Showing posts with label review. Show all posts
Showing posts with label review. Show all posts

10 Feb 2025

"Games of a Lifetime" by Jaz Rignall > Book Review By Rich 📚📖 @JazRignall @bitmap_books

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"Games of a Lifetime" by Jaz Rignall > Book Review
Growing up in the '80s and '90s and reading various video game magazines from the period meant that Jaz Rignall has always been a hero of mine. 

My first experience of Jaz's brand of video game journalism came through the much-thumbed pages of the Mean Machines monthly video game magazine in the early '90s. I remember my first purchase of Mean Machines magazine vividly. I bought Issue 7 of Mean Machines from local Happy Shopper branded newsagents with The Simpsons, complete with Homer strangling Bart, on the front cover as the headline stars of that month's magazine. 

Mean Machines Issue 7

Whilst reading the magazine from cover to cover I remember feeling like I had just become a part of a cool club of video games-loving pals. Jaz's writing and the rest of the Mean Machines staff writing (including Richard Leadbetter from Digital Foundry fame for example) was perfectly in sync with its audience. 

You knew you could trust the reviews from Mean Machines as they knew their onions and Jaz and the gang were independent. In a future issue, there would be a cover giveaway of a miniature Jaz Figure which I cherished for many years and in some ways added to Jaz's legendary status in my own video gaming world.

It's now 2025 and Jaz has put virtual pen to paper to chronicle his lifetime in gaming by writing this wonderful book called "Games of a Lifetime" by Jaz Rignall.

7 Feb 2025

Starbound Xbox Series X Review 9/10 "Terraria in Space" ⭐️ @ChucklefishLTD #IndieGame #GameDev

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Starbound Xbox Series X Review
A few years ago, my partner and I were hips deep in Terraria, I genuinely think I own a copy on every system it’s been released - aside from Switch, thinking about it - and we would often spend weeks just getting back into the groove with the amazing music (which I am lucky enough to own on vinyl) and just the pure sense of wonder and relaxation that exists in the quiet exploration. To be honest, we barely bothered with the boss fights, it was all about pottering about for us.

My next – and true – love, came through the glorious Aground, and once my gaming thirst had been slaked there, I vaguely hearing about Starbound, but as it wasn’t then available on consoles, I promptly forgot about it and went on my day, a day that was bereft of crafty, pixel, action-adventure games…until now.

6 Feb 2025

Flint: Treasure of Oblivion Soundtrack Review By Lee 🏴‍☠️🦜 @winphillips @PlayFlintGame #OST #VideoGameMusic

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Flint: Treasure of Oblivion Soundtrack Review
Flint: Treasure of Oblivion is the new strategy RPG from designers Savage Level and publisher Microids. The soundtrack, reviewed here, is composed by newly-minted Grammy winner Winifred Phillips, who also has credits from God of War, LittleBigPlanet and Assassin's Creed 3.

The first thing to say is that this is really...well, piratey. Really piratey. Jack Sparrow, Long John Silver, peg-leg, eye-patch and parrot piratey. You could go into this album completely blind and end up going "yo-ho-ho" while swinging a cutlass in five seconds flat. 

5 Feb 2025

Video Game LoFi Zelda Vol. 2– Doors of Time Vinyl Review By Britt 💿 @CuragaRecords #VideoGameVinyl #Vinyl

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Vinyl Review – Video Game LoFi Zelda Vol. 2– Doors of Time
I’ve listened to many, many iterations of music from the Zelda franchise here at GF over the years, and some have been absolute belters, whilst others have been less memorable and feel like mindless runs through a tired formula, lacking personality and relying on the original, classic melodies to see them through. 

As a person who doesn’t have a rich personal history with the Zelda franchise, when listening to remix albums of key beloved games and series that I don’t have a specific connection with, it’s easy to wish for that immediate, nostalgic ‘heartline’ to the music at hand. Other times – such as here – the music is so (seemingly) effortlessly cool that you just get drawn in, the musicianship bleeds out of the speakers – and, in the way of the best possible praise, this record has not left our turntable in almost two weeks. 

