That wardrobe, though!

Hadn't been all that focused on any particular game the past few months until I finally got around to Super Mario Odyssey, and then binged that one hard; 363 Moons in 48 hours, and still going. Not sure how I feel about the boss rush post-game content, but I'm gonna try to get to 500. Overall though? Killer app, masterpiece, instant classic, etc... You get the idea.

• The Missing Link was alright; not as bad as I'd heard, but I'd've been fine having never played it.
• Jensen's Stories were fun, but didn't feel as polished as the main game.
• Sam's Story was pretty good, but I preferred the main campaign and The Two Colonels.
• Enhanced Edition is cool, but I really only jumped to a few favourite scenes; not gonna re-play the whole game.
• Call of Duty: Black Ops - Cold War was fun; single-player offers a solid story with some really cool moments, and the overall campaign has pretty high production values; but it all felt pretty short, and didn't really hold my attention. Did go for both endings though.
• Got DOOM Eternal The Ancient Gods, and it's good; though I'm finding myself getting more confused as they pile more lore onto us - which is disappointing because I really liked where they were going with it. Gonna do some more reading, I guess. Paused for now, while we wait for the RTX update.
• Finally got through DOOM VFR - Really good game, with just a few inconsistently very-frustrating points.
• Wrapped-up Half-Life Alyx, and it was fantastic.
• Walked through Deus Ex: Mankind Divided - VR Experience, and the control scheme... Oh god... Instant nausea. Not worth it.
• Started BONEWORKS, and it's not quite like anything else... Curious to see where they take this.
• Reinstalled Need for Speed Heat, bought an Aston Martin Vulcan, and almost unlocked the FXX-K Evo.

Decided to keep the Sound Blaster 16 and see what I can get for the AWE64 Gold - no bites so far.

Applied the NVIDIA Resizable BAR firmware update.

I dunno... Mostly just wanted to gush about Odyssey, a little. Still need to go back and play both Galaxy games.

Bouncin' around, bouncin' around, bouncin'

Took a break from Metro Exodus after completing the main game and The Two Colonels DLC; will get back to Sam's Story, but went back to Deus Ex: Human Revolution for a change of pace. After many false-starts over the years, I finally wrapped it up and it holds-up. Not bothering with The Director's Cut, and the DLC is fine; but I jumped straight into Mankind Divided before finishing The Missing Link and wow... Just, wow. Cannot believe I slept on that one for almost five years - it's one of the best games of the decade! Ploughed through that, started Breach and Jensen's Stories... So pretty, too! Maxed-out everything at 1080p except MSAA - 60FPS at 4x though. Then I guess it's back to The Missing Link, and then Sam's Story... But I also bought Call of Duty: Black Ops - Cold War because it was on-sale for $50 CDN and it's technically a new single-player Raven game!

Otherwise, I finally got around to testing my Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold, and it works great... So now the question is do I try to get $200 out of that one or my complete Sound Blaster 16? Partial to the OPL3 on the 16, but there're so many more features on the AWE :\

Also, got $700 for my old 3930K+1070 PC... Dropped the price to $800 (seemed fair since you can find comparable new pre-builts for ~$1100) and I got tonnes of interest, but the vast majority was miners offering under $400 just for the video card.

Raptors! ;)

New computer is awesome; very quiet (better airflow in this case, Noctua fans), very fast (the 3070 is no longer bottlenecked!), and the build was mostly uneventful. The amount of pressure required to install AMD's Wraith Stealth is kind of terrifying, needed a BIOS update to get the DOCP setting on my RAM to work, and I accidentally removed my digital Windows license from my Microsoft account but was able to get it back by reviving the old motherboard and logging-in there with my Microsoft account... Microsoft support had told me I was out of luck, but I sure showed them 😅 Kept the PSU and three hard drives from the previous build, replaced the failing 1TB HDD from 2010 with a 2015 one I found in my parts bin, and since my VR headset works with the onboard controller on the new motherboard, the Renesas D720201 PCIe card I picked-up for the old one went to my brother's Z68 build so he could finally hook-up the front USB 3.0 ports on his Meshify C. Also, the power and drive LEDs don't seem to work on this case... Meh.

Speaking of  hard drives, I re-installed Anthem... But on the SATA SSD, so still not sure if PCIe Gen4 would help those load-times. Still fun to jump back into though; hit level 30, started playing the unlocked difficulty levels... Not really worth it; "Hard" seems to be the most casual fun that still yields decent rewards, in terms of currency anyway.

Tried Metro Exodus again, and it doesn't stutter anymore... Still kinda buggy in terms of mission completion conditions and lighting, but I wonder if the sudden performance issues were somehow related to the failing drive :\

Old computer is listed on Kijiji for $1000 CDN OBO; final specs are:

• MSI GeForce GTX 1070 GAMING X 8G
• Intel X-Series i7-3930K (6C/12T, 3.8GHz boost)
• ASUS P9X79
• 32GB (8x4GB) 1600MHz quad-channel DDR3
• Intel BXTS13A
• 2x WD 74GB Raptor 10,000 RPM (RAID 0)
• Corsair CX500
• Lian-Li PC-68

...Only one bite so far, and they were looking to trade; which would be fine, but they didn't have anything I wanted.

Unrelated, but one friend who was looking for a 2060 SUPER or better for Premiere finally gave-up and settled for a 1660 SUPER... Except he couldn't find one of those either. I found two profiteers for him - a 3070 for ~$1000 CDN or a 1660 SUPER for $450 CDN - he went with the latter, and he's happy.

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.

"Not today, my good man; I'm feeling saucy!"

The cheapest used 3070s I can find online right now are $900~$1100 CDN (the cheaper of those are Kijiji pick-ups), and the new ones are hovering around $1400~$1600... And I just found a new MSI 3070 VENTUS 2X OC for $799. The same shop had a GIGABYTE 3070 GAMING OC for $769 (higher boost, one more fan, physically larger) as well, but it got sniped as I was adding it to my cart. $799 is a little high (this model started around $750) and I still have reservations about VRAM limitations; but times are strange, I totally got caught-up in the excitement, and when the 6800 street price turned-out to be $999 I got off that bandwagon... Sorry AMD, but I will eventually still buy your Ryzen 5 5600X (or equivalent) to properly support this new GPU.

My brother got me a Steam gift card for Christmas, so I snagged Boneworks, Half-Life: Alyx, Horizon Zero Dawn, and Streets of Rage 4 - all on sale. Finishing BotW first though, and distracted by THPS1+2 because it was on-sale on the Epic Games Store and I had one of those $14-off coupons :) Speaking of, decent free holiday game selection on there, but I already own most of them :(

Oldies

Turns-out all 1660-based video cards have been tough to find lately. Ended-up getting a 1660 Ti for $370 CDN from Best Buy to go into that i7-3820 Flight Sim computer; he says it runs great at 1080p on High :) The other 3820's onboard sound doesn't seem to be working properly - everything detects and output levels look correct, but only hear static - but that's fine because it's gonna be using an external audio interface anyway.

Dusted-off my Commodore 128 over the holidays - 1902 monitor still works great, but 1571 disk drive doesn't seem to be spinning. I plan to fix it, but decided to go with an SD2IEC as well; this one stuck with me because it's cheaper than all the others and appears to have a serial pass-through.

My partner imported the black Game Gear Micro for me, and tracked-down a new NES Classic Edition for a reasonable price... Kinda caught-up in it all now, and tempted to get the blue GG Micro, could maybe justify the SNES Classic Edition for StarFox 2, the quality and selection on the Genesis and TG16 minis are actually incredible, the Neo Geo Mini looks great even if they fucked-up the joystick and the HDMI output, and the Astro City mini... Oh man, that thing looks so neat... But now we're in the $1000 range (not including accessories and peripherals) for a bunch of easily-emulated collector shit that I own the originals of anyway 😅

Oh, and motion controls for BotW in Cemu using my phone over WiFi... Wild.

Two of Three

Got two new old computers from a studio that was decommissioning them; common parts between them are:

• i7-3820
• Cooler Master HSF (Hyper 212?)
• ASUS P9X79
• 4x4GB PC3-10600 (quad-channel)
• Cooler Master HAF (912?)
• LG M-DISC DVD burner

...Otherwise, they have decent 500~600W 80 PLUS Bronze PSUs. There's a third one coming, but they're still using it for a little while longer.

So I added a 500GB 7200RPM HDD to one, and I'm giving it to a friend who really wants to play Flight Simulator 2020 but only has an ancient Mac Book; I figure a 1660 SUPER will serve him well in there. Get a 27" 1080p monitor, toss-in an SSD, and then not really much more to do in terms of upgrades - and  it saves him, like, $500 up-front. Merry Christmas!

The other will likely go to that indie recording studio I mentioned a few posts ago, while the i7-930 will finally go to a friend with many hard drives who wants to build a 14-drive storage server :)

The fun part about these computers, however, was how poorly they were assembled! Upside-down PSUs! Horrible cable management - but there were zip-ties, so they tried and failed! An eight-pin PCIe power connector with only seven pins connected! A CPU mounted 180-degrees-off with both clamps latched and the huge HSF unit tightly screwed-into the motherboard! They couldn't figure-out why it wouldn't boot; I was surprised the CPU hadn't snapped!

You crazy son of a bitch, you did it.

