Random Game Thoughts Thread - December 18-24

[Frindis]

Will be logging into Runescape daily this holiday for some daily challenges and trying my luck on getting some nice Christmas presents.

 

[Brian Boru]

Christmas quiz for y'all: What fairly recent game am I?

An over-the-moon GOG reviewer says:
"This game is simply put one of a kind. It's like taking - Far Cry Primal - Crysis - Fallout - Skyrim and a brand new genius and well thought out storytelling and putting it in a blender. Everything about this game is top notch, absolutely fantastic!"

It's one of the few definite future buys on my wishlist, but I'm still holding out even tho it and its expansion—ie the 'Complete' edition, which doesn't have the recent sequel —are down at $16.49 on both GOG and Steam at the moment.

I'm leery cos it's both 3rd person and RPG, so there's a good chance I won't get much value out of its beautiful open world.

 

[ZedClampet]

This morning it was -20 Celsius, but we've made our way up to -12. We're going to have rolling blackouts today (15 minutes long) because of the insane power consumption going on. Our utility company said we were fine, but the power supplier, TVA, asked for the blackouts.

I have finally and definitely fixed all my odd computer problems on my Sager laptop. I was having bizarre crashes, USB ports going out, part of my keyboard turning off, etc. This went on for over a year, during which I reinstalled Windows maybe 4 times because the system would finally become so unstable that it wouldn't work at all. The day I discovered the solution, I thought it was completely dead. I tried to reboot, and it went to a black screen and nothing else. I turned it off and on. Still just a black screen. Wanting it to have less to deal with, I reached over and unplugged a USB hub. Instantly the black screen was gone and it booted to Windows in seconds. Turns out I had an external SSD that was bad, and it was hooked up to the USB hub. Without the SSD connected, the laptop runs like new, and I haven't had a crash, USB or keyboard problem since., It's been almost 3 months.

However, my MSI laptop that I used in bed passed away in a cloud of electrical smoke. I just plugged it in one night and immediately smelled electrical fire. And that was the end. So I I bought a new 17 inch HP Omen, which is now my main laptop, and moved the Sager to the bedroom. The HP has a full 3070 ti GPU in it, but the TGP is only 155. Still extremely fast. I'm running Darktide on Ultra with ray tracing and getting around 60 fps at 1440p. The CPU is the i7 12700H. Has 32 GB RAM, 2 TB NVMe, and 1440p screen. It's cooling is remarkable. I've only heard the fans once, and that was when I had Farming Simulator 22 and Forza Horizon 5 playing at the same time (got to do something while the workers plow those fields).

It's very nice, but my plan to skip the 30xx generation GPU's died hard. I have also decided that, based on my long history with gaming laptops, that it's actually a good idea to buy the extended warranties even though they are stupid expensive.

 

[ZedClampet]

Christmas quiz for y'all: What fairly recent game am I?

An over-the-moon GOG reviewer says:
"This game is simply put one of a kind. It's like taking - Far Cry Primal - Crysis - Fallout - Skyrim and a brand new genius and well thought out storytelling and putting it in a blender. Everything about this game is top notch, absolutely fantastic!"

It's one of the few definite future buys on my wishlist, but I'm still holding out even tho it and its expansion—ie the 'Complete' edition, which doesn't have the recent sequel —are down at $16.49 on both GOG and Steam at the moment.

I'm leery cos it's both 3rd person and RPG, so there's a good chance I won't get much value out of its beautiful open world.

Horizon Zero Dawn?

 

[Brian Boru]

Horizon Zero Dawn?

HZD indeed—key code for downloadable cookie going in the mail

 

[Zloth]

$16.50 for H:ZD? That's a nice price!

Barely any time for gaming here - too much stuff going on!

The timing is terrible for the holidays since driving is still impossible, so I don't know if family will be able to get together like normal.

Christmas is 12 days long. Maybe aim for New Years Day?

 

[Pifanjr]

Ok, so i picked up Elden Ring in the steam winter sale, probably the only one ill grab for me. I had a 10 dollar off coupon so all in all cost me a little under 30 and i swear i wouldnt pay a dollar more.