Perfect ambience as it is for chilling out, working, drinking, and chatting. And yet, this is more than background beats, there’s a sense of melody and depth that rewards more concentrated listening.

The cover of the record is the standard Curaga Records holographic image, with key locations tastefully recreated from within the Zelda franchise that will be instantly recognisable to fans of the series. 

The rear of the album featuring the track listing and album credits, with the main holographic colouring used in this instance being a purplish hue. The album is presented on heavyweight black vinyl and comes encased in a matte black sleeve.

3 Feb 2025

Under Defeat Nintendo Switch Review 7/10 "Get To The Chopper!" 🚁💥 @clearrivergames @claricedisc #RetroGaming

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Under Defeat Nintendo Switch Review
I've always been a sucker for helicopter video games. I love SWIV and I love Desert Strike and the Strike series of games.

Under Defeat is a classic helicopter based arcade shoot 'em up that has been given a new life on the Nintendo Switch. It was originally released in the arcades during2005 and has now been brought to the Switch by Clear River Games and City Connection. The idea here as ever is to bring both nostalgia and some modern enhancements for fans of the shmup genre.

Under Defeat is set in an alternate World War II era, where players take control of a helicopter pilot fighting against various enemy forces. The game features a unique shot-tilting angled mechanic that allows players to attack enemies from various different angles. As with most games in the SHMUP genre, the story is minimal and focuses more on the intense action, bullet dodging and strategic gameplay rather than a deep narratives and characters.

31 Jan 2025

SYNDUALITY Echo of Ada PC Review 2/10 "Let the record show I have no beef with free-to-play games" 💥 @SYNDUALITY_GAME @synduality

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SYNDUALITY Echo of Ada PC Review
Let the record show I have no beef with free-to-play games. If a game is riddled with microtransactions, paid-for cosmetics, and has a season pass built into it, but also allows you to play without forking out any money upfront that’s a deal I’m willing to take. Fortnite manages it, Genshin Impact has done very well, and Marvel Rivals is enjoying justified success.

All of which means I’m fully prepared to forgive SYNDUALITY Echo of Ada for its sins, because - oh, uh, hang on, I’m getting passed up a note. Uh-huh. Huh. Oh. Oh no. OH NO. What do you mean it costs £35.00?! That can’t be right!

Sadly this is indeed the case. Despite looking like a free-to-play game, walking like a free-to-play game, and quacking like a free-to-play game, SYNDUALITY is a regular retail release, and this simple fact pretty much obliterates any fun that can be squeezed out of the experience.

29 Jan 2025

Dance of Cards Nintendo Switch Review 9/10 "A game that won my heart...and spade, club, diamond." 🃏🃏 @FrogOfHearts #IndieGame #GameDev

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Dance of Cards Nintendo Switch Review
I bloody love coming across games like Dance of Cards – which seems to be released on the Switch just for me, at the perfect time. I’ve been playing Balatro on and off over the last few weeks, and one evening, as I failed yet another run, I mused idly to myself how awesome a poker-based RPG would be...and a few days later, Dance of Cards sidled shiftily into my deck. Needless to say, I went in blind.

The game casts you in the role of the heroically named ‘Martin’, a magician and card mechanic in a small town that is getting sent on to the big city by his shady manager, on a cruise ship. And on said voyage...things go somewhat awry.

Eternal Strands Xbox Series X Review 7.5/10 "Eternal Strands That Don’t Quite Weave Wonder" 🧶🧵 @YellowBrick_Qc #IndieGame #GameDev

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Eternal Strands Xbox Series X Review
A cel-shaded open world adventure that features deep lore abounds in this release from Yellow Brick Games (comprised of a team featuring several ex-Ubisoft developers), Eternal Strands excels in performance and world-building; but lacklustre, weightless combat and certain design elements gives this the faint air of a game that started in a more MMORPG style that pivoted to a single player experience.

