What I’m Playing

What I’ve Been Playing – Boring Gamer Edition

I wish it were more exciting this week, but it’s kind of more of the same. I’m admittedly in a bit of a rut in my gaming lately.

Overwatch

I almost wasn’t playing this anymore, again. It’s starting to reach a point where it’s more frustrating than fun again. Last weekend had a trial round for the upcoming new hero Juno (maybe it was two weekends ago?). Juno seems, a little lame honestly. She is a healer, but it kind of feels like an “easy mode” style healer. She doesn’t need to toggle between healing and damage, so you can just “shoot shoot shoot” But she seems really really weak. Like, her health is too low and her output for damage is super low. I didn’t get any real matches with her though aside from a few No Limits matches, which were almost exclusively 6v6 Juno, because everyone wants to try Juno.

This D.Va has nothing to do with anything, I just didn’t have any other non scoreboard screen shots from recent games.

The real tragedy of Juno’s release will be poor Venture. Venture was the last hero released, an they are a lot of fun to play and I just, generally enjoy them as a character. Juno falls into the same “cute Asian girl” category like D.Va and Kiriko which will make her extremely popular, instantly. Venture is a non binary person in a giant coat who eats dirt and rocks for fun. The point here is, I want more and better skins for Venture, who basically has nothing outside of a few recolors. Juno will probably get like 5 legendary skins right out the gate, because, she will be real popular for that.

Juno aside, I’ve long since finished this round’s base level battle pass. It was all Tokusatsu themed with a mix of Kaiju and Karate Bugman style skins, several for heroes I didn’t have any good skins for (Mauga, Soujorn) which was nice as well. All that is left is the Player Titles, which aren’t anything to cry over if I don’t get them, but the level 200 “Final Boss” title is kind of neat.

Sky: Children of the Light

It feels like the folks at ThatGameCompany has realized they have a popular game, but it needs more variety of activities to keep people interested. We had the Season of Nesting adding player housing, Now we have the Season of Duets with emphasis on the music aspects. I am a bit disappointed, not with Sky, but because I backed a Kickstarter recently for a little bluetooth keyboard deal that is supposed to be Sky compatible. That isn’t the only reason I wanted it, but it was one of them and it hasn’t come in yet. I mean, it hasn’t been very long, so I shouldn’t really be impatient, but it would have been cool to have for the music season of the game.

But also, right now there is an Olympics themed “Days of” style event. I’m not sure the official name. Each player was randomly assigned to one of 4 teams for 4 of the realms, Prairie, Forest, Wasteland, and Valley. Players can do a pair of mini games each day and compete with each other team for points. I don’t think there is an overall prize of any kind, but each day the highest point scoring team wins medals.

I ended up on the Forest Team. Which is fun because well, Forest is dominating the standings. They have won both Gold Medals every day so far. I almost feel bad. Especially because I am super bad at the daily games, i always come in last. It’s still a nice change of pace from the usual Days of Events where you just, go to an area and pick up 4 event currencies. It’s kind of nice to have to actually DO something.

Doom 3

I did branch out slightly, with Doom 3. I played through Quake II recently and have kind of been wanting to play something similar to that. The Doom series kind of felt like a logical place to move to, being the sort of, precursor series to Quake. I have never played Doom 3 so I decided to give it a go.

I’m… not really enjoying it. I’m really not into “Zombie games” and Doom 3 seems to very much be a zombie game. Also, everything is so fucking dark. God it’s so dark, why is it so dark? There is a flashlight, but it has a battery mechanic, which mostly feels meaningless since you can just, turn ti back on. It’s not like you have to find energy cells. It’s like someone realized it was all too dar, and instead of beefing up the lighting, they just added a shitty flashlight.

I played it, I’m not sure I’ll go back to it. Also, these models are kind of ugly.

American Truck Simulator

I’m almost caught up on my mission to visit every city for the DLC that I own. I’ve also started working on some of the other achievements in the game. A while back I started obsessing a bit with 100% completing achievements, and I could definitely see doing that for ATS over time. I’ve been playing it while watching through Star Trek Lower Decks. It’s a good sort of game for that, since it doesn’t require a lot of attention at times. Though sometimes I definitely don’t give it enough attention because I’ve gotten into more than a few accidents because I forgot to watch the traffic.

Something something don’t stream and drive people! Unless it’s a virtual truck, then it really doesn’t matter.

