Author: TheAleosha

*.DOC

Boy and his Dog, Harlan Ellison

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date May 17, 2025

It’s the case where the film is actually better than the novel.
The novel is all told from Vic’s perspective. It is set in a city. Probably the wasteland setting of the film was due to budget constraints. Also, the firefight in the gymnasium doesn’t refer to screamers at all (radioactive ghouls in Fallout universe). Instead, they decide to torch the gym and hide in the boiler room while raiders think that they died and leave them. The main bit that is missing from the novel is the concept of Over the Hill, and the politics of Down Under, “farm” and all. Also, there’s no Michael, the scary enforcer, main “horror” episode in the movie. So it’s a much simpler story, that makes the ending slightly less compelling.

Tags Harlan Ellison

*.BAK

Painting Skaven Deathmaster

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date May 12, 2025

This is the first miniature I’m painting outside of the starter set.
The single miniatures come without instructions, and I even didn’t find a QR code to open them online. So I had to kind of guess how to put it together. And with those miniatures, there’s much more freedom, as you have to glue the pieces instead of just joining them.
Drybrushing worked wonders on that miniature. Maybe because it’s twice as big as the Skaven from starter set. But two layers of base black paint, and then a single layer of grey and white drybrush (Dawnstone, Longbeard Grey, Wrack White) brougth a gradient I wouldn’t ever manage otherwise.

Also, because the miniature is more complex, I could try more contrast paints. Some of them work wonders, some are still quite shitty: Dreadful Visage and Apothecary White are two paints I wouldn’t buy ever again, they are too translucent to be useful.

Despite having 45 paints, I still ran out of them 😆
There are a few reasons for that. First, a lot of my paints are base/layer paints, and not contrast. And this miniature has much more segments than the smaller ones.

Tags Warhammer

*.AVI

Boy and his Dog (1975)

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date May 12, 2025

When I started playing Fallout games back in ’97, I also read through a bunch of postapocalyptic novels. But I skipped “Boy and his Dog” somehow.
Lately, though, I stumbled upon analysis of the movie on YouTube, most likely because I watched a few Fallout 1997 retrospectives from people that discover the original games only now. And after a few minutes of the analysis, I had to watch it.

It’s a terrible movie, so I’m not surprised by the fact that no one ever quoted it. It starts with a gang of bandits raping and killing a random woman, and it doesn’t get any better.

But I can see how entire Fallout sprang from that movie, with peaceful songs accompanying the most brutal scenes. Even the loading screen from Fallout is, and I’m sorry to say it, from a pornographic movie The Boy watches in a theater for a can of sardines.

The Boy is 18 years old, and all he cares about it getting laid. He uses a telepatic connection with his Dog to find women in the Wasteland. And the Dog uses him to aquire food, as with its telepatic abilities, it also lost ability to hunt.

“Rovers” are Raiders. “Down Under” are the Vaults. “Over the Hill” is Eden.

Speaking of Vaults, Down Under is where “We Happy Few” got its inspiration from, most likely. This, and sending people “to the Farm” for infringements. And I guess “Elder’s Proclamation” also influenced Silo.

As I mentioned, the movie is badly acted. The only role worth mentioning is Susanne Benton.

Tags Boy and his Dog

PC Gaming

Greedfall

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date May 12, 2025

I didn’t expect this game to blow me away, but it did. Maybe because the expectations are so low nowadays. But it has this crisp introduction, that clearly outlines the character motivations and the world, without throwing walls of text or monologs at you.

Then it has this ambiguiness in quest design. Early in the game you are asked by Alchemist Guild to unmask a charlatain that sells potions. But turns out he isn’t a charlatain, but a former member of the guild. But turns out that he does sell fake potions. But only because he wants to experiment on people to try and cure the plague. But Alchemist Guild also experiment on people, with deadlier results. But now the townfolk wants to lynch him, because he was selling them fake remedies. And now you decided if you arrest him, or try to sneak him out of the inn he’s holled in, or negotiate with the mob. And all that is just a sidequest.

The fighting system is Assassin’s Creed, although I haven’t played Assassin’s Creed in such a long time it might have a changed since then. Lock, LMB to attack, RMB to parry. There’s also a rage meter that builds up and allows to unleash a more powerful attack. A mechanic I last saw in Mass Effect, I think, is that first you need to strip the armor from enemies with blunt weapons, then switch to swords to finish the job.

