Categories
Nintendo Switch

Hades

Although I rarely go back to games I’ve completed, I do make an exception for Hades. My main goal I had still left was to give the “Arthur” sword a try.

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What almost nobody explains is that in order to unlock the secret aspects, you need to invest 6 Titan Blood into the second or the third aspect of the weapon, not the first one. I wasted plenty of Titan Blood and runs until I learned that. So, I’ve got the Arthur sword, even finished a run with it. Guess it’s finally time to lay Hades to rest, then

Categories
PC Gaming

Everspace

A cross between arcade space sim and roguelite. Every time you die, you get to spend all your hard earned cash on perks or new ships. And then start from the beginning.

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Unlike some other space sims, you don’t need to manage your hull space much.
What you do need to manage is your fuel for hyperspace jumps. And I got stuck on a few runs without it. You can still perform a jump, but it will damage your ship internal systems, and repairing them is super expensive.

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One of the most impressive features is that ability to explore asteroids and ship derelicts from the inside. You don’t usually get that, but here it even works pretty well.
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The approach to quests is interesting. You meet a few characters, each with their own quest line, not just a single task. But the problem is, some of the rewards don’t persist between runs. Like the smuggler that asks you to bust an Outlaws base, and when you do, grant you a bunch of upgraded weapons. But I died shortly thereafter, loosing all of that.

Categories
*.AVI

The Bear S01

Finished watching the first season of The Bear.
It’s very novel, intentionally intense, unrealistic in being realistic.

The last two episodes of the season are just one example: one being 20 minutes instead of the usual 30, with all that time people screaming at each other. While the last episode is almost 50 minutes, with Carmy giving that speech about the relatioship with his brother for 6 minutes straight.

 

Of course there’s a lot of food closeups, which is expected. And you have to learn about Chicago culture, which I don’t care for much. And a lot of the kitchen jargon, which I found quite interesting and with “behind”/”corner” even useful sometimes.

Categories
PC Gaming

Chernobylite

I knew this game will get me, but it still got me. On the 10th day, you die, no matter what you do. You start your day by dying. But this just brings you to the Fractal Memory. And here’s where the crazy stuff starts. The choices that you’ve made, that I was wondering about: not only they are all presented to you, you can also change any of them, if you have enough of chernobylite. This is basically flipping anything you know about making choices, and reminds me of Zero Escape series on 3DS, which I’m very fond of.

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While the initial set of weapons is pretty standard: revolver, shotgun, AK, the authors went quite inventive with the railgun. First, one of the upgrades let it generate ammo. Infinite ammo for railgun! Who’d want to pick up crossbow bolts if you can have infinite ammo instead?

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There’s a perk that allows you to see enemies. But I only got it on my second week. Another upgrade for railgun lets it shoot through walls. So, if you really want to, you can spot enemies through walls, and shoot them indefinitely until they die. Neat.

Categories
PC Gaming

Chernobylite

It is not always clear what the correct choice in a quest should be, which is a good thing, really. At one point you’re given a choice of either blowing the famous Chernobyl radar or keeping it to use it yourself. And it’s not clear why blowing it up would be a good thing, except your wife hated it. So that’s what I did.

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Found AK47 quickly enough in the Pripyat Port. Even with an upgrade. With it, and the upgraded shotgun against “zombies”, the game becomes more shooter and less stealth. Which is good, as the stealth in this game is not so enjoyable. There are “alert cones”, that point to the enemy that is suspicious of you. But that’s it. Not only you can’t see through walls and don’t have a radar, it’s also very hard to distinguish enemies from their surroundings, and since they all wear masks, it’s hard to tell which way they’re looking either.

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“Biometrically locked weapons” are a common trope in games explaining why you can’t just start picking weapons from dead enemies, and need to make do with what you have, like crafting them. But I’m not sure why the authors even bothered, as weapons seem to be quite plentiful anyway.

