Category: Aleosha Blog

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*.AVI

Rings of Power S01

Galadriel plot is full of coincidences. Her jumping into the ocean without any planned, picked up by some random survivors of a shipwreck that just happened to be escaping from the orcs she hates so much, then picked up again by some ship.
Eldond plot with dwarfs is brilliant, though. From Elrond taking on a challenge he can’t win and not winning, to grudge because as and elf. For him it was okay to disappear for 20 years, to secrets from the elves.

 

Not sure what to make of the hobbit plotline. They act as a comic relief. A good one, though, I must admit.

 

Continue reading “Rings of Power S01”
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*.BAK

BrewDog Layer Cake Marshmallow & Chocolate Stout

Wanted to try something new and interesting from BrewDog.

Layer Cake Marshmallow & Chocolate Stout wasn’t the right choice, though.

The stout part was fine. But the marshmallow is too overpowering to enjoy.

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Hardware

Neo Geo MVS misadventures

Royal Mail admitted that they’ve lost the package that was shipped back more than a month ago from Spain, with my non-functioning Neo Geo MVS.
The good news is that I received a refund, and it took me just a couple of days.
The bad news is that the maximum refund is 65GBP, while I paid around 200GBP for the console.
The good news is that the seller already shipped me a replacement board, free of charge, which is very generous of him.
The bad news is that this is a naked board. No video output, no gamepad ports, no power supply, no enclosure. Now I’ll have to source everything by myself.

The board I received is MV1A. It comes as two separate boards, that you connect at a right angle. So your cartridge is put parallel to the motherboard.
There’s also a newer MV1C board, which looks smaller at least on photos, and consists from a single board, so the cartridge slot is on the motherboard, and the cartridge is put in a vertical position.
https://wiki.neogeodev.org/index.php?title=MVS_board_types
https://www.arcade-projects.com/threads/neo-geo-mvs-motherboard-pcb-comparison-chart-for-consolization.5904/

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PC Gaming

Heroes of Might&Magic VI

After many years, I decided to give another chance to Heroes of Might&Magic 6. When I first played it, it felt that the campaign was completely broken. And not only to me.

Enemy hero would come at you with a huge army, and even if you manage to beat him once, he would amass it again at an incredible speed. Not sure if that was balanced out somewhat. But the only way I managed to beat some of the sieges is by creating a bucket brigade of heroes passing armies from one another as quickly as possible. Obviously, this is extremely boring.
Also, there is still a problem that the combat is incredibly slow. Units are too sturdy, and you just spend turn after turn trading blows.

They did invest a lot into a storyline, but it is still a mess.
The story follows duke Slava and his five children, representing the different factions in the game. How one of his children ends up being a barbarian, another an undead necromancer, a third one a demon, and fourth a crazy fanatic (although this one is kind of obvious)? Well, that’s a long story. And it’s not told in any order.
For example the first campaign after the tutorial is Necropolis, playing as ressurected Anastasya. But her brother executes her for assassinating their father only in the 2nd campaign.
In the 3rd campaign we play as Irina, a magic user that is released from a cell where her husband put her by her brother from the 5th campaign. Confused already?

Continue reading “Heroes of Might&Magic VI”
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Emulation

Tekken 3

The differences between Tekken 3 for Playstation 1 and for the arcades turned out to be quite astonishing. Even more than Virtua Figher 2, I must say. I didn’t notice that previously, even though I’ve seen Tekken 3 arcade cabinet live a few years ago.

If there’s one detail to note, it’s the fingers. In PSX version most characters have stubs for their hands.

But in the arcade version you can see fingers, which is very impressive, considering the age of the game.

It plays fine on MAME 2016. The difficulty isn’t overwhelming, like in some other arcade titles, and I even managed to beat the entire game with a few retries.
Funnily enough, the final boss, Ogre, went down quicker than pre-final boss Heihachi. And the second phase for Ogre was easier than the first. Maybe that’s just because I’m a natural with Hwoarang, though. It’s the only character in Tekken series I grasp pretty well.

