Rosalia Rambles

Tag: Review

  • 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 21, “Community”

    (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 rebels and ruffians, welcome to Day 21 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    Numbers are really getting up there now. Not only is it the three week milestone reached, it is now the month of July, a time where I was supposed to actually be off work to wait out the heat… funny how that turned out.

    I continue to be surprised with myself that I have made it this far as well. My redundancy has caused a lot of mental stress to occur which has had the knock-on effect of making certain habits slip some days, but each morning I still get on my laptop and start writing through the grogginess.

    My road trip yesterday had a lot of different conversation topics, but the most interesting of which was finding bits of inspiration for how my voice as a transgender woman can influence my writing and stories.

    Transitioning is… messy, to say the least. There is plenty of advice from elder trans who have come before you but ultimately anyone who walks that path is going to encounter some challenges along the way, and I think that is one of the main points that needs to be amplified in today’s world.

    It is a scary time to be trans, with rising negative sentiment amongst politicians and news media potentially intimidating others to remain in the closet whilst simultaneously making already out people feel uncomfortable in the world they reside in.

    For both parties, I have a message, and whilst I may just be one person, I want to use my voice for good:

    The world is better with you in it. Do not let the ruling class tell you otherwise. You are important, you are valued, and you are beautiful – however you present yourself, you are amazing for living your truth.

    Finding strength in community is what can get us through hard times, and community can take many different shapes. It can be a group of former colleagues banding together to offer each other support during a hard time, it can be a collection of trans people coming together to build everyone up to be their best selves, and it can even be your close group of friends – a found family through shared interests.

    If that impassioned speech resonated, you would be impressed what I can do on other live projects – why not consider hiring me? I put my heart and soul into my work every time, leaving an emotional impact on the reader, or using my inherent sense of logic to write clean, consistent copy for professional projects.

    With us reaching Day 21, and noticing a trend in my previous entries, it is time for another Hololive song review, one that ties in to the themes of community and found family.

    In case it is not already obvious from this being the second group song I am reviewing from them, Hololive English Generation 3 “Advent” are my favourite group within the organisation. Their style, theming, and group coherence made me fall in love from day one with that love never once dimming throughout.

    “Rebellion” is their debut song, released just under two years ago at time of writing. True to their lore of being fugitives the song talks a lot about breaking out of cycles & systems, being freed from cages, and lighting fires in their hearts to embrace new found freedom.

    The rhythm of the song also helps highlight the ever present theme of “dance”, with the word appearing several times during the chorus. With its heavy usage of synth it really does sound like a song that could be played in a club, dancing the night away to a song about breaking free.

    With each Hololive song review I tend to highlight a specific segment of the lyrics, and this time is no different, with me wanting to draw particular attention to the bridge before the final choruses:

    “I know that I can still be

    The future of this story

    I know that I can be free

    The one and the only

    They tell me that I’m crazy

    I’ll never let them stop me”

    It says something that I did not need to go back to the music video to get those lyrics right – this final part of the song before launching back into the chorus is slower than the rest but it is the part I always like to listen out for. 

    Advent’s declaration of wanting to be free in their own story and not wanting to listen to those that put them down resonate heavily with my own experience within life, never wanting to be told to stop. Hearing those words each time I revisit Rebellion brings me immense comfort, much like any time I engage in Advent’s content.

    One final thing, knowing that I need an image for the thumbnail…

    …god Shiori is so pretty, I can not wait to cosplay her.

    That brings us to the end for today. Thank you for sticking with me for three weeks thus far, take it easy whatever you do, and have a great day!

  • Redundancy Review: Day 20, “Road Trip!”

    (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 drivers and racers, welcome to Day 20 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    The main thing on my agenda for today is taking a journey with a very close friend of mine. She needs to go pick up some pottery directly from the factory and asked if I wanted to come along, which I gave an enthusiastic yes to. I find myself oddly excited at this prospect, partly for the chance to hang out with someone I resonate a lot with but also the chance to talk in person about how I am feeling.

