May 2024: War... War never changes.

It's day 827 of Russia's two day special operation to take Ukraine and while they are gaining ground slowly through sheer numbers, a few countries have finally given the green light for Ukraine to use their weapons into Russian territory. That's a strange handicap to have originally been placed on the clear under dog, but lets see if this shifts the momentum into Ukraine's favor.  

Meanwhile in the Middle East, Egypt had warned it might withdraw from its mediator position in the (so far failed) Gaza ceasefire negotiations because of recent doubts that "offend" them. These doubts are mainly center around getting caught red handed mediating in bad faith, secretly changing terms before handing them to Hamas after Israel had already agreed and signed to it. Not sure how the parties involved feel but I for one would say "good riddance" as it's clearly pointless to put your trust in these lying snakes in the first place.

Now Israel is taking out some serious revenge to the tune of around 35K dead Palestinians so far for the instigating October 7 Hamas raid which killed around 1.2K people (for comparisons sake 9/11 killed around 3K with a 3.6M retaliation). It's clear where the loyalties of some folks in Mexico are, burning down the Israeli embassy in Mexico City right as they are being hit by a water shortage.

Worth noting Hamas are now singing their old song (on replay apparently) of "we're willing to negotiate as long as Israel completely stops fighting". Israel would be stupid to accept that and let them regroup, given the Hamas charter  (#4) explicitly states:

“Initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences, are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement…. There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad”

Next it's over to China where they've developed some pretty cool gun toting automatons, but somehow they're still not as scary as the drones that can simply drop grenades on you. Then we have North Korea, trying to stay relevant by sending in explosive balloons of literal shit to South Korea. Are they trying to say all their septic tanks are full and are in dire need of help? Or simply that they're just full of shit?

May 2022: Ukraine Wins (Eurovision)

While their conflict continues into Day 95 against Russia (who continue to do some odd things like accuse Israel of supporting Neo-Nazis while at the same time sounding like Nazis themselves on State TV with corn stealing plans), Ukraine has emerged victorious in this years Eurovision song contest proving the massive worldwide support they are currently receiving as their entry - which was 200 points in the lead from the second place - was far from the best performance around.

The rest of the field contained some vegans, instructional cleaning, mandatory eye candy, a nice but worryingly murder-suicide song, the third return of Moldova's Zdob si Zdub, and the Rasmus. The UK also finally got up to second place with a worthy entry after years of languishing down the bottom with no votes, and Azerbaijan's Fade to Black was impressively simple but artsy.

I do think they need to establish some better rules though because one of my pet peeves is when someone is "playing" an instrument, then stops but that instrument can still be heard. Lots of the entries do this, but they've taken it a step further with masks, and I'm not talking about ones that people remove during the performance... checkout the hilarious "Give that wolf a banana" by Subwoolfer. Everyone is fully masked up - guess that saves them having to lip sync? That also means they really can just go hard on choreo if you don't need to be seen singing / playing an instrument in the first place!

Gotta hand it to the Ukranian winners though, they managed to make this crazy contest another revenue stream for purchasing weapons of war.

Most Viewed Posts:
GTFO: R6CX - Flux (Main)
XCOM 2: Defending the Earth, Again
XCOM 2: Facilities

May 2021 Review: Ten Years

Black Desert Online continues to be the highlight of my solo game time and Remnants: From the Ashes has taken the place of GTFO as our Friday night co-op since Rundown 5 has introduced connectivity issues to the game, which are way more frustrating than their actual monsters! The guild in Neverwinter Online continues on though, and we are now at Guild Hall level 17!

I'm sure you've also noticed I'm getting more into cryptocurrency these days and thanks to the recent correction I'm currently down in all my holdings (XRP, VRA, VET, DOGE and now SHIB). Perfect time to buy more though. This is a very addictive experiment.

Something basic I learned from it this month is that percentage reporting can be misleading. For example: if a token goes from $1.00 to $0.50 it’s a change of -50.00% However, to get back to $1.00 the price needs to move +100.00%.  On the flip side if a token goes form $1.00 to $10.00 it’s a +900.00% move. When the token price then goes from $10.00 to $5.00 it’s a -50.00% move so percentages can be misleading (thank you golden_state7)!

In other news: sad tidings for fans of Berserk as it's creator has sadly passed at the start of this month, leaving the tale unfinished. Hopefully the studio / someone can forge on to complete that task. As to not end on a downer: this blog is now ten years old! Happy Birthday blog! Man, my first post was full of cringe... just like most of my current posts! :P

Most Viewed Posts in the last 30 days

GTFO: R5A1 - Floodways (Normal)
Tyranny: The Fatebinders
The First Tree

Interesting grouping this time around with my "not happy" review of The First Tree sneaking into the third spot just behind the first Tyranny story post. GTFO proves walk throughs are still the most popular though, which is a shame since I don't have any more of those coming currently thanks to the technical issues I mentioned at the start of this post.

May 2020 Review: Cautious Living

Work from home continues though where I live the government is already relaxing the covid self isolation rules. This is also the first time I've heard of "succession games" where a group of people play a single player game one at a time by simply passing on the save file! What a clever idea! :)  Also, if you like Warhammer 40K, you should definitely watch this fan made video called Astartes.

On to the task list...

