These Notebooks Aren’t The Best (But Are Popular Because…)

Well, it has been a while since I wrote a lengthy stationery review – so I thought that I’d talk about Moleskine notebooks, my weird love-hate relationship with them and why they are popular.

If you haven’t heard of these, they’re a brand of notebook with rounded corners, an elastic strap, a bookmark ribbon and a cardboard pocket in the back. Yes, that also describes most modern hardback notebooks, but more on that later…

This is a Moleskine notebook. Due to the lighting, the rounded corners aren’t really visible here. I have a weird love-hate relationship with these notebooks…

Anyway, I’ve been using them as one of my notebooks ever since early 2022, when I decided that I should also have a physical version of my gratitude journal. Since I’d previously been given a 13cm x 21cm hardback Moleskine – with a black cover with liquorice allsorts printed on it – by a relative, I decided to use this for the journal. Unlike the cheaper “ordinary” notebooks I use everyday, it felt important and prestigious.

Since then, I’ve bought three more 13cm x 21cm “Classic” hardback Moleskines (for about £10-15 each) and I have complicated feelings about them.

For starters, astute readers will have noticed that 13cm x 21cm is NOT a standard paper size. It works well enough and you can actually find other hardback notebooks in this size (like the cheaper Moleskine-inspired plain paper ones made by Cambridge and typically sold on Amazon for £4-5).

Still, if I was being cynical, it almost seems like the weird size is the closest thing to “proprietary lock-in” that you can get with a notebook – since, if you switch to other notebooks, then they will probably be a different size, and will look weird on a shelf or whatever. So, the unusual size sort of makes you want to stick with them if you’re using multiple notebooks for the same purpose.

Plus, although I prefer plain paper notebooks for most things, the thin ruling in a Moleskine allows for a decent amount of writing compared to “ordinary” ruled paper. At the very least, it compensates for the pages being 1.8cm less wide than standard A5 paper.

There’s also the issue of paper thickness as well. When I started using Moleskines, I wanted to use a bolder and higher-quality pen than the ordinary cheap ballpoint pens I used for everyday writing at the time. This was the fanciest notebook I owned, and using a biro felt like sacrilege.

Since I’m not really a fountain pen person and I don’t find gel pens fun to write with, this meant liner pens or rollerball pens (since I use these for art anyway...). The thing about Moleskines, at least in the early-mid 2020s, is that they use fairly thin paper. Yes, this allows for a higher page count in a relatively small space, but it also means that you might only be able to use one side of each page.

Even ballpoints and 0.2mm liner pens may still leave a faint ghost of what was written on the other side. If you use anything even vaguely heavier than these, then expect the other side of the page to be ruined.

For example, here’s the other side of a page written on with a 0.5mm Uni-Ball Eye Needle rollerball pen. This isn’t that much of a heavy pen – compared to, say, the 0.7mm Pilot V Ball rollerball pens I use for writing in one of my other notebooks these days, or a fountain pen.

Here’s the other side of a Moleskine (purchased in 2022-3) notebook page when paired with a 0.5mm rollerball pen.

In other words, despite the prestige of these notebooks and the slightly premium price, they probably work best with cheap ballpoints or basic pencil if you want to use the notebook’s full capacity. Yes, the paper has a classy faded colour to it and it isn’t “bad paper” in technical terms (it’s acid-free, for starters) but it also isn’t as substantial as you might expect.

Plus, on the latest example I was using at the time of writing, the build quality – whilst still good – didn’t seem quite as good as earlier examples. The spine/cover sometimes seems to audibly creak when I open the book. Plus, some inner pages which were plain in earlier examples are now half-covered with unnecessary space-wasting blurbs (“Our Manifesto”), QR codes etc… (wasting useful space) in this one.

[Edit: A later example, a myrtle green one which I bought at a discount from a large online shop sometime after preparing the draft of this article, appears to be of even lower quality. It broke about halfway through using it! The pages began to separate from the cover at the back, leading to a hasty bodged repair with some nearby sticky labels…]

Yet, I still use them – albeit not as my main notebook. But why are they so popular?

Part is probably just the branding and sales tactics – even though there are other higher-end notebook brands (eg: Leuchturm, Rhodia etc...), and even the cheap Cambridge notebook I mentioned earlier has sturdier paper – the Moleskine name is probably the most recognisable.

Not only do they have display stands in bookshops and places like that, but there’s the classy French-style presentation (even though the label says: “Designed by Moleskine in Italy – Manufactured in Turkey”) and they will often release examples with limited-edition cover designs as well. Even the “standard” covers come in a large range of colours.

In part, it’s sort of a “cult-following” type thing. Like how – for reasons I’ve never understood – some people still buy Apple computers, rather than more cost-effective and customisable PCs.

Another part is probably that – despite the thin paper – they still aren’t exactly “bad” notebooks. The binding is reasonably good, they lay flat when opened and – paper thickness aside – they’re a functional and reliable notebook.

Yes, many other notebooks are well-made – even including some cheaper ones – but buying cheap stationery from unknown online brands can be a bit of a gamble in terms of build quality. So, whilst Moleskines might not be the very best, at least you know that you’re getting a reasonable mid-high quality notebook if you buy one.

But, perhaps most of all, there is the fact that “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery”. I’ve written a longer article about this but it’s very telling that virtually all of the cheaper A5 hardback notebooks you can find these days try to imitate the style of a Moleskine.

Go back to the 2000s and cheap hardback notebooks were a lot more basic and utilitarian – square corners, no elastic strap etc… – but, these days, pretty much every budget hardback notebook manufacturer wants to be like Moleskine. They seem to have set the standard template for hardback notebooks these days.

Yes, in all good conscience, I can’t fully recommend buying a Moleskine. The Cambridge notebooks I mentioned earlier are less than half the price and, though noticeably “cheap” in some subtle ways, offer more substantial paper (which handles rollerball pens better...) and a relatively similar experience to using a Moleskine.

And, although I haven’t really tried out other higher-end notebook brands, at least some of them apparently offer sturdier paper than Moleskine too. Still, saying that, I don’t entirely regret using Moleskines either, they’re “fancy” in a fun way and not entirely bad. Again, I have a love-hate relationship with them.

—————–

Anyway, I hope that this was interesting 🙂

Review: “Beyond Sunset” (Early Access Version) (Computer Game) (GZDoom)

Back in November last year, I was looking for a new game to play when I happened to stumble across a discounted DRM-free “early access” version of “Beyond Sunset” (2023) on GOG for about seven quid.

It used GZDoom (An open-source game engine which started out as – and is still used as – a source port for the classic “Doom” games), it had a neon-lit cyberpunk setting and buying it was an absolute no-brainer 🙂

Yes, getting it to run and load properly on my early-mid 2010s small form-factor computer was another matter – and I even wrote a guide about this last year – but it mostly just involved running the game with version 4.10.0 of GZDoom and opening up Task Manager (via Ctrl + Alt + Del) – which somehow jogs the (otherwise ultra-slow) loading screen back into life. Running it with a separate version of GZDoom also allowed me to change the resolution (to 640 x 480) more easily too, since it defaults to a relatively high resolution.

And, yes, since I prepared this review months in advance, it is based on the early access version of the game. This version includes three episodes, but the final version is planned to have five and I have no clue whether it will have been released by the time this review goes out.

Anyway, let’s take a look at “Beyond Sunset”. This game includes a PHOTOSENSITIVITY WARNING, and this review may contain SPOILERS.

Set in a dystopian retro cyberpunk version of San Francisco called “Sunset City”, you play as Lucy – a highly-trained fighter/hacker who has lost all of her memories. In order to get them back, she decides to accept missions from a mysterious hooded man called “Raven” who works for a strange cyber-cult called the Luminexus….

And, yes, the Luminexus cultists wear ominous-looking hooded robes as well. Seriously, is a cult even a cult without these?

