I've completed 12 of the 20 chapters in Mafia and am around 10 hours into it. So far I've gotten all the collectibles obtained during chapters so far and will need to get the rest in Free Drive mode. You just explore the entire city and collect stuff, steal cars etc... That might take a while but I don't care as I love the setting of this game.

I'm glad I bought the Definitive Edition of this. Something weird kept on happening though... Some cutscenes were different, other parts of missions were different, I can remember you could aim while driving in missions and I could not remember swearing in the cutscenes.

For some reason I keep on thinking I'm just playing the game I played all those years ago but a HD version... even though this is a new game built from the ground up based on Mafia. Nostalgia for the original game is probably me remembering the game was like this when it has changed. Probably how nostalgia makes people think that GTA III is actually a good game (it's not).

Anyhoo, since I mention GTA, this is what they should have done with the Definitive versions of the GTA games... though I can imagine people causing a ruckus if they made changes to the GTA storylines and dialogue or even worse, cast new voice actors.

I'm still not gaming most of the time even though I'm on holidays. I need to finish other stuff on the PC first.

Anyhoo, I forgot how brutal the combat in Mafia is. I ended up finishing a chapter and missed a collectible so I had to redo it on easy. I did the same thing on the next chapter as well.

I will end up getting all the collectibles but won't do all the achievements as one involves finishing the game in classic difficulty. This means replaying the game again. I could have probably played from Classic from the start but doing the race on Classic was not something I would have liked to do. Also, classic would have taken forever due to the combat. I wasted close to an hour in the airport trying to shoot my way to my objective... probably dumb on my part as this was a stealth mission lol

I did the infamous race in Mafia at the first attempt! I was coming second last with a lap and a half left and decided to change the difficulty to easy and the car handling to normal and overtook everyone and won it. I know this is kind of a chickenshit move but considering I did do the original game (on hard difficulty) all those years ago I don't care. I'm in this playthrough for the story and getting bogged down on a race on hard difficulty with realistic car handling isn't something I want to do. Anyhoo, mission was done and game set back to hard and back to simulation driving.

NFS Heat might be the most unoptimized piece of shit I've ever attempted to play. The opening cutscene chugs along and the CPU usage is close to 100% as my poor PC is struggling with this. The races themselves might work (though I never actually played at all as I read all cutscenes do this as various other stuff in the game.

I tried every fix I could find but nothing worked. The fact that this was trying to kill my PC made me uninstall and just walk away. I've decided not to refund (though I bloody should) as the €3.49 I paid for this isn't worth getting back.

EA can bite me.

EDIT: The Nvidia App decided that after I uninstalled Heat to optimize it... d'oh. It might actually work. I won't find out though as I started Mafia: Definitive Edition. It seemed like I just played through the original yesterday but realised its been years... maybe even 10. Yet I remember most of it. I'm sure this was before I had it on Steam and from from the original DVD. I suddenly feel old lol

Houston... we had a problem.

I'm on holidays yet I'm not gaming at all.

Anyhoo, I was tempted to but WWE2k24 and was going to settle for the Deluxe Edition but at the last moment decided not to.

I ended up picking up NFS Heat as reviews seem decent and I wanted to play a driving game. I also picked up Command and Conquer Remastered (both C&C and Red Alert) as they were really cheap. I've now bought the original C&C a million times -The original on the day of release (CD was scratched). -on a magazine DVD for free (DVD was scratched). - The entire collection of C&C games (and I somehow scratched the discs lol) - The entire franchise on EA (no discs to scratch!) and finally the Remastered versions. I also bought Mafia Definite Edition, I already owned the original but wanted to play the remastered. I also somehow own the Definitive editions of Mafia II and III.

Anyhoo, time to play.

Also, might as well ask... what is better for storage? A 20TB WD external HDD or a HDD enclosure to fit in 4 or 5 HDDS and just be adding drives when needed?

I just finished the Female MyRise story in WWE2k23 and it was a hell of a lot better than the male one. I did all the available side missions and will need to play it again to finish the rest and I can easily see myself replaying it with other choices.

I ended up doing some of the last fights in Legendary difficult and I knew my character well enough that I won. It was not easy but these were proper back and forth matches.

