With a Chainsaw I'll skin your rear RAW!

A chainsaw is wonderful tool to prune trees, take care of lumber and the occasional dismemberment. Something a collections of developers have embraced wholeheartedly. Much to my great annoyance. That said, some serious spoilers ahead if an enemy encounter can be considered that. It all started around Resident Evil 4, the game that takes place in not Spain, within the wacky world of Bio Hazard. One of the most beefy, irritating and dangerous enemies to contend with in the game is a man, just a man with a bag on his head. A pesky peasant welding a chainsaw, one that can instantly decapitate Leon if it gets too close. Of all the weak spots an enemy can have, you’d think that the chainsaw would be a major weakness, since it’s a flimsy tool that is prone to clogging, having the chain snap and running out of gas. Yes he can take a lot of bullets to the head, but honestly the chainsaw should really be Dr. Salvadors greatest weakness, a couple of bullets into that machine and it should go bust. But no, that is not how it works the chainsaw is indestructible and cant even be used by the player. To add salt to the wound, there are several other such enemies throughout the game, such as the giant one with a burning chainsaw in the mercenary mode. These fiends are essentially minibosses that takes a serious beating and can pretty much only do one thing and that is if they catch up to you.

Come to think of it, the madness probably started around the Dead Rising series. Which takes place in a location where such a tool is easy to find. Or was it gears of war with it’s chainsaw bayonett that inspired a bunch of these games to have such enemies.

Resident Evil 5 have some chainsaw foes as well, as the Resident Evil 6 if I recall correctly. Where they are just as annoying, one track minded and deadly. Regardless the madness of the control scheme, limited ammo and all of that jazz, it does not end there. Because the director went to make the otherwise excellent Evil Within 1 and 2. Survival horror games with yet another instance of instant death chainsaw minibosses, coming to murder you in a small corridor, while being interrupted by infected zombie like enemies. I never found it scary, I never found them fun, or interesting. I see them as a major irritation that causes more frustration than fear.

Zaceron signing out!

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Jurassic Burgers

After watching too much Jurrasic World, the weird wonky and very Hollywood sequel to the Jurrasic Park movies there is a plot point that has been bothering me quite a lot. Be wary spoilers ahead, if such a story can be spoiled. Regardless science brought dinosaurs back and a rich man built a park with dinosaurs with the backing of a shady mega corporation. Then things goes wrong because an underpaid employee is bribed into stealing research samples and shuts down the security system during a typhoon. Years later the part is rebuilt, and reopened elsewhere on the island and became successful. However the oversized featherless birds did not make all the money in the world, so evil rich man decides to make a better raptor, naturally somethings goes wrong and everything goes to hell in a hand basket, again.

The movie after that deals with fetching dinosaurs and ferrying them of the island as the volcano is going critical, instead of saving them, evil corporate greed man decides to do the dumb money scheme built around selling the dinosaurs to the highest bidder, then make a super raptor again to use for war purposes. Which is very silly all things considered, because drones and tanks are ultimately better and less squishy. Without the ability to go berserk and tear allies to shreds. In the end it leads to an epic fight between an intelligent emphatic raptor and the enraged super raptor, the good guys wins and the evil bad business man die along with most of the other guests at the locations, plus some unforgettable scientists. Heroes saves the day and the handsome white hunter and raptor trainer survives to be badass in an inevitable sequel. Ranting and poor plot summary of Jurrasic world aside.

Imagine this; Instead of making genetically engineered war machines and park attractions, there is clearly an untapped market for huge slabs of sizzling tyrannosaurus steaks, people would pay through their nose to eat this exclusive meat. Not to mention being able to breed creatures at that impressive size could do wonders for the meat industry. Since being able to grow anything of that mass is very impressive. Thus I can only conclude it is possible to grow unintelligent meat made from cultivated cells, bypassing the whole ethical dilemma of taking a life and you know co2 pollution and excessive energy usage.

Yes, I do believe it would work better as a plot point to serve dinosaur burgers, than to sell a dinosaur soldier.

Zaceron Signing out and do enjoy my ongoing fantasy story.