Finally picked-up Breath of the Wild (for Wii U, and got all the DLC) and while I'm sure this isn't exactly a hot take, it's nice to see Miyamoto's original vision finally realised after over 30 years. It stands on the shoulders of a lot of games that came before - and they stood on the shoulders of previous Zelda games, themselves - but it gets it right in such a special way that it all feels so magically organic; classic Nintendo. Also tried-out Cemu and wow... Emulators have a come a long way since I started trying Game Boy games on my PC in the mid-'90s.

Took the copper HSF from my caseless 486DX-33 and installed it on my 486DX2-66 because why not. Also noted that my DX2-66 is an SX807 variant, so it has the SL low power enhancements but no write-back support. Neat. Also dusted-off my Fujitsu FKB4700, but put it away when I realised the key inputs would lock-up the PS/2 port if I tried to use the arrow keys with the right-Shift key... No good for the DOS games :(

As for RX 6800 v RTX 3070... Hrm. In terms of games, the former has a small advantage for now with SAM (and I guess Rage Mode?) but desperately needs to catch-up when it comes to raytracing and super-sampling - and I expect it will, so those are likely non-issues in the long run. What is actually interesting (because it's not upgradeable on the latter) is that the Radeon has twice the VRAM and Infinity Cache. Also curious to see how professional applications start to support AMD. Plenty remains to be seen, but I think Ryzen 5 5600X + Radeon RX 6800 may be the long-term solution.

the Video?

Update from previous post:  Have a feeling that the sweetspot for PC builds is about look something like: Ryzen 5 5600X + RX 6800 + PCIe 4.0 NVMe - that $80 US price-premium seems justified.

Wrapping-up the Porta-Pi build...Fried my 1GB Pi 4B after following the build guide's wiring instructions (crappy USB-C cable?), so I bought a 2GB model (same price as the 1GB model now) and it's running on a separate adapter from the video driver and amp; worked-out a stereo issue with the amp; got creative while manually mapping the six buttons; settled on lr-mame2003 as the main emulator w/fbneo for incompatible titles; had to buy a new crimping tool and soldering iron - both of mine were too big; and the non-removable top panel made working on this vertical unit kind of a pain... But it's pretty cool! Also discovered Cosmo Gang the Video thanks to this project, and I'm pretty happy about it :)

Quakespasm

Arcane Dimensions 1.80 is out and what they've done with Quake is incredible. Play it.

Hotshot Racing is still great fun.

Wrapped-up FarCry Primal, and while it feels a little more aimless than its predecessors, I think it may be my favourite in the series so far.

Porta-Pi build is coming along; just gotta glue some wood, solder the power switch, and build the controls; everything else is gravy.

3D printed drive rails for the Antec case weren't tall enough; need a few more mm for test print #2.

Have a feeling that the sweetspot for PC builds is about look something like: Ryzen 5 5600X + RTX 3070 + PCIe 4.0 NVMe

Nuts :(

So the many-harddrived-computer experiment stalled because I couldn't find all of the drive rails for the Antec Titan 550 case :(

Currently looks like:

• i7-930
• Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD5 (rev. 2.0)
• 6x2GB PC3-10666 (triple-channel)
• Radeon HD 5850
• 2x7200RPM 320GB HDDs (RAID 0)
• Corsair CX500

I have four 250GB HDDs ready to go for the RAID 10 array, but no way to securely mount them in that case :( After searching for spare parts online, had a bright idea and now my buddy's gonna be printing a set of these for me to try-out.

I did replace the 500GB HDD in my Xubuntu Core 2 Quad with two 160GB drives in RAID 0 though, so that was fun.

Premiere

Got a call from a friend on Saturday asking me to build him a video editing computer real quick; here's what I had by Sunday:

• Ryzen 9 3900X
• Gigabyte X570 UD
• 2x16GB PC4-25600 (dual channel)
• 500GB PCIe Gen4 x4 NVMe M.2 (system drive)
• 512GB SATA III SSD (scratch/cache drive)
• 2x Blackmagic Design DeckLink Duo 2
• Seasonic SSR-650FM
• Fractal Design Meshify C

Threw-in my Radeon HD 5450, but recommended he look for an RTX 2060 SUPER down the road, and maybe another 32GB of RAM if he starts working in 8K.

What really got me was how friggin' fast Windows 10 installed on this thing! Like, it only took a few minutes! Also, setting ultra fast boot + Windows fast startup gets it going in a few seconds.

Also, AMD's Wraith Prism Cooler having RGB enabled by default is annoying... You have to manage another cable, take-up a USB header on the motherboard, and install Cooler Master software to turn it off 😒

Minor

New spare parts = minor update to secondary desktop:

• i7-950
• ASUS P6X58D Premium
• 3x4GB PC3-12800 (triple-channel)
• 2x ATi FirePro 3D V8800
• 64GB OCZ Vertex 2
• 500GB 7200RPM HDD
• Plextor PX-880SA
• Antec TP-650
• Lian Li PC-68

Upgrades to parents' desktop, too:

• i5-2500
• ASUS P8Z68V-LX
• 4GB+2x2GB PC3-12800 (dual-channel)
• Radeon HD 6950
• 128GB OCZ Vertex 4
• 1TB 7200RPM HDD
• Corsair TX650
• Lian Li PC-68

And a new basic recording studio computer for my friend?

• i7-930
• Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD5 (rev. 2.0)
• 6x2GB PC3-10666 (triple-channel)
• Radeon HD 5450

...Except that Gigabyte motherboard supports up to 14 hard drives, and I have a bunch of the spinning kind lying around. I also have a pretty big case just sitting there, empty. Maybe a 6Gb/s RAID0 system drive and a 3Gb/s RAID10 data drive? Just for fun? I mean, why not, right?

Also, finished Hexen II and man, that game is all kinds of rough. Need to talk more about that series some time soon; my memories were brought into question after recently playing through the first three games and their expansion packs... Still have to finish-up Portal of Peaevus and Heretic II though. Also, GRAVEN.

Toasty!

The Radeon 8500 in the 9x build just kinda died... Fan spins, but that's it. Replaced it with an 8500LE, but then realised that fan had seized... At which point I looked wistfully at my overheated 9700 Pro. So, in went the GeForce 3 Ti 200... And I quickly noticed that quality control on NVIDIA's 9x drivers seems a little lax; reproducible NVIDIA control panel crashes, a BSOD, a seemingly broken uninstaller... Got it all going eventually, and ran hardware diagnostics just to make sure it wasn't something else causing the instability. Also, the sound effects + CD Audio starting working together in Hexen II for no apparent reason.

Otherwise, I recently completed a project that involved expanding, upgrading, and re-provisioning a Linux-based renderfarm that now collectively sports over 2.7TB of RAM, just over 800 CPU threads turboing up to 3.7GHz, and 84 GPUs delivering over 760 TFLOPs in a single 21-node rack. It gets noisy sometimes... And also kinda warm.

Oh! Hotshot Racing is rad, and I'm really enjoying it!

3114

So going all-SATA on the DFI NFII Ultra Infinity was a fun exercise; finding the correct Silicon Image 3114 controller drivers and getting them onto a floppy disk took a couple of tries - needed the "SATALink" variant 😒 After that, however, Windows XP SP3 was good to go, and all of a sudden I had no more computers to build. Put fresh batteries in all of them, and now it's time to take stock of what's left; see what's worth keeping, what's destined for the e-waste station, what I can give away and what I hope to get a few bucks for.

Anyway, I installed Hexen II and Portal of Praevus on the 98 SE computer and... Yeesh. It's hooked-up to an old 1680x1050 LCD, and the closest video mode the game wanted to support was 1280x960... Which that Pentium II cannot handle on its own. To get GL Hexen running, I had to remove the game's custom opengl32.dll, and then things were pretty great on the Radeon 8500... Except there was no sound; just CD audio. Manually re-installing the sound card drivers via Device Manager got sound working, but not at the same time as the CD audio, so... That's weird? Anyway, the same visual glitches present on the Steam release are still there on era-correct hardware so I guess I'll just play it on steam until I get to the Mission Pack? Ergh.

XP on an XP

Built the XP computer; haven't installed Windows yet. Put it all in a nice, compact Antec mid-tower with a 480W Antec PSU. Speaking of cases, I found-out that the case I put the Pentium II in is apparently pretty sought-after, so that's kinda neat.

Between stalling on DOOM VFR and waiting for "DOOM Eternal – The Ancient Gods, Part One", I idly played through the first three episodes of the original DOOM in Chocolate DOOM, and then revisited Heretic and Hexen when I finished configuring the DOS computer; and realised I never played Deathknights of the Dark Citadel, so I grabbed the latest GZDOOM and it turns-out that game if frickin' difficult! Finished a playthrough as the cleric though, and it was kinda great; like, actual puzzle solving and not just a key/fake-wall hunt. Well-into episode two of Heretic now, and likely going through Hexen again as well; and then Hexen II and Portal of Praevus on the 98 SE computer before finally getting back to Heretic II; I never finished the former two, and loved the latter back when it was first released :)

Otherwise, Need for Speed: The Run was on-sale for $10, so I ploughed throw that pretty quickly. It's kinda rough in every possible way, but still enjoyable. Cool cars, nice-enough graphics, and some truly stand-out moments (the controlled avalanche race, the tractor traffic, and the subway tunnels) couldn't save driving mechanics that are somehow simultaneously 'realistically' clunky and unbelievably ridiculous, an unpolished rewind system that would drop me into inescapable crashes, awful cutscenes, and painful dialogue though.

Control: AWE is out, I've started it, it's surreal, and I'm in; let's go...