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

Jul 13th, 2024

by Ramen Junkie.

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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.

What I’ve Been Playing

Apr 7th, 2024

by Ramen Junkie.

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I’ve been, really bad about keeping up on these.

Oh well.

Anyway, let’s take a little trip down what I’ve been playing since uh… (checks notes) … wow, January. I’m definitely going to forget some things.

Horizon: Zero Dawn

I started this one a while back, then in traditional fashion, got distracted and stopped playing it. I don’t really know why, it’s quite a lot of fun. I got just out of the initial starting zone and to the point where the plot started actually moving along and just sort of, got overwhelmed, I suppose. I often try not to fast travel too much in these sorts of games, because I find you discover more by traveling, and it’s just, more immersive. But sometimes it’s useful. In this game, fast travel is a consumable item, which means I just, never do it.

Yeah, probably a bad mindset.

Notable on this game, i was playing on a controller, which is unusual for me in anything 3D, especially on the PC.

Fortnite

It’s worth mentioning, I am sure I probably played some Fortnite, though, I’m not positive, considering I mostly just idled for XP last season. I have not really bothered with the current greek season. I’m not big on any of the Pass Skins and I’m just, kind of burned out.

Instead of playing real games though, instead, I went back to…

Overwatch

Because I apparently hate myself and can’t game without playing tedious grindy games I hate. Also, there was a sweet Ramen Noodle Bastion skin in this season’s pass. I ended up unlocking it instantly because I had several rounds of “free battlepass tiers” from Amazon Prime stacked up and I used Bing Rewards points to get the pass. I have been playing a lot of, and enjoying Mystery Heroes. Anything else, not so much.

I’ve also really enjoyed the goofy April Fool’s mode “Totally Balanced Overwatch.”

I am not sure if I’ll keep going much longer. It’s getting a bit dull and regular Quickplay is annoying. Also annoying is the locked heroes from seasons I missed, though I guess they are changing that next season and just giving everyone all heroes. I didn’t get to play as Tiny Mauga in the april Fool’s mode, because I don’t have Mauga unlocked.

Lame.

Sky: Children of the Light

I’ve been coasting out the last of the Season of the Nine Colored Deer. I’ve rather enjoyed this season. Next season adds player housing, which sounds like it could be quite fun, but I’m not sure yet. I’ll probably keep going and get the pass, since I have new ways to get currency and hearts. I still feel incredibly candle poor though.

Pokémon Go

One I have come back to lately, in force is Pokémon Go. The Sinnoh Event was really great. Sinnoh is my favorite region. I even went downtown and cause special Palkias and Dialgas. I’ve been doing some remote raids with Poke Genie too, which is cool, because I can get neat Pokeymans like this rocketship Pokeyman.

I am getting really close to level 40, which isn’t the top anymore, but starts some new special style of leveling, up through level 50.

What I’ve Been Playing – Idling For Hats Edition

Jan 6th, 2024

by Ramen Junkie.

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A new year, a new time to try to build new habits. Hah ha ha, yeah right… probably. Anyway, I picked up a slew of new-ish games over the holidays in various sales, and I look forward to forgetting that I wanted to play them over the next few months. Off the top of my head, I picked up, yet to really play, Spider-man Miles Morales, Alan Wake 2 and Alan Wake Remastered, Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, and Horizon Zero Dawn. Plus some cheapies in bundles or randomly, A bunch of Oddworld Games, Need for Speed Payback, Tron 2.0, Karateka. This doesn’t even include the whack of free games from Epic, though of those I only really care about Saints Row, Deathloop, and Guardians of the Galaxy.

I might be a bit slow getting going on these though as I’m doing some work-related training in the evenings 3 nights a week for most of January.

Spider-Man Remastered

I bought this one back at the start of December. I’ve since finished it. I started on some of the DLC, but I’m not really sure I’ll bother doing much more. I really enjoyed the gameplay in this one, but the combat is kind of super repetitious. It’s just the same 3 or 4 enemies in groups but in different outfits depending on the stage of the story.

The game itself is fun, the story is decent, I made the stupid assumption about the end boss not being in the game because, unlike all the other big villains, there wasn’t an explicit achievement. It did a pretty good job of weaving together several unrelated subplots all into one larger narrative. Swinging and running around the city is fun, but it starts to feel a bit slow after a while.

