🎰🎲✨ ¡Obtén 500 euros y 200 giros gratis para jugar juegos de casino con solo un clic! ✨🎲🎰
crystal.palace liverpool
Crystal Palace vs Liverpool
El duelo entre el Crystal Palace y el Liverpool es un enfrentamiento emocionante que siempre atrae la atención de los aficionados al fútbol de todo el mundo. Estos dos equipos de la Premier League inglesa suelen ofrecer partidos llenos de intensidad y emoción, con jugadores de gran calidad sobre el terreno de juego.
El Crystal Palace, dirigido por su experimentado entrenador Roy Hodgson, es conocido por su estilo de juego rápido y directo que puede crear dificultades a sus rivales. Con jugadores como Wilfried Zaha en su plantilla, el equipo londinense tiene la capacidad de desequilibrar a cualquier defensa con su velocidad y habilidad.
Por otro lado, el Liverpool, actual campeón de la Premier League, es uno de los equipos más poderosos y respetados del mundo. Bajo el liderazgo de Jürgen Klopp, los 'Reds' han demostrado un fútbol de alta calidad y un espíritu competitivo que los ha llevado a la cima del fútbol inglés y europeo en los últimos años.
Los enfrentamientos entre el Crystal Palace y el Liverpool suelen ser vibrantes y llenos de goles, con ambos equipos luchando por la victoria hasta el último minuto. Los aficionados de ambos clubes esperan con ansias cada vez que se enfrentan en el campo, sabiendo que están a punto de presenciar un espectáculo futbolístico emocionante.
En resumen, el partido entre el Crystal Palace y el Liverpool es siempre un duelo emocionante que no defrauda a los amantes del fútbol. Con jugadores talentosos y entrenadores expertos en ambos bandos, se espera que este enfrentamiento continúe ofreciendo emociones y buen fútbol en el futuro cercano.
Historial de enfrentamientos Crystal Palace Liverpool
El Crystal Palace y el Liverpool han tenido numerosos enfrentamientos a lo largo de la historia del fútbol inglés. Estos dos equipos han protagonizado partidos emocionantes que han mantenido a los aficionados al borde de sus asientos.
Uno de los encuentros más destacados entre el Crystal Palace y el Liverpool tuvo lugar en la temporada 2013-2014 de la Premier League. En ese partido, el Liverpool se adelantó con un gol temprano, pero el Crystal Palace logró remontar en los minutos finales, igualando el marcador en un emocionante 3-3.
Otro enfrentamiento memorable tuvo lugar en la temporada 2018-2019, cuando el Liverpool y el Crystal Palace se enfrentaron en Anfield. En ese partido, el Liverpool logró imponerse con un contundente 4-3 en un encuentro lleno de emoción y goles.
La rivalidad entre el Crystal Palace y el Liverpool ha generado momentos inolvidables que han quedado grabados en la memoria de los seguidores de ambos equipos. Estos enfrentamientos han demostrado la intensidad y la pasión que caracterizan al fútbol inglés, convirtiéndose en parte fundamental de la historia de este deporte. Sin duda, los enfrentamientos entre el Crystal Palace y el Liverpool seguirán atrayendo la atención de los aficionados y manteniendo viva esta apasionante rivalidad en el terreno de juego.
Resultados recientes Crystal Palace Liverpool
En el último partido entre Crystal Palace y Liverpool, el resultado fue de empate. El encuentro tuvo lugar en el estadio de Selhurst Park, donde ambos equipos mostraron un gran rendimiento. Los aficionados disfrutaron de un emocionante juego que culminó con un marcador de 2-2.
El Crystal Palace supo plantar cara al Liverpool, uno de los equipos más fuertes de la Premier League. Los goles del Crystal Palace fueron marcados por Wilfried Zaha y Conor Gallagher, quienes demostraron su calidad y habilidades en el campo. Por otro lado, el Liverpool contó con los goles de Sadio Mané y Mohamed Salah, quienes siguen destacando como pilares fundamentales en el equipo.
El partido estuvo lleno de emociones y oportunidades de gol para ambos equipos. A pesar de la intensidad del juego, ninguno logró obtener la victoria, lo que refleja la igualdad de fuerzas entre ambos conjuntos. Los entrenadores y jugadores de ambas escuadras se mostraron satisfechos con el desempeño de sus equipos, aunque saben que siempre hay aspectos a mejorar para seguir compitiendo al más alto nivel.
En resumen, el empate entre Crystal Palace y Liverpool dejó a ambos equipos con un punto que les permite seguir avanzando en la tabla de posiciones de la Premier League. Los aficionados ya esperan con ansias el próximo enfrentamiento entre estos dos grandes equipos.
Jugadores destacados Crystal Palace Liverpool
El Crystal Palace y el Liverpool son dos equipos de fútbol con una rica historia y una base de seguidores apasionados. Ambos clubes han tenido a lo largo de los años jugadores destacados que han dejado una marca imborrable en la historia de sus respectivos equipos.
En el Crystal Palace, jugadores como Wilfried Zaha han demostrado su calidad en el terreno de juego con su habilidad para desequilibrar a las defensas rivales y marcar goles importantes. Zaha es considerado uno de los jugadores más talentosos en la historia reciente del Crystal Palace y ha sido fundamental en los éxitos del equipo.
Por otro lado, el Liverpool ha contado con jugadores icónicos como Steven Gerrard, quien es considerado como uno de los mejores centrocampistas de su generación. Gerrard lideró al Liverpool a múltiples títulos y dejó una huella imborrable en la historia del club con su entrega y habilidades futbolísticas.
Ambos clubes continúan atrayendo a jugadores talentosos que buscan dejar su marca y ser recordados por los aficionados. El Crystal Palace y el Liverpool seguirán siendo equipos emblemáticos en el fútbol inglés, con una tradición de contar con jugadores destacados que emocionan a los seguidores en cada partido.
Posiciones en la tabla Crystal Palace Liverpool
El Crystal Palace y el Liverpool son dos equipos de fútbol de la Premier League con posiciones muy diferentes en la tabla. Actualmente, el Crystal Palace se sitúa en la parte media de la clasificación, luchando por mantenerse en una posición estable y alejarse de la zona de descenso. Por otro lado, el Liverpool es uno de los equipos más destacados de la liga, compitiendo en la parte alta de la tabla y aspirando a ganar el campeonato.
El Crystal Palace, bajo la dirección de su entrenador y con el esfuerzo de sus jugadores, ha logrado cosechar una buena cantidad de puntos en lo que va de la temporada. A pesar de enfrentarse a equipos fuertes, ha sabido mantenerse competitivo y sumar victorias clave que le han permitido distanciarse de los últimos puestos en la clasificación.
Por otro lado, el Liverpool, con su plantilla estelar y su estilo de juego ofensivo, se mantiene como uno de los favoritos para pelear por el título de la Premier League. Con un ataque letal y una defensa sólida, el Liverpool ha demostrado su calidad en cada partido, acumulando una impresionante cantidad de puntos y manteniéndose cerca de los primeros lugares en la tabla.
En resumen, mientras que el Crystal Palace lucha por mantenerse en una posición segura en la tabla, el Liverpool busca consolidarse como uno de los líderes indiscutibles de la competición. Ambos equipos ofrecen un espectáculo emocionante a los aficionados del fútbol y prometen seguir dando que hablar en lo que resta de la temporada.

HUGE Commission Return - 95/100%!
New Casino and VIP Ranking Matching
VIP Rank matching from Competitor casinos
Early Access Code: Royal

• Referral code grants you 95% cashback for the total amount of commission earned!

https://gamba.com/?tab=create_user&modal=auth&ref=Royal
At Gamba, we recognize and appreciate the effort and dedication you've put into your gaming experience on other platforms. Hence, we're excited to offer you our VIP rank matching service. This unique feature allows you to bring your progress from competitor sites over to Gamba.
Here's how it works:
We verify your total wagered amount on the other platform using our secure verification methods.

• Upon successful verification, we grant you the equivalent amount in Gamba XP. This lets you begin your journey with us at a rank that truly reflects your experience. So, if you've wagered $100,000 on another platform, we'll credit your Gamba account with 100,000 XP.
• This service is especially beneficial for new players who have a significant wager history on other platforms, allowing them to get off to a strong start on Gamba without having to begin from the ground up.

