Gameplay is brutal. Enemies died quickly, in a few seconds, but you do as well. Luckily your teammates are quite capable, and can be killed only during the storyline, otherwise they always eject to return in the next mission.
The story revolves around, you won’t believe it, Earth Hegemony waging a proxy war on its colonies using pirates. Your task force mostly tried to track a shimpment of powerful grenades (more like rockets) stolen from one of the clans, but does odd jobs as well, like helping a besieged farmer or rescuing a stranded pilot from another unit.
It’s impressive that squadmates have some mission-specific quotes as well. Nice touch.
One of the best moments is when you’re sent on another recoinsance mission just for your airship to be blown and you captured instead. Talk about plot twists!
I had a demo of Terra Nova when I was a kid, and I played it through and through. Made by Looking Glass in 96, after System Shock, and before Thief.
Things I didn’t expect is full motion video cut scenes, and 13 characters with distinct specialisations and biographies.
The tactical options for 96 are incredible. Your powerarmor can launch drones that you control from a minimap for recoinsance, or you can drop autonomous turrets.
The control scheme to support this is interesting. You move with WASD, and attack with your mouse by pointing and clicking, without shifting your view. You also activate various systems, like the minimap, night vision or drone controls using your mouse. It’s a control scheme that still works almost 30 years later.
Also, it’s impressive how every mission starts with you being dropped from a troop carrier, and then it flies to pick you up.
Completed Orc campaign as well now.
Starting as orcs is much harder. As humans, you get healing spell pretty early, allowing you to preserve your units. With orcs you get… skeletons.
Also funny how with orcs you sent to assassinate chieftain’s daughter, because she ran off with an ogre.
When I played this game as a kid, I didn’t appreciate spiders at all. Now I do. They are a great way to take out enemy catapults, and if they manage to get into the city, they do surprising damage to buildings.
The mission where you need to rescue Garona? Brutal! I did manage to complete it on my first try, but still, lost most of the units because orcs can’t heal them.
A nice trick that AI knows I wouldn’t notice if not for some YouTuber mentioning it, is that human opponent would cast Invisibility on a knight, then send him to hunt peons.
The last two missions are very similar to the Human campaign: survive until you can summons demons, then overwhelm the resistance.
It’s a bit pointless to review Brew By Numbers, because every year they would produce a completely different Imperial Stout. But still.
This year it’s ages in Rye Whisky barrels, which gives it a smoky (expected) slightly sweet (expected), but also almost Lambic level of sour taste (completely unexpected).
It’s still good, though.
Completed Human campaign.
The game is still quite brutal, even with all the advancements in quality of life. You don’t intercept a catapult, and half of your army is dead before you know it.
Counterintuitively, putting catapults in the front of your army works surprisingly well. They are rather sturdy, and extra range allows them to counter enemies early.
Funnily enough, I think that the level before last is harder than the final one. Despite tons of enemies, the base in Blackrock Spire is much easier to defend. Last two levels are basically a Water Elemental factory. You just survive until you get them, then spawn as many of them as possible, overwhelming the enemy.
I still find it awesome that they had a unique sprite for the Blackrock Spire.
I must admit, an updated version of Warcraft wasn’t on my bingo card for 2024. But here we are.
There is updated control scheme from Warcraft 2, so you can just right click everything. You can also double click to select all units, and you can control up to 12 units at once, instead of just 4 from the original or even 9 from Warcraft 2. As a nice bonus, there is also a seamless switch between the original and updated sprites.
But there is no waypoint system, and no unit queueing either. Still, it’s a much improved experience.
I have no idea where I’ve got this beer from. Look, sometimes I just spot something in a shop. Or sometimes I do an online order, and I just add a bottle I find interesting.
In any case, it’s a very nice beer at 7.5%. Not sure if it’s considered a Trappist, but it feels quite similar to me, with an orange sweetness to it.
Maybe not something I’d buy again on purpose, but a nice experience nevertheless.
It’s amazing deconstruction of superheroes genre. With mismatching music, and dialogues that punch every. Fucking. Line.
I mean, the movie made me laugh out loud on an airplane on 20th minute. That’s something.
