Book review: The Lion: Son of the Forest
Book: The Lion: Son of the Forest
As my Space Marines favourite chapter (and most miniatures) are Dark Angels, I picked The Lion: Son of the Forest out of curiosity to learn about the return of their primarch. I also have the miniature pending assembly and painting, but that's another story, let's focus on the novel.
One remark that I want to do is that I haven't read Arks of Omen: The Lion, but as far as I understood, the Son of the Forest novel happens before. The Lion awakes at The Rock, it is transported to the place where Son of the Forest begins, and I'm guessing that where the novel ends is more or less where the Lion "officially" reappears.
I also did not know about the Imperium Nihilus/Dark Imperium, caused by the Great Rift. It is a good trick by Games Workshop to make things advance at a different pace, by having half of the galaxy now blind to the Astronomican light.
With that out of the way, let's go with a small, spoiler-light review.
The Lion is back! I'm happy to see my beloved Dark Angels have their lore finally advance, both regarding having the primarch again, and his attitude towards The Fallen.
The novel is a decent read, with good amounts of action, and entertaining enough that I read it quickly. It didn't felt boring at any point, opens the right amount of plot threads and gracefully closes them (except a main question, as I'll mention), and it mostly feels appropriate of what you would expect from a super-human being that it's still disoriented after so much time "out".
Two points felt unsatisfactory to me. First, we are given zero reasoning as for why the Lion awakes, when it does and where it does - it simply happens, and it is what it is. And the second one is that I feel that the author went too far in giving so distinctive personalities to some of the fallen characters. I'm sorry but I don't buy the image of a Space Marine becoming a peaceful hermit, chasen by Dark Angels or not.
All in all, not a bad return, although neither a grandiose one. And the multiple open questions, like how he'll reintegrate in the Imperium, or what will happen regarding Luther or the mysterious Cypher, leave the door open for multiple future novels, which is always good.
Comic Book review: Resident Evil: Code Veronica books 1 to 4
Books: Resident Evil: Code Veronica - Book 1, Resident Evil: Code Veronica - Book 2, Resident Evil: Code Veronica - Book 3, Resident Evil: Code Veronica - Book 4
This is going to be a very brief review. If you don't know what Resident Evil: Code Veronica is about, I encourage you to stop reading here and instead go to the Wikipedia page, then maybe come back. Still reading? Good!
The comics are very faithful to the videogame, both in characterization, events, and even the dialogues are at times an exact copy of the game transcript. Some scenes have small differences, though, and the general narrative is maybe not converted the best way into a comic. The art and drawing are good, always following the game style.
It's all about the expectations: If you want a thrilling zombie story, there are way better options out there. If you want a Resident Evil videogame adaptation to comic, then you have a decent one.
Book review: Silo - The Wool Trilogy
Book: Silo - The Wool Trilogy
I did not know about this trilogy until I saw the first season of Apple TV's show, Silo, more than a year ago. After watching it, I got interested and picked up the book. I don't want to undervalue the show, as the first season is really good, but as it very often happens, the book is richer, slightly different, and I'd recommend starting with it instead of the series. I also stopped watching it midway through the second season, so I don't know if the divergences from the book become more accused, or stays mostly faithful to the source material.
With that out of the way, here comes the review itself. I really enjoyed this book. The apocalyptic, maybe sci-fi but not unsure if really so, setting; unsettling and cruel at times but not in excess (as could have very easily been the case). With well defined characters, who, for the most part, fit nicely in the story, and at times surprisingly leave it. With a narrative that dares to be different in the second book (I won't say why to avoid spoilers) to then come back with a vengeance in the final book. With sub-stories and variety, but not too much that you get lost on the main one.
If I had to mention something to improve, I have two tiny points: - A few characters feel like they are going to have more weight, and then they fade out into a very secondary role. This is one point that the TV show seemed to want to address differently (again, no spoiling). - The ending felt a bit abrupt: So much happens before, and then it ends a bit suddenly... too quickly without much detail.
In summary, a ~1300 pages great science-fiction tale, apt even for non sci-fi fans.
Tags: Books Science-Fiction
Status Update: August 2025
RPGs
Summer means different people having vacation at different times, so hard to group the full party. Hopefully around September things will get rolling again.
Videogames - Finished
Zelda: Breath Of The Wild
I got a Switch 2, so the first thing I did was another run of Zelda: BOTW. Only 40 hours, and not all the shrines finished yet (nor many of the secondary quests), but I got the "completed" star on the savegame, and now I can progress sporadically.
