Black Cyber... Whatever, I don't care.

Steam Sale:

• ABZÛ
• Grow Up
• INSIDE
• Oxenfree
• The Witness

Windows Store Sale:

• ReCore

Haven't touched the Steam games 'cause Rise of the Tomb Raider is way bigger than I expected; 20 hours into a vaguely-completionist run, and I'm maybe halfway through; that's a solid value!

ReCore though... I'm only an hour or so in, but it looks great (That's Unity!? Holy crap!), has really fun and simple twitch gameplay that also rewards skill, and... That's about it, so far. Everything else is just kinda there, and I'm pretty much just dreading the padding and weak final leg I keep reading about; afraid this is gonna be another RAGE :(

Oof

Marvel Puzzle Quest is still dominating, but I did finally wrap-up Cordy 2 and scope-out Angry Birds POP! The former just didn't grab me like the first one did, and the latter is a really well-made Puzzle Bobble clone, but the free-to-play mechanics get in the way of fully enjoying the experience.

Remember Me was my main jam otherwise, and about halfway through it all felt kinda bleh; cool aesthetic, high production values, good performances of awkward dialogue, interesting world, intriguing combat system, and all of it together just didn't quite coalesce into what it should've been. I'll finish it, but it's feeling awfully repetitive.

...And then Rise of the Tomb Raider: 20 Year Celebration, Headlander, and Titanfall 2 went on sale. I picked-up the first two (and Tomb of the Lost Adventurer for the 2013 Tomb Raider 'cause it was, like, $0.80... And still not really worth it), and while I've yet to dig into Headlander, RotTR is just great; much more cohesively realised than Remember Me, albeit still kinda ham-fisted at times (especially with the dialogue) and contrived at others (too many nits to pick here) - but raiding those gorgeous tombs is a hell of a lot of fun. Passed on Titanfall 2 because it was still over $50 CDN after the exchange rate, plus I've yet to see everything in the first one.

Curse?

Okay, so not quite rock-solid at 9-9-9-24; overnight stress-test froze. Might've just been Windows acting-up though, so hopefully this clean installation of 1607 solves the problem.

C2Q also froze overnight; will focus on that once I get the i7 stable, but both sets of RAM (at this point) seem to be really particular about which slots they're in.

Jinx

Got a Corsair CX500 for $25-off for my old C2D (its PSU went to the C2Q); the 3x2GB sticks of 2000MHz DDR3 run flawlessly in the C2Q at 1333Mhz as long as they're in slots 2, 3 and 4 and not in slot 1; the 12GB of 1600MHz DDR3 I got for the i7 were unreliable, but the timings were slow anyway (11-11-11-30), so I set them to 9-9-9-24 at 1333Mhz, and they're now rock solid while still achieving the same latency.

Hey, not too rough...

Got every single-player achievement in DOOM aside from the Ultra-Nightmare one because apparently I suck at video games.

Windows 10 is still randomly freezing on my i7 desktop since the Anniversary Update... Clean install soon, I guess.

Put together a new spare-parts build: Core 2 Quad Q9450 on an EVGA 132-CK-NF79 with 8GB of 1333MHz DDR3 RAM (dual channel), a 320MB 550MHz GeForce 8800 GTS, and a 60GB OCZ Vertex 2 running 64-bit Windows 7 Professional... It randomly BSODs; isolated the RAM as the cause; now to find-out if it's the RAM itself or the motherboard. Current plan: Test the 6GB of RAM from the i7 on the C2Q, and buy 12GB of new RAM for the i7 if it fixes the problem.

Just Do It

Haven't really felt like writing lately, but just to keep things up-to-date: DOOM is fantastic, I loved every minute of it, and I can't wait for more. Firewatch is great. Undertale and Kentucky Route Zero Act IV are what's happening right now. Stalled on Pokémon Go around level 13. Still working on my three-star guys in Marvel Puzzle Quest. But yeah, DOOM; play it.

They got the subway stops right!

Installed SOMA late last night. Finished SOMA early this morning. Only games I can recall ploughing-through like that are Psychonauts, Portal, Portal 2, and BioShock Infinite.

