Weekly Update #13: New PC Setup

March 23-29, 2025

Got my GPU on Monday so I installed it and finally swapped the old and new PC around. I spent the whole week getting things setup (mostly the video player that I can’t quite get the settings right on) so not much gaming happened. That will likely be the case next week too while I continue figuring things out so please be patient during these slow weeks.

Game Acquisitions

Only a handful of games, but all free! Once again, not sure if good bundles aren’t coming out or I’m finally realizing it isn’t worth buying them with how many games I already have. Fanatical’s “Build your own Indie Legends Bundle (Spring 2025)” looks intriguing and the price seems right, but I have most of them already and can’t justify the expense for what’s left. That’s fine, the games I got for free look like an interesting mix.

# of Games: 5

Total Money Spent: $0

Price/Game: $0

Game Recaps

Oof, only two hours last week, and this was all on Sunday too. It’s enough to get two more parts out of my let’s play though! I spent most of the time hanging out in the bar for psychics and completing a couple smaller quests in the area. This game is gonna take me forever, isn’t it? So much reading, and I’m still in the first town too! No Tales of Phantasia again, I figured I was being too ambitious thinking I could get the PC setup and get a session in on the same day.

 

TV/Movie Recaps

Here is everything I watched this week:

·        Snowpiercer Season 4 Episodes 8-10 (finished!)

·        American Dad Season 21 Episode 22

·        Family Guy Season 23 Episode 6

·        T2: Trainspotting

·        The Wild Robot

Snowpiercer is complete! Overall, I really liked the show. Humanity accidentally triggering an ice age and trying to survive on a nonstop global train is a cool premise. I felt like the first two seasons were the best when mysteries were just starting to become unraveled and in-train fighting was the main conflict. Season 3 stumbled a bit and season 4 was the most different with introducing a bunch of new characters and settings that weren’t fully fleshed out. The ending was...OK. It ended basically where season 3 ended so overall that season felt irrelevant. It was probably the best ending it could’ve had with the time given and the network change for the last season. T2: Trainspotting wasn’t as disturbing and gross as the first movie, but also not as memorable. I feel like this is a common problem with sequels that come out way later than the original. It was fine overall, still not one I’d go out of my way to see again. The Wild Robot was a surprise watch during a family get-together. Even though it wasn’t on my usual setup and kids were talking during it, I still really liked this movie. It definitely earned its reputation as the best Dreamworks film in years. This was already on my list to watch, but I’m keeping it there to watch again when the time comes. That's how much I enjoyed it.

Conclusion/Upcoming

Sorry for the slow week! Setting up the PC is becoming more complicated than I anticipated. I suspect Windows 11 broke my video player since apparently exclusive fullscreen isn’t a thing anymore with that OS. Huge bummer, passing through HDR metadata doesn’t seem to be working with my player of choice anymore. I managed to get it to work with another video player but the blacks look crushed. Outside of that, I’ve been messing with Nvidia DSR and passing an 8K signal is causing some prompts to not display correctly and certain windows not properly dragging to another monitor correctly. First world problems, I know. I really want to get these wrinkles sorted out and then get Playnite and my recording stuff set up properly before I resume gaming.

For this week (and the next couple weeks probably), I’ll be watching Shadow and Bone. I’ll also be rewatching Moana to prepare for Moana 2 next week! I’ve probably seen it like 2-3 times now which is unusual for me. Hopefully I can get everything set up and dive back into Torment again, we’ll see. My monthly post for March should be out in a couple days, I’m going to try to get some quarterly stats in there too. Thanks for reading!

Backlog total: 3,172 (+4)

Weekly Update #12: Just Some Light Torment

March 16-22, 2025

Alright, first week back in the office full-time. Verdict: not a fan. Game time was reduced as expected, and I didn’t have time for co-op gaming. My graphics card is en route, it should be here Tuesday. That’s a bit of good news at least. I thought of an idea to be able to use my new PC right away without having to rush the game I’m currently playing and compromise all the 32-bit PhysX games Nvidia dropped support for: game streaming. I can continue playing games from my old PC while recording and editing the footage on the new PC! It’s almost like what professional streamers do but in reverse. I’ll be recording gameplay from the more powerful PC while actually playing games on the less powerful one. It's gonna be a weird setup but hopefully I can get it to work.

Game Acquisitions

I actually spent a little bit of money on these, a whole $3! Fanatical’s cheapest tier of game bundles is 1/$1, 5/$3, and 10/$5. It’s hard to resist picking up five whenever they’re offered. This time I bought the Build your own Spring Bundle 2025 bundle. The games aren’t always the highest quality (hence the cheapest bundle), but it’s hard to argue with the price. I’m sure I’ll get some enjoyment out of them. The other acquisitions were freebies as usual.

# of Games: 10

Total Money Spent: $3

Price/Game: $0.30

Game Recaps

Like I said, not a lot of game time this week, mainly because of the return to office thing. Still, I managed to get a couple sessions of Torment in.

