Lots to cover.

While SEGA Heroes seems to've mostly supplanted Marvel Puzzle Quest on my phone, I think I'll be going back to MPQ after I max-out my Shinobi team; got the rest of the Chaos emeralds in Sonic Mania; finished Shantae: Half-Genie Hero and it was really fun; bought and finished Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom and while it didn't feel quite as slick as the Dragon's Trap remake, it's a fantastic Wonder Boy game; Cult of the Death God and Terrormania for RAGE 2 were solid and well-made and on-sale and not as great as Rise of the Ghosts but still worth my time; not really interested in GTA IV or V, so I started Return of the Obra Dinn and Quantum Break and they're both really interesting, but then...

My partner got me a 1GB Raspberry Pi 4 Model B and a slick Retro Built Games Porta Pi Arcade: Vertical, and then the Microsoft Store dropped the price of the Samsung HMD Odyssey+ to $299 CDN... So now I'm building an arcade cabinet, brushing-up on my Python, and figuring-out how to get a Windows Mixed Reality headset running on my ASMedia USB 3.0 controller and my 3GB GTX 780 - Spoiler: Windows Mixed Reality doesn't like ASMedia USB 3.0 controllers, so I tracked-down a PCIe USB 3 controller card with a Renesas D720201 chipset, and everything seems happy. Also, the 780 handles DOOM VFR just fine; requires a 1070, minimum, eh? :) Prolly gonna need to upgrade for Alyx though.

P.S. Moss is magical and Rhombus of Ruin is fantastic... And works just fine on WMR.

Yes, Wonder Girl.

RAGE 2 was great, Rise of the Ghosts was great, and Terromania looks really cool... But I'm holding-of for a bit 'cause that's a lot of consecutive time in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Grabbed Mad Max 'cause I figured it'd be really similar - and it is - and it's way better than expected, but also holding-off on that for the same reason. Got back into Wonder Girl: The Dragon's Trap and Sonic Mania for a chance of pace, finished both though I didn't really explore The Unknown in the former and I'm still short two chaos emeralds in the latter. I loved them both very much. Started Shantae: Half-Genie Hero, but three 2D platformers in a row was a lot too; so I finally Grabbed Grand Theft Auto IV and V... Do not like how IV started, but it's getting better. V is incredibly slick (and a 90GB download!), but I'm gonna give IV a bit more time before I really dig-in.

Otherwise, Marvel Puzzle Quest has a taken a bit of a back-seat to SEGA Heroes... Wasn't sure anything'd ever significantly cut into my minor MPQ obsession.

So Much Data!

My ISP unexpectedly upgraded my account to allow unlimited data, so I re-installed RAGE... 60FPS w/max settings@1080p and Smart VSync, and yet it's kinda hard to go back to after putting 15-or-so hours into RAGE 2. It's still gorgeous and the gunplay is as good as ever, but everything feels kinda small - even more so than it did in 2011. The corridors feel cramped and the wasteland feels truncated. I thought I kinda missed it as I was playing RAGE 2, but now I know better.

I've also been tweaking RAGE 2 as I've played, and it seems to average ~35FPS w/max settings@1080p in Soft VSync Mode and no resolution scaling; I'm pretty happy with that. It does dip into the high-20s when certain effects get a little out of hand, but the only real performance gains I see come from either dropping to 720p or essentially knocking presets down to Low. Anyway, I love it; I haven't been this into a game in a long time, and that's what I'd really missed :) The Rise of the Ghosts DLC launched today and it's downloading (18GB... yeesh) while I'm at work and I'm pretty happy than I spent the extra $10 for the Deluxe Edition during that sale.

Been meaning to chainsword some Orks...

Rage 2 is a fantastic sandbox to play in; it's mindless, gorgeous, and satisfying... And taking-up a huge chunk of my free time... And is the first game to actually push my 780, though it still runs really well at 1080p on the highest settings; just gotta use soft v-sync and resolution scaling.

Took a quick look at video card upgrades, and the 2060 Super seems to be the sweet spot ~$500 CDN, but I can't justify it when the 780's still doing just fine.

Tested Crysis 2 on the CrossFire Pro system; could only get 1.0 to run on Windows 10 without trying too hard, but it was playable on ultra settings. Also tried Far Cry 2 which ran flawlessly at the highest settings. Gonna try Space Marine next. Just kinda looking at games I already own that have official CrossFire profiles :)

♪ Here comes the rage again ♫

RAGE 2 Deluxe Edition is on sale for $35 so I'm playing that next, almost done Gears of War 4 (which was on sale for $13; a little repetitive and contrived by the end, but I haven't lost interested like I did with Judgement), DOOM 64 EX was magical, DOOM 4 Vanilla looks really neat, Wonder Boy The Dragon's Trap is delightful but the difficulty curve seems to spike about midway through and I've kinda stalled on it, and Knights and Bikes is finally out and adorable!

⍥⃝⃝

So I didn't know that DOOM64 EX and PowerSlave EX existed until just now because I don't know why and I'm happy I found them and I'm thankful for Samuel Villarreal.

Totes Profesh

The CrossFire Pro cable arrived from China... Or Germany? The shipping labels were weird. Anyway, it works! The two cards together average 60FPS in FurMark - without MSAA at 1680x1050 - and hit temperatures over 90°C... 😅

Nah, eh?

Galaxy A5 took a decent spill onto a metal manhole cover... Repair costs vs. replacement costs didn't feel so good, so I took another look at the Pixel 3a for $549... And then Google dropped the price of the Pixel 3 from $999 to $599... And then I remembered that I had $285 in gift cards and rewards points, so looking at it as buying a ~$300 Pixel 3 vs. repairing a Galaxy A5 made the choice a little easier :)

A5's still a great phone, and unbeatable for the price, but I am pretty glad to be free of the Samsung ecosystem.

Best of 2010

Came into a bunch of spare parts, and here's what I threw together:

• Core i7 930
• ASUS P6X58D Premium
• 6x2GB PC3-10666 (triple-channel)
• 2x ATi FirePro 3D V8800
• 500GB 7200RPM SATA HDD
• Plextor PX-880SA 24x DVD+/-RW
• Antec TP-650
• A Lian Li brushed-aluminum mid-tower... Can't recall the model.

Had to order a CrossFire Pro bridge from China, and that might not arrive 'til October... But still pretty neat :)

Drop-Top

Scored a free Certified Refurbished Surface Book (i5, 8GB DDR3, 128GB SSD) with a docking station! That's ~$1500, after taxes! Got one of these for it, too - for 30%-off! Good times.

So the Surface Book is just... Wonderful :) I mean, I still love my 1440p touchscreen X1 Carbon, but this convertible is so nice! Tablet mode in Windows 10 (1903) is slick, the dual-battery configuration is really clever, the 3000x2000 screen is still gorgeous... I think this is my favourite laptop design out there. I've worked with one before but it'd been abused, and even demoing them in the store with all the security alarms attached just doesn't do the device justice. I still think they're awfully pricey and I've never been able to justify the cost of even a tablet for myself, but I am not upset about this at all.

Otherwise, John Romero released SIGIL and it's pretty good, Senua's Sacrifice is incredible, and I'm trying 2013's Rise of The Triad again with a little more patience this time.

Happy Mother's Day!

Built my mom a new computer out of spare parts:

• i5-2500
• ASUS P8Z68V-LX
• 4x2GB PC3-10666
• Radeon HD 5450
• 64GB SSD
• Corsair TX650
• Windows 10 Pro x64