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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Completed Slender Threads.
I’m not very good in puzzle games, so the difficulty for me is alright. Most of the puzzles are just item puzzles, although there’s one mapping a sequence and another with “alien numbers”, which I bruteforced, because two numbers are obvious, and for the other two, you have just 3 options each. Also, at a couple of episodes you get your inventory taken away, and have to do with what you find.
The story is a bit meta, but not in a way I was expecting. I thought that the protagonist will be an escapee from the asylum. Then I thought it will go towards breaking the 4th wall, and the black hand being that of the player.
But turns out, all characters are marionettes (thus, threads). And the plays they are used to are kind of Twilight Zone (familiar from Alan Wake), that’s why at one point you’re told something like “you will kill us in many different ways every evening”. And the radio you hear at the beginning is the announcement of the next show.
All in all, it’s a great adventure game. Not too difficult, with a lot of smart references (the veil and the window are straigth from Cthulhu mythos) and with a distict visual style.
Games like Slender Threads also make me think why I often enjoy modern adventure games, but not those from the Golden Age. Those tried to justify full-price tag, and so made the puzzles too difficult, so the game would feel longer. While modern adventure games often cost a fraction, and I don’t mind when I finish them in a couple of evenings.
A beer I brought from Denmark when I wasn’t sure if I’d find any better beer in Denmark.
It’s a good triple. Has a tall head initially, but it dissipated quite quickly. And the taste is smooth and honey-like. Head is light, but quite focused. Better than a lot of Belgian triples I’ve had this year, but not something I’d go looking for in Denmark again.
I’ve heard about coffee getting stale over time. And here I am, returning after 10 days of vacation, and deciding to make a couple of flat whites from the beans I had left in the hopper.
First two shots ran at 3 bar. That’s for a coffee that usually runs at 7-9 bars. Only after purging the coffee, putting the beans from the bag and pulling another shot or two the pressure recovered.
Needless to say, I didn’t feel the need to taste the result of 3-bar coffee.
I love Guy Ritchie as much as the next man. But I must admit that considering how rich his characters often are, they could have benefited from a TV series. Snatch series, I didn’t enjoy much. But Gentlemen are much better.
Main theme is “restrained aggression” common to British culture. Undercurrent of threats that is everywhere: public announcements especially. Another theme is the modern royalty, and where all the money comes from (mostly property rent, actually).
I’ve never read Dredd comics nor have I seen the Stallone movie, so have nothing to compare with.
I vaguely remember this movie wasnt appreciated much when it came out, but with the rise of The Boys, it got re-evaluation.
It is 90s level of brutal, I give it that, flayed bodies and brains scattered all around.
Also, it has a way of depicting drug use, slow mo and bright colours.
Another interesting decision is that Dredd wears the signature helmet, but Rookie doesn’t, because she relies on her psychic powers.
Storywise, this is basically Raid all over again, minus silat. A huge slum building on lockdown trapping two policemen trying to arrest a criminal, all gangs hunting for them.
It’s hard to understand from the screenshots, but it’s actually a 3D point’n’click adventure that makes itself look like 2D.
Gameplay wise, it’s pretty standard: you talk to people, you have your inventory, you can combine stuff.
Storywise, though, it is not so much horror as it is dark comedy. You do standard point’n’click stuff, like trying to prank a barber to get a pile of hair you aren’t even sure you need… And the barber ends up having a heart attack.
The complexity comes not from its puzzles, those are rather logical, I must admit, but from the sheer number of locations and characters that are available almost from the get go. Also you quickly find half a dozen items in your inventory you have a very vague idea where to use. Luckily there’s a decent hints system built in. It’s not 90s anymore.
Lochlea is a distillery that likes to experiment with their cask strength batches. Apparently, Batch 3 is a peated one.
This is Batch 2, which, without me knowing, is sherried. How lucky.
At first sip I was skeptical. But over time, it actually grew on me, and now I consider this whiskey to be good value for money. Oloroso and PX casks at 60% ABV are really brought to life.
