Author Archives: Azuriel
Undertale, Overrated
Yeah, I said it.
Undertale is a cult favorite and Kickstarter darling from 2015 featuring meme-ready characters, NES graphics, and unique game mechanics. Your character has fallen down a hole into the underworld and now must contend with anxious monsters who need your soul to escape their otherwise eternal confinement. Will you leave a traditional trail of bodies and tears on your way to the exit, or will you embrace the spirit of determination and the power of friendship to spare all that you meet?
The very ending(s) depend on it!
It’s possible that I played Undertale too late. The retro graphics did nothing for me, nor did the retro graphics + modern game twists, as I played LISA back in 2015 already. While I did not know exact plot details, I also knew Undertale had a True Pacifist route that led to the best ending – knowledge which prejudges one’s own behavior in the game. Finally, I had already played games that also shifted in narrative tone and 4th-wall breaking, like Nier: Automata. If Undertale was my first experience with any of these things, maybe I would have been more impressed.
My major issue with Undertale though is that it is… not fun. When fighting enemies, they attack you via 5-6 seconds of Bullet Hell in which you move a red heart around a predefined box. It’s an extremely novel concept, and the things Undertale is able to convey through this mechanism is commendable. But at no point is it fun to do. Doing a True Pacifist run means you must talk to enemies instead of attacking them, which consumes several “turns” which results in you doing multiple Bullet Hell levels for each randomly-encountered enemy. True Pacifist also means you never level up or get more HP, so the game just gets progressively harder. Finally, if you get dangerously low on HP, you have to spend your turn using a healing item instead of talking, which delays the end of the fight and can mean you catch more damage than you healed and otherwise wasted your time.
Did I mention that you need to purchase healing items, using money that you receive from successfully navigating monster neuroses, thus potentially trapping yourself into a losing battle of attrition? Indeed, the only way I was able to complete the game at all was from looking up the solution to a puzzle that gave me an item that sometimes gave me free healing items. Supposedly there is also some armor you can buy to trivialize fights if you die enough times too.
In any case, the Venn Diagram of people who enjoy the plot of Undertale and those who like Bullet Hell games are likely two circles on opposite ends of the Earth.
There were some genuinely funny moments in the game, don’t get me wrong. But all I could really think about while playing was that Undertale did not respect my time. Which seems strange considering the game is like 9 hours long. Or perhaps that is expected when you know that every random encounter represents a possible permanent loss of player power (e.g. healing items or money to purchase more) instead of, you know, your character growing stronger over time. Technically you do find better equipment along the way, but that is really a bare minimum to keep parity with ever-stronger foes when you are stuck with 20 HP and losing a quarter of it each time you touch something.
Ultimately, I am glad I finished Undertale’s True Pacifist route. I understand that there are a myriad of alternative endings, including one which requires you murdering everyone you meet, but I don’t see the point. I sure as shit ain’t spending another 5+ hours on the endeavor when I already disliked combat.
Will do, Flowey. Will do. In fact, it’s already done.
Christmas Haul
I bought myself the following games on Epic:
- Roguebook – $6.24
- Banners of Ruin – $5.99
- Inscryption – $5.99
- Disco Elysium – $7.99
Basically three deckbuilding roguelikes and Disco Elysium. One item I had in the cart and then removed was Horizon Zero Dawn Complete for $14.99. My current thought was that I should probably wait until/if I do that PC upgrade I talked about – worst case scenario being I purchase it during the Summer sale for a similar (or less) amount. But… it’s also just $15. So maybe? Any thoughts in the comments?
For Steam, it was just:
- Meteorfall: Krumit’s Tale – $7.49
- Dream Quest – $4.99
I had an eye on Dream Quest for a long time, ever since I learned that it was one of the OG deckbuilding roguelikes that ended up inspiring Slay the Spire and the creator went on to Hearthstone. It also seemed like abandonware at this point and unlikely to receive a discount. Until it finally did. Krumit’s Tale was just another notch on the Deckbuilding Roguelike belt.
