Far Harbor

Sometimes life takes a strange turn. I waited a year and a half, with baited breath, for the release of Dishonored 2, an yet Fallout 4 refuses to let go. This is made much worse due to Steam having an extra Autumn sale and allowing me to get my Lovecraft-loving claws on the Fallout 4 DLC, Far Harbor, on the cheap.

So since that's what been playing, that's what I'll be talking about. I have previously bought the all build DLC, except the robot workshop, that add extra stuff for you to putter around with in your bases, and they are a lot of fun. I can say this even though I have essentially only scratched the surface. If you're not a builder, they don't add much, but Far Harbor does.

Far Harbor is an island infested with radioactive fog and nasty terrors from the sea that happily walk on land just to eat you. It's a bit like taking Lovecraft's Innsmouth setting, adding a dash of Stephen King's The Mist, and serving it with a healthy dose of Fallout. In other words, it's great!

Content wise, apart from the large explorable map and the intriguing story, it adds lots of new weapons and clothes, though unfortunately no new pistols. Two excellent rifles, the wonderful Harpoon Gun heavy weapon and some really cool melee weapons round out the arsenal. New creatures, new everything really. Well, perhaps not everything, but it's a hefty DLC worth it's price without question.

If you like Fallout 4, you should definitely get Far Harbor at some point. I can't imagine why you wouldn't.

I got a lot to do today, so I'll see you next time. Until then, have a great week!

Bloody hell...

Some time ago I wrote about a couple of older crime movies that I had been watching. Well, I decided to again return to the shadowy halls of cinema history and watch:

The Bloody Pit of Horror (1965).

Some are of the opinion that it's a classic film that horror connoisseurs should watch, but my question is, why? It's terrible and I have a very good tolerance for terrible horror films.

Sure it shows it's age, but that's no excuse. Roger Corman's The Tomb of Ligeia and Masque of the Red Death are both from 1964 and they are awesome. Campy as hell, but in my opinion, very good. So the Bloody Pit can't hide behind age as an excuse.

The fact is that the acting is either non existent or completely over the top. The props are cheap and incredibly poorly made. The story is fine as it goes, but certainly nothing original. Of course it didn't help my viewing experience that the dubbing was atrocious. (The original language is Italian).

The biggest sin is the writing. If you and your friends are in mortal danger and a couple have been killed, why would you grab a member of your group who has no idea of what's going and repeatedly say “There's no time to explain” while leading her away? “What's going on?” and “There's no time to explain” repeats back and forth several times. Just say, “we're in danger, so and so is dead, we have to leave now.” is this so hard?

Bottom line: The Bloody Pit of Horror is in my opinion worth skipping. If you're going for some kind of completionist record, fine, otherwise skip it.

The one interesting bit is the only famous actor; Mickey Hargitay. In the bloody pit, he plays the villain, and seems to be the only one who really tries. But that's not the interesting part.

He was Mr. Universe in 1955 and his second wife was none other than Jayne Mansfield. One of their children is Mariska Hargitay, most famous for her role as Olivia Benson in Law&Order: Special Victims Unit.

His final screen appearance was on Law&Order: SVU with his daughter in 2003 before dying in 2006 at the age of 80.

In 1980 a TV movie, The Jayne Mansfield story was produced with fellow Mr. Universe alumni Arnold Schwarzenegger as Mickey.

Funny world we live in...

That's me until next time, so have a great week!

That was short

Shorter entry today since I'm pressed for time.

Originally it was my plan to review Dishonored 2 today, but I haven't played far enough in order to be properly critical.

I'm 17 hours into my first playthrough with Emily Kaldwin, and I'll just say this: I love it. I'll get back to the subject when I'm done with her story, probably next week.

Instead I have a really funny short film for you. It's about seven minutes long and narrated by Nick Offerman (Parks&Rec, Fargo etc).

I should warn you that it's strictly speaking not safe for work, so don't let your boss catch you watching this.

Direct link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXfltmzRG-g

That's me for now, so until next time, have a great week! 

Did you know?

Winter has struck and seized the land in it's icy grasp. Since I'm not the type to enjoy winter sports, I thought I'd enjoy some interesting facts instead. And since it's Monday I can share them with you. Enjoy!

