Gaming, traveling, and other stuff
卡普空的一个新作，虽然感觉上有点小品比较单薄，但背着机器人萝莉打枪这个“养闺女”设定还是让我果断买了。玩起来的感觉有点像多年前的Vanquish，场景风格和手感都有点像，但玩法机制差别还是比较大，谈不上精神续作。
Pragmata的这个打敌人要一边玩走格子小游戏hack一边射击的核心机制看起来比较新鲜拉风，玩起来其实并没有多好玩。我个人觉得mind flow有点接不上。我谨慎估计这游戏不会有续作，就算有也要大改玩法。
其他方面倒是都可圈可点，萝莉的外形和配音都不错。我为了出差路上玩买了Switch 2版，画质略渣，但我目测PS5版也没好太多，毕竟低成本作品。打枪的手感不错，设计的控制型和防御型武器也都值得一玩。整体比较短小精干，感觉各种新东西玩一圈也就快通关了。Boss也都不难，基本上都是一遍过或者重试一两次就能过的水平，比较玩家友好。
之前五六个月都是卫斯理的奶奶外婆睡在客厅，感觉好久都没在电视上玩游戏了。。最近给奶奶爷爷租了个房我终于拿回了夜间客厅使用权。打开了尘封的PS5打算玩个画质好一点的游戏。
前一阵去听王若琳的演出。遇到的朋友说苏打绿复出了都开了一轮演唱会了。我才意识到自己在这方面有多后知后觉。中国的流行文化早已离我远去。在美国的华人似乎也都有类似的困扰，年轻时候喜欢过的明星来开演唱会往往都是开票之后才知道。市场推广的隔阂很大。
于是我便把苏打绿的演唱会专辑找来听，名为二十年一刻，倒是契合了四月的两趟一日游，Yosemite与Zion。
四月初临时要去加州出趟差。正事就是周三一个十分钟的pitch，加上前前后后的事情也就是半天而已。我犹豫了许久周四要不要冲一趟Yosemite，天天查天气看着降水概率在40%上下徘徊。最后心一横还是定了curry village的帐篷决定去一趟。这次离我上次去Yosemite已经有足足十年，从我第一次去算起则是十九年，也堪堪可以算得上二十年一刻了。
周四早上六点钟我就蹦起来开车出发。一路开下来满满的Deja Vu感，换高速吃早饭的黑熊diner还在那里，120限速10英里的九曲十八弯。进了公园我不由得大喊了一声Yosemite我回来了。
由于只有短短不到一整天的时间，我决定直奔公园里最具性价比的路线Mist Trail。七英里的路线就能近距离领略两大瀑布，还有身边都是彩虹的水雾部分，真是个老少皆宜的好trail。而且这个trail过去走过好几次，这次也是复现一下当年的情景。照片对比一下不由得感叹岁月不饶人。走完之后去Yosemite Fall转了一下也算致敬打卡。晚上小哈家正好也在公园里，还一起又吃了顿饭。
第二天早上天气阴晴不定，随时有雷雨的架势，我便果断打道回府了。毕竟还要赶下午的飞机。
四月中去Vegas参加Google Cloud的会。这个倒是提前半年就定好的。会议比想象的要好不少，Google近一年AI发展的势头不错于是整个会议也都搞得比较有声有色。之后我留了一天出来玩。本来想是不是去个附近的Fire Valley就得了。但既然刚去了Yosemite，就觉得还是要去个大的地方吧！于是就决定去一趟Zion。从Vegas开了两个多小时到Saint George住下。这个小城和Sedona感觉好像，也是很多红石和很多转盘 😂 不过没有Sedona那么spiritual，更偏户外风一点。开到的时候已经是黄昏，我便随便去了城郊的Snow Canyon State Park，景色出乎意料的好。红色的岩壁下面有大片的黑色凝结岩浆。比较神奇的一点是trail的有些部分已经是走在人家房子的院墙篱笆外面了，小城的房子是可以修到公园里的吗？lol。走的trail最后是个蛮大的cove，可以俯瞰全城。晚上去吃了个小小fine dining，有点太甜。
在路上闲着没事发现可以在carplay里跟ChatGPT语音聊天，问了一通Zion的hiking推荐发现Zion有一片叫Kolob Canyon的部分我还没去过，便立马决定去这儿的一个trail了。这个trail说实话比较平平无奇，走到最后是看一个arch，然而那个arch高高在上的我走到头都没看到，继续在没有路的部分继续往上乱爬了一气，遇到一个德国人Hans，他指了一下我才看到。于是接下来回程便跟Hans同路，聊了快有俩小时AI，从fascinating到social impact，真的是没想到跑到这没什么人的山里还要聊AI。。
Just rolled the credits of Metroid Prime 4. I was surprised to see it only took 20 hours to play through this game. It definitely felt much longer, in a good way. It felt like a very robust game with plenty of content. At the end I was hoping it lasts a bit longer or has a bit more content. For a lot of other games it’s the opposite, I hope they end sooner so I can play the next one.M
Metroid Prime 4 is such a masterpiece. I almost feel i have my 2026 game of the year already. Btw I looked up and figured games released in December are usually considered for awards of the next year.
