Week of 22 Dec 2024
“There were once three brothers.”
Achievements Earned In:
- Phasmophobia
- McPixel 3
- Palworld
- Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows Pt. 1
Played a little less Phasmophobia this week than I have been, but it’s the holidays, and a tough time for me so I just wasn’t feeling like it. After hitting my first Prestige two weeks prior, I managed to get back up to a point where I could unlock all of the tier two gear again. I’d held off last time so I had a nice and quick achievement on-hand if needed, but then I lost access to my upgrades when I prestige’d! Whoops. But, hey, back up past level 50, so halfway to my second Prestige!
Achievements unlocked: 48 (+1) | Completion: 89%
Man, this is disorienting.
McPixel 3 continued to be just as wacky as I neared the end of its four chapters. And they also never become very difficult, since it’s all just interacting with objects in a map. There are a few actions scenes where you have to take additional actions, but they’re never very complicated or tough. There were a few that can be annoying, though! Simply find and watch every single gag in the game and you’re all done! Easily finished this before it left the Game Pass library.
Achievements unlocked: 93 (+64) | Completed
Guess I took a wrong turn at Albuquerque.
A long time coming, I finally got around to completing Palworld this week with my kiddo! And just in time, as I also got to play through some of the new Feybreak content, which added an absolutely massive amount of land in the southwest corner of the map. Well, before new stuff I still had to assault an oil rig from the Sakurajima update, which was pretty tough. The human enemies tear through my party, so it was mostly up to me. Taking it nice and slow, disabling turrets as I go, was the way to go. Of course, with the new update there’s a handful of new Pals, too, and I managed to grab most of them as I explored the additional island. The most annoying part of this new area is the presence of AA guns scattered about, meaning you can’t use a flying mount! It’s an annoying hinderance this late into the game, and cut my interest in exploring short. Luckily, this update only added two achievements, and neither required much interaction with the actual content. The first is easy enough, just beat the new tower boss. And, as always, you can spot their tower from across the map, so I knew where to go. Even with all the modifiers cranked in my favor, this boss still put up a good fight, but fell easy enough. The new raid boss was a different story. I was at first worried I’d have to do some dungeon diving to collect the Xenolord Slab Fragments needed to summon the boss, but they added a new Expeditions feature, allowing you to send a group of Pals to collect loot from various locations. The hardest of these rewards fragments (and other helpful loot) so I just ran these expeditions while playing with my kiddo and upgrading my gear for the fight. Each run takes about an hour, and in a few I had my Slab ready to go. I quickly summoned the boss beside my strongest Pals and… summarily got my butt handed to me. While it couldn’t kill me, I just could not dole out enough damage to kill it before the timer ran out, and it mopped the floor with my Pals. Funny enough, as my kiddo and I continued playing, we were soon disconnected from the servers; turns out they released a patch the same night to make it easier… Figures. I tried again Saturday morning and this time things went better. I’m not sure what the patch changed, but my Pals lasted a little longer and I brought stronger artillery to help. The laser rifle introduced last update was clutch! And with that, I finally polished this one off. I’ll likely still play now and then for fun with the kiddo, and I’m sure I’ll be back for more achievements.
Achievements unlocked: 33 (+5) | Completed
Uh, why are you sleeping up there?
I’ve been trying to pickup some licensed titles from secondhand stores that have become increasingly difficult to find, at least if they’re doable. One such game I found at GameStop recently is Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows Pt. 1, which I’d had on my radar for a while. I mean, c’mon, a Harry Potter cover-based shooter? That just sounded like something I had to check out. The game covers the events of the second-to-last movie, but with some details changed to facilitate the medium change. But the main plot points are there, so you’re on the run from Voldermort’s forces as you search for the titular Deathly Hallows. The wandplay in the game isn’t great, to be honest, and the aim assist is passable at best. It is seemingly random where on the body of your target it locks on! There’s also a stealth mechanic (that gifted Cloak of Invisibility) where you can sneak around enemies, and by the end of the game I was doing my best to just sprint through every section. To really pad the completion time, you sometimes are stopped and have to complete three “side missions” before proceeding. Remember in the movie when Harry left Hermione at camp to fight death eaters and snatchers at an abandoned power plant? Or snuck into a dragon’s cave to save muggle-born prisoners? It’s dumb and not very fun, and the set-pieces are usually just repeats from elsewhere in the game. I did my first playthrough on Medium, as the three difficulty achievements don’t stack so this was my run to get a feel for it. I’ll do Easy next for the collectibles, and finally my Hard playthrough. I think it’ll be not too hard? I’m more worried about the Kinect levels. The OG Kinect is not exactly the most accurate thing in the world. I only have to get a minimum 1-star on each level, but what if that’s aggravating? Guess I’ll find out.
Achievements unlocked: 32 (+32) | Completion: 65%
Highest ratio: 28.08
Invader from Space (Palworld)
Lowest ratio: 1.03
A Bumpy Landing (Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows Pt. 1)
