February’s Stats
aka. A very fragile balance
Hello fellow assassins, I have a confession to make… I was a bad sheep this month and I bought a bundle. And then I activated 8 of those games. To my defense, it was an Artifex Mundi bundle and I had none of those games for once, and no matter how much I enjoy having HoGs to casually chill from time to time, I refuse to buy them full price. So yes I splurged. On the plus side, all of those are around 4h to complete and I already played a few of them this month… so it’s gonna be okay, right? sweats nervously
Along those lines, I also finished a big game this month and also made some progress on my retro challenge and on the tag challenge too, so it’s not all bad. I managed to finish a few shorter games too this past weekend and barely balance the backlog on the last days of the month. Also, I was strong and resisted the call to buy myself Valheim despite my friends trying to drag me into it.
How’s been February treating you all? Did you play interesting things? Did you fall into the Valheim trap?
| Played | Finished | Completed | Backlog+ | Achievements |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 13 | 9 | 5 | 9 | 102 + 15 |
ABC Challenge 2.0 Progress (3/27)
Finished this month: 0
Tag Challenge #1 Progress (1/12)
Finished this month: 1Most Satisfying Finish
Most Exciting Addition
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King of Seas
26 hours playtime
no achievements
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Animal Crossing: New Horizons
255 hours playtime
no achievements
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Monster Sanctuary
77 hours playtime
34 of 34 achievements
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Super Mario Land 3: Wario Land(GameBoy)
8 hours playtime
21 of 26 achievements
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Wario Land 2 (GameBoy)
17 hours playtime
16 of 20 achievements
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Summer Catchers
4 hours playtime
no achievements
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Ghost Files 2: Memory of a Crime
4 hours playtime
23 of 23 achievements
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The Myth Seekers 2: The Sunken City
5 hours playtime
28 of 28 achievements
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Mario's Picross 2 (GameBoy)
15 minutes playtime
0 of 33 achievements
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Uncharted Tides: Port Royal
4 hours playtime
19 of 22 achievements
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Frog Detective 2: The Case of the Invisible Wizard
2 hours playtime
6 of 6 achievements
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Journey
2 hours playtime
2 of 14 achievements
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Family Mysteries: Poisonous Promises
4 hours playtime
24 of 24 achievements
Super Mario Land 3: Wario Land
Game Boy, 21 of 26 achievements
After being the villain in Super Mario Land 2, Wario became the protagonist in this sequel. The game takes a lot from the previous iteration in the series: the power ups giving different abilities, the map, the secret levels... but then renewed the interest in adding the collectible treasures. It also has multiple endings, even though they only depend on how many of the treasures and coins you managed to collect along the way. Once you unlock one you can still play on the same safe file to collect more things and replay the final level to see if you get a better ending. I really liked replaying it, it was fitting to what I remembered.
Ghost Files 2: Memory of a Crime
4 hours playtime, 23 of 23 achievements
One of the multiple HoGs I played this month. Nice, visually pleasant but not too memorable story wise, I'd still put it in the mid-high tier of Artifex Mundi games. It does its job, which is all I expect from those games.
The Myth Seekers 2: The Sunken City
5 hours playtime, 28 of 28 achievements
Another Artifex game, and another fine one. This one is more on the fantasy/supernatural side compared to the previous one, so it really depends on what you prefer, I don't mind as I like both and I'm never really in those for the story.
Monster Sanctuary
77 hours playtime, 34 of 34 achievements
This game is like the love child of a metroidvania and Pokemon, but better. It has a lot to explore, a lot of monsters to pick from to build your team (and all of them are actually useful given the working synergy) and it gets more and more fun as you get access to more monsters. This took me most of my gaming time this month (and the previous one), and I REGRET NOTHING. I could have finished a lot faster but I went for all of the cheevos just to have an excuse to play more. The only complaint I have really is an sudden peak of difficulty a bit before the final boss (that then goes back to normal actually, I struggled less with said final boss than that spike I'm talking about). That being said, it was such a satisfying game and I wish there was more of it.
