What a Great Game

In Stray, you play as a cat and as such, you can do many cat things.

It’s been a while. Too long. I haven’t been writing here much and that needs to change. I think my main block is finding topics of interest to write about. I’ll have to look into how the pros do it maybe. Anyways, let’s talk video games. Specifically a game that was a big deal when it was released back in July: Stray, AKA “The Cat Game.”

I don’t buy new games often, and the last game I bought at or before launch was Cyberpunk 2077. We all know how that game turned out. I did enjoy the game, but it was a bit disappointing that it felt like an Early Access title and I just paid sixty bucks for it. Stray, on the other hand, showed me that new games can be great on launch day.

Okay, so I’m a cat guy. One of my roommates is an old tuxedo cat with several pseudonyms including Turkey. This game piqued my interest when I noticed it in the video game news. “Wow,” I thought, “A video game with a cat as the main character, that’s pretty cool, I’d play that.” The game was released on July 19th and I totally forgot to pick it up. It was like thirty bucks and I figured it would be well worth buying it at full price. I picked it up off of Steam a few days later. Let me tell you, it was worth every penny.

My first impressions of the game is that it was damn near perfect. It hit almost all of the targets for me: the atmosphere was amazing, the sound, graphics, everything just hit the spot. The cyberpunk aesthetic is definitely there with all of the neon lights, slums, and sentient robots. And the best part: You get to play as a cat. Maybe this might sound lame to some but it makes for a great adventure as you leap from platform to platform among the buildings. Plus you can do other cat stuff like sleep, scratch carpet, and meow. It’s pretty sweet.

After just a couple of hours of playing, I fell into love with this game. It was so much fun to experience a semi-open world game through the eyes of a cat. The game has quite a few puzzles to figure out and while they aren’t particularly difficult, they are fun to figure out. The game is a little short in length although it does have a bit of replay value if you want to 100% the game. 

I did read a few articles that noted that the PC version suffers with some graphical stuttering and I did notice a little at times on my rig with an RTX 2060 but I didn’t find that it detracted much from the game and recent patches probably have already corrected the issue.

This game probably won’t appeal to hardcore gamers so much though; this is a game that is meant to be played slowly and enjoyed. It’s an experience and not a competition, more akin to an interactive art exhibit than something like a football game. 

So there it is, my take on Stray. I’ve been playing some other games lately as well, so expect more content soon. Until then play some games and refurbish your SNES! Ha! Maybe I’ll get into that some other time. 

The Weekly Ramble

Each week I think really hard and ramble on about a topic of my choice

This week I’m going to ramble about a game I enjoy. For some reason or another (probably getting older) I have been enjoying city-building/strategy games. A couple months back it started when I played a few games of Sim City which I found on this neat 120 in 1 SNES cart I bought off of Amazon. It has its fair share of stinkers but there are some gems in the rough on there as well as some forgotten titles. Kind of makes me want one of those FXPAK pro carts but those are a little out of my budget for the time being. Anyways, I’m not talking about the SNES, so back to the topic at hand. 

So I played some SimCity for a bit, then I remembered I had Cities: Skylines! I went back to my PC and fired it up, had fun for a good minute and progressed quite a bit with some strategy advice from different sources. Both are great games if you enjoy being the Mayor of a city and planning a city, designing a city, etc. Surviving Mars I believe is by the same devs as Cities and is quite enjoyable as well. Maybe someday I’ll get back into that one. Okay, let’s get to the game I originally was getting to. 

The game is one of my favorite modern titles. I’m stuck in between retro and modern games at the moment. I would get into why, but I’ll save that for another time. The game I really have been enjoying lately is a city-building survival game by 11Bit Studios that released on Windows in 2018 and PS4/XboxOne in 2019. The name of the game: Frost Punk. 

Frost Punk: Let the cold begin!

Frost Punk is one of those games I like to fire up and play when the weather here in the great state of Minnesota, USA gets below zero degrees Fahrenheit. That crispy frost sound it makes when the temp drops really puts that chill in your bones as you play. The aspect of surviving the cold is only one of the challenges of this game though. There are many decisions you will have to make as the Captain of your new settlement.

