Devil May Cry 4 & 5

 

After a break from the series, it’s time to continue it now that the long awaited sequel has arrived.

Devil May Cry 4 introduces me to Nero, a new anti hero character who gets betrayed by the holy order who use his girlfriend for malicious means. The Special Edition comes with bonus content including being able to play as Vergil, Trish and Lady, while the graphics and framerate are improved as well.

The core gameplay is the same, sword and gun play return, as does Devil Trigger and the various style sets, and this time, you will play both Nero and Dante during the main story.

This also has about 5 frigging difficulty modes, re-using bosses a la Wily Capsules and the style scoring system is pretty much at the center of the gameplay. It’s one of the better parts so far. Devil May Cry as a series is not one of my favorites, but it’s definitely stylish, cool, metal and CRAZY!

Rating: 7.4

This long awaited sequel is everything the fans have been craving for, and that is more of the same gameplay, style, presentation and CURAAHZINESS!

Nero and Dante return as playable characters with their own movesets, while a new character named V spices things up by attacking more indirectly with his summons. The enemy design involves of course demons, and this time they offer an insect like theme.

Character models are graphically impressive, and on the RE Engine, the game runs beautifully at 60 frames per second. The heavy metal soundtrack genre is intact and continues to suit the series, and the stylish score system is also present.

It doesn't come off as a surprise to see Vergil returning, which is a fan favorite character. There are 2 plot twists revolving the plot, but I won't unfold them here. Meanwhile, Trish, Morrison and Lady act as supportive cast, while Nico is a geeky yet cute mechanical engineer with an accent to support Nero mainly.

Devil May Cry 5 is yet another healthy staple entry into not only the franchise itself, but Capcom's current momentum, and I praise them for this. I can't wait to see what they will reveal next from their magic hat!

Rating: 7.5

Prague

 

For my second city trip, I went to the capital of the current Czech Republic, Prague, with Rick.

I was unfortunately constantly coughing throughout the weekend and had a minor fever, but I still wanted to do this. Back in 2013, I briefly visited only Cesky Krumlov in the south, and now with this trip done, I can say that it's an ideal pick for sightseeing.

Close nearby and landlocked by larger and arguably more major definitive countries, the Czech Republic has seen a fair amount of experiences, and the historical Bohemian region is what drove me to visit.

I finally managed to strike off one of my scary travel locations I wanted to see; the Sedlec Ossuary based at the former mining city of Kutna Hora, where at least 40.000 parts of human bones are decorated in a uniquely fashion, while being surrounded by a grave yard.

The capital also had a fair amount of visually striking sights to see. The Old Town square with the Tyn Church, the Astronomical Clock and the lively marketplace with joyful music playing transferred me to a medieval mindset, while the Charles Bridge captured that further.

Prague Castle is considered the world's largest ancient castle complex, although aside from the St.Vitus Cathedral, I wasn't that impressed by it, as an actual form factor of a castle wasn't really present.

Nonetheless, Prague is an easy choice to explore during a weekend, and there was enough variety to see.

The Age of Information

Life is busy, busier and the busiest seen yet anno the beginning of the 21st century.

Collecting and storing information is nearly as old as mankind itself, but the reason I am calling this article's subject that way is that in my opinion, you get bombarded with all kinds of information these days.

Marketing, (fake) news, social media and the internet itself, these are just a few external factors which deliver the information. The internet and smart phone in particular are arguably the ones which occupy our lives the most when speaking of information.

Personal examples I can give are YouTube subscriptions towards mostly gamer related content, various active WhatsApp groups such as the Family and the Party Squad groups, reading up onto news on my bookmarks, and checking not only my own e-mail inbox, but that of my work too.

Speaking of which, work itself can get quite busy, almost to the point of chaotic. I have the option to work at home if I feel that necessary, or just simply when I need more time to review the information available to me and plan my next step per subject, be it a mail flow, an incident, a request, a project and so on.

Keeping up with family events and in my social network, keeping in contact with friends, those too are part of information related events happening. Keeping up to date with my hobbies is something I weekly consume too.

Doing the daily and weekly chores of grocery, housecleaning and cooking are also part of managing information. Lucky for me, I like to plan out ahead pretty much everything in life happening to me, but I also don't mind being flexible or getting adaptable towards unpredictable situations.

