I have so many devices connected to the WiFi now that I’m dreadful of the day I would need to change its password.
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Hentai commissions
There is a hentai about every character imaginable. And I’m not talking about “fanart”, drawing that are both obscene and childish at the same time. For every new character in a matter of days or weeks there will be probably well drawn hentai available.
And for a rather funny reason.
There are plenty of professional comics artists sitting around. To get a contract for a new comics is extremely hard. There are a bunch of well know artists with a queue of comics, but most get none. But then you can get maybe 50 or 100$ for drawing that Rei girl from Star Wars without much clothing at all.
Beautifully animated metroidvania about a war between medieval rats and toads. The attacks are slow and telegraphed, there are rolls and shield parries, very soulslike. But there are no “bloodstains” to return to, you just start from the latest checkpoint, which is, like in Hollow Knight, is represented as a bench. Healing is interesting: instead of multiple use “estuses”, you have a flask, that replenishes your health the longer you drink it.
The narration is also very different from a soulslike: while rats just squeak and communicate through comics bubbles, there’s an almost constant background narrator, similar to Bastion or Hades.
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Honourable Schoolboy, John Le Carre
It’s a sequel to “Tinker, Taylor, Soldier, Spy”, set around Hong Kong and South East Asia. Mostly retold as memoirs: “Afterwards, in the dusty little corners where London’s secret servants drink together, there was argument about where the Dolphin case history should really begin.”
The plot revolves around a journalist/spy, Westerby, that on behalf of British Secret Services tries to shake a Hong Kong millionaire that allies with the Russians to extract his brother from Communist China.
One point that bothered me is that Westerby is obsessed with Lizzie, the millionaire mistress, as he travels along Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos. All that despite having a single dinner with her. A bit creepy, I’d say.
As someone wrote in a review I read, the whole story though feels very inconsequental. The whole operation is set as if to somehow uncover the Russian head of spies. But in the end, it’s like Le Carre forgot about the goal, along his characters, as Westerby is obsesses with buying off Lizzie (which by that point he met twice), while all Smiley gets is some secrets about Chinese submarine program?
Completed Portrait of Ruin.
I usually prefer two handed swords in Castlevania games for their reach, overhead pattern and damage. But in this installment I ended up using Heaven Sword most of the game, switching to Flame Whip and Vampire Slayer at later stages.
After beating the four paintings, you just have a set of bosses left. First, there’s optional Memory of the Whip, which is Richter from Super Castlevania. He can kill you in 5-6 hits, his whip is super quick and has a very good range. I ended up stocking on potions and just kiting him at a range. He basically runs into your weapon, and then you can backdash. With his whip, I just overpowered Brauner, not messing with all his painting magic. It’s impressive technologically how he draws a pattern on a canvas, then the same pattern covers the screen damaging you, but I don’t have patience for this shit.
Then there’s the Dracula and Death duo. Honestly, I think that’s one of the thoughtests bosses I had to face in Castlevania games. Death hovers above Dracula making it difficult to jump over him, hits you while you try to dodge the usual fireballs, can be hit only in double jump, and generally, a pain in the ass. Then there are some Dracula attacks that simply one-shot you.
I’m not sure if it’s the necessity of double jumps, or just the intensity of this fight, but I felt that the controls were very sluggish, like there’s a lag every time I press a button. Maybe it’s the Dominus Collection, or just me. At least the game itself didn’t lag, like the Order of Eclessia when I played it on the original console.
Or maybe the developers intended that you’d attempt this fight only after finishing all the quests. But with the quests such as “kill 1500 enemies with the Javelin skill”, no, thank you very much.
If it wasn’t for the two inverted paintings, and the frustrating final fight, I’d say the game was fantastic. But all in all – I’m not sure.
The first “painting” ain’t bad at all. You get the Owl Transformation spell, that let’s you fly around. No more platforming. The boss, Frankestein Monster, is also okay.
The second painting is a rehash of Carnival theme, and it’s again pain to the eyes. At least as an owl you can fly past most of the traps. The boss, Medusa, looks amazing, but annoying as hell: deals tons of damage, and has an annoying hitbox. I managed to beat her without a guide in the end using the minotaur and that strikes overhead and a meteorite spell, but you need to be super precise to stand just below her head so the tails don’t touch you, as it’s almost a certain death, they multihit.
The other two bosses, Werewolf and Mummy (I’m telling you, they ran out of fresh ideas) are easy in comparison, as they can be team tagged from two sides.
