Museum Mastery

My Two Point Museum adventure is primarily over (I'm still playing--I'll explain), so it's time to finally write up my full review.  Did they manage to add another enjoyable management experience to the whacky Two Point world?  Short answer; yes!

What is it?

The third game in the silly management-oriented game universe of Two Point county.  The first two games saw players managing hospitals and college campuses and the newest chapter introduces the world of museums.  Play generally hinges on meeting specific goals (which change for each museum, star level, or challenge) to earn "stars."  Meeting these goals means you move on to the next set of more complicated goals to earn even more prestige for your museums.  Managing museums requires you to send staff on expeditions to find new exhibits, to keep your guests happy, and to maintain the exhibits and infrastructure of your museums.  There's plenty to keep you occupied.

My Tiger Shark display in my marine life museum.

How much playtime can I expect?

If you're just focusing on completing the game (each museum to 5 stars), probably 50-60.  There are also optional challenge maps that focus on different aspects of gameplay.  Something new that greatly extends playtime--once you reach 5 stars you can keep playing--each map gets a new general set of goals to continue adding stars.  I think I can currently go up to 8 stars and I'm at almost 80 hours played.

Pros:

+ If you've played the other games in the Two Point series the playstyle and content directly ties-in.  You have the same friendly receptionist making goofy announcements and there are characters from the other games who are VIP guests or special famous spirits that can be captured.  As someone who is a big fan of the Two Point games, I enjoyed the call backs and easy to pick up gameplay.  That doesn't mean that there's not plenty of new content/gameplay to make Museum it's own novel entry into the series.

+ 5 different museums to manage.  Each museum has it's own unique "theme" that means management is slightly different.  You start off with a sort of default pre-history museum that features fossils and dinosaur bones but quickly move on to a variety of others that include: a "marine life" museum that features live exhibits of sea creatures and the ruins of a mysterious underwater culture; a science themed museum where you can build many custom contraptions but can also display classic scientific inventions; a space museum that focuses on finding mysterious "anomalies" and learning about the other denizens of the Two Point universe; the final museum is supernatural themed and focuses on an eccentric collection of "cursed items" and capturing spirits (known as "polterguests") to display.

Managing each museum type presents its own challenges--in the marine life museum you have to make sure that you keep the exhibits alive--fish need to be housed in tanks with specific requirements such as temperature and food type.  You also have to pay special attention to the traits of the fish you capture--some will eat other fish or fight with them.  Science displays will catch fire and explode if they aren't maintained properly.  Polterguests require frequent special "spirit whispering" sessions to be kept happy or else they will break free and cause chaos (or eventually completely escape).  I enjoyed the variety of themes and management requirements for each museum type.  Oh and you can also display as many different themes as you want!

The hemo-gobbler plant transforms guests into vampires.

+ Expeditions to find new exhibits are a fun new mechanic.  There are multiple themed areas that your experts can visit.  Each map location features a specific set of events--some might require a specific set of skills from your staff but also events that can be countered by staff with those skills.  Expeditions cost money and mean that staff will be gone for a certain amount of time, so it requires attention to make sure that you've got enough staff available to deal with the normal management of the museum.

Once your staff reach the location they will discover different "grades" of exhibits--this ranges from average up to pristine.  Higher quality exhibits offer greater "buzz" (guest excitement about the exhibit) and feature special "perk" slots where you can install extra boosts.  Each expedition to the location increases the survey level slightly and can unlock higher quality exhibits.  Unlocking pristine exhibits can require many trips.  Certain items, like dinosaur bones, also require multiple trips to unlock all the parts.

+ Bigger maps!  Each museum features the ability to unlock many additional plots.  One frustrating aspect from previous games was that some maps were cramped and required effort to maximize the limited amount of space that you had.  I haven't even come close to filling up any of the maps.

+ Plenty of themed decorative items to make each museum feel on theme.  They kept the kudosh system from the previous games so you can earn special currency to unlock new items.  I'm not very creative, but with the bigger maps there's plenty of room to design special touches to make your museum feel like a regular wonderland.

+ Challenge maps.  There are three challenge maps that focus on different aspects of gameplay--one map focuses on museum security and challenges you to catch as many thieves as possible (thieves periodically appear in your museum and will try to steal your exhibits--hiring security guards and building a security booth with cameras serves to prevent thefts); another map focuses on marketing and trying to attract a specific set of guests within a certain timeframe; and the last one focuses on farming fish (you can breed fish in aquariums using a special item).

+ Sandbox mode.  You can set your own specifications and run your own mega-museum.

+ Tons of exhibits to unlock.  Each map has way more locations than what you need to reach the five star level.  To unlock new locations you have to meet specific requirements in your museum and those get harder as you advance.  There are also fun crossover locations (for example, unique botany items that might be located on the supernatural map) that require multiple types of experts.  I've been pleasantly surprised by the number of locations and exhibits on each map.  Unlocking and completing them all is quite the challenge.

+ Smoother gameplay.  One mildly annoying aspect of the previous games was the somewhat hitchy saving/loading that would take place at the beginning of each month as it clicked over into a new one.  The game would almost seem like it was hanging for like a couple of seconds before things got back into motion.  Now everything runs smooth as butter.

Cons:

- Some new mechanics aren't explained well.  I had noticed that there was an achievement for "sponsored exhibits" but couldn't figure out what that meant.  Maybe it's my own fault for not fully clicking on all the different management menus, but this was not featured in any tutorial.  I had to Google it to figure out how it worked (basically you can choose to feature special "sponsored" items or displays in your museum for extra income.  Guests might lose buzz--who actually enjoys seeing more ads?--but it can provide a good amount of cash).