The most expensive comic book ever sold is Action Comics Issue 1. This is the first appearance of Superman and it was sold at an eye watering 3.2 million dollars. The first appearance of Spiderman only went for 1.1 millions and Batman's premier clocks in at $1,075,000. Super prices for superheroes.

Speaking of money, the richest drug king on record was Pablo Escobar, who at the height of his power had an estimated net worth of $30 billion. He controlled 80% of the global cocaine trade and had to spend thousands of dollars a month on rubber bands to sort his money. He also lost hundreds of thousands to mold, moisture and rodents, due to his inability to properly store his mountain of cash.

Cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev went up to the MIR station a Soviet citizen but came down a Russian. The Soviet union disappeared during the 313 days he was up in space.

In the UK, the British Film Board or BBFC has to rate movies before they can be released. If you make a movie you have to pay the BBFC to rate it or you can never release it. A man called Charles Lyne kickstarted a movie in protest of the BBFC's censorship powers. He raised £5,963 and sent in a ten hour film of paint drying on a wall. The kicker? The BBFC had to sit through every grueling hour of it.

Famous actor James “Jimmy” Stewart (1908-1997) was not only a Hollywood star but also a USAF reserve Brigadier General. He had a whole lot of stars.

Australia has a great many dangerous animals. Sharks, spiders, snakes, venomous octopuses etc. but the most dangerous animals in Australia are as follows: horses, cows, dogs, kangaroos, and bees.

One of the reasons the Beatles stopped touring was that the enormous crowds screamed louder than the loudspeakers. No one could actually hear them play.

Stress uses the same part of the brain as memory, which is why people with stress perform worse. Which leads to more stress.

The athletic brands Adidas and Puma were founded by two brothers who had a falling out and became competitors.

Birmingham, UK has more canals than Venice, but I doubt they are as romantic...

That's it for me and my odd facts for this time. Until next we meet, have a fun and interesting week!

Halloween Sale 16

The Steam Halloween Sale 2016 is over tomorrow. I picked up a couple of small games but I figured I would finally take a plunge so I picked up the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. bundle on the cheap.

I have hear a lot about the series over the years. You play as a stalker, a mercenary/scavenger in and around Chernobyl and Pripyat.

The very idea is awesome. Sneaking around the nuclear poisoned ruins, dodging enemies and hunting mutants. Really cool, but there is a hitch.

The camera bobbing is hideous. It is extreme to say the least. I'm not prone to motion sickness, but twenty minutes of the first game gave me a headache. A literal headache and mild nausea. I've understood that the two sequels are better in that aspect, but I wanted nothing to do with it.

What also surprised me was that the graphics were so dated in my eyes. Granted, it came out in 2007, but I have played older games that looked better.

In the end I gave up and put in for my first Steam refund, which worked really well. You can't do it through the client, rather you have to go via their online help page. Fill in a short explanation and click send. In no time at all, I got it approved and my funds have been returned as I'm writing this.

Instead, I put down the money and bought Hard West. A reviewer described it as a mix of the old Desperados game, X-COM and the Deadlands rpg. I was sold.

Desperados is one of my all time favorite games. I love the turn based strategy of X-COM. And I ran Deadlands games for years. I really like weird west stuff.

So far, I have only completed two missions and the tutorial. The first one took me three tries, but I aced the second, and I have the game set to easy. The hard in Hard West is true folks, make no mistake. Overall the feeling and the design is excellent, and I'm looking forward to continuing my journey.

There are a few things one has to keep in mind though. Like you can move and then shoot, but not vice versa. That led to the death of my main character as he got stuck in the open with predictable results.

Since I haven't yet played enough to really review it I can't recommend it yet, but it looks really promising, and if you also like the whole wild/weird west thing, you should give it a look.

Alright, that's me done for today. Until next time, have a great week y'all!

Butchers of Berlin

It's been a while since I've reviewed any books, but today we're changing that.

Today I want to go over the novel Butchers of Berlin by Chris Petit (2016).

I haven't ready any of Mr. Petit's other works, but based on Butchers, he is one hell of a writer.