Tags Greedfall

PC Gaming

Far Cry 6

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date May 10, 2025

Completed Far Cry 6.
In an uncharasteristic moment, you’re actually given a choice if you want to shoot McKay or not, because he made a deal with the guerillas, actually. I decided to shoot him in the face anyway. He gassed Jonron, and Jonron was a waifu, despite being vegan.
Dani is then captured by the one legged general we’ve only seen in the intro some 50 hours ago. But Diego, dictator’s son, shoots the general in the head, because Dani spared him once. Doesn’t take much to get friends with this guy. Then Anton, the dictator, decided to give Dani a chance, but throws an incideary grenade into the cell. Does he just casually cary those? Also, our weapons don’t even need recovering, but I think the last bit is just laziness from the game authors.
Castillo captures Clara. We’re supposed to care about that, but she’s just a character that doesn’t do anything except introducing us to the world of Yara and then congratulating us on completing each episode. But the game does take the weapons away from us. So they can do it when they care.
We fail to save Clara, and Anton shoots her. We chase him to the top of his tower, where he kills himself and Diego.
This was probably the least satisfying ending in the entire series. For a series that loves to mess with your head, it is just so very bland. I was prepared that Dani is just a plot of Diego imagination, a kid that likes comics and baseball would imagine this guerilla that blows tanks with a minigun. Or that Dani is actually grown up Diego, and all the interjections with Anton are somehow his memories. Or that Clara is just another dictator (she never explains what is her plan after Anton is dethroned), and we have to shoot her just like El Tigre shot Lobo. Or that Diego is actually Vaas (I remember this theory based on the artwork). Or that Diego’s blood is somehow involved in producing Viviro (Viviro was invented 13 ago, same as Diego’s age). Or that Diego kills his father in the end, ending the cycle (we have the bloody gun and the baseball at the title screen after all). But no. They went down with a whimper.

Tags Far Cry

*.BAK

Brigand beer

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date May 7, 2025

As I’m going through my box of Belgian beers, I must say I’m mostly unimpressed. Maybe I’ve changed. Maybe not going with the “mainstream” is a mistake, and those are mainstream for a reason.
Brigand comes from Van Honsebrouck Brewery, best known for Kasteel.
I rememeber liking Brigand, when it still had a distinct bottle.

For some reason, now they have just a generic label that makes you wonder why it’s even called “brigand” in the first place. It’s smooth and nice, and left me more energised than sleepy. But yet again, not something I would buy again.

Tags beer

PC Gaming

Far Cry 6

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date May 7, 2025

Second region is just an exercise in bad writing. We are told that Paolo is indispensable, but the game never actually demonstrates why it is so. What happened to “show, don’t tell”? It’s unsurprising that they killed of the best characters in the game, Jonron and El Tiger. Made all the others look really bad. And those are the only two characters I actually could care about.

Pablo gets captured by The Doctor. Presumably to detransition her? Then when we try to rescue her, the Doctor captures us too, and puts a cellphone with a poison inside our belly. This one of the worst plot twists brings one of the best episodes in the game, where we ride in a car hallucinating our dead friends, that tell Dani he doesn’t care about the Revolution, and just likes shooting people. A very deep self reflection.

Then we cut out belly open and extract the phone. Not clear why it had to be a phone in the first place.
The mission where you have to follow the pipes is kind of okay. At least it’s not capturing yet another base. Then there’s the revelation that El Tigre killed one of his comrades, Lobo, because he was going to become the next dictator. As far as I remember Lobo was the name for Vaas character from Far Cry 3.

Tags Far Cry

Emulation

Cannon Fodder

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date May 5, 2025

Cannon Fodder is a brutal game. I played it as a kid on PC. Then came back to it in my 20’s on SNES, because it had save states. But even that didn’t help me finish it. Now, I’m making 3rd approach, at the very least, on an Amiga emulator, for a killer combination of save states and mouse.
The game might not seem like much at first sight. You point your squad where to go, and they go, and they go. You point where to shoot, and they shoot. They also can shoot on the go.
But soldiers in your squad have intertia. If you point them in a different direction, they will follow your order, but with a bit of a delay. And all it takes for them to die is a single bullet. Or a blast of a rocket. Or a grenade, which is just a few pixels, so hard to spot during a firefight. Or a roof blown from a building, that flies in a random direction. There is a lot of randomness in this game. Even the way your soldiers shoot. It’s not a straight line, but more of a fan-out pattern. Sometimes you hit the enemy first. Sometimes they hit you. And then you have to replay it all over again.