 - A few annoying (and potentially serious) bugs.  I encountered one where my security guards would catch thieves only to march them toward the entrance, release them, and then be stuck in a continual cycle of pursuit, capture, and release.  Fortunately, this bug got fixed relatively quickly but there seem to be some players facing bugs with their helicopters getting stuck (preventing you from doing expeditions).  Bugs are to be expected with any new release and it seems like they're being addressed.  My own experience has been great (other than the brief security bug).

- I wish there was a % chance attached to exhibit quality or that it was explained a bit more.  As you re-visit the same expedition multiple times your chance to find higher quality exhibits increases, but its very unclear how exactly it works.  I was playing a 6-star map and it required me to find and display 20 pristine exhibits--this took a very long time.  Revisiting a map with the highest quality listed as pristine is no guarantee that you will find that quality.

Recommendation:

In a world of $69.99 games, it's nice to have something highly enjoyable come along for $29.99.  If you're a fan of the Two Point games, it's a definite must-have.  If you're someone new, it's a great introduction to the series that's a lot of fun to play.  Its laid back style and goofiness mask a highly enjoyable and challenging management game.  I'm greatly looking forward to any future DLC.

Dirty, Rotten Thieves

No, I'm not talking about NVIDIA, but about an unfortunate bug that (briefly) hit my Two Point Museum experience this week.  I was happily grinding away at my museum empire when I got a notification that my museum was being targeted by a criminal guild (an event that periodically happens).  I didn't pay much attention to it--my cameras and strolling guards did what they needed to do and exposed the criminals before they were able to steal anything.  A few minutes later though, I noticed that my guards were simply strolling the captured criminals to the edge of nearby ramps and then the criminals were running loose.  Then, the guards would resume chasing them, capture them, march them to the entrance...only to keep doing the same thing!  I was baffled and figured that it might be a bug, so I took to the bug forums.  The very first pinned post listed it as a known issue and stated that a hotfix was being developed ASAP.  I was bummed and hoped that it would be fixed quickly because I was looking forward to spending time with my museums (it's spring break where I live).  Luckily, they rolled out the fix very quickly and I'm back at it.

The spirit of Lord Blaggard resides in Wailon Lodge.

I'm making solid progress on creating a better museum experience for my guests and have 4-stars on almost every map.  I've found that I like some museum types better than others.  My least favorite is probably the Bungle map and science theme.  Unlike the other museum types, you can find plans and build different science contraptions in the workshop.  It's a bit of a mixed bag--you don't have to make multiple expeditions to the same location, but you do have to gather materials (and quite a lot of materials for the higher quality versions) by doing expeditions to the material locations.  There are some unique features of the Bungle museum that are fun--the addition of robo-janitors and security guards.  You can build charging and mod stations to keep your robots functioning and to improve them.  The downside of the robots (at least so far) has been that part of the story has the robo-janitors periodically going "haywire"--this means that they malfunction and must be fixed by a robo-security guard.  This happens quite frequently.  The map is also periodically spattered with goo (it's part of the plot of that map) and only the robo-janitors can clean it up.  Basically, my map is littered with goo puddles.

Curse, creepy items in Wailon Lodge.

My favorite museum type is the supernatural museum at Wailon Lodge.  I like the creepy vibes of the displays--a combination of "cursed" items, weird plants, and polterguests (ghosts who you can contain in specially themed rooms that are viewed by guests).  One thing I will say about all the maps is that they are much larger than in the previous games--you definitely won't feel pressured for space and can get creative.  Wailon Lodge is a prime example and as part of the story tons of space opens up as you progress.  There are also a ton of tie-ins to the other Two Point games--I've managed to catch two "famous" spirits who are story characters from Two Point Campus.  Lord Blaggard is the infamous black knight whose disciples periodically invade and cause destruction to your campus.  Another fun spirit is Albert Spiffinmoore--the founder of the magically themed Spiffinmoore college.

The Hemo-gobbler Plant is one of my favorites.

Other than the brief introduction of the thief bug, I've been having a marvelous time with Two Point Museum and can't wait to write up a full review.  I'm also looking forward to any future DLC's and plan on adding them to my collection.  Happy spring break (if you're there) and happy gaming!

So Many Museums, So Little Time

Two Point Museum has been keeping me occupied and I'm genuinely enjoying it.  I am likely fairly far from completely finishing it (you can run your museums up to the 5-star level, this is a big change from the 3-stars in the previous games), but I'm fine with that.  Here's what I've enjoyed so far:

There is a great variety of exhibit types and each has their own particular management quirks.  You start off with the mostly straightforward pre-history exhibits--fossils and dinosaur bones.  They're easy to manage because all your experts need to do is "restore" them (keep them clean).  Dinosaur bones provide a bit of challenge because they are discovered in pieces and it generally takes multiple trips to complete the set.  After you earn an initial star you unlock other museum types...and boy oh boy, there is quite the variety.  Here's a rundown:

--Supernatural exhibits.  A whacky collection of "cursed items," (think horror movie-like items--your cursed dolls, creepy rocking horses, and janky animatronics) ghost wrangling paraphernalia (apparently an array of vacuums adapted for ghost catching), and the best part--the polterguests!  Polterguests are spirits that can be captured and placed on display for viewing as an exhibit.  Polterguests can come from several historical periods and have their own likes and dislikes when it comes to their accommodations.  They also require frequent "ghost whispering" sessions from experts to keep them content (lest they try to escape).  If you're striving for the absolute gold medal polterguest, then you absolutely must capture a famous spirit!  Famous spirits have a lot of buzz and are a major attraction--they include knights, pirates, and others.