One of the first things that I will say about this three-episode version of the game is that it is seriously cool 🙂

Yes, there were some frustrating moments and the first episode is the best of the three – almost a short open-world game in its own right – but the game is almost like a playable version of something like “Ghost In The Shell” (1995), with some visual hints of “Blade Runner” (1982) at times too.

It’s a fast-paced, kinetic action game which has its own unique “personality” and feels like old-school cyberpunk sci-fi in the best possible way 🙂

Especially in the first episode, which is pure “Neon and rain” in the best possible way 🙂

And, whilst it might be based on GZDoom, it is more than just “Hold on, is someone charging money for a Doom WAD?“. It is its own unique game, which feels a world apart from classic “Doom”.

The main reason for this is the movement mechanics. This is a very aerobatic game where you can double-jump and air-dash, and will often need to do these things. At the beginning at least, there’s also a heavy focus on melee combat with a katana – complete with brilliantly splatterific death animations which could have come straight out of one of the “Kill Bill” movies. Needless to say, it is cool as f–k!

There’s also the “powerkill” mechanic too. You have a recharging meter which allows you to do a special attack. Not only does this attack replenish your health, but it is also virtually the only way that you can get more ammo for your guns too. Whilst the roster of guns is pretty limited here (eg: Laser pistol, shotgun and assault rifle), they’re fairly well-designed and can be upgraded with in-game currency you find. Still, as soon as you get the assault rifle, you’ll only use the other weapons whenever you run out of ammunition for it. And, aside from pumping the shotgun, there are no reloading mechanics here 🙂

Seriously, like with the Super Shotgun in “Doom II” (1994), as soon as you get this assault rifle, it will basically become THE weapon…

This game is a brilliant mixture of old and new in so many ways. Whilst the game keeps the focus on exploration that classic shooter games were known for, it uses a more modern “open world” style of level design, with each of the three episodes technically only having one giant “level”.

Yes, the one in episode one – a cyberpunk city – is the most interesting and detailed of the three, but the one in episode two is clearly inspired by the Tyrell Building from “Blade Runner” (1982) whilst also having its own “Ancient Babylon” (?) visual theme and a “Star Wars IV: A New Hope” (1977)-inspired hangar at the beginning too. Episode three has a much smaller game world, but makes the most of it in various clever ways – such as a spectacular “wave shooter” segment where you’ll also have to frantically run around and repair defence turrets too.

“Do you like our owl?” Ooops! Wrong thing! This is episode 2 of “Beyond Sunset”…

Yes, the episode 3 game world is more of an “arena” than anything else, but it allows for this seriously EPIC six-stage wave shooter/ turret defence segment which more than makes up for the obtuse puzzles earlier in the episode….

Whilst you can talk to NPCs and buy upgrades and augmentations from vendors, this is mostly just to add flavour and depth to the game. It is – first and foremost – an action game. And a really cool one at that – projectiles rush through the air, hordes of henchmen and/or robots charge towards you, there are challenging old-school boss battles, there are ZOMBIES in one part, you’ll be frantically waiting for the “powerkill” prompt to appear on screen etc… Seriously, whenever this game focuses on it’s action elements – which is a lot of the time – it is a seriously fun and cool game 🙂

The second and third episodes have a slightly weird structure though – often alternating between fun arena battles and more cerebral “cyberspace” puzzle segments. And, yes, you can “jack in” to cyberspace here – complete with retro sci-fi graphics and even a cool first-person animation where Lucy puts on some virtual reality goggles. Still, whilst the cyberspace puzzles in the second episode aren’t too bad, I found the ones in the third episode to be so cryptic, annoying and obtuse that I ended up bypassing more than half of them with cheat codes for the sake of my sanity. And, no, I’m not really a fan of puzzle games.

Case in point, I started bypassing these puzzles with cheat codes after I got stuck on this one. It was only in the next one that I learnt that you could pull the blocks using the “alt-fire” mode. No explanation of this in game. And, yes, I solved the first of these puzzles totally by accident and “trial and error” – with no clue what I actually did to solve it. Needless to say, if you’re running this game in another version of GZDoom, just open the console “¬” and type “Noclip” and press “enter” and walk through the blue wall. Type it again and press “enter” to turn it off afterwards. You can thank me later…

The game’s story is relatively minimalist, but the – unfortunately unskippable – introductory “comic panel”-type cutscenes for each episode as well as NPC dialogue and some computer screens you can read still give you a flavour of the game’s world. Whilst you shouldn’t expect storytelling that is as detailed as the free GZDoom game “Ashes: Afterglow” (2021), there’s enough story here to add atmosphere to the game.

In terms of art design and graphics, this game is superb. The sprites are well-animated, the game world – especially in the first episode – looks detailed and atmospheric as well. Unlike a typical “Doom” mod, literally all of the graphics here seem to be original ones created just for this game. And the level of effort involved in this is seriously impressive 🙂 There’s even a cool animated wire-frame 3D map screen at the end of each episode. Not to mention some rain effects in the first episode and the sort of cool 1980s-style synth-wave music you’d expect from a cyberpunk game as well 🙂

Because what else are you going to listen to when you’re walking down the rainy, neon-drenched streets of a retro-futuristic dystopia…

As for length, this three-episode early access version was fairly substantial in its own right. I wasn’t counting the amount of time, but it’s probably at least 8-12 hours, if not more. Yes, the first episode is noticeably longer than the second or third episode – and the puzzles (about six of them!) in the third episode feel a bit like padding – but even just this “early access” version feels like a full-length game by modern standards at least.

All in all, this game is seriously cool 🙂 Yes, the third-episode puzzles were frustrating (seriously, skip them with cheat codes!), but the rest of the game is astonishingly good 🙂 If you like “Ghost In The Shell” (1995) or “Blade Runner” (1982) and you like classic FPS games, then playing this one is an absolute no-brainer 🙂 It’s just a seriously cool, badass and atmospheric indie game which would put quite a few “AAA” games to shame in terms of its sheer fun and personality.

If I had to give it a rating out of five, it would get four and a half. Play it!

Review: “Ocean’s Heart” (Computer Game)

Sorry for posting reviews on consecutive days, but I just completed Max Mraz’s 2021 action-adventure game “Ocean’s Heart” and I have to talk about it 🙂 Picture the scene, it’s the very last day of the Halloween sale on GOG last November and I hadn’t really found any DRM-free games that caught my interest.

By now, I was just searching by tags and then I stumbled across this one – I hadn’t heard of it before but I clicked on it. And, as soon as I saw the screenshots, I just had to get it 🙂 It looked a bit like that old “Zelda” game for the SNES that I have childhood nostalgia about. And, since it was reduced to about £5, I decided to take a chance on it 🙂

So, let’s take a look at “Ocean’s Heart”. This game contains some occasional FLASHING IMAGES (eg: occasional/slow lightning flashes in some later parts).

You play as Tilia, an innkeeper’s daughter who is training to join her father – Mallow – in the local volunteer navy. However, your idyllic island is attacked by pirates! After the pirates have left, Mallow decides to go after them. Tilia’s best friend Hazel has also been captured by them too.

Flash forward six months and neither Tilia nor her sister Linden have heard any word from either Mallow or Hazel. So, Tilia decides to go on an epic quest to find them….

Duh-du du Duh! Dah! Dah! Dum! Dah! … Ooops! Wrong game! This isn’t “Zelda”, it’s “Ocean’s Heart”. Still, a SNES port of this game would be awesome…

One of the first things that I will say about this game is that it’s better than my vague memories of the classic 2D “Zelda” games. Yes, anyone who has played an older “Zelda” game will be on familiar ground here, but there is so much more.

There are side-quests that almost make the game feel like an “Elder Scrolls” game, there are pirates, it’s slightly more “PG”, the puzzles are less obtuse and there’s much more of an “open world” feel to the game too. Best of all, you can play it on the PC without the need for cartridge-dumping or anything like that 🙂

As for the gameplay, it consists of exploration, fighting/healing and puzzle-solving. The exploration in this game is stellar – even with pixel-art graphics, the medium-sized open world still almost feels as expansive and varied as something from an “Elder Scrolls” game. And, like in a “metroidvania”-style game, when you find new items and abilities you can return to earlier areas and use them to unlock even more places to explore 🙂

There’s even a totally optional Greek-style island called “Fykonos” – almost a short self-contained game in its own right – which you can miss if you don’t talk to the right person at Oakhaven port. Seriously, if you like games with lots of exploration, then this game is worth looking at.

