Bob Rides Again

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Hey Friends! I decided to take yesterday off because I was not really feeling up to blogging… and also had the day off. We had a cold snap this weekend that basically killed any desire to go out into the world and do things. Additionally we have been on this kick of trying to cook more at home rather than door-dashing everything. So the end result was that we mostly hunkered down while my wife read and I played lots of video games. I stumbled onto something humorous in Forza Horizon and if you follow me on Twitter you already know this. They have in game the 1974 Honda Civic and it is very close to what was my very first vehicle. So of course I had to pick it up and play around with it… and it drives pretty much exactly like I remember the ACTUAL “Bob” driving like.

The actual “Bob” has been rotting away at my parent’s house since I parked it there in college. There were significant transmission issues when I stopped driving it, and now it more or less sits there like many other vehicles rusting away. I don’t really clearly remember if I paid $100 or $200 for the car, but I do remember buying it myself outright when I got my drivers license. At 6’4″ it was never a comfortable vehicle for me to drive… but it was transportation from point A to point B. In my most immediate circle of friends I also represented the only one with transportation and as a result ended up playing chauffeur quite often. It is kinda cool to tool around a virtual world in something that feels so damned familiar.

Over in Witcher 3 I wrapped up this current play-through, or at least the main story. I managed to navigate my way this time to what I would consider the “best” ending. I had originally planned on going with a Yennifer play-through, but I just can’t bring myself to do it. Triss is just better, sorry for all of you Yennifer stans out there but it is true. Mostly the part I was wanting to correct this time around was the fate of Ciri, because last play-through I made some mistakes and it wound up with Ciri in a not great position. Not going to go into too many details here in case I have friends who have yet to play this game. Side note… if you have not played this game you really should. Just don’t let the early nudity turn you off or set your impressions of what the game at large is going to be like.

The bulk of my weekend however was spent playing God of War on the PC. Yes I am one of those suckers who rebuys games that I own on other platforms. If I have the chance of playing something with a mouse and keyboard I am going to take it. I never made it terribly far into this game on the PS4 or PS5 and now that I am playing on PC it is really in my element. I can only hope that at some point Ghost of Tsushima gets a PC port, because these big open world games just feel better with a mouse and keyboard. I am sure I will probably write a post about it of its own, but I am having a blast. I get the feeling that I am nearing the end of the main story, because I just got one of those “better wrap up everything you need to do” messages. So that places this in the 20-30 hour game range for gameplay, so in that sweet spot of not too short but very much not too long either.

AggroChat #373 – 2021 Games of the Year Show – Part Two

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Featuring:  Ammosart, Ashgar, Belghast, Grace, Kodra, Tamrielo, and Thalen

Hey folks it is that time again, time for the Games of the Year show.  As is often the case we ended up with way too many things to talk about and could in no way fit them into a single show.  As a result this week I bring you the continuation of last week’s show as we run through the second batch of games.  We covered twelve games in the first show and we cover the last seven games in this show.  As you can tell when we go further into the list more active discussion happens as there is a bit more overlap in the titles.

Without further waffling, I bring you the second round of discussion.

Topics Discussed

  • Final Fantasy VII Remake – Intergrade
  • Guardians of the Galaxy
  • Mass Effect Legendary Edition
  • Valheim
  • Wildermyth
  • Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart
  • Final Fantasy XIV / Endwalker

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Forza Horizon Needs Beards

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It has been interesting to see how getting the Xbox Series X has changed my gameplay habits in a way that the PlayStation 5 has not yet. In part some of it is the fact that I set it up in the living room and after a few years of working from home, I feel the need to escape my office each evening. Another part is Microsoft Game Pass. I am not sure if you can fully explain how liberating it is, to be able to just download any game that I might even having a passing interest in and be up and running in very short order. The thing about Forza Horizon 5, is that I never would have purchased this game on my own. The irony of that statement is that there is a version of me from the past that used to love driving games. I played a ton of Gran Turismo and Ridge Racer on the PlayStation and even gravitated towards the Crusin series and Daytona in the arcades. However as a modern gamer… I never really spent time playing racing games because it felt like they doubled down on the simulation aspect whereas I was more interested in big dumb arcade fun.

