2025 HAUL - NOVEMBER v4
This post was supposed to have been sorted a while ago but I ran into some challenges with my laptop so I held off until today (and you'll find out why below)...
#05: Quantic Dream games
#06: Fear Effect & Gex Trilogy
#07: Cyberpunk 2077 Ultimate Edition
#08: Heart of Dragon, Peacock King & Rosa
#09: Lenovo Legion Pro 5 Gen 10 Laptop
This post was supposed to have been sorted a while ago but I ran into some challenges with my laptop so I held off until today (and you'll find out why below)...
#05: Quantic Dream games
As I've been picking up more PlayStation 4 games as of late, I wanted to grab a couple more that I felt were missing in my collection and among those were the adventure games developed by Quantic Dream. Of course the developer has had some controversy over the past decade but the games they have released were pretty intriguing.
Starting off with The Heavy Rain & Beyond: Two Souls Collection, this covers two games that were originally released for the PlayStation 3; 2010's Heavy Rain and 2013's Beyond: Two Souls, and I have in fact played the latter as it was included in a bundle with The Last of Us for my console. While the collection includes both games, it was the former that I wanted to play the most in this collection.
Also picked up was their latest game Detroit: Become Human, which I've been intrigued to check out ever since the trailers were released at the expos. I'll save this until I have finished Heavy Rain though.
Starting off with The Heavy Rain & Beyond: Two Souls Collection, this covers two games that were originally released for the PlayStation 3; 2010's Heavy Rain and 2013's Beyond: Two Souls, and I have in fact played the latter as it was included in a bundle with The Last of Us for my console. While the collection includes both games, it was the former that I wanted to play the most in this collection.
Also picked up was their latest game Detroit: Become Human, which I've been intrigued to check out ever since the trailers were released at the expos. I'll save this until I have finished Heavy Rain though.
#06: Fear Effect & Gex Trilogy
Next we have some more PlayStation classics in the collection and they're both remasters for the PlayStation 5. In an interesting move, publisher Square Enix decided to let two of their owned IPs (via Edios from back in the day) be published by Limited Run Games with the help of two groups.
Fear Effect, originally released in 2000 by developer Kronos Digital Entertainment, was brought over to modern platforms by Implicit Conversions, the same company known for bringing classic PlayStation games onto PlayStation Plus Premium over the past few years. The game has been on my radar but I never understood what sort of game it was though its visual style did get my interest. As much as I liked the anime-esque design of the cover art, I did go for the more accurate represented version that Limited Run used as a cover variant.
Gex Trilogy features three games in the franchise; 1995's Gex, 1998's Gex: Enter the Gecko and 1999's Gex 3: Deep Cover Gecko, all developed by Crystal Dynamics (Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver), and one is not like the other. The original Gex started out for the 3DO and is a 2D platformer, while the next two games are 3D action/adventure platformers like many of the others that came out during that generation. The remaster was done by Limited Run's own Carbon Engine co-developed by YouTuber ModernVintageGamer who not long ago joined Digital Eclipse with their projects. Gex is also known for having unique voice acting for each region, with a British dub for the PAL releases and an American dub for the NTSC release. This remaster initially only had the latter but the British dub did come back with a patch later down the line. The cover variant for this release is rather using as they managed to get Final Fantasy artist Yoshitaka Amano to make the cover art which was so bizarre that I wanted it.
Fear Effect, originally released in 2000 by developer Kronos Digital Entertainment, was brought over to modern platforms by Implicit Conversions, the same company known for bringing classic PlayStation games onto PlayStation Plus Premium over the past few years. The game has been on my radar but I never understood what sort of game it was though its visual style did get my interest. As much as I liked the anime-esque design of the cover art, I did go for the more accurate represented version that Limited Run used as a cover variant.
