MetalCaveman

Having some issues with my graphics card, center fan keeps bouncing between 0% and 53%, noticed this because of the sound it makes (not loud, but with how quiet everything else is it is noticeable), opened GPU Tweak, which is ASUS included software and noticed that the GPU clock was stuck at max (19504MHz!), spent some time trying to figure out why it was like this when nothing else was running and I learned that apparently that's an nvidia issue when using multiple monitors with different refresh rates, setting all monitors to 60Hz allows the memory clock to now idle at around 810MHz. Really annoying though, now I have to choose between memory clock being forever stuck at max, or not being able to use the max refresh rate of my monitor and TV. Problem now is, that didn't do anything for the fan, the side fans run at the custom curve I set up, those are fine, center fan is doing whatever it wants. I thought it may be a faulty fan but after looking it up it seems that other people have the same issue and that it may be related to GPU Tweak. Sure hope so lol, going to try some different software tomorrow after some much needed rest lol, and see how that goes, MSI Afterburner seems to be a recommended one, and there's another option that's just called Fan Control , I'll try with those and hope that it works, otherwise... Toast.

Holy cow I managed to clear 10 games on my backlog before buying a new one! Not bad!

Bioshock Remastered This game aged like fine milk. I already knew the main twist, though I had never played the original beyond the demo on the 360. That did lessen the impact, but it was still cool to find Plasmids were fun to use, the way upgrading your weapons changes their appearance was cool and the whole underwater city thing was neat. However, movement and combat felt sluggish, and things like not being able to aim or sprint don't help, the crosshair is hilariously big, to the point where it sometimes got in the way, damage effects are way too much, get hit by a turret and the whole screen goes white and starts shaking, in certain combat arenas this lead to several deaths as I was not able to see a thing. I was able to turn down some environmental effects but there's no option to lower or turn off some of the hit effects. Then there's that ending bit, just as it was getting interesting You end up instead with one of the most annoying escort quests, It didn't help that this part bugged out on me several times, forcing me to reload the previous save, eventually I started saving every time the quest moved forward, in order to save some time and sanity. Overall, I can see why it gets the praise it gets, but it's also a pretty rough experience to go through nowadays lol. Grade: D (extra minus points for that 2K Launcher thing)

Mexico Magico

Seven Pirates H Another entry in the Genkai Tokki series, except that unlike Moero Chronicle and Moero Crystal, this one's a 3D RPG, though still centered around monster girls. Most likely due to the switch to 3D, the cast is way smaller this time around, iirc Chronicle had 68 characters that could join you, this time around there's only 7, there's 4 more other monster girls, but they don't join your party. Gameplay is pretty simple, it's still turn based, you can walk around while exploring, but the moment you start a fight, it switches to turn based combat. Each character has an aura, there's 3 auras, which for the sake of simplicity and making them easier to remember I ended up calling fire, grass and water, as usual: fire -> grass -> water -> fire You play as Parute, a pirate, who gets transported to the Monsupi Sea, where monster girls and treasure await, she's sure she's the "chosen one" because she got bonked in the head by a compass that fell from the sky one day, her crew isn't so sure about this claim. You explore the map on board your ship, going from island to island (and the occasional ghost ship) finding treasure and fighting monsters. There are quests which reward you with a bunch of stuff, from money to items and most importantly, pieces of the map, which unlocks more islands to explore. The biggest issue is the boss fights, bosses don't deal that much damage, nor do you deal that much damage to them, but they have a TON of HP, so each boss fight takes forever. The story is as silly as ever, no issues with that one. Overall, I had fun with it, but it feels really lacking in several aspects, some parts I can forgive, given it originally came out for the Vita 7 years ago, but other stuff really hurts it, more party members, being able to change their outfits (you do unlock different clothes, but they only change stats, not appearance), better dungeons and fun bosses would have greatly improved the score. Grade: C

Was trying to draw something else, but it got to the point were I realized I bit more than I could chew lol, so went back to basics and drew the MVP of my Scarlet playthrough, like the other Poké ball, this was more of a quick practice than a proper drawing, though I'm still satisfied with the result, specially with how much time it took . This time I used the default airbrush Krita has, originally I was going to use a different brush, but I learned that it didn't play nice with the way I had set up the paint layers, so instead of getting frustrated and starting over from scratch I took it as a chance to practice with the airbrush tool. Poké balls are fun to draw for these practice sessions, they are essentially spheres, but less boring.