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Categories
*.XLS Nintendo PC Gaming Switch

Completed

PC:

  1. Ascent
  2. Descent
  3. Doom
  4. Doom 2
  5. Doom Eternal
  6. Iron Harvest
  7. Mega City Police
  8. Outlaws

Switch:

  1. Hades
Categories
*.BAK

Braun 9 Shaver

After struggling with Philips top-of-the-line shaver for a year, I went back to Braun.
It shaves better, there’s simply no arguing about that.
Also, it’s cleaning station acts as a charging station, while Philips is basically just a plastic can.
What’s strange is that unlike Series 7 shaver, there’s no horizontal swivel, just vertical swivel. But this one you can lock in place with a special button, unlike Series 7.
What I like the most is that the heads are also locked. You need to press two buttons to actually release them. I had a head fly off Series 7 a few times.

Categories
PS4 Sony

Playstation 4

I’ve been eyeing Playstation 4 for at least 5 years now. For the very few exclusives the console actually has. Today I finally went and got it from CEX, since I already had half of its price in coupons. And all I can say, I missed the train.
The console firmware is 10.71, someone updated it this year, so it can’t be jailbroken yet. And even the seconhand games for it are still surprisingly expensive. I guess because it is still “good enough” for so many people. So, games from 2020 go for 20-30GBP.
There are just a few games I wanted to play on it that are not available on either PC or Switch. So I guess I’ll just sit on it for now.

Categories
PC Gaming

Chernobylite

This looks like a mod for STALKER. Even the local nemesis is called Black Stalker 😬

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We play as profressor Igor, who’s searching for his wife, Tatyana.

Chernobylite-Screenshot-2023-11-30-22-30-14-36Or, more precisely, he searches for a material called chernobylite, which can be found, obviously, in Chernobyl.
As gameplay goes, we have a Geiger counter that also can highlight pickable items. And there is a lot of junk to collect.
Every day you pick an area for your and your teammates to investigate. Teammates just return with some resources, but you on the other hand can investigate points of interest and trade with NPCs.

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Weapon modification system is surprisingly serious. With pros and cons for different upgrades, and visual queues.
One bit I was generally impressed by is the leveling up system. Instead of just picking a skill, you actually get to do a small training mission before you can acquire each of them. For silent takedown, for example, you have to sneak up on your teacher.

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There are some pretty obvious references. Like the device that can detect object history based on radiation that the professor was developing was called Ariadne. And when searching for clues to find his wife he speaks of “pulling the thread”.

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Another character talks about Rat King and leaves a ballerina music box as a clue, a reference to Nutcracker.

Categories
Emulation

Matt’s Supreme Killer Instinct Retrospective

The entire Killer Instinct series went by me as a kid. I never had a friend with SNES, not even mentioning seeing one of these in the arcade.
So for me it’s interesting to hear a fan perspective on it:

There’s a more detailed video for Killer Instinct 2013 as well:

Interesting that one of the people behind the remake is the author of Weaponlord game. Makes a lot of sence, as both Killer Instinct and Weaponlord where those 90’s brutal-metal-fantasy kind of games.

Categories
PC Gaming

Iron Harvest: Operation Eagle and Rusviet Revolution

Completed Operation Eagle. The final unit of US is “Samson”, a flying aircraft carrier, similar to protoss carriers from Starcraft. Slow, but with huge range and effective against most units. The final mission is still tricky. First you need to capture a very well defended fortress, full of anti-air guns. Then you need to withstand a counterattack, but without any AA, which is slightly annoying, as Saxonians sport a huge flotilla of airships.
The only bit I regret is that you don’t get to play with the Admiral’s airship much. It looked like a fun unit.

After Operation Eagle, Rusviet Revolution DLC feels stale. You get to put those Gulya Gorod to good use, that’s true, as most missions are strategic, and not hero based. And there are a few fun ideas, like a mission having three different paths represented by three different rail tracks with different challenges. But there are no new units whatsoever, and in the end, the game pulls W40K on you. The entire story starts with Saxony, Rusviet and Polania being at war, and ends with Saxony being controlled by a mad prince and Rusviet being controlled by Rasputin/Fenris. So, the next game, if it ever comes, will start again where it all ended, all the three factions at war with each other.

