Video Games

What I’ve Been Playing – Cruisn’ the USA Edition

It’s been a while since I posted about “What I’m Playing”. I’ve done a few specific game posts but no generic ones. Mostly it’s been Overwatch. Because I stopped playing Fortnite and apparently I hate myself because I can’t NOT play a grindy shooter game. I’m probably not going to really talk about Overwatch. I’ve finished the base Ultrawatch Pass already, helped out because I bought the Ultimate pass like a sucker because it had Kaiju skins, but it had 20-level tier skips. I still have titles to try for, which is another 100 levels. I also spent my Mythic Coins on the base Rita Repulsa Ashe skin. I probably won’t bother with the upgrades, and I have a ton of Mythic currency still because I skipped the Evil Mercy.

I have plenty of good Mercy Skins.

I said I wasn’t going to talk Overwatch, yet, here I am.

American Truck Simulator

In an effort to not play so much Overwatch, I’ve gone back to the American Truck Simulator Well. I tried the Elite Dangerous (Space Trucking Simulator) route but I have forgotten all the controls. I’ll get there. Instead, I’ve been actively working to visit every city in all the DLC I have. Also other achievements. I often use this time to watch some TV my wife isn’t interested in as well, or Youtube videos. It’s just generally a very chill game.

I have a LOT of the state DLCs too. I will eventually get them all, but I decided I should actually travel around the ones I have before buying more. What I really want is my own home state of Illinois. And they are getting close. I think Iowa and/or Missouri are next. I can’t see them pushing Illinois after that though. Probably it will be Minnesota or the Dakotas. I actually wouldn’t mind if they took the “American: part more seriously and added Canadian Provinces and Mexico at some point.

I really want Illinoi though. If only to get a feel for just how much it “feels right” to get an idea of how much the rest of the game “would feel right”. All of the states so far are west of the Mississippi river. I’ve been to almost every state East of the Mississippi, and a few West, but none that have been released so far.

I need some context man!

Anyway, I mix between long and short trips depending on my free time. I’ve gotten good enough at parking I almost always take the “hard parking” option for the bonus XP.

I did recently disable traffic fines in the options. I still drive safely, because it’s more enjoyable. But sometimes the red lights are just a little too long and you can’t make right turns on red at all without triggering a fine. Plus I can be a little more floaty with my speed without worrying about a speeding ticket for 2 MPH over. Basically, I still play the “right way”, but I don’t have to stress about it.

Also sometimes, just for fun, I can now just, absolutely blast if at full speed and barrel down the shoulder and blast through cars at the intersection. Which is sometimes fun.

X-Box 360

This is a bit of a blanket category. I’ve been playing a few X-Box 360 games. Off the top of my head, 1942: join Strike, Wing Commander Arena, a few others. I’ve been picking up some titles cheap because the 360 marketplace is closing at the end of the month. Another round of sales drops in a few weeks just before closing. I’m hoping the Saints Row 1 and 2 games go cheap, but I may pick them up anyway.

So far I’ve picked up, but not necessarily played:

Mighty No 9 – Made by the Mega Man creator, though I hear it’s meh
1942: Joint Strike – A lot of neat shooters on the 360 right now for like $1.
Bionic Commando Re:armed – I have this on PC but the platformer seemed good for 360. I want to get the sequel but the store keeps bugging on me.
Frogger Hyper Arcade – Seeing a trend yet, it’s all mostly cheap arcade titles, because i have most everything else on PC.
Wing Commander Arena – An arena based space shooter that is 360 exclusive in a favored franchaise.
Geon – a neat looking puzzle game
Kane and Lynch: Dead Men – I think this one is 360 exclusive maybe, but it was cheap
Star Raiders – Another shooter
Ziet^2 – Another shooter
Yar’s Revenge – An update of the classic Atari title
War World – It looked neat and was cheap
Dogfight 1942 – Another shooter

I still want to get a few more, Saints Row 1 and 2 hopefully. I keep hoping the 360 version of Minecraft goes on sale. I have a wish list of maybes. This also fits nicely in my recent push to update my console set up and use it more as well.

Overwatch Season 11 – Super Mega Ultrawatch

Jun 26th, 2024

by Ramen Junkie.

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Overwatch has just launched Season 11, and it’s paying tribute to Tokusatsu. A lot of folks are calling it the Power Rangers season, but the designs on the sentai skins are closer to the bug eyed Kamen Rider than to Power Rangers. Power Rangers usually have a more themed helmet for each team and solid visors not bug eyes.

