#upgrade his design bit by bit to make it slightly better design wise as well as like. easier to draw

[malk-with-tea]

Reagan Greed

[neokad]

The Legend of Zelda - Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons!

Hi peeps! I recently managed to finish both parts of the most unique set of Zelda games, Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons! Since those games don't get a lot of attention, I just wanted to do a (long) writeup on what I thought about those two!So let me get this out of the way first: To my disappoint but not to my surprise, the game still uses the same inventory system as the original Link's Awakening - and a very similar engine as well - which sadly means that the frustration of having to CONSTANTLY switch items in the menu is still very much present. So if you couldn't get into the original LA for that reason, I can tell you right now that this game will not be a good time for you no matter what ;-; Now...

As far as the story goes, I'd say it's pretty typical - and even similar between both games. At the beginning of each story, the game's respective oracle, Nayru or Din, get captured by either Veran or Onox, and it's up to Link to collect eight various artifacts that will break a magical barrier keeping him from the omnious castle of the big bad guy of the day! Just like many games of the era, there is little to no story progression (though I think there's slightly more development in Ages compared to Seasons) but on the flipside, there's nothing here that struck me as dumb or bad, just... not very detailed.And while that's definitively fine for the era, let me say this: I feel like Link's Awakening had something much more interesting going on. I won't spoil it for those who haven't played it or its remake, but I feel like the Oracle games are much lamer and less inspiring in that regard, and combining that with how not much changes in the plot unlike in LA, I couldn't help but be disappointed by this.

And honestly, I'll hold the same opinion for the soundtrack as well. Again, it's not bad! But first off it reuses a couple of tracks from LA, including the overworld theme which... didn't really sit well with me. But although the dungeon and village pieces set a nice tone for the game, I think LA did that better thanks to having more memorable tracks overall ^^

However, fear not! Those games have some very nice improvements regardless! Like I said earlier, the engine is very similar to the one used in LA, but the game looks much more colourful and bright than its ancestor, and I did find the menus to be a bit faster and more responsive as well. Plus, the screens can actually scroll now! Hurray!But what about the game itself? Well, one common point brought up by players of those games is how Ages is centered on puzzle solving, while Seasons has a more combat-oriented approach. Let me tell you right now that this is NOT true at all. I'd almost argue Seasons has more puzzly action, but that might be stretching it a bit :P Either way, I think both games are very similar in structure, story, and dungeon/overworld design, But thankfully, most of it is pretty fun! The dungeons are especially good, with some very clever and creative puzzles. I would even argue they are the best in the entire series overall gameplay-wise, though not very memorable as setpieces. I will say, I had to look up a walkthrough many times, and although I felt dumb for not realizing what to do on my own many times - and the games are also pretty good at giving you a general direction of where to go - I do feel like the solutions to certain challenges can be pretty cryptic and offputting.

As far as overworlds go, once again while they're fine, I didn't find neither Labrynna or Holodrum very memorable. The major difference between those two - besides the layout and name - is how you travel in those places! What I mean is, in Ages/Labrynna you'll be able to time travel just like in A Link to the Past, and solves problems that way! While in Seasons/Holodrum, you'll be able to change the seasons on the overworld in order to change how the environment is laid out around you! This does make traveling in those overworlds very prone to backtracking/back and forth, but it felt pretty satisfying to figure out how to go through on your own!Like I said earlier, the gameplay is overall very similar to LA, but I'll say that it overall feels better as well. The engine has recieved a nice upgrade, but this is mostly thanks to what I think is the biggest strength of the Oracle duo: THE ITEMSTHEY ARE SO MUCH FUN!

They give you some very creative and unique spins to items you're very familiar with in the Zelda series, such as a Magnet instead of a Hookshot, and they build up on some already very fun puzzles! I'll also add that many cool items from LA come back as well, such as the feather! There's also a few new mechanics unique to this game, such as Gasha seeds (basically planting seeds over the world to gain treasures later) and rings (which can grant you unique effects when you wear them). I do like the ring system overall since it makes Link more customizable, but I wish that more than a few rings were actually useful ;-;Lastly, let's talk about what makes those games stand out even more from the rest: Secrets! Basically by completing one of the two games, you can gain a secret password that you can enter in the other, which grants you a few benefits, such as one more heart at the start, plus skipping a part of the intro sequence. Furthermore! You can talk to certain special NPCs, which will grant you shorter passwords that you can then give to another NPC in the opposite game, who will then give you an otherwise unavailable upgrade for both games! This not only makes the games feel special by being physically connected, it also boosts their replay value since you can totally play those games in the reverse order next time you dabble with the oracles!

But overall? I definitively think well of those games, but I find them pretty hard to rate. On their own, they're fun to play but nothing special otherwise. I did find Ages slightly better than Seasons thanks to a better narrative and dungeons, but they're both about as good as each other really :P But together? The Oracle games are a very unique experience that, while I still think they aren't as special as LA for their setting alone, are still memorable thanks to the games being linked!

[chessdaze]

YO WHAT’S UP GUESS WHO’S AN ENTIRE WEEK LATE TO KH OC WEEK?? but i’m doing it anyways because it’s a cool thing and I want to show off at least one of my ocs in depth.

Thanks to @khoc-week for putting it together.

NOW WITHOUT FURTHER ADO - time to talk about my boy. He’s originally from the age of fairytales, though not quite daybreak town.

more info under the cut cause he has a lot going on.

FIRST OF ALL - I’m going to explain what a heartsmith is. This is a concept I’ve been working on and developing for a long time now:

In the age of fairytales, when the foretellers were chosen and given their roles, others rose up to their own calling. With the abundance of keyblade wielders now in Daybreak Town, a local smith decided to take it upon himself to learn how to help these young warriors. With the Master of Master’s permission, Wynter Penn started experimenting on how to repair keyblades that were damaged, and the hearts of their wielders by extension. Because of this he was known as the ‘heartsmith’.

Heartsmiths are those with the ability to repair keyblades and hearts. The former being the focus and the latter actually just a useful side effect. As keyblades are manifestations of the heart, being able to repair one means you’re able to repair the other to some extent. The ‘extent’ varies from smith to smith, it depends on how easily the smith can connect with a heart that is not their own.

It was also their job to upgrade keyblades, making them more powerful and suited to their wielders wants more often than not. Though wielders could do this themselves by other means, the smiths offered a more in depth process. They could also repair the keyblade while upgrading it, making it more durable for a time.

There is pretty much two kinds of damage a keyblade can take. Physical, such as the keyblade actually physically breaking and everyone can see that. These are actually more difficult for the smiths to work on but through their magic and their actual smithing backgrounds they are able to build a keyblade back no problem.

Then there’s what I like to call ‘Aches’ because I can’t think of anything better. Aches are the damage wielders have a harder time seeing. It’s when the wielders mental and emotional states physically start affecting their keyblades. As keyblades are manifestations of their heart, it stands to reason if there is something burdening them, something weighing down on their heart, then their keyblade is affected as well. This is the sort of damage only a heartsmith can fix - but it’s also half on the wielder. The wielder has to talk out their burdens, say why their heart is aching, before it can be 100% healed. Sometimes the smiths simply close it the best they can, because at the very least by this point the wielder is aware of their heart’s ache and can work on healing it in their own time. This can lead to multiple sessions but the smiths do their best to repair it to a point that the wielder isn’t just walking in the next day.

So visiting the smiths is akin to a therapy session. They have to talk to the wielders, gain their trust, realize what is bothering them, and talk them through on how to improve.

Upgrading a keyblade is very similar! While combining the materials to make the keyblade stronger, the smiths will talk with the wielders about their goals, why they want to get stronger - and what that even means to them. The upgrade will always succeed, but depending on the wielder’s state of mind and heart during the process and the answer to the questions the smiths ask, that will determine the new strength of the keyblade.

and that’d the abridged version -- if you’d like to hear more about heartsmiths feel free to ask me!

Now about Atlas himself.

Atlas is originally from Wonderland. He was the knave of hearts, and a jerk! He was charismatic and used it for all the wrong reasons. But eventually it caught up to him and he was put on trial - he insisted Alice would come and explain his innocence (as she does in the books). But she never does. Instead heartless attack the trial right before the Knave is about to be executed, and he uses this as a chance to escape. He falls through a corridor of light while trying to fight off the heartless with his magic.

He lands in daybreak town, right outside of the smith’s shop. The smith is an older wielder who manages to save the Knave before his heart is taken - but his heart is still severely damaged by the heartless and practically in pieces. At this point the smith, Wynter, hadn’t quite figured out the whole heartsmith thing yet so you could say that the Knave was his first successful attempt! However when his heart was finally repaired, he couldn’t remember his past at all. So Wynter named him Atlas, and pretty much adopted the boy - which is why Atlas has the last name of Penn. 

There’s SO MUCH MORE to his story but I’m going to leave it there and maybe save other bits and pieces for other days in the week. For now have some more pictures: 

Here’s a picture of Atlas when he was still ‘The Knave of Hearts’. As you can see the color of his eyes and hair were slightly different before. When the heartless was in the process of ripping out his heart - what drained first was the Knave’s ‘wonder’ which is why Atlas is so dull color wise. He doesn’t have that wonder anymore. 

A small funfact, the scars on Atlas’s wrists and hands are because of the ‘bracelets’ that Atlas wears. They’re enchanted and he can’t remove them - but the knave doesn’t appear to have them - interesting right?

That’s because those ‘bracelets’ are the handcuffs that the knave was put in during his trial. They were melded into a slightly different shape while the knave was casting magic (mostly fire magic) at the heartless when he was escaping. The bracelets are now pretty much containers for all of Atlas’s wonderlandian magic - and they refuse to come off. When Atlas has tried to remove them, they heat up and burn him. So the scars are just the aftermath of that - Atlas pulling at the bracelets to try and get them off because he hates wearing them, he just doesn’t understand why he does as he doesn’t have memories of the trial or the fact that the bracelets are actually handcuffs. 

And before i leave off - have this is a picture of Wynter! (I’ve done previous art on him before but I don’t think i’ve posted his whole design on here yet). The clip in his hair is the one Atlas used to wear as the Knave of Hearts, Atlas just took all the extra frills and bows off and gave it to Wynter as a present not long after Wynter took him in. 

[metalgearkong]

Hollow Knight - Review (Switch)

10/18/19

Developed by Team Cherry, released February 2017

I am shamefully late to this party. Hollow Knight was shown to me by a friend a couple years ago when I was visiting Oregon, the place I grew up, from California, the place I now live. I liked the art style and atmosphere, but I didn’t play it long enough to fall in love with it. Only recently did I download Hollow Knight from the Nintendo eShop because it was so cheap, and I had heard so many good things about it. This began a deep appreciation and passion that grew on me quickly. After finally finishing the core game (not including DLCs) and getting at least one of the three endings, I can safely say that Hollow Knight has become one of my favorite games of all time.

We play as a little bug-like creature, who has come to explore the Hallownest, an expansive underground abandoned bug kingdom with ancient secrets and treasures to discover. The story is intentionally vague for most of the game, and even by the end, you likely won’t fully grasp the story and lore elements without some help or further research. It’s not that the clues aren’t there, it’s just a giant puzzle to analyze, something I enjoy doing. The lack of constant story revelations didn’t bother me, because Hollow Knight has an ongoing sense of mystery and wonder. As you delve deeper and deeper into the dark, dangerous, and macabre locations within Hallownest, you’re never really sure what’s going on, but the game is so well designed, you’re constantly inspired to press on and discover what’s around the next corner.

Hollow Knight can be succinctly described as a Metroidvania with a bit of Soulslike mixed in. This game is a combination of some of the most successful trends of gaming, rolled into a masterfully executed new package. The Hallownest consists of several interconnecting locations that have a distinct theme, and serve some sort of function of the ancient kingdom. Each of these areas have their own music, enemies, color scheme, and environmental hazards. The in-game map is extremely helpful, showing you where you are, shaping each area, and giving you the ability to place markers on the map with different colors so you can invent your own legend and remember where certain things are. 

Many times and obstacle will be found in the corners of each of these biomes, letting you know that once you’ve discovered more abilities, that these are places you’ll want to revisit. I had a blast pulling out lined notebook paper and drawing each of these areas as I went along. The game won’t show you the true size of each location until you find Cornifer, a friendly cartographer bug who is also exploring the Hallownest. Buying his map interprets an entire area for you. I had fun comparing my sketches and drawings to the actual map shape and size in-game. I also enjoyed scribbling notes about things when I needed new abilities, or just an interesting location that might have story relevance at some point. The game certainly doesn’t hold your hand and has enough confidence in players not to talk down them.

Team Cherry has some seriously brilliant game design elements built into the combat system. For example, when you slash with the nail and hit an enemy, it pushes you and the enemy back ever so slightly. The combat has a weight to it, and when you get hurt, the audio fades out briefly like you’ve just stood next to a gunshot or explosion. It really feels punishing to get hit, even if you’re not near dying, and makes you want to pay attention and do better. Aspects like this, and other gameplay nuances, make you have to think twice when performing simple actions. 

If the player dies, you are returned to the nearest bench you sat on (a save point). As you play the game, you collect Geo from fallen enemies. Geo is the currency of this game, and can be used to buy Cornifer’s maps, open fast-travel stations, and purchase Charms (upgrades) at stores. If you die, you wake up on the last bench yoh sat on. Then, you have to go back to the place you died in order to collect your Geo. If you die before retrieving your Geo, that Geo disappears forever. This is a very Soulslike element, and leads to a lot of suspense as you try your best not to perish again before regaining your lost currency. My advice is to buy things when you can, because saving up Geo has no purpose other than risking losing it all if you die twice. I’ve lost thousands of Geo making this very mistake. Luckily, the place you died is shown on the map, and a certain musical tune will alert you that you are approaching the right spot.

Another Soulslike aspect of the game are the difficult boss battles. This is actually one of the only elements of the game I didn’t fully enjoy. Some bosses aren’t too hard, but most of them are very challenging, and require a dozen attempts to defeat. Some people really get off on this, but not so much me. The frustration of being killed by a boss a bunch of times doesn’t equal the payoff of finally defeating it. Some bosses are optional which is convenient, but most of them also contain an item that greatly helps you in the game, or gives you an ability which is required to access major areas. I know that everyone says “difficult but fair” for these sorts of things, but some bosses only start feeling like a fair fight once you’ve died in battle with them a handful of times to learn their moves -- then it begins feeling like a fair fight. I dreaded each time I came upon a new boss because I knew I’d be stuck for the next while trying to defeat it, instead of exploring, which is what I enjoy the most.

The music of Hollow Knight plays a big part in its atmosphere. Each area has its own distinct music, but more than that, the music is a terrific addition for defining the tone of each area or scenario. It mostly seems to consist of string and piano, with other instruments sometimes mixed in. Overall the game has a very somber tone, much of it attributed to the music. However, some areas feel more whimsical or lighthearted. Places like Fog Canyon or Greenpath have a less threatening vibe because, story-wise, they are in a much less threatening location. Plenty of enemies and challenges are still found in these areas, but the game does a brilliant job using music to establish mood and even help with bit of storytelling.

