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Author: TheAleosha
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Breakers Revenge
Everyone knows I love finding obscure fighting games. Some of them has cool ideas. Breakers Revenge is not one of them.
This feels like a proper Super Street Fighter 2 clone. With a very predictable set of characters and set of moves.
There is a Blanka clone.
A Ryo-karateka (literally called Sho!).
A Bruce Lee.
And a Chun Lee, or a combination of Chun Lee and Cammy, to be honest.
And a Dhalsim, who’s now Egyptian. A couple of characters have weapons, but this doesn’t influence the gameplay, as far as I can tell.
The animation is not bad, though, which surprised me. Animation is the most expensive part of every fighting game.
The controls are also kinda okay. I mean, most of the moves are regular QCF/QCB, and I was able to execute them quite consistently.
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Love, Death & Robots
Love, Death & Robots turned out to be a fantastic discovery. It’s a collection of sci-fi animated shorts, about 10-20 minutes each. So we can decide how many to watch each time.
I roughly divide those animations into two: “funny” and “scary”.
Just to keep track of what we watched so far:
Beyond the Aquila Rift – scary, with some Dead Space vibes.
Three Robots – funny, Pixar-like
Ice Age – funny, and mostly live-action, with just a bit of CG
Zima Blue – a very strong classical sci-fi. Made me break a tear
Sonnie’s Edge – cyberpunk Pokemon and Dishonored. Absolutely brilliant
Secret War – technically brilliant, with a nice side twist, but a bit hollow
When the Yogurt Took Over – another funny one
Sucker of Souls – this one couldn’t decide if it wants to be funny or scary. Some inventive animation tricks, like splitting of the Korean student, but overall, one of the weakest yet
With a lot of cursing, I also managed to beat the third boss:
The bosses design is great, but they have too much HP, or the character doesn’t deal enough damage. Instead of being a glass cannon, like in many other Souls-like games, you are taking potshots at the bosses most of the time.
There are tons of sidemissions, which occur on the same levels as the main ones, but at different times of the day, and with different starting locations and blocked paths.
Must say that I don’t particularly enjoy that game, though. Apart from how fragile the hero is, you also need to manage all those weapons that are dropped randomly, which is simply not fun. A shame, I liked the character design a lot. But life is too short.
Those usually go uncredited around Facebook and Twitter.
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Beauty and the Beast Musical
This Friday we went to see “Beauty and the Beast” Musical at London Palladium.
The tickets said that the show starts at 19:30, so I expected it to start around 19:45. But when we arrived at 19:25 they were already ushering everyone inside. And the show started just in time.
First thing I was impresed with is the actor that played Gascone. The guy had huge biceps, just like in the cartoon. Did they audition actors based on their bicep size? Did he had to go through specific kind of training for the role? Of course everyone remembers Christian Bale and Joaquin Phoenix for their transformations, but I didn’t expect something like that from a musical.
Belle’s role seemed very challenging to me as well. She has to act, she has to sing pretty difficult parts (I have zero understanding in music and singing, they just seemed difficult to me), and in addition, she also has to be able to dance can-can with others.
There were a lot of kids at the show. After all, it’s a Disney musical, right? But I’m not sure they much into can-can. And some other themes, like Lumiere’s infidelity or Madame de la Grande Bouche exposing herself playfully.
They invested a lot into different accents. Babette is clearly French, while Mrs. Potts and Cogsworth are very much British.
There’s a great tradition of selling icecream during the entr’acte in the UK. There’s usually a queue, and we end up picking between the flavours that are left. This time we decided to use the opportunity and order it ahead of time, so we get what we want. But how do we tell which order is ours? Turns out they just leave everything on the bar counter, with receipts telling which is which. Relying on the fact that nobody would steal someone else icecream.
Musical uses flashlights for some of its effects. You get a bright flash at the very beginning, when prince transforms. At the end of the musical there is another set of flashes when the prince transforms back. Some girl cried “Jeeesus”, in a very British tone. Don’t remember when I laughed so hard the last time.
Overall, it was absolutely spectacular. Maybe not as inventive as the Lion King musical, but somewhat more impressive in some aspects, like the pink curtain falling during “Be Our Guest” or the mug dance of “Gaston”.
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Shadow and Bone S01
During the flight last week, I finished watching the first season of Shadow and Bone.
British actors cosplaying the Russian Imperial Army? Not as bad as it sounds.
