What are you playing at the moment?

Contra Advance

Gave up on DMC5 (Gamepass) a few levels into V’s missions. It’s fine, but it never grabbed me as more than something to whittle time away on...which isn’t a great use of my time.

I decided to try Bloodstained (also on Gamepass). I dug it, got super annoyed at the “Not David Hayter” emo/Dante guy, and eventually got patient and beat him. Having a blast with it now. Very fun game.

• Final Fantasy 8 remastered (Switch Lite)
• Indivisible (PC)
• Dead Cells (Switch Lite)
• Grindstone (iOS)

1. The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening
2. WoW Classic

Remnant: From the Ashes.

On one hand I love this game. On the other hand I hate this game.

I love the gameplay. The moving and shooting just feels great. All the weapons feel unique and powerful. I'm having a hard time deciding which weapons I like the best and that's a good thing.

I think the random nature of the level design is a neat feature that lends itself well to replays and co-op. It's too bad that not all aspects of the level are guaranteed to be there though. For example, my Earth level doesn't have the Bandit camp that recognizes Mud Tooth's pocket watch, or the Wailing Tree.

I hate the Dark Souls-esque enemy respawns. Combine that with the difficulty spike of some of these elite enemies and you've got a recipe for rage quits. I just want to make steady progress. The more times I have to repeat something I've already done the more likely it is I'm putting your game down for good.

The older I've got the more these mechanics have swung from tolerable (Demon Souls, my 30's) to bullshit (Remnant, my 40's), and the less patience I have for them. I'm going to have to be more aware of that when deciding what games to buy in the future.

• Control
• Children of Morta
• The Missing: JJ Macfield

FIFA 19. It’s FIFA I still enjoy playing through career mode while watching something on a second screen.

1. Playerunknown's battlegrounds

2. GTA V

Asgard's Wrath

Basically God of War 2018 in VR with Oculus money to actually make it a good game.

I finished Remant last week, really enjoyed the gunplay and the feel, the random generation nature of the levels made some of the environments very boring for me. The final boss is also a severe difficulty spike, I played the entire game solo except for that fight because it was so hard.

Over the weekend I played a few hours off The Division 2 while it was on its free weekend, played for about two hours on Friday and never went back. The shooting felt very underwhelming but I suppose with just coming of Remant most games would. the guns just felt so lifeless.

As I am on vacation I have had time to dig back into The Outer Wilds, I played the first hour or two a few weeks ago and did not think much of it but I wanted to give it another go. After about three four hour sittings this week I just finished it, I think I read almost everything and I really enjoyed it overall. The controls annoyed me at first but as I played more I enjoyed mastering them. I think the story has a good blend of horror, exploration and comedy that left me satisfied even if the ending is a little predictable.

Phantasy Star Portable.

So I bought a PSP 3K because I got into one of my "I'm bored and I hate money" moods and bought the console along with Crisis Core, a 16 GB memory stick, and I'm in the process of importing the limited editions of the three Ikkitousen games: Shining Dragon, Eloquent Fist and Xross Impact just for the sake of having them. But the PSP 3K might be a bit too small for my hands. I wouldn't say that the 1K was particularly comfortable, but the 3K is making me resent that Sega didn't allow a digital version so that I could play it, along with other UMD/physical copy exclusive games, on my Vita which is significantly more comfortable to use. I mean, sure, PPSSPP, but I'm not really strapped for cash anymore, and I just prefer having physical copies of console and handheld games for the sake of having the collection.

...As for the actual game, though; I mean, yeah. Phantasy Star Portable is still one of my favorite PSP games, so it's great having it again, same for Crisis Core. I'll most likely get back into Phantasy Star Online 2 when the English version finally comes over, even if the game hasn't aged too well in the looks department.

Jedi Fallen Order. Absolutely fantastic video game ass video game. My current GOTY, and I'm not even the biggest Star Wars fan. It captures all the magic I felt watching the original trilogy as a kid, and is by far my favourite thing in the franchise since the original films.

It just plays like a damn video game and the pacing is fantastic. Story is excellent as other reviews have mentioned. Veryyyy glitchy but I'm a weirdo and love it when that shit happens.

I might either go back to Cyberpunk before barbers and hair dressers are added or go though the modern Wolfenstein games, since playing Killzone: Shadow Fall isn't going as well as I'd like due to being spoiled by ≥60 frames and mouse and keyboard.

I mean, the 30 or 40 some odd frames are acceptable since the fame pacing is consistent, muscle memory is sort-of kicking in as far as shooting with a controller goes, and I like the Killzone series more than most so that actual game is entertaining. But the technical differences are so stark and going back to controller feels so alien to me after using mouse and keyboard for six years and counting. I like Horizon well enough, but It would be great if the Killzone games were on PC, though I'm extremely sure that Jim Ryan isn't willing to take the financial loss on porting a relatively niche series to PC; same for Resistance for that matter. And come to think of it, I'm sure that me finally getting around to Uncharted and The Last of Us will have the same barriers to entry unless there's an adapter out there that will work with a Corsair K70 Mk2 and a Roccat Leadr. Suggestions for such an adapter are welcome.

