deanb

Just looking back on my watched Anime this year. Which I pretty much all watched on Netflix and dubbed. Probably the overall winner is Delicious in Dungeon, which was my watch after Blue-Eye Samurai. Has been a delight in having the combo of followed SunWong Cho (ProZD) for years so cool to have the sort of "side bits" on Twitter. I then (mid-way cos this was just 4 episodes and Delicious in Dungeon was weekly releases) did Pokemon Concierge Not quite anime (though Netflix seem to feel that way...). Was just a delight. Really the only sucky thing was just having 4 episodes. Then to pivot once again in tone Probably one of the better Terminator things by virtue of trying something a bit new with the concept (especially being set outside of US and the Connors). I like the cute house robot things (and I imagine there's a bit more of a point there given Japan seems to be looking at carehome bots for elderly population). Next up was Dan Da Dan. It's very weird. Certainly a "don't watch if you parents can pop in the room" type (especially given lots of talk about missing weiners and balls). The "occult versus sci-fi" aspect is kinda cool (though as it currently stands the team by virtue of their make-up seem more pro-occult which I think could be better to balance maybe). And then finally Arcane (only just finished last night, held off watching it due to the mid-series break) I'll be honest I wasn't super keen on the ending, maybe need to do a full binge of S1 and S2. Mainly just didn't get the Ambessa bits Oh and I also binged Ouran midway in the year, but I've seen it before. It's fun and goofy.

Oh and yeah I much prefer 27 inches. It's a good monitor size too.

I currently wield some cheap bone conduction headphones (not $10 cheap, but not the £100+ that Shokz go for) also for experimenting. they're quite good for work and for popping out into town. Nice to have something on in the background like a podcast while not being totally oblivious (we have a lot of ND students with full over-ear headphones and while I get it, I do think we're gonna need a compromise at some point). They can be quite leaky though on sound. While back had a ping on Teams from a colleague of "we can all hear your music btw". You do have to ramp them up past the "this will fuck your ears" warning when out and about, I think mainly down to the fit. And tbh I'm not sure that will be alleviated with Shokz stuff as it all seems quite immovable. On audio front, I have, with Christmas pennies, bought myself a pair of these I've actually got them for replacing a pair of HyperX headphones I've had for many years, and I do really love them. The only major hiccup was they were wired. Which wasn't an issue with gaming as PS5 has port on the controller, but was an issue with a cat... (and no one sells like headphone cable that's terminated at one end, or 3.5mm ports that weren't sold in bulk so I could jerry rig a replaceable cable). From a tech standpoint really like these. They're my first ever noise cancelling headphone. I've not had a chance to fully test that aspect but will be trying it at work next week. Also good for workness is the "Ambeint Aware" mode which just funnels through external sound. I've actually had a play with that and it's kinda uncanny to have the PS5 playing, and then also sound from youtube as if I've plugged the headphones straight into my laptop. On the "plugging straight in" it has a cable to plug straight into stuff (you can see the hole on the image) if it's supported. Only hiccup is it's 2.5mm on the headphone end so that'll be a pain to replace. But it's nifty it works without any power being on the headphones just acts like a pair of old fashioned wired headphones. The multi-point thing I'm still working on. I originally hooked these up to my phone and my Google TV was also like "oh you have these headphones, want to use them?" so that was neat. Downside being as it was tied to both my TV and my phone, if my phone had a sound-enabled app (which is 95% of them) then that would pause my TV to take control of my headphones even if no sound was actually playing. I've since removed from my phone and just hooked straight into my TV as a whole. I remember years ago having a cheap Bluetooth keyboard that had a physical switch for different devices and I feel that's still the way to go for "multi-point". Non-tech wise - One thing I loved with my HyperX was the fit. They're the most comfortable headphones I've ever worn, and that's great for longer playing sessions (or late night TV/movies). I did have a junk of time looking around for similar and these are over-ear but I do have to make a bit of an effort to make sure my ears are tucked inside. I do understand part of that is for the noise cancelling to work, get a nice seal on my head, but my ears are a bit sore when I do take them off after a long session. Also I was annoyed with having to shuffle games around on my Steamdeck (and especially with not being able to grab Baldurs Gate without having to clear a ton of stuff first) so I also got myself a 1tb SSD for the deck. The iFixit partnership was great in having a guide to follow along (though it gets light on the software side and the official Valve instructions for re-installing SteamOS are a bit "draw the rest of the owl"). Also more space meant I could properly flex Heroic Launcher too - got a ton of freebies from Epic and Amazon to play about with and they're not as easy to move over to the MicroSD.

