I don't regret the decision.
The first game I played on the new rig was Peril On Gorgon, the brand-new DLC for The Outer Worlds. I picked that one first not because of any technical issue or due to favoritism, but because I wanted to play it before I saw too many spoilers on line. The new rig handled the game well.
Next I played several hours of Ark: Survival Evolved. Actually, I'm 10 days and 22 hours into the game according to the Epic statistics, and by "10 days" they mean 240 hours. That's 262 hours in total play time, and I'm no where near ending the game (if the game even has a real ending). I had played the game on my old laptop and had to re-start it when I got my new PC - when I downloaded it to the new rig, I couldn't open the game from my last Save file. All those hours isn't because it's necessarily such a great game, it's just one of those games that consumes lots and lots of time, and having to restart the game again from the dreaded Level 1 - where even a mosquito bite can literally kill you - consumed all those hours.
The new PC handled Ark just fine as well, although the notorious glitches and bugs in the game - texture rendering, glare, etc. - were still present. It's the game itself, not the hardware it's played on, that causes the glitches.
After enough hours of Ark, I decided to give the PC a run for it's money. Two year ago, I bought the game Nier: Automata on a Steam sale, but it wouldn't play on my old laptop. The game would either freeze up or crash altogether anywhere from 20 to 30 minutes into play, and I tried again and again, adjusting to different settings each time. Steam allows you to return a game that you don't like as long as you've played less than 4 hours, but by the time I accepted the fact that there was just no way the game was going to run on my laptop, I was well past 4 hours. I decided to keep the game in my library for the inevitable day that I upgraded my hardware.
Now that the day had finally come, I gave Nier a new shot. The new PC handled it fine - no freezes, no crashes, not even so much as a flutter. And the graphics look great, too. It's a beautiful game and you really have to appreciate the creative and highly varied environments in the game - there's a lot of artistry on display here, and the makers obviously spent a lot of time making up new and fantastical settings for the game.
It's a different game than I'm used to - it's Japanese and heavily influenced by anime, although the game itself is not in an anime style. Like most new (to me) games, I didn't like it at first - it's different and I didn't know how things worked or what I was supposed to be doing - but with time I got used to it, as I usually do. In fact, if anything, it's a little too easy, especially combat, as if it were designed for children, despite it's sexy, blindfolded protagonist. Yes, I could increase the game difficult level to Hard or Expert mode, but then I'd die all the time, and where's the fun in that? If I wanted to die every couple of hours, I'd play Ark.
Today was the breakthrough. I entered the Castle of the Forest King, one of those varied settings in the game, and was confronted with a challenging maze to navigate requiring several difficult jump moves, all while a seemingly endless series of enemy robots were constantly attacking. It was a challenge and I felt like I had actually accomplished something by the time I finally made it through and beat the final boss. It was at that moment, just an hour or so ago but almost 20 hours into the game, that I finally came around to liking Nier.
I'm not sure what's going to be up next.
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