Rosalia Rambles

Tag: video-games

  • Redundancy Review: Day 114-117. “Attempting to Stabilise”

    Redundancy Review: Day 114-117. “Attempting to Stabilise”

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

    Good morning rudders and canards, welcome to a big catchup post covering Day 114 to 117 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    So on top of my period destroying my body entirely, this week was also one where my day job decided to massively ramp up for various deliverables, which obviously takes priority that day over my unpaid writing practice.

    Usually, I write the Redundancy Review during my lunch or working on it whilst I wait for apps to upload or process, with the final touches coming after I finish – such as getting the piece into WordPress and adding in the images before publishing & uploading to BlueSky.

    But given the intense stress of this week, I reprioritised my evenings into focusing on rest, even reducing the amount of complex cooking I was doing during the week and instead put my energy into making meals that did not require much effort.

    And even now when trying to write this out, I feel exhausted. Both mentally and physically, I am still trying to catch up with what happened this week to try get myself back into the mindset of writing every day to keep myself sharp.

    There are a lot of topics I still want to cover in my style, and I still have a lot of stories to tell, but for now, I think resting is the priority.

    Hence why today’s review is going to be a bit ramshackle due to the fact I will be pulling screenshots off of my hard drive from ages ago to help make my points.

    In the dark recesses of Rosalia Rambles history, there exists a review of Ace Combat 7, you can read it here if you so wish, but considering it is nearly five years old at this point, I think it is time I do it justice in my new style and with less of a critical stance & more of my ‘review’ stance.

    When it comes to niche Japanese franchises, Ace Combat is definitely up there for me. I got introduced to it by an old friend back during my uni days and, despite being very skeptical that I would enjoy the game, it instead became one of my favourite series of all time.

    Wherever you are, old friend, I hope you are doing well in life, and that you are happy. It really was all I wanted for you, even if I could not provide it.

    Ace Combat 7 is the most recent entry in the franchise, coming out in 2019, and whilst I have a very respectable playtime on PC; my first experience with the game came on PS4, which I think goes to show how much I enjoyed the game that I decided to rebuy it on a different platform and play through it all again.

    The goal of the game is good, clean, arcade-style flight simulator fun. There are twenty campaign missions ranging from your standard “take down bombers and escorts attacking your base” to “destroy the required amount of enemy assets in time”.

    Though, I do want to highlight the story of the game along with re-emphasising the year it came out. For coming out in 2019, there is a heavy focus on the usage of drones in war, including the inciting incident of the game being an autonomous drone attack being carried out in the “protagonist” nation using drones hidden in shipping containers.

    Considering that exact scenario has played out in the Ukraine/Russia conflict with the former side using that exact tactic on the latter, it feels almost spooky to revisit some of the themes in this game.

    If you care about spoilers, here is your small-scale spoiler warning for Ace Combat 7, skip ahead until you see an image of a glowing fighter jet, where I will change topic.

    During the game you see cutscenes of your rival ace, Mihaly, taking part in experiments that are providing training data to the drones. Once you get to the final mission, two advanced drones are revealed that are carrying Mihaly’s data, with the objective of uploading that data to drone factories around the world to mass-produce these AI-powered war machines.

    Again, this game came out in 2019, and to me having a plotline like this in a game about fighter jets feels ominously prophetic, bordering on Metal Gear Solid 2 levels of a plot being way ahead of its time.

    Simultaneously, there is writing that echoes the anti-AI sentiment of today through the message of drones versus human pilots:

    Screenshot grabbed from Ace Combat Fan playing Mission 18 on Youtube: https://youtu.be/l-f8ObKfJh0?si=MkBzUIw5sqsVHQHs

    Like with most games with a modern military setting, there needs to be a level of media literacy to both appreciate the themes whilst recognising that the game is acting as propaganda for various companies like Lockheed Martin and Boeing, this is often why when I talk about these games my general mantra for discussing them is:

    “War bad, planes rad”

    (thank you to Oboe Shoes Games on Youtube for that brilliant phrase)

    Even in the mission where the above sentence is spoken, you as the “protagonist” are in the midst of committing a war crime by attacking a site of historical slash cultural significance to pillage their supplies, so, the ahead of its time message is balanced out by the horrors.

    Anyway, that is enough story discussion, time to put up the signal that people can come back.

    Ahh, glowing X-02S Wyvern, you are one of my favourite stupid additions to the game in the form of DLC.