Tags Amiga, Cannon Fodder

PC Gaming

Far Cry 6

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date May 3, 2025

Completed half of the 2nd and 3rd regions, and I already have the entire arsenal unlocked, except the Magic Rifle. There’s literally nothing else to do.

I don’t care to prove this, but I’m pretty sure that stories for different regions were written by different authors. Story of the old guerillas from ’67 is the best one out of the three. Yes, it’s comical, but the entire gameplay is comical, so I don’t mind fighting alongside a crazy cockerel. I hate the band of rappers from the 2nd region, but Jonron and El Tigre are actually quite fun.

And storming the fort episode is awesome. I just wish the game wasn’t bogged by everything else, like capturing 30 checkpoints.

There’s this scene that shows why I appreciate Far Cry:

Yelena is supposed to be a teenager that became a revolutionary after her classmates were hanged by a general for criticizing the government. And what she does after we help her kill the general? Hangs the corpse and takes selfies.

Tags Far Cry

*.BAK

Sherry whiskies explained, First Phil Whisky

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date April 29, 2025

The most interesting bit I didn’t know about is that casks used to make sherry can’t be actually used to make whisky, because they are worn down. Instead, sherry producers specifically season casks for whiskey producers. Basically, they keep sherry in them for 2 years, sell them to whiskey distilleries, then make vinegar our of the sherry.

Tags whiskey

*.BAK

Cutting boards

After the Shun Kai knive I purchased has dulled in just a week, I came to a conclusion that maybe knive hardness isn’t the problem, the boards that I use are. For many years I’ve used sets of plastic boards, latest one from Joseph-Joseph.
There are a few alternatives: hinoki wood, synthetic rubber or wood fiber. I decided to start with later, as the cheapest alternative of the three. Not that it’s particularly cheap: a single cutting board of similar size costs as a set of 4 plastic boards.
Does it work? After a week of using it, I’d say it does. Of course it’s very hard to measure: you don’t always cut the same stuff day after day. But after a week, I still can cut paper ribbons with my knife, and that’s already something.

*.BAK

Malheur 10

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date April 27, 2025

Lately I’ve been trying different Belgian beers I haven’t tried before, and honestly, I wasn’t much impressed with the last few bottles. But Malheur (not to be confused with Melchior, which is also Belgian beer) set me back on the right track. It has some head, but it goes away quickly, leaving you with not very gassy ale that tastes like canned peaches to me, mostly. A lucky find, and now I hope to try Malheur 12.

Tags beer

*.AVI

Last Duel

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date April 27, 2025

Not the movie I expected. It is confusing at first, with sudden time jumps that are hard to follow, and the storytelling feels rushed, despite the movie is some 2:30 hours long. But it becomes more interesting as you begin to notice discrepancies between depictions of same events from different character perspective.

The movie dedicates a lot of attention to the role of woman in the 14th century. A woman cannot appeal to court without her husband’s approval. Rape is not offence against the woman, but agains her husband. And, of course, sentence for a woman who wrongly accuses someone of rape is to be burned at a stake.
The duel is indeed impressive. It’s chaotic and brutal. A horse can run into a wall or trample a squire or hit you with its hoove. And they use “halfsword” grip a lot, because they are so close. All this from almost static camera.

And it surprised me that they didn’t chew on the implications of mother’s role in the events at all, leaving it all to be deduced.

*.BAK

Painting Skaven

Finished painting last skaven out of 20 today. All that’s left now is to paint and clean the bases.
I ended up with more than 40 paints. Some of them are a disappointment, especially the Volupus Pink I’ve been hearing so much about. It’s not pink, it’s purple. And I needed pink for the tails, which was the most time-consuming part.
I didn’t have any reason to rush this. A single rat takes between one to two evenings to paint. I also was taking breaks to wait for new brushes and paints to arrive to experiment. And I switched from layer to contrast paints half the way through, which I’m quite happy with.