There are also several monster skins that are more of a nod to Kaiju, though nothing super directly “Godzilla” or anything. Road Hog has probably the closest thing to a Godzilla skin and Zenyatta is wearing some dinosaur pajamas. There is also a pink squid-haired Lucio.

Not to be confused with Pink Mercy, which is returning to raise money for the Breast Cancer Foundation. It seems like some gatekeeper type folks are upset about this one. Because somehow it’s bad that other people can spend money to get an untradable video game cosmetic.

People are also upset about the Ultrawatch theme. Several of the skins are light reworks of other skins which people are saying is lazy. I am inclined to agree a bit. I don’t really care about the “lazy” skins, the pass is $10. I am concerned a bit that Blizzard is trying to push the value there being for the Mythic coins (which cost $80 otherwise), versus quality pass content. Some of the highlights, victory poses, and emotes are also essentially just the same thing repeated, which is a bit lame. Several are for newer characters, who I have almost nothing for though, so that’s ok, I guess.

Even more lame is that all of the voice lines are currently unavailable. I guess there was a bug with the special audio. I mean, this is Season 11 Blizzard, and this is a big company. It feels like this should be nothing to make work.

I also kind of wish the special mode was a bit more themed around the season, maybe Monster team heroes vs Sentai team heroes.

I ended up buying in though anyway, and I decided to go in for the Ultimate Bundle deal, which had a couple of extra skins and $20 worth of OW currency. With the 20-level skips that I forgot that bundle had, I am already over halfway through the base pass. I really like the Sentai-themed, much more than a lot of the previous themes.

There is also a beach theme as a sort of secondary theme with a whole mess of “Lifeguard” themed skins. They all kind of feel like Baywatch Overwatch with their red outfits. There is also a Kiriko lifeguard skin that seems like the one everyone wants. The trailer also has teased some sort of upcoming Transformers crossover, though it’s not clear how that will work with Overwatch. Most of the speculation suggests Bastion (Shockwave), Ramattra (Megatron) and Reinhardt (Optimus) will get some sort of Transformers-themed skins. I could see maybe Starscream from Pharah or Optimus Primal from Winston as well.. Hopefully it’s some remolds and not some lame recolors.

Lastly, the Pink Mercy skin is making a return with a new variant, along with proceeds going to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. I already have Pink Mercy but I will probably donate for the “Rose Gold” variant.

2024 Days of Color in Sky:CotL

Jun 24th, 2024

by Ramen Junkie.

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I have been playing Sky for a few years now but somehow I have missed the Days of Color event. Twice I think even. I have been waiting for this one to come along, for kind of a dumb reason, it’s the only way to (non hacky) access the space way up above the 8 Person Door puzzle area.

The Days of Color is essentially Sky’s Pride Event for Pride Month. Everything is rainbow themed. In fact, it was originally called Days of Rainbow. There are a bunch of Rainbow themed cosmetics available during this event and, like the recent Days of Nature, part of the sales go to charity. In this case, the donation is The Trevor Project, but I don’t see how much (Days of Nature was 50%). Like other “Days of” events, there are special daily tickets to collect and exchange for special cosmetics. There are usually plenty of days to collect the needed tickets, and there is a vendor that lets you buy them for 2 Ascended candles each if you come up short.

Or are impatient.

There are plenty of pricey real money items as well, though as mentioned, it includes a donation.

The event itself takes place in the 8 Player Puzzle door of the Daylight Prairie. There is a spirit in the Aviary that will teleport players there directly, which is nice because waiting for people to show up and complete the puzzle can be a pain. In addition to 4 event currencies on the ground floor, a 5th is found above in the normally inaccessible upper zone.

To reach the upper zone there is a rainbow themed puzzle. If I understand it correctly, in the past, you needed 8 players to complete the puzzle, but this year, a single player can complete it, which is new. Basically, there is a node (that should change each day) corresponding to one of the colors of the rainbow. The first day is Red. You wear a red cape, or use the nearby color foundation, which randomly speed out a different color that temporarily changes the player cape, trails, and hair color. Then you stand near the node for a few minutes to power up the rainbow which activates a jet that will propel you to the sky.

It’s only the first day, I am not sure if tomorrow you will need to power up two nodes or if the Red will just be activated already. Also notable, the first time I did this, something bugged and the upstream jet did not activate.

