Author: TheAleosha

PSX Sony

Ace Combat 2

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date August 15, 2025

Most interesting mission is where you need to chase experimental bombers above the clouds. A lot of aircrafts would stall at those altitudes, so you need something like MiG-29.

In some missions you also find named pilots, like Goose alor Razorback. Downing them brings a reward to the collection.

Again, we need to fly into a base through a tunnel to blow a reactor. With a twist that a tunnel opens only after 3 minutes of real time, and closes after another minute.

The hardest mission is probably the one where you need to destroy radars with your machine gun. Not so much because of the machine gun part, despite radars placed on buyous at sea and the need to fly through inlet to locate some of them, but because the way enemy planes spawn right behind you as soon as you try to make a pass. And unlike your missiles, those planes seem to be infinite.

Last mission, I didn’t enjoy at all. You need to chase a cruise missile with a machine gun, and that target is tiny. Good luck not getting motion sickness. Not sure if playing on a real hardware would help, but on emulator, this mission is a nightmare.

And of course there is another tunnel with a reactor you need to blow at the end. Luckily this time it’s enough to hit the reactor, you don’t need to fly out for the tunnel as well.

One bit that confused me is that I never unlocked the F22, that’s why I was playing final missions on YF23. There are also more aircrafts to unlock when you play the campaign for a second time, but after that cruise missile mission, I’ll pass.

Tags Ace Combat

*.BAK

Kurg Imperial Stout, Pohjala

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date August 14, 2025

An Estonian Imperial Stout I’ve brought from York. A wax seal is a seal of quality for me nowadays. I don’t remember yet once being disappointed by a wax sealed bottled.

This is an amazing barrel aged Imperial Stout, one of the best I’ve ever had. Like drinking a Guiness chocolate cake, with the smokiness, but also the sweetness. Funny, but I felt less drunk from its 13% ABV than from some 6% beers. Go figure.

I kind of grew to be dismissive of everything sold in the UK, and appreciating only what I bring from abroad, but this is an exception for sure.

Tags beer

PSX Sony

Ace Combat 2

It’s genuiniley impressive how much the game has improved over the first installement. The drawing distance is now comfortable, and I don’t need to look at the radar anymore. The speed and altitude is now also shown in the 3rd person view, so there’s no need to switch to 1st person much. The afterburners are now also visible, so you can see when you are speeding up.

The game is also more colourful. It is strange statement, considering in the first game you flew purple jets.

Of course there is a ravine mission. It looks better than in Ace Combat 1, but weirdly, it plays worse, because with potato graphics of Ace Combat 1 it was very easy to see the path, whereas in Ace Combat 2 I wasn’t sure if I’m flying into a wall.

Tags Ace Combat

XBOX

Torchlight

Nice that you don’t descend into the dungeon alone. Besides the pet, you’ll also have a warrior join you for a few levels.

Something I haven’t considered is that a dual wielding rogue can mix between a ranged and a melee weapon. Shooting enemies with a pistol from afar, then smacking them with a club once they get close. Works surprisingly well.

Fifth level is catacombs. New theme every 4 levels, classic.

*.BAK

Garun, Borg Brugghus

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date August 10, 2025

Imperial stout from Iceland. Icelandic beers have won a few awards over the years, but that’s the only award winner I managed to find, and only by sheer luck.
Has the ABV, but surprisingly not the sweetness. First I tasted rye bread, almost kvas, then a bit of smoke, but not too much. Definitely pleasant,

Tags beer

XBOX

Xbox 360

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date August 9, 2025

I was slightly wrong regarding connecting Xbox Series S gamepad to Xbox 360 through adapter. It works only on jailbroken Xbox 360. Before exploit kicks in, I still have to use the original disgusting controller.

XBOX

Kakuto Chojin

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date August 9, 2025

I understood that I don’t want to play Xbox360 games as much as I want to play some original Xbox games. So I did. It’s surprisingly easy, you use the same ISO2GOD to convert ISO to executable format, and that’s it, Aurora picks them up immediatelly.