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order That was fun, the I didn't like the platforming, but that's just me, I'm terrible at third person platforming, so there were some sections that were really frustrating, the bounty hunters were kinda annoying too, mostly the first encounter, and the part that follows it. Combat was fun, combining the lightsaber with force powers was cool, running around shoving stormtroopers off cliffs while laughing maniacally never gets old. The customization stuff was kinda lame though, tons of chests to find but I gave up on getting them all, no real reason to, there were two Mantis colours I liked, BD-1 remained default for most of the game, and the very limited character customization kinda sucks, the lightsaber parts were the only cool ones, and even then, it takes forever before being able to get the cool colours, I get this is due to story reasons, but still, felt like it took forever before I was finally able to get my purple lightsaber and then the game was over. Doesn't help that every time you open a chest you have to stand there watching the full animation play. All that said, I still had a ton of fun with it, and Jedi Survivor seems to have fixed some of my issues, so looking forward to that one. Grade: A

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Moero Crystal H That was an ending. A sequel of sorts to Moero Chronicle, some monster girls return, and the gameplay is largely the same, but the main characters and the story are different and with no relation to the previous game. There's a bunch of QoL improvements and some extra stuff that improves on the experience a fair bit. First, monster pets are gone, as is the egg crafting system, instead, you can now choose another monster girl and have her be a companion to anyone in your party, they have their own skills which activate under certain conditions. To get building materials you now have Deep Reaches dungeons, unlocked through a shooting minigame, these dungeons not only give you building materials, but also gifts to increase bond with, each girl has their own set of dungeons and completing them unlocks special bonuses. One of them unlocks a special skill, another reveals more about each character, their origins, motivations, some inner thoughts, stuff like that, and the third one allows you to mix and match outfits (or as the game calls them, Job Panties lol), these change stats and skills, so you can turn your dps glass cannon and turn her into a healer, or change elemental attacks, by combining them you can have the skills of a mage but with the HP and defense of a melee brawler, allowing you to fine tune your party. There's also a new mechanic called seals, by defeating enemies you get elemental tokens, these can be used to lift a seal on each of the characters, unlocking a special support skill that can then be applied to any item you have. For example Necromancer has the Death support skill, which recovers HP each turn, by lifting her seal, you can apply Death to a ring and then have that ring restore HP on top of whatever stat bonuses its base version had. The last new addition is the Resting Place, that you can use to either increase certain stats at random, or, for a higher fee, you can select which stats to increase, these are hefty increases but only last for one dungeon, as soon as you return to town all stats return to normal. In terms of dungeon gameplay, it's the same as the previous one, first person dungeon crawler, couple of bosses per dungeon, all that fun stuff. Except for the last boss, the last boss in Chronicle was pathetically easy, this one can easily wipe out your party in one hit, you need a healer and someone with solid defense buffs or you're toast. The story is as silly as before, the world is on the brink of destruction... because the Bra of Darkness and the Panties of Light have been separated. So you go on a quest to free the leaders of each area from the Darkness and prevent the world from going BOOM. There's a bit at the end where it seems like it's going to get serious, with the big bad revealing their motivations and all that and... Then it goes back to silly. TL;DR: A fun sequel to Moero Chronicle, different characters, different story, some much appreciated QoL changes, worth it if you're into dungeon crawlers and monster girls. Grade: B+

Yeah, the only reason dude faced trial was because it was a US court, remember Cienfuegos? General and former Secretary of Defense, faced similar charges, then the Mexican government went all: "Dudes, could you send him over here? We like, totally, pinky promise he'll face justice in our courts." The US government went all: "Yeah, OK, we wanted him to face trial here, but sure, you guys handle this." Then as soon as he arrived, they rolled out the red carpet, gave him a hero's welcome and proclaimed he was free of all sin, all of his charges had all been lies from the Yankee Empire. Doubt the US is willing to send anyone else over here again lol.