With tax everything ended being about $41 or so. Not a bad haul, assuming that at least one or two of the roguelikes entertain me for X amount of time. Granted, it seems a bit “counterproductive” to acquire more games that don’t strictly “matter.” I am endeavoring to play titles with more meaningful and/or unique experiences after all. On the other hand, I am so far down the deckbuilding roguelike rabbit hole that I may as well keep digging. As Mitch Hedberg (RIP) said:
If you find yourself lost in the woods, fuck it, build a house. “Well, I was lost but now I live here! I have severely improved my predicament!”
By the end of this, I’ll be able suggest deckbuilding games to people with surgical precision. “Oh, you played Slay the Spire but didn’t like energy usage? Might I recommend Fate Hunter?”
Piecemeal Battlestation
I mentioned recently that I was in the market for a computer upgrade. In fact, I am looking to change a number of things about my current setup. For example, I recently bought a new gaming chair. My old chair was one of those nylon net “breathable” chairs, purchased because my wife’s cat destroyed the prior two I owned. With the cat no longer with us, I decided to upgrade. It’s been working out… kinda okay. Not the amazing plush experience I was hoping for, but it was $120 instead of $500, so yeah.
In any case, here is the list I’m going for:
- Monitor – 27″ 1440p 120Hz+, probably IPS (up from 27″ 1080p 60Hz TN)
- Video Card – GTX 3060ti or better (up from GTX 1060)
- RAM – 16GB (up from 8 GB)
- CPU – Anything from last 2 years (up from i5-2500K)
- USB – Actual USB 3.0 connections, WTF? (up from USB 2.0)
- Desk – Something with drawers, probably, maybe big enough for two monitors (up from Origami)
There were actually some good deals on monitors back during Black Friday, but it was a chicken & egg dilemma. Do I buy a new monitor now, even though I wouldn’t be able to output 1440p or 120Hz given my hardware? But how long would I go after buying the hardware until I get a monitor that takes advantage of the specs? Besides, where would all this shit fit in the first place? My current desk is nowhere large enough to have two 27″ monitors, and my current monitor cannot be rotated.
That said, there isn’t a big big rush. If something falls into my lap or there is some kind of other offer I can’t refuse, then I may go for it. Otherwise? Well, just like everyone else in this pandemic, I hope the shit I got continues working until I no longer want it. Thoughts and prayers to everyone out there having to buy a refrigerator or new/used car in the present environment.
Addendum: I still find my own post about computer shopping from 2011 both hilarious and accurate. The price I paid back then ($1260) is the equivalent of $1557 today. So maybe I shouldn’t be worrying about this shit at all and just buy the first GTX 3070+ prebuild I see in that range.
Winter Epic Sale
When we last left our intrepid Steam competitor, Epic was having one of those crazy sales with the $10 coupon added on top. And they had finally added Wishlists! In a gaming storefront! In 2021!
Well, buckle up, buttercup, because Epic is having another seasonal sale with the $10 coupon and now they have… shopping carts! In 2021! Will wonders never cease?
Facetiousness aside, I was actually looking forward to Epic’s sale, for basically the pictured reasons. Let’s go ahead and put it in some bullet points though:
- Cyberpunk 2077 – $19.99
- Red Dead Redemption 2 – $19.99
- Disco Elysium – $7.99
- Roguebook – $6.24
- Inscryption – $5.99
I think the bottom three are a lock this time around. Well, Inscryption and Roguebook are both the sort of games I would expect to randomly pop up on Game Pass, so maybe not. Meanwhile, Disco Elysium is a full $12 cheaper during this sale compared to the summer one. As long as I commit to playing it right away, I think I could live with “losing” $8 in that specific scenario with that specific game.
Cyberpunk and Red Dead Redemption 2 are another story. On the one hand, $20 is very reasonable for a AAA title that is unlikely to get bundled/become free. In the case of Cyberpunk, they specifically said “there are no plans” but also hedged their bets for some indeterminable time in the future. RDR2 actually was on the service for consoles specifically, then left after a few months last year. So, unlikely to hit Game Pass again anytime soon.
