Since I don’t play on my Nintendo Switch too often, every time I try to install a new game, it requires a lot of coersing.
First, there are sigpatches, which I download randomly and pray they would work.
Then turns out when Tinfoil says “failed to read metadata”, you need to update Tinfoil itself (install new NRO) not Athmosphere (unpack and copy files).
And when the game installs, but crashes at start, it means you need to update actual firmware through Daybreak.
Author: TheAleosha
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Ename Blond
I didn’t particularly enjoyed this beer, and it gave me a runny nose. That’s all I’m gonna say about it. Wish I went with classic La Chouffe instead today.
Castlevania Dominus Collection released on Steam and Nintendo Switch is one less reason for me to own NDS/3DS now. Until recently, Dawn of Sorrow, Portrait of Ruin and Order of Ecclesia were all NDS exclusive. I even finished Order of Ecclesia a few years ago on 3DS. Now I’m sorry I haven’t waited for this release, as playing NDS games is often a pain: you can’t take screenshots, and the game also hung up on me a few times.
In any case, this is another chance for me to try and finish Portrait of Ruin.
Am I playing Diablo 3 again? Yes, yes I do.
Never seen than joke before, though:
I understood that I don’t understand Diablo 3 Necromancer at all. I mean, you immediately get 7 skeletons, that are almost invulnerable and don’t require corpses. Why exactly 7? I don’t know. And your skeleton mages aren’t really skeletons at all, as they act more like turrets and persist only for a few seconds.
The legendary drop is still ridiculous but fun. I got two legendary swords even before I reached Leoric.
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Mullet Mad Jack
The game pretends to be a boomer-shooter, but in fact it’s much closer to a trick-shooter such as Bulletstorm.
You start with a 10 seconds timer, and you die if the time expires. The way to extend it is by killing enemies, the more inventively you do that, the more extra seconds you get.
There are some clever references to movies and anime from the late 80’s and 90’s: Akira, Bubblegum Crysis, Terminator, to name just a few.
But the overall gameplay feels very chaotic. Even though there’s “easy mode” without a timer, it’s not very good. Levels aren’t even levels, just corridors, and you get just a single gun with infinite ammo, which you can trade or upgrade between floors.
Completed Cultic.
I didn’t expect to have sniper mechanics in a boomer shooter. You can hear them cock their rifle before they fire.
Flamethrower is extremely useful in the second episode. It has a fantastic ammo to damage ration, and surprising range.
I could do with a third episode, really. Finished the game in about 5 hours, and didn’t get tired of the mechanics yet, which happens rarely. But then, it’s a neat an nicely wrapped story, told mostly through the journals of a private investigator that infiltrates the cult and a researcher that works with them.
The second and final boss is a “wall boss”. But it’s 3D, and nicely animated, so no complaints:
I wrote about the game quite extensively when I tried the demo, of all things (I never play demos). The full game has somewhat easier jumps, but other than that, it’s very close to my impression from the demo. It’s a faithful homage to Blood, with heavy emphasis on dynamite.
At first there’s the mechanic from Doom 3 where you need to hold a lighter in one hand in dark areas, and so can only operate one-handed weapons. But after a few levels you get a proper flashlight.
I didn’t expect the first boss to be a German tank.
Not after cultists, skeletons and demons I’ve been fighting. But then, the arsenal is also heavily WW2 themed, with FG42 and Sten, despite the game taking place in ’60ies. Maybe that’s just Return to Castle Wolfenstein influence.
I have played Dark Reign and even completed it around 2002 (the game came out in ’97). But I didn’t know it was actually quite the financial success, selling over 300K copied, when the authors expected 30K to break even.
Also, turns out it was initially developed by just two guys. And that their approach was to build the game engine, and then use it to build the game, which was groundbreaking in 1997. One of the lead developers later went to work at Blizzard, and I wonder if that had any influence on a very similar approach of StarCraft.
Also, turns out Dark Reign 2 was developed by a different team, because most of the developers of the original relocated from Australia to USA, to work for Activision, which paid x4.
