Half a year ago I sold my “unhackable” Playstation 4 Pro 11.52 for 110GBP. And did I miscalculate.
Two things happened. First, now those are hackable up to 12.52. And second, the RAM price hike drove all the console prices up, even the older ones. Go figure.
In any case, if I wanted to get Playstation 4 Pro now, I would pay at least 150GBP.
Not that I need it. Or not that I can’t afford the price difference. But it is still quite wild.
Author: TheAleosha
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Painting Scabbik’s Plaguepack
Over Christmas, completed my Scabbik’s Plaguepack.
I was preparing so much to glue them, only to discover those are push models. Well, I’m not one to complain about that.
The real challenge if those Skaven models, in addition to regular warpstones, and the tails, are the plumes of smoke that come from their censers.
I tried drybrushing metal, but it mostly got thrown away.
Pleased how pink parts worked, with Bugman Glow, then strangely enough Berserker Bloodshade, then highlight with Bugman Glow again.
I’ve never seen bones/horns done in blue (I don’t remember this particular contrast paint, maybe Kroxigor Scales), but I did it for contrast mostly.
One thing I plainly lack is the discipline to photo the process under the same light all the time.
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Letters form Iwo Jima
It’s a movie that requires prior knowledge, as it doesn’t explain a lot. Hard to discern who’s in Navy and who’s in the Army. But it also doesn’t matter much. I thought that it would be a story of heroic stand, or of some struggle, but it is mostly just a collection of anecdotes, without any moral judgement.
It’s an interesting movie, but not a movie you supposed to enjoy, as there is no rhyme or reason to it. Passing of time is convoluted, it is not clear if the siege of the island took a week or a month, the only indications is that at some point they say that they spend 5 days before the final assault.
There is some irony, like the story of the lieutenant that wanted to blow himself with a tank, didn’t find any tanks, and eventually survived. But there isn’t much.
It’s like two movies rolled into one. First is a school drama about female teacher dating her student, quite badly written. Second is a fenomenal air combat action.
The most interesting aspect is that Val Kilmer is supposed to be the antagonist, but he’s actually the sanest person.
Meg Ryan also surprised me in this one, because I always remembered her as this quite plain pretty face, while here she actually delivers.
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Kyro Malt Rye
4th taster is from Finland. I’ve had rye whiskey before in New York, and it tastes quite similar, like a rye toasted bread. Not my favourite taste. At 47 ABV it leaves plenty of pleasant warmth, though.
Completed Alone in the Dark New Nightmare.
Not sure if the second disc was less play tested, or I just started loosing patience with this game.
The circle of stones stumbled me. Carnby says you need to call Eileen to decipher the inscriptions, but when you do, nothing happens. I thought that maybe the game glitched out on me. Looked into the guide.
But for some reason you need to decide what one of the inscriptions means. Was I supposed to know it somehow?
Then the statue in the greenhouse. I thought I should push it, tried a couple of times, and figured out I must be on the wrong track. Turns out, it needs to be pushed from a perfect angle .
The last part, when you meet with Eileen and run in the caves together is nice, albeit pointless, because soon Edward gets sucked into World of Darkness, all alone again.
At first I thought it’s some Gigerian dimension. But radio with Eileen still works, so it must be just the caves beneath the island. You are given a lighting gun with plenty of ammo to find and what looks like endless enemies. Not exactly “survival horror”.
This entire episode is bizarre, as they rendered a lot of those unique backgrounds. For what? You run through those rooms as fast as possible, just not to fight endless enemies.
You fight Alan who turned into some kind of a gaunt zombie. When you damage him enough, you can grab a spear, which I don’t think was ever mentioned, and stab him to death. Because what is stronger than a rocket launcher? A spear, of course!
I have zero motivation to play the second scenario, which is a shame, really. It does seem like Eileen playthrough would be significantly different. Not only she has a radically different starting point, but also Edward never visits the fort or meets Obed, the less evil brother, for that matter. So some events, like Obed’s transformation, are never explained.
