This again has very little to do with science fiction. It’s a fictitious account of Battle of the Bulge aftermath and the Bombing of Dresden. Of course America is to blame for everything, and only if it would stop producing weapons all the wars in the world would go away.
A monumental work, hours of footage on evolution of King of Fighter series.
This series always was one of my less-favorite on Neo Geo, since I never liked the tag-battle 3×3 format.
But the retrospective is still brilliant. For one, little did I know that the storyline didn’t make much sense to me, because SNK were creating their own universe. So a lot of the critical plotlines were told only in manga, for example. Even if you finished the game and managed to get through terrible English translation, you still wouldn’t understand a thing, and this is the way it was intended.
Next surprise: KoF ’99 has a different style, because the lead designer worked on another postapocalyptic fighting game… Fallen Angels. Yes, the unfinished fighting game I wrote about some time ago. And a lot of new characters, including K’ (hate that name) are straight from Fallen Angels.
And KoF 2001 had the artist from Real Bout Fatal Fury. That’s why the character portraits are much more anime-like than in any other game in the series.
Today I tried the second pack of jjajang noodles, this time from Samyang.
I’m not sure if they are better than Nongshim, or I just learned to “cook” them (you need to simmer them with sauce until all the water evaporates.
But they were nice, umami, I’d say.
Managed to beat Hades for the second time, with a combination of Zeus and Dionisius, including their duo-boon. And expended just a single life in the process!
The principle that I follow is that if there’s a fated choice, I always take the fated choice.
Unlocked the first hidden aspect, the Spear.
I wish I could say that my 3rd escape was with the Shield, but in fact it was 90% combination of Artemis’ cast, Artemis’ Exit Wounds and Hermes’ Epic Quick Reload.
4th escape: didn’t expect it would go well at all. But Chiron Bow, Zeus cast and Dead Defiance reload from Athena surprisingly did the job.
5th escape. Again, didn’t expect to make it. But I randomly traded for Rocket Bomb and Tripple Bomb, so I fired 3 rockets. Then I went for Demeter cast topped with Arctic Blast. I think in this run I also collected the most Duo boons ever, three of them, including Stubborn Roots that regenerates HP if you don’t have lives left. That carried me through the entire Labirynth.
What was that? Almost theatrical, with just a few actors and a few backgrounds: pub, Paedric’s house, Colm’s house, shop.
The best explanation I found yet is that’s an allegory to the Irish Civil War.
“Disproportional escalation” is a great definition.
Then Brendan Gleeson also played in “Michael Collins”, a movie about the Irish Civil War.
Also, the cutest donkey ever in the history of cinema.
“Inisherin” is “Island of Ireland”:
Tried Brew By Numbers Blood Orange Pale Ale and Brew by Numbers Pale Ale Citra Centennial. Nice almost no-alcohol IPAs, that still preserve some taste. Bought a pack of 8, since they stopped making them, it seems.
Finally got to watch Infinity War. Now I get most of the Thanos memes at least.
Actually, I wantched it more than a month ago, during a flight. But I felt terrible boredom every time I tried to write something about it. And the only reason I decided to write anything about it is because otherwise I’d forget I even watched it, and may try watching it again.
There is Black Panther stupidity, like those Ancient Greece formations of sorts, when they decide to open the force fields “because reasons”. Certainly a lot of Iron Man, who became all powerful “because nanomachines”. But mostly, it’s a Guardians of the Galaxy show, believe it or not. Most episodes have this “cosmic opera” feel.
As far as villains go, maybe Maw appeared as a bonus scene in one of the previous movies? Others are just Monster of the Week, basically. I’m not sure why Marvel never bothered with actually developing their villains.
Speaking of villains, Thanos has the same issue as Ultron (took me a minute even to remember his name). One moment he can change reality around him. Another moment he gets beaten by a comic-relief (but so unbelievable beautiful) Mantis lady. And of course his plan to eliminate exactly half of the life in the Universe doesn’t make sense at all. Even as far as other supervillanous plans go.
Twin stick shooter where we play as a anthropomorphic snail. At first I thought it’s the size of a human, but then I saw some lighters and plastic straws lying around taller than myself. Strangely enough we accompanied by a firefly so tiny it must be a bacteria of sort. Later you also find a human skull that everyone calls “skull of a giant”. But then when you think you got your scale right, you meet rabbits that are smaller than a lizard.
In terms of gameplay, it seems to be a linear set of story driven missions (story being helping different animal villages fend off attacks of anthropomorphic slugs for money).
There are some environmental features: flamethrower being able to thaw some levers, and burn through enemy shields. But most of the time, we just shoot stuff while slowly walking away from it.
I’m not a fan of football at all. The only reason I decided to give that show a try was Hannah Waddingham. But luckily, it isn’t a sports drama. There’s almost no actual football in it.
It starts as a culture trip: ever-optimistic American comes to manage a football team in the UK.
The players are some of the common staples: there’s “Ronaldo”, there’s “Maradona”, and probably some others, but as I said, I don’t know much about football players.
By the half of the season, though, there is a surprising glimpse of deepness in Ted’s optimism crumbling as his wife, that stayed in US, asks for divorce.
After Tulip Syrah fell from grace lately, I was looking for alternatives to “Five Stones Nobility 215a Red”, which became our favorite go-to Israeli wine, something in the same price range.
Dalton Reserve Shiraz is not fabulous, but it also doesn’t make you feel sad and tired afterwards. So it’s a decent alternative.
Like Diablo 3, this is another example of a game that although originally released on PC, I would only play on Switch.
I’m surprised how much written dialogs are there in this game. And all of them are also brilliantly voice acted.
Managed to get up to Hades himself on my very next run. With full set of lives, no less. Used the tripple-hitting spear (Flurry Jab) with great success. Still got wiped out by his second phase, of course.