At first I didn’t even realize Metroid Prime was its own series, separate from Metroid. I somehow thought it was a jump of Metroid series from 2D to 3D. Later I found there were three 3D Metroid Prime games on GameCube and Wii. And Metroid Prime 3 was released on 2007… no wonder I never heard of them. So this is a series revival after 18 years. And apparently this 4th-gen was originally developed by Bandai Namco, but was scrapped by Nintendo due to quality issues, and started over by Retro Studios. This backstory explained how the game seemed to make an attempt on open-world with an empty desert, but 99% of actual gameplays still happen in traditional mazes. Zelda made that breakthrough of blending “new abilities unlock new places” and open-world; I’m ok if Metroid doesn’t make that leap.
The graphics, music, and level design of Metroid Prime 4 is very very good. A first-person view brings a more immersive experience than the 2D game; and the sci-fi theme works great with the thrill brought by alien monsters and abandoned facilities. Other levels of lush forest, icy cave, and stormy towers also look stunning and make me want to stop and just stare at the view from time to time.
One thing I wondered was how the game works with the unique pointer control of Switch 2. I’ve seen people on Reddit said it worked great and “felt like the game was designed for that control”. But my own experience was rather disappointing. Metroid Prime 4 has auto-lock (by pressing L2), and has a few bosses that require you to aim “a bit off the center of auto-lock”, which seems to be designed for the Switch 2 control. I tried pointer and motion control, and eventually decided to turn both off and just use the most traditional right stick control. Maybe I’m just too used to the old-school control and less used to the motion/pointer way. The bosses were not hard in normal mode. I was able to beat almost all bosses within 3 tries, including the final boss. The only exception was the “fire dragon” which was a pretty great boss fight. Overall it’s a thrilling, smooth, and not over-challenging game experience. I loved it.
I think my earliest Metroid game was Metroid Fusion on 3DS. The core experience of exploring a huge maze with a detailed map was not new to me at that time as I played Castlevania before, but it was still fun. The most impressive part was how certain puzzles were designed. I remember some puzzles require solutions that are both hard to figure out and hard to execute. It could be a morph ball flying through several screens with precise jumping, transforming, and bombing. I remember having a feeling of achievement after solving some puzzles. Metroid Prime 4 has a lot of puzzles and some of them are clever. But none of the puzzles was sophisticated enough to make you feel “achieving”. It was more of a “huh this is clever” feeling. I think boss fights was a better part of Metroid Prime 4, compared to puzzles.
Overall I’ll give this game 8.5/10. Absolutely worth a try if you are ok with FPS game control on console, and want a sci-fi themed non-open-world Zelda-like experience, lol
2025 was a big year for me. I almost felt overwhelmed just thinking about what to write in this post, lol. I’m sure I’ll finish it as long as I start somewhere.
First, I had a baby and became a dad. Wesley is 4 months old today. It’s amazing to watch him grow and become visibly different every month. Sometimes even a week can bring quite a change. I still think the current society puts a lot of influence into people’s mind about parenting and family values. It almost feels like everyone is supposed to love their kid with all their heart and time. But in reality… think about great people in history with a lot of kids, I don’t think they spent much time taking care of kids. Childcare is a labor intensive work no matter how you paint it… Don’t take me wrong. I really enjoy holding the little guy in arms and sharing time with him. Would I say “this is the best thing that ever happened to me” according to the “social convention”? I cannot say it wholeheartedly yet, lol.
