Author: TheAleosha

Categories
PC Gaming

Hades

Immensely enjoying it so far. Got past the second boss, Hydra. But my true love is the first boss, Megaera, or simply Meg. Well, not only mine. That’s why it’s even an option to romance that “tsundere”.

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Got to the 3rd boss on my 3rd run, so I thought that maybe I’m getting a hang in it. But no, next two runs got wasted by the 1st boss.

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I have the best runs with the ranged weapons in the meantime: the Spear and the Shield mostly. The Sword and the Claws require to get “in the face”, and take some damage as a result. And the Bow doesn’t deal enough damage.
Managed to beat the pair of 3rd bosses only on the 16th run or so. With the Shield, no less. But that’s because I got extra lucky. First, I got the extra-life refill from Patroclus. And then I smashed Artemis’ Call in the very last moment, when I was one hit away from final death.

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Categories
PC Gaming

Metal Gear character inspirations

Not sure how true it is, but love it anyway!

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Hardware

Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra

The really groundbreaking feature of this phone is its camera.
At first I wasn’t impressed. Yes, it takes rather bright photos at night, but that’s it.
But then I zoomed to see the moon, and… wow:

And this one was taken from some 50 meters away, across the canal.

Categories
*.BAK

Jack Daniel’s Single Barrel Select

May be an unpopular opinion, but Jack Daniel’s Single Barrel is a fantastic whiskey for its price, which is around 40GBP.
I prefer it over both Woodford Reserve and Four Roses Single Barrel bourbons.

Categories
*.AVI

Lighthouse (2019)

Mundane horror, is that even a thing? Not so much about monster or psychopaths, but about guilt, loneliness, fatigue.

Very loosely based on Smalls Lighthouse Tragedy. The original lighthouse wasn’t even on an island. It was a cabin standing in the middle of the sea. That is why, when one of the Thomases died, the other one came up with the idea of building him a coffin and securing it OUTSIDE.

The real life story took place in 1800, while the movie takes place around 1890. This is probably to introduce the wicked machinery, and especially the horn, a sound that surely could drive anyone crazy after a time.

Filmed in black and white, and in 4:3 aspect ratio, and with a grain film effect on the top.


The starting scene impressed me. While the previous shift carry their luggage together, the new shift are separate.


I didn’t get most of the references. Well, I didn’t get half of what the characters were saying, really, without the subtitles. There is Moby Dick, and probably Prometheus at the very end, but that’s about it.

 

There is an interesting look into a structure of a lie. At one point Thomas says that the previous keeper went crazy, believed that something got into the lighthouse. While in fact he’s the one that believes in it.


Some of the monologues do sound Lovecraftian, and Eggers admitted that it was intentional. But the more I think about it, the more it seems that this is just a story of going mad from everything around you: the abuse, the solitude, the harsh conditions and too much alcohol.

At the beginning of the film Ephraim is bullied by a one-eyed seagull. Later Thomas tells him that seagulls are souls of dead sailors. And then Ephraim tells Thomas that he has found the “head of your one-eyed wickie”. We also see glimpses of Thomas stabbing something or someone with a harpoon. So I would hazard a guess that the previous wickie wasn’t one-eyed his entire life, but probably got pocked by Thomas during an intercourse with a mermaid.

Also worth noticing is how the cabin is a reflection of the mental state of Ephraim. At first he tried to fix and clean it, but after he starts drinking, the roof begins to leak, and there is the final episode of ocean bursting the window: going completely crazy metaphor.

Thomas getting angry with Ephraim for not liking his cooking, and especially the lobster: sea god furious with rejecting his gifts. That’s why Thomas literally curses Ephraim.

 

 

Categories
PC Gaming

Hero’s Hour

Clearly inspired by earlier Heroes of Might and Magic or maybe even Kings Bounty. And with impressive 12 factions, most of them taken directly from HoM&M3.

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Visually, it is much more primitive than gorgeous Heroes of Might and Magic, though. Much closer to Master of Magic in the art style.

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The fights are real-time, and remind me of Lord’s of the Realm more than anything. With the hero participating in the fight as well. The control is indirect, with you just able to place the units (fighters at the front, archers at the back), and give them general direction of attack.

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The real downside is, like with many other indie games, there is only skirmish. No campaign whatsoever. And skirmishes get boring very quickly.

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There’s also treasure hunting and obelisks with hints, just like in HoM&M series. The artifact that you end up finding is not a game-changer, from what I could tell, though.