With the owl dorm, the game also unexpectedly becomes kind of indirect control: most enemies can’t hit you, and attack your partner instead. But since damaging him consumes only mana, which regenerates, it’s a great bargain.
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Highland Park Viking Honour
Highland Park is a household name, but I don’t remember ever trying their whiskey.
It’s a typical Scotch whiskey, I would say, a bit smokey, a bit sweet, maybe warmer than usual, but nothing above its price.
By December things get dramatic. Nanako, the protagonist 7 years old niece, gets kidnapped. Her father and protagonist’s uncle gets badly injured chasing the suspect. Fog descends on the town. After being rescued, Nanako dies in the hospital.
Unfortunately, that’s where the game starts to get annoying too. In order to get the true ending, you need to pick not obvious dialogue lines, such as “I don’t know about that”, while the gang discusses if they should lynch Nanako’s kidnapper by throwing him into the TV World.
Teddy disappears, but Nanako recovers. Turns out that the first two victims where kidnapped by someone else. And Nanatame, the suspect, was throwing people into the TV World because he believed they’d be safe there from the real killer.
The problem with those investigation mechanics is that there are long dialogs preceding them. And if you fail, you get one of the bad endings, and endless credits, so I just end up restarting the game every time that happens. And I don’t remember 20 characters by their Japanese names, so that did happen.
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Stille Nacht, Brouwerij De Dolle
Yes, I drink so much I’m having this Christmas beer in October.
It’s fantastic. Not as dark as I expected, but full of taste and gives you a good light feel. The interesting bit is it’s more sour than most quadruples.
Of course there’s a False Ending, it’s Castlevania after all. Path to the True Ending in this game is slightly more obvious than in others, though. Or maybe I just played enough Castlevania’s by this point.
First, you obtain the spell the cures vampirism, and you even get to practice it on the monk shopkeeper. And then during battle with Loretta and her sister, you just distract them long enough to cast it.
I also beat them to get the False Ending. They aren’t hard. Funny thing is, the spell is called “Sanctuary”, so it’s not very obvious from its name that it cures vampirism. And I picked it up completely by chance, not evening remembering where.
By that time, I think developers ran out of budget, since they just dump 4 paintings (portals) on you, go and clear those, then come back.
I don’t mind school kids fighting demons inside the TV. But a schoolkid detective helping the police is a bit too much for me. Although that’s as a staple as a TV idol coming to a small town and falling for the protagonist. Detective Conan and all that. Although people tend to forget that Detective Conan was an adult trapped in kid’s body.
But I must admit, the plot twist that Naoto is actually a girl dressing like a boy because otherwise people wouldn’t take her seriously is a good one. And they even managed to tell that story convincingly, instead of going for “you just need gender surgery!”
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Torchlight Infinite
After playing Torchlight 2 for some time, I decided to give Torchlight Infinite another chance. It’s such a weird experience. The UI is completely stolen from Diablo Immortal, which is no surprise. But the heroes are very weird, as they have names and poetic descriptions instead of proper classes. What does “Frostfire Gemma Ice Fire Fusion” do? Is she a mage or some kind of elemental assassin? You won’t know until you try.
Then there are the skills. There’s basically one main skill, but with modifiers on top. Gemma’s main skill shoots three fireballs in a wide arc (yes, she is a mage). And those fireballs explode into smaller fireballs on contact. So your entire screen is covered in fireballs. And I’m yet to run out of mana in this game. Often, enemies die somewhere off screen, since the range of the fireballs is actually far beyond.
At first I thought it’s some kind of a powered up mode, and then the character will get debuffed. But no, that’s just the way the game plays.
The drops are over the top too. Bosses drop tons of items.
Decided to go back to my beloved Torchlight 2, this time on Switch.
Berserker is not what I expected, at least on Veteran. I thought it’ll be a barbarian. Instead, it’s more of a Assassin, dual wielding and a bit of a glass cannon type.
Then I gave Outlander a chance, which is a ranged class. First thing that surprised me was that the range of pistols is quite limited. Shotguns – I can understand. But pistols barely cross half screen. I think in Diablo 3 and 4 it’s the visibility distance.
I also didn’t know or remember that pets can cast spells, including healing, which helps a lot to recover between fights.
Death boss was the first that gave me a real pause. The spinning scythe homes on you, and the horizontal swipe has a lead: if Death starts telegraphing and you jump, it still can follow you and hit in mid air. It’s also not very clear what the boss is resistant to when it switches colors. But by wasting a few potions, I managed to beat it.
I forgot how much I love the witches design in Castlevania. The fact that there’s a cat familiar sitting on her broom, and then when she’s defeated, she turns into a cat with a witch hat, with the familiar still sitting on her back. So much detail and love.
