One Happy Team…

Ghost Recon Breakpoint

I keep going back to this game, because let’s be honest, it’s ridiculous. It has some of the best shooting mechanics.

Balistics, firing modes, silencers, the feedback from the weapons is simply amazing. Take their approach for “heavies”, for example. It still takes just two headshots to down them, they don’t become some bullet sponges like in some other games.
Then there’s the hardcore mechanics. Like you don’t regenerate your health fully until you bandage your wounds, and how you limp while wounded, or how you can camouflage yourself while lying down, and that you have to change ammo by magazines, and probably tons of other mechanics I don’t even know exist.

Tags Ghost Recon

PSX Sony

“Why Nintendo Hates Fire Emblem’s Creator”

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date January 15, 2026
No Comments on “Why Nintendo Hates Fire Emblem’s Creator”

Didn’t know the original creator of Fire Emblem series released a Fire Emblem knock-off called TearRing Saga on PSX:

*.DOC

Norman Conquest, Marc Morris

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date January 15, 2026
1 Comment on Norman Conquest, Marc Morris

Started listening to this book after the failure that was “King and Conqueror”.
The way Morris managed to capture the ambiguity of history is quite fascinating. He often compares multiple chroniclers, as some were writing literally a hundred years after the events, and most of them were partisan one way or the other (or in other words, some were Anglo Saxon monks, and some were Norman monks).
He also has a lot of humorous observations: like how Henry the 2nd was considered to be “return to Anglo Saxon roots”, while he was born in France, died in France, spend most of his life fighting in France, and was 1/8 or even 1/16 Anglo Saxon at best.
Or how William the Conqueror at his death was so fat he didn’t fit into his own sarcophagus.
But I digress. Great book, very glad I got to read it.

Tags Marc Morris

Nintendo Switch XBOX

Dark Alliance

Dark Alliance has always been my guilty pleasure. There is something to the simplicity of this game. And how sexualized every female character is.
Turns out I even finished the first episode some 15 years ago in coop, but barely remember anything of it.

The game is surprisingly brutal. Every ARPG can be viewed as economy game: you need to bring more money from the dungeon than you spend. In that sense, Dark Alliance is very close to break even. If you play as Archer, your weapons do very little damage. So you need flame arrows, which require mana, and the arrows themselves, which don’t drop in enough quantities. And you need healing potions, because despite having some regeneration, it’s not nearly enough. The drops aren’t very generous, I might have gotten a +1 gloves, but was better off with buying a leather armor from the vendor. There are “town portals” for shopping trips, but those aren’t cheap either. So you’re basically paying for the great privilege of cleaning the dungeons. At some point in the sewers the only way I managed to bean both the rat miniboss (of course there’s a rat miniboss) and the bugbear boss only by surrounding myself with some crates that they couldn’t navigate, and making a pincushion out of both.

I started the game on original Xbox, then remembered it was ported to Switch, so I switched to it.

Although I must say I probably prefer the low-res look of the original.

The main problem with the game: it’s quite boring in single-player. You don’t get experience quickly enough, so you’re stuck with just one skill for a long, long time, and not enough motivation to continue.

Tags Baldur's Gate, Dark Alliance

*.BAK

Imperial Iron Brew, Vault City Brewing

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date January 14, 2026
No Comments on Imperial Iron Brew, Vault City Brewing

I’m not a fan of sours, but this one, which resided in my fridge for at least a year, was actually pretty good. So much strawberry I couldn’t believe it didn’t have any additives to it. Overall, great one, as expected from Vault City.
Also, let’s just appreciate for a moment this peach color.

Tags beer

*.BAK

Whiskey Advent Calendar

5th bottle is Kavalan Triple Sherry Cask. I’m familiar with Kavalan through their Concermaster, and Triple Cask is no different. It is sweet, if I’d prefer it to be at least 46% instead of 40%. The problem is that this bottle costs 81GBP. For that price, you can get yourself a nice sherried Cask Strength.

6th bottle is Uncle Nearest 1884. It’s a bourbon. You can taste the corn, and it has a surprising afterwarmth to it. But not something I would buy, despite a reasonable price of 55GBP (when available).

Tags Kavalan, Uncle Nearest, whiskey

PS4 Sony

Playstation 4

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.

*.BAK

Painting Scabbik’s Plaguepack

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date January 13, 2026

Over Christmas, completed my Scabbik’s Plaguepack.

I was preparing so much to glue them, only to discover those are push models. Well, I’m not one to complain about that.
The real challenge if those Skaven models, in addition to regular warpstones, and the tails, are the plumes of smoke that come from their censers.
I tried drybrushing metal, but it mostly got thrown away.
Pleased how pink parts worked, with Bugman Glow, then strangely enough Berserker Bloodshade, then highlight with Bugman Glow again.
I’ve never seen bones/horns done in blue (I don’t remember this particular contrast paint, maybe Kroxigor Scales), but I did it for contrast mostly.
One thing I plainly lack is the discipline to photo the process under the same light all the time.