My Tiger Shark display.

--Marine Life/Aquarium exhibits.  Marine life experts can be sent on expedition to collect a variety of fish that can be displayed in aquariums.  Fish can come from different habitats and have different requirements for their tanks--this can include food, temperature, and temperament.  Experts must also frequently attend to the tanks to make sure that they stay clean and that the fish feeders stay stocked.  One of the challenging aspects of managing fish is that some fish will fight (and can kill each other) or will eat smaller fish.  It's vitally important to pay attention to their traits or else you will wind up with a tank full of dead fish (and who wants to see that?).  I've managed to kill an entire tank of fish thanks to not fully understanding the traits of a sea monster that I placed with other fish.  Luckily, even if you do kill off your fish, you can either breed or send out experts on expedition to capture more fish.  I've probably had the hardest time with my marine life museum--the fish disaster happened and I also had a thief steal an exhibit that I apparently can't replace.  (*I will prevail!)

A mixture of different aquarium displays.

--Space exhibits.  Alien objects have been spotted high in the forest and it's basically the perfect opportunity to study and display those objects.  The space museum features experts who must first dig through piles of space junk to find mysterious objects with different shaped symbols on them.  Once you can send your experts out into the expanses of space to explore, you start finding other mysterious objects that feature patterns of symbols...combining the correct symbol displays with the larger artifacts unlocks them (and provides a boost of buzz).  It's enjoyable to see the unlocked objects.

Once you've made a bit of progress you also unlock special Cheese-moonger displays (*if you haven't played Two Point Campus, the cheese-moongers are a type of alien who farm moon cheese...a delicacy--don't ask where it comes from...).  It's a fun little call back to the other Two Point games.

--Science exhibits.  A collection of classical inventions with a sort of steam-punk vibe.  Some of these items can be tweaked to have special effects on guests--like increasing buzz or entertainment.  They're also prone to catching on fire, so you need to keep those janitors trained up on fire suppression.  (Honestly, I haven't played the science museum too much, so it's on my to-do list).

--Botany exhibits--plants; this can include man-eating plants that will consume guests and turn them into other types of guests--one plant turns them into clowns and another into vampires.  Plants require a humid environment that is provided by misters and can also require warmer temperatures (installing heaters is a must).  Like fish, if your plants aren't tended to by experts, they will die and you'll have to replace them.  There's quite a variety of fun plants to unlock and I also feel like I need to make more progress on this one.

Along with all these big categories, there are also smaller subcategories in each type of exhibit.  For example, pre-history includes fossils, but also includes frozen in time items (creatures and items frozen in ice) and "pre-history's mysteries"--items whose use has been lost to time.  There are a ton of items to discover and each museum can be themed or a sort of mix-and-match of different types of exhibits.  Each type of exhibit attracts a certain type of guest, so there is quite a variety in the folks who visit your museums.

I've been impressed with what I've seen from Two Point Museum and look forward to finishing it and writing up a full review.  Happy weekend (and happy gaming) to everyone!

Night at the Museum

I'm so excited to finally be playing Two Point Museum!  The bad news though--I've sidelined my Satisfactory progress and I was feeling like saving humanity was pretty close.  I'm making plans to finish up my Satisfactory mission in the future, but for now, I'm happily engrossed in my museum adventures.

I haven't played a ton of Two Point Museum (yet), but I've had fun with what I've experienced so far.  If you're a Two Point fan like me there's a nice mix of new and familiar.  Our favorite PA/receptionist still voices the announcements, all the radio hosts are back, and the gameplay has some fresh new elements.  One of the new elements involves sending specific groups of employees (it differs for each location) out on expeditions to discover new displays.  At the end of each expedition you unlock a crate that contains a potentially new item (you can also get repeats of the same items...but there's a system set up around that) and it's exciting to watch that crate pop open.

There's lots to consider when planning your museum--guests want to learn and they also want to be entertained, so you have to plan around those factors.  Each display has a certain amount of "buzz" which can be increased by satisfying special bonuses (like positioning an item close to an item of the same family or near a certain kind of decoration) and by decorating the area around the display.  You also have to provide knowledge through informational displays.  It's important to keep your guests happy because they will make donations that help provide income for your museum.

My dino/botany display area.

When it comes to the items that you can display in your museum there is an impressive variety--so far (in my 6-ish hours of gameplay) I've encountered fossils, dinosaur bones, critters trapped in amber, aquatic ruins, aquariums with different types of fish, and man-eating plants.  Each class of items has special thematic decorative items that make designing your museum lots of fun.

Of course, there's also plenty of management--hiring and training staff, meeting the needs of guests and staff, setting up display areas, and building new rooms.  There's still a whacky/zany vibe that pervades the game and keeps things light.  So far, Two Point Museum seems to take the traditional Two Point style and improve on it.  I've been so excited to come home and play every night and am looking forward to more adventures.

Maybe There's Hope on the Horizon

If you're someone who is interested in PC building--or like me are looking to build a new PC this year--the news around the GPU market has felt...very chaotic and disappointing.  NVIDIA's release of it's new, flagship RTX 5000 series cards has been an absolute dumpster fire.  Stock has been extremely low and actually being able to obtain a card has been almost impossible--as a result, prices have been astronomical.  Then, there was news of issues--melting power cables and manufacturing errors that led to lower performance for some cards.  To top this all off they stopped producing 40 series cards early in anticipation of the new GPU's--basically, it's a very crap time to be trying to get a GPU.