Uncharted Tides: Port Royal
4 hours playtime, 19 of 22 achievements
Another okayish Artifex, a bit underwhelming compared to the others I played this month. On the plus side, it had an interesting system with two main protagonists you keep switching between, but on the other hand it had some BS missable cheevos (where you need to do several things perfectly on first try, so if you miss them you'd have to replay the whole thing to get them).
Wario Land 2
Game Boy, 16 of 20 achievements
I was surprised by this one on how full of content it was. It differs from its predecessor as it removes both the power ups and the lives all together. You can't die and when you get hurt you lose coins instead. The game is more focused on puzzle solving and finding every level's secret treasure room, collecting each of said treasures as well as some map pieces at the end of the level, both through a minigame. The game is linear at first but once you reach the first ending, you can revisit any level as well as unlock a bunch of other levels (actually it doubles the amount of levels that you played reaching the first ending). Those levels allow you to reach multiple other endings in different storyline branches. Finally, if you collect all treasures and map pieces you unlock a final massive secret level that you can explore and try to beat your best time on. The whole thing took me a bit under 17h and I was even more impressed as this was still a Game Boy game and when you compare it to the first Super Mario Land, the difference in complexity, design and content is really massive. In any case, a great play.
Frog Detective 2: The Case of the Invisible Wizard
2 hours playtime, 6 of 6 achievements
A cute stylized first person P&C, sequel to the first Frog Detective game. If you liked the first, you'll like this one too. Nice for a short adventure, not too complex, obviously, but super cute.
Journey
2 hours playtime, 2 of 14 achievements
I'm very torn by this game. On one hand, it's an absolutely beautiful walking sim. On the other hand, the saving system (and lack there is of) is abysmal. To the point that I feel I missed out on some content because of the frustration of not being able to save. Yes the game is pretty short and a lot of people might play it in one sitting, but I didn't and had to repeat some progress I lost. There is no "Save and Quit" option and the autosave only happens at very scarce points. In a game where I'd rather take my time and see all there is to see, I thought it was a really stupid design choice. Anyway, I plan on going back to it and re-explore it in the future, because I probably missed a lot considering I only got 2 achievements finishing the game. I'll just try to pick a day where I can have a long continuous gaming session.
Family Mysteries: Poisonous Promises
4 hours playtime, 24 of 24 achievements
Another Artifex HoG, I actually quite enjoyed this one (still forgettable story but a nice chill game for a sunday afternoon).
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Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Heart of the Forest
0 minutes playtime
0 of 38 achievements
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Endless Fables 4: Shadow Within
0 minutes playtime
0 of 30 achievements
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Family Mysteries: Poisonous Promises
4 hours playtime
24 of 24 achievements
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Family Mysteries 3: Criminal Mindset
0 minutes playtime
0 of 24 achievements
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Ghost Files 2: Memory of a Crime
4 hours playtime
23 of 23 achievements
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The Myth Seekers 2: The Sunken City
5 hours playtime
28 of 28 achievements
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The Secret Order 7: Shadow Breach
0 minutes playtime
0 of 32 achievements
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The Secret Order 8: Return to the Buried Kingdom
0 minutes playtime
0 of 32 achievements
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Uncharted Tides: Port Royal
4 hours playtime
19 of 22 achievements
I was a bad sheep this month and I bought a bundle. And then I activated 8 of those games.
Don’t feel bad about it and keep an eye out for my monthly report (later today, probably). I’ll have a cool personal story to tell about that bundle.
And congrats about beating those retro games. I hope you keep playing those gems from the past so I can add those you liked to my to-play list :)
I can’t wait to read about your story, will look forward to your report ;)
And thanks. So far I keep playing them, slowly but surely. I’m in the middle of Mario’s Picross 2, which might take a while but is great as a chill side game.
I got into the Valheim trap, but since I am playing it alone, I did not play a lot yet. I can see it being a huge time sink, honestly… About the HOGS, they are very addictive even the mediocre ones, I restrain myself on buying more of them until I finish more games from the backlog…. Also that’s a lot of games in your report, good job : )
Even playing it alone, I don’t trust myself with how many hours I always end up putting in building stuff in those kind of games looks at Terraria and Fallout 4 hours count
And yes, HoGs are somehow addictive, especially once you’ve established the fact that the stories are always more or less some sort of iterations of each other (and/or an obvious retold of some famous game/movie). I’m just in for the relaxing effect those HoG scenes have on me. I restrain myself to only get them bundled AND if I don’t own most of the bundle already, so it had been a while before that recent one.