    Once again I show I am not immune to propaganda, but that does not minimise my love for this game. Planes are indeed rad, and getting to fly them in video games is one of the most exhilarating experiences I have ever had the pleasure of partaking in. Ace Combat 7 pushed me to my limits as I tried 100%ing the main campaign, doing all the side objectives, hidden aces, and in-game medals. 

    I still need to properly immerse myself into the multiplayer to bring up my Steam achievement count to the top, but I have proven myself in the way I want to, and that satisfies me.

    Ended writing way more than I anticipated about a plane game, but I think this has done what I wanted it to in getting the juices flowing again. Thank you so much for reading today’s edition of the Redundancy Review, wherever you are I hope you are able to make the most of a relaxing Sunday before the Monday blues come back at you.

    Ace Combat 7 is available on Steam, Xbox, Playstation, and Switch, so if my review has made you at all curious, give it a go!

  • Redundancy Review: Day 110-111, “Shark Attack!”

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

    Good morning hammerheads and nurses, welcome to Day 110-111 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    After a long relaxing weekend where nearly nothing was able to bother me, I now return to my desk full of one thing…

    …estrogen.

    Yup, the best way to end a fantastic set of days in which I felt the best I have in several months is me entering into the week starting my period once more which brings paranoia and overthinking back into my mind. Yum.

    You would think after almost three years of being in this cycle, there would be some measure of “used to this” with the fact my body decides to destroy itself whilst throwing my emotions into flux for up to a week, but nope – it still hits like a truck each time and brings out the worst of my inner monologues to put me in a funk.

    I carry on though, in spite of everything that could hold me back, to continue writing the part of my story that I currently find myself in the midst of: one girl trying to find her way in a world that is rapidly changing around her, all the while trying to keep herself on a good mental path.

    And sometimes, part of that story is having a brain that decides you need to feel inexplicably worse about everything going on in your life as if there is not a long history of things going your way.

    So, rather than go into any of the thinkpieces or in-depth stories I usually like to tell, I am going to go straight into the review section of today, and in honour of Title Update 3 coming out for Monster Hunter Wilds, it is time to go over one of my favourite musical tracks from the game that got me into the franchise as whole: Monster Hunter Rise.

    Not only is this one of my favourite tracks, it belongs to a monster I think is in contention for being my all-time favourite within the series as a whole – Crimson Glow Valstrax.

    For those who might be unaware, I have a massive fascination with fighter jets due to playing a large amount of Ace Combat, and this interest made me fall in love almost immediately with Valstrax’s design, being a peregrine falcon crossed with a dragon and then because that was somehow nowhere near badass enough, throwing a fucking F-22 Raptor into the mix to form an absolutely gorgeous design.

    And that is just its base design, as the Crimson Glow (shortened to CG for ease) variant in Rise takes the base form of Valstrax, adds in an unstable core of dragon energy to increase its aggression, and make its theme a thousand times more terrifying – especially if you are fighting the Risen variant found within the Sunbreak expansion.

    If it were not for Rey Dau coming into the mix with Wilds, Valstrax would be my definitive favourite monster outside of my meme pick of Dodogama, but that is a debate for another time.

    As additional comparison, I will be comparing CG Valstrax’s theme to the original Valstrax theme from Generations Ultimate, found here. Note: I have not played GU (a cardinal sin, I know), so my impression will be solely based on how I react to the music.

    Right from the start, CG Valstrax’s theme presents an aura of intimidation with a choir coming in to herald the arrival of this magnificent creature before launching into the main body of the song, which honestly makes me feel as if I am being relentlessly pursued by an apex predator.

    This differs from how the original theme makes me feel, as the progression of the song makes original Valstrax feel like a regal creature – one that is still completely capable of destroying you, but one that views your encounter more like a dance, a coordinated exchange of blows with two equally matched combatants. 

    CG Valstrax has no such illusions, they are driven solely by the amount of dragon energy coursing through them, and they want you dead.

    This is best exemplified during what I refer to as “the chase” section of CG Valstrax’s theme, shortly after the chorus concludes. In the GU version, this starts at the timestamp of 1:15, and honestly, I think there is nothing much to say about what plays out here before it returns to the start of the song.

    There are strings, there is choral singing, but this section of the GU theme honestly lets me down compared to how the CG theme plays out at the timestamp of 1:40.

