Darkness II (PC) Review

I have not played The Darkness I because it was never released on the PC. Not having played the first game should not stop someone from playing this game. Just watch a YouTube video about the story of the first game, and you will be all caught up on the story. I should also mention that I knew nothing about the comics before playing this game.

A direct sequel to the first game, in The Darkness II, you resume the role of Jackie who is possessed by Darkness, which gives the player control of the demon and its underling.

From a technical perspective, I played this game in 2023 on i7-6700k, Nvidia 1080Ti at 2560x1440. Since this is a console port, it doesn't work well when the game is running at a very high framerate. Enabling VSync, should take care of these issues. This means that the game is going to run at a steady 60FPS, and while this is not ideal, I didn't mind it too much considering how old the game is.

The story doesn't pull any punches. From dialogue to gameplay, this is a game meant for mature audiences.

Combat is the real highlight here. In the right situations, when everything works, it is a lot of fun. Darkness abilities are a lot of fun to use, and using objects in the level to attack enemies is very well done. The one big complaint I had was the visual overload at times. The gameplay involves sticking to shadows, which gives you access to dark powers. Oftentimes in combat enemies will use light beams and these are blinding. They should have toned down the effects. I am willing to bet its not as bad when viewing this on a TV, but on a monitor it becomes really annoying and induces headaches.

In addition to this, the weapon system is clunky as well. You use Q and E to interact with objects. Pressing E allows you to eat hearts, which replenish your health. E is also used to swap weapons on the ground. When there are a lot of enemies and objects on the ground, you have to be careful about pressing E, or else you end up switching weapons without meaning to. It is aggravating in the heat of the battle and can get you killed. This could have been easily solved by automatically getting health from enemies, and without needing to go through the animation.

I got this game in a Humble Bundle for $1 (along with some other games). I got my money's worth. It takes about 6 hours to finish it, and its fun. I would not recommend paying the absurd non sale price of $29.99. If you can find it for around ~$3, and if you enjoy action games, go for it.

Verdict - Buy on deep discount.

Handbreak Settings for ShadowPlay Recordings

I record a lot of gameplay footage using Nvidia ShadowPlay. I play most games on my ultrawide monitor at a resolution of 3440x1440. At times, the file sizes can balloon up to over 10GB with a target bit rate is 50Mbps.

In an effort to reduce the storage size, and not to have to upgrade my hard drive, I decided to explore Handbreak to compress and encode some of the videos I recorded. After doing some research, here are the settings I picked, which seem to find the right balance between compression and quality.

In the Summary tab, check the Web Optimized option.

In the Dimensions tab, set the target video resolution, which for me is 3440x1440.

For Audio, I went with mp3 codec and set the gain to +5

The settings on the Video tab might require some tweaking based on the desired quality. In this specific example, I encoded an 8.92 GB video down to <>. The important things that affect the quality of the produced video are these -

- Video Encoder - H.265 10-bit (NVEnc)
- Framerate - Same as source
- Encoder Preset - Slowest
- Constant Quality - 28

Using the CPU to do the encoding is extremely slow compared to NVEnc encoder. The quality difference between CPU encoding and NVEnd encoding is not discernible to me, and it is also not very taxing on the system.

Constant Quality vs Average Bit Rate

I debated between using Avg Bitrate and Constant Quality. Turns out that Handbreak recommends using Constant Quality over Average Bitrate.

Constant Quality vs Average Bit Rate

It appears that the recommended way of doing things is by using Constant Quality over Average Bit Rate. I did however notice that there are situations where Average Bit Rate is preferable to using CQ, such as when encoding a video file, and I am not particularly concerned about preserving quality as reducing the file size. I tend to look at the existing bit rate, and then perhaps target 30% of it.

The following video is a ShadowPlay recording which was encoded using the above settings.

Here is the encoding log. The entire job took around 30 minutes.

Infinite Backlog

As of Sunday September 17, 2023, I am looking at the games I own, and it is clear that I will not be able to finish or even play all of them in my lifetime. So I decided to make a list of games that I intend to finish or at least give my best shot.

I have 111 games listed in my backlog. It appears as if it will take 111 days of playtime to finish all these games. I am not sure how I am going to playthrough all these games, and also fit in Halo: Master Chief Collection, Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty, and the next Battlefield game.

The stats show that the most single player games I completed in a single year is 17, in 2009. At that rate, if I play nothing else except the games on the list, it will take me six and a half years to finish this backlog. Probably right in time for Red Dead Redemption 3!

How can I ever justify buying any new games when the backlog is as massive as this? I still want to buy Halo: Master Chief Collection and do another playthrough of Cyberpunk 2077 with Phantom Liberty.