The main plotline is that some time ago a dark mage has created The Fold, which is basically a Chernobyl-like zone full of flying monsters. This Fold is stuck in between multiple countries, and each country needs a way to find a way across it and not to be eaten by monsters.
The better part is that there are more than two sides to the conflict, more than two countries in this world. There’s Ravka, the “Tzarist Russia” that uses mages, there’s some kind of Skandinavish country that hunts them because that’s their religion, there’s England/Netherlands (Ketterdam) and also some Ravkan separatists. And Shu, which is Asians, as Indian Sulu.
The characters and dialogues are quite good. Except for the main heroine, who is basically a Messiah. Foretold by legends, with a unique gift, that would change the world. Honestly, I wish she would just stay a cartographer.
The main problem is that the plotline quickly slides into “Girl picking between Her Childhood Sweetheart and a Dark but Handsome General Mage”. Also, there is a lot of time spent on that magician that can conjure clothes and makeup. I kid you not.
I also liked that the series doesn’t try to preserve characters too much, offing them rather quickly sometimes.
The costume work is impressive, and actors play surprising well, compared to some horrendous works from Wheel of Time. Someone also paid serious attention to the fighting scenes, so those don’t look like people pulling each other’s arms.
Finally, the humor is not spectacular, but it will do:
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Diablo Immortal
Talismans are just dumb. 2% to a random skill. What?
Of course there’s a fight with the Butcher…
By 56th level we are reaching Scarn, the demon lord that was introduced as the main villain. Turns out he kidnaps angels and tortures them in order to create a demon army. Don’t ask me how that works. Along the way we beat huge worm and a dark angel. Those fights are pretty good!
For some reason we need to bomb some furnaces, and we use the angelic dagger as a kind of HIMARS to do that.
But that was all Scarn’s plan, you see, as he wanted to taint the dagger by soaking too much of the demon’s essence. So, he now can steal the dirty dagger. We pursue him and beat him to death. He isn’t very tough, unless you’re playing on your phone, I guess. Attack patterns are very similar to Diablo from Diablo 2 (I don’t really remember Diablo from Diablo 3). Especially the laser beam attack.
The dagger is still tainted, though. So it shatters alongside the last Worldstone fragment we also took away from Scarn. But now new weird stuff is happening: Diablo’s spirit returns.
I’m not entirely sure how a demon has a spirit, but whatever.
Completed Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia.
Took me almost 4 months, albeit with pauses. Started to play it in March, and completed it just now.
Decided to play this game after completing Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. It was a mistake to try in play it on the original hardware, though. First, NDS can’t take screenshots. The game is gorgeous, but I can’t prove that now. Second, there are considerable slowdowns when there are a lot of moving objects on screen, which make some boss battles frustrating.
But first things first.
Bloodstained’s heroine was an exact copy of Shanoa, heroine of the Order of Ecclesia. Up to color of her dress and the tattoo on her back.
There’s no difference between weapons and spells now, or as they called here glyphs. A rapier, called Confodere, or a hammer, called Macir, use the same mana as a lightning bolt. Mana recovers quickly after a brief rest, very similar to endurance in Dark Souls series.
Different from most other Castlevania series, instead of a huge castle, there are a lot of discrete locations. All of them are rather small, and some of them also quite linear, even corridor-like.
In terms of pixelart, this is the swan song of NDS. The next Castlevania game will be already a 3D one. And Prison Island is simply a muscle flex, with it’s hand drawn lighting and shadow effects.
In terms of combat system, at a certain point I felt that they should have called it “Order of the Axe”. Seriously, Axe glyph rules the midgame. I always found axes in Castlevania games awkward. But in Order of Ecclesia they simply… work? You can hit enemies above or below you, which is great. You can also hit bosses multiple times, because their sprites are so big. Guess the game also helps you a bit in aiming your throws.
Crab boss was easy, except for the slingshot parts. You need to drag your character down in order to go up the Lighthouse. But then the boss is also beneath you. If you fall, you touch it. One touch, and you’re basically dead, caught in a damage loop.
Maneater boss was a lot of trouble for me due to its random moving patterns, and a lot of flying debris causing lots of damage. Then I discovered I have missed the light magic, Luminatio, at the top of the Lighthouse. I actually went all the way up, but then the elevator glitched, and went all the way down, so I assumed you need to do something special in order to fix it. Turns out it works just fine on the second try. And by mashing double light magic, the Maneater boss went down on my first try.