SOMA's incredible. The premise, the narrative, the presentation, the engine, most of the voice acting, the survey - seriously, the survey... They even set it in Toronto! I'm from Toronto! Basically, everything's dope... Except the monster/stealth stuff transplanted from Amnesia; that was stupid. Didn't ruin the game or anything, but there must've been a better way :\ Oh, and the protagonist's a fool, but then that's alright because I'm not sure we're supposed to relate to him anyway.

Game over, man? Game over, man.

Finally got into Alien: Isolation and ploughed right through it. I know I've said it before, but I'll do it again with a little more authority: It's an amazing game, incredibly well-designed, stunning to look at, and downright unnerving in some of the most ingenious ways. My only complaint is the time wasted replaying failed sections... But such is the nature of what seems to be a predominantly unscripted experience. I should probably complain that I was able to stockpile so much inventory by the end that I felt a little overpowered, but honestly, after the brutality leading-up to the final few levels, it was kinda nice to just kick some ass :) Buy this game on any platform if you haven't already.

Installed Aliens: Colonial Marines immediately after... Mostly to see if, even after the dust had settled, it's as bad as everyone said it was... It was. I got 20 minutes in before I promptly deleted it from my PC. Ergh.

Still grinding-away at Marvel Puzzle Quest... Cordy 2 when I need a break from that.

Dark Souls and Deadpool were put on hold, but not for long.

Looking to pick-up Severed for Vita and Forza 6 for Windows 10.

Prepare to... Oh, wait, this isn't so bad!

I suspect I may be too neurotic to enjoy Alien: Isolation. It's a fantastic concept, masterfully executed, gorgeously presented, and I just keep walking away from it... Possibly because I keep reloading saves/dying/whatever and it just kinda breaks the flow and asks for a little too much suspension of disbelief. So what'd I do? I finally installed Dark Souls.

I remember King's Field, I own Demon's Souls, Bloodborne's prolly gonna be my first PS4 game if I ever buy a PS4... But I hadn't sat-down with the Dark Souls series at all until just the other day... And it's pretty solid so far, and somehow holding my attention better than Isolation :( Perhaps it's because I also finally installed Deadpool, and it's way better than I'd heard! Was expecting a cheap DMC knock-off, but nope! Quality production value abound with this one; great to drop-in for 30 minutes at a time; solid relief from the frustration of the two aforementioned titles.

Also, Injustice was good, but nothing special; Killer Instinct kinda rules, but I've only tried the free parts on Windows 10 so far.

Cry farther, boy!

Wrapped-up Far Cry 4... Pretty satisfied.

The original Far Cry was a delightful breath of fresh air in the FPS genre, being all kinds of fun and ridiculous and pretty. The console-based spinoffs were lacking, but whatever; they don't matter in the long run. Crysis felt like more of an evolution of Far Cry (which makes sense, given the developer) whereas Far Cry 2 was a friggin' revelation in terms of design. The thing is, Far Cry 2 may have been a little too real with its malaria and endless enemies... As I recall, it was tryingly difficult, which was kinda sad 'cause it was such an amazing achievement. Far Cry 3 found the necessary balance to really open things up to the general public and Far Cry 4 was more of the same, but in a completely different locale; and I'm fine with that. The story was solid, the characters were over-the-top and entertaining, the choices were challenging (albeit myopic), the world was vibrant, exploration felt rewarding, and the Shangri-La missions were actually fantastic (which makes Far Cry Primal even more intriguing to me)... The best part? You could just kill all the main players after the credits roll... No! Wait! The best part is actually when "Jaan Pehechan Ho" starts playing during a particularly intense firefight :) Oh, and the DLC was fine, but kinda meh.

Aaanyway, wrapping-up Never Alone, lost interest in Hotline Miami 2, had a brief dalliance with Strife: Veteran Edition, and now I'm thinking it's time to suck it up and get back to Alien: Isolation.

Also, my Origin account was hacked. Got everything back, but lost all of my "on the house" titles :(

A cable car fell on him... After he fell out of that same cable car.

Wrapped-up The Old Blood; good times, albeit silly; the injuries BJ sustains in the cinematics are a little over-the-top. Burned through Dr. Langeskov, The Tiger and The Terribly Cursed Emerald: A Whirlwind Heist - which was fun - then revisited The Stanley Parable -which is still brilliant; I guess The Beginner's Guide is up next, but not before Grow Home 'cause I mean how fucking charming is that game!? :)