Redwind week 9/2024

Missed a few, thanks to either migraines or a relationship that needed a bit of a quality time. Let’s get back to it, shall we?

Cineast

Movies? What are movies? Somehow the only thing I keep watching recently is still LOST, and since it’s my 7th’ish rewatch of that series – go figure. Purely “comfy food” for the soul, being halfway in the second season I still have to admit that this is pretty much my favourite show and probably will still be top tier for a long time being.

Aside that, at least one interesting thing should pop up next week then: Napoleon is out on Apple TV+, so expect maybe a word or two about that then.

Games

Going full retro with some emulators at the moment. With a mix of RetroArch and Aethersx2, my MacBook has been turned into a decent gaming machine. Still not going the full pirate mode, because why would I – there’s plenty of games on my shelfs here which I never really played. That’s a collectors thing: Buy game, throw it in, watch intro, decide “it works” – then put it on the shelf and never touch it again. So, the last few weeks I’m mostly going back to some real classics, where a few stood out especially.

After years of owning it, it was time to start some Persona 4 and holy, I think I really missed out on that one. So far I’m about 4 hours in, and I did get to actually play like… 15 minutes? Whoever tells me next time that Kojima is “just doing movies”, oh boi, you gotta sit down and play *this* one. Kojima is tame compared to that, trust me. Still, the characters are fun, the dialogues are well written, the story is engaging and that bit of a combat system I got to see is also super decent, which makes me actually enjoy this a lot. I got to admit though, I see why they turned this game into an animated series. It simply makes sense – it’s really a *lot* of story and little gameplay, at least at the beginning. We’ll see where this will go.

Besides hanging with anime school kids I also spend a decent chunk of my time with Virtua Tennis for the Dreamcast again. The simple, yet addictive gameplay is what keeps me coming back to this one, and the World Tour mode with it’s various challenges is exactly that kind of Arcade gaming which I really miss a lot these days, where most games seem to end up being less game, but more “as a service” instead. I’d rather stick it to the “insert coin to continue” formula honestly, so there goes modern gaming for me, I guess.

Last one noteworthy is GTA San Andreas, which clearly shows its age to be honest, running the original PS2 version. Still, with the color filters (these sun rises!) it’s still my favourite version of this game. Some of the gameplay mechanics seem rather basic today (switching between a thousand weapons with the shoulder buttons?), but it’s still quite impressive considering the original hardware to see such an massive open world come to life. Sure, a lot of areas are what you’d consider “empty” nowadays, but for that time? I’m really impressed they pulled that off at all, and it packs a ton of content on top of all. So, while mostly just roaming around and doing more sightseeing instead of actual missions, I’m having quite a good time here.

Redwind week 6/2024

This week somehow contained a bit much drama for my taste. Sadly not as a netflix show, but instead irl, so I kept the entertaining part more on the chill side.

Cineast

Instead of watching movies something about movies stood out this week: ““No CGI” is really just invisible CGI“. A lovely 4 part series, which only downside right now is that the last part isn’t uploaded yet. Some good insight and it points out a few interesting perspectives, not to long overall and very well produced – that’s the kind of content I like. Shoutout to my fellow german friend Basti for finding this little gem.

Games

Last week I got myself “Red Fraction Guerilla Remarstered”, only to put it down just after a day already again. I think nostalgia played some tricks on me here – has that open world of this game always been this… boring? Sure the destructions are kinda fun, and still look kinda cool today, but beside “blow this up blow that up” Mars sure feels pretty empty. Put on top an AI where all enemies just run into me like mindless puppets, no matter what I throw at them, and an very unresponsive feel to all the weapons in the first place, and the fun rather imploded than exploded for me. Ah well.

So instead I took some time to mess around a bit with OpenEmu, which runs just nicely on my M1 MacBook Air. I like that it is open source, I like how modular it is and I like that it lacks a lot of features. Yep, you read correct! Faster loading times? HD textures? Z-buffering!?

Nah, here the PSone games look just as wonky as on the original hardware – authenticity! I’m very much down for that. So now a bunch of games which are on my shelfs anyway can now be played on just one machine, for convenience reasons, while I’m still able to throw them on my Tv. Neat. Simply neat.

Redwind week5/2024

A slow week? A slow week. A very slow, slow week.