• Assassin's Creed Chronicles: China
• Assassin's Creed Chronicles: India
• Assassin's Creed Chronicles: Russia
• Assassin's Creed Odyssey
• Assassin's Creed Origins
• Bastion
• Batman: Arkham City GOTY
• Batman: Arkham Knight
• Batman: Arkham Origins
• BioShock 2
• Blood Omen 2: Legacy of Kain
• BloodRayne
• Borderlands
• Borderlands 2
• Borderlands 3
• Borderlands: Game of the Year
• Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood
• Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30
• Burnout Paradise
• Call of Juarez
• Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood
• Cities XL Platinum
• Colin McRae Rally
• Company of Heroes 2
• Darksiders II: Deathinitive Edition
• Dead Space
• Death Stranding
• Desperados 2: Cooper's Revenge
• Desperados III
• Desperados III: Money for the Vultures - Part 1: Late To The Party
• Desperados III: Money for the Vultures - Part 2: Five Steps Ahead
• Desperados III: Money for the Vultures - Part 3: Once More With Feeling
• Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
• Dishonored
• Dishonored 2
• Dishonored: Death of the Outsider
• Doom Eternal
• Dragon Age: Origins - Ultimate Edition
• Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen
• Dying Light
• F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin
• F.E.A.R. 3
• Fallout 4: Game of the Year Edition
• Fallout: New Vegas - Ultimate Edition
• Far Cry 4
• Frontlines: Fuel of War
• Full Spectrum Warrior
• Grand Theft Auto V
• Grim Dawn
• Hard West
• Helldorado
• Hidden & Dangerous 2
• Hidden & Dangerous: Action Pack
• Hitman
• Hitman: Blood Money
• Homefront: The Revolution
• James Bond 007: Blood Stone
• Just Cause 4
• Mafia
• Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes
• Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
• Middle-Earth: Shadow of War
• Mirror's Edge: Catalyst
• Mortal Kombat: Komplete Edition
• Moto Racer 2
• Murdered: Soul Suspect
• Need For Speed Heat
• Need for Speed: Most Wanted
• PC Building Simulator
• Planescape: Torment
• Prey
• Prince of Persia
• Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands
• Project: Snowblind
• Psychonauts
• Rage 2
• Red Faction: Guerrilla - Re-Mars-tered
• Rise of the Tomb Raider
• Risen
• Robin Hood: The Legend of Sherwood
• Saints Row IV: Re-Elected
• Saints Row: The Third
• Shadow of the Tomb Raider
• Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun
• Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition
• Soma
• Star Wars: Battlefront II
• Star Wars: Empire At War - Gold Pack
• Subnautica
• The Darkness II
• The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion - Game of the Year Edition
• The Lord of the Rings: War in the North
• The Outer Worlds: Spacer's Choice Edition
• Thief
• Titan Quest: Anniversary Edition
• Titanfall 2
• Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2
• Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas 2
• Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory
• Tomb Raider: Underworld
• Torchlight II
• Trine 2
• Tropico 4
• Tyranny
• Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War
• Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II
• Watch Dogs 2
• Wolfenstein: The Old Blood
• X-Men Origins: Wolverine
• XCOM: Enemy Unknown
• Yakuza 4

I am currently playing Red Dead Redemption 2 (absolutely amazing game) on my main machine, and Tomb Raider Anniversary on my auxiliary machine. I am making steady progress in Tomb Raider, and I think I should be able to finish it in a week or so. My next game is going to be Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes. It appears that it doesn't take too long to complete this.

Alternatively, I just don't pay any attention to any of this and just play what I feel like, and not worry about the massive backlog.

Remote Desktop Connection Stuck In Please Wait State

Resolve the Please Wait state in RDP

I found this solution in the Q&A section of Microsoft Learn. Credit goes to the original author.

This process will involve creatating an .rdp file, and editing it in notepad and adding a flag which will prompt the user to enter their password.

Get the ipaddress of the machine that is stuck in the Please Wait state.

ping [server] -4
-4 flag ensures that IPv4 address is used.




Open Remote Desktop Connection application.

Start -> Remote Desktop Connection or Start -> mstsc

Enter the IP address of the machine noted in the above step.

Click on the Show Options button.



Click on Save As and save the configuration to a file.



Navigate to the directory where the rdp configuration file is saved. Right click on the file, and open the configuration file with Notepad.

Add the following to the bottom of the file and save it. This option will turn off the Network Level Authentication therefore the user will be prompted to enter the password up on connecting to the server.

enablecredsspsupport:i:0




Once the file is saved, double click on it, so launch Remote Desktop Connection and click on Connect. Click Yes on the next dialog box to connect despite certificate errors.



This should show a Windows login page, and up on logging in, will get past the Please Wait screen.

