First half of 2025 wrap up

 

In the fist half of 2025 I...

 

Played: Creaks (2020); Obduction (2017); Scar of the Doll (1998; 2017); The Caribbean Sail (2017); Eric the Unready (1993); Stars Die (2020); Cocoon (2023); Darius Cozmic Collection (2021); G-Darius HD (2022); Guardian Force - Saturn Tribute (1998; 2022); Assetto Corsa (2014); Steel Empire (1992, 2018); Rolling Gunner (2018); Shooting Game KARI (1997; 2022); Strikers 1945 (1995, 2020); Zero Gunner 2- (2001, 2020); Drainus (2022); RIDE 4 (2020), The Sea Will Claim Everything (2016), Raioh (2023), Raindrop Sprinters (2023), Dragon Ruins II (2025); The King's Dilemma (2023), Shenmue (1999, 2018), Radiant Silvergun (1998, 2023), ESCHATOS (2015); Super Star Shooter (19??, 2025); Magic: the Gathering Arena (2018)

Got: The Sea Will Claim Everything (2016); Thaumistry: In Charm's Way (2017), Dragon Ruins II (2025), Raioh (2023), Raindrop Sprinters (2023), RIDE 4 (2020), ESCHATOS (2015), Super Star Shooter (19??, 2025)

Favourite: Creaks, Obduction, Eric the Unready, Assetto Corsa, TRIZEAL Remix, Drainus, Raindrop Sprinters, Dragon Ruins II, Shenmue, Arena.

Comment:While the year started with a lot of enthusiasm for games, it has become quite a chore from April onwards. There's a good mix of quality between adventure games and shooting games, as well as between games I had never played and replays. In terms of memories I guess there was a big helping of shooting games. In the end it's hard to prioritize some over the others. The thrill is always based on sentinment, the feeling of something new and twitchy. I still have a quite a few still installed and ready to be primed - in a way, perfect "games", that I can play in small bursts again and again. As for adventures, I still think of Obduction. It's really that good and I'm glad I finally played it. Having replayed it numerous times but not in the last few years, I really enjoyed replaying Shenmue, especially in Japanese text. For the first time, after 25 years, it felt a bit aged, but in other aspects it still holds up and embarasses modern games. I still have to knuckle down and replay Shenmue II. A word as well, for the relatively few games bought, for my standards. I welcome this change and as things are I am currently looking forward to only 5 other games (barring some unexpected unnanounced treat), and who knows if by the time they come out they'll be as good as promised... (they're mostly shooting/arcade/retro games anyway). Over the next 6 months I hope to keep playing moderately. Keep exploring shooting games, finally beat Disco Elysium and replay Shenmue II.

Read: Home Computers: 100 Icons that Defined a Digital Generation; História de Portugal em Datas; Blackadder: The Whole Damn Dynasty; The Dreamcast Encyclopedia, The Dictionary of Imaginary Places (1980, 1999); Teddy Boys: Post-War Britain and the First Youth Revolution (2024); SEGA CD Summer (2022); GameCube Anthology (2018); Alan Partridge: Every Ruddy Word (2013), Memoirs Of A Mangy Lover, Groucho & Me, The Groucho Letters, The Essential Groucho; Terry Jones' Barbarians: An Alternative Roman History; Terry Jones' Medieval Lives; Valis, The Game Players of Titan, Solar Lottery, We Can Build You, Lies, Inc., The Man in the High Castle; The Factory; Tremor; Go Set a Watchman, The Shards, Eurotrash, James, Headshot, The Hole, The Vulnerables, The North Light, All Fours, A Little Life, Asa: The Girl Who Turned into a Pair of Chopsticks, The Night of Baba Yaga, The Archive of Feelings, The Rain Before it Falls, Let me Tell You What I Mean, Gifted, The Factory (re-read), Butter, Cement Garden, First Love, Last Rites, Weasels in the Attic, Eastbound, Einstein's Monsters, Cal, The Bear and the Paving Stone, The Premonition, Ballad of a Small Player, Heartwood, Under the Eye of Big Bird, The Pole, Flesh, Outline, Diary of the Void, Eastbound, The Violet Hour, The Dream Hotel, Perfection, The Guest, The Horse, You Dreamed of Empires, Every Day is For the Thief, Amsterdam, The Woman in the Purple Skirt, This is Amiko, do you Copy?, By The Sea, Topeka School, On the Calculation of Volume I and II, The Extinction of Irena Rey, Slow Boat, My Friends, Open City, Nipponia Nippon, The Physics of Sorrow, Mecca, The Tokyo Zodiac Murders, F, Normal People, Kitchen, Dark Like Under, The Night Watchman, Shuggie Bain, Memory Piece, Never Let Me Go, Come and Get It, Intermezzo, Martyr!, Weather, If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things, Tell Me Everything, Belly Up, The People in the Trees, To Paradise, The Heart in Winter, Orfeo, The Kitchen God's Wife, The Goldfinch, The Girls, You Should Have Left

