Gaming on nocalla.com

Firewatch

Fri, 30 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000

This game is beautiful.

I could leave the review at that and it would almost be enough - the star player is the environment (of course, as you barely see another human for the duration of the game) with its crisp colours, sunset-illuminated vistas, and its unforgiving paths. That said, there’s beauty in the script too, with an introduction that crushes your feelings to a pulp before you do anything but click a few times and a constant warm dialogue between the protaganist and the co-worker in the neighbouring tower.

Clearing the Backlog #2: Deponia Doomsday & Tower of Guns

Sun, 23 Oct 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Since the last entry on the backlog, I’ve sunk a few more hours into Sheltered. It grew on me after a while, with the slog of getting resources being quite gripping. I accidentally overcrowded my shelter and killed half the posse through suffocation though - didn’t realise the oxygen filtration system wouldn’t keep up! An enjoyable game, but think I’ve had my fill of it.

Onto the next game…

Deponia Doomsday

Clearing the Backlog #1: Action Henk, Train Valley & Sheltered

Fri, 14 Oct 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I settled in for a wet Friday evening at home alone and cleared a few games from the list…with mixed results.

Some miscellaneous items were on the list that I had actually played, but missed with my initial categorisation - an easy few points gained!

Action Henk

This was surprisingly fun. I honestly thought it would be awful, going by first impressions from the store page. It’s a pleasantly challenging racing game involving a corpulent action figure who can slide on his bum. You see what I mean about the first impressions now, I hope. The online multiplayer didn’t work so well - I think it has a limited player base - but the single player mode was engaging enough that my 67 minutes in game went by without me noticing it. I didn’t finish the single-player mode, but enjoyed what I played of it.

The Game Backlog

Fri, 14 Oct 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I have quite a large [[Steam]] game collection. 231 games. A ludicrous amount of games.

As well as the games I’ve anticipated and obsessed over, I have random one-offs that were on sale, games that were included in various bundles, and freebies. Some of the ones I got on sale have been played less than the ones I got for free. I’d go so far as to say that most of the games in my Steam library are unplayed (I then went and checked - not the majority, but a pretty hefty sum: 92 out of 231). This really only hit home recently, as I decided to reorganise the categories in the game library and found myself completely at a loss about certain games.

My Computer (2016)

Fri, 26 Aug 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I recently upgraded my computer build, replacing the graphics card, CPU, CPU cooler, RAM, and motherboard (rig details at the bottom of the post).

The goal is to be able to hit some high graphics settings in AAA games going forward.

So far, it’s working very well, though I haven’t stretched it yet really. I’ve played Arkham Knight without any performance issues, but nothing more current. I’m looking into overclocking, since it’s apparently very feasible with this system. The Asus motherboard has a built-in utility for overclocking, but I’m scared of taking the plunge - I’ll do some more reading before risking exploding my shiny new computer parts.