The game itself surprised me. First, there are slowdown in some arenas. Not sure if it happened on original hardware, because technically Xbox360 running an emulator for Xbox games. But I do remember that Xemu had the same issues.

Then the fighting system itself is broken, and I’m not even a fighting expert to recognize it. There’s a term “negative on block”, which means that if you hit a blocking character hard, you get pushback, and may get punished.

But at least with Vittoria, which a picked randomly, kicks are safe on block. So you can kick, if it lands – great, if not, you have time to throw your blocking opponent.
Also, JD character is literally Brad Pitt from Fighting Club. I don’t know how he didn’t sue.

XBOX

Torchlight

Despite Torchlight 2 being my second most favourite ARPG ever (after Diablo 3, but before Diablo 2), I always ignored the first Torchlight, considering it inferior.
Having tried it on both PC and Xbox 360 now, I feel like I was right and wrong at the same time. It is more like Torchlight 2 is actually Torchlight 1.5.

Structure first. First Diablo game has a vertical structure. We descent deeper and deeper into the dungeon, but each level is pretty limited. Diablo 2 has a horizontal structure. The areas are wast, but if you ever find a dungeon, it rarely goes deeper than two levels. Every few levels in Diablo 1 dungeon have a common theme. And entire areas in Diablo 2 have themes as well: grasslands, desert, and so on. Torchlight 2 clearly follows Diablo 2, with even the same themes for the episodes. While Torchlight 1 is Diablo 1, where there is a single town, and you descend deeper into the mines.

What neither Diablo 1 nor Diablo 2 had from the start, though, is mana regeneration. Given the fact that skills are one of the fun parts of any ARPG, having mana regeneration is good, since you spend more time doing fun stuff.

There are three skill trees for each character, like Diablo 2. But those aren’t exactly “trees”, as you don’t have skill prerequisites. Something modern gamers criticize Diablo 2 for.

Tags Torchlight

XBOX

Xbox 360

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date August 6, 2025

When you buy any console second hand, chances are that the gamepad will be half borked. Sticky thumbsticks half falling apart, mushy buttons, you name it. And let’s agree, ergonomics have improved since 2005. All in all, I much prefer Xbox Series X gamepad over Xbox 360. Unfortunately, one cannot simply plug Xbox Series X gamepad into Xbox 360. Or can you?
Back in the day, when I was playing some fighting and beat’em’ups on Nintendo Switch, I bought a simple adapter to connect my Hori Fighting Stick to the Switch dock. I didn’t expect it to work, because why would it, but I decided to give it a try. And after playing with the settings, it just did!
Now I can play on Xbox 360 on the gamepad I like.

PSX Sony

Resident Evil 3

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date August 5, 2025

Completed Resident Evil 3.
The final episode, Factory, is obtrusive. It may sound funny, but there isn’t that much backtracking in Resident Evil 3. Unless you get confused, of course. But Factory is designed is such a way that you have to go back and forth multiple times, while game throws at you enemies in rooms you already cleared, sometimes twice. Also, there are some unskippable cutscenes before the boss fights that can get pretty annoying.
I’m not sure how environmental the final two boss fights are. In the first, Nemesis is in humanoid form, and you need to shoot acid valves when he’s near. Not sure if that’s the only way to damage him, or if it just helps. Funny how at some point he loses his head, but still goes on.
Then the final fights is against Nemesis-frog. I usually say that ammo is more important than health items in Resident Evil, because you can’t heal a boss to death, you need to shoot him. But this is another environmental fight, as far as I can tell, where you need to turn on a railgun, then lure Nemesis a couple of times so it gets smashed by it.
The entire game took me around 6 hours of game time to complete. Which isn’t bad, I thought it would be shorter. I remember that Leon’s scenario in Resident Evil 2 took me around 2:30 hours.
By the end of it, I still had plenty of healing items, but not that many bullets, I must admit. So the game is more enemy heavy than Resident Evil 2 for sure.

Tags Resident Evil, Resident Evil 3

PSX Sony

Resident Evil 3

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date August 5, 2025

The trolley sequence is pretty tiring. Funnily enough, that’s the only part I remember from my playthrough those 20 years ago, the huge worm in the sewers, akin to Alone in the Dark. But you have to evade Nemesis, escape from the worm, then beat Nemesis, and he is though, taking whole Magnum, and then some.

At first, I found dogs to be pretty annoying. But then I noticed that they don’t have invincibility frames on the ground anymore:

By the time I reached the clocktower, I started combining all the gunpowder I had into Magnum ammo, and got 48 of it. That’s plenty. Also, got both part of the gun from Nemesis. Despite it’s named Eagle, it’s a 9mm gun, not a Desert Eagle. But it does has a better rate of fire than the standard gun, and allows to put any spare 9mm ammo to good use.

Nemesis shots down the chopper (that’s how I understood I played this game without videos, because I would have remembered such an epic scene), the Magnum ammo comes in handy.
Then we switch to Carlos. Playing as him is a bit tricky, as you have almost no pickups. If you run out of ammo – you’re done.

Tags Resident Evil, Resident Evil 3

XBOX

Xbox 360 BadUpdate exploit

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date August 3, 2025
2 Comments on Xbox 360 BadUpdate exploit

I probably have already mentioned how selling my JTAGed Xbox 360 was a mistake in hindsight. Of course I could always buy another JTAGed Xbox, plenty of those are still available. But,I don’t like playing games on consoles as much as I like messing with consoles. So instead I got unmodded Xbox 360 and tried to put BadUpdate on it.
BadUpdate is a soft mod, similar to what you’re running on PS4. You don’t need Internet for it, but it takes much longer for it to work.

Hacking the Xbox 360 Hypervisor Part 2: The Bad Update Exploit

How long? Took me an entire evening of restarting my Xbox until I got there.
Was it worth it? Not really. I mean, it was interesting as a proof of concept. But I struggled to find any games I’m still interested to play on Xbox360. I eneded up testing that the exploit worked on Samurai Shodown Sen, which I lamented in the past, and… Torchlight 1, out of all things.

Also, to copy games I had to use a very particular USB drive. Xbox wouldn’t read anything else, despite me formatting all to FAT32 and MBR.

Emulation PSX Sony

Resident Evil 3 (PSX)

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date August 3, 2025

After comparing Dreamcast version with all enhancements RetroTink 4K can offer with RetroArch/SwanStation, I must admit that playing on a physical console doesn’t worth it at all.
While colors might be attributed to how my capture card processes HDR signal, it’s undeniable that models and textures rendered in x5 resolution look significantly better.
The most important parameter to get this quality of picture is PGXP CPU Mode. It is supposed to be slow, but very accurate way to represent 3D models. Something that PSX was never good at.

Interestingly enough, Dreamcast has some new textures, for some reason (notice the plaque has moved a bit):

Back to the game, it is interesting how you meet Carlos at different points in the game, depending on which location you visit first. On Dreamcast, I’ve met him in the restaurant. But on my PSX playthrough, I wanted to avoid Nemesis and went to the newsroom first. And here Carlos was waiting for me again, with a different cutscene.

Speaking of cutscenes, the game has QTE events, even before Shenmue! Sometimes when Nemesis appears, you are given a choice, between fighting, running away or hiding.

Tags Resident Evil

Dreamcast Sega

Resident Evil 3 (Dreamcast)

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date August 1, 2025

I’ve played and even completed Resident Evil 3, but it was some 23 years ago. And I also suspect it was a ripped version without the movies, as I don’t remember any of them. So I decided to give the game another go. The intention was actually to play Resident Evil 2, Resident Evil 2 Remake, Resident Evil 3 and Resident Evil 3 Remake, but as always, I didn’t even get past the second game in a row.

