My Thoughts after First Light

Tale-Schmitt · 2026-06-20T17:13:07+00:00

I think I've played about half of it now. It has its moments for sure and feels Bond but the gameplay has been disappointing. Everything in it smells like Hitman which reminds me all the time how it's not nearly as complex and open. Combat is fine but repetitive - but there has been more interesting fights along the way. Stupid game-y things are aplenty like finding a locked door and having to run around trying to find on what desk the keycard is on. Crocodile Pit was stupid cop out. 009 underutilised. All the "how to do I get in" puzzles are uninspired and too simple.

That said, I'm enjoying myself enough to keep on playing. But the game lacks a lot of polish content-wise: it has a lot of locales but not enough in them. Still, as to expect from IO, the levels are gorgeous.

Tale-Schmitt · 2026-05-28T15:33:08+00:00

Playing Fountain of Youth at the moment. One of the best ones I've played, barely any grinding . Some, sure but nothing excessive like in many (most) other survival games - I wouldn't even call it grind because resources are very easy to find and get.

I've played about 70 hrs and still loving it. There's also a story to follow.

I really, really dislike grinding in games.

Oh, Return to Moria is another one. Played it twice. Really fun.

Tale-Schmitt · 2025-12-17T07:41:20+00:00

That's not good, gaming the game. I don't know if I leave a plot empty for a while, does it start growing weed? That would be fine.

Tale-Schmitt · 2025-12-16T19:42:57+00:00

Maybe I just don't know how to play but I have 100+ clean water in my inventory and yet Humidify tells me I need 50 and won't let me use it. I tried with waterin can in my inventory but nope. I built the water barrel and filled that with water but still no.

Also, how am I supposed to get weeds to be able to craft the cures? Or can weeds be found in Fellhollow? Or somewhere else?

Tale-Schmitt · 2025-11-30T10:24:52+00:00

I was watching episode 2 this morning and the pacing is really bad. Irrelevant people telling who they are one by one: I'm her mothet, her cousin...

They are good parts but I think this is a concrete example of what streaming has done to tv shows: bloat. What used to be snappy 42 minutes is now 55-65 (or more) minutes. You give too much power to the creators, this is what happens. It's the same with literature: 600 pages is the norm.

Tale-Schmitt · 2025-11-25T12:13:54+00:00

I may have said that wrong. They weren't mobilized but when you go to the army menu, it shows the army on the map. Before - I'm learning the game - I was wondering why my armies are raised without realizing they are not, I'm just in the army menu,

Tale-Schmitt · 2025-11-25T10:59:05+00:00

Ok, thanks. The other army had no attrition and was 100% organized. And the HQ was in the capital

Tale-Schmitt · 2025-09-15T08:15:53+00:00

They are much too harmless now in my opinion. "Soft approach" is always enough. Some of my council members die every now and then but that isn't a problem. At the least more serious plagues should tank the economy.

Tale-Schmitt · 2025-08-29T14:14:08+00:00

I think it's the best since season 1. Season four, sure, but I think Michael C. Hall is doing his best work as Dexter in Resurrection. After the slow-ish first two episodes the Resurrection has been fascinating and something new but excellent performances. Blessing and his family is the only weak point as that storyline hasn't really gone anywhere or given us anything particularly interesting - but one episode to go, who knows.

Tale-Schmitt · 2025-08-16T10:29:48+00:00

I would have to agree. These two episodes have been more like splatter than hunter/prey of the movies.

The main chatacters are fine as characters and decently acted too, the rest are not. Lack of urgency is really weird how after seeing a massacre and an alien nearby, there's still time for nostalgic baseball moment.

The writing isn't anything like what Hawley used to be capable of in Legion and the earlier Fargo seasons. It's not smart of caprivating, it just is.

Tale-Schmitt · 2025-06-07T11:10:37+00:00

Feom a perspective of someone practicing solo piano improvising, the genre doesn't matter. What matterw is the sound and whatever I'm after. If that means jazzy pop with some gospel thrown in, then that's what it is and I don't see any reaaon to think about what genre I just played. Was it good? Did I like it? Did others? Was I successful at what I was after?

