Latest Gaming Purchase

[Dragon Lord]

Elden Ring (PS4)
HP Omen 27'' 240hz 1440p monitor

Back in November I had purchased a 27'' 185hz 1440p Alienware monitor, which was really nice until it got a dead/stuck pixel right in the middle of the screen last week. While it's something I could just ignore, it is annoying having it right in the middle of the screen and pretty visible when the screen gets dark. So I decided I'd just return it while I still could and try a different monitor, and settled on giving, and I can't believe I'm about to say this, the HP gaming monitor series a try. I was pretty skeptical about it being any good, but after combing through tons of reviews, the only bad thing I could find most people saying about it was that the colors are bad out of the box. Which is something completely fixable by playing around with the settings, so if that's the only big negative this monitor is giving anyone, which is something easily fixed, I figured why not give it a try? This one was on sale at Best Buy (exclusive to them it seems) for $329, while other 1440p/240hz 27'' monitors are $400-$450 right now. I did get the 4-year protection plan from Best Buy on it for an additional $60. With this plan, I can return or exchange the monitor for any fault short of me destroying the monitor on my own, so if I end up with one with dead pixels or something terribly wrong with the screen, I can easily get it replaced or my money back. But fingers crossed that I have as good of an experience as others have had with this monitor and it will fulfill my desire for a decent budge secondary monitor (well, will act as primary monitor until I get my hands on one of the 4K, 240hz 32'' QD-OLEDs releasing next year). Never thought I'd find myself buying a gaming monitor from HP of all brands, haha, but hey, if they deliver, they deliver.

Elden Ring I decided to pick up since I saw Best Buy had them back in stock for $30, and figured I better get it now before PS4 copies are gone for good, because it looks like Best Buy is the only place that actually has any in stock. Now the triple ER 100% dream can come true.

[Moonface]

Before I got to it in your post @Dragon Lord I was about to say you better have got a refund or something on that monitor with the dead pixel since you only just got it. I am curious though how you correct the colors on a monitor because how do you know when they're actually set correctly unless you have another monitor to compare it with? I remember like 20 years ago when I got my first desktop that my dad messed with the brightness and contrast settings on the monitor because he found it too bright, and I was never able to figure out how to set it back to the correct values as I had nothing to use as a reference point. It resulted in me making images such as this infamously old skin banner that was blindingly bright but on my end seemed fine because my monitor settings made images look a lot darker.
Still, at least with it being a monitor HP can't pull any of the shady bullshit with it like they do on their printers.


Halo: The Master Chief Collection (PC)
I've had this on my mind for a long time but never been able to make up my mind on whether to get it since I've never had a huge interest in Halo (although that is primarily because it was on Xbox and I never owned any of the consoles) but seeing it on sale for only $10 and having recently enjoyed playing the Half Life games, I figured I'll grab it since I know it isn't going to be a bad time even if I don't really know a lot about Halo.

[Dragon Lord]

Yeah, thanks to Amazon's holiday return policy, I have until January 31st to return it for a full refund. If the pixel was in one of the corners, I probably would have just kept it and dealt with it, because even on a dark screen I wouldn't be able to notice it really easily, but the fact that it's right in the middle of the screen makes it hard not to notice. Especially since it's one of those "once you know it's there, you can't stop seeing it" type of things.

As for the colors, you either just eyeball it until the colors and brightness/contrast/sharpness look good to you, or you get a calibration tool to use to measure the accuracy of the colors. I'll probably just look up some settings other people have done and see which ones look good to me if I find the monitor lacking out of the box myself.

I never had much trouble with HP products before personally, so I have no bias against them, I just never thought I'd find myself buying a gaming monitor under their brand considering when you think of gaming monitors your first thoughts will be companies like Samsung, LG, Gigabyte, ASUS, MSI, Alienware/Dell, etc.. But hey, if this monitor ends up being good, then I'm good with it. Dell had shit reputation back in the late 90s and early 00s for their bad business practices and below mediocre PCs, but now they are regarded as one of the absolute best gaming monitor brands, in large part to them owning the current best OLED monitor and also having an impressive 3-year burn-in warranty on their OLEDs compared to most other companies having 1 year, maybe 2 years max.