    It has been mentioned a lot throughout this series but the support my friends have given me has really helped see me through some of the darker days. They help remind me why I am here and to keep on keeping on through the pain, uncertainty, and anxiety that has come with being made redundant.

    On the subject of purpose though, I feel the purpose of the Redundancy Review has changed somewhat since I started. Initially these mental check-ins were only supposed to be one segment of the review followed by an update on my job search, finalising with the review. 

    Talking about the job search has fallen by the wayside, if just because having to write constant reminders of what I am applying for makes rejection feel all the worse due to having a detailed record written down. Applications still go out each day, and I am working on a “living CV” page for the site right now, so there is that.

    But it is time to make an adjustment to the Redundancy Review’s mission statement, and iterate what my main goals are with this daily series.

    1. Primarily, this is to get me out of bed and working on something each morning. Even if I do not feel like it, or even if my brain is foggy, something goes out to keep the habit
    2. This is a story of my lived experience. The homepage emphasises that no Generative AI content will be hosted here, and I will stick to that always. A machine cannot replicate the emotion behind my words, and I will strive to champion human creativity above all else
    3. Whilst the title includes the word “review”, I am not a critic – there are far better people than me to do that job. I am here to spread joy about the things I love and to try make the world a better place through my words

    I am also going to divert my call to action today. Normally I would be asking people to hire me for writing work, but this time I want to give a spotlight to a colleague of mine.

    https://www.behance.net/jordancollins16

    Jordan was the Art Director and 3D Generalist at Immerse, responsible for the look & feel of many projects along with creating some of the most insanely detailed and complicated assets you could come across. His expertise always shined in planning calls, where production would present the idea and his creativity would run wild of what he could accomplish.

    He is an incredibly easy going guy, able to act as a steady presence whenever projects hit that inevitable rocky stage, persevering through the hard times with the goal of laughing about it once it was all over. With how long he had been at the company, he was part of the foundation, and it showed through his dedication to the craft.

    If anyone reading this is in need of a 3D artist, get in touch with him. You will not regret having him involved.

    Time for today’s review, and we are staying in the usual territory of food & drink, but a newcomer into the category.

    Yup. I am talking about a brand of boxed stuffing mix. 

    It came into my mind as I was initially supposed to make a roast dinner yesterday but ended up getting too overheated, changing the plan to a more homely sausage, egg, chips, and beans instead. The stuffing is usually the star of the show when it comes to my roast dinners, and I have Paxo Sage & Onion Stuffing Mix to thank for that.

    I have tried supermarket’s “luxury” range of stuffings, I have tried people’s homemade stuffing mixes, and I have even tried Paxo’s other offerings – but it always comes back to the default to me, possibly out of nostalgia.

    That said, I do not just mix it with hot water, put it in a dish and call it a day. “Rosa Stuffing” as my partner calls it has two main defining features. The first being an addition to make Julia Child proud: copious amounts of butter, added at two different stages – first a healthy amount after the hot water has been added, and then a few small knobs on top once placed into the dish.

    The other is less conventional, an addition that comes from my experience with stuffing growing up. My granny and my mother would always add mushrooms into the mixture to add some extra body and difference in texture, with this small addition now becoming a staple of my own stuffing too.

    Mushrooms are a divisive foodstuff, but it is one I can not get enough of in any dish, with the inclusion of sauteed button mushrooms mixed with a rich sage and onion stuffing giving me comfort beyond compare, even in the context of a comforting roast dinner.

    With that new esoteric addition to the list of things I have reviewed, I will call it there. Thank you for reading today, please keep yourself cool today, at least in the UK it is supposed to hit between 29-31 degrees in some places. Stay hydrated everyone.

    For more information on Paxo products, visit their website here: https://www.paxo.co.uk/ 

  • 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 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/