New Content and Release Dates

My Red Dead adventures have reached the epilogue and I'm perfectly content to experience the hopefulness of John Marston trying to shed his outlaw past for the sake of his family.  RIP Arthur (and horse...we can't forget his faithful horse).  I'm keeping watch for any news about my other favorite games and there have been a few fun little nuggets of news that have popped up!

News Nugget #1

The latest update for Two Point Museum added in a bunch of new features that include a variety of new displays from the "digiverse"--a sort of alternate dimension that can be slightly risky to explore.  On top of that, they also included a crossover with Dredge!  Now you can display the creepy denizens of the deep in your own museum.  I haven't played it yet, but fully intend to check it out once I finally (someday) finish my latest cowboy adventures.  You can view the preview video below:

News Nugget #2

Slime Rancher 2 will fully launch on September 23rd!  It has been in early access for a long time (like 2 or 3 years) and I've been seeing some of the content on social media.  If you are unfamiliar with Slime Rancher, I would highly encourage you to check out the original game.  It definitely falls on the casual side of the spectrum, but it's the perfect happy, relaxing game for just chilling with no stress.  The slimes are cute, there's a bit of management and exploration, and there's a background story built in.  I can't wait to see what the latest iteration has in store!  They're also releasing a physical edition (if that's your jam).

I'm hoping to spend some time in the future with both of these delightful games.  It's a Labor Day weekend in the U.S., so I hope everyone gets to enjoy some fun outdoor time and maybe a bit of gaming.

Horse Sense

Red Dead Redemption 2 is such an epic game that there's no way I'm done playing.  My adventures as Arthur Morgan have taken me from the beauty of the wooded lands around Valentine to the murky swamps and dirty streets of Saint Denis.  Poor Arthur is marching toward his inevitable end but I'm still having fun.

Since I've largely completed much of the side content I've been advancing the main storyline.  I did spend some time doing something that I said I wasn't going to do...but inevitably always end up doing.  Usually one of the first big adventures that Arthur takes is to find what is arguably the best horse in the game--the white Arabian that spawns in the snowy expanse outside Lake Isabella.  This time I told myself that I would organically find Arthur increasingly better horses--basically I would keep an eye out for different horses roaming around and if I saw one that was an upgrade, I would tame it.  This worked out pretty well, there's one random thoroughbred that roams around in the area outside Emerald Ranch and I managed to track it down and tame it.  It's a good horse--decent speed and it doesn't scare extremely easily.  I stuck with that horse for awhile and then stumbled across a random Nokota in the hills outside of Valentine.  Once again, I tamed it, built up the bond to level 4 and kept my eyes peeled for other horses.

My own stupidity doomed my "organic discovery" plan.  I decided that I should sell one of my previously stabled horses and thought I had selected JUST that horse to sell.  Instead, I stupidly sold ALL my stabled horses and didn't realize it until way too late (basically I noticed the stable icon was no longer showing a number for my stabled horses).  All those horses that I had worked so hard to find were gone.  There's no way I couldn't have a backup horse, so I decided to just pursue the normal path of tracking down the best horses.

My favorite of the horsies!  The coat pattern is so unique.

This time around I decided to check out the other wild Arabian that can be tamed.  Its stats are slightly worse than the white Arabian, but it has my favorite look of all the horses in the game.  You can find this horse wandering around the rugged terrain just west of the Wapiti Reservation.  The biggest challenge in taming this horse is the rocky terrain--the horse kept positioning itself on top of rocks or close to the edge of dangerous looking drop-offfs, so I had to chase it around a bit to get it in a place where I felt confident that it wouldn't buck itself into an early death while I was trying to break it.  Behold, the brindled Arabian!  It truly is one of the prettiest horsies.