Which is another point about HP, they actually seem to be getting serious about being a recognizable brand in the gaming monitor scene, because they, along with Samsung, ASUS, Alienware and a couple of others, have announced they'll be releasing a 32'' QD-OLED (using the new gen2 panels from Samsung) 4K 240hz monitor. One thing their monitor has over the others so far is that it includes Display Port 2.1 and HDMI 2.1 ports instead of HDMI 2.0 like the other announced OLEDs. Of course even a top GPU like a 4090 is going to struggle to hit 240hz at 4K, so this monitor might be more of an investment for the future when we do get a graphics card that can handle those numbers, but still, compared to the other ones using 2.0 ports, this monitor might be setting itself up for the long-run and might be a great investment for people who plan to upgrade to the 5090 when it comes out (or 6090 if it takes us until them to be able to run 4K/240hz reliably).

But hopefully this HP Omen will be good for me and not develop any problems like dead pixels, and maybe if I get a good enough impression from it, I might consider their OLED when it comes out over one of the ones from Samsung, Alienware or ASUS (though that three-year warranty from Alienware is hard to pass on).

[queenzelda]

Last games I bought are as follows: Star Trek: Resurgence [PS5], Trumbone Champ [Switch], Road 96 [Switch], Garden Story [Switch], Little Town Hero [Switch], Detective Pikachu Returns, & Sonic Frontier [PS5]. I'll add what I bought from the steam winter sale in the morning. Also, a lot of these games were on sale except for LTH. :3

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Steam sales: Yeah! You want those games, right? So here you go! Now let's see you clear them!, Born of Bread, Cattails: Wildwood Story, Alterium Shift, Wobbledogs, Lake, Cosmicstar Heroine, Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster, Marble it up, Marble it up Ultra, Generation Zero, Sea of Stars, Froggerty Arcade, & Bravely Default 2

[Kyng]

Chinatown: Detective Agency, which I bought during the Steam Winter Sale.

So far, I haven't played very much of it (mainly because I'm trying to sort out my sleep schedule at the moment ). But I am enjoying the puzzles so far... one criticism I have is that it involves a bit too much "Googling the answer" for my liking, but other than that, I like it!

[queenzelda]

Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince. It was given to me as a Christmas gift. 💜

[ShiraNoMai]

Thrill Penguin, as a Christmas gift from a friend. (A game on my wishlist; it looks very fun to play!)

[Dragon Lord]

8Bitdo Ultimate 2.4G Wireless Controller

So a bit of history on this purchase. Back in December I was looking for a controller to use on PC since a lot of games still don't give the option for PlayStation icons on PC, and it was getting annoying. Especially when I played Chrono Trigger and had to do a mini-game that required quick reaction button presses, and of course the game told me to hit Y or X and it took me a few attempts to memorize it.

I ended up deciding on the 8bitdo Ultimate Bluetooth controller, which is actually a Switch controller, but I was able to buy replacement buttons for an Xbox layout from their website to change in. So I did just that. Now, the reason why it was important enough for me to do that with this specific controller is because it has hall effect joysticks, which are extremely resistant to stick drift. So I wanted a controller that had them, especially after reading from many sources that current day Xbox controllers are stick drift heaven (plus I don't want a controller with that ugly Xbox symbol on it, yuck).

Of course, several weeks after I go through the trouble of all of that, they now have released a revised version of their PC wireless controller to have hall effect joysticks, which also happens to be $20 cheaper than the Ultimate Bluetooth one. Thanks guys.

Anyways, even though I already went through the trouble of switching out the buttons in the Bluetooth one, I decided to go ahead and buy this PC one as well. I'll either return the Bluetooth one and end up saving $20 in the end, or I'll just keep both, using this one for PC gaming and then putting the original buttons back in the Bluetooth one and using that as my Switch controller. It is a very nice feeling controller, and I've enjoyed using it for PC gaming, so I wouldn't hate to just keep it for Switch use. It feels much better in-hand than a Switch Pro Controller to me. The PC one is only $50 as well, so it's not much of a hit at all.