Reset Session

Another way to resolve this issue is resetting the session. It is important to note that doing this will log off the user, therefore any running processes will be terminated.

1. Open Powershell in Administrator mode on another computer
2. Run the following query -
"query user /server:[server_name]"

3. Take note of the sessionname
4. Run the following query -
"reset session [session_name] /server:[server_name]"

This should reset the session and allow logging into the server via remote desktop.

In addition to this, I was having an issue when using Remote Desktop Connection Manager the session would get stuck in a Please Wait state. I was not having this issue when using native Windows RDP.

I found a potential solution on this following page -
RDP to Windows 10 hangs at Please wait screen

Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Remote Desktop Services -> Remote Desktop Session Host -> Connections

At that level Enable the following setting
- Restrict Remote Desktop Services User to a Single Remote Desktop Services Session

Private Internet Access - Request Timed Out Issue

Short Story

I had to update the firmware on my TP-Link 8 Port Gigabit Switch to resolve the connectivity issues when using a VPN client. I installed Build 20220930 (Published Date: 2022-10-12 ) and that took care of the problem.

Long Story

My plan was to self host my blog using PIA VPN's static IP feature. My website is currently on Blogger, and I get the feeling that Blogger has been abandoned by Google, and won't be around for much longer. Also, this will be some much needed experience with some basic frontend web development, and I could create my own CI/CD process etc.

I did not want to host the website on my main server, so I decided to provision a Windows 11 VM (my Linux skills are subpar, and also I get to play with Windows 11, which I haven't a chance yet) and create my first prototype website. I did the necessary networking in VMWare Player 17; I created a bridged connection so that I could RDP into the VM if I needed to.

Having installed the PIA VPN client, I noticed that my connection was extremely unstable. Running the following command would result in Request timed out.

ping cloudflare.com -t

At first I thought there was something wrong with the VPN service. I disabled the firewall, tried a combination of VPN related settings, and nothing seemed to help. I began searching for any reported outages etc., but there didn't seem to be any. NOTE: I have not yet purchased the static IP. I was only testing the viability of using a VPN to host a website and if I couldn't even get a stable connection, there is no point in self hosting.

After many hours of troubleshooting over a course of few weeks, I gave up on the idea until yesterday when I decided to give it another go. As a part of troubleshooting process, I installed PIA VPN (with default settings) on the main home server, and noticed the same issue. Whenever I am connected to VPN, I had a ton of packet loss. I realized that there was something else going on here, and its not just the VM or PIA service that was having issues.

I decided to connect to PIA VPN (with the settings shown) from my main gaming machine, and monitored ping to cloudflare.com at the same time from both the main server and gaming machine, and I noticed that the gaming machine had no packet loss whatsoever. This obviously rules out PIA VPN.

At this point, it dawned on me that the gaming machine is connected directly to the cable modem, whereas the main server is connected via the TP-LINK switch. I started exploring the settings of the switch itself through the web interface and changing them did not help. As a last ditch effort, I decided to upgrade the firmware. The existing firmware was from 2021 version. Unfortunately, I did not take a note of the exact firmware version. I attempted to update to TL-SG108E(UN)_V6_1.0.0 Build 20230218. This was unsuccessful. I downloaded the next latest version, which was from 2022, TL-SG108E(UN)_V6_1.0.0 Build 20220930.

Updating to this version was successful...sort of. Once I kicked off the upgrade process, the switch rebooted, but the Easy Smart Configuration Utility would show that the update was still at 84%, however, this might just be the UI not updating, because closing an reopening the utility showed that the upgrade was successful.

Following the upgrade to TL-SG108E(UN)_V6_1.0.0 Build 20220930, I am no longer getting the packet loss. Hopefully, this will help someone out there looking to resolve connectivity issues, especially when using a VPN service.

Fix Error When VT-x (Virtualization) is Enabled in VMWare Player

I was unable to enable virtualization on my Windows 10 VM on a Windows 10 host. I did have virtualization enabled in the BIOS, but that didn't seem to help. When I check the box to enable this feature, Virtualize Intel VT-x/EPT or AMD-V/RVI, I would get an error. 

 

 

I want this feature enabled to run Docker in my VM.

This is my system configuration:

• Microsoft Windows 10 Pro
• Version 10.0.19045 Build 19045
• Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6700K CPU @ 4.00GHz, 4008 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 8 Logical Processor(s)
• American Megatrends Inc. 1.I0, 6/26/2018
• Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 32.0 GB
• Realtek High Definition Audio
• Killer E2400 Gigabit Ethernet Controller
• Samsung SSD 850 EVO 500GB
• Samsung SSD 850 EVO 500GB
• WDC WD10EZEX-08WN4A0

I know my computer is more than capable of running a VM with virtulization. I found several powershell commands out there, and running them did not help. I did some digging and found that certain windows features need to be disabled for virtulization to work in a VM.

