toxicitizen

Silent Hill 2 Remake I never played the original, so I went into this one completely blind. Well, almost completely. I had the big thing spoiled years ago but knew nothing about the game beyond that. Well, holy fuck, this game is incredible! It might actually be the scariest game I've ever played. This isn't Resident Evil fun time. The atmosphere in this game is so goddamned oppressive and tense that I couldn't take it for more than a couple hours at a time. Which is quite a feat for a game with only about half a dozen enemy types that aren't particularly difficult to deal with. The sound design and soundtrack in particular are god-tier. I was constantly dreading what would be around the next corner. I obviously can't compare it to the original but I have to assume it's up there with RE2 and RE4 as one of the best video game remakes ever. It modernizes the original game and expands on it where it makes sense to but also preserves what made it work in the first place. The voice acting still feel off and adds this eerie vibe to all the cutscenes. The combat works really well without making James feel like John Wick. The puzzles weren't particularly difficult but they were satisfying enough to solve and didn't involve bullshit leaps of logic. The original is one of those games that I had been meaning to play for years but never got around to. And now I'm kinda glad I never did because this was a hell of a way to experience it for the first time. I remember playing the first game on my PS3 years ago and it just didn't compare to this. I know there are some brand new games in development but I really hope Konami aren't done with the older ones. I'd love to see remakes of the first game, at least. Ideally, SH3 and 4 as well. Or at least some kind of proper collection like they did with Metal Gear Solid. So yeah, if you're in the mood for a spooky October game, this is the one to get.

Ubisoft finally got their head out of their ass and added Steam achievements to AC Valhalla. So, since the entire series is currently on sale, I decided AC is back on the menu. I liked AC Origins enough despite how bloated it was, so I'm down for more. The Viking setting of Valhalla in particular really appeals to me. Gotta play Odyssey first, though, and after playing through GoW Ragnarok and the Valhalla DLC, I'm kind of in the mood for some more Greek and Norse mythology nonsense in the near future. But for now, I reinstalled Origins to do some achievement hunting to kill time while I wait for my Metaphor CE to get here. I have to admit, I'm starting to realize I kinda missed the series. It's easy to ignore Ubisoft games in general when you've got limited free time because of how cookie-cutter and bloated they've become but I was super into Assassin's Creed back in the day.

The two DLCs I mentioned have some fairly important story stuff in it. I would definitely recommend playing them before TEW 2.

The Evil Within is great! Make sure to play the two Kidman DLCs as well. The last DLC is kinda skippable, though. TEW 2 is also very good. Not as spooky as the original but I found the gameplay loop much more engaging.

Finished the Valhalla DLC today. Well, I got to the end of the story bits and unlocked all the achievements. I think there might be a little more to it if I keep going but I uninstalled the game for now. I enjoyed it a lot more than I expected to. For a roguelike mode, it had a surprising amount of story/character development going on. I also really enjoyed seeing elements from Kratos' Greek past coming back into play. Oh and I guess since Sony's ports require a PSN login now, that makes this the first platinum trophy I unlock in over a decade lol.

Yeah, I can definitely attest to the Xbox ones being absolute dogshit. It's fucking unacceptable for a high-end, premium-priced controller to be having these issues just a year out. I only found out after buying it but the Elite series 2 in particular has a pretty bad reputation compared to the first model. So far the DualSense Edge seems like a quality product. Hopefully it'll be a few years before it starts showing any wear and tear.

God of War: Ragnarök Finished it last night. I enjoyed the original enough and wanted to play this one but I wasn't really anticipating it all that much. But for some reason, as soon as I started playing I was really happy to be back in that world. Overall, there isn't a lot to say about it that wasn't already said about the original. It's very much a "more of the same" kinda sequel. It doesn't really improve over the original in any significant way, it mostly just continues the story. Fortunately, the story is pretty good! Playing it 2 years late makes it feel kinda pointless to write a long post with my detailed thoughts since everyone has played it already lol. I guess I'll just say I really enjoyed it. I still need to beat the Valkyrie Queen and the Berzerker King and haven't touched the Valhalla DLC yet so I still have a few hours to go but I'm kinda hitting a wall on those two fights and Silent Hill 2 is coming out tonight, so I probably won't go for the 100% right away. I'm not sure what's next for the series but if this was the last game then it definitely went out on a high note. Now I kinda want Sony to rerelease the old games so that I can have the whole series on PC, though. Also, where the hell is The Last of Us Part II PC release???? Goddamn, don't make me wait until season 2 of the show comes out. I wanna play the game first! I swear to God, if they release fucking Spider-Man 2 next, I'm gonna scream...