Not a wrap up, just a belated "Game I beat in 2024". Machinika Museum I actually got this back in May when they were doing a giveaway, so better late than never. It's basically "The Room" (if you've played that series) but a bit sci-fi rather than cosmic fantasy (admittedly the gif looks like an elder scroll). I think it was originally designed for phones so it works really well with the touch screen on the steamdeck (which is kind of rare for games to work with the touchscreen as a "touch screen" and not just for like typing on a keyboard or picking objects in some menus). Only major hiccup was no obvious method for "back/zoom out" so did have to cludgily use the B. Was about the right length. I spent about 4hrs playing it, and the sequel could be cool but not currently £12 worth of cool. (£12 got me Midnight Suns). Puzzles were pretty logicial, no moon logic (just aside from "why are military researchers putting puzzles on their crates locks"). You get stumped but not frustratingly so.

Hidden Folks Cutesy little game I think I've had for an age. Was good "pick up and drop" type game during the weird times that is Christmas and the preceding and proceeding days. I've played similar "Where's Wally" type games before (played Hidden Through Time on my phone recently too). This one is entirely mono-colour* (and you can change the background, which has made it a bit easier on my eyes), but you can interact with things that sometimes spark other elements (towards the end you have to adjust a lot of elements to get like tracks running that will maybe deliver your item or similar). I did have to google solutions for a handful for items (one felt a bit cruel as I'd got 80% of the way to the clue, except unless you were zoomed out you wouldn't see what you were triggering). Given there's hundreds of items/folks to find across many levels most are very manageable on your own, ranging from simple and obvious to devious but make you go "woohoo" on completion. Took about 10hrs to complete (according to steam play time, though some I think is distracted playing). *turns out it's part of a bundle of 2-bit colour games https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/9897/The_Black__White_Indie_Games_Bundle/

Marvels Midnight Suns Completed this on my Steamdeck where it plays quite well (as long as you make a minor tweak to tell the 2K launcher to eff off). Very enjoyable game. Cool mix of marvel characters, fun designs for them too, and the day-mission night-social pattern is easy enough to get into (especially if you've done a Persona title or similar). Neat playing about with the decks to suit your play style. The hub map was actually quite a bit larger than it initially seemed. Only issues would be some of the story tries to create drama for the sake of it that can make some characters seem obnoxious (or tease a reveal that never comes). It's also a bit lopsided in progression - I kind of had to drag the end out so I could level up the few remaining characters friendship stats to unlock their "Midnight Sun" armour and special moves. It also wasn't super clear instructions on the card upgrades and I found out I'd basically ended up with a bunch of "waste" cards that should just be junked (it changes the 'frame' around the cards and you're meant to have inferred that meant it was at max upgrade. But it also had a + on some and a star on others so...yeah) I also wish I'd got the deluxe/season pass version as it does seem it adds quite a bit to the game (especially expanded on Blades mechanic given it adds vampire enemies and Morbius). So yeah if you're looking at it I think the deluxe version would be well worth it - I want to try them out but not worth going through the full game. I'm also unsure that given the base amount of characters it took some dragging out to level up friendship I'm not sure if it'll be even more grinding at the end with more characters to befriend)

This is pretty fascinating. I do miss Tomorrows World. I remember as a kid them showing off "self driving cars". (and here they have a clip from 30 years ago with electric cars!)

I'm finally playing Yakuza Like a Dragon and this game is so fucking fun. Just silly goofy goodness. I knew it was RPG based (specifically Dragon Quest) but wasn't aware it did a bit of Pokemon too. I do occasionally have to check on conversion rates now and then to grasp the impact of like what is being offered. "I'm not risking my life for 5,000 yen" has more impact when I know that's about £30. (heck it'd be understandable sentiment for £5,000). I'm fairly confident I'm still very much in the tutorial stage (especially as no kareoke so far). Nut yeah it's being fun.

I find it great they've added adverts because now it means that they can pump additional cash into their service and...nah I've spent 3 days trying to watch episode 6 because it just gives up even buffering after a while (and it ain't an issue with my internet - everything else runs fine). Once I finally watch I'll give opinion.