(Here's a Gamers Nexus video where Steve breaks down the official specs for the 9070/9070XT)

Anyone who is interested in getting a new GPU has been crossing their fingers that AMD's 9070 and 9070 XT release will be much smoother than the 5000 series.  Well, we finally got some seemingly good news on that front.  It was announced that the pricing for the 9070 would be $550 and the 9070XT would be $600.  This is...actually, pretty reasonable (with a ton of caveats of course--AMD will need to have enough stock; tariffs on goods from China are likely to increase which will also have an impact).  I'm hoping that all this turns out to be true.

I'm wanting to build to this summer, so I'm hoping it's the perfect time where the cards have been out long enough that there are plenty and that prices have maybe started to dip a little.  I'm still not 100% sure if I want to stick with an NVIDIA card or switch over to AMD.  I'm wanting to move up to 1440p and have very little interest in ray tracing, so I'm leaning AMD.  My current PC has the first NVIDIA GPU that I've ever had in it (and I'm pretty sure that I probably overpaid for it!).  I have felt like NVIDIA's drivers and software have worked more smoothly than when I had AMD GPU's--I had some issues with their driver updater not working, but I never had any major issues with their GPU's.

C'mon AMD...don't screw this up!

Is my progress...satisfactory?

Unsurprisingly, I'm still chugging away at my Satisfactory earth-saving mission.  Phase 9 of the project is a real doozy--tons of parts that not only require a lot of advanced manufacturing but also require extremely power hungry processes.  My dreams of building a secondary plutonium reactor turned into a necessity due to the increasing power demands.  My nuclear reactor zone is a radioactive nightmare--I keep a solid supply of iodine gas filters available.

My Plutonium Reactor and particle accelerator

I've reached a point with Satisfactory where I'm ready to move on to something else, but I just can't give up because I feel like I'm so close to the finish line.  I've got another game waiting in the wings (Terra Nil) but know that if I do move on, it's likely that I won't move back any time soon.  I'm also extremely excited for the release of Two Point Museum and am hoping to be done by the time it releases on March 4th.

On the hardware front, I've been watching news about the continued fiasco that is the RTX 5000 series launch.  The RTX 5070 Ti released earlier this week and it was a similar story as the releases of the 80/90's--low stock and ridiculously high prices.  Every big reviewer (your Linus's, Paul's, Gamers Nexus, Jay, etc.) basically said "do not buy this card at the current prices."  MSRP was supposed to be $750 but most cards are selling for $1000 or more.  NVIDIA has said that stock should increase in the upcoming months and that hopefully prices will drop.  March is creeping closer and that also means that AMD will be releasing their 9070 cards which should be interesting.  I really want to build a new PC this summer, but I don't want to pay the ridiculous prices that seem to be the standard right now.

I hope everyone is enjoying some gaming this weekend!

Melted Dreams

Sometimes it's for the best to not be one of the first to be doing/getting something.  The whole early 5000 series NVIDIA GPU release seems like a fiasco.  Firstly, it was apparently most of a paper release with evidence of extremely meager supplies (so meager that Microcenter located in southern California got something like 67 total 5090's).  Your chances of actually obtaining a card were miniscule, but that might not be a bad thing.  There have been reports that some cards are having the same problem as the early 4090's--those absolute beastly cards suck up a massive amount of power and have been melting power cables.  What a bummer to actually get a card and then have it disintegrate before your eyes!  I'm sure those few people who actually experienced this will be getting a replacement...someday when NVIDIA actually starts pumping out GPU's (rumored to be anywhere from March to June).  And another piece of bad news is that with the new tariffs on China, those cards are going to cost as much as $400 more.

Personally, I'm pulling for AMD to release their 9000 series cards and for things to go much more smoothly.  I'd love to see AMD start grabbing more of the GPU market.  The new AMD cards are supposedly going to be released in March.  I think a lot of gamers are keeping their fingers crossed given that the 5000 series launch has been so ridiculous.

(If you want to listen/watch and entire podcast about this issue here's a link to Hardware Unboxed discussing this issue--link)

If you want a great breakdown of all the 5000 series woes, JayzTwoCents breaks it down well in this video:

My Satisfactory dreams of saving the human race from vague disaster are slowly materializing.  I've reached what appears to be the final phase (9) and am working through unlocking even more complicated machinery.  Completing this phase, of course, requires a mindboggling array of fancy items.  One of my big goals is to build another nuclear reactor that runs on plutonium rods (plutonium rods are a different fuel source that are built from the waste of uranium reactors--it's a whole other complicated process to piece together).  With this extra power I could even further refine my sadly inefficient production lines.

There has always got to be something to look forward to and I'm greatly anticipating the March 4th release of Two Point Museum!  I've seen lots of great videos of the different kinds of museums you can build--the stock natural history variety but aquariums and goofier supernatural themed affairs.  I'm not going to pre-order or buy the slightly spendier "explorer edition" that offers up a week of early access play and a bunch of mostly cosmetic/bonus items, but I'm very much looking forward to the regular release.

I've also reconsidered my opinion of the "early access" bonus days that some games are offering.  It might be a good strategy because it allows developers to have a smaller number of players interacting with the game and discovering issues/bugs before the full release (and then hopefully addressing these issues).  I just don't think it's worth paying 1/3 more of the price (although there are some parts of the explorers edition that do seem nice--like an additional museum to run).