Seriously, this entire island – literally a self-contained thing, where you lose your equipment and have to find it – is just an optional side-area. Now THIS is detailed game design 🙂 And proof that you don’t need a “AAA” budget to make an immersive open-world game.

Not only that, one cool thing about this game – which some players might hate, but I loved – is the way that the game handles navigation. You actually have to do it the old-fashioned way.

The game’s map is deliberately vague and most directions you are given are “You need to go west of this town” or whatever. This encourages exploration, especially since you’ll often stumble across other interesting stuff whilst trying to find where you’re supposed to go. There’s some limited fast-travel between major locations – since you befriend a sailor early in the game – but this is a game for people who like exploring, rather than quest markers and fast-travel.

Yes, there is limited fast-travel, but – for fans of the Elder Scrolls games – it’s more like “Morrowind” than “Skyrim”. Most of the time, you’ll be navigating the old-fashioned way, with maybe a “you are here” marker at most.

As for combat, it’s fairly standard 2D “Zelda”-style stuff. You press the attack button to swing your sword. You can also find an array of other weapons too – but some are better than others. For example – the fire spear (with more reach than the sword) is worth its weight in gold, but the bombs are more useful for blasting in weakened walls or setting off switches remotely than as a weapon due to their very long time delay.

There’s a boomerang that stuns enemies. The bow is fairly decent, but is almost more useful as a puzzle-solving item, ditto the flail. The “salt candles” and “ether bombs” look cool but I hardly ever used them. “Sword and spear” is definitely the way to go here though.

Although just “Sword” will certainly do the job well enough, especially since you don’t even get a basic spear until a while into the game.

You can also upgrade your sword and bow if you find any “coral ore” – a supposedly rare item which I had a bit of a surplus of later in the game. Still, one interesting feature of this game is that Tilia is something of a “glass cannon”. You can do a lot of damage but you will lose health a lot.

Even just walking between towns – due to respawning monsters and how easy it is to fall into the sea (which has a hilarious animation) or off of ledges – will drain your health. Thankfully, healing items are very cheap and plentiful – and half of the strategy of this game is remembering to heal often and keeping your inventory well-stocked.

You can make money by completing quests or selling any plants/monster parts you find to the totally trust-worthy looking guy in the top hat. Yes, you theoretically can use these for potion-crafting instead, but I never bothered with that…

Battles aren’t too difficult, but you can find an optional “curse” that increases the difficulty. And, in true “Zelda” fashion, there are dungeons you can explore. Most of these contain relatively simple puzzles that are fun rather than frustrating. I only had to check a walkthrough maybe five times – and once was because one late-game puzzle is very finicky about what type of arrows can hit a particular type of off-screen target (fire arrows don’t work, but warp arrows do).

Most of all though, I just loved the atmosphere and world-building in this game. Most of the world has a vaguely “viking”-esque atmosphere to it and, paired with the inclusion of pirates, this makes it cooler than a “Zelda” game. It also has that classic role-playing game thing where towns are friendly, relaxing places (unless you stumble into one of the haunted houses in Oakhaven…) but everywhere between them is hostile monster-filled territory. It isn’t a role-playing game, but it has the depth and atmosphere of one a lot of the time 🙂 It’s also a game with a personality and a sense of humour as well.

Case in point, early in the game I found this innocent-looking well. The game asked if I wanted to drink from it. “It’ll restore my health“, I thought. But, instead… WoOoOoO! It’s a ghost! LOL!!! Too funny!

Like an “Elder Scrolls” game, there’s a lot of lore and background details which you can learn from talking to people and reading stuff. The optional side-quests are relatively plentiful (apparently there are thirty-five, but it felt like more) and, like in a role-playing game, these add a lot of extra depth and variety to the gameplay, as well as giving you resources to help with the main quest as well.

The saving system is pretty basic though – you can save anywhere, but there’s only one save slot and it only really saves your inventory and general location. Still, it’s cool to see “save anywhere” saving in this style of game. You can back up your save file in Windows 10 by opening explorer, typing “%appdata%” into the folder bar, pressing “enter” and then finding the “Ocean’s Heart” folder. Just copy “save1.dat” to another folder or an external backup.

Whilst the background music isn’t as memorable or epic as a classic “Zelda” game, it fits in really well with the locations. A lot of it is fairly relaxing, but it also includes more dramatic music – and some fun pirate-style music – when the occasion calls for it.

I can’t remember if this specific area included pirate-style music, but there’s definitely some in the game 🙂 And pirates too! Seriously, this is so cool 🙂

In terms of length, it’s maybe 10-15 hours long if you do a lot of the side-quests and enjoy random exploration. It’s one of those games where, if you’re planning to just play it for half an hour, you’ll emerge three hours later still wondering if you should have “just another go”. It feels like a longer game than it is, but in a good way. However, unlike a lot of role-playing games, this one has a very defined ending and you can’t really carry on after you’ve beaten the final boss. Still, it’s refreshing to see an indie game that is actually a decent length.

All in all, I loved this game 🙂 This review hasn’t really done it justice but it’s just the atmosphere and escapism of playing it. It isn’t a role-playing game, but it feels like one in the best possible way – as well as evoking a ton of nostalgia for SNES-era “Zelda” games too 🙂 It has personality and creativity, and it feels like a really cool blend of old and new.

If I had to give it a rating out of five, it would get a very solid five. Play it!

Review: “Temple Of The Lizard Men” By Alan J. Duin (Novella)

First of all, full disclosure: The author of this novella – “Doom II” (1994) modder “Alando1” – is an acquaintance on DeviantART, and this blog is referenced both in the book’s “acknowledgements” page and also in his excellent 2020 mod “Temple Of The Lizard Men V“. He was the one who mentioned this book to me last autumn and – after noticing that there was a paperback edition on Amazon (a “print on demand” type thing) – I ended up buying it for about £5.

And, yes, whilst I’m still burnt-out on reading novels after posting book reviews literally every 2-4 days a few years ago, this was a novella-length story (147 pages, including a bonus short story) and, after spending a week or three working up the motivation to read again, I binge-read the entire thing in a couple of hours one afternoon last November 🙂 And, yes, I prepare these articles a few months in advance.

So, let’s take a look at “Temple Of The Lizard Men”. This review may contain SPOILERS.

This is the 2023 Amazon (UK) print on demand paperback edition of the book that I read. Unfortunately my scanner seems to have made the image too gloomy. The real cover has more visible detail.

The story is set in South America in 2020 and is told from the perspective of a soldier called Sgt. Adam Dunnings. Dunnings is part of an elite team called “Delta 6” who have been sent to some remote ruins in the jungle after a research team went missing. If you’ve played any of the “Lizard Men” Doom II mods, then you’ll probably know what to expect here. If you haven’t, then gear up for an action-packed sci-fi/fantasy adventure…

One of the first things that I will say about this novella is that – for what it is – it’s really cool 🙂 Yes, there are some mild flaws and it took me a while to get used to the writing style – but it grew on me a lot and the later parts were seriously cool as well. It’s like a cross between a videogame, an action movie and one of those cool 1990s/2000s sci-fi TV shows like “Stargate SG-1”. It’s also just amazing to actually have a piece of physical media based on a “Doom II” mod too 🙂

This is the literary equivalent of a really fun low-mid budget sci-fi movie. Despite limitations, there’s enthusiasm and an artistic vision behind the story. You can easily imagine it being frantically written on a word processor late at night – with the words barely keeping up with the author’s imagination. For what it is, and in context, it’s really impressive. Just the sheer number of ways that Duin has found to express this particular fictional world and mythos. It’s a self-published novel based on a series of computer game mods that the author has made, with cover art that he has drawn too. This alone is really impressive.