Hollow Knight is a fantastic, elegant, beautiful game. The fact that this is Team Cherry’s very first official commercial release is beyond impressive and inspiring. This is truly a triple-A title disguised as an indie game. How is it that this 2D Metroidvania is just as addictive and feels just as expansive as Skyrim? Even feeling like I was being extremely thorough (but not referring to guides) I only completed 71% of the game after 32 hours of playing. To truly get the best endings, and uncover the entire backstory and lore elements, I could see myself spending at least 10 more hours uncovering this game’s secrets. I look forward to returning to this game, not only for the DLC that has already released, but to try again at discovering all of the locations, abilities, and story the game offers for dedicated fans. Hollow Knight is one of the best games ever made, and I can’t wait to see what Team Cherry does next.

9.5/10

[ask-glados]

🔥& (keyboard) for the ask meme?

Mun talks about the muse - ACCEPTING

—————

🔥Unpopular opinion about your muse?

Ooh boy. I… have a lot of those, lol. Well, here’s one: 

GLaDOS already has a well-designed canon human form. She doesn’t need a new one designed for her. She doesn’t need white hair and a weird haircut in an attempt to match her chassis’s look and color scheme. Caroline literally already matches GLaDOS’s entire design and color scheme (rather cleverly!) without being so boringly blatant about it.

Color-wise:

Her white dress = GLaDOS’s white casing.

Her red scarf = GLaDOS’s little red indicator lights.

Her dark hair = GLaDOS’s black wires.

Design-wise:

Her little bit of cleavage = GLaDOS’s curved hole in her chest plate.

Her long hair = The long, vertical shape of GLaDOS’s headpiece. The hair is even parted to one side to match how GLaDOS’s optic and the black part around it are slightly off-center on her headpiece!

BONUS: Her serious and focused expression with a hint of a smirk = literally GLaDOS’s entire personality.

The only thing she lacks is GLaDOS’s yellow, which I take to mean that the yellow just sort of symbolizes her new self and sort of how she’s possessed by these oppressive computer programs. Sort of like how characters often get yellow eyes when they become evil or possessed (ex. Eric in The Little Mermaid, being possessed by the Darkness in Kingdom Hearts, etc.)​.

—————

⌨ What’s a situation you’ve always wanted to RP with the muse?

Weeell… there was one semi-!Crack AU scenario we were joking about on Discord about how if Tesla found PotatOS, he’d use his inventing skills to get her out of that potato and upgrade her to a better battery and give her more power ASAP. It… wouldn’t really make sense in the context of Portal 2, but it did prompt this hilarious meme pic: (credit to Pris-mun @myxcenterxstage / @myinventions)

XD … I have literally no idea how we would even RP this. I just wanted to mention it, pfft.

As for stuff I’d like to RP that we ACTUALLY COULD RP, well… there was a scenario we came up with once of Edison and his goons discovering Tesla’s BIG SECRET: the time portal and GLaDOS. And them wanting to make a profit off the discovery by turning GLaDOS into an exhibit at the World’s Fair and basically holding him at gunpoint to make her comply. Super dramatic stuff! :O

[sometipsygnostalgic]

xenoblade chronicles  2 rapidfire review

π after i started writing up a 5000 word review and was still on the “character” section ive decided to make a rapidfire version to get to the fucking point. 

Story - at the end of the day, it’s a tale about how to deal with all the pain and insecurity that life throws at you. how to dig down deep and find a way to continue in what you may interpret as a dreadful world. it also has some of the most satisfying mysteries and plot resolutions i’ve ever seen in a videogame. utterly touching themes. unfortunately gets a bit too shonen at points especially with the protagonist. also quite possibly a lowkey harem anime.  

Story rating - 8 out of 10.   

Characters -  mostly all amazing in the english version. 

Rex - a top lad. your best mate. however, becomes a total flawless gary stu pretty quickly. better than many protagonists out there. i like the way he gets people to open up by acting so casually friendly around them. 7 out of 10.

Pyra - unfortunately the weakest character in the main cast. has 3 forms that are treated as different characters for some reason, and no emotions beyond “sad” and “in love with rex”. her mythra form is a slightly better character who will talk to other cast members and sass down people. however mythra also comes across as weak and overly emotionally fragile at times, considering she is supposed to be the Master Blade. i suspect she exists for rex to have 4 3 girlfriends at once.   

Azurda -  dragon grandpa. subversive in that when he dies for the hero to move on from the homeland, he immediately resurrects himself as a cute furry thing that sleeps in rex’s helmet. best videogame decision ever. gives top advice.

Nia - welsh. double furry. how old is she? 6? most useful NPC. swears a hell of a lot. hilarious sassmaster with an intriguing story and well-rounded motivations. consistently interesting relationships with other cast members up to the end of the game. even remains the same after receiving her compulsory magical girl transformation. has the most awesome magical girl transformation. gives the main villain super cancer, causing him to blow up like harry potter’s aunt. probably the best character. lightly orbits the black hole of the rex harem, struggling to maintain geostational stability against the powers of fanservice.  

Dromarch - a good dad cat. there is not a lot else to say about dromarch, except that you can ride him, which is badass. he and azurda are the old dad types babysitting the kids. 

Tora - meh meh. actually likable mechanic child. why is this furry cat thing a key member of my party. despite rarely ever upgrading his blade he has made me basically immortal many times. nopon mask is underrated. masterpon is same at start of game as at end of game. that is to say he is an ambitious child, and a bit of a pervert. however, has terrible taste in upgrades. has many IRL blades pointed at him.  

Poppi - poppi artificial blade who speak like masterpon. poppi α has cool design. poppi α adorable and cool. due to being newborn blade, poppi have refreshing and truthful view on world. poppi have tragic artificial sister who almost die terribly after evil nopon brainwash!  poppi have most sad heartbreaking scene at end of game. however, poppi QT and poppi QT π designs can die in big fire.  poppi good at throwing shade. it endearing and special trait. 

Morag - technically the group normie. however, very weird. when you first see morag she reeks of pure chilled badassery. logical and with a strong sense of justice and compassion, morag starts off as an intimidating antivillain but becomes a staple member of the party. even though rex and the gang are fugitives in her city, she lets them leave because she senses they weren’t crooked ruffians and they had a purpose of their own. but she comes back to kick their ass when she thinks they’re causing more trouble, and is actually quite pissed off about rex and pyra holding back on her. has a sweet relationship with the emporer, her distant cousin/adoptive kid brother. morag learns on her adventure the value of the optimistic views the kids  around her have of the world, and says multiple times if more people thought like they did, maybe there wouldn’t be so much political nonsense  stopping people from living together peacefully. morag has a lot of pride and cannot deal with being oneupped. i love her.

Brighid - Morag’s wife blade who is one of many that struggles with the thought of losing her identity after regenning. has a diary of her past lives. uses it to taunt mythra about that one time she kicked her ass. pretends to be a little distant but low key super emotionally invested in the cast’s development. literally asked a main villain if she was like her past self that he knew, causing him to reconsider his entire philosophy on blades becoming completely different people when they’re reborn. bitchslaps rex that one time. Owns everybody at some point. such a beautiful character design that i never even noticed her chest is basically bare. 

shellhead Zeke - the prince... of NOTHING. wishes he was still a student. that one time he nearly died, he was probably impaled by a falling twig. enjoyed playing Team Rocket. surprisingly wise for a teenlike NEET. does not look after his precious turtle. potentially does have a thunder powered eye. however, definitely requires second contact lens. unfortunately not comparable to rex in combat especially as his Luck stat means using a legendary crystal on him is like throwing it away. 

Pandoria - i often forget pandoria is a blade because she is zeke’s girlfriend, also i never use her in battle due to his redundentness. well reknowned for also not looking after turtles properly. also well reknowned for slam dunking the prince over his nonsense while being equally silly.  

BAD GUYS

Jin - apparently has special people-drawing trait that makes all the good cast who know him shocked he is ordering such evil bastard things to happen. not entirely sure what that trait is. emo about much bad stuff that happen to him and his driver. wishes to never forget his life with his driver. dirty child killer.very aniime. why is he the only flesh eater whose core turns red?  okay character with decent enough motivation. was confused as to why Malos was following him until the very end. 

Malos - evil bastard. cheesy villain. you can kick his ass many times and he will get back up 3 minutes later and laugh at you while swallowing back the bile of a bitter defeat. is actually a little tragic by the end of the game. dies for no reason. makes morag jealous because he found his purpose in life, though im not sure what that is.  

Akhos - N3RD. probably the most likable member of Torna. had a silly Blade companion who he was really upset died. i like how he was sentimental about his ‘sister’ blade. 

Patroka - most forgettable Torna member. a little bit tsundere. 

Mikhail - grew on me significantly at the end though like Akhos and Patroka his backstory was unceremoniously dumped on your lap at the last second. must be a great fan of Prince Zeke as he’s heard of the term Blade Eater. also why has Mikhail got awesome blade powers and immortality when Zeke hasnt? maybe Mikhail is “possessing” the blade per se.  

Amalthus - emo bitch. stared God in the face and raised his middle finger. hypocritically creates flesh eaters then sends witch hunts out for them. i like that he reminded himself every day about how bad humanity was by doing his best to help people. so despite the praetor being this “benevolent” figure he had somehow manifested a being of pure hatred. 

Theres a lot of other people I cant be assed talking about right now.

Character rating - 9 out of 10. Even though some important characters arent as impactful as they should be, everybody is memorable and I can remember all of their damn names and backstories.  

Gameplay - not particularly amazing. battles are alright, RPG-wise, with orb breaking combos and cancelling being fun to use. but they’re highly limited by the fact you can only control 1 character at a time and there is no Co-op feature. they also take an incredibly long time, even for just one enemy encounter, and there can be unfair Spike damage moves that oneshot you. my most satisfying moment battling ever was when i was fighting Aeon, the final boss, and got a Full break for the first time... I decimated the fucker when he was at 60% health. 

Of course, those are just the battle mechanics. 

The game is full of complex mechanics that do nothing but add tedium. Every single quest in the game forces you to farm for certain “collectibles”, plants that grow in specific unlisted locations that respawn when you fast travel. Many character “affinity” upgrades, which can lock out certain areas of the map, special skills, or unique interactions, also require you to do this shit. A guide is NECESSARY for this.  There’s also the Merc Missions. Little did you know, you will need to complete Merc Missions to reach the end of many blade quests!!!you know what’s FUN? Waiting for a timer to pass after 25 fucking minutes!!!! this game has NO RESPECT FOR YOUR TIME WHATSOEVER. 

the biggest bullshit of all is when you’re locked out of the main story because a specific character on your team hasn’t unlocked level 3 of a specific skill, because there’s no way that you’d be able to unlock that by naturally playing the game as you have to go out of your way to fill the criteria and grind something or other for 20 minutes. 

This makes sidequests absolutely worthless.

The saving grace for the gameplay is probably the customizability of the blades themselves. Not so much the skills you can attach to each blade, but that you can unlock a number of fun characters to use, and they will have their own unique dialogue. The drivers and blades talking during battle also makes a 20 minute fight feel a lot quicker. 

Battle gameplay mechanics: 6 out of 10. Fun but could be better.  Sidequests, crafting, and field skill mechanics : 1 out of 10. Worthless trash that should never have been greenlit. 

Considering that you will be spending so much time on the gameplay, why even bother playing the game at all?

It’s very much the story that pushes the player to move onwards. If this game didn’t have such a fun cast and meaningful plot then I’d probably not have gotten past the first act. 

Music and Environments - Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is filled with vast, beautiful and diverse environments. Unfortunately, there’s not a lot of interactivity with them other than killing monsters or foraging those bloody collectibles, but they’re beautiful enough with a diverse range of monster inhabitants that give them life. The MUSIC is godlike. My favourite track in the game would be the song used for the city in Tantal. Very ominous and beautiful hymn, sung in English. 

Music and environment rating - 8 out of 10.

Localisation - While many sneer at the localisation choices for this game I thought it brought it to life. Granted I have great bias as being a Welsh girl who is familiar with the differences in UK regional dialect, but it felt like the dialogue the characters were saying also had a heavy makeover to fit the new voices... I really don’t believe that Rex’s Japanese voice actor also sounded like a Top Lad, or that Nia’s japanese voice actor sounded as much like she was ready for a valleys bar fight.  However there are some clear obstacles as well - the characters seemed to have no idea of the context of their lines. This is obvious when they shout something for a long time. Rex’s “HIYAAAAAAAAH” and Nia’s “NOOOO MOOOOORE” sound comically off-tone when they are supposed to be epic. It’s the works of someone who read those lines off a script without knowing what was going on. Tora’s actor saying “meh meh” sounds like it was meant to be a COMPLETELY different noise. Morag and Zeke never go off-course, however. I think either they had an advantage with more visuals being completed by the time they were cast, or they just don’t have diverse enough dialogue in the game for it to have been an issue.

Localisation - 7.8/10 too much Meh. 

FINAL THOUGHTS

Xenoblade chronicles 2 is a highly addictive game that pulls you to the finish line with an interesting plot and a cast you just can’t let go of. While Pyra is certainly the weakest link of the characters, and the game has some extremely goofy shonen scenes that it’s hard to take seriously, and oh dear me that’s an awful lot of boob shots, I had a lot of fun powering through it. I’m going to have a tough time letting go of this story and these characters. 

Unfortunately the gameplay itself is not similarly addictive, and becomes more of a chore for you to get to the next cutscene or funny interaction.

Final rating - 6.5 out of 10. While a worthwhile experience, the greatest story in the world cannot save this game from piss-standard design choices. It is probably better to spend your time on a game that doesn’t have anti-fun mechanics. But I’d be hard pressed if any had a cast that touched your hearts quite like that of Xenoblade Chronicles 2. 

[telegraphguk]

THE 10 BEST MEN’S LEATHER JACKETS YOU CAN BUY RIGHT NOW

Leather was all over the Fall 2020 runways, turning this perennial cold weather fabric into a seriously hot trend. There were leather coats, jackets, blazers, pants and whatever else you could think of parading down the catwalk at the Prada, Acne Studios, Vetements, Fendi, A Cold Wall, Dolce  & Gabbana, and Nicholas Daley shows (probably more, but who’s counting?). The best leather jackets for men ranged from boxy styles with huge shoulder pads  — another 80s throwback — to leather blazers, to leather jackets, to leather bombers, to leather belted jackets. Honestly, if there was a leather outwear style that you’ve always worn, like the classic motorcycle jacket, chances are it was updated for Fall 2020. (Except for the motorcycle jacket; that style’s pretty much perfect already.)

Designers like Dunhill layered leather on leather, and if one is apt to copy architect Peter Marino’s style, be prepared to be slightly sweaty and have a hefty dry cleaning bill all season long. Circling back to leather jackets, and specifically the best leather jackets for men, they’re a style investment that once bought, becomes an integral part of your closet for a long time to come. That’s because the best leather jackets for men are the ones that last for many years and never go out of style. No matter what you wear them with, they always complete the look.More from SPY

Nordstrom’s Anniversary Sale Has Finally Begun: Shop These 20 Amazing Menswear Deals Now, designer leather jackets for men, like the ones from Fendi, can go up to $10,900, but you can find high quality, well-crafted leather jackets for much, much less. And yes, it’s a bit hot outside, so think of stomping through falling leaves while scrolling through to find the best leather jacket that fits your style this fall.