Tags Warhammer

*.AVI

Letters form Iwo Jima

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date January 12, 2026

It’s a movie that requires prior knowledge, as it doesn’t explain a lot. Hard to discern who’s in Navy and who’s in the Army. But it also doesn’t matter much. I thought that it would be a story of heroic stand, or of some struggle, but it is mostly just a collection of anecdotes, without any moral judgement.

It’s an interesting movie, but not a movie you supposed to enjoy, as there is no rhyme or reason to it. Passing of time is convoluted, it is not clear if the siege of the island took a week or a month, the only indications is that at some point they say that they spend 5 days before the final assault.

There is some irony, like the story of the lieutenant that wanted to blow himself with a tank, didn’t find any tanks, and eventually survived. But there isn’t much.

*.AVI

Top Gun

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date January 11, 2026

It’s like two movies rolled into one. First is a school drama about female teacher dating her student, quite badly written. Second is a fenomenal air combat action.
The most interesting aspect is that Val Kilmer is supposed to be the antagonist, but he’s actually the sanest person.
Meg Ryan also surprised me in this one, because I always remembered her as this quite plain pretty face, while here she actually delivers.

*.BAK

Kyro Malt Rye

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date January 1, 2026

4th taster is from Finland. I’ve had rye whiskey before in New York, and it tastes quite similar, like a rye toasted bread. Not my favourite taste. At 47 ABV it leaves plenty of pleasant warmth, though.

Tags whiskey

Dreamcast Sega

Alone in the Dark New Nightmare

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date January 1, 2026

Completed Alone in the Dark New Nightmare.
Not sure if the second disc was less play tested, or I just started loosing patience with this game.
The circle of stones stumbled me. Carnby says you need to call Eileen to decipher the inscriptions, but when you do, nothing happens. I thought that maybe the game glitched out on me. Looked into the guide.
But for some reason you need to decide what one of the inscriptions means. Was I supposed to know it somehow?

Then the statue in the greenhouse. I thought I should push it, tried a couple of times, and figured out I must be on the wrong track. Turns out, it needs to be pushed from a perfect angle .
The last part, when you meet with Eileen and run in the caves together is nice, albeit pointless, because soon Edward gets sucked into World of Darkness, all alone again.

At first I thought it’s some Gigerian dimension. But radio with Eileen still works, so it must be just the caves beneath the island. You are given a lighting gun with plenty of ammo to find and what looks like endless enemies. Not exactly “survival horror”.
This entire episode is bizarre, as they rendered a lot of those unique backgrounds. For what? You run through those rooms as fast as possible, just not to fight endless enemies.
You fight Alan who turned into some kind of a gaunt zombie. When you damage him enough, you can grab a spear, which I don’t think was ever mentioned, and stab him to death. Because what is stronger than a rocket launcher? A spear, of course!

I have zero motivation to play the second scenario, which is a shame, really. It does seem like Eileen playthrough would be significantly different. Not only she has a radically different starting point, but also Edward never visits the fort or meets Obed, the less evil brother, for that matter. So some events, like Obed’s transformation, are never explained.

Tags alone in the dark

Dreamcast Sega

Alone in the Dark New Nightmare

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date December 31, 2025

What gave me a real pause was the Library boss. Wasted all my ammo on in on the first try. Then I thought that maybe I’m not supposed to fight it yet, but no, the doors are locked. It does this slomo attack from time to time, but it’s not clear what the game expects me to do. Dodge? After looking in a guide, learned that this is when I’m supposed to counter. Tried it again. Wasted all my ammo again. Finally found a YouTube video that explains that the boss is bugged, and you need to hit it in a particular frame.
Previously I mentioned how ammo in the game is abundant. That’s not exactly true. It just isn’t spread evenly. By the time I got out of the mansion an to the second disc, I was running dry on almost everything.
Speaking of second disc, on GDEmu it’s a bit of a pain. The game only lets you load from the 1st disc, then you need to swap discs, which is done by pressing a button on GDEmu, which doesn’t always work, and if it doesn’t, then you have to reboot, and watch the unskippable sequence again.

Tags alone in the dark

*.AVI

For a Few Dollars More

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date December 30, 2025

This one surprised me a lot. Not only because, unlike “For a Fistful of Dollars” it doesn’t repeat any story I know. But because of its characters. First, I’d say Clint Eastwood isn’t the main hero of that story, it’s Colonel Mortimer. He’s introduced first, has far more agency, and a revenge arc. You can argue that Eastwood’s character goes through a development as well, but not as significant. It’s almost bait’n’switch, I’d say: you came for Eastwood, but stayed for Van Cleef.
The second surprise is how diabolically evil Indio is. The last such unapologetically evil character I can remember was Henry Drax played by Farrel in “North Water”. Indio orders family of the man he betrayed shot, and then challenges him to a duel. Here I thought that after the duel, they’ll be shown alive, as just giving more motivation, but no.
Then Indio is showing shooting another woman’s fiance, then raping her. And I thought there will be some story of how she rejected him because he was Mexican or something, but no. He just decided to burglar into someone’s house.
The movie is long, almost two hours, and not entirely for good reasons. Some of the scenes are too long.