At the same time… I just don’t know. Both are very large, graphically intensive games. While I am not one of those people scouring eBay for scalped video cards, I am running on some fairly old hardware. I’m currently running a GTX 1060 from four years ago, which isn’t that bad. But the rest of the guts are from 2011. Which… wow, I hadn’t bothered to look that up until just now. I haven’t felt (graphically) deprived in any particular game up to this point, so this isn’t something I should be concerned about. It’s just one of those scenarios where I know these games would be better experiences with better hardware. And I have been keeping an eye on /r/buildapcsales/ whenever a prebuilt comes up – it’s a strange world we live in when prebuilds end up being cheaper than the video cards they contain.
So, basically, I’d like to play those two games, but I’m not in a hurry. Maybe next sale then?
In any case, there you go. It’s probably a bit silly talking about buying new games when I just committed to playing things I already own, but nobody said life made sense. Least of all me.
Priorities
The hardest thing is starting. The second hardest is continuing.
In the past few weeks, I have formulated zero long-term gaming memories. I have continued to throw myself into Guild Wars 2 and Hearthstone, making quite some “progress” in both. The time passes easily enough. And I am entertained during play. But I couldn’t tell you specifically what I was doing last Tuesday. I cannot present an argument for why you should (or shouldn’t) play GW2 or Hearthstone in a way that did not already exist a month ago.
Things happened, but nothing changed.
It is a tad early for resolutions, but here is mine: commit to distinct experiences. Any given MMO can consume thousands (or more) of hours of your time. It is indeed a great value, in comparison to how much money you would have had to spend on the equivalent games. Journey is what, 2-3 hours? And yet the experience of Journey remains a core memory eight years later. That music, the visuals, that nameless stranger who guided me to the summit. Would I have traded 100 Winterberries for that experience? It’s absurd, and yet I find myself doing that every day.
Prose aside, this desire came from a Reddit post talking about how there would be no Dark Souls without ICO. While I have not played Dark Souls much – despite owning several of them – I understood the sentiment because I played ICO. And yet how many people out there never did, or ever will? That game is a transformative experience. One that predated my first contact with MMOs. What if I… hadn’t? Too busy with WoW or whatever? Could there be an ICO in my unplayed gaming hoard right now?
Now, I’m not actually expecting to find another ICO in my library. And this sentiment is different than the sort of vague, “I should play everything just in case it’s genius.” I’m also still planning on squeezing in some MMO time in there too, assuming I’m not hooked on something else. But! Let’s take some baby steps towards the thing I actually want to do – generate unique experiences worth talking about – and not get sucked into killing time all the, er, time.
It’s silly, but here’s my starting list:
- Death Stranding
- Undertale
- SOMA
- To the Moon
- Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky
- Final Fantasy 15
Some are 100s of hours, some are less so, some aren’t going to be worth it. Final Fantasy 15, for example, gets shit on a lot. Let’s see why, eh? I’m getting better at dropping “good” games that have exhausted their novelty, like Dishonored 2 and Subnautica: Below Zero, so that shouldn’t be a factor.
I owe it to myself to give these games (and others) a chance. Especially since, you know, I already own them. I’m not going to find my next Xenogears just doing daily quests all the goddamn time.
Downsides to PC Gaming
Sometimes shit just doesn’t work.
Outriders is one of the games I had an eye on, and thus was pretty thrilled when I saw it pop up on Game Pass. Downloaded it and tried to play. Emphasis on tried. Game crashes 100% of the time on the title menu. After Googling a bit, find out that this is a fairly widespread issue with a lot of voodoo workarounds. Someone noted that crashing is common if you haven’t updated your video card drivers.
OK, cool, let’s update some drivers.
Welp… maybe not. My current driver is from a year ago, but Nvidia appears to not be able to update it. I first got the helpful error message during the October/November patch and decided to wait for the next patch to see if that one would work. New patch indeed came out in December but it gives me the same error.