1. Schott NYC Leather Moto Jacket

Marlon Brando wore a Schott biker jacket in The Wild One in 1953, starting a 70-year craze for this specific jacket. For the fashion purist, this is a grail piece that you can wear every day and still give to your kids. It’s slightly more expensive at $900, but for a famously bad-to-the-bone leather jacket, that’s actually a good deal.a person posing for the camera: Leather Biker Jacket Schott vintage© Provided by SPY Leather Biker Jacket Schott vintageBuy: Schott NYC Leather Moto Jacket $900.00

Breaking news from UK

2. Mr P. Melton Wool and Leather Jacket

Mr P., the in-house design team from retailer Mr. Porter, always does a really great job of creating elevated and elegant upgrades from most of your standard basics. Case and point, this elegant and elevated take on a varsity-style jacket; the rich midnight blue wool is matched by equally luxe leather sleeves. The overall look evokes long days past on the campus quad, without ever making it look like you’re trying too hard to wind back the clock.a man wearing a suit and tie: Mr P. Melton Wool and Leather Jacket© Provided by SPY Mr P. Melton Wool and Leather JacketBuy: Mr P. Melton Wool and Leather Jacket $845.00

3. Polo Ralph Lauren Hensen Nubuck Leather Hoodie BEST ATYPICAL OPTION

Why would one spend that much on a hoodie? Because it’s so much more than that. This is a leather jacket that one could live in.  You can always count on Polo Ralph Lauren on taking a classic item and giving it a fresh new twist.  This jacket has all the hoodie details from the drawstring hood to the kangaroo pockets, to the ribbed cuffs and waist. The nubuck leather elevates the hoodie and makes it into a leather jacket that’s covetable. Each time it’s worn it gets softer and more supple. It’s easy to layer it over a tee (short or long sleeve), and as the weather gets cooler, pop it on under a denim jacket of over a thick sweater. It’s one the best  leather jackets for men because it works for every season.a person standing posing for the camera: Polo Ralph Lauren Henson brown nubuck leather hoodie© Provided by SPY Polo Ralph Lauren Henson brown nubuck leather hoodieBuy: Polo Ralph Lauren Henson Nubuck Leather Full Zip… $673.50

4. John Varvatos Star U.S.A Classic Leather Jacket BEST UNDERSTATED

Detroit-born John Varvatos’ clothing’s infused with a rock n’ roll edge. That probably explains why Jack White, Bruce Springsteen, The Kings of Leon and Ringo Starr own his stuff. This jacket (and it’s on sale!) is a great example of his designs. The jacket’s clean lines and sleek tailoring means that it’s easy to integrate into your closet and your own personal style. Be prepared to get compliments on how cool you look, as the jacket quietly lets you shine.a man standing in front of a coat: John Varvatos Star USA black leather jacket© Provided by SPY John Varvatos Star USA black leather jacketBuy: John Varvartos Star U.S.A Classic Leather Jacket $299.99

5.  Alpha Industries B-3 Sherpa Leather Bomber Jacket BEST FLIGHT JACKET

Alpha Industries has created outerwear for the military since the 50s, and their civilian jackets, like this B-3 sherpa bomber jacket is based on what pilots wore in combat. The original B-3 bomber was the official cold weather jacket during WWII and kept aircrews warm in unpressurized cabins.  This jacket’s an investment that’ll keep you toasty warm for years. Lined in Sherpa wool, the leather jacket has adjustable buckles at the collar and hem to keep the cold out.Seth Wilkerson wearing a suit and tie: Alpha Industries brown leather b-3 bomber jacket© Provided by SPY Alpha Industries brown leather b-3 bomber jacketBuy: Alpha Industries B-3 Sherpa Leather Bomber Jacket $1300.00

6. Reiss Diablo Snake-Print Panel Leather Jacket BEST FOR YOUR INNER ROCK STAR

Style, personal style should be a reflection of one’s personality. If one’s going to invest in a leather jacket, and they are one of the priciest items in menswear, it might be a good idea to choose an item that is timeless and iconic. It’s definitely okay, heck, it’s better than okay to own clothing that fits in in any situation, but with outerwear, it’s fine to show some flair. Reiss mines the Western trend that’s been in resurgence these past few seasons and adds a touch of, shall we say “Bowie-esque” style to the classic shirt jacket silhouette.a man wearing a suit and tie: Reiss black leather and snake print jacket© Provided by SPY Reiss black leather and snake print jacketBuy: Reiss Diablo Snake-Print Panel Leather Jacket $370.00

7. John Elliott Leather Rider’s Jacket BEST DESIGNER LEATHER JACKET

Los Angeles-based designer John Elliott makes a black leather jacket that’s absolutely one of the best in the business. Crafted entirely in LA, its Italian leather construction is tough, yet elegant, and will last for decades if you take care of it properly. Oh, and if you’re not convinced, Elliott’s leather jackets are the go-to leather pieces for one LeBron James — which is one hell of a compelling celebrity endorsement, as game quite literally recognizes game.Primo Reggiani posing for the camera: black leather jacket© Provided by SPY black leather jacketBuy: John Elliott Leather Rider’s Jacket $1,610.00

8. Sandro Aviator Leather Jacket BEST BOMBER WITH A TWIST

Brown is a hue that always looks lustrous and takes on a rich patina in leather.  It’s a shade that, like black, works season after season. So when purchasing an item that will be worn for a few years, opting for a brown leather jacket is as wise a choice as picking a black one.  Sandro’s aviator jacket has a bomber silhouette with ribbed cuffs and waist, However, it’s not blousy or full like a classic bomber, and the pointed spread collar and two oversized front pockets add effortless cool to it. It’s been reduced by 50%, so that definitely sweetens the deal.a close up of a coat: Sandro brown leather aviator jacket© Provided by SPY Sandro brown leather aviator jacketBuy: Sandro Aviator Leather Jacket $515.00

9. Saint Laurent Black Leather Classic Biker Jacket

When Hedi Slimane took the reins as creative director for Saint Laurent in 2012, he infused the menswear line with a mix of gritty streetwear style with a touch of minimalism. The streamlined designs were unfussy and modern. the new creative director Anthony Vaccarello is continuing in Slimane’s steps and this polished biker jacket has edge. The thing about a designer item, especially from a top designer, is that as it ages, its value, like a good watch, goes up. Whether one has money to burn, or one wants to shop smart, purchasing anything from Saint Laurent is never a bad move. The items look on-trend and timeless at the same time. Using black lambskin that’s been buffed to a high shine, this biker jacket has shoulder epaulets, a back reverse yoke and multiple flap and zippered pockets.a person posing for the camera: best leather jacket for men of 2020© Provided by SPY best leather jacket for men of 2020Buy: Saint Laurent Black Leather Classic Biker Jacket $4620.00

10. Levi’s Leather Trucker Jacket BEST RELAXED

Levi’s been making the best men’s jeans for well over 100 years, give or take a few years. The brand completely gets the fact that style should not only meet comfort, but that fashion and comfort should be inherently entwined. Take their classic denim trucker jacket, re-imagined here in black leather. While a leather jacket is an investment, as it will be worn for years to come, nothing says it can’t be fun, too. And this snap front jacket with its two front pockets is as weekend-ready as its good for going to work.

[antiques-for-geeks]

Game Review : Slipstream 5000

PC / Gremlin Interactive / 1995 / Originally £29.99

Ah, the future.

Everything is shiny and new. All the time. The womenfolk are all improbably thin and dressed in tight fitting spandex or bikinis. Because that’s that happens in the future, we just go nuts for the man-made fibres. Just look at Buck Rodgers. Or Star Crash.

“Girls of 25th Century”, as envisaged by a boy aged 15 and a quarter with his bedroom door locked...

And in the future are sports; not sports as we know them, sports that are just a little bit different and played out to a pumping electro soundtrack that might just sound like Depeche Mode, Einstürzende Neubauten or Nitzer Ebb but played on a cheap Casio organ to avoid royalty payments.

Yes. The future. And it’s here in the shape of a racing game.

Set at a nebulous point in the near future, Slipstream 5000 brings us pilots racing their aeroplanes around courses around the world. There is no dystopian backstory, no settling our differences through sport rather than war - this is an out and out racing between between ten characters and their flying machines.

This is something of a relief. It gets a bit tedious to constantly be told that society has collapsed and to settle our differences we now play Bridge or Whist, all as an excuse for a developer to hide their slightly naff obsession with Gin Rummy behind a smokescreen rather than run the risk of them being discovered in a latex old-man bodysuit down the WI of a Thursday night.

Each race begins with a fly-through, showcasing the game’s graphics engine. It whips along at a good pace on Pentium level machinery without a 3D graphics accelerator.

Slipstream 5000 belongs to that first flush of 3D games where texture maps were planted on large polygons rather than using smaller and smaller polygons to create the landscape the developers wanted to convey. Sure, even at the time it never was the prettiest but is a fair compromise given the power of the machines it was designed to run on.

Controlling your plane takes full advantage of the 3D environment, allowing you to fly in all directions and creating a feeling of freedom. Playing with a decent joystick really adds to the game, although keyboard control works well enough. Oddly, no provision has been made for a mouse in-game, which combined with the keyboard à la Quake would have been as good a choice at the time as a joystick.

Some circuits verge on the spectacular; not just underground but underwater too. Don’t worry about hitting the glass sides, they won’t break.

The circuits that make up the championship are split between the metropolitan and the natural - one minute you’re flying through the Grand Canyon or Icelandic Fjords, the next it’s London and under (or over, you can choose) Tower Bridge. There are ten tracks in total; before you race each track, you’re treated to a fly-through to help you plan your approach to the race. Presented in a TV style, it can be quite like marmite. You’re going to either love or hate the way it’s done, which comes down to the in-game commentator. More on that later.

Slipstream 5000 makes the most of the axes you can fly in. Each course has its own challenges; enclosed circuits where you are racing through caverns or tunnels require skill and dexterity as the elevation of the circuit changes. Clattering around the courses, scraping the sides of your vehicle will work, but at the cost of performance. Each time you connect with the circuit, another player, or are hit being an opponent’s weapons incurs damage, either to the engine or the controls. As more damage is inflicted, your craft becomes less and less performant, making it easier to compound the damage to meaning that too much damage and it’s game over. Fortunately, each circuit has a pit tunnel where damage is remedied in blaze of lightning. Race wisely and taking the pits each lap can also make you quicker, even when you are not damaged.

Cash bonus? That’ll do nicely.

Each track is lined with bonuses and forfeits, either positioned randomly or dropped by shooting the drones that fly along as you do. Cash is the most valuable thing, but you can also pick up engine and control repair which fix your maladies on the spot, turbo recharge or a short boost of turbo. If you’re unlucky though you get a disrupter that’ll reverse your steering and is more or less guaranteed to chuck you into the walls.

You start the game by choosing your plane and unlike some games, they’re all equal. It’s not how they start, it’s how they are upgraded that is key. For a single race, it’s not that important, in a championship it can be the difference between first and midfield. Some upgrades and weapons just aren’t worth the money and it really becomes a matter of making sure that you chose wisely.

And, you’re going to need weapons. The AI pilots give as good as they get.

The point where you chose your plane is, erm, very much of it’s time. Cheesier than a pack of Wotsits and presented in a very stereotyped way. Clearly the developers were going for a Wacky Races vibe. This extends to the virtual characters in the game: Lyall Mint, the deliberately unlikable, ex-racer and his prim and proper career presenter, Crystal Eyes, as well as the game’s AI pilots.

This is one half of your commentary team, Lyall Mint. He's about to crack a funny, the zany ex-Slipstreamer that he is. Pity all of his comedy material is made up of Dad jokes and insipid sexual innuendo.

Each of your adversaries has their own traits and this is emphasised by their on-screen presence. You get transmissions periodically during each race - sometimes taunting, sometimes bemoaning that they’ve been hit or crashed. It’s a nice idea, if the implementation is rather cliched and adds to the feeling of rivalry in the game. This was something that was not common at the time and unique to the CD version of the game.

Flying against the AI players is good and fortunately Gremlin’s developers added the ability to go head to head with real players; old school two player splits the screen, but there is an option to connect two machines together. It’s not really network play as it’s known today, rather it’s via serial cable (yes, physically linking two machines together) a modem connection or being on the same physical network. Slipstream 5000 fell at that awkward time where the internet was a thing, but standards weren’t.

Yes, multiplayer is not for the casual gamer of today. Those of us playing games in the 1990s were made of sterner stuff. Man-up if you don’t want to be billy no-mates.

Dog fights are fun but can be time consuming. Sometimes it’s better to fly low, turn on the turbo and leave the other pilots to it

So Slipstream 5000, offers you a slice of the future like no other. Or, truth be told, like any other. This so easily could have been a franchise like WipeOut; maybe this would have really taken off (excuse the pun) with the console versions that had been planned. The game would have been really good on a Playstation or Saturn. It’s just a shame that this never happened.

Like so much of Gremlin’s catalogue around that time, this rather smacks of an opportunity missed.

Buying it today

You have lots of options for this today. You lucky, lucky, people. If you are looking to buy it on an auction site, you can pick up a copy pretty cheaply. The original big-box release will set you back in the region of £15, but be later re-releases in their paper sleeves, jewel or DVD cases can be anything from £2.50 to £5. If you’re going this way, make sure that you don’t end up overpaying for a budget version...

Finally, you can skip all this retro media nonsense if you have a PC and get it on Steam or GoG; you won’t have to faff about with DosBox or worry about converting those 3.5” floppies to disk images. Unfortunately, if you’re using anything other than Windows, you’ll have to make your own arrangements.

Commentariat

Tim : Slipstream 5000 was a firm favourite of mine; I first played it as a demo that came on a CD with PC Format in 1995 and excelled on the Pentium that I got to play it on. Although nothing to do with Magnetic Fields, the game had a ring of Super Cars about it in terms of tone and presentation. A sort of Super Cars ++ as it were.

Having played the demo to death, I bought it when it came out on budget - I was not, and am still not, made of money - I bought the title. The demo pretty much summed up the playing experience of the game and although there were extra circuits and a championship mode, it didn’t really add a huge amount to the fun in single player mode...

With only three levels of difficulty, it’s not that hard to finish quite high up the pecking order in every race. This may be ok in a single race, but in Championship mode it reduces the sense of jeopardy. Where the game does come alive is just right - when you’re racing. The action can be fast and frenetic; one minute you can be first, the next 8th after a misjudged corner or a missile strike from another pilot.

That the computer pilots can also mess up on their own adds to the excitement. Nothing more satisfying than seeing the computer pilot hit a drone and be faced with a disrupter. Even more so when it’s your mate in multi-player mode.

The other thing that disappoints - for me anyway - is the music, both in-game and between races does not do the game justice and feels more like an afterthought. That’s not to say it’s not well done; it is, it’s just doesn’t suit the game in my opinion. Add in the flight-computer voice that tells you you’re being shot at when you can hear the shots bouncing off the hull of your plane and it becomes an irritation rather than asset. We’re not talking Cybermorph levels of irritation, but let’s say it’s getting there. Good job you can turn it off.

Overall though, these are minor objections. I love the game and was one of the first titles I got working on DosBox once got that working properly. If only Gremlin had chosen to have taken it further...

Score Lord : I told you lot last time. I’m not reviewing games for you. Even this, which I quite liked when it came out and think it’s a crime it’s been forgotten. No. Go away and stop bothering me.