Happy post-Valentines day (I'm hoping to grab some cheap candy--ha!) and happy gaming!

Determined

I've been writing about news lately because my own gaming has been completely dedicated to one goal--saving humanity from an extremely vaguely described crisis in Satisfactory.  (*If you're unfamiliar with this fantastic factory management/open world exploration game you can read my review here) I'm 170 hours in (that should tell you a lot about how efficient my factory building is...) and even though I've had brief moments of wanting to walk away...I just can't do it.  I will save humanity!

Currently, I'm sitting at phase 8 of the "project to save humanity."  Cobbling together the complicated parts for my project has become a nightmare scenario of trying to manage multiple factory areas that produce a myriad of different items.  One area produces plastic, rubber, and aluminum items; another contains multiple coal deposits and was a huge source of power early in the game and has morphed into a secondary production area; a point of major victory was setting up the complicated array of production machinery to produce nuclear power; and my most recent set of buildings utilizes a massive nitrogen gas deposit to produce advanced items like cooling systems.  Shuffling needed items between those areas has turned into logistical challenge of tractors hauling items all over the map.  Most of my time hasn't been spent exploring but instead is trying to keep everything running smoothly--fueling up my fleet of autonomous tractors, moving needed materials from one location to another, and keeping an eye on power consumption.  If you enjoy management games...Satisfactory gives you an insane amount to manage.

My nuclear power production area.

I'm making very slow but steady progress.  I'm curious about what the final phase of the project will demand, but I refuse to look up any spoilers.  My proudest moment was getting a nuclear power plant up and running--it's no small feat as it requires a ton of production and it felt extremely overwhelming at first.  Now that I've managed it, I'm trying to figure out the secondary task of creating plutonium fuel production (you can turn your nuclear waste--a bi-product of uranium fuel power--into plutonium with another complicated set of production buildings).  It's looking like this may be a next important step as the power demands (which felt like a non-issue with the massive boost I got from nuclear power) of my base continue to rise.

I can't wait to victoriously post about how I saved humanity.  Based on my slow progress...that should happen in another 100 hours or so of playtime.  Wish me luck!

Oopsies

The big news in gaming/hardware this week was the release of the RTX 5080.  Most of the reviews I saw for this, the semi-latest and greatest of GPUs, were very underwhelming.  It sounds like these newest gen cards aren't a huge upgrade over the last gen cards (insert sad trombone noise here)--there are some improvements like smaller size and better cooling, but the performance boost from gen to gen is lackluster at best.  If you're interested, here are a couple of good videos explaining the general underwhelmingness of the 5080's:

This Paul's Hardware video also lays out a good comparison of price vs. performance increase from past generations.  It's interesting (but unsurprising) to see that as prices have risen, the performance increase has actually gotten worse--basically you're paying more for less...seems to be the general vibe these days.

If you were someone who was hoping to actually pick up a 5080 on release day, well.....lol.  In a completely expected fashion, they were sold out almost immediately.  NVIDIA of course released a statement along the lines of "oopsies, we didn't realize demand would be so great--we're working hard on restocking."  Yeah, I'm sure that wasn't intentional.  

I'm hoping to build a new PC and it never feels like it's a good time.  These new cards sound like they're going to be difficult to get and the prices of the older gen cards are sort of all over the place.  I'm also not 100% sure if I want to go with another NVIDIA GPU or AMD.  I'm totally unimpressed by ray tracing, so it's not a big deal to me.  I guess I'll just watch and wait to see what the 5070 and new AMD 9000 series cards have to offer.  If the 5090 and 5080 are anything to go off of...I'm guessing the 5070 cards will probably be equally underwhelming.

Ready to Slay?

If you've been missing punching, kicking, and of course, rip/tearing the demonic hordes of hell there's some good news on the horizon--Doom: The Dark Ages announced its release date yesterday.  We can all be joyously rip/tearing on May 15!  Well, that is if you can meet the specs (sadly, my CPU does not meet the minimum--check out the specs on the Steam Page).

There's also a new trailer/gameplay video to ogle--give it a looky:

According to info from the devs, The Dark Ages is a prequel that focuses on the DOOM Slayer pre-events in 2016's DOOM and DOOM: Eternal.  Eternal notably drew players into a bit of a storyline involving the planet and culture of the DOOM slayer, so this seems like a logical progression for the series.  Other info also indicates that there will be less platforming/acrobatics in the new game--this was one area that I did see a bit of grousing about--players would much prefer to be on the ground slicing demons into little chunks than navigating platforming puzzles.

The gameplay trailer features a notable new weapon--a chainsaw-like shield that looks like it can be thrown or used in melee attacks.  This is fun (but not anything that new/novel)!  According to this Polygon article, the game will also feature a wide array of other melee weapons to help you slay the demonic hordes.  Undoubtedly the best/coolest part of the trailer is what appears to be the ability to pilot a giant mech to fight a titan.  Can it get much better than that?

One interesting tidbit:  there's not going to be any multi-player.  That's fine with me, and really, DOOM is an excellent singleplayer title.  I'm glad they've decided to focus their energy on that.  The downside...the $69.99 price tag.