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Langrisser 1 & 2

Langrisser is an interesting game series that takes place in a generic fantasy kitchen sink. What do I mean by this? Well, every hero on either side of the conflict between light and dark wears impractical shoulder pads and armour that protect very little, if anything. Combine that with an interesting selection of outlandish units. Like faeries, angels, zombies, slimes and everything else I could expect from this world. Killing the evil power hungry emperor, that invaded the peaceful kingdom of the protagonists with a swarm of pixies is fun though.

It seems like a hentai artist designed the characters, so that might explain the exposed midriff.

Apparently the holy sword Langrisser more or less means lung ripper in German, or so I'm told. Which brings up another fantasy trope, German sounding names that may, or may not be made up gibberish. The leather z and f is very exotic in Japan after all. I can't fault them for that though, nor should you. For some reason fanatical anime fans are very hung up on name accuracy, despite it being a one way street.

Anyhow, the game is about turn based be series where each hero hire several mercenaries to fight for them. Each of these units gets a solid stat boost by being within range of the unit commander.

What really sets the series apart is choice and the various endings. My most satisfying moment in gaming history is to ditch the bland and boring heroes to join the evil empire, that want peace through power, by colluding with the forces of darkness., then betray them and join the overlord, only to backstab him as well, then fight the goddess of light, like a true magnificent bastard. I laughed long and hard about it.

It's refreshing to actually play a properly translated version of the game, I'm not very good at Japanese and aside from Warsong no other product in the series has been released across the sea. The mobile game is not quite the same experience, in fact it is a bit rubbish, even if it expands the characters a bit through excessive grinding and gifting.

The one bad thing about Langrisser is the AI, it's pretty much only capable of mindlessly attacking with its units, regardless of outcome. Sure the officers uses spells here and there, but that does not stop them from tossing men into the meat grinder. The imperial guard would be proud. Get it on steam today, the package includes the first two games in all its glory.

And in case you wonder, the soundtrack dlc adds more ingame music type options. Because the game comes with both chip tune and hair metal versions of the tracks.

For my monthly updated fantasy story, have a look see over here. Can anyone direct me towards a good proof reader?

https://shardworld.home.blog/

Zaceron signing out!

Piracy protection is a Scam

I firmly and wholeheartedly believe that piracy protection in games are a scam, that takes advantage of gullible publishers by prying on their fears. No sales person wants to lose potential revenue, with some exceptions. The idea is sound and sensible. If someone can make an illegal copy of the game that other people can download for free, no money is made, so in order to prevent this dastardly deed from occurring a sinister software is added to authenticate the product upon start up, or in the background while the software is running. Lets use Monster hunter world as an example, Capcom, has implemented a software from a company called Denuvo which uses precious system resources to see if the game is legit. Since this occurs the only one punished are legit owners like me playing it on Steam. Because the software uses a lot of cpu, which causes some lag, long loading times and general instability. A friend of mine has it even worse, Denuvo causes too much stress on the processor and it causes the computer to reboot. This happens despite his ability to run the game without any problem. Due to the piracy protection causing problems for the service it causes a general loss of revenue, due to people demanding a refund because the game runs like crap and to add insult to injury, buying the license from the company itself cost money, that could have been earned through legit sales.

In fact, games are cracked in less than a week after launch, be it an online or offline game, this has been going on since digital entertainment has been around. It never works and it is a pain in the buttocks to deal with. One of the most vile and old examples I can recall is a nefarious software known as Starforce. It came with a couple of games among them was Worms Mayhem. Starforce is generally known to throttle and destroy disc drives inside the computer. Install that worms game along with the malicious software and suddenly out of the blue the cdrom drive is not working anymore or just runs very slowly.

If I where to go further back, the Amiga 500, a wonderful pc with many great games that run on noisy and slow booting floppy drives also had pirate protection. To prevent users from copying the content onto another floppy and thereby ending up with an extra copy of the game.

Since space was limited, developers usually added key words into the manual, such as in Monkey Island, where I had to look up what grog was made of in the manual to get past the first screen. Hackers cracked this the moment they got a hold of a legit game copy. Pirate copies was apparetnly very easy to aquire even back then and the service providers often included a fancy animated logo with a custom sound track, proudly proclaiming that they are the ones that hacked the game. Every now and then they even added a trainer to make the game easier to complete. In the end the only one punished was anyone without the manual, that actually spent money on the game.