For awhile now folks had told me that the Horizon series from Forza was their version of big dumb arcade fun, and after spending some time with it I would agree. Sure there is some simulation there, but you can also mostly turn it off by lowering the difficulty. This is a fact that I forgot when I briefly got excited about winning. However while we are on this screen I want to share my biggest complaint about the game. There are no beard options… what the fuck is up with that? I give them props for having the ability to include various prosthetic limbs, but I do get annoyed by this babyfaced schmuck every time I get out of the car. Apparently I am not alone in this notion with reddit threads offering to start a GoFundMe to get Microsoft to add beards.

I will say one thing that almost makes up for it however… is that while you are limited in the names that you choose for yourself, they are all voice acted. There are a whole slew of common names you can choose, but I noticed with Horizon 5 you can also add a list of “nicknames”. Among these is “Bell” which while I don’t put two Ls in my spelling… it sounds the same, which means every time I do anything in game I get called by my chosen online moniker. Honestly… I would probably rather have this than beards given how little time I actually spend out of the car. I’ve never really gotten to experience this in a video game and I think it is exceptionally cool.

One of the weird things that this game does when you are doing solo races… is it populates all of the other drivers from your friends list. At first when I saw this screen I was getting all excited that I bested Nimgimli in the race, until I had a slight realization. I thought it was showing me the record times of all of my friends and that I had beaten them all. Instead I realized it was just showing me winning against a bunch of low level bots that happened to be named the same as my friends. Granted racing actual friends is a thing that can be done in this game and at some point it might be worth trying. I still would rather race against a bunch of names I recognize than completely random bots, so I guess it is still neat.

The other time that I have spent some time doing is customizing my vehicles with new paint jobs and wraps. I thought it was really cool that there is a whole community driven thing where folks can upload their favorite skins and the community can vote on them. If I was going to have a Jeep Wrangler hard top… and a Jurrasic Park skin was available… there is no way I was not using it. They had some skins that were more true to the movie, but I personally liked the one the best. If I get a Ford Explorer I will have to see if they have that skin as well.

My favorite vehicle so far is the 2021 Ford Bronco that you get as part of the initial allotment of vehicles. I would love to own one of these in real life, and I greatly prefer driving a more off-road friendly vehicle in this sort of game. I am having a freaking blast with this game, and again this is not a title that I ever would have purchased on my own. I used to love driving games and this has rekindled that in me. It makes me wonder about exploring some of the other genres that I used to love but mostly abandoned when I got so heavily into MMORPGs. In line with this… I have been playing a ton of Lumines on the Xbox as well and I downloaded Tetris Effect and Bejeweled 3 which were also on Game Pass. There are rumors that Sony is working on their own Game Pass like service and I legitimately hope they make good on that concept. For now however… for the sheer aspect of getting to try out a lot of different things… Game Pass is a phenomenal deal.

Rowing to Velen

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Good Morning Friends. This has been a bit of a weird week and I am not feeling super awesome. I am uncertain if I actually talked about it on the blog but I did something very stupid last week and ended up with several second degree burns. Thankfully however at this point they have all healed minus one spot on my forefinger. As far as gaming goes I have been alternating between wrapping up my play-through of Witcher 3 on the PC and playing the Xbox Series X. I am getting close to the end of the main campaign and am hoping I am on the right track for a very specific ending. In theory tonight or Saturday I should finish this up.

Apart from that I am spending quite a bit of time dinking around with Forza Horizon 5. I am not sure why the game is bringing me so much joy, especially since I seem to spend most of my time just driving around aimlessly. I’m installing it on my PC just to test a theory… but I am guessing I share everything between my XSX play sessions and PC play sessions. I have a handful of vehicles that I really enjoy, and managed to pull an orange rarity vehicle that allows me to fully customize the paint job. So I have this slick car with a two tone paint job that is purple fading to navy. Unfortunately I have been caught up in the moment and been forgetting to press the share button so you get this screenshot again.

This weekend Dad of War arrives on the PC, and I am probably going to be spending quite a bit of time playing that. I have it on the PlayStation but I remember playing it initially and thinking… that I really wish I could play it with a keyboard and mouse. We will see if it magically makes everything better for me, but regardless it is a game that I would love to play through fully. Forza has become my quick drop in and drop out game when I need a break from whatever epic saga I happen to be working on.

Apart from that I don’t have an awful lot to talk about this morning. I hope you are having a great week and end up having a phenomenal weekend.