Anyhoo, I wasn't the biggest fan of this game as I preferred the roster of WWE2k19. Also not being able to upload or download stuff was a pain but these career modes (especially the female one) make this game from being good to being really bloody good.

The created characters were great and the writing and situations the characters got into were interesting and sometimes rather funny. Considering basically every side mission ended up ending as a match they were all good and really fleshed things out. I'm kind of annoyed that I didn't do all the side stuff on the male side of things but gives me motivation to replay it.

What I should have done though was write down which path in each story not to repeat stuff. Anyhoo, when I do replay these, I might go on normal again as I liked not being bogged down trying to win harder matches and got to concentrate on the story.

I also figured out how to make proper face textures for my wrestlers so it kind of sucks that the servers are going down in January but I got time to get creative. I just wish I could use these made-up wrestlers from MyRise in other modes.

Typical... I finish both Dead Island and Riptide recently so because it's Black Friday soon, both Definitive Editions are around 3 euros each. If I waited I could have bought these instead. Probably for the best though.

I'm trying not to add stuff to my backlog due to Black Friday but... I know I bloody will!

NFS: Heat is really cheap and I haven't played a NFS game in years so I might pick this up.

I ended up creating my first WWE2k23 wrestler using AI.

I used a random name picker (with the names in wwe2k23 that could be announced) and got "Outlaw" Ricky Blade.

I then used an AI image generator and it created a picture. I then created the wrestler ingame and used AI again to generate a logo for the wrestler (to put on his clothes). He turned out decent. I'll probably make some more and go back later and give them attributes and moves as this will take long. I'm thinking I'll use them as jobbers in a Universe mode.

Also continuing the women's story and again the writing is getting some laughs out of me and is entertaining so is doing its job. I'm about to be involved in a tag team ladder match and I forgot how broken these damn matches are. I'm hoping my partner goes for the ladder (as my character either refuses to climb or reach for the ladder) and we get the win that way... if the story actually has us win! Right now I'm playing on normal still and am squashing everyone. I actually don't want to redo matches over and over as I'm enjoying the story.

When I do eventually finish and start a Universe mode (I always have ideas but never actual play Universe) I might either play on normal and try to put on good matches (letting my opponents get moves so matches are not all squashes) or I might play on Legendary and try to win the matches with the guys I want to win so that my plans will always change depending if I lose or not. Another idea is Normal for TV matches, let the AI play matches that I can't figure out who I want to win) and then Legendary for PPV's.

I had over 200 hours on WWE2k19 but WWE2k23 was stopped pretty quickly. I'm now getting back into it so this might be bad for the backlog. What did make me stop for a while were the servers.... they were broken so uploading images was not working. Now it is.

Finished the male story mode in WWE2k23 and my playthrough was messed up. I missed half the side missions... the game actually gave you a list not to miss stuff and actually warned you before progressing... and I missed stuff anyway lol

Doesn't matter as I want to replay the story mode anyway. It has different storylines depending on what choices you make. MyRise (the story mode) isn't actually an afterthought in this game but a proper game mode... which is nice.

I'm doing the female one now and once again the writing is good and I'm actually getting some laughs out of the situations. I'm also doing all side content this time. I started off being kind of a bitch to people (though I was actually justified) but now I've become nicer. I want to do a playthrough that I'm a totally scumbag but I just can't bring myself to do it.

Anyhoo, I can see myself playing a lot of MyRise to try and finish all content. What I would have liked is that the wrestlers made up for this mode were actually available to use in other game modes/

I ended up retiring Surrounded while helplessly lost in an underground subway. When I finally found where to go, a boss spawned and killed me. That's when I decided to call it a day.

I've started my yearly 3 1/2 month holiday and for some reason I'm not playing as much as I should.

What I am playing though is more Scribblenaughts and the Male career mode of WWE2k23. This is what is taking most of my time and other than some frustrating matches (not hard just irritating as these a multi-man fights) I'm having a lot of fun. The writing has been decent as has the voice acting while the story is entertaining enough. Supposedly the female storyline is better.

