Sir Terence David John Pratchett — Equal Rites

Even while it's on same level of dumbness as the first two books, the delivery feels significantly improved. Even the writing feels slightly improved.

I liked Granny Weatherwax in the Wyrd Sisters and the Carpe Jugulum, but in the Equal Rites she is mostly a stereotypically boring and underdeveloped. (Yet?)

So-o-o-o... The ending of the Equal Rites is underwhelming and went nowhere. Also later parts of the book are heavy with undiegetic pop-references. And it kinda contradicts first two in how magic works.

@темы: Sir Terence David John Pratchett, Discworld, Книги, Индустрия Развлечений

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interstellaria

It is an interesting game. But it is more interesting, than playable. It is still playable, so that makes it very interesting.

They kinda tried to replicate FTL's combat and maintenance, but make it from the side instead of top-down. And that's the first dumb idea. There are a lot of such strange decisions, so GUI is unusable. But due to low stakes, exploring all this weirdness is fun instead of painful.

So it is a space-roaming game, with planetary exploration missions and space combat. The planetary missions are controlled with a mouse in real time. Besides resource management, space combat also has a battle window and requires evasive manoeuvres. And in this game, it is possible to assemble a small fleet with many crews.

So, i saved two doods from death and they joined my fleet. They were surplus and didn't do anything useful the whole time, just ate, partied and slept. Then i stumbled into a sex-swap anomaly. So one day these two chicks just left my fleet with all my gear they had equipped, because they were "overworked".

See? This is a very nice game, if utterly janky.

@темы: Компьютерные Игры

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Final Doom

The Plutonia Experiment

Yep. This is just exactly just more of Doom 2.

Yep. this is the same amateur\sequel\add-on style of level design of that era, with trolling, random riddles and giant unending levels. With the main idea being shoot more stuff coz shoot more stuff. Compared to base Doom 2 it is not even artistically coherent\correct and very gamey. Visually levels are pretty plain, uneventful and not memorable. And of course final boss would be an icon of sin which was bad even in the original. If you want just to play more levels for doom without regards to quality — it is for you.

TNT: Evilution

It starts very strong, with some new visuals and new music, but then it slows down at 2\5 mark to be as generic, trolly and poor as plutonia, after which it suddenly has a row of extremely short and plain levels. And overall Evilution is not thematically coherent, having you run around prisons, offices, warehouses, sewers and other boring real-life stuff. Though, sometimes you can find something truly amazing and great between them. Something which is very doom with all it's cultural zeitgeist and non-explicit references. Some parts are even surpassing both original Doom 2 and the Doom itself, some levels are legitimately artistically and technically great. And the final level is somewhat improved, with dumb puzzles, cyberdemon fight, and icon of sin (yes, again) being more combat heavy and sensible. I was on the verge of recommending it, but this release crashes in one place, and it doesn't display evilution text screens, instead it just uses plutonia ones, so you will never see the story of this add-on.

They tried so hard, and got so far, but in the end, it doesn't even matter. Some great stuff is spoiled with bad parts, after which it's ruined by the release, and on top of that there is the plutonia's dead weight.

@темы: Энтропия, Doom, Компьютерные Игры, Индустрия Развлечений

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Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

It is yet another dumb movie about dumb people, that looks so pathetic it was targeted towards females. This time it says that alpha males get the grills and should always bully weak nerds. And that magic garbage society works like putin's russia — it consists of cock-a-doodle-doos who are too adroop to vote or act.
Oh and harru is ripped, just like an alpha male should be. Now he needs to bully sum dum nerds, just like his redneck father did.
And no one cared to use several available truth magics on the suspect who is also a witness on the different much more serious case.

Even the VFX quality is a downgrade compared to the third movie.

@темы: Harry Potter, Энтропия, Кино, Индустрия Развлечений

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Дуэлянт

It is a nice simple crime movie in a rare setting. It doesn't have any juxtaposition or light-hearted action and there is no Дореволюціонный Совѣтчикъ on the OST. So there is nothing to push it beyond the threshold into greatness, but still, the costumes are nice and the acting is pleasant. They did a lot of historical research (i hope, haven't fact-checked it) on the duels, so it doesn't repeat the same generic stuff all the time.