The colored jet can be rode up high in the sky to some floating islands where a 5th event currency is located. There are some neat little alcoves on these islands to explore as well, and the other main event for this event.

There is a race track down a twisted rainbow. It works like other races in other areas, players sit at the starting line to activate it and must collect checkpoints as they slide down.

It was really giving me some Mario Kart vibes.

I also have to say, I kept missing the checkpoints, which usually means starting over. Which is fine, it’s low stakes and that means it’s tricky, but not impossible hard.

Palia – Getting to Know the Locals

May 3rd, 2024

by Ramen Junkie.

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Now that I have a house going and some income as a farmer, the next big step in this new world is to get to know the locals. Aside from building up your plot of land, you have the nearby town full of people to build an actual plot of story. Well, “full” is kind of a stretch. There are maybe 2 dozen or so people living there each more or less with a specialty of some kind, and each with some sort of eccentric personality trait. I’m not real sure how the economy here survives, or whom is buying and eating the mountains of vegetables I ship out daily.

I am not sure what the benefit is yet, but you can level up friendship with each NPC by giving them gifts and doing quests for them. Well, I know one benefit, you get more quests by having a higher level with an NPC. You can also “go farther” with some NPCs. You can romance some NPCs (generally, anyone who is an adult). I am not sure what happens there, maybe they move in with you on your plot. You also can pick someone to be your “Shepp”. Which is like a Mentor, but once again, I’m not leveled up enough to know what that even does, if anything. I do know, from what I looked into, it does not matter who your shepp is really. So I assume that means no discounts or anything. Which makes some sense because otherwise it’s going to boild down to “Who do you want the best discounts from?”

I’m not entirely sure the intricacies of the relationships between the characters, so I’m not going to vouch for the accuracy of any of this in the long term. I am also not going to mention all of them.

Zeki

I interact with Zeki quite a bit. Or at least, his shop. Zeki sells seeds and bag upgrades. He is also, inexplicably, the only cat man on the island. At least, the only one I have encountered. No one else really trusts him, he is apparently a bit of a con artist. I hope i am getting the best rates on seeds if that is the case, but buying seeds is way easier than crafting them. The Seed crafter takes an eternity to produce a tiny handful of seeds. If I could queue up several types of seeds and run it each night so my seeds were ready in the morning it would not be so bad, but the game doesn’t work that way.

Also buying from the store gives lucky coins, which are basically free loot boxes. Sometimes there is near decorations in them.

Eshe

The Mayor’s wife, I think. She is generally just bitch and for that, I kind of hate her. I mean, she has not actively wronged my character really, she is just rude. She hates Zeki, and at one point I helped Zeki steal some stuff from her, which was fun. She also has a daughter who sometimes works the register at City Hall where they sell building parts and land deeds.

Hassian

Almost as bad as Eshe is Hassian. Another rude dick for no reason. Fortunately, so far, there isn’t much reason to interact with Hassian. He sells hunting supplies and equipment, and more importantly, he has a dog, who is nice. I think I’ve had a few quests from the Dog so far.

Sifuu

Something something death by Sifuu Sifuu. I think she is Hassian’s mom. She runs the blacksmith shop and sells some mats I think. I have not had to really interact with her much, but she seems alright.

Jel

I am not real sure what this guy does aside from hang around the shrine on the edge of the map. He’s less rude and more just, a stick in the mud. I suspect he has something to do with The Order maybe. Do not trust his friendly standoffishness.

Elouisa

Elouisa is absolutely batshit crazy and spouts conspiracy theories constantly. Though they seem like the kind of “conspiracies” you encounter in a world like this where no one believes them, despite living in a “magical land” and they end up being true. She doesn’t sell anything, but seems to be involved in a least part of the main quest plot line. She also has a sister who may be a twin (I should probably actually read some of the text these characters spout at me). her sister is a lame prude. You want to have fun, go find Elouisa.

She is probably my favorite character aside from maybe Reth.

Reth and Tish

These two are siblings, also also two I’ve interacted with quite a bit. Everyone hates Reth for being a bit spastic and unreliable, but he seems alright. Tish is just friendly all around. Reth is basically the goto for the Cooking skill, and as Cooking is gardening adjacent, I’ve interacted with him for recipes and story points.

Tish sells furniture plans. Which you need for crafting to fancy up your house. I kind of feel bad for her a bit though. She will carry maybe 3-4 “starter plans” for different furniture types, but you only need to actually buy one plan. You will eventually learn every other piece as you continue to craft things. So, hopefully her brother’s cooking business can help keep her a float, I guess.