On the hardware front, the 5090 reviews are starting to roll out and...they're a bit lackluster.  It sounds like the improved performance between the current gen cards (4090) and the 5090 aren't as good as in the past.  Still, as Paul from Paul's Hardware states--it will be the fastest card on the market.  And, let's be real, the folks who are going to be buying these cards are probably those who simply must have the best and would be willing to drop that money regardless.  NVIDIA made some pretty bold claims about the improved performance (unsurprising) and I'm waiting to see the 5070 reviews.  If you're interested, you can check out Paul's video below:

News Rodeo

Since I'm still spending my time watching my torturously inefficient factory in Satisfactory slowly churn out numerous parts, I figured I'd do a bit of a roundup of recent newsworthy gaming items.  There have been a few noteworthy nuggets in the last few weeks that might pique your interest.  So let's start corralling those lil' doggies!

New Hardware is Coming!

I spent a bit of time watching coverage of the recent Consumer Electronics Show that wrapped up a week or so ago.  The big hardware news revolved around the two big dogs--AMD and NVIDIA.  AMD will be releasing new 9900 series CPU's "in Q1 2025."  If you're in the market for the uber-est CPU the 9950x3d and a 9900x3d look to be the new high end.  (Since Intel has been a bit of a crapshoot...there wasn't much Intel news on the CPU front.  As an Oregonian--Intel's headquarters are located here--I'm hoping they're able to make some sort of comeback.  I'd hate to see a big employer in my state go away.)  Here's the link to AMD's announcement page if you want to check out the specs on the new CPU's: AMD Announcement.

(*Paul's Hardware is an excellent channel that I would recommend subbing to on YouTube!)

The GPU front was where a lot of the hardware excitement seemed to be centered.  Both AMD and NVIDIA announced new GPU series coming out in 2025.  AMD announced 9000 series cards (they decided to skip the 8000's for some reason...) that promise better performance with new upscaling features and whatnot.  NVIDIA then followed up with their own announcement of their upcoming 5000 series GPU's.  Since NVIDIA dominates the GPU market, there was much more focus on their announcement.  There were some pretty...incredible, I would say, claims from NVIDIA about the capabilities of their new GPU's.  One of those claims was that their lowest end card of this new series (the 5070) would perform at the level of a 4090 (the current uber GPU that'll cost you a chunk o' change) for a much, much lower cost ($549).  This number had a lot of people pulling some very skeptical looks.  There was also a lot of selling of the new and improved features of this new series of cards--new DLSS that promises to improve ray tracing capabilities and whatnot.  The part that seems to have garnered the most scorn from the PC building/hardware community though is the addition of "AI frame generation."  One video featured in the NVIDIA presentation showed a certain game getting like 30 FPS and then 240 FPS with these new upscaling features.  This has been dubbed "fake frames" by the Internet and there were plenty of jokes and memes about using fake money to pay for fake frames.

Overall, I am waiting to see actual testing from Gamers Nexus and other sources to see how these new products actually perform.  Maybe the fake frames will actually be worth it?  I'm somewhat on the fence around building a new PC (especially with the looming end of Windows 10) in the near future.

Bold Claims of Gaming Ability

People bragging about how good they are at a certain game with no (or shaky) proof is nothing new or really newsworthy.  It is newsworthy when the richest man on Earth makes those claims though.  For quite awhile now Elon Musk has claimed to be one of the top Diablo IV players in the world.  He had ponied up evidence in the form of supposed videos of amazing speedruns at the highest levels of difficulty.  Myself, and many others, were very skeptical of these claims.  Dude has the time to run a major corporation, be neck deep in American politics, and become an elite gamer?  Umm, okay.

Well, Elon's claims of gaming prowess might've just been sunk by a disastrous livestream where he "played" the popular ARPG Path of Exile 2 (notably not Diablo IV.....but similar).  Many people watching noted some dicey aspects of the livestream--unfamiliarity with the game mechanics and map, odd inventory choices, labels like "Elon's Map" that seemed to indicate someone else was probably playing the account, and an entire litany of other glaringly silly things.  Immediately many elite streamers and players began calling foul on Elon's supposed skills and it has now turned into an entire Internet drama-fest that has made it into the mainstream media (here's a link to an NBC news article about the silliness).  It's all really stupid, but somewhat entertaining.

If I was the richest person in the world and was trying to claim to be awesome at video games, I think I'd figure out a way to better pretend at least.  I think I would pre-record a video of the actual pro playing and then just make a livestream with a nice, tight camera that notably doesn't show my hands and just pretend that I'm playing.  I'd also do my homework and at least familiarize myself with the game and what is going on.  But, you know, I'm probably not as busy as Mr. Musk so I might have more time to plan it out.  

Factor-iffic

The recent Steam Holiday Sale proved to be a fruitful endeavor--I ventured into the ocean depths in the two Subnautica games and had a grand time.  Then, I decided that I was enjoying the open world ventures so I gave my wishlist a gander.  There was one game with "overwhelmingly positive" reviews but that sat in a genre that I'm not very familiar with--the factory management/building genre.  That game, Satisfactory, has managed to simultaneously frustrate and enthrall me.  I haven't totally completed it (in fact, I'm getting the impression that I'm far from that), but with my playtime, I have a good sense of it, so I'm offering up my review with that caveat.

What is it?

An open world, first-person factory management/building game.  You play a nameless, faceless "builder" character who is plopped onto a random alien planet and are given a checklist of items needed for a mysterious crisis facing humanity.  Your job is to explore the planet to find the resources needed to build the items and to cobble together the machinery necessary to produce an increasingly complicated array of items.

How much playtime/replayability can you expect?

