The King's Fifth

Only 20 % in taxes? Tax haven!

Now to something completely different' You know I'm a big fan of the TV-series The Mysterious Cities of Gold? Well, since I have to wait a couple of years (hopefully) for the next season of the show, I decided to read the book The King's Fifth by Scott O'Dell that was an inspiration for the series. The story is that the cartographer Esteban is on trail for murder and withholding the king of Spains part of the treasure he found on his journey in the new lands of America. So you have the parts at present while he is in prison and the courtroom and the other the retelling from the start at sea and then how he is persuaded by Captain Mendoza to join him in the search for gold and how he ended up the only one who knows where the treasure is.

Like the show, it ties in to actual historical events. For example they meet up with Coronando who had an expedition to look for Eldorado (he is also famous from Indianan Jones and the Last Crusade with the cross of Coronando that starts the film). But really fast you realise that there ain't no flying golden condor machines or ancient civilisations destroyed in thermonuclear wars and such. No, this is fairly grounded in reality. There is certain parts that is certainly lifted from here. Several names, like Zia, Mendoza, Esteban and Gomez. Certain events like the the storm at sea and the golden lake. Certain characters could be seen as inspirations, for example Roa is described as a bit bigger and fits in with Sancho and I wonder if father Fransisco inspired parts of father Rodriguez. They also mentions Marinche even though she doesn't appear in the book proper. Zia even have an animal sidekick although a lizard instead of a bird.

It's a rather short book and it's interesting how it follows Estebans journey and he goes from just a kid wanting to make a map of the unknown until the gold fever grips him as well and how it pushes Zia and father Fransisco away from him that acts like moral anchors in the story, until the end when he does the only right thing and throws away the ill-gotten treasure since it poisons the mind of the spaniards. And even though he tells the spaniards that the gold lies in a place that no man can reach them, the gold fever have them in its claws. Well worth the read.

Resident Evil 4 HD (Switch)

In a small provincial town

Eagerly awaiting the game I actually pre-ordered it on the Switch eshop just to be able to play it again. And I wasn't disappointed. 17 hours in I finish the normal game and 4 hours later finish the special mission Separate Ways. The story is that Leon Kennedy is in Spain looking for the presidents daughter Ashley that was kidnapped by this cult worshipping a parasite, las plagas, that when injected into people will hatch and then allow the master plagas to control the infected. Leon gets infected himself so as the clock ticks he gotta save Ashley, find a cure and get out of Spain alive. Separate Ways follows Ada Wong as she tries to gather a sample of las plagas for Albert Wesker and explains certain parts of the plot that where hinted at in the main game.

Now, I love the main game. This is the first Resident Evil game I played and the Wii version was fantastic with its motion control targeting and unfortunately you can't play with motions controls here. After some practice it was working out for me, especially since the Revelations game and 5 and 6 used the twin stick style of play as well, making it not that hard getting into it. But it is noticeable that it isn't as fast in pointing and such. Another thing that I noticed is that there isn't any easy-mode. This annoyed me a great deal since I usually played first on easy to get to know the game, then unlocking the Special Costume 2 where Ashley is in a suit of armour making it harder for enemies to kill her and then tackle Normal mode and maybe try on Professional mode. Now, since I already played it a couple of times I could manage things pretty well as well as getting treasures to sell and get my hand better weapons and upgrade them, but I would at least like the option to be a scardy cat. Fun enough I found out that in the original North American release you had to die a couple of times in the beginning to unlock easy mode, but not in Japan or Europe (thank god). 

Also, I couldn't help but notice that the resolution in Separate Ways looked a bit worse than the main game in cutscenes and such. Don't recall if that always was there or not. Anyway, this is still my favourite Resident Evil game, Revelations 1 is a good contender, but this just feels bigger. Could also be due to the enemies being more varied and such as well as the environments. The upgrade system is also better. And then we have the stupid decision to not include subtitles if you have it on English. Better to turn it into Spanish or German. Why do that? Especially in certain scenes when the sound can hinder your hearing of the voices. I have no problems now, but in 30 years? Or people with actual hearing problems that want to play this game or people that aren't that good at english but doesn't have one of the larger languages to fall back to? Idiotic move really. Don't they want it to be accessible to as many people as possible?

Steamworld Dig: A Fistful of Dirt (Switch)

Back into the mine

So I finally got it on sale... so I doubled dipped since it was a fun game and I collect games I've played on the latest console to hopefully be able to retire them in the end. So far not so good since there is always that damn game that won't be ported over. Anyway, same procedure as last time, but I only died twice and it took me around 5 and a half hours to finish it. It might be that I played the sequel not that long ago and this is a bit of downgrade, but it feels like they done things to the game, but maybe it's faulty memory from my side. Also, the character models when they speak looks differently from what I remember so I assume they change it for this version, or they did it for the sequel and this now standout since I remember that version more clearly. 

Overall I found it enjoyable for some treasure hunting. 

Blaster Master Zero 2 (Switch)

Back to become the blaster master!

I played Blaster Master Zero when it got released and I got it for both Switch and 3DS and it was a fun ride. And now the sequel have arrived... although the first game was pretty much a reboot of the original game this one isn't for the second game, I assume mostly due to not being made by the original team.  Still, I haven't yet finished the original NES version. Story is that after the battle in the last game Eve was infected by the mutants and to cure her Jason, Fred and Eve set out into space to find planet Sophia where she came from. And the first thing that happens is the Gaia-Sophia dropping onto a planets surface introducing the latest mechanic as falling from great heights give you back some SP for your special attacks. Obviously the first test makes it so that you can't leave the planet due to damaging the booster so you got your work cut out for you. Basically structured the same as last game. Travel in the Sophia and find caves to enter as Jason and gather power ups. The special thing this game is star maps so when you travel back into space can find another planet or spaceship. Gather keys from bosses to enter wormholes and such.

This actually make it much easier than last game due to not having to travel across the whole planet and they bitesized it in different big and small planets. I enjoyed it since I don't get as lost and you don't need to play it relatively fresh to know where to go. This time there is also other peoples in the game, other blaster master I gather. And obviously you gotta fight them all. And they are the toughest enemies in the game. Stein in his Atom especially. He just blast me, but after slowing down and more focus on not getting hit I defeated him and continued the adventure. Like last time there is a bad ending and a good ending. This time I got it just playing normally since I gathered the different emblems from the blaster masters and nothing about getting 100 % items. The boss that divides the good and the bad ending is a huge planet that you gotta crash into. Amazing! Sadly the part up the true ending isn't that fun I think. The planet mutant had swallowed the wormhole to Sophia and defeating him separates Jason and Eve and you get to play as Eve instead. Which is nice, but it's a long walk just without a tank in the overworld, meaning that high jumps are instant-death and everything hits like a tank. You get a tank, but it doesn't have the same functions and are pretty much a downgrade. That feels bad to me, I want it to be in Metriod Zero after losing her first suit, Samus find the fully upgraded armour and just wrecks things up. Empowerment. But the scene when all Blaster Master joins up to defeat the mutant cocoon and save Jason from petrification is awesome.

It was a fun game, a bit frustrating at times with certain bosses while most tank bosses outside the other Blaster Masters were fun fighting like the walking mountain. Decent music, but there isn't something equal to the pumping level 1 track from the first game. Graphics looks nice and each planet or area is distinct. Fun playing as Eve, but she should have had something like Sophia Zero from the first game to just empower her.