In any case, I consider myself rather good in Resident Evil games. But this game is brutal. It can throw 4-5 zombies at you room after room. And even the zombie dogs takes twice as many bullets. I guess you should compensate by having the ability to create your own ammo. But it’s not exactly a fair trade.

There’s also some kind of randomization going on which I don’t remember in other games. Sometimes you would see Brad running out of the basement with the shotgun. Sometimes you need to open the door first. Once I went into the corridor in the Police Station and found there four zombies and two red herbs. Another time: two dogs, and no herbs at all.

The game does keep up with the tradition of keeping something special in STARS locker. But speaking of randomisation, once I found a Magnum there. Then after a load, same locker contained Grenade Launcher. One is better than the other, for those unfamiliar.

Tags Resident Evil

PC Gaming

Diablo Immortal

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date July 31, 2025

I haven’t played Diablo Immortal for a long time, so after checking the druid, I decided to go back to the Tempest class. And the catchup mechanic is crazy. They give you a legendary for every day you log in, and also some crazy experience boost, so my Tempest went from level 25 to 59 in a matter of two-three days 😆
Tempest class feels broken. It supposed to be “dual wield rogue” archetype. But usually, this archetype sacrifices AoE for DPS. In case of Tempest, you get it all, though: DPS, and AoE, and also almost every move is a dash.

Tags Diablo Immortal

*.BAK

Bourbon County stout, Goose Island

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date July 28, 2025

Goose Island is something I remember from Boston as common piss beer, excuse me, I mean pale ale.
But during my last visit to California when I failed yet again to procur Russian River, I did get a bottle of this 14.7% goodness
It’s amazing. Although I don’t remember if I ever had an Imperial Stout or a barley wine that wasn’t.
Very dark, with no head whatsoever, smooth, and tastes like Madeira wine, and honey, and coffee.
I’d buy it again for sure, if I ever find it.

Tags beer, Goose Island

Emulation PSX Sony

Ace Combat 1 (Air Combat)

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date July 27, 2025

Completed Ace Combat 1 in two sittings.

After success with Ace Combat 4, I decided to check the very first installment in the series, originally called Air Combat . It is still surprisingly playable. The planes are recognizable, and fly well enough. Even the control scheme stayed the same. And you also get to buy new planes between missions.
The differences are that 3rd person view in the first game is mostly useless, while on PS2 I would use it most of the time. This is because it has no information about your speed, for example. To the point I thought my gamepad was misbehaving, as you don’t really see your plane speeding up.
The main tradeoff is the viewing distance. You can’t see shit, basically, enemy planes appear only when they are about 2km away. So you have to navigate by radar most of the time, until you are almost on them.

One notable change I have to talk about is the color palette of the planes. I’m not sure if it’s arcade legacy, or 95 style, or just an attempt for the planes not to mix up with the surroundings, but… red, purple and white? Really?! There’s a real-world term “Flying Circus” coming to mind.

Of course I had to check if this also applies to F117 Nighthawk… and yes, it does.

Wingmen are an interesting concept. Before a mission you can decide if you want to spend a significant sum to have a friendly jet. And you also can choose which jet it will be, which is of course affects the price. You also set the strategy for them: defend you, or try to complete the mission.

Some missions are also quite ambitious. There’s a night bombing run, and a mission where you have to follow pipelines in the desert to locate enemy oil refineries.

You also get to choose which missions to do. And of course there is a ravine mission. The saddest ravine mission ever, I must say, as the hardware was nowhere near. But they tried nevertheless. Actually, there are two ravine missions, although second is more of a tunnel or a cave.

The game is rather short, with 17 missions in total, but because there are some branching paths you have to complete around 14 to beat the game. But it is ambitious. At one point you have to bomb a suspension bridge, and they animated parts of the bridge crashing down into the water.