    End 2020 with less weight (+1 kg from last month, running total: +7 kg)
    Make 1 web comic page (more world building)
    Make a boar game (tested and not happy with mechanics, redoing)

BACKLOG
How to Survive 2 [gift] (had enough)
World War Z [free from Epic Games] (done)
Close to the Sun [free from Epic Games] (done)
Just Cause 4 [free from Epic Games]
Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms [free on Steam]
For the King [free from Epic Games] (done)
+Crashlands [free from Epic Games] (had enough)
+Amnesia: The Dark Descent [free from Epic Games] (done)
+Grand Theft Auto V [free from Epic Games] (file size too big for my download limits)
+Sid Meier's Civilization VI [free from Epic Games]
+Delores: A Thimbleweed Park Adventure [free from Epic Games] (had enough)
+Fallout Shelter [free from Steam]

Board games:
Zombicide: Black Plague (10/11)
Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage (13/13)
Mice and Mystics: Heart of Glorm (0/11)

BLOG STATS

One Year Ago

I was playing Baldur's Gate... a lot!

Five Years Ago

I was participating in the Newbie Blogger Initiative, and somehow I was put in charge of the Poetry Slam due to Syl's absence that year.

Most Viewed Posts last Month
Adventures in Space
FTL: Boarding Parties
FTL: The Marauder

Top Search Terms last Month
osrs infernal cape teamviewer
osrs infernal cape difficulty
everquest

Looks like my Adventures in Space got a few views this time around, while the infernal cape searches have remained from last time - so now I know those are Runescape related!

May 2019 Status

And here we go, the remaining games on this list are really long ones so its going to take some time to clear them. On the plus side, their probably going to give me a lot of things to write about! This month is also not going to be anywhere as relaxed as the last work wise and is already throwing spanners life wise so lets see if that influences anything.

    End 2019 with less weight (+1 kg from last month, running total: +3 kg)
    Make board game prototype (no progress)
    Complete web comic chapter 1 (plotting history/world building)
    Clean out wardrobe (no progress)
    Deal with overhanging trees (done)
    Clean the roof (no progress)

Backlog Update:

FROM GIFTS (or freebies)
Shadow of War
Assassin's Creed Odyssey
Baldur's Gate 2
Kingdom Come: Deliverance (done)
Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt
Deponia: The Complete Journey (done)
Vermintide 2
Assassin's Creed Chronicles: China (done)
+Enderal
+NWO: Undermountain Campaign (0/2)

Board games:
Zombicide: Black Plague Campaign (10/11)
London Dread Campaign (1/4)
Escape from Colditz (1/2 modes)
Pandemic: Fall of Rome (done)

May 2018 Status

Another month down and this top list just keeps getting longer as I add more ideas and sundry items that I really should get around to... Also I've still mainly been focused on killing my backlog. Priorities right? :P

    End the year with less weight (-1 kg from last month, running total: -1.2 kg)
    Complete NWO: Lost City of Omu (0/2, 1-2 weeks to go)
    +Learn 3 more songs (0/3)
    Draw 12 drawings of anything (0/12)
    +Make a parody comic (planning)
    Make board game 19 prototype (procrastinating)
    Complete web comic chapter 1 (procrastinating)
    Make a simple computer game (procrastinating)
    +Clean out computer games
    +Clean out wardrobe

Backlog Update:

FROM GIFTS
Sims 3
Loki (Abandoned. Mindnumbing.)
Overlord 2
Commandos 2: Men of Courage (Abandoned. Not user friendly at all)
C&C Red Alert (DONE)
C&C Red Alert: Counterstrike (DONE)
C&C Red Alert: The Aftermath (DONE)
C&C Tiberian Sun (DONE)
C&C Tiberian Sun: Firestorm (More of the same)
C&C Red Alert 2 (DONE)
C&C Red Alert 2: Yuri's Revenge (DONE)
C&C Generals (DONE)
C&C Generals: Zero-Hour (DONE)
Supreme Commander (Abandoned. Too slow)
Dawn of War II (DONE)
Universe at War (Done / Had Enough)
Sins of a Solar Empire (DONE)
Diablo: Reaper of Souls (Doesn't Work)
Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty (Infinite Patching)
+Eador: Masters of the Broken World

GOG FREEBIE PILEUP
OxenFree (DONE)
Grim Fandango Remastered (DONE)
Worlds of Ultima: The Savage Empire (No. Prefer to retry Free UO)

COMPY CAN'T RUN (but I want to play)
Batman: Arkham Knight
Dying Light
Alien Isolation
Shadow of Mordor
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice
+Satellite Reign

I thought I'd just put in some mini reviews with each of those "abandoned" items, most of which I did try my best to play but ultimately just found it not to my liking. The only exception, and the one I'll start with is The Savage Empire.

Ultima in Africa is a bit strange, but I was willing to try it until I heard that Official UO has become free to play. If I'm going to play any Ultima, it's definitely going to be UO and there's no way The Savage Empire was going to stand up to that.

The ARPG diablo clone Loki is up next, and while the game is functional (though very texty) it just dove head first into the realm of mind numbingly boring. Regardless of what on the rails quest you were on, it boiled down to enter new area, kill the hundreds of things in the area (and that's already sneaking past half the map). Rinse and repeat. Just... no.

Eidos' Commandos 2 should have been perfect for me. A bunch of specialists sneaking around in Nazi Germany should be great right? Yes and no. In theory it's good, but lousy voice acting paired with the most unfriendly user interface I've ever come across sent me packing quickly.

Supreme Commander is another RTS game, this one taking place on maps so vast you often needed to zoom out to almost see the whole planet to manage your huge array of forces. With epic music, decent story (from what I played) and nice combat (if you zoomed back in to see it) you might wonder why I gave up on this one, and the answer is simple: build time.

It's a case of hoping your dots overwhelm the enemy dots.

Even compared to the slowest builds in Command and Conquer, this game moves at a glacial pace. Watching two glaciers crash into each other is grand, but waiting for to build your glacier (army) and then getting them to travel across the map was hours of boredom. Ultimately I decided that I simply have more rewarding things to do with my time. :P