Got: Dreamcast Encyclopedia, GameCube Anthology, Blackadder: The Whole Damn Dynasty, Alan Partridge: Every Ruddy Word, Teddy Boys by Max Decharné, Memoirs Of A Mangy Lover; Terry Jones' Barbarians: An Alternative Roman History; Terry Jones' Medieval Lives, To Paradise; The American; The Factory; Motorcycles: Taschen; Classic Cars; The Shards; Go Set a Watchman; Tremor; James; Eurotrash; A Little Life; All Fours; The Hole; Intermezzo, Headshot, The Hole, The North Light, The Vulnerables, Weasels in the Attic, F, Ballad of a Small Player, Goldfinch, Orfeo, Outline, Diary of the Void, Eastbound, Topeka School, Heart in Winter, Asa: The Girl Who Turned into a Pair of Chopsticks, The Night of Baba Yaga, The Archive of Feelings, Gifted, The Rain Before it Falls, Let me Tell You What I Mean, Martyr!, Weather, The People in the Trees, Belly Up, If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things, Tell Me Everything, On the Calculation of Volume I and II, The Night Watchman, Heartwood, The Violet Hour, The Dream Hotel, Under the Eye of Big Bird, Flesh, Perfection, Mecca, Butter, Dark Like Under, The Extinction of Irena Rey, The Guest, Come and Get It, My Friends, The Physics of Sorrow, Memory Piece, The Horse, Never Let Me Go, Normal People, The Bear and the Paving Stone, The Premonition, The Pole, The Tokyo Zodiac Murders, Shuggie Bain, Open City, You Dreamed of Empires, Every Day is For the Thief, Amsterdam, The Woman in the Purple Skirt, This is Amiko, do you Copy?, Nipponia Nippon, Kitchen, Slow Boat, The Girls, You Should Have Left, Tyll, The Director, Orfeo #21-25

Favourite: Blackadder: The Whole Damn Dynasty, SEGA CD Summer, The Factory, Groucho & Me, The Shards, Eurotrash, Headshot, A Little Life, Butter, Diary of the Void, The Guest, Ballad of a Small Player, The Pole, F, Weather, Belly Up, The Girls

Comment: My goal to reduce spending on books backfired extraordinarily. In a way, I did reduce spending on history and gaming books, which are often extortionary. On the other hand I discovered the mass paperback novel and from March onwards I went on a huge binge. Fair to say, I hadn't read novels with such passion in a very long time (decades even). As things are there was a lot of dross too and, due to the reading fever, a lot of scanning and fast reading or some which I just couldn't get into. I don't regret this change although I wish I would have been a little bit more selective and less impulsive. There were some extraordinary books though, from the mind-alteringly sick The Shards and A Little Life, to a slew of japanese-authored novels (of which Butter, Diary of the Void and The Factory were true highlights), to discovering wonderful authors like Daniel Kehlmann (F), Emma Cline (The Guest, The Girls) and Rita Bullwinkel (Headshot, Belly Up). Due to the huge number of new books I haven't re-read much, apart from the always re-readable Groucho. Going forward I hope to not get any new books up until the end of the year as I have more than enough to re-read. Hopefully nothing extraordinary will come out in the meantime that I really must get.