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Categories
Nintendo

Auto Modellista

Racing game from Capcom from the 2000’s that is best known for using the popular at the time cel-shading technique. There are lots of cars available from the get go, including some top-tier ones, not just trash cars like you start with in some more realistic racing games.


The problem is that the driving itself is not very enjoyable. Cars are hard to handle, and I’m not sure what the game expects you to do about it.

 

Categories
Hardware

Neo Geo MVS misadventures

My misadventures with Neo Geo console continue.
I bought it back in May, from Spain.
For the first day or so it had a distorted image, which is a known problem.
Then the image disappeared completely, showing just a bit of garbage.
I’ve sent it for repairs, and it got stuck in Spanish customs from 5th of June, until the 29th of July, when they decided that they don’t want to accept my customs declaration, and shipped it back.
Now it’s still on its way back, and I was told that it should arrive “in a week or two”.
Yes, a single day of happiness, three months of waiting. And when I finally receive it, it will still be the same malfunctioning console, which I’ll have to find a way to fix myself now.

Categories
Hardware

Keychron K1

I decided to replace Keychron K8 with a low-profile Keychron, and stay with TKL.
Between K1 and K1 SE I decided to go with the original K1, because I like to keep my keyboard flat, and for some reason I’m more attracted to the aluminium body, and not a plastic one.
Keychron K1 gets everything right. It’s a total joy to work with. I went for the red switches, and they are pleasantly quiet. Also, the charging port is at the right place, on the back of the keyboard, and not on the left side.
I was surprised by the amount of lighting effects this keyboard has. Especially because I tend not to use lighting effects at all.
Maybe later I’ll replace ABS keycaps with PBT ones. But in the meantime, I like the smooth feel of ABS’s.

Categories
PC Gaming

XCOM Chimera Squad

Completed XCOM Chimera Squad.
As I thought, Progeny arc is much easier. At least you don’t have to fight a boss and another super-tough enemy in the same encounter.

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A slight disappointment is that you cannot get all of the agents in a single run. I ended up not picking Zephyr and Claymore, and never got to see them in action.
Godmother’s “Untouchable” skill (which existed in XCOM 2 as well) is fantastic. Once she neutralizes an enemy, she gets invulnerability until the end of the turn. But other enemies don’t know it, and still shoot at her, wasting their ammo.
Another awesome skill is Blueblood’s “Faceoff”:

Story is a big letdown. So the entire game we try to “investigate” three different gangs in order to figure out which gang assassinated the mayor. But in the end – none of them. It all was the “evil mercenaries” plot, albeit we hardly heard about them the entire game. And the way we discover that plot is through mercenaries storming the city council in broad daylight. Because… why not?!

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Overall, I felt like the game became repetetive far too quickly. Which is a shame.

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Categories
*.DOC

Breakfast of Champions, Kurt Vonnegut

Finished listening to Kurt Vonnegut’s “Breakfast of Champions” about a week ago.
As I mentioned, it is a non-fiction posing as a fiction, most of the fictionary stuff happening in the heads of different characters, either because they mentally ill, or write for a living.
The idea of Dwayne Hoover thinking about everyone else as “unfeeling machine” and only him having a free will is the basic concept of sociopathy. This is the definition of it, as far as I know.
The eponymous “Breakfast of Champions” is just a joke a waitress used to make when serving alcohol in the morning. Substance abuse is yet another novel’s theme.
It was an interesting read, because it’s a “zeitgeist”, a timecapsule of what social issues the author worries about exactly 50 years ago. And by far and large, those aren’t much different from today.

Categories
PC Gaming

Cycle Frontier

Love the style, love how weapons look and feel, hate permadeath mechanics.

 

Would be great if it was a singleplayer game. But I got shot in the head by some random Chinese dude on my first run, and lost all of my equipment. Not fun. Actually, I got so frustrated by that interaction I almost went and shot another random dude myself. Stopped myself just in time, though.

 

Also, probably there’s an idea behind not having mission markers, but I don’t have patience for this.

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Categories
PC Gaming

XCOM Chimera Squad

There’s a huge difficulty spike at the end of first act. At least if you decide to fight Sacred Coil faction first, as I did. First two fights are easy. But the boss attacks four times, inflicts status, and you also need to beat Gatekeeper, one of the toughtest enemies from XCOM 2. It all came down to luck, when Axiom, my melee brute, knocked down one of the bigger enemies on the first turn. Then Verge was able to “berserk” enemy flamethrower. And the boss simply got stuck on the ladder. Still, it was a very frustrating fight.

