Ten Years!

Started noticing more hard drive noises than usual from my desktop... While the drives were idle. Found a SMART warning on one of my 1TB spinning drives; backed-up the data, pulled the drive, checked the date code... August 2010! Nice :)

Started Below and got back into Knights And Bikes... Both are so great, visually; both have really interesting (albeit very different) narratives... And both have kinda tedious core gameplay loops :(

Buy Low, Sell High

Found all the things in-stock at MSRP or on-sale...

Final build:

• Ryzen 5 5600X
• ASUS TUF GAMING X570-PLUS
• 2x8GB 3600MHz DDR4 CL16 (B-Die)
• MSI 3070 VENTUS 2X OC
• 500GB WD BLACK SN850 PCIe Gen4 x4 NVMe M.2 SSD
• 512GB ADATA Ultimate SU800 SATA 6Gb/s SSD
• Samsung HMD Odyssey+
• Audient iD14 (MKI)
• Cooler Master G750M

Just gotta figure-out a case and throw-in some data drives... Would splurge for a LIAN LI LANCOOL II Mesh Performance, but they're sold-out everywhere; saw a few over the holidays, but I balked. Still have that iStarUSA D-400 in the meantime, I guess.

I figure I put ~$500 into my current computer over the past ten years, going from the i7-930+X58 to the 3930K+X79, from the GTX 780 to the 1070... I'm keeping all the other parts, but should be able to get ~$1000 CDN for it after throwing-in a barely-used Corsair CX500 I already have, and an old 7200RPM HDD. Otherwise, it'll go to a friend or family member in need.

Spoiled

Horizon Zero Dawn is really impressive, and I really like it... But after Breath of the Wild, it feels kinda janky; facial animations, falling and climbing mechanics and animations, targeting enemies, superfluous voiceover and dialogue, muddled HUD that gets lost in the background, unreasonably dark areas...  I even kinda miss the stamina meter. I know it's not the same game, but it's hard to not draw comparisons and really only serves to remind me of what a stellar achievement BotW is.

Metro Exodus is just plain broken though; played on the highest settings without issue for a while, and then one day, after loading a saved game, it just started stuttering. Latest drivers, verified the installation, tried safe mode, etc... Still stuttering. Hesitant to re-download it because it's so big. Disappointed.

Duck Season, however, was frigging rad. Going for the seventh ending and then all the extras that unlocks now. Actually got goosebumps, and even yelped out loud more than once... I'm sure I looked like a fool, but it was worth it!

Oh! Finally went through Prey: Typhon Hunter's TranStar VR campaign; good stuff in there!

Finding a Ryzen 5 5600X has proven to be silly, more than anything else. Plenty of local shipments, and the profiteers aren't too bad, but we're in a province-wide lockdown and stores aren't accepting any kinds of online ordering or reservations, aren't answering their phones, and are encouraging customers to just show-up and try their luck... While there are reports of police pulling people over and issuing fines for unnecessary travel. Yeesh.

That's a wrap...

Finished-up with some games...

Control: AWE was good. Nice cliffhanger. RTX is pretty :)

Ion Fury put up a good challenge toward the end, but final boss was frustrating; won't be getting the DLC

Streets of Rage 4 was solid, but I still prefer the old ones. Felt great, music was alright, the final boss was maybe kind of a little too hard, will replay to unlock characters one day.

THPS1+2 was so nice; went through all the stages - didn't 100% it, but will come back to it for fun.

The Witcher: Enhanced Edition Director's Cut has aged surprisingly well, though I don't really feel the need to finish it? Gonna give 2 an honest try as well, in anticipation of the RTX update to The Witcher 3.

First Step

3070 overclocks nicely to ~1865MHz from the 1755MHz factory OC. Next step is a case with better airflow, then I think an 5600X+X570+16GB of 3600MHz CL16 DDR4 RAM, then a PCIe Gen4 x4 NVMe SSD.

Finished BotW, and it was great. The second DLC pack though? Can't access any of the new story content without going through four camps+shrines where one hit kills us? Sure, but it seems odd that the trial to learn the new melee weapon (to the point that they remove all others) can also be won by wearing Majora's mask, picking enemies off with old ranged-weapons, and save-scumming. It's not impossible to do it properly - I got through all four with minimal out-loud swearing - but it's a noticeable spike in difficulty with an odd workaround, and I saw a number of parents complaining online that they had to pass it for their kids. Such a bizarre choice, to wall-off the main attraction of the $30 DLC while the hardcore options are available right away in what is ostensibly a family game.