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Samsung S24 Ultra
Last time, I was waiting to replace my Note 8 for too long. What people don’t get is that “no security updates” isn’t mitigated by “nobody will want to hack my phone”. No security updates means no certificates. No certificates means no HTTPS. No HTTPS – no Internet services. So this time, I decided to try an upgrade just after 2 years, in hopes that the market value of my S22 Ultra will be higher.
Tradein doesn’t seem to be a viable option. The official prices are so high that even with a tradein, you still don’t reach Amazon prices. So I just got it on Amazon.
Honestly, the transition between Android phones is quite magical now. You almost don’t feel it.
The problem is, the changes are miniscule. The battery is still 5000 mAh. The weight is the same (S24 is 5g heavier). The size is the same. One improvement, though, is that S24 went back to a completely flat screen, which means you can buy glass screen protectors again.
I always adores S22 Ultra for the unique camera, which I called spyglass for the incredible zoom. This one is slightly different. I’d say, less sharpness, better colours, though.
Still happy that I upgraded, but it’s certainly not a quantum leap as it was with Note 8 to S22 migration.
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Chivas Regal XV
18th taster from the advent calendar. For me, Chivas is something you drink at weddings because there is only that and Johnny Walker Red. This isn’t much different. Yes, it is smooth, as expected from a blended scotch, and it has some sweetness and smokiness, but not much it terms of warmth. Not something I’d buy.
Another good comparison of different MechWarrior 2 versions:
I’ve finished MechWarrior 2 twice, once the PC version, and also the PSX version, and probably will go back for MechWarrior 2: Mercenaries
I tried to play it many years ago, I think still on original NDS.
The two character mechanic is fun. Second character can take out the smaller annoying enemies or cast spells as you fight.
What I didn’t remember is that the game was leaning heavily into 3D backgrounds. Or maybe I simply didn’t notice on the tiny screen.
The theme of this game is paintings. So besides the usual Dracula Castle, we also have painted worlds we enter, each the size of castle itself. There is European city, Egypt, and so on.
I was enjoying the game until Nation of Fools painting. Castlevania can get quite confusing by itself. With the world at 90 degrees, it becomes simply annoying.
Legion, the ball of bodies, makes a comeback. Waste not, want not. It was giving me a lot of trouble until I discovered Heaven’s sword that wasted it in seconds.
Stella was also lots of trouble for me in her second phase, until I got the Nebula whip that, unlike most whips is Castlevania, actually aims.
Also, I just love this entrance sequence:
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Intravenous
Storywise, I’m surprised this turned out to be a vigilante story. Junkies killed your older brother, and now you and your mysterious Accomplice are out for revenge.
The game has all the aesthetics of Hotline Miami, with hard-top-down view, but most of the mechanics from Splinter Cell: light indicator, noise indicator, five move speeds, night vision goggles.
The enemies are also very aware of their surroundings. Leave a door open, and they’ll investigate. Try to close a door while you block it, though, and it won’t. So you end up learning very quickly to close the doors carefully.
You also get to choose from three types of armor, and in general, the more stuff you carry, the more noisy you are, and the slower you move.
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John Wick 3
The movie picks were the previous left. John Wick is hunter my all the world.
Fight in the library is a clear reference to Bruce Lee Vs Kareem Abdul Jabar.
Then we have the famous fight in the antique shop, where John and a bunch of Japanese assassins throw ecsotic knives at each other.
With the stable episode, they really jumped the horse, sorry, the shark. But then at this point I’m not surprised by anything. Only disappointed.
Then there’s the long shootout in Marrakech. I think the only point of it is to show some dogs biting assassins in the crotch. Other than that, it’s not very inventive or entertaining. Look, John Wick looks great because Keanu Reeves takes everything seriously. When we have this “Beyonce”, sorry, Halle Berry, trying to do the same tricks, it is just mockery.
The Guild of Assassins decides to punish everyone who helped Wick in the previous chapter. He in turn travels to speak with the head of the Guild, who’s some kind of beduin. To show his loyalty, Wick has to cut off one of his fingers. The beduin tasks him to execute the Continental manager in turn.
The highlight is two Indonesian fighters from The Raid. It’s a fun fight, which I think everyone enjoyed. That’s why nobody gets killed.
Which cannot be said about Mark Dacascos. I honestly didn’t recognize him. He’s good. As a kid I didn’t understand he’s actually quite a serious martial artist.
And we end up with angry black hobo and Wick planning revenge on the Beduin, I guess?