Also, I didn’t realize they were siblings at first and thought they were a couple. Can we say, “How do you do step-Palian?”

Whoops.

Palia – Getting Established

Apr 22nd, 2024

by Ramen Junkie.

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So I’ve established a house, next order of business is to fancy things up. Well, more to start, leveling up skills. In order to be able to fancy things up. One of the main aspects of this game is crafting, and almost everything you gather feeds into this. There are several different skills to work on and level, some seem to be more useful than others.

Tree Chopping – Almost everything needs wood or minerals to be constructed. Seems like there will be a lot of tree shopping going on.
Mining – Like chopping, mining is a pretty regularly needed activity.
Farming – As near as I can tell, this is the easiest way to make money. You put out some soil, you throw down some crops, you water them, if you check in intermittently throughout the day, you can make pretty good money each day. Also useful for Cooking.
Cooking – Some of the food seems to sell for a decent amount, but the real benefit here is making food to eat to fill your energy bar thingy. Doing tasks with the energy bar filled gives bonus experience on that task. It’s easy to fill too.
Hunting – If you want you can wander around hinting animals. This is useful for getting fur to make leather for some construction. I find it to be a little dull honestly, partly because the mechanics are so wonky. You shoot an animal and either one shot it, or startle it, which causes it to run around in this weird, too fast, sort of manner.
Fishing – Apparently it’s good for a quick buck. It seems most useful for unlocking a special door thing, which I’ll probably get to in a later post.
Bug Catching – Fishing but it’s on land, with some of the annoyance of Hunting added in.

Each of these skills has it’s own tool, and each tool can be leveled up to make the tasks easier with better rewards. One thing I’ve learned pretty quickly, make sure to keep repair kits around to fix tools. Creating and using Repair kits is way cheaper than rebuilding a broken tool from scratch, from a material’s standpoint.

The starter plot had a nice supply of rocks and trees to farm but at this point I’ve mostly exhausted what I can use there. I need a better axe to chop down more trees.

Which leads to another kind of weird frustration, I can grow trees, but eventually, they become too large for me to chop down. Fortunately, I can move planted trees, so I now have a collection of trees piled in one corner of my lot, one day I’ll be able to chop them down for profit I guess.

Not having local nodes means going out in the world for most materials, which slows things down a bit. The game definitely loads you up on early materials, but not so much on higher-level materials.

I’ve spent most of my time lately farming. I am sure there is some sort of real pattern for maximizing out the little bonuses each type of crop gives (better yield, better water retention, less weeds), but so far I’ve been sticking to doing little 4×4 plots with 4 types of crops. My main frustration is that everything grows at a slightly irregular pace. My desire to keep things organized is seriously clashing with the 4 or 5 crops each harvest that are not finished by the end.

Do I replant and just skip those spots? Do I scrap them and dig them out? i may try that actually, maybe see if I can get things to grow a bit more uniform again.

The watering can (the tool for farming) is a little odd too. The initial one does one crop at a time, the next one up says it will do 3 at a time, but sometimes it does 5, and sometimes just one, and it’s not clear how the watering works with the higher-tiered can. Also, anything being watered indirectly fills at about half speed, so it’s not like everything gets watered at the same speed.

Can I just craft a sprinkler system please?

I’ve been pouring my money into adding a second room to my house. I want to add a few more smaller ones as well. There is a sort of plot to this game, but a lot of it is centered around just, building your little plot of land.

I’ve also spent a lot of time crafting furniture. I kind of wish you could sell furniture, or maybe dismantle it to recover some of the mats or something. There are a lot of different styles of furniture, that seem to mostly correspond to different skill levels. For example, the “Log Cabin” line seems to match with level 1. Each time you craft an item from a particular type, you get the choice of unlocking a new thing to build from that line.

I’ve moved beyond the log cabin style, but I went ahead and crafted one of each item, so I could get the experience points from it. I know I’ve crafted it all because it stopped giving me the option to pick a new item to learn.

Most of the Log Cabin lines uses unrefined wood, but the higher levels require planks (crafted from wood) and often Clay or Copper (refined from ores). This means they take a lot longer to make since you have to farm these mats, then process them.

It’s not a problem, it’s just, a little tedious over time.

Anyway, my little house is starting to slowly become a big house.