Gex Trilogy features three games in the franchise; 1995's Gex, 1998's Gex: Enter the Gecko and 1999's Gex 3: Deep Cover Gecko, all developed by Crystal Dynamics (Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver), and one is not like the other. The original Gex started out for the 3DO and is a 2D platformer, while the next two games are 3D action/adventure platformers like many of the others that came out during that generation. The remaster was done by Limited Run's own Carbon Engine co-developed by YouTuber ModernVintageGamer who not long ago joined Digital Eclipse with their projects. Gex is also known for having unique voice acting for each region, with a British dub for the PAL releases and an American dub for the NTSC release. This remaster initially only had the latter but the British dub did come back with a patch later down the line. The cover variant for this release is rather using as they managed to get Final Fantasy artist Yoshitaka Amano to make the cover art which was so bizarre that I wanted it.
#07: Cyberpunk 2077 Ultimate Edition
A few years ago I downloaded the digital version for Cyberpunk 2077 and I held off due to my backlog but also to make sure the patches were pretty much sorted so that I can get the best experience. Eventually they released a physical version which for the PlayStation 5 release has a digital code for the Phantom Liberty expansion (whilst Xbox owners have the expansion on the disc), so I picked it up during Amazon's Black Friday sale.
#08: Heart of Dragon, Peacock King & Rosa
88 Films have been releasing more Asian Cinema titles each month and here is another batch from Terracotta Store. Two of these were released during the month of October whilst one was released for November.
Starting off with Heart of Dragon (龍的心), Sammo Hung & Fruit Chan's 1985 film starring Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, Emily Chu Bo-Yee, Lam Ching-Ying and more. This was one of the first Jackie Chan titles that 88 Films released on Blu-ray in their nicer packaging format and now it returns for the 4K Ultra HD format. The same on-disc content from before is here with the Hong Kong theatrical cut and extended Japanese cut available to choose from.
Next we have Peacock King (孔雀王子), Lam Nai-Choi's 1988 film starring Yuen Biao, Hiroshi Mikami, Gloria Yip Wan-Yee, Pauline Wong, Gordon Liu Chia-Hui and more. Lam Nai-Choi is a mad director as his films are filled with insane body horror fantasy action and what's interesting about this film is that it's also based on the manga series of the same name by Makoto Ogino. A sequel film was also made which 88 Films will be releasing very soon.
We also have Rosa (神勇雙響炮續集), Joe Cheung's 1986 film starring Yuen Biao, Lowell Lo Koon-Ting, Lu Hsiao-Fen, Kara Wai Ying-Hung, Paul Chun Pui, James Tien Chun, Charlie Cho Cha-Lee and more. Another action film with Yuen Biao in the main lead once again but this film's cover has a bright style to it that reminded me of Police Story so I'm also intrigued here. Both Peacock King and Rosa were packaged as deluxe collector's edition Blu-ray sets with slipcovers, booklets and a double-sided card.
Starting off with Heart of Dragon (龍的心), Sammo Hung & Fruit Chan's 1985 film starring Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, Emily Chu Bo-Yee, Lam Ching-Ying and more. This was one of the first Jackie Chan titles that 88 Films released on Blu-ray in their nicer packaging format and now it returns for the 4K Ultra HD format. The same on-disc content from before is here with the Hong Kong theatrical cut and extended Japanese cut available to choose from.
Next we have Peacock King (孔雀王子), Lam Nai-Choi's 1988 film starring Yuen Biao, Hiroshi Mikami, Gloria Yip Wan-Yee, Pauline Wong, Gordon Liu Chia-Hui and more. Lam Nai-Choi is a mad director as his films are filled with insane body horror fantasy action and what's interesting about this film is that it's also based on the manga series of the same name by Makoto Ogino. A sequel film was also made which 88 Films will be releasing very soon.
We also have Rosa (神勇雙響炮續集), Joe Cheung's 1986 film starring Yuen Biao, Lowell Lo Koon-Ting, Lu Hsiao-Fen, Kara Wai Ying-Hung, Paul Chun Pui, James Tien Chun, Charlie Cho Cha-Lee and more. Another action film with Yuen Biao in the main lead once again but this film's cover has a bright style to it that reminded me of Police Story so I'm also intrigued here. Both Peacock King and Rosa were packaged as deluxe collector's edition Blu-ray sets with slipcovers, booklets and a double-sided card.