Listened to (new): Porridge Radio, Michael Hurley, Molly Tuttle, JP Harris, Muireann Bradley, The Petersens, Jake Vaadeland, Beloe Zlato, Joe Wunderle, The Earls of Leicester, Hayden Pedigo, Willi Carlisle, Lucy Rose, The Castellows, La LOM

Got:Rose City Band - Sol Y Sombra

Favourite (new): Michael Hurley, JP Harris, Jake Vaadeland, La LOM

Comment: Well, it took over a year but I finally got back into music. I was quite dreading opening YouTube to see the hundreds of clips I had waiting for me. In the end I managed to catch up to everything in about a week. As things stand I didn't really purchase new music, although my Bandcamp collection is needing some fresh tunes in it as I've listened to everything on it hundreds of times while driving, by now. Surprisingly there wasn't that much new artists to be found, although there are a few new albums incoming (Big Thief, Anna Tivel, Molly Tuttle). Over the past month listening to music has become my main past-time and I expect it to continue so during the next few months. I would like to find some more, newer, fresher artists.

Final thoughts: These were quite a hectic 6 months. I started heavy on gaming, then progressed to an incredible novel reading fever and, after 15 months, finally get back to listening to music (thankfully never stopped playing music). Mentally, listening to music is perhaps the most taxing. Perhaps not mentally but rather emotionally. Reading tires you out more but you can just start skipping pages. Gaming, I guess, adds nothing but wasting time and quick thrills. Sometimes necessary but not fundamental. Up until the end of the year I hope to keep controlling my budget - I'm quite overdrafted on books but have a healthy margin on games. In the end it will hopefully balance itself out. The hot summer months are upon us and that means being too sweaty to play guitar, unfortunately. On the other hand, there'll be at least 3 weeks of holidays to binge through all of this. Writing, as well, went downhill as I lost motivation to keep at it. I'm not looking forward to go again into it but hopefully the once a month recap with some comments, at least. See you there.

June 2025 wrap up

 

In June 2025 I...

 

Played: Magic: the Gathering Arena (2018), Super Star Shooter (19??, 2025)

Got: none

Favourite: Arena

Read: Normal People, Kitchen, Dark Like Under, The Night Watchman, Shuggie Bain, Memory Piece, Never Let Me Go, Come and Get It, Intermezzo, Martyr!, Weather, If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things, Tell Me Everything, Belly Up, The People in the Trees, To Paradise, The Heart in Winter, Orfeo, The Kitchen God's Wife, The Goldfinch, The Girls, You Should Have Left

Got: The Girls, You Should Have Left, Tyll, The Director, Orfeo #21-25

Favourite: Weather, Belly Up, The Girls

Listened to (new): Porridge Radio, Michael Hurley, Molly Tuttle, JP Harris, Muireann Bradley, The Petersens, Jake Vaadeland, Beloe Zlato, Joe Wunderle, The Earls of Leicester, Hayden Pedigo, Willi Carlisle, Lucy Rose, The Castellows, La LOM

Got: nought

Favourite (new): Michael Hurley, JP Harris, Jake Vaadeland, La LOM

Final thoughts: none

May 2025 wrap up

In May 2025 I...

 

Played: Radiant Silvergun (1998, 2023), ESCHATOS (2015), Super Star Shooter (19??, 2025).

Got: Super Star Shooter (19??, 2025)

Favourite: none

Read: Weasels in the Attic, Eastbound, Einstein's Monsters, Cal, The Bear and the Paving Stone, The Premonition, Ballad of a Small Player, Heartwood, Under the Eye of Big Bird, The Pole, Flesh, Outline, Diary of the Void, Eastbound, The Violet Hour, The Dream Hotel, Perfection, The Guest, The Horse, You Dreamed of Empires, Every Day is For the Thief, Amsterdam, The Woman in the Purple Skirt, This is Amiko, do you Copy?, By The Sea, Topeka School, On the Calculation of Volume I and II, The Extinction of Irena Rey, Slow Boat, My Friends, Open City, Nipponia Nippon, The Physics of Sorrow, Mecca, The Tokyo Zodiac Murders, F,.