Genaro Garcia Luna has been found guilty of receiving bribes from cartels and for drug trafficking. This is a HUGE blow to both PAN administrations, Fox and Calderón, as he was their big guy in terms of security, he was founder of AFI, Federal Investigation Agency, founder of the Federal Police, Secretary of Security, one of the architects of PAN's war on drugs strategy, etc. His most important positions were during the Calderón administration. During the trial Luna also mentioned that current president also received money from cartels, but by far, the biggest blow was against PAN. As Jefe Diego said "Calderón either knew, or he was an idiot". This is also a huge blow at all Mexican politics, yes, we know it's an open secret that all politicians are in the cartel pockets, but this was a public display of how rotten everything is.

Cyberpunk 2077 On one hand, this was really fun, enjoyed my time with it and some of the quests were pretty freaking cool, on the other hand, I wish I had waited until now to get it lol, got it when it came out and boy was it a mess back then. There's still some issues, but compared to what it was back then it's night and day. Played as a Nomad, specializing in wielding the biggest, loudest, deadliest guns, which meant that anything that required stealth or intelligence was quite the challenge. Thankfully I never ran into a hard stealth section, none of that insta-fail thing, though I'm sure I missed some rewards and bonuses, it was still nice that you were never seriously punished if you chose to build your character in a certain way. I didn't complete all of the side quests (sorry @toxicitizen lol), but I did play a bunch of them, some of them are really cool and lead to some interesting story stuff, others are just the usual, go somewhere -> get thing -> get reward, at the end I had a couple left on my journal, that I didn't bother with because the last main quest was ready and all of these side jobs were "wait until X happens/calls you", and I'm sure a bunch more would have unlocked later on, but by that point I was happy with my progress and wanted to see the end. My favourites: Sinnerman, that was quite the ending lol. Peralez, this was the best one, no doubt, really hope they explore more of it in Phantom Liberty. The Hunt (River Ward's story), wish he had gone through with the original plan but I can see why he made the choice he made. I also liked all of the Silverhand missions, those were pretty neat and showed a different side of Johnny, the rewards were neat too. Playing mostly blind (I did look up how to unlock certain cars and how to complete a certain romance route) I got the ending, which, after looking up some of the other endings, feels like one of the better ones. The messages you get during the credits were cool too. My biggest, non-bug related issue was that this is one of those games where the dialogue options you get have nothing to do with what your character actually says. Pick "nice ride", thinking V would actually praise the ride, he goes "nice piece of shit you have here, it fucking sucks, you suck, I fucking hate you" and I don't know whether to laugh or reload my save lol. Wish they'd just give you a list like: Aggressive response Friendly response Sarcastic response Or something like that, rather than dialogue choices which then don't reflect what the character actually ends up saying. In terms of bugs, I did have a bunch of issues with cars popping in and out of existence, sometimes right in front of my car, leading to some interesting traffic accidents. Also at some point I was stuck with the UI of a certain vehicle, had to close the game and reload to fix this, and finally V would sometimes just teleport out of the car, instead of getting out normally, this broke physics a couple of times, launching V into space. All in all, a fun ride, cool weapons, fun skills, and an interesting story, it's a shame that it was hilariously broken at launch. Also, shoutout to some of the best in-game radio stations, obviously Ritual FM was my favourite, but Royal Blue Radio was also excellent, and how could it be anything less, Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Charles Mingus, and Dexter Gordon in one radio station? HELL YEAH!! \m/ \m/ Need for Speed and Forza Horizon could learn a thing or two from this game. Grade: A+ \m/ \m/

Year of the bunny. Also, got the Anatomy for Sculptors book, saw an artist I follow on twitter recommend it, been going through it but it's going to be a while before it shows (if that ever happens lol).

