Noble Gamer

July 2019 - Mid Month Update

Making some decent progress for the month so far.

Games I Beat

    Riff Racer – Race Your Music!

    Riff Racer – Race Your Music!

    7 hours playtime

    I recommend Audiosurf 2 or Distance INSTEAD of this game unless you really want to race against friends’ ghosts or want something mindless to play while listening to music, as those two games have more varied visualizations and modes.
    This is a game that visualizes beats and procedurally creates tracks based on the music, which allows for two people to play the same exact race for the same song, but beats are the only thing it appears to account for. Its beat visualizations don’t “pop” as much as other games I’ve mentioned, and it doesn’t do anything different for low/mid/high frequency sounds. The “sync” to music system makes ghost racing work, but its somewhat confusing exactly how to get multipliers other than keep up to the racing lines that designate the current beat. Losing multipliers is clear: Don’t fall behind, don’t hit barriers, don’t fall off the track. XP seems useless except for maybe achievements?

    Train Valley

    Train Valley

    26 hours playtime

    A polished semi-simple train & track puzzle-type game which is relatively relaxing and I recommend on deep sale to fans of puzzle & strategy games. Its a micromanagement puzzle: You build tracks, control track switches, choose when a train leaves a station, and can stop or reverse a train. The latter may be limited with certain train types or levels, but that was never explained in-game. There are no notable differences between trains of different eras, nor can you choose between train types to deploy. You can only choose whether a train deploys early, which costs money because the sooner a train reaches its destination the more money you get.

Games I’ve Been Playing

    Quantum Break

    Quantum Break

    3 hours playtime

    I made it to Act 2, but can’t get past a section of warehouses on Medium difficulty. I retry it periodically, and am trying to avoid lowering the difficulty for this section. Loving the story & game so far though.

    FORCED SHOWDOWN

    FORCED SHOWDOWN

    18 hours playtime

    This fantasy based rogue-lite twin stick shooter with card game elements is a game I want to love, but I'm kinda friendzoning it because the game isn't putting out all the features that work for me. The core gameplay is good but progression within an arena depends quite a bit on what cards you earn, which is only one-half to 1.5 cards per won “battle”. An arena has 4 to 8 battles, and each arena consisting of 8 levels and one boss. Every battle has random sets of modifiers that most of the time you can pick from, which increases gameplay variety & card playing strategy, but can make it more difficult depending on your deck which cannot be changed between battles - Only between arenas. After beating an arena, a base set of difficulty modifiers are unlocked, and can be used to earn a slight bonus to coins used to spin the fortune wheel for cards.

    Robot Squad Simulator 2017

    Robot Squad Simulator 2017

    5 hours playtime

    Its an okay but seems legit simulator. The bots wouldnt be fast & super responsive as things in other games, as I expected. Keyboard controls are awkward but get the job done. Music is decent, but graphics are meh, with occasional pop in when turning fast. I’m two thirds of the way through the 20+ missions.

Game I Previously Beat But Replaying with DLC

    Turmoil

    Turmoil

    37 hours playtime

    Heat is On is a great DLC which is basically a different campaign that has more tech, more gameplay options (like using magma), more artifacts to discover, and a different auction system for buying town shares. It’s kinda easy to beat as long as you consistently use gas to boost profits for part of you oil haul, but still rewarding and maintains its partially relaxing western vibe. I am two thirds of the way through the DLC campaign.

Games I Have Labelled as Stuck

    Knights of Pen and Paper 2: Free Edition

    Knights of Pen and Paper 2: Free Edition

    5 minutes playtime

    I reached the point where gaining gems (in game currency is too slow after reaching the end of the mid-game quest pack I unlocked. I can only get 5 gems per day through an ad, then maybe get 5 per level up, and I need like ~150 gems to buy the next quest pack. I could tap a 5th character slot to aid in this, but I dont want to grind lower level enemies to catch them up to my other characters at level 20+, and I already have a ninja with low threat so I’d have a hard time making another low threat character suited for leveling up against higher levels. I’m not uninstalling it from my phone just yet, as I might play it when I’m waiting in a line or something boring, but I’m not optimistic that I will get unstuck. It was otherwise a decent well balanced game better than I expected for F2P except for the “level 15” daily challenge dungeon that has many higher level monsters in it, and the literal dungeon of the unbalanced.