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Outer Worlds
Completed Outer Worlds.
The second DLC, Gorgon, feels so much like the starting location of the game that one of the characters makes a comment about it. The main revelation is that the marauders, which we meet across the system, aren’t just deranged humans, but they were created by Spacer’s Choice.
Unlike Murder on Eridanos which is very self-contained, this DLC does force you to go back and forth around the system a bit. But other than that, it’s rather… unremarkable.
All companion quests are mostly… non-consequential. Except Nyoka, maybe. But running around the system to help an asexual-lesbian with a date?
Honestly, I did expect some bigger guns. Maybe a minigun, or an antitank rifle? I ended up running with the same sniper rifle and LMG most of the game. And the only science weapon I found useful was the gun that makes enemy float Mass-Effect-like.
The final prisonbreak is nice, as if you helped different settlements, they come to your aid at different points in time on different levels of the panopticon.
There are no major final revelations. No, Phineas is not an alien, or The Devil. The only setup for the sequel, if one is to come, is the fact that the Earth hasn’t been communicating with the colony for 3 years, and that the last cruiser (one out of two) sent there disappeared.
And it’s nice that they put together a very thorough epilogue in the best traditions of Fallout. It does give a feeling of closure, and that it wasn’t for nothing.
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Balvenie 14 Year Old Caribbean Cask Whiskey
17th bottle from the Advent Calendar. I thought that I tried another Balvenie already, and I was right. It was the Balvenie 12 Year Old Double Cask. This one is what I’d call “supermarket grade whiskey”. It’s rather smooth for a Scotch, with plenty of sweetness and some warmth. A decent whiskey for sure. But for 63GBP, there are much better options, in my opinion.
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Star Wars Outlaws
I didn’t play Star Wars Outlaws, and I’m not sure I will. But can we talk about how boring and basic the designs are?
The pistol is M1911 with a bulb light on top. The jacket is 80’s, the haircut is 90’s, the createure is a mix of axolotl and that Disney dragon with fur.
On the left with have futuristic Tibet, and the right a Blade Runner.
Yeah, I know that the original Star Wars were scrapped from “samurai easterns” and World War 2. But this, this is simply uninspired. And not inspiring at all.
Completed Diablo 4.
Legendary items aren’t the rarest type of item, that’s why their names are so generic. That’s the bit I didn’t understand, or maybe forgot. Finally got my first Unique item. From a Treasure Goblin again, I think.
I know I complained that story bosses are useless. Well, Duriel dropped two unique items. Yes, there’s Duriel again.
The battle cinematic reminded me of those times when we were playing a game just to see the next cutscene. It’s that good.
It’s strange writing that both Donan’s (the fat guy) death and Neryelle loosing her hand are so… Offhand. Neryelle gets bitten by a random zombie, and Lorath has to chop her arm off, and Donan gets poked by a zombie column. Remembering how they offed Decard Cain in Diablo 3 like he wasn’t the cult character in the first two games, that’s nothing.
What I do have trouble with is… consistency. I know this is a story about angels and demons (and divorced parenthood). But why Mephisto is in some kind of a bubble?
Is Diablo and Baal also in bubbles somewhere? Lilith says that this is an eternal battle, because things like hatred won’t just disappear. But then her dying is suddenly a big thing? I mean, can’t she just reappear in a bubble like Mephisto?
After all, we killed Andariel and Duriel at least twice already.
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Outer Worlds
I usually don’t bother with DLCs, by the time I get to them, I’m to tired of the game. But Outer Worlds gets the balance just right: not too difficult to become tiring or feel like grind, not too easy to become boring.
So, I went for “Murder on Eridanos” (clear reference to “Murder on the Nile”). Except Puerott didn’t carry a heavy machinegun with him everywhere. But at least many NPCs make jokes about that.
The new mechanic in the DLC is an investigation scope, which is a bit like Batman: Asylum series, but a scope.