Eternal Strands casts the player as Brynn, a mercenary accompanying a group of travellers trying to find out the secrets of a long-lost civilisation. Your camp with the travellers acts as a hub, whilst Loomgates scattered around the land allow you to teleport to different areas of the world, each with their own biome, items, and enemies. The opening anime-style cinematic is impressive and engaging, although it hints at a slightly goofy humour that doesn’t exist anywhere else in the mostly po-faced game, where dialogue with the fully-voiced cast of characters is rich, but mostly eventless and dry. That’s not to say there isn’t a lot of lore and world-building to discover and learn, more that doing so isn’t a particularly engaging aspect of the game.

28 Jan 2025

Burger Race Nintendo Switch Review 7.5/10 "Fast Food at a bargain price!" 🍔💨 @SAT_BOX_2011 #IndieGame #GameDev

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Burger Race Nintendo Switch Review
This is the second title by Sat-Box that I’ve covered in just a few weeks,,and I have to say that their budget, family friendly titles are winning me over. In the same vein that Sugoroku Casino Party was a fun, digital board game with its focus on multiplayer action, Burger Race is a fast food take on the Mario Kart formula...at under a fiver!

A simple, accessible game, Burger Race allows for up to four players – in split screen – to select from a range of fast food items on wheels (or rather, cucumbers and tomatoes) and race around the nine tracks on offer, picking up the various boosts and weapon pick-ups scattered around the circuits en route.

27 Jan 2025

Dynasty Warriors: Origins PS5 Review 8.5/10 "Battle Grows Where My Wanderlay Goes" 🪖⚔️ @koeitecmoeurope @s_sangokumusou

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Dynasty Warriors: Origins PS5 Review
The last time I played a Dynasty Warriors game was Dynasty Warriors 2 on the PlayStation 2 around 25 years ago. Now at the time of playing it on the PS2, I loved it at first but after a while, the repetition wore away at my enthusiasm for it. In 2021 Dynasty Warriors 9 Empires was released but it came out to a lukewarm reception as it went down a more strategic route for the gameplay elements and this didn't seem to hit well with the target audience. 4 years on and we have a new Dynasty Warriors on the next-gen consoles and I'm glad to say it doesn't disappoint!

Dog Man: Mission Impawsible Xbox Series X Review 6.5/10 "Full price? You’d be barking mad" 🐶 @MindscapeGames @F84Games #IndieGame #GameDev

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Dog Man: Mission Impawsible Xbox Series X Review
I have to admit, I had never heard of the Dog Man franchise, I was very much unaware of Dav Pilkey’s books, graphic novels and the upcoming animated film. As such, I approached Dog Man: Mission Impawsible as a pure platform gaming experience, and as such – found it pretty middling in terms of gameplay, interesting in terms of presentation... but I did balk <bark? - Ed> at the asking price.

Dog Man Mission: Impawsible begins with the titular character getting called back into action, and re-banding his old companions in a bid to save their town, each has their own skill to surpass certain obstacles, as well as their own weaknesses. From that moment, the game reveals itself to be a pretty standard platformer, very accessible, and with a generous learning curve for younger / newer players, but overall very much not deserving the premium price tag that is attached to Dog Man Mission Impawsible.

24 Jan 2025

Tap Wizard 2 Xbox Series X Review 6.5/10 "Tap Wizard 2 Didn’t quite manage to cast its spell on me" 🧙‍♂️💥🧙 @Top_Cog #IndieGame #GameDev

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Tap Wizard 2  Xbox Series X Review
The trailer for Tap Wizard 2 struck me as a game akin to Vampire Survivors, and as I’d wet my whistle on that particular genre during my end of year Switch mini-review round-up, I quite fancied another game with the same flavour. Digging deeper into Tap Wizard 2 reveals that it is actually an ‘idle’ game, a genre which is more suited to mobile devices – from which this is a port – and so I wondered how it would fare on consoles. It turns out that whilst the design and charm is there – it does feel that the mobile market is perhaps the best place for Tap Wizard 2.
Tap Wizard 2  Xbox Series X Review
The game begins with you choosing your wizard and their six powers from a choice of various elements, from then on, your wizard will engage in endless waves of combat with enemies in ever-increasing numbers and strengths as you incrementally increase your stats, powers, and abilities.