Got: Nipponia Nippon, Kitchen, Slow Boat

Favourite: Diary of the Void, The Guest, Ballad of a Small Player, The Pole, F.

Listened to (new): nought

Got: nought

Favourite (new): nought

Final thoughts: none

April 2025 wrap up

 

In April 2025 I....

Played: Raindrop Sprinters (2023), Dragon Ruins II (2025), Drainus (2022), The King's Dilemma (2023), Shenmue (1999, 2018), Radiant Silvergun (1998, 2023), ESCHATOS (2015).

Got: ESCHATOS (2015).

Favourite: Raindrop Sprinters, Shenmue.

Read: The Shards, Eurotrash, James, Headshot, The Hole, The Vulnerables, The North Light, All Fours, A Little Life, Asa: The Girl Who Turned into a Pair of Chopsticks, The Night of Baba Yaga, The Archive of Feelings, The Rain Before it Falls, Let me Tell You What I Mean, Gifted, The Factory (re-read), Butter, Cement Garden, First Love, Last Rites

Got: Headshot, The Hole, The North Light, The Vulnerables, Weasels in the Attic, F, Ballad of a Small Player, Goldfinch, Orfeo, Outline, Diary of the Void, Eastbound, Topeka School, Heart in Winter, Asa: The Girl Who Turned into a Pair of Chopsticks, The Night of Baba Yaga, The Archive of Feelings, Gifted, The Rain Before it Falls, Let me Tell You What I Mean, Martyr!, Weather, The People in the Trees, Belly Up, If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things, Tell Me Everything, On the Calculation of Volume I and II, The Night Watchman, Heartwood, The Violet Hour, The Dream Hotel, Under the Eye of Big Bird, Flesh, Perfection, Mecca, Butter, Dark Like Under, The Extinction of Irena Rey, The Guest, Come and Get It, My Friends, The Physics of Sorrow, Memory Piece, The Horse, Never Let Me Go, Normal People, The Bear and the Paving Stone, The Premonition, The Pole, The Tokyo Zodiac Murders, Shuggie Bain, Open City, You Dreamed of Empires, Every Day is For the Thief, Amsterdam, The Woman in the Purple Skirt, This is Amiko, do you Copy?

Favourite: The Shards, Eurotrash, Headshot, A Little Life, Butter

Listened to (new): nought

Got: nought

Favourite (new): nought

Final thoughts: none

Darius, Metal Black, RayForce

Taito is one of the greats when it comes to arcade games. While the company still exists, it's debatable whether it still exists as it was. Above all, it was extremely important and prolific in quantity and quality, all the way from the original Space Invaders originators to the 1980s popular classics like Darius, Bubble Bobble, Elevator Action and Arkanoid, to the 1990s which, for me, was even their best period, if not the most popular, with dark horses like Space Invaders '90, Darius Gaiden and G-Darius, RayForce and Elevator Action Returns.

I'd like to go deeper into Darius in this post, leaning on the computer releases of Darius Cozmic Collection, as well G-Darius. The original Darius is an ominous beast. The beautiful effects on the backgrounds as well as the huge length of the monitor (originally a 3 screen wide monitor) gave it a momentous depth. Everything is slow and builds tension as you can see what's coming a mile away. To overset that, the Silver Hawk is quite slow and the firing rate slow. Upgrades are somewhat easy to get, but also easy to miss. Right from the start there's great use of the horizontal setting, giving or taking away height as well as hiding many surprise attacks in its walls. Bosses are gigantic but otherwise have fairly repetitive and simple patterns. In short, it's a very attractive game that plays like nothing else because of its length but, ultimately, is not sufficiently endearing mechanically.

Darius Gaiden is all-action. It loses the brooding feel of the original and loads up the Silver Hawk with lots of powerups - there are main shot upgrades, but also missiles and shield. Upgrades come think and fast and death does not send you back to checkpoint like before. This contributes to the hectic feel as not only can you take quite a few shots before dying (due to the shield) but even when you die you get resurrected right away and usually with a load of powerups available to get you up to full strength quickly.