Then the most successful run I had was some 20 runs later, with a Rocket Bomb special. And by “most successful” I mean that I managed to beat Hades for the first time.
That’s not the end of the story, though. And I’m not sure if there is.
Finished first what was supposed to be the only season of White Lotus.
We are all slowly dying from the inside, old and young.
The series started with a closed casket. At first, it was obvious who’s in it. Then… not so much.
It’s beautifully filmed and structured. Each episode is a single day, starting in morning and ending with everyone going to sleep.
It turned out to be much more nuanced and less “in your face” than I expected. Like the commentary that you can’t “wear a hair shirt” because you are white all the time. The dialogues are beautifully written, in a very natural manner.
Going back to nuances, we are all used to dramatic changes. There are not many in White Lotus. And that’s a surprise. The unhappy newly wed wife stays with her husband. The black therapist doesn’t get her own practice. I’d say the biggest change is a boy that gets to row in a canoe for a while.
Finished listening to Spy Who Came in from the Cold. And I can’t say that I enjoyed it much. Actually, I can’t say I enjoyed this book at all. It’s narrated very well, but that’s part of the problem. The hero is always grumpy, so you listen to a grumpy British actor for some 6 hours, or however long that book takes.
By the last third, the book turns into a procedural. Not sure how accurate proceeding in DDR are, and don’t care much about them. And the finale is just lazy. But that’s nothing new for John Le Carre.
Half of the book the hero tries to convince East German Intelligence Service that their head is a British mole. He fails, they requite him. Then it turns out he is a mole after all.
The girl gets shot trying to climb over the Berlin Wall, and the spy can’t bear that and apparently gets shot too. The end 🤷♂️
What I adore about that game is how you can go between “damn, that mission is impossible” and “well, I beat it with S rating” in half an hour.
The interesting bit in the last mission of the first game is that you can choose two other commanders to assist you. And unlike some previous missions, you can control them directly.
Now I see why the two games were bundled together. It’s not just the same game storywise. Black Hole units are introduced on the 23rd mission out of 24. So even in the original game, they created all those gorgeous sprites not for the sake of two final missions, but because they probably knew they’ll be working on a second game right after.
Speaking of Sturm, the only CO of Black Hole present in the first game.
His skills are different to all other COs except Drake, because they don’t rely on boosting your units. Instead, Sturm just drops a meteor on them. And while it can’t kill any unit, it drops all units to 1-2HP, which is basically the same. The only CO that can wreck you badly even while loosing.
A very solid triple IPA, as expected from BBN. Sweet and fruty, gives a bit of lightheadyness, and no hard feelings whatsoever afterwards.
Completed Children of Zodiarcs.
The combat system is “meh”. There are options like burning through enemies cards or giving them cursed dice. But just killing them is usually the simplest option.
The part that is actually good is the characters. Not to be confused with the story. Story is just alright. A young band of thieves is tasked by the mob boss to steal a relic. The relic turns out to be a sentient golem that joins the band. For two chapters we carve our way in, then we carve our way out. Standard, if not to say boring.
But the characters actually make that story good. Each has their own motivation, and it’s well fleshed. There’s a girl that was kept by nobles like and exotic animal.
There’s a Noble son that was left by his father in the slums, and now seeks revenge. There’s a noble guard who fell from grace by our own hand, and now seeks to redeem himself. And there’s a boy that thinks that if only he kills the gang leader, the girl he loves will turn back to good. And the finale missions are surprisingly grim and dark: you get to kill all your friends one by one.
There’s a tradeoff between good story and sound gameplay sometimes. Last mission is played without your mage, which I relied heavily on all my game. Luckily, it is still not very difficult.
And the last surprise is a bit of an epilogue during the credits roll.
What attracted me to that game were obvious references to Final Fantasy Tactics and Final Fantasy IX.
You have the basic mechanics from FFT, such as picking the direction each character faces at the end of their turn. The visual style resembles FFIX. You also start as a band of charismatic thieves.
But, the creators added card mechanics on top of that.
So each character has their own hand of random skills that you need to manage. After picking a skill, you also need to roll some dice. You perform this action by shaking your mouse (at least that part can be disabled in game settings). So, when you only want to attack the next guard, you have to deal with two layers of randomness and turns that take forever.
Started listening and quickly understood that it’s a radionovel, or radiodrama, or whatever it’s called when instead of a book simply read to you, you have different actors, but just the dialogues.
When I switched to a proper audio book I quickly noticed that those that worked on dramatising it, had quite a few liberties with the original book. They added themes, such as the circus theme. In the original book, the Circus is what’s MI6 headquarters is called. But in the drama, Alec is also making a joke about “traveling with a circus and doing a bear act” or something like that, which refers to him spying on the Russians in East Berlin. Or the starting scene, when I spy tries to cross a checkpoint between East and West Berlin. In the drama, there’s a CIA agent that watches it through binoculars and describes everything to Alec. In the book, the CIA agent went to sleep, and Alec even makes a joke about how soft they are.
Today I tasted something so gross I feel I have to write about it: the pork floss Asian cake.
It’s a sponge cake with custard cream, but then it is coated in literally shredded pork meat 😬
It’s salty, and tasted like pork scratchings 🤢
Had to throw the second piece in the trash.
Found someone blogging about making it at home, and I agree with the assessment:
In the end, I didn’t find it very magical of a combination. It is a little strange, I’ll admit. I wouldn’t make it unless you have tried it in a bakery and know you like it.
I rarely write about my successes. But yesterday I managed to update Atmosphere to 1.5.3 and firmware to 16.0.3 without any issues.
Just had to copy the sigpatches again. Even saves are intact. I call it a success.