The strange benefit of a jailbroken PS5 is that at least at the moment, it’s the most convenient Jailbreak. PS4 requires USB drive and Internet connection, PS4 Pro requires Blue Ray disc, and all you need to jailbreak PS5 is to launch the app. It may change, though, as I fully expect that PS4 9.00 will get a permanent jailbreak at some point.
Installing PS4 games is as easy as on PS4, by using Package Installer from etaHEN menu. PS5 games are a different story. You need to install another app, Itemzflow, and the games are copied unpacked over FTP. In the meantime, the only PS5 game I managed to launch is Street Fighter 6, and honestly, I can’t see a difference from PS4 version. Demon’s Souls doesn’t launch, and I haven’t tried Last of Us 2 yet.
So at this point, PS5 is just a glorified PS4 Pro.
Category: Sony
Playstation 5 is a strange console, because Playstation 4 never fully left. Plenty have been said about that, too big of a customer base to stop making games, and too small of a technological leap for customers to upgrade. So after all those years, there’s just a single console exclusive game that’s worth mentioning: Demon Souls Remake. Everything else is either on PS4 or PC, or both.
So I’ll end up playing PS4 games on PS5.
I’d be honest, I didn’t plan to buy Playstation 5. But once I got into hunting for jailbreakable Playstation 4 Pro, I discovered that Playstation 5 can be also easily jailbroken. The caveat is that, as usual, you need a low firmware, and you loose all your data, since the exploit comes within a backup.
I got an email from eBay saying that I have another hour to place my bid on this low-firmare console, I clicked without thinking much, because I didn’t expect to win, and here I am, with Playstation 5.
The first step is, as I mentioned, to restore from backup. Since I didn’t need to keep anything on the console, this was easy. Then you open the exploited YouTube app, that starts a server, and use Python script to inject two payloads, first JavaScript, then binary, which is the actual debug menu.
Because doing that would be a bit denuous, you then replace the exploited YouTube app with an even more exploited one, that does the injection by itself.
And here you have it, PS5 running FTP server and all that stuff.
I decided to go back on my words and actually complete the only DLC for Callisto Protocol. I highly doubt I would have returned to it later, and if I did, I would have forgotten how to play the game anyway.
I decided to play it on PS4, because I didn’t want to buy it on PC.
I was complaining about unnecessary transitions on PC. On PS4 the loading times are so bad that sometimes the lift doors won’t open, because the level behind them is still loading, something that never happened to me on PC.
Because I can’t transfer my saves, I started with a default loadout. Which is, to be honest, fair. You get mostly upgraded shotgun, glove, and pistol, and you can pick up other weapons as you go. Worse off than if I could continue from my save, but it is what it is.
Jacob starts with light amnesia, for some reason. He also hallucinates Elias, the now dead cellmate, which didn’t happen to him in the original. There’s a “new” enemy: same robot with a flashlight, but this time covered it fungi.
Also, I guess because people complained about boring vent crawling, now they added traps inside the vents. Which only make them more annoying, as they do not save you before the vent. At least I was prepared the second time.
At some point you break your button and given a hamme, because developers couldn’t implement two melee weapons at once. In addition to being incredibly powerful in melee, it can also break crates.
Credit given where credit is due, they actually added an almost original boss. It’s obviously based on two-headed ogre, but it has also a ranged attack and a stomp, and transitions between melee and ranged forms. It’s actually better than the final boss from the original, in a sense.
Categories
Playstation 4 Pro
So I got myself another Playstation 4 Pro, with 12.52 firmware, and the BD with an exploit.
This was after I had a funny encounter on eBay. I’ve seen someone selling it for 100GBP, which is a great price nowadays. I bought it immediatelly, only for the seller to refund me and say that it’s not the final price, he doesn’t sell it without games, and the real price is 150GBP. I found another seller who was selling it at 120GBP.
The exploit is both easier and harder than the one for 9.00
On one hand, you don’t need to launch your browser and insert a USB, which I like. You don’t even need Internet connection.
But it is a race condition, so sometimes it fails, and you need to restart your console and do it again.
Didn’t know the original creator of Fire Emblem series released a Fire Emblem knock-off called TearRing Saga on PSX:
Half a year ago I sold my “unhackable” Playstation 4 Pro 11.52 for 110GBP. And did I miscalculate.
Two things happened. First, now those are hackable up to 12.52. And second, the RAM price hike drove all the console prices up, even the older ones. Go figure.
In any case, if I wanted to get Playstation 4 Pro now, I would pay at least 150GBP.
Not that I need it. Or not that I can’t afford the price difference. But it is still quite wild.
Completed Ace Combat 3.
This wasn’t easy, but not because the game is hard. To get the True Ending, you need to beat all 5 scenarios, and save them on the same memory card. I didn’t know that, so I used two memory cards, and had to repeat at least one scenario. I was also afraid that I was missing some missions, due to the way save states and memory cards work in RetroArch. But it worked out in the end.