Early Access Code: Royal

• Referral code grants you 95% cashback for the total amount of commission earned!

https://gamba.com/?tab=create_user&modal=auth&ref=Royal

Hi, I know some of you have been interested in Joost’s written stuff, so this is one of them. It’s a short story that Joost wrote for Boekenweek voor Jongeren (Book Week for Young People) in 2019. There’s more info about it here (in Dutch) https://www.vice.com/nl/article/qvgzpv/joost-klein-schreef-een-kort-verhaal-over-een-wilde-nacht-in-berlijn and there was also this promo video for it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wx7wxnpxps0. It's been translated from Dutch - maybe not the most perfect translation but it's readable. Original in Dutch here. Enjoy

"How come he suddenly has cash?" I looked at Gurb, but he avoided my gaze. Louis never had money and yet he was buying another round. Meanwhile, a Moby song was playing and nothing made sense. "If he has money for drinks, he can surely pay me back, right?"
Just a few hours ago, I was alone in Berlin. Now, ten hours later, I'm standing in some obscure techno club with my best friends. Loud rock music with drunken shouting. "Hey, Miss Murder, can I make beauty stay if I take my life?" I woke up that day with a mild hangover from the lonely yet people-filled night before. Perfect conditions for a 20-year-old dropout.
The Hard Rock Café was the most beautifully ugly place in Berlin. Gurb had driven for seven hours straight in his mother's car, but we didn't notice. An iconic black Mini Cooper. Your body leads your mind, the beat never stops, and you can conquer the world. Louis threw in another crazy dance move. We were happy.
"Do you want another drink, brother?" Gurb asked me, half shouting. An evening filled with rhetorical questions. He saw me dancing and already knew the answer.
Gurb always had money. Louis, on the other hand, never did. Louis was also the youngest of us three. He had just turned 18. I wouldn't call him a cunning fox. More like a jack-of-all-trades. Like the time he made a lot of money on a Wadden Island with a group of boys. They sold large blocks of hash.
"Crazy dude!" I shouted at him. He yelled something back.
"Do you remember back then?" Louis said.
"Back then? Back then? Yeah man, of course!" I had no idea what he meant. "Do you mean the party?"
"Do you mean the party, he says! This guy. When I look at you like this, it makes me happy. The exact same kid is here letting loose just like back in high school!"
We knew each other from secondary school. He joined when I was in the second grade. He was very intelligent. Too young, too much knowledge of the world. His mother is from Brazil. We often went to his mother's place to play on the Playstation Louis and I had bought together.
I lived everywhere at that time. In the crisis shelter where I stayed for a while, for example, I wasn't allowed to have a Playstation. So we set it up in an accessible place, near school. It was always fun with Louis. Going together to the Apple Store. Taking all kinds of photos with all the webcams, posting them on Hyves, and then leaving. Louis always knew how to cheer me up.
"Aaaaaaaaaa!" There was Gurb with five drinks in his hands. Gurb was wearing a blue checkered shirt. Two buttons undone. Hair slicked back. "You look good, brother!"
"You look fresh too! We all look fresh!" Gurb said enthusiastically. Louis was wearing a completely white outfit. We quickly bought this before going out. He also bleached his hair.
"You look like the Brazilian cousin of James Dean in these clothes," I said. Louis laughed. "Let me take a picture."
Suddenly, the DJ switched to some kind of techno. "Ah, here Berlin briefly takes off its mask." I was fine with it all. Louis was talking to a lady.
Voluptuous breasts, I thought to myself. He gave her one of his two drinks.
"He's with a girl and he's thinking with his dick," I said to Gurb. "Let him be, tonight Berlin is ours!"
The bass kept pounding. "I simply don't have the patience for the club," I said to Gurb. He looked surprised. Like a sweet dog, tilting his head. "I'm just waiting for tomorrow. Can't do my thing here. Don't have patience for the already known. I want adventure and I want it now!"
Gurb started laughing. "Patience is a virtue." Yes. Patience is all well and good, but I think it's a waste of my time. Gurb grabbed my shoulder.
"I think it's time for another beer."
Louis and I were walking through Leeuwarden a year ago when suddenly a red Ford Ka stopped in front of us. It was Gurb, casually driving around the city. He invited us into his car. We hopped in. Since that afternoon, the three of us were together. A few months later, Louis got a tattoo on his ribs in honor of our friendship. It was the name of our group chat. Braddar Force Indigo.
There were also days when Gurb would take me for a drive around Friesland. He reminded me how beautiful Friesland is. The world doesn't spin there. The newspapers I threw away in the Stiens forest in 2011 could still be lying in the same spot, so to speak.
Just before midnight, I found myself in line for the restroom. My eyes fell on a pair of striking shoes. Cigarette smoke invaded my nose for the fourth time. "Müssen Sie eine Zigarette haben?" a female voice spoke to me. I felt like Tom Hanks in the final scene of Angels & Demons, where the new pope first steps onto the balcony. The curtains opened. There I was, witnessing an important moment in history. I was just told how I was sent by God, but my ears didn't want to hear any of it. At least that's how I felt. My mouth was empty. I had no words left. That's when I knew for sure. Berlin might really be as crazy as literally everyone says.
Dark blond, silky hair. Was this real beauty then? She wouldn't look 40, but I think she was. A true woman. Beautiful in all her elegance. I always joked about being interested in older women, but tonight one stood in front of me. "I don't smoke," I said to her.
Someone tapped me. "Please, just go to the toilet!" He was right. I hadn't peed in a while either. My urine was cloudy. "Glomerulonephritis," I said to myself on the toilet. This is an unusual condition. It's an inflammation in the kidneys, I thought I remembered. They should never have given me access to Google.
The evening progressed, and Louis kept buying rounds. "But seriously now. How does Louis suddenly have all that money for drinks?" I asked Gurb. He was outside smoking with a group of Swiss girls. I had strategically positioned myself so that I could always leave the crime scene if necessary.
"You shouldn't ask me," said Gurb. He was laughing with the temporary girlfriend group of Louis. Gurb has a beard. A lot of chicks like that. I get it too.
As much as I enjoyed Louis and Gurb being here for me, something didn't sit right with me. It couldn't just be about the money. "What's up with him?" I heard one of the Swiss girls say to Gurb.
Those kinds of questions really tire me out. "Not much, with you?" I replied.
They all started laughing. "That's not what she meant, brother," said Gurb.
"I couldn't care less whether she meant it or not. Send that brace-face back to Switzerland. Don't drive me crazy, alright!"
Actually, I hadn't drunk that much that evening. "Two vodka Sprites, please!" It's rare for me to get just one drink. "I always get two drinks, then you have to wait shorter for the third one!" Maybe the alcohol was affecting me more than I wanted to admit. Oh well, it was still the three of us against the world.
"Nice shoes, are those Prada?" I asked a random girl at the bar.
"No, these are fake. Why would I buy real ones for 600 dollars if I could just buy these for 20?"
"..."
I'm not very good at that. Talking. To women.
Louis and Gurb were in the smoking area now. It was less blue than the dance floor itself. My clothes already stank, so a visit to the smoking area couldn't hurt. "These people are so underground!" Gurb shouted. Louis was filming him with his phone. "These people..." There was a brief pause. As if Gurb forgot the only line he had. "...so underground!" All three of us burst into laughter. The alcohol flowed through our veins as if it came from the purest mountains. People seemed doubled and the room was full. We had been in the same club in Berlin for several hours.
"Leonardo! What are you hiding from the big boss?" I sometimes called Louis ‘DiCaprio.’ "You a rich guy, now?" I said, with an accent as if I were from the Bronx.
Louis started laughing. "Eh, you know nothing. Bullshit talk."
I had to laugh too. What was I even worried about? Friends are friends, with or without money. That shouldn't matter. Louis probably just worked for that money. Maybe it wasn't as bad as I thought. Maybe he just had enough to buy rounds. But what if my gut feeling was right? That feeling was never wrong. Except for that one time at the Holland Casino in Groningen. Even the best of us have slip-ups. I was just getting worked up again. When it comes down to it, Louis is one of the sweetest guys I know. I had to let it go. After all, it's still Louis.
"I think I'm going to have sex soon, man," Louis said.
"With who?" I asked immediately.
"That one girl."
"Which one?"
"The one with the boobs."
"Oh, her. Just be careful."
"What kind of reaction is that?" Louis asked indignantly.
I'd only had four drinks, but I was acting like a mess. Louis was right. I didn't understand myself. Where was my head at? I'm here in Berlin, supposed to be having the time of my life, but here I am feeling lonely and sad again. Joost once again couldn't control his emotions.
"Sorry," I suddenly said to Louis. "Sorry for my behavior. Been acting dumb towards you all night. It's unnecessary." Sometimes I have that. Mood swings. "Know that crime is never the solution. We've talked about this so many times. Yes, it's tempting and sometimes easy money. I sometimes find it amusing too, but it's always hypothetical. Ask me for help. I can help you, even with illegal things. I'll always have your back." The dancing was kind of over.
The words I had just placed on Louis's plate came from my heart. My Frisian, irregular boys' heart.
Crying in the club. I had never seen myself like that. Crying, yes. In the club, no. I never understood the taboo around crying. Or emotions in general. I saw myself in the mirror. They weren't tears of joy. They weren't tears of sadness either. It was me letting everything go. All the emotions I had ever felt. The emotions I felt between my brother and sister and myself because they wanted to take on a parental role over me, but I was in puberty, so I pushed them away. The emotions I felt when my old neighbors were supposed to take care of my dog, but didn't tell me that he was bitten by one of their dogs. They didn't have money for the surgery, they later told me. They were ashamed of their lack of money. My dog died from this injury. Even the emotions that were all jumping at once during the retake for my swimming diploma A, I let go of.
No emotions. Just for a moment, not feeling anything. Is that too much to ask for?
"You still don’t smoke?"
It had to be the voice of the woman with the cigarettes. I looked over my shoulder through the mirror. It was her. The one with dark blond, silky hair.
"Not to be rude, but this is the men’s room," I said. She took a step closer and kissed me on my lips. It tasted like more. We started kissing. It had been a while since I had had female contact at this level. It probably didn't look good and it didn't feel good either. She started kissing my neck. Slowly, I noticed the pressure in the erectile tissues of my penis starting to increase. "I really don't have time for this!" I thought to myself. The woman with the cigarettes started to slowly sink down until she was on her knees. I didn't want this. Not now, not like this. She unraveled my penis from my Polo Ralph Lauren underwear. Her tongue was blue. It was probably from cheap shots of alcohol.
Was this real beauty then? Was this the beginning or the end of her story? And had I become the boy my parents hoped I would be? I thought about the fact that this was once someone's little daughter. Somewhere in the world, an old man might be wondering what his daughter is doing. Am I really putting pleasure above my own morals and values?
With my semi-erect circumcised penis still exposed, I lifted her up. After giving her a kiss on her forehead, I pulled up my pants and left the toilets.
It was the usual last hour in any club ever. I met Louis and Gurb at the bar. "Should we have another drink?" I asked Gurb. "I feel like having a cocktail. Something sweet. Lots of sugar. What about you?"
Gurb looked at the menu. "A cognac would go down well right now."
"A cognac? You're only nineteen!" Gurb and Louis laughed. "Two Tequila Sunrises please!" I called to the bartender. "Also, two beers! Thanks!" I also got a beer for Louis. At first, I didn't want to, but I didn't want to spoil the mood either. Besides, I didn't want to show too much that it bothered me so much.
We danced away the last minutes. The club closed, and we decided to walk with the group of Swiss girls. Apparently, they were staying nearby.
As I lagged behind the group, one of them tried to start a conversation with me. "Are you okay?" she asked kindly.
"I'm fine. Just had too much beer. Makes me sleepy." Not true at all, but I've heard people say that.
"You’re tired? The fun has only just began!" And as she said this, she pulled something out of her inner pocket. Her clenched fist, shielded by a half jacket. Who is this girl, anyway? I thought to myself. She opened her hand flat, and right in the center of her palm lay two small pills with a smiley face on them. At least, they looked like it.
"Oh, I don’t do drugs. Sorry."
"Me neither!" And she swallowed a pill. "Now it’s your turn... Or are you scared?"
Scared? Who did this crazy Swiss witch (with really beautiful eyes) think she was. With her "are you scared". I'll show her who's scared.
"Scared? I’m not scared." I picked up the remaining pill and swallowed it.
Everything went in slow motion. Was this who I had become? Was this the same boy from high school? And just before I could swallow, I spat out the pill. She was shocked. I picked up the pill again, dried it with my jacket, and put it back in her fist. "Maybe later!" I shouted, running back to the group, over my shoulder.
I have nothing to say to 9 out of 10 peers I come across. Of course, I can be social. I can also have fun with random people in random situations, but that night, it just tired me out. I also didn't understand what we were doing there. Those girls found me strange anyway. Suddenly, I was the fifth wheel.
