Rosalia Rambles

Tag: Gaming

  • Redundancy Review: Day 30, “One Month”

    Redundancy Review: Day 30, “One Month”

    (for context on what this series is, please see my Day 1 post here: Redundancy Review: Day 1, “A New Beginning” – Rosalia’s Rambles)

    Good morning killers and survivors, welcome to Day 30 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    One month.

    One month since I got made redundant, and felt like my world had collapsed.

    One month of writing every day to document my journey through unemployment.

    One month of trying to share joy about the things I love.

    It has not been easy, to be completely honest. Whilst a love of writing comes naturally to me, keeping on this route does bring some stress and strain to me, which feels weird to say given… every previous review I have written.

    Possibly due to self-doubt, I currently find myself sitting here wondering if it is worth it to try to push towards writing professionally, especially as I return to the tech sphere on Monday. I still intend to write the Redundancy Review with no name change, but part of me wonders if I should just keep this a hobby, a passion I share with the world with no hesitation or desire for compensation.

    Make it my escape from the world of tech rather than a new career path entirely – I still want to create, I still have plenty of stories to tell, I just do not know how best to… be a writer I guess. For someone who has been writing different pieces for around nine years now (think I got started in 2016 with GeekOut), albeit with very little consistency, you would think the self-doubt would go away.

    Regardless, I am going to try to enjoy my time before I return to work. This period of unemployment has let me explore my different hobbies a lot more and make some improvements around the flat, but I am looking forward to having a regular source of income for a short amount of time.

    Should be having some social time with friends today as well, which should be fun and give me a bit of time out the house.

    Going to skip the call to action today, instead I want to ask for any encouraging words from other writers about getting past self-doubt. Wondering if I am doing good enough just by telling my story.

    Time for the review, and considering I 100%ed another game last night I think that makes it a good time to talk about it – especially considering it comes from possibly my favourite franchise of all time.

    Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart is currently the latest entry in the beloved series, releasing in June 2021 for PS5 and later receiving a PC port in July 2023. For those unaware, I really like Ratchet and Clank, having almost every game collected in physical copies and having even written a full retrospective on the trilogy years back. Having skipped out on the PS5 because of being a broke ass bitch, I was excited to give the game a go.

    It did not disappoint.

    First off, this game is absolutely gorgeous. The characters are well lit, the models are extremely expressive & bouncy, and for the most part the framerate stays at a consistent 60fps even at 4K on my rig. Both Rift Apart and previous iterations of the franchise have been called “playable Pixar movies” with it not being difficult to see why, the art style really lends itself to that whimsical feeling.

    The premise of the game is the return of series favourite villain Dr Nefarious stealing a device known as the “Dimensionator” and using it to cause a dimensional cataclysm that sees our titular protagonists thrown into a new world, meeting another Lombax in the form of Rivet.

    After getting a certain way into the story, the perspective shifts between the two Lombaxes across different planets, letting Rivet become more familiar with Clank and Ratchet getting a new robot on the scene named Kit to open up and trust others a bit more.

    Despite there only being nine planets in the game, one of the smallest amounts next to Into the Nexus, there is plenty of variety across all of them. 

    Quite a few planets are revisited as part of the story with new areas being unlocked upon return, either due to actions happening in the story or, in the case of the battle arena, new sets of challenges being unlocked – good for making sure players have a reason to return, bad for me because I love the battle arenas and want to do everything in one go.

    The core of the Ratchet and Clank franchise are the weapons, with Rift Apart being no exception in producing phenomenal weapons with unique traits across all of them. Rosalia Rambles Ratchet tradition dictates I do a rule-of-three rundown on some of my favourite weapons, so that is what I am going to do.

    The Topiary/Toxiary Sprinkler is your typical enemy disabling weapon present in the franchise, giving you a chance to switch to a more powerful weapon to deal unabashed damage, In this instance, it takes the form of a sprinkler that will turn any enemies (even big massive bosses) into decorative topiaries of themselves for a short while. A silly and entertaining take on a standard weapon class.

    One of my favourite entirely new weapons is the Ricochet/Wreckochet, a weapon that fires a seeking projectile that will hit an enemy before bouncing off it, hanging in the air and allowing you to press the trigger to use the projectile to enable a follow-up attack. With fun sound effects and having uses in both crowds & against larger targets, it quickly found a place in my heart.

    Finally, we have the Blackhole Storm/Blackhole Vortex, a rapid firing gatling gun that is unlocked fairly late into the story, but is incredibly worth it once picked up. Taking some time to spin up, it will unleash a torrent of miniature black holes, raining antimatter death upon your enemies… until it overheats, after which point it needs some time to cool down.

    What is unique to note that due to this game being on PS5 originally, it does support DualSense controllers with plenty of unique vibration patterns across different weapons, and the majority of weapons having a system where half and full trigger pulls do different things.

    As shown in my achievements image, it did not take me long to 100% this game, having finished the remaining achievements only an hour or so into my New Game+ save, but I consider that time fully worth it. There were no instances of me being disappointed by any planet, the setpieces were fantastic and the combat has evolved for the modern day with features such as a dodge move and the rift tethering mechanic.