Visually the game features some tasty pixel art and runs very smoothly. The chiptune audio is catchy, but on a relatively short loop, although you can flick between a few different ditties in the menu. What you cannot do, though, is turn off the rumble on your controller, this is of note as the controller constantly rumbles throughout the game, and you can’t put your controller down or it’ll rumble off the table and onto the floor. This wouldn’t normally be an issue, but as it’s an idle game with a lot of downtime, it would have been a nice feature to include.
Tap Wizard 2  Xbox Series X Review
Whilst primarily an idle game, you can take direct control over your wizard as he wanders his way around the single-screen battlefield, and you’ll find that you’ll survive longer and get more pick-ups this way, as the AI-controlled wizard tends to just either move in a sweeping circle, or stay in the centre of the screen, ignoring the many chests that pop up full of goodies. 

Another minor niggle is that the left thumb stick – this controls the on-screen cursor, the right thumb stick handles manual wizard movement – seems to always start offscreen at the bottom left, which is a bit odd, the centre of the screen would be preferable for initial cursor placement.

The number of various panels, inventory areas, unlockables, upgrades and bonuses etc. is laudable and certainly adds a sense of progress to your quest, but the time-locked lore / narrative reveal is so overly verbose and lengthy that I got more irritated than intrigued upon reading. 

I found that the game was best played as I was cleaning my flat, having it on in the background and popping back every few minutes to maybe take over manually, and click through, selecting all of the things I’d unlocked whilst idle.
Tap Wizard 2  Xbox Series X Review
SUMMARY
It’s a game that’s too uninvolved to sit and fully engage with, and not engrossing enough to boot up and check in when playing on the Xbox, without the instancy and casualness of mobile play. 

I’d be interested to see what developer TopCog comes up with next, as I feel there’s a lot of talent and promise there, but on console, Tap Wizard 2 doesn’t quite click for me.
6.5/10
💧MELTING💧

23 Jan 2025

Dreamcore Xbox Series X Review 7/10 "Feeling….Lonely?" 😶‍🌫️ @DreamcoreGame @TlonIndustries #IndieGame #GameDev

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Dreamcore is a very unique experience as a game, with it’s use of liminal spaces and an incredible sense of isolation in its quietly nightmare-ish locations. The use of life-like body-cam style visuals and crisp graphics heighten the sense of agency, but the design and gameplay itself can very much oscillate between irritation and boredom dependent on your personal standing with the unspoken horror of isolation and liminal places. For some, this will be an intense experience whilst others may see Dreamcore as an interesting piece of art that has a novelty factor that wears off relatively quickly.

21 Jan 2025

Home Safety Hotline Xbox Series X Review 9.5/10 “The best horror game of 2024” ☎️🖥️ @SlickNickLives #IndieGame #GameDev

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Home Safety Hotline Xbox Series X Review
I’m going to start this review off by saying - whenever you get a phone call in this game, wherever you are in the directory, it puts you back right at the start. So, if you’re at the letter ‘P’, a phone call will come in and it puts you back to the start…which is the letter ‘A’ just in case you somehow know how to read but don’t know the alphabet… which is probably one person out there, and speaking of one, that's how many criticisms I have of this game. One. the one I’ve just said, That's it, the rest of this review will be just gushing praise - I adore this title.

So, with my vast negativity about this game now out of the way, let’s get into why it’s utterly amazing.