"We know this place where they go until 7 in the morning!" The girl leader of the group spoke. I wanted to go home. "If you guys want, you can go. Don't worry about me," I said to Gurb and Louis. The boys had a brief discussion. We agreed to stay for just a little while longer for some drinks. I consented. I was thirsty. "I'll have a Fanta, Louis."
Gurb had reached the last cigarette in his pack. Louis and a girl from the group were nowhere to be found. It didn't even bother me. This guy just walks around with some cash in his pocket and all hell breaks loose. After a night full of stimuli, I understood Louis. Of course, I understood Louis. He's a young god. Handsome, smart guy. But that didn't make me any less angry. It was purely about trust for me. Something inside me said I should stop subconsciously expecting things from people too. It prevents disappointment.
"Hotel please!" I jokingly suggested to Gurb. "Should you call Louis or should I?" I added. Gurb immediately grabbed his Android smartphone and called Louis. He put the call on speaker.
"Are you ready?" Gurb asked.
"Yeah. Sort of."
"What do you mean?"
"We didn't have sex."
"That's fine, right? Tomorrow's a new day!"
"I think I'm in love, man," Louis said.
"...," Gurb said, chuckling as he let out a sigh.
Once we arrived at the girls' hostel, it was already getting light. Louis was thankfully back. There were stains on his pants, around his knees. My focus was solely on arranging a taxi. Although the boys were still flirting, I was really done now. "How are we going to pay for this taxi?" I said a bit too loudly.
There was a silence. "Don't worry. I still have cash," Gurb said.
"Yeah, I knew you would," I replied.
My words clearly hit Louis. "What do you mean by that?" he said.
It was as if time stood still for a few seconds. "Exactly what I said. Better listen." Louis pulled out a small wad of green bills from his pocket. At least 400 euros. "I don't even want to see that money," I reacted. I walked away.
I'll just order a taxi myself.
"Why are you walking away now?" Gurb said.
"Twelve hours ago, I was alone too, and I had a lot more fun then."
"Do you really want to know how I got this money?" Louis said.
Yes, I did want to know. My whole evening revolved around that damn money.
He took a second of pause before he began speaking. "The answer lies in the Mini."
What on earth could be in Gurb's mother's car? Louis was trying to get into my head. "Taxi!"
Once in the taxi, the division was clear. Gurb was upfront, chatting animatedly with the driver. All adventures ever were recounted. Louis and I in the back. One of my best friends since I was thirteen. Funny how things turn out. It was quiet between us. I was in my head, rehearsing how I would bring up the money again. It didn't add up, and he knew it himself. "I don't care, you know," I said, hoping he'd break.
"What don't you care about?"
"About that money."
"What money? You're really a crazy woozy man." Louis burst out laughing again.
On the other hand, it was silent. Gurb had started talking about the driver's family. The driver didn't appreciate it. Gurb meant well. The driver smelled of alcohol. Or was it me? His nails were polished. Maybe his wife was a specialist. I bite my nails myself. Like now.
"In the Mini, oh yeah."
"Shut up. Illegal man."
"You'll never know."
"Stop playing. Just say it!"
Louis grabbed my head, pulled himself towards me, and brought his mouth to my right ear. "Why so serious?" he whispered. He didn't want to tell me.
"But always with this damn money, huh?" I almost shouted at Louis. I broke every silence within a radius of 10 kilometers.
"I'm trying my best, bro. It is what it is. I can't make it any different," he replied. It was clearly bothering him deeply. He ran his hands through his hair. "Sometimes people have to do things. And you know that better than anyone. Sometimes they have to do things they don't really want to or aren't supposed to do."
I knew this spiel all too well. Through all the drunken haziness, I suddenly saw a small glimmer of light. A tiny spark of sincerity. Louis was serious this time.
"I'm sorry. I didn't want to involve you in this. I'm sorry," sweat dripped from his forehead.
"You're serious, huh? Damn, man. What mess have you gotten yourself into now? Worse than Terschelling?" Worse than Terschelling would mean stolen goods. Maybe even violence.
"It's not what you think."
"The Adlon Hotel, right?" the driver chimed in. Always saved by the bell, that Louis.
Suddenly I hit my head against the seat in front of me. Of course, I wasn't wearing my seatbelt. The last thing I saw was Gurb waking up in panic from his drunken stupor. One by one, I started losing my senses. It started with the feeling in my fingers. For a brief moment, everything wasn't quite black, and I could only see a vague pattern of colors repeating inside my eyelids. You could compare it to the brief moment after the commercial break before the movie starts in the cinema. The movie was about to begin.
I knew I wasn't dying. At least not yet. Not like this. Not after an overall mediocre night out in Berlin. I found comfort in the image I forced myself to see. It was all in my head. There I was, unconscious.
I saw myself in a third-person point of view. It wasn't like I was actually leaving my body. More like there was a webcam hanging in one of the upper corners of the taxi.
As a child, I used to dream a lot about death. Nights spent awake.
At some point, I developed a kind of compulsive behavior. I kept swaying my torso from left to right with my hands under my head. It became almost like a workout before bedtime. Every night.
I called it dream shuffling. Just like I had learned to shuffle puzzle pieces or playing cards. Making things a little exciting for yourself. But what I almost never told anyone was that I was scared. I was afraid of burglars, who were very agile and muscular.
Especially afraid that they would murder me. I really wanted to know what death was like. It scared me.
These fear visions originated during an all-inclusive vacation in Turkey. I was 6 years old and already in bed. There was a big old TV in our hotel room, so I could secretly watch TV from bed. Every evening, my parents sat on the balcony. Here they discussed their day while enjoying a glass of alcohol. There was a Japanese animated series on TV. In the few seconds that I watched, I saw a scary creature climbing a sort of apartment complex via the balconies. The creature had hundreds of teeth and blond hair. It quickly entered to decapitate the people, then drained them and, as a final insult, robbed them. Dozens of carcasses of dead people were scattered around the apartment complex. The complex on TV resembled the resort where we were in reality, and the TV world merged with my surroundings. I became part of it. I saw people watching. No matter how loudly I screamed for help, they didn't react. The sun became very bright, and the people turned into nothing more than shadows. As the intensity of the sun increased, something became clear to me. These were not people. They had a sort of orange skin. Where I had previously thought it was their nose and mouth, it turned out that these shadowy figures did not have such physical features. They simply had three holes in their heads. The police tried to do something, but in vain. Since then, we always kept the light on in the hallway outside my bedroom. By rocking back and forth, from left to right, I could glance fleetingly at the beam of light under the door. That bit of light, escaping from the hallway into my room, gave me an advantage. It allowed me to stay one step ahead of the burglars. Pretty smart, right?
"From Jamaica to the world!
It’s just love. Why must the children play in the street?"
It was Bob Sinclar with "Love Generation" speaking to us through the taxi's speakers. We were stationary. I was conscious again, but I didn't feel alive at all. "How long was I out?" I asked Louis.
I could tell by his expression that he was relieved. Relieved that I was back. "One minute," he almost apologized. Louis gave me a pat on the shoulder. Gurb, on the other hand, was sleeping. He slept like a baby cub.
I put my right index finger on my forehead. It felt wet, but it wasn't blood. Blood feels different. Meanwhile, I kept hearing whistling.
"Be the love generation! Oh yeah!" It was still that same song by Bob Sinclar.
The earlier scent of alcohol had now been replaced by the smell of incense. It smelled like the same incense I had in my room. Sold to me as Tibetan 39 incense. I had bought it at a coffee shop in Rotterdam. I pulled up my notes on my phone. "Who lights incense in a CAR????" I let Louis read from my screen. He took the phone from my hands and started typing as well.
"Look at Gurb >>>" Gurb was so deeply asleep that his head drooped. His seatbelt held his torso in place, but his head ended up on the driver's shoulder. The man didn't mind. He didn't move. I made eye contact with the driver through the rearview mirror, and soon I found him. He winked at me.
We arrived at the hotel. Gurb awakened from his alcoholic hibernation. "Who's going to pay for the taxi?" I asked. Clearly rhetorical. I already knew I would take this one for the team, as usual. I refused to use Louis's money. It was uncomfortably quiet. "By card please," I said.
"I'll always protect you, Louis. You really need to know that. I care about you like my own little brother. I'll always try to help you. But you have to be honest with me. Can you do that?" Louis didn't hesitate.
"Yes. Yes, I can. I'll show you. It's really in the Mini." Meanwhile, the taxi driver's card machine indicated that I had insufficient funds. That couldn't be right. Maybe I had withdrawn too much that evening.
"I have cash in the hotel room," Gurb said to me. Gurb informed the driver in broken English that he would go get his cash. The driver agreed. Money is money, whether it comes now or later. As long as it feels good in your hands.
Louis and I got out of the taxi. "You're not going to light a cigarette now, are you?" Louis wanted to smoke. "Especially for stress. That's really for people who can't handle pain. You need to feel pain. Pain needs to brand you for the rest of your life so you finally learn not to do such stupid things." It fell silent again. My blood boiled. All pots were on the stove. I felt like Gordon Ramsay in the kitchen. "Show me then. Do it."
Louis remained silent and walked around the corner of the hotel. Towards the parking lot. I followed him. "You're not going to find much," said Louis.
"Why not? Are you a magician?"
"No. Just. Not much."
"So there's suddenly magically nothing in Gurb's car?"
"Stop. Get out. Get out of my head!" Louis shouted. Louis had had enough. He was done with the parade. Normally we dealt with hypothetical stories. Only this time it wasn't a joke. I was sure now. Louis had dropped his mask. The revolution had begun. The government had fallen and the dikes had broken. The people were in charge. "You shouldn't freak out like this. Always wanting more. Sweet boy, think about yourself."
After Gurb gave the money to the driver, he came to us. He had a smile on his face, lit a cigarette, and exclaimed, "Brothers!" Once with us, he hugged me. He started laughing. "Maybe I haven't been entirely honest either." Sometimes Gurb seemed like a 38-year-old man. In a positive way. He exuded confidence in a way I didn't often see. Affectionate, with a hint of authority.
We stood in the middle of a large parking lot. "Look. We've reached a point where I might not even care anymore. You guys are teasing me." It did matter to me. Maybe more than ever. I was supposed to be two steps ahead of them, but I couldn't figure it out. "I give up."
The delightful silence returned. Louis and Gurb looked at each other. "You guys win. Apparently, I'm not to be trusted as a friend."
From Louis's expression, I could tell he disagreed with this. "Not true. Come to the car."
We arrived at the car. Louis unlocked it and searched for the trunk button. Gurb had started his third cigarette. "It's a corpse, isn't it? Say it now. I can still help you. I can still help us. I can book a ticket for you. We can get you out of here," I said to Louis.
"Just wait. Nutcase."
"Why won't you accept my help?"
Louis started laughing nervously. Or at least it seemed that way. Perhaps a sly laugh too. Had Louis killed someone? "It's not a corpse. That can't be. You wouldn't be stupid enough to use their ID. You're smarter than that. So it must be something stolen. Haven't you found that button yet?"
Suddenly, we heard a click. Louis had found the button. Somewhere, I didn't want to know. Shouldn't I just trust Louis? Wasn't that the whole point of friendship?
Finally, the moment had arrived. I placed my right hand in the slot of the rear hatch. Something in me doubted. Still. I still doubted. Louis looked dead serious. "You wanted to know, didn't you? Then you also have to be man enough to accept it." Louis was clearly not joking. Or was he acting again? "Pussy," Louis said. I looked away. "You're afraid of what's inside, huh? You're afraid of the real Louis." He began to laugh manically. "Open that thing, man. Nutcase!"
I started laughing too. Why did I make such a big deal out of it? Sweat broke out from every pore in my body. It was even a bit damp in the no man's land between my scrotum and my anus. A tropical climate. It had been quite an adventure the whole evening. I took my hand off the rear hatch and first gave Louis a hug. Not some half-hearted birthday wish. No, a real hug.
"It's okay, buddy," Louis said to me. I had no idea what he meant by that. It fit the moment though.
It was really time now. I opened the rear hatch.
"Where is it?"
"In front of you," said Louis.
"In some secret compartment?"
There was nothing in the trunk. Absolutely nothing. An empty trunk. For an empty evening, in an empty Berlin, with an empty group of guys. I didn't get it.
"You won, man," I whispered. "You finally fucking done did it."
I couldn't believe my eyes. Empty? There was still nothing in the car. Louis just stood there. Emotionally, I was a wreck. I had felt every emotion this evening. Seen every color and smelled every scent. I was done. My body was ready. No longer needed. My mission was complete.
"But why did you do this?" I asked Louis, laughing.
He scratched his chin. It felt like the end of a bad movie.
"I sold our Playstation. Wanted to tell you only after I had sorted everything out again. I terminated my lease. Had some debts, and I also wanted to have some money for once. Once not empty-handed in the club. Once not dependent on my best friends. This is not who I am... I know how much that Playstation meant to you. It was ours together. I should have just told you."
"… and how does Gurb actually make his money?"