In the spectrum of potential PC nonsense, this issue is very mild. And I may very well may be able to find some workaround or another to get past the roadblock if I want to dedicate 2-3 hours to doing so. But I don’t. At least, not for now, not for Outriders.
What Do I Really Want?
Specifically: what do I really want to buy with money?
Short answer: I dunno.
Long answer: buckle up.
The other night, I spent literally 40 minutes agonizing on whether I was going to buy 2000 discounted gems in Guild Wars 2. The agony was specifically derived from the fact that there was a 20% discount on Shared Inventory Slots, but only for one day. Discount of a discount is a great deal, yeah? The way the math worked, I could buy 3 Shared Inventory Slots for about 1500 gems, then combine the leftover gems with an upcoming 400 free gems I was earning for hitting 5000 in-game achievement points and then buy a 800 gem Character Slot. Best of all worlds!
Alternatively, I could not buy Shared Inventory Slots at all and just get three Character Slots with the same gems. Which got me thinking: “what’s the actual value to me of… any of these things?”
A Shared Inventory Slot is what it sounds like: a slot that is shared across all of your characters. I have two of them currently, as one comes with each expansion. Right now, the first slot is filled with a gem-store item that basically disenchants gear. That’s helpful when cleaning up all the random crap gear you get showered with in this game. The second slot used to have a portal scroll to the most effective farm area (Bitterfrost). I now have it filled with the Quartz resource, as I use my alts to farm 10 Quartz at a specific area, then log into my main and turn 25 of that Quartz into one Charged Quartz, which is a time-gated crafting material for goods down the road. All of which is convenient, but not particularly exciting.
So what would I even do with three more? Don’t get me wrong, those slots would get filled with something of marginal utility. There’s a neat “positional rewinder” item you can get to help with Jumping Puzzles, for example. But I’m not using my alts for Jumping Puzzles. In fact, right now, I’m not playing my alts at all, beyond the 30 seconds of farming Quartz. I’m really focused on the “Return To X” achievements, both for the rewards and the fact that I actually never played some of these Living World stories. So even in the case of Character Slots, it is not as though I would be utilizing them right away. So maybe I just don’t buy anything at all.
“Besides, there is so much more I could buy for $20-$40.”
That thought got me down another rabbit hole. Because… is there anything else I want to buy? Surely, yes? I have 44 items in my Steam Wishlist, for example. But even with deep, current discounts, I have had zero compunction to purchase any of them. About the closest ones are Wildermyth, Red Dead Redemption 2, Disco Elysium, Horizon Zero Dawn, and some random assorted Roguelikes and Early Access Survival (redundant, much?) games. But would I really stop my current routine to play them immediately? And if I didn’t, what are the odds they would end up on the Game Pass by the time I did?
Yes, folks, Game Pass really has broke me. Know what the final straw was? Dicey Dungeon.
I really had not played a single game on Steam throughout all of August and September and most of October. Then I bought Dicey Dungeons on October 24th for about $5. Played it about 3-4 hours. Guess what showed up on November 11th? Yep.
“It’s just $5, who cares?” It’s the principle. I already have hundreds of purchased games I’m not playing, on top of free* games I’m not, to be buying more. Although I guess in this case I actually did play it right away, so whatever. The principle!
This journey of self-flagellation did reveal something a bit deeper to me. Namely, that I can’t really answer the question in the title. I’m apparently actively avoiding spending money in Guild Wars 2, I don’t want to buy games on sale lest they become free on Game Pass, but I’m also not particularly saving towards anything either. I mean, I’m not a mindless consumer that feels as empty as my shopping cart. But is that also a proxy thought to not looking forward to anything? What am I excited about? It was going to be Battlefield 2042, honestly, but it plummeted to the the top 10 worst-reviewed games on Steam within two days of release.
So, yeah. I got nothing. Or maybe just gaming ennui.
GW2: Expansion Math
I think it’s safe to say that I will still be playing Guild Wars 2 in February, which is when the End of Dragons expansion is coming out. Which means I need to start doing some expansion math.