    Card City Nights

    Card City Nights

    3 hours playtime

    A cute animated CCG sim that I recommend to hardcore CCG players, but the deck building is too complicated for me: Cards have a variety of abilities, but cards can only be chained with other cards based on the arrow(s) printed on their sides, and chaining cards to do attacks or heal is critical to the game. There is no tutorial, aid, or more meaningful groupings of cards in deck building. So I’m putting this in the “stuck” pile and might pick it up again after I get some other card games under my belt, if that can even give me the experience or knowledge I need to build better decks in games like this.

Backlog Prioritization

Next month, there are 3 types of games in general that I am going to prioritize playing sooner rather than later:

  • SG wins

  • Games that might have non-dead online multiplayer based on steamdb stats - Any feedback here is appreciated

  • Games that are quick to beat (a few hours or less)

Low priority games in my backlog will be older games that seem not to age well, and games with free mobile equivalents.

August 2019 Queue Preview

Cece09

Oh free games like that suck. I’ve never bothered adding games like that for the pure fact I don’t want to play a game that will require to basically pay to forward it.

My current games do have pay for stuff which costs so much but not needed. 1 just adds bonus quests while the 2nd is more needed to help but its still possible to beat events depending on how luck goes. Frankly my biggest problem right now is how long the damn thing is. Got bored and started moving my clock 1 day at a time and its been pushed to 31st august and ive barely leveled. Its at a point where im wondering will i need to push it to 2021 to finish the whole thing. I cant put it back or it will literally give me detention

ninglor03

I recently played Quantum Break, maybe I can help you with your problem?
Well in case you don’t wanna try it on your own anymore that is ofc :]

Noble Gamer

Thanks - I’m stuck at this point in Act 2 Part 1 right after busting through a door: https://youtu.be/Ohz76AVQiu0?t=2162
I don’t recall having the ability shown in the video that is used against the big enemy, and a ton of head shots or exploding the gas tanks hasn’t brought him down yet. Same thing with putting them in a time bubble and filling it full of lead.

ninglor03

Ok, I’m pretty sure the ability is the… eh… blast thingy. And I’m pretty sure it’s the same way you use the bubble, but you hold the button to load it up.
Actually, yes, they are a pain in the b*** but they are not invincible. Main trick: you have to get rid of the rest. Also - and this is very important - they can never ever have a clear shot at you or get to close. If they do that you are basically on the loosing side already. So once they come to close use the rush to get away. Kill of the rest and then focus on him. As I said, use the blast, it should probably only work once. The Bubble is also very useful, but you have to unload a magazine on the whole thing. Just us an MG (or such) and keep firing until it collapses. I never really came round to using gas tanks - good for you though! - I basically just kept on shooting at him. Mainly headshots if I could, bc as always they are most efficient. But regular shooting will do the same trick. It’ll take longer though. Biggest problem at first might be having enough ammo I guess, but there will probably be some bags around. Again. Just shoot at him. I’ll have to look into the guns, bc there is this one gun you should really take along, it’s the best in the game, buuuuuuuut can’t remember right now what it’s called.
In case nothing of the wall helped, I’ll reinstall it and have a look how the abilities are called and used :)

Noble Gamer

I think that’ll help, thanks - Will let you know if I’m still stuck after I try. I’ll be sure to check out any extra weapon drops to change my loadout if needed.

ninglor03

So according to primagames the best gun is the Carbon Rifle and I can TOTALLY agree! You have two points in the game where you can get it - sadly I can’t remember the first one - but the second one is when you stock up and have a variety of guns to choose from. Try to always keep it! (I only lost it while I had to restart an act, sadly the game doesn’t remember that part if you restart manually…)

Noble Gamer

primagames

Now that’s a name I haven’t heard in a LONG time. TIL they still give tips, but online instead of physical guides.

I’ll keep an eye out for the Carbon Rifle.

ninglor03

Ahahaha, I never really heard of them before. I like went to google and typed: “Quantum Break best weapons” and boooom, they helped! \o/
Bc I was like: HOW THE HECK AM I GOING TO DO THIS ON HARDMODE?!?! And then I realized having THE weapon helps like a lot. Which I learned from Mass Effect and similar games, so I thought I’d do the smart thing and look into this :D

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