You know what? I shouldn’t be ashamed of enjoying this game. I think I’d thought poorly about it in the past but I needed to check my privilege. I shouldn’t be gatekeeping what proper gaming is or looks like. It’s not my place to do that. If you enjoy playing your games then go ahead and enjoy it. I’ve been playing Fortnite and I’m enjoying it. I’m also reasonably ok at it. I know my weak points and I’m going to work on those over the next few weeks to try and get a little better.
Fortnite – Rather Good Fun Really
So, a week ago or so Epic were offering the chance to gain extra XP by playing some challenges within a website. I’m not sure what their motivation was but I enjoyed it. I had to get 25 eliminations in a day to get the XP. Somehow I got 44!
Fortnite – One Day’s Play
The next part of this is to get some colleagues from work and create a super-team for smashing all the competitions. This might take some time but would be so worth it.
I was exploring the options within the PS5 menu and I noticed that the games I play get totalled up in terms of time played. I’m not sure if I was shocked or just pleased at the amount of time I have spent playing. I do know that it certainly justifies me spending the money on the hardware and infrastructure to experience these things.
PS5 screen capture showing amount of time played . . .
In case you can’t quite see the numbers in the above graphic let me write them down below. I just want to point out that the game could be a PS4 game that is played on the PS5 and register timewise as a PS4 time. Hence, while I tend to play Minecraft on the PS5 its total comes only from PS4 playtime.
Gran Turismo 7 – 120 hours
Fortnite – 111 hours
Minecraft – 722 hours
Now the Gran Turismo times clearly do not include all the time I have spent playing other versions. Let’s be clear. Gran Turismo is 25 years old this year and I’ve been playing it for that long. In terms of cost/benefit I think I’ve done very well.
Last night I powered up Gran Turismo 7 for the first time in quite a while and I enjoyed myself. I even managed to enjoy myself driving Willow Springs which, as a circuit, I don’t like. I did the Circuit Experience section of the game as it’s about thirty minutes play to smash the gold on these. I’m still distracted quite a bit by Fortnite, which feels such a terrible admission but I do enjoy that game. Anyway, I recorded the gold winning lap and zapped it to YouTube.
Recently I’ve been persuaded to have a go at playing Fortnite. The last month has been an interesting time learning all the little ways that Epic Games manage to keep the interest within Fortnite. There are lots of challenges and quests that can be completed alongside the actual game of trying to kill everyone else. If you don’t know this game is based on Battle Royale – kill all the others until you are the only survivors. It’s actually pretty good fun and I have enjoyed learning things about the maps, the weapons and the gameplay.
Fortnite Levels – It’s Been About A Month
I never thought I’d be into different skins and customisations in a game. I’ve quite enjoyed putting liveries on Gran Turismo cars but not ones that I’ve had to work hard for, or even pay for. If it ain’t free I’m not having it. Except, I have done that in Fortnite. I’ve paid for a decent looking glider that I will try and embed in another communication – it’s loosely based on the Grumman Goose. I’ve also paid a little money for some rather cool looking skins, and they were in the sale so that’s probably OK? Anyway, I’m an adult and can spend my money on whatever I want I guess.
I’m currently at level 184 or something. The shiny skin I have in the image took a fair amount of play and even trying third party games which are generally quite shit. You get bonus XP for completing tasks and the XP goes to give you levels. I will admit, I am hooked, and with other people in my team we can regularly come in the top 5 on the island so I enjoy this game a lot.
I’m still playing Gran Turismo occasionally. I’m slowly working through the challenges and completing racing tasks. It’s still great fun and a really nice way to shut the brain off.
How It’s Going – Gran Turismo
I have currently driven a total of 8395.10 miles. I think my favourite statistic is that my average fuel consumption is 35 litres per 100km driven. The real car I drive can do 2 litres per 100km. I suspect that in the future, driving virtual cars will be the only way to enjoy the noise and feel of these vehicles. They should be banned already. Oh, by the way, electric cars aren’t the answer either – they won’t save the planet, they will only save the car industry.
I’ve been playing Stray on the PS5 recently with guidance from Legend and it’s been really enjoyable. A Lovely story with a completely believable world. The detail was amazing and I’m looking forward to exploring the game some more, there are a few trophies I’d like to get.
It’s been a while since my last update to the list of airports and countries I have visited as part of my around the world flight in short hops. I can now confirm that I have reached all seven continents and am about to start making my way back home to the UK. There are some other communications from the first part to the second. So, here are the places I have been since the last communication and since updating X-Plane a short while ago.