Meat : The explosion of 3D games at this time wasn’t a blessing; looking back today, there are some really, really ropey titles. Slipstream 5000 might have avoided this fate, but has trodden a fine line to do so. The cross between flight sim and racing game is novel and explored at around the same time by Bullfrog’s Hi-Octane, but there really is only so much you can do and a fair few tricks have been missed here. I’d have liked it to have been a little harder, with differentiation between craft being, well, present. A career mode rather than just a flat championship, where you could have more control over the different elements of your ship and crew would have made all the difference.

This doesn’t mean that the game is bad. Not at all. There are neat little extras, like the rear-view camera which although useless is pretty cool. It plays well, so much so that there is depth in the gameplay to last more than one run-through. For all my gripes about 90s 3D games down the pub, I like the way it looks too. It’s begging for a modern version with proper network play and slightly less patronising tone in the cut-scenes. I’d pay to have that on my phone, provided it came with a branded spandex flight-suit to wear while you are playing, natch. We are in the future after all, right?

Score card

Presentation 7/10

Stakes had been upped in the mid 1990s by the arrival of the fifth generation consoles, Slipstream 5000 holds its own against the kind of stuff coming out on those machines. The whole thing feels rather slick, with quite an authentic TV feel, even if its tone and jokes have dated quickly since the 1990s. PC games had yet to fall to the DVD-box format that is ubiquitous with today packaging, so you’ll still treated to the big-box experience if that’s your thing.

Originality 8/10

The idea of a racing game working on four axes that you can explore, rather than the traditional horizontal is still a pretty neat idea. The elements of rivalries that are generated by the computer characters comments feels a little synthetic, but the game is the better for it.

Graphics 8/10

From beginning to end, the games looks really good; sure it has aged, but more endearingly than some that feel like they have a certain something missing.

Hookability 6/10

The first course is well designed and eases you into the game nicely. From there on in, it’s a challenge, but not always enough of one. 

Sound 7/10

Sounds fine, as long as you have the right sound card, but having different background music would have made all of the difference. The floppy disk version loses out on some of the speech, but that’s not the end of the world.

Lastability 7/10

Easy to learn, difficult to master. It can be a difficult but not impossible to play using the keyboard, but there is a lot there for you to explore and those jibes and taunts from your fellow competitors press just the right buttons to make you want to come back for more. Unless you’ve got the floppy disk version...

Value for Money 7/10

Was good value back in 1995 and it’s worth the price of admission today.

Overall 7/10

Gremlin did themselves proud with the game itself and the TV styling, the cliched and stereotypical characterisations of the pilots and presenting team less so. Slipstream 5000 really had the feel of a series in the making. The shame is that it never made it there; with today’s VR tech the game would really have been something else.

[maligknights]

Thoughts on Echoes: Shadows of Valencia

Just finished the main game and…

This game is incredible. *Gross sobbing*

I am amazed at how it is so faithful to the original to the point the gameplay retained some of the clunkiness of Gaiden, but uplifted in a way it is way more fun than the original.

The original NES title will always have a je ne sais quoi that people seem to either love or hate (which I personally find unique and charming) and that Echoes cannot emulate, however I would recommend Shadows of Valencia over the original a thousand times. 

SoV took a honestly kinda tedious game and turned it into a thrilling experience filled with great characters, an incredible atmosphere and most importantly, upgraded the level design into something fun and exciting. 

The new characters are fun, the new designs and dialogue are gorgeous and full of flavor; and the retcons to the original plot not only create a much more complex and poignant narrative, but fix Gaiden’s biggest issue as a sidequel to Shadow Dragon and fill in the blanks that the Lore of the original did not have the time to bridge.

I will admit I am a bit sad I did not get to see your reactions to “the twist” since I finished late bc time so I avoided the tags like the plague (which apparently spared me a lot of drama as well).

Now to spoiler discussion:

On my first thoughts I really was expecting the new twists to strip the aim of the bare narrative of the original, but I was pleasantly surprised at how well the retcons were handled to the point they could find a converging point. SoV is still about man giving their gods the finger which is just great. 

Like I have already said, the fact that Duma and Mila were turned into Divine Dragons and how Alm and Celica’s bloodlines now have a crusader esque touch, gives Valencia the sense of continuity it was sorely missing. Lorewise, the original had nothing to do with Archanea to the point that Judgral made a better sidequel to Shadow Dragon and Mystery of the Emblem because of how their timelines kinda add up and their struggles have the same origin point. This gives the FE Multiverse more continuity and makes it larger as a Multiverse and bridges the Kaga Era games into one, more complete Universe. 

Alm is much less of the homicidal nutjob of the original which loses memetic value but is a much more compelling character. Celica is just adorable gimme so I can hug her and bake her a cake or something. The characters are pretty cool, not as complex as some other FE titles but very very enjoyable, even the flatest are fun to hear. Rudolf is a great antagonist, the fact that we have townspeople to flesh out the world so much is great, the music is excellent, agh I can just gush about this game for hours.

I really love the narrator’s final lines and how it ties to Medeus’s dying words.

I am not going to say that this is 100% perfect, but it comes really close, so if I had to nitpick: 

Well, Duma and Mila broke the agreement between Divine Dragons by: First, interfering with man so deep they became FUCKING GODS and messed with the natural conditions of their habitat. Second, knowing how powerful Divine Dragons are and how dangerous they become when degenerating, why did Naga allow them to keep their dragons forms? Gotoh and Xane discarded their dragonstones to prevent them from destroying worlds and Naga instead of punishing them gave them a Falchion twin to Marth’s in case they degenerated so wtf Naga, do your job! IDK seems kinda unfair that Naga actually went to Jugdral to stop an Earth Dragon, but left Mila and Duma to their devices knowing Divine Dragons are waaaay more powerful.

The DLC and Postgame are coming though, I am awaiting that to see how Grima’s origin tale gets, but with how the retcons have been handled, I have a certain hope for how they are going to fix the hot mess that is Ylisse’s lore which is VERY commendable. I am still intrigued whether Robin is the true descendant of Alm and Celica or if Grima’s pact stems from a completely different bloodline (Judah’s maybe?). I love the fact that they specify that Alm and Celica’s bloodline lasts a thousand years because you know with what that aligns? That’s right, the first exalt. So my prediction that their bloodline was uprooted to prevent Grima from returning via vessel might be true. It’s very interesting that you get to look at Ferox’s origins, a hint of how the climate of Archanea changed and a few tidbits about Grima.

Fernand had way more focus than Berkut. I really like Fernand but let’s face it, Berkut was the bigger villain so his breakdown and death was not as emotional as Fernand’s who had a really long and cheesy death scene (that brought me to tears but yes). In the same vein, we needed his relationship with Rinoa to get more buildup so the sacrifice could be much more effective, although I will say that when he turns her into a witch is the best thing ever. Berkut you asshole.

The Zofian royal family could’ve been fleshed out a little bit more, especially with the addition of Conrad. And like Fernand’s death there were some slightly forced and/or predictable moments, but the story was pretty well handled. 

But all in all…. It is an amazing game as both a standalone and as a remake, far better than Heroes of Light and Shadow thanks to the risks they took with the gameplay and story and how wisely they used the assets of the original.

THIS is in spirit how Fates should’ve handled itself. Especially considering that Nohr and Hoshido have similar setups and a similar truth about the protagonist.

I have faith that Echoes as a brand will continue, I am really looking forward to the next remake which will probably be either Genealogy of the Holy War or Binding Blade. I am looking forward to how they’ll fix Elibe’s lore and how they’ll expand the gameplay and the already vast world of Jugdral. Elibe’s history has a similar flavor to Archanea, so it might make sense that they also share an origin (especially with that theory about the Dragon’s Gate and Nagi and how Heroes has handled Elibean lore which has its issues but eh… we’ll see).

[meggannn]

andromeda review

I finished the game Monday night so I’ve had a few days to think over my feelings. No major plot spoilers in this post but putting behind a cut anyway.

I want to rip the bandaid off, so I’ll get the bad news out of the way first.

THE BAD

It’s clear what influence Frostbite -- and by extension EA -- has had on Andromeda, and it’s not always good. It’s a big world, which was kind of what they signed on for by setting the stage in a new galaxy: if it wasn’t big, people would complain we never got to “really see” Andromeda. So they made it big and pushed the exploration thing. It’s not as big as Inquisition, thank god, with not nearly so many pointless fetch quests, but there are still enough sidequests to deter the average player and don’t really move the plot further. I’m actually the kind of dedicated idiot who actually doesn’t mind collecting pointless shit across seventeen maps if it actually gives me more information about the lore or characters, but when it just comes with XP and a check mark, it irritates the living heck out of me. Andromeda has a fair amount of both types.

In the long run, this is a very minor complaint, more about what Bioware doesn’t put in the game than what they do, but I was let down in the lack of… creativity? In the new Andromeda species. After finishing the game however, for plot reasons, I can see why there are several reasons why they would keep the bipedal humanoid alien design, but it’s still a little disappointing. Lore-wise, I think traveling to a new galaxy would be the perfect stage to design more mind-bending aliens like the Leviathans or rachni (the Reapers controlled the direction organic life evolved in the Milky Way, but not Andromeda, right?). Aliens with different types of societies! Aliens that are bigger or smaller in scale than us! Aliens that have different ideas of the word ‘intelligence’! And we got only two sentient species, one of which actually has some form of settled home in Andromeda, the other of which we try to slaughter when we’re within fifty meters of each other.

For people who have played the original trilogy, it becomes kind of obvious they’re retreading familiar ground, and sometimes it gets predictable. Not just with their themes -- which I expect -- but their plot twists. I’ll avoid spoiling too much. There are also moments it feels as though they’re trying to ‘top’ the trauma Shepard went through in the original series by putting Ryder through worse, so much so that when Ryder’s in serious danger it feels a bit like they’re crying wolf. They somehow managed to do this without making Ryder feel like ‘the new Shepard’ -- which is a good thing -- but still, it’s a bit odd and disconnecting. It’s like you can see the talks at the tables when the creative director said “and then we’ll do THIS” and nobody considered if it was, um, logical.

With the writing, there was occasionally a lot of -- for lack of a better phrase -- telling and not showing, or in some other cases, stretching the limits of lore believability just to create conflict for the player to fight. I tend to hate when people use “show don’t tell” as a criticism because I think they’re usually overlooking something, but this is a common theme with BW games and in Andromeda it happens pretty consistently. We are constantly told that the angara are always “free” with their feelings and rarely if ever hide their emotions from the world, yet aside from Jaal’s consistent emotional vulnerability (who I thought was great btw), angara mostly tend to speak and talk and walk exactly like us. Having a conversation with an angaran NPC felt exactly like an asari or human NPC, except, you know, in how they looked.

((MILD PLOT SPOILERS: If you’ve reached Aya you’re probably fine to read)) I’m obviously relieved Bioware didn’t go in the colonization direction -- something I didn’t want to have to worry about the first place -- but instead there’s an undeniable white savior (or “human savior”) theme instead. (It became especially prominent later in the game.) This is difficult to document exactly because it’s not as explicit as other classic examples -- in MEA, Jaal has a large presence and is actively involved in protecting and saving his people; the Initiative/Ryder has to work their ass off to prove their intentions are peaceful and even then the angara are portrayed to rightfully still be skeptical -- but at the end of the day, the angara are a POC coded culture and ~only a stranger can save them~. The angara have also become Mass Effect’s elven equivalent from Dragon Age, in terms of how much and how often the story throws them into the mud. At least unlike the elves, they don’t argue that it’s the angara’s fault, but after a while it feels like slow and cruel torture of a native species that’s already been through hell.

The Chosen One narrative is how Bioware operates, I get it. But I’m getting tired of people treating the Pathfinder/Inquisitor like a hero-in-the-making before they have the chance to prove they’re even a person. (Sorry to keep bringing DA2 up, but this is why I liked Hawke so much -- you worked to Championship from the ground up, and everyone knew it.) What is so freaking special about the symbol of Pathfinders that makes everyone flock to you when you first step onto the Nexus? Did the Initiative really pin all their hopes on scouting landscapes and settling colonies in hostile or extreme environments on the shoulders of four people?

The disappointing LGBT romances are already well-documented, but I have to give a particular call-out to how they handled the only mlm’s storyline, because it was terrible. (It’s honestly astounding how it passed the desks of multiple people and nobody thought to say hey, maybe this is offensive?)

After watching Jaal’s romance… I’m still not convinced aliens should ever be straight in any circumstance, but I don’t think just a patch would solve this one -- I think Jaal’s romance employs a lot of you’re-the-girl-of-my-dreams tropes that were meant to specifically appeal to women, so swapping Sara for Scott in this case might feel lazy or contrived. Liam’s romance, though -- which I LOVED and I highly recommend people watch if they have a few minutes on Youtube -- is completely free of any sort of gender stereotypical tropes and would work just as well with any Ryder.

Okay now onto the good stuff, which was fortunately most of it.

THE GOOD

Despite all of the above, I really, genuinely, enjoyed this game and think both old and new Mass Effect players would enjoy it. There are some growing pains -- Ryder asks a few dumb questions for exposition that most ME fans know by heart and other times an NPC comments on this or that lore reference that new people wouldn’t understand in the slightest, but it doesn’t ruin the experience. I finished at around 75 hours and 97% completion with most of the remaining activities the ‘no lore included’ fetch quests I was complaining about earlier. And despite my whining about the sidequests, I actually did genuinely like them, for the most part. They gave me more information about each of the worlds and how people live there, often because the same people would give me multiple quests, or reference each other, so the locations felt like real places that people lived in.

The companions and their relationships -- including romances -- are really good. Like, not to call it leagues better than Inquisition, because Inquisition had great companions, but unlike the Inquisitor I actually felt like Ryder had a place on the ship. I knew what their job was, sure, but I also know who they were when they interacted with people, even allowing for the freedom of player choice. The Initiative isn’t military, and neither is your ship, though plenty of the squad have professional firearms and crisis training, which is a great shift from Shepard and the Normandy -- it comes with more casual banter, but it also has its downsides, because there will be fights on your ship between people, because many of them are not professionals, just highly skilled expertises, and they aren’t used to working with others. It sucks because you have to mediate the arguments, but it’s also realistic.

The animation is fine, and yeah the CC sucks and I wish it were better, but it’s hardly the end of the world. Mass Effect always did better with aliens than it did with humans, so it’s hardly a surprise, and personally I think if people are going to throw a fit over their PC not having the right kind of eyebrows or a glitch where a character holds a gun backwards that happens once in a 70+ hour game, and that ruins the entire experience for them… they might want to pick another hobby.

I’ve seen people complaining that the writing is shit, and it’s true that occasionally I’ll hear a cheesy line and think a fifteen year old could’ve done better, but the largest majority of the time, I wonder what those complaints were smoking. The writing is great. I feel like these are all real people -- and I especially feel Ryder is a real person, a real sister/brother, a real twenty-something thrown into a million problems they’re unequipped to handle.

I was surprised to actually be… impressed by the way they handle angaran relations. The white savior thing is still true and will always be true, but I appreciate that Ryder has to work their ass off to prove they’re trustworthy, and even then, the angara that still openly distrust aliens aren’t wrong for it, and Ryder has to respect that or risk their respect. They’re wary, and they have every right to be, and the story doesn’t punish them for it. (Even the Roekaar are slightly sympathetic in a way, because a majority of them are fighting because they’re scared.)