Betspino(.)com Casino Promotions Review

Betspino.com Casino offers a range of enticing promotions designed to enhance the gaming experience for both new and existing players. From generous welcome packages to weekly promotions, cashback deals, and level-up rewards, Betspino.com ensures there’s always something exciting for everyone. Here’s a detailed look at what you can expect:

Welcome Pack Offer

Betspino(.)com Casino’s Welcome Pack is a warm invitation for new players, offering a substantial boost to kickstart their gaming journey. The welcome package typically includes:

• First Deposit Bonus: 100% match bonus up to $200. This means if you deposit $200, you’ll have $400 to play with.
• Second Deposit Bonus: 50% match bonus up to $300. A great incentive to keep the momentum going after your first deposit.
• Third Deposit Bonus: 75% match bonus up to $500. This substantial bonus encourages continued play and exploration of the casino’s offerings.
• Free Spins: Up to 100 free spins on selected slot games, usually spread across the first few deposits.

Weekly Promotions

Betspino(.)com ensures that every week is exciting with its variety of weekly promotions. These promotions can include:

• Monday Reload Bonus: Start your week with a reload bonus of 50% up to $100 on deposits made every Monday.
• Midweek Free Spins: Every Wednesday, players can claim up to 50 free spins on popular slot games by making a qualifying deposit.
• Weekend Cashback: Get up to 20% cashback on net losses incurred over the weekend, providing a safety net and encouraging continued play.

Cashback Offers

Cashback offers at Betspino(.)com are designed to provide players with a second chance if luck isn’t on their side. The casino offers:

• Instant Cashback: Up to 30% cashback on all clean deposit losses. Players can claim this cashback instantly, up to one week after the deposit was made, as long as there is no active balance.
• Weekly Cashback: Additional cashback deals are often available as part of weekly promotions, offering players more opportunities to recover a portion of their losses.

Level-Up Rewards

Loyal players at Betspino(.)com are rewarded through the Level-Up Rewards program. As you play and wager, you accumulate points that help you climb through the levels, unlocking various rewards such as:

• Exclusive Bonuses: Higher levels unlock access to special deposit bonuses and promotions.
• Free Spins: Regular free spins on new and popular slot games.
• Cash Prizes: Direct cash rewards credited to your account.
• Personalized Offers: Tailored promotions and bonuses based on your gaming preferences and history.

Special Promotions and Tournaments

Betspino(.)com also hosts various special promotions and tournaments throughout the year. These can include:

• Slot Tournaments: Compete against other players for a chance to win cash prizes and free spins.
• Holiday Bonuses: Special bonuses and promotions tied to holidays and special events.
• Referral Bonuses: Invite friends to join Betspino(.)com and earn bonuses when they sign up and make their first deposit.