Spider-Man Miles Morales

If I am going to do more of the same Spider-Man, I may as well mix it up, which is why I’ve started on the “Not number 2 but still a sequel” game of Spider-Man Miles Morales. Miles shows up in the first game, and you play as him a few times, as not Spider-man. There is a subplot that sets up Miles gaining his powers and then this game lets you play as him. It’s the same map with a few changes, and the same basic combat with a few new additions, but it’s basically more of the same. I’ve only done one major mission and the game says I am 22% done with the main story, so I guess it’s pretty short compared to the first.

The first isn’t that long either really, it just has a ton of optional mini-missions you can do scattered across the map.

Deathloop

I decided to give Deathloop a quick try, it was a freebie from the holidays. In the 10-15 minutes I played, it kept losing the controls. Repeatedly. I don’t know if it’s something I was doing or if it’s just THAT buggy, but the experience was pretty awful.

Hogwarts Legacy

I played a bit of Hogwarts Legacy again. I really enjoy this game, but it’s taking up space on my drive, and I want to uninstall it, but I need to play up to the last achievement with a Ravenclaw character. It’s really odd just how tedious replaying this is. I am not real sure why it’s like that, but even skipping the cut scenes and rushing, I just don’t want to keep going. I think it took me like 2 hours to do this as Gryphondor and Hufflepuff, but somehow this last run is just so annoying. But I don’t want to reinstall it, I want to finish this and be done.

Fortnite

The game I am not playing, but making progress on. I’m super burnt out on Fortnite, but because I had a screw sub from the last season, I got this season pass. Most of the skins are pretty meh, but it has Solid Snake or will have Solid Snake. A lot of people are going crazy for Peter Griffin, but I don’t care about that at all.

I also have not written about the new Rhythm game or Race game, because both are pretty lame. LEGO is, ok, I’ve gotten a bit better hang of it, but it’s still pretty tedious. The new modes are great for leveling up though. I’ve never leveled so fast in a season ever. In Fortnite LEGO and Fortnite Festival Jam stage, you can load it, and walk away and gain about 5-6 levels a day, for EACH mode. I’m already something like level 165, but I’ve stopped for now until Snake drops. Also, occasionally I kind of need to drop in to catch up on the Weekly quests for those item drops.

It’s like back in Team Fortress 2, when you could idle for hats.

All I wan to add is the pricing on the cosmetics, especially for the new modes, is fucking bonkers nuts. You can buy a Lambo in Fortnite and play their mediocre Mark Kart clone, or for the same price you could buy Forza Horizon 4 (on sale), and get infinite Lambos and a real racing experience on a large, open-world map. The music tracks are like 3x the price of buying the track itself in MP3, and the game mode needs some tweaks to make it playable (lanes should be different colors).

Sky: Children of the Light

I’ve shifted into a weird phase with Sky. It’s brought on by the Steam version being available. I’ve now shifted to alts and mechanical farming mode. I’ve got like 5 or 6 total accounts now, one being my main account. I spend a short bit each day, generally in the morning when I would have been eating breakfast (which I am not at the moment, but that’s for a BI post later), where I’ll log into each account, send my main a Heart, and farm out 3-4 candles, to replace the candles I’ve spent on the heart. Two of these accounts have a pile of reserve candles now because the season ended, so if I am feeling time crunched, I’ll just eat into those.

Hearts are one of several in-game currencies. The only way to get them is to be sent one from a friend, at the cost of 3 candles, once per day, or to gather bits of light sent from friends, which I think takes like 60 bits. Getting these normally, is a pain, even with a lot of friends, because half the time, they don’t send you anything even when you send it to them, because who wants to spend their candles on strangers? You can only get like 20-25 candles per day, and Candles are the main currency.

Anyway, I did some rough math, to complete just the main tree, none of the Traveling Spirits trees, I need like 1000+ hearts. Even with 4-5 accounts feeding me hearts daily, that’s 200 days. You start throwing in events and Traveling Sprits, it’s easily a year of farming.

I will probably give up before I get there, but it’s a little nuts. Granted, the bulk of this is the handful of Ultimate Capes, which tend to run 100-200 Hearts each.

I may look into automating the candle and heart farming with some automation tools later, so it just sort of, happens. It would be pretty easy to use some sort of input macro tools to log in, run to a handful of regular candle sources, and send the Hearts.

Part of this exercise in creating accounts also meant running through the game some to unlock areas. Twice now, I’ve done a no cape run, once as a test, and once recorded, which can be viewed in it’s entirety below.