Star Wars: Jedi Survivor Got it for cheap in the recent Amazon sale. Rather enjoyed it, and liked some of the new traversal elements (even if I think some is a bit sus from a lore perspective :P). I did have a quibble with a particular boss battle and ended up (after some raging on Twitter) dropping down to padawan mode to get past it. I'm also confused on some character motivations too. Kinda looking forward to Outlaws (though I know it's different studio and so on).

I've had a couple Anker wireless. Though not too keen on my current pair - Anker P2 Life or similar sounding. Bit too light and have a long stubby bit that I think is meant to bring closer to your mouth for calls and such (hence the "Life" branding I guess) but kinda just poke you a bit. Last pair were more rotund. USB-C to headphone jack just handy to have as a back up, can be got dirt cheap. I have one that has charging pass through - great for parties where you can just plug into an older hi-fi speaker and keep phone topped up with juice.

Oh phone wise I upgraded from a Oneplus 7, which was starting to wear down, to a OnePlus 12 Came with a walnut-style case but I very early moved to the above clear case with a little dino on the back just cos the actual back is so beautiful it felt silly to put in such a cheap wood effect (did have the Moto Style back in the day with an actual wood back. Loved that phone) Otherwise it's a phone, not much to write about, though the battery life is fantastic. Easy does 2 days with no bother. Nice to be wireless as well; the USB port was starting to go on my old phone (and it was 4 years old so it'd been a trooper - that's like 1,300 inserts minimum), so being wireless should mean the port will last a bit longer. Though sucks that it's only kinda slow on non-Oneplus pads.

Good set of games. I am half tempted by GoT on PC mind. Was beautiful on PS4 - so many pics taken in photo mode! Got this in the sale for Steamdeck The PSP discussion on Discord other day had my nostalgia for the many many many many many hours I put into Disgaea back in the day. I do worry that I am no longer not a working bill payer mind so this might be a danger. And I got this for PS5. Was a quid cheaper than Steam and while I'd like to have got it for PC to play on my desktop the reviews on Steam all hammer it for running like dogshit so I'd rather not bother there. And got the first one on playstation anyway so might as well continue that lineage. Got a long weekend off this week so might just veg out gaming

Oh not so much "irked", just quibbles. Mentat was definitely one; having him attempting to undermine the harkonnens while also combatting maud'dib. Would have made it clearer that genuinely no one knew that Paul was alive. The reduced time frame so that there's no "abomination" running around is another. It doesn't seem he's planning to do Children of Dune and Alia is obviously much larger part there, but you could plant some of the seeds in a third film of the 'dominant personality' (especially given who else we get in Dune Messiah. The person you love to Hayt). I don't mind too much about Paul not getting to take ownership of Jamis' wife due to killing Jamis, they've certainly made a point of trying to make the Freman a bit more progressive (even if there are religious fanatics; their jihad is gender equal). (though she's a decently large supporting character in Messiah and they'd otherwise have to build up some other non-Chainie freman lass for him to be confidant with)

Dune Part 2 Fucking amazing. Pretty as hell. Great adaptation (though I have a few quibbles in some missing bits). Really hoping he gets to do Dune Messiah. Be a great trilogy to put alongside LotR.

i've being playing Pathfinder: Kingmaker on Steamdeck. Runs pretty well, though loading can be slow. Some mechanics are quite obtuse - it's very heavy on Pathfinder mechanics. Had to have a wiki open for the first few hours (especially as the early main quest has some weird triggers from some of the sidequests you also get so it wasn't super clear how to advance). The kingdom stuff is relatively barebones - mostly making decisions and such. Budling up your kingdom is picking stuff off a list. Though I am early days with it and I think from what I can see there's options to expand into neighbouring land.

Suddenly realising I might have to move this thread to "Multi-plat"...or I guess just "PlayStation".

Folks at work are doing a group and it was on sale so I'm diving in.

Blue Eye Samurai, a billion times better. Still thinking about it a few days after and half tempted to run through the whole thing again. The title character is half-western half-Japanese in a time of intense xenophobia which drives a mission of revenge. The characters are great (and some great voice actors too; including Randal Park, George Takei etc), the animation is gorgeous and scenes just look pretty as hell. It's got no fear in throwing a few musical curveballs (including the For Whom The Bell Tolls as heard in the trailer, as well as the odd Kill Bill track). It's not one for kids; strong violence and peaches Really my big thing is Abijah Fowler is voiced by Kenneth Branagh but is clearly Brendan Gleeson. They've put the first episode on YT if you wanna watch (though err, not much point unless you have Netflix in which case you can watch it there...)