    I would like to end off my review with a tribute to Captain Qwark’s original voice actor, Jim Ward. The captain returns in this game however briefly at the start, being voiced by a new actor, with Jim Ward having retired due to a double whammy of a severe case of COVID-19 and developing Alzheimer’s Disease.

    Mr Ward, thank you for being one of the most recognisable voices of my childhood. I hope you can enjoy retirement.

    That calls it for today, thank you so much for reading the Redundancy Review. With a heatwave on the way in the UK, I am going to focus on trying to stay as cool as possible.

    Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart is available on PS5 and Steam.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 24, “Crybaby”

    Redundancy Review: Day 24, “Crybaby”

    (for context on what this series is, please see my Day 1 post here: https://rosaliarambles.wordpress.com/2025/06/11/redundancy-review-day-1-a-new-beginning/)

    Good morning snoozers and sleepers, welcome to Day 24 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    Being rejected by Poncle yesterday hurt.

    A lot.

    So much so it threw me off my mojo for basically the entire day once I had got the review out of the way in the morning. I know it is okay to have days like that, especially when I am still dealing with the emotional fallout of the whole catalyst for why I am writing today.

    But it does not stop me feeling the hurt, and I am someone who feels emotions very intensely because of my estrogen treatments. I always got told by doctors in the leadup to starting that my “emotion range would open up” and “you might find it easier to cry”.

    I was not anticipating how much both of those would happen – even three years past the start I still get caught by surprise on how much I can feel and how much I can cry.

    Even before estrogen though, I have always been a bit of a crybaby, being able to cry very easily. Nowadays though it does not take much to set me off, sometimes I have even just looked at a picture of an axolotl and that is enough to make me want to cry a bit.

    That said, I do not consider my emotions or my ease of crying a weakness by any stretch of the imagination. They might be vulnerabilities for me, but I can utilise them as a strength as well, usually within my writing work. In general I hope that is the vibe that comes across with the Redundancy Review thus far, weaponising my vulnerability in the wake of disaster to try make something positive come out of it.

    And as much as I do feel doubt creeping in some days, I will always be here. Rain or shine, happy or sad, awake or asleep – I have my rhythm, and I have a job to do. 

    Promoted this website on my LinkedIn yesterday, as part of a general headline update which included a very professional way of advertising my anti-AI sentiment. On a platform dominated by AI content from GPT-speak copy to obviously incorrect images, promoting myself as a “human-focused creative” definitely makes me stand out a bit more in the opposite direction.

    If you would like a healthy dose of human-focused creativity, I would love to work on your writing projects! Do not settle for the myth of AI-generated copy being “good enough”, whilst it can convey a message it does not convey any emotion, especially when you are trying to market something. Find a human who can get excited about your product and pay them to write about it! (bonus points if I am that human)

    Speaking of getting excited about things, today’s review topic is one that has been considered long overdue by my partner, and a game I followed the development of for a long time before taking the plunge myself.

    Plus, with the big announcement yesterday that Helldivers 2 is coming to Xbox Series platforms in August, now seems like a good time to talk about it – it will be admittedly hard to cover the heights this game has reached over the last year and a half, but I will try my best.

    Helldivers 2 is a third-person shooter online cooperative shooter developed by Arrowhead Games released in 2024. The main objective of the game is to fight back against the three factions vying to destroy Super Earth:

    • The Terminid Swarm (standard sci-fi bugs)
    • The Socialist Automatons (standard sci-fi robots)
    • The Illusive Illuminate (standard sci-fi aliens)

    The main way this fight is driven forward is through the regular deployment of “Major Orders” (MO), community-wide objectives that need to be completed or fulfilled within the time given, sometimes within a couple of days or over the span of a week. Players are free to engage with the MO or they can fight whichever faction they prefer.

    I personally love the Major Order system as an example of live service done right, especially when Arrowhead have let players decide what new content they want by offering it as an incentive for doing the MO a certain way… even if it did result in it taking four MOs to unlock Anti-Tank Mines.

    The gameplay loop is fairly straightforward, dive onto a planet.

    With the coolest loading screen ever.

    After which you are presented with your objective, which can range from collecting geological samples, destroying enemy supply lines, to the most important task of them all: raising the flag of Super Earth to bring democracy to all.

    One of the most potent tools in the Helldiver arsenal are stratagems, powerful pieces of equipment that are activated by inputting the correct arrow code. These include but are not limited to:

    • Orbital barrages
    • Vehicles and mech suits
    • Jet fighters carrying ordnance 
    • Defensive turrets and sentries

    After completing your objective, it is time to go to the extraction point, with it taking some time for the shuttle to reach you – this is where shit will really hit the fan, especially on harder difficulties.

    Enemies will lay siege to your extraction with relentless fury, calling in more reinforcements as time goes on, making you rely on all the stratagems at your disposal to get you out of there alive. These moments are where a lot of Helldivers get their most intense stories, and it is no surprise to see why.

    Upon returning to your ship, you get your experience points and any currency collected which can be used to unlock new stratagems, upgrade your ship to access potent passive buffs, or spend on the “Warbond” system, a set of premium, non-expiring, battlepass-style collections of equipment and customisation options.