When I bought my Xbox Elite Series 2 controller, it was to replace my old Xbox One controller that had issues with the RB button. I figured going for the high end controller would make that a non-issue. Well, about a year later and it started having the exact same issue with the RB button. Sometimes it won't register presses unless I squeeze it really hard. The issue seems to go away temporarily if I blow into the controller but it's already driving me nuts. Also, I was trying to play some GoW Ragnarok the other day and the controller's battery was dead. That's when I found out it could no longer charge/get power from the usb port. It could only charge by setting it on the stand. So I could no longer play and charge at the same time... So anyway Of course, now that I received this one, the issues on my xbox controller all seem to have mysteriously stopped. I'm really confused about the USB port thing, though. It was genuinely refusing to work the other day. I tried different cables and different USB ports. I'll just have to wait and see if it happens again, I guess... edit: Oh and I got the upgrade

I was holding off until reviews hit, and so far they're glowing so let's fucking go! Now I just need the pre-load to go live so I can start playing as soon as it unlocks tomorrow night!

Don't know if I'll have time to start either of them this week but I definitely want to play them in the near future and I just got a pretty nice bonus from my job, so fuck it. Nothing wrong with a little frivolous spending every now and then.

Kingdom Hearts Final Mix I finished this back in June but I'm just now realizing I never posted about it. There isn't much to say, though. It's fun but a bit rough around the edges. I found the combat in particular to be pretty frustrating at times. It's the only Kingdom Hearts game I had already played before but it had been so long I really needed to replay it before moving on to the rest of the series. Looking forward to finally playing KH2 (I started it years ago but never got very far into it) but idk when I'll be able to make time for it. The next couple months actually have a few new releases that I'm interested in, so it probably won't be any time soon. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater - Master Collection Version Finally got around to wrapping up my playthrough. I had started it right after finishing MGS2 earlier this year but I ended up not touching the game for months. Other than my Street Fighter 6 addiction and that couple of months where I got sucked back into FFXIV pretty heavily, I just haven't been playing a lot of games this year. Anyway, this game is every bit as great as I remembered. To the point where I almost feel like a 1-to-1 remake is completely pointless. Almost because there's definitely room for some minor QoL improvements, like making it faster to switch camos, treat your injuries or change your loadout. Constantly going into the menu really gets old after a while. The addition of crouch-walking will also be very welcome. And I really hope they'll also add the ability to carry bodies on your shoulders like in MGSV because dragging unconscious guards around is needlessly slow and tedious in this game. It's still one of the all-time greatest video game stories, though. I'm glad they seem to be leaving that untouched. Can't wait to re-experience it with modern graphics. Also, Konami, for the love of God please stop hinting that MGS4 might be in Master Collection Vol. 2 and just fucking confirm it already. That game needs to get out of PS3 jail so bad. Hell, I don't think I even have my PS3 copy anymore. So even if I wanted to hook up my PS3 I'd still have to hunt down a used copy...

Damn, that sucks... Yeah, I'm with you on the performance. I'm not super satisfied with the way my 3080 handles demanding games (especially at my ultrawide's native resolution) and it's been tempting to upgrade now that I can afford to drop that kind of money on a whim. I guess I'm better with money than I thought, though, because I just can't bring myself to upgrade yet since this build still feels fairly new (and the GPU was the last component I added, too). The 40-series also didn't feel like a significant enough upgrade but the 5080 is going to be tempting... Then again, I haven't really been playing any demanding games lately.

Upgrading to a 14th gen CPU given the issues they have and a 4090 with the 50 series right around the corner was certainly a choice lol. Hopefully that's the last of your issues with the build...