It is still a superheroes movie, though. So despite Ryan Reynolds making a cheeky comment about “here comes a CGI fight”, the fight between Colossus and Juggernaut is indeed… a CGI fight.
What else? Zazie Beetz is great. I liked her in Bullet Train, and I like here as Domino even more.
John Wick has reinvigorated cinema. This is just one example.
Charlize Theron has this amazing confidence of not being afraid of being shown “ugly”.
The music, set pieces, the motives of ice and mirrors, it all fits really well. Enjoyed every moment, except the French actress, which was kind of meh.
20th whiskey in the calendar was Bunnahabhain 12, which I know pretty well, it’s a very solid Scotch whiskey, but not one of my favorites.
So we jump straight to Tamdhu 12 Years Old. It is light and smooth to the point I would think it’s a blend, with a very sweet fruity taste. One of the more pleasant whiskeys from the calendar. I had to check that it is matured in Oloroso Sherry casks, because the colour is quite light. At 45GBP, it’s a bargain. Would definitely like to try the 15 years or Cask Strength of this one.
The Magatsu dungeon is just tiring. Full of enemies that have no weaknesses and tons of HP.
You can never clear a floor in Persona 4, new Shadows will continue to spawn. But this is where it gets ugly.
It’s also annoying how the game skips a couple of weeks after Ameno-sagiri fight. Because half of the game is basically a dating sim, and you have two actions each day, you miss a lot of interactions that way without being warned.
I also missed Marie dungeon, because my social link was 9 out of 10 😬
But I’ve read that it’s annoying as hell anyway.
I don’t think I ever played the first Wing Commander, so it was a surprise to me that, instead of polygons, it used sprites of ships at different angles:
Completed Maverick Hunter X.
They changed the locations of all body parts. So now you get the Legs upgrade on Flame Mammoth stage where you previously got Arms in that insanely difficult jump. Now it’s easy. Head is in Chill Pinguin stage in a new tiny room. And where head previously been it’s now Armor. So you get Armor before getting the Arms, which are the ones guarded by the boss now.
With Dash and Armor Eagle is doable. And I’ve got Mammoth even without Eagle’s weapon. Chameleon is also doable without the Boomerang now, I think his attacks are slower and spikes are more predictable. Armadillo is a bit harder than before, as you can’t stick to walls, he has a new rolling attack against that. With that, my two last bosses where Octopus and Kuwanger.
Octopus is easy now, as his fish fly in an arc pattern, giving an opportunity to dodge.
One interesting bit is that in Sigma’s Fortress, when you meet Launch Octopus, the first of the returning bosses, again, he speaks like a zombie, and X comments that Sigma brought them “back to life”. In the original game, there was no explanation given why you have to fight the bosses again after killing them once.
Also, the design of the location is more immersive, I would say.
It’s the first time I understood that you don’t just jump on handing platforms, those are stairwells that collapsed during Zero’s assault.
The only returning boss that isn’t a pushover is Armadillo. That “Sonic roll” is still an immense pain. The unique bosses are much easier, though. Especially notable on the spider: it’s slower, and the paths aren’t as favorable as in the original.
Sigma is also much slower now, making it for a fight that even a normal person could enjoy. And the final Wolf form, while still punishing, has saner hitboxes.
Despite the slightly more difficult start due to lack of Dash and new attacks for some bosses, Maverick Hunter X is a welcome remake, that enraged me far less than the original. What really makes this game outstanding in my eyes, though, is the voice acting. It’s great, a really brings the characters to life.
As many kids in the 90s, I was into Transformers. Most transformers could transform just into one form, although ironically the most popular transformer in my hometown was Blitzwing, that could transform into both a tank and a jet. Generally, though, the more forms, the more awesome. And the most awesome of them all was Sixshot. It was also very expensive and rare, so my family couldn’t possibly afford it.
But now I’m a grown up men. So despite the fact that I don’t collect figurines generally, I decided to fulfil my childhood dream and get this one in particular.
Obviously I didn’t go for the original. Those are collector pieces, if you get one sealed, you wouldn’t dare to open it, and if it’s unsealed, it would probably be in a bad shape.
Instead, I went for the knock-off first, which is why it’s called Sixninja and not Sixshot.