Before I get into the game any further, I just would like to say that 11Bit is one of those studios that makes games I enjoy for some reason. I have another game by 11Bit, This War of Mine, and if anything, 11Bit does a great job of pulling your emotional strings by the end of the game. The decisions you make in the game will come back to haunt you by the end if you survive. It really makes you wonder what it would come to if an apocalyptic situation like Frost Punk really were to happen. This War of Mine on the other hand, was based upon an actual conflict of the past: The Siege of Sarajevo. 

Building a new home in Frostland is tough. Can you survive?

In Frost Punk you can play several different scenarios, the main one being A New Home. You play as a group of Londoners leaving England to escape the Deep Frost. You start near a huge coal-powered steam generator. The generator provides much needed warmth to your people and will be essential for your survival. Round up some coal and fire it up. Your people will thank you. 

Along the way you will be presented with different challenges such as feeding your people and providing them with healthcare. Each decision you make will raise or lower hope and/or discontent among your people. If your discontent gets too high, or your hope too low, your people will give you an ultimatum. Guess what happens if you don’t meet that ultimatum. I won’t spoil it for you here. 

Tough decisions are to be made during the game to survive the Deep Freeze.

Late in the game (if you can survive that long) the decisions get tougher as the temperatures get lower. Towards the end of A New Home, the temperature drops to an insane low. If you don’t prepare properly, you’ll perish. If you do, you will survive, likely with a cost. You have survived, but was it worth it?

You and your people made it. The city survived. Was it worth it?

That’s my ramble for the week. I just wanted to highlight a game I enjoy. Frost Punk is definitely a challenge to survive but it seems like it has just that right amount of challenge that won’t make you rage quit. Well, that’s enough rambling for the week. Join me next week for another Weekly Ramble!

The Last Week

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Video games and coffee last week. A good combo, no?

Hey everyone! I’m back with another Last Week entry. I had originally meant to shoot for getting this post in on Sunday, but hey, things come up. Last week I played a bit of Dead Space and I’ve been going on a real PlayStation era retro trip that I’m trying hard to shake off. I’ve also been working on getting Neofeud finished, I’m to a point where I’m so close to the end I can taste it! I’ve also decided to focus on finishing Cyberpunk as a priority over my Elder Scrolls games. I also have to highlight this keto coffee drink I’ve been drinking lately. Let’s take a closer look at last week:

Last Monday I fired up Dead Space for a quick session. Unfortunately, as I feared, I saved it after I accidentally used all of my medpacks. It was purely my mistake, I was using an Xbox 360 gamepad and kept pressing X thinking it was the reload button. I quickly depleted my medpacks and was playing hard mode after that mistake. I also realized that you can smash the green boxes by using your kinesis power. I facepalmed and realized it would probably be best to start over. In my defense, the game shouldn’t allow you to use medpacks if your health is completely maxed. Just a thought. I’m probably going to speed through a new game save up to the point I was at. It sucks but it happens.

Friday night I switched it up from Friday Night Fights and had a Friday Night Flashback! I found a bunch of my PlayStation games recently and decided to play Fear Effect. I had bought the game years ago but never really had the time to play it until I dug it out of the closet. I had a pretty decent gameplay session – I died a few times, beat some bosses, and actually made it to the second disc of the game! I had a pretty good time streaming the game and am pretty excited to continue it for the next Flashback! I might put off Friday night fights for a bit to finish this title, we’ll see! 

I didn’t do any games or streaming over the weekend. My wife and I went on a nice hike through one of our fine State Forests though. We both have been on a mission to get more movement into our routine. The forest was great. We basically just hiked the trails to get a feel for the area and we also saw some deer tracks and trees that appeared to have some beaver gnaw marks on them. The forest floor was a little moist from all of the winter melt and the recent rain, so our shoes were caked with mud when we returned to our vehicle. Other than the mess it was a good time!

As far as keto/low carb goes, I’ve been working on a few products to take a look at but I do have one for this week!  I’ve been on a bit of a caffeine kick lately so unfortunately I’ve been drinking some energy drinks like Red Bull. I’m not really a huge fan of the carbonation and extra ingredients all of the time so I wanted to switch it up a bit. I like coffee and a lot of keto coffees tend to be a bit high in calories, around the 100-200 calorie range. I was looking around at my local grocery store when I eyed these KITU Super Espresso coffee drinks. These were only 35 calories and tasted pretty darn good. It has a modest ingredient list, is sweetened with monk fruit, and is 99.9% lactose free! Give it a shot if you need a low calorie, keto friendly boost! 