Not sure if I’ve “got” the game after that, but I enjoyed Russalka, Goliath and the “sand shark” bosses immensely.
I also feel that the game is slightly easier than other Castlevania games. A lot of glyphs have a rather wide arc, so you don’t have to position yourself that much. You can hit enemies standing above or below them, out of their reach. Unlike Symphony of the Night, where you had to get “in their face” all the time. And there are even some homing glyphs.
Also, the good ending is slightly more obvious than in some other Castlevanias, as I have missed just two villagers in my first attempt, and I was doing that without a guide.
Barlowe was a huge pain for me. Lots of well timed jumps, especially in his second phase, when he starts to dash at you. Fail any of the five jumps, and you’ll be stunlocked, and probably loose around 50% of your total health. Ended up stocking on healing potions, just to get past him.
The next boss, Wallman, is a clever reference to Konami’s own Bomberman, by the way.
I really hate when others say “you haven’t seen the game until you do X”, but in case of Eclessia, it is quite true. You haven’t seen the true Castlevania until your reached the castle. And you reach the castle only if you head for the true ending.
Blackmore boss’ design is absolutely awesome: evolution of “not shadow effect” we’ve seen back on Prison Island. But the necessity of constantly staying in the air was quite tiring. I wish I didn’t play this part on the original console.
Eligor was a pain in the ass for me for a few evenings. I almost dropped the game at that point. It’s a long fight with four phases. The boss is huge, but with only a few vulnerable points that are hard to reach. What changed the fight completely for me was the Melio Ascia glyph (throwing axe). It drops very rarely, so I had to farm for 30 minutes for it. But once I’ve got it, destroying centaur’s crossbows is a breeze.
I literally cheated death by cheating the Death boss with the Death ring. Sorry, not sorry. That ring doubles your damage, but you die from a single hit. Unless you unequip it in time…
Final boss, Dracula was super annoying. He hits hard, and his patterns are very hard to avoid, compared to any other boss in the game. I tried to soak damage using the best shield, but the slowdowns in this fight are so bad and he hits so hard I still couldn’t beat him for a few evenings. Had to farm for an hour to level up and get tons of gold. And then used the same trick as in Bloodstained: stocked food items. All the food items I could get. That did the trick. Glad it’s not Hollow Knight!
Going back to pixelart for the last time: Dracula’s cloak is simply mindblowing.
Finally managed to beat the first boss, Lich. With a Warrior, no less. Guess “slow and steady wins the race”, as they say.
Got the necromancer class. On one hand, it is a fun class, because unlike the other two it relies on summoning skeletons. On the other hand, it is much slower to play. Summoning skeletons takes a lot of time.
Beaten the second boss, the angel, on my first try. But that’s due to the fact I got a bit lucky and picked the reincarnation trait that run, whatever it is called (it’s called Omicron’s Technique).
Funny how unepic this game is. In other games your last buildings would be something like Grand Library or Royal Armory. Here your final buildings are: woodman hut and a bridge. A fucking bridge.
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Sunglasses
Recently I decided to buy a new pair of sunglasses. And it turns out it’s not a simple task. You can easily buy “some” sunglasses. After all, that’s how I bought my previous pair. But if you have some particular functionality in mind, it becomes nearly impossible.
Even such a trivial task as finding polarized glasses is tricky. I guess the reason is that while I view sunglasses as something utilitarian, others treat them as fashion accessory. So, you can browse them by shape, you can check how they would fit you in your browser, but you won’t be able to figure out if the lenses are polycarbonate or cheap plastic.
I don’t care how those look on me. I don’t care if they flatter my face. I care that they won’t scratch after I bump my head once or twice.
But that’s what you’ll usually see:
https://www.framesdirect.com/rec-specs-liberty-sport-switch-h-wall-wrap-sunglasses
There’s “Frame Shape” and “Frame Type”, but you can figure out those are polarized only by looking at the pictures.
I ended up buying Tribord sunglasses at Decathlon. At least I know those are polarysed, and that they cover the eyes alright. Some sunglasses seem to forget that their goal is that sunshine doesn’t get into my eyes, you see.
And once I scratch them too much, I’ll just have to buy another pair 🤷♂️
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Neo Geo Arcade Stick Pro
Got myself Neo Geo Arcade Stick Pro in good condition from eBay a few weeks ago.