Second Edition

Wrapped-up the DOS build and got going with the Windows 98 SE build - the latter looks like this:

• 300MHz Pentium II
• Intel AL440LX
• 192MB SDRAM
• 128MB AGP Radeon 8500
• 16MB PCI Voodoo Banshee
• Sound Blaster Audigy Platinum EX
• 6.4GB HDD
• DVD-ROM

There're some bottlenecks and concessions in there - e.g. AGP 4X card on an AGP 2X board, 66MHz FSB - but aside from Windows 98 being painfully slow and unsupportive until you get all your drivers installed, it went pretty smoothly. I could've built it around a 500Mhz K6-2 or a Socket A platform, but this PII still holds its own and has a special place in my heart :) Opted for no NIC since that thing really shouldn't be going online anyway, the second GPU is just for Glide support, I don't think I ever had the breakout box for the Audigy... Both this and the DOS computer are being built from whatever I've kept over the past 30 years; not investing any money in these projects.

Getting back to the DOS computer, I replaced the SB16-controlled CD-ROM with a regular IDE DVD-ROM and it works just fine (can read data DVDs in DOS!), set-up a three-button Logitech serial mouse (had to replace the ball), and installed Windows 3.1; with the mach32 and SB16 drivers installed and configured, it looks and sounds great - 1024x768, 65K colours, video playback acceleration, a decent audio editing suite! Also tracked-down a copy of UNARJ and installed some more games I had on old floppies. All of the new drivers ate-up a little too much RAM, but EMM386 cleared that up. Speaking of RAM, I wouldn't mind upgrading it to 64MB and adding a secondary cache (it supports up to 256KB), but there's no real need so I think this one's done.

Next up is the Windows XP computer - Currently looking like:

• Athlon XP 3200+
• DFI NFII Ultra Infinity
• 2GB DDR400 (dual channel)
• 512MB Radeon X1950 Pro
• Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS

...Really just need to decide on a PSU and a case. Also have an Athlon 64 3500+, but that 3200+ is another part I learned a lot on and one was top-of-the line at the time so yeah, nostalgia :)

Getting Ready...

In anticipation of the AWE DLC for Control, I played through The Foundation DLC, both DLCs for Alan Wake, and Alan Wake's American Nightmare... All four experiences are worth it for their contributions to the narrative; The Signal's kind of a mess in terms of gameplay, but The Writer feels more balanced; American Nightmare handles traditional action better than its predecessor, but in doing so kinda misses the point of the original game. Regardless, excited for AWE!

Also decided to revisit Far Cry with all the sales on 5 and New Dawn alongside the announcement of 6. So Blood Dragon kinda sucks; it felt stilted and boring, was only barely funny, and I'm glad it was only four hours long. Far Cry: Primal, however, is right up my alley; very much enjoying that one. I think 4 did the spiritual journey missions better, but Primal feels like the better overall game.

Oh, also finally tried Steep a little while ago; not what I expected, but really interesting. Will get back to it.

Finally, my brother got that Mario Lego set for me, and it actually kinda works! Bluetooth functionality alongside the app is slick, and gameplay can get surprisingly challenging as a sort of score-attack experience. Doubt I'll be getting the expansion sets, but this is a really neat experiment.

Recent Recommendations

Friends asking for build recommendations lately, so...

Budget gaming for ~$800 CDN:

• Ryzen 3 3100 
• Gigabyte B550M DS3H
• 2 x 8 GB DDR4-3200
• ADATA XPG SX8200 Pro 256GB M.2 NVME SSD
• 1 TB 3.5" 7200RPM HDD
• GTX 1650 SUPER
• be quiet! System Power U9 400W

Budget VM server for ~$575 CDN:

• Ryzen 5 2600
• ASRock B450M-HDV R4.0
• 2 x 16 GB DDR4-3200
• ADATA Ultimate SU800 256 GB 2.5" SSD
• be quiet! System Power U9 400W

...I figure they can do whatever they want for cases, and I imagine the VM host is gonna have an interesting storage setup regardless of what they start with.

27 Years Young

Got bored and dug-out my old Digital Equipment Corporation DECpc LPx:

• Intel 486DX2-66
• 16MB of RAM
• 2MB ATi Graphics Ultra Pro (VLB)
• Sound Blaster 16
• 365MB HDD

Went for a clean installation of MS-DOS 6.22 and a copy of PKZIP, and I've just sort of been installing old games and playing with drivers... And it's been kind of wonderful. All of it was much simpler than I remember things being back then, but I guess I did end-up making a career of it since. I have 250MB and 1.3GB HDDs to test-out in there as well, but no rush. Had to replace the 3.5" FDD (it wasn't reading disks), and I disconnected the 5.25" FDD to connect the CD-ROM drive that came with the SB16; it detects properly, but doesn't spin :( Getting things from the Internet onto floppies has been a bit of an adventure, but well worth it in these mostly-housebound times :)

Also, Ion Fury is really good.

That's better...

Okay, so DOOM Eternal gets much better as you level-up and the story fleshes-out, which makes it feel like maybe id left some kind of NewGame+ mode enabled :\ The punishing aspects of the gameplay feel much more balanced once you finish the Super Gore Nest, the ridiculous aspects of the presentation start to feel a lot more like the 2016 game as you make your way through the ARC complex, and the story makes a whole hell of a lot more sense by the time you start Mars Core. I'm not quite finished the campaign yet, but I'm really quite happy with it now.

Finished Resident Evil 4; 80% hit ratio, 961 enemies killed, 0 deaths, 13:35'07" clear time; still don't like it. Tried the Resident Evil 2 R.P.D. Demo... Meh. Started Resident Evil 7, and... Wow! About an hour-and-a-half in, and it's phenomenal! Please don't blow it, Capcom... Please?

You've already hurt me plenty... Please stop.

DOOM Eternal on sale for $34 CDN - no-brainer. Bought it... Wait, what the hell!? Why am I playing a twitchy score-attack masocore precision splatformer Souls game with a techno soundtrack? Why are there Saturday-morning-cartoon sound effects? Why am I running my assault from a space castle with a 486 and a record player? Why is the in-game newsradio referring to me as "The Doomguy"? Way to jump the shark, id... It's not exactly bad; I seem to get each encounter by the second try, but this rollercoaster of a difficulty curve really (ironically?) breaks the flow of the whole experience. I feel like the 2016 game got it right by keeping Arcade Mode separate from the main campaign; they've bled together a little too much in Eternal :\

Also, Resident Evil 4 isn't fun. The narrative is bad, the dialogue is bad, the acting is bad, the dynamic difficulty is insulting, the checkpoints are often pretty close to save-points anyway... I mean, I get it; this game revitalised not only the franchise, but also the survival-horror genre - and even kicked-off the renaissance of the over-the-shoulder third-person shooter. That's all cool, but I couldn't get into it back when it was first released, and after giving it an honest shot now, it just feels silly and clunky and somehow like even more of a slog than the original Resident Evil - despite being significantly streamlined and way more forgiving. There're some really intense moments when everything locks-in and it's a lot of fun, and there're also a few set-pieces that are absolutely wonderful in their silliness... But everything in between is just kind of annoying. This game was only marginally better than its forerunners, and was so quickly surpassed that it feels like even more of a curiosity than the first Resident Evil. I think it's okay to revere and even love this game, but stop holding it up as some timeless masterpiece best-game-ever thing... It's barely in the top five of 2005.

Not as bad as I'd feared...

So it looks like they finally listened to the fans, and Need for Speed Heat turned-out kinda great. 60FPS, pretty stable, offline play, and the story and characters were suitably ridiculous while still being fun. I even gave the Forza Horizon 4 demo a shot before making my decision to go with Heat, but the NFS games are still just more exciting. I got what I wanted out of it in ~45 hours by starting with the '65 Mustang, upgrading to an Exige, and then pretty much winning everything with that until I could max-out an F40. From there, I settled on a garage with a '65 Mustang, a '71 GT R, an '87 GNX, an '04 STi, a '13 Z06, and the aforementioned F40. Otherwise, the drift events didn't feel great, escaping pursuits became a bit of a chore, the High Heat races were super-intense, and the black market campaign was genuinely challenging. Well-worth the $40 I paid on Origin for the Standard Edition... Even though the Deluxe Edition was released on Steam for $35 not long after :\

Anyway, moving on, Control was fantastic; I think it's the first time I've made an effort to actually consume every bit of material in a game since I played a BioShock title - I even avoided using fast-travel for the most part because I didn't want to miss a single thing. Yeah, it's gorgeous and visceral wish-fulfillment to take charge of the situation, fly around, and blast enemies in creative ways; but it's also such a rich and intriguing world to read about, and I still want more - cannot wait for the next DLC. Quantum Break was good, but this feels like a return-to-form for Remedy.