I guess I forgot to post it at the time but I pre-ordered this a few months ago Atlus went from not releasing on PC at all to actually having a PC Collector's Edition pretty quickly. You love to see it. Especially considering most publishers don't bother having a physical CE for their Steam releases. This release is kind of annoying, though. It seems the CE is exclusive to VideoGamesPlus in Canada but they're not carrying the PC version of the CE, for some reason. Might be because the SKU came later and wasn't included in their deal with Atlus or something. So I had to order this from Amazon US. Which means I'll have to pay an import fee on top of receiving the game late. At least it'll give me an extra few days to finish the Silent Hill 2 remake, I guess...

Only two weeks until Marvel's back!

It's not technically an achievement in the "achievement unlocked" sense but holy fuck, this has to be the hardest thing I've ever accomplished in any game ever. I've been getting pretty close with different characters for months and it's easy to assume it's just a matter of time but I was honestly starting to doubt I could do it...

Wait, as in Jack Joyce the actual character from Quantum Break? Or Tim Breaker, the Sheriff from Alan Wake 2 that's basically a replacement for him? (lmao Tim Breaker... how did I just get that?) Because I was under the impression that Quantum Break isn't part of Remedy's shared universe because the rights are still with Microsoft. For example, Mr. Door is likely also meant to be a stand-in for Martin Hatch from Quantum Break, who they couldn't use. I know the first time I saw him, I did a double take wondering if it was Lance Reddick.

Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree Finished it about a week ago. Overall, I don't have a ton to say about it. It's more Elden Ring. I think the smaller size worked in its favor. The main game had to re-use so much content to fill up the map that the whole open-world thing really only works on your very first playthrough. On subsequent playthrough, there's little point in exploring all that much since you know the content isn't as interesting as the main dungeons and the rewards are rarely worth it. That being said, Shadow of the Erdtree is only "small" when compared to the main game. It's an absolutely insane value for a lower-priced expansion. If the base game didn't exist, From could've released this as a full price game and I don't think anybody would've complained. I was planning on starting a brand new playthrough for the expansion, but because I impulsively bought it earlier than planned, I just loaded up my original character and picked up where I had left off. So I used this as an excuse to clear all the optional content and bosses I had missed or just not gotten to in my initial playthrough. So now I'm only missing the 2 achievements for the other endings. I'm not done 100%ing the game yet but it feels good to have finally made this much progress because this was the first Souls game in a while that I hadn't 100%d at launch. Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers I beat this like 2 months ago but I had been holding off on posting about it since I was planning on playing it and Endwalker back to back but that didn't happen. Still slowly working my way through Endwalker but it's not my main focus anymore. People often say that each FFXIV expansion is basically like its own full-blown Final Fantasy game and Shadowbringers is the best one yet. The quests leading up to the expansion had me on the edge of my seat and when the expansion proper got started, it really didn't waste any time getting things going again. It was so good, I got through the entire expansion in a little over a week, which is the fastest I've ever gotten through one of these. The only reason I slowed down a bit is because this game is so full of stuff to do that I ended up spreading myself too thin wanting to do everything at once and feeling a bit overwhelmed. And when I finally decided to just focus on the main story again, Kingdom hearts came out and distracted me from the game entirely... So, catching up in time for Dawntrail didn't happen but I'm closer than ever now. And I don't plan on stopping entirely like last time, so at the very least I'll slowly be progressing until the story picks up again and the game sucks me back in.

Hey forum's finally back! I'm sure you've all been eagerly waiting to find out what I grabbed during the Steam sale. My big purchases were: I also grabbed a bunch of smaller cheap games that aren't really worth posting individually. And at one point I was pruning my wishlist to remove all the "if I haven't bought it by now, I never will" games, and that actually led to me grabbing some more dirt cheap games... Anyway, most of it should be here (just ignore Trails, can't be bothered to edit it out even though I already posted it):

I made a first batch of purchases, mostly dirt cheap stuff that's not really worth posting. I have other games I'm planning to get later on but for now this is my one big purchase : I still need to catch up before I can play it but I'll always be there day 1 for Trails. Or technically day -6, I guess, since they handled this one differently. I guess NISA got sick of having their lunch stolen by the Clouded Leopard chinese releases because they actually started selling the PC version over a year ago. The english localization won't be added until July 5th but since the game is already being sold they didn't even need to setup pre-orders, just a special bundle for the launch bonuses/discounts. edit: Completely forgot to post it but I also bought this like a week ago : I wasn't going to play it anytime soon because I wanted to start a brand new run but seeing everyone and their grandma playing it made me want to fire up the game and next thing I knew I was doing all the optional content I still hadn't done and watching lore videos on youtube and accessing the DLC area. I was supposed to be playing the new FFXIV expansion this month. Oops...