The actual story here is seriously cool too. If you’ve played any of the “Lizard Men” mods, you’ll recognise one or two boss battles and some parts really do feel like thrilling videogame levels translated into text too. The later parts also tip their hat to the underlying game, with the sort of cool “heavy metal album cover” type locations that the “Doom” series is famous for 🙂 Seriously, the later parts of this story are as epic as playing one of Alando1’s mods. And, yes, parts of the story are a bit “game-y”, but in a fun way – with seriously injured characters being instantly restored with healing items and stuff like that.

Earlier, I mentioned that the writing style can take a bit of getting used to. There’s an abruptness to it at times, with parts of some battles sometimes only taking up a mere sentence or two, and it also sometimes feels like the occasional dramatic moment is glossed over in a few words for the sake of fast pacing.

But, whilst the writing doesn’t always have the “flow” that – for example – a bestselling thriller novel by someone like Lee Child might have, the underlying story is still very thrilling. Likewise, whilst there are enough descriptions to give you a general sense of everywhere, the locations will seem more atmospheric if you’ve already played the games and know what sort of places Duin was imagining.

The novel’s structure is cool though. It’s both “cinematic” and videogame-like at the same time. A lot of the time, the story alternates between brief descriptions and fun movie-like dialogue between the characters.

This emphasis on dialogue not only adds personality to the story but, when you get used to it, almost makes you feel like you’re watching a movie. Plus, each chapter is almost like a different “level” of a game as well, with the novella fully playing into this during the later parts with cool chapter titles like “The Tormented Keep” and stuff like that. It takes a little getting used to, but it’s really cool.

One difference between the novella and the games is the emotional tone. Thanks to the presence of a team of wise-cracking heroes, the overall mood is much lighter. More like “Stargate SG-1” than “Aliens”.

And, whilst the novella does keep many of the “dark and edgy” elements of the games – they’re noticeably briefer, less emphasised, less scary, more stylised, more counterbalanced and/or less detailed. There’s a note at the beginning of the book likening it to a “PG-13” film and, given the commercial popularity of this rating – and of “YA” fiction – these days, these changes make financial sense. And, despite all of this, it’s still recognisably part of the “Temple Of The Lizard Men” series 🙂

There are also a few occasional typographical errors, but nothing major. They mostly seem to consist of the spell-checker suggesting deceptively similar-looking, but different, words. This isn’t really much of an issue in practical terms though, since you can easily work out what the word is supposed to be from the context.

For what it is, an indie novella based on a series of computer game mods, it’s really cool. There were times when I could vividly remember playing the games, moments where I could imagine parts of the story playing out with early-mid 1990s pixel art graphics and stuff like that. If you’ve played any of the games, then – especially in the later parts – this novel will be fun to read.

As for the characters, they’re all reasonably well-defined and economically written. Whilst the bulk of the characterisation is reserved for a few characters, you’ll still get a general sense of who everyone is. And, as you’d expect, the characters are true to their depictions in the games – except maybe Beka, who is even cooler and more badass in this novel 🙂 Literally my only complaint here is possibly the dialogue with Spectra in the later parts of the story. Yes, it’s character development but – given the backstory and everything – it all seemed a bit too sudden in context. Even so, for a fast-paced action story, the characters are fairly decent.

All in all, if you’re a fan of Alando1’s “Temple Of The Lizard Men” mods, then you’ll enjoy this novella. Yes, the writing style might take a little getting used to but – despite any flaws – it’s still worth sticking with because of how cool it gets during the later parts. Or, if you just miss the days when fun low-mid budget sci-fi/fantasy movies and TV shows used to be more common, and want something you can read in a couple of hours, then you might enjoy this novella.

If I had to give it a rating out of five, it would get three and three-quarters.

Review: “Dynacrium” (WAD For “Doom II”/”Final Doom”/”GZDoom”)

Well, since I had a spare morning and wanted to make sure that there was at least one “Doom II”/”Final Doom” WAD review here this month, I did my usual thing of clicking the “Random file” button on the /idgames Archive until I stumbled across something interesting. This time, the WAD was a modern one from 2022 called “Dynacrium” by RockyGaming4725.

As usual, I used version 4.8.2 of the GZDoom source port with this WAD. Despite the readme file claiming that it might not work with this source port, it ran perfectly fine.

So, let’s take a look at “Dynacrium”:

I love the skybox here. But don’t let this easy-looking beginning fool you, this is NOT a level for beginners…

This is a medium-long single-level “slaughter map”-style WAD which also includes new textures – such as an awesome “early 1990s Apogee game loading screen” type skybox, as well as a new sound for the plasma cannon and new music as well.

One of the first things that I will say about this level is that it has been quite a while since I played one of THESE levels 🙂 Seriously, instant nostalgia for the mid-2010s when I’d often play the toughest and most crowded levels that I could find. And, hey, I’ve still got it 🙂 I actually managed to beat this level 🙂

The screen may claim that I only took seventeen minutes, but that doesn’t count the times I died and had to re-load a save. The total time was actually more like 60-90 minutes…

Whilst this level contains some elements which will be familiar to anyone who has played a “slaughter map” level – the giant hordes of monsters, the “You’ll have to use tactics” gameplay that pretty much requires you to know the “rules” of “Doom II” and the punishing “Dark Souls”-style difficulty – it also innovates a bit as well.

Although there are a couple of large arena-like areas, most of the level takes place in more claustrophobic rooms, allowing for more tension with fewer monsters. It also means that, unlike many “slaughter map” levels, there will be times when you will have to wipe out all of the monsters, rather than just dodging as many as possible whilst trying to find a sneaky way to the next area. And, yes, this is the sort of tough level where even the BFG 9000 can feel under-powered at times LOL!

Case in point, THIS room! Yes, it looks easy in this screenshot… but what you can’t see are the Cyberdemon, three Arch-Viles and extra mancubi, revenants, arachotrons and chaingunners waiting for you just out of frame. Have fun 🙂

Not only that, “Dynacrium” also adds a bit of extra suspense by using slime floors in a few areas. You’re given a few shielding suits but, once they run out, then the slime will get you if the monsters don’t. As well as adding a dramatic unseen time limit, this also prevents you using the classic tactic of just finding somewhere safe and waiting for most of the monsters to wipe each other out.

As you’d expect, the level design is fairly linear – with the emphasis being more on survival than on exploration – and there are some hilarious flourishes, such as placing one of the keys in a confined corner which requires you to then fight your way through all of the monsters you’ve just run past to get to it. Oh, and of course there’s a hilariously cruel surprise near the end too. I’d have been more shocked if there wasn’t.

Oh no, this isn’t it! In fact, this is one of the… easier… parts of the second half of the level 🙂

The new music is reasonably cool, and I loved the new skybox. The new plasma gun sound is a little quieter, but not really that noticeable since the only time you’ll usually be seeing this weapon is when your BFG has run out and you’re frantically weighing up whether or not it is safe to stop firing for the second or so it takes to switch weapons.

All in all, whilst this is NOT a level for beginners, I had a lot of fun with it 🙂 If you’ve got determination and practice, then you’ll have a lot of fun with this one. Not to mention that the use of smaller rooms and slime floors is also a brilliant innovation which adds extra suspense to an already suspenseful level 🙂

If I had to give it a rating out of five, it would get a five.

Review: “Ion Fury: Aftershock” (Expansion For “Ion Fury”)

Well, I thought that I’d take a look at the 2023 “Aftershock” expansion to the excellent retro-style sci-fi shooter game “Ion Fury” (2019). But, as amazing as this expansion is, it did not make a good first impression on me. I need to get a bit of a rant out of my system before I review the game…

Not only were we DRM-free gamers on GOG treated like second-class citizens, forced to wait more than three weeks after everyone at Steam got the expansion, but actually getting the launch day build to even run on my computer was a bit of a hassle (requiring lots of restarts/re-installs, telling my anti-virus to leave it alone, many profanities and even a new age “manifestation” or two).