For a change of pace after that, I revisited Resident Evil HD Remaster. Full disclosure: The only RE game I'd ever completed was Resident Evil 2: Platinum on Windows 9x, and I loved it. I played Nemesis and Code Veronica on Dreamcast, and 4 on PS2... And I never finished any of them. They were interesting and exciting, but the commitment required by the limited saves and ammo just put such a barrier in place for me that I never really sat down and dedicated even a weekend to getting into them. I remember when the first game arrived on PS1, I was floored and wanted to play it so bad but didn't have a PS1... Then I found-out about the PC port; but I'd understood that it required a 3dfx card, and all I had was an ATi RAGE Pro. It wasn't until years later that I learned there was Direct3D support :\ In the meantime, I got a Saturn and almost picked-up the Director's Cut, but it was still pretty expensive and I balked at the price. I finally picked-up the GameCube remake, but again neglected to dedicate the time to getting into it... And did the same when the HD Remaster was first released. This time, however, I told myself I was going to get past my personal hang-ups (and this whole pandemic has been keeping us at home more than usual, so that helped) and here we are: I got the best ending with Jill in about nine hours, but I don't think I'll be checking-out Chris' campaign or any of the other modes. It hasn't aged all that well since 2002; I can see how incredible it really was in 1996, as well as how slick it would've been to revisit six years later... 19 years later though? Oof. It's mostly the loading screens and the sharks that hold it back - but aside from its significance as an influential touchstone and as a time-capsule, it's more akin to the original Need for Speed showing us where we came from rather than standing-up as a timeless classic.

Next-up for me is either gonna be Dead Space 2, Resident Evil 4 Ultimate HD Edition, or Resident Evil VII - though I'm kinda holding-out for that that last one to support VR on PC :\

Which one's the Neediest?

Levelling all the way up and assaulting Merv Tower in River City Ransom: Underground only to get one-hit knocked-out by the jet with no checkpoint kinda ground the game to a halt for me. Will get back to it, but... Ugh.

On that note, Alice: Madness Returns is such a slog... There're moments of brilliance in the visuals, gameplay, and narrative, but it all just feels so unnecessarily padded-out.

RetroPie was released for Raspberry Pi 4 though, so that seemed like a good excuse to jump into Bare Knuckle III on Genesis Plus GX; I own Streets of Rage 3, and it's just kinda awful... The Japaense release is so, SO much better! What were you thinking, SOA :(

Anyway, then the Epic Games Store coupon sale hit, and I snagged Control (haven't tried it yet), Tetris Effect (finished it on Beginner in VR), and Metro Exodus - Gold Edition... Considering Trackmania Turbo next. Tetris Effect is a really, really good Tetris game - Tetsuya Mizuguchi's trademark design and the addition of the Zone mechanic... Not the revelation I was led to believe, but probably the best Tetris game I've played since Tetris DS.

Also, with the bigger SSD, I decided to bring back some casual racing games - namely Burnout Paradise and Need for Speed Rivals. This led me down an NFS rabbit-hole to figure-out which NFS game really is the best to focus on today... Here's how I like to break it down:

The original series; none have aged particularly well, but they were all great upon release:

• The Need for Speed (1994)
• Need for Speed II (1997)
• Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit (1998)
• Need for Speed: High Stakes (1999)
• Need for Speed: Porsche Unleashed (2000)
• Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 (2002)

Underground kinda totally re-invented things, and this seems to be the nostalgia that most people cling to:

• Need for Speed: Underground (2003)
• Need for Speed: Underground 2 (2004)
• Need for Speed: Most Wanted (2005)
• Need for Speed: Carbon (2006)
• Need for Speed: Undercover (2008)

Somewhere in there, they kicked-off this track-day approach, and it was solid:

• Need for Speed: ProStreet (2007)
• Need for Speed: Shift (2009)
• Shift 2: Unleashed (2011)

Then Criterion handled this transitional era that really seems to have divided the fanbase, and it's also where I stopped playing:

• Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit (2010)
• Need for Speed: The Run (2011)
• Need for Speed: Most Wanted (2012)
• Need for Speed Rivals (2013)

...Not really touching V-Rally and Nitro, or the online, portable, and mobile releases, but they're generally fine.

Some context and thoughts then: I didn't spend much time with Carbon, haven't played Undercover, didn't get very deep into ProStreet or Shift, didn't touch The Run even though its approach is intriguing, I hear the 2015 reboot and Payback are a love-or-hate proposition among fans, and Heat is supposedly a welcome return to form.

Personally, I loved the 3DO and DOS versions of the first-ever game when they were released, thought Underground was a revelation, and played the hell out of Most Wanted (2005)... And I don't really want to revisit any of them.

Hot Pursuit (2010) feels like the best version of the original 3DO/DOS game out there, and I suspect that's why it's so revered among die-hard fans. Most Wanted (2012) was fine, but just kinda felt like Burnout to me.

...And that's where Rivals comes into focus; it's Criterion handing-off the franchise to Ghost, everyone getting familiar with the eighth generation of video game consoles, and just kinda laying-down a foundation. I can't personally say if the three subsequent games did well on top of that foundation - the reviews and videos don't suggest any great advancements - but I also don't really care because I'm still having a great time with Rivals.

I've read complaints about a lack of content and direction, but it's a well thought-out and varied sandbox with a clever and minimal narrative... It's all a little melodramatic, but don't forget that this is a Need for Speed game ;) Other complaints include how buggy it is - I've gotten caught in the geometry once, and been stuck between menus twice, but it never really bothered me; I just restarted the game and jumped right back in. Even when my session inexplicably migrates hosts mid-event, it does a solid job of picking-up right where we left-off. The sillier complaints I read were that cops were too aggressive and people hated losing unbanked SpeedPoints when busted... I assume these people don't actually like video games. I, for one, love the excitement and challenge that tangible penalties bring. There isn't a huge amount of content, no, and I don't care for the online aspects of it; but I also don't plan on playing this forever - it's already been out for seven years and three more games in the series have been released.

Rivals looks better than everything before it, and just about as good as anything since; it has a satisfying damage model, a gorgeous weather system, and a great day/night cycle. As for controls, Raycevick put it best when describing what stood-out about Most Wanted (2005): "The feeling of being in total control... But just barely." - I feel that in Rivals as well; it drives like a Need for Speed game should.

Expandability

I bought an M-Audio FireWire Solo with an employee discount back in... 2006, maybe? Earlier? Anyway, it did the trick but driver support was always kinda hit-and-miss. I ended-up trading it years later; to a friend who was going to use it to extend his existing interface, so no drivers required. In return, I got a TASCAM US-122MKII - not really an upgrade or a downgrade at the end of the day, but its drivers still worked so I was happy. It started randomly making some really weird noises lately though, so I figured I'd just bite the bullet and buy something proper instead of wondering if it was physically failing, its Windows 8 drivers just didn't work well with newer versions of Windows 10, or something else was up... 14 years or so is a good return on my initial investment, right? So my new Audient iD14 arrived last week (found a 5% discount code and free shipping), and it's very nice. My not-great M-Audio AV42 monitors, my also-not-great Hosa Pro HPR-X2 speaker cables, and my interesting-but-not-great M-Audio Nova mic are not doing the iD14 any favours; but it's really helping them out and is a great centrepiece to build around in the future.

I also opted for a 512GB ADATA SU800 to replace my 128GB OCZ Vertex 4 'cause it was under $100 CDN and shipped for free. Windows 10 2004 went on there, along with all of the games that were installed on my spinning drives - Anthem is ever-so-slightly better now :)

Not quite last though, yeah?

Wrapped-up Metro: Last Light, and really happy with it... Got the bad endings in each of the first two games, likely won't be playing Redux any time soon, waiting for a sale on Exodus, and very curious about ARKTIKA.1 - which reminds me, I'd forgotten all about Obduction, and so I've added that to my wishlist.

Moved-on to Alice: Madness Returns, and it's pretty rough. Very high-concept; a study in style over substance - as seen in the awful jumping mechanics, repetitive and drawn-out combat, inconsistent storytelling, some downright ugly levels, and inexplicably bad performance despite being capped at 30fps. It's still interesting enough to keep me coming back and progressing in small doses, but also had me looking for something else to break-up the monotony. Then Streets of Rage 4 was released, and I remembered that I'd never finished River City Ransom: Underground... Which it turns-out is more akin to Alice than I remembered - I get that they're going for oldschool-inspired design, but the difficulty seems to spike pretty suddenly when you reach level 10, and figuring-out what you're supposed to do (and when) is a little obtuse. Ultimately having fun with both, but yeah, plenty of unnecessary frustrations.

WMRkitka tho?

Shadow of the Tomb Raider was fine - good, even. It mostly just kinda made me want to finally bite the bullet and buy a PS4 for Uncharted 4 and The Lost Legacy though... Or at least renewed my interest in PlayStation Now :) Anyway, I played through the Definitive Edition, so it was long and some of the DLC tombs - while often breathtaking in terms of both graphics and gameplay - felt pretty stilted in a lot of their jumping, climbing, and puzzle mechanics. Had plenty of fun though, and it was well worth the ~$27 CDN I paid for it.

Bought the new release of DOOM 64 because I never completed my N64 copy and I played the hell out of DOOM 64 EX, so ~$6 to support Sam Villarreal and get a few new levels was a no-brainer.

Next was revisiting the original release of Metro 2033... Way jankier than I remembered, but still playable enough. Finished-up the final half of the game that I'd put on hold a few years ago, then jumped right in to Last Light. What a difference! Burning through it over the past few days, almost done, and tempted to get Metro 2033: Redux... But likely gonna get to Exodus first.