Open world games are usually something I dread, but I didn’t mind the open landscapes for the most part, because the Mako -- I mean Nomad -- gets you around pretty fast, you’ve got banter to listen to in the meantime, and the upgrades really helped whenever the terrain became challenging. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes it’s really too much, but for the most part, I honestly didn’t mind, and I was surprised I didn’t.

The journal prioritization system reminds me of DA2 in a good way; compared to previous ME games, and even Inquisition, MEA makes it a lot easier to tell which quests are worth doing/plot relevant, and which would just amount to my dicking around in the wilderness for XP or loot.

The combat is excellent -- not to rag on the original series’ system because there wasn’t anything particularly wrong with it, but I can definitely see major improvements in creativity and flexibility. It’s fluid, much more mobile, and the jumpjets let you get so much more creative. Letting people mix and match powers is a little far-fetched, but you can handwave a lot of with SAM’s profile implant, so I don’t really mind. The only irritating thing is that you’re limited to three powers at once, but since you have about a million powers available to you in the first place and can equip four favorite profiles at once, it seems a fair trade. (I’ve found a way around this anyway -- instead of bringing up the HUD and going to favorites, if you pause the game in the middle of combat, you can fool around with your skills AND change profiles and resume combat with no cooldown.)

It felt like ME1 in all of the best ways. Like I mentioned above, it’s true they’re sort of treading familiar ground in their themes and plot twists, but there were certain parts of the final mission in particular were most definitely purposeful references to/love letters to the original trilogy. It makes it feel like the start of a new journey; I told a friend when I finished that I felt exactly like I had when I finished ME1 for the first time, excited and scared and pumped to start playing sequel.

My overall experience was a great one; I’m planning on starting my second playthrough as soon as I can, probably tomorrow. It was familiar to old fans who loved ME1 for its newness and strangeness, it’s friendly to new players, and I think it’ll be remembered strongly in the future if it is the beginning of a new series like I expect it to be. (LBR, if it isn’t “part one” of a new story...... it makes no sense. It’s practically screaming for more.)

[damonbation]

Let the Roaring 2020s Begin

—

First some great news: because of your support in reading and sharing this blog, it has been able to earn quite a lot of income and give away over $300,000 so far. The latest $100k of that happens at the end of this article. Please check it out if you want to feel good, learn more, and even join me in helping out the world a bit.

—

As I type this, there are only a few days left in the 2010s, and holy shit what a decade it has been.

Ten years ago, a 35 year old MMM and the former Mrs. MM were four years into retirement, but not feeling very retired yet. We stumbled out of 2009 with a precious but very high strung three-year-old, a house building business that was way more stressful than it should have been, and a much more rudimentary set of life skills. It was a time of great promise, but a lot of this promise was yet to be claimed.

Ten years later, despite the fact that I have one less marriage, one less surviving parent, and ten years less remaining youth, I am in an even better place in life right now, and would never want to trade places with the 2009 version of me. And on that measure alone, I can tell it has been a successful decade.

This is a great sign and it bodes well for early retirees everywhere. Compared to the start of the decade, I am healthier and stronger physically, wealthier financially, and (hopefully) at least a bit wiser emotionally. I’ve been through so much, learned so much in so many new interesting fields, and packed so much living into these 3653 days. A big part of that just flowed from the act of retiring from my career in 2005, which freed me up to do so many other things, including starting this blog.

It has not always been easy, in fact the hard times of this decade have been some of the hardest of my life. But by coming through it all I have learned that super difficult experiences only serve to enrich your life even more, by widening your range of feelings and allowing you to savor the normal moments and the great ones even more.

Ten Years of Learning in Three Points

I think the real meaning of “Wisdom” is just “I’ve seen a lot of shit go down in my lifetime and over time you start to notice everything just boils down to a few principles.”

The books all say it, and the wise older people in real life all say it too. And for me, it’s probably the following few things that stand out the most:

1) This Too Shall Pass: nothing is as big a deal as you think it is at the time. Angry or sad emotions from life traumas will fade remarkably quickly, but so will the positive surprises from one-time life upgrades through the sometimes-bummer magic of Hedonic Adaptation. What’s left is just you – no matter where you go, there you are.

2) But You Are Really Just a Bundle of Habits: most of your day (and therefore your life) is comprised of repeating the same set of behaviors over and over. The way you get up, the things you focus your mind on. Your job. The way you interact with other people. The way you eat and exercise. Unless you give all of this a lot of mindful attention and work to tweak it, it stays the same, which means your life barely changes, which means your level of happiness barely changes.

3) Change Your Habits, Change your Life: Because of all this, the easiest and best way to have a happier and more satisfying life is to figure out what ingredients go into a good day, and start adding those things while subtracting the things that create bad days. For me (and quite possibly you, whether you realize it or not), the good things include positive social interactions, helping people, outdoor physical activity, creative expression and problem solving, and just good old-fashioned hard work. The bad things mostly revolve around stress due to over-scheduling one’s life, emotional negativity and interpersonal conflict – all things I am especially sensitive to.

So while I can’t control everything, I have found that the more I work to design those happiness creators into my life and step away from things that consistently cause bad days, the happier and richer life can become.

Speaking of Richer:

I recently read two very different books, which still ended up pointing me in the same direction:

This Could Be Our Future, by former Kickstarter cofounder and CEO Yancey Strickler, is a concise manifesto that makes a great case for running our lives, businesses, and even giant corporations, according to a much more generous and person-centric set of rules.

Instead of the narrow minded perspective of “Profit Maximization” that drives so many of the world’s shittier companies and gives capitalism a bad reputation, he points out that even small changes in the attitude of company (and world) leaders, can lead to huge changes in the way our economy runs.

The end result is more total wealth and happier lives for all of us – like Mustachianism itself, it really is a win/win proposition rather than any form of compromise or tradeoff. In fact, Strickler specifically mentions you and me in this book, using the FIRE movement as an example of a group of people who have adopted different values in order to lead better lives.

Die with Zero*, by former hedge fund manager and thrill seeking poker champion Bill Perkins sounds like a completely different book on the surface: Perkins’ point is that many people work too long and defer too much gratification for far too long in their lives.

Instead, he encourages you to map out your life decade by decade and make sure that you maximize your experiences in each stage, while you are still young enough to enjoy each phase. For example, do your time in the skate park and the black diamond ski slopes in your 20s and 30s, rather than saving every dollar in the hopes that you can do more snowboarding after you retire in your 60s.

Obviously, as Mr. Money Mustache I disagree on a few of the finer points: Life is not an experiences contest, you can get just as much joy from simpler local experiences as from exotic ones in foreign lands, and spending more money on yourself does not create more happiness, so if you die with millions in the bank you have not necessarily left anything on the table. But it does take skill to put these truths into practice, and for an untrained consumer with no imagination, buying experiences can still be an upgrade over sitting at home watching TV.

However, he does make one great point: one thing you can spend money on is helping other people – whether they are your own children, family, friends, or people with much more serious needs like famine and preventable disease.

And if you are going to give away this money, it’s better to do it now, while you are alive, rather than just leaving it behind in your estate, when your beneficiaries may be too old to benefit from your gift anyway.

So with this in mind, I made a point of making another round of donations to effective causes this year – a further $100,000 which was made possible by some unexpected successes with this blog this year, combined with finding that my own lifestyle continues to cost less than $20k to sustain, even in “luxury bachelor” mode.

And here’s where it all went!

$80,000 to GiveWell, who will automatically deliver it to their top recommended charities. This is always my top donation, because it is the most serious and research-backed choice. This means you are very likely doing the most good with each dollar, if your goal is the wellbeing of fellow human beings. GiveWell does constant research on effective charities and keeps an updated list on their results – which makes it a great shortcut for me. Further info in my The Life You Can Save post.

Strategic Note: I made this donation from my Betterment account where I keep a pretty big portion of my investments. This is because of tax advantages which multiply my giving/saving power – details here at Betterment and in my own article about the first time I used this trick.

$5000 to the Choose FI Foundation – this was an unexpected donation for me, based on my respect for the major work the ChooseFI gang are doing with their blog and podcast and meetups, and their hard-charging ally Edmund Tee who I met on a recent trip. They are creating a curriculum and teaching kids and young adults how to manage their money with valuable but free courses.

$2000 to the True Potential Scholarship Fund, set up by my inspiring and badass Omaha lawyer friend Ross Pesek. Ross first inspired me years ago by going through law school using an extremely frugal combination of community and state colleges, then rising to the top of the pack and starting his own firm anyway. Then he immediately turned around and started using some of the profits to help often-exploited immigrant workers in his own community with both legal needs and education.

$1000 to plant one thousand trees, via the #teamtrees effort via the National Arbor Day Foundation. I credit some prominent YouTubers and Elon Musk for promoting this effort – so far it has resulted in over 20 million trees being funded, which is a lot (roughly equal to creating a dense forest as big as New York City)

$5000 to Bicycle Colorado – a force for change (and sometimes leading the entire United States) in encouraging Colorado leaders and lawmakers to shift our spending and our laws just slightly away from “all cars all the time” and towards the vastly more effective direction of accommodating bikes and feet as transportation options. Partly because of their work, I have seen incredible changes in Denver, which is rapidly becoming a bike utopia. Boulder is not far behind, and while Longmont is still partially stuck in the 1980s as we widen car roads and build even more empty parking lots, these changes slowly trickle down from leaders to followers, so I want to fund the leaders.

$5000 (tripled to $15,000 due to a matching program that runs until Dec. 31) to Planned Parenthood. Although US-centric, this is an incredibly useful medical resource for our people in the greatest need. Due to emotional manipulation by politicians who use religion as a wedge to divide public opinion, this general healthcare organization is under constant attack because they also support women’s reproductive rights. But if you have a loved one or family member who has ever been helped during a difficult time by Planned Parenthood, you know exactly why they are such an incredible force for good – affecting millions of lives for the better.

And finally, just for reasons of personal and local appreciation, $1000 to the orchestra program of little MM’s public middle school. I have been amazed at the transformation in my own son and the hundreds of other kids who have benefited from this program. They operate a world-class program on a shoestring (violin-string?) budget which they try to boost by painstakingly fundraising with poinsettia plants and chocolate bars. So I could see that even a little boost like this could make a difference. (He plays the upright bass.)

You could definitely argue that there are places that need money more than a successful school in a wealthy and peaceful area like Colorado, and I would agree with you. Because of this, I always encourage people not to do the bulk of their giving to local organizations. Sure, it may feel more gratifying and you may see the results personally, but you can make a much bigger difference by sending your dollars to where they are needed the most. So as a compromise, I try to split things up and send the lion’s share of my donations to GiveWell where they will make the biggest difference, and do a few smaller local things here as a reward mostly for myself.

So those are the donations that are complete – $99,000 of my own cash plus an additional $10,000 in matching funds for Planned Parenthood. But because environment and energy are such big things to me, I wanted to do one more fun thing:

$5000 to build or expand a local solar farm.

This one is more of an investment than a donation, but it still does a lot of good. Because if you recall, last year I built a solar array for the MMM Headquarters coworking space, which has been pumping out free energy ever since. My initial setup only cost me $3800 and it has already delivered about $1000 in free energy, more than the total amount used to run the HQ and charge a bunch of electric cars on the side.

So, I plan to invest another $5000, to expand the array at HQ if possible, or to build a similar one on the roof of my own house, possibly with the help of Tesla Energy, which is surprisingly one of the most cost-effective ways to get solar panels installed these days. These will generate decades of clean energy, displacing fossil fuels in my local area while paying me dividends the whole time, which I can reinvest into even more philanthropy in the future.

What a great way to begin the decade. Let’s get on it!

—

* Die With Zero is not yet released, but I read a pre-release copy that his publisher sent me. The real book comes out on May 5th

** Also, if you find the scientific pursuit of helping the world as fascinating as I do, you should definitely watch the new Bill Gates documentary called Inside Bill’s Brain, which is available on Netflix.

from Money 101 https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2019/12/28/let-the-roaring-2020s-begin/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[andrewdburton]

Let the Roaring 2020s Begin

—

First some great news: because of your support in reading and sharing this blog, it has been able to earn quite a lot of income and give away over $300,000 so far. The latest $100k of that happens at the end of this article. Please check it out if you want to feel good, learn more, and even join me in helping out the world a bit.

—

As I type this, there are only a few days left in the 2010s, and holy shit what a decade it has been.

Ten years ago, a 35 year old MMM and the former Mrs. MM were four years into retirement, but not feeling very retired yet. We stumbled out of 2009 with a precious but very high strung three-year-old, a house building business that was way more stressful than it should have been, and a much more rudimentary set of life skills. It was a time of great promise, but a lot of this promise was yet to be claimed.

Ten years later, despite the fact that I have one less marriage, one less surviving parent, and ten years less remaining youth, I am in an even better place in life right now, and would never want to trade places with the 2009 version of me. And on that measure alone, I can tell it has been a successful decade.

This is a great sign and it bodes well for early retirees everywhere. Compared to the start of the decade, I am healthier and stronger physically, wealthier financially, and (hopefully) at least a bit wiser emotionally. I’ve been through so much, learned so much in so many new interesting fields, and packed so much living into these 3653 days. A big part of that just flowed from the act of retiring from my career in 2005, which freed me up to do so many other things, including starting this blog.

It has not always been easy, in fact the hard times of this decade have been some of the hardest of my life. But by coming through it all I have learned that super difficult experiences only serve to enrich your life even more, by widening your range of feelings and allowing you to savor the normal moments and the great ones even more.

Ten Years of Learning in Three Points

I think the real meaning of “Wisdom” is just “I’ve seen a lot of shit go down in my lifetime and over time you start to notice everything just boils down to a few principles.”

The books all say it, and the wise older people in real life all say it too. And for me, it’s probably the following few things that stand out the most:

1) This Too Shall Pass: nothing is as big a deal as you think it is at the time. Angry or sad emotions from life traumas will fade remarkably quickly, but so will the positive surprises from one-time life upgrades through the sometimes-bummer magic of Hedonic Adaptation. What’s left is just you – no matter where you go, there you are.

2) But You Are Really Just a Bundle of Habits: most of your day (and therefore your life) is comprised of repeating the same set of behaviors over and over. The way you get up, the things you focus your mind on. Your job. The way you interact with other people. The way you eat and exercise. Unless you give all of this a lot of mindful attention and work to tweak it, it stays the same, which means your life barely changes, which means your level of happiness barely changes.

3) Change Your Habits, Change your Life: Because of all this, the easiest and best way to have a happier and more satisfying life is to figure out what ingredients go into a good day, and start adding those things while subtracting the things that create bad days. For me (and quite possibly you, whether you realize it or not), the good things include positive social interactions, helping people, outdoor physical activity, creative expression and problem solving, and just good old-fashioned hard work. The bad things mostly revolve around stress due to over-scheduling one’s life, emotional negativity and interpersonal conflict – all things I am especially sensitive to.

So while I can’t control everything, I have found that the more I work to design those happiness creators into my life and step away from things that consistently cause bad days, the happier and richer life can become.

