What I've Been Playing This Week (aka Pile of Shame Sunday)

One of the more poignant parts of the War Story

The following post is part of a series of posts that are published every Sunday to update readers on what Mark G has been up to with respect to finishing off games on his "Pile of Shame". The games to target are picked by Choicest Games contributors Choona, Luke and myself. As I'll be talking about my progress through these games, there may be spoilers ahead, especially for games containing a narrative. Consider yourself warned.

For Honor

• Picked by Me
• Percentage Complete = 10%

Didn't get around to playing this.

Stardew Valley

• Picked by Me
• Percentage Complete = 20%

On hold while I'm playing other games. 😊

Battlefield V

• Picked by Me
• Percentage Complete = 100%

I played around with my graphics settings based on the video below and it seems to have improved performance in multiplayer matches at least. There was only one time that I noticed the game pausing or stuttering and I haven't had to Alt+F4 the game when the map loads (yet – mind you, I've probably just jinxed myself now).

(For those who are curious and can't be bothered watching the video, I basically scaled back the graphics settings to Medium, turned off DX12, turned on Future Frame Rendering and turned on GPU memory restriction)

I also finally got around to playing the war story "The Last Tiger". It's shorter than the other War Stories (it took me about an hour to complete). I can see why Battlefield fans liked this one. It shows a German tank crew's story towards the end of the war and the ethical dilemmas faced by the tank commander where he has to choose the right course of action that ensures he stays true to himself, true to his soldiers and true to his country; focusing to fulfill one cause often results in disastrous consequences for the others. The War Story finished with a quote by Alice Sebold and while I'm not sure her original quote had the barbarity of war as its context, it was still apt, and it reminded me of the movie "Downfall" where it attempts to show that Hitler was a human, not a monster, and that is truly the scariest thing of all: we all have the capacity to become monsters and it's not that hard.

Urban Empire

• Picked by Me
• Percentage Complete = 100%

Yay! I finally completed the game although with a Time Victory which is apparently the easiest one to attain (it just involves you surviving as mayor until 2020). I never figured out how to get the city back into the black though and I still don't know how to be effective at this game! There are apparently other victory types you can attain (although they aren't mentioned in the manual).

Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag

• Picked by Luke
• Percentage Complete = 55%

I got to play one storyline mission in Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag this week. In this mission, you discover that Hornigold wants out and is willing to accept a pardon from the King although not all of his pirate buddies agree. Of course, the mission is a stealth mission that involves infiltrating a fort which meant I had to restart the mission a few times. Thankfully, the restarts once again helped to a degree as once I progressed to a certain point, it would make me restart in a more advantageous position after I died. Yes, it does feel a bit like cheating but you know what? I'm kind of over this game now and I just want to finish it.

King's Quest III

• Picked by Choona
• Percentage Complete = 16%

Yeah I didn't get around to playing any King's Quest III this week. Maybe next week 😊.

LINK:
[ The Pile of Shame ]