Categories
Emulation

About Buriki One

Obscure fighting for the Hyper Neo Geo 64 arcade:

The craziest part is that the author of the video actually bought the arcade and made his own fighting stick, it seems.

Categories
Emulation

About Primal Rage 2

Today I discovered that there were plans for a sequel of Primal Rage fighting game. And apparently there’s even a playable version of it.

As some may remember, Primal Rage was basically Mortal Kombat with dinosaurs (and a couple of huge apes).
Interestingly here they switched to humans that sometimes turn into dinosaurs from the original game. They even switch names when that happens.
Can’t say it’s a shame that fighting never came out. But it’s a wonder someone managed to preserve as much.

Categories
*.DOC

A man without a country, Kurt Vonnegut

This is a collection of essay’s from Kurt Vonnegut, that sound like an old man repeating stories he’s been telling for years.
Socialism – good. Fossil fuels – bad. Bush has a stupid family name, so he must be stupid.
Interesting that the “unelected president” narrative didn’t start with Trump. Vonnegut claims the same about Bush. Every president I don’t like is “unelected” and has “staged a coup”.
Funny how he complained about overpopulation, when he had 3 biological children. At least he adopted 4 more to balance that out.

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PC Gaming

Hero’s Hour

Played a few more skirmishes, and I think I’m done with it for now.
There are two problems with this game.
First, there are no neutral towns. You see, in the Heroes of Might and Magic series, most of the map was neutral. The one that captures more neutral towns wins. In Hero’s Hour, every faction has exactly one town. And once your town is captured, you have a game week to recapture it, or loose. So, this is a case of total war instead of slow domination. You either win or loose. That’s it.
Second, the battles are fun to watch, but impossible to control. It’s just total chaos, aided by the fact that many units have random abilities, such as random teleportation. You can replay same battle twice with vastly different results without lifting a finger.

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*.AVI

House of Dragon S01E01

The internal logic is weird.
There’s a black dude in his fifties with grizzled hair. But then his kids have grizzled hair as well. Why?
The tournament makes little sense, as in you don’t supposed to kill noble people during tournaments. Those are all heirs, loosing a heir is kind of a big deal. When “Prince Philip” injures that Hand son, it’s a big deal. But then we see some other nobles just getting killed in a fit of rage, and the crowd is cheering.
The birth scene doesn’t make sense. At first they say that giving more sedative would be dangerous, but then they proceed to butcher the queen without any sedative, it seems. I understand, there must be drama. But this is a bit too much.
Then there’s the succession drama. I would expect than the first thing you do as a king after your wife dies, no matter the circumstances, is… getting a new wife. But it seems like only The Hand gets and. And even his daughter doesn’t. Like go, seduce the widower and become the next queen. Haven’t you watched any of the other HBO series?!

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*.AVI

Age of Ultron

The movie leaves a strange impression. I expected it to be void, but actually, it is full of content. I think it was even too much for the cinema, although when you stop and able to process it: it’s alright.


They obviously built a lot for the Hulk vs Hulk Iron Man fight. Which is pointless, but then most of the Hulk moments are.
Confused me a lot that Quicksilver is played by a different actor, and has different personality here than in the X-Men movies.
The product placement in that one is bad. Very bad. First the Beats, then Gilette. And that Tony Stark car, some Audi?

Continue reading “Age of Ultron”
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Hardware History

NES Advantage

Discovered that there was an official arcade stick made for NES.

People say, though, that for many games, it was more of a disadvantage.