Not only that, unlike earlier versions of the main game, there were no overt renderer options in the GOG launch day build. If you’re using older integrated graphics, the game will slow down to a slide-show if too much happens on screen – thanks to OpenGL being the default.

Fortunately, the devs later provided information on the GOG forums about how to change the renderer. You have to do this literally every time you start the game. Press “Shift” + “¬” in-game to bring up the console, then type “setrendermode 0” for software rendering (or “setrendermode 3” to switch back to OpenGL).

(Note: If you make a mistake with this – “Shift” + “Alt” can change the language layout of your keyboard in Windows – just keep pressing the two keys until it returns to normal.)

The difference is night and day! Buttery smooth gameplay on Intel HD 2500 integrated graphics at 640 x 480 🙂 Anyway, I was originally planning to dock this game’s review score by two points for all of these issues, but the sheer cooleness and quality of the expansion was enough to earn my forgiveness for these myriad failures.

Before I begin, I should point out that this is a traditional expansion that requires “Ion Fury” (2019) in order to play. It also contains some FLICKERING IMAGES too. This review may contain SPOILERS.

Seriously, even the main menu looks cooler than the original game!

Set after the events of “Ion Fury” (2019), the nefarious Dr. Jadus Heskel has not only survived but also has enough political influence to ensure that GDF officer Shelly “Bombshell” Harrison gets the blame for all of the chaos and destruction from the main game.

Suspended from the GDF, Shelly drowns her sorrows in a local club…. and you can probably guess what happens next. But, this time, she has found a way to fit a grenade launcher in her bag…

Ok, you technically start with the pistol but you’re given a grenade launcher literally within the first few seconds. It took me ages to pick up on this reference to the main game…

One of the first things that I will say about this expansion is that, first impressions aside, it is a masterpiece 🙂 It’s almost more of a sequel than an expansion. There are numerous “This is so cool!” moments, tons of extra new stuff, stellar level design, loads of new dialogue lines and – honestly – it makes the main game look limited and boring by comparison. It is THAT good. Seriously, the four years it took to develop certainly weren’t wasted!

Where do I even begin? Perhaps the amazing vehicle segment – reminiscent of the “Duke Nukem Forever 2013” mod – where you get to ride a cool hoverbike around a cyberpunk city. Despite some annoying first-person vehicle platforming moments, this vehicle is an absolute joy to handle and, as someone who hasn’t used Steam since 2015, this segment also brought back memories of “Half-Life 2” (2004) too. Then there’s the graveyard filled with zombies. The retro-futuristic shopping mall. And a frickin’ volcano-base as well! This is such a cool game! Unlike the main game, none of the levels here feel like filler.

You remember the thing about “Skyrim” (2011) where, if you see something in the distance, you can actually visit it. Well, this only truly applies to this cool-looking volcano here but – well – who cares about distant cyberpunk cityscapes when you’ve got a volcano?

It’s a bit difficult to see in this gloomy screenshot, but there’s also a seriously cool – but easy – third-person perspective boss battle in the hoverbike level too 🙂 Like something from an old arcade game.

The gameplay is as frenetic and fast-paced as ever, with the expansion offering more of a challenge than the main game.

As well as introducing a plethora of tough new enemies – rapid-firing GDF soldiers, mini-gun robots, lava centipedes, exploding crawlers, more cyborg types etc… – the game isn’t afraid to throw tougher monsters at you from fairly early on as well. This is all balanced out with some excellent new weapons and power-ups.

Oh, and there are robots with flamethrowers and laser cannons as well. Three blasts with the shotgun seems to do the trick though…

For starters, one of my criticisms of the main game was that it didn’t include a rocket launcher. Well, this expansion introduces the “Homewrecker”, a ridiculously over-powered sci-fi rocket launcher which is an absolute joy to use.

FINALLY! An actual ROCKET LAUNCHER in this game! Seriously, I felt its absence very much when I played the original game four years ago.

Not only that, you’ll also get (very satisfying) exploding shotgun shells and (forgettable) gas grenades as well. The shotgun and grenade launcher are also now treated as separate weapons in order to cut down on ammo-switching time too.

There are a ton of new power-ups as well, with a time-slowing energy drink, an inflatable chair, a “golden weapons” thing (which, amongst other things, allows the mini-gun to rapid-fire grenades…), a “health-leech” type thing and a gadget that sucks in monsters before exploding (combine the latter two and your health will easily increase to well over a hundred in mere seconds...).

This expansion just feels so much richer than the main game in almost every way. Whether it is how the well-designed levels just have so many extra details to them. Whether it is a lot more hilarious dialogue lines from Heskel (my favourite is “Tisk Tisk Tisk! Turning to a life of crime already…”. Just the pompous way he says it), slightly more of a defined story, larger levels etc… Seriously, the general design of this expansion easily outclasses the main game. Literally my only design criticism is just how much of a total pushover the final boss – the “Magmatron” – is if you use the alternate fire on the “Homewrecker”.

Yes, it’s an awesome robot scorpion on a lava platform. But it is… very weak… to the rocket launcher’s alt-fire.

Also, whilst the new “photo mode” is probably useful for taking dramatic screenshots, the free-moving camera also doubles up as an extremely useful tool that allows you to scout ahead and see what you will be up against later in the level – almost like some sort of portable surveillance drone.

Still, if you’re taking screenshots, use the in-game tool (“F12”) because the game does not play nicely with Xbox Game Bar in Windows 10. If you need to find your screenshots in Windows 10, since they’re pretty well-hidden, just search for the “%appdata%” folder in the toolbar of explorer. Then go to the “Ion Fury” folder here and you’ll find them in there.

And, of course, there is a lot of humour too. It’s a 3D Realms game. Not only does Shelly have loads of extra dialogue lines, but there are also a ton of new comedic background details and pop-culture references throughout the game – as well as a few familiar ones from the main game as well. It’s a game with personality and a sense of humour. And, as far as I could see, no outdated shampoo bottles (except, apparently, in a secret area). Oooh! And be sure to check a walkthrough to find the “Silent Hill” (1999) parody area too – it’s amazing!

Woo hoo! It’s “Silent Hill”, in the Build engine 🙂 Yes, this is a ridiculous short hidden parody area – where you get to visit the kennel house – but it absolutely nails the atmosphere of the original game 🙂

There’s other bonus stuff too – such as an “arrange mode” for the main game. I only had a brief chance to play this at the time of writing but, as well as adding stuff from the expansion, Shelly is now blonde and the layout of the levels seems to have been mirrored and/or altered in all sorts of subtle ways.

Jarkko Rotsten’s new soundtrack is as awesome and retro-futuristic as ever, and the cartoon art during the game’s small number of cutscenes is also reasonably decent as well.

As for length, whilst this expansion is technically about half as long as the main game (containing about 14-15 levels), it almost feels more like a full-length sequel thanks to both the size/complexity of the levels and also their increased difficulty too. And, again, there isn’t really any filler here as well. This is an expansion which more than justifies the £10-12 that you’ll have to pay for it. Plus, the new “arrange mode” also adds a ton of re-play value to the main game as well.

This is the first level of the main game in “arrange mode”. Notice how the hole in the wall is in a different place, and how Shelly has also bleached her hair as well.

All in all, despite the game’s disasterous GOG launch, it’s good enough that I can forgive it. Seriously, if you love 1990s-style shooter games… then you’ve probably already played this expansion by now. If you haven’t, then play it! Yes, you’ll need the main game – but the expansion is good enough that the main game now just seems like a dull extended tutorial that you can use to get some practice for this expansion. Is THAT good 🙂 It’s a low-mid budget game that feels more spectacular, cool and fun than many “AAA” games do.

If I had to give it a rating out of five, it would get a very solid five.

Extra Review: “Heaven X Hell” by Sum 41 (Album)

If you want to see the full background image – some fan art based on an old Sum 41 music video, which I painted last year – I posted it on DeviantArt back then 🙂

Well, better late than never, I guess. Although Sum 41’s final album – “Heaven X Hell” was released near the end of March, I was still waiting (see what I did there...) for my CD copy of it to arrive.