I'm about 3/4s of the way through FFXVI (based on how much of the map I have unlocked and amount of Eikons/Mother Crystals dealt with). I'm enjoying it (put it in my GOTY after all), but my god is it not really FF and just continuing the disappointing trend of their action-orientation mainline stuff like FFXV and FFVIIR. Really makes me apprehensive for how they might do a remake of FFIX. For me a big thing that just really sticks out is that you have these elemental bases for the likes of Eikons and such, and thus you can swap between being fire, ice, thunder; but none of it means anything. There's no major difference to the elements on how they impact fighting enemies. Heck there's very little difference to say some being particularly weak to melee vs magic attacks. The game has malboros, but while in other games you'd have to deal with status effects these have "Bad breath" but it's just an AoE attack since there's no status impacts becuase there's only a a few consumables you can use and two of them are potions. Heck you get elemental sword upgrades as the game progresses but it does nothing except change the look of the sword and its stats - there's no effect from it. There's quite a few moves too, but only 6 attack slots so you're kind of dissuaded from mixing it up (especially as the ability points are rather stingy in relation to how much new moves cost to unlock), and given there's no status impact or elemental affinities there's no much point. The main issue sticks when fighting a boss as most fights are group based so I tend to have loaded out with AoE/group attacks and against a boss a lot of these are pointless or no impact (like literally they just glance off a lot of bosses and they can just hit you through your attack which is...annoying) (the story is a bit muddled too; like it has three different strands between anti-slavery, environmentalism, and destiny/free will. The anti-slavery/environmentalism from the same group too, and in fact both aims run counter to each other) I do like the art, and the "airships" (I'll be disappointed if we don't get at least one of the airships airborne). Byron is class. Easily in my top pantheon of FF characters tho. "Can't you have any normal enemies?!"

t'was on sale. Figured I'd bite. ProtonDB had it running as okay on Steamdeck (and my experience so far is that's the case). It's batshit insane. Unfortuantely I do have this song stuck in my head whenever GDT talkes about the "BB"

Watched Pluto, it was okay. I'm not too invested in Astroboy stuff so I imagine a bunch would pass me by. Felt like it was leading up to something that just never came, like it was sort off trying to say something, and had the trappings of that just..without anything behind it, or lacking in conviction in attempting to say anything. Like you had the persia war/BORA fact finding mission as analogous to WMDs in Iraq. Nothing really to be said about these super robots still being puppets to kill other robots. I dunno, just...empty.

could be interesting, though tbh some of Primes output has been a bit scattershot of late unless it's got Seth Rogen attached (though I'm feeling I should really give Reacher a go - not read the books but folks bang on about them)

I'm just gonna do a random dump: (suddenly aware I've done two A24s - but they've got interesting films). Katy O'Brian is . She's been in last few seasons of Mandalorian (tends to be in imperial officer clothing though), and was (unfortunately) in Quantumania earlier this year too. She's taking off. Always felt Kung Fu Panda never quite made the impact it should have done. Like everyone that loves it loves it, but doesn't seem to be in same league as Shrek. Honestly it'll be wild if they get to do the main trilogy. Just have a big ole wormy boy.

Wonka Watched this with my mum and her partner over the weekend. The original Gene Wilder film led to high expectations, which the Johnny Depp version completely failed on (my only thing I like in the Johnny Depp version is that they were able to show the result of the other children being "treated", which wasn't quite feasible in the 70s so they're somewhat forgiven on that). It's Paul King, who did Paddington 1 and 2, so it has that very whimsy charm to it. And while Timothy isn't trying to ape Gene Wilder (and in theory there's many decades in the guys life before we see the Wonka that Charlie meets) he does pull in a few bits. Overall it's fun and pretty. It's throwing quite a few people that it's a musical, though both previous films have been. Absolutely chocka with British acting cast too. Olivia Coleman is likely the main one folks will know, but I think Ghosts has done well in US so probably a few recognisable from that. The guard is also the writer (and shows up in Paddington as well, where also a writer), and he's local to my town so that's been cool for a few folks. It's a similar type of sweet making he has in the 70s film too (whipping cows to make whipped cream, adding a boot to provide a little kick, etc). Great little film to go see over xmas. My only beef is that they make a joke of Keegan-Michael Key's police chief getting fat from the bribes (figured we'd had that conversation a few years ago) There's a few minor plot quibbles