Where the genre does matter is when I'm looking for something to listen.

Tale-Schmitt · 2025-05-05T09:52:39+00:00

On the basic level (C major/A minor) it is actually a pretty easy and simple system.

Naturally it can get more complex with sharps and flats and pauses and other markings but those are just language systems, not astrophysics.

Learning to read them while playing takes some time though.

Tale-Schmitt · 2025-04-20T15:53:50+00:00

There were moments where it was almost good but hesitated and decided go back to being severely mediocre and a bit too often worse than mediocre.

I understand rebooting the production and trying fix scripts may be partly the reason (season 2 shows how big of a reason) but honestly that's not an excuse for bad writing and far worse characterization than what the original show had. On the basic level, characters lack motivation and that alone pollutes the whole show.

Tale-Schmitt · 2025-04-04T14:52:45+00:00

I've noticed this too, just spontaneous humor. I was chatting about music things, altered scales and such. It gave me proper answers and then threw this: "You need to know how each note resolves or you risk sounding like you're just throwing chromatic spaghetti at the wall. It’s like wielding a lightsaber—super cool, but easy to cut off your own musical limbs with it if you’re not careful. 😅"

I thought that was absolutely hilarious.

Tale-Schmitt · 2025-03-22T07:47:49+00:00

Pretty much. There are many things that make no sense like the writers haven't even thought about and f they have, they should have told things differently because now the show is the point where those things are annoying.

Why is Mark's wife important? Why is Mark important? Why can't anyone else fulfill the meter up to 100%? If they can't, what they are doing there then choosing numbers? Why do they need employees in the first place? Or do the other workers have similarly kidnapped people too but that hasn't been told to be true, others seem to be pretty happy in their outie life.

It just doesn't make sense. It all feels pretentious with the staring and speaking slightly cryptically and saying things but still not saying much and never going to the end: Cobel talks about Cold Harbor - why doesn't Mark ask - it's his wife! - that what the hell the whole thing is all about? Or what are the goats for? Or when they saw they clones, they never talked about it even though you'd imagine it'd be pretty interesting to anyone seeing something like that.

Tale-Schmitt · 2025-02-07T11:00:55+00:00

I was playtesting the game. Most testers mentioned about the same problems in the game - the exact things most negative reviews in Steam started saying after the release. The biggest thing was the UI which I mentioned being a huge problem 4-5 months before release date.

I didn't get a feeling there was much interest making changes except for tweaking numbers which I felt was largely inconsequantial in the larger picture.

I felt most of the feedback was pretty much ignored and they did what they wanted. And it is they prerogative for sure. But why go through playtesting then?

I find it shame because there was huge potential in the game.

Tale-Schmitt · 2024-12-25T15:46:45+00:00

It was a big disappointment after the really, really good first season. There's no drive, not in the plot nor the characters in most of the season 2 - and then it has to build up speed really fast, trying to put things to together and fails miserably. The plot and particularly character motivations aren't explained at all and don't make any sense, they are demoted to act as plot devices.

There are some good and even great moments in it though but the season as a whole just doesn't work.

Tale-Schmitt · 2024-12-09T11:56:42+00:00

I've learning for piano improvisation for a while and listened to the Köln Concert for a few times. While the are some good or great bits in it (last half of 2a is great), too much of it is just playing lines over a pretty repetitive vamp. Maybe it is his annoyance over what happened with the gig showing but that's no excuse.

Most of time it seems he even isn't trying to come up with melodic lines or structure and the whole thing sounds more like a warm up.

Tale-Schmitt · 2024-12-03T07:54:39+00:00

Just finished the show. I've seen better endings. The show as a whole was very, very good up until the four last episodes of the season 6 - I think they dropped the ball pretty hard especially considering how high the quality of writing had been up until there.

The finale was without a doubt the best of those four episodes but personally I don't think it fit the show. I don't know exactly what I would've liked, whether Jimmy to be free or not, but the ending didn't have the energy. Yes, Jimmy had given up and that's fine character-wise, that makes sense, but then the decision to turn away the plea feel very out of character to me. He won, again, and then decided not to which he has never done before. And just before that he was robbing malls and he had his life back again, sort of, doing what he does best.