Masterclass

Finished Dishonored 2, Clean Hands as Emily, and wow. The Dunwall levels are kinda meh, but those bookends remind us how this sequel is a leap forward for the series without forgetting its roots. Exploring Karnca is gorgeous but also more of the same, then the Addermire Institute is a great kind of creepy with a fun little twist, and THEN we get to Jindosh's house and holy shit - steampunk Portal(!) is just the best thing ever, especially given how many ways you can approach that level... The genre just peaked right there. The Conservatory was fun to look at, but I wanted it to go further with how it explored the concept of the Void; and then the Dust District introduced some very nifty mechanics in terms of both how the dust storms affect the core gameplay and how there're so many different solutions for getting past the factions - I especially liked the word puzzle that was solvable in real life with actual logic :) A Crack in the Slab threw another curveball that was one of the best implementations of time-travel/light-and-dark world mechanics I can recall... Ever. The Grand Palace sported some pretty great architecture but kinda disappointed after the previous missions, and then we're back to Dunwall. Good ride. AAA game right there. Good story, and whatever bugs and design issues that were present at launch aren't present anymore - quick load times, quicksaves, new game+, stable... Looking forward to Death of the Outsider, but taking a break first.

Up next is finishing DOOM VFR and then Duck Season in VR; Shadow of the Tomb Raider otherwise. Also grabbed Destiny 2 since it's gone free-to-play and I still find myself hopping back into Anthem... So far, I don't really see the unique appeal of this core gameplay loop, but I've only just begun.

Anyway, the expensive and kinda ridiculous Zalman CNPS12X that's been cooling the CPU in my main desktop was contracting in the cold Canadian winter, the centre fan was starting to make contact with the fins, and the result was a sort-of loud grinding/clicking noise... It's fine, but it was also getting kind of really annoying waiting for my computer to literally warm-up enough for the fins to pull away from the fan. Since there's no obvious way to disassemble and re-seat the centre fan, I said fuck it and bought an Intel BXTS13A - the stock, first-party cooler for the 3930K that was *not* included in the original SKU, and cheekily sports a blue LED :) It was around $35, brand new on Amazon Prime - no more grinding, so much easier to work with, and cools just about as well as Zalman's metal softball without being significantly louder next to all the other fans in my case. Only thing left to maybe do with this computer is get an M.2 PCIe 3 adapter and an 500GB NVMe drive - then I think it's finally done, because bottlenecks :(

"Support"

So I bought Anthem for like, $10 - wanted to see what all the fuss was about since the trailers looked so incredibly rad, but the press seemed to be so very bad. I'm not really one for any kind of multiplayer, but figured the sale price was worth it just to check things out.

First takeaway: Flying around the tutorial level was worth the money all on it's own! The trailers did not lie! BioWare really made the experience of jumping off a mountain, free-falling for a few seconds before firing your jetpack to fly through a canyon, and then diving underwater to explore a network of sunken tunnels leading to ancient ruins - all over the course of ten seconds - so viscerally satisfying that it was worth building a game around. As much as I prefer a story-driven single-player campaign with a big helping of world exploration, it turns-out that Anthem's third-person four-player online raid shooter is also an impressively well-written and well-acted story-driven campaign that takes place over a reasonably large map and can be played almost entirely solo! 25~30 hours later and I'm sitting at level 20 after having saved the world (after completing a bunch of side-quests) and I only had to tackle one multiplayer Stronghold and one quick multiplayer Freeplay session to advance the story. It was kind of annoying that the game kept encouraging me to play with other people, but it was only a mild inconvenience. I also tried a Cataclysm and a Storm Gate just to see what I was missing, and they were fine; still not into multiplayer though.

I hear the game was buggy at launch, the loot was terrible, and the load-times were excruciating - but that all seems to have been remedied at this point. I only experienced two crashes and didn't lose anything; loot kept me consistently competitive and I even ended-up with a couple of Masterwork and Legendary weapons that made life much easier; and load-times were long but bearable from my spinning HDD - felt about the same as DOOM (2016). I did consider buying a bigger SSD for Anthem, just to see how much it would help load-times though; performance too, since streaming the world seemed to have my frame-rates dipping from 60FPS down to 45FPS... But then I kinda finished the game and moved-on to others. I would come back for some more world-building though! Also, did Fort Tarsis remind anyone else of Deus Ex: Invisible War? I actually liked Invisible War... Maybe I'm broken.

Before moving-on to the other games I've been playing, I'd like to talk about my recent EA support experience. For context, I created a Hotmail address in the '90s with a stupid username because I was a teenager, and I still have it. I graduated to a non-Hotmail address maybe a few years later, and used that one to create my Steam and Origin accounts - the latter also with a silly username. I've been pretty settled on Gmail for a while now, but I keep the other ones going for back-ups, old accounts, and the like.

Anyway, I decided that with Anthem being multiplayer and all, I wanted to change that silly Origin username. My Origin account was hacked and sold a few years ago - I don't think two-factor authentication was an option when I signed-up, and I neglected to enable it after EA recovered my account... My bad. Trying to edit any account details, however, sent a verification e-mail to my old e-mail address, which it turns-out had been deleted due to inactivity and the provider was unable to recover the address - it looks like they no longer offer the domain I was using... Cool. Again, my bad. So I contacted EA and asked them to change the e-mail address associated with my account to my Gmail address. They said they couldn't because an account already existed for that e-mail address. Turns-out I created a separate Origin account for an XBOX 360 game some 15 years ago. Third strike against me; way to go, me. For convenience, I asked them to change it to my Hotmail address so that I could just verify the codes and clear-up all the confusion myself, but it turns-out someone else had associated that Hotmail address with a PSN account that isn't mine. Great. The best part about all of this is that the EA support chat was only working in Internet Explorer. Not sure what that was about, but it works in Chrome now even though I changed nothing on my end.

Regardless, I reclaimed both the Gmail- and Hotmail-associated Origin accounts by using the verification codes - proving that they work with these addresses - and had EA change the main account over to my old University alumni e-mail address for the time being... But the alumni address wasn't receiving the verification codes either. Neither the university's nor the alumni office's support team could help me. It's hosted by Gmail. EA told me to take it up with Gmail. Finally, after nearly four weeks of e-mails directing me to chats and chats directing me to e-mails that were not monitored (EA support actually sent me an e-mail saying nobody was checking the address I was directed to), one support technician offering to make the changes for me instead of fixing the verification issue, and EA asking me for even more e-mail addresses (five over four providers isn't enough!?), I got my main Gmail address associated with my main Origin account. The process up to this point was so ridiculous... And it's still not receiving the verification codes; the same address that was receiving them when it was associated with my other Origin account. It really looks like the primary e-mail address field of the Origin account is the problem, but EA refuses to acknowledge that. Coool! Anyway, we added the alumni address as the secondary address and it's suddenly receiving the verification codes it couldn't before! Still can't enable two-factor authentication because it only e-mails the primary e-mail address, but at least I can change my settings all by myself again!

*phew*

I finally got around to Quantum Break, and it's pretty and well-made and fun and the story's cool and one scene toward the end kind of almost ruins all of it and the interactive movie thing was alright even thought didn't really elevate the experience. By the time the game was over, I was satisfied but just didn't feel as engaged as I did with Max Payne or Alan Wake.

Wolfenstein II was fun, but I lost interest once I finished the main campaign; no huntung for collectibles, no Uberkommandant missions, no secret ending, no DLC... Maybe one day, but yeah, I think I might be over that franchise. The story was pretty fucking insane though, and it kinda worked. Still, not touching Youngblood or Cyberpilot any time soon.

Starting Dishonored 2; immediately more engaging, though going for a no-kill run right off the bat does have me save-scumming a little ;)

Also, GTX card prices seem to have dropped and a 1660 Super is hanging-around $380 CDN after taxes... So I'm still pretty happy with my $260 1070 :)

Sweet Spot

Got to play around with two GTX 970s in SLI, and it got me refocused on upgrading my GTX 780. Long story short, I ended-up getting a used MSI GTX 1070 GAMING X for $260 CDN.

The new video card requires the MSI Gaming App to take full advantage of its advertised cooling, RGB, and overclocking controls; but that app hasn't worked properly since Windows 10 1809 - and MSI has no intention of updating it, according to their forum moderator. I can recreate the OC and cooling settings better in MSI Afterburner though, so we're good there.

Anyway, $260... That's ~$230 + tax here in Ontario. The 1070 is a few years old now, so anything cheaper on the used market is even older and pretty firmly in the bad-long-term-investment category. The 780 I replaced is going for $150~$200, the newer 970 performs about the same and is going for about the same, and even when either's paired in SLI neither matches the 1070 - so they're out. The 980 Ti is around the same price as the 1070 but performance looks comparable, so I'm not seeing any reason to go back another generation. The next step up in the used market is the 1070 Ti, and it's going for anywhere from $60 to $240 more than the 1070... For a ~25% performance increase it's not bad, but not a great deal; especially since the 1070 still really holds its own with today's games as well as VR, and won't be having any issues with 1080p for years to come. Don't hesitate to grab a 1070 Ti if you find one closer to $300, but it's all extra at that point.

So what about comparably-priced new video cards? GTX 1650 SUPER or Radeon RX 570... Everything there is either a budget part or already old, and all are significantly slower than the used 1070.

Comparably-performing new video cards? GTX 1660 Ti or Radeon 5600 XT for $450 after tax... Good cards, but they're not going to age well for the $190 price premium.

Marginal upgrade on new cards? RTX 2060 for $565 after tax... That's an additional $300 to add low-end RTX support and lose 2GB of VRAM!? I'm not sold, and now that we're well over twice the price of the 1070, I think I'm done.

So it looks like spending under $300 CDN for a 1070 is the way to go if you're upgrading from the low-end (or from 2013, like I was) and want to save at least a few hundred dollars.

It's a flower.