Speaking of Richer:

I recently read two very different books, which still ended up pointing me in the same direction:

This Could Be Our Future, by former Kickstarter cofounder and CEO Yancey Strickler, is a concise manifesto that makes a great case for running our lives, businesses, and even giant corporations, according to a much more generous and person-centric set of rules.

Instead of the narrow minded perspective of “Profit Maximization” that drives so many of the world’s shittier companies and gives capitalism a bad reputation, he points out that even small changes in the attitude of company (and world) leaders, can lead to huge changes in the way our economy runs.

The end result is more total wealth and happier lives for all of us – like Mustachianism itself, it really is a win/win proposition rather than any form of compromise or tradeoff. In fact, Strickler specifically mentions you and me in this book, using the FIRE movement as an example of a group of people who have adopted different values in order to lead better lives.

Die with Zero*, by former hedge fund manager and thrill seeking poker champion Bill Perkins sounds like a completely different book on the surface: Perkins’ point is that many people work too long and defer too much gratification for far too long in their lives.

Instead, he encourages you to map out your life decade by decade and make sure that you maximize your experiences in each stage, while you are still young enough to enjoy each phase. For example, do your time in the skate park and the black diamond ski slopes in your 20s and 30s, rather than saving every dollar in the hopes that you can do more snowboarding after you retire in your 60s.

Obviously, as Mr. Money Mustache I disagree on a few of the finer points: Life is not an experiences contest, you can get just as much joy from simpler local experiences as from exotic ones in foreign lands, and spending more money on yourself does not create more happiness, so if you die with millions in the bank you have not necessarily left anything on the table. But it does take skill to put these truths into practice, and for an untrained consumer with no imagination, buying experiences can still be an upgrade over sitting at home watching TV.

However, he does make one great point: one thing you can spend money on is helping other people – whether they are your own children, family, friends, or people with much more serious needs like famine and preventable disease.

And if you are going to give away this money, it’s better to do it now, while you are alive, rather than just leaving it behind in your estate, when your beneficiaries may be too old to benefit from your gift anyway.

So with this in mind, I made a point of making another round of donations to effective causes this year – a further $100,000 which was made possible by some unexpected successes with this blog this year, combined with finding that my own lifestyle continues to cost less than $20k to sustain, even in “luxury bachelor” mode.

And here’s where it all went!

$80,000 to GiveWell, who will automatically deliver it to their top recommended charities. This is always my top donation, because it is the most serious and research-backed choice. This means you are very likely doing the most good with each dollar, if your goal is the wellbeing of fellow human beings. GiveWell does constant research on effective charities and keeps an updated list on their results – which makes it a great shortcut for me. Further info in my The Life You Can Save post.

Strategic Note: I made this donation from my Betterment account where I keep a pretty big portion of my investments. This is because of tax advantages which multiply my giving/saving power – details here at Betterment and in my own article about the first time I used this trick.

$5000 to the Choose FI Foundation – this was an unexpected donation for me, based on my respect for the major work the ChooseFI gang are doing with their blog and podcast and meetups, and their hard-charging ally Edmund Tee who I met on a recent trip. They are creating a curriculum and teaching kids and young adults how to manage their money with valuable but free courses.

$2000 to the True Potential Scholarship Fund, set up by my inspiring and badass Omaha lawyer friend Ross Pesek. Ross first inspired me years ago by going through law school using an extremely frugal combination of community and state colleges, then rising to the top of the pack and starting his own firm anyway. Then he immediately turned around and started using some of the profits to help often-exploited immigrant workers in his own community with both legal needs and education.

$1000 to plant one thousand trees, via the #teamtrees effort via the National Arbor Day Foundation. I credit some prominent YouTubers and Elon Musk for promoting this effort – so far it has resulted in over 20 million trees being funded, which is a lot (roughly equal to creating a dense forest as big as New York City)

$5000 to Bicycle Colorado – a force for change (and sometimes leading the entire United States) in encouraging Colorado leaders and lawmakers to shift our spending and our laws just slightly away from “all cars all the time” and towards the vastly more effective direction of accommodating bikes and feet as transportation options. Partly because of their work, I have seen incredible changes in Denver, which is rapidly becoming a bike utopia. Boulder is not far behind, and while Longmont is still partially stuck in the 1980s as we widen car roads and build even more empty parking lots, these changes slowly trickle down from leaders to followers, so I want to fund the leaders.

$5000 (tripled to $15,000 due to a matching program that runs until Dec. 31) to Planned Parenthood. Although US-centric, this is an incredibly useful medical resource for our people in the greatest need. Due to emotional manipulation by politicians who use religion as a wedge to divide public opinion, this general healthcare organization is under constant attack because they also support women’s reproductive rights. But if you have a loved one or family member who has ever been helped during a difficult time by Planned Parenthood, you know exactly why they are such an incredible force for good – affecting millions of lives for the better.

And finally, just for reasons of personal and local appreciation, $1000 to the orchestra program of little MM’s public middle school. I have been amazed at the transformation in my own son and the hundreds of other kids who have benefited from this program. They operate a world-class program on a shoestring (violin-string?) budget which they try to boost by painstakingly fundraising with poinsettia plants and chocolate bars. So I could see that even a little boost like this could make a difference. (He plays the upright bass.)

You could definitely argue that there are places that need money more than a successful school in a wealthy and peaceful area like Colorado, and I would agree with you. Because of this, I always encourage people not to do the bulk of their giving to local organizations. Sure, it may feel more gratifying and you may see the results personally, but you can make a much bigger difference by sending your dollars to where they are needed the most. So as a compromise, I try to split things up and send the lion’s share of my donations to GiveWell where they will make the biggest difference, and do a few smaller local things here as a reward mostly for myself.

So those are the donations that are complete – $99,000 of my own cash plus an additional $10,000 in matching funds for Planned Parenthood. But because environment and energy are such big things to me, I wanted to do one more fun thing:

$5000 to build or expand a local solar farm.

This one is more of an investment than a donation, but it still does a lot of good. Because if you recall, last year I built a solar array for the MMM Headquarters coworking space, which has been pumping out free energy ever since. My initial setup only cost me $3800 and it has already delivered about $1000 in free energy, more than the total amount used to run the HQ and charge a bunch of electric cars on the side.

So, I plan to invest another $5000, to expand the array at HQ if possible, or to build a similar one on the roof of my own house, possibly with the help of Tesla Energy, which is surprisingly one of the most cost-effective ways to get solar panels installed these days. These will generate decades of clean energy, displacing fossil fuels in my local area while paying me dividends the whole time, which I can reinvest into even more philanthropy in the future.

What a great way to begin the decade. Let’s get on it!

—

* Die With Zero is not yet released, but I read a pre-release copy that his publisher sent me. The real book comes out on May 5th

** Also, if you find the scientific pursuit of helping the world as fascinating as I do, you should definitely watch the new Bill Gates documentary called Inside Bill’s Brain, which is available on Netflix.

from Finance https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2019/12/28/let-the-roaring-2020s-begin/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[anneedmonsonus]

My Husband’s Big Deck: Our Backyard Renovation

Blame my shrunken, shriveled brain, but somehow I have totally neglected to share a big part of our home renovation here on the blog – our new patio and deck, which is about thirty times nicer than what we had there before (pics a little later in this post).

I’ve shared our outdoor entertaining area makeover so much on my social media, but somehow I have totally forgotten to share it on the blog. Blame my shrunken, shriveled brain, because the deck is one of my favourite things we’ve done here, renovation-wise. It has added so much functionality to our house and improved how we live and entertain. Sometimes I wish we had done it years ago – but then maybe we wouldn’t have appreciated it as much? We have always liked to have family and friends over and to entertain, but having the deck just makes it much easier and more pleasant. It feels like we’ve added another room onto the house – and a very appreciated room at that, now that we’ve gone from just two people living here with a dog to a family of five. (Yes, I count the dog, the neediest dog in the world, who sleeps on our bed every night with her head on the pillow, tucked in as she demands (and deserves. We are merely her disciples).

I love myself a little walk through renovation memory lane, so this is what our outdoor area looked like when we bought the house, nine years ago:

It was depressing, dark sunroom with disgusting fibreglass roof. Bleh. I distinctly remember being at the home open, and a woman walking into the sunroom and grimacing. It was gross. Meanwhile I was all heart-eyes like, “Oh wow! ANOTHER room!” Genuinely joyous. It’s funny because when I was house-hunting I had been looking at all these much, much smaller apartments and villas (in more desirable, but more expensive suburbs, such as Leederville and Applecross) and this was the first proper ‘house’ I visited. It was also unfurnished, and even though it’s by no means a big house, and I know it’s not the ‘done thing’ these days to sell a home unfurnished, to me it felt like it added to its feeling of spaciousness. It felt big and full of potential. So despite its uglier features, like the sunroom, I was genuinely smitten by this seemingly huge house and its bigger block and all the beautiful trees.

Not long after we moved in, Mr Nerd and I gave the sunroom a really budget makeover with white paint and new roof panels. I blogged about that little reno here. It brightened it up a lot and made it much nicer to sit under, and also doing the mission brown windows white and replacing the roofing panels made the INSIDE of our house seem much brighter – and we had it that way for years. So even though it was a pain to paint, it was worth doing!

I dug out the old 70s bricks and we did poured limestone which was a great idea until it went mucky and looked like this:

The sunroom was not the biggest room and with four doors/entrances, it always felt sort of limited in regards to how you could place furniture. It wasn’t really an ideal space to put a table and chairs, for example.

I started to become obsessed with the idea of enjoying a meal, at a table, outside (probably right around the time Little Nerd started solids, strangely enough). And after a while Mr Nerd became obsessed with the idea of knocking out the sunroom completely and building a deck there instead, with a new patio roof. At first I wasn’t keen on the idea of decking at all, although I have always loved it. I knew that decking generally tends to be much more expensive to do than paving. So why not do paving? I also figured we could probably lay pavers ourselves, too, and save some money.

But Mr Nerd wanted a deck and he fought me on it and eventually I agreed – but I wanted it done professionally. (I know, I’m fickle. I’d be happy to lay pavers ourselves but if we want a deck I want to pay the right people to do it properly). I think it was partly because I knew if we did it ourselves, with a toddler and a baby in tow, it would be the kind of project that would take a looong time and our yard would become even more of a mess. Don’t get me wrong, I know kids don’t care – ours genuinely LOVE playing in renovation rubble and hiding Paw Patrols amidst tools and lumber. This isn’t about the kids, it’s about me! I sound like a brat, but I could just picture me, Little Nerd, a soon-to-be-crawling baby and everyone else tripping over tools and half-finished decking for months and feral just-had-a-baby me couldn’t stand the thought of it. Plus, this deck Mr Nerd had in mind just kept getting bigger and bigger. He thought it would be a good idea to extend it all the way past the house. In the end I even wondered if the deck was going to be too big. (That wasn’t meant to sound dirty but it sort of did, I’m sorry).

We hired TJP Carpentry to do our deck. Mr Nerd was keen to give it a crack but I went sort of feral and insisted that we get it done professionally and I’m so glad we did. It was done much faster (and much better!) than we could have ever done it ourselves. As a bonus, it was all done in time for Christmas and we had a beautiful Christmas Day here. I can’t recommend Tim and his team enough (it was actually a wonderful House Nerd reader who recommended HIM to me in the first place, for which I will always be thankful!)

The patio was by Great Aussie Patios, who also did our new carport. We got four quotes and they weren’t the cheapest but they were the only ones (of that lot) who were happy to do a skillion roof (a flat, angled roof) as opposed to a more traditional gabled patio design. I think we could have gone either style and it would have been fine, but with the new Scyon Walls cladding the house looks a bit more modern and the skillion roof seemed to be a better fit.

Once we knocked the old sunroom out, the difference in the light in the house was huge – it felt so much brighter. I actually became quite hesitant about doing another patio to replace it – an even bigger patio this time – and running the risk of the inside house becoming quite dark (both our living spaces, study and kitchen wrap in an L-shape around the deck).

But see those white panels above the gutters and between the ceiling of the new patio? They make a MASSIVE difference. Those panels are made of Sunpal Sunlite sheets, a polycarbonate product that uses Solarsmart technology to give 99.9% UV protection while letting in a truckload of natural light. They’re pretty amazing! They’re opaque so they can be used as privacy screens as well, and they let us boost up the ceiling height of the patio while also covering the less-than-attractive roof.

The ceiling of our patio is SolarSpan Insulated Roof Sheeting. Even when it’s really hot, it never feels too uncomfortable to sit outside on the deck, it does stay a nice temperature.

In between the patio going up and the deck, I took your advice. Upon urging from many house nerd readers, I cut back the trumpet vine that had been engulfing the big dragon tree in our garden from the day we moved in here. I cut it back by hand, with like a snippy thing, because my darling hubby won’t let me near his chainsaw, and dragged it all out to green waste collection. It took more than two days to cut it all back as much as possible, and I had blisters on my blisters and biceps on my biceps by the end of it, but it was the most satisfying garden project ever. It’s impossible to actually remove the trumpet vine completely, it must stay, and for those who asked why I didn’t cut it back completely, it’s because our block slopes from one side to the other and with the hedge completely gone there would have been no privacy between our garden and our poor neighbours. No walking around naked.

Oddly, when I was cutting back the trumpet vine, I actually uncovered the long-petrified remains of two other (much smaller, long-dead) dragon trees. I figured whoever planted the first one must have done three at once, probably not realising how big they can get, or either planting three for luck and hoping one would take – which it sure did.

Now – something I obsess over. Wood! I obsessed over wood when we did our kitchen benchtops. I obsessed over wood when it was time to do the deck, which we chose Pacific teak for. I like jarrah, which seems to be the most commonly done in Perth, but we wanted something lighter in colour, simply because our internal vinyl plank floors are a light oak colour and we wanted the deck to be lighter as well.

I did think about composite decking, like Trex, but they’re expensive. And even though composite decking products have come a long way and have so many advantages, to me there is still nothing that beats the look of real timber. Despite my research, I’d never even heard of Pacific teak until Tim texted me a pic. “Do that,” I said. It was exactly what I wanted and had been hoping to get. Here in Perth it’s usually slightly more expensive than jarrah, but less expensive than Tasmanian oak and blackbutt.

It actually does look so, so beautiful in its unfinished, un-oiled state too – look at it! Look at those soft, Scandinavian-inspired whitewash-ey looking tones.

But because of our block orientation, the deck unfortunately cops a beating from the full brunt of the late afternoon summer sun) we definitely needed the protection of an oil, and so oiled it was. But then it brought out these delicious honey tones. So, I’m happy.

We’ve still got bits of our backyard to go until I will finally feel like, “We’re done!” I still want to paint the old pavers – and that bit of old poured limestone beneath where the deck is – we want to pull that up and extend the lawn. And see what we call ‘the sandpit’, which is basically a spot where we used to have our old limestone and stone slab ‘coffee table’ – that sandpit will go (don’t feel too sorry for them, the kids have a new, upgraded sandpit now and it’s a truly awesome one… but that’s a blog post for a different day).