I'm playing on Normal so I'm squashing most opponents. I was going to play on Hard or even legendary but some of the matches are harder than they should be.

The servers are also going down in January so I was going to use AI to create me some wrestlers and use AI image generation for textures to upload while I have the change but I used to use Playground AI for the images but this changed for the worse.

I played some more Surroundead but might be close to calling it a day. I'm still enjoying it but it's become another collectathon. I build a huge storage crate to put in all my guns and... it's still not big enough. I'm actually never going to use these guns. I might grind for more metal to build one more storage crate.

I also managed to find a legendary Katana and my new method of dispatching enemies is using a sniper rifle for some enemies that explode. I'm using the Legendary pistol on bosses (while on high ground) and the katana on regular enemies. I usually fire a shot, they run towards the noise and I kill them. If I need to I can change to the pistol as this has rapid fire.

I also learnt that if you place storage crates and decide to move them, they despawn. Luckily I had saved just before I placed it. I also got another wolf head and a bear head but I think the bear head respawned. I have so many backpacks and stuff everywhere, it's nightmare. I do have the stuff I'm carrying with me all sorted out though.

I've taken out a few more bosses and found a few more crates. I'm thinking I will try an assault of the Observatory and when I manage to clear this, this will be a good point to stop playing.

I played some more Surroundead (but not as much as I would have liked) but I got a lot of stuff done.

I ended up getting the crate and beating the boss in the Radiated Army Base. This was supposed to have legendary weapons in it but I found none. I have enough radiation filters and pills to survive.

Today I ended up killing the boss in the Observatory. I can't do the Observatory yet as the Boss is on the way there and there are what might be a dozen heavily armed and armoured soldiers. The boss dropped a legendary backpack (which fits 2 of my largest ones) so I'm now really good for space. As soon as I got the backpack, I ran away and on my escape I ploughed into some bandits. I got some guns and a turret which I can later build. The first bandit dropped a clip for a legendary pistol so I though the game was trolling. The next bandit dropped the actual pistol!

I played Surroundead today... took 30 minutes to fix up my bunker, was about to save and a zombie walked through my entrance and killed me. I then did the entire thing again, walked into a POI, killed the boss (who dropped bugger all), found the special crate but unfortunately didn't find a safe.

On the way home I saw four wolves and took revenge by running them over, got a whole lot of meat and then mounted the wolf head. I didn't like where I put it so I took it down to put it somewhere else and... the bloody thing respawned... d'oh. I now need to find more wolves. I also want to mount a deer head and a bear head as well.

I've also played so much Surroundead that the music is stuck in my head and I dream of looting things and rearranging them inside my backpacks. This is basically Tetris with loot trying to get everything to fit lol

The poor backlog has gone out the window again... I'm playing Surroundead again.

I started a new game yesterday and everything was great until I was driving, someone asked me something and I wasn't concentrating and ran over a friendly survivors dog. The survivors then shot up my car and killed me. I could have driven away but as soon as I realised what I did, I just accepted my fate. That is probably one of the worst gaming moments I ever had. I still feel awful about it!

I started a new game today and am using backpack in backpack and I told myself I wasn't going to collect useless stuff... I had 5 beds, 4 tables, dozens of chairs during the last game. This time I'm in a small one room bunker so only have some furniture. I also found a semi again on the way home which was nice. I ended up killing one boss and getting the special crate in him POI. I found a locked crate and only had one lockpick which broke and had no bolt cutters so drive away. I will go back to clean the place out as I can easily kill the boss again. He's too big and fat to climb so I just hop onto the top of a truck and throw molotovs and shoot him. The noise attacks all other zombies so I easily take them out as well.

With that backpack situation, I have plenty of space and am going to install backpacks in my semi so I will have huge storage space. The goal this time is to find everything on the map. In less than two weeks I start my yearly 100 day holiday so will try to finish it off my then.

I am playing other stuff as well... More Pixel Puzzles Ultimate and Scribblenauts Unlimited. I must have started Scribblenaunts a hundred times but never finish it. I will now.

Surroundead was retired. I am tempted to start playing again with a new game but this time use backpack in backpack and try to finish all POI's instead of wasting time collecting stuff.