20 Jan 2025

Couchmaster® CYCON³ - HORIZONLIGHT Review "Gaming Comfort at its peak!" 🖱️ @NerdytecES

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Couchmaster® CYCON³ - HORIZONLIGHT Review
Everyone has a different gaming setup, dependent on their home situation. Over the years, I’ve shifted from tiny bedrooms to living room gaming setups, bespoke gaming rooms, and back again. With wireless controllers, things are a little easier but having a PC mouse and keyboard setup is always a little cumbersome, pretty much tying you to a desk…until now…

Perfectly designed for couches and armchairs, the first thing that strikes you when the Couchmaster Cycon3 is removed from the incredibly well-packaged box is the heft and robustness of it. This isn’t a flimsy product that needs to be handled with kid gloves, it’s a weighty, solid unit with accessible ports and easy access for cable management purposes.

17 Jan 2025

Neon Blood Nintendo Switch Review 6.5/10 "The spark of something beautiful" 🧠⚡️ @ChaoBrainStudio #IndieGame #GameDev

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Neon Blood Nintendo Switch Review
Neon Blood was one of those games that struck me the moment I first watched the trailer, a beautiful blend of 3D environments with 2D characters, that supposedly melded that cyberpunk aesthetic with detective-based adventure, on paper – and on screen – it looked to be a winner. Sadly, as much as there was in Neon Blood that really drew me in, there was just as much working against my enjoyment.

Set in an alternate, distant future, the player is cast in the role of detective Axel McCoin, a burnt-out detective who regularly uses the fictional drug Spark to cope with extreme pain caused by his failing bio-implants. Mostly dismissed by his superiors, Axel (cool name ) gets embroiled in a series of murders that hint at a larger conspiracy…

16 Jan 2025

Super Rolling Heroes Deluxe Xbox Series X Review 6.5/10 "Keep on rollin’ baby" 🧶 @solidneongames @JanduSoft #IndieGame #GameDev

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Super Rolling Heroes Deluxe Xbox Series X Review
A fun and polished casual title, Super Rolling Heroes Deluxe is a game about downward momentum. You must control your colourful, rotund buddy as they tumble down mountains avoiding spikes, traps, and pitfalls in a bid to make contact with the jewel at the end of each stage, thus completing the level.

Controls are simple, you can backpedal slightly, slow yourself down, or hop as you roll down the hills, smashing up the tiny houses, cars and structures that litter your way. The music is light and gentle, matching the pastel colours that are a breeze on the eyes. The animation and scrolling is also a very smooth 60 fps, which adds to the flow of the game.
Super Rolling Heroes Deluxe Xbox Series X Review
Unfortunately, whilst there are various cosmetic unlockables that you can purchase – and side roads that lead to the extra gems etc. that act as in-game currency, the environment never really changes, and aside from the game getting trickier, you’ll find yourself passing the same structures and items over and over, meaning that there’s no real sense of progress beyond the numbers of the levels changing. 

You can adjust the difficulty to make it more of a challenge, but a little could have gone a long way here, with maybe differing weather conditions affecting your traversal, and some more dynamism and variety to the environments themselves, or the inclusion of hectic multiplayer races. 
Super Rolling Heroes Deluxe Xbox Series X Review
SUMMARY
All that said, this is a fundamentally sound game that is fun for short blasts and is perfectly priced – but lacks that little something extra to make it a strike.

6.5/10
💧MELTING💧

15 Jan 2025

Snowman Story Nintendo Switch Review 6/10 "A very specific festive adventure" ☃️ @OdencatGames #IndieGame #GameDev

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Snowman Story Nintendo Switch Review
As this was a child-friendly game, I thought I’d take the opportunity to play through with my three-year old son, a boy who is very much caught up in the magic of Christmas. As it pans out, whilst this is a very cute and noble game as a bittersweet Christmas fable, the simplicity and repetition end up stagnating any sense of flow, and ultimately mute the eventual emotional payoff.

