I’ve been using the Google Pixel C for a good while now, but there are a few problems I need to mention… The touchscreen is really unresponsive. Western users have been complaining hard about this, and plenty of them got replacements over it, which didn’t help. The keyboard keeps double-clicking or multi-clicking. Some Western users ran into it; I didn’t. Bad Wi-Fi signal. Also didn’t happen to me. But an unresponsive touchscreen on its own is pretty fatal. Not only does it get in the way of using the thing, I couldn’t even use the Jot Dash stylus I bought for it..

Lately the games I’ve been playing have been a bit unusual — either hand-chopping, big meat grubs, or hookup stuff. After wandering down the non-traditional path for so long, I couldn’t help but feel nostalgic for the old moe-charage, so when January rolled around and I was picking games, I found myself wanting something light and fun to play. So among the January releases, while I was downloading Toukyou NECRO, I spotted this game called Hanikami Clover. Compared to whatever Toukyou NECRO was doing, Hanikami Clover was clearly on the traditional cute-bishoujo game route. I got hyped, saw it was by Green Tea Soft, figured Green Tea Soft wouldn’t screw anything up — Minamijuujisei Renka seemed to have decent reviews, so this one probably wouldn’t be too bad either. Then I checked the official site for the CVs. The first heroine sounded like Gotou Mai right away, and the others — Akino Hana, Sendai Eri — were all solid voice actresses. But the absolute most explosive thing was when I later checked out the game’s OP. Deredere student council president, a sweet-loving senpai, an erotic girlfriend, a little sister who’s a useless-brother-manufacturing machine — paired with that seductive, intensely rhythmic footage. The game’s tagline was “a love story with a slightly H her.” Honestly, while the OP looked a bit like a moe-nukige, it still had to be better than hand-chopping meat grubs or hookup games, right? Based on my years of experience, this had to be a fun-filled moe-selling work — even if it was a nukige, it’d be a comedic one, a light entertainment nukige with no fancy effects. Playing it would definitely be fun. My feelings at the time were:

A while back — though looking at it now, maybe not that long ago — I was having dinner with some friends, and they asked me why I still didn’t have a girlfriend. I’d already lost the weight, so was I still hung up on that fujoshi who screwed me over, or was I just not into women? At first I refused to answer. But refusing only makes things worse — getting pegged as some loser who’s still simping for a batshit girl, or as a guy who turned gay because he got dumped, both look pretty bad. So after thinking it over, I gave a careful answer. “Because, uh, I don’t really know how to act around women. They’re hard to figure out, it’s stressful, and kind of a hassle.” My friend blinked, then burst out laughing.

LOVEREC. -Mini Theaters- is the fan disc for LoveRec. Actually LoveRec is a pretty good game, but this fan disc is just… cheap. Like, painfully cheap. The story picks up right where the original ended: the protagonist is about to graduate, and the white-haired little sister plans to sell the film she shot at the new C90, so the whole crew has to pitch in. That’s the setup. Except that’s only the prologue. The movie-making thing never actually happens.

Maggot baits was made by Clockup. If you know them—or if you made the mistake of looking them up—you’ll know they’ve put out a few fucked-up games. So for Maggot baits, the title alone tells you what you’re in for. Maggot: maggot baits: bait Put together, it’s bait for maggots. And that fits the story perfectly. The game’s got tentacles, giant bugs, and humans—witches, hunters, whatever—getting swallowed and chewed up by them.