I knew my patience would be rewarded one day. And that launch discount is actually pretty decent.

Season 2, let's fucking go!

That would be the Collector Box. It includes only the physical stuff without the game or any of the digital rewards I'm getting with the Digital Collector's Edition. It basically exists for Steam players that can't buy the regular physical Collector's Edition. I tried getting one for Endwalker but that one sold out insanely fast. I'm really surprised this one is still available only 2 months from launch. I guess there might be less hype for this expansion than there was for Endwalker, since that was the big climax of an almost decade long story arc. Either that or there's more stock available this time. Anyway, yeah, I've been continuing the main story where I had left off two years ago and I very quickly remembered that this game is really fucking good. I don't know if I'll be able to catch up in time for Dawntrail but I'm almost at the start of Shadowbringers, so it's definitely doable as long as I don't get burned out and stop. That would probably require playing almost nothing else for the next two months, though. And in that two months there's Ghost of Tsushima, Shin Megami Tensei V Vengeance and Akuma coming out... Shadow of the Erdtree as well but I've already given up on playing that at launch. Ideally, I'd like to at least catch up in time to play SMTV before Dawntrail. So many games, so little time.

Got the Digital Collector's Edition. I'm still like two full expansions behind in the main story but there isn't much else to spend my money on right now, so why the hell not. I'm gonna want those CE bonuses at some point, anyway, so might as well get that pre-order bonus while I'm at it. There's probably no hope of me catching up in time for the early access period but I might use this as an excuse to jump back in and finally make some progress in the MSQ. Thank fuck they implemented a system to clear dungeons with NPCs, though. It's been so long that I have no idea how to play anymore. And I kinda want to switch my job to Dark Knight for Shadowbringers, which means learning how to tank properly. Definitely don't wanna jump in with randoms before I know what I'm doing lol.

Persona 5 Strikers I actually finished it over a week ago but I decided to go for 100% achievements, so I spent some time grinding to be ready to take on the post-game optional bosses and then grinding for the last few achievements. Also, two of the unmissable story achievements didn't unlock for some reason, so I had to speedrun new game plus to get those as well. They were achievements for the penultimate dungeon, too, so I basically had to replay the entire game. So that was fun. At least it contributed to the overall grind... I think I just happened to reach the triggers for those achievements during Steam's Tuesday night maintenance. So I was likely offline at the time and something didn't work when the API call was made, I guess. Anyway, overall I really enjoyed the game. I haven't played a lot of Omega Force games but this is by far the one that felt the least like an Omega Force game. It's basically P5-2 but with real-time combat. Although it falls in this awkward position of being a sequel to the original P5 and not Royal. I didn't miss Kasumi, though. Kasumi sucks. Don't @ me. It's also a pretty garbage port. I mean, it ran mostly okay... after I figured out that I needed to go into my PC's BIOS to turn off all the E-Cores on my CPU. It was basically unplayable before that. Like, the worst stuttering I've ever experienced. I don't understand how this happens. It's like the second game ever that I have to do this for. And the first one was close to the CPU's launch, so it was a it more understandable. I don't remember what game it was, though... I guess in this case it's just that they had probably already stopped supporting the game by then. Anyway, glad to finally be done with it! It was fun but I the endgame grind ended up being a bit longer than I would've liked. I'm tempted to do P5 Tactica next or even the HD Remaster of SMTIII but I'm worried about getting burned out on Atlus games in general at this point. I mean, I just played P3 Reload and this back to back. Then SMTV Vengeance comes out in about two months, and there's The Answer and Metaphor in the fall. It's a good year to be an Atlus fan, don't get me wrong, but I don't wanna overdo it.