Yup, you have Main Jobs, Side Jobs and some other stuff that shows up in the Journal (houses, cars, and other stuff), then gigs are on the map, these don't show up on the Journal, you have to track them via their map icons.

Ah gotcha, looking forward to that then. I finished quest line (or I think I did, hasn't called me in a while, though I did get some texts lol), which started with a story mission and then branched into its own thing, thought the Peralez stuff would be shorter since from the start it was just marked as a side job.

Is it? I did that last night.

I think Cyberpunk might be shorter than I expected? Been taking it easy, doing side jobs, gigs and other stuff in between main jobs, but I just noticed I'm 60% through the main story? That is, if I'm understanding the percentages that show up at the top of the character menu correctly.

Cyberpunk 2077 Got back to it after playing for a bit during launch, PS5 upgrade is pretty neat, beyond the graphics, which do look pretty cool, the way it uses the dualsense features is the best part IMO. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order Been watching a bunch of Star Wars stuff on D+ so I got the itch to play this one, combat is fun, exploration is neat, but some of the platforming is killing me, 100% on me though, I just can't handle third person platforming. After a detour into hell I went to the planet I'm actually supposed to be in and it's much easier, still no purple lightsaber though .

Waifu Uncovered This went downhill fast. Played this one because I saw it on my library, though I have no recollection of when, how or why I bought it (I mean, I kinda know why, just not when lol). The first couple of stages are fun, a light shmup, more in the lines of Aero Fighters or Ninja Commando than the bullet hell stuff. Then the last two stages turn into hell, not even bullet hell, just hell. Upgrades are neat, and some of them are pretty cool, but they're few and far between, powerups and other pickups are similarly rare, and worst is that sometimes you'll move to pick an upgrade only to have an enemy spawn right under you, dealing a bunch of damage. Bomb pickups have a ridiculously low drop rate, specially considering that some ships can only carry one. You also only get one life, whether you're playing normal or arcade modes, that's it, die once and it's game over, which is one of my biggest issues with this game. The next issue is the difficulty spike, the last two stages just throw every enemy in the universe at you, if you haven't gotten the right upgrades and powerups you're toast. Bosses are also lame as hell, they're all the same in terms of attack, and what's worse is that while you can only shoot forward, bosses tend to spend a fair amount of time at the bottom of the screen, away from where you can shoot. Finally, the thing that really made me take several points off, Easy difficulty is locked behind paid DLC. Had all stages been challenging, with the difficulty slowly ramping up, it would have been fun, that, or at least give the player more lives, that alone would also make a huge difference. Or just make it easy as hell and let players unlock the gallery, arguably the main selling point for a game like this lol. Grade: F

Aeon's End Apparently based on a table-top game, though I don't know if that version is as rage-inducing and frustrating as this one. Even with a cheat sheet of what cards do what, what's best to play, how to get good spells on your deck, etc. It just feels impossible to win. Boss decks seem filled with "Fuck you, your base AND your HP!" cards. Hey you're one spell away from defeating the boss, and your base has 12 HP left! Neat! Fuck you, here's a card that automatically deals 8 damage to your base, removes one of the spells you have prepared and deals 4 HP damage to you, also that minion the boss played last turn? It deals 20 damage to your base! FUCK YOU! Hey! You have some pretty neat spells lined up, the boss has half HP and your base hasn't taken that much damage! Neat! FUCK YOU, the boss just played a minion that forces you to use your spells on it, deals damage to the base each time it gets hit and when defeated allows the boss to unleash it's special, destroying your base instantly!! FUCK YOU!! Well, in the words of R.J. MacReady: I don't think I've been this annoyed at a game in a while lol. It's a shame, I like the concept, and I do enjoy these types of games, but this one just seems ridiculously stacked against you, like one post on the steam forums said, the only way to ensure your base isn't destroyed is to not start a game in the first place.