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The situation with equipment is pretty sad. There is Regular Assault Rifle, Enhanced Assault Rifle and Mastercrafted Assault Rifle (lulwat?). And I’m not even sure those are different in terms of looks. The only bright side is that after completing Act I you start getting some missions with unique weapons available. Those not only look unique, but also have unique abilities.

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Categories
PC Gaming

Hades

AI find it very befitting myself that I started playing Hades a while ago, decided to play Transistor first, and then never came back to it. Well, until now.
Hades absolutely deserves all the acclaims it gets. Characters are very British despite being Greek gods and whatnot. The genre, roguelite, is certainly not my cup of tea, but I’m willing to enjoy it for all the art and humor and voice acting.
The game turned out to be more about shooting stuff than what I had expected. Or maybe it’s just my play style. But since there are a few opportunities to heal, it’s best to keep away from enemies.

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Categories
PC Gaming

No Ghost Recon Breakpoint for me

I was absolutely sure I had both Ghost Recon Wildlands and Ghost Recon Breakpoint bought on one of the platforms.
But either I forgot where I bougth them, or I was mistaken, as they aren’t on Uplay for sure.
I don’t care about those games enough to buy them (again?), though.

Categories
Hardware

Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra

I ended up ordering my next phone, Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra, from Hong Kong. Hong Kong uses UK standards, but the phones ship with Snapdragon CPU instead of Equinox. And the price is lower by some 10 to 20 percent. So, you end up getting a more powerful phone for less. A no brainer, really.
It took 10 days for the phone to arrive. Looks legibly sealed, so if it was tampered with, someone at TechInTheBasket did a great job to conceal it.
There is a bit of bloatware, but it’s easy to uninstall.
Fingerprint sensor works great. It’s super fast and recognizes both hands well enough for now.
Camera hole in the middle of the screen is slightly annoying, but that’s the norm nowadays.
Funny, but it seems to be nearly impossible to operate this phone without a case. All the lenses are on one side, and stick out too much.

Categories
PC Gaming

About Street Fighter 6

Juri is confirmed for Street Fighter 6:

That’s all you need to know to buy it now.

Categories
PC Gaming

Diablo Immortal

Guess who got 3 4 similar legendary helmets now…
On the flipside, Blizzard is surprisingly generous about some aspects of the game. For example, you need to get every legendary item only once in order to keep its effect. You can “extract essence” in Westmarch, and after that you can always imbue another legendary item with this trait.
I like comparing how character look evolves in Diablo. But after you reach maximum level and start accumulating Paragon points, it stops being interesting. Your character just stocks on all-legendary equipment, which defines most of their looks. You don’t look that way because it’s cool, but simply because you need a trait from that particular piece.

That also means that if you play Diablo Immortal enough, you’ll know which traits are equipped on each character simply by looking at them. I won’t mistake that bucket helm or that armor for any other now.

Categories
PC Gaming

XCOM Chimera Squad

An interesting XCOM 2 spinoff. Events take place after XCOM 2. Humanity won, and now humans, aliens and hybrids all live in the same megapolis.
The game is slightly more story driven than the original XCOM.

Game mechanics are mostly focused around breaching. Different points of entry, each granting different bonuses, like extra damage for the first turn.

And we have aliens of all kinds in our squad, which is always fun.

Our squad is basically a SWAT team. So much more emphasis on close combat, and even on capturing enemies alive.

All characters are unique, and loosing one means Game Over. I got woman-snake as my first hire, not because she’s efficient, but because she’s fun to listen to.

The only annoying bit is that enemy reinforcements seem to be endless.

Categories
Emulation XBOX

Project Gotham Racing and Forza Motorsport

I already wrote that I tried out Forza Motorsport on Xemu emulator a few days ago. Now, I decided to compare it with Project Gotham Racing, another predecessor of my much beloved Forza Horizon. And I was surprised how a more realistic Forza Motorsport plays better than “arcadish” Project Gotham Racing.

Now, to be clear, I suck at racing games. The only two racing games I ever finished, I think, are Need For Speed: The Run and Forza Horizon. And that’s only because both had rewinds.
But still, Forza Motorsport feels so much better thanks to its guidelines mechanic.

It also is emulated better at the moment. Project Gotham Racing has some issues with either depth of render or transparency, but on one of the tracks I’ve seen trees disappearing and appearing again. And also it seems there’s an issue with shadows from the cars, so cars seem to hover, never touching the track.

An issue both games share, and that’s because it’s the same engine, I would guess, is that during replays there are strange black bars at the top and bottom of the screen. Guess it’s some transparency issues again.