That’s it for Last Week! I’ll have another Last week rounded up before you know it! Stay tuned!

This Week in Gaming

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I had a pretty exciting week playing some solid titles. Today was a bit of an off day though.

Hey everyone! This week was a pretty exciting week for me! I played some old games, some new games and most importantly I had a lot of fun! Let’s take a look at my week:

First, I’ll just share a bit of gaming news that I’ve been seeing out there. There’s been a lot of games with anniversaries: Super Mario Bros. 3 celebrates 31 years, Zelda celebrates 35 and I’ve been seeing a lot of Super Metroid floating around on the internets (the original Metroid celebrates 35 years as well). In other gaming news, CDPR, the developers of The Witcher series and Cyberpunk 2077 was hit by a ransomware attack in which the hackers have reportedly sold stolen source code on the dark web. There’s a ton of other news I could go over but these are a couple of things that have stuck with me this week.

What have I been playing this week? Well, I’ve been trying to balance some retro games along with a few modern titles. Sunday I played This War of Mine, a title by 11bit studios from 2014. It’s a wartime survival game that requires strategy and tough decision making. It’s also a very tough game for me to play. 11bit really knows how to pull those emotional strings. Frost Punk is a lot like that too. Both are great games that will punch you right in the feels.

I had to take a break from getting my soul crushed, so for Monday Night Retro I played a game I hadn’t played in a while but knew I could finish: Deja Vu for the NES. I jumped into it and then realized I had forgotten quite a few details in the game. I ended up continuing the game on WedNESday and successfully finished it. Okay, full disclosure, I needed to use a guide to fill in some of those blanks that were missing from my memory. Sometimes you just need that one sentence from a text-based guide to pull you through.

Friday was Friday Night Fights! I played Super Punch Out!! for last week’s FNF and the game was harder than I remembered! For this week’s FNF I continued Greatest Heavyweights for the Sega Genesis/MegaDrive. The last time I played I made it into the top ten rankings and this week I climbed up to number two! Next week I’ll take on the champion, Mike Dixon, for the belt!

Today I tried to start on my new In Medias Res series where I play a game from my library and just load up a save and play. My goal is to complete a couple of games within this year, but today I was having an off day. I fired up some Dead Space to play and something with my gamepad was going wonky. I did some troubleshooting and found out it was my retro gamepad that was plugged in causing issues. I played another session with my XB360 gamepad for a bit and realized I was a bit too fatigued from the night before. Next week I’ll have to wrap up FNF a bit early and rest up for Saturday’s stream.

As for new games I’ve picked up, Neofeud is a title I’ve seen floating around on my twitter for some time. It was on sale, so I decided to give it a shot. It’s a point and click adventure set in a cyberpunk world, both of which piqued my curiosity. I’ll be sure to fire up that game soon and share my thoughts.

That’s it for this week! I’m thinking about making this a weekly post where I recap games I’ve been playing over the week. As for what’s coming up next, I’m going to be taking it easy until next Friday for Friday Night Fights. I’ll probably be working on some other things though so stay tuned!

What’s Next?

With so many titles from then and now, what do I play next?

Hey there gaming fans! I just finished my A to Z NES series last Saturday (well, I have one blog post to go) and I’m ready to start a new project! My new series will be called “In Medias Res” which, from Latin, translates to “into the middle of things.” I studied English (Creative Writing) for my undergrad and for me this referred to a story that would toss you right into the action while filling in bits and pieces of the story along the way. My series will be somewhat similar: I’ll take a game from my library and start from my last save, starting right in the middle of things. I’ll take my time to get my bearings and continue on with the game, with the end goal of completing the chosen title. I have quite a few titles in mind, and my current Twitter poll I put out got locked in a 3-way tie between Cyberpunk, Dead Space and We Happy Few. I’m thinking of alternating games every other Saturday to mix it up a bit. I probably will focus on Dead Space since I really would like to finish that title and then move onto Cyberpunk with We Happy Few on the side. I’ll finish up the series with one of the Elder Scrolls titles I have, either Oblivion or Skyrim. It’s going to be an exciting road coming up ahead so keep it locked in for more in the coming weeks!

