MetalCaveman

New PC is out of commission, has been for a while lol, been using my old PC and I'm surprised at how well it holds up, up until now I used it mainly as a streaming PC for Netflix, Spotify and other stuff, rarely using it for more than a couple of hours, but now that it's my daily driver again I'm happy to see how well it still runs. Main issue has been that it has Pop!_OS installed and this thing did not play nice with my speakers, true to its name, it had some really REALLY loud pops every once in a while. It's fixed now, kinda, still pops, but now it's a quiet pop whenever I start a new video or change songs, but nothing like before. I could have just moved the GPU from this one into the other one, but I decided to try and use it as is, good chance to test this Linux distro as a daily driver too.

Resident Evil Darkside Chronicles A sequel to Umbrella Chronicles, this time including retellings of RE2 and Code Veronica, alongside a new chapter covering Operation Javier (aka, that thing that made Krauser join Wesker's side). In some ways a better game, in some ways a worse game than Umbrella Chronicles. The story is more linear, or feels like that, in UC, after every chapter, you went back to the chapter selection menu, where you could customize your guns, read unlocked archives and choose the next chapter you wanted to play, you could continue with the next chapter, play extra chapters or replay ones you had already completed. Here, after every chapter, instead of a chapter selection menu, you get a simplified menu where you can still do most of the things you could before, except instead of choosing which chapter to play (or replay) next, you're just taken to the next one if you choose the "chronicles" option. If you want to replay chapters, you have to go back to the main menu. The Operation Javier stuff was neat, though I don't know if its canon has changed now with RE4R. You even get a secret chapter, which is a replay of the last chapter, but from Krauser's point of view, with inner monologue revealing why he made the choice to join Wesker. Like with UC, some elements were changed in RE2 in order to justify the coop stuff, now Claire and Leon go through the whole thing together, not once splitting up. In Code Veronica, once you get Chris as your partner, also, for Code Veronica, role is minimal, in fact, dude's there for only a few seconds during the final cutscene. In terms of gameplay, it's a rail shooter, so that part is mostly the same, the changes come from things like guns and healing. Now you can change guns while playing, instead of having to complete the chapter, you can also store green herbs, in UC they were automatically used. Guns are now upgraded similar to how it works in RE4, you can choose which stat to focus on, damage, capacity, reload, etc. You can even upgrade your basic handgun, which is pretty neat since that's the one with infinite ammo. Also, you use gold now, which is way easier to get than stars. The biggest change is that now you can actually see your partner, in UC you only see your character and teammate during checkpoints and cutscenes, now, your partner is more present during gameplay and even has their own healthbar, you'll actually see them walk in front of you, open doors, interact with the environment, it's much more natural than the disembodied voice from UC. This also means that you'll have to save them occasionally, and you'll also need to use healing resources on them when needed. Another big change, this one for worse, is the camera, UC had a fairly straightforward camera, you moved from room to room, there were quick turns, and some jumps but nothing too major. This one however, actually made me sick a couple of times. The camera jumps around all the time, every time your character jumps, gets hit, is taken by surprise by an enemy, rolls, ducks, dodges, etc, the camera moves all over the place, sometimes it's annoying, making you miss a magnum shot, sometimes it's so excessive it can be physically uncomfortable. This is one I wish they'd tone down. Grade: B- (game's an A, but the camera stuff brings the grade down several notches) Since I forgot during that post: Umbrella Chronicles Grade: A+

Oh, that's what you meant! Well, in that case, since I'm not going to be playing RE4R anytime soon I wanted to play some of the other versions, that's why I got the last trophy in RE4 HD for PC, and I also wanted to play the Wii version, which has been sitting there for aeons lol, then I remembered that there were two RE rail shooters for the Wii, one thing led to another and I ended up playing Umbrella Chronicles instead of RE4.

Resident Evil Umbrella Chronicles A rail shooter for the Wii, story is a re-telling of RE0, RE, and RE3, with a new chapter dealing with the fall of Umbrella. There's also extra chapters for other characters like Rebecca, Ada and HUNK, plus a couple of chapters that explore the events of RE1 and fall of Umbrella from Wesker's perspective. Really fun, if you like the House of the Dead series you'll be right at home here. There's a fair variety of weapons, though unfortunately, the handcannon is unlocked with the last chapter, you can go back and replay previous chapters with all current weapons and upgrades, but it's still disappointing that you don't get the cool magnum until the end. Best part is that this is Resident Evil in all its cheesy glory, Wesker's voice is hilariously evil, characters crack jokes, make fun of enemies, etc, all the good stuff is here. Just listen to Wesker saying zombies, from the opening cutscene: Love it. Also, OG RE3 Jill best Jill, I like her look in the remake, but OG is still best.

