A friend came over yesterday, so we played the game taking turns at the races. We’ve reached about 55% of completion. I also finished a single bike race, so the bike mode is now at 2%. While playing, we unlocked a bunch of cars including the one from the beginning of the game that I couldn’t find the burnout track of.

Larthas has reached level 68. He tried to train his blacksmithing skill, so he spent a bunch of time mining for thorium. He plans to get it to at least 300, so he can continue to train it in Outland. Today, he cleared the east and the north wing of Dire Maul fortress. He wanted the clear the west wing to, but his party disbanded because of other obligations. He will try to clear it tomorrow. Also, his seals now last for 30 minutes!

I defeated the gym master and got my first badge. This allows me to use the Rock Smash move outside of battle. Since the north route (207) is for bikes only, I had to return to Jubilife city. On the way back, I was able to clear a few rocks in the mountain between Orenburgh and Jubilife. This opened a passage to B1 of the dungeon where I caught Psyduck. I’m going for badge number two next.

Unlocking new rides and clearing a few races every now and then led me to complete 42% of the game. I now have 41 out of 75 cars unlocked. I still haven’t found the burnout route for that one car, but I have no other cars to unlock right now. I’ll try out the bikes later today. Oh, btw, I now have an A class driving license.

I installed it again so I can demonstrate it to a friend with a PC too weak to play it at home. I noticed that this time I didn’t have any of the performance problems, so I decided to leave it installed and start a new game. This time, I created a more combat-oriented character which made the game much easier. I finished a bunch of quests in Megaton, and then traveled northwest to deliver a message to a small settlement. The people living there had some trouble with bandits, so I decided to help them. This is where I stopped playing for now.