Klyuchi Air Base Airport, Russia Adak Airport, Alaska, U.S.A. Lihue Airport, Hawaii, U.S.A. Pacific Missile Range Facility, Hawaii, U.S.A. Wheeler Army Airfield, Hawaii, U.S.A. Kahului Airport, Hawaii, U.S.A. San Francisco International Airport, California, U.S.A. Monterey Regional Airport, California, U.S.A. San Luis Obispo County Regional Airport, California, U.S.A. Santa Barbara Airport, California, U.S.A. Naval Outlying Landing Field Imperial Beach, California, U.S.A. San Felipe International Airport, Mexico Loreto International Airport, Mexico La Paz International Airport- Manuel Márquez de León, Mexico Los Cabos International Airport, Mexico Mazatlán International Airport, Mexico Tepic International Airport, Mexico Lázaro Cárdenas Airport, Mexico Chilpancingo National Airport, Mexico Puerto Escondido International Airport, Mexico Commercial Cd Ixtepec Airport, Mexico Ángel Albino Corzo International Airport, Mexico Toncontín Airport, Honduras Juan Santamaría International Airport, Costa Rica Enrique Malek International Airport (DAV), Panama Ruben Cantu Airport, Panama Tocumen International Airport, Panama Enrique Adolfo Jiménez International Airport (ONX), Panama Airport Antonio Roldan Betancur, Colombia Olaya Herrera Airport, Colombia Aeropuerto Antonio Narino, Colombia Aeropuerto Mariscal La Mar, Ecuador FAP Captain José Abelardo Quiñones González International Airport, Peru Jorge Chavez International Airport, Peru Aerodromo Maria Reiche, Peru Juan Simons Vela Airport, Peru Juan Mendoza Airport, Bolivia Diego Aracena International Airport, Chile San Pedro de Atacama Aerodrome SCPE, Chile Las Breas Airport, Chile Aeropuerto de Fiambalá, Chile Aeropuerto Internacional Domingo Faustino Sarmiento – San Juan, Argentina Santo Domingo Airfield, Chile Mocha Island airport, Chile Melinka Airport, Chile Caleta Blanco Airport, Chile Drummond Twins International Airport, Chile Porvenir Airport, Chile Almirante Schroeders Airport, Chile Ushuaia Airport (USH), Argentina Guardiamarina Zanartu Airport, Chile – moved to X-Plane 12 O’Higgins Skiway, Antarctica RAF Mount Pleasant, Falkland Islands, UK
Boeing 737-800 Antarctic Ocean
So, that’s all the continents completed. Now to head up the east coast of South America, North America and then home to good old Great Britain – not so great these days!
On Friday I was chatting to the Legend and I said I wouldn’t buy X-Plane 12 because XP 11 is pretty good and most of my payware might not transfer over. Well, it took all of about 12 hours to change my mind and buy X-Plane 12 even though it’s the development product. It took a while to download because I got the scenery for the whole world – why wouldn’t you!
I had to set up the joystick and configure the keys so they work as I like. This didn’t take a massive amount of time but it’s frustrating when all you want to do is fly around and see the world.
Citation X in the Andes
The scenery is amazing. I have turned most graphics settings up to maximum and this works well with my RTX graphics card. I’m getting >20fps which for a flight simulator, especially X-Plane, is pretty darn good. Also, using the taskmaster I can see that the GPU is being used at around 90% and this pleases me. It’s worth having something you’ve paid for working as it should.
Citation X in the Andes
I’ve added in some of my custom scenery and it seems to be working well. So, I have my airport in Keswick, which doesn’t exist in reality but it does mean I’m in the Lake District immediately and can fly around and bomb shit.
F-14D in the Lake District
Now all I have to do is continue my flight around the world and get back to the UK so I can attempt to learn more. My payware aircraft from XP11 kinda work. I’ve tried the T-7 and as long as I keep the throttle high enough it seems to work ok. If I drop the throttle to idle the engine dies and that’s a touch embarrassing.
Citation X in the Andes
I’m somewhere in Chile at the moment and I’m heading to an airport on Antarctica. I have no idea what will exist when I get there and I’m only doing it so I can say I’ve “been” to every continent in my around the world flight. Here’s to many more hours of fun.
I’ve written here about my current Flight Sim challenge which is to fly around the world in short stages. Each leg is somewhere from 50 miles to 2000 miles, sometimes you have to fly over the Pacific and there isn’t a load of airports there. I’m currently in Peru and my previous journey had me landing at Aerodromo Maria Reiche in Nasca. While heading there I flew over the Nazca Lines and so I decided to download a scenery pack and go back and see what it looks like. I didn’t want to zoom over at 500 knots so decided to take a Grumman Goose out for a trip. As I’m heading to Lake Titicaca next I might make that trip in the Goose and land on the lake. It’s not very fast so I’ll have to see how much time I have. I might take the T7 to closer to the lake and then swap.
