Gaming

I played through The Forgotten City and really liked it! It’s a time looping puzzle game where you have to unravel the mystery of a strange city before every day it collapses into ruin. It really sucked me into the story and I could forgive a bit of the jankiness in the actual gameplay. The characters were all interesting and were very interconnected which made the whole thing feel quite alive. I didn’t love the ending (there are technically multiple but I managed to get the canon one on my play through), it was okay but a little out of nowhere, everything before that was good.

The Oracle games are amazing, Oracle of Ages pulled young me into the Zelda series.

I'm currently switching between Armored Core 6, X4 Foundation and Baldur's Gate 3, depending on my mood.

I thought I'd have put the game down by now, but I'm still playing Baldur's Gate 3. I'm now deep into Act 2 on my second playthrough with the Ghost Recon team. Currently everyone (Astarion, Lae'zel, one hireling, and myself) are level 5 fighter battle masters/level 3 rogue assassins. Since just hitting level 5 fighter, everyone now has access to an Extra Attack, and you can combine that with Sneak Attack, Action Surge, Trip Attack, and Precise Attack to wipe out entire encounters in one or two turns. So far, the only difficulties with this team came at the end of Act 1 (since I was low level in two classes instead of high level in one of them) and at a particular Act 2 quest where you have to defend a portal against dozens of enemies (I just didn't have enough crowd control for that many enemies, so I broke out Gale for that fight). Other than that, I'm basically only swapping out my hireling for character-related quests, like the one I'm doing right now for Shadowheart. At level 12, I should be level 6 fighter/level 6 rogue with everyone in the squad, and we'll storm through Baldur's Gate.

Other than that, I started playing some fighting games again, and I'm not as rusty as I thought. The usual suspects of Skullgirls, Guilty Gear Strive, and Street Fighter 6. I'd probably be playing more Mortal Kombat 1 if not for performance issues and the inability to decline matches against wi-fi players; it's a shame, because the game is otherwise pretty great.

I haven't made much progress in the System Shock remake, but I am really enjoying it. I discovered the Resident Evil remake pretty late, and it's a shame how few of those games there were for so many years, by which I mean that style of RE game, not games with the words "Resident Evil" in the title. Still, we seem to have plenty of them these days, which is great to see. System Shock was 94, and Resident Evil was 96. I'd be surprised to learn that RE was inspired by System Shock, but perhaps both of them took similar inspiration from Alone in the Dark. Hopefully that remake early next year is good too.

Cocoon from the Limbo game designer, it's really good!

Baldur's Gate 3 - It's my second run. Part of what I love about these games is that you'll find new things and different approaches with every play-through. And with every run you get a little more daring and in-character with how you react to situations.
First time round I can't help but play little miss goody two-shoes, just staying true to my own nature. Second time I feel a bit more daring and actually try to act like the self-centered anti-hero I had in mind for this character. Who knows, maybe some day I'll even dare to play a villain :)

I've been really enjoying the new expansion for Cyberpunk 2077. I personally loved the game when it came out, specifically for the tone and environment and the main story. I did stop playing pretty quickly though because the progression didn't click for me and different parts felt too shallow.

I really think the 2.0 update fixed a lot of game mechanics I didn't like the first time through, and the expansion has a great tight storyline I've really enjoyed sinking my teeth into. I'm going back and doing all of the side quests I didn't get to before I stopped playing too. And so excited to see what the alternate ending they cooked up is. If you had fun with the game, definitely consider picking it back up!

Diablo 4 - I finally finished out Season 1 early last week and have been taking a break before Season 2. I technically have two objectives left, but there's no way I was getting to level 100 before the 17th. I'm hoping the new patch for Season 2 fixes that. TBH the only reason I got the last task for all the rewards is because I was invited to a random party to run Nightmare Dungeons. I felt so bad because they were leveled way higher than I was, so I kept dying, but they didn't kick me, and I'm grateful for that. I feel like I'm the only one, but I can't wait to see what they do for Season Two.

Metro: Last Light - I fucking forgot about the catacombs and how much I hate going through them. Fuck Nosalises. Fuck Big Momma. There's always that one level in a great game that absolutely sucks, and that is the catacombs level for me in Last Light. Even though I did do better that I thought I would, I still hate that level. But I got my Kalash 2012 like I wanted, so whatever lol. Also I love Anna. I've always loved Anna, but I fall in love again everytime I play this game. Just like Artyom, I guess. Still haven't finished the game though, since I haven't had a bunch of time to myself over this weekend, but I'm hoping I'll finish up in the next two or three days.

Hitman: World of Assassination. Currently at the Hokkaido mission, it can be quite challenging! Had a hard time beating the Colorado mission on the easiest difficulty

Fallout 76. It's actually pretty fun as long as you have the capacity for a massive perspective change (and use mods lol).

And yes you can play solo. It's a bit more difficult, but you can do it. Also, FO76 puts a lot more emphasis on survival simulation than previous games (except FO4 in Survival Mode, which I haven't played in yet).