The Age of Information is a term I would use to reflect on society's current flows of information. Of course, everyone experiences this differently, be it in fewer or more proportions, but objectively, life is very busy.

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

Hidetaka Miyazaki has the touch of gold, similar to Christopher Nolan or simply the mythological figure Midas; whatever is touched upon during his career, quality is ensured. And with their latest product, more successes are guaranteed.

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is a major different direction from the past action RPG formula's used. In particular, the RPG has lessened so much that now you will only be able to play as 1 character named Wolf, who has 1 weapon and a handful of skill trees.

The Sengoku era and shinobi based setting enrich the overall presentation, although if you are familiar with Japanese environments from games or other mediums, most of it will look, well, recognizable.

With only a handful of odd enemies to fight, most of the enemy design resolves around fighting other humans. As Wolf, your main weapon is the sword, but uniquely seen here, you also have prosthetic tools available, which most of the time are used in assistance, or for crippling particular enemies.

With the grappling hook tool, Sekiro's level design is as far as traversing goes quite a bit more interesting than say Demon's Souls, Dark Souls or Bloodborne.Unfortunately, on my PS4 Pro, the game would sometimes slow down quite a bit when using this hook. It was fun to move with it though.

The core gameplay resolves not around attacking or dodging, but around parrying and deflecting incoming attacks. There are 2 ways to do this, and the Mizuki variant ensures that you can counter otherwise unblockable attacks, but this usually comes with a high risk, high reward scenario.

What has also been striped down is that multiplayer is entirely absent, which means that there is no way to call for summoning help. The custom character creation is also gone, and you can only really upgrade your vitality, attack, tools and posture, which is the main meter system that encourages parrying.

I have died hundreds of times again, as expected from From Software's caliber, and fortunately, the sweet satisfaction of overcoming the biggest foes remains. Some of the featured bosses are highly difficult and fun, but I managed to finally beat the game today after defeating Sword Saint Isshin, the final boss.

The game also offers stealth options to sometimes instantly kill enemies or simply skip them. The NPC and overall lore are obviously Japanese based, but I wasn't as intrigued by it upon my first playthrough. Perhaps some of those lore experts online will change my mind.

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is another strong new IP from From Software, and it's both a critical and commercial success. Although not one of my favorites from them, I still applaud and cherish the time I spent journeying though.

Rating: 8.4

The B's of Belgium

 

 Bruges

Preserved medieval town which was spared physically during both World Wars, Bruges was picked by me as a tourist for the good stories I had heard about it, and the film In Bruges(2008) also helped in sparking interest.

Together with my buddy Michael, we were heading into a weekend of culture and night life. At Brugge, we toured first through the Half Moon's beer brewery, where it came as a surprise to me that the city has an underground operational beer pipeline!

We were unable to go inside the church Our Sweet Ladychurch as it was under construction, but we did not ignore it's size. The Begijnhof is a surviving house medieval community where religious women used to live in some kind of outcast state.

The Big Square in the center offering market space is what you would expect typically, and perhaps the Belfry Tower overseeing it all was the highlight for me, as climbing it's stairs would not only provide bells ringing, but also a good panoramic view of the city.

The canals and the authentic medieval setting completed the picture of Bruges for me.

Brussels

The capital of Belgium, Brussels is where we would stay in a private apartment via Airbnb, a site I have used several times over the years now. First we would relax and charge up from our jobs, then we would drink at a bar or two.

Then it was time for the city itself. We both agreed that the driving behavior of Belgians was objectively poor, as they would respond either slow or unexpected in several examples. We went to the Belgian Army and Military History museum as I like to include war museums in my itinerary.

The Big Square in the center was majestic and crowded to see, and nearby it, the famous little Manneken Pis statue is a hot spot, and has numerous origin stories. The architect of Saint Michael and Saint Gudula Cathedral was also impressive.

We walked through the Jubel and the Warande parks while taking a peek at the Royal Palace, and we also witnessed the grand and unique structure of Atomium, with a positive symbolic meaning. Finally, we drank Belgian beer and ate Vlaamsche Frieten as the weekend was coming to an end.

A major benefit for visiting Belgium is because it's our neighbors to the south. Easy to travel and fun to see as citytrips, Brugge and Brussels, or the B's or Belgium, were worth it. Seeing Ghent and Antwerp is the only next logical and obvious step!