Valheim game review (Valheim revisited)

 Valheim Revisited

After adjusting the NVIDIA settings (I looked it up and will post what I changed at the bottom of this quick review) Valheim completely changed.  Gone was the stutter.

Then, I immediately sunk 50 hours into this game and it's still feeling pretty new to me.

The polygon count is not high, the buildings are fairly simple and - at least now in the early access version - pretty limited in what they can do.  But - it is fun.  And if there are bugs, I've not yet encountered them.  

Let me just state that again:  In this early fucking access just released game I haven't encountered any bugs.

Also, I keep finding little 'huh!' moments.  Example - rain can put out campfires.  Wow.  Not many games have thought of that.  You need a chimney or your house will fill with smoke.  Some creatures are afraid of fire.  Etc.

As anyone who has been reading up on this game knows, they have passed three million purchases.  For a '$20 early access no advertising I've seen anywhere' game.  Pretty good.

I'd say more about the game but honestly, I need to go play some more.

Games: Valheim, Citadel FIF

Valheim - 

It runs poorly on my system, hence I requested a refund.  Since I have 4.3 hours of play time on it, not sure if I will get it or not.  Since it was only $20, I'm not too butthurt if I don't.

It's an "OK but nothing special, not sure why Odin was 'pleased' game."  Might be worth re-visiting in a year. 

Note that nobody else had problems running it but for me it would often stutter if I swung the camera around too fast - even though my specs exceed recommended, drivers totally updated and all graphics turned off or to minimum.  

I don't recommend it at this time.

Citadel Forged In Fire -

Not to be confused with 'Citadel' (which I may have done) here are some thoughts as I went through the game.  These are thoughts after about an hour and a half of playing it.  More will come as I am making notes as I go rather than trying for a shorter, more cohesive review.

The game is currently (at the time of writing) on sale for 16 USD.  Neat.  I'm guessing it might even be cheaper from other places than Steam but I've decided to only buy from steam, set an alarm for an hour and a half and if it rings and the game sucks, stop playing and request a refund immediately.  

The download and installation are fast and smooth.

When I first spawned, it was in some sort of weird caldron thing.  When I suddenly moved my POV it got 'stuttery'.   After setting all the graphics down to minimum and making some adjustments on the NVIDIA control panel, it got rid of that.  The graphics on this I'd rate as 'pretty cartoony' so if you're wanting GTA5 on up type graphics, this is not the game for you.

At first, I just ran out of the spawning area and started to pick shit (rocks, branches, everything) up.  Later I discovered that I'd passed an area where a quest giver was.  I've no idea if I missed him before, he spawned later or if he wasn't drawn in.  I also did a very small amount of exploring and found some other guy who wanted me to kill boars on something labeled 'side quest'.  Cool.  

The crafting system is fairly messy as you have to scroll down through menus looking for shit.  No 'search' function.  It is pretty simple - click the button and it does stuff.  Perhaps even in the background while you run around gathering more shit unless it's something that requires a work station.  It's OK but feels a tad bit clunky.  I'll probably eventually get use to it.

Lots of stuff to gather.  The combat (at the 'I use a hatchet I made to beat them up' level) is simplistic and fairly crappy.  Don't know if it gets better in the future but even naked aside from a hat I was wearing, the boars didn't do much damage to me.

Map is fairly simplistic and you can set one waypoint and get rid of it without trouble.

Map isn't very good as you can't scroll in more.

The quest giver is annoying as they like the 1980's 'slow scroll' of text.

Resources seem to respawn.

You CAN swim underwater (games that can't are shitty programming and lack of imagination in my opinion) though if you are holding a weapon the animation for swimming isn't good as you hold it still in front of you.

Death - you keep equipped stuff, drop everything in inventory though getting it back is not a problem.  I have no idea if there is any other penalty.

There is an XP slider.  I nudged mine up to x2 and levels seem to come frequently.  The main purpose seems to be unlocking stuff you can spend points on to learn to build - floors, walls, cooking, etc.  I may nudge it up again (it can go much, much higher) - not sure.

There is no 'pause' button in the game.  Hitting ESC only brings up a menu - you can still be attacked, even if you're the only one playing.

They don't have any mods for it on steam, which I found rather depressing.  If you're going to make a game, always give people the ability to mod it!

After talking to some other people in the group, I was a bit surprised how many people already owned this.  They'd bought it when it first came out and played it for 50+ hours.  Good sign there.

And yes - unlike many AAA gaming studios, they not only have fully remappable keys but have remembered to include 'autorun'.  Which should be standard EVERYWHERE.

