I don’t like the PS5 looks: the curves that mean I can’t stack it up nicely with other consoles in my collection, the white color (although I do have Wii and Dreamcast) and most of all, the “wings”.
Luckily, it supports replacing covers, and not only official once.
When I removed the original covers, I discovered a few of the legs were already broken, probably by the previous owner trying to clean the console.
While trying to replace the covers, I broke a fingernail, they are really tight. And then I discovered I bought covers for the Digital Edition, while I have the one with disc drive. So I had to remove them again and wait for the correct ones to arrive.
But now, I’m much more satistfied with how it looks and fits.
Category: PS5
-
PlayStation 5 covers
-
Soul Reaver
Completed Soul Reaver.
Had to look at the guide to figure out how to beat Dumah boss. All other bosses are fought in an enclosed arena, and you need to use environment against them. Here, you can leave the throne room, and he’ll chase you, barely. At first I thought it’s just a bug. Then I thought that maybe you need to lead him to his statue, but he wouldn’t follow. And if he disappears from your sight, he teleports back to the throne room, which reinforced the idea that’s where you need to beat him. But no, turns out you need to lead him through the entire level.
When people say that Soul Reaver story is great, they either mean that the dramatic voice acting is entertaining or that the overall story of the series is great. Because the story of the original Soul Reaver is bare bones.
The last temple was designed by someone who played Mario 64 too much. You need to rotate switches by running around them, over and over. I’m glad I’m playing with an analog stick.
We are also shown some glimpses from the future, where Raziel kills Ariel to get Sun Reaver and then stands with the red Kain Reaver.
The final boss is one of the easiest in the game: you just need to hit Kain three times, and then he escapes to the past through the time machine portal. So it’s not even a complete story, just half of it.
(more…) -
Soul Reaver
After obtaining Soul Reaver, Raziel can finally stop lugging a spear around to dispose of vampires, as while in full health, Soul Reaver can do the same. Doesn’t remind of any other game series at all 🤡
Cathedral is the worst of 90s design. You solve a puzzle, and somewhere else a switch opens. And those puzzles aren’t difficult, but they have endless enemies to distract you as well.
The boss of this dungeon confused me, as I thought that you need to aim with the eggs when he attacks. Turns out, you just need to set the eggs on fire before throwing them.
What’s even more confusing is the entire magic system, which I found about only because I was very confused were to go after the Cathedral. So I ended up finding two spells tucked away in secrets, one of them behind a 6-crate puzzle I was sure I was solving in order to progress the plot.
The Big Reveal is that Raziel and other vampire princes were once human Sarafan, paladin vampire hunters.
The “water temple” is not as bad as the spider temple, but it has a lot of platforming, which is surprising, you’d expect there will be a lot of swimming, but you get the swimming skill only after you beat the boss by jumping on tiny platforms, falling from which means you need to jump 8 platforms back, over and over.
I also found the fire upgrade for Soul Reaver, which is nice, because it allows to dispose of vampires from a safe diatance. Less clunky combat is a good thing. -
Soul Reaver
Soul Reaver wasn’t supposed to be set in Legacy of Kain universe at all. It just so happened that Amy Hennig, best known for Uncharted series, was helping with Blood Omen, and then decided that the best way for her idea to get approved is to shoehorn it into existing universe.
Another fact I didn’t know is that there are two versions of the game: PC and PSX have the same models, while Dreamcast had them reworked. Then there’s the remastered version from 2024.
At first I tried the original. I can see how this game is the precursor of the entire action adventure genre on PS2, with its acrobatics, almost mandatory finishing moves and gathering of souls out of dead enemies to replenish your health. Nowadays, though, it’s mostly unplayable, since it was designed before twin sticks became the norm. So camera is an issue.
And since the only way to permanently dispatch of enemies is to throw them at hazards such as water or sunlight, without second stick it becomes a pain.
And you can’t even look up or down. So Remaster it is.
I quickly discovered that the easiest way to dispose of vampires is to always carry a spear with you. Once you impale one, you can always reuse it.
Box puzzles are a genre staple. But it’s actually rare to see you are allowed to get boxes over obstacles and stack them to solve puzzles.The game shows its age: the locations are pretty small to fit PSX memory, and the view distance, albeit better than in the original, is still quite limited. The blood effects are on PSX level as well. When you traverse corridors, camera follows Raziel closely, so you wouldn’t feel discomfort when you couldn’t control it.
-
God of War 2018
I already tried to play God of War once, but dropped it quickly. It is clearly well made, but because of how well made it is it also feels slightly boring and sterile. Still, I’m glad they decided not to milk the Ancient Greece until the very end.
It’s a completely different game from the PS3 era, both in tone and mechanics. Some enemies are immune to your axe, so you have to stun them barehanded, then finish them off. I was also surprised that Kratos can die from a single blow, until I understood there is a level system, similar to looter/shooters. No matter how good you are at slashers, higher level enemies will be trouble.
Half of the time you spend solving “puzzles”, instead of beating enemies. Not like it’s a bad thing. Just different.
(more…) -
Playstation 5
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. -
Playstation 5
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. -
Playstation 5
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.
