Every November I play Dishonored. Just finished the main game, and now I’m playing the Knife of Dunwall DLC. Next will be Brigmore Witches, and then it’s on to Dishonored 2. I love these games yo.

I’ve been playing Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria with a group of friends. It’s pretty janky at times, but the vibe is pretty fun and we’re all LotR nerds to some degree, so it’s been fun arguing about where the devs were lore friendly and where they colored outside the lines. It’s also nice to play a survival crafting game like this that has no PvP so the balancing can be entirely based on PvE play, which means the grind isn’t anywhere near the level of Ark or Conan. I’d say it’s a more janky little brother of Grounded with a LotR coat of paint and some pretty cool level design.

i haven’t stopped playing tears of the kingdom since it was released. my partner and i swap the controller back and forth. currently on a mission to collect all the armor and get lots of it upgraded. still haven’t defeated ganon even though we totally could.

I just got into Pokemon Xenoverse last weekend and it looks and plays similar to what I imagine a modern pokemon game would feel like if nintendo and gamefreak decided to make a 2D main series game again.

It blows my mind that European pokemon fan games like Realidea System and Xenoverse are so polished that they could possibly be official titles in terms of quality and feature implementation.

Magic the Gathering: Arena grabbed my attention again after our friend group picked up the cards again. When I dont play modern stuff I’ll boot up my PS2 and play Monster Hunter 2 (DOS) online. Some smart folks brought back a private server for the old PS2 era games. Great Community (MHOLDSCHOOL Discord, also hosts of the Server) and a change of pace.

Metro 2033 Redux. Bought it a while ago when it was on sale on Steam and didn’t enjoy it much as it was incredibly hard and the performance was sluggish. Gave it another try this week with the new graphics card and now it’s actually a great cross between fighting, strategy and adventure.

Each chapter of the story has its own world, rich in details and atmosphere, often with several ways to advance and uncover new parts of the story. The controls take some getting used to - most keys do two different things depending on how long you press them - but once you get the hang of it, it all makes a lot of sense. The graphics are very well done and organic, and the engine chugs along at a steady 60fps at 4k and full settings on my Ryzen 5700X and RTX 4060 even during intense fighting out in the open. What more could one ask for?

My only gripe is that there’s no save button. The game will silently auto-save at certain points in the story, and when you die or exit the game you can restore to that last checkpoint (and only then will you discover where in the story that is). Everything after that point is lost.

I’m around the last stretch of Live a Live. I bought this game earlier this year during a sale, and it’s a really good game. Every character’s chapter is like an episode of TV show, with varying theme.

The final stretch, especially the trials can be annoying though, from difficulty spikes to long ass dungeon without a map. The other thing that I dislike is that some animation can be bit slow

The game is pretty good so far, and it does look very pretty at times. It makes me excited to play Octopath 2 and Star Ocean 2 Remake

GT7 since some new updates came recently, AC Mirage (keep thinking I will pick it back up it but never do) and Super Mario Wonder

Star Ocean: The Second Story R.

The PS1 original was good, but it had some noticeable flaws. The book writing skill was more or less useless, side quests were often too well hidden from view (which was especially bad when most of them were time-limited), the accessories that gave you items were a bit in-your-face, there was no in-game mini-map, the invisible random encounters and lack of fast travel didn’t age well, and the voice acting… What were they thinking when they released this…

The remake fixes most of what went wrong in the original game, including re-casting the English voice actors, and even adds some new content (like fishing) that wasn’t in the original. I’m enjoying it a lot.

Bouncing around between two for the most part.

I’m mostly playing Guild Wars 2, enjoying saving the world from demonic invasion in what has so far been a pretty great expansion IMO and I am a bit of a hoor for some of the new cosmetics.

When I need a break from the rough grind, I jump into a super duper rough grind by firing up ol Leaf Blower Revolution. Idle game my ass, I’m clicking more than 5 cookie clicker players combined! There are still leaves everywhere!

I finally finished my second run of BG3 myself for a grand total of about 200 hours. I haven’t played a single game that much probably since Oblivion 15 years ago, and I racked those hours up over a much longer period of time. It’s difficult to comprehend, no less express, how monumental an achievement this game is. The only thing that stopped me immediately rolling another character is the memory of the final gauntlet of major battles in act 3 (including the one who sings their own boss theme, which I didn’t do the first time). I’m not following any build guides or anything, so it’s been a pretty stressful week of game time and I’m ready to relax a bit.

On that note, I started playing Omno. It’s fine. Nothing really stands out: not a big fan of the art style, the score is pleasant but not as noteworthy or impactful as something like the score in Gris, and the gameplay is simple and tight. I think I’d have lost interest if I wasn’t playing immediately after 200 hours of BG3. But since I am, it happens to be hitting the right notes.

Dicey dungeons is a blast! I have such a hard time with the engineer, I’m sure there’s a trick but haven’t quite sussed it out.

I’ve been playing Guild Wars 2 again after a long hiatus after my raid static disbanded. Only a little bit into the new expac but it’s been great! I think the new daily system has done a good job of getting me to come back with a clear list of things to do and compelling rewards.

I’ve also been playing Peglin, trying to work through the cruciball. Really fun/frustrating/satisfying game.

Yesterday I finished Cocoon - super nice puzzle game from the gameplay designer of Limbo and Inside. Can really recommend it for it’s surreal athmosphere, great sound design and well built puzzles. Check it out!

Half way through BG3 with a couple of friends. Playing together in a single player game streamed from one friend. Works really well this way, which is not too common.

Bought Prey last night as it was on sale an Steam for £2.45. I’ve only played it for an hour, but I’ve got my moneys worth already.

I just sunk basically an entire extended weekend on Killing Floor 2. It’s garbage entertainment but I can’t stop playing 😭

Watching George Romero got me in the mood for zombie sims, so I’ve also been edging my way back into playing Cataclysm: DDA.