June 2019 - Mid Month Update
I thought I would share my progress part way through this month since I had many games on tap, and I have beat two games! A few minor rig related things to share first:
RAM issue resolved - Thanks Corsair!
So after being stuck with 8GB RAM for weeks, I now have 24 GB RAM, and next month will get back into my higher performance games such as Jurassic World Evolution (previously beat but has new content) and Quantum Break (completed Act 1 of 3). That’s because I resolved a RAM module issue with my rig. I was stuck with 8 GB, had to get used interim 8GB RAM (yes they match my replacements), then ship my 8GBx2 kit to Corsair to get replacement modules since I didn’t trust doing an advance RMA that would put a whopping ~$150 USD hold on my credit card until I returned my faulty RAM. I mean what if they were like “oh your DIMMs have water damage or some other BS that totally didnt happen”? After the RMA was done though, I have to say Corsair was otherwise awesome in handling my limited lifetime warranty with receipt & UPC, and I would trust them with an advance RMA in the future.
Dimmdrive?
I was tempted to get Dimmdrive, but the benchmarks I’ve seen from LinusTechTips put loading times on par with SSD? Perhaps it helps more with games that constantly read/write on the fly as opposed to many other games that load things right before you actually play a game mode?
Games Recently Played
I recommend this game on deep sale only if you are a fan of Worms AND pinball. I don’t have the heart to thumbs down it because it seems to me like a pretty good single pinball table compared to many other real tables, and its not a bad pinball table - Its just not something I would play for hours. Good thing I got this in a bundle.
This is the best story rich game I have ever played without understandable verbal or written narrative/dialog that I recommend to practically anyone. It is only ~3 hours long, but that was just right for what it is: A wonderful 3D platformer adventure with simple innovative controls & gameplay mechanics for the brothers.
I’ve already played all game modes, but returned after fishing and a new global mini-game event was added (wooden plane shoot-em-up). Fishing was tough to get the hang of initially, but has gotten much easier after the 20 casts. Sea Dollar drops from fish are too rare for me (1 out of 60 catches?!) to want to grind those for sea pets or becoming a sea creature. I’m keeping all decent looking fish and saving them for my oversized aquarium in my highrise condo’s club room.
Dunno that I’ll be back in Tower Unite again until the massive Arcade update, which is looking awesome so far.
This is my go-to game at the moment: A unique cartoonish brick busting RPG with city builder elements. I recommend it if that seems of interest to you. I’m on the 4th out of 5 worlds, which seem to have 20-50 levels each. ~63% complete according to the in-game stat. After the 2nd world, I was optimistic that I can 100% the game, but each world is definitely getting harder despite getting better passive and casting abilities.
It is a well done platformer with simple mechanics & procedural levels, but its steep difficulty has only resulted me getting past the caves ONCE is really annoying. It has been cool to buy new things to put in my journal, but that’s about it.
So this is now on my “Stuck” list, but I’m not abandoning it completely.
(Previously “beat” this game) RL wasn’t in my initial list of games for this month, but I learned about their summer event and wanted to earn two items: Hoverboard and Karate Kid headband. So I earned those. Whats interesting about this event is that it will sell you unlimited level ups if you redeem lots of event credits. I personally have no use for that.
I did manage to tier up my rocket pass once or twice. I was mildly annoyed by the rocket pass challenge that required a specific item I didn’t have, but at least it had the lowest Rocket Pass reward instead of the highest like prior challenges…
There are 3 different game modes, all with multi-bot teams run by AI that you or the CPU define: Elimination (death match), Collection (get orbs & return them to your base), and Domination (capture bases for the longest amount of time).
Elimination mode has gotten really tough for me at only 2 of 20 chapters in, despite trying new AIs based off two examples on the official wiki. So I switched to Collection, which I’m doing much better at having reached chapter 3 or 4. I also tried (async) multiplayer for the first time on Elimination and Collection, and played a couple of matches, then stopped when it was clear I was heading for <50% win rate. I plan to alternate advancing chapters in single player with advancing in multiplayer. I’ve earned some new colors and a pattern for my bots so have a metallic & camo look. I’ve only played a little on my mobile phone, but might play it more if I get bored or stuck on my other games this month.
I think I’m on the last or second to last season of the game on the second easiest difficulty. The combat is getting samey for me, but I don’t feel motivated to play on the medium or harder difficulty. Its a well done game, its just that varying your tactical choices aren’t critical unless maybe you play a hard difficulty. So as I get bored with other stuff this month I’ll chip away at episodes/levels for this until I finally beat it.
I’ve played some of the single player challenge, and can’t get past the fourth or fifth enemy out of ~10. Its a great concept and have wishlisted the sequel, but I guess I haven’t gotten the hang of this yet. I can’t remember if I tried this with a controller or not. So I may do that if I get through the other games I’m more focused on.
Dreamstones looks like a fun time
I don’t remember Chroma Squad being progressively or consistently hard on medium dif, but some missions felt like trial and error and i did repeat them a few times.
BTW Dreamstones is often relaxing too, except if you are on your last ball/life on the last stage of a level and sweating bullets getting the last few required blocks :O
Most of that indie dev’s other games seem spiffy too.