Verdict:  Buy it - especially if it's on sale.

Games During Lockdown

 My buddy Derek asked me for some game reviews.  Since I've not been doing them as I went, I decided to just go down my steam account library and put in a few thoughts on each of the games along with 'how many hours' I've put into each.  The format will be:  Game Name (hours played) and thoughts.

Here are the games I've played in the last four months:

7 Days To Die (198)  If you only like pretty graphics and such, this is not the game for you.  Other than that, there is a lot to this game.  We tore down part of a skyscraper because we felt like it.  My buddy Matt is infamous for digging a huge hole in it.  I like fully destructible terrain in games and feel it is way too rare.  Pretty nifty game though after a couple hundred hours I'd had my fill.

Conan Exiles (267)  This game was a huge surprise.  I'd heard it sucked awhile ago but the rest of the group was getting into it so I said "Sure, I'll try."  It was pretty good.  Decent crafting system, lots of different stations required to craft stuff and so on.  I couldn't imagine playing it solo - even with a group a lot of the fights and such were super hard.  The horrible limiting factor of it is that (at time of writing) they have two maps.  The one that originally came with the game and a new map that most people say sucks ass.  Sure, they have some weird stuff and need to make some changes to help out but overall it kept me entertained a lot longer than I thought it would.

Craftopia (148)  This game is a LONG way from done.  I don't know if they'll get the funding and such to keep going with it but it is a long way from done.  The game play gets pretty repetitive quickly and I am not a fan of the cartoony graphics.  It does have some good points such as some automated things (mining units, conveyor belts, etc) but I think there are only a few different actual zones and then they copy/pasted the rest so that you keep visiting the same places over and over.

Cyberpunk 2077 (99)  Ignoring for a moment the MASSES of bugs, I didn't think the story was all that great.  Sloppy story telling.  After choosing one of three beginnings (which don't matter at all later on) there are some cut scenes of partying and boom - the character skips several months.  That is some shit story telling right there.  That could have been used to introduce the character to the world and such.  Also, once you piss off a gang (possibly by blowing up a lot of their shit) during a mission - not to worry - you will never see them again.  Super lame crafting system.  You always dress like a freak if you want the best plusses.  This game should have been so much more.  After eight long years in development, it should have been.  

Drake Hollow (33)  Played this game which I don't remember too much of because my buddy wanted to.  Fortunately, it did have an actual ending and once we hit that, we were done with it.  Cheesy cartoonish graphics.

Empyrion (373)  Legos in space!  Pretty decent as a group, OK solo - if you know what you're doing.  I'd originally bought this game then gotten a refund when I got stuck in a hole I'd made myself.  There IS a learning curve.  The biggest problem this game has is that there is nothing beyond a super simplistic faction and highly ignorable quests.  The bad guys are static.  Also, if you get too many giant ships together the game will go down to 5 FPS.  But, as you can tell by the amount of hours I've put into it, there is some fun to be had.

Enderal (39)  This is a free mod for the Elder Scrolls game.  It was OK but honestly, I didn't think they did a great job changing the system (the new one isn't significantly better than the Skyrim one which was also not great) and eventually I just lost interest in it.  It's still on my computer but that is more of a 'desperation game' because not a lot is coming out right now that looks great.

Grand Theft Auto V (196)  Honestly, if the new Cyberpunk game had just copied this with a cyberpunk skin on it, they'd have done better.  A very good game though I've just not gotten back into it lately.  Did try but it just didn't click in.

Medieval Dynasty (95)  You can build stuff, hunt game and harvest crops.  They did make some very "WTF is wrong with you" design decisions including (but not limited to):  Your character will eventually die of old age - when they are about 80.  That's about 240 days as each day (or is it 3?) is a season.  You are expected to get married and produce a kid who you can then go on playing.  Also, it's single player only when this game screams for multiplayer.  Lastly (off the top of my head) the small map doesn't have anyone who is working on encroaching on the land, giving you any problems, warring kingdoms, nothing.  It's dead.  You have to constantly repair your buildings, get crops in and so on.  Not sure if a couple of years of updates (they do update frequently) will help because their design decisions were (IMO) so poor - but there are many who like it.

Outward (4)  Just imagine all of the game advances made in the last couple decades.  Since Morrowind came out.  Now, imagine the kind of developer who would say "Fuck using any of that."  Clunky piece of shit in a dead world.

