So I went through two narrative focused games (that I got for x-mas), and feel disappointed in both of them.

Starting with, "Beacon Pines", a game not shy about who its pandering too. The character dialogue is probably the best part here, and was genuinely amusing at times. But the game's story threads feel completely unfinished, and the branching 'choices matter' narrative shtick did not do this game any favors. All in all, the story didn't make a whole lot of sense, and it felt like an unfinished project. (5/10? Maybe. I wish it ended a bit stronger.)

Next, "Unavowed". (Another game in the Blackwell Series, that I liked for the most part.) This one had a lot of optional voiced character dialogue (that I'm sure someone will find interesting), and the puzzles for most of its gameplay are fair ones. Something rare for its genre. But then it decided to have the worst level(s) and story ending to completely ruin whatever else the game had going for it. (Confusing level design, tedious backtracking, pointless walling off progress, mocks/condemns player, moon logic puzzles, awful child voice acting.) It had every bad thing you could imagine in a narrative point & click. (5/10 But I straight up dislike this one's "we're so smart/modern hollywood-esque" narrative.) And it was bad enough to make me want to switch genres.

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I don't have Gamepass. (For the fair trade of not spending money on an Xbox.) Thus, my Steam wishlist grows...

The drama surrounding Hogwarts Legacy is hilarious to me for no other reason that I love how we've come full circle from the days when people got mad about people shouting "Snape kills Dumbledore" to now people posting spoilers for the game.

The bizarre thing about it (besides the spoilers being ineffective since it's not like a passive experience, it's like going around topics about FF7 and going SEPHIROTH DIES, nobody cares, the core experience is the interactive play for x hours) is easily that the controversy has been the greatest advertisement for that game possible.

I think anyone sane and not diehard HP would've written it off as Arkam Knight with Flipendo and it'd done about as well as your usual HP game does. But now.

Now people are spite buying it and buying multiple copies. It's a completely absurd mess.

Necromancy door doo dooo doo, Necromancy doo doo door doo.

The final word on Forspoken
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=x3m8pSu57DE

@BangoSkank yep

I'm very split on what I think about this. As I did not like 6, and have no love for this 3d stuff. Maybe the story will be better but I won't hold my breath.

Holy fuck man jeeonay does this game go balls to the wall apeshit. It's a dopamine rush just watching the intro.

My wishlist has substantially grown, and I’ll likely never get to all the games I want to play.

I'd give Hyper Light Drifter a strong 7. (It really feels like where Death's Door got some of its inspiration. Because they feel very similar to me. Except this one doesn't overstay its welcome. Since there is no secret hidden ending. So you don't have to feel obligated to get 100% completion.)

Has a pretty decent atmosphere and soundtrack. Combat is challenging, and I beat most of the bosses on my first try. (Though the former is mostly due to filling the screen with enemies, and the latter felt like brute force luck on my part.) And while it certainly doesn't hold your hand as to where you're supposed to be going. The rewards for exploration were often hidden behind progress walls that I hadn't completed yet. So without any map markers to make the purposefully obscure map any more useful; it made backtracking and finding secrets less than ideal.

Biggest nags were how the dash and platforming needs tweaking, because it's occasionally inconsistent otherwise. (Leading to unfair damage being dealt.) And how certain upgrades are pointless and others are 100% needed to progress. But I was able to finish the game, and feel a little underwhelmed from the narrative. However, the gameplay was solid enough.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, Lonesome Village is about as fucking awful as you can make a game. But I tried my damnedest to get through it anyway. (Until my character got stuck in the ground, and that cost me hours of progress. Because the game has no autosave.) As if this game wasn’t already getting tedious, with its Navi-like tutorial character popping up every other second. And I’d honestly ask for a refund, if it wasn’t an x-mas present.

Thirdly, I decided to play Bloody Hell (a free bullet hell on Steam) and it’s pretty damn good. (Haha pun.) Even if I still suck at twin-stick shooting. And I don’t know why I originally thought your character looked like an old homeless man with a beard.

@SleepingSilence pizza tower

@Dark Cloud I honestly don't care for its "Adult Swim cartoon/deliberately ugly" art style. But I'm sure it has its appeal/charm, and it seems like it's doing fine on Steam. (Going by all the fanart that it has on Twitter.)

I mean 90s and Wario Ware inspired, what's not to love

Going to install and try a mod for Fallout 4.

Horizon.

Supposedly makes things a lot harder. Wipes out both your and your enemies HP so it takes like one head shot to kill. Supposed to be great. Huge mod, like 100 gigs

I need to do another modern era "giant mods 5ever" run of all the Bethesda games.

The question is do I have the strength to do that and then actually turn them on after.

I haven't bothered to play a Bethesda game in years. There's only so much Skyrim one can play in a lifetime.

I'm actually starting to belive the Mario movie will be good

It always was going to be totally fine. Nintendo is not going to allow another Super Mario Brothers live action movie debacle.

@Fabricant451 I think the fact they made the most recent commercial with the og super Mario super show theme very charming

Well Octopath Traveler II should be fun, I'm playing the demo right now and it's made me rethink who I'm going to play. Very fun so far.