Pi Stuff:

Started tinkering with a 4GB Class 4 microSD card I had lying around... Upgrading to a $4 16GB Class 10 card from the dollar store was a good idea; a 64GB Kingston Canvas React for $16 seems to be the sweet-spot though.

RetroPie isn't out for the Raspberry Pi 4 yet, so I've been playing around with Raspbian Lite, Xfce 4, and RetroArch in the meantime. Pretty decent results, but not exactly comprehensive and not quite full-speed... Switching to Lakka seems to have fixed the performance issues though! I think I'm ready to actually build the PortaPi :)

VR Stuff:

Psychonauts and Moss are the best. The Lab's hilarious and has so much to explore. DOOM is slick and intense. Prey's pretty interesting. All four Serious Sam games work better than expected. The Talos Principle is a great fit for VR. Cloudlands is the best minigolf title I've found so far. SEGA Mega Drive & Genesis Classics' VR mode is a silly-but-welcome addition. Have yet to try Hellblade. Mountain and Q.U.B.E. only support Oculus DK1 despite having the VR tag in Steam, and Transmissions: Element 120 doesn't seem to support VR at all - despite the same tag :\ Dream Golf VR was challenging, but not in a good way. Premium Bowling was decidedly not premium. Rec Room was terrifying in all the wrong ways.

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

Coincidence

Home PC: i7-3930K on an ASUS P9X79 with 32GB of PC3-12800 RAM in quad-channel and a GTX 780.

Work PC: i7-3820 on an ASUS P9X79 with 32GB of PC3-10600 in quad-channel and a FirePro V8800.

Feels Wrong

Started a new job that requires more time with Linux than I've been used to in recent years, so to get back into the groove I'm installing Debian 9 on Hyper-V... Not sure how I feel about that.

Lost my A5, someone seems to have found it, and then they turned it off immediately... Which sucks 'cause it's encrypted and FRP-locked. So enjoy your brick while I spend $450 I didn't want to spend! At least the first one was essentially free :\

My Marvel Puzzle Quest account disappeared with my old phone, which was weird 'cause I'd backed it up. Thankfully D3 Go! was able to restore it without issue, so that was pretty sweet. Thanks, D3 Go!

...And finally, I caught a Killer Instinct sale! Got the Definitive Edition on Windows 10 for ~$12! That game is still so much fun :)

Make it Stinky!

Finished Quake II: Ground Zero. The ending was silly. The rest was ambitious and mostly successful, but Xatrix made the overall-better Mission Pack - it was just a tighter package that was more fun to play. Ground Zero looked better, felt more organic, and was a bigger undertaking, but it all felt so cumbersome by the end and then just sputtered-out.

Played a few minutes Unreal 'cause it's free on GOG.com right now... S'alright... Which is kinda sad 'cause it absolutely blew my mind when it first came out.

While on GOG.com, I also grabbed American McGee's Grimm 'cause I keep meaning to finally play past the first episode, and yeah... It's simple and kinda fun, I guess. The gameplay's not exactly challenging, the story's pretty juvenile, and the exploration is rudimentary... The presentation is the highlight, but I dunno if it's enough to keep me going.

Don't call it a reboot...

Wrapped-up Strider (2014), and I loved it. A little on the easy side, but I think that's also why it worked so well; all that fast-paced badassery I mentioned in the previous post. So which Metroid clone should I tackle next? Headlander? Ori? Momodora? Outland? ITSP? Other M? I've fallen behind :(

Otherwise, it occurred to me that I can now run higan comfortably, plus the added hard drive space coupled with the ability to download Windows Store purchases to any drive meant it was time to grab Forza 6: Apex, Halo 5: Forge, Killer Instinct, and Phantom Dust again :)

Strider returns! ...No, no that one.

So what've I been doing with my "new" X-Series i7? Playing Strider (2014) and wondering why I let it sit for so long :\ Seriously, this is a unique take on the Metroid formula with all kinds of fast-paced badassery through a sweet eastern-European setting that's just way too much fun. I got it when it was released, played through the first few areas, put it on hold for something else, and then it sat for four years... My bad.

Cheap Upgrade!

Local guy posted an ad selling a computer for $250... It was an i7-3930K cooled by a Zalman CNPS12X on an ASUS P9X79 with 4x4GB of PC3-12800 RAM in quad-channel, a Cooler Master G750M, and a Plextor PX-L890SA, all in an iStarUSA D-400 rackmount case... Yeah, for $250.

It also included a passively-cooled 1GB Gigabyte Radeon 5450, two 7200RPM hard drives (500GB and 1TB), PCIe FireWire 800 and 802.11n cards, and a Windows 7 Pro license, but those are less exciting.

Parting that stuff out on eBay adds-up to around $1000 right now; the case alone is selling for almost $250, and that motherboard is averaging over $300... Like, holy shit.

I don't have a rack system, so I moved just about everything into one of my Lian Li cases added my SSD and GTX 780; left-out the 5450, PCIe cards, and the 500GB HDD, and then... Yeah, at worst it's a cheap upgrade, and at best I'm gonna make money on this :)

Finally found a good use for crates in an FPS...

The Reckoning looks bland throughout; like, so very, very brown... And yet it's a tight single-player campaign with a solid climax! The crate-jumping puzzles especially stand-out as a neat sort of minigame throughout, too... Weird. Ground Zero makes way better use of colour and the level design is labyrinthine in a good way, but the new weapons're kinda meh and the wall-mounted lasers're waaay too powerful. The whole thing feels a bit like a slog next to the Reckoning, but I'm still glad I went back and played through both.

Otherwise, I'm getting in the core of Ys VIII, ReCore: Definitive Edition is up next, and I've been spending way too much time fixing people's failing computers this past week like something cosmic :\

Rogue-like :)

Dissolution of Eternity was probably the better experience over Scourge of Armagon, but both felt kinda sloppy next to Dimension of the Past... It was much more cohesive and coherent; like MachineGames made the most of the original games' limitations whereas Hipnotic and Rogue might've aimed a little too high... I get that they were learning though; Hipnotic went on to do some really cool stuff with id Tech 2 and 3, as well as Source. Rogue, however, brings me to my next point: I'm currently getting into the Quake II mission packs using the quake2xp mod. Curious to see what Rogue's Ground Zero is like and if it lives-up to what they did with Strife, but so far Xatrix's The Reckoning is pretty neat; got a bit of a Half-Life feel to it, structure-wise (big levels broken-up in to smaller sections), and the puzzles're pretty clever... The graphics're blaaannnd though, even with the graphics mod.

Talk to people about it.

So Night in the Woods was everything I'd hoped for. Veered toward a cliché or two as major plot points, but then veered right off-path in the best way possible. First time in a long time I immediately jumped-into another playthrough to see what I had missed - you can't help but miss stuff because of the choices presented. It's just... Special. Play it. Savour it. Talk to people about it.

Wrapped-up Scourge of Armagon; was decent fun! Just over halfway through Dissolution of Eternity now... Feels slicker. Prolly gonna tackle the Quake II mission packs next, though I have been tempted to go hunt-down the rest of the secrets in Titanfall 2.

Still plugging-away at Ys VIII before bed, and the new translation really does help. Still grinding at Marvel Puzzle Quest on my commutes, too... Still fun.

Streamlined, I guess?

Burned-through Titanfall 2's single-player campaign in about five hours, and it was even better than I'd heard! Some truly inventive mechanics and setpieces in there, but so much of it only ever appeared once. Similarly, there were the beginnings of some great worldbuilding and character development, but there was absolutely zero padding so everything was over so quickly that it didn't really have time to coalesce. Thankfully, it was all so good that suspending my disbelief and enjoying those five hours immensely was no challenge at all. Might go back and look for the rest of the collectibles... Might even dive into multiplayer for a little bit. Regardless, well worth the $13 :)

Anyway, Night in the Woods is next; wanna cleanse the palate a bit more before tackling Arkham Episodes.

My bad!

Figured-out why I couldn't log-in to Origin after resetting my password, and did it in time to get-in on the Titanfall 2 sale! I'd mismanaged my password manager; was totally my fault. Crisis averted, I purchased and downloaded the Standard Edition of the game, tweaked the recommended video settings 'cause they were insultingly low, and promptly watched the video freeze randomly during gameplay... Though the audio and the rest of the PC kept on working just fine. My own troubleshooting proved useless, the suggestions on support forums were worse, and in the end I was able to play the game smoothly at 1080p with absolutely all video setting maxed-out... As long as ambient occlusion is turned off. Cool game! The first one was kinda disappointing 'cause even though it was awesome and I experienced some downright magical moments with it, the multiplayer-only design resulted in me missing content and experiencing things in weird orders. I was there for the world, not the grind :(

Also, re: Arkham Knight, while I finished all of Most Wanted (save for The Riddler) and Season of Infamy, I completely forgot about Arkham Episodes; so far, I'm almost done A Matter of Family, and it's pretty neat.

My credentials have expired!?

I think I'm done with Arkham Knight. Super-slick, suitably epic, and some killer moments; but also just felt kinda stale well before I was finished - à la Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood. Too much to do, all padded-out... Like, I spent a solid 30 hours with the game and the DLC and completed all but the final few missions and I'm not unhappy about it, but I doubt I'll ever be going back to it. Asylum was something special with a stupid ending, City was ridiculous but fun, Origins was a cool story but all kinds of bland, and Knight is really well-made but ultimately kinda forgettable. Huh.