What gave me a real pause was the Library boss. Wasted all my ammo on in on the first try. Then I thought that maybe I’m not supposed to fight it yet, but no, the doors are locked. It does this slomo attack from time to time, but it’s not clear what the game expects me to do. Dodge? After looking in a guide, learned that this is when I’m supposed to counter. Tried it again. Wasted all my ammo again. Finally found a YouTube video that explains that the boss is bugged, and you need to hit it in a particular frame.
Previously I mentioned how ammo in the game is abundant. That’s not exactly true. It just isn’t spread evenly. By the time I got out of the mansion an to the second disc, I was running dry on almost everything.
Speaking of second disc, on GDEmu it’s a bit of a pain. The game only lets you load from the 1st disc, then you need to swap discs, which is done by pressing a button on GDEmu, which doesn’t always work, and if it doesn’t, then you have to reboot, and watch the unskippable sequence again.
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For a Few Dollars More
This one surprised me a lot. Not only because, unlike “For a Fistful of Dollars” it doesn’t repeat any story I know. But because of its characters. First, I’d say Clint Eastwood isn’t the main hero of that story, it’s Colonel Mortimer. He’s introduced first, has far more agency, and a revenge arc. You can argue that Eastwood’s character goes through a development as well, but not as significant. It’s almost bait’n’switch, I’d say: you came for Eastwood, but stayed for Van Cleef.
The second surprise is how diabolically evil Indio is. The last such unapologetically evil character I can remember was Henry Drax played by Farrel in “North Water”. Indio orders family of the man he betrayed shot, and then challenges him to a duel. Here I thought that after the duel, they’ll be shown alive, as just giving more motivation, but no.
Then Indio is showing shooting another woman’s fiance, then raping her. And I thought there will be some story of how she rejected him because he was Mexican or something, but no. He just decided to burglar into someone’s house.
The movie is long, almost two hours, and not entirely for good reasons. Some of the scenes are too long.
I’ve played this reboot on PC many years ago, but haven’t progressed far and don’t remember much.
It seems like a Resident Evil 2 clone, with tank controls, terrible voice acting, and two characters that have different starting points.
At first, I was confused why analog stick doesn’t control the character, only D-pad does. Turns out, analog stick is for flashlight. Which is very neat for 2001, I give it that. The shadows are surprisingly good, and the 3D characters blend with prerendered backgrounds nicely.
Saves are limited by amulets you find. But at least you can save anywhere.
The game tells its story through journals. But it thinks that spitting 17 pages at you is somehow fine.
Unlike Resident Evil, there is plenty of ammo, though. Or so it seems: regular zombie takes three shots from a shotgun.
Of course there are plenty of keys to be found. The problem with them, though, is that the rooms are not labeled, and Edward doesn’t use them automatically. The only clue are the labels on the keys. But the labels are also incorrect sometimes: a key labeled 1st floor opens a door on the 2nd floor.
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MiniDisc
Probably because I watch a lot of retro console mods and repairs videos, I stumbled upon a MiniDisc repair one.
Wait, what’s a minidisc? I thought those are just smaller CD-ROMs in a rectangular case, maybe?
Turns out, it’s more of a HDD, but with a single disc instead of multiple ones. Magnetic, and so rewritable, and with a cache onboard (so it wasn’t just a plastic case), that protected from skipping.
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen one. But then I was never big on music in the first place.
Still, an interesting piece of retro technology.
Many compare this game with Resident Evil, and I can see the resemblance in some of the mechanics: saves use ink, limited discrete inventory (each item takes one cell, be it a rifle or a pack of cigarettes), there are magic boxes to store equipment, and a lot of locked doors.
Combat system is different, though, with charge and stamina for melee weapons, and manual reload after each shot for firearms. You aim with your mouse, but there’s also a charge mechanic there, the reticle becomes smaller the longer you aim. There are also shooting enemies, something rare in original Resident Evil games for obvious reasons.
Story is very grounded. You are a French conscript fighting alongside your brother at Verdun. You are left behind in trenches now patrolled by Germans, and on the lookout for officers, scattered across the trenches in more than one sense, to get the keys for bunkers.
There’s a basic upgrade system, more of Resident Evil 4 than Resildent Evil 2, though, with generic stat boosts instead of custom parts.
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Tacticus.
Unlocked Hascule from the release event:
Unlocked Taumachus and Celestine from a single pull.