    It is entirely possible I am blinded by bias, but you cannot deny how much more impactful “the chase” section of the song sounds in CG Valstrax’s theme, this version is the whole reason I call it “the chase” because it actively sounds as if you are being chased down and the rapid notes of the choral singing is your hunter panicking as this out of control creature bears down on you.

    Ultimately though, I love both versions, as I love both versions of Valstrax for what they represent for Monster Hunter. Crazy ideas that sound silly on paper, brought to life through detailed ecology.

    Some might disagree and say that Valstrax goes too far along the line of silly, but when you look at the similarly bizarre but beautiful designs of “T-Rex with a flaming sword for a tail” and “wyvern that creates explosive scales out of excreted oils”, I think a peregrine falcon dragon fighter jet is right at home.

    That will do it for today, I need to get back to my day job. Thank you for reading today’s edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are, I hope the Monday blues are not bringing you down too hard and that you can find some time to relax today.

    As a little bonus, OG Valstrax’s theme won the Hunter’s Choice Best Monster Theme award over a year ago now, and in honour of that it got an EDM-style remix which, like the main themes, sounds absolutely fantastic.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 80, “Side Effects Include Loss Of Appetite”

    (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 munchers and gobblers, welcome to Day 80 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    As mentioned at the end of yesterday’s review, my period has descended upon me, a stumble on the path to greatness that estrogen has granted me. God knows I would be too powerful if I could have the benefits of euphoria without some crippling debuff, and so sees fit to bring down my potential.

    Which in this case has manifested in a loss of appetite… yeah kind of shitty my body has afflicted the one of the few things I have near limitless passion for: my love of food.

    That and writing, cause my brain is fogged up in addition to not feeling like eating.

    So my extremely brief “review” is going to be the most recent Warbond from Helldivers 2, the “Obedient Democracy Support Trooper” Legendary Warbond.

    For context, Warbonds are one of the ways Helldivers 2 distributes premium content, being similar to a battlepass in having multiple pages that unlock as more items are purchased using an in-game currency called “Medals”, earned by completing missions.

    Though that is where the comparison to most battle implementations end, as Helldivers 2 is extremely unique in that the premium currency, known as Super Credits, is entirely farmable in game, found in intervals of 10 or, very rarely, 100 at points of interest around the map during missions. This is unrelated to the main review, I just want to highlight it.

    Most Warbonds cost 1000 Super Credits, though the new Legendary Warbond for Halo 3 ODST costs 1500 instead, potentially to help cover licensing fees.

    Full disclosure, this is the first Warbond I have actually spent real money on, which was £7.99 for 1000 Super Credits to supplement 500 I already had through game progression.

    This is a decision I have no regrets in, especially after actually getting to use the weapons within it. The fact a Halo crossover is present in one of Sony’s headline titles is something I want to support in the industry, and Arrowhead’s implementation of Halo weaponry is incredibly loving and faithful.

    Thus far I have only unlocked the assault rifle, and from the few missions I have used it on I am thoroughly in love with how it has been brought over. Rather than aiming down the sights of the weapon when going into first-person mode, like all the other weapons do, the first-person mode for the assault rifle mimics how the view looks in Halo, with the assault rifle off to the right side. A small detail, but a clear indicator of how much the series means to the developers.

    Additionally, whilst I have a minor gripe with the shotgun being “light armour penetrating” (the lowest value in the game) considering it is modelled after the Halo shotgun that is supposed to annihilate Flood, from what I see of it on its stats page within the Warbond itself makes me confident it will be powerful nonetheless, having a damage stat far exceeding that of the highest damaging base-game shotgun. I look forward to destroying the enemies of democracy with it.

    And again, I have no regrets spending my real money on this. For all the game’s faults and technical deficits, I think Helldivers 2 is a shining beacon in today’s modern game industry – regular free content updates, premium content that can be earned entirely through gameplay, and a beautiful community brought together across all three major platforms. I am proud to support Arrowhead, and I will continue to do so by playing Helldivers 2.

    For a brain addled by hormones, I think I did pretty well writing day. Thank you for reading this edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are I hope your weekend is good, and you can find relaxation throughout it.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 41, “Damn Gubbermint”

    Redundancy Review: Day 41, “Damn Gubbermint”

    (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 senators and representatives, welcome to Day 41 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    As your standard left-wing trans girl, I do not have a very high opinion of the UK government (what a topic to start Monday morning am I right?). This dislike comes from a wide variety of factors, some of which might be too heavy to discuss in an easy-reading blog series, but today is going to start with a micro-rant against Universal Credit.