I am starting to play smaller games though. When I finish a few I'll do a write-up on them.

I've also started playing Pixel Puzzles ( a jigsaw puzzle game). There are 52 free puzzles and I'll consider it finished when I do all these. I've done around 10 so far.

I was only planning on buying the game of the year edition of Fallout 4 when it was on sale but forgot... probably for the best as it would probably have just sat there forever not being played.

EDIT: Started a new Surroundead game and had the perfect start... a backpack straight away and I spawned near my usual bunker so I went to the mall and killed the boss so I had weapons from the start (though he usually dropped better stuff). I then found a utility truck and things were great! I found a bear trap and then as I was driving to sell my stuff (and pick up even more guns at the abandoned house) I found a bear. I had a bear trap and I found a bear. I then learned a valuable life lesson. Bears can escape bear traps... and they bloody eat people... d'oh

I'm getting close to stopping Surroundead. I managed to kill another boss in a small town and got the special container. I then drove to the Survivor Settlement and figured out how to get quests. You pay for intel. What I didn't know is that these were on a bloody timer so I was about to do one when I noticed some survivors needed help so I stopped. The quest then vanished. This was the second one I lost as I was busy clearing out the town. The first one was a special container so I missed out of good loot.

Anyhoo, I got so annoyed about the second quest, I quit and reloaded thinking I would have time to retry the quest... nope, it was gone. I also lost 30 minutes of rearranging my bunker. I also found another bunker near the survivor settlement but will play a bit more of this and then retire it for a while.

More Surroundead and more getting really pissed off. I went back to the town and finally killed the boss... I went into a building and up some stairs and blocked the stairs with a tent. I then fired a sniper round so all zombies including the boss were alerted. They could not get past the tent so I picked them off slowly. I tried killing all zombies and then going after the boss but he was too strong for me.

I then spent God knows how long (and this is were I got pissed off) trying to find the special container for this POI. I went into every bloody building... except the bloody central one... d'oh. Anyhoo, I finally made it back to my base. Right now I'm hoarding way too much useless junk (4 sofas, 4 beds, way too many tables and chairs) and I've ended up setting lots of tents outside my bunker with my guns inside. Why I'm keeping all these common guns I'll never use, I'll never know. I also have more money that I will probably every need.

My obsession with needing to get every piece of loot out there and either keep it (though its useless) or sell it when I am rich is beginning to waste my time. I did this in Titan Quest and I did this in the Borderlands games.

I found the Wandering Trader, bought the Legendary Backpack and died straight after as I didn't notice a legless zombie while fighting others... d'oh.

I then fixed up my bunker (I have too many beds and sofa's lol) and on the way back from selling stuff (I have more money than I need), I found the Trader and he had the Backpack. The last two times I found him he had nothing.

As I was driving back home, 4 radiated Zombies were chasing a human survivor so I tried to run them over... I kind of hit the human (who was about to get eaten anyway) so I killed my first human... d'oh. Luckily the other survivors didn't turn on me. I probably did the dead guy a favour as he was going to die a painful death anyway.

Anyhoo, things are progressing again and next time I get the chance to play I will try to kill the boss in the small town. The plan is to kill all Zombies and then go after him with a long-range sniper rifle.

Surroundead had kind of pissed me off so I going to stop for a while and get back to the backlog.

I decided to find some credits to buy the legendary backpack. I get to a small town and clean it out only to die from the boss. I might be making things harder for myself as I reload last saves when I die instead of respawing. This makes all Zombies reappear. I'm not sure if respawning does the same as I can set up a spawnpoint near the town as I have some tents as I have way too much loot. Reloading also makes you be able to loot the same things again.

Anyhoo, I get the credits as a safe had 5 in there. As soon as I got them, I did a tactical retreat (I ran away) and drove back to my base. The Wandering Trader vanished. Reloading the game made him appear and he had no inventory. Now he no longer spawns.

I'm tempted to restart, play on easy, have the max number of zombies but have them very weak but set the loot to give legendaries more often. This should still be a challenge due to the amount of Zombies and actually trying to get weapons and ammo.