...Though I guess the most common solution is "git gud".

My brother and I started playing through the Gears of War games and we've both had largely the same reactions. We were playing a lot of CS:GO beforehand, and Halo: MCC on PC, and my brother almost never touches his controller unless the game is called "Dark Souls". I've gotten past the 30FPS cap, Gears on a modern Xbox keeps its framerate pretty solid, but trying to line up a headshot with a sniper rifle is frustrating and trying to track a moving target isn't so great either. It's hardly unplayable or unenjoyable, but going back makes you really understand just how massive the gulf between a stick and a mouse actually is. We're both greatly anticipating playing the fourth game on PC, though, just to be able to aim properly.

...speaking of, hey, the Gears of War games are fun. We're playing through Gears 3 now. I'm on a Series X and yo, that game looks real good with whatever upscaling to 4K is going on. Nobody is going to mistake it for something that just came out, but it's much brighter, much more colorful, and much more decorated with flora and detail than the previous two games. It's honestly kind of amazing this game ran on a 360 at all. I don't remember how well it ran, but I know that I finished it at least once, perhaps twice? Anyway, look, those games are dumb but I've enjoyed all three when I thought I wouldn't ever get into them again.

In my alone time, I've been playing Lost Odyssey. Yay old 360 titles! Anyway, this is the first time I've played Lost Odyssey. It's been great so far! Combat is a lot of fun, I think it still has a pretty good visual style to it, it moves along at a pretty good clip. Or it was, anyway. I'm in Numara, I met the game's child characters (ugh), and their sickly mother predictably died, and then the game wanted me to play as the little girl and fetch ten flowers for the funeral. Fine. Then the game wanted me to fetch ten bundles of sticks for the same funeral, running through the same area, with the same flimsy music, and I was like nope, not tonight! Listen, those dreams that trigger Kaim's memories are real good in a way that the writing in the rest of the game isn't and they're, unexpectedly, a major thing keeping me interested. Even outside of those, I think it's been a really good JRPG thus far and I do plan on doing the fetch quest just to get back to the part of the game I enjoy, but throwing in random nonsense like a fetch quest and then another fetch quest in the same fucking area has me thinking real hard about dropping the game. Which is a shame, because pretty much everything else up to this point has been pretty good. I do want Jansen to hit his character development soon, though, that motherfucker won't shut up.

I've been playing the GBA port/remake of Final Fantasy V, which is considered to be the best FF game that originally didn't leave Japan on initial release on the Super Famicom/SNES until the remakes/ports. I've been enjoying it a lot, and the job system is really fun to dick around with to make the most optimal crew to roll with (I never knew a Monk with Time Mage spells could be so useful for both support and physical offense).

Beyond that, I'm still checking on my Animal Crossing New Horizons town a couple/few times a day after having it since near launch, and I've recently gotten back into playing random Mario Maker 2 levels/worlds (which is still super hit and miss in terms of level/world qualities).

Finished all the sidequests in Nier Replicant sqrt(1.5) which... I kind of am pissed there was no trophy for that. Aside from that, continues to be awesome and also kind of fascinating to think in terms of this and when I played Gestalt and how I have changed as a person in the interim. Love when I have an excuse to revisit a game that way.

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But also: For some odd reason I felt like a change over the past week. Can't imagine why. So I finally gave Final Fantasy 14 (the newer MMO one) a shot and... I mostly liked it? Very much feels like an old school MMO and the cooldowns feel like they take an hour each (should look up what they are relative to EQ or SWTOR). I give zero shits about final fantasy and the story is some poorly paced garbage but... it is fine and reading NPCs say my stupid character name (Congealed Quake'sauce) is always fun. Like most of the QOL stuff but not sure how I feel about the "there are no character builds". I like that I can have one character for ALL content and I can't "screw it up" but it also makes moment to moment gameplay feel kind of meaningless?

Like, I will be the first to say that games like POE kind of suck for blind playthroughs since there is nothing worse than hitting a wall where the best thing you can do is restart the character you dumped a dozen hours into. But also... I like having different characters for different roles/stories. Which is funny since the thing that drove me away from ESO was how annoying the faction skill grinds are and how I feel those should be account wide.

Which, getting back to FF14, put me in a weird state. I have zero interest in the story and mostly I am just liking doing yak ass quests. Movement and teleportation is "bad" but it just makes me value the inevitable mounts more.

And then we get to the community and why I am probably done with it. Everyone says FF14 has one of the best and most accepting communities and it is totally possible to do high end combat in pubs and blah blah blah. And honestly, it seems nice. But between a few spam conversations in game, the various forums, and a few of the discords... yeah. It is the same bullshit every MMO descends into of "You need to know the proper way to ask how to do X" with zero willingness to explain how to even approach that. Saw someone get chewed out for not understanding the mess of acronyms and get told they should read a guide rather than just saying "Oh, that means it is good for White Mages and Black Mage., WHM/BHM. You can see the acronyms in game too". That always translates into a miserable time during group activities unless you go out of your way to seek out and sync up with various communities and... who even has time for that anymore? Although, I think what made me snap was some backseat mod on one of the bigger discords telling people to be quiet in a channel with "This is for questions, not discussions" and a real mod later coming in to say that was a valid response. Wasn't the first one of those I found but was the funniest. It is the usual MMO nonsense coupled with the mindset that the only way to interact is to emulate the greybeards as it were.