    Universal Credit is the main benefit you can claim in the UK when unemployed or going through hardship, it was created with the intent of combining several other benefits in the UK to streamline the system with people not having to process multiple different claims for benefits.

    Having been through the system twice myself, once in 2020 after graduating university and from June 2024 onwards as part of a joint claim with my partner which then translated into me dealing with the system in regards to my redundancy…

    I cannot stand the fucking process of Universal Credit and the Jobcentre.

    Over the last year or so, my partner and I have had to deal with all manner of different crises in claiming. From degrading interviews with people who do not fully understand or care to understand our circumstances, to the system being incredibly obtuse and plagued with IT issues at every turn, this process has been exhausting.

    But it would all be worth it, right? You deal with stressful interviews and jumping through constant hoops in exchange for extra money to help with bills, right?

    Wrong.

    Over the last year, we have received a pittance due to the benefit being means-tested, meaning it reduces as income is made and is deducted based on your savings as well, punishing you for being smart with money and building a nest egg. This tapered off our UC by an insane amount due to my salary and savings at the time, with it going completely to zero once my partner got into work.

    That makes sense though, right? We were both in work, so it would make sense that it tapers off to nothing as we were both making enough – and yeah, that is right for the time we were both employed.

    But from the moment of my redundancy, Universal Credit and the Jobcentre have not helped me in the fucking slightest. Due to fuckiness with payroll being run in error by the administration company, we got nothing for the month of June, and then with my statutory payments coming through, we have received nothing for July as well.

    Again, it makes sense, payments taper off with earnings. What pisses me off here though is that I got no fucking support from the Jobcentre at all outside of two short JSA meetings, which, yes, I was able to demonstrate I was capable of searching for work on my own, I had a fully capable CV that listed all my accomplishments, and I was aware of every website you could search for a job on.

    I felt let down all the same, because I had already felt like my world had collapsed inwards with my redundancy, and the near-complete apathy I received from the system pained me even further.

    To bring… some semblance of balance to this rant, I know the people who work in the Jobcentre are quite literally doing their jobs. It is not their fault they are trying to navigate an unfair system as well, and whilst I railed against them not caring about circumstances, they have a limited number of time per case – they do not have the bandwidth to learn each one in detail.

    Which just exposes the problems in the system more. The people who are there to help others navigate through it do not have the time to know each claimant, to understand their circumstances, and to give them the right guidance they need based on who they are.

    And with my contracting role due to pay me for the next assessment period, we are still unlikely to receive anything from UC, but we are still expected to play the games and jump through the hoops.

    So, yeah, I am in a bit of a rough mood this morning due to government bullshit, and considering I have to call up HMRC to try to get my self-employment status sorted, my mood is probably not going to improve.

    God after that rant I need to talk about something cute and calming or else I am going to burst a damn blood vessel.

    I know the perfect thing!

    Cinnabunny is a cozy farming & baking game released in February 2025, so a fairly recent addition to my library all things considered. It is very easy to compare it to Stardew Valley in terms of game mechanics:

    • You grow crops
    • You use those crops to make things
    • You can sell those things or gift them to other villagers
    • You can explore caves and forests to find other collectibles

    Except the difference is that every character is a bunny in this game.

    As someone who loves bunnies as animals in general and has put in an unreasonable amount of time into playing Stardew across multiple saves, this seemed like the perfect game for me. Whilst I did have some troubles initially getting used to how the camera works in this game, I have found myself thoroughly enjoying it.

    Out of the mechanics I have explored so far, this definitely does feel like a simplified version of Stardew Valley in some areas. For example, the mining mechanic is way less in-depth than in Stardew, with you only really having two types of mineral to mine – that being regular salt and pink salt. This makes sense in the context of the game, as why would a bakery bunny need anything beyond that, but it would have been nice to get some extra depth beyond that.

    The true depth of the game comes in the baking mechanics, and by extension, the gifting mechanics. At the start of the game you are only able to make flatbread, and unlike Stardew where new machines/tools are unlocked by levelling up your skills, Cinnabunny instead prioritises learning about the other NPCs likes and dislikes to give them “loved gifts”.

    Loved gifts will unlock new recipes, bakery equipment, and upgrades to existing equipment with each unique one gifted. Learning what each bunny likes is also a more involved process than in Stardew, as you will be required to give gifts and then read the bunny’s dialogue to understand what flavours, shapes, or baked goods they love. This can then be recorded in your journal to reference at any time in your pursuit of true bunny friendship.