    That said, Helldivers 2 does not mandate the spending of additional money on top of the price of access. The premium currency of Super Credits is able to be earned entirely in game through missions, so whilst it will be a bit grindy premium content is accessible without spending more money.

    Additionally, upon reaching Level 10, you gain access to weapon customisation. A recently added feature as part of the game’s massive “Heart of Democracy” update that allows players to change how their favourite weapon handles via changing the scope, muzzle, or even the magazine size.

    Whilst this is a very cool feature, there is one major issue currently in-game at time of writing: when going to customise your weapon’s pattern, it is entirely possible for the game to crash to desktop, which leads into one of my main criticisms of Helldivers 2 – it is a technical debt nightmare sometimes.

    For context, the game is built on Autodesk Stingray, an engine that had support discontinued for it in 2018. This means that Helldivers 2 is working on very outdated tech, which can lead to a lot of bugs, crashes, and performance issues depending on your hardware. Quite often bugs that have been quashed in previous updates will reappear at random, sometimes with disastrous consequences.

    It can be a reason not to buy the game, but personally coming from a QA background I recognise how hard it must be to keep a game of this scale working on a regular basis, so whilst I criticise, I can not in good conscious condemn the team knowing full well the patches I have suffered through.

    And with everything the game has accomplished with real, permanent changes to its world as part of the ongoing storyline, I am more than happy to accept some game-breaking bugs along the way.

    I said I wanted to talk about something that excites me, and nearly two whole pages of content before adding in images is definitely that. Thank you for reading today. I hope you can have a relaxing weekend wherever you are. Take it easy, it has been a long week for some and you deserve some time to unplug.

    Helldivers 2 is currently available on PS5 and Steam, with it coming to Xbox Series platforms August 26th.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 22, “Upgrades, people! Upgrades!”

    Redundancy Review: Day 22, “Upgrades, people! Upgrades!”

    (for context on what this series is, please see my Day 1 post here: https://rosaliarambles.com/2025/06/11/redundancy-review-day-1-a-new-beginning/)

    Good morning leviathans and wyverns, welcome to Day 22 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    I have my own domain now!

    No longer carrying the “.wordpress” part, I have a simple .com domain that will look a lot more professional on my CV and be a lot easier to say to people who might want to look up my work.

    It is part of a greater upgrade plan I am looking at to take my work to the next level, with the next steps including getting a professional logo for the site and looking at upgrading my phone to make any photography I need to do look even better…

    …and considering I smashed the screen up a while back along with the battery being on its way out, it makes practical sense as well.

    This is being enabled by the fact I have got almost all of the money I am entitled to out of my redundancy, the only thing I am missing now is my lack of notice pay which I hope to resolve today after my Jobcentre meeting.

    Which, yeah, is not something I am looking forward to today. I have a very dim outlook on the unemployment system in the UK, seeing it as a necessary evil for myself currently but having little to no optimism in how they can help me beyond monetary assistance.

    I will be receptive to their input and if they can find me a holdover job that holds some relevance to my areas of interest I will be thankful, but having been through the system once before and having those close to me go through it multiple times my confidence in what they can do for me is low.

    To be frank, there is a little bit of arrogance in my outlook. The Jobcentre is primarily focused on getting those who have been out of work for a while into a job with a secondary focus on helping people acquire basic skills that they might have missed out on due to life circumstances – right now I fall into neither category.

    I have a plan in mind, I know what steps I need to take, and I really do not need a digital skills course that teaches me how to open Microsoft Word when I have been working at the apex of a heavily specialised technological industry for the last three years.

    A little bit of frustration this morning, but getting it out every so often feels good.

    In honour of the Jobcentre meeting though, I am going to do a variation on my call to action today. Whilst I am looking to start getting into paid writing work, it is more of a desire to pivot than where my career specialty actually lies. So what have I done every day since 2021?

    I break things.

    For the last four years, I have been working as a Quality Assurance Engineer/Analyst/Specialist, whatever you want to call me the core foundation of my career has been the ability to find bugs in all sorts of software projects – I am even credited on two EA Sports games (F1 2021 and F1 22).

    Finding bugs is not just a career for me, it is a way of life. Even when playing games on my own time I am able to find bugs as easy as I breathe, my brain switching into QA mode once I do and seeing if I can replicate it.

    I am good at what I do, and I know it. Any software project I get my hands on will be tested thoroughly with a can-do attitude and a tenacity to see it through right to the end.

    With that done, it is time to review something from a game today, but considering it is a very recent addition, I will put a spoiler warning.

    If you have not played Monster Hunter Wilds Title Update 2 content, please click away now. If you do click away now, thank you for reading today and I hope you have a great day!

    With that done, I can get into it, and I am excited because I love Monster Hunter.

    I really like Monster Hunter.

    I really like Monster Hunter.

    From being a complete newbie to the franchise back in 2022 to becoming way too obsessed today, Monster Hunter has wormed its way into my heart for its combat system, ecology design, and “fashion hunting”, the term for making layered armour sets out of different monster parts.

