November 2025 General Games Discussion Thread

[neogunhero]

I've got a pretty big issue going on in Oblivion. I've barely touched the main storyline, so when I finally decided to show up to Kvatch and help repel the Oblivion gates, there were very high level enemies coming out of it. I typically get past the Kvatch questline before freeroaming the game, but this time I've put it off and now I'm almost level 20. Out of all the times I've played this game, this was the first time I've seen anything other than low level Scamps outside that gate. There was a massive minotaur and a big ol spider lady that I don't have any recollection of in the original game. I haven't been upgrading my spells so they were doing minimal damage to the enemies, so I ran away, again.

Oblivion's leveling system is notoriously broken but I find it hilarious in moments like this. You could even say it's true to canon. I've been chosen as the savior of Cyrodiil from the invasion of Mehrunes Dagon and his gates to Oblivion but instead I chose to get rich and explore the countryside. In the time I put off fighting off the invasion, the enemies have only grown stronger. So have I, but I'm not yet prepared to fight them as I'm still using low level spells, even though my Intelligence and Willpower are at level 100 each. Just need a bit more time to get ready before saving the world.

 

[BeardyHat]

I played some more Heat Signature. It's kind of like a very simple immersive simulator in the best way possible. Stealth is typically encouraged and you get plenty of gadgets to help with that, but sometimes you can just get away with shooting/stabbing/bludgeoning your way through an enemy ship, especially after you've been discovered and need to make a quick getaway.

I've started running into a bit of a problem however. All of your gadgets have limited charges that only reset when you return to a station. This is fine for smaller ships, even if they have more advanced defences, but large ships both have more guards total and those guards travel in larger groups, meaning I often have to use up more charges per guard, especially if they have shields or armour.

As far as I see there are three solutions to this. Either I need to return to a station to recharge my gadgets one or more times during a mission (which is tedious), I need to grind easier missions hoping to find better gear (which is time consuming) or I need to grind to unlock more items for sale in the shop.

Realistically, the latter is probably the intended solution and I've just been trying missions that are too hard for where I'm at in the progression of the game.

Was thinking about picking this one up. It's only $2.99, but I also don't think I'll play it immediately, so maybe I should wait instead...

My oldest was playing a game on my TV PC the other day and I noticed what he was plying was running very poorly, even though this PC well exceeds the specs. I have noticed this in the past, but I chocked a lot of it up to the PC being older, but now I realized something wasn't right.

So I did some testing and discovered that the CPU was immediately pegged at 100*C while basically doing nothing and would massively throttle itself down to 1.3ghz. It should turbo at 4.4ghz and sustain around 4. So I took it apart and discovered the thermal paste was super crusty and old, which is odd, since I just put this new processor in it maybe only two years ago. So I cleaned it up and reapplied thermal paste only to discover what was probably my problem.

It's two fold, I think. Namely, it's a stock cooler I took off an i3, which I think is identical to the i7 its currently running, but these aren't known for being fantastic. It's also inside an ITX case, so limited airflow. But the big kicker is that I don't think I had it torqued down correctly. I noticed putting the heatsink/fan back on, I struggled to get it to seat fully down and ended-up having to mess with it and tweak it for awhile before I got a full seat. I think I previously left a gap and it worked for awhile, but ultimately the paste pumped out and dried out and thus the issue.

Things are working great now, but I did just order a more efficient cooler that'll fit in the ITX chassis. The CPU is still hitting 100* and throttling when games are running above 60FPS, but the throttling is only down to 3.6Ghz at the lowest, so it hasn't really caused any issues.

 

[neogunhero]

But the big kicker is that I don't think I had it torqued down correctly. I noticed putting the heatsink/fan back on, I struggled to get it to seat fully down and ended-up having to mess with it and tweak it for awhile before I got a full seat. I think I previously left a gap and it worked for awhile, but ultimately the paste pumped out and dried out and thus the issue.

This exact thing has happened to me before. CPU coolers have always been the most annoying part of a build to me, at least with the coolers I've bought. They're always so hard to reach the screws, and making the mistake of installing it after you've already mounted the mobo to the case or replacing an existing cooler is the worst. I've done that where I didn't properly screw down the cooler, causing a slight gap between the processor and cooler, completely drying out the paste. Good thing you caught it before any serious damage happened to the processor. I'm surprised your son didn't feel the warmth exuding from the PC lol. Edit: Forgot you mentioned TV PC, that makes sense as it's not right next to him.