I know I complained a lot about boss battles in this game. But “Ouroboros 1” scenario is probably the best boss battle in the entire series. First, Rena goes crazy, and you fight Night Raven. Then Keith comes to your rescue and sticks his plane in Rena’s (Night Raven is like a biplane from WW1).
In the Fi/Neucom ending, Dision mentions Yoko, but we have no idea who she is. Turns out, she was a scientist and Dision’s lover that performed Sublimation on him. It’s not a concience transfer, but a concience copy. So when General blew Dision and Yoko up, Dision-clone could watch how his original dies.
Keith/General ending is surreal, and I say it after the cyberspace battle from Dision’s ending. You fight Rena after failing to collapse geofront ceiling on her and Dision. Keith is shot down, but not before he shoots down Dision too. Then you need to fight 8 more Night Ravens! But once you beat the first, you somehow hack it, and then pilot it for the rest of the battle. No explanation is given, and the cockpit is shown to be empty.
In Dision/Uroboros ending, Dision mentions Simon, but it’s not clear why. In the True Ending, we get an explanation, and it’s a good one. Nemo is a computer program (that’s why Rena at the very beginning asks you why do you fly just like her), and the purpose of that program was to erase Dision from cyberspace. And alternative scenarios are alternative paths that the program takes to erase Dision. Talk about breaking the 4th wall.
Ace Combat 3 story is not just unparalleled for a flightsim. It is one of the best storylines in games. Dision plot made me think of Soma (which I hated) and Tides of Numenera (which I’m fond of), while multiple conflicting storylines reminded me of Zero Escape games, which, when I think of it, also dealt with conscience transfer.
Next I decided to go back and shoot down Fi and Clarkson, which took me to the UFEO scenario.
Park, the UFEO commander, is corrupt and working with Uoroboros to pit General and Neucom in order to eliminate both.
There’s an interesting twist in he mission where you need to bomb nanomachines: Rena’s plane gets infected, and you need to hit it with a freefalling bomb 😬
It’s explained that Dision onboarded Rena into an experimental program convincing her to install neurolink so she could pilot Night Raven. Then he was killed by General either because Neucom split or for another reason, but managed to preserve himself in Electrosphere.
He offers Night Raven to Rena, but she uses it to shoot the zeppelin out of the sky. She crashes, but survives to be picked up by Nemo (the protagonist) and Erich. The strange helicopter you blow in the English version turns out to be Park trying to flee.
This ending is much more positive, and also the entire scenario is easier: Su43 you get from UFEO is far better than the aircraft from Neucom, and there are no annoying boss battles or tunnel runs at all.
At the mission where you need to escort the UN diplomat, Fi is onboard with him when you’re ordered to shoot the aircraft, because Clarkson is about to defect to Neucom. Rena doesn’t care, but Erich objects. Another choice.
Joining Neucom we’re introduced to Cynthia, Fi’s edler sister. Turns out she is a Neucom ace, and obsessed with “Sublimation”, or in other words transcending into cyberspace.
Another choice, either follow her and join Ouroboros, or stay with Fi and Neucom. I didn’t save that broad just to let her go! So I stay with Fi.
In the underground, we fight Rena, then Dision. Now at least I understand who I fought in the English version. And that’s it, end of Neocom scenario. No delirious fight in Electrosphere. I thought that fighting Dision for a second time would be better. It wasn’t.
Rena receives a message from her sister telling her that she’s happy in cyberspace. The end.
I mentioned that Ace Combat 3 was the longest Ace Combat I played, and now I understand why. They mashed together missions from different scenarios. So I didn’t get to blow a train or to fight a virus or to free a path for a falling zeppelin. A single campaign in the Japanese version takes under an hour, pretty standard for Ace Combat games.
It’s time to compare the English disgrace with Japanese original. First, there are two fan translations: Project Nemo and LoadWordTeam
Second is considered superior.
The experience from the translated Japanese version couldn’t be more different from the English one. In English you are thrown into the fight with little to no exposition. In Japanese version, you sit for 5 minutes watching news reports (animation is by Production IG, Ghost in the Shell) and getting codec calls, as you are introduced to Rena, Erich (Erik?) and Fiona. Rena is Motoko Kusanagi of this universe, a pilot prodigy that is allergic to sunlight, so she muses why would she need human body at all. Erich and Fi are your peers at UPEO (which is like NATO), and Park is your superior.
In the English version, you almost always fought alone, and when you did have allies, they were anonymous. Here the aircrafts are clearly labeled.
There are more planes available, both initially and as you progress. The weirdest airplanes, like a Catamaran one, are not playable at all in the English version.
The first branching path is as soon as Mission 4. The way you chose between branches is which of the aircrafts you follow.