Dreamcast Sega

Alone in the Dark: New Nightmare

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date December 30, 2025

I’ve played this reboot on PC many years ago, but haven’t progressed far and don’t remember much.
It seems like a Resident Evil 2 clone, with tank controls, terrible voice acting, and two characters that have different starting points.
At first, I was confused why analog stick doesn’t control the character, only D-pad does. Turns out, analog stick is for flashlight. Which is very neat for 2001, I give it that. The shadows are surprisingly good, and the 3D characters blend with prerendered backgrounds nicely.
Saves are limited by amulets you find. But at least you can save anywhere.
The game tells its story through journals. But it thinks that spitting 17 pages at you is somehow fine.
Unlike Resident Evil, there is plenty of ammo, though. Or so it seems: regular zombie takes three shots from a shotgun.
Of course there are plenty of keys to be found. The problem with them, though, is that the rooms are not labeled, and Edward doesn’t use them automatically. The only clue are the labels on the keys. But the labels are also incorrect sometimes: a key labeled 1st floor opens a door on the 2nd floor.

Tags alone in the dark

Uncategorized

MiniDisc

Probably because I watch a lot of retro console mods and repairs videos, I stumbled upon a MiniDisc repair one.

Wait, what’s a minidisc? I thought those are just smaller CD-ROMs in a rectangular case, maybe?
Turns out, it’s more of a HDD, but with a single disc instead of multiple ones. Magnetic, and so rewritable, and with a cache onboard (so it wasn’t just a plastic case), that protected from skipping.

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen one. But then I was never big on music in the first place.
Still, an interesting piece of retro technology.

PC Gaming

Conscript

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date December 26, 2025

Many compare this game with Resident Evil, and I can see the resemblance in some of the mechanics: saves use ink, limited discrete inventory (each item takes one cell, be it a rifle or a pack of cigarettes), there are magic boxes to store equipment, and a lot of locked doors.
Combat system is different, though, with charge and stamina for melee weapons, and manual reload after each shot for firearms. You aim with your mouse, but there’s also a charge mechanic there, the reticle becomes smaller the longer you aim. There are also shooting enemies, something rare in original Resident Evil games for obvious reasons.
Story is very grounded. You are a French conscript fighting alongside your brother at Verdun. You are left behind in trenches now patrolled by Germans, and on the lookout for officers, scattered across the trenches in more than one sense, to get the keys for bunkers.
There’s a basic upgrade system, more of Resident Evil 4 than Resildent Evil 2, though, with generic stat boosts instead of custom parts.

Tags Conscript

Mobile Gaming

Tacticus.

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date December 26, 2025

Unlocked Hascule from the release event:

Unlocked Taumachus and Celestine from a single pull.

This is actually huge, as Celestine is one of the best characters in the game and costs 500 shards, while Taumachus can be useful in the Saim Han Mirror campaign.
First two hits against Celestine completely deflect the damage unto a summoned minion. Which means she is extremely hard to neutralize.

I’d be honest, I paid for Premium for this month, since I was farming Calgar anyway. That guaranteed my unlock of Calgar.

Unlocked Zkar, another Machine of War, from its release event.

Tags Tacticus, w40k

*.BAK

Lego Technics alternatives

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date December 26, 2025
3 Comments on Lego Technics alternatives

Lego Technics sets are pricey. They are aimed at adults, but still, those usually cost around 300GBP. So there are plenty of Lego enthusiast that advocate for alternative brands: CaDA, Guly, Nifeliz, Mould King.
But here’s a thing. A lot of those alternatives don’t come in fancy boxes. Sometimes, you need to pay more to even get a box. Some have missing parts or even missing bags. And most of those models are not licensed: so you have names like Assassin instead of McLaren P1.
And once some of those alternatives like CaDA grow big enough to provide all of the above, guess what? They cost not significantly less.

Dreamcast Sega

AirForce Delta

Post author By TheAleosha
Post date December 24, 2025

Completed AirForce Delta.
Despite planes and landscape looking great for Dreamcast, the effects could be better. The explosions look like there’s three frames of animation, and shot down objects straight disappear.

Mission 12, that has you taken down a flying fortress (straight from Ace Combat 1) and a whole base is quite brutal.

But what really got me was Mission 14. It’s “shoot a crashing satelite” mission, but with enemy planes shooting at you. And with an incredibly tight time limit. I seriously considered dropping the game at this point, as it isn’t clear whatever the game wants you to do.

Then there is corridor run, where you fly though a mountain tunnel. But you also have to fight an enemy ace.

Then there is submarine hunt in the Arctic. Somebody was seriously copying Ace Combat 2 homework.

The penultimate mission is a marathon of time and missiles. There are so many targets, even hitting all of them almost depletes your stock, and so many enemies I continuously died from chip damage. And if that’s not enough, there is also a time limit.

Don’t know if it’s just my console, but half of the time I got killed on that mission, I had to hard reset as well.
I actually liked the last mission, though. It’s nothing special, just a duel between you and a fictional plane. But unlike Ace Combat 3 or Ace Combat Zero it doesn’t have any gimmicks like having to shoot it with a machinegun only. Yes, it is frustratingly maneuvrable, but nothing more.

Tags Airforce Delta