The game is visually fantastic, making great use of Taito's celebrated F-3 arcade system (Elevator Action Returns, RayForce), which has a great use of colour and effects, including 3D effects. The backgrounds are mesmerizing and the bombs generate a similar effect to the screen shattering altered state effect in Metal Black. Surprisingly for a horizontal shooter, the environmental hazards only pop up about halfway through your journey, in the later stages - depending on the stage of course. This takes us to a common complaint of the series but that is a series characteristic and if it was any different it wouldn't be Darius - there are too many stages and a playthrough takes too long. The fact that there are too many is closely related to the feeling that, to a certain degree, they might be too similar. Bosses, as well, while visually striking, are usually quite boring being hard to kill because they can take a lot of damage but while usually having well telegraphed, simple, attacks.

Apart from the hypnotic, fever-dream feel of the game, the best and most unexpected aspects happen to be the enemies during the main levels, which have a great variety with many different attack patterns that always keep you on your toes, as well as the midlevel bosses (more like a harder enemy), which are usually unique and offer something different and challenging. As it is, this game is probably the most frenetic horizontal shooter I've played, that arms the player well and makes death comes thick and fast and thrives on chaos. There is nothing necessarily unique about the gameplay if not the eagerness to equip you quickly and fuel a triggerhappy state. In short, a visually enticing ride and a thrilling game. 

 

G-Darius is a crazy bastard. While technically not as hectic as Gaiden, it is in fact insanely hard and you'll be facing death often. As always, it's a statement piece, this time fully polygonal, perhaps the finest of the early horizontal polygonal shooters. This is a colourful and attractive game. The models are huge so space is particularly tight. The biggest change to gameplay is the capture system which is a brilliant thing, allowing you to recruit (almost) any enemy to fight alongside you to even the odds. The difficulty comes from the combination of relentless assault, slightly slower speed compared to Gaiden, as well as a big target. Due to the unshapely polygon designs and colourful backgrounds, it does also suffer from the cardinal sin of shmups: hard to see bullets.

As a break from the usual in the series, the bosses here are not only impressive but now have very ingenious attacks and have finally grown to be the highlight of the game, not only visually, but mechanically as well. If anything, now the game has no downtime: from the first part of the stage when it's aggressive cannon fodder and environmental hazards, to the relentless midstage bosses that like to blast you two inches from the tip of the Silver Hawk's nose, to the end-stage bosses, it's nonstop action. As I said before, not as hectice as Gaiden because the speed is slower but with a lot more going on, and a lot more complex too.
Even if it is so punishing, it's still a load of fun, taking you back to another age and full of arcade spirit. Darius's finest hour. The computer edition is a luxury, with several versions including the HD remaster, but also the original and console versions as well as all alternate versions, a bonus boss rush mode with reimagined graphics in a dual screen as well as bonus features and all the QoL features imaginable. Just great. If you have any interest in arcade games this is as good as it gets in terms of arcade recreations on computer.

 

Metal Black is a visually impressive game particularly for its visual effects. Its gameplay is slightly unique in that it depends on constantly powering up the main laser via abundant powerups. It develops into a game of crowd control, learning when to deploy the laser at full power to keep the number of enemies in check and not be overwhelmed. The S-Tribute version suffers from the lack of analog control that makes it practically unplayable, even with extra help. A shame. In the end the game might be more interesting for its concept and set pieces (particularly the very memorable first level) than anything else. Perhaps one day a reissue of the arcade original will happen.

RayForce, RayStorm, RayCrisis are also visually impressive if for different reasons. The gimmick here is multilevel gameplay be it 2D or 3D. In particular the later 3D games go heavy on scripted setpieces, very similar to what Panzer Dragoon would be if it was a vertical shooter. The problem is judging distances and not to be overwhelmed by bullets and enemies coming at you from different dimensions. Thus they come off as somewhat dated but still good, solid arcade fun.

March 2025 wrap-up

 

In March 2025 I....