This number greatly depends on a variety of factors--if you have the skills to build an efficient monster factory, I'm sure you could plow through the various objectives much, much faster than I am.  I think even with those leet skills you're probably looking at a lot of playtime (100 hours or more.  This is my completely baseless estimation).  If you're totally incompetent (like me), much, much more.  My factory is neither efficient or aesthetically pleasing (but this isn't a problem...which I'll explain in my pros/cons).  You're getting plenty of bang for your buck, that's the big takeaway here.

A scenic view of my space elevator.

Pros:

+Looks great, runs great.  My poor, poor ancient PC (it's 5+ years old now) has managed to run it with basically no problems.  The graphics are nice (yes, my GPU takes a little while to load up all the textures and what not, but it gets done) and there are a variety of settings that can be tweaked.  Even if you're on an older machine, like me, you can still run it.

+ Frequent autosaving.  This is a great feature--especially if you're prone to doing really dumb things like accidentally driving off the side of the map into the great unknown (and being unable to retrieve either your items or your vehicle).

+ Flexible game mechanics that aren't punishing.  Once you've gathered materials to build the various machines/vehicles/factory infrastructure you can easily alter things with no penalty.  With one click you can tear something down and have ALL the materials refunded.  In fact, this is one of the almost necessary abilities as you are constantly trying to streamline and change production.

+ It's challenging.  Ultimately your goal is to make the most efficient factory that you can--to be pumping out the needed items at the fastest pace.  Actually getting to that point is a challenge for players of all skill levels.  I'm an absolute rookie and my main goal is just to produce the items needed...efficiency is not at peak.  This is a bit of a mixed bag--in general, achieving the production goals for the needed items takes longer than it would if my factory was set up better.  The upside of my slow production means I can spend time doing other activities like exploring the planet to find resources or gathering materials for research projects that unlock new items.  Either way, it's fun.

+ Big, beautiful world to explore.  The map is HUGE!  Certain areas are difficult to reach (and seemingly gated until I do some research/unlock some better items) and there's always somewhere new to go.  One feature I love is the fact that you can add customized markers to the map yourself (and you can add up to 250!).  Each marker can include a description, a stamp/symbol of choice, and a customizable color.  I'm mostly using this feature to mark out resource nodes and wreckage (you can discover crashed ships scattered around the planet.  These ships contain various factory resources as well as the coveted hard drives that can be researched to unlock new recipes for certain items).

+ Customizable character.  Yes, it's first-person so you can't see your character (except for when you die...then you get to witness the tragedy of your sad rag doll tumbling to its demise), but you can make them unique with different helmet designs and color palettes for your clothing.  There's also some silly "charms" that can be attached to certain items.  It's fun.

+ Figuring things out is the best part.  There's definitely an aspect of problem solving that is well...very satisfactory.  It feels good to get everything working or to make things slightly more efficient.  (*here's where I would say that ideally, I think it's best to avoid guides/videos--unless you're totally stuck.  There are tons of videos from people who make these big, mega-factories...but personally, I just want to figure things out on my own--it doesn't matter that my production is sluggishly slow.  However...you do you and play how it makes you happy).

A lizard doggo friend (in holiday attire).

+ You can pet the doggos!  Well, they're actually lizard doggos, but you can tame and pet them!  They'll occasionally bring you random items.  The downside--they disappear easily (if you leave to explore or log out).  There are always more doggos out there to find though.

+ Research projects to unlock new/improved items.  These projects involve gathering certain materials and are one way that you can spend your time while you are producing main mission items.  As you progress through the tree the items get more complicated and require numerous (or complicated) parts.

+ Co-op play.  You can build with a friend (or maybe multiple friends).

+ My favorite feature so far has been the truck stations.  Once you've unlocked the technology you can build vehicles and stations that allow you to autonomously move goods between your various factory areas (needed resources are scattered all over the place--linking them all together is one part of figuring things out).  I was a bit blown away when I was able to program a route into my cute lil' tractor and then watch it (mostly) seamlessly navigate the route and haul items back and forth.  As a child of the 1980's whose computing experiences include being excited about a midi-keyboard that could make speech-like noises, I found this to be weirdly impressive.  How far we've come!

+ A fun, snarky AI that guides you.  Who doesn't love a somewhat hostile robot guide?

+ Mysterious alien stuff that seems to be gradually explained as you discover certain alien items.  It's intriguing and a bit creepy. (CONSUME)

+ A photo mode with plenty of options for snapping pics.

Cons:

- If you're someone who's hoping for some ultra-realistic kind of experience...there are aspects of non-realism that might bug you.  For example--you can build foundation items basically anywhere (like in midair) and can utilize these items in ways that are definitely not based in physical reality.  You can clip conveyor belts and power wires through items (although it is picky if you try to clip them through other items).  It's a minor thing for me, but I know there are people out there who want that realism.

- Having things go wrong can be frustrating--and things will go wrong at some point.  I struggled to set up fuel power despite looking up information about how many/how much prerequisite materials were needed.  I eventually figured it out, but holy cow did it take awhile.  Then, eventually I ran into problems again when my generator was consuming more fuel than I could produce (helpful tip: build a fluid buffer first and let your generator fill completely up with fuel before you start it).  I had to completely shut down production while I problem solved the issue (something that took awhile).  The joy is in figuring it out though.

- You've gotta do the ol' corpse run when you die.  This is especially annoying if you die in a particularly hard to reach or hazardous area.  I stupidly died in a cave filled with gas (I had not discovered the gas mask research yet) and spent an annoying amount of time (*which, honestly I should have just re-loaded) trying to recover enough health to run in and grab my death chest (with all my items) and get out.  Luckily, you are not penalized for dying and don't lose items.

