I've played Baldur's Gate 3 for like three hours.

I'm just about ready to leave the character creation screen.

Been playing some more Pokémon Unite these last few days farming master rank ELO in Ranked. And honestly, I'm so tired of running into Mewtwo at this point. I know it's a new Pokémon, but Timi/Tencent keeps releasing broken Pokémon and Mewtwo is just straight busted. I so can't wait for it to get nerfed again because I'm tired of just being deleted in what should be fair fights, even on defender class Pokémon.

Also if you run Mewtwo/Comfey duo, please uninstall the game and never return.

After playing a lot of Baldur's Gate 3 any anticipation I had for Starfield is gone because that game will no doubt feel hollow in comparison knowing how Bethesda does things

I have about 70 hours in BG3 now and it's my new favorite game. Whatever Bioware was missing in Mass Effect and Dragon Age, they must've dropped it and had it picked up by Larian.

This game is like crack cocaine to my brain.

I could have continued my Tiefling Druid playthrough but decided to start a Drow Monk one instead. I should set aside time to write but I haven't really. #justBG3things

I've been going Half Orc Barbarian. I want to go Evil Warlock next time but I don't know if I can hack it.

At least greedy manipulative Witcher type...but I don't know if I can bring myself to attack the goodie types in BG3

I'm rolling with a wood elf arcane trickster rogue. Once I found out that vendors restock, I've stolen from the halfling merchant in the emerald grove so many times I am basically encumbered because I am carrying too much gold.

If I ever do get Baldurs Gate 3, it'll be when its released on the PS5. Just like Remnant 2, I've heard mixed things about the latter half of the game. (The last third of Remnant 1 is terrible, and was completely ignored by its early critics.) So I'm still playing through my backlog, and whatever else is in Playstation Extra's library.

Spiritfarer is a beautiful game, and it’s dialogue is pretty entertaining in places. Though the resource collection gameplay is incredibly repetitive, and it’s quite frustrating how obscure it is to find certain items. Cuz I’m not even close to finishing the game yet, (probably) and I already feel like it’s overstayed its welcome. As the initial cast is much more likable than the many snobs you get afterward. Though I’ll probably still finish it?

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Other games that I tried
Gloom: Another game that is not improved by being a rogue-lite. (But it’s competent for the 99 cents that I got it for.)

Roadwarden: Its beginning hours were kind of uninteresting, and I didn’t play long before wanting to try other games instead.

Endling Extinction Is Forever: Its beginning hours were kind of uninteresting, and I didn’t play long before wanting to try other games instead.

Kero Blaster: The ending boss(es) and its many phases was one too many. (Frankly, I had more fun with the game that was inspired by it.)

Rain World: Devs added a bunch of extra tutorials, and a few extra bells and whistles. Still really didn’t like the gameplay loop.

Yakuza 0: Entertaining mindless combat, and voice actors that elevate the game's numerous still cutscenes. But I personally didn't care for the random character switch. And the wasting time side quests, and sheer length of the game, made me put this one on pause to play something else.

Games that I finished
The Forgotten City: The plot became incredibly obvious, and its "horror combat" sections were bad enough that I rushed to complete the "almost good" ending. Cannot recommend this.

OneShot: I liked this one overall. (Helps that the meta narrative/puzzle aspect is something that I'm personally fond of.) And the main character is likable enough to carry you through its story twice. Even if the rest of the game feels lesser by comparison. Since I really didn't connect with the rest of its cast, and wanted a few more puzzles/gameplay sections. Versus the aimless wandering that comprises most of its run time. (But I'd probably recommend this, over the vast majority of other things that I've played recently.)

Highly Rated Shooters (Apparently.)
Doom Eternal: I can't even believe how bad this one felt to play. The platforming and sense of direction was horrid. (The mission markers didn't work.) The lack of ammo forces you to run around the stage, like a chicken with your head cut off. Plus, a monster got stuck in the floor terrain, and made me backtrack through the entire level just to progress. (And I didn't even get to listen to a good song either.)

The Ascent: This hard crashed on me twice. And it also made me repeat entire missions and their bosses from the very beginning three times, because the game failed to complete the mission. All in one session. (But at least it looks nice, right?)

The Surge 1 & 2
These are the exact same fucking game. Except one has a few extra bad decisions (and a better atmosphere). The camera is bad in both of them & neither compelled me to get past its bullshit design choices.

