Finally finished Horizon Forbidden West, only the base game though, not the DLC, which will have to wait. I definitely enjoyed my time with the game, but I gotta say, the story is complete trash and the antagonists are garbage as well. I liked the companions that hang around in your base, as well as a few of the smaller NPCs scattered around the world though.

Then, I started playing World of Warcraft again. I read about the Mists of Pandaria Turbo mode, that’s coming next month and really want to try it (since that is my favorite expansion), so I’m taking a few weeks before to play through the current expansion, Dragonflight. It’s been about three years since I played the game, so there are a ton of things I have to learn, but for leveling those don’t matter, so I’ll just go through the main campaign for now.

Still playing Horizon Forbidden West. I’m close to exploring everything of the base game map. Once I’m done with that, I’ll focus on the rest of the side quests and finally the main story.

More Horizon Forbidden West, just exploring, killing, looting. While I think it’s the best looking game I’ve played (on a technical level), it does have some super ugly effects, mainly the water reflections and the steam that comes out of the big doors, when you open them for the first time. Those look like ass. Also, climbing is pretty much brainless like the latest Assassin’s Creed games, but has a few too many bugs to match it. Regularly you’ll get “stuck” on a cliff, because Aloy doesn’t want to get to one of the dozens of handholds in arm’s reach. Same with climbing up on top of a rock or cliff, sometimes Aloy just refuses to do so, unless you move slightly to the side. Those are pretty minor issues, but are still annoying.

Then, some Dave the Diver, although that’s been on the back burner this week, since I got really into Horizon.

I could see the writing on the wall last week, but after about 20 hours I’ve dropped Dragon’s Dogma 2. Exploration felt just like a chore to me, and combat was super boring. This is definitely one of those games, where I absolutely don’t see what reviewers saw in it to proclaim it such high scores and maybe even call it GotY. From what I’ve read, the online discourse has shifted a little as well, and not just because of the bad performance or microtransactions.

I tried switching over to Horizon Forbidden West, and was going through the first small zone, when the game started crashing constantly with no error or hint on what the problem could be. It was weird, because it ran smoothly for almost 10 hours, and then it became basically unplayable. Crashes every 1–5 minutes. I tried a lot of things, but nothing helped, and was close to giving up. Then one or two days ago I had a breakthrough and I think I found the cause, something with the textures or my GPU memory. First, I reduced the memory OC of my GPU, which I haven’t changed in almost 2 years, although it still crashed after an hour, which was definitely an improvement. Then I turned down the Texture Quality setting from Very High to High, I was finally able to play with no issues again. Today I’ll check with my normal overclock again, if it’s just the in-game setting or both.

As for the game itself, I like it, it’s basically Assassin’s Creed Valhalla or something, just that controlling Aloy doesn’t feel like you’re moving through molasses. I don’t play these open world RPGs where you’re basically checking off markers on the map too often, but I do enjoy them from time to time. Because of all the problems I had with the game, I just made it out of the prologue / introduction or whatever (before you get to the titular Forbidden West), so I can’t say too much about it yet, however I gotta say it does look fantastic, probably the best looking game (on a technical level) that I’ve played.

I also played the new stuff, that was released in the first big patch of Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor. The new zone is really neat and I had a good time.

Then I tried Halls of Torment, another Vampire Survivors-type game. I love the look and vibe while playing, but it feels like you have to grind the early levels somewhat for upgrades and stuff until you’re ready for the later stages, which I’m not really a fan of. For now, I’ve shelved it, but will definitely check it out again later.

I gave Pathfinder: Gallowspire Survivors another chance as well, this time on my desktop PC, since I didn’t have a great time on my Steam Deck before. The game just loves throwing ranged enemies at you, so your screen is constantly filled with projectiles, which is just not fun, and the bigger screen only helps a tiny bit. It also seems super grindy, since there is sooooo much stuff to unlock and upgrade, although basically everything are just tiny passive improvements. Not really sure how I feel about it yet, but it’s another game, which I’ll check out again at a later time.

As far as I’ve heard, previous Capcom games already feature these types of mostly meaningless DLC. So it’s not a first test, and so far the older games haven’t been adjusted to make the microtransactions more appealing.

I agree, Capcom aren’t dumb, it’s probably just a minimal amount of work, and if they can get even a few buyers they make money. Although, who knows if the hit to their reputations negates all of this.

I played it a year ago, and it was fun (playing as the male MC), but the side quests are complete ass, so I definitely recommend skipping them.

I was “done” with Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor, but a day later the first patch dropped, so I gotta go back to it.

Death Must Die was my replacement for DRG, but the game is a bit boring, so I’ll wait for more patches. It’s basically Hades but Vampire Survivors. So far there are five characters in the game, but four are very similar. The different spells or upgrades are also not really too interesting and barely change the gameplay, so most runs feel the same. I hope further updates can improve the game.