And thank you :)
I checked the Valheim store page and saw “open world survival craft,” “online co-op,” and “survival.” Any of those would have been enough for me to click “ignore,” and I still have medieval/ancient/etc. setting fatigue, so… nope, no Valheim trap for me.
I am not caught in the trap yet however I see the trap and I feel like not throwing a stone at it to disable it “yet”. Those 3 tags you mentioned are automatic “no ways” for me. But I personally find Valheim (at least after watching so many streams) quite relaxing. It even feels more like an RPG game sometimes with boss battles, dungeons, loot, inventory management, equipment crafting, equipment durability/repairing, levelling up skills like archery, mining minerals; enemy weaknesses, different weapon types, gardening, domesticating animals etc rather than your typical run-of-the-mill survival game. Online coop is not required by any means but of course it cuts down on grinding. When solo you will cut down on a lot of trees by yourself for sure.
For me survival generally means “if you die on day 9878275882, you start from 1 all over again”. Any survival game I watched or heard of were too punishing. Valheim doesn’t seem like that at all. I actually don’t even think you can die of hunger (not 100% sure), your health bar is just reduced. There is no thirst and as far as I know food doesn’t spoil. You can spend hours of your time just base building if you wanted. If you die you spawn in your nearest base and you drop all your equipment and inventory items where you died so you basically need to get back there to retrieve them. It’s also possible to create portals and connect them so you can have some form of fast travel. No idea if you knew these already but if not maybe it’ll help you make a more informed decision as to being interested in it or not.
Anyway I really didn’t mean to advertise the game. I don’t even own it, I just watched too many streams :D I only wanted to share a few more things about it since I also normally have the exact same approach towards these games as you and this is absolutely the first time ever in my life when I have a very slight interest in a “survival” tagged game. I’ll wait around to see how it progresses, right now it definitely needs a lot of quality of life updates.
after watching so many streams
I’m glad to see it’s not just me. At first I had zero interest but between my friends telling me how good it is (and i assume they’re not lying as I see them sinking tons of hours into it) and seeing streamers play it, it actually looks way better than what I was imagining it was. sweats
That was the opposite for me. I was like “why not”. Checked a few streams and decided it wasn’t really for me. So yey, no trap i guess :D.
I was watching streams to convince myself it wasn’t for me (since my friends keep trying to lure me into it) but it had the reverse effect XD At least when you know that it’s not for you, there is no temptation!
I totally ran into it by chance. I saw an interesting looking isometric survival looking game whose name I don’t even remember. I entered Twitch just to check it out (just because I don’t like survival myself doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy seeing the struggles of other people who play them). I am not exaggerating, If I’m following like 10 streamers and only 6 were online, ALL were playing Valheim including EVERYONE in the recommended category. So I was like “ok let’s see what the hell this Valheim is about then…” End result was such a surprise to me.
The main “nope” for me right now is the setting. I still don’t feel like playing anything medieval/ancient/old, or in this case, vikings. Heck, if they release a new Dark Souls game right now, I’d probably just go “meh.” If it had been modern, sci-fi, or even post-apocalyptic, I might have checked it out to see if anything would grab my attention. Any of those tags (plus the “early access” tag) would usually result in me clicking the “ignore” button, but if the game looks interesting enough, I’d consider it as an exception, like Subnautica (survival crafting) and The Division (always online/co-op).
Speaking of Subnautica, Below Zero is finally coming out of EA in may, I’m excited.
At first I was like you because of the online coop thing (basically thinking it was another rust situation) but then I saw you can only play it solo if you so desire. sweats
But I envy you not to be attracted to it, because really the reason I’m trying to resist so bad is that I can see myself sinking hundred of hours building a massive base just for the sake of it, while ignoring the rest of the backlog. I guess for now i’ll control the hitch by having a go at Grounded’s last content update instead.
My problem is the opposite. I really want to be hooked by a game but it’s becoming increasingly hard for me to become interested, much less, excited, about most games nowadays. Whenever I find a game that looks even remotely interesting, there’s usually something that will make me go “nope.”