Assassin's Creed Mirage. It's refreshing to have the game be about stealth again, after years of just hack-and-slash. Yeah, there's nothing really new here, but that's kinda the point.

Diablo IV is on the backburner. I finally hit level 100 last week and have only two trophies remaining: Get 5 PvP kills (I have 2; other players aren't easy to just stumble upon, especially those I can easily beat) and Defeat Uber Lilith (which I'm not going to be able to do by myself and coordinating with other players is not something I want to put any effort into doing).

RDR 2. Bought it back in 2019 but my PC couldn't really handle it too well (less than 45 FPS on medium), so I shelved it.

But now I have a 4090 and I'm enjoying the hell out of the game. It was slow at first but by the second chapter I was hooked. Looks damn good for a 4-year-old game, too; dare I say as good as a modern ray traced title. (I mean it's close)

I'm dealing with a thumb injury, so I can only play games that don't require a gamepad, so I've been playing a lot of Vampire Survivors. I've unlocked almost everything, now, and the game's become really easy with a zillion gold eggs upgrading everything and the ability to lock out all the "bad" weapons, so I was looking for something new to play.

I just started Spelunky again, but this time with keyboard controls on the home row only. It's a bit of a mind bender and I'm constantly hitting the wrong keys, but I'm slowly getting it. I think this might be really good for me, in the long term; controlling games with HR only will greatly reduce fatigue and risk of RSIs.

I finished Quake 2: Call of the Machine. It's definitely my favorite of the Machine Games campaigns, for Quake 1 and 2, and probably my favorite Quake campaign in general. It's still the same formula as the others, a hub that connects a bunch of different levels, where you need to collect items to unlock the final boss. This campaign is a bit more challenging than the other Q2 ones, but not that hard. It's also not as confusing, so that's a plus for me as well. I think I'll skip Quake 64 and Quake 2 64, since they seem to just be kind of remixes of the PC game. I'd rather play Doom 64, since that's a whole different game.

While I was waiting for the Quake 2 patch the past few weeks, I tried out Wolfenstein 3D and finished the first episode, but it was kinda boring. This week I played through the second episode and it's pretty much the same. I think the game is a bit too basic for me. It's crazy that Doom came out not even two years later and is just such a massive improvement. I'll probably play through the third episode as well, just to kill Hitler, and then I'm done with the game. Since the Steam release just used Dosbox, I swapped that for the ECWolf source port, which has a few more modern features and QoL improvements.

I'm also done with Pillars of Eternity: The White March, the two expansions to the game. I wasn't really that into it, but I knew if I didn't play through them this week, I'd probably never do it. Taking that break for Divinity 2 just killed all my enthusiasm I still had for the game. There were some good moments, but I'm not a fan that this was just slotted in the middle of the base game. While you're on the clock and deal with some world ending threat, you just take a few months off and do the same somewhere else. Still glad I can finally put this game down and eventually play Pillars 2.

Lastly, I started Pathfinder: Kingmaker. It's my first time with the Pathfinder system, and I had a really tough time deciding on my character. In the end, I went with a Scaled Fist Monk, because I want to punch people. I'm still really early, I made it out of the tutorial yesterday and saved the merchant from the Bandits earlier today. I'll take it slow for now and get used to everything.

I’ve been playing Baldur’s Gate 3 as much as I possibly can. I’m having a ton of fun with it! I’ve never played D&D, or any of the Baldur’s Gate games, so I don’t know what I’m doing most of the time, but I’m slowly getting the hang of it!

Picked up Warhammer Dark Tide since it's on gamepass. I played 8 hours straight. This could be bad....lol

So far:

• Halo: Infinite - Season 5's coming soon, and I'm trying to wrap up my season 4 battle pass :D
• Hogwarts: Legacy - I took a a pause in this game just because life got in the way, and just getting back to it
• Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 - the new free update with higher level cap & Ultra Instinct

I should get back to Cyberpunk again. Need to go through my backlog again.

Knights of the Old Republic. It holds up pretty well, with a few mods for widescreen and resolution support.

Dragon's Crown on the Vita. Awesome Diablo meets Golden Axe sort of game. Really wish this one would make its way off Playstation so everyone could experience it.

AC Mirage and it's OK. Really like the setting but haven't gotten that far yet. Also some EA FC 24, GT7 and Pokemon Scarlet.

I started up a new Terraria play through this last week. I’ve beaten most of the Pre-Hardmode bosses. I’m about to hoik through the door of the Temple to gather trap materials for my house.

It’s been fun. Though I’m having trouble getting an obsidian farm going on the current version.

Last time played was during the first “final” update… 1.2 I think. And there’s a loooot that I haven’t seen yet.

Demos from Steam's Next Fest, Talos Principle 2 looks nice, Robocop game is cheesy and over the top AF like 80s movies, I love it

funny square game with late update