14 Jan 2025

IronFall: Invasion Nintendo Switch Review 6/10 💥 @VdDevGames #IndieGame #GameDev

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IronFall: Invasion Nintendo Switch Review
Sometimes I’m taken in by a simple trailer for a game, or even the first few words of a press release, we -very kindly – get sent a lot of games here at GF, and as I mention in my year-end article - we unfortunately don’t get the time to cover them all, so when a certain genre pops out that you haven’t tucked into for a while, or you are just really in the mood for. It’s fun to take a punt and see what the game has to offer. In the case of IronFall: Invasion, I could see that it was a Switch FPS – and that was all it took for me to dive in.
IronFall: Invasion Nintendo Switch Review
From the rating of 6/10, you can probably tell that this won’t be featuring in our end-of-year lists, but I do have a bit of a caveat here, as IronFall: Invasion captures a very specific vibe, and I can imagine that it will find its niche among gamers as it feels like a bit of a time capsule, which I’ll explain as best I can.

IronFall: Invasion is a 2024 release of what was originally a 2015 3DS game, and though it appears that it wasn’t too warmly received at the time of release, as I didn’t know the background of the title at the time of playing, I had a very different experience, and to me, it felt very much like an early PS2 title that had been remastered for the PS Vita.. 

From the blunt and pacey intro through to the presentation and mechanics of the game – you’ll be getting Perfect Dark / Deus Ex vibes from how each cutscene is presented – there’s a solid functionality to the game that seems locked in to the early 2000’s in an almost delicious way that’s designed to invoke a very specific nostalgia, and – to me – it’s this that is the IronFall: Invasion calling card. If you don’t connect with this, it will be a very vanilla experience.
IronFall: Invasion Nintendo Switch Review
Set in the near future, you are a soldier that is a one-man force against an alien (although...robots) invasion, and through arena / corridor based FPS action, must take down this growing threat. The combat is suitably PS2, in that it is heavily cover-based and against a relatively small variety of enemy types in empty areas with no collectibles or reasons to explore, beyond clearing them out. 

There are sections wherein you have to hold a post against enemy attacks, but it’s all very PS2-retro. That said, the entire game is a silky smooth 60fps, and the gun play is quite satisfying, you pick up weapons that fare better against certain enemy types etc., and that N64/PS2 vibe is in full force as you make your way through the campaign. 
IronFall: Invasion Nintendo Switch Review
There’s almost a celebratory sense as to how the game feels to play, like it’s point blank refused to move beyond the era that it evokes, and does it bizarrely well. Each time I cleaned out spawning roomfuls of identikit enemies, and had marched down myriad boring corridors, I almost felt transported back in time, and it was oddly nostalgic of a very specific time for me. 

Of course, the question is - whether that feeling is worth £18 to you?

The controls feel like they could do with a slight tweaking in terms of sensitivity, but again – there’s no room for personalisation here, you get what you are given, and that adds to the ‘trapped in time’ sense that the game conjures up.

SUMMARY
I hope that this game finds its audience – perhaps not at the current full price, admittedly – but nonetheless, there’s a little bit of magic here that will be quite a trip down memory lane for a lot of folks. 

There’re no flourishes here, just a rock solid meat ‘n potatoes early PS2 duck ‘n cover shooter remastered for the PS Vita...except it’s a 2015 3DS game released in the Switch in 2024, natch.
6/10

13 Jan 2025

Highway Police Simulator Xbox Series X Review 2/10 "It’s time to arrest this series" 🚨🚔 @AerosoftGmbH #IndieGame #GameDev

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Highway Police Simulator Xbox Series X Review
I first caught wind of Aerosoft back in 2020 when I covered Autobahn Police Simulator 2, it was a game that I rated 4.5/10 but with a huge caveat in that, whilst the game had very intense technical problems, there was a charm and ideology that kept me playing for a long time, and the approach, atmosphere, music, and deeply idiosyncratic charm kept me coming back for more. 

It was my ‘go to’ example for a game that had admittedly overreached, but had heart and promise. Fast forward to 2022, and the sequel was released, which threw a load of new ideas and gameplay mechanics at the wall, but failed incredibly to deal with the basic, fundamental issues that the prequel had. As mentioned, this is the game that I bring up in terms of conversations regarding golden ideas that outreach their grasp. 
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