This is actually huge, as Celestine is one of the best characters in the game and costs 500 shards, while Taumachus can be useful in the Saim Han Mirror campaign.
First two hits against Celestine completely deflect the damage unto a summoned minion. Which means she is extremely hard to neutralize.
I’d be honest, I paid for Premium for this month, since I was farming Calgar anyway. That guaranteed my unlock of Calgar.
Unlocked Zkar, another Machine of War, from its release event.
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Lego Technics alternatives
Lego Technics sets are pricey. They are aimed at adults, but still, those usually cost around 300GBP. So there are plenty of Lego enthusiast that advocate for alternative brands: CaDA, Guly, Nifeliz, Mould King.
But here’s a thing. A lot of those alternatives don’t come in fancy boxes. Sometimes, you need to pay more to even get a box. Some have missing parts or even missing bags. And most of those models are not licensed: so you have names like Assassin instead of McLaren P1.
And once some of those alternatives like CaDA grow big enough to provide all of the above, guess what? They cost not significantly less.
Completed AirForce Delta.
Despite planes and landscape looking great for Dreamcast, the effects could be better. The explosions look like there’s three frames of animation, and shot down objects straight disappear.
Mission 12, that has you taken down a flying fortress (straight from Ace Combat 1) and a whole base is quite brutal.
But what really got me was Mission 14. It’s “shoot a crashing satelite” mission, but with enemy planes shooting at you. And with an incredibly tight time limit. I seriously considered dropping the game at this point, as it isn’t clear whatever the game wants you to do.
Then there is corridor run, where you fly though a mountain tunnel. But you also have to fight an enemy ace.
Then there is submarine hunt in the Arctic. Somebody was seriously copying Ace Combat 2 homework.
The penultimate mission is a marathon of time and missiles. There are so many targets, even hitting all of them almost depletes your stock, and so many enemies I continuously died from chip damage. And if that’s not enough, there is also a time limit.
Don’t know if it’s just my console, but half of the time I got killed on that mission, I had to hard reset as well.
I actually liked the last mission, though. It’s nothing special, just a duel between you and a fictional plane. But unlike Ace Combat 3 or Ace Combat Zero it doesn’t have any gimmicks like having to shoot it with a machinegun only. Yes, it is frustratingly maneuvrable, but nothing more.
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Resident Evil 2 (2019)
Completed Leon B scenario.
Playing Leon B scenario I can see that the two pistols with different ammo exists here as well. This scenario feels like the toughest yet, I haven’t been running out of ammo or being limited by inventory as much in my previous two runs.
The biggest issue are the lickers. Even upgraded Magnum can’t get them in a single shot, so dealing with two at a time is a problem.
The only improvement is that I learned to fry the plant zombies in the Lab to a crisp, so I don’t waste ammo on them later. Still, I had maybe a clip for Magnum left by the time I reached the train, and no shotgun ammo at all.
Unlike the original, there are less differences in cutsenes. The only major difference is who stabs the final form of Birkin in the eye. With Leon it is even more hillarious, as he blows half the train with a rocket launcher before doing so.
With that, I don’t see a point in playing Claire A, I think I’ve seen enough of that.
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Amrut whiskey
2nd bottle was Teeling, an Irish whiskey I’m familiar with. I usually don’t drink single pot still whiskeys, but this one was quite nice, at 46% ABV. If I was told it’s Scotch, I would have believed it.
So jumping straight to 3rd taster, it’s Amrut. That’s a whiskey I’ve actually been waiting for. As I probably mentioned ready, Scotland and Ireland, best known for their whiskeys, are also the worst countries to make whiskeys. Taiwan, Israel, and now India figured that out. I assume this is the regular Amrut, as there’s just the 46 ABV statement (so not cask strength), and not peat in it (so not the Fusion, I guess). Also, there is no age statement. But, it is great: very sweet and rich, like some of the better sherry Scotch whiskeys. For its price of 43GBP, it’s a bargain.