Then, I started both Horizon: Forbidden West and Dragons Dogma 2 on PC, but right now I’ll stick with DD2. The game is basically what I remember DD1 being, but with a fresh coat of paint, for better or worse. Back when I played the first game, I had a great time for like 70 hours, but by the end, I never wanted to see the game again (and never played the DLC). Even though it’s been eight years since then, I still feel a bit burned out, so seemingly so few changes don’t really help. I started out as the mage and just recently switched to the sorcerer, but imma be honest, it’s pretty boring. I’ll give it a bit longer, since I barely got any spells right now. The archer and thief look more fun, so I might give these a shot, if the giga wizard doesn’t improve things.

Not everyone is going to hop onto the internet to publicly report their issues.

But enough people are. People are talking about every small thing they did, what happened, whatever.

Also, with all the different plugins or stats available on this thing to track everything, you can probably create a pretty detailed breakdown of what someone did with their Steam Deck.

You’ll definitely have users gaming on the thing for 8+ hours every day, so I don’t see much value in that. Like I said, you might as well just wait for users to report their experiences.

needs to do now is to create a more realistic test. Using static elements for maybe 6 hours at a time every day

That’s kinda useless. You might as well just wait for the user reports at that point.

These unrealistic torture tests accelerate the potential burn-in, and it’s still useful to gauge how long it could really take.

No? I really hope this isn’t a serious question, because I can’t imagine how you’d come to this conclusion, if you read the full sentence.

I think that’s just a concession from Nvidia, and they wouldn’t really have to pull any games from the service.

He’s a weirdo, but I think it was just normal porn. Maybe it was some porn with magic tricks, since he’s into that as well.

I like the game and the DRG theme, but I’m not too big on how to (properly) unlock your weapons, it’s just a bit too convoluted for no reason.

I could deal with server queues, I’ve played WoW. Broken matchmaking is definitely a dealbreaker for me though, since none of my friends play the game.

I’ve refunded the game now and might check it out later, since I just don’t really see it working properly anytime soon.

I beat Final Fantasy 2. It’s good, definitely one of the better JRPG stories for me, although some parts could definitely be improved if they were a bit more fleshed out. The main characters are really lame, but the supporting cast makes up for it somewhat. The magic system is pretty bad, since there are a gazillion different spells, most of them useless, but even if you wanted to use them, you’d have to level up each one separately for every character. Even the auto battle can’t really save that.

Then Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor made it to Early Access, but right now it’s pretty disappointing. I’ve done a dozen or so runs, but all four classes feel just really weak, even on the lowest difficulty. There is some meta progression, but they improve your character so little, and get really expensive, really quickly, that I don’t think it’ll make that much of a difference. I’ll give it some a bit more time, maybe unlock a few more things, since I like the DRG Theme, but will probably shelve it soon and go back to Soulstone Survivors, Vampire Survivors or the dozen other games like this I haven’t played yet.

Next, after like a 10-month break, I’m back to Stranger of Paradise Final Fantasy Origin. Playing through FF1 really made me play this again. Back when it was released on Steam, I made it through the base game and started on the first DLC, but the then new Bahamut difficulty was a bit too much for me at the time. By that point you can’t just overpower everything with better gear anymore, but need to pay attention to your build and stats. I still need to wrap my head around things more, although it kinda sucks, since there are very little guides on the internet to help with that. Most information is for the endgame on the highest difficulty, which doesn’t help me that much. There is a kind of “easy mode” called Extra Mode, which (in combination with certain gear that you get) will make you basically permanently invincible, and everyone and their mom recommends to just use that to get to the endgame (where the real game begins hurr durr). I don’t want to do that, so I have to crawl through Discord channels, which really sucks, so I can get the basics.

I also tried Helldivers 2, but it’s kinda unplayable on Steam, unless you have a group of friends to make a private lobby with, or are willing to manually add random people to your friends list, both of which is a no for me dawg. Matchmaking in this game is broken and doesn’t work, if you can even make it into the game. I have no idea how this isn’t talked about more, considering other games get clowned on for far less. I’ll give it a more few days, but I’m not very hopeful, since it’s already been over a week, and will probably refund it.

I’ve also played a bunch of demos from the Steam Next Fest, that’s currently going on, but because it’s a lot I’ll split it into a separate comment. The Next Fest is only running for another day, so if you want to check out some demos, you don’t have too much time at this point.

Summerhouse is a builder in the same vein as Townscaper, The Block or Dorfromantik without the scores. You just build a house with whatever parts you want, until you’re satisfied. Not really my type of game, so I’ll pass on this.

Gatekeeper is an isometric rogue-like, similar to Risk of Rain. You do the typical stuff like killing enemies and upgrading your character, nothing you haven’t seen yet. It could be alright, but the demo was a bit samey. I only did one run, but the different levels were all pretty small and looked the same. Maybe things change a bit if you make it further, but I don’t know. I’ll have to look a bit into it, once it’s released.