Conclusion

Betspino.com Casino offers a well-rounded array of promotions that cater to all types of players. Whether you’re a new player taking advantage of the generous welcome package or a regular player enjoying weekly bonuses and cashback deals, there’s always something to keep the excitement alive. The Level-Up Rewards program further enhances the experience by rewarding loyal players with exclusive bonuses and personalized offers. With its diverse and attractive promotional offerings, Betspino.com Casino ensures a rewarding and engaging gaming experience for everyone.Betspino.com Casino Promotions Review
Betspino.com Casino offers a range of enticing promotions designed to enhance the gaming experience for both new and existing players. From generous welcome packages to weekly promotions, cashback deals, and level-up rewards, Betspino.com ensures there’s always something exciting for everyone. Here’s a detailed look at what you can expect:
Welcome Pack Offer
Betspino(.)com Casino’s Welcome Pack is a warm invitation for new players, offering a substantial boost to kickstart their gaming journey. The welcome package typically includes:
First Deposit Bonus: 100% match bonus up to $200. This means if you deposit $200, you’ll have $400 to play with. Second Deposit Bonus: 50% match bonus up to $300. A great incentive to keep the momentum going after your first deposit. Third Deposit Bonus: 75% match bonus up to $500. This substantial bonus encourages continued play and exploration of the casino’s offerings. Free Spins: Up to 100 free spins on selected slot games, usually spread across the first few deposits. Weekly Promotions
Betspino(.)com ensures that every week is exciting with its variety of weekly promotions. These promotions can include:
Monday Reload Bonus: Start your week with a reload bonus of 50% up to $100 on deposits made every Monday. Midweek Free Spins: Every Wednesday, players can claim up to 50 free spins on popular slot games by making a qualifying deposit. Weekend Cashback: Get up to 20% cashback on net losses incurred over the weekend, providing a safety net and encouraging continued play. Cashback Offers
Cashback offers at Betspino(.)com are designed to provide players with a second chance if luck isn’t on their side. The casino offers:
Instant Cashback: Up to 30% cashback on all clean deposit losses. Players can claim this cashback instantly, up to one week after the deposit was made, as long as there is no active balance. Weekly Cashback: Additional cashback deals are often available as part of weekly promotions, offering players more opportunities to recover a portion of their losses. Level-Up Rewards
Loyal players at Betspino(.)cometspino.com are rewarded through the Level-Up Rewards program. As you play and wager, you accumulate points that help you climb through the levels, unlocking various rewards such as:
Exclusive Bonuses: Higher levels unlock access to special deposit bonuses and promotions. Free Spins: Regular free spins on new and popular slot games. Cash Prizes: Direct cash rewards credited to your account. Personalized Offers: Tailored promotions and bonuses based on your gaming preferences and history. Special Promotions and Tournaments
Betspino(.)com also hosts various special promotions and tournaments throughout the year. These can include:
Slot Tournaments: Compete against other players for a chance to win cash prizes and free spins. Holiday Bonuses: Special bonuses and promotions tied to holidays and special events. Referral Bonuses: Invite friends to join Betspino(.)com and earn bonuses when they sign up and make their first deposit. Conclusion
Betspino(.)com Casino offers a well-rounded array of promotions that cater to all types of players. Whether you’re a new player taking advantage of the generous welcome package or a regular player enjoying weekly bonuses and cashback deals, there’s always something to keep the excitement alive. The Level-Up Rewards program further enhances the experience by rewarding loyal players with exclusive bonuses and personalized offers. With its diverse and attractive promotional offerings, Betspino(.)com Casino ensures a rewarding and engaging gaming experience for everyone.

I noticed some comments this morning in SuperStonk about how they're going to miss everyone after MOASS. As if this subreddit will be moot point after the biggest sneeze in recorded history happens.
​
I think that's a horrible way to look at it.
​
First, is we lock the subreddit from any new members after the sneeze. Sounds shitty, but there will be such an influx of people asking for handouts because the amount of collective bank accounts in here. That would make any communication impossible in this subreddit.
​
Second, we focus on 2 things. How we can continue to use our resources to fix the broken casino that is the stock market. Work our damnedest to hand the market back to the individual investors. Level the playing field to speak. The second thing we should focus on is joint ventures to make the world a better place. There is so much diversity in here, we really could do some magic. Me personally, I could retire and live off $5M easily. Anything after that is fuck you money. And honestly, I'd like to use the excess to help.
​
Thoughts?

Could you imagine 4 hours and 18 minutes on one shooter !? Borgata hotel and casino. 154 rolls may 2009. That must have been the most entertaining event in the history of casinos. I'm not talking about the $$$ won. The banter and mood at that table must have been incredible ! That's what I love about craps people having a great time together. Good luck to all.