I resolved this problem by doing this:

1. Open Turn Windows features on or off.
2. Turn off the following features:
   • Hyper-V
   • Virtual Machine Platform
   • Windows Hypervisor Platform
   • Windows Sandbox
   • Windows Subsystem for Linux
     
     
3. Save and restart the computer.
4. Open VMWare Player
5. Select the VM and edit the VM settings
6. Enable Virtualize Intel VT-x/EPT or AMD-V/RVI
   
   
   

Once the virtual machine is up and running, install Docker. This will require installing WSL2 in the VM. If everything is done right, Docker should start successfully.

How To Fix Middle Mouse Button To Give Orders - Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter (Steam)

This is a fix for the middle mouse button not working when giving orders in Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter. I am using the Steam version for this, but I would imagine this fix will work on any PC version.

1. Navigate to the following location:
E:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter\Settings

2. Open the following file in a text editor:
ctrl_set_def.xml

3. Change the following line:
<button id="hud_select" binding="2" device="mouse" group="misc"/>

To this:

<button id="hud_select" binding="2" device="mouse" group="tactics"/>

4. Save the file and start the game.

Here is a video showing this process.

Stepping Out - Brief Initial Thoughts on Doom (2016)

I put off playing Doom (2016) for many years because I wanted to have a machine powerful enough to play it. After finishing Gun yesterday, which was a thoroughly mediocre shooter, I was in the mood for something good. Considering that I am now fortunate enough to own a fantastic computer, I decided now is the time.

To this day, I avoided all media related to this game. After watching the gameplay reveal video many years ago, I decided this game needs to be experienced without any spoilers.

I am glad I did this. In my opinion, this game probably has the best introduction of any game, ever.

Following this excellent opening, you get to step out of the confined location you find yourself in and into the open world, and seeing the fantastic world in front of you is truly breathtaking.

It reminded me of the time I played Fallout 3 for the first time, and I stepped out of the vault.

The art design of this game is totally something else. I will review this game once I am done playing it. I get the feeling I am in for a real treat.

GUN (PC) Review

I first played this game in 2009, and I never ended up finishing it. I recently picked up the GOG version and I beat the game. The game is fun for the most part, but there are aspects that really set it back.

The story is set in late 19th century America, specifically in the Old West, and involves finding the lost city of Quivira, where this is lot of gold to be mined.

Its somewhat of an open world game, and the player gets to backtrack between cities. There are quite a few side missions as well, and completing these missions reward the player with cash, which can be used to buy weapons and upgrades. I had a very tough time in certain missions and I think its because I didn't do any of the side missions. I went straight for the main missions. I think this was a mistake. Not having weapon upgrades make the game a lot more difficult even on Normal difficulty. 

The game has a thoroughly budget feel to it. It is a poor man's Red Dead Redemption.

The save system is confusing. It appears that you can save the game at any point, but when you load the game (and you have to quit the current game to do so), it begins at the start of the mission. There is no auto checkpoint system to go along with the manual save system. There were times when I forgot to manually save the game, and I lost progress. Very annoying. I would much rather have a manual save system, and a quick save system, but modern games have taught me to expect a checkpoint system, which I loathe.

The story is well told, and the voice acting is quite good. I remember thinking this when I was playing the game, and I later learned that the voice actors included some Hollywood talent, not that having Hollywood actors voice lines in a video game necessarily makes the gameplay any better. 

Visually, the game looks alright. There is no support for widescreen resolutions. I played the game at 1600x1200. I have a computer that is dedicated to playing older games, and on a 1080p monitor, the game is very playable. I would not play this game on my ultrawide monitor because it would not scale very well, and it would end up looking awful. 

I had to reduce the mouse movement speed all the way to 0 within the game, because my Razer DeathAdder's sensor is perhaps way too sensitive for this game. I was having issues with camera control on default settings. The game is a console port, and it shows. The interface, controls are all made with a console in mind. I feel for those that bought this game at full price on the PC.

By far the worst aspect of this game are the boss battles. They are horrible. It feels as if the enemies cheat, and have wall hacks the way can shoot you when you peak from behind the cover for a second. This gets really annoying towards the end. I had to find a way to cheese my way through because it was damn near impossible to play fair and square.

Its possible that the reason I had this problem because I did not play any of the side missions, however, that means there is a problem with scaling the difficulty of the boss battles.

If you can find the game for less than $2, and you are curious to check out this forgotten game, then go for it. Any price more than that is not worth it, in my opinion.

+ Voice acting
+ Visuals in certain locations
+ Gun play in general

- Boss battles
- General budget feel of the game
- Weird save system

Verdict - Worth about $2.