Broken Indies
Maki's Adventure: Doesn't have basic controller movement functionality for the 3D sections. (Sections that aren’t even shown on the store page.)

The Wolf Of Derevnya: Best chapter choice makes the game not continue further. (Their latest patch that claims to fix this exact issue, does not.)

Angel's Gear: Control scheme was made by aliens, and the game itself feels blatantly unfinished. (No control remapping.)

Talus: There's about twenty minutes of gameplay, and the Steam achievements don't work properly. (Game's audio was whisper quiet for no reason.)

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TLDR: A lot more misses than hits in gaming for me.

Yakuza 0: Entertaining mindless combat, and voice actors that elevate the game's numerous still cutscenes. But I personally didn't care for the random character switch. And the wasting time side quests, and sheer length of the game, made me put this one on pause to play something else.

The side quests are the best part of the Yakuza games they're like a funny break from all the serious crime melodrama of the main story. Also Majima is the best and for this opinion we must fight in dramatic fashion after ripping off our jacket to show our sick back tats.

Homeworld: Desert of Kharak free-2-keep @ EGS until 8/31.

Starfield is a good Bethesda game but damn if you dont have to jump through hoops to make the game feel immersive.

The Night of the Rabbit is free 2 keep on GOG until the 25th.

Out of Line and The Forest Quartet is free 2 keep on Epic until the 28th.

Also lol @ at Fortnite/Epic being class action'd over V-bucks.

<Snipped quote by Hank>

It's beautiful.

It's not actually that beautiful. Damn.

Hey. The gaming thread was resurrected. Neat. Perfectly timed with the apparently lackluster game awards.

Well, I’m grateful that I’ve had a lot of games to keep me occupied. (Even more so than last year.) Because this year has otherwise been a pretty low point for general entertainment.

So without further ado, here’s some quick reviews.

Actual good games. (In the order that I played them.)

Dark Souls 3: This game is the closest to making the “challenging but fair” mantra accurate. And it’s easily the best paced Souls game in terms of what everyone is here for; fighting bosses. But it does have its own unique bugs, (teleporting enemies) bullshit gimmick bosses, (the giant killed my onion. :c), and moon logic (like needing to buy 4 random ass spells to be given the item that makes the jail area a cakewalk.) But I enjoyed my time throughout, and found nearly every bosses’ gimmick to be entertaining. (Quite the refreshing time after DS2/Bloodborne’s bosses kept disappointing me.)

Lies Of P: I’m surprised how much I enjoyed the music, characters, atmosphere and story of this game. (Especially after watching someone stream this, and immediately finding the King Of Riddles “Joker voice” grating.) And I think it’s excellent how the developers have continued to listen to its fans after release. (Like improving the readability of the enemies animations, and recently upgrading the dodge.) But my experience was kind of spoiled with how balancing worked. Because many bosses seemed borderline impossible without the overpowered summon, that made almost every boss feel unsatisfying to defeat. (Or they were bugged and easily exploitable. Like almost every miniboss that allowed you free roam and subsequently walk out of bounds of its aggro range.) And the last boss was an obnoxious endurance test that almost made me rage quit. So I’m conflicted in singing the praises of something that I found frustrating more often than not. But I am looking forward to what these devs do in the future.

Dark Souls: The interconnectivity and worldbuilding is easily the strongest part of this game. (No other Souls-like comes close to this.) And the characters also leave a strong impression on you. (In a sense that you don’t have to go out of your way to find them, and they seem to be doing their own thing.) But I do agree with the recent sentiment that the final four areas and bosses aren’t enjoyable to get through. And the Remastered version on PC had a frequent item pick up bug (made items a glowing bag on the floor that you couldn’t pick up) that forced me constantly restart the game and lose said items. So I enjoyed my time. But I take back what I said about this game being fair, because there’s a lot of bullsh*t in this game.

Remnant 2: So, I only recently got this. But this is certainly a more consistent quality product compared to its predecessor. With the gun gameplay feeling quick and snappy, (because the aim assist is incredibly generous.) The challenge being fairly easy and breezy throughout, aside from the generally awful hitboxes of large monsters and one-hit kill moves of bosses. (The cube maze boss is the worst.) But despite not having the same lows of the first Remnant. Parts make it feel like its “Remnant 1.5”, with worse AI generated level design, and stupider AI enemies that all only rush at you. (Unlike the gun mobs that run to take cover and flank you like the first game.) And it does make the same mistake of making its final boss a miserable experience. (For much worse reasons than Lies Of P.) Being an absolute unfair clusterfuck with three phases that basically requires me to grind out a 2nd subclass. A thing I’d be more willing to do, if the story itself didn’t completely suck. (But it was fun for twenty hours. Will finish at some point.)