Maybe a bit of gamer fatigue?
Possibly… or I’m just being extremely picky, or maybe I just don’t like some of the current trends, i.e., focus on multiplayer, first-person only for RPGs, live service model, etc., or a combination of all of those. Anyways, when I really don’t feel like playing anything, I just switch to Netflix and/or books/comics, then I eventually stumble upon something that I’ll play for 200+ hours (like ME:A) and the cycle repeats.
Both sounds fine anyway, as long as you’re entertained it doesn’t really matter how (by that I mean games/books/movies/shows, etc…) Sometimes one hobby takes over the others but it’s cool too. (I also couldn’t agree more with you about the current trends, they’re mostly not my thing either.
I’m trying to resist so bad is that I can see myself sinking hundred of hours building a massive base just for the sake of it, while ignoring the rest of the backlog.
Honestly if this makes you enjoy the hell out of yourself don’t punish yourself this way just because you have a backlog. I think sometimes we take our backlogs a bit too seriously to the point that we may not even focus on a game or an aspect of a game the way we want to just because we want to get them (or other games in our backlog) out of the way.
To give you a teeny tiny example (it doesn’t even compare to spending hundreds of hours of your time building bases) I’m currently playing Mafia Definitive Edition. There are some optional missions in free roam mode. These aren’t required for any achievements and honestly they aren’t very interesting either. It’s generally “take this car super fast from point A to point B before timer expires”. I could easily 100% the game now by getting the last achievement but I told myself that I will finish these optional missions first before I go for the last achievement. I easily could have been done with this game like 2 days ago but I’m still getting mileage out of it instead of switching to another game to clear my backlog and most importantly I don’t feel guilty for it (though the backlog anxiety is still there).
And yes this coming from me is very hypocritical cause I already have super anxiety about my backlog increasing but if for example Hitman 3 was on Steam right now I’d have absolutely 0 regrets for spending like 300-500 hours on it :P
I get your point, I mean i just spent 77h in Monster Sanctuary when not even half of that was necessary to 100% it, but I had too much fun. Same goes for side activities in games like Yakuza (I’m assuming Mafia is kind of the same? I haven’t played any of that series). I agree that as long as you’re having fun, it shouldn’t really matter.
It would totally make sense of you to get Hitman 3 immediately if it was on Steam, after all, how many hours did you put into Hitman 2 ? (my blind guess would be over 100h). You can’t have regrets, that’s money well spent when you’re having so much fun.
my blind guess would be over 100h
It’s actually 124 hours and I think this is not enough time for a game of that calibre for a gamer like me. Basically I was just so fixed on getting it done 100% and moving to other games cause my backlog had so many games at that moment. That type of thinking actually made me interrupt the insane fun I was having with Hitman 2 and I have huge regrets about it. I still consider going back to it but then that inner voice “you still have X number of unplayed games and X number of unfinished games” makes me change my mind. I think this is the real trap here and it’s dangerous. We shouldn’t forget to have fun just for the sake of finishing our backlogs. I fell into that trap and I’m struggling.
Mafia is a very linear game which doesn’t have side missions (except the horrible Mafia 3) but they added a few hidden ones here and there in Mafia Definitive Edition free roam which is a different game mode from campaign. And it is totally easily skippable. You just need to find collectibles for the achievements and that’s it. I didn’t even know these side missions existed until I checked guides because they are well hidden. I will only skip a mission if I’m simply incapable of finishing it. The current mission is actually really funny in a wtf way but it’s also quite demanding and challenging. I failed 3 times already and might quit soon (I can’t unlock the final side mission unless I finish that because the last one only unlocks when all side missions are completed, which are like 12 or something).
Ps, play Mafia!
You can always go back to Hitman 2 if you feel like it (I cyclically go back to playing Terraria, just because no reason except having fun). I’m scared to ask you what is your X number because I feel it’s gonna be so low anyway that I’ll feel even more guilty :sweats: Actually, I have a question: Since you played so many hours of Hitman 2, when you’ll get Hitman 3, will you replay all those Hitman 2 levels ? I’m unsure why they keep recycling Hitman 1 & 2 levels in further games.