Yes, people posted the whole thing on Youtube on release day and – less commonly these days – the CD edition came with a free digital edition (albeit with no “download whole album with one click” option that I could find and, given the number of tracks...), so I heard the whole thing around release day but I wanted to wait until I actually had the discs in my hands before reviewing this album.

Unusually for a modern CD release, this fold-out case isn’t just made out of flimsy cardboard 🙂 It isn’t a proper “jewel case” either, but there are at least sturdy plastic trays to protect each disc – which is good because both of these trays got damaged/cracked either in transit or when I was trying to get the shrink-wrap off of the case. Either way, this is what the sturdy plastic is there for – to take the damage instead of the discs being damaged. So, props to the record company for  actually including proper packaging here. A depressing rarity in the modern age.

Although I’ve listened to the whole album at least a couple of times before writing this review, I should point out that I only maybe have a medium level of knowledge about the band.

Whilst I listened to a few of their singles and maybe one of their early albums during my early teens, discovering their amazing 2002 “Does This Look Infected?” album via a videogame demo (for the overlooked 2004 survival horror game “ObsCure“. Alas, the modern PC re-release apparently doesn’t contain any Sum 41 though…) when I was sixteen was a pivotal nostalgic moment for me.

I remember listening to their “Underclass Hero” album a lot in 2007 too. I’ve listened to other individual songs by the band and even one or two other albums (the 2011 album “Screaming Bloody Murder” springs to mind here) as well, but I’m not a total expert either.

Likewise, given the sheer number of tracks on this album – twenty of them – I’m probably not going to do a detailed track-by-track review here. This review is late enough as it is. And whilst it will be more than a “first impressions” review, it isn’t really a full review either. I get the sense that I probably should have listened to this album a few more times before reviewing it.

Anyway, “Heaven X Hell” is a two-disc album with the “Heaven” disc representing the band’s early pop-punk style and the “Hell” disc focusing on their more modern post-2002 heavy metal infused punk style. It is, a bit like the new Bruce Dickinson and Judas Priest albums, sort of a “greatest hits” album consisting of new material – a retrospective of the band’s history. In the punk tradition, this is a fairly short album – with both discs combining to a total of just 55 minutes.

I have to admit that this album took a while to grow on me. Whilst the very first single – “Landmines” – got me really hyped for the album last year, listening to the whole thing on Youtube whilst waiting for my CDs to arrive just initially just felt like general “essence of Sum 41”. I worried that my mid-thirtysomething self was too old for this album, that I’d have probably enjoyed it more if I’d heard it during the later parts of my teens. Still, given that it is – famously – the band’s final album and given that I’d already bought the CD, I decided to give it a few more chances and it grew on me a lot.

My favourite half of the album is probably the “Heaven” side. This is proper nostalgic late 1990s/early 2000s style pop-punk music and I’m still amazed that – with all of the band’s evolution in the years since – they’re still able to make this type of music 🙂

It starts out really strongly with songs like “Waiting On A Twist Of Fate” and “Landmines” too 🙂 Either of these songs could easily have come out back in the day and they almost feel like “lost tracks” from the band’s early days but with the quality, depth and skill which only comes from decades of experience.

One interesting thing about this side of the album is that the band also tip their hat to at least a couple of their contemporaries as well. Whilst Offspring-influenced Sum 41 songs are nothing new – listen to their 2019 song “The People Vs…” for another great example – the song “Future Primitive” on this album is a really cool hat-tip to this band. There are “whoas” and the whole mood and pacing of the song is just a cool homage, which also contains hints of Sum 41’s amazing 2002 “Does This Look Infected?” album as well 🙂 And anything even close to new Offspring music is always welcome as well 🙂

The song “Johnny Libertine” also seems to be a fun homage to classic Green Day as well, and I’m sure I detected some hints of classic NOFX and a reference to the song “Bleed Black” from AFI’s excellent 2003 punk/emo/goth/metal album “Sing The Sorrow” [Edit: Oops! This AFI reference is actually in the song “Over The Edge” from the other half of the album. Sorry about this mistake] somewhere on this side of the album too 🙂

There are also some moodier and more melancholy songs – like “Dopamine”. There’s also “Not Quite Myself” too – even though it includes some quiet/slow melancholy moments, some verses genuinely sound like something the band could have released in the late 1990s in the best possible way 🙂 In fact, in the classic pop-punk tradition, the mood of this side of the album is more depressing than you might think. It’s the classic pop-punk thing of cheerful-sounding music with melancholy lyrics.

The “Hell” side of the album is, as mentioned earlier, based on the band’s more modern metal-infused style of punk music. And it is still amazing that there’s a punk band who are also metal-heads – I mean, even when they were at their most “Pop-punk”, they were still wearing Iron Maiden T-shirts, making hair metal parody songs and referencing classic metal bands in their lyrics 🙂 If the mood of the “heaven” side is melancholy, then the mood of this side is anger.

There are quieter moments punctuated by lots of furious shouting and impassioned singing, as well as a mixture of crunchier guitars and melodic traditional metal stuff, but with more of a punk mood and sensibility. This exact style of metal/punk is pretty much unique to Sum 41 and it’s cool to hear – literally a mixture of my two favourite guitar-based genres 🙂

The intro track “Preparasi A Salire” is an eerie synthetic thing which serves as a surprisingly good and atmospheric mid-point for the album. It begins with eerie synth stuff, before lyrics and drumrolls ease the song in a more metallic direction, with the lyrics perfectly segueing into the album’s second single “Rise Up”. THIS is heavy 2000s-style Sum 41 at its best! It almost sounds like a lost track from “Does This Look Infected?” at some points as well.

Another stand-out track on this side of the album is “You Wanted War”, which also has this amazing heavy/fast verse (starting with “Life and death…”) near the end – literally the perfect fusion of punk and metal – and a cool “traditional metal”-style guitar solo too. “Stranger In These Times” also has a really cool build-up at one point too.

There’s also a metal-punk cover of The Rolling Stones’ “Paint It Black” as well – which, given that I discovered this classic song around the same time I was listening to Sum 41’s “Underclass Hero” (2007) – felt especially cool to me.

“It’s All Me” is also a pretty badass track as well, with a really good mixture of melodic and heavy elements, as well as a cool and well-placed palm-muted guitar riff in some parts. “How The End Begins” is also an epic melodic metal-punk conclusion for the band song-writing career as well.

As for the rest of the side, I should probably listen to it a few more times but a lot of the other songs seemed to blur together when I remember them. Like one long, heavy metal-punk Sum 41 song. Which is certainly not a bad thing, and it adds cohesiveness to the side as well, but I was sort of hoping for more distinctive and instantly-memorable songs. And where is the mumble-rap? The Sums have really gone downhill!

All in all, this review probably hasn’t done the album justice but the album is a really good send-off for the band 🙂 I probably need to listen to it a few more times to fully appreciate it, but it’s like a “Greatest hits”, but with new songs. It’s both fresh and nostalgic at the same time. It’s two albums in one. Whilst my favourite Sum 41 album is probably still “Does This Look Infected?” (2002), this album is still anything but bad. Not only is it a good introduction for new fans but it’s also a cool retrospective for older fans as well.

If I had to give it a rating out of five, it would get four point one 🙂 It’ll probably grow on me even more over time, so this is a “minimum” score….

Three Amazing Metal/Goth Songs From October 2023

Well, since I couldn’t think of a better idea for an article, I thought that I’d look at three pieces of amazing new metal and/or goth music which appeared at the time of writing in mid-October last year.

And, yes, this article is as much of a “Yes! People still make amazing music these days!” article as it is a brief review of three songs.

I should also point out that, whilst I’m a fan of all three bands, I’m not really that much of an expert on two of them. In other words, whilst I’ve heard all of Rage Of Light’s songs, I haven’t heard literally every song by Creeper or Judas Priest. So, I apologise if I miss anything.