Now I had my backup horse, but I wasn't content with just one, so I decided that it would also be worthwhile to go grab the white Arabian.  In previous playthroughs I've never had a problem finding and breaking this horse.  This time around it turned into a real chore.  It took me three different tries to catch the damn thing!  The first time was completely my fault--it was kind of blizzardy and I lost sight of the horse and accidentally rode too close to it and spooked it off.  Generally I could track it down using eagle eye, but this time it decided to take off on a bonkers path--it swam across the open part of the lake and made it to the small island in the middle and then just disappeared.  I rode fully around the lake multiple times and could not find it.  I gave up and decided to come back later.

The classic white Arabian.

Round two also turned into a disaster--I bundled Arthur up and ventured back up into the snow.  This time the horse spawned right next to two wolves that were playing (but not scaring the stupid horse...).  As soon as I got close enough the wolves turned to attack and I had to kill them.  The shooting scared the horse off (thankfully this time it didn't take off into the water) and I figured I could still track it down.  Unfortunately a random rider also decided to come by and scared the horse off even more (honestly, I never see riders up there so it was very oddly timed).  I wasted a bunch of time riding around and trying to find it to no avail.

So I waited, did a few missions, and then decided to give it another go (which is truly stupid).  Again, the wolves had respawned, but this time I was ready and quickly dispatched them while keeping an eye on the horse.  I was finally able to track it down and break it.  I probably wasted well over an hour on the pursuit of this dang horse.

I previously wrote about irritations I have with certain aspects of RDR2 and another one (sort of two) popped up with the taming of the Arabians.  NPC's love to comment on how awesome the Arabians are, but then I took them into the stables and the stable master stated that the horse was starved.  What?  I feed them whenever their health starts to dip.  That's when I remembered the whole "body condition" aspect of gameplay that is never explained well.  It's a counterintuitive mechanic where Arthur and horse companion need to eat at a certain regular pattern to maintain their weight (rather than the traditional RPG way of whenever health gets low).  It supposedly has some effect on stats (like stamina).  The game never explains much other than the fact that Arthur and horsey need to eat from time to time.  I'm pretty sure that there are guides out there that explain how to maintain body condition, but I don't know how much time I want to expend on this aspect of the game.  It's poorly explained and difficult to monitor--the only way to see the condition of your horse is through a pause menu option.

Even though I know exactly how Arthur's adventures will end (sad face), RDR2 is always a magical, western-style good time.  I forgot exactly how many people you shoot--it's staggering (maybe more than GTA V?).  Maybe someday I'll do a bandit playthrough...probably not though, I just don't like bad Arthur. 

I Finally Did It! (Like a Month Ago...)

After spending months and months fantasizing/doing research about building a new PC, I decided it was time to actually do the thing.  GPU prices were (and are) still on the high side, but I think I saved enough with a few other component deals to possibly offset the additional cost.  Here is a link to my ultimate final build:  7800x3d Build.

Basically it all started because I saw a Paul's Hardware video where he was doing a few build fixes and he mentioned that there were some good deals on motherboards.  Thanks to that tip I discovered that I could get a B850 motherboard for the same price as the B650 one that I had initially chosen.  Since it was a limited time offer...what was I supposed to do with just a motherboard?  I had no other choice but to finish the build (*I definitely had a choice).

CPU: 7800X3D

I'm sure you're thinking...why not a 9800X3d?  It's like $200 more.  If I was going for a fancier, more top of the line kind of build, I would've probably landed there.  I wanted to check out the supposed boosted gaming capabilities of the X3D CPU's and the 7800X3D is fine for the 1440p gaming that I'm doing.  The price appears to have gone up a bit since I bought mine but CPU prices do seem to fluctuate quite a bit.  

Cooler: Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120SE

I decided to go with a slightly beefier (but still very affordable) dual fan cooler in this build.  This cooler has great reviews and performance for ~$40.  It required a bit of muscle to fully screw it in, but it has worked like a charm and is keeping my CPU nice and chill.  The only major downside was that I installed this beefier cooler before plugging in my CPU power cables to the motherboard--let's just say that I royally scraped up my hand and it was a huge pain the buttocks to plug both of those cables in.  If possibly, I would highly recommend plugging in the CPU cables before your cooler (if it's a beefier one like this one).  It also sits right on top of my RAM--there's zero space, but it does clear it.