    And with Wilds Title Update 2, a fan favourite monster finally returns to the franchise properly.

    Lagiacrus was first introduced in Monster Hunter Tri as the flagship monster, releasing in 2009, with their inclusion in Wilds being their first representation in almost a decade, leading to many experienced fans being excited for their return.

    For me though, I had no prior attachment to Lagiacrus but I was still excited to fight them for the first time, especially with the inclusion of a form of underwater combat as part of their fight mechanics.

    Screenshot taken from the Title Update Trailer – I had taken footage but it seems to have corrupted

    Underwater combat was a headline mechanic back in Monster Hunter Tri, being essential to Lagiacrus’s fight back in that game. Whilst the dev team for Wilds did not fully include a full combat system underwater, they did incorporate it into this new iteration.

    After Lagiacrus retreats to its nest, it will dive underwater, giving hunters the opportunity to follow. During this fight you will need to use slinger ammo and collapsible underwater structures to stagger Lagiacrus to open a window to attack with your weapons, finalising with a cinematic finishing move once enough damage is done.

    The introduction mission to Lagiacrus was extremely fun, not only serving to teach these mechanics to players, but also elaborating on one of the other characters in the Forbidden Lands with very thoughtful writing.

    However, that is only one half of Lagiacrus being introduced, as after completing that mission they are now able to spawn in the world regularly, including being able to appear as a “Tempered” variant with stronger attacks and more health.

    Tempered Lagiacrus is fucking terrifying.

    Myself and my partner only fought a three-star version, supposedly on the weaker end of the scale.

    It took us twenty minutes of consistent attacks and effort – longer than some base game tempered monsters, which included my partner fainting twice from the relentless onslaught of attacks.

    Which, y’know, people had been asking for more challenge in the game.

    And to get a non-spoilery thumbnail for the article, have one of my favourite fashion hunter sets from Wilds.

    That does it for today, and that is possibly the most recent topic I have reviewed yet. Thank you for reading all the way if you did, I hope you have a relaxing day whatever you do.

    Monster Hunter Wilds is available on Xbox Series, PS5, and PC.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 17, “Sleepiness”

    (for context on what this series is, please see my Day 1 post here: https://rosaliarambles.wordpress.com/2025/06/11/redundancy-review-day-1-a-new-beginning/)

    Good morning duvets and pillows, welcome to Day 17 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    You would think with the fact I had a late night on Wednesday that a part of me would consider taking an early night yesterday to make up for it.

    Then the Capcom spotlight happened, where it took until the end for the Monster Hunter Wilds trailer to appear. It was definitely worth it though, and watching the entire showcase was actually rather enjoyable.

    However, this means I am absolutely knackered this morning – to the point I think I slept through all of my alarms without meaning to. It is always difficult to write these on nights where I might not have had as much sleep as I needed, though it is weird that today is one of those days when I slept in so hard.

    As I was drifting off last night I had ideas of a topic I might want to cover in these mental health check-in segments, but when I started plotting it out in my head it feels like it should get its own spotlight piece, so keep your eyes open for that. 

    Yesterday I also showed my mentor this website as we were catching up on the work search, and her advice to me outside of complimenting my work was “get that bloody book out there”. When we worked together we often chatted about the kind of life I have had, and how it would be interesting for me to write it in a semi-fictionalised way, marketing it as the slice-of-life story for this generation.

    (if you are reading this Gabi, hi!)

    It is something I have considered as I work on different projects throughout the day. My main area of interest has always been sci-fi & fantasy epics, telling tales of massive worlds and their conflicts or trials, but considering the amount of events I have lived through and maturing as a trans woman in recent years, it is a very valid idea.

    For anyone reading who might want to help make these ideas reality, consider getting in touch and hiring me – creative writing is in the forefront of my mind currently. I would love any and all opportunities to work on live projects which could help fund my other ventures.

    As most unemployed people do, I spend a lot of time on LinkedIn. Looking for opportunities, using the job search tool, and lamenting the course my life has taken when I’m wading through AI-generated content that no one has bothered proofreading. 

    The one that always stands out in my mind is one that said “Avoid these 14 game design zombies!”, with the main content of the post then saying it was 15 game design zombies, but then the also AI-generated image does not count up to 15 and it is missing several numbers on the way to 14. LinkedIn is full of these posts now, with the only fringe benefit being that I am very good at spotting GPT-speak right now.

    Outside of job searching though, LinkedIn does actually have a series of five puzzle games currently, with my personal favourite being the subject of today’s review.

    Zip is an extremely simple puzzle game on the surface, but the amount of complexity that can be packed into each day’s offering always surprises me.

    The premise is straightforward: get from the number 1 dot to whatever the final dot is for that day. Today’s puzzle was getting to number 8 but on previous days it can go as high as number 24.

    There is always something satisfying in challenges that go from point A to point B for me, it ties in with my love of building infrastructure in video games – paths, roads, and other means of transport make my heart sing with joy, so a puzzle game that abstracts that to its most basic form was sure to be a success.

    It is so much fun that it is engrained as part of my routine now alongside writing these reviews, and it keeps me checking LinkedIn even when I might not feel up to wading through the mess of AI.