Things I’m glad I didn’t pay for. (Just some of what I played through.)

South Park Stick Of Truth: I enjoyed this one for the most part. But it was starting to wear out its welcome, and ability to make more than a single joke in its 2nd half. To the point where I was glad it was over. (Much like Spiritfarer. Because holy hell did that game drag on relentlessly.)

Superliminal: Short and sweet. The puzzle aspect is debatable when the biggest challenge is getting the “perspective growing” to work properly.

Nioh: This game has three fucking tutorial sections, and its as strange as it sounds. But it does have some unique ideas that might’ve made a strong “non-souls” game. If the enemy design wasn’t so immediately repetitive. (Maybe I’ll try the sequel some day?)

Dragon’s Dogma: Despite a strong opening tutorial and story hook, this game’s exploration was frustrating and dull from the start. With the pawns truly never shutting the f*ck up. (Unless you turn off their dialogue in the menu.) (Maybe I’ll give it another shot later. Since it supposedly gets better.)

Sea Of Stars: The decent combat is on par with that paper-bug RPG. (In that you have to press a lot of buttons for a turn-based system, which some might enjoy for being more involved or find repetitive, depending on who you are.) But the characters might be the blandest cardboard cutouts I’ve ever experienced in an RPG. This is not comparable to Chrono Cross.

Roki: The main protagonist repeatedly throws rocks at birds, tricks strangers, complains about her younger sibling, and burns her house down with her sleeping father inside. Our hero everybody. But seriously, the gameplay is obtuse and not particularly engaging.

Uno: “Classic” Uno now has half-a-dozen stupid rules that you’ve never used in your life, and you can’t finish a game before someone disconnects. (You can’t seem to join fresh lobbies either. So you’re always starting in the middle of a game.)

Tetris Effect Connected: The input lag and god awful pop music somehow made playing Tetris undesirable. (It was legitimately impossible to clear levels on faster speeds.)

Other games and things I’m playing next:

BPM Bullets Per Minute: Since I enjoyed Hellsinger, I’m disappointed to say that this basically didn’t work on my PC. The visuals/audio wouldn’t sync properly and made this rhythm game unplayable for me.

Puzzle Agent 1 & 2: It’s unsurprising that there weren't six of these. When the first one was already pretty bloated and felt half finished & the second one had repeated puzzles, blatant visual bugs and hard crashed on me at least once.

Fortnite: "My gun is better than you're gun, so I win every time." = A recipe for the most popular game on planet earth, for some reason. (I don't get the appeal of playing this competitively/solo.)

Tales From The Borderlands: I liked this one overall. Though it doesn't top Telltale's 'The Walking Dead'. (For its predictable story.) It's a hell of a lot more enjoyable to experience than Borderlands 3's plot.

Deep Sky Derelicts: I think Steam's mixed reviews are unfair to this one. (Unless it's all related to a buggy launch.) As this one almost caught me off guard for how engaging it was. (And how closely it resembled a card/board game that I made as a child.) But I suppose it's a bit repetitive and unbalanced for a "rogue-lite". (And it doesn't really fit that genre either.) However the last few levels are absurdly difficult, and it was more annoying than fun to play through them.

Playstation Extra's library actually released a good batch of games. So I'll be playing several of those & whatever else that I buy for Steam's winter sale. (So I think I'll be perfectly content for some time.)

The Game Awards only giving the devs 30 seconds to give a speech while also batch awarding things in order to get to more ads is fucking insanely cringe but not as cringe as Geoff Keighley's love affair with hack fraud Hideo Kojima who can stand on stage and show you nothing but act like he's fucking Christ.

I need to get Rogue Trader and see if that will last me through until GTA 6 and MHWilds genocide my free time.

Hopefully the release of a Warhammer 40K cRPG helps there be a few more RPs here in that setting. Haven't been in one in awhile.

I finished Baldur's Gate 3. I kinda think that game loses steam right at the last leg of the race but that's like saying the last bite of a five star meal wasn't as good as the entire meal up to that point.

I finished Baldur's Gate 3. I kinda think that game loses steam right at the last leg of the race but that's like saying the last bite of a five star meal wasn't as good as the entire meal up to that point.

It's also Larian's restaurant specialty!