In the meantime here are the trades and suppliers we used – if you have any questions – let me know. Maya x

ALFRESCO ENTERTAINING AREA MAKEOVER – TRADES AND SUPPLIERS

DECKING TJP Carpentry

DECK OIL Feast Watson

CLADDING Scyon Walls (Stria)

PATIO Great Aussie Patios

GUTTERS AND DOWNPIPES Westcoat Perths Roof and Gutter Restoration Specialists

PAINT AND COLORBOND COLOURS Monument (dark charcoal) and Dulux Natural White

The post My Husband’s Big Deck: Our Backyard Renovation appeared first on House Nerd.

from Home Improvement https://house-nerd.com/2019/11/15/my-husbands-big-deck-our-backyard-renovation/

[myqualitycollectioncrown]

Chris Reeve Inkosi Review

“Everything old is new again” a wise person once said. So it goes with Chris Reeve Knives (CRK) that a true pioneer in a field now cluttered with new and fancy products responds quietly but with the confidence of a chief in his own right. Chris Reeve’s Large Inkosi folder is the definitive evolution to a classic and beloved knife style that speaks for itself with true performance and subtlety that only Chris Reeve can muster to pull-off.

Get the Inkosi at Amazon

Trap in boys and girls, this is a long read, but a great product deserves a full-featured review. So for those who want the abridged version: The Large Inkosi is more than just a name change. It is wonderful and lives up to its predecessor, the Sebenza, but with a few added tricks up its sleeve.

Chris Reeve Inkosi

Blade

Handle

Design

Value for money

King

The Inkosi had big shoes to fill and it fills them admirably. The competition is tougher but CRK continues to exude quality.

Key Specs

Blade length: 3.6″ (2.8″ small)

Overall length: 8.4″ (6.5″ small)

Closed length: 4.8″ (3.8″ small)

Weight: 5.0 oz (3.0 oz small)

Blade material: CPM-S35VN

Handle material: 6Al4V Titanium

Locking mechanism: Frame lock

Deployment mechanism: Thumb Stud

Country Of Origin: USA

Price Range: About $445 ($375 small)

Background

Chris Reeve launched the large Inkosi, which means “Chief” in Zulu back in June, 2016. The Large Inkosi is effectively the successor of the Sebenza 25 model, and joins it’s stablemate, the Small Inkosi which has been available for a couple of years now in the model line-up. The Sebenza 25 is now discontinued.

Confusion may be the inevitable side-effect for anyone looking at pictures of a large Sebenza 25 and the large Inkosi. They are remarkably similar in appearance, as they should be. This was less confusing when the initial small Inkosi was brought to market, as a small Sebenza 25 was never a CRK offering, and thus the small Inkosi was able to stand as its own product within its own unique product line. However, the large Inkosi is for lack of better terms the upgraded version of the Large Sebenza 25, which was in it of itself a progression from the 21 model line-up.

Confused yet? … Let’s make it simple. The Chris Reeve Inkosi is the successor of the large Sebenza. They look extremely similar, which is a good thing, but the large Inkosi boasts the following upgrades and enhancements:

A more robust stop pin

Additional stability to the locking mechanism

Twin oversized phosphor bronze perforated bushings

Pocket clip positioned to sit further away from the lock bar

8% thicker S35VN blade (compared to small Sebenza 21)

New large hollow grind technology (not previously applied to pocket knives)

Ceramic ball lock bar interface

Standard double thumb lugs

Let’s face it, the Inkosi is certainly more ‘iteration’ than it is ‘innovation’, but it was never intended to be something completely new. There is something admirable about taking something great and making it even greater.

First Impressions

In true CRK fashion the Large Inkosi came beautifully packaged. The pristine white box contained some delicately printed paperwork (knife information, registration card, guarantee card and even a nice CR sticker), a tube of fluorinated grease and loctite, three ‘hex key’ wrenches and the knife itself wrapped in the traditional blue cloth. Full marks for presentation.

On removing the knife, for a moment we thought that a Sebenza 25 had been mistakenly shipped in place of the large Inkosi. Granted, we knew that it was going to look very similar, but not practically maternal twins of each other. But we took pause, and remembered that Chris Reeve does things with subtlety, and a high level of detail.

We studied the knife as we had never done with any other knife previously, noting the similarities and then starting to hone in on the differences. Like any other Chris Reeve knife, the product was flawless with regard to production and execution of every component whose sum of parts equaled the entirety of the knife. Like the 25, the large Inkosi is a robust titanium handled frame lock knife with beautiful drop point modified hollow grind and rounded spine.

Blasted titanium on the handles gives it a modern and industrial look, while also allowing for some tactile traction. The jimping was fantastic. Unlike Sebenzas of yesteryear, the large Inkosi understands the needs of the user, and provides a very usable and reliable jimping pattern. We will talk more on that in a bit, as it was a winner in all cutting tasks both will and without gloves.

We don’t care who you are, owning a Chris Reeve knife whether you like them or not is a special thing. It is hard to look at one and hold it without being captured by that special feeling. As an overall first impression, it was ultimately like most other Sebenza’s we have opened (but for the fact that it is an “Inkosi”), it is underwhelming and yet equally awesome – Simple and beautiful.

Feel In-Hand

Usability is the name of the game when discussing the large Inkosi. In fact, the mere creation of the product is a representation of the fact that Chris Reeve refuses to rest on his laurels, as he continues to evolve the iconic design into the most usable and perfect EDC companion. Everything felt perfect on the Sebenza, whoops I meant to say large Inkosi. That I guess is the point, if you like the Sebenza and you are looking for about a 10 percent increase in everything, the Inkosi is the knife that brings that to the table.

The thumb studded double-lugs have never really been our favorite. We can still hear people discussing “Sebenza thumb” after a week of first owning a CRK Sebenza of any type. The Inkosi is no different. The slightly conical shape of the thumb studs take a few days for the uninitiated to get a feel for in most cases. But once you get that feel, it is almost like breathing.

We noted the larger stop pin, and that the tension on the classic style CRK spring pocket clip was looser than we recall on our Sebenza 25. It was a notable change that the orientation of the clip was different, which was obviously extremely similar to that of the Small Inkosi. As for pocket clip usability, we give it a solid “A” rating. It seemed to slide into the pocket a bit better as we first shoved it in and out of our jean pocket, but also was a bit lax on the grip in the pocket.

What can we say; the Sebenza and Inkosi no longer stand out as they used to now that we have so many flashy and well-built competitive offerings. But the subtle style and utilitarian beauty still shines bright. Just holding it in our hands gave us confidence. It feels more like an exquisite tool than so many of these quasi-tactical-art knives we have been seeing. It feels robust, overbuilt, and yet at just under 5 oz. offers a much more palatable size to weight ratio when compared too many other overbuilt type titanium frame lock folders out there.

When we deployed the knife for the first several times it was a little stiff – Still extremely smooth, but a bit tight. The lockup was about 75-80% which is generally where CRK likes to have it for both stability and safety reasons. With the big ceramic ball used for lockup, we feel very confident that it will stay right where it is. We should also mention that the bronze washers were visibly apparent in both the open and closed positions. It does not get in the way, and it is not overly obvious, but they are visible as they protrude slightly on each side of the inner tang of the knife. We actually though it was pretty cool… and we would wager that Chris Reeve did too.

Some people have stated that they prefer the straight handle style of the Sebenza 21 over the Sebenza 25, and as the large Inkosi is a souped-up 25, it has the same finger indentations on the handle scales. We also tend to prefer the straight style of the Sebenza 21 over the ergonomic styling of the Inkosi, but also appreciate the comfort it provides in standard grip positions. Those who perform unique cutting tasks, and who tend to use reverse grip hand positions may want to feel the Inkosi in hand before picking one up.

As for the lefties of the world, good news is that Chris Reeve tends to be much more lefty friendly when compared to most. He often offers lefty model variants of his models, though they can be a tough commodity to find at a reseller. Luckily, for those not in any hurry, Chris and his team also take direct orders if you can stomach the wait times. Even still, the standard version is rather lefty compliant, as it offers duel thumb studs for easy opening even for south-paws.

Real World Testing

Since we use a Sebenza 25 as one of our standard EDC knives commonly in our rotation, we were really excited to see if the large Inkosi brought a bit more to the table as an EDC. We carried the Inkosi for about 1 full week as our primary large folding EDC. We conducted rather standard tasks with the knife. We used it when a knife was needed, like any other EDC and did not baby the knife. We should note by the way that the Inkosi was extremely well sharpened out of the box. We can’t speak for all Inkosi products that may appear on the door step, but this was certainly one of the absolute sharpest knives we have every received from a production company. Out of box it was sharper than our Sebenza 25.

The Inkosi performed extremely well for an EDC, putting up with our holiday decorating needs, and constant box cutting. We even used it for cutting wrapping paper with excellent results. As for the pocket clip, it was a breeze to get in and out of the pocket. Surprisingly it held in the pocket really well also. After taking a cat-nap on the sofa we hurriedly checked our pocket in fear that the knife had fallen out. But it was exactly where it was supposed to be, sitting nicely and relatively snug in a tip-up position inside right side pocket.

As for gratuitous testing, yeah we did that… well, a little. We had to take the opportunity to compare the Sebenza 25 with the large Inkosi. So we devised some relatively simple tasks for them. We cut some 550 paracord with each knife. Actually, we cut lots of it – About 12 feet for each knife worth of cutting to be exact. Our Sebenza 25 had a nice sharpening on our Edge Pro Apex Pro, while initially the Inkosi sported the factory bevel finish. The results might just surprise you. Keep in mind the steel on these knives are both the excellent CPM-S35VN steel, the same stuff Chris Reeve helped Crucible develop. Though it may not be considered the super steel it once was dubbed several years ago, it is some fine stuff and offers a wonderful balance of performance and maintainability. Read more about it on our knife steels page. Anyway, to the results we go.

Both knives performed very well up until about 8 feet of cutting, as they both managed to pop the paracord neatly and clean. But at about 8 feet they both started to struggle a tad with getting those tight cuts with a clean result. More downforce and back and forth motion was needed for each knife. However, an interesting observation was made at about 10 feet of rope cutting for the Inkosi, and it related to ease of cutting in hand. You see, it is not just about performance for the tool, but also the user of that tool. Having first gone ahead and cut with the Sebenza 25, the Inkosi was at 10 feet that we realized it was really not as hard to cut with it as the 25 was at the same point.

The pocket clip portion actually felt better in our hand. Perhaps others would have noticed this sooner, but we had gloves on, and it took about that long until it was apparent. Both knives finished with about the same cutting performance, and about the same wear on the blade, however we were less tired and worn after cutting with the Inkosi (even though it was the second knife to go in this test). It is not an exact science, and test results of this type can’t really be quantified, but I know that I would prefer to use the Inkosi for long cutting tasks if I had a choice between the two. It was subtle, but it was still apparent to us.

As for all other tests, we can tell you that we did use it in the kitchen, and it was a pretty good wannabe-chef’s companion. The large Inkosi managed to assist us when cutting veggies for our pasta primavera dinner, and assist in peeling about 10 small apples for a pie we were making. Don’t expect it to perform like a well weighted chef’s knife, but it will get the job done.

We cleaned off the knife, and gave it another sharpening. The great thing about the Sebenza and now the large Inkosi is they cleanup well. Looked like almost new again. At about 445 dollars new, the large Inkosi is far from a cheap knife. It is good to know you can give it a workout and it can still look and feel like new. As for blade play, lockup, and knife blade centering after a week of serious use, it was still as perfect as the day we received it.

The Competition

The Sebenza 21 and 25 have stood on hallowed ground when it came to knives. They have long been the benchmark for other knives to be tested against, and judged. But what can we make of this; A Sebenza 25 judged against a the upgraded 25, also known now as the large Inkosi is some twist on the benchmark. Which is the benchmark knife… is it the 21, 25, or the Large Inkosi? For those shopping for a Sebenza, we would imagine that this would be a real question for you. Perhaps our competitive offerings will help answer this question as well as reveal a few other brand options worthy of consideration.

Chris Reeve Sebenza 21 (Large) – For those into CRK knives of a more vintage variety, the Sebenza 21 provides similar aspects of the large Inkosi, but with a straight handle scale, and slightly less money at ~410 bucks if you opt for only a single thumb lug. However, the 445 dollar Inkosi brings new advancements that are not seen on the 21, and that may be enough to consider the large Inkosi first. Either way you win, they are both awesome CRK knives.

Chris Reeve Sebenza 25 (Large) – Though the 25 is the maternal twin of the Inkosi 25, the 25 has indeed been discontinued. The change of the guard is almost complete, but for any remaining stock from resellers looking to unload them. If you can find a good deal on a 25, perhaps it would be a good idea to pick one up. However it is more likely that they will still be selling for ~445 dollars, the same price as the Large Inkosi. With the minor changes and incremental advancements, we would suggest just going for the large Inkosi at this point. At some point we just need to get over the fact that the “Sebenza 25” is now “Inkosi”. After all, a knife by any other name would still … yeah, you get the point.

Hinderer XM-18 3.5 – Almost everyone who has had an interest in a Sebenza, and now Inkosi have cross-shopped the XM-18 line-up. If you are more into a flipper opening, and want a slightly smaller blade with a finger choil, the XM-18 may be right for you. Both great knives, the large Inkosi offers a bit of name credibility that the Hinderer tends to not provide unless geeking out with real knife-nuts, military or law enforcement. On the other hand, if you are in law enforcement, and are looking for a strong side secondary carry, the XM-18 is worthy of a serious look. They also offer discounts to servicemen and law-enforcement as an added bonus. For everyone else, the XM-18 tends to be around 465 dollars as authorized resellers, when they are in stock. Word of Caution: Like CRK products, Hinderer knives, especially the XM-18 are often cloned by disreputable folk. Avoid this by buying smart, and purchasing from an authorized reseller like BladeHQ.

Reate Epoch – For those out there that have not been taken in by the allure and charm of the Sebenzas and Inkosis of the world, some newer companies out there are also vying for your hard earned coin. The Reate Epoch is a 3.7 inch titanium frame lock flipper that offers a Mokuti inlay on the show side. Standard with CTS-204P steel, this is a knife to consider for both collectability and serious use. A standard price of about 425 smackers is the price of admission; however resellers have been recently offering them for around 370 bucks as of late. It is not a great savings, but is a bit less than the large Inkosi. However, if you fancy the ‘made in America’ thing, and want the pedigree of a CRK, the Inkosi makes more sense. To others, the Epoch is a nice product to compare with the large Inkosi.

Zero Tolerance 0562CF – The ZT 0562CF is the bargain pick of the competitive offerings provided here. At about 240 dollars street price, the 3.5 inch drop point CTS-204p blade holds its own and is user approved. Also a frame lock, the flipper style deployment appeals to those who are more “quick-draw opener”, and less “deliberate sharp shooter”. A Carbon Fiber scale on the show side makes for a nice contrast to the other sides titanium scale. At about 5.45 oz. it is not a light carry, but feels somewhat compact in the closed position. For the budget conscience, this may be the great knife people want for less than 250 bucks. But even still, it is not a Chris Reeve knife… if that matters to you.

Final Thoughts

It is very hard to be objective about a Chris Reeve knife. We do not claim to be completely objective in our review as the case may be. Reviews, for better or worse are in large part opinion-based. It is in our opinion that Chris Reeve Knives, especially the Sebenza line, and now the Inkosi line-up, are still the benchmark all other knives of this type should be judged against.

