retry the check if you put another point into the skill. But since I’m playing Sensitive Cop, I have just one point in Logic. So I had to wait the entire day doing nothing, in hopes that the communist club plotline will bring me somewhere. It didn’t. I just ended up reloading a very old save.

The only qualm I have with the game is that the ending has less variance than might seem. Titus can survive, Ruby can die, you can arrest Klaasje, and not know anything about phasmid, but still the killer is the same old man on the island which you never met. I can’t say “it’s not a great writing” about a game with greatest writing since ever. But I still feel a bit cheated, just a little bit.

Tags Disco Elysium

*.BAK

Samichlaus beer

I’m going back to the classics. And what a classic Samichlaus is. It has no gas, all the flavour and energy. What allows it to get to 14% ABV is the double fermentation.
Also, turns out it is brewed only once a year, so I was actually lucky to see it so often.

Tags beer

PC Gaming

Disco Elysium

One thing that the game doesn’t explain well is how important “Volition” skill is. During the first 4 days, you don’t get into any fights at all, and rarely ever get hurt. But your morale gets damaged during dialogues quite often. And if you’re morale hits zero, it’s a game-over, just like with health.
On the 4th evening the fight between mercenaries and Union “regulators” finally errupts. I’m not sure if it’s possible to completely diffuse it, as you shouldn’t be able to know who the real killer is by this point. I survived it by having the armor, and not having any gun, as I let Ruby go (so I didn’t pick up her gun from the corpse), and I didn’t manage to recover my pistol.

Got the first ending. I let both Ruby and Klasje escape, Titus dies, and Colonel was killed by a crazed communist on the island that is still fighting The War. And there’s also the huge telepatic insect that I got to chat with. After all that, Harry is accepted back to the force, and Kim joins him in Presinct 41.
Also, I didn’t manage to complete the MMORPG quest.Now I’ll try another build and pick different thoughts to see if I get another ending without a guide.

Tags Disco Elysium

PC Gaming

Disco Elysium

The game uses real game time: some characters will go to work and return in the evening, shops close at night. A bit like Shenmue. That also means that you need to hustle for money to pay for your hotel every day, as you start the game not just broke, but also in debt. One way to earn money is to collect empty bottles scattered around the district.
Perk system is interesting. Perks are called “thoughts”. You need to learn, or “internalize” them first, which takes a few hours of game time. During that process, you may get some negative effects as well.
Some checks are straightforward: fail them once, and that’s it. But some actually benefit from repeats, or picking the right option before the attempt. Sometimes it also works the other way around: if you pick a wrong option, you get a debuff for your attempt.

Tags Disco Elysium

PC Gaming

Disco Elysium

It is indeed very impressive, with the amount of dialogues (a lot of them internal), all voiced, and skill checks. I have played Planescape Torment only as a teenager, so the closest comparison for me would be LA Noir.
I’ve recently listened to an interview with creators of Dark City, and how the City is supposed to be from different epochs and placed, making the viewer uncomfortable. There’s a similar theme there, where a city is both post-WW2 Berlin, divided between external powers, but uses French names, and the struggle between communist Union Workers and capitalists is more of US in the 20s.
And our investigation doesn’t start with a dead girl! Instead, we have a security guard that was apparently lynched by some Union workers.

Tags Disco Elysium

*.BAK

Pangbourne to Goring

We take train from Paddington to Reading, and from there to Pangbourne. There’s some family event going there, weather permitting.

We make a short detour to take a look at a pretty little church.
Then we walk along cow pastures.

Stumble upon what other group of middle aged hikers suggests to be a female stag beetle crossing the road.

Kites are flying so low they look huge. Maybe they are huge.

We watch some young cows race down a hill to an unknown but rather desirable target. They can be fast when they want to.

Then by abandoned factory we need to make a small detour around a herd of cows blocking the path, and a longer detour, because part of the path is closed.

Now I remember that Goring is the village with a cafe in the arcade. There are a couple of cafes that look decent, but we decide to travel back to Canary Wharf and have a brunch at a newly opened Brother Marcus.

The experience is better than on Borough Market. Although they still don’t get their poached eggs right.

Tags Goring, hikes, Pangbourne

PC Gaming

Greedfall

Completed Greedfall.
The game becomes slightly tedious towards the end, but same could be said about any Mass Effect as well. The monsters do not level up with you, which is good, but you still have to fight them every time you enter a region. I miss the system from Witcher, where underleveled monsters would run away from you. But I think that’s the only game that ever implemented it.
The story is still good, though. It’s not groundbreaking, but it has this nice back-and-forth, showing that someone understood what they were doing.
We need the High King of the Natives in order to understand the nature of the plague. But he secluded himself on the mountain, and only his girlfriend knows where to find him. She is held by scientists, but since we rescued them once, they release her without a fight. She tells us where to find the High King, but turns out he’s evil, killing one of the native shamans and kidnapping our plagued cousing. And we fight and kill his girlfriend, who we rescued recently, in the process.
Here it is a bit disappointing, as you cannot negotiate with her or him, no matter what. And natives will get angry at you for that. But I guess there had to be some conflict.
Final confrontation has your companions stay behind one by one. I think Mass Effect 2 did the same. Then you need to pick between sacrificing your cousin, who did you no wrong and your companions. Picking your cousing is considered the bad choice, although it’s not clear to me why, as even at the end of the game he doesn’t act as a tyrant.

Tags Greedfall

Nintendo Switch

Metroid Zero Mission

Zero Mission is the remake of original Metroid from NES on GBA. I adore GBA games, because that’s when Nintendo produced some of the most astonishing pixelart of all time.
I haven’t played either the original or Metroid Fusion, which shares the same engine with Zero Mission. I did play a lot of Castlevanias lately, though, so I’d likely compare Zero Mission with them.
First, the fact that Samus is a woman is front and center here. Remember, it was only in the third game in the series that it was revealed originally. But here we can see her eyes right in the opening cinematic, and every time she dies, the suit disappears, revealing her in the blue “undersuit” for a moment.
Second, the game is quite generous in terms of health. You get you first Energy Bank early on, which doubles the initial health pool, and enemies drop health orbs often as well, unlike Castlevanias, where health drops were very rare. On the other hand, Samus isn’t healed on save. Which is slightly annoying, as it means you need to farm enemies to reload fully healed.
I’m pretty sure that statues that show you were to go is a new feature. Quality of life improvement.

Tags Metroid