Tags Warhammer

PC Gaming

Oblivion Remastered

I stopped reading gaming news altogether shortly after war in Ukraine broke out, and haven’t really read them since.
So the remaster of Oblivion came as a surprise to me. And it seems I’m not the only one, news sites or no.
I played Oblivion a lot in the day, “in the day being” July 2007, and “a lot” being for probably two weeks. But I never finished it, for the game ending up being too repetitive with the enemy scaling with you making the whole leveling up process quite pointless. Not sure if I’d give it a go now, but some YouTubers are sure gushing about it a lot.

Tags Elder Scrolls, Oblivion

*.BAK

La Guillotine, Huyghe Brewery

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date April 25, 2025

Huyghe Brewery is best known for its amazing Delirium line of beers, or “the beer with the pink elephant”, but it’s not the only beer it produces.
One example is Averbode I reviewed last year, and another, and maybe better known, is the La Guillotine.
It’s an golden ale, a style that I like very much.
Delirium, in comparison, has the same ABV, 8.5%, but is a pale ale. Pale ales should be generally more bitter than golden ales.
But here’s a catch: Delirium is considered sweet for pale ale, while La Guillotine is considered bitter for golden ales, so all in all, Delirium is sweeter than La Guillotine. Go figure.
In any case, I would pick Delirium over La Guillotine.

Tags beer

3DS Nintendo

Link between Worlds

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date April 23, 2025

Completed Link between Worlds.
One trope I always forget in Zelda games is that if you sprint into an obstacle, you may knock off whatever is on top of it. This works for upgrade snails that sit on top of trees, for example. Not sure if this mechanic was implemented anywhere besides Minish Cap and this game. But at least here it’s not required to complete the main plot.
Lorule Castle makes you repeat four bosses. But it’s not a rush, the bosses are in different sections of the castle, and you can save in between.
Then you have to fight Yuga, the huge swine. In the first phase you just hit him in the face. In the second you have to play pinball, reflecting the projectile multiple times. Then he turns into a mural, and you get a bow that can shoot murals. Overall, it’s a nice fight, although I must confess I bruteforced it by stocking on healing potions.
Rovio, the rabbit guy that was selling you stuff, turns out to be Link from the other world. He convinces Hilda to stop trying to steal the Triforce, and instead, Zelda and Link use their wish to grant Lorule their own Triforce.
Interesting final bit, as far as Zelda stories go, that is, is that Link returns the Master sword into the stone. Presumably for the next Link to get it out again. The vicious cycle continues, so to say.
Speaking of the sword, I never found the last piece of ore for the final upgrade. Didn’t remember which dungeon I had to repeat to get it.

Tags Legend of Zelda, Link between Worlds

*.BAK

Achel Tripel

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date April 23, 2025

I love Belgian beers and love Trappist ales, so I grabbed this Achel Tripel to try. Tastewise, it didn’t impress me much. I was drinking it alongside Grimbergen, and the later has more flavour with less ABV. It does provide tons of sleepiness, though. I was still feeling it’s effect after 3 hours.
Maybe I’d enjoy it more if I’d cool it properly. This one I had room temperature, because it was a last minute decision. But I probably wouldn’t bother buying it again, honestly.

Tags beer

*.AVI

Outlaw King

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date April 16, 2025

Some good actors (Florence Pugh, the guy from Dungeons&Dragons, Stannis Baratheon) and surprising attention to historic accuracy (William Wallace wasn’t a pict, and they weren’t wearing only browns in Medieval times). But I can’t help but feel that it should have been a miniseries, due to the density of events. Robert’s loses most of his army, his wife is taken hostage and two of his brothers killed in span of 20 minutes. And those two brothers are half the way across Scotland!
The most ridiculous scene, when Robert stabs his competitor in the church is historically accurate.

Honestly surprised they managed to pull the final battle. Very impressed.

PC Gaming

Far Cry 6

Not sure what’s worse: a “helicopter boss” or not having a boss at all.

Usually, the most devastating LMG in Far Cry is MG42. Not this time, this time we get a minigun, if handicrafted. And a sniper rifle that shoots explosive darts. I didn’t say there are no cool weapons in this game.

Second region is big on LGBT agenda. How do you know Paolo is trans? Don’t worry, “he” will tell you. As will “his” doctor, that is very proud of top surgery he performed. And there’s also two lesbians to save. You need to save them not because they are opposing the regime, but because they are lesbians. That’s what I call “subtle writing”.

Tags Far Cry