I'll play a bit more on this save and hopefully the Trader respawns, if not, I'll try the easy with lots of Zombies method. If this doesn't work, I'll just stop this for a while as I have gotten 30 hours out of it and come back later. The developer is adding stuff all the time so coming back later might be the way to go.

I had myself a bit of an adventure in Surroundead today. I took out my heavily damaged RV and decided to look for car repair kits. I knew there were some at the port (hopefully) so drove... this was far away and my RV was on its last legs. Obviously, a deer (d'oh) ran into my RV causing enough damage that I then had to walk. Luckily a construction site had a car repair kit so I went back to my RV. I had also found another POI (a radiated military base) with legendary weapons inside but I ran off as I was not prepared.

I then drove to the port (actually outside it) found another Repair kit (for my utility truck) and found something awesome... a semi-trailer which had more storage space than the RV with a trade-off that you can't sleep in it. I marked it on my map, drove the RV back to my bunker. Near my bunker is a pickup truck, I fueled it and took more fuel and the repair kit.

I drove to the semi-trailer and drove it home. On the way I decided and stopped by the locked house. Instead of lockpicking now, I just use a crowbar! Inside was something really awesome... Military Supply Crates and some decent guns. I took it to the bunker and this fits a whole lot of guns inside.

There is also a Wandering Trader near my base and he sold a legendary Backpack... I didn't have enough credits to buy it. Funnily enough the original plan was to find credits but that went out the window. I also found a school backpack in the shape of a bunny which is useless but I have stored it in my cabinet.

Also that damn deer did provide me with meat... and its head which I plan to mount!

More Surroundead today (though not that much) and I lockpicked a door and inside was a whole lot of military gear. Outside the house was an RV and this has more space than the Utility Vehicle so am changing for this one. The vehicle is much slower though (I run faster than this damn thing lol) but I can actually sleep in it. If vehicle don't despawn I plan on keeping both. The Utility for close by looting and the RV for cross country road trips.

EDIT: By the time I got both vehicles to my base (and a few trips to the Trader to sell stuff) the locked door was locked again so I looted the place again. I'm getting good weapons though I don't know if I should sell my common weapons yet. I probably should as they take space. I also found a traveling Trader and he sold legendary stuff... it uses special currency (which I got from the boss earlier) but have nowhere near enough to buy. Hopefully he comes back or doesn't get himself killed.

I've also noticed that I micromanaging loot and doing loots runs and selling stuff instead of concentrating on other stuff like boss killing. I still need material though (especially polymer) and desperately need car repair kits as both my vehicles are currently on fire... though I don't think they'll explode.

I played a whole lot of Surroundead today and though to myself... What is the actual goal? What is the motivation to play (other than fun)?
All POI (Points of Interest) have a Boss Zombie and a Special Chest. The goal is to find all the POI's and finish them. Another goal is to max my character and do the quests.

I ended up going to a port and had too much stuff to pick up and no space... d'oh. I then found a utility truck and found a car repair kit and gas so I had a whole lot of storage space. I didn't get the Chest or kill the Boss here as I was out of space again and low on health with weapons that were going to get me killed. I ended up driving to my bunker from the first save (I found it!) and started fixing it up. I put up a bed (instead of a sleeping bag), a clothes cabinet, lights etc...

I did find some guns but these are either damaged or really weak. I also have a trader nearby so I can sell my excess stuff. Right now I'm try to get resources to build workbenches and I am looking for the holy grail... a can opener lol I had 2 and somehow lost (or sold) both. I have lots of canned food but can't open it. Considering my melee weapon is a huge axe... this is kind of silly!

I started a new Surroundead game with settings I thought would be fun. Permadeath was on.

More Zombies would spawn though they would be slower... I'm a George A Romero guy so Zombies should be slow.
The Zombies would have more health (though I might change this later). They also do a whole lot of damage so if you get hit a few times, you will die.
The player gets more XP and I've left loot spawning normally.
Backpacks in Backpacks is allowed.

I then started playing and my spawn point seemed decent... A lot hard game was about to commence.

Six seconds later I was dead lol

My goal is too survive for a month. I'll be lucky to survive a week. I am tempted though to not sleep during nights to make things harder. I might tweak the setting though from Normal difficulty to the hardest one. but change the XP and the loot rarity to spawn normally.