It is still impressive piece of engineering. Aot of transformers couldn’t bend their knees or elbows. This one moves in all directions.
It has also very smart design. The body is hollow to stow away the head. The arms are hollow, and so are the legs. The legs also have a few catches that click together.
The robot still looks awesome. I honestly think it’s one of the coolest designs ever produced, and a true masterpiece. The forms, though… Well, not so much. You need quite a lot of imagination to see what they represent. The case when more doesn’t necessarily means better.
This is a remake of Mega Man X, and probably one of the most impressive remakes I’ve seen. They got the designs, and the tone exactly right. So it’s sad that it was only ever released for PSP.
One thing that is “rigth but wrong” with transition to 3D, though, is X turning. With 2D model it was just the flipping of a sprite, the speed they kept with 3D, but now it looks strange.
Interestingly they changed the bosses quite significantly. It’s well known that the fight with Vile can’t be won on SNES. Here, you actually expected to beat him before he grabs you and Zero intervenes.
Another example is Storm Eagle. I mentioned that in the original game it’s quite harmless. Not anymore! Not only it can flow you off the ship easier to instadeath, but it now also throws homing pigeons at you as well rams you horizontally.
The upgrades were changed a bit as well. You don’t get Dash on Chill Penguin stage for free anymore.
After harder Eagle, I didn’t expect Mandril to be so easy. The original Mandril had invincibility after you froze him twice. So you had to dodge his dash attack. Not anymore. You can freeze the poor monkey to death now.
Completed Mega Man X.
What surprised me after Mega Man X4 is that although you need to figth the bosses again, it is not a gauntlet. Instead, they are spread organically through multiple stages, and you also have unique bosses to figth along the way. The spider boss is difficult, but I’d say fair, after you understand it’s gimmick: it can only get to you if it has a path on the “ladder”. The “sleepy face” boss that throws its eyes at you is less fun, as it has this one-hit-kill spikes mechanic, and the “nose” has a bounce mechanic.
And by “TRex” boss I ran out of most of my ammo, so I was just throwing shit at it.
Sigma fight is three stages, but at least you start it with full health and energy tanks. First phase is the dog, which is easy. Second phase is Sigma jumping on walls, and it’s tiring, because you need to be very precise, and constantly walljump. Third phase is the wolf form, which is cool, but also random, akin to last form from Mega Man X4. Sometimes you just get unlucky and will be blasted by the plasma balls over and over, which are extremely hard to dodge.
I’ve heard some complain that this game is too easy.
In my opinion, it’s reasonably hard. You still need to know what you’re doing and be very intentional about it, and some jumps are quite ridiculous, but it’s doable even with someone bad reflexes as I am.
After the disappointing Razer Deathstalker V2 Pro I went back to Keychron. I was eyeing Alice layout keyboard for a long time, and decided that now I should give it a chance. This time I went with brown switches as well, my Keychron K1 which I still adore is red switches.
I like K1 more for the dedicated lighting button. On K15 you need to remember the magic keys (Fn+Q) for it. I also miss the PrintScreen, although I guess this one could be replaced by the macros keys on the left.
Strangely, the midboss of the Mandril stage, Thunder Slimer, gave me much more trouble that Mandril itself. It’s hard to avoid due to its sticky slime, and still kills X in a couple of hits.
Unlike previous three bosses, Armadilo is no pushover. It’s a “bouncy” boss, but unlike second phase of Sigma in Mega Man X4, I couldn’t find a clear pattern, so I had to brawl it cyborg’o’marsupial
The Mammoth is very easy if you fought Pinguin and Eagle first to freeze the stage and get the Eagle weapon. Octopus though is tough. First, his stage is beautiful, with an impressive on SNES water effect, but it has one of the worst mini-bosses in the game, that sucks you on spikes, which are one-hit-kill. What’s also cool about Octopus stage is that I didn’t destroy the submarine, and fought mostly harmless eel. Turns out if you do destroy the submarine, you have to fight it in a spiky arena. Have no idea why someone would prefer it, though.
Then there’s the X-Buster upgrade on Mammoth stage… What can I say, the reason I won’t replay this game ever, I think, is this bullshit jump you need to perform.
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