Categories
PC Gaming

Iron Harvest: Operation Eagle

Although sometimes I grow tired of a particular game by the time I reach the DLC content, I decided to give the Usonian (USA) campaign a go.
The biggest change is the introduction of aerial units. You can see though, that it’s a DLC, because most of the units are similar for all factions. But US has a few unique ones.

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Usonians themselves feel faster than other factions. And their mech infantry doubles up as engineers.

Storytelling continues to be amazing. It’s a bit tongue-in-cheek, with US first “protecting its assets” (oil refineries) on Alaska, at the outbreak of the Revolution in Russia. Then cosplaying Lawrence of Arabia.

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Arabia has just two unique units. Hashashins are close-combat ninjas, effective at countering enemy infantry, most of which weak in close combat. And war camels, as funny as they sound, are able to outrange and supress any infantry, and escape any enemy mech. In a game where all the units are slow, a fast unit is a game-changer.

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Categories
PC Gaming

Iron Harvest

Completed Iron Harvest.
Third campaign is dedicated to Saxony. As I mentioned, the storytelling is surprisingly good, so we jump back and forth in the timeline of events.
Saxony has the most interesting unique mech in the game, Brunhilde. Not because it looks like WW1 version of AT-AT, but because it’s the only mech more powerful while facing enemies with its side, due to a broadside row of cannons it has.
Eisenhans are fantastic as well. While mech infantry units of other factions are focused on hand-to-hand combat, Eisenhans are equipped with mortars.
The final mission reminded me of Dawn of War 3, which was a brilliant strategy game… until it wasn’t. Last mission, you end up chasing a triffid out of the War of the Worlds with all six of your heroes. At least this mission is not annoying.
So I consider the penultimate mission to be the best one, seeing how huge mechs duke it out.

Categories
война

Прогресс на лицо:

Categories
PC Gaming

Iron Harvest

I’m actually amazed that they implemented an armored train in the game. It moves on tracks, and you need to switch the tracks with infantry, and it also can carry infantry and has a Long Berta like artillery cannon, so it’s actually very useful.
After a few intense campaigns for Polania (Poland), we switch to playing with Rusviet (Russian Empire) forces. But those missions are mostly hero-based, which after you’ve already experienced the more strategical missions is slightly disappointing.
You do get to play one strategy-scale mission with Rusviet, at least. It’s a bit annoying, because there are Tesla Towers (sic) that only one hero can disable, and that destroy everyone else in a couple of shots. So there’s still plenty of micromanagement. But at least you get to experience the Rusviet heaviest mech, Gulyay-Gorod, which is an absolute blast. As well as their version of Katyusha.

Categories
война

Fuck around, find out:

Categories
война

Разница в месяц 😎

Categories
*.BAK

Gadd’s Black Pearl Oyster Stout

One of the cans I’ve got from Beer52 random beer box was this oyster stout from Ramsgate. Strangely enough, most of the places that do sell it, sell it in bottles, and not in cans.

It’s a fine stout at 6.2% ABV, not too sweet, not too smoky, no hard feelings. Almost no gas either.

As of the name, some claim that brewers were adding oysters or oyster shells to the beer as a clarifying agent. There are no oysters in this one, though, and they explain the name as “good with seafood beer”.

Categories
PC Gaming

Iron Harvest

After failure with Scythe, set in the same universe, I’m surprised how good Iron Harvest is. It resembles Company of Heroes, with it’s squads and cover. But in a fictional World War I setting with mechs.
The visuals are frankly amazing. While trails in deep snow aren’t new, I think it’s the first time I see them in what’s basically an RTS.

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Infantry can hide in buildings, and capture heavy equipment, such as machine guns and howitzers.

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What’s interesting, they can also switch classes by picking up weapons from the fallen enemies. Kill a squad of machinegunners, and become a squad of machinegunners yourself!

Categories
война

До:


После:

“No damage”

Но ничего, бабы еще настроят!