    With that, we come to the end of today’s review. Thank you for reading, I am going to go have some coffee and brunch – consider treating yourself to something similar, it is Friday after all.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 16, “Blaze of Glory”

    Redundancy Review: Day 16, “Blaze of Glory”

    (for context on what this series is, please see my Day 1 post here: https://rosaliarambles.wordpress.com/2025/06/11/redundancy-review-day-1-a-new-beginning/)

    Good morning robots and androids, welcome to Day 16 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    I am extremely tired this morning, primarily because of guest-starring in a friend’s D&D game last night. He had included a former character of mine as backup for the party and initially wanted me to weigh in on what they had been up to in the proceeding time.

    Discussions took form, eventually leading to me inquiring if he would be okay with me dropping in to reprise my role. I had retired from doing evening D&D games a long time ago, wanting to spend more time with my partner who I was long distance with at the time and just not having the social energy to keep a game going into the late hours of the night.

    Was reprising the character fun? Extremely.

    Blaze is my main character who is not like me in some way, shape, or form. They are an unhinged bucket of bolts whose main motive in helping the party was to take advantage of the situation to incite a war between two factions in this world, and why?

    “It’d be really funny to see!”

    Especially given the events going on in my life right now, playing a character who is completely off the wall insane was a lot of fun, more so when it came to improvising his motives and talking about collateral.

    Am I still not capable of evening D&D games? Oh yes.

    I have started writing this review later than I usually do because of how long it took me to even begin shaking the sleep off to get my laptop out and start writing – even on nights where I have gamed longer than I intended to I do not wake up like this, and it is definitely a social energy problem on my side.

    One I am not… entirely hankering to fix, if just because “unable to socialise long past 9pm” is not really a priority issue for myself right now.

    What is priority is the fact I have now received my unpaid wages for my time at my old company after shit hit the fan, which means today will be spent budgeting on various different topics, including:

    • What to contribute to the bills account to keep myself afloat for a while
    • Investing in some things around the flat to make summer easier and bring the place more to completion
    • Putting money into savings to help pay for VExpo (vtuber convention) later this year
    • Potentially going to a restaurant and having an actual date night out with my partner

    I am still due money as well, in the form of statutory redundancy payments and whatever I can get from my lack of notice pay, but what I have got has gone a decent way to making me whole again – especially as the job search has hit a demoralising point.

    Returning to full time work is somehow existing as a superposition in my mind right now. I am craving the return to routine enforced by someone else, but also enjoying the recovery that comes from not being in that situation anymore. Whilst the lack of a routine is definitely affecting me, there is also a certain amount of peace I am feeling from existing in my own rhythm once more.

    Would I appreciate being back in full time work? Yes, especially as it gives me the resources to pursue the lifestyle I enjoy, but am I also considering what other paths might exist for me? Definitely.

    If you would like to consider helping me explore one of these paths, please get in touch about hiring me for your projects. The life of a freelancer might not be one I have had a taste of yet, but the idea of jumping from client to client, project to project has an odd appeal to me right now. I would love to work for whoever is reading this!

    So, one of the things I did after getting the news of my redundancy was start a game I had in my Steam library for the longest time after getting it in a Humble Choice bundle.

    Yeah… I have been playing it a bit too much lately, but I did finish the story yesterday so I feel I can convey some thoughts at least, at least in a somewhat short form.

    The core gameplay loop of Death Stranding is delivering packages. Playing as Sam Porter Bridges (portrayed by Norman Reedus), you go all throughout a post-apocalyptic America to deliver all sorts of goods to a colourful cast of characters. 

    Several hazards present themselves during these journeys, in the form of supernatural “Beached Things” (BTs), MULE and terrorist encampments looking to take your cargo or life respectively, and the ever-present threat of “Timefall” – rain that induces accelerating aging upon whatever it touches, which includes corroding your cargo’s protective containers.

    You do not have to do your job entirely on the ground though, as the game provides several tools for making your life easier. Various structures can be constructed, ranging from humble ladders that can help you traverse rock and river, to giving you the ability to make a zip-line network later in the game, allowing you to complete deliveries door-to-door without encountering any threats whatsoever.

    Your hands are not the only ones that can build structures though, as the unique selling point of Death Stranding is the integrated online aspect of the game. Whilst it is a singleplayer game and can be played offline; the game becomes significantly more populated when playing online, as the structures that others have built can appear in your world, helping you out when you might need it most.

    Hideo Kojima is both the game director and sole writer of Death Stranding, the latter of which I was extremely excited for going into the game. Metal Gear Solid is one of my favourite video game series for its impactful writing, so I was excited to see what Kojima could cook up when fully in control.

    The core theme of the game is “connection”, going through a broken continent to connect cities, distribution centres, and shelters into the “chiral network”, hoping to make a new America in the form of the United Cities of America (UCA). Every character you meet is extremely well written, with frequent twists and turns in what you learn about them, never leaving you bored in terms of story content.

    That said, I definitely did have some issues with the pacing of the story, and not just because I am a glutton for side content in this game. Specifically from the end of Episode 8 onwards, the game accelerates in such a way that completely shifts the gameplay loop out of sync with what you were doing before.