    Whilst I wish for more depth in some of the mechanics in this game, it is actually a refreshing change of pace to have something more relaxed compared to Stardew… which sounds weird, let me explain.

    As someone who did a Perfection save on Stardew 1.5, I know a lot about the game, perhaps too much. This leads me to know the optimal plays in most new saves, and feeling in a rush to do things properly so I can unlock even more new things to get my farm up to spec.

    But with Cinnabunny, there is a certain peace that comes from not knowing anything at all combined with the simpler mechanics. All I need to do is focus on baking things and exploring, it helps me zen a lot more than Stardew does.

    Cinnabunny is one of my games installed for my upcoming ten hour coach trip to Glasgow at the end of the week, and I very much look forward to playing it to pass the time.

    Thank you for reading this bizarre mix of anti-government ranting and chill game easy reading. I hope the Monday blues are not too harsh for you and you can get through whatever work you need to do easily.

    For more information on Cinnabunny, visit its Steam page here: Cinnabunny on Steam

  • Redundancy Review: Day 34, “Setting Back Up”

    Redundancy Review: Day 34, “Setting Back Up”

    (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 angels and demons, welcome to Day 34 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    This edition comes live from my desk once more, as I slowly wake myself up with coffee, ice water, and waiting for my onboarding meeting to arrive cause I can not really do much without getting set up with everything. 

    Admittedly I did not sleep well at all last night, initially going to sleep way later than I had planned because of some commotion going on outside my flat last night and having a desire to people watch whatever was going on, but even after I had settled down I ended up waking up midway through the night for seemingly no reason at all.

    The residual heat and humidity is not doing me any favours either, as I woke up completely drenched in sweat and feeling generally gross, requiring a quick douse in the shower to feel a bit fresher.

    Time will tell how things in this new role turns out for me, I feel a great deal of anxiety and uncertainty about how things will go. My main plan is to go forward for the next two months or so to take me to the convention in September, enjoy myself for a weekend among fellow nerds, and then evaluate where I want to take my life & career.

    For now, I stay in my role as a QA techie – one that I am extremely good at mind, but one I still want to try to transition away from.

    The review topic for today is going to be about one of my favourite bits of gaming kit in my possession: the Steam Deck.

    An OLED Steam Deck

    Initially released in February 2022 with a follow up OLED model in November 2023 a couple days after I received my base model, the Steam Deck is the culmination of Valve’s prior experimentation with both Steam Controllers and Steam Machines. I actually do have a soft spot for the Steam Controller, having bought one on the cheap when they were discontinued and appreciating the haptic feedback it came with.

    One of the main selling points of Steam Deck is just how compatible it is with a large portion of Steam libraries due to how SteamOS works, using the compatibility layer Proton to ensure Windows-based games are able to run on the Linux-based OS. That said, Steam Deck is also a beautiful machine for emulation of older hardware through the use of EmuDeck.

    For me, the Steam Deck is a boon for my low-energy days when all I want to do is stay in bed but I still want to play games. On days like that even dragging myself to my PC can be difficult so being able to relax with the games I love from the comfort of my bed really made them easier.

    Which brings up the question, “But Rosa!” I hear you cry, “You had a Nintendo Switch long before Steam Deck came out! Did that not achieve the same effect?”

    And in terms of the original Switch, as I have not had a chance to mess around with Switch 2 yet… it might just be I was primarily exposed to some of the poorly optimised games on the system, being Pokemon, but I often felt it hard to play my Switch on those kind of days, whereas Steam Deck not only ran a lot of games better; it also was where most of my investment was, meaning more options for me.

    Additionally on lower spec games such as Balatro, Slay the Spire, or Dorfromantik, I never encounter many issues in terms of battery life with usage only being a concern when playing more intense games such as Monster Hunter World/Rise or EDF6.

    My Deck has helped me out through several different points since I got it around two years ago, and considering I have around twenty hours of travel to Glasgow coming up soon, I know it will continue to serve me well.

    That does it for today, I am going to continue to wait to be onboarded. Thank you for reading the not so redundant Redundancy Review, I hope you can have a relaxing Monday and do not get too overwhelmed by the stress of returning to work.

    For more information on Steam Deck, visit the Steam Store page here: Steam Deck™

  • 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.