So for a while or so I've been playing older Sonic games just to see if they still held up. So far a majority of the games I played were at the very least good with some of the best ones being Sonic Adventure 2 and Sonic rush. But something that might be my biggest Sonic hot take ever is that Heroes is one of the worst games in the entire Sonic series(unpopular opinion I know but let me explain myself). And just a heads up this is gonna be a long one because I got a lot to say about this game.
Because this game has a lot of aspects that I don’t like, I'm going to first touch on some aspects I actually like about the game. Even though not every character was written the best I will say some stand out characters I enjoyed are Cream and Omega, especially Omega but I wanna touch on Cream first. Ever since reading the IDW comics I've always had a soft spot for Cream just from how innocent and adorable she was and that sentiment continued with how she was paired with Blaze in Sonic Rush. I was admittedly nervous about how she would be portrayed in Heroes for reasons I'll get into later but she was handled alright. Nothing too groundbreaking but she kept her cute nature and even had some small moments of sass which was nice. The real star of the show was E-123 Omega. He really only has one thing on his mind with destroying Eggman and doesn’t really go through any sort of character arc, but that’s fine with me because the dude’s funny as hell with how aggressive and angry he is. He doesn’t have much of a face or eyes that are able to emote but you can still tell exactly what he’s thinking. I can’t explain why but every piece of dialogue that comes out of his…mouth?....speakers?...is hysterical. From “ANNIHILATE” to “USELESS CONSUMER MODELS” even down to when he says “GOOD” every time you pop an item box or balloon every quote is comedy gold with how monotone his voice is. The chemistry each team has with each other is nice to watch since from their dialogue you can tell that these trios have known each other for a while, are good friends with one another, or in Team Dark’s case just work friends(but their banter is still entertaining with how Omega keeps telling them to stay focused). And the music is good but as a Sonic fan that’s par for the course at this point. What I’m Made Of is a stand out banger for me.
But unfortunately that’s where all the positives end as we move into the negatives with one of the biggest being the physics of the game being poorly optimized. Throughout my playthrough I have run into so many bugs or victims of poor game design that I’ve lost count. But over half of my deaths have been due to the fact that there are no invisible walls to act as safety nets for players incase they misclick or even do something as simple as do a homing attack or perform a 3 hit combo with a power character, the latter happening way too often because power characters are the most reliable way to deal with enemies. Enemies bumping you are also a common way to die but not because of running out or rings, but because of the lack of walls keeping you on the platforms. Speaking of the homing attack, with how the movement physics work with speed characters I never use them because they end up being too slippery to control with instances where it feels like I'm fighting for control just so I can move forward in a straight line or hit a boost pad on a loop. The Light Speed Dash works whenever it feels like it and there’s no way to aim the homing attack so you pretty much have to press A twice and pray that rn-Jesus does you nice, otherwise you’re falling down a pit like you’re Scrooge McDuck diving into a vault of gold coins. And remember how I said enemies bumping you off cliffs was a common way to die? Well they can also just combo you for free because this game has no invincibility frames meaning you can get hit once and then instantly die if you or one of your teammates doesn’t pick up a ring right after being hit. This is especially apparent in horde fights like Robot Storm where you can get easily swarmed. And a staple mechanic from Sonic Adventure 2 that was butchered in this followup was the rail grinding. It was super fun to build up speed by balancing and crouching but now you just mash B with any real sense of speed being from a speed character. And heaven forbid you decided to grind rail with a flight character unless you like sliding at the speed of a snail, but you might wanna do that anyway to be save because if you switch rails the game doesn’t magnetize your character to it risking you to just shoot yourself off the map just for swapping rails or getting off of a rail.
Another awful aspect with the game is the team mechanic itself. It’s an interesting idea on paper to be able to swap between 3 characters to perform different actions based on what the level throws at you. But the problem with that is not every formation is balanced. The flying formation is awful in every way. The totem formation itself looks weird and looks especially janky with how it looks when going off a set of springs or going through a dash panel loop. How it controls itself makes absolutely no sense either; you jump and jump again to fly which drains a meter, which makes sense since Tails worked in a similar way back in Sonic 2 and still works like that in every other 2D classic style game. But I didn’t learn until the last story that the gauge only drains if you move forwards and won’t drain if you don’t move forward which not only makes no sense but doesn’t work like that in Sonic 2 at all. And whenever the meter runs out you might think that you would just glide down to the floor right? No. Instead the game halts all of your momentum and has you fall straight down like a boulder making flying based platforming impossible which was not the case in Sonic 2. And for some reason there’s a limit for how high you can go even though there’s already a limit you can fly for. Wanna know what game allows you to fly as long as you want until you run out of stamina? SONIC FUCKING 2 ON THE SEGA GENESIS/MEGA DRIVE. Sonic Heroes not only came out 10 years after Sonic 2 but was released on more powerful consoles so I'm baffled that they didn’t even try to make any of this shit work in any similar fashion. And this gets even worse for Sonic Heroes because you know how I just described how they would have improved the flying mechanics in Sonic Heroes? Well it WORKS EXACTLY HOW I JUST EXPLAINED IN SONIC ADVENTURE FOR THE THE DREAMCAST 1999. What the hell were they thinking with this!? This makes absolutely no fucking sense. And the Thunder Shoot attack? It doesn’t do much except paralyze enemies and hit targets meant to help you move forward in levels. Except it only does one of these things correctly since the game doesn’t auto target the targets meaning 90% of the time you’ll be constantly throwing your teammates into the ether while missing entirely as you try again and again to change your angle to hit the target just so you can move on with the average 10 minute level. And the switches you’re meant to pull are janky in their own right but the switches you have to fly for are the worst since no matter how close you get to that switch the game won’t register what you’re trying to do which is annoying as balls. And as the finishing touch all flying character have no differences in gameplay despite slight animations and apparently they have this unique attack they can do if they don’t have party members to throw with Thunder Shoot by pressing B again...but the game doesn’t tell you that and even knew that you’ll never see it in practice because if you toss a teammate with Thunder Shoot they’ll come back almost instantly.
And the biggest failure is that you can no longer spin dash in this game. It’s no big deal, it’s not like they removed one of Sonic’s most essential moves in his arsenal that was present all the way from Sonic 2 and was even in Sonic Adventure 1 and 2, useless crap like that. Instead you have to use the stupid Rocket Accel which can’t be activated instantly like the spin dash with instead having the player get a running start to have your teammate boost you forward that doesn’t go as far as the spin dash in Sonic Adventure 1 and 2. It’s an alright concept that would be fine to keep if the spin dash remained in the game and not replaced with some trash faker that doesn’t hold up to the original. Which leaves us with the power formation which is the best formation by far but not by much. Power is the easiest one to control since it allows you to properly control your character at a moderate speed, a novel concept I know. But combo attacks that involve the character moving forward in a short burst are risky to use since you could wind up pushing yourself off the map which happens way more often than you’d think and more often than it should. And because they have to share data with all the playable teams they away Knuckles’ ability to climb walls in favor of a tacky looking team glide for platforming just like they took away the Spin Dash.
Another team related mechanic the game introduces is something called the “Team Blast” which has a gauge fill up every time you deal damage to enemies or collect rings no matter how you collect said rings(remember this for later). When a team gauge is filled you can perform a Team Blast by pressing Z that acts as a screen wipe that clears almost every enemy on screen. I say almost because it doesn’t really remove every enemy on screen because some doof over at Sonic Team thought it would be a good idea to give an ultimate attack that’s meant to wipe out all enemies on screen with a limited range, which is smaller than you’d think by the way. Each Team Blast has their own special effect that appears for around 10 seconds after the attack is used which i’ll be talking about when I talk about each team on their own but know that after Team Sonic’s Team Blast Sonic will be able to use the Light Speed Attack from Adventure 1 and 2…but that’s useless when you’re able to still fight as Knuckles and it fucks up your Thunder Shoot when attacking bosses.
And the next fancy mechanic they try adding in is the new level system. And I hate this system so much. The idea of the level system is that your character starts off dealing an ok amount of damage but can get stronger the more you level up by collecting orbs that can drop from enemies. Speed characters get a stronger spin dash, flight characters get a stronger Thunder Shoot, and power characters get stronger combo enders. The problem is that in terms of combat no Sonic game has ever worked like this. For the most part every enemy in a Sonic game that came out before and after Heroes is able to be one shot by a simple jump, roll, spin dash, homing attack, mech shot, boost or punch with the only exceptions I can name off the top of my head being Sonic Rush, Sonic Unleashed’s night stages, and Sonic Frontiers. But those 3 examples are excusable since with Rush it’s only one enemy that has more than 1 HP that doesn’t spawn often and with the other 2 being based more on combat than speeding through levels as fast as possible. Your team will only be satisfying to play after everyone as at the maximum level of level 3 which can be difficult to do since whichever orbs enemies drop when defeated are not only random for when exactly they’ll drop but it’s also completely random who the level up is meant for. Imagine needing to level up your power character to get through a large horde of enemies but instead all the levels go to the other 2 teammates that are virtually useless in a fight. “Ah dammit, I needed a power orb to get to level 2…ah well might as well give my other teammates their 50th orb of the fight.” The only ways to get guaranteed levels for a certain character is with certain item boxes and balloons scattered throughout the level and with checkpoints but the latter only works for the character leading the formation when touching the checkpoint, not to mention they’re single use only. And say you grinded all those levels so you can blitz through this level, guess what, if you die all of your levels get reset and it doesn’t matter if you only lose a life or game over. And i’ve made it very clear how easy it is to unintentionally kill yourself in this game.
Something else that isn’t properly explained is the hidden difficulty system. The problem is that each team campaign has a hidden difficulty system but the game doesn’t tell you that at all unless you want to willingly listen to Omochao(note that I played the tutorial and afterwards I actively avoided his tips on the main menu). The difficulty from easy to hard is Teams Rose, Sonic, Dark, and Chaotix being a gimmick team but the game orders them from Sonic, Dark, Rose, Chaotix which is bad game design because not only are people gonna wanna play as the main character Sonic the Hedgehog, but with how the stories are laid out players would instinctively play from left to right causing them to play the game on normal, hard, easy, and then gimmick which doesn’t make too much sense. I knew the difficulty levels before going in but I played in order of Sonic, Rose, Dark, Chaotix because I like Sonic as a character. But what I wasn’t prepared for is that this game is kinda hard even on the normal difficulty because the game is full of jank that can just kill you for playing the game as intended.
But now for Team Rose and Team Dark. Team Rose is so piss easy that it’s insulting for players who are well affirmed with the series. For one they force you to play the tutorial even after you’ve completed a story previously. Which btw this is the most bullshit tutorial in the history of gaming. Most games have pop ups with button commands and visuals to help the player out or they let the player figure things out themselves. Sonic Heroes does neither of these but instead have this little annoying ass robotic fuck hold your hand throughout the entire thing. What makes this worse is that every time he pops up to tell you what to do your character is stuck in place as you gotta wait for him to shut up so you can play the game only for you to be stopped by his rambling again and again and again until it’s finally over. And most of the skills players can learn on their own since it’s not that hard to just press a random button and get immediate feedback of “oh this button does this? cool beans''. Their moveset is also broken with Amy’s tornado attack being a moving projectile meaning you don’t have to willingly get in contact with the enemy in order to use it, Big having a combo that doesn’t have him move so he can’t fall off the map along with a broken belly flop that’s good for not only combat but weirdly enough platforming, and Cream…she’s just the flier. Their Team Blast is just a win button for no good reason. Not only does it give all of your teammates a free level, not only does it give your team a shield, but it makes your entire team INVINCIBLE. Ok game I get it, stop treating me like a baby. And the finishing touch is that all the levels are cut in half. Awesome. Setting up unrealistic expectations for newcomers and disrespecting older players in one foul swoop.
And then there’s Team Dark…oh Team Dark…when they said this was the “hard” mode they were lying. Because it should’ve been called “kaizo” mode. Enemies are everywhere including places they shouldn’t be, the amount of rings available is greatly reduced, And the bosses become borderline impossible to beat at times(except for the rival fights but we’ll get to that). And not only are there more enemies but the stronger variants of said enemies spawn more frequently. And you’d think their Team Blast would make things better, well yes and no but here’s why. Their Team Blast freezes time completely and I mean completely. Rings don’t spin, projectiles don’t move, even the timer doesn’t tick down. But the most annoying part is if you’re using your Team Blast to try and move forward the puzzles are stuck in time too until the gauge runs out so you gotta sit and wait to move on. And even after you move on the game will probably toss 3 giant armored robots at you at once that fight like mini-bosses(if you know you know) immediately after your Team Blast just ran out.
But before I talk about the final team with Team Chaotix I wanna talk about the level design! Yippee! Except not really because it’s all terrible. The locations and themes are unique in their own right but each level suffers from their own issues coupled with all the bugs that can kill you outright without the player having any time to think about what just happened. Ignoring the main bugs, Seaside Hill and Ocean Palace are fine first levels in all honesty. Power Plant’s elevator section is long and tedious and it’s worse if you have a character than use the Light Speed Dash along with a super stressful rising lava section that you gotta hurry up to climb or else you’re dead. But oooh nooo it’s not that easy because the lava moves faster along with the player which means if you’re too slow, you die and if you’re too fast…you die. Casino Park and Bingo Highway have pinball mechanics that will leave you stuck in one of the tables forever unless you’re a pinball god or just lucky. And we just love games marketed at children that encourage gambling addictions, especially if said gambling minigames are rng. Rail Canyon and Bullet Station rely entirely on rails which don’t work properly as I said before and Bullet Station in particular has a cannon that’s supposed to shoot you onto another rail track but in actuality it fires you straight into the death zone if you’re unaware about this and hold forward…and because it’s a Sonic the Hedgehog game you’re gonna do that. “Gotta go fast” and all that. Frog Forest and Lost Jungle have flying flowers that are so jittery they’re impossible to control, swinging vines with an awkward timing window, and it ends on a chase sequence against a giant crocodile that relies on the janky vines that last way too long. Hang Castle and Mystic Mansion are puzzle-filled mazes with ghost enemies that show up at the worst of times to jumpscare you…which is all the time, and everything else(we all know these levels sucks moving on). Egg Fleet and Final Fortress have tons of bullshit cannons that can home in on you, can snipe you out of the air which can hit you out of a platforming segment and send you falling to your death, crumbling floors, everything’s in the sky so there’s almost no floor to stand on, and rails. The worst part about it all is that all 4 campaign’s use the same exact 14 levels. You heard me right. ALL 4 CAMPAIGNS USE THE EXACT SAME LEVELS. Sonic Adventure 2 had 2 campaigns with levels that heavily differed from each other one way or another. Each campaign has either a speed level, a treasure level, or a mech level and even then it’s not equal to how many levels each type of level gets and each level has a different setting and music track. Rush is the one case I can think of where the campaigns had minor differences. Only thing is that those differences are huge. The levels are the same but they’re in a different order for Sonic and Blaze, Blaze plays completely differently from Sonic, Blaze gets her own music tracks, and Sonic has to use special stages to get the Chaos Emeralds while Blaze doesn’t need any to get the Sol Emeralds. And at the end of every other stage you gotta face off against-