Execution and overall production results continue to offer extremely high levels of repeatable quality. The law of diminishing returns suggests that at a certain point the perceived return versus the amount of money needed to increase that output becomes increasingly unbalanced. This is a fact of life. The large Inkosi is not exempt from that fact, however by our math the Chris Reeve Large Inkosi provides about an 8% increase in overall product over the Sebenza 25, however actually continues to charge the same amount. In this case, new buyers of the large Inkosi win when compared to the Sebenza 25. Better product, same cost.

Even still, regardless of dollars and cents, the Chris Reeve Large Inkosi is a wonderful knife that makes for a fantastic EDC at any price. It is amazing that Chris and team continue to strive for perfection, and keep tweaking designs and production efforts to make better product. “Everything old is new again” and using the Chris Reeve Inkosi as our EDC made us realize with a smile that we have a new Chris Reeve knife worthy of the name “Chief”. The Sebenza 25 is no more, long live the large Inkosi.

The Good: Outstanding quality and performance, iconic design, US made and built to last The Bad: Thumb studded double lugs can feel awkward at first, somewhat pricey Bottom Line: One of the finest US-made production knives you’ll ever own

Get the Inkosi at AMAZON

The post Chris Reeve Inkosi Review appeared first on Buy Best Knife.

from Buy Best Knife https://ift.tt/2JhpuEe via IFTTT

[billwells3]

Choosing the Perfect Camera with Oisin Flynn

Are you still struggling to find the perfect present? We hope you are inspired by this fabulous blog by our very own Oisin Flynn,  Move Revolution’s Creative Design Manager & Professional Photographer…

Christmas time is upon us. It’s a great excuse to stick a few little useful gadgets on my wish list to Santa. This year though, we’ve been asked to recommend a few cameras to those in need. Myself and Jack have picked out a few models that will appeal to different types of photographer. I hope you might find something that you like here.

  Before I start talking about Cameras, I want to first remind everyone of a well known quote by Chase Jarvis, in fact it’s the title of his book. “The Best Camera is the One That’s With You” Chase is referring to a couple of things here. Firstly, the common perpetual craving for newer, better equipment in the hope that it’ll vastly improve the quality of your photography. But also, here, he’s alluding to the fact that those amazing cameras are often too bulky to carry round day to day. So often these cameras aren’t even considered when going on holiday, or simply having to hand when the kids are playing in the garden.

  There’s thousands of photo opportunity that the “Best” cameras will never even see. More likely they will stay buried in their bags after the initial burst of excitement after the purchase, being used to photograph everything under the sun. These days though, we nearly all carry a half decent camera with us in our pockets. It’s not like me to praise mobile phones for their photographic capabilities. However,  given a bit of practice and an understanding of their limitations, the latest generation of phones from Google, Apple, Samsung and One+ are surprisingly great little cameras. It’s quick and easy now to whip out your phone to capture what’s in front of you, where you might not have even thought that you’d need to bring a camera with you.

  About those limitations though, this is where dedicated cameras can show their worth. Camera phones produce images which look good on the device itself, or shared on social media. We’ve become accustomed to viewing photography in this way. However, beyond that display, those photos begin to fall apart. No marketing claim or boast will change that. When it comes to printing those photos, or even viewing them on larger monitors like 4K TV’s is normally when people wish they’d used a proper camera…

  The other huge issue is battery life. We use our phones for so many things, sat navs and mapping, social media, currency conversion, research, translation on and you know, communication. The camera is a real battery killer though, especially if you use it for video. Running out of battery on holiday or even out for the day with the family can be a nightmare. So having a dedicated camera can help in this situation. Whether or not you also get better pictures depends on your budget though. It could be worth considering a power bank to keep that phone juiced up for the day!

  So, here we are. Looking at proper cameras! Jack and myself both use quite different systems at work. That’s mostly because I made the decision to switch from a traditional DSLR to a Mirrorless Compact System. The decision for this for me was mostly down to the size and weight. I use my camera a lot on holiday, and my holidays tend to be more of the adventurous type than the relaxing beach type. So, the carry weight and size of a DSLR was beginning to bug me when I knew there was an alternative.

  It’s for that reason, that my big recommendation is the Sony Alpha 7R III (£3200 body only) It’s the newer version of my own camera, and the model which has me checking my figures to see if I can warrant an upgrade. This camera improves on all of what could be considered the previous models shortcomings. It has a brand new processor which means more shots in the buffer, more shots per second and faster autofocussing. The full feature list is enormous. Too long to tackle on this blog. But if you’re looking to get into photography in a big way and have the budget, or you’re looking to change over from DSLR, or even if you’re looking at an upgrade from a Bridge type camera that you purchased a few years ago, then this model really is King of the realm at the moment. If you need lens recommendations, then I would say don’t skimp. This huge Full-Frame sensor will show up bad optics, or rather, bad optics won’t get the most out of this lens. There’s plenty of choice now from Sony (if you can afford the G master series, buy one) or The Zeiss Batis range are all great performers.

  If you’re looking for performance and speed without the need, inconvenience or cost involved with changeable lenses. Then take a long hard look at the Sony RX10 IV. It has a slightly smaller sensor, with fewer megapixels. However it has an inbuilt lens that covers a 35mm equivalent of 24-600mm lens. That’s insane. With glass by Zeiss and really quite impressive F stop figures, this lens is something else. With its 24fps still shooting and up to 1000fps 4K video shooting you’re looking at being able to slow down that action in a way that most cameras could only dream of. Again, the specifications go well beyond the scope of this blog but this machine marks one of the biggest advancements to bridge cameras that the market has ever seen. At £1800, it’s not cheap. But for some perspective. If you wanted to be able to reach this speed and resolution from a camera with interchangeable lenses to cover this range, you would be spending over £7000.

  As you can see, we’re running into the issue of having a camera that isn’t convenient to carry around all the time though. I’m a professional photographer and even I find carrying a (albeit small and relatively light) bag full of equipment a bit of a pain at times. If you’re into hiking and camping, adding another few kilos of equipment that probably requires it’s own bag is something you want to avoid. So let’s look at small one box wonders.

  If you walk into your nearest cameras shop, you’ll find a mindboggling array of compacts, and from £75 to £750 they don’t look vastly different from each other. I’ll make this simple. If you can’t stretch to this next camera budget wise, don’t despair. You probably aren’t going to be missing anything by reverting to your camera phone. A budget camera will carry the same feature set as your phone camera with very few worthwhile advantages. Even those can be over come. I’ve mentioned power banks already but a budget compact with upgraded memory can trump your mobile for storage. However a WiFi connection and a cloud storage deal will negate that and be safer. If you lose your camera, you’ll lose your photos. A phone using cloud storage will be backing itself up when you’re on a WiFi connection.

Any image quality increases will be negated by viewing on a small display. A budget compact camera won’t be able to offer you more detail or depth than your phone. So if you were thinking of spending up to £200 on a camera, my honest advice would be not to bother. A power bank, Cloud storage and insurance would cost you less than £60 and would be arguably more convenient and safe.

  If you’re still after that perfect little camera to carry when you need to keep things light, but you know you need to stretch beyond what your camera phone can do. Then you’ll hardly go wrong with this little Panasonic Lumix TZ90 at £380. At the time or writing, and I think for the Christmas period, Panasonic are offering £30 cashback too.

  If you’re wondering why I chose this over the TZ100, it’s the zoom. I’m not even a fan of zoom lenses, but I know full well that it can mean the difference between getting a shot and not. I know that the people I’m recommending this camera to, are the type to pick a safari trip over a day by the pool. Or will take their camera to the zoo to photograph the animals rather than a selfie in front of the gorilla enclosure. There’s times when you simply can’t get close enough to your subject, and the big 30X optical zoom is a technological marvel, considering it all folds down into an almost flat body. 

There’s a little trick up this cameras sleeve that I don’t think has been mentioned enough. You can press the shutter button, the camera will take multiple version of that image and stack them together. The effect is, that you can increase the perceived bokeh effect, or even… get this… choose your focal point, and refocus your image after you’ve taken it. Mind blown.

As you can see, choosing a Camera can be a minefield. If you’ve managed to stick with us then thank you! If you choose one of these models then let us know how you like it!

  If you are thinking of moving or letting your home please give us a call on 0330 223 1000 to book a viewing.  As you can see our creative team are passionate photographers – you will have the most stunning photographs take of your home!

source http://www.moverevolution.com/blog/choosing-perfect-camera-oisin-flynn/

[alexisbush-blog1]

Choosing the Perfect Camera with Oisin Flynn

Are you still struggling to find the perfect present? We hope you are inspired by this fabulous blog by our very own Oisin Flynn,  Move Revolution’s Creative Design Manager & Professional Photographer…

Christmas time is upon us. It’s a great excuse to stick a few little useful gadgets on my wish list to Santa. This year though, we’ve been asked to recommend a few cameras to those in need. Myself and Jack have picked out a few models that will appeal to different types of photographer. I hope you might find something that you like here.

  Before I start talking about Cameras, I want to first remind everyone of a well known quote by Chase Jarvis, in fact it’s the title of his book. “The Best Camera is the One That’s With You” Chase is referring to a couple of things here. Firstly, the common perpetual craving for newer, better equipment in the hope that it’ll vastly improve the quality of your photography. But also, here, he’s alluding to the fact that those amazing cameras are often too bulky to carry round day to day. So often these cameras aren’t even considered when going on holiday, or simply having to hand when the kids are playing in the garden.

  There’s thousands of photo opportunity that the “Best” cameras will never even see. More likely they will stay buried in their bags after the initial burst of excitement after the purchase, being used to photograph everything under the sun. These days though, we nearly all carry a half decent camera with us in our pockets. It’s not like me to praise mobile phones for their photographic capabilities. However,  given a bit of practice and an understanding of their limitations, the latest generation of phones from Google, Apple, Samsung and One+ are surprisingly great little cameras. It’s quick and easy now to whip out your phone to capture what’s in front of you, where you might not have even thought that you’d need to bring a camera with you.

  About those limitations though, this is where dedicated cameras can show their worth. Camera phones produce images which look good on the device itself, or shared on social media. We’ve become accustomed to viewing photography in this way. However, beyond that display, those photos begin to fall apart. No marketing claim or boast will change that. When it comes to printing those photos, or even viewing them on larger monitors like 4K TV’s is normally when people wish they’d used a proper camera…

  The other huge issue is battery life. We use our phones for so many things, sat navs and mapping, social media, currency conversion, research, translation on and you know, communication. The camera is a real battery killer though, especially if you use it for video. Running out of battery on holiday or even out for the day with the family can be a nightmare. So having a dedicated camera can help in this situation. Whether or not you also get better pictures depends on your budget though. It could be worth considering a power bank to keep that phone juiced up for the day!

  So, here we are. Looking at proper cameras! Jack and myself both use quite different systems at work. That’s mostly because I made the decision to switch from a traditional DSLR to a Mirrorless Compact System. The decision for this for me was mostly down to the size and weight. I use my camera a lot on holiday, and my holidays tend to be more of the adventurous type than the relaxing beach type. So, the carry weight and size of a DSLR was beginning to bug me when I knew there was an alternative.

  It’s for that reason, that my big recommendation is the Sony Alpha 7R III (£3200 body only) It’s the newer version of my own camera, and the model which has me checking my figures to see if I can warrant an upgrade. This camera improves on all of what could be considered the previous models shortcomings. It has a brand new processor which means more shots in the buffer, more shots per second and faster autofocussing. The full feature list is enormous. Too long to tackle on this blog. But if you’re looking to get into photography in a big way and have the budget, or you’re looking to change over from DSLR, or even if you’re looking at an upgrade from a Bridge type camera that you purchased a few years ago, then this model really is King of the realm at the moment. If you need lens recommendations, then I would say don’t skimp. This huge Full-Frame sensor will show up bad optics, or rather, bad optics won’t get the most out of this lens. There’s plenty of choice now from Sony (if you can afford the G master series, buy one) or The Zeiss Batis range are all great performers.

  If you’re looking for performance and speed without the need, inconvenience or cost involved with changeable lenses. Then take a long hard look at the Sony RX10 IV. It has a slightly smaller sensor, with fewer megapixels. However it has an inbuilt lens that covers a 35mm equivalent of 24-600mm lens. That’s insane. With glass by Zeiss and really quite impressive F stop figures, this lens is something else. With its 24fps still shooting and up to 1000fps 4K video shooting you’re looking at being able to slow down that action in a way that most cameras could only dream of. Again, the specifications go well beyond the scope of this blog but this machine marks one of the biggest advancements to bridge cameras that the market has ever seen. At £1800, it’s not cheap. But for some perspective. If you wanted to be able to reach this speed and resolution from a camera with interchangeable lenses to cover this range, you would be spending over £7000.

  As you can see, we’re running into the issue of having a camera that isn’t convenient to carry around all the time though. I’m a professional photographer and even I find carrying a (albeit small and relatively light) bag full of equipment a bit of a pain at times. If you’re into hiking and camping, adding another few kilos of equipment that probably requires it’s own bag is something you want to avoid. So let’s look at small one box wonders.

  If you walk into your nearest cameras shop, you’ll find a mindboggling array of compacts, and from £75 to £750 they don’t look vastly different from each other. I’ll make this simple. If you can’t stretch to this next camera budget wise, don’t despair. You probably aren’t going to be missing anything by reverting to your camera phone. A budget camera will carry the same feature set as your phone camera with very few worthwhile advantages. Even those can be over come. I’ve mentioned power banks already but a budget compact with upgraded memory can trump your mobile for storage. However a WiFi connection and a cloud storage deal will negate that and be safer. If you lose your camera, you’ll lose your photos. A phone using cloud storage will be backing itself up when you’re on a WiFi connection.

Any image quality increases will be negated by viewing on a small display. A budget compact camera won’t be able to offer you more detail or depth than your phone. So if you were thinking of spending up to £200 on a camera, my honest advice would be not to bother. A power bank, Cloud storage and insurance would cost you less than £60 and would be arguably more convenient and safe.

  If you’re still after that perfect little camera to carry when you need to keep things light, but you know you need to stretch beyond what your camera phone can do. Then you’ll hardly go wrong with this little Panasonic Lumix TZ90 at £380. At the time or writing, and I think for the Christmas period, Panasonic are offering £30 cashback too.

  If you’re wondering why I chose this over the TZ100, it’s the zoom. I’m not even a fan of zoom lenses, but I know full well that it can mean the difference between getting a shot and not. I know that the people I’m recommending this camera to, are the type to pick a safari trip over a day by the pool. Or will take their camera to the zoo to photograph the animals rather than a selfie in front of the gorilla enclosure. There’s times when you simply can’t get close enough to your subject, and the big 30X optical zoom is a technological marvel, considering it all folds down into an almost flat body. 

There’s a little trick up this cameras sleeve that I don’t think has been mentioned enough. You can press the shutter button, the camera will take multiple version of that image and stack them together. The effect is, that you can increase the perceived bokeh effect, or even… get this… choose your focal point, and refocus your image after you’ve taken it. Mind blown.

As you can see, choosing a Camera can be a minefield. If you’ve managed to stick with us then thank you! If you choose one of these models then let us know how you like it!

  If you are thinking of moving or letting your home please give us a call on 0330 223 1000 to book a viewing.  As you can see our creative team are passionate photographers – you will have the most stunning photographs take of your home!

source of this post came from Alexis Bush Blog http://www.moverevolution.com/blog/choosing-perfect-camera-oisin-flynn/