...Now to see why I can no longer log-in to my Origin account before the $13 Titanfall 2 sale ends.

Twice

Two more freezes. Dang.

Do I wait-out 1709, hope it stabilises like 1703 did, and cross my fingers this doesn't happen with every new version? Go back to 1609 because LTS? Give-up altogether and stay officially-supported with 7? Just build a whole new desktop?

Argh.

Also bought a bunch of LED light bulbs for my place... Non-dimmable, non-RGB, non-programmable, non-WiFi-enabled LED bulbs, but still :) 60W 5000K for the bathroom and a combination of 60W and 40W 2700K for the living room. Was not feeling the one 60W 3000K bulb I got though. I have no idea why I'm documenting this.

"They like to roll the dice"

Some recent update to Windows 10 1703 seemed to fix the stability issues I was experiencing, so I was confident about performing a clean installation of 1709 on my officially-unsupported-since-Windows-7 X58-based desktop... Three hard freezes in the first six hours, and I'm feeling kind of annoyed. Granted, the first one happened before applying a few remaining Windows updates, and the latter two happened while updating the still-buggy Street Fighter V, so... We'll see. Still can't justify a new build.

Also, Cuphead is a masterpiece, and I recently got to meet some of the artists and see a bunch of the original sketches and models and everything was awesome :)

Making chemicals at the chemical plant, of all places...

Arkham Origins was weak. Nice graphics, but so bland; solid gameplay, but woefully repetitive; cool story, but weak dialogue; and it goes on like that throughout... Glad I finished it, but not interested in 100%.

Jumped right in to Arkham Knight though, and wow! So slick! Great production value, though the dialogue's still a little weird at times and the Riddler stuff is kind of awkward, but yeah, just... Wow.

...All over again.

Wrapped-up Final DOOM, forgot to mention Master Levels for DOOM II in my last post, but yeah, I went and blew through those as well... Some cool setpieces, but not quite up to Final DOOM standards. Moved-on to Quake Epsilon and DOPA, remembered that I'd never finished either of the Quake Mission Packs, and so I'm onto those now. Didn't realise the first one was made by what would eventually become the studio responsible for the SiN series, and that the second one was made by the studio responsible for Strife! This's been a lot of consecutive id FPSes though, so I re-installed Arkham Origins (never finished it; about halfway through now), and of course I'm still plugging away at Ys VIII on my Vita... Also considering ordering the Asia-exclusive physical release of Ys Origin for Vita.

Speaking of Arkham Origins, I'm having way more fun with it now that I've taken some time away from the series, but it's still just not as polished as its two predecessors. The intro missions were all so drab, Electrocutioner was pretty forgettable, Deathstroke was kinda frustrating, Copperhead felt like a budget Scarecrow, the Mad Hatter mission was really cool but anti-climactic, the Deadshot mission can become tediously unfair, and the collectibles... Oh god, so many collectibles. Still looking forward to getting into Arkham Knight, but may just take a little more time before then.

Funny thing though; I went through my old posts, and it looks like the last time I was playing Arkham Origins, I was also playing Ys (Memories of Celceta) on Vita and Quake Epsilon :)

Day One

Got the Galaxy A5, updated it to Android 7.0, switched over to the Google Now Launcher, disabled every Samsung app I could (though I'm stuck with the phone and the camera), and it's solid... Especially since I got it for free; $200 promo discount, $180 in credit, and $120 saved over two years because my new plan is $5 cheaper per month. The camera's alright, but does some weird image processing that doesn't look as good as what the Android 7.1.1 Google Camera did on the Nexus 5X. The screen displays some very rich colours, but seems kinda dark... I'm sure I'll get used to it though. Everything else feels nice except for the physical home button/fingerprint scanner; I really wish the bottom buttons were more like the Nexus line and that the fingerprint scanner was on the back of the phone. It's a clear step up from everything cheaper, but I still think I'd rather have a OnePlus or an Essential... They weren't, however, available for $500 off.

Anyway, I've almost finished Final DOOM. Wrapped-up Evilution and felt pretty good about myself, then started The Plutonia Experiment and immediately realised that I had accomplished nothing. I'm on the final level now though, and it's been fantastic throughout; real challenge without necessitating savescumming or mind-numbing repetition. I still think the first three episodes of the original DOOM are the only collection of levels that really works cohesively in that engine, and I avoided Final DOOM back in the day because it was fan-made, but there is some truly inspired level design in there that holds-up incredibly well today. This also means I'll've completed The Ultimate DOOM, DOOM II + No Rest for the Living, DOOM 3 + Resurrection of Evil and The Lost Mission, and DOOM (2016), which really only leaves DOOM (2016)'s Arcade Mode... Which is punishing even at lower difficulty levels... Wheee!

Episode VIII

Bought Ys VIII on Vita and it's great, so far. The localisation of the script though... Like, hire me, and I'll fix that shit real quick. Wasn't thrilled about the deserted island setting either, but it's developing into something interesting and I love the emphasis on exploration. Still need to get to Ys Origin (would love to get a physical copy for Vita, but Steam'll do for now) and the Aeon Genesis translation of Ys V in Higan.

Otherwise, looking to pick-up a Samsung Galaxy A5 'cause everything else is either too expensive and overkill, or weirdly-configured - I'm looking at you, Xperia XA1 and LG Q6. Now watch Google bring back the Nexus line the second I buy an A5 :\

Tacos!

Clearing-out old stuff...

Trading a broken (bad CPU) and mostly bare (no RAM or HDD) 2004 Power Mac and two "working" 2005 iMac G5s with the owner of a local gourmet taco joint for some gourmet tacos. Keeping my dual-1GHz Quicksilver Power Mac and 1.2Ghz iMac G4 though.

Still trying to figure-out how I'm gonna get rid of 24 Dell Latitude 2100 netbooks... Hrm.

Also snagged an NEC NP-M260W projector with a fresh lamp for free 'cause someone was throwing them away! Those things went for $1150 a few years ago, and the lamps are still $350! It's kinda nice, getting a 120" WXGA display for free :)

Still doing the math...

In addition to I-War, I also snagged complete copies of Iron Soldier 2 CD (the '97 black disc) and Zero 5, and I'm pretty stoked about it even if it did cost me a few hundred bucks.... It was my birthday and I treated myself :p Also found a complete copy of Atari Karts (I only have a loose copy), but they wanted $150 just for the box... Couldn't do it. Did a little more searching, and I could complete my copy of Ultra Vortek and add new copies of Phase Zero, Protector SE, and Skyhammer... But they'd all be coming from the US, so shipping, currency, exchange, and duties would put the total up around $550 and that's just not gonna happen.

Otherwise, Quake II on N64 with an Expansion Pak, Rumble Pak, and Controller Pak is pretty sweet, Street Fighter V's Fight Money system is kind of annoying, and Severed on Vita is fantastic.

Meh-cksell? Sorry, that was bad... I tried :(

Wrapping-up my time with Mortal Kombat XL, and I just don't really care. Solid fighter, countless ways to play, very satisfying, totally pretty, and I'm walking away feeling kinda... Meh. Mortal Kombat (2011) was fantastic - especially the way it updated the classic with a novel single-player experience - and XL comes from the same mold; it's just too bad that nobody seems to have gotten it right since... Injustice, Mortal Kombat XL, and Street Fighter V have all had ridiculously convoluted and overwrought single-player experiences that are nowhere near the revelation that was 2011's Mortal Kombat title. Myabe Injustice 2 is as good as I've heard, but I'm not hopeful.

Anyway, Hyper Light Drifter was awesome.

The True Pacifist ending of Undertale was incredible, and the Neutral ending was pretty cool, too.

...And I bought Quake 2 for N64 'cause it's not so much a port as a re-imagining, and has sweet multiplayer.

Also bought a sealed copy of I-War for Jaguar because it's an interesting game, I wanted it for my collection, and I've yet to come across an opened or loose copy. Yes, I'm totally gonna open it.

Not HD

New Pro Tools build for a friend:

• Core i7-7700
• ASUS PRIME B250M-A
• 2x16GB 2400MHz DDR4
• Samsung 960 EVO 500GB M.2
• 4TB SATA HDD
• Microsoft Windows 10 Home 64-Bit

...Plus a decent PSU, a basic dual-monitor PCIe video card, and a DVD burner for ~$1700+tax.

Also, Shadow Warrior 2 was weak... Like, I played it all the way through and finished most of the DLC; the sheer amount of weapons is really impressive, the graphics are gorgeous all the way through, and the gameplay is pretty viscerally satisfying... But I can't stress just how disappointing the writing is, especially after its immediate predecessor knocked it out of the park.

Anyway, I'm almost done a pacifist run-through of Undertale and is's absolutely transcendent. This is genre-redefining stuff, but we already knew that.

And a buddy gifted me a copy of Hyper Light Drifter, and while I'm just getting started, I mean... Wow... Like, already... Wow. I'm in.

Oh! The Flame in The Flood! I want to like it! I really do, but I just... I just don't think I'm enjoying myself :(

I thought I wanted some Wang, but...