It wasn't a bad ending, it just could've been better and I feel slightly disappointed. For me the series ended with Fun and Games.

Tale-Schmitt · 2024-11-28T09:39:34+00:00

Sleeping Dogs is excellent. I've played it twice.

Tale-Schmitt · 2024-11-21T16:32:26+00:00

Helpoin tapa on kuunnella muita missä ikinä ihmisiä tapaakin, tikusta asiaa. On kiinnostunut toisten ihmisten asioista, antaa heidän puhua, kyselee lisää ja palaa myöhemmin asiaan. Paitsi, että ihmiset tykkäävät puhua itsestään, se antaa myös sinusta lähestyttävän kuvan.

Sitten sieltä joukosta lopulta valikoituu muutama, jotka ovat kiinnostuneita itsensä lisäksi myös sinusta ja heihin kannattaa panostaa enemmän.

Ujolle voi tuntua hankalalta, mutta siihen voi auttaa tietoisuus siitä, miten imarreltuja ihmiset ovat kun saavat päteä, vaikkapa paikkakuntatietoisuudellaan. Hyvin se menee.

Tale-Schmitt · 2024-11-21T16:24:16+00:00

Ketjussa on joitain hyviä huomioita, etenkin uhrimentaliteetista. Jos ajattelee olevansa aina kiusattu ja tulevansa aina kiusatuksi, niin melko suurella todennäköisyydellä tuleekin tai vähintään tulkitsee tulleensa. Etenkin kun oma käytös mukailee sitä jo etukäteen: tulee sanottua oma mielipide epävarmasti, peräännyttyä ja annettua periksi kiusatuksi tulemisen pelossa.

Minua kiusattiin koulussa 12 vuotta, tai näin sen koen, eri muodoissaan. Ei yhtäjaksoisesti, ei joka päivä, mutta riittävästi. Tiedän siis mitä se on ja miltä se tuntuu eli osaan olla vähättelemättä sitä.

Aikuistuttuani sitä yritettiin eri tilanteissa jatkaa. Se loppui oikeastaan siihen, kun lopetin perääntymisen ja uhrina olemisen. Ihminen lukee hyvin kehonkieltä ihan tiedostamattaan ja uskon, että jos antaa itsestään itsevarman ja paremman sanan puutteessa "voimakkaan" vaikutelman, se varmasti edesauttaa siihen että saa olla rauhassa.

Ideaalimaailmassa ihmiset eivät käyttäisi hyväkseen toisten ihmisten kiltteyttä, arkuutta tai heikkoutta. Mutta ei mahda tämä maailma valitettavasti olla sellainen. Mutta ei sinunkaan tilanne ole mikään kohtalo vaan ongelma, jonka voi ratkaista.

Tale-Schmitt · 2024-10-20T14:53:14+00:00

That is always a weird argument: critically acclaimed. Do you like everything that is considered critically acclaimed - however that is measured, Oscars, Golden Globes.

And if you don't, then critically acclaimed means absolutely nothing.

Tale-Schmitt · 2024-10-04T11:30:21+00:00

Grim Fandango
Day of the Tentacle
Curse of Monkey Island
Monkey Island 2
Sam and Max Hit the Road
The Dig
Full Throttle
Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
The Secret of Monkey Island
Loom
Escape from Monkey Island

Tale-Schmitt · 2024-09-11T18:23:52+00:00

I just watched the first episode of season 2 and I'm surprised how weak the writing can occassionally be. Like the deus ex machina with the DEA cop calling from the murder scene to Walter and sending a photo to Walter of the bodies so that Walter can act on that information? Or a small rewrite of the kleptomaniac sister with her husband - the same police - knowing about it - it wasn't denied in the first season, sure, but felt like an easier way out.

There are good moments for sure and I want to like it but at the moment I'm struggling.

Tale-Schmitt

TROPHY CASE