Rantings on games, software, books, music, movies and the internet.
Author: Eric
Basically I have too many interests. I like to read, play PC games (ESO and various builder / factory type games), watch movies, listen to music, and tweak PC's, browse the web and read news on Reddit and hang out on twitch and discord. My dayjob is Software Engineer!
Regarding Steven Wilson, I arrived a little late on the scene. It wasn’t until 2022 I began listening to Porcupine Tree & his solo efforts. And I did so in reverse order because of the release of CR caught my eye, on the Steve Hoffman forums.
Of course I had seen his name popup often at remasters and remixed, for example Jethro Tull’s aqualung, songs for the woods and many others but I somehow was under the impression he was more an engineer type person. I do remember I checked out PT a few times but it didn’t quite click.
I might have checked the more heavier stuff at the time and didn’t really care for it, not quite sure. But somehow since 2022 that changed :).
Favs are now Deadwing, Light Bulb, and of course the solo albums Raven & Hand Cannot Erase.
The past week Steam asked whether it could upload my hardware specs for the hardware survey. Afterwards you can check out the results on the hardware survey page.
So it seems the ‘average’ PC has 6 cores, a 3060 and runs Windows 10. The cpus vary quite a bit but it seems that there are a lot of people running games / steam on a relatively older PC. That is probably why they’re still running Windows 10. I don’t see why else you would still run Windows 10, since 11 works for me pretty well on several PCs.
It is however easy to get caught in a bubble, where you regularly frequent hardware forums and or reddit where people run the latest hardware to think that most people do that. It seems the average person just buys a PC every 5 years or so and keeps that running, maybe upgrading the video card and that’s it.
About 1/3 vs 2/3 amd vs intel, which is nice. I am glad Intel doesn’t have a monopoly here.
I also would have expected more people running 1440p, but it’s only 14%. Most people still game at 1080p as you can see below.
Earlier this month, Elder Scrolls Online celebrated it’s 10th year anniversary! I took advantage of the xp boost and event tickets and played mainly a new Templar character. Though the others saw some action as well! It was very crowded every where and the group quests and events all over Tamriel were very busy.
Thanks to the TV show over at prime video, Fallout is topping the steam charts again! Some of these are even over a decade old. Fallout 76 is making a comeback as well.
After a rocky start the game is much better now and becoming quite popular. It’ll be interesting to see how many will still play in say a month or so.
I have been playing Fallout 76 as well again, after a hiatus of 4 years. My level 13 character was waiting for my return. I mainly wandered around in confusing where I left off in 2020 ;). But it was fun though. The shooting and the modding of weapons is great. So is the base building. And the multiplayer aspect isn’t annoying. The quests are good as well.
And I also picked up where I left off years ago in Fall out 4. not quite sure why I never finished it. I think i am going to focus on FO4 for now, will be nice to conclude the main quest at least and some of the DLC is excellent as well.
Earlier this year I finished Dave the Diver. Well the main story line, it’s just long enough to not get annoying. It is a great game but after 30 plus hours I had seen enough.
Sushi bar in dave the diver
I assume everyone knows the game by now, but in short, you start taking care of a sushi restaurant, but the catch is that you have to catch the fish for the restaurant yourself. And by doing so a whole story line unfolds where you meet an array of characters. The main game play loop is diving in the sea and catch fish, do some bosses and upgrade your gear so you can dive deeper and catch better fish (as in more valuable for the restaurant).
Final celebration in dave the diver, sushi bar
There are multiple mini games, even new ones are introduced well into the game. The boss fights are not too bad, a few were annoying or I had to look up what to do exactly but nothing I got stuck on.
Kronosaurus Boss Fight in Dave the Diver
All in all a very enjoyable experience, that I would recommend to anyone. There is still some stuff to do, upgrade the restaurant, finish catching all fish etc, but since I finished the main story line I haven’t had the urge to go back to be honest. There is more content coming soon, so I’ll keep an eye on that.
Dave the Diver – Thank you for playingIt sure was a fun adventure!
The main goal for this year in gaming in general was to actually finish a few games, and lo and behold, I actually succeeded (a little bit) ! I finished Marvell’s Midnight Suns, but not the gamepass content. I’ve seen enough of the game for now. The soap opera regarding all the characters got a bit too much at the end, but I persevered and finished the final mission. The gameplay is great, all the drama around it should be toned down a little.
One game I started and played quite a bit was Yakuza like a dragon. Its a spinoff of the other Yakuza games and this one has turn based combat, its pretty good. Maybe I’ll pick it up again. Got almost 20hrs in it so far.
In april however, Jedi Survivor came out and I focused mainly on that, you can see my comments in another post. Right before I wrote this I went back in the game a little bit, it’s still great fun to just run around and killing imperials for an hour or so, then I am done again for a while. Sadly the game runs much better now than on release. All in all if I had to pick my game of the year this would be it.
