fyr.io

This has been posted as part of Blaugust 2026, of which there is a high population of gaming bloggers! I wanted to join in, so this may well be the start of me talking about the vidya on here.

I can't play modern PC games. I couldn't justify upgrading my gaming PC when it broke somewhere south of 2017 because we had other things to spend money on. Primarily a new house which needed (and still needs) significant investment! For a while there I didn't play any videogames at all, but I was lucky enough to get a laptop with a semi-decent GPU in it (a 1060) a few years ago. A pal donated it (thanks again btw, if you read this). Despite being a laptop enough time had passed that it is actually higher spec than my old desktop, too.

I had started to play games again before that on a gifted PS4 and on another laptop I had borrowed, but getting swept back up in WoW at the time put all other gaming on pause. I slowly came out of its grip as my desire to play some other games grew bigger than the cozy comfort I found whilst exploring Azeroth. I decided at the time that I would play more intentionally rather than trying to keep up with everything, and I have since come to appreciate a more patient approach to gaming.

Being a patient gamer is way cheaper

As I don't have the specced out battlestation needed to play modern games at max fidelity, I have been working through my backlog of games. I have purchased very few games for myself for nearly 10 years now. Only recently have I spent a bit of money on steam getting some steeply discounted games that I wanted to play, but given the specs of the laptop these are typically from like... 2018 or before. The laptop has the following basic specs:

• CPU: i7-8750H
• RAM: 16GB
• GPU: Nvidia 1060M

I have a good sized backlog though, one I try to not add to often! Whilst there are a bunch of games I want to play that I don't yet own, here's my list of the games I want to play the most that I do own, in alphabetical order (not play order):

• Bioshock 2 [PC] - I enjoyed 1 and 3, but dropped 2 immediately when it launched. No idea why, gonna try again
• Cocoon [PC] - gifted to me by a pal, considering playing this next
• Death Stranding [PS4] - I'm either gonne bounce off this hard or love it. One of the few PS4 games I have left to play!
• Dishonored 2 [PC] - I completed the final DLC level of Dishnored 1 this week, looking forward to Dishonored 2. I'll probably try and ghost it! 👻
• Deus Ex: Human Revolution [PC] - I played this at launch and bounced off due to a boss fight which was frustrating with a stealth character. Wanna try this again.
• Dying Light [PC] - owned for ages, never got around to it
• Horizon Zero Dawn [PS4] - I've played up until leaving the first area and felt a little overwhelmed by the ubisoft-esque nature of the game (one look at the map fills me with dread) and underwhelmed at the gameplay so far. I understand things really pick up, and I plan on going back in without a completionist mindset. I will struggle 😅
• Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain [PC] - I've played loads of this at launch but fell off it. After Ground Zeroes this felt lackluster. I'll try it again though, probably resuming my save instead of restarting. Assuming it still exists
• Red Dead Redemption 2 [PS4] - I have reached what i believe to be the end of Chapter 2 around when it launched. I sat down one evening to play for an hour, walked around my little wagon home, chased a rabbit, and then the hour was up. This game requires a good time commitment for each session, something I struggle to find. Probably on hold until I'm off work for a week with nothing else to do.
• Shadow of Mordor [PC] - Looks good, know nothing about it except it has some nemesis system people enjoy.
• Thief, Thief 2, and Thief Deadly Shadows [PC] - I've played all these before but I don't recall completing them! This is a sin, one for which I shall repent.
• Tiny Tina's Wonderlands [PC] - Can't go wrong with more Borderlands! I got it for free in a giveaway, booted it and... it ran like ass. I am hoping I can get it to a somewhat stable state. Borderlands 3 was the same, but I found a decent-looking set of graphical options (plus some .ini tweaks, IIRC) which make it both look and run okay.
• Witcher 3 [PC] - I've done a bunch of this, I have left it and come back three of four times. I like it, I just get distracted.
• Wobbly Life [Switch 2] - Kid has this and likes it, and I am intrigued by it, they're releasing a switch 2 upgrade for it soon. I wanna play it - Tempted to get it on PC though...

I have others in the backlog, but they're further down the priority list. Here's what I am currently playing:

• Borderlands 3 [PC] - I have completed the main campaign and the first DLC, the handsome jackpot. Next up is to play Guns, Love, and Tentacles, then I'll move to another game before returning here. Probably Cocoon?
• Minecraft [PC] - I have played this off and on since pre-alpha, and I'm currently playing on a self-hosted server with the kid, playing a modpack. I plan on writing about this for Blaugust, actually. I should start drafting that post...

As mentioned above, I have just completed Dishonored 1 (plus the story DLC) - I played the main campaign back at launch and got distracted by something, a common recurrence for me. BUT! This time I put the effort in to start the game from the beginning a month or two ago, and I managed to complete it. When I was almost done with the main campaign I found I was having a bunch of fun, so I bought the DLC in a deal. After a Borderlands 3 palatte cleanser, I jumped into the DLC, and as of this Tuesday (4th August 2026) I have completed both of the story DLC. I play it real slow, and have ghosted the levels, minimum chaos, the same way I play all stealth games - no stone left unturned, no evidence I was ever there. I plan on doing a sort-of mini review on it as part of Blaugust.

I am a big fan of fellow 32bit cafe barista fLaMEd, who has a really kickass set of collections, some of which are organised into shelves. Each shelf is a category (records, books, and games) and I would love to borrow this idea for this site at some point. On top of that feature, writing reviews of games is something I have wanted to do for a while. I have done a few on another website after a colleague encouraged me. I had fun doing it, despite not being very good at it. As a trial run it went well enough, though, so I may well start doing those here in the future. We shall see!