Memory: TeamGroup T-Force Vulcan DDR5-6000 CL30 (16gb x 2)

I had originally picked some slightly more budget RAM but this set was on sale for the same price, so I went with TeamGroup.  I am not a big RGB person, so it doesn't have any cool, flashy lights, it's just RAM.  It was easy to install, was the right size, and changing the XMP settings was as simple as enabling it.  

Motherboard: MSI B850 Gaming Plus Wifi ATX AM5

This was the magical motherboard that started it all--it was the same price as the B650 one I had originally chosen but offered some decent upgrades (PCIE 5.0; Gen 5 M.2; Wifi 7).  It's a nice looking motherboard and features a fancy heatsink for the main M.2 slot (which I did not utilize since I didn't buy a Gen 5 M.2--I figured I could use it in the future if I decided to add a Gen 5 M.2) and a few other "futureproofing" kind of features.  I am skeptical of using Wifi and haven't enabled it, but it comes with a nice antenna and seems easy enough to connect and use.  It has some handy features for building like screwless M.2 slots.

Storage: 1x 1TB Kingston M.2-2280 (Gen 4) + 1 x 2TB Silicon Power UD90 M.2-2280 (Gen 4)

When I bought my CPU there was a deal to receive a free 1TB M.2 drive, so I decided to use it for my OS.  I like to maintain a bit of storage because I don't like uninstalling games and having to re-download them (my internet speeds are not great) so I also added another 2TB drive.  I didn't go with Gen 5 despite my mobo having the capability--I've read that the difference from Gen 4 is negligible and not worth the additional cost (at least right now--maybe in the future though).  The screwless M.2 feature on my motherboard meant simply snapping them into place--it was so simple that I confused myself and thought I had made a mistake.  

GPU: Gigabyte Gaming OC Radeon 9070XT 16GB

Even though I was angling toward team green and the 9070XT is probably one of the most overpriced GPU's, I just couldn't justify spending >$130 more for a 5070Ti with basically the same performance.  In the past I've had AMD GPU's and only had a few minor problems with them--namely software related issues (drivers/updates and whatnot).  I've never been terribly impressed with ray tracing so I figured I would go back to team red this time around.  I have noticed that this particular card does seem to run a bit loud (I haven't played anything that's too graphically intensive).  I'm giving 1440p a try and so far it looks great.

The Fractal Pop Air case (cyan version that I chose).

Case: Fractal Pop Air ATX Mid Tower

I did my first build in a Fractal case and liked it, so I opted for another one for this build.  This case includes features like built in zip ties for cable management, magnetic dust filters, and easily removeable side panels.  You can also buy it in a few fun colors--I opted for the blue one.  It comes with three case fans (that I didn't realize were RGB fans) and you can add in several more (if you want to add in a bajillion fans you'll need to buy a more expensive case).  I didn't want to mess with RGB, but this case offers up the ability to control the RGB through a build in controller on the case or to plug it into the motherboard (to be controlled with software...no thanks).  The RGB controller option likely doesn't offer up the variety of options that software would, but you can change the color options and pattern/cycle.  As someone who would rather not deal with RGB, I'm content with the case control. (*not so fun fact--this case does offer up USB 3.0/2 slots but you have to buy extra connectors)

Power Supply: MSI MAG A850GL PCIE5 850W+ Gold (fully modular)

My 9070XT recommended an 850W power supply and this one had positive reviews.  On my first build I had opted for a semi-modular PSU, but I like the fully modular style.  This PSU came with a special cable for NVIDIA GPU's (you know...to help prevent the melting cables issue), so if you're going with team green, it's a good choice.  There are plenty of extra cables included and they seem nice and sturdy.

Monitor: AOC Q27G3MXN 27.0" 2560X1440 180Hz

I decided that it was time to move up to 1440p and retire my ol' reliable 1080p monitor.  This particular model has been positively reviewed and falls on the more "budget" end of things.  It has a high refresh rate and HDR.  It is adjustable but does lack all the funsies like RGB.  I have been surprised by how much brighter it seems compared to my old monitor.