To summarize: A game developer uses money to buy piracy protection. 

Hackers break the protection in a couple of days.

Legit owners get the shaft.

The developer and publisher loses sales.

Only the piracy protection software provider wins.

Zaceron signing out

And have a look see, I’m writing a fantasy story

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Sekrio: Shadows Die Twice Review

Sekrio: Shadows Die Twice Review

In Sekrio two highy trained warriors meet on the battle field, these two professional killers face each other in a duel to the death, where only one man can be victorious. Sword clashes against sword as sparks fly, each strike deftly deflected trough perfect training, until one warrior overextends and is struck down.
Sekrio is a game about a shinobi, a highly trained warrior and infiltration expert that refuse to die, due to plot reasons. Unlike Dark Souls, the combat is purely about timed blocking, deflecting and striking when there is an opening. So an enemy attacks five times in flurry, I have to either hold the block button down or tap when the attack is about to hit. Which is the main mechanic, perfect deflection through timed blocking builds up a poise meter, when it is full a death blow can be performed. This finisher will take down the enemy, regardless of how much vitality that is left. Most minibosses have to be struck down like this twice. Many of them can be cut down once from behind, when sneaking up on them, before the duel start in earnest. The only exception are certain grab attacks, which has to be dodged and the red kanji symbol which requires almost perfect block timing. Conveniently enough, any name enemy drops a prayer bead and four of these will upgrade the health bar.

To make murdering easier, there is a lot of skills to be unlocked and various awesome tools, such as a way to light enemies on fire or tossing shurikens. In order to unlock these skills some I have to find and then unlock through skill points, gained through killing enough enemies. The progress bar progress is cut in half along with the valet, but a gained skill point remains. The other penalty for death is that friendly npcs starts to get sick and thus cant be conversed properly with, due to their excessive coughing. This can eventually be cured indeed, but that requires a rare item, which can be quite hard to come by. Which is a bit annoying I have to admit, the only item that can be bought at any checkpoint statue, is the tags needed to use abilities. Every other item comes in limited quantities, can be looted from enemies or found all over the place. As the title implies, Sekiro can indeed die twice, first time an enemy kills me I can revive and continue to fight, or get in a sneak attack, the second time can be refilled through killing and can only be triggered a set time after the first death. Though if I die once, I’m not likely to succeed in living that long anyway. Attack power can be eventually be boosted by beating bosses and completing a mask made of three parts, and by consuming an item. Unfortunately the time on consumables is a bit on the short side.

However I think it looks really, really good graphically and runs very smoothly and it has yet to crash once, which I'm very happy about, not to mention short loading times.
The game is not without flaws though, every time an item is picked up a screen covering explanation appears and yes I can not turn it of, an intrusive tutorial popup will also come out of no where when a new status effect or game mechanic is encountered. The camera can be quite useful and behaves okay most of the time, however it’s a nightmare in small enclosed spaces when locked on, or if the enemy is running in circles. Sekiro also comes with a huge, terms of service you have to slowly scroll through when starting up the game for the first time. At least on Steam that is, which is the version I’m playing.

The music ranges from fantastic to ear grating, depending on the fight and how frustrated I’m at the time. Seriously, one of the sound tracks have elements of my cellphone tune, so I had to eventually turn it of. It’s also quite a lot of grinding to get the skill points needed to unlock techniques or to farm the material needed to upgrade the prosthetic tool skills.
Yes it is a fun and punishingly difficult game, that punishes poor timing and not taking the time to learn an enemy pattern or exploit. Many fights can be ignored or taken at another time. I had and have a great time with it, but I can’t recommend it for people who are impatient, can’t handle split timing button prompts and children. It’s a little bit bloody and some enemies are wonderfully grotesque. Replay-ability comes through several endings and new game plus and steam achievement hunting.