IMAX is nothing to write home about. Curved screens (more like kurwed) is a bad idea, as always. The angular size is not that different. If a movie was not targeted toward it from the start there are no advantages in sound or picture's size. And even when it was, it does not take advantage of the old aspect ratio, only some scenes use the additional resolution, the rest is just letterboxed. Also, i could still see pixels and artefacts in the footage, so there are no advantages in physical medium size for digital cameras (duh).

Кинотеатр на Кожуховской говно для пидорасов. У этих долбоёбов синяя подсветка ступенек настолько ебучая, что засвечивает треть экрана целиком. Впрочем и угловые размеры в зале не очень. Только первый ряд более менее кроет, но он на одной высоте с экраном потмоу нихера не видно глядя куда-то ввысь. А с третьего не большая разница с обычным кинотеатром на первом ряду.

@темы: Кинотеатр, Дуэлянт, Кино

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Grim Dawn

New H&SARPG game from the creators of Titan Quest, with the grimdark cthulhu + scrap-survival aesthetics. Game-play is similar to the Titan Quest, even loaning several mechanics from it, but a lot of outdated busywork was streamlined. The best part are reputation boosters, which you can give to your other heroes, so you won't need to grind as much.

Lowest difficulty is mostly a pleasant ride to the end, with couple of good items and mismatched skills, and without noticeable difficulty spikes in the main campaign. But on the elite+ the usual balance issues show themselves. On top of increasing enemies' stats, player character just receives extreme resistance penalty and cheap one-shots become a usual thing for any build, made not by the uniform min-max instructions. Ranged\mage characters becoming very unpleasant to play, since they are stationary when attacking and can't kite well. Unlike Titan Quest advanced difficulties don't even bring much new content. And the most unpleasant part of the new balance, is the fact, that higher levels bring less and less points to spend, while requiring more and more grind, which sucks all the joy out of levelling-up. On top of that, level capped character can't fill even one skill tree, so dual builds are much less interesting, which also reduces player's ability to experiment.

Graphically the game is pleasant, art-style is cohesive and models are peculiar. But enemies are done so good, that you can only wonder, why are you, yet again, forced to play as plain boring humans, when you would rather play as cursed scarecrow or some beastkin. Game works just fine on UHD UWS Surround out of the box, but is very demanding.

Overall it's not as great as Titan Quest, but inherits a lot of it's flaws. It's a great time for a couple of casual playthroughs, but manages to become even more frustrating than Titan Quest on advanced difficulties. Diminishing returns of levelling-up hit hard player's incentive to spend more time in the game.

@темы: Компьютерные Игры, Grim Dawn

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Stardew Valley

It's slightly awkward to control, but it is a good casual skinner treadmill when you need one. Combat is obviously bad, but it can be ignored completely if you are ok with keeping your snail's pace.

Narrative is really awkward and gamey — you can get robbed in the town of 10 people, people intrude into your home, you can't sleep on your property (i sometimes took naps on the ground in my 600 m^2 irl), amount of lines of dialogue is expectantly limited etc. The message about spooky scary evool supermarkets is pathetic and misleading — game always tells you that their prices are cheaper, then forces you to use local shop because it's other way around. Also siding with jojo cuts a chunk of a gameplay and content from the game. And the end result of siding with 4-eyes redneck (whose dream is to beat down "flamboyant" puffy dude with pink bow-tie, to drive him and the cashier away from the town forever, because they don't take kindly to that kind around here) won't be worth it anyway. [Kumbaya my Lord, Kumbaya] All while Shane will lose his job and drink himself to death by selling cows he stole from his aunt. He will never discover his passion for cinematography.
The amount of bachelors is very limited and doesn't feature a single male, also i can't see a single reason why me and my dyke 2d trailer-redneck waifu can't both shag a hobo to get preggies. Why are we have to adopt refugees baby when we are two healthy alpha females and can have our own bellydwellers? We are strong independent capable women!

Music is pathetic and can be ignored, don't forget to put your lolicore playlist on, so your crop would sprang meaty, strong, hugh mungus and already covered in the dew. Your 2d waifu will have no other choice, but to award it with a gold star sticker. Game looks fine and pleasant from the first glance, but if you ever drawn pixelart — the amount of frivolity with decipixeling, transparencies, fonts and other "cheating" is somewhat jarring. Technically game works just great, it adapts to UHD UWS surround, runs smooth and is stable.