Buying these earphones was an impulse purchase. I was ordering the Mi Band pulse edition for my mom and figured I’d toss in some Xiaomi batteries, except my finger slipped and I bought a pack of AAA size instead. I only noticed when the package showed up. Mind you, I’m not saying AAAs are useless to me. Thanks to that mistaken order, the beat-up TV in my room no longer requires me to get up and hunt for buttons on the thing itself, because its remote has been dead for ages and takes AAAs. So I went to order Xiaomi’s rainbow batteries again, the AA kind this time. Batteries are cheap, which means no free shipping — shipping alone costs more than a battery, so that’s just a bad deal. I figured I’d add something to the cart to hit the free-shipping threshold, and there it was: the Xiaomi 99 yuan hybrid earphones. I hadn’t really looked into what the market thought of the Xiaomi 99 yuan hybrid. Only caught bits and pieces, and naturally none of it was kind. “Take that money and go eat something nice.” “It’s literal garbage.” “I pulled them out after 30 seconds.” “Barely any sound quality to speak of.” “Boomy, can’t hear the vocals at all.” Anyone with even a passing knowledge of earphones says this about them. Honestly, I was willing to believe they were trash too, because at this price point unless you’re buying from a specialty manufacturer, everything sounds the same: boosted bass and nothing else. But these are hybrids, and I’d never heard a hybrid before. Also… I needed a filler item, and the power banks were out of stock! So somehow I ended up buying the Xiaomi 99 yuan hybrids. Or, if you prefer, I bought batteries and threw in a 99 yuan hybrid as a filler. So the question is, how do they actually sound? I hate suspense, and like the title says, “they’re not as bad as you’d think.”

I’m pretty open-minded. If a game’s supposed to have an interesting story, I’ll give it a shot—moe, otome, BL, mystery, guro, whatever. Tokage no Shippo Kiri is a guro game. Actually, everything this developer puts out is guro. And there’s this weird pattern: most guro and hardcore games get surprisingly high praise. They should make you uncomfortable, but a lot of people sing their praises anyway. Plenty of them even say “Yeah it’s guro, but the story is so healing.” I don’t get that. Guro is just a device. The story underneath is what matters. A kid helps an old lady cross the street, the same kid gets hit by a car and still helps her cross on crutches, the same kid with a vibrator up his ass still helps her cross—it’s all saying the same thing. Sometimes obsessing over the details is pointless. It’s seasoning. The main dish is the same. So how’s the story in Tokage no Shippo Kiri? How’s the seasoning? How’s the main dish? Short version: it’s pretty bad.

Honestly, I left this one sitting unfinished for almost a year. I’ve got this bad habit: whenever everyone else is playing something, I look at their impressions, their screenshots, and my brain just fills in the plot on its own. Which gives me a rough idea of the game. And having that idea means… unless there’s literally nothing else to do, or some other factor kicks in, I won’t prioritize it. Most of the time I’d rather spend the hours breaking new ground somewhere else. That’s just how it goes. So it wasn’t until the anime was about to air that I remembered, oh right, I still haven’t finished this. I started pushing through it then, and because the game itself was too damn engaging, I ended up taking it slow — slow enough that the anime had already aired two episodes by the time I actually finished. Hm? What did I just say? The game itself was too engaging? Yes. This is a good game packed with positive energy, bright life-affirming values, and genuine psychological healing capability. (adjusts glasses)

The Philips SHP 9500 has been blowing up lately — 什么值得买 (SMZDM) has pushed it so hard the recommendation is basically worn out. It’s cheap, and the word of mouth is good. I didn’t think much of it at first. The price point is what it is, and sure, people hype it as “this used to cost X back in the day,” but in the end it’s still budget gear, right? Then one day — I forget which bastard egged me on over on G+ — I somehow spaced out and placed an order. Newegg overseas, no less. After ordering I completely forgot about the thing, and only remembered a month later. Turns out the Newegg account I’d registered ages ago still had my old phone number on it, so the delivery address got flagged as undeliverable and the package was marked problematic. After a whole runaround I found out Newegg doesn’t have its own logistics and had handed it off to Tiantian Express, then another round of calls, and finally I got the thing in my hands…

I sold my Google Nexus 9 after a year of service and imported the latest Google Pixel C as its replacement. The real reason is that I wasn’t all that satisfied with the Nexus 9 — screen too small… build quality so-so… maybe that’s it. More than that, though, I think the Pixel C just appealed to me more. The import went smoothly, but Google still shipped the keyboard and the tablet separately, which meant I had to deal with two forwarding orders. The keyboard ended up getting taxed too — though I don’t think it should have been, the forwarder probably declared it proactively. Since they had an actual tax receipt, I let it slide. I’ve used the Google Pixel C for a fair amount of time now — not short, but not that long either. I’ve honestly written a lot of stuff on it: reports, plus every blog post from the last one of last year up to now. I figure that gives me the right to have an opinion on this thing.