Right after the summer, Starfield came out, which I already wrote about, so I wont add much here, except that its just a shame the game is a little outdated, and feels like it should have come out a few years earlier. A lot of lost potential. And I don’t think ‘mods will fix it’. It’s no longer 2011 ;).
Wartales is another one I played a bit, could pick it up again one of these days (on the infamous backlog !). Novalands was a fun factory type indie game I enjoyed quite a bit. Furthermore a lot of smaller games I dabled in a little, Age of Wonders 4, Spellforce EO, Cosmoteer, Soulstone Survivors. And of course the usual suspects, Eurotruck Simulator 2 and American trucksim, Oxygen not included and Factorio! I did a vanilla run with QOL mods in Factorio and the past few monhts Krasstorio 2 w/ QOL mods as well. Quite a lot of fun, definately looking forward to the expansion next year.
So that is about it, currently am enjoying ONI again with a weird Metallic Swamp run, and Dave the Diver which I picked up in the end of year sales! And no I didnt play Baldur’s Gate 3, its a bit too large for me, I doubt I ever go through the whole thing. I’ll keep the blog updated hopefully so these end of year summaries are a bit easier!
According to Steam I played Starfield for over 70 hours! And basically in a time span of about 6 weeks or so, until I moved on. Which wasn’t even a conscious decision, the interest waned and I had seen enough of the game. Although I’ll still pop in every now and then and at least finish the main quest.
So what did I think of the game ? Well it’s definitely entertaining for what it is. It played a little sluggish performance wise, I had to turn off most features even on a 3060 and a modern cpu. Sadly the ‘performance’ patch that was released recently (nov 2023) was way too late, this should have been in the game all along. Especially since they’ve been working for years on this. Although that doesn’t really show to be honest.
I loved the Akila (wild west) and the UC story lines. Especially the UC story, that should have been the main quest. The way it builds up, the scary first part of the mission in the dark with the horrible Terramorph that scared the shit out of you! Then some interesting decisions by the end of the quest line. It was really well done.
A lot of side quests were entertaining or at least fun to do as well. The shooting part of the game and the collecting of various weapons I liked the most. Didn’t really care much for the space combat. The outpost building was completely pointless and frankly quite annoying, so I didn’t bother with that anymore after trying a few times. The shipbuilding is pretty cool, although also here the interface is a bit of a let down.
What I didn’t like was the main quest and the whole restarting again in NG+. I assume everyone by now knows what the main story is about, and I don’t like a multiverse story. I doubt I’ll ever try a NG+, all the stuff you collected and decorated, all gone after a new game, no, thank you very much.
I didn’t encounter any game breaking bugs, my main annoyance was with the companions. The only one I kind of liked was Andreja, the rest I didn’t care much about, Sam was especially annoying and whining with that weird kid of his. Sadly he died at the Lodge (cough cough). They were also very buggy. They started shooting at everything that moved, wandered off doing their own thing and then warped back to me, if they weren’t standing in the direct line of fire.
So all in all it was a little disappointing, since it was a highly awaited Bethesda title, but some design choices were really weird. So many cut scenes in between traveling, or just warp from one part of the universe to the other end if you already discovered a city / town. And the weird bugs where you think, did anyone actually test this ? You’d expect better from a large studio after that much development time.
But I got a good 70 hrs out of it, and it was pretty entertaining. Next year when mods will be supported, it’ll be interesting what the community will come up with. I’ll keep an eye on that and maybe play the game again ;).
A while back I finished the game, and I figured I’ll type some thoughts here about it. First of all, I don’t actually finish a lot of games, so it’s a statement in itself that this one was fun enough to actually finish. The story was decent overall, and you sort of want to know what happens in the end. I like the links to the High Republic Era. Your main enemy is the Dagan Gara (at first 😉 ) who was a Jedi Knight in those days.
The graphics are gorgeous and it’s just fun to run around and use your (customized) light saber to mow down enemies. Except for some of the outdoor areas, I didn’t suffer too much from the performance issues. I turned down some details, which helped I think. Though some open world areas couldn’t really be improved.
The puzzles were decent as well, except for a few where i had to consult the IGN online guide, mainly the one where you were on a timer to get the ball rolling. The overall difficulty was doable, I am not very good at these type of games I have to be honest, the middle difficulty was doable, but I don’t have all the time in the world to play to about half way through I turned it down a notch so enemies just died a little quicker. Also some boss fight were just damn annoying, I didn’t really want to spend an entire afternoon trying to kill one boss. Some people might get some enjoyment out of that, I am not one of them.
I didn’t really want to spend an entire afternoon trying to kill one boss. Some people might get some enjoyment out of that, I am not one of them.