- There are some bugs (but not many).  The main one that I ran into was losing my vehicle when I parked it in the aforementioned death/gas cave.  Apparently this is a known issue and you should not park vehicles in caves/tunnels--they have a tendency to disappear through the map.  Annoyingly, their symbol will still show up on your map.

Recommendation:

I'm new to the this whole factory management genre, but Satisfactory has been absolutely great.  The gameplay is very forgiving and challenges you in fun ways.  Even if your factory feels like an absolute disaster you'll still have a good time.  Features like co-op play make it attractive to those who want something chill, but fun to play with a friend/significant other.  I'd highly recommend Satisfactory (and at full price--it's worth it).

2024 Gaming Year in Review

I'm a few days late to the typical end of the year reflection posts, but I figured I'd post my Steam Year in Review and do some reflecting/looking forward to 2025 in gaming.  I have sort of a love/hate relationship with the end of the year summation posts/features.  My Spotify Wrapped actually turned out to be semi-normal this year despite the fact that quite a bit of my use is to put on lo-fi/instrumental background music in my classroom.  I know that many parents typically gripe that their Spotify Wrapped is not a good reflection because their kids like to listen to Disney songs on loop.  No one else uses my Steam account, so it's a true reflection of what I played.  Here's the link: Elore_07's Year in Review.

My #1 was a tie between the amazing Against the Storm (a strategy game with some new/intriguing gameplay features that make it different than your 4X or RTS games--you can read my full review here) and my personal favorite silly management game Two Point Hospital.  I generally lean toward RPG's so this was a departure from my general preferences.  I guess I just like managing things.

Unsurprisingly, I was below the average of 15% playtime in "new" titles.  Yeah, I just don't play a ton of "new" games--that's doubly true of triple A's.  I just don't feel like shelling out $70 to play the latest and greatest--if I do truly want to play a new title, I'll wait a few months until the bugs/issues get ironed out and it eventually goes on sale.  This is apparently a bit of a trend--the New York Times wrote an article (you can watch the video here) about how uber-graphics is turning into an expensive and unsustainable aspect of gaming.  I think most gamers just can't afford all the latest and greatest and that gaming (if your goal is to play the newest titles) is an expensive hobby.  Even if you're on console, which is arguably cheaper (*let me stress arguably) than PC gaming, you're going to need a newer console that will probably run you over $500 (plus the cost of games, controllers, etc.).  As my titles show, I (and I think many other gamers) would prefer to re-play the games I enjoy.  I added the "Phantom Liberty" DLC to Cyberpunk 2077 and spent time re-experiencing/experiencing it; I decided to revisit Fallout 4 (because have I really seen everything it has to offer?); I re-played the Ori games because it had been a minute.  Generally, if I am going to buy something "new" it's more likely to be an indie like Balatro.  I would agree with the New York Times reporter--I'd rather a game be enjoyable and something that I want to play than it have the most amazing graphics.

Looking Forward to 2025

There's also plenty in gaming to be looking forward to.  The biggest hubbub in gaming seems to be around the 2025 release of Grand Theft Auto VI.  I'm a GTA fan and have played every game since the PlayStation original (which I only slightly played on my brothers PS).  I don't think PC gamers have much to look forward to on the GTA front--Rockstar has said nothing about a PC version at release and their typical pattern is to release on consoles first and then eventually release a PC version.  I think we could be in for the long haul on that front.  I'll do my best to avoid spoilers and hope that it's not a 5 or 6 year wait.

I was pleasantly surprised by the release of The Witcher IV trailer last month--it sort of seemed to come out of the blue--all I had seen prior to it were vague articles about how it was in full production.  There's a 2025 date at the end of the video, but I don't have high hopes there either.  CD Projekt has a history of delaying full releases (*I mean...most of the time, when they should, with the glaring exception of Cyberpunk) and making a credible effort at releasing games in a mostly good state.  So, I don't expect to see it next year either.  There's already been some typical online grousing about the fact that Ciri is the protagonist in the upcoming game.  It makes me l-o-l a bit because when The Witcher 3 ended there seemed to be a lot of players stating that they thought the next game should feature Ciri.  Sure, there are some legitimate lore/story road bumps to navigate, but her being the next protagonist feels like a good choice to me.  We've had three games of Geralt, so it's time for something new (it seems like a lot of games do three games and then switch main characters) and Ciri's abilities and story offers up the chance to give it a bit of new life.  I do expect to see CD Projekt sprinkling out more gameplay/trailer tidbits throughout the year to keep us interested.

On the hardware front, the 5000 series cards from NVIDIA will undoubtedly drop at some point.  Personally, I'm not in the market for a graphics card that will likely cost well over $1k at the low end and $2k on the high.  I'm curious at whether the prices of 4000 series cards will drop though.  I've been slightly thinking about a new build and it would be nice to see lower GPU prices (and, I'm mildly contemplating an AMD card--I ran nothing but AMD GPU's prior to my current NVIDIA GPU and had a mostly good experience.  I also think ray tracing is a bit overrated and not worth the cost/hype.  Plus, it seems like higher VRAM is becoming more important and NVIDIA GPU's are a bit lacking in that department).

One game I am hyped for is Two Point Museum.  The Two Point games are a personal favorite of mine and I love the relaxing, silly, but fun to play vibes.  There's a March release date and I'm very much looking forward to having it be the top game on my 2025 Year in Review.

Happy New Year to my fellow gamers!  I hope you find something you love to play in 2025 whether that's an indie or a fancy schmancy triple A title.