Bosses! They all suck for different reasons. The mech fights boil down to mashing homing attacks like it’s a Mario Party minigame, the rival team fights are a joke, and the horde fights…oh my god the horde fights. I’m just gonna rip the band-aid off here. ROBOT. FUCKING. STORM. This is not only the worst “level” in Sonic Heroes but the worst boss fight out of any Sonic game I have ever played. Team Sonic’s is hard enough as is, Team Rose’s is a pushover(as is every boss in their campaign really), Team Chaotix…we’ll get to them later. But Team Dark’s has to be the boss fight that throws the bullshit at you. Don’t believe me well then let’s see here, we got; a long robot gauntlet that feels like it takes years to get over with, more enemies that spawn with a lot of them being the stronger variants of the enemies we’ve already be accustomed to, multiple giant hammer wielding robots paired with either robots that heal them or robots that sap all your rings which because it’s a Sonic game it’s basically life steal, and because this game was programmed with monkeys holding hammers the enemies will constantly knock your ass off the map and there is NOTHING you can do about it except pray. Pray to rn-Jesus that you can make it out alive with what little sanity is left in your body. And after all that Eggman has the balls to say what I'd call the worst line in any Sonic game, “Don’t get too excited boys! Those were the easy ones!”. It’s genuinely unbelievable that such a level exists. This was marketed towards kids. How is fucking little Casey who just got Sonic Heroes as their first video game gonna beat this shit? He’s not. Because the developers didn’t think about that just like they didn’t think about anything in this game except making a “fun” gimmick. But that’s not all. Because there’s one more boss...
Egg Emperor…and the bullshit continues. I definitely know what true evil is when facing this boss all right. The fight consists of running across a few platforms before making your way over to a bigger arena. The boss only has 3 attacks but 2 of them are what make this boss a slog to get through. He can fire energy waves by swinging his lance like he’s Cloud Strife and a charge attack that has no weaknesses that the game says activates whenever you’re too far from him. Because this is a Sonic game I figured that meant he can only charge if you’re too slow, but if you manage to run ahead of him he’ll charge anyway. But if you get too close to him you could risk either getting hit by a lance beam or by his massive hurtbox. And you might be thinking “why don’t you homing attack the body at that point?” and that’s because he has a shield that blocks all attacks and it’s only worth attacking his body after the second part of the fight where you go to that arena section. In the arena section you have to destroy some cannons and defeat some enemies before getting to the big man himself. You can make him drop his shield by using Thunder Shoot and follow up with your Power character but you probably wouldn’t do as much damage as you were hoping for since in order to do any real damage you’ll have to level your Power character up to level 3 which could take forever in this fight. After a certain amount of time the boss will flee causing you to chase after him again and repeat the boss cycle. But don’t go too fast because then you’ll wind up smacking right into his body or he’ll swat you out the air like a fly with a lance beam attack. And you can’t go too slow or else he’ll just charge at you which if he does it at the wrong time he can intercept your approach and boop you off the map meaning you’ll be dead. And if you thought that was enough, because the developers don’t know how to properly make things different between campaigns you have to fight this motherfucker 4 SEPARATE TIMES. And it doesn’t matter what campaign you go through because you’ll always have a tough time regardless of difficulty. I know it’s the final boss and that it’s meant to be a challenge but holy shit tone it down, there’s kids playing this shit.
And the last campaign involves Team Chaotix and they’re by far my favorite team to play as…and they still have problems. Instead of going through levels the same way you did 3 separate times already it instead focuses on missions. And I have mixed feelings about this. It’s great because it finally keeps things fresh and gives the player another way to experience the game that isn’t platforming focused. The problem is the fact that it’s still the same levels, levels that were meant for an action platformer instead of things finding an x amount of…I don’t know seashells. While the treasure hunting stages were my least favorite aspect of Sonic Adventure 2 they at least did a better job with the concept than some of the collecting missions in Heroes since the maps are built specifically for this kind of gameplay and there was at least a tracker telling you if you were going in the right direction. The Chaotix has you searching through levels you’re meant to speed through while not giving you any sort of tracker to tell you if you’re in the right direction. The Casino Park one in particular was the worst one because of the instructions: “Win 200 Rings!”. Anyone who sees this probably assumes they mean to use the slot machines since we’re a casino level with slot machines built into the pinball tables. But the thing is you can easily just collect 200 rings by playing the stage. But the game doesn’t say collect 200 rings, it says win 200 rings which is the dumbest piece of misinformation in this game and that’s saying something since this game loves to withhold information from the player for no reason. Like did you know you can fire your Thunder Shoot at nothing to charge your team gauge? Or that even though the game says to use a Speed character’s tornado to deal with shield enemies Power characters can punch right through them no problem? You probably didn’t because the game doesn’t tell you this. Anyway the stealth missions are the best ones because Espio’s invisibility is broken. And their Team Blast causes any enemy destroyed to turn into rings and for the duration of the meter any enemy destroyed turns into rings. This is the most broken move in the game. Why? Well remember when I said that the Team Gauge charges from attacking enemies and collecting rings? Well the game counts any rings collected towards the meter. Meaning if you destroy enough enemies at once with this attack you can immediately get your gauge back to repeatedly use again and again. It’s such an easy exploit to pull off that I'm not even surprised that this was left unchecked in all honesty. It even makes the dreaded Robot Storm look like a joke.
So that’s it. You beat all the 4 campaigns and you’d think that it’s time for the usual last story, right?...right? Well unfortunately special stages make a return and with that the 7 Chaos Emeralds. And this is by far the worst one. In the past special stages were unlocked by method of holding at least 50 rings until the end of the stage and jumping into a warp ring in Sonic 1 or holding at least 50 rings and jumping into a star post in Sonic 2 or by jumping into a giant warp ring hidden in the level in Sonic 3 & Knuckles. Sonic Heroes decided they wanna be a bit quirky in a horrible way. In order to access the special stages in this game you have to collect a key hidden in the stage and bring that key with you until the end of the level or mission in order to unlock the special stages and collect the Emeralds…there’s so much wrong with this…Not only is it already easy for the game to send your ass to the shadow realm for existing but if you get hit and lose your key it doesn’t just fall out like rings do, it disappears completely meaning you’ll have to reload at a checkpoint or worse, restart the entire level every single time you get hit. And after you get through that bullshit we get to the special stage itself…if you’ve played this game you already know what’s up. The special stage acts similarly to the half pipe in Sonic 2 but except it’s a full enclosed pipe you run around in. The goal is to collect orbs to fill your boost meter and speed ahead to catch the emerald. It sounds very simple but remember, this game was coded by monkeys with hammers so the physics don’t function. Your character will constantly jitter around while moving making positioning yourself impossible when trying to collect the orbs. You have to pick between a Power or Speed character because Flight characters are too slow to do anything but even then you’re picking your poison. Do you wanna control your character better at the cost of speed or do you wanna go fast in order to get the emerald quickly at the cost of controlling your character? ‘Cause that’s exactly what it feels like. And I'm still not done because each Emerald is locked into every other stage. Sonic 1, 2, and 3 & Knuckles allows you to get the Emeralds as easy as the first 2 or 3 zones if you know what you’re doing. If you miss an emerald in one of the few stages they appear in you’ll have to repeat the level and do everything I just explained ALL OVER AGAIN. WHAT KIND OF COLLECTOR HATING SADISTIC BASTARD THOUGHT THIS WOULD BE A GOOD IDEA WHEN THE EMERALDS ARE REQUIRED TO BEAT ALL OF THE STORY!? Before going in I knew how bad the special stages were while being blissfully unaware how bad the unlock requirements were so I used save states(yes I used an emulator) to collect the emeralds in a timely fashion. Not only did this end up taking longer than expected even with save states but I was forced to keep using them for every time I got hit, sent off the stage, or missed the Emerald causing my save file to corrupt and erase all my data. Which caused the auto save to fail and use exclusively save states to progress. And let me tell you, nothing’s scarier than booting up the game and discovering all of your save data has been completely erased even after you completed 2 campaigns previously.
Before I get into the last couple topics of discussion I'll touch on some minor things that don’t warrant their own paragraph individually. The voice acting is hit or miss with stand outs like Omega and Sonic and then there’s instances of some of the worst voice acting in the series with Tails where they deadass brought an 8 year old to voice the character. “Look at all those Eggman’s robots!”. But it gets weirder since Cream was voiced by an actual voice actress and Charmy was voiced by a teenager. Doesn’t help that the game has the characters not stop talking for every single damn action in the game. It’s the same cheesy lines for the entire playthrough. The game looks ugly with the admittedly improved models having textures that look like they’re plastic toys ready to be sold in some Walmart or Target. The pre rendered cutscenes might be revolutionary at the time but are horribly dated by today’s standards and the in game cutscenes that start at the beginning of boss fights and levels look extremely jittery and stiff with characters’ arms flailing to move into position, Omega’s eyes constantly bugging out, and the camera repeatedly having a stroke. Some assets feel like they are copy/pasted and slapped onto characters that don’t make sense. Omega and Big share the same aura color along with Espio and Sonic sharing the same aura color, purple and blue respectively. Omega’s triple glide animation looks exactly like Knuckles’ even though he could’ve been animated to use his thrusters. Rouge has a weird outfit change that is never used again. Some might think that it could be for censorship reasons but her chest is still exposed through a cleavage slit in the outfit which makes me wonder why they even bothered to change it. Plus her pink eyeshadow is less aesthetically pleasing than her iconic bright blue. It’s unclear if all the teams are doing everything at the same exact time or not making things really confusing.The way the characters are written are all over the place with a mixed bag across the board. Team Dark’s great as characters but then you have Tails who’s portrayed to act like some scaredy baby and Amy who’s been turned into a hyper thirsty yandere that’s willing to beat Sonic into marrying her. But all of that is nothing compared to how dirty they did Shadow.
Every team has their own mini story that drives their plot forwards; Team Sonic has to find and defeat Eggman, Team Rose is looking for their lost friends, Team Chaotix is tryna get the bread, and Omega, specifically Omega, is out to look for Eggman for revenge for locking him in a vault. Shadow though…ok first off, why is he here? He literally sacrificed himself to save the planet Earth from the space colony Ark with characters honoring said sacrifice and mourning his death, Sonic included…But then they decided to bring him back along with amnesia and a clone side story that makes him question who he is. The clone story is the dumbest shit in this entire damn game. As if it wasn’t enough to make him forget all the events of Sonic Adventure 2, which can kinda make sense if he was sent into a coma after crashing on Earth. But now he has to go through some midlife crisis level shit to try and figure out his past and if he’s even real, which spoiler alert: this game doesn’t resolve either plot point. These points were further developed and resolved by the next game; Shadow the Hedgehog which wasn’t the best game by all means but it gave more of a fuck to have a concrete story than Heroes ever did. And what’s worse is if the clones were gonna be brought up again in Shadow the Hedgehog and then be resolved in that same game then what the fuck was the point of doing any of this shit in Heroes!? All that did was leave Shadow’s story on a cliffhanger that accomplished nothing but made fans confused and left them with unanswered questions for 2 years until Shadow the Hedgehog came out.
But finally, after collecting all 7 Chaos Emeralds and beating all 4 Team campaigns you’re rewarded with the Last Story which reveals that Metal Sonic was the real mastermind behind everything that happened in the game so he can copy everyone’s data and assume a powerful new form…that takes way too long to transform into…with Metal Overlord…just to beat Sonic. Not even world domination, just to beat Sonic. While his dedication is admirable it’s a really shallow goal. Plus the buildup towards him being the main big bad isn’t handled as well as it could’ve been. All we get are a background element that people would miss if they’re too focused on just beating the level, an extra animation at the end of a boss cutscene that only appears for Team Sonic and Shadow’s story, and a few lines of dialogue from Team Chaotix’s “client” that makes it clear that it’s Eggman. But it would’ve been better to actually know how all of this happened in the first place. Metal Sonic shows up as Neo Metal Sonic as the first time we see him in this game with no explanation as to how he got this form or how he found out he can copy others’ abilities. Not even a cutscene or backstory from Eggman in the final story, instead he just complains about how they can’t defeat him without the Chaos Emeralds. Without prior knowledge I wouldn’t blame anyone for thinking that Metal Sonic just got a redesign since he hadn't made an appearance in the Adventure era at that time. How cool would it have been to have been given cutscenes showing us Metal Sonic twisting and contorting his body to not only show how he managed to do this in the first place but how far he’s willing to go to beat Sonic without spoiling the final form to leave the audience in suspense before the final act? And him not revealing that he copied Team Rose and Team Chaotix data kinda comes off as him not recognizing their strengths and calling them too weak to copy from, even if he didn’t say so himself. The segment where the teams do their best to weaken Metal Madness for Team Sonic is fine enough except the coding monkeys did it again and made it so that Flying characters can’t do any damage. But then there’s the final battle with Super Team Sonic…Team Super Sonic…uh…a Chaos Emerald powered Team Sonic. Admittedly the fight is really cool with Metal Overlord chucking entire battleships at the player and talking about how he believes he’s the real Sonic as What I’m Made Of blasts in the background. But there’s 2 major things that bring this fight down for me. Sonic Adventure 2 did a similar sequence of the cast of characters help Sonic and Shadow go super and defeat the big bad. Only difference being the buildup was more elaborate and the stakes were higher as if they failed the entire planet was at stake along with the presentation of the final fight being better in every way. One fight takes place in outer space while the other takes place in the sky a vague height above the ground. And most insulting of all they robbed us of bringing back Super Knuckles and Super Tails. This might’ve been because of the retcon of super forms only being possible with male hedgehogs but that was a massive missed opportunity. And after the fight is done Sonic drops one of the corniest one liners in the franchise, the 5th set of unskippable credits scrolls on screen, and the game tells you to do everything again but get to A ranks this time as one final fuck you.
In conclusion the game had a lot of…interesting ideas to say the least in terms of mixing up the Sonic formula. Unfortunately they used too much gas when trying to cook and sent the entire dish ablaze. I think if they let this game simmer a bit more and took at least a year to iron out all the bugs and mishaps since this game was developed in 20 months. As a comparison Sonic Adventure 2 took 18 months to develop and was still better. And while I've made comparisons to past Sonic games I wanna make it clear that I am aware of the flaws those other games have. After all, nothing is perfect. But Sonic Team at least could’ve made sure that their game was worth it in spite of these flaws by tweaking some game mechanics to make them more fun. And feel free to say why you’d think this game is peak Sonic. Alright that’s all, thanks for reading this far and have a fantastic day.