Mullet Mad Jack is a retro shooter with extremely flashy visuals (I think I heard it described as maximalist). Because of a dystopian cyberpunk setting, where social media controls everything, you only live for 10s unless you kill enemies, so the viewers give you likes for extra time. Then you just run through levels, kick or shoot robots and try to save the girl. I found it extremely unappealing and will not be back for the full release.

Kingsgrave is a top-down, light survival or metroidvania type game, where you control the recently resurrected king and try to rebuild your kingdom. You collect materials, which let you unlock more abilities, so you can get to more parts of the world. This one didn’t really grip me, but if I stumble over it again once it’s release I might check it out again.

Hexarium is like Mini Metro or similar games, where you connect buildings of the same colors to get points. I might have just been dumb, but it seemed like the game didn’t really work properly yet, because I had some seemingly impossible combinations. Like I get a starting point, that’s on the very edge of the map, so I can’t really build anything or points straight into water, where you’re severely limited with what you can build.

Copy Cat is a play-as-a-cat game. In the beginning you’re only inside a house and I don’t know if it’ll open up later. The cat comments on everything (with floating text in the world) as if it’s a human and can understand English. The gameplay was also a bit clunky and I don’t think I’ll be back for more.

Black Dragon Mage is a Survivors-like (dunno what else to call it). It has manual skills and aiming, and as you level up you get more abilities and upgrade existing ones. It was kinda boring, so I’ll stick with the games I already have.

Artifact Seeker: Legend of Aurorium is another Survivors-like, better than Black Dragon Mage. It has the typical Chinese Mobile game look to it (don’t really know how to describe it). One interesting feature is, after each stage you go to a world map and choose where to go next, à la Slay the Spire. You can choose between combat stages or text events where you can get upgrades. This one is a maybe, but I have a bunch of other games like this already bought, that I have to try at least. before I’ll buy more.

Duck Detective: The Secret Salami is a point-and-click adventure game, with isometric 3D environments and 2D cut-out characters, like Paper Mario. In the demo, which is really short, you find clues in single rooms, to solve Mad Libs style puzzles to solve them. So far it’s a tiny step up from something like Frog Detective, but I don’t know if it gets more complex later. Another one I’ll keep an eye on for me.

Pepper Grinder is a 2D platformer, where you play as a girl with a drill arm. You can destroy some parts of the environment, but I guess it’s mainly about burrowing through sand, which is like swimming through water in other games, collecting coins, finding secrets, the normal stuff. It’s level based, which caught me a bit by surprise, because seemingly all 2D platformers these days are metroidvanias. Not sure about this one yet, maybe later down the line, when I’m more in the mood for a game like this.

Finally, News Tower, a building and management game about a newspaper publisher in the 1930s. You slowly build your tower, get more workers for you, either reporters, typesetters, and whatever else you need, send them to work on stories, so you can print something on Sundays. Could be neat, but not something I’m especially interested in.

A bit more Diablo 4, which got a time-limited event this week, but it’s not really anything. Just activate shrines and kill monsters for an hour to unlock some cosmetics. Fine by itself, but nothing that’s going to make someone play more of the game.

Some Final Fantasy 2 (Pixel Remaster), but this one is pretty weird (compared to the other early FF games). You don’t have the normal leveling system, but all your characters can do anything, but they gain proficiency with whatever weapon they use, if they use magic, what specific spell, if they defended, etc. It’s alright, although I prefer normal classes or jobs.

My main problem in the game is, that it’s not always really clear where you need to go. About 30 minutes after you start, basically half of the world is open to you (technically even more), and you got like 10 places where you can go. You get some general objectives, but are not really told where to start with them. E.g. at one point you’re told to speak with Josef, as if everyone knows the guy, but nobody even says in which town he lives. So you’ll just wander around, talk to anyone who’ll listen, until you find him (or use the internet). The first game also didn’t really tell you where to go, but the world was a lot smaller and where you could go was a lot more limited.

Anyone find something interesting? Most of the games under “Trending Upcoming” don’t appeal to me, so I have to dig a bit deeper.

Gatekeeper looks like it could be fun, and I’ve downloaded the demo, but haven’t checked it out yet.

More Diablo 4, but I’m like 95% done with the season. My Barbarian is level 100, I’ve completed the Season Journey, did Tier 100 Vaults, killed all the Uber Bosses (except Lilith) at least once, etc. I could of course min-max even more, to kill enemies 10ms faster, but I won’t focus on that. I’ll still do some runs here and there, but will try to focus on other games for now.

There is a time-limited event, that’s starting in a few days, that I’ll check out, but dunno how much there is to do.

The Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster games are on sale at last, so I’ve snatched those up on Steam and played through the first game. I was surprised how much of the typical FF DNA was already in this. Some of the mechanics and game design are somewhat antiquated, which is to be expected for a 35+ year old game, but the QoL additions really help, to make most pretty much a non-issue.

I played Stranger of Paradise Final Fantasy Origin previously, so seeing / reading all those familiar names and locations really make me want to go back to that game.

I want to play through FF2 next week, but we’ll see if the D4 event hooks me, or I find anything else.