1) “Panic Attack” by Judas Priest: Although long-running heavy metal band Judas Priest’s “Invincible Shield” album has been released by the time this article goes out, the lead single from it – “Panic Attack” appeared last October and it absolutely knocked my socks off!

Judas Priest’s brilliant 2018 album “Firepower” has frequently been compared to their legendary 1990 album “Painkiller”. This single carries on that tradition, with an almost relentless melodic heaviness to it. There are also some very well-placed, and satisfying, dramatic pauses before Rob Halford launches into a verse with the sort of furious energy that is instantly reminiscent of “Painkiller” and “Firepower”.

One of the later guitar solos – at about 3:47 into the song – also reminded me a lot of the band’s excellent 2005 “Angel Of Retribution” album too. It has that sort of “Sparkling like molten metal dripping into a dark void” sort of feel to it.

It’s also one of the more explicitly topical songs by the band and, at a guess, it was written in 2021 or later. Whilst the song is generally about internet chaos, misinformation etc… It’s difficult not to see it as a cynical response to the riot that happened in the US Capitol on the 6th January 2021 (with mentions of “Bitter mobs” and “Corridors of power”). Yet, for all of these modern themes, it also sounds like a song that the band could have released thirty or more years ago, in the best possible way 🙂

2) “Further Than Forever” by Creeper: I first discovered the gothic rock/punk band Creeper after reading Metal Hammer magazine way back in 2017 and I’ve listened to a few of their songs. They released a few singles and/or videos for their 2023 album “Sanguinovore” and, whilst I could talk about the song “Black Heaven” (and how it sounds like a cool mixture of the Cruxshadows and The Sisters Of Mercy), the most spectacular song/video from it is the nine-minute opening epic “Further Than Forever” (Warning – Flickering lights, stage blood, edgy lyrics [death, religion, sex etc…]).

The best way to describe this vampire-themed song is that – unusually – it sounds like a gothic version of an old rock ballad by someone like Meatloaf. It has the sort of extroverted theatricality which you only really got from spectacular popular rock songs from the 1970s-90s. This is contrasted brilliantly with the gothic emotions and story of the song. And this is a song which uses contrast in all sorts of clever ways – good and evil, life and death, reverence and blasphemy etc… and the “unusual” musical style works absolutely perfectly in this context. Whilst it isn’t a song for more closed-minded goths, or for Christians, it’s brilliantly creative 🙂

The video is also absolutely stellar too. In keeping with the mood and style of the song, it has this awesome “low-budget horror movie made for British television during the 1980s” mood to it. Everything from the limited practical special effects, to the theatrical costumes, to the way that one of the actors looks vaguely like a young Rik Mayall, to the slightly run down village hall and concrete council estate locations. It’s a work of ART. Just from the sheer mood that the video exudes, and how it fits so perfectly with the song.

3) “Opaque” by Rage Of Light: The title track of the band’s 2023 EP, Rage Of Light’s trance metal/melodic death metal song “Opaque” (warning – flickering images) is an absolute banger 🙂 Whilst the first single from this EP – “Upriser” – didn’t really impress me, the gradual reveal of the rest of the tracks just got better and better until it peaked with this song 🙂

An eight and a half minute epic, focusing on the band’s familiar cyberpunk theme of “social media”, this song is basically an entire album in its own right. There’s a really good mixture of subtle parts and intense parts, with a brilliant atmosphere to it that is both “classical” and “cyberpunk” at the same time – in part thanks to the addition of a cello. Not only that, the awesome duet between Martyna and Jonathan at about 7:40 into the song is also instantly evocative of the band’s amazing 2018 song “I Can, I Will” as well It’s something which really has to be experienced to be fully understood.

The video for it is really cool too. Although I was initially expecting it to just be a “The band performs in a moodily-lit room” type video, there are also some cool cyberpunk segments set in a busy city, some sarcastic selfie-like moments and some eerie moments involving people wearing mirrored masks.

It’s a low-budget video, but one that looks more spectacular and professional than you’d expect. Still, the main attraction here is the song rather than the video – again, it’s one of those epic songs that feels like an entire album condensed into less than ten minutes 🙂

——————-

Anyway, I hope that this was interesting 🙂

Extra Review: “Voyage Of The Dead Marauder” by Alestorm (EP)

Well, this really does seem to be the month for music reviews. Although I’m still not sure whether or not I’ll review Sum 41’s upcoming album, I was surprised to learn that there was a new Alestorm EP out today – one called “The Voyage Of The Dead Marauder”. Since it was only a little under a fiver for a digital copy, I decided to buy it this way rather than shelling out more and waiting longer for a CD to arrive.

If you haven’t heard of Alestorm before, they’re a long-running Scottish pirate-themed metal band who have been going since at least the 2000s. My first introduction to them was in 2006 [Edit: Or, thinking about it more, possibly early-mid 2007] when I read about a band called “Battleheart” – an earlier incarnation of Alestorm – in Metal Hammer magazine and looked up their songs online, only to find a really excellent cover of Korpiklaani’s “Journey Man”.

Whilst I don’t own all of their albums and am not an expert, I saw them in concert at least twice during the later parts of the 2000s and also still have a signed postcard by them from a signing tent at a music festival in 2008. I’m more knowledgeable about their older 2000s stuff than their more modern stuff – although I have obviously listened to some of it (like their excellent “Big Ship Little Ship/Bassline Junkie” non-album single back in 2020). Still, I apologise if I miss anything in this quick review – which is slightly more than a “first impressions” review, but less than a full review.

“Voyage Of The Dead Marauder” is a five-track EP which is about fifteen minutes long. Overall, it remains good throughout but it has definitely been “front-loaded” with the best songs. The first two tracks are serious new material from the band, and the other three tracks are the band goofing around and having fun. Some of this is probably “filler”, but it’s high-quality filler.

It begins with the title track – “Voyage Of The Dead Marauder” – and this is a fairly typical modern-style Alestorm song, containing a surprising variety of musical elements. Telling an epic “serious” story, this is a song which includes a mixture of traditional-style Alestorm music, shouted/growled vocals and more melodic vocal and hurdy gurdy segments by former Storm Seeker (another excellent pirate-themed metal band) member Patty Gurdy as well 🙂 It’s an epic, complex and cinematic metal song which probably needs to be listened to a few times in order to really appreciate.

Next, there is “Uzbekistan” 🙂 Although there is some musical experimentation here, this song is much closer in style and mood to classic Alestorm 🙂 It was the song which convinced me to buy the whole EP when I stumbled across the music video on Youtube yesterday. There are some fun instrumental references to the band’s 2009 song “Keelhauled” and it’s a jaunty song about a group of pirates travelling to the double-landlocked country of Uzbekistan. It’s a catchy song which is gloriously silly fun 🙂

Thirdly, there is a cover of The Arrogant Worms’ famous Canadian comedy song “The Last Saskatchewan Pirate”. Although there are some small lyrical changes, Alestorm don’t really make the mood and style of the song their own in the way that they did with – for example – their excellent 2021 version of “The Wellerman”. It certainly isn’t a bad cover by any means, and the song itself is good, but it mostly just sounds like a general “metal cover” of this song rather than anything unique to Alestorm.

Fourthly, there is “Sea Shanty 2”. This is a fun instrumental piece, including elements of chip-tune music and more traditional instruments. It’s jaunty and catchy and fun. The video for it on Youtube also includes the famous “dancing pirate” GIF as well.

The final track on the EP is one of Alestorm’s “rude” comedy songs. Whilst it isn’t quite the crudest song they’ve ever written (their anchor-themed song from 2017 probably gets that title), it’s still a decent effort. The song tells the hilarious and borderline-nonsensical story of a pirate dreaming about an angry Leprechaun who has various over-sized body parts. It’s funny and silly and it wouldn’t be a modern Alestorm record without one of these songs.

All in all, this is a good EP. Again, it has been “front-loaded” with the best tracks but the rest of the EP is still really fun and good regardless. Yes, this is more of an EP for fans of the band than for anyone new to the band, but I don’t regret buying it.