Treat your redneck 2d waifu nicely (even alex) and avoid game's community and the modding scene whatever it takes, both sides of it. *shudders*

@темы: Компьютерные Игры, Stardew Valley

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Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Yet more of the same garbage, this time with sexual harassment and a middle school of death.

The universe is totally inconsistent and absolutely random with its rules. The plot just happens and the stuff from the previous instalments is forgotten. The final fight is laughably pathetic and retarded, and this whole series can only be enjoyed by >f e m a l e s<. I.E. it is a shit for faggots.

If we have Potter's parents and Pattinson's ghosts why don't they live in Hogwarts with other ghosts? Why don't his parents speak with him and guide harru then? WTF is with Hermione? Is she having her period? She runs around screaming hysterically and being annoying. Why does ron acting like a faggot? And WTF has happened to Hogwarts in the fourth instalment? It is just, like, has been turned into a burned kebab refugee shelter.

@темы: Harry Potter, Кино, Индустрия Развлечений

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Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

It is a convoluted pile of shit. It has so many plot devices that it doesn't make any sense and the characters are just blind.

They finally did add transitions, but the plot is still overcompressed, while being overly long all while being empty and uneventful.

@темы: Harry Potter, Энтропия, Кино, Индустрия Развлечений

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Ben-Hur (2016)

Official russian translation.

It's a pretty nice historical action film with a very nice ending.
The costumes are great and the iconography is kewl.

@темы: Кинотеатр, ben-hur, Кино

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Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

It is yet another garbage HP movie. Ironically, in the second movie, the kids forgot how to act at all. They were fine in that first shattered to pieces attempt at a movie, but here harru and ron act worse than the toilet stalls, which are the real leads and have the longest runtime in the film.
To tolerate the retarded retreading of the opening, one can just pretend that it's uncle Monty on screen, 10 years after being cured in a christian camp.

this is me harru in the corner

It has the same incoherent structure with jumps from summer to winter in a matter of 10 minutes, without any chapter envelopes or other pace-pacyfying tools. Which is baffling considering its 2:40 runtime and that it manages to tell less than LOTR, all while lacking any downtime and character development.
It literally has machina ex machina and several other plot devices and scripted resolutions. Some plot "punchlines" lack any proper setups and just happen.

And the morbidity of this movie is just baffling.

@темы: Harry Potter, Кинотеатр, Энтропия, Кино, Индустрия Развлечений

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Nine Lives

Official russian translation.

It is a generic movie in the "2000s talking CGI animals" subgenre. As a revival of the genre it is a peculiar case, but does it have any die-hard fans who prefer it over the "90s talking live-action animals" subgenre?

The performances of the mother and the daughter are bad. The sound design is retarded — they use fake cat barks every second of the cat's on-screen time, even while the real cat has its mouth shut.

@темы: Кинотеатр, Nine Lives, Кино, Индустрия Развлечений

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Sausage Party

Official russian translation.

It is a pointless pathetic retarded degenerate Seth Rogen's pile of shit with 1,5 "jokes" and drugs. Because that is a generic Seth Rogen for you. A-ha-ha aren't drugs like phunnie guise?
Buns don't use vertical kinetics, which is a waste and a cop-out.

But i was given a great 8\10 coloring+puzzle book as a freebie with the tickets.

The translation is obviously rated E for everyone, despite the age rating of the picture.

@темы: Мультипликация/анимация, Кинотеатр, Энтропия, Sausage Party, Индустрия Развлечений

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Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

It is as bad of a movie as i remember it to be, but this time i noticed just how random and incoherent it is. I'm all for skipping of the boring scenes and tropes, but with such months-long jumps you should have different narrative envelope. Like some chapter-cards or time stamps on transitional shots. Yes, you can tell from visuals what approximately is happening, but it's just uncanny and uncomfortable. It gives unresolved feels of incompleteness because of such blink-of-the-eye transitions. All while the story-thread is treating it as a constant current of time. Also skipping boring mundane scenes is not the same as skipping stuff in a retarded magic crap-show world. Those do world-building, and are only mundane from the diegetic POV, but not from consumer's POV.

The characters are awful and chosen-oneness is to the max, the world is random garbage and they extremely violent sportsball for kids, who don't even use any protection gear.