Good luck with unlocking that last Mafia side mission, you seem to have fun in the game so it’s always a plus to be able to see everything in a game you love playing.
I currently have 3 unplayed and 5 unfinished games. Some of the unfinished ones are for alt account, they’ll be deleted from the main account once beaten on alt. Death Stranding is a major motivation killer and it, alongside some other reasons, actually put me in a massive gaming rut where I didn’t even log into Steam for about 2 months. If a friend stays true to his word, I have one more game incoming too from his Humble Choice so the fact that Mafia Definitive Edition and Original Mafia are not done before that makes me wanna punch walls.
These numbers may seem low to some people but it doesn’t change the fact that it gives me anxiety that it’s still not down to 0 or 1. I tried to focus on Epic backlog and made some good progress but I can’t properly focus on it until my main Steam backlog is in control. I also found that I enjoy gaming on Epic more because my completionist persona is not in control therefore I can easily quit a game if I don’t like it. The very few games I’m interested in having insane prices doesn’t help getting me out of this gaming rut either. Some publishers forget that regional prices exist for a reason and they think I have the same living conditions and overall welfare as a North American or an English citizen.
I think a lot of people can learn a lot from what I became. This is not healthy and there are times I see people who display similar behaviour to mine. When this attitude persists they’ll eventually hate gaming because it’s kinda what’s happening to me right now. I really don’t enjoy it as much as I did before.
Sorry for the wall of text. The linguist in me just can’t seem to summarise my thoughts into neat little packages.
Don’t apologize for the wall of text, I like developed answers ;) You forgot about my hitman question though :3
Death Stranding is not as interesting as it seemed? You’re the 3rd person I know who played it who seemed to be bummed out with it somewhere along the way. My PC couldn’t really run it so I skipped til i could get an upgrade and with the current GPU shortage seem it won’t happen anytime soon but now i’m not sure i’ll ever get it, seeing the feedback. What game are you planning to activate from the choice? There is a pretty good selection this month from the list they gave last week.
I understand that even thought it looks like a small number, if it generates anxiety is not like you chose it and I know quite well how terrible anxiety can be, I’m just glad it doesn’t affect me in the few things that actually helps me balance it. Maybe it’s a good thing then for Epic not having achievements so you’re not “bound” by completing everything you started. (Plus they have better sales than steam, don’t they? Unsure if they do regional pricing though). I feel quite similar about the Game Pass, because even though I have access to the games on it, I don’t see all of them as “needs to be played or finished” so I abandon them more easily when i don’t like them (vs steam where i sometimes torture myself to finish some games I don’t like).
I’m sad that the whole thing might end up making you hate gaming. Something similar happened to me with reading when I was in high school because they were forcing us to read stuff we didn’t pick (and i had no interest in). I went from a kid who was devouring several books a week to a teen/young adult who wouldn’t read more than a handful a year… Thankfully I picked up reading again after a few years but I get that feeling of hating something you loved.
Oh I totally forgot about the question. I don’t know if Hitman 3 will require previous two games to be fully completed to get 100% completion but either way I will still replay all of them! Hitman 2 had some fantastic level design.
I was never interested in Death Stranding, I didn’t even enjoy watching its streams. I simply wanted Mads Mikkelsen. And I read that it’s an easy completion, just time consuming. The timing of that purchase and the timing of me starting to play it couldn’t have been more wrong since some real life stuff happened shortly after. Now I just find it very hard to get back to it because I was never enjoying it to begin with. Before these events I was consistently but not enjoyingly making progress. It isn’t for everyone so I won’t be making any recommendations.
If I could afford choice myself, I’d get Control and Peaky Blinders. My friend already gave me Peaky Blinders but Control was for him. With the current state of dollar it’d be cheaper for me to wait for a sale on Steam and get these two games together (well only one now since I own Peaky Blinders).
Your problem is with GPU shortages, mine is with prices. Pretty much anything tech related (or ANYTHING really) tripled or even quadrupled in price. Right now I can hardly afford the GTX 1080 I already have. I feel like my pc gaming time is limited cause soon I simply won’t be able to sustain a gaming computer.