HUGE Commission Return - 95/100%!
New Casino and VIP Ranking Matching
VIP Rank matching from Competitor casinos
Early Access Code: Royal

• Referral code grants you 95% cashback for the total amount of commission earned!

https://gamba.com/?tab=create_user&modal=auth&ref=Royal
At Gamba, we recognize and appreciate the effort and dedication you've put into your gaming experience on other platforms. Hence, we're excited to offer you our VIP rank matching service. This unique feature allows you to bring your progress from competitor sites over to Gamba.
Here's how it works:
We verify your total wagered amount on the other platform using our secure verification methods.

• Upon successful verification, we grant you the equivalent amount in Gamba XP. This lets you begin your journey with us at a rank that truly reflects your experience. So, if you've wagered $100,000 on another platform, we'll credit your Gamba account with 100,000 XP.
• This service is especially beneficial for new players who have a significant wager history on other platforms, allowing them to get off to a strong start on Gamba without having to begin from the ground up.

Early Access Code: Royal

• Referral code grants you 95% cashback for the total amount of commission earned!

https://gamba.com/?tab=create_user&modal=auth&ref=Royal

HUGE Commission Return - 95/100%!
New Casino and VIP Ranking Matching
VIP Rank matching from Competitor casinos
Early Access Code: Royal

• Referral code grants you 95% cashback for the total amount of commission earned!

https://gamba.com/?tab=create_user&modal=auth&ref=Royal
At Gamba, we recognize and appreciate the effort and dedication you've put into your gaming experience on other platforms. Hence, we're excited to offer you our VIP rank matching service. This unique feature allows you to bring your progress from competitor sites over to Gamba.
Here's how it works:
We verify your total wagered amount on the other platform using our secure verification methods.

• Upon successful verification, we grant you the equivalent amount in Gamba XP. This lets you begin your journey with us at a rank that truly reflects your experience. So, if you've wagered $100,000 on another platform, we'll credit your Gamba account with 100,000 XP.
• This service is especially beneficial for new players who have a significant wager history on other platforms, allowing them to get off to a strong start on Gamba without having to begin from the ground up.

Early Access Code: Royal

• Referral code grants you 95% cashback for the total amount of commission earned!

https://gamba.com/?tab=create_user&modal=auth&ref=Royal

My party is going to New Orleans for a bachelor party and I was wondering how Harrahs casino is. I’m poor so I’m wondering if it has penny/nickel slots. Any information about the place is welcome! Thanks so much.