I knew it was big, but I didn’t think it would be so heavy, though. They literally put a metal plate in it to make it heavier, which is quite a common practice, AFAIK:
It’s also very tall. Which is alright if you put it in your lap, but less so if you use it to play on PC and put it on your desk.
There are 40 Neo Geo games in total, and those are Japanese versions. So there’s blood in Metal Slug, but also, the names are all kanji.
The emulator is Final Burn Alpha, pretty standard stuff. There are a couple of basic filters. Smoothing uses something like SuperEagle/SaI algo, so it completely ruins mesh details such as Hanzo’s arms in Samurai Shodown.
Since it uses Final Burn Alpha under the hood, there’s also a hack that allows you any game from any of the platforms this emulator supports. Even CPS3. Yes, you can run Street Fighter 3 on it, and it runs smoothly.
Having said that, I will probably sell it at some point, as it takes a lot of space, and doen’t have any advantages compared to my PC and Hori Fighting Stick.
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Return of the King
It becomes a good tradition to finish watching an awesome movie or TV series before a flight.
This time we finished Lord of the Rings trilogy.
The battle scenes still send shivers down the spine, even 20 years after.
Didn’t remember that Faromir survives the skirmish. Also, I didn’t remember Mouth of Sauron at all. Looks like someone from Guillermo del Toro movies.
I liked elephant riders. They looked like someone who is enjoying doing their job well.
I tried not to dwell too much on why Legolas have that feat of climbing up a running elephant, while all the other elves are rather… unremarkable.
The amount of work that went into the orcs in this film is simply astonishing. They are all very distinct and different. Absolutely amazing.
I also liked that moment of astonishment on trolls face. This is literally just a second. Marvel at the amount of attention to details:
When the eagles flew in, I almost cried, for real. It was so moving.
Not sure if that was the intention even 20 years ago, but Merry and Pippin sure look like a gay couple in some of the scenes:
And Frodo evacuation scene looks like helicopter airlift:
When the four hobbits are sitting back in the Green Dragon pub, they look like four war veterans with PTSD.
And when Frodo later in his home, he looks like someone with depression and deeply suicidal.
All those notes aside, this was a fantastic experience. I’m glad we started it.
Feels like on of those “idle” games popular on mobile phones. But without the donation part. There’s a character with indirect control.
The only things you can control is the character equipment, and even that works in a weird way. Once you replace piece of equipment, it doesn’t return to your inventory, but simply disappears.
Also, if your inventory overflows, items will start disappearing as well.
There is no experience until later in the game, once you build a specific building. And once you get the experience bar, it doesn’t affect your character stats, but only allows to pick a perk once the character gets a level-up.
So what you do most of the time, when you don’t pick the next piece of equipment, is building the world around the character. You do that from cards that you pick off the fallen enemies. Of course the cards are random. Everything in this game is random. So, you get to pick which enemies you’ll encounter, for example.
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Diablo Immortal
By 49th level finally managed to join a raid for Lassal, and we even beat him. At least now I can stop thinking about it.
Had two legendary items drop from updating a monster entry in the in-game encyclopedia. I’ve beaten bosses for far less.
By 53th level I think there’s another such a slump. Takes a day or two of grind to get to level 56. Encyclopedia gives huge boosts, though.
Got a second legendary helmet, and it’s the same as my first one. That’s just my luck 🤷♂️
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Samsung Galaxy Note 8
The way I discovered that my Note 8 is “slightly outdated” is when I noticed that my Evernote stopped supporting new features. Turns out it requires Android 10 now, and my Note 8 is still on Android 9. And has been for a while – since August 2021, it seems.
That way, by buying a flagship back in November 2017, I skipped Note 9, Note 10 and Note 20. There was no Note 21, because COVID. If I wished to, I could stay 5 years with the same phone 🤯
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Azores, Tuesday
Strangely, there seems to be no fresh milk on Azores. There are only yogurts in the refrigerators, and all the milk is UHT.
Some even suggest asking a neighbour.
Today we are doing the Ribeira do Faial da Terra hike.
We start our hike from a village called Rebentao.
First we climb on a hill with some cows. The views are beautiful. It’s hot, but bearably so.
Then we need to pass a long tunnel to get to the forest. I’m not tall, but I still manage to hit my head on the ceiling, although I was already bent.
In the forest it’s much cooler, with some micro-rain. We reach the waterfall and eat some “bolo de arroz” there.