Since 99.9% of my backlog on Epic was given to me for free, I can have more freedom with it. Otherwise guilt sets in “I paid money for it and for whatever reason can’t refund it but also don’t enjoy it enough to finish it”. This guilt is automatically eliminated. I will not be buying games from Epic, unless something super special becomes exclusive forever with no chance of it ever coming to Steam. I only ever bought from them once because it was just much cheaper than the alternative thanks to the 10 dollar coupon they gave away. Pretty much any game suddenly becomes historical low with their coupons so it can be a very tempting store. Epic does have achievements now but I simply don’t care about them on my alt Steam account or any other launcher.
I’m glad you could pick up on your reading again. I should do it too. I love reading but I haven’t touched a book in ages. I am simply too tired to do anything even though I feel like my life has a gigantic piece missing due to lack of reading.
Ps, someone kindly gave me Control too. Backlog anxiety doubles :’(
Thanks for your answer bout Hitman recycling their levels, I’ve always been curious what people who played a lot of the previous game think about that. (Especially when they charge extra for those old levels).
I was never interested in Death Stranding, I didn’t even enjoy watching its streams. I simply wanted Mads Mikkelsen.
Fair enough, that game caught my attention only because of Norman Reedus… Maybe you can take a long break for it (and for example start one of your unplayed games or finish another one) and go back to it later. Good luck with it.
I’m curious about the Peaky Blinders games as the reviews make it look interesting, but I haven’t seen the show yet so I’m unsure if it’s spoilerish or needs the show to enjoy the game. (I’m glad you got both control and this one in the end, sorry that it pushed up the anxiety but Control seems really enjoyable (I’ll definitely play it via the Game Pass))
Don’t get me wrong with the GPU problem, the prices are also out of hand here. The shortage made scalpers go crazy, and since everything is out of stock, the prices have doubled even in regular retail places for the mere stuff that are left. For stuff like the 30xx series, there is zero stock and scalpers are selling them 3 times their prices or more on second hand sites (where you have a good chance on being scammed anyway and never see said card even if you’re ready to put more than the price of a full gaming pc in just a GPU). It’s so bad that I’m having anxiety that my GPU dies anytime this year. It happened to a friend of mine over the week end and the ONLY thing they found to buy at the store was a 960 (which is what I have) for more than what I paid for it 6 years ago. HOW IS THIS A THING. 10xx are selling for almost 500€ which is crazy when you think that the 3080 FE was retailing at 700 on release for those who can get one. And every hardware specialist keep saying the shortage won’t get better til 2022. :thisisfine: (Sorry for the massive rant)
I’m glad you don’t feel so tied to cheevos on Epic, as I can see it’s making gaming a source of anxiety for you on Steam. At least they do one good thing, even if unintentional ;p
Something that worked for me to go back into reading was to pick up some audiobooks to listen while i was doing stuff where reading is not possible (house cleaning, driving, etc… maybe when you go walk the dog?) and then since i was kickstarted into the story, when I have down time at home I’ll pick the book up to fast forward (since reading goes faster than listening to the audiobook).
First game was already given away for free when you buy some special edition of Hitman 2 that had Hitman 2 extra content. I didn’t pay for the first game twice. It was done in a way that those who don’t own Hitman 1 could get both with just that edition of Hitman 2 or get them separately if they wanted.
If it’s just for Norman Reedus you aren’t missing anything. He is just being his usual grumpy self that you can see on The Walking Dead. Nothing special to his acting or the way he delivers speech. Mads on the other hand is the star and he fully deserved his win for best acting in a game category.
I haven’t played Peaky Blinders yet but it might be next after I’m done with the original Mafia (if I can be done with the original Mafia, that dreaded race is scaring me to death), therefore sadly I can’t say if it spoils anything from the show but I would assume that it’d certainly help watching it would help you be familiar with the characters and their personalities. I wish a proper studio with a proper publisher made the game with Mafia like gameplay and all characters are fully voiced by their actors but oh well we don’t live in utopia right? I won’t rush Control since I need DLCs to 100% it. I’m waiting on the next sale to get them. I really don’t know how to approach the current state of my backlog.