The build process itself was straightforward and I felt slightly more confident about it than I did with my first build.  Most of the difficulties I encountered had to do with making sure the fans were correctly connected (a bit of daisy chaining), getting the chonky air cooler properly screwed down, and then getting the CPU cables plugged into the motherboard around the air cooler.  The great thing about building your own is that I feel like I learn something new each time.  Installing Windows 11 was easier than I thought it would be--I initially feared that I would have to install Windows 10 and then upgrade to 11, but you can use a Windows 10 key for a free upgrade to 11.  To me, all Windows versions feel same-y and just take time to get used to some of the changes in how things are organized.

I've been enjoying gaming on my new PC since early July and am glad I made the move to Windows 11 before the October deadline.  The only real problem I've had is with the stupid installation issue with the Rockstar Games Launcher.  If you haven't built a PC before and are interested, I would highly recommend checking out Paul's Hardware for his "how to build" series.  Paul's videos are extremely helpful and he explains things in a way that make them easy to understand.

Horsey Time

Recently I saw a social media interview where they asked gamers about a game that simply lives on their PC/console--the type of game that you never uninstall because you just might want to pick it up.  For me, one of those games (because I definitely have more than one) would be Red Dead Redemption 2.  I finally caved and built the new PC that I had been fantasizing about and it was the first "big" game that I installed.  I've been happily engrossed in the various activities that Arthur Morgan can engage in (and mostly neglecting the main storyline).  As I play through RDR2 and enjoy so much about it, there are still a few things that irritate me.

Irritation #1

Why must we still have the launchers within launchers in the year of our lord 2025!  I downloaded all ~130 GB of game only to go to launch it and be prompted to install the Rockstar Launcher.  And yes, the Rockstar Launcher installation isn't a big deal...except I got a weird error where some of the "prerequisite" items weren't able to properly install.  I shrugged it off, but have felt like I've had a bit of an unstable experience with some crashing and some weirdness related to graphics settings (I've moved up into the world of 1440p).  I attempted to fix the issue by verifying my game files on Epic (but it's not a game files related issue) and also uninstalling and re-installing the launcher.  I've still had some issues which might actually be related to an AMD graphics specific setting.  Look, all I want is to be able to sign into one thing and not have remember another password or mess with another program.

Wendy the horse.  A beautiful Nokota.

Irritation #2

I'm grateful that we did actually get RDR2 on PC because it is definitely one of my favorites.  Yes, the PC version of Rockstar games is generally an afterthought (who knows when we will see the PC version of GTA VI) but they did actually throw us a bone in the form of photo mode.  I love a good photo mode in a beautiful game like RDR2 and enjoy stopping to snap a nice screenshot of something scenic.  However the way that screenshots are stored and retrieved is stupid.  Screenshots are actually saved locally on your PC...just in a weird format that requires using a special program or doing some strange editing using notepad.  The other method is to upload your screenshots to Rockstar Social Club (which has apparently gone the way of the dodo) and then log in to the website and retrieve them from your personal profile by downloading them.  This is entirely too onerous and turns what should be a fun additional feature into more of a chore.

Horseshoe Overlook is one of my favorite scenic spots.

Irritation #3

I'm a completely unashamed save scummer in games that allow the constant mashing of the quicksave button.  Rockstar games are not those games--the autosave system is a bit of a mystery.  There's no message at the beginning of the game to look for a tiny spinning symbol to indicate that the game is being saved.  I like to assault a gang camp whenever I stumble across one--occasionally those assaults can go a bit sideways, so I thought I could simply save pre-assault (manually).  I thought wrong--when I loaded up my save Arthur was in a totally different location and the camp had disappeared (a sort of minor annoyance because the camps do respawn at different points).  I guess I just have to live with the consequences of my actions (I accidentally shot the dude chained to the bed in the basement of the gun store in Rhodes in one playthrough...it was stupid, but completely undoable).