The book is set in Berlin in 1943, which means it's smack in the middle of World War II. Our “hero” is August Schlegel, a cop who works on financial crimes as a part of Kripo (short for Kriminalpolizei or criminal police). He none the less gets pulled in on a murder investigation that leads to some very dark places.

It should be pointed out that Butchers of Berlin (or BoB) is a fairly gruesome novel. Due to the setting and the theme, it needs to be nasty and I commend Mr. Petit for making it so, while not going overboard. Some readers might disagree, and if you're sensitive to blood, cruelty and such things, maybe give BoB a miss. At the same time, it's not too much. I found no part where the book revels in gore just to shock and be sensational, to the contrary, I'd say it actually pulls back a bit.

The mystery at the core of the book is convoluted and takes more than a few twists and turns, but as it should, it all gets wrapped up in the end.

I haven't read any others of Mr. Petit's works, but based on this I want to. He writes well, but with an interesting twist. I don't think there was a single back and forth dialog in the entire book. Instead it looks something like this:

A: “I think it's time for dinner.”

B agreed and added that he was hungry.

It threw me for a loop at first, and a lesser writer would probably have gotten lost, but Mr. Petit makes it work and at times it helps the text flow smoother. Once I got used to it, I really liked it as there was no useless comments anywhere in sight.

Overall BoB is a well researched book with a great story and good characters. It's worth noting that some of the people that show up actually existed for real. I won't spoil which ones, it's all explained in the appendix.

Bottom line: Butchers of Berlin is a great mystery/thriller set against the backdrop of war torn Berlin with all the misery, paranoia, corruption and horror one would expect to find there. If that's your thing, I highly recommend it.

That's it for me, join me again next Monday for more Eccentric Spheres. Until then, have a great week!

Dark Controller

For years I've been fascinated by the gaming phenomenon that is Dark Souls.

If you're not in the know, Dark Souls is a, as the name suggests, dark fantasy game. There are three games in the series so far, with two Demon Souls games and the gothic Bloodborne on the side. The latter three games are only available on the Playstation, so that's me out.

What all these game have in common is the Third Person style of play and a brutal difficulty level. There is no easy mode anywhere in sight. Every fight, every enemy is hard and can kill you if you slip up even a little. I've seen some truly impressive videos by players with genuine skill who are able to dance effortlessly through the games, but this is a skill they have earned the hard way: through countless hours filled with sweat, frustration and swearing. They have earned the ability to run around at will thumbing their noses at the horrors inhabiting the world, but even they slip up and die. No one is truly safe.

But Dark Souls is never unfair and it never cheats. Instead it constantly pushes you to be better or quit. And every time you die, you learn something. The placement of an enemy, a fighting technique, a new way to approach the game and so on. This, and the dark but gorgeous atmosphere ultimately made me take the plunge. I found the first Dark Souls on Steam for a fiver, so even if I hated it, it was no loss. So far I love it, but the thought of firing up the game is intimidating. I'm on the second boss, the Taurus Demon, and he is Hard. Yes the capital h is no typo. The kicker? He isn't really that hard, not compared with what awaits further ahead, mostly it's all in my head. Still, I'm excited to get there, and this I suppose is the true allure of the Dark Souls universe.

Before I could start playing however, I had to make a choice. These games are designed with controllers in mind, and although you can play with mouse and keyboard, like I do, it makes the game even harder. Thus I took another plunge and bought the Steam Controller. I wavered between it and an Xbox controller for quite a while, but I came down on the Steam Controller's side and I think I made the right choice.

The Steam Controller is different from it's competitors mainly in the fact that instead of a second joystick, it has a track-pad. You know, the mouse replacing square on a laptop? This gives it (perhaps) more flexibility, but being completely new to me, is another thing I have to learn. So far, I'm very happy with my choice. The fact that you can make up a control scheme for the Steam Controller and upload it to Steam for others to use, is a great tool, and one that I have already availed myself of.

My one complaint, is the D-pad. Compared to other controllers out there it feels clunky and very loud. It's not a silent little click, it's a loud CLICK every time. This I feel they could have improved on a little, but apart from this issue, it's been great so far.

Well, I'm done for this time, so have a nice and easy week!