Before the kid arrived, I did my travels. The month-long trip to Peru was an all-out adventure for me. Machu Picchu was awesome. And climbing a snow mountain felt like a good closure to my outdoorsy life. I did cry a bit at the peak to mourn the presumed ending of my lifestyle. In early August I did a weekend trip to Great Basin NP which was a nice little encore. Then it’s Phoenix for the baby.
At work, the AI coding advancement this year was remarkable. Claude Code completely changed how software development. I feel we are rethinking and relearning our own profession. It’s an exciting and scary moment.
Company grew to almost 50 people. It felt a bit of a grind. Business is growing, we are still looking for that sweet spot. A lot of hard work. Another feeling is the company is getting “large”. We fired people and had to go through PIP stuff, like we had HR breathing down our neck. I didn’t anticipate we needed to be so buttoned up at this stage, but whatever.
I basically gave up board games this year. Wen started playing a mobile game in a very addicted way. So when guests came over she barely came out to play anymore. And I’ve been playing Ark Nova on BGA so much that other games felt less interesting because of the depth difference, and playing Ark Nova with friends just became not that fun for me anymore given the experience difference. I probably played Ark Nova 1200+ games online. Then one day in Phoenix I decided this was too much and deleted my BGA account. I haven’t played any board game since.
I did keep video games as a hobby. It’s actually not hard to find time playing video games during the parental leave… or even afterwards. We have some childcare help (nanny and grandparents), and video games I play are on console and can be paired anytime. Here are the games I played this year:
It’s end of the year and I have some leftover balance in healthcare FSA. So I collected some amazon receipts to try to reimburse.
Amazon invoices conveniently tell you how much in an order was FSA eligible. I went through my orders in 2025 and exported a bunch of PDFs. Then I figured this might be a good opportunity to try out AI!
1st try: Claude Code + Claude Chrome extension
Prompt:
I have PDF invoices with FSA eligible expenses in “~/Downloads/fsa invoices” directory now, I also have the page https://justworks.optumfinancial.com/portal/CC/cdhportal/cdhclaims/paymyself open in chrome that you should be able to access. I want you to submit each PDF as a “Reimburse myself” type of claim Find the “FSA or HSA eligible” amount and the order date in the PDF
What was nice: Claude easily parsed all PDFs and pointed out there were 2 duplicated invoices so it will skip one of them.
What was difficult: Claude Code had a lot of trouble to work with Claude Chrome extension. It couldn’t take screenshot until I disabled all other Chrome extensions.
What broke: Claude Chrome extension could NOT upload files… it can click the “upload” button, but then politely ask me to select the file. What do I need you for??!
2nd try: ChatGPT Agent Mode
So I turned to ChatGPT. I initially want ChatGPT Mac desktop app to control my browser, but couldn’t even find that option. So I used ChatGPT’s “agent mode”, which runs everything on a remote virtual machine.
What was nice: ChatGPT could not read my local PDFs, but after I uploaded all PDF files, it easily parsed them and identified the duplicated invoices too.
What broke: ChatGPT app asked me to “take over” and log into the FSA site, but there is no “take over” button anywhere…. I spent a good 5 minutes to look up and down and couldn’t find that button. I searched reddit and found people reporting the same bug recently. I think OpenAI are shipping too much slop codes written by AI…
3rd try: Claude Desktop App
After some fiddling, I figured Claude desktop app can work with Claude Chrome extension too. You need to turn on a connector then select that connector in chat.
But it failed at the same issue: Claude Chrome extension cannot upload file… and I don’t want to sit around to select a file each time.
Also Claude Chrome extension was quite slow. It took almost a minute for it to find a button to click.
4th try: Claude Code + Good Old Playwright
This time it worked like a charm!
Playwright MCP can upload files, and it works much faster than Claude Chrome extension.
What’s nice is once Claude Code finished the first submission, it did the remaining much faster! It summarized what it did in the first try and wrote some badass playwright script to do the rest in that classic robot click speed 😂
So once this thing worked, 2 minutes later I had a dozen claims auto submitted. It was satisfying.
Now I’m looking forward to the next annual sexual harassment training….