Unfortunately I messed up my recording settings for parts 4 and 5 of my playthrough. I was messing with Nvidia DSR which made everything on the recording zoomed in. I fixed it near the end of part 5 so 6 onwards should be good, barring the move to a new setup of course. The environments and some of the dialogue text is still visible so hopefully it isn’t a complete loss. Last week was all about exploring the first two areas of the first town in the game. I wonder how many hours it will take me to leave 😅

 

 

TV/Movie Recaps

Here is everything I watched this week:

·       Snowpiercer Season 4 Episodes 1-7 (still watching, show ended)

·       Family Guy Season 23 Episode 5 (all caught up, show ongoing)

·       American Dad Season 21 Episode 21 (all caught up, show ongoing)

·       Trainspotting

It was basically all Snowpiercer this week. The series finale is imminent! Season 4 feels the most different from other seasons, partially due to the fact it’s on a different network, it’s only 1080p instead of 4K HDR, and a lot of it takes place off the trains. I can’t say I’m liking it as much as the first two seasons but it’s definitely interesting. I wonder how they’ll wrap everything up. I finally got around to watching Trainspotting, a cult classic film with Ewan McGregor from 1996. Not technically before my time, but before I was old enough to watch it. I can’t believe he played Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars just three years later. Anyway, the movie was dark, violent, dirty, sexually explicit, and unapologetically Scottish. It's hard for me to say I liked it, but I don't regret watching it. If you plan on watching it, viewer discretion is advised. It earned the R rating.

Conclusion/Upcoming

I took Tuesday off work to sign for the new GPU, and I’m gonna work with my friend on getting it set up. I can’t wait to get everything up and running. I’m actually gonna finish a show this week! After Snowpiercer, I decided that Shadow and Bone will be next on my list. It was canceled after two seasons so it shouldn’t take too long. T2 Trainspotting will be the next movie, following the original. More Torment all week, and should get some Phantasia in if I get the PC all set up. Thanks for reading!

Backlog total: 3,168 (+10)

Weekly Update #11: Torment Started

March 9-15, 2025

I finished two games in my last update so I started my next game Torment: Tides of Numenera. I also finally continued my co-op Tales of Phantasia playthrough! I potentially finally purchased my GPU to complete the new PC build, although it’s way more than I was looking to pay and has been stuck in “preparing” status for a few days now. We’ll see if it ships and if I can get a better deal in the meantime. Unlikely, but I can dream. This was also my last week of freedom, I’m officially back in the office full-time. I’ll try my best to keep up with the blog and YouTube channel as best as I can.

Game Acquisitions

Nothing was going to top my acquisitions from the itch.io charity mega-bundle last time. Still a handful of pickups, including the legendary Chrono Trigger (and its pseudo-sequel) which I somehow didn’t own. They were at historical lows and I didn’t want to pass up the opportunity.

# of Games: 10

Total Money Spent: $9.44

Price/Game: $0.94

Game Recaps

Only a small handful of hours played, but I feel like I’m getting into the rhythm of YouTube uploads. Right now I’m experimenting with videos that are roughly an hour long, so one gameplay session can be split into multiple videos. This helps keep the content flowing, even without me having to play everyday to make it happen.

It feels weird not talking about Final Profit anymore, that was the main topic of this blog all year. Now that I’m recording all my gameplay, there’s not as much to write about because you can see exactly what I did. In Torment, I fell from the sky, got glimpses of memories not my own, met my first companions, de-escalated my first potential combat encounter, and entered the first city. A lot of firsts obviously, it is the beginning of the game. Here’s my playthrough so far!

 

 

Took an unintentional month-long break from Tales, but my friend and I finally got another session in! Last week, we re-learned how to play (again), made our way to Euclid Village, and met our first new companion in the past!

 

TV/Movie Recaps

Here is everything I watched this week:

·       Snowpiercer Season 3 Episodes 1-10 (still watching, show ended)

·       Family Guy Season 23 Episode 4 (all caught up, show ongoing)

·       American Dad Season 21 Episode 20 (all caught up, show ongoing)

·       Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Only one season of Snowpiercer left ☹ Season 3 was kind of a weird one bringing characters back from the dead, people acting out-of-character, and conflicts that end shortly after they begin. Maybe this is why the original network canceled the show at this stage. I still liked it, it just felt weaker than the first two seasons. Hopefully it’s able to finish strong. I think I hyped up Close Encounters of the Third Kind too much in my head prior to watching it. I was envisioning one of the greatest sci-fi films ever made and it was…fine. No better or worse than other films I’ve seen from the time period. I didn’t expect the climax to be so orchestral though, that was interesting. And the mothership sounds were from a tuba! How fitting to write about it here.

Conclusion/Upcoming

Not gonna lie, I’m very bummed about the whole return to office thing. I know it’s going to affect me negatively, I’m just bracing to see by how much. I’m excited for the new GPU despite how much I paid for it. My computer is just falling apart from the 4K video editing. I suspect the hard drive is about to go, but the RAM, CPU, and GPU are all taking a hit too. It will be nice to utilize a fully modern PC again.

For movies and TV, I’ll be watching Snowpiercer all week. With the return to office, the number of episodes I watch per week will diminish since I can’t watch TV during my lunch break anymore. The next movie on my list is Trainspotting (with T2: Trainspotting coming next week). I’ve never seen it before but I’ve heard good things. Torment: Tides of Numenera will be on my list for several weeks, it’s a pretty long game. We’ll see if I still have time for co-op games to get a little Tales of Phantasia in too. Thanks for reading!

Backlog total: 3,158 (+7)