Cyberpunk 2077: First Impressions

Whew! It’s been a wild ride on the train to Night City.

Welcome back chooms! I’ve been having a blast playing Cyberpunk 2077 and now that I’m just shy of 30 hours into the game, I’m ready to share my first impressions of the game. 

First, I’ll quickly go through the hardware I’ve been using to play this game. I’ve been playing the game on a PC running a Ryzen 5 3600 with 16 GB RAM and a GTX 2060. With a tweak I found on the PC Gamer website (I didn’t test it to make sure it worked, or even if it did anything, derp) I set everything on High or Ultra settings with DLSS on and was able to achieve framerates around 70fps. I was very happy to see that my machine could handle the game. With ray tracing on though, my frames tanked by around 20+ fps, and while it’s still playable and looks great, I like to keep my frames around 60 for maximum visual enjoyment. 

As for the game, I’m really enjoying it. All bugs/glitches aside, the game is a visual treat and the music is stellar. The synthwave/darkwave/whateverwave music really gets me pumped when I play and I’ve really been digging the photo mode. The story and dialogue has also been enjoyable even though I haven’t touched the main story much! I’ve decided to do a slow crawl through the game, completing side missions and leveling on the way to create an Ultimate V with maxed stats. Ha! We’ll see what happens. 

Now, I did mention the game has some glitches. So far none of them for me have been game-breaking and I’m sure by the time I get to some of them (slow crawl, remember?) a patch will be released to fix the issues. Most of the ones I noticed were graphical or AI and while they did pull me out of the game a little, they didn’t pull away from my enjoyment of the game. I guess most people expect a AAA game release like this to come out of the gate perfect and a lot of people were pissed about the quality of the game, and rightly so, especially for console gamers. As for myself, I’ve played some Early Access titles over the years, and while it’s kind of like paying to be a beta tester, it gives you a little look into what the development process is like. I was into Rust back during early access and that was a wild ride for sure!  With that in mind, I’m a bit more indifferent towards the situation. I’m sure the game will be fixed in time but I can certainly understand why some gamers are upset. The game feels like a paper you handed to your teacher/professor the night before and wonder why you got a C on it. They likely know you rushed it, and it shows in the work. Certain things in the game do feel like they were rushed or unfinished. I won’t get into the detes too much, but in my opinion I would have been okay if they had delayed it for another month or two to make sure it was rock solid before release. But, what’s happened has happened and CDPR is going to have to work hard to earn back the trust of many gamers. 

Well, that’s about it. Is it a good game? I think so, especially if you’re into cyberpunk genres like Shadowrun. One of the only things missing from that series is the Matrix, which I think would’ve been a cool addition but then again, it might not exist in the Cyberpunk universe. Dang, I’m off track! Anyways, if you’re on the fence about trying it and have a PC that can play it, give it a shot. It’s been good fun so far. 

Cyberpunk 2077: One Week Later

What’s up choombas!? It’s been a little over a week since the release of the much-hyped game of the year, Cyberpunk 2077. I caught one of the last hype trains to Night City, and boy has it been a wild ride. Before I dig into the game tomorrow, let’s take a quick  look at my gaming background.

My gaming  credentials start with the NES and SNES so I have a soft spot for those old retro classics of the 8 and 16 bit era. Then came the PlayStation, Dreamcast, and PS2. After that came the college times, and Halo multiplayer was all the rage. Eventually, I built a PC and got into PC gaming for a bit and then a few years later I went into a gaming hibernation for a while. I didn’t really play many games for a few years. Fast forward to today and I just built a new PC for some sweet AAA gaming action and Cyberpunk 2077 reeled me back in. 

In short, I like retro games and I play a lot of different genres but lately I have been into games with survival and crafting aspects. Games like Fallout 4 have been my thing lately and I had some fun with Rust back when it was in Early Access. I also like checking out indie games and lesser-known titles. FrostPunk from 11 Bit studios was one of my favorites from 2018! Plus, there’s always time to get one more turn in Civ VI and I like to squeeze in time for a few games of chess as well.

