Week of 14 Jan 2024
“Those damned Pals ate every one of ‘em.”
Achievements Earned In:
- Race Pro
- Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway
- Just Dance
- Palworld
This week saw me make pretty significant progress in Race Pro. Overall, the completion is pretty easy, with the only tough achievements being the ones for completing each course a single time on Professional. You also have to do a tournament on Professional, which is a bit of a pain, too. The key to making driving with no aids as painless as possible is to always race using Mini Coopers, which handle like boxes on wheels no matter the difficulty. It comes down to just keeping ahead of the competition. I’m honestly mostly using those individual achievements to pad my streak as I work through the real bulk: the career and the multiplayer. After what happened with Watch Dogs, I jumped into the multiplayer mostly this week. It was such a bore, but I started with the Player matches, which was actually not too bad with the speed at which I could get through races and all-in-all took a couple hours. I didn’t get around to the Ranked until Wednesday, and that was SO much worse. I could skip the qualifying round for Player but not for Ranked. Then for both types, I would get my alternate account disqualified while finishing with my main one. Nice and quick! The problem with Ranked was this is all buffered by SO much waiting for timers to count down. It’s only 40 seconds here and 20 seconds there, but they all add up so quickly; the entire boosting sesh took over four hours! Meanwhile, then for career, it’s just a lot of grinding. At first each league (out of eight) starts with two laps in a handful of races in each contract, but soon you’re up to three, four, five laps. It just drags on so much, and the game is just so dry and boring. I’ll get through it, but I’m not gonna like it.
Achievements unlocked: 36 (+22) | Completion: 72%
I might be a little ahead of the other racers.
I loaded up Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway on Wednesday and unlocked the achievement for doing so on 100 different days. Guess I can stop doing that!
Achievements unlocked: 5 (+1) | Completion: 12%
I finally got around to working out a little on Saturday, and though I only did two routines in Just Dance I hit the milestone of completing 40 songs total, so I got a whole achievement out of it. Only 60 more to go!
Achievements unlocked: 12 (+1) | Completion: 86%
With my love of Pokémon, I of course had Palworld on my radar since it was announced. Like others, I had the heard the “Pokémon with guns” comparisons due to the reveal trailer, but besides that I didn’t really keep up with anything about the game to draw further conclusions from. I also don’t tend to play new games, but my kiddo outright asked if I’d play this with her so I figured, “Why not?” I’m so glad I decided to take the dive (which I only did because the achievement list is almost boringly straightforward) because it is far more aptly described as “A.R.K. with Pokémon” and is a lot of heckin’ fun. It’s such a simple, barebones game but it’s so exciting to reach that next hill and maybe find a new Pal to catch or treasure to find. All the while you can build up a base at home and decorate and all that. It’s such a neat combination and kinda what I always want out of these kinds of games. It helps the legally-distinct monsters that fit in your pocket are all charming and have some pretty cool designs. If I had one “complaint” about the gameplay, it’s that you often don’t even need the Pals to fight; I had much better luck catching new Pals if I just fought them myself, which kind of begs the question what’s even the point of catching them for battle? Well, I learned why when I got to the first boss, who bullied me mighty hard if I took any damage myself. It was the first (and only) time I’ve solely relied on my Pals as I dodge-rolled around behind pillars to avoid the electrical blasts. But, oof, the performance of the game is mighty bad; not surprising since it’s an Early Access game. Hopefully with the overwhelming success the game saw in its first days on the market the developer will have plenty of resources to hurry and get this thing stable. I only played the one day, but managed to beat the first of five bosses and collect 33 Pals. And I’m in no hurry to finish.
Achievements unlocked: 4 (+4) | Completion: 40%
Aww, you’re so cute! Wanna be my slave/food?
