Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven (2002)

 

Although showing it's age, it still has some beautiful locations and vistas of 1930s Illinois. I believe it is a must play for anyone who enjoys a good Mafia story akin to the Godfather, Goodfellas, Public Enemies, Etc.

Being able to interact with the world makes this game a special experience like, being able to open/close doors and light switches, enabling speed governors on cars (police will fine you for speeding), cars deform on impact, having the option of manual and automatic transmissions and many more fun details!

Service station visit.

The game has a couple of loading screens which I liked, I tried to look them up online for a higher resolution but to no avail however, I found the next best thing; a mod for the game that has the loading screens upscaled! Here are my favorites:

Below are my screenshots, enjoy: 

 

Time to see what the fuzz is all about.

Piece of cake.

Zeppelins, my beloved..

Although I'm not a planes guy, I do love this era of aeroplanes! I believe this is a Ford Trimotor.

It will buff out.

"I'm glad I'm an American".

"Free ride extreme" which is a sandbox mode with side quests. 

Free-roam options.

The camera moves to different objects, based on your selection. I think it's neat.

Links:

• Moddb.com - HD Loading Screens.
• Wikipedia - Ford Trimotor.

Outlaw Star - Desire (0x40 Hues loop)

 

A couple of years ago, when I was browsing the Wallpaper Engine's animated wallpapers, I stumbled upon a Flash-animation/ executable-interactable wallpaper, that was called 0x40 Hues - Image Beat Player, when I looked it up, I found the blogpost housing the many Hues animations in Flash format and the many songs and images used in making them! Which in turn brought to my attention the Anime Outlaw Star and it's fantastic soundtrack, which contained the song Desire. The song itself is fine but, the short loop created within the Hues animation resonated with me, a bit repetitive but potent.

Outlaw Star - Desire (0x40 Hues loop)

And for fun, I have also uploaded it to YouTube.

I recommend checking the 0x40 site (Volume Warning). It's fun to tinker with, trying the deferent images and songs. Have fun!

Links:

• Wallpaper Engine.
• Blogpost - 0x40 Hues: Default Sources.
• Anilist - Outlaw Star.
• YouTube - Outlaw Star OST 1 - Desire.
• YouTube - Outlaw Star - Desire (0x40 Hues loop).
• 0x40 (Volume Warning).

Harvestella - Innocent Prayer

Going through my playlist, I rediscovered a song I listened to a couple of months ago, I then remembered my process of finding this song in the first place. While I was watching a stream highlights video on YouTube, at 7:44 a viewer suggested song was playing in the background and I couldn't stop bobbing my head to it!

The track in question is from a game called Harvestella titled Innocent Prayer.

2-24. Innocent Prayer.

Links:

• YouTube - Nintendo tried to prevent this score glitch but failed.
• Steam - Harvestella.
• YouTube - 2 24. Innocent Prayer. 

2.5 Jigen no Ririsa (2024) Outro Song Soundalike.

Well, This Anime is still releasing as of writing this, in fact only the first episode has aired so far. The thing is, after watching the episode and the ED started playing I felt I have heard it before..

This part plays in the episode roughly at 22:37 to 22:43

The outro gave me a real headache.. I've heard it before! or a sample of it? maybe I'm crazy but in the episode at 22:37 to 22:43 really sounded familiar... After checking my playlists I've found it.
It's a Vocaloid song called (Happy Synthesizer - Gumi & Luka) that sounds almost nothing like the ED but in my head it sounded really similar:

Go from 0:57 to 1:04

I think I might be crazy! but in my head I was waiting for Gumi to start singing after hearing the 22:43 part in the Anime ED.

Since we're here, let me interest you in a Cute animation of the song :)

That is all.

Links:

• Anilist - 2.5 Jigen no Ririsa
• YouTube - ハッピーシンセサイザ / 巡音ルカ GUMI
• YouTube - 【MMD】ハッピーシンセサイザ / Happy Synthesizer - Luka & GUMI【YYB式巡音ルカ＆YYB式GUMI】【2K 60FPS】