    Whilst it is still possible to do deliveries, and there are one or two required story deliveries still, the game shifts focus into action-mode, with greater dangers appearing as you head back east to the starting zone. These make it difficult to do “standard orders”, which are the bulk of the game’s side content, as the routes become fraught with danger and the Timefall is near constant.

    Despite the pacing being an issue, I actually have no issues with the actual story content of the last act of the game. Almost all narrative threads have a payoff, even ones set up as far back as the game’s prologue will yield results, and those that do not are still satisfying enough that you are left wanting more in a good way. Even with the rapid pace of episodes in the endgame, there were still plenty of moments that left me shouting “WHAT?!” at my TV.

    My playtime to go through the game landed me at just over 69 hours (nice). This included doing lots of side content between episodes but every minute of playtime was worth it for me – I recommend playing Death Stranding without hesitation. For people who enjoy great stories, and for those who just want a game to enter zen mode with, there is something for everyone.

    I am not done talking about the game either, as there are several things I still want to write about it, but hopefully this short review gives enough information on the game to make you consider purchasing it.

    Thank you for reading today, writing these Redundancy Reviews honestly keeps me going in a way that is extremely beneficial to my psyche, and with the small audience I am cultivating right now, I am very happy with the direction of my website.

    Death Stranding Director’s Cut is available on PS4, PS5, Xbox Series, and Steam, with the Steam store page here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1850570/DEATH_STRANDING_DIRECTORS_CUT/ 

  • Redundancy Review: Day 13, “Document Everything”

    Redundancy Review: Day 13, “Document Everything”

    (for context on what this series is, please see my Day 1 post here: https://rosaliarambles.wordpress.com/2025/06/11/redundancy-review-day-1-a-new-beginning/)

    Good morning crumpets and teacakes, welcome to Day 13 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    Main activity on the agenda today is a meeting with the Jobcentre to discuss the change in my circumstances, along with highlighting an error with how the administration company handled the payroll situation which has actively caused me to lose out on getting some money.

    Thankfully though, I have always been the kind of person to maintain an extremely robust source of documentation in any situation. Back when I was dealing with problems with the electricity company, and getting ready for a complaint to either them or the ombudsman, I went to Citizen’s Advice to get some guidance.

    The advisor said I had basically done their job for them, as they would be helping with gathering documentation and evidence. I walked in with a full month-long timeline of everything that had been happening, so all they really needed to do was give me the go ahead on what I was planning to do anyway.

    In a way as well, this series continues my habit. Every day I am creating something new that chronicles my journey through this next phase of my life, so there will always be a record of what I got up to, how I felt, and how the story unfolded.

    Beyond sorting out the situation with the Jobcentre and checking out job postings across the internet, it is mostly going to be having a day of connection with my partner. Over the weekend it was hard to do stuff together due to the heat getting to us and him experiencing PC issues, but with both of those things resolved now using his day off to spend time together seems like a good idea.

    I am still on the lookout for writing work though. The rhythm is now in full swing and each day makes me better at what I do. Food, games, music, all of them are in my repertoire fully now and I would love the opportunity to do paid work to explore my opinions on things.

    Today’s review will be a topic I considered briefly before ranting about Borderlands a few days back. One of my favourite Magic: the Gathering (MTG/Magic for short) cards, and how the deck around it took shape.

    Now, I know Magic is a very complicated card game. Being over thirty years old at this point in time and having a foundation of spaghetti code, it can be hard for outsiders to understand things – this is why I am going to write a short glossary on the terms to be discussed to hopefully minimise communication issues:

    • Colour – Magic has a system of five colours that determine what cards can do, similar to types in Pokemon. Colours do have a “philosophy” associated with them but that is a topic for another time
    • Commander – A format in Magic where you build a deck around a legendary creature (Commander), where all the cards need to stay in that colour identity, and you can only have one copy of each card
    • Spell – every nonland card in Magic is a spell, even creatures. The flavour of this is the players are dueling wizards, bringing forth powerful effectives each turn
    • Stack – similar to in programming, abilities in Magic work on a stack, operating on a “first in, last out” principle meaning whatever card is placed on the stack first resolves last

    Okay, preamble done, time to introduce the card.

    Momir Vig, Simic Visionary is a blue-green card initially released in the 2006 set “Dissension”, part of the original Ravnica block, with the version above being released in the 2019 “Ravnica Allegiance” Guild Kit decks, which is where I got my hands on it.

    The ability triggers whenever a creature spell of the respective colour is cast. Green lets you grab a creature and put it on top of your deck, blue lets you reveal the top card of your deck – if it’s a creature, you can put it into your hand.

    Hopefully the combo is pretty obvious here: play a green creature to get a card on top, and then follow up with a blue creature to get it into your hand. 

    However, there is a little something in Momir’s rules clarification that makes this card very interesting.

    If you play a creature that is both blue and green simultaneously, both abilities trigger. Due to how the stack works in Magic, the player triggering those abilities can choose to order them on the stack however they want. This means whenever a blue-green creature is cast, the player can essentially search their deck for any creature and put it into their hand.