EDIT: 10x Zombie multiplier is not working so I toned down their damage. There are so many of them that I get overrun and die. New plan is to make them extra weak but since there are so many I can still get overrun.

Zombies are now extremely slow and are extremely weak and do max damage!

I'm writing this as I'm going along so can't be bothered writing EDIT all the time. The settings I'm using are not fun. I've decided to play on Normal settings. I kind of want to use backpacks in backpacks but won't. I'll just try to find tents and set up camp to store my stuff. I should continue my original game but won't.

NOOOOO!!!!!! Permadeath was a mistake. I found a military crate and bolt cutters so I had good weapons from the start. I also found a GPS which seems to be rare so I could see where I was on the map and could mark places. I found an abandoned house that I would have used as one of my bases. I even found a big duffle bag for my stuff, trousers with pockets and an armored vest with more storage.

And then I bloody died! Turning Permadeath off.

EDIT 2: New game started with Permadeath off. I managed to find a GPS pretty quickly. I haven't found a place to call home yet but I did find a Scavanger Camp so I can sell my junk and maybe gets quests. I realised the game does have quests and a skill tree.

Not having so much storage space does kind of suck though as I'm finding good stuff that I can't pick up yet. Hopefully I find a tent soon and I set it up near the camp to store my stuff. What I do want though is a bunker. It looks like the map isn't procedurally generated so I think I know where my last bunker is. I'm nowhere near it though.
This is definitely going to be a timesink.

Surroundead isn't good... it's really good!

Even though I got an awesome bunker and lots of good stuff, this is more of a practice game. I died twice and just reloaded a save... feels like cheating though I did lose lots of good stuff. It also feels like cheating as the game had backpacks. If you store one backpack into another and so on, you nearly have unlimited ability to carry stuff. You can disable this.

When I do start a proper game I have a few options. I can disable the backpacks, play on easy with normal settings and try to get stuff by going back and forth.

Or I can use the backpacks, play on normal (or hard), give myself extra XP, make the loot better... and to compensate, make more zombies spawn, make more special events happen (to make things harder), give the zombies more health and have then do more damage... and then see how long I can actually survive... on permadeath lol

Option 2 seems like a lot of stupid entertaining (and extremely frustrating) fun. The game gives plenty of options on how the player can actually play the game which is great!

As I wrote yesterday, my backlog is in serious trouble lol though what I should do is play once a day and try to survive a day in-game.

EDIT: I decided to see what options a new game gave and when I reloaded my save file the zombies are no longer a few in an early... there are dozens! I'm killing them with my axe but exploring is now a bit of a pain. It is a lot more exciting though.

LAST EDIT AS I SHOULD GO TO BED:Game fixed itself so I went to the boss, climbed on a roof, shot him with my newly acquired shotgun and the he chased me but was too big to fit through a door and was easy pickings. He dropped a whole lot of good stuff.

I might consider this game finished when I found everything good on the map. What I need though is a GPS as I don't know where I am on the map sometimes. Game is realistic when it comes to maps. Also you need to add bullets to magazines before reloading. Guns have attachments. Vehicles needs both gas and repairing. Weapon so far though do not degrade though this might be because I'm on easy.

Anyhoo, it's kind of going from really good to really bloody good. It's giving me Rust vibes and I love Rust.

ONE LAST EDIT: Looks like it's a single developer working on this and he updates all the time as this is Early Access. He might add co-op to this. I could be myself playing that. My backlog is not in trouble anymore... it's in serious trouble!

While trying to find something new to play, something horrible happened... I decided to try Surroundead again and... it's actually bloody good and might take up a lot of backlog time... d'oh.

I started a new game, and died a few times so I decided to set it to easy to learn how to play. I then found a bunker and this has plenty of building space to place objects. I then find a shopping mall with a special crate (and boss monster who I have not faced yet) and this had legendary items in it... mostly gun upgrade stuff. I only have a pistol so can't use the stuff yet but gunplay in this game is so satisfying.

You'd think I would have had enough of Zombies for a while lol