Two hours in, and Shadow Warrior 2 is so disappointing... Like, the first one (1997) is a product of its time and hasn't aged well in terms of its racism and misogyny, but the 2013 reboot was a surprisingly huge step forward in every aspect of its design, presentation, and maturity. Given the brilliant 2016 reboot of DOOM, I was stoked to get into yet another modern update to the oldschool FPS genre and instead I found a hub-world, what appear to be side-missions, and loot-based gem powerups in a game with atrociously tone-deaf writing!? All of the sympathetic character development from the 2013 game seems to have been forgotten, many of the scene transitions up to this point have been shockingly abrupt, the drastic aesthetic changes haven't been adequately explained, the new one-liners fall flat, and even the fortune cookies are pretentious literary quotes instead of irreverent jokes. It all kinda sucks so far; I hope things get better as I play, but I've got this sinking feeling... The linear levels feel a little too focused on showing-off the gorgeous visuals now, and exploring for secrets seems to have suffered for it. As for the gem system, I get that it allows for more robust leveling options, but I'm already spending too much time in that menu; I thought the limited skill trees of the previous game were just right, and all the extra customisation feels unnecessary in this franchise. I guess I'm just seeing a series of disappointing design decisions that make me wonder if Ubisoft secretly took over for this sequel, and I haven't been too pleased with their cookie cutter approach for a few years now.

Otherwise, I got back into Borderlands in a big way, wrapping-up The Pre-Sequel and all of the DLC for the original; taking a break before digging-in to the DLC for Borderlands 2.

Owlboy was fantastic.

Giving Shovel Knight another try soon, I think.

Still can't get back into Kentucky Route Zero or Undertale for some reason, even though I do love them both.

Figures

So MPQ nerfed Old Man Logan since my last post, saying over 10% of all battles won include an Old Man Logan on the player’s team. I mean, it's not like Wolverine's one of the most popular characters ever, Old Man Logan is one of the most revered graphic novels ever, the Logan movie just kicked ass at the boxoffice, and as the oldest five-star cover, chances're good that players will have more of them than others... I get their rationale and I'm not against the changes, but I just thought the logic was kinda questionable, y'know? :)

Anyway, I was updating my Battle.net account info, and decide to re-install Diablo III to see what's changed over the past few years... And now I'm right back at it and this Paragon business with my barbarian; thinking demon hunter next.

I dunno, man...

Stalled on Darksiders, haven't touched any consoles or handhelds, saw some movies, recorded some podcasts about them, spent some time in a recording studio with a band, built some computery things at work, met over dinner and drinks to sign-on to prototype two coding projects for a non-profit and they totally expensed my bill which was pretty tite of them to do, and so whatever, here's a post about Marvel Puzzle Quest.

I'm pretty sure I'm playing the game pretty incorrectly most of the time. I buy nothing with real money, I rarely use health packs, I immediately maxed-out three one-star covers (Iron Man, Spider-Man, and Juggernaut) and traded every other cover I got in exchange for Iso-8, which I then traded for tokens in hopes of getting three-star covers so that I could skip the mostly-lame two-star covers because slots are limited and I earned a couple of three- and four-star covers very early on and I didn't want to waste them and shutup okay!? While it took a while, I've now championed my favourite three-star covers, dumped a bunch of four-star covers because I don't like them, and have a handful of five-star covers that're actually useful. Also, I beat a level 222 Punisher MAX with a level 106 Howard the Duck in the latest Deadpool Daily - Crash of the Titans event because fuck yeah, I did!

Current three-star champions: Black Widow, Cyclops, Daredevil, Deadpool, Doctor Doom, Doctor Strange, The Hulk, Ms. Marvel, Mystique, Thanos, and Wolverine... And I'm two covers away from championing Iron Man.

Current four-star covers I'm building-up: Well, there're 33 of 'em, so let's stick to my favourites...

• Hulkbuster, Miles Morales, Moon Knight, Spider-Gwen, and X-23 because they're just badass.
• The X-Force guys - Wolverine and Deadpool - because of their team-up effect; it's kinda like the four-star Power Man and Iron Fist, but without the lingering taste of the latter's shitty Netflix series.
• War Machine because he fucks with those goddamned invisibility tiles.
• All the rad 'n powerful covers like Nick Fury, Punisher MAX, Red Hulk, etc...
• It's the game-breaking covers that I like best though; three-star Deadpool and Doctor Strange kinda fit into this category as well, but I'm really talking about covers like Captain Marvel, Carnage, Ghost Rider, and Gwenpool. Those four are great examples of how to shake things up and change the game. Captain Marvel eliminates how long I have to wait to kick your ass, Carnage literally takes over the board and creates carnage, Ghost Rider throws your damage right back at you, and Gwenpool lets me wipe-out whichever tiles I choose! These covers encourage us to develop all-new strategies, and I just think that's neat :)

Current five-star covers: Logan (one of each; already super-powerful), Black Bolt (one yellow; pretty useful), Black Panther (one yellow, pretty useful), Phoenix (one green; pretty useful), Silver Surfer (one blue; really only useful as a tank), and Captain America (one blue, so pretty meh).

Now, I didn't like this game at first, and I've said as much on this blog... I loved the first Puzzle Quest, enjoyed the sequel, didn't get into Galactrix, just discovered the first game's expansion while researching for this post(!), initially had more fun with Adventure Time Puzzle Quest than Marvel Puzzle Quest (that was silly of me), and haven't touched Puzzle Quest - Magic: The Gathering... Or the card-based Magic: The Gathering, for that matter. Basically, I played the first game on PSP (AND ONLY FOUND-OUT ABOUT ITS EXPANSION NOW!?), the sequel on my phone, and then everything else just felt disappointing... For years... And that was probably largely due to what I was saying up top about how I was playing Marvel Puzzle Quest all wrong. Well, I'm glad I stuck it out because this shit is for real, and I still really only play on the subway, and yeah, I think this is the longest I've ever stuck with any game. Look, I know this post fell-apart around the midpoint and maybe I'll come back to it but for now I'm gonna go make lasagna and then eat that lasagna because I took the day off work and slept-in and so it's lunch time for me now even though it's 3:30pm here.

Gears of Zelda

Got kinda bored of Mortal Kombat XL's campaign, haven't gotten into the latest act of Kentucky Route Zero yet, and stalled on Undertale... So I started Gears of Zelda. Upon downloading Darksiders from Steam (which I purchased forever ago), getting through the intro, and then taking a little break, I noticed that I'd also received the Warmastered Edition for free somewhere along the way... Sweet! Download twice as much this time and install and play all over again. Wheee! Actually though, really good game! Ridiculous, but not in a bad way; takes itself seriously without feeling completely lame.

Unrelated, but got a free 32GB Nexus 5X, so Rayman: Fiesta Run, Rayman; Adventures, and Triple Town got reinstalled. Also got to the point in Marvel Puzzle Quest where I'm earning a Legendary token every few days, so that's fun.

And I finished ReCore. Nowhere near as bad as the reviews said. Great little world to explore, wonderful art direction, creative combat, solid platforming... Yeah, it feels rushed; and yeah, the second-last boss and the tower are really weird; but the rest is aces, and I really hope we get a full-fledged sequel.

Fighting

So it took a year-and-a-half, but NetherRealm finally fixed the Windows port of Mortal Kombat X, released the XL update, and dropped the price to $17 CDN! After a 35GB download, a tutorial, and a wander around The Krypt, I'm a little overwhelmed... Like, the I'm-never-gonna-put-in-the-time-necessary-to-get-good-at-this kind of overwhelmed.

Maybe I should just go back to Street Fighter V... Except it's too hard to earn anything in-game, and I'm cheap. I guess there's always Killer Instinct; that's pretty badass and I don't feel like I'm terrible at it :)

Also, 18-hours into ReCore, and...  The concept's great but the story's paper-thin; the audio logs're just plain silly, and not in a good way; Unity's a little buggy with this one, but it's nothing show-stopping; there're a few holes in the geometry and a missing sound effect or two... And yet I'm still having fun exploring and grinding and unlocking cool shit. Well worth the $25 I paid for it, even if it does fall apart by the end :p

Push

So...

• ABZÛ is a solid Journey knock-off.
• Rise of the Tomb Raider was great fun; a fantastic balance of open-world playground and story-driven single-player... The dialogue sucks though, and really hurt the actors as well as the story... And the story's already kinda weak as it is.
• INSIDE is like Limbo, but better. The secret ending is pretty cool, but I think I like the normal one better.
• The Witness is a goddamned masterpiece of design. Holy fucking shithelldamnfart. Game of the Year alongside DOOM, for me. I haven't felt that way in... I dunno... It's insane how powerful that experience was. Played-through to the "endgame" with zero hints. Took me about 20 hours to power-up all 11 lasers, unlock and watch three films (with two more left unlocked and one left unlocated), countless audio logs, and a smattering of glyphs, and then I just kinda went for the ending... And now I'm wishing I'd spent more time with it. I will revisit it soon.
• ReCore just feels great, even if the whole experience seems a little anemic. I'm about halfway through, and still enjoying it quite a bit.
• As for Marvel Puzzle Quest, I've started championing three-star characters, and am showing no signs of slowing-down. Well done, Demiurge!
• Picked-up Mortal Kombat XL on sale on Steam; 35GB download though... Yeesh!

Moving on, the only reason for me to pick-up an XBOX One at this point is Crimson Dragon and Halo 5 single-player, right? Everything else (Forza, Gears of War, Halo 5: Forge, Killer Instinct, ReCore) are on Windows 10 now, right? Huh.

Was considering a PS4 Slim + Uncharted 4 + WATCH_DOGS2 bundle, but then I read that The Last Guardian runs better on PS4 Pro, so now I'm waiting for a PS4 Pro price drop... Which is fine 'cause I already have too much to play anyway.