Under normal circumstances, I never opt for anything but the base expansions for whatever MMO I am playing. GW2 is a bit different since it’s more freemium and cash shopy – there are more utility items than straight cosmetics. For example, the base expansion costs $29.99 and includes (among other things) a Shared Inventory Slot and a max-level boost. The latter two items cost 700 gems and 2000 gems, respectfully. Or roughly $8.75 and $30. So… if you wanted an instant-level 80 boost anyway, you get the expansion for free! Not that an instant 80-level character is that valuable, of course.
In any event, the tiers get a bit weird.
Standard – $29.99
- Shared Inventory Slot (700 gems or about $8.75)
Deluxe – $54.99
- Additional Character Slot (800 gems or exactly $10)
Ultimate – $79.99
- 4000 gems (exactly $50)
Again, there are additional items in the tiers there that I don’t care about, and thus value at zero.
Character slots are definitely something I want more of, but that middle tier ends up being much more expensive than what I could buy via gems on my own ($25 vs $10). But once you hit the Ultimate tier… things change. It costs $50 for 4000 gems, bringing down the hypothetical cost of the Ultimate tier down to the Standard level. But since you get the character slot from the previous tier too, the scenario is that I would get 5500 gems worth of things I value (or roughly $70) and the expansion itself for $10.
How could I possibly afford not to purchase the Ultimate edition of this expansion?!
It’s a trap, of course. Ish. Getting an MMO expansion for $30 straight-up is pretty good, notwithstanding it comes with something as valuable as a Shared Inventory Slot. And let’s also be clear that nothing here is breaking my bank – I’m just a parsimonious bastard. But kudos to the accountants at ArenaNet for making me do some math and seriously consider paying $80 for something I’ve spent less on in the last nine years of playing.
[Fake Edit: Black Friday Sale Edition]
I drafted everything above last week, but as it turns out, there are sales happening on Black Friday:
- 20% off Gem Cards – $20 = 2000 gems ($25 normal)
- 20% off Shared Inventory slot – 560/1512/2240 gems (700/1890/2800 normal)
Doing the math… nothing much changes, actually. The relative value of the Ultimate deal drops since it costs $40 for 4000 gems instead of $50, but that still doesn’t make the Deluxe edition worth it at all. What it does do is make it a bit palatable to skip the Ultimate tier and just buy what you need with gems. Getting 4000 gems with the Ultimate tier all at once will mean they’re gone on possibly silly shit within minutes. For example, there are infinite gathering tools on discount currently, and those + 3 shared inventory slots is basically 4000 gems right there.
On the other hand… ugh. The “discount” forces you into the $20 for 2000 gems category, which means that I’m going to be buying the Standard edition ($30) + 2000 gems ($20) and immediately spending at least 800 of them on a character slot anyway. Having 1200 leftover gems is, again, way better than the Deluxe edition. But now I’m at $50 vs $80 for the Ultimate, the latter of which includes a Character Slot.
Like, props to the fucking sadistic accountants over there at ArenaNet, but this shit right here is a dumb position for any player to be in. I shouldn’t need to do calculus to see if something is a good deal or not. Yeah, my situation in valuing only certain items is probably unique, but needing to math things out at all is likely to result in my purchasing nothing instead, as all thought shuts down from overheating.
That and, you know, I could buy a lot of other games for $80. Probably 4-8 of them, even.
GW2: Class Act
Close to 60% of my Guild Wars 2 gameplay is determining which class/spec I want to play at a given time. It’s a struggle because there are nine classes with three specs which have two broad categories of damage types (Power vs Condi) apiece. Nevermind the various Utility options and talent tweaks and, oh yeah, all the weapons that bring different skills too.
When looking at what to play though, my priority list is:
- Sustain, e.g. self-healing
- Pressing buttons feels satisfying
- Good open-world DPS
- Has option for ranged damage
- Condition cleanse
- Good open-world burst damage
- Class/spec is competitive (with tweaks) in fractals and/or PvP
- Rotation isn’t crazy
Might seem weird to have Sustain at the top, but in my nine years off and on playing GW2, I have discovered that the worst feeling I experience while playing is eating some big boss hit for 2/3rds of my HP and then frantically dancing around waiting for my self-heal to come off cooldown. Will other players help you up? Often, in fact! But I would rather be the guy helping other people off the floor than eating dirt myself.