    And if that creature is blue-green itself, then the process can continue ad nauseam… so obviously I built a deck around that entire concept.

    https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/6941266#paper

    Behold! Simic Slaw, named for the horrendous concoction made up for a LoadingReadyRun Friday Nights episode. It is a deck solely made up of blue-green creatures, but I went beyond that. Even though cards of other types have no synergy with Momir, every card (minus artifacts) is blue-green as well.

    Now, is this deck extremely fun? Yes. Is this deck very tiresome to run because of all the shuffling? Yes. Does this deck have a clear win condition? You bet your ass it… does not actually.

    Simic Slaw is one of my several meme decks built around a silly theme to have fun rather than anything else. I have decks I can bring out for being competitive or being scary at a gaming table, but the joy of Commander is making weird creations of cards that would have never got their time to shine otherwise- a gallery of cards from a specific colour pair definitely fits that vibe.

    Anyway, that was a page and a bit ramble around Magic, so I will end things off here.

    Thank you for reading the Redundancy Review today. Hopefully the Monday blues do not hit you too hard and you are able to relax at some point today. You are appreciated by both me and the world, so hang in there.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 11, “Hot two? Damn”

    (for context on what this series is, please see my Day 1 post here: https://rosaliarambles.wordpress.com/2025/06/11/redundancy-review-day-1-a-new-beginning/) 

    Good morning risers and shiners, welcome to Day 11 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    It is currently a wondrous 23 degrees Celsius outside at 9:15am (73 degrees in Freedom units) with the humidity at 59%. Combine this with the clay oven construction of the flat I live in and we get a formula for it once again being too damn hot. Thankfully the temperature is supposed to go back down to reasonable levels with 20 degrees being the peak instead of the lower part of the curve.

    Outside of the supply run I did with my partner yesterday, my productivity was minimised despite my best efforts to try to keep doing tasks – after a while of just moving small distances across the living room I turned into a sweaty mess that needed to sit down.

    Hopefully once things cool down and the flat returns to a reasonable temperature I can keep on my domestic quest to finish all the outstanding housework and tidying.

    Caught up with a friend and colleague of mine yesterday who mentioned that Poncle had closed applications for the QA engineer role, so hopefully I get to hear back soon enough (also cause I sent him the link to this site, if you are reading, hi!).

    Due to meet with the Jobcentre on Monday as well, hopefully I can get things sorted out with them and start receiving some extra money to help out with things.

    If you would like to help me out with my money situation, then I am available to be hired for writing work. Reviewing video games, card games, and board games are options alongside commissioning me for fiction – I love expanding my horizons and I would love working with you on your next project.

    So as part of my housework list yesterday, I resumed sorting my Magic: the Gathering cards. For those unaware, I own… a lot of cards…

    …possibly even too many one might say… this is not even a full representation of the entire collection, considering the amount of binders and commander decks I own.

    Though with consideration to today’s review subject, pictured above, keeping the collection organised has become easier.

    Those cardboard boxes are called BulkBox QUADs, being able to hold 3600 cards across four channels. They do require some assembly before use, and I will admit to minorly fucking up the construction on one of them but that is not a fault of the video tutorial I followed – created by Bulkbox themselves.

    Before purchasing this product, my cards were stored in a Fenrir Games 5000 count longbox that I had owned since around 2019. It definitely served its purpose for the time I had it but in my current living situation, it was difficult to use it without struggling to find a home for it.

    That is where one of the features of the BulkBox really appealed to me – a set of three QUADs fit perfectly into one IKEA Kallax cube. Having a massive amount of Kallax cube space already in my flat made it the ideal upgrade for my card storage solution.

    Picture taken from BulkBox’s website

    Even with the amount of cards currently spread across all three of the boxes I bought, I do not feel them bowing or bending whenever I pick them up – something I often encountered when needing to move my old 5000 count longbox. Even considering the somewhat botched job I did on construction, the Bulkbox holds up fantastically to the amount of cards I am putting into it.

    That said, I would consider Bulkbox to be premium-priced storage solutions. For a bundle pack of three QUADS (with free UK shipping) cost me £35. I do consider it worth it for serious collectors of cards and Kallax enthusiasts (that Venn diagram is a circle), especially if you want to minimise the footprint your collection has.

    Taking into account the rest of the collection I need to sort, it is likely I will need to buy from BulkBox again, and I know I can be assured of their quality.

    I think that covers everything for today, I am going to go focus on staying cool with soft drinks, frappes, and ice cream. Thank you for reading today, please stay cool and treat yourself to anything that cools you down.

    For more information on BulkBox products, visit their website here: BulkBox the best trading card game storage boxes

  • Redundancy Review: Day 10, “Running Up That Hill”

    (for context on what this series is, please see my Day 1 post here: https://rosaliarambles.wordpress.com/2025/06/11/redundancy-review-day-1-a-new-beginning/) 

    Good morning climbers and divers, welcome to Day 10 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    Might be a shorter one today as I have just come back from shopping at Asda to get supplies before a massive heatwave today and tomorrow. Plenty of drinks, snacks, and ice cream to get through a rough time – did involve walking up a very steep hill in quite humid weather all the same.