And the final boss is this flying fortress with four engines that you have to chase, and each engine falls apart separately, and then the fortress begins to tilt and raise smoke. 10 years later, they would repeat this mission in full force, but the fact they already imagined that back in ’95 is impressive.

The only bit I didn’t appreciate is the “Bingo!” exclamation every time you land a hit. Guess this is from the arcade days.

Tags Ace Combat

*.BAK

Vault City Chocolate Strawberry Dutch Pancakes Sour

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date July 26, 2025

Vault City specializes in “dessert beers”, and this one is no different. It’s delicious, although it doesn’t even taste like a beer. It is not just opaque, but kind of lumpy, with no head whatsoever. Definitely sour. Not sure about “dutch pancakes” or “chocolate”, but it does taste like a strawberry punch alright.

Tags beer, Vault City

PC Gaming

Simon the Sorcerer 25th Anniversary Edition

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date July 26, 2025

Even by adventure games remaster standards, this is atrocious. They used xBRZ filter, which turns the game graphic into unintelligble mess. But that’s only half ot he problem, as the filter can be disabled. The other half, is that the game itself is bad.

Major parts of the map are forest zones, which, while beautiful in a pixelart sense, are mostly pointless. Then, you have very vague goals (find the mage Calysto, find necromancer’s staff) and even more vague means to achieve them. There are 20+ items in my inventory, and I have not a clue when any of these items might be useful.
At one point, you meed a barbarian in the forest, and you’re given a whistle if you ever need his help. Then you meet a troll blocking a bridge, and that troll asks for goat stew. How do you get a goat stew? You don’t. How do you use the whistle? You don’t. You need to talk to the troll a second time, and then he will grab the whistle and use it himself, beconing his demise. It’s funny, but I came to this solution by chance, not through some logical process.
I ended up using a guide at Goblin Cave, because I thought that I might have softlocked my playthrough. I didn’t, but it is just that I tried to “give” bucket to the druid, instead of “using” bucket on a druid. Or maybe I tried to “use” it, but Simon walked to him instead, and I assumed it does nothing and didn’t try again.
In any case, I think I’m done with this game. The only positive bit is custom animations. Those are impressive, considering they are used only once, and they are genuinely funny. Like when Simon pops out of Iron Maiden, where he was hiding from the goblins, takes a sip of water, and in starts leaking from different places. Or when Rapunzel drops his braid on him, and he becomes this hat with shoes for a few moments.

Sony

Ace Combat 4

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date July 25, 2025

Completed Ace Combat 4.
The game is short. 18 missions and about 2 hours of actual gameplay.
The problem with the game is the rather tedious mission structure. You’re often just given 15 minutes to score enough points in any way you see fit. And while the idea of picking your targets in any order is interesting, nothing is more frustrating than running out of time.
The contrast is most obvious between Mission 10, where you have to try to hit an enemy submarine dock, and Mission 11, where you escort friendly transport planes.
New planes become available as the game progresses, and you’re supposed to buy them with the money you earn from completing missions. But after you get the EF-2000 midway through the game, there’s not much point in buying anything else.
Also, maybe because of the point system, but friendly units don’t actually shoot anything, as far as I can tell.
You get some cool jets at the end: the F-22, F-15 ACTIVE, and for the final mission, the Su-47.
It’s impossible to call Thirteen a nemesis, because Mobius 1, the protagonist, is ever silent, and they meet only twice throughout the game. The first time, you just need to escape; the second time, you shoot him down.
Of course, the final mission has you flying through multiple corridors. But either because I was playing with an analog controller, or because I was prepared, or maybe simply because it’s easier than later installments, I managed it on the first try.
The hardest part was figuring out what the game wanted from you, because the two corridors you have to fly through are parallel, but the third one is perpendicular to the first two, so you have to circle the island to find the entrance.
Still, it’s a cool mission, with cruise missiles launching and lasers sweeping the sky.

Tags Ace Combat