If I had to give it a rating out of five, it would get a four.

Partial Review: “Urban Chaos” (1999) (PC Version)

Well, this review has been about twenty-four years in the making! Back in the late 1990s, I played the demo of the PC version of “Urban Chaos” (1999) on a magazine demo disc.

It was cool, but I pretty much forgot about it until some point during the mid-late 2010s when I happened to notice that GOG was selling a DRM-Free version of the game. I bought it and messed around with it for a while and then forgot about it until late last September, when I needed an old game to distract me from a bad mood. After trying “Quake II” (1997) but failing to get it to load, I turned to this old game.

As the title implies, this is a partial review rather than a full review. This is mostly because, when I was about two-thirds or so of my way through the game, it just randomly stopped working. The intro movies would play but then the screen would just go blank. I tried it three times, in different resolutions and even in Windows 98 compatibility mode, and it still did this. So, this is much more than a “first impressions” article but slightly less than a full review.

Anyway, let’s take a look at “Urban Chaos”. This review may contain SPOILERS and the game itself contains some occasional FLASHING IMAGES.

Seriously, this game has one of THE coolest loading screens I’ve seen in a while…

Set in America around the turn of the millennium, the game mostly follows D’arci Stern, an inexperienced cop in Union City who quickly finds herself fighting against a local gang called “The Wildcats” who have a plan to take over the city. But it quickly becomes obvious that someone else is behind the gang’s mysterious rise to power….

One of the first things that I will say about this game is that it is a mixture of brilliant and terrible. When it is at it’s best, it’s like an even better version of “Tomb Raider” (1996), with subliminal hints of “Virtua Cop” (1994), “Resident Evil” (1996)/”Silent Hill” (1999) and “Grand Theft Auto” (1997) too.

When it is at its best, it is a seriously cool game with an amazing Y2K era atmosphere, a unique personality and genuinely fun gameplay. On the downside, it is a game which can also be really frustrating sometimes due to awkward hand-to-hand combat, weak load-outs, a few stressful levels and a total lack of mid-level checkpoints.

This game is filled with amazing “Y2K era” atmosphere and genuinely fun moments, but it can also be ridiculously frustrating sometimes.

As for the actual gameplay, the game takes place in a semi-open world setting which consists of parts of a large city map. You’re given missions that you have to complete and there’s a good level of variety here – with missions focused on exploration, combat, protecting/rescuing other characters, timed challenges and even – in one level – collecting evidence. It’s a third-person perspective action game with lots of fighting, platforming and occasional driving.

In keeping with D’arci’s job, she can decide whether to arrest or shoot criminals but, since there’s… usually … no penalty for doing the latter, you’ll quickly find yourself taking a “Shoot first and ask questions later” approach.

Though the game will infrequently throw a curveball at you, by requiring you to bring in a specific criminal alive and failing you if you don’t.

And, yes, it’s difficult to say whether this element of the game is a grimly cynical satire of US police or a glorification of them. But, given that it was made in late 1990s Britain, where most of our police officers don’t usually carry guns, I’m leaning more towards either satire and/or naïve “US crime movies are cool!” attitudes.

Modern players might have to take a while to get used to the game’s keyboard-only “tank controls” (where movement is relative to whichever direction D’arci is facing) but the camera often makes the controls fairly intuitive, and also allows for a couple of cool – but very brief – “retro survival horror game”-style “fixed camera” segments too 🙂

I don’t know why the camera suddenly switched to a fixed camera here, but it instantly gave me classic “Resident Evil”/”Silent Hill” vibes 🙂 And this is always a good thing 🙂

Not to mention that, whilst this isn’t a survival horror game, it takes some cues from the genre – such as throwing random enemies at you during ordinary exploration (which, like in the original “Silent Hill”, are often best dodged) and pushing you to conserve and search for ammunition by only giving you a pistol at the beginning of every level. Yes, this makes sense on a gameplay level but it often seems like a way of adding artificial difficulty to some of the mid-late game levels.

Still, the game’s combat controls are a mixed bag. Whilst the guns feel really satisfying to use and have awesome “Tomb Raider” (1996) style auto-aim and a cool “Virtua Cop” (1994)-esque UI which shows you if someone is aiming at you or if you’re aiming at someone, the hand-to-hand combat is, in a word, dreadful.

Seriously, these “Virtua Cop”-style timed aiming indicators are brilliant. Likewise, the gunplay as a whole is great. But if you don’t have a gun, then…

The movement controls change, and whilst you can sometimes get lucky and do a Judo throw – which allows you to arrest the criminal whilst they’re on the ground – this almost seemed to happen at random. And, if you’ve got a baseball bat – use it! – it’s a one-hit knockdown. But be aware that, if you’re punched during combat, you’ll drop whatever weapon you’re holding. Also, remember to hold “action” for a few seconds when standing over a dead or arrested villain. This allows D’arci to search them and can yield valuable health or ammo.

The levels range from brilliant to terrible too. Yes, I can appreciate that the designers were trying to add variety and most of the levels I played are fairly fun and straightforward. But then you get a level where you have to search a giant city map for two hidden sets of crates or a level – “The Fallen” – where you have to find five clues, with at least two of them involving tough gun battles.

The latter wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t for the lack of mid-level checkpoints. You can only save at the end of a level, so failure can easily cost you 10-60 minutes of progress. In the end, the only way I completed “The Fallen” was to learn a glitch from a speed-running video and use it to scale a building in less than a second to get the drop on two powerful enemies who ended three of my previous attempts at beating the level.

*Sigh* “The Fallen”! Ok, I get that the designers were trying to be innovative here – and requiring D’arci to solve a murder does fit into the game’s premise. But this is a long, tough-as-nails level with literally no mid-level checkpoints and some unskippable cutscenes. If you die, and you will, it’s back to the beginning to play the whole level again….

For the most part, the platforming is surprisingly good though 🙂 Earlier, I said that this game is like a better version of “Tomb Raider” (1996) sometimes, and it totally is. The platforming is very similar to that game, but with no annoying switch puzzles or anything like that. Plus, it just feels cool to run across rooftops and climb up buildings and stuff like that.

But, despite some flaws with the gameplay, I cannot praise its atmosphere and style highly enough. This is a game with a seriously amazing autumnal late 1990s atmosphere, with lots of cool lighting and stuff like that. Not only that, although some dialogue lines have aged badly, the writing is filled with personality in a way that you don’t always get with modern games. The game’s CGI intro movie is one of the coolest I’ve ever seen in a game and D’arci is also a seriously cool and badass character as well.

Plus, the game’s lighting design is awesome in the way that only a game from 1999 can be 🙂

The game is stylised enough to be enjoyably corny – with the dialogue clearly taking cues from 1970s US crime movies (in a similar way to the original “Grand Theft Auto”) – but it still manages to be cool and compelling most of the time too. Again, it’s a game with a distinctive artistic vision and a lot of personality in a way that you don’t always see in modern games. For all of the game’s frustrating elements, I kept returning to it because of the amazing atmosphere and style. Seriously, this is the quintessential “Late 1990s” game in terms of its atmosphere.

As for length, although it stopped working before I completed it, this is a long game! It’s from the late 1990s and it also re-uses areas for different missions, so the designers crammed a lot of levels into this thing. Add to this the sheer length of some levels, and the total lack of mid-level checkpoints, and it can sometimes feel even longer.

All in all, from what I played before it stopped working, this game is both brilliant and terrible. When it is at its best, it is one of the coolest games you’ll ever play – thanks to its amazing atmosphere, personality, fun gunplay and decent platforming. On the other hand, expect at least a few moments of serious frustration during some parts of this game. Do I recommend it? Weirdly, yes. It’s an acquired taste, a flawed masterpiece and a creative work of art. Just expect to shout angry expletives at the computer screen during at least a couple of the levels.

If I had to give it a rating out of five, it would get three and a half. Again, it can be really, really good when it wants to be – but some parts are just too frustrating.