At first you fight with General against Neucom Neocon. Then you defend Neucom from General. Then Rena asks you to come with her to reclaim an aircraft she was testing as a child, Night Raven. Only with full version the mission names start to make some sense. “Paper Tiger” refers to the fact that everyone thinks NATO is a joke. And “No Clearance” is both a piloting term, and refers to the fact you are following Rena despite your orders.
Completed Ace Combat 3.
English version of Ace Combat 3 is a complete mess. It’s like watching a silent movie from 1920, where every few missions you’re interrupted by a paragraph of text that makes little to no sense.
It’s the longest Ace Combat in terms of number of missions by far: 35 missions, compared to about 25 in most other titles.
Once you get used to the controls, the game is relatively easy, until the chase in the Geofront. Every Ace Combat game makes you fly through a tunnel. But that’s the only game I remember that has you do it for 5 minutes straight. It’s a torture.
And then you need to duel a X49 superfighter, similarly to Ace Combat Zero. But it’s very hard to tell if you hit it or not. And all that without saving in-between. I call it “superfigher” for lack of better term, as it is able to take ridiculous number of missile hits, and instead of firing missiles back it uses some kind of a laser.
After that there’s a long an unfulfilling fight against both X49 and UI4054 Aurora, that feels just random in the way they avoid missiles. During my first attempt, I simply ran out of missiles, and I had almost 200 of them, and gave up. Second attempt took me 18 minutes of chasing one then the other.
Didn’t enjoy it? It’s a shame, because you’ll have to repeat it two more times, beating Aurora first in another dogfight, then in Virtual Reality (the eponymous Electrosphere).
In terms of game length, it’s hard to measure, as it doesn’t let you save for the last 5 missions. 30th mission was 2:30 hours, and considering that just mission 33 took me 18 minutes, I’d say it’s around 3:30 hours of play time, which is again, longer than most Ace Combat games.
They did simplify the mini games. In Ace Combat 2 I didn’t to manage to land once. Here I managed both landing and refueling in air.
There are a few very inventive missions, one of which has you pilot a stratosphere fighter, and another a spacecraft taking down satelites.
Chasing a train is fun and stupid at the same time, as this mission can be completed in 30 seconds.
“Swarm” mission throws so many enemies at you, I was afraid to run out of missiles. But at least they are finite, unlike Ace Combat 2 and Ace Combat 4 missions. Also, you have an ally in this mission, that is even helpful and downs some enemies, but you have absolutely no context who that is.
Technically, “Fragile Cargo” will be repeated by Ace Combat 5, where you need to destroy antenas on the way of the landing aircraft. Here, you need to destroy chimneys on the way of zeppelin. But the way they errupt fire as if it’s Blade Runner is super impressive, considering it’s PSX.
This is the only Ace Combat game I remember that lets you choose between different machine guns. Also, the choice between missiles is much more interesting. In most Ace Combat games, you always fire two missiles. Here, you also have the ability to fire 4 missiles, but with a shorter range.
The approach to aircraft is what I call in shooters “M4 with neon lights”. Those are “futuristic” versions of modern aircraft. So we’ve got F/18U HornetAdv (real aircraft is called F/18 Hornet).
Ravine mission here is interesting for two reasons. First, it’s more of a maze, where you need to follow F117. And second, they created a reflection for F117 in the water. Impressive.
One thing I never had trouble with before are the controlls being slugish. But here, I have to pull very hard in order for my aircraft to do anything. Ironic, considering that the machinegun mechanic feels much more lenient, after nightmarish machine gun mission from Ace Combat 2. Hitting even multiple targets with a machinegun is no big problem. But turning your aircraft is.
Ace combat 3 Controls vs Ace combat 2 Controls
byu/gsifdgs inacecombat
I thought that only Fat PS2 could play PS1 games, but then I learned that my PS2 Slim could do that as well. So I gave it a try. Even on original PS2 analog gamepad, the game still controls differently than any other before or after. And it hangs on a second mission. Not sure if it’s because of my disc, or playing on Slim instead of Fat, or the game in general.
Everyone should know this story by now, but still. English version of Ace Combat 3 should be the definition of “self fulfilling curse”. Namco developed this insanely ambitious arcade flight sim only to get scared that it won’t sell well in the west, so they literaly cut more than half of the game for the English release, and after that, it obviously didn’t sell well.
I decided that I’ll start with the English version first, and then compare it to the fan translation. And what a strange experience that is.
Maybe it’s because the Japanese version comes on two CDs, and English just on one, but there is no intro, at all. After you start your first mission, you get a bit of text on a black screen telling you that you are UPEO pilot protecting General Resource corp from Neuwork corp. There is no voiceover. It all feels like I’m playing a ripped version in the 90s.
Speaking of the game itself, though, the visual jump is incredible, considering there was one already between Ace Combat and Ace Combat 2. But now the land textures are even more detailed, sun is reflecting on the water, there are lens flares, and clouds, and explosion waves (something I don’t remember even in PS2 titles). The first mission is such a power move overall.
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.
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.
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.