    Despite the heat though, I have been managing to keep busy domestically. It was a tough struggle but yesterday I managed to finally give the master bedroom a deep clean, picking up the floordrobe that had developed and giving the carpet a well deserved vacuuming. Being able to see the floor again and not have to walk around on eggshells is such a relieving feeling.

    I reconnected with an old friend yesterday as well. In the past we had helped each other get the multiplayer achievements on Borderlands 2 and he messaged me a few days back asking if I wanted help getting the ones on the original game as well (not the “Enhanced Edition” – quotation marks used quite literally there). He is in a similar situation to myself in terms of jobs so it was nice to shoot the shit for a bit about life.

    The job search continues, albeit very slowly right now. Got an official rejection from Jagex for the producer role I had applied for, which whilst it sucks to be rejected, I do appreciate them sending a proper rejection email. It says something that actually receiving one is a rare courtesy these days.

    Still waiting to hear back from Poncle, which is definitely the main cause of my waiting room syndrome right now. I think getting an answer one way or another from them would help me move on to applying at a great speed. 

    If you want to help me out in the interim, I am available for writing work as always. Doing these redundancy reviews have really helped me out in staying in the routine and always thinking how to improve my own work, being able to tell my story no matter what also helps. I have always liked to think of myself as a storyteller above all else and maintaining a public journal of sorts helps me feel like I am making myself a better one.

    So, initially I was going to cop out today and review one of my favourite Magic: the Gathering cards for today, but me emphasising the quotation marks on the Borderlands “Enhanced Edition” makes me want to cover that, especially with playing the original yesterday.

    Borderlands is a first-person looter shooter initially released in 2009, with the Enhanced Edition coming out in…

    …well that does not link up. Wikipedia is telling me the Enhanced Edition released in 2019 whilst the Steam Store page is saying 2023… 

    Oh well, moving on.

    For my thoughts on Borderlands across both versions, I can summarise it simply as “very successful tech demo”. Borderlands was the first game to bring the looter shooter genre into the public spotlight, previous attempts had been made but this game made it mainstream. That said, outside of the loot system I do not think the original has much going for it in today’s market.

    Especially when compared against the vastly superior Borderlands 2 released in 2012, which I personally think is where the franchise peaked and has been struggling to live up to it ever since, but that is a different story.

    The driving mechanics are passable, but feels more like a way to get from point A to point B quicker than anything else – especially prevalent in the third DLC which puts a heavy emphasis on needing to drive everywhere. 

    Whilst there are some funny moments with characters in the base game a lot of the humour is told in flavour text rather than character dialogue. This is rectified in the DLC, where the comedy and writing style of the sequel starts to take shape with each passing addition.

    In terms of thoughts on the Enhanced Edition… I do not want to be kind to it. The graphical improvements and expansion of graphical options is a very needed addition, as the original game does not have VSync or a Field-Of-View slider – noticeable omissions especially when playing that version at 4K

    But outside of that I have encountered a lot of issues in my playtime, including numerous crashes and issues with the minimap being retroactively added into the game. Its inclusion does help with navigating the world better compared to the pure compass system of the original, but in multiplayer I have seen several issues with waypoints not working for me as the joining player.

    Borderlands 1 Title Screen
    Borderlands 1 in Fyrestone
    Borderlands Enhanced Title Screen
    Borderlands Enhanced Outside Fyrestone

    When looking at texture quality as well, I think the visuals of the original look better. Both games have the cel-shaded look but the original has sharper lines, a more defined style, one that especially shines considering the era of brown modern military shooters it came out in. The lighting in the enhanced edition is better on a technical standpoint, but I feel it loses some of the edge the original had.

    I will end on a positive note, and highlight one thing that always brings a smile to my face whenever I have revisited the original: Mordecai.

    Mordecai is the “Hunter” class of the game, with skill trees focusing on his pet Bloodwing, the usage of pistols, and my preferred tree of choice: Sniping. Whilst the trees are much smaller compared to later entries; Mordecai’s sniping tree is beautifully simple in its execution, boosting damage, ammo capacity, and ending off on a capstone of bypassing shields once fully levelled up.

    Trespass is a hilariously broken skill in this game, especially considering the endgame Eridian Guardian enemies are all shields and no health. What is supposed to be a tough enemy to break through their defenses while they bombard you with attacks becomes trivial fodder that dies to a single headshot, only rarely needing a follow up shot to finish the job.

    Playing as Mordy was so fun that my initial playthrough of Borderlands 2 was done using Zer0 and trying to do a similar thing, but he could just not reach the expectations I had – though this was not a bad thing, as I then switched to Salvador who is stupid amounts of fun to play as.

    But rambling about the sequel needs to be another day, especially as I uh…

    …liked that game a lot more.

    That does it for today, what I initially thought was going to be a shorter review turned into an over three page rant. Thank you for reading if you made it this far, please stay cool wherever you are and remember to hydrate regularly throughout the day.

    To purchase both Borderlands and Borderlands Enhanced, visit the Steam Store here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/729040/Borderlands_Game_of_the_Year_Enhanced/