Scourge [Necromancer elite spec]
My current main is a Scourge. While I have not played every single class/spec combination, I can say that Scourge is about as perfect as I can imagine. Phenomenal self-healing and barrier, great DPS, all ranged damage, baseline Condition cleansing, Boon stripping on a short cooldown, and even decent burst if you just unload all the cooldowns right away. While “class fantasy” isn’t listed as important above, it does count for something. And the Scourge has it, what with the sand necromancer schtick.
The “problem” is that… well, I’ve been playing that same spec for months. Not even months in a row (although it’s close), but like for a while, then taking a multi-year break, then playing it again. While the damage is good, the rotation is pretty straight-forward, so I end up pushing the same sort of buttons in the same sort of way, forever. It works, but it’s rote.
For the last several weeks, I did try to make Reaper work. Greatsword that turns into a giant scythe, the ability to burst down regular mobs in seconds, what’s not to love? Well, the sustain, or lack thereof. Bursting mobs depends on accumulating Life Force and popping a cooldown that burns Life Force naturally, in addition to said Life Force being your 2nd HP bar. So, get low on normal HP, pop the cooldown, and if the fight is still going on a few seconds later, you get to be right back on low HP.
Renegade [Revenant elite spec]
My up and coming new main, or at least secondary main.
I tried Revenant when it was first released and didn’t “get” it. Maybe it was undertuned at the time? All I know now is that the Condi Renegade pushes all the correct buttons for me: great sustain, good DPS, and bursting potential. Plus, it has great ranged damage, which is a huge plus. I plan on using my Renegade to go back through the various Living Story, er, stories in order to complete the Return Of… meta-achievements. If I have to play these again, may as well be on a different character.
Holosmith [Engineer elite spec]
I really want to like the Engineer, but it’s a struggle. Conceptually, the Holosmith is cool. The damage looks fun, there is some bursting potential, and so on. The problem I find is that the self-sustain isn’t there, even though I’m walking around with a shield. It is very possible that I’m simply not playing it correctly. Looking at some Scrapper videos, it’s also possible that I should be trying that spec out more, since it has a lot more sustain.
Really though, the main reason my Engineer is getting any attention is because of the upcoming Mechanist spec in the expansion. That is something I’m very interested in.
Mesmer [Any]
Another class that I should really like, but don’t in practice. I love the concept of an illusionist fighter dealing psychic damage, with a bunch of clones running around confusing people. Playing with it though, I find it extremely hard keeping up 3 clones for maximum DPS, let alone shattering them and then creating three more. I end up either not having three because one died or whatever, or wasting cooldowns trying to create three and doing nothing. Meanwhile, nothing is dying particularly quickly.
Maybe it’s my lack of gear on this character, but it’s hard to justify grinding Winterberries for the 10th time to get them enough gear to potentially be fun at a later date.
Thief [Any]
Again, I wanted to like them, but nope. One of the meta specs (Condi Daredevil) has a “rotation” of literally evade spam. Like, use an ability to makes you Dodge x3, use actual Dodge Roll x2, and then auto-attack a few times. Repeat. What’s not to love about that? I prefer simpler rotations myself, but damn guys.
Power Deadeye actually came closer to being good for me despite having an even simpler rotation of pressing Unload a bunch, because Unload is cool. Like you are just shooting with dual pistols a bunch over and over. The problem is that it has no cleave, so I had to press Unload a bunch on one guy, then swap, then swap again. Maybe Scourge has spoiled me, I dunno.
Elementalist [Any]
My character is named Azuriel Prime, as it was my original class when I started playing nine years ago.
Too bad Elementalists suck, and have pretty much forever. Is there something more brittle than a glass cannon? Sand castle cannon at high tide? Zero sustain, your elementals disappear when you mount, and everything kills you. Oh, and your rotation is cycling through 20 abilities compared to “just Dodge on cooldown and things die.”