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*.XLS NDS Nintendo PC Gaming

Completed

PC:

  1. Amid Evil
  2. Backbone
  3. Dark Forces
  4. Inscryption
  5. Loop Hero
  6. Modern Warfare (2019)
  7. XCOM Chimera Squad

NDS:

  1. Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia
Categories
*.BAK

Connection Reset

Post-COVID life has some funny consequences. At some point, some sites stopped working on my old Note 8. Namely: Twitter and YouTube. I was simply getting “connection reset” error, and that’s it. YouTube app would sometimes work, and Twitter app almost never worked.
I attributed this to phone not getting security updates, and hence – no certificate updates. But jailbreaking it was too cumbersome, and would also ruin Work Profile, so I decided simply to wait for a new phone.
Imagine my surprise when I got a new phone still with the same issue. Sites working fine most of the time, but “connection reset” sometimes.
Then I gave it some thought, went into “Parental Controls” of my mobile provider, and found out I was on “kids” setting, which probably is just the default setting they give you. With my previous provider, Vodafone, they gave you an HTML page that would explain the issue, but new provider, EE, just breaks the connection.
Once I turned that to “adult” mode, both Twitter and YouTube came back immediately.
How come I never figure this out until now? I go out so rarely nowadays, that I manage to stay on WiFi most of the time, and when I’m off WiFi, the old DNS’ are still kept for some time, I guess. So when I went to the gym, I could watch a video or two on YouTube, before getting disconnected.

Categories
*.AVI

Cheer S02

We watched Cheer until the “Jerry Episode”.
On one hand, it is crazy how can you fall from grace so quickly: from speaking with the US President and hugging with Brad Pitt, to spending up to 50 years in jail.
On the other hand, it isn’t the first teen celebrity that couldn’t handle the fame. Most of them end up overdosing. At least Jerry is still alive. Still.
A couple of things bothered me in the episode, though.
Mother checking her son’s phone “not on a regular basis”? But well, maybe this ended up for the best, I dunno.
Then their lawyer said that Jessica, Cheer manager (I guess that’s her official title, she isn’t their Mother, right?), “didn’t apologise using the correct and approved words”.
And finally, the fact that the mother report abuse multiple times, and all the bodies ignored it, until she reported it to the FBI (and apparently also went to the press, although that was kind of glossed over).
Like all those compliance organizations, are we going to investigate what exactly are they doing (nothing) or nah?

Categories
*.BAK

Dark Arts Surreal Stout

This beer from Magic Rock Brewing hits way above its price.
Dark Arts

Similar in quality stout from Brew By Numbers would cost twice as much:
https://bbno.co/collections/all-beers/products/10-coffee-porter-mocha-cbd-6-5-440ml-can-1

Now I’m curious to try their IPA, which seems to be closer to DIPA:
Cannonball

Categories
PC Gaming

Darksiders 3

Feels Souls-like, but not entirely. Fury is much more nimble, and her default whip has a huge reach. Also, there’s no stamina. But you literally collect souls, which you drop when you’re killed. And there are replenishable flasks. Enemies don’t resurrect when you visit local version of the “the bonfire”, though. And do so only when you die.
There is a surprising amount of acrobatics involved, which is not common to Souls like games. You gave to jump over some of the attacks. And the first boss require you to climb up to her using your whip. And hit her in midair, no less.

Darksiders-3-2022-08-19-21-01-49-02-DVR-mp4-000251-835

Storytelling is weird. Apparently it takes place at the same time as the first Darksiders. Fury is told that War has started the Apocalypse, and she in the meantime is tasked with hunting the Seven Deadly Sins.

Darksiders-3-Screenshot-2022-08-19-17-46-42-69

There are some recurring characters that we meet, like the Shady Trader and the Blacksmith. I don’t care to remember their actual names.
After beating the second boss, Fury is injured and is telephoned to Hollows, and in the Hollows there is a giant that releases angels and demons by destroying them… Like do I supposed to remember and understand what’s going on? Because I don’t.

Darksiders-3-Screenshot-2022-08-22-23-33-27-72

Continue reading “Darksiders 3”
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*.AVI

Street Fighter Red Tape

Discovered this series only now, and for those that know Street Fighter 2, it’s hilarious.

 

The amount of detail they put into this is incredible.

 

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”.

2021031002123600-C7-D8-C4153-CC9802713604-F54-C53304-E02021031020013400-C7-D8-C4153-CC9802713604-F54-C53304-E0
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.

2021031619280100-C7-D8-C4153-CC9802713604-F54-C53304-E0
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.

Continue reading “Hades”
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PC Gaming

Metal Gear character inspirations

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