Scum (12)  This is not a fun game to play.  On my thumbs down steam review, I put "clunky interface, super unfriendly death system, world felt like too much cut and paste.  Just didn't enjoy myself."

The Forest (116)  Best played with a group.  Lots of building, survival and zombies.  Some actual 'shit your pants' moments in this game.  Also, it has an ending - a goal.  Very nice game.

The Outer Worlds (7)  There was a lot of hype around this one and boy does it suck.  Not a great shooter and like the lamentable Cyberpunk 2077 the rails you are on are way too visible.  Uninstall!

Hope that helps someone out there to keep busy!

Extremely Niche (Podagorcia)

 Wondering which restaurants to go to?  Here is Logan's very quick opinion of them as of January 2021.  This is a simple copy/paste of my list.  If you're not going there within the next year or two this will be completely without value.

Yes, for apps that you can order from loads of different restaurants, this is how I keep track during the 10-12 weeks I am in country of where to eat or avoid.  Otherwise, I'd forget where all I've eaten as I eat out every day for all meals.  Period.  Whenever I go to see other people and they ask 'what would be a special or different' food for me, I always respond 'homemade'. 

Argento - City Quarter - no selection

Bajka - no

Cattleya - ok

City Wok - meh

Dubai House - so so

Elite Restaurant - yuck

Fairy Tale - not great

Feta Code - meh

Forest Lounge - very expensive

Funky Factory - limited selection

Gandalf Food - no selection

Goodfellas Pizzeria - slow as fuck

Hard Rock - good (ribs are nothing special)

Harmony - meh selection

Home of Gyros by Naky's - no selection meh

Hugo Bar and Kitchen - Centar - limited selection

Idyll - no selection

La Vie - ok

Loft Bistro - OK

Marienplatz - ok but may cancel order unexpectedly x2; they have goulash with noodles 

Marquez - meh

Mercator - not a restaurant but an office supply store

Milky - no

Munich - yuck

Muchen Zentrum - decent veal goulash; avoid ribs

Pizza bar - so so

Restoran Spaghetti - nope

Restaurant strudel - center - expensive

Restoran Zheng He - City Kvart - Meh looking menu

Rio Verde - so so

Roma - no selection

Sandwich Bar Mamicka - no selection

Scottish pub mccloud - no selection

selfie - no selection

Shanghai fast food - nope!

Sicilia - ok

tavern lanterna - good

Tavern Odzaklija - avoid their chicken ceasar salad.

Tavern Table - NO

Ten - avoid beef salad

The Meating Point - ok

COVID testing in the time of...well, COVID

 Written 5/1/2021.  For the Americans, that is January 5th.  America does dates weird.

Anyway -

With any treatment there are generally two different options.  Public hospital or private clinic.  Despite countries pushing foreigners to go with the private clinic route, I often check with the public hospitals first as the treatment there is often as good as private and either free or at a greatly reduced price.  

With the COVID test, I knew I'd be paying.  Knew it.  The foreigner always pays.  I get that.  I just didn't know why I'd be paying.

Long time readers will long remember that one of my mottos is to 'never travel near or on the local holidays' - for lots of reasons.  Unfortunately, I didn't realize (didn't research it) that the Orthodox christians celebrate their xmas in the beginning of January.  Don't know why, didn't care enough to look it up nor to find out why they sell maple (?) branches to each other.  Probably a local superstition or custom.  Doesn't matter.   The important thing is that I'd be stuck traveling during the holiday - which sucks.

Then I remembered I had to get a COVID test which would mean that I would need to get tested - you guessed it - on orthodox xmas.   The next day to get the test results back, fly out the day after.

Fuck me.

My first stop was to the public hospital.   I don't think that I can get away with getting a free COVID test (though it is free for locals) but I wanted to stop there first as they do not close for xmas.

Eventually found a young man who wrote down an e-mail address for me to ask the nebulous hospital administrators (who could not be seen, only e-mailed) if I could get a test there on that day.  The third time of attempting to write the e-mail address he instead took my phone and just took a picture of it.  I asked him if he was a doctor.  He said he was not.  I assured him that with handwriting like that, he was halfway there.  The joke was not gotten.  Note that I attempted to send the e-mail right there after getting it (every time) because walking back and forth and back and forth sucks.  

Having exhausted the public hospital angle, sending an e-mail prayer to the powers that be, I made my way over to the private sector.  

Of course they're closed on xmas.

Fortunately, their test can get the results back on the same day.  I just have to get up stupidly early in the morning to take the test.  Can do!

Of course, we may still experience 'fuckery'.  You can never tell...