Games

Still mostly just trying to finish the Shogun variant of “Kingdom: Two Crowns”, and I get the feeling it doesn’t help much that I mostly play it on my iPhone while laying in bed and falling asleep – since I do exactly that: Fall asleep. Only to wake up next morning to a fresh character, back on island 1, since I died again. Well, at least that’s certainly one way to expand on the play time, and additionally this may also confirm that this game is sure a very chill one.

Also just saw a bit earlier that currently “Red Faction Guerrilla: Remarstered” was on sale for about 3 bucks on the eShop and just couldn’t resists. Played it back on the 360, so I’ll be looking forward to some fine destruction soon again. Expect crushing updates maybe next week.

Cineast

A lot of people say “bonding is important”, so I did just that – sat down with a friend and watched some Bond. “Casino Royal” it was this time, since she hadn’t seen it yet and I was totally in the mood to give it a rewatch. And what can I say: Still as entertaining as ever and possible my personal favourite Bond movie. Not that I haven’t seen it about 30-40 times by now, but it seems like I’m very much in a comfy mood lately anyway, so that fit perfectly. I still have to watch that latest entry with Craig, though, so hopefully we’ll see about that soon.

Music

Mostly just back to the desk with my own stuff – and making some very, very good progress. If it continues like that, I’ll probably release that album soon’ish. After all, I’ve been working on that beast for almost a year now. But I can admit: Sent around a few previews for a couple of songs and so far only getting back positive feedback – and I certainly really like what I’m hearing here, so there’s that!

Redwind 3/4-2024

Double rewind, cause missed out on last week, and I want to mention at least that one damn long movie I finally saw. So, let’s get right to it!

Cineast

Took only two sittings and I somehow watched through the whole of “Killings of the flower moon”, and oh my, what a ride that one is. Impressive performances all over the place, and surprisingly it never felt “to long”. Which is an achievement on it’s own, considering the 3+ hours runtime. Still, every minute worth it, this story simply takes a bit to get told and Scorsese clearly knows how to pull it off.

Also finished the first season of “Blue Eye Samurai”, and just as I expected from the start, it did indeed hold up until the end. Some fine plot twists, and overall really interesting cast and the only downside now will be the waiting time until the next season hits. I need to know how this continues!

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Redwind week2/2024

Not that much went down this week, but at least two things stood out worth mentioning.

Music

Felt a bit like digging around Bandcamp earlier this week, turns out that was a good idea: “The Alley” by Alley Dash was a lovely surprise!
What appears to be a ‘Best Of’ album hit a few spots for me. Some fine sampling and some fine beats, that’s all I really need to give a record more than just one spin. In this case, it came with some instant head-bopping and feet-tapping, so that certainly worked more than well. That it’s available at the lovely low price of “pay what you want” makes it a no-brainer if you’re into these kinda things.
Now I only need to find some time to dig through the rest of the releases from this one, I get the feeling there might be one or two more tunes in it for me.

Cineast

Less of a surprise, since that recommendation came from Donswelt and we’re mostly on the same wavelength when it comes to the things we enjoy: “Blue Eye Samurai” on Netflix.
I got to admit: I can be quite picky when it comes to Anime. It’s often the art style, but especially the animation itself which often just doesn’t nail it for me. In this case, I can absolutely say: Stunning work!
Revenge stories are just my kinda thing and it’s no wonder that I’m now halfway through just within two days. But the animation is what really makes this one stand out. Such fluid fights are just a pure pleasure to watch, and trust me when I say: When it hits, you feel the impact of it. Few flying body parts and fluids on top of that (never too much), and this ends up being *just* the right mix for me. Also: For a side character Ringo is unlawful charming and I don’t think it’s possible to *not* like that guy.
I really can’t wait to dive back into it and finish the rest of this first season – and probably won’t mind in the end if there will be more of that show.

Redwind week1/2024

So what’s “redwind” now for a fancy new thing here? Well, simple: My good old blog buddy Donswelt does this “rewind” thing for a good while now over on his place, and since I do enjoy reading it regularly, I thought: Why not give it a shot myself? Not only a neat idea to kinda keep an journal in terms of what I’m enjoying, but also maybe an effective way to motivate myself to blog a bit more often. Will that work out? We’ll see!

But it wouldn’t be me if I wouldn’t give it some proper name, so of course I named it Redwind. Listen, everything is named something something “Red” on my end, alright? Anyway, let’s get started with the recap of this first week into 2024!

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