 I’m going to be honest here, I didn’t know much about Cyberpunk 2077 until recently. I’m a fan of the Shadowrun series of games, I enjoy the cyberpunk genre and that was my intro into it. Back during the summer I caught wind of Cyberpunk 2077 when its release date was set for November. I thought “that sounds like a cool game, I might try it out in November.” The release got delayed, and I pre-purchased it the week before and waited in anticipation for the release. 

Now, this is probably my first AAA game I’ve purchased to play on release. In the past, I generally would wait a year or two for big titles to release their greatest hits or game of the year  edition, so I never really got into the hype. After jumping on the CP2077 hype train, I quickly noticed  the hype was definitely real on this one and it was a fun ride while it lasted. Now, I’m over 20 hours into the game, the honeymoon phase is over and I’m about ready to dole out some first impressions of the game soon. Check back tomorrow to see what I think about the game!

New Game, New PC – Putting it Together

The PC is built and ready for Cyberpunk 2077. See you in Night City!

We’ve got all the parts and now it’s time to put it all together! If this is your first build, it may be a bit daunting, but watch some tutorials on YouTube to get a feel for how it’s done first and then give it a shot. It’s really not too difficult, sort of like putting together a Lego set– everything snaps into place and only fits one way. With that said, let’s start by installing the CPU, RAM, and heatsink/fan onto the motherboard before we do anything else. 

The CPU installation is pretty simple: lift up the lever, match up the little triangles on the corner and drop in the chip. It only fits one way and it should drop right into place. Lower the lever and you’ve just installed the CPU. Easy peasy. Next, let’s put the RAM in place.

RAM is another easy install. If you’re using two sticks of RAM, make sure the sticks are in the correct slots, for my board slots 1 and 3 were the ones to use. Check out your motherboard manual for the correct configuration for your particular board. There’s a little notch in the RAM stick that will line up with the one in the slot. Make sure you open the levers on the side and press the stick into place until it clicks into place. Do the same with any remaining sticks of RAM. You’re done! Now, let’s move onto the heatsink/fan.

Installing the HSF (heatsink/fan) looked like a bit of a challenge, but in the end it was just a little bit more difficult than dropping in the CPU. I watched a few install videos and took the advice to install it outside of the case to make it easier. I’m glad I did. With the Gammmaxx 400, you will need to first install the correct bracket for your CPU socket. After that, it’s time for the thermal paste. Put a pea-sized dab on top of the CPU and install the HSF. The dab of thermal paste will spread out as you press it on and install it. If you’re nervous about installing it like I was at first, watch a few videos to get the hang of things, and when you’re confident, go for it and install it. I thought it seemed to require a little bit more pressure to install than I was expecting but overall the install was pretty easy considering this was my first tower-style cooler I’ve installed (I’ve always just used the stock box coolers in my previous builds).

Next, grab your case and open it up. Take a look and get an idea of where the motherboard will live in the case. Make sure the standoffs are in the proper place for your motherboard screws. My case had them preinstalled for a standard ATX motherboard so all I had to do was press in the I/O shield and slide in the motherboard. Make sure all the ports line up with the I/O shield before you attach any screws and secure the motherboard with the screws that came with your motherboard or case, there should be about nine for a standard ATX motherboard. 

Next you can put in the storage drives. These are pretty simple to install. The setup of these depends on your case, the manual that came with the case should give you an idea of how these fit in. Grab the SATA cable and attach it to your motherboard and drive and put it into place. Done. Now to put in the PSU and power it up!

I had quite an adventure with the PSU. But before we get into that, let’s get the PSU installed. There are three types of PSUs that I came across: Modular, Semi-modular, and non-modular. I decided to go for the modular, which means you can detach any of the cables you don’t need for better cable management. The main cables you’ll need to power your PC are the MB, CPU, PCI-E, SATA, and if you have a lot of fans you’ll want to add the ACC cable as well. Find the connections on your motherboard, attach the cables to their respective pieces of hardware and secure the PSU with the screws. Attaching the cables before installation is much easier than installing the PSU first and installing the cables. After the PSU is secured and the cables are all attached, (double check the connections to be sure!)  it’s time to power up your PC for the first time! Wait! I forgot– make sure all your case jumpers (Power button, Reset, front USB, etc.) are attached to the motherboard as well! Now, let’s fire it up!