@темы: Harry Potter, Энтропия, Кино, Индустрия Развлечений

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Jason Bourne

I can’t decide if it is equally, or more retarded than first three films, but “jesus bore 5” is retarded nonetheless.

It was filmed by a retard, who’ve spent last ten years on meth. It switches between thirty different shots per minute, so you can’t grasp what is happening. Cinematography is shit, with unlimited shaky camera works. The scenery is magic shit filled with teleporters.

It’s as boring and sleep-inducing as every other jesus bore movie.

@темы: Bourne, Кинотеатр, Энтропия, Кино, Индустрия Развлечений

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Bourne Legacy

This film tries to have a story about consequences of the Bourne, but it is incoherent and is as dumb as any other Bourne movie. It even uses “Bourne theme” despite having a different protagonist. Was it so hard to give him any other similar track by Moby?

@темы: Энтропия, bourne, Кино, Индустрия Развлечений

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Starbound

So, in fact in its core it is a generic space adventure game with randomly generated fetch\beararse quests and weak terrariacraft mechanics slapped on top of it in specially dedicated procedurally generated landscapes. It's like red faction — advertises terraforming but then puts you into indestructible corridors in main campaign. You can't use anything but shooter+platformer mechanics in boss-fights or story-mission and they are done extremely poorly — unlike terraria there isn't much useful movement upgrades, armour is generic and so are guns, without much progression or crafting. GUI is not on par with terraria and controls are absolutely garbage and unrebindable (it always double tap of movement key, which no sane person would want). Story is laughable, narrative is garbage.

Game kinda works in UHD UWS surround, but it runs at 10fps even in FHD with GF970 sli being used for 17% top. Game just loves crashing 2-3 times in a row on startup.

It would be an extremely mediocre but tolerable crabshow if it wasn't so bugged and unplayable. Well at least it twice better than no man's sky by the amount of meaningful content and game's framerate.

@темы: Энтропия, Компьютерные Игры, Индустрия Развлечений

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Quake III

Single-player is just bot-match, but at least i tried out some of the worst maps, no wonder they are not very liked in the MP. This experience made me feel some special kind of special.

Gladly i played a lot of MP in my time and it is great, they removed all the dumb guns and returned great ones, though BFG10k in q3 is boring. And the levels are bright and colourful with a lot of jump-pads.
It was great playing DM in 2000, but when i returned to it in 2007 i discovered the joy of TDM and CTF. Then i stumbled upon "excessive" mods and they are just great, they amped all weapons and gave them infinite ammo while giving players armour and health, with quick regeneration. It removed the camping from the game and increased skill dependence in every fight. Besides, it's just awesome to play. Like in some versions shotgun shoots railgun slugs in spread or each BFG shot is surrounded by a lot of grenades etc.

@темы: quake, Компьютерные Игры

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QUAKE II Mission Pack: Ground Zero

[played with ultimate quake 2 patch containing KMQuake2]

This is the best version of quake 2: new enemies are great and differ from one another, new weapons are ones which were missing from the base game, like projectile automatic gun (without insufferable wind-down) and chainsaw, and finally we have organic and easy to understand level design, this time with some colours. And unlike first add-on Ground Zero even features new final boss.

Base quake 2 was homogeneous blob of brown-grey levels, had four weapons with the rest being just duplicates or completely useless and functionally only two enemies — one flying, the other is walking. All the additions, including slightly annoying turrets finally diversified the game enough for it to be interesting to play.

@темы: quake, Компьютерные Игры

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QUAKE II Mission Pack: The Reckoning

[played with ultimate quake 2 patch containing KMQuake2]

Base game refuses to be played in 1280x1024 so i fiddled around with mods and end up with kmquake2 which allows adjustment of FOV and some new graphics and GUI options.

Most of the new enemies are just rearmed and re-purposed old ones; most of the new guns and items are not functionally different from the old ones; all levels are as brown-grey boring corridors as in the base game.
New LD features even more pointless and unclear obtuse backtracking, with tonal and at the same time logic dips, but for some reason this game feels less boring than the original, while being not that much shorter. Maybe it's just consequences of the "cultivation".

So it's pretty mediocre, fans of the first game should like it. I didn't like the sequel and this one isn't that better.

@темы: Quake, Компьютерные Игры, Индустрия Развлечений