It absolutely boggles my mind that this is GOTY. First off it is exactly like dark souls, i dont know how else to even look at it, it acts nothing like a non-dark souls game. Its literally DARK SOULS with open world which starts off extremely slow since your guy walks slower than a 1000lb sumo wrestler or something. You then get a horse to summon but this brings me to my next complaint.

Along with this is absolutely abyssmal keybindings (G FOR MAP!, E and Q for confirm/exit/back, E and arrow keys to use "pouch". E and arrow key left summons my horse, i cant change these bindings, its either E arrow key up down left or right, at least i havent found a way and its not exactly explained easily.) Just absolutely dumb assignments with terrible explanation of using skills too.

You cant just hit "I" and get an inventory, nope you have to hit escape then click on all the boxes you want to use, very unintuitive UI.

I die more times in combat from fumbling keybindings and trying to fling through a rolodex of skills allocated to only 1 slot

On top of that there is no real graphics settings, its really bland and i dont think you can do over 60 fps! Lame, its lame to see such a disregard for features like this on PC be beloved by the pc community.

I know this is a system i have to learn, but man it doesnt have to be so terrible imo. Yes its a beautiful game, the dark souls combat isnt bad if you like it, but this certainly shouldnt have won GOTY.

It sounds like they still don't care about the PC port of their games. I got a controller for my PC specifically so I could play Dark Souls, as the mouse and keyboard controls were so terrible.

 

[Ryzengang]

Christmas is 12 days long. Maybe aim for New Years Day?

Luckily most of my family got stranded here, but a few people probably won't be able to make it. I'm relocating on the 28th so it has been a wild time for me. Having one of the worst blizzards in Buffalo history a few days before moving seems like a fitting send off

 

[ZedClampet]

Happy holidays! Did you get/give anything good?

I was going to request no presents, but my wife told me that was rude, so I got some cooking stuff and some camping stuff and the usual assortment of gift cards to Amazon and Steam.

Got Guido various Warhammer things along with some Steam games he wanted. For one, he's been wanting Civ 6 forever. The major DLC were on pretty good discount, so I didn't have to remortgage my house to get him everything.

Went to an antique bookstore a couple hours away and bought a pile of books for my wife, who collects them. The best find was a set of 1920's Jane Austen books that had hand written love letters folded and stashed in between the pages apparently from the original book owner, which is the sort of thing my wife loves even more than the books themselves. She looks for the books that have been scribbled in as opposed to the perfect ones, and I found several more that had lots of things written in the margins.

Gave my daughter some practical things and money because she's 20, living on her own, paying her own way to college, etc. and she refuses help any other time of the year. If I want to help her financially, I have to do it on Christmas or her birthday. No idea where she inherited this stubbornness So far she hasn't had to take out any student loans, and I'd like to keep it that way. I don't think she's real happy when I give her money, but she's polite about it.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

Went to an antique bookstore a couple hours away and bought a pile of books for my wife, who collects them. The best find was a set of 1920's Jane Austen books that had hand written love letters folded and stashed in between the pages apparently from the original book owner, which is the sort of thing my wife loves even more than the books themselves. She looks for the books that have been scribbled in as opposed to the perfect ones, and I found several more that had lots of things written in the margins.

My wife's favorite book is a book called The Lamplighter, by Maria Cummins. It was published in 1854. You can't get it new anymore. She has a few really old copies of that book. She got her first one for Christmas a couple of years ago.

This year for Christmas, I bought her a book, but not an old one. We live in a town with around 6000 people, and this year happened to be our Bicentennial. So the town printed a bunch of copies of a Bicentennial photo/history book of our town. I waited too long to buy it, and barely got my hands on the last copy. They won't print anymore, so I got lucky.

As for the other gifts we got everyone, we kind of got lucky this year. We had racked up so many credit card points that we were able to get almost all our Christmas gifts on the rewards from that. We had a lot of medical bills, house repairs, and reimbursed work expenses on there this year. Thankfully, we were also able to pay off that credit card balance from some extra money that came in.

 

[Brian Boru]

book called The Lamplighter, by Maria Cummins

Ah, the birth of a legend, perhaps?

Tidbit—one of the characters in Joyce's Ulysses is based on the heroine of The Lamplighter.

 

[Colif]

I used to think I was tall, then I went and watched a game of basketball

What do you think they would think of