#09: Lenovo Legion Pro 5 Gen 10 Laptop
So yes we have a rather big purchase here but for good reason. It's been seven years since I last received a new laptop which was the HP Omen 15 back in October 2018. That laptop has been solid for the majority of its journey but the signs started to become clear when last year the battery went funny at one point and also the Q key stopped functioning.
Then fast-forward to the past month more keys also started to stop functioning as well, like the M key, L key, O key, 9 key and even the Down key. It was getting ridiculous combined with random freezes here and there which prevented me from multi-tasking a lot. The keys issue was escalating further the past couple of weeks so I made the decision to invest in a new laptop right away. It took a while to decide which one I wanted to go for but the reviews from various sources pointed me towards Lenovo.
Lenovo's Legion Pro model offered enough intrigue and the price range was enough for me to pick one up. So what are the differences in specs between my previous laptop and the current one? For starters the processor has jumped from an Intel Core i7-8750H CPU @ 2.20GHz, 2208 Mhz, 6 Core(s) & 12 Logical Processors to an AMD Ryzen 7 8745HX with Radeon Graphics, 3601 Mhz, 8 Core(s) & 16 Logical Processors. The RAM has jumped from 8GB to 32GB because I am a madman. The graphics card is still with NVIDIA GeForce but we've upgraded from GTX 1050 Ti to RTX™ 5060 GDDR7. The hard drive layout is also similar but instead of having an HDD & SSD (which was 1TB & 128GB respectively), the new laptop has two 1TB SSDs which is perfect so I can have one focused on the programs and performance, and the other for the files and other stuff I could store on there if needed. The only other ones left to mention is the screen is now OLED with HDR support and 2.5K resolution, whilst the original was a standard 1080p HD LCD screen.
This is not a cheap product and I purchased one directly from Lenovo's website which was originally slated to be delivered in mid-December but ended up arriving in about a week with a pretty fast speed thanks to UPS. But the specs here should keep me going for a long time and also ensure my performance is strong given the big companies are padding content all over the browsers and updates which eat up the RAM and storage fairly easily. New laptop also means I can install GOG Galaxy and play more modern games which is handy.
Then fast-forward to the past month more keys also started to stop functioning as well, like the M key, L key, O key, 9 key and even the Down key. It was getting ridiculous combined with random freezes here and there which prevented me from multi-tasking a lot. The keys issue was escalating further the past couple of weeks so I made the decision to invest in a new laptop right away. It took a while to decide which one I wanted to go for but the reviews from various sources pointed me towards Lenovo.
Lenovo's Legion Pro model offered enough intrigue and the price range was enough for me to pick one up. So what are the differences in specs between my previous laptop and the current one? For starters the processor has jumped from an Intel Core i7-8750H CPU @ 2.20GHz, 2208 Mhz, 6 Core(s) & 12 Logical Processors to an AMD Ryzen 7 8745HX with Radeon Graphics, 3601 Mhz, 8 Core(s) & 16 Logical Processors. The RAM has jumped from 8GB to 32GB because I am a madman. The graphics card is still with NVIDIA GeForce but we've upgraded from GTX 1050 Ti to RTX™ 5060 GDDR7. The hard drive layout is also similar but instead of having an HDD & SSD (which was 1TB & 128GB respectively), the new laptop has two 1TB SSDs which is perfect so I can have one focused on the programs and performance, and the other for the files and other stuff I could store on there if needed. The only other ones left to mention is the screen is now OLED with HDR support and 2.5K resolution, whilst the original was a standard 1080p HD LCD screen.
This is not a cheap product and I purchased one directly from Lenovo's website which was originally slated to be delivered in mid-December but ended up arriving in about a week with a pretty fast speed thanks to UPS. But the specs here should keep me going for a long time and also ensure my performance is strong given the big companies are padding content all over the browsers and updates which eat up the RAM and storage fairly easily. New laptop also means I can install GOG Galaxy and play more modern games which is handy.