The investigation takes place in a megahotel, which is full of people infested with make-happy parasites. Reminds very much of “We Happy Few”, up to the screams of “Laugh louder” when they try to club you to death.
You get ridiculous amounts of XP, but the enemies also become ridiculously tough, surviving 3 headshots from fully upgraded sniper rifle 🤪
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Berry Bros & Rudd Sherry Cask Whiskey
16th bottle from the Advent Calendar.
I love Sherry Casks. But at first I was warry of this one, because the smell was very sharp and alcoholic, despite just 45%. Must admit though, the taste is very sweet, and it makes your head light as if it was all 60%. For 45GBP, it’s a no-brainer, and probably one of the best whiskeys from the calendar yet.
Getting a triple boss in a dungeon for the first time is fun. Getting the same triplets for the third time… not so much.
Speaking of fun, the story bosses drop junk, but the Treasure Goblin dropped an actually useful bow that randomly creates a pool of poison, and while you’re standing in that pool, your poison attacks are free. Finally a mechanic that is not just about shooting monsters in their faces.
Elias is supposed to be some kind of a villain, and he certainly gets a lot of people killed, but for a good reason, it seems? He’s cullying humanity, because invasion is inevitable. So only the strong will survive to fight the demons. Makes sense to me.
By September maximized my relationship with Yosuke, which has double benefits: the character gets their ultimate persona to use in battle, and you get one of the ultimate personas to fuse.
The best storyline so far is by Yumi, a girl that tries to reconcile with her dying father whomlwft her family for another woman:
On a schooltrip we meet Chihiro from Persona 3, who’s now in her final year. Which means that the game is set a year or two after the events of Persona 3. I haven’t thought before that those games even happen in the same universe.
I was completely blown by the fact that they have special portraits for when the party gets drunk in a nightclub.
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Dragon’s Milk beer
I love Imperial Stouts. So naturally, when I was in Trader Joe’s in the US and saw an the Dragon’s Milk Imperial Stout, I decided to try it out. Of course, because it’s the US, they were only sold in packs of 4.
Was it worth shipping it across half the world? Absolutely. I know there’s a misconception that Americans don’t understanding anything about food, but that’s all it is, a misconception. It’s everything you expect from Imperial Stout and more. Glad that I still have 3 more bottles left, should keep me until the end of the year, I hope. And if you’d thought that 11% is their limit: they’re also producing a 18% one.
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Outer Worlds
Still impressed by the fact that upgrades change how every weapon looks. A lot of games don’t bother with that at all.
Obsidian sure knows their scifi. Quests here are named “Canid’s Cradle”, “Slaughterhouse Clive”, “Flowers for Sebastian” and “Stainless Steel Rat”
The good thing about loot autoleveling with you: you always find something useful down the path. The bad thing: you don’t have much reason to explore, because… you always find something better later on.
Funny how the locals on Monarch are like “who do we think we are, cannibals? That’s just corporate lies!”, and then there are literally at least two quests dedicated to… cannibals.
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Glenfarclas 12 Year Old
15th taster from the Advent Calendar. All I can say, it’s a whiskey. It’s not particularly good or bad, in my opinion, maybe has a bit longer aftertaste and warmth than most, but nothing that would amaze me.
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Outer Worlds
To distinguish itself from brown and green Fallout, I guess, Outer Worlds is all pink and orange.
The local version of VATS is slow-mo, not time-freeze, but it works fine as well.
Flaws system is interesting, since instead of being chosen at the start of the game, like Traits in Fallout, you get those as you go. Something like “Robophobia, -1 Dexterity when near robots, but +1 perk”.
Surprised that I did quests in the wrong order in the “toothpaste research” area, and the scientist I was about to rescue got eaten by raptors before I could do so. Forgot that timed quests existed.
There’s a quest chain to aquire unique prototype “science” weapons. The first one I’ve got is a hammer that switches between its elements with every strike. Then there’s also a shrinking pistol, which is a love-letter (or is it a love-pistol?) to the 50s sci-fi:
