Author: TheAleosha

Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date September 3, 2024

I tried to play it many years ago, I think still on original NDS.
The two character mechanic is fun. Second character can take out the smaller annoying enemies or cast spells as you fight.
What I didn’t remember is that the game was leaning heavily into 3D backgrounds. Or maybe I simply didn’t notice on the tiny screen.
The theme of this game is paintings. So besides the usual Dracula Castle, we also have painted worlds we enter, each the size of castle itself. There is European city, Egypt, and so on.
I was enjoying the game until Nation of Fools painting. Castlevania can get quite confusing by itself. With the world at 90 degrees, it becomes simply annoying.
Legion, the ball of bodies, makes a comeback. Waste not, want not. It was giving me a lot of trouble until I discovered Heaven’s sword that wasted it in seconds.

Stella was also lots of trouble for me in her second phase, until I got the Nebula whip that, unlike most whips is Castlevania, actually aims.
Also, I just love this entrance sequence:

Tags Castlevania, Portrait of Ruin

PC Gaming

Intravenous

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date September 3, 2024

Storywise, I’m surprised this turned out to be a vigilante story. Junkies killed your older brother, and now you and your mysterious Accomplice are out for revenge.

The game has all the aesthetics of Hotline Miami, with hard-top-down view, but most of the mechanics from Splinter Cell: light indicator, noise indicator, five move speeds, night vision goggles.
The enemies are also very aware of their surroundings. Leave a door open, and they’ll investigate. Try to close a door while you block it, though, and it won’t. So you end up learning very quickly to close the doors carefully.

You also get to choose from three types of armor, and in general, the more stuff you carry, the more noisy you are, and the slower you move.

Tags Intravenous

*.AVI

John Wick 3

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date September 2, 2024

The movie picks were the previous left. John Wick is hunter my all the world.

Fight in the library is a clear reference to Bruce Lee Vs Kareem Abdul Jabar.

Then we have the famous fight in the antique shop, where John and a bunch of Japanese assassins throw ecsotic knives at each other.
With the stable episode, they really jumped the horse, sorry, the shark. But then at this point I’m not surprised by anything. Only disappointed.
Then there’s the long shootout in Marrakech. I think the only point of it is to show some dogs biting assassins in the crotch. Other than that, it’s not very inventive or entertaining. Look, John Wick looks great because Keanu Reeves takes everything seriously. When we have this “Beyonce”, sorry, Halle Berry, trying to do the same tricks, it is just mockery.

The Guild of Assassins decides to punish everyone who helped Wick in the previous chapter. He in turn travels to speak with the head of the Guild, who’s some kind of beduin. To show his loyalty, Wick has to cut off one of his fingers. The beduin tasks him to execute the Continental manager in turn.

The highlight is two Indonesian fighters from The Raid. It’s a fun fight, which I think everyone enjoyed. That’s why nobody gets killed.

Which cannot be said about Mark Dacascos. I honestly didn’t recognize him. He’s good. As a kid I didn’t understand he’s actually quite a serious martial artist.

And we end up with angry black hobo and Wick planning revenge on the Beduin, I guess?

Tags John Wick

PS4

Persona 3 Reload

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date September 2, 2024

Discovered that unlike Persona 4, which is a port with a few enhancements, Persona 3 was completely remade on PS4, apparently using Persona 5 engine.
It’s unlikely that will ever play this version, though, despite not remember much about the original game. I do remember that the choice of companions annoyed me immensely: a kid, a dog and a robot, to name a few.

Tags Persona

PC Gaming

Battle Isle

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date September 2, 2024

As a kid, I didn’t understand how to play this game at all. But being an old man now, and with my love to the Advance Wars series, I decided to give it another try. Now I understand why I couldn’t play it, and it’s one of the weirdest reasons.

First, the control scheme is weird, and I guess it’s that way because Amiga had a joystick. Instead of simply selecting a unit, you hold LMB then drag it into one of the four directions, and that selects what you want to do with this unit. You drag the mouse left to view unit stats, you drag it right to show the move options. Weird, but probably with joystick it made more sense.

Second, it’s a turn base strategy game, with a screen divided between you and your opponent. After reading the manual and pressing buttons, I figured out that I control both sides. I went into the options to specify that I want to play against the CPU, but there was no such option. Turns out, you need to complete a few maps in “human vs human” mode, like playing chess against yourself, before you can progress and play against CPU. Weird, weird, weird.

The game also has a strange notion of move and attack phases. Basically you can only move on odd turns and you can only attack on even turns. Your units can counterattack unlimited number of times, though.

I still like the visuals of this game. They resemble Dune 2 art style, and units have this retrofuturistic look.

Tags Battle Isle

*.DOC

Dune, Frank Herbert

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date September 2, 2024

Finished listening to Dune a week ago.
I read Dune twice, once when I was 13, another when I was 22. Not is the third time.
It feels like what I’ve read was a strange Russian translation both times, as I didn’t remember most of the nuances.
Storytelling is sometimes weird. For example the fact that Jessica is daughter of Vladimir Harkonen is just a revelation that came to Paul during their escape, without much buildup.
Or like at one point Paul decided to drown a 9 meter long worm and drink the “water of life”, falling into comma for 3 weeks and everyone thinking that Harkonens poisoned him. Like, did you miss 9 meter long worm lying dead there, somehow?
There are interesting nuances I previously missed. Like the fact that Freemen are not just obsessed with water, but with the idea of terramorphin Arakis.
There is much obsession of how Freemen are even better than Sardukar, because both live in harsh environments.
Also, I remembered the obsession with poison needles, and the impression stays. In the last 5% of the book (I know because that’s how the audiobook shows it), first Alia stabs Vladimir Harkonen with it (how did she get it?). Thufir Hawat is ordered by the Emperor to stab Paul with a poison needle, but instead stabs himself as the last act of loyalty. And finally Feyd-Rautha has a poison needle in his tight (sic) when he tried to rub against Paul during his fight.
Alia is such a weird character that I’m glad they didn’t have her directly in the Dune movies. She reminds me of Virgin Mary child stories, where she “destroys adults with facts and logic”. It’s a deus ex machina in a deus ex machina world.
So, the first two movies end exactly where the first book ends. I’ll give “Dune Messiah” a try at some point as well.

Tags Dune, Frank Herbert

Nintendo Switch

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.

*.BAK

Ename Blond

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date August 29, 2024

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.

Tags beer

Nintendo PC Gaming Switch

Castlevania Dominus Collection

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date August 28, 2024
4 Comments on Castlevania Dominus Collection

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.

Tags Castlevania

Nintendo Switch

Diablo 3

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date August 18, 2024

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.

Tags Diablo, Diablo 3

PC Gaming

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.

Tags Mullet Mad Jack

PC Gaming

Cultic

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date August 14, 2024

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:

Tags Cultic

PC Gaming

Cultic

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date August 12, 2024

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.

Tags Cultic

*.AVI

How Dark Reign nearly beat Command and Conquer, Zade

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date August 11, 2024

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.

Tags Dark Reign

PC Gaming

Outer Worlds

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date August 11, 2024

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.

Tags Outer Worlds

*.BAK

Balvenie 14 Year Old Caribbean Cask Whiskey

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date August 10, 2024

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.

Tags Balvenie, whiskey

PC Gaming

Star Wars Outlaws

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date August 10, 2024

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.

Tags Star Wars

PC Gaming

Diablo 4

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date August 6, 2024

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.

Tags Diablo

PC Gaming

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 🤪

Tags Outer Worlds

*.BAK

Berry Bros & Rudd Sherry Cask Whiskey

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date August 2, 2024

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.

Tags whiskey