I have insane anxiety for any of my parts to break. My PSU broke recently any I talked about it on my reply to Stabris’ comment below. But eventually this will happen and I have no idea what I’ll do. My income is not enough, I have to go directly to my savings to replace parts. This is not something I’ll be able to maintain for long. You can rant for as long as you feel the need to. I’ll always listen. Let’s hope it does get better in 2022 for you then. I know the economy here will be even worse in 2022 so I am not hopeful about anything.
I don’t have an issue with kickstarting the story. I already started reading like 3 books. I even read like quarter of Jane Eyre but then I stopped. Not because I found it boring, it was actually interesting. I just stopped. I simply don’t find enjoyment in pretty much anything anymore so it isn’t the book’s fault. If I’m outside or doing chores I listen to some classical music or The Leftovers OST to calm my nerves.
I remembered about Hitman 2 giving the Hitman 1 pack for free if you already owned said game, but it seems like Hitman 3 didn’t do the same and you had to repay for the previous level packs ? (I’m unsure cuz I don’t really follow Epic news so I didn’t see if there was any evolution on the topic later on).
I have insane anxiety for any of my parts to break.
Same here. Like I said, even my current 6yo GPU is more expensive than when I bought it back then. This is ridiculous. And a current gen GPU EVEN if you manage to put you hand on one is more expensive than my entire build was last time I upgraded. For the GPU alone. WTF. (And I’ve read your PSU story, I can confirm the same is happening here from a friend needing to change his. Not as bad as the GPUs but there is also a shortage which make for less choice AND prices getting crazy high). And if the prices look insane here, I easily imagine the problem magnified through the fact that the average wages is nowhere close to the same, but tech stuff don’t scale down. But believe me, even in here it has become some sort of luxury product. I’m just hoping I can drag my gaming config as long as possible. Already my laptop (that I need for work) has been dying for the past year (started middle lockdown last year) and I’ve been dreading to have to replace it and fixing it like I could, but now it seems to have reached a point where I can’t fix it anymore. Then again, a whole laptop seems to be cheaper than a desktop GPU so…
I’m not too sure about 2022 being better in here either, the economy has tanked too due to the pandemic and even when (if?) this is over at some point, the economy will be left in a huge crisis. Plus, even if the GPU prices/availability won’t get better in 2021 i’m not sure it’ll be any better next year as I feel greedy people mining bitcoin with them will never stop seeing how bitcoin is skyrocketing in value. And let’s not forget they’re destroying the planet in the process, but hey who cares right? :thisisfine:
I am not checking anything about Hitman 3. I don’t want to be spoiled so I know absolutely nothing therefore can’t confirm or deny anything regarding its editions.
I can also attest to the shortages of parts. I couldn’t find the actual PSU I wanted for example it was out of stock everywhere. I had to get the 2nd one on my list. As for GPUs it’s insane, there are ridiculous number of variations and you can never find the variation you currently use cause it gets out of stock super fast. Then you are lost as to what to get because there are so many of them and I personally have no idea what difference they offer. When you look at it on paper they all are 1080 for example but it has like thousands of variations (I am not even including Ti into this). It’ll give in eventually it’s about 2 years old now and there will come a time when it will fail. I’ll just have to hope that 2080 will become affordable because like 5080-6080 etc will have been released by then. I just hope all these parts will survive for as long as they can.
I’m so sorry to hear about your laptop :( It used to be the laptops were a lot more expensive than whole desktop setups now but yea, just a single GPU is more expensive than them.
I hate living in this time. I just hate it. There is simply no hope for anything and there is nothing but darkness wherever you turn. I already lack the will to live but it’s getting worse and worse. Humanity is long beyond redemption.
I am not checking anything about Hitman 3. I don’t want to be spoiled so I know absolutely nothing therefore can’t confirm or deny anything regarding its editions.
Ok, my bad, it was a shitstorm about it at launch but they went back on it and are actually giving those levels for free if you own the previous games. Hopefully the epic exclusivity is just timed and they bring it to steam in a few months.
For the PC parts, we can only wait, cross our fingers and see I guess. At least I’ve just read this morning that Nvidia has just now started putting limiters for cryptomining on their cards so maybe it will somehow help a bit. We’ll see.
Hopefully the epic exclusivity is just timed and they bring it to steam in a few months.
