Against the Storm.

I played a lot back when it came out. I picked up the DCL on release day and reset my progress. Such a good game. Even when I’m not playing (like now) I’m thinking and reading up on strategies.

I’ve been trying to cross off some of my “in progress” games, ones I’ve been working on off and on over the past few months, so I can make room for new ones.

After sitting on it for months, I finally got around to finishing my second playthough of Lies of P. I went for the “Real boy” ending, and man, I really had to fight the urge to start a third round. I really like the combat and 99% of the characters.

Cleaned up the rest of the map for Mad Max, with the exception of collecting all the vehicles, since that’s kind of a pain to do. Much like Lies of P, I was a bit tempted to start another playthough lol.

Maxed out all the glyphs for my Scorcerer in Diablo 4: Season 5, so it’s set aside until I come back from a planned vacation this week. I’m not sure how I’ll handle a new season and a new dlc, AND a new leveling system all at the same time, but I’ll figure it out.

I’ve been playing UFO 50 with NES controllers, and CRT filter high, it’s been a blast.

I’ve played the multi-player games with my kids, they love them.

Also my kids have been playing the single player games by themselves, it’s amazing to watch them play games like the ones I grew up with.

I’m playing fallout London. Super impressive for a mod. I’m really enjoying it.

Just finished Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. Got it five years ago but got frustrated and uninstalled it. Then I played it on-off for some time. But after lots of tries I got the final boss killed. Yes, there is an option for New Game Plus but nope, time to play something else. Brilliant game, hard but rewarding.

100%ing midnight suns and also playing through the new starfield dlc 😎

This is a long one, so buckle up.

Test Drive Unlimited 1 (2006) - but not the flashy “next-gen” version for PS3, Xbox 360 or PC. Instead, I’m replaying the somewhat obscure PS2 port, using an emulator this time around. TDU was a remarkable achievement at the time, having a full-scale recreation of the entire island of Oahu, with the entire real-world road network to be explored online with other players at the time. There’s nothing scaled down here, unlike in most videogames, which means you get about 1600 km or 1000 miles of roads, from city streets over coastal straights to twisty mountain roads. It’s not just the quantity that is amazing, but also the quality, with tons of elevation changes keeping these roads interesting. Buildings and other track-side detail are less close to the real world, but since I’m here for racing, not sightseeing, this isn’t bothering me too much.

You would think that having such an enormous world world would make this exclusive to the then most powerful systems at the time, but they actually managed to port all of Oahu, with no reduction in size, to both PS2 and PSP. Sacrifices had to be made, for obvious reasons. Visuals suffered the most, but you still get an enormous draw distance, far beyond what would have been necessary at the original resolution, cars with 3D interiors (not on PSP), tons of geometric detail and realistic reflections that look better than in most other PS2 games. The landscape is very sparse though, especially in terms of geometric and texture detail (and on top of that, most non-car textures aren’t just low-res, but also terrible from an artistic standpoint), but the game still throws just enough detail at the player that it looks remarkably close to the big version, especially when you’re racing past things at high speed. There are other cuts that were likely made due to a lack of time instead of hardware restrictions, like a few missing cars here and there, all motorcycles, some minor event types, walking around interiors and all character customization, most of which is fairly inconsequential however. Really the biggest issue this version has is that the GPS is persistently trying to send you into oncoming traffic during free-roam due to it not taking one-way streets into account, which can lead to both frustration and fun, depending on your mindset.

If you’re still reading, you might be asking yourself why I would torture myself with PS2-era visuals when I could instead play the much prettier PC version that also runs at more than 30 fps without hacks and has more content and immersion. The reason is simple and it’s not nostalgia (since my first contact with this game back in 2008 was with the PC version): For some reason (likely because they are running on entirely different engines), the handling model is completely different and actually better on PS2 and PSP. It’s a bouncy, yet believable simcade model that feels remarkably close to Gran Turismo 2 (if not quite as good - it’s 90% there). Since that game is still the pinnacle of simcade handling in my opinion, this is just about the highest praise I can think of for a racing game. The way cars grip the road, how vastly different front and mid-engine cars behave and the way vehicles react to sudden changes in elevation in particular is night and day between the two. The big version’s most glaring issue in my opinion and one that carried over to the fascinatingly flawed sequel is that its handling never achieved a similarly comfortable compromise between simulation and arcade as the otherwise downgraded ports.

TDU 1 PS2, even with its remarkable online features long gone, remains a fun, accessible racing game with lots of meaningful content in short, accessible bursts, with the majority of races are less than five minutes long. Fun driving, fast and logical progression (unlike whatever the hell Solar Crown is torturing players with) and a neat variety of licensed vehicles in a believable real-world location keep it relevant even today. I can’t recommend it enough. If the main appeal of TDU is the fantasy of owning cars and houses all over Hawaii though, I would recommend playing the big version instead (and the sequel), since they are simply more immersive in this regard. They almost feel like games that in this day and age would be perfect for VR.

Since 100%ing Astro Bot I’m now continuing Last of Us 2 on New Game+. About a third way through.

Always-games: Shipbreaker, Synth Rider (PSVR2), Factorio, Vampire Survivors, Balatro (now on iPad)

Satisfactory. It hit 1.0 about a month ago and I’ve been chipping away at a new world. It is so satisfying to build a working factory and figuring out the right input rate for your resources…it just feels so zen like.

I’m also weirdly feeling an itch to purchase and get into either Pokemon Scarlet or Violet. I can’t explain it, but I’ve apparently crossed the threshold of holding off and it just keeps floating around in my head.