[Fake Edit] Between when I originally wrote this and when the post was scheduled, I did spend a bit more time with the Elementalist. I went for Condi Tempest with full +Toughness, +HP, +Condi damage gear. And… it’s working, sorta. It’s not particularly fun and I couldn’t tell you what the Tempest brought to the table aside from being able to press your elemental attunement again (which is a DPS loss), but it’s not totally useless in of itself. It just can’t compete with other options, which have better sustain, higher damage, and easier rotations.
Guardian, Ranger, Warrior
Don’t have the character slots to have any of these.
Granted, I did before the Revenant, and actually had a few at level 80 back in the day. But back then, I wasn’t particularly impressed, and now it’ll cost me $10 to try them so… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
In An Age 
End of Year: 2021 Edition
Dec 31
Posted by Azuriel
Just like 2020, but with a little extra.
Aside from the still-raging pandemic, this has been a rather banner year, personally. Had some grueling work projects to grind through, but where they have passed, only I remain. For now. I’ve applied to some other places that are paying 30% more for the same job description. I’ve also taken up options trading as a side hustle, mainly because I got lucky with GME in January and now I’m an expert. I beat the S&P500 this year but also spent considerably more time developing ulcers in the process, so who knows with that. Think I might stick with something easier, like cryptocurrency.
Family is doing great.
Now, it’s time for what you really care about: my personal gaming habits for the year. First, Steam.
A bit more than the seven games I played last year, but many were kind of one-and-done. Or perhaps more accurately “tried-and-dropped.” One of the standouts is Valheim, which continues to get updates. I have not played any more Valheim since I stopped though, and I am content to wait until its full release (whenever that is) before paying attention again. I was also very impressed with Trials of Fire, but perhaps not enough to play it again after sinking 13 hours into it. Really liked Ring of Pain too.
Next is Epic:
Epic’s twice-yearly $10 coupon insanity is finally driving me to spend more time in their ecosystem than any others. That and all the free games, but the coupon really sells the sales. I’m presently splitting my time between Loop Hero and Inscryption, with both being rather fun. Hades won all sorts of awards, but I was content with just beating it once. Griftlands was compelling for a time, even above other decking-building roguelikes, but it’s hard to stay as engaged when an average run is 7+ hours. Death Stranding is on the list for getting more attention, and I suspect I am still in the tutorial even after three hours of
Amazon Prime deliverieshauling literal garbage around the haunted landscape.Finally, we have Game Pass:
Laid out like that, were the 25 listed games worth $120ish to access during the year? Eh, maybe. Looking back, it’s clear that I got more overall value in 2020. Then again, presuming that I would have paid to play some of these games, I probably did end up saving money overall. In any case, some of these games will be on the 2022 list as they receive updates and/or I get around to focusing on them.
I am tempted to entertain the notion of identifying a Game of the Year out of the ones I played… but nah. Hades would certainly be a safe bet and conform with all the critics. It’s good and I certainly see the argument. Looking at what actually impressed me though, are games like Valheim and then stuff like Ring of Pain, Inscryption, and so on. I don’t usually play relevant games in the year they release, so it’s kind of a futile exercise anyway.
The gaming goals from last year:
I don’t see much of a point in identifying gaming goals for 2022, and this post is plenty long anyway. What I anticipate happening is buying a new prebuilt PC – prebuilt due to graphics card shortages and not being super comfortable replacing motherboards/CPU – getting a new monitor, and otherwise sprucing up my battlestation. After that, I’ll pick up Cyberpunk, Horizon Zero Dawn, and Red Dead Redemption 2 for $15-$20 apiece from the Epic summer or winter sale, depending on when a value prebuilt come available. Then, I will bask in the glory of #PCMasterRace or cry in an empty wallet.
Here’s to another year of running my mouth. And thanks for listening.
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Tags: End of Year, Epic Store, Pandemic, Steam, Xbox Game Pass