On the way back we stumbled upon a hedgehog. It was strange to see it during the day, but it didn’t seem to be injured, so we decided not to traumatize it by picking it up.
We go back through the village. Sometimes going down can be as hard as going up. A girl about twelve points in the direction of the parking even before we ask her anything. Probably she see tourists like us every day doing the same hike.
We also spot a gorgeous local cat:
We have dinner in Otaka. Before us there’s a pair that came up a day early for their reservation. Can happen to anybody, I guess.
The dinner is absolutely fantastic.
In the evening we met an uninvited guest:
Although considering the fact this is a house centipede, maybe we’re the uninvited guests there.
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Two Towers
Finished watching Lord of the Rings: Two Towers.
There are a few weird elements to it, but I think this comes mostly from the original book. We know that Gandalf falls down with Balrog. But then he tells a story how he fought with it on the mountain peak, and after that was reborn. And he has a new staff. This doesn’t make any sense.
Also, Merry and Pippin drink some water, and then Pippin grows taller. And they are almost killed by a tree? What?
Gollum still looks absolutely fantastic. Which cannot be said about Jar Jar Binks from the same time.
Two of the most impressive roles are Eowyn and Theoden. Great range of emotion, fantastic acting.
Arwen is much more boring and flat, in comparison.
Orc talking like and old British man unhappy with his tea or the weather is a bit strange:
Frodo in this movie becomes Jesus with some anger management issues. Again, I think this is more the problem of the original book than the movie.
Fight with wargs looks great. Helm’s Deep is even better. I don’t remember when was the last time I was so moved by a movie battle.
Even the orc olympian didn’t stop me from enjoying it:
There are some weird parts: Legolas surfing down the stairs on a shield, Aragorn throwing Gimli across the bridge, but overall it’s fantastic. Also, I didn’t remember how important was the role of the ents in this battle. Ents are like the UN. It takes them a lot of time to decide anything.
What I didn’t expect is that England would be involved in this. Turns out England learned how to collect amrita, philosopher stone. And now the plan to incite a war in Japan to collect more of these, and maybe even conquer Spain.
So glad there’s a simple pause option in this game. I hate games without pause.
There is a ton of game mechanics, and they are introduced all at once. There are stances, that change how fast and how powerful your attacks are. There’s also a “berserk” mode, and a super-move that you can execute once you enter the berserk mode.
How hard is this game? Pretty brutal. It’s not Dark Souls, it’s Bloodborne. It’s much more fast-paced than any of the Dark Souls games. Armor doesn’t do shit, even minibosses finish you in two swings. But there is some kind of parry system against the bosses, and a stamina recovery system. You get most of your stamina back if you press a button at a right time. Also, there is apparenty a combo system that requires you to switch stances in between. A real finger-twister.
Almost dropped the game on the second boss. But turns out the game just doesn’t explain a lot of mechanics. There are healing items. You can run out of them, like Bloodborne and unlike Dark Souls. But at least they are automatically stocked to the max capacity.
Also, you can imbue your weapon, which is also very useful against the boss.
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Modern Warfare (2019)
Completed Modern Warfare (2019).
We manage to kill the Old Terrorist, but the brother-terrorist escapes to St. Petersburg. That’s unexpected.
There is a bunch of “minigames” along the way. One is to cut the wires of the suicide jacket.
Another is to survive Russian torture (nobody told them Russians don’t torture with water).
We meet with Nikolai, another character from the original Modern Warfare. Also, turns out Kyle Garrick is now Gaz. Previous Gaz was I white guy.
That’s also the first mission we actually get to pick our weapons. At least we’re given a choice of three pistols.
Origin shotgun is fun, because it has that distinct handle on the side, and also a suppressor. At the last two missions you are given a lot of cool tools: incediary shotgun, and even minigun. Wish they would give them earlier, though.
Don’t remember when was the last time I was so invested in Call of Duty game. Maybe Black Ops?
We capture Hadir, but almost immediately trade him to the Russians. We then go after general Barkov in his gas-producing plant. Alex decides to “become a hero” and blow the plan himself. Farah manages to kill Barkov.
At the end they mention some old “friends”: “Soap” I remember well, as well as General Shepherd. Had to remind myself who Riley was, though. They also mention Zakaev, so I wonder if we’ll get yet another recreation of the most famous “sniper mission”