Not sure if that’s a problem with GDEmu or the game, but I had to go through three different versions until I found one that’s working. First version would show “Please insert a disc”, second version would show the logo on the gamepad, but black screen. Turns out not HDMI adapter uses VGA interface, and not all of Dreamcast games were VGA compatible 🤯
Technically, it’s such a blatant Ace Combat clone I’m not even sure how it exists. The setting of a aerial border conflict between two imaginary nations, the style of the briefings, the music. Even how the reticle changes once you get into machine gun range.
Visually, it is what you’d expect: not as sleek as Ace Combat 4 on PS2, but obviously much more detailed than Ace Combat 3 on PSX. One example is how cockpit hood is transparent here, something PSX wouldn’t be able to pull.
They adopted a system from Ace Combat 2, where if you lose a plane, you need to buy it again. Which is a bit pointless, since you can always load your game.
Like Ace Combat, you carry ridiculous number of missiles. They home much better than in Ace Combat, but it’s a blessing and a curse, because they are also much harder to evade. One quirk I have is how it’s also hard to tell you were hit, there is almost no visual indication.
Of course there is a ravine flight mission. What kind of Ace Combat clone that would be without one?
Ironic that I’ve made the same mistake in this game I’ve once made in Ace Combat 2: kept playing on Novice controls for multiple missions until I understood what’s going on.
Speaking of controls, since Dreamcast didn’t have shoulder buttons, whose aren’t as good as Ace Combat. And unfortunately they also can’t be remapped.
One bit the game added is showing you the attack route on the map. That’s actually a nice touch.
The mission with the trains is impressive. There was a train in Ace Combat 3 already, but here you need to intercept multiple trains coming from different directions.
Last upgrade I planned for my Dreamcast was battery replacement. Dreamcast has a rechargable battery soldered to the board. Once it went dead (and those were made in 1999) the console would ask for a date every single time it boots.
Disassembling Dreamcast is easy. The solder points are also clear and unambigous. But when I tried to boot it, GDEmu would blink (so there’s some current), but the orange light won’t turn on. Turns out, the ribbon cable can be pulled on both ends, and while pulling it from the board, I also half disconnected it from the motherboard.
I also installed OpenMenu, a game dashboard, since GDEmu itself is very bare-bones, and doesn’t even have a list of games.
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Fistful of dollars
After Outlaws remake I suddenly understood I actually haven’t watched any of the classical Westerns as an adult: no Sergio Leone trilogy, no “Once Upon a Time” or “Magnificent Seven”. So I decided to start with Fistful of Dollars.
From the outset, I understood that I’ve seen the Eastern version, Yojimbo, and the version with Bruce Willis, “Last Man Standing”. All the key plots are there: Outsider pitting two rival gangs against each other, moral turning point with Mirasol’s rescue, the recovery in a mine, secret technique (in form of a steel bullet vest) and the final duel.
The dialogue works, because the characters don’t say much. Also, the camera work is interesting, although I’m not sure if it was innovative at the time. What don’t work are the shooting scenes: there’s no blood (cost and censorship), so people just fall akwardly. And those are very, very long. Like I get the soldiers were shot from a gatling gun, no need to spend minutes on that.
Also, the lipsync is completely off, because only Clint Eastwood was speaking English. Everyone else was speaking Italian or German, and later dubbed.
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Resident Evil 2 (2019)
Completed Claire B scenario.
I’m ashamed that it took me so long to understand that those zombies are Dead Space necromorphs, basically. It’s often more efficient to cut their limbs off that to go for a headshot.
I also understood the logic with the .45 and 9mm ammo: it’s the same for grenades. You can only find flame rounds, and you can only craft acid rounds.
In the original, Sherryl pendant contained the vaccine. In the remake, it’s a key to open the vaccine locker.
As I mentioned in the original, Mr X was only chasing Leon, and Birkin was only chasing Claire. In the remake, they actually added a scene where Birkin tears Mr X when he tried to kill Sherryl.
Before the penultimate battle with Birkin Claire is given a minigun. This isn’t explained (in the original minigun was a bonus weapon for New Game+), and Claire doesn’t even seem to be surprised about it.
Finally battle on the train is made much more dramatic, thanks to 20 years of technological advancement and dynamic camera. But it’s still funny (common tropes, I guess) that Claire fires dozen Magnum rounds into monster’s eye, then poket it with a sharp stick, and that’s when the eye explodes.