What I did was also pick up my old completed savegame, and left it nearer full completion:
I've only got to get a few more koroks to unlock the final extra shield slots, and farm two items to complete the last two armours I have not yet maxed.
I doubt that I'll ever get to 100% koroks, as it gets tiring after a while.
Videogames - Ongoing
Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom
Similar to Zelda: BOTW, I'm doing a new playthrough, although this time the completed savegame is missing a lot of content, so I expect to switch to it as soon as I catch up.
The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion - Remastered
Ongoing, not many news, other than the company that did the "remaster" clearly ported everything as it is, as the same bugs from the old Game Of The Year versions are present. Thankfully, the game is so versatile that you can escape some buggy situations by checking online for the old XBox 360 GOTY tricks/solutions.
Starfield
I just purchased it, with the DLC and all. I know it's not the greatest game, but I really liked what I saw regarding immersion and lore. Maybe it reminds me of Mass Effect in the aesthetics, but whatever the reason is, I plan to toggle between Oblivion, Zelda and this title as my main long term pseudo-RPGs for a while.
My Oblivion Remastered Recommended Mods
Introduction
This is a (small) list of the plugins/mods and other tweaks for The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered that I use. You can find many more, but I mostly want small tweaks and re-balances, so I haven't even looked at what else appeared since I began playing.
Installation Instructions
For standard mods, download the corresponding files and put them in the Content/Dev/ObvData/Data subfolder of where you installed the game. Then open the file Plugins.txt (in the same folder), and add the names of the new plugins to the list (often to the bottom).
Custom mods usually come with their step-by-step instructions.
My Mod Recommendations
- Ascension Remastered - Vanilla-Plus Loot and Balance: Fixes leveling and loot. I use the main
Ascension Remasteredplugin, andVanilla Spell Effectiveness. - Better HUD: Smaller and better organized HUD elements. I use the
Default Size (16x9)version. - NPCs Catch Fire: Adds a bit of realism.
- Permanent Doomstones: Makes Doomstones more useful. I use the
vanillaversion. - No Pickpocket Chance Cap: Caps the ability at 100%, instead of to 85%.
- Richer Vendors: Makes vendors have way more gold, to purchase your items. This one becomes more useful as you progress in the game and find better items. I use the standard version.
- Shady Sam Buys Stolen Goods and More: Useful if you play a thief, but beware that selling items to Sam does not count towards your thieving rank. It is still good to simplify getting rid of stolen items. Move to the bottom of
Plugins.txtif you enable the Richer Vendors mod too. - Skip Intro: No explanations required. I use the basic "Skip Intro Screens" version.
- Universal Achievement Unblocker: If you get stuck because of a bugged quest (e.g. Go Fish), and you need to restort to using console commands to fix it, this mod will re-enable achievements on the "tainted" savegame file.
- Weightless Alchemy and Misc. Items: I don't like having to travel home constantly just to drop resources and other miscellaneous items, and this mod solves that. Important stuff like armour and weapons still has weight.
Console Tweaks
Note: you need the Universal Achievement Unblocker plugin (listed above) if you want to make your savegame normal again after using any console command.
- If you need to make an item yours (e.g. you escaped jail and stole your own items from the evidence chest):
- With the console already opened, target the stole item (click with the mouse an element, and having the inventory closed)
- Type in
setownership - The item it will lose its stolen tag/become your property
- Be careful when you target, as you can for example also make npcs "followers"
- If you need gold because you accidentally sold your amazing magical item:
player.additem 0000000F 500
General Game Stability Fixes
Oblivion was a buggy game. Oblivion remastered inherited all the old bugs, plus by swapping the 3D engine to Unreal Engine 5, seems to have added a new generation of bugs. I almost gave up twice playing the game due to issues, so here are my recommendations to (at least for now) remove the annoying "game crash on load" or "game freeze on travel" bugs.
- Disable autosaves in the gameplay settings: as you advance, the game will start crashing pseudo-randomly on loading new areas or fast travelling. It began to happen to me after 30h.
- Disable hardware Lumen effects in the graphics settings: Nobody knows exactly why, but even with autosaving disabled, at around 40h I'd get frequent crashes just changing the area, and since I disabled Lumen, zero.
- Disable non-native game mods: Mods like Universal Achievement Unblocker rely on special DLL files, which can make the game crash sometimes. I noticed more frequent crashes when having this mod enabled, so I removed it (and if needed, I'll use it once and re-disable).