HELL YEAH!!!! Turns out getting all rings offline wasn't that hard with a new character and proper planning on which areas to get to PBWT first, which to save for later and which to use Ephemeral Eyes on. Hardest part was the farming needed for two of the rings lol.

https://vroid.com/en/studio That's a pretty neat and easy way to make custom characters for your games, I think it's meant to be used for VTubers and VR Chat stuff, but there's a bunch of plugins you can use to import VRM into a bunch of different engines. Played with it for a bit and I'm happy with how easy it is to use, and how easy it was to set up in UE5 with the retargeter, a fun surprise once I checked some of the animations, vroid characters include... physics. Only downside is that this only works if you're going for that anime style.

I wouldn't mind a Code Veronica remake, the Outbreak games getting a remake would be neat too, RE5 could use some polish, but not a full remake IMO, then again, I don't think RE4 needed a remake and apparently it's pretty good. Only thing stopping me from jumping into the RE4 Remake train is that I'm waiting for news on Separate Ways lol (that, and backlog reasons ).

The made me hate this game and myself for playing it lol, the island had some seriously annoying parts, and the was also a huge pain, but that IMO is mostly on me, panicking and not being able to aim properly lol, those are IMO the parts most likely to make you want to set this game on fire, and some of the bosses, funnily enough, Del Lago was the easiest boss, normally I struggle a fair bit in that fight, this time, it was the highlight in terms of how easy it was compared to everything else. If you can save some flash grenades for certain late game areas you might not have as many issues as I did, also, make sure you master the stun->kick->knife combo, that'll save you a ton of ammo, at least until the Plagas start popping up, then you better hope you have some flash grenades.

RE4 HD complete! \m/ \m/ Professional difficulty was a pain, but being able to bring Ashley's armour helped a ton, kinda tempted to do another run on normal, with the Chicago Typewriter, just to have my revenge lol.

Resident Evil 4... Wii Edition Awkward controls aside, the sight turning red when on top of an enemy makes things so much easier lol. Resident Evil 4... HD (2005) Might as well try and get the last achievement, though I was not prepared for professional difficulty lol, aiming is also way harder than on Wii, Leon shakes like he's made of gelatin.

https://en.bandainamcoent.eu/elden-ring/news/elden-ring-patch-notes-version-109?utm_source=SM_Official&utm_medium=official_post&utm_campaign=EldenRing_PatchNotes_109 New update adds Ray Tracing for PS5, Series X and PC.

Epic just announced a whole bunch of things. - UEFN Unreal Editor for Fortnite, a version of the Unreal Editor designed to work directly with Fortnite, basically now you have access to most (if not all) of the UE's features, but in a way that's easier to use if you want to create stuff for Fortnite, UE's scripting language, Verse is also going live with this release, though apparently it's still far from a release on the UE 5. - Fab Combining the Unreal Marketplace, SketchFab, QuixelBridge and ArtStation, you'll be able to buy and sell assets, not only for Unreal Engine, but for other engines and programs as well. - UE 5.2 With a new shading system, Substrate, as well as some other fixes and additions. - MetaHuman Animator Wish this thing worked on android phones, allows you to use your iphone camera to record facial animations, you can also use this with a more professional helmet mounted camera system. https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/blog/dive-into-epic-s-announcements-from-gdc-2023

Bioshock 2 In terms of gameplay, a huge improvement over the first one, movement feels faster and smoother, being able to have a plasmid and weapon out at the same time is a huge QoL improvement, and in general everything felt better. Storywise it was OK, I found endless rambling more annoying than Ryan's in the first game, specially because it didn't feel like it made sense. Or at least that's how I felt about the whole thing. I also had ton of technical issues with this one, the 2K launcher is a nightmare, towards the end, there was a cycle of crash -> reload -> crash, eventually I fixed this by running it windowed, but still, it was a huge pain in the butt. Other than that though, I like this one better than the first one. Grade: C+ (would be higher, but the technical issues bring it down a fair bit) Bioshock 2: Minerva's Den Now this was pretty cool, story started out kinda weak, but that ending was most excellent!! Helps that after figuring out how to get it to run properly I didn't have any crashes throughout this DLC. Grade: B+ Originally I wanted to go through the trilogy, but I think I'll stay away from anything that uses the 2K launcher for a while lol, unfortunately this also means I won't be touching XCOM 2 any time soon.

Bioshock 2 So far, the gameplay is way more fun that Bioshock, just being able to have a plasmid and weapon at the same time is a massive improvement, movement also feels faster. Unfortunately it keeps crashing and the stupid 2K launcher keeps giving me issues, after every crash it'll fail to launch saying it needs permissions from the Epic Launcher lol. Resident Evil Umbrella Chronicles A light gun game for the Wii, this game is HARD, playing on easy and even with that, I can barely make it to the boss with any ammo, still fun though. Demon's Souls Yup, enough time has passed since I played Elden Ring that I decided to go back to this and get some of the trophies I'm missing, only need 3 more, unfortunately, one of those is the get all rings trophy.

Wanted to get this during the winter sale, but also wanted to finish some other games first.

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

\m/ \m/