Now, it’s important that you know where the power button is on your case. I didn’t know where the power button was at first, so I kept pressing the reset button without any result. I tried different power cables, re-attached cables and still no power. I even picked up a spare power supply and got the same result. Then, I realized with a facepalm, I was pressing the reset button instead of the power button. I thought the power button was just a Cooler Master logo on the top of my case. Derp, oh well. It fired up fine with the spare I picked up and I was pumped! But, I had to troubleshoot my original PSU and see what was up. I tested it again later on and still nothing. I knew it had to be an issue related to the PSU so I ended up filing an RMA with EVGA. My motherboard just doesn’t seem to like the EVGA PSU, and soon enough I’ll have an answer for this mystery.

That’s it! You built a PC! All that is left is to install an OS: Windows 10 or any of the various flavors of Linux should work fine. Fire it up, run benchmarks, be productive! Or join the fun in Night City and play some Cyberpunk 2077! I’ll see you there! 

New Game, New PC – Selecting Parts – Part II

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The guts of the build. Is it enough for Cyberpunk 2077? We’ll soon see.

The easy part is over, and now it’s time to go over the rest of the build: the GPU, case, storage, and finally the PSU to power it all! Let’s go over the case and storage first:

The case I chose was pretty basic: the CoolerMaster NR600 Masterbox. It’s your basic case with a tempered glass side panel. It has plenty of room for fans and enough room to move your hands around without banging around too much. I also purchased some extra fans for cooling. The Masterbox comes with a couple installed already but I added 3 more for added airflow. My last case was a CoolerMaster as well and this one is a nice choice for the price. 

Nowadays, your options for storage are varied. There’s M.2 drives that are superfast, SSDs that are becoming more affordable, and the old reliable HDDs available for data storage on your PC. I really wanted to stretch my budget for a M.2 drive, but I opted for a 240 GB SSD for the OS and frequently used apps and paired it with a good old 2 TB HDD for general storage. I know, HDDs are kind of old tech, but that much storage for under $100 is a great value. Plus, there’s always room to upgrade to one of those M.2 drives in the future. 

Finding a GPU at a decent price was an adventure. First, I had to ask myself: “AMD or Nvidia?” In the past, I used a Radeon card in my PC but for my new build I wanted to try an Nvidia card. I wanted something that would be powerful enough to play AAA games on Ultra settings at 1080p with at least 60 FPS. I used the Logical Increments guide and at first I was looking to get a RTX 1660 Ti for the build. GPUs were tough to find all around. Out of stock at retailers and overpriced by scalpers. I looked for another card, something a bit more powerful but still within my budget, which I extended since I saved a few bucks on some of the other parts. The 2060 Super sounded like a great deal if there were one to be found at a decent price. Most offerings were at least $100 over regular retail. Heck, most of the GPU prices were boosted $50-$100 beyond their regular retail. At first, I figured I’d wait for stocks to refill and prices to normalize until I did a little research on the subject. Prices and stock sounded like they’d be iffy for a while, so I jumped on it and went for a vanilla 2060: the MSI Ventus XS. I was also eyeing the Phoenix edition, it had a compact design but only one fan, and the reviews noted that it gets a little warm under load, so I opted for the Ventus for the GPU. The price wasn’t terrible (I think it was about $30 over regular price) and it was more than enough to power the games I was looking to play. If you’re building a PC right now, think about getting a lower end card now, and upgrade next summer when the GPU situation is resolved. 

Finally, there’s the PSU to power it all. I did a bit of research (maybe not enough) and read some articles on what to look for in a PSU. I’m actually not sure if the research helped (more on that in my next article) but I ended up going for an EVGA Supernova 650 GT modular PSU. It’s a brand I’ve heard of, it had at least 600W which gives ample overhead for upgrades, and it had a 80+ Gold rating. I’m still at a bit of a loss on what these ratings actually mean, but I figured it looked like a quality PSU with Japanese capacitors. Keep in mind your power needs when buying a PSU, there are several calculators out there to estimate these numbers to help you select a unit that will be adequate for your needs.

That’s it for today! The parts are acquired and the build is ready! The next and final part will be putting it together and firing it up! After that, I go into my long descent into Night City for a while, so stay tuned!