Zaceron

Enter Marvelous flying brick -

Captain Marvel is not a very good or interesting character, in fact I firmly believe she could be replaced by a brick and not much of any consequence would change. Mind you, this is a thing that also hold true for a lot characters when an unskilled or uninterested author write the story. It boils down to the character being an emotional black void, yet being the center of attention, love and admiration. Regardless of how much they deserve it or not. As someone I can not recall put it, if you’re not trying to break the audiences hearth, you are doing it wrong. Which is what Captain Marvel unfortunately failed to do, by being turned into a self insert fan fiction character, fueled by selfish wish fulfillment fantasy. Combine that with a boring power set and the lack of a creative use of her abilities, or any attempt at outwitting the enemy. The way she is portrait is one that is very popular among teenagers and first time authors, usually the kind loathed on fanfiction.net.

She is strong, she can fly, shoot deadly bolts of light, breathe in space and is very, very durable. To top it of she is revered and fared by the Kree since they put a lot of resources into brainwashing her and keeping her power limited. When the mind wipe eventually ends, she just moves on with her life and nothing of interest occurs afterwards. If you look away from the fact that the she stopped hunting Skrull and now they love her. Other than that she is also a very successful female test pilot in a time where such thing is a rarity and naturally the men around her is cracking gender jokes. Eventually she joins up with Nick Fury and eventually helps to establish S.H.I.E.L.D and finds the teseract collection dust. Oh and the alien cat that tags along nicks one of Furys eyes and gives him a device he can use to call her if earth is in peril. An object that would have worked wonder when Ironman nearly died above New York, which makes me wonder, where was she when the hole debacle with Thanos began? I have no idea, nor does the writer and that gives me no reason to care to write anymore about a very mediocre Hollywood experience, written by someone that got paid handsomely, that cant handle criticism and people pointing out plot holes. A long time favorite pastime of us geeks. I mean seriously, watching a movie with friends and cracking jokes and debating the story is half the experience.

What I’m not entirely sure of is how a successful blonde woman with no weakness and few emotions, are going to be a good role model for impressionable kids and marginalized minorities. Especially when the one iteration of her was apparently Muslim, and the one before that was black. Which means I should probably bring up whitewashing but that is another can of maggots and I’ve been rambling for long enough as it is.

As a reference point, this is worm a web serial and how to make a story about heroes interesting, emotional, brilliant and the main character is a girl, oh and her power is to control insects and crustaceans.

https://parahumans.wordpress.com/

Another fairly interesting female hero is Lina Inverse from the Slayers universe, especially the light novels. She is severely and more often than not pay they price for her actions.

Then there is always Skulldyggery Gentle to go by as well. Can’t go wrong with a sorceress having a living skeleton as a mentor.

Zaceron Out!

Captain Marvelous "review"

Captain Marvel is the best and strongest female character ever seen on the silver screen. She got super-powered by the all mighty fabric of reality changing mcguffin coveted by the big burly blue final boss. Not only is she a test pilot that is so well loved that she could name a prototype plane. Her love interest is a woman of color and also a perfect flawless pilot. Not to mention she got trained by a mighty warrior race in such awe of her gravitas they tried to keep her down, but Captain Marvel takes no quarter. Oh, and she can shot energy and fly in space is also in all likelihood bulletproof and borderline immortal. Being blond and attractive is also one of her virtues, who better to be the face of female representation and minorities. A black Captain Marvel is a preposterous idea. The supreme prowess of the blonde bombshell makes all opposition crumble before her might, not even spaceships and defenceless shape shifters in the guise of an old lady can escape her fist of righteousness. Everyone loves her flawless attention sucking black hole of a personality as well. Heck, she even helped establish the most powerful parahuman organization on earth. The fact that she inserted herself into the story near the end makes her the ultimate role model for any aspiring woman or girl that want to make it big and to be the very best, without being held down by toxic masculinity, the patriarchy and the man.  The only one to surpass Captain Marvel is her intelligent alien pussycat, an eye scratching ball of fluff. I have never witnessed a such a more selfcentered self insert wish fulfillment character in all my life which raises her power level to goddess like proportions. I've not seen such a remarkable female lead since the master piece My Immortal. It must be fun to make millions writing a character without flaws, vices and inner demons. Captain Marvel as portrayed by the actress Brie Larson is beyond such thing as petty cisgender while make movie critics and comic book fans, whom just wants a good story.

In conclusion a movie well worth watching, with a perfect feminist hero we need, after all there is not gender representation in mainstream media.

Zacero