Even with these faults, I still love RDR2.  The world is amazing and it's easy to spend countless hours exploring, hunting, or taking on the numerous challenges.  I guess the story and characters are okay too...jkjk...we all know that in true Rockstar fashion they are great.  I have no idea when my current playthrough will end, I'm just biding my time with Arthur and trying to find things I've missed in other playthroughs.  I've had some mixed success--I think I'm up to 4 found dinosaur bones and I've been on a search for those damn cigarette cards (I've never completed a single entire set in any of my several playthroughs).  RDR2 lives on my PC and always will--irritations and all.

20-Sided Dice of Joy

The new DLC for Two Point Museum--"Fantasy Finds"--released a couple of weeks ago and I spent many enjoyable hours checking out all the new additions to my favorite silly management series.  If it has been awhile since you picked up Two Point Museum, this is the perfect time to add some fun new content and check out the many quality of life changes that have been implemented.  You can grab the new DLC for just $7.99 on Steam (and maybe Epic...I think I've seen Two Point there too now).

What is it?

The first DLC for Two Point Museum.  It features a brand new expedition map with a large number of new Points of Interest to explore and tons of new fantasy themed exhibits, staff traits, and decorative items.  To fully explore the map/unlock all the new items you're looking at a good chunk of additional playtime.  I have always found the $7.99 price tag to be a good price point for DLC and I feel like I got my moneys worth with this one.

Pros:

+ Full lean into the "fantasy" theme that is a lot of fun.  The new exhibits fall into several classes--there are enchanted items (my favorite being the chicken spawning totem that randomly pops out a bunch of goofy looking fowl), goblin-themed items, dwarven items, mythical items, and even some new dragon bones (which technically fall under prehistory as fossils).  There's an entire storyline about fighting a dragon that serves as the progression on the map and can even affect which locations you are able to access.  If you're into going all out on the theme decorations--there are new fantasy inspired items to make the perfect fantasy land!

Chickens!  It's a bug, but they're kind of cute.

+ Staff traits that are DnD-inspired.  Rather than just hiring a fantasy expert you hire experts that have a fantasy "class."  We're talking warriors, rogues, bards, and wizards that even feature a set of "stats."  Rather than relying on the traditional museum training requirements, your fantasy experts will typically need to meet stats-related thresholds--for example, there might be a negative event that is countered by having a certain number of dexterity points.  When your staff levels up they gain XP and you can add to their base stats.  There are also special mythical items which can either be displayed as an exhibit or used to buff your staff--one of my favorite items is a pair of winged boots that buff dexterity and give your character crazy speed--they will randomly scramble all over the museum.

+ Dwarven items can be linked together and used to refine geodes into a display that is a 20-sided die that can be rolled to provide a random buff (or debuff...) for your displays or staff.  It's fun to randomly roll and see what you get (although I rolled a bad one that slowed staff way down and it didn't expire for a pretty long period of time).

+ Crossover content within exhibit themes.  For example you can take a supernatural expert and capture goblin spirits or take a botany expert and find some new plants.

My fantasy wing with many exhibits.

Cons:

- DLC does not feature a new museum.  I was a bit bummed about this because I was hoping there'd be more of a storyline/set of objectives to earn stars.  There was a new museum added as part of an update, so you could view that as an opportunity to lean fully into the fantasy theme.  Unfortunately for me, I had already started that museum and had played through a 3 location preview of the new content.

- Staff training with fantasy staff is a bit pointless and could definitely be improved.  Basically you just want to focus on improving their stats since the fantasy expeditions are not focused on specific skills.  I wish they had added in more fantasy specific training (there's one new fantasy specific training--potion brewing).  The chicken totem item is currently bugged and will keep spitting out chickens that don't disappear...I say, why not make that a trainable staff skill--chicken banishment!  (Sadly, they are fixing the chicken bug)

Recommendation:

Even though there's not a new museum, the fantasy theme is a lot of fun and there's a ton of new exhibits to discover.  For $7.99 it's a good deal and will provide many hours of dragon fighting and exhibit discovery.  Give it a whirl!