If anyone is looking for a new controller either or PC gaming or Switch gaming, I would definitely recommend looking at these 8bitdo controllers. They have some neat perks other than the Hall Effect joysticks. Both versions of the controller come with a charging dock, which is really nice. The controller will automatically turn off the moment you dock it as well, and turn on instantly the moment you take it off the dock. It's been really nice, and the dock isn't that big so it doesn't take up much room. Another nice thing about it is that you can plug the 2.4G dongle into the charging dock itself, and then plug the charging dock into your PC. So instead of taking up a USB slot for the dongle and a plug in for the dock, you can just plug the dock into your PC via USB and then the dongle into the dock and it'll be a pass through for the connection. Just a nice little feature to make things a little more compact. The only minor complaint I have with the Ultimate Bluetooth controller is the size. It's the same size as a Switch Pro controller (unsurprising, considering it's intended to be used for the Switch), but I would have liked it if they made it slightly bigger instead. I'm hoping the one that's for dedicated PC use might be a tad bigger, but it's hard to tell from pictures if it is or not, and I couldn't find anyone comparing them online at all.

I got the purple PC controller, which is unusual for me since I normally always go with black, but the Bluetooth version I bought is black, and I figured if I decide to keep both of them, I probably want them to be different colors, haha.

[queenzelda]

Palworld as of yesterday. I just need to play it; I sprained my hand so it needs time to heal before I can play a game again. Maybe on Monday or so.

[queenzelda]

1/22/2024 I bought Palworld on pc with an xbox gift card gave me on my birthday last year.

[Mr EliteL]

PlayStation Plus Extra for £58.99 while it's on offer. The Essential I bought back in September was turned into funds when I activated, so it sucks I had to pay a bit more, but one pound less because of Plus Extra. Doubt I'll play any of the games in there, I would've considered I am Setsuna but that goes off from Extra on the 20th.

[Dragon Lord]

Steam Lunar New Year sale going on, so I picked up a few goodies~

Remnant: From the Ashes Complete Edition (Base game + Swamps of Corsus DLC + Subject 2923 DLC)
Dark Souls III Deluxe Edition (Base game + Season Pass)
Final Fantasy VIII
Final Fantasy VIII Remastered
Exorcist Fairy

Had so much fun playing Remnant with my buddy on PS4 that I snatched it up the moment I saw it on sale on Steam. Can't wait to re-experience the game again with mouse aiming instead. Should make what was already an incredibly fun game even better.

Been waiting MONTHS for Dark Souls III to go on sale again. Wasn't in the Fall sale, wasn't in the Winter sale. Was wondering if they forgot about it and if it'd ever go on sale again. Thankfully it is now! Only a 50% discount though, which isn't as much as I was hoping for, but considering how much time went between when it was on sale, I decided just to get it now regardless.

Final Fantasy VIII and Final Fantasy VIII Remastered are just because they were cheap and I want to 100% them because I have a weird obsession with 100%ing the same game multiple times. KEKW

Exorcist Fairy is just a little Chinese 2D Metroidvania game. Doesn't have the greatest reviews on Steam, but the main character is a cute catgirl and it was only $3, so why the fuck not?

[queenzelda]

Last week I bought a, Fisherg Wireless Pro Controller for Nintendo Switch/OLED/Lite off of amazon since the Nintendo brand I had extra was dead, so I replaced it with this. So far, I really love it. Must be due to my love of the ghost Pokémon on the controller, hehe.

[Moonface]

@queenzelda: That's a really pretty controller!

Tomb Raider I-III Remastered (PS5)
After beating Dying Light 2 last night I decided to buy this and start it today.

[Moonface]

Stardew Valley (PC) - $7.49
Since I enjoyed the game a lot but would prefer to have it on PC instead of Switch, and it's 50% off currently as well as getting a new update soon, I decided to buy this.