 

[BeardyHat]

This exact thing has happened to me before. CPU coolers have always been the most annoying part of a build to me, at least with the coolers I've bought. They're always so hard to reach the screws, and making the mistake of installing it after you've already mounted the mobo to the case or replacing an existing cooler is the worst. I've done that where I didn't properly screw down the cooler, causing a slight gap between the processor and cooler, completely drying out the paste. Good thing you caught it before any serious damage happened to the processor. I'm surprised your son didn't feel the warmth exuding from the PC lol. Edit: Forgot you mentioned TV PC, that makes sense as it's not right next to him.

Honestly, I think it's just these older style Intel coolers. I'm not sure what they're using now, but I've never had an issue with any of my AMD coolers; this one is just hella finicky.

And kids are just so clueless! He didn't even notice that it was running at 15FPS pretty frequently when a lot of stuff was going on on screen. I asked him (before I looked at the issue fully the next day) if he wanted me to try and fix that and he said no. Same goes for when he plays Subnautica on my very old gaming laptop, it often chugs, but the kids just don't have any concept of it.

 

[Zloth]

I haven't been upgrading my spells so they were doing minimal damage to the enemies, so I ran away, again.

What!? Get back in there! If you start feeling bummed about re-loads, just play this song:

View: https://youtu.be/ojvFp3ywbMw?si=i4VdOB2yE27Veuot&t=20

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Every now and again its tempting to replace my big tower CPU cooler with an AIO just for ease of access and cleaning, but its nice to not have to buy a new one every few years for fear of pump failures or whatever. Tune in next month when Ive bought a new CPU cooler anyway.

I'm playing a lot of Hades at the moment, not much to add that hasnt been said before but its drawn me back in. My bad reactions mean I have yet to finish a run after over 50 attempts, but thats also partly because Ive been cycling the different weapons and going for base cosmetic upgrades, which isnt like me at all. Will definitely have to pick up the second game in the future, its good stuff.

 

[Johnway]

Still playing yakuza 5 and still finishing off the last few bits and pieces before i see kazuma kiryiu's story to a close. Currently just playing the dating sim and any last minute unlocks to succeed.


More pc envy, i'm just doing more window shopping and decided to use pcpartpicker to see how much i could save and amazingly, for the parts i wanted i could shave nearly £500(!) coming up just shy of 2k mark. pays to shop around and not tempted to pull the trigger but it feels like an unnecessary spend atm.

 

[BeardyHat]

Continuing the thread of new PCs, my friend just got a new one. 7800X3D and a 5070. I'm pretty envious of it and have been looking at PC parts myself, but I can't imagine what reason I'd have to upgrade. I barley use my desktop as is and when I do, it's rarely for gaming.

Him and I are both long time PC gamers and we've actually been chatting back and forth about our general lack of excitement around PCs anymore as we age. His parts sat on his counter for a couple of weeks before he finally ended up building his PC just to get the boxes out of the way.

 

[Pifanjr]

This exact thing has happened to me before. CPU coolers have always been the most annoying part of a build to me, at least with the coolers I've bought. They're always so hard to reach the screws, and making the mistake of installing it after you've already mounted the mobo to the case or replacing an existing cooler is the worst. I've done that where I didn't properly screw down the cooler, causing a slight gap between the processor and cooler, completely drying out the paste. Good thing you caught it before any serious damage happened to the processor. I'm surprised your son didn't feel the warmth exuding from the PC lol. Edit: Forgot you mentioned TV PC, that makes sense as it's not right next to him.

My old PC currently only has a big passive cooler that isn't bolted down because I lost the screws, but it still works. Though it started having issues starting up again, so I have to occasionally switch the RAM sticks around which somehow fixes the issue.

Honestly, I think it's just these older style Intel coolers. I'm not sure what they're using now, but I've never had an issue with any of my AMD coolers; this one is just hella finicky.

And kids are just so clueless! He didn't even notice that it was running at 15FPS pretty frequently when a lot of stuff was going on on screen. I asked him (before I looked at the issue fully the next day) if he wanted me to try and fix that and he said no. Same goes for when he plays Subnautica on my very old gaming laptop, it often chugs, but the kids just don't have any concept of it.

I don't always notice a game is running badly either. I had been playing Barotrauma on my old PC and while it would sometimes lag a bit, I thought it ran just fine. Then I played it on the new PC and realised that the game was supposed to be way more smooth, it only seemed to run fine on the old PC compared to the times it was lagging.