It is. I’ll come to Steam in January 2022 or something. I have to patiently wait for 10 months…
Ugh, it was a whole year of exclusivity? Well on the plus side it’ll probably get a good discount when finally arriving to steam then.
I’d rather pay full price and have access to it now when I really really need it than wait a whole year and maybe get it at 40-50% off (some greedy publishers don’t even have any sales when they release it on Steam a year later) but I really appreciate you trying to find a positive side of it to cheer me up.
I just checked the prices here and it’s the same thing. The average price of the RTX 3070 is the equivalent of around USD1,100. That’s more than twice the amount I paid for my GTX 1070 back in 2017. And to think that when I bought it, the prices were already inflated because of the mining craze. The prices now are just insane. Even the RTX 3060 is too expensive. Apparently, mining and the pandemic are causing shortages which are driving up the prices of GPUs.
For now, I’m just happy that there isn’t anything I desperately want to play that my current PC can’t run. I’m not willing to buy a new PC at those insane prices.
Right now you can buy a pretty decent used car or a brand new motorcycle (depending on the make of course) for the price of 3090. Even the parts we currently own doubled or tripled in price. When you give an equivalent of dollar prices, it still looks affordable to countries that earn by dollar and they still won’t actually recognise the severity of the situation (common problem among 1st worlders..).
When you convert your example of USD1.100 to my currency that means 6-7 months worth of minimum wage, and obviously you can’t spend that money anywhere else if you want to buy that GPU. This doesn’t even include the insane taxes my country loves to put on everything, when you add taxes it’ll be worth maybe even a year worth of minimum wage just to get it. My PSU broke down a few months ago, it was a Corsair 1200W, I bought a Corsair 800W this time that cost almost double what I paid for my 1200W back in the day despite being almost half the power.
It isn’t even about whether I’m willing to buy them or not. It’s just that I can’t. A very solid computer with state of the art tech used to be an approachable thing if you saved up and managed your finances right even you didn’t make bank (I certainly didn’t but I saved up a lot, living with parents also helped), right now it’s straight up a rich toy. It used to be that about 4-5 years ago 3500-4000 was enough to build a decent setup that would play most games, low settings for latest ones, (mine cost around 8000 but it included a case, monitor, keyboard and mouse too, it was set up from 0) but now you need about 20000-25000 for that “decent” (minus the aforementioned extras) setup that may or may not even support the latest games. For the highest end, THE GPU alone costs as much as the entirety of that decent setup if not more.
Ps4 was around 3500-4000 my currency when it was released, Ps5 is 12000. We had one of the worst cases of currency devaluing in the history of finance in the past year alone and majority of the country can’t keep up. Only the rich can.
I saw it on the news a few days ago that pasta and bread consumption skyrocketed in my country. Because people couldn’t afford anything else anymore and pasta and bread while also having lots of price increases are still the cheapest way to get your belly full.
There really is a ticking clock on my pc gaming. This is not maintanable.
Oh. That’s different. The prices of everything here are on the high side but I think it’s only GPU prices that can be considered insane. I suppose it’s not that bad here. Well, not yet anyway.
And sorry for potentially adding to the backog anxiety… If you have the Steam version of Control, it already includes the DLC (unless they added a new version that only contains the base game).
I think they added a standard Control version for this alone a few days ago. Humble Bundle is being too cheap with this. It says Ultimate Edition in library as well as the shortcut but it’s said everywhere to ignore this because it is the standard edition. I’ll get the DLCs during the next Steam sale. When I check store pages for DLCs it doesn’t say that I own them. I can’t even check what DLCs I have in library since the game is listed as Ultimate (even though everyone including Humble says the opposite). It’s very confusing.
You’re right. DLCs can now be bought separately. They just didn’t bother to remove “Ultimate Edition” from the title. :cfacepalm:
HOOOOOGS! \o/
It’s totally fine. The queen of HOGs allows this xD
Nope, no Valheim trap for me, although a friend repeatedly tried to lure me in. I stayed strong!
Gaming wise worked out. I’m just glad February is over and we’re one month closer to summer? :D
If the queen of HoG approves, then I guess it’s safe :sweats:
Everybody and their mothers seems to be playing Valheim now, making it harder to resist, but we can be strong!
Yes, we can. HOGs shall safe us xD