Played: Drainus (2022), RIDE 4 (2020), The Sea Will Claim Everything (2016), Raioh (2023), Raindrop Sprinters (2023), Dragon Ruins II (2025)

Got: Dragon Ruins II (2025), Raioh (2023), Raindrop Sprinters (2023), RIDE 4 (2020).

Favourite: Raindrop Sprinters, Drainus. At present: Dragon Ruins II, Raindrop Sprinters.

Read: Memoirs Of A Mangy Lover, Groucho & Me, The Groucho Letters, The Essential Groucho; Terry Jones' Barbarians: An Alternative Roman History; Terry Jones' Medieval Lives; Valis, The Game Players of Titan, Solar Lottery, We Can Build You, Lies, Inc., The Man in the High Castle; The Factory; Tremor; Go Set a Watchman, The Shards.

Got: To Paradise; The American; The Factory; Motorcycles: Taschen; Classic Cars; The Shards; Go Set a Watchman; Tremor; James; Eurotrash; A Little Life; All Fours; Land Power; The Hole; Intermezzo.

Favourite: The Factory (new); Groucho & Me (re-read). At present: The Shards.

Listened to (new): nought

Got: nought

Favourite (new): nought

Final thoughts: none

Terry Jones' Barbarians (2006) and Terry Jones' Medieval Lives (2004)

 Oof. I admit to having had higher hopes for this one. Terry Jones is a favourite of mine. His illness and death was as keenly felt as if we were related. The topic in this one is tackling the sentiment that the view on barbarian peoples was slanted due to the domination and scorched earth policy of imperial Rome.

 

It's over four episodes, which reflect the original TV series, on the Celts, the Goths, the Persians the Huns. Of course, this isn't a historical reference book - it's an accompanying book of a television programme, created and presented by a celebrated humourist. So, while some insights are interesting, this is very light entertainment and not deep. Some of the sub-topics on each of the peoples are as short as only a few paragraphs long.

Not being an historical reference book it does commit a couple of other deadly sins. The first is that in the effort to push away their self-perceived slant from Roman history, they went too far the other way, usually in a very simplistic, poorly referenced, manner. Perhaps it would lose its edge as an entertainment piece but the approach is less than scientific as the authors try to win the reader over how these peoples were actually a whole lot better than the Romans ever were. Strangely, while continuously pointing out that Romans and Catholics erased a lot of barbarians' written history, and how the Roman authors wrote inane or unfactual documents, more often than not they used those very same authors, particularly Julius Caesar and Plutarch as their reference.

The second sin is, even more unfortunate, the lack of historical context as many features are clearly looked at with modern eyes and in the modern context which, in a historical book (light entertainment or not) is simply inane. More disappointing is the lack of broad humour. As there are two authors signing on, it's not clear who wrote what. There are a few quips but it stops at that. This is, if anything, a real let-down. Most chapters include some sort of anecdotal evidence on some historical figure but it's mostly devoid of real interest - you'd be better served elsewhere if you were looking for deep knowledge.

As it is, the book is quite light reading and perhaps a prod to explore some of its issues in more in-depth books. Unfortunately there's little substance and quite an un-scientific approach with only the slightest hint of Terry's humour. In all, an unfortunate edition that perhaps would fare better on screen. 

The book on medieval times is somewhat similar. Now, there are eight episodes, each dedicated to a strata or occupation (Peasant, Monk, Damsel, Minstrel, Knight, Philosopher (Alchemist), Outlaw, King). Strangely despite this the book is almost one hundred pages shorter than the barbarians one. The premise is the same: they state that "medieval" like "barbaric" has a negative connotation and propose to give the reader a different view.

 

However, and again, there's very little depth here, with anecdotes on historical figures like Chaucer, Robin Hood (?) and Henry VIII, and various trivia and tidbits - honestly, at times it reads like a "fun" book for young teens. The disappointment continues with the apparent lack of Terry's wit, while pretty much going through the same lack of references of the other book. While the barbarian book also tried to give a full scope western and eastern people, here the focus is very much anglocentric, thus becoming needlessly narrow, to almost razor-thin levels of knowledge.

In all, quite a disappointment.