I made the mistake of looking at the nexus for The Phantom Pain (again, and again), and looky what I found:
It’s official. I’m fucking cursed. :melon:
For my fellow tea drinkers
Everything from the color of the tea, to the teabag, and to the presentation are just all kinds of awesome. :meeseeks:
The tea is a natural blue due to use of the butterfly pea. Plus the tea has both peppermint and spearmint making it both look and taste refreshing. Someday I will have to order it, at the moment I’ll get by on my flowering green tea. :meeseeks:
RAGE 2 Gameplay Trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rQMytyBFeA
I have mixed feelings about this one. Partly because of them making the first RAGE more console-centric (relying on auto saves, dumbing down textures) and not really delivering on the PC side, and laughing at how it thought my i52500k at the time didn’t have enough cores… Aesthetically it looks like a really polished Borderlands mixed with some Mad Max, and some of the gameplay in general did look like fun… So who knows? Hopefully with good releases like DOOM 2016 and Wolfenstein II there will be a bit of redemption.
Finished Playthrough 1 of DMC2
So far this year I’ve completed both Wolfenstein: The New Order and Wolfenstein: The New Colossus. Now I can add hack n slash Devil May Cry 2 to my list. Just like the others though I’ll have to go back and play it again as Lucia. I may also have to play again anyway just to stream it, I feel like it would make good commentary fodder just because of how bad it is. :v:
I have to say out of all of the Devil May Cry games I found DMC2 to be the easiest one to play, and also the most off-putting as I referenced in an early impression of the game. On its surface it seems like a promising game, but between the even weirder camera, the lackluster combat, broken-ish boss fights as well as lame enemy designs (what were they even smoking when they were making possessed infected tanks and helicopters?), boring level design and the super serious Dante I just wasn’t impressed. Perhaps if I play it on hard it might make the gameplay more of a challenge, but from what I’ve been reading I’m not entirely sure.
Some of the bossfights are just outright broken. For example this pile of shit right here! This is a collection of every single boss you’ve fought already in other chapters all forever trapped in a pile of dung. If you kill any one of the monsters they’ll melt back into the pile, and from there you can stand slightly out of reach and finish them off with a rocket launcher. I did it single handed, I’m guessing this was intentional so the developers could wank off during play tests. :zorak: In other DMC games the bosses seem really difficult, to the point that I have to look up a tutorial for how to defeat them once in awhile, but in this game I haven’t had that kind of trouble. If anything I had to look up tutorials for how to solve a couple puzzles or where to go. For example in mission 9 you need to get out of a building in a certain amount of time before you die, and some of the doors were a little too well hidden to the point of frustration. Fortunately there was a video I found by IGN that helped me get out of there. I’m the kind of person who hates breaking down and using tutorials or walkthroughs to get anything in a game accomplished, but I don’t think I would have ever figured this one out without one.
There were also inconsistencies when it came to going to other rooms. Some of the doors you walk up to automatically transport you to the next sections, some others require you to press a button like in the other games. When I entered the demon world I tried to go through the elevator and it wouldn’t let me walk through. After exploring a bit more I went back up to it and pressed a button on my controller and sure enough I was riding the Hellevator!
If it’s any small saving grace I did like the character designs. Dante still looks really cool, it’s just unfortunate that his personality was replaced with a wooden plank. Even with the bad voice acting in DMC3 he at least had more of a personality. But here he’s just super serious all the time, and on the off chance he makes a smartassed remark it just doesn’t feel like what I’ve played of the other games.
The ending could have been done better too. After defeating the final boss, Dante rides his motorcycle (that I’m guessing he pulled out of his ass just like in other random cutscenes) deeper into hell with no further explanation, then the game tells me what I’ve unlocked and to play the Lucia Disc (I guess the PS2 version had Dante and Lucia separated on two different discs and they never bothered changing it out for re-release on other platforms).
Overall I am glad I finally got to play this, but at the same time it’s nice to know I never missed out on anything. I always heard DMC2 was terrible, now I have a full understanding as to why.
MOAR SIDE-OPZ
When I finally get back to playing MGSV:TPP I’ll have to check out this mod. It adds more side-ops and new areas in Afghanistan. I’ve already installed it, now I just have to get around to playing it again. :v: Lately I’ve been trying to finish the shit show that is Devil May Cry 2.
x58 and Vega64 don’t play well on Windows 10
As I mentioned in a small blurb on Friday; I had issues plugging in my graphics card into my current motherboard. At first I thought Windows 10 was installing a bad driver, but after some messing around and reading teh interwebz it became clear this is a widespread issue for people who are still running on an x58 chipset. There are two ways to get around it though: I can either go back to Windows 7 where this problem doesn’t exist, or upgrade my hardware. My choice is a pretty obvious one.
As I’ve previously mentioned a few posts ago, I already planned to upgrade anyway. Fortunately I have enough money set aside and have already ordered the parts needed to get myself situated. I have a Ryzen 7 2700X, ASRock X470 Taichi and 16GB of G-SKILL Flare X series memory on the way. This will be my first all AMD build since the 90’s. it should go without saying that overall I’m pretty stoked. :meeseeks: In some ways I’m kinda bummed, my audio setup is going to have to change. I run a Sound Blaster XFi Titanium Edition with an external breakout box, and I’ll be giving up two SATA slots (I’ll have 8 instead of the 10). For now I can use my Shure X2U DAC (digital analog converter) to run my microphone into the system until I decide what sound card solution to go with, or if I should just get a larger USB DAC, or if the onboard audio is well enough to plug my speakers into.
Overall this will be a great learning curve. I look forward to playing and rendering, the 2700X is an absolute beast when it comes to games and even moreso when it comes to rendering. Since I do a lot of video rendering every little bit helps. :happy:
Late Night Open Thread
I’ve restored balance to the website(s), we once again have new SSL certificates and I don’t have to worry about them for another three months. It turns out they don’t auto renew, I had to delete them and have them regenerate new ones which is why you can now browse the site without it telling you that it’s a compromised site… weeeeee.
Resuming basic shenanigan protocols. :zorak:
Nothing wants to work today.
If you’re getting an SSL error when trying to view this site, or any of the others running through this domain it seems my certificates haven’t auto updated yet. I’ve been messing with my new graphics card today (which sadly doesn’t want to run with my current motherboard) and haven’t had a chance to look too deeply into it. I’ve purchased the parts I need to build my new system, so much for taking it slowly. Within the next week or so I should have a new setup to drool over.
This is just a heads up: The website itself is safe still, just hasn’t updated the certificate yet for whatever reason. :zorak:
Look what arrived!
It has arrived! I’m too tired to put it on right now, but if things go well I might see some more HBM graphic goodness during my weekend. I can even color it to match my keyboard and mouse! I’m going to have bling out the arse. :happy:
I may also start collecting parts to get my Ryzen setup started. All I really need is a new motherboard, processor, and RAM to go that route. Maybe within three months I can get started? :happy: