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.