Which I guess gets back to the idea of revisiting games/genres you used to love. Back in the day, I fucking LOVED MMOs and was the guy who would say up until 3 AM doing a raid. Even met a few long term friends that I still chat with regularly doing that. Learning all the systems was great and I was probably that same shithead who thought he was so smart for telling a newbie to fuck off for not putting in the time. And now? I ain't got time for that shit. I would rather sketch out an interplanetary factory layout or figure out the most efficient way to purify my own piss to make drinking water or... I can't even think of something suitably funny for the glorious mess that is Dwarf Fortress. Or even just spend another 10 hours space trucking in Elite or grinding in Warframe.

So its interesting. I think when I was younger "the grind was the game" meant that I liked the endless treadmill. And I think that is still true since... I like grind games and factory games and so forth. But when one of the big goals of "getting good" is to engage with annoying grown-ass children? Screw that. Life is too short. I'll play a game I like and just chat with people I like on discord or whatever while they do laundry or cook or play the games they like. And in a lot of ways that feels sad as though I have lost a big portion of my "gaming identity". And in other ways... I am kind of glad I no longer feel any desire to put up with people that I would change cars on a train to avoid. Which I guess is "growing up".

Done with The Show, the grind in career mode just isn't fun, and I can't enjoy pitching (tried them all) as much as the 2K mechanics. Server issues seem to be happening every day, and the "programs" menu is just insane. I tried "random video" on GB today, and got The Bigs 2, man I miss that game, the exact opposite off this convoluted mess.

Also finally tried Sonic Generations on X. Wow that 4K looks sharp! I've never dabbled much with sonic (almost always quitting when I inevitably die in water with the countdown noise stressing me out), but this one was neat. I didn't even mind the 3D sections that kind of play itself (I know this was a complaint on later games too). I just treat them like cutscenes, seeing what the devs could come up with to give a sense of space and speed.

I've fallen into another Cities Skylines k-hole.

I just played far to much Club Penguin: Game Day on the Wii...I don't know why.

I'm playing Ion Fury. It's fun...

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla DLC and Sekiro on SX.

Star Wars Squadrons, I don't know if this type of game clicks with me but I'm interested enough to finish the story mode

I'm currently playing through Oddworld: Soulstorm on PS4, I'm about halfway through, I think. It's been a while since I played Oddysee and Exoddus, but I did replay New n Tasty earlier this year and off the back of that, I feel confident in saying that thus far this is the best one of these that Oddworld Inhabitants have made to date (not counting Stranger's Wrath, which plays so differently as to be pretty much incomparable). I'm glad I held off for a couple of months while the devs patched it to its current state, because I feel like playing it at launch and encountering all the bugs I heard about would have really soured me on the experience. As it stands, I cannot wait to keep playing and see where it goes from here.

"I should play more Forza Horizon. I spent $100 on 4 but barely played it after getting a Huracan within two hours."

*goes back to NFS Heat*

Dirt 5

After spending 100s (maybe 1000s?) of hours with Forza Horizon 4, I decided I needed something new, and D5 is on Game Pass.

My initial impressions: It looks very good running on my Series X and the driving feels good. The cars are responsive and e-brake drifting around hairpin corners feels just right. However, the lack of point-to-point rally races against the clock is very disappointing. Also, no replays? Really?

I will continue to play because it is a good balance of arcadey, with a very light sprinkling of sim.

A few games because it is the season:

Necromunda Hired Gun: I want to like this but the enemy spawns feel horrible (I swear a few have spawned while I was looking at them...), the looting is horrible, and it is taking too long to get me the good guns. But it is 40k by the EYE folk so I will give it another go. But I suspect the outcome will be that I just replay EYE and finally get the third ending (if I can remember which two I already have).

Hardspace Shipbreaker: Put this off for too long but I love it. The shift limits are a bit obnoxious but it is just so relaxing and fun. Probably only have the patience for 1-3 ships per day but it is RELAXING.

Daemon x Machina: I really should not have rebought this but been wanting to play this on a platform that can run it basically since I bought it the first time. The QL is actually REALLY good for this and shows it off. For the most part it is the Armored Core 4 style missions where you spawn into a small arena full of adds and a few hero units you need to fight. But every so often you get a glimpse of the good armored cores where you fight your way through an installation or have an endurance match as the parameters of the mission change while your Raven-- sorry, Outer, is in the field. And the ability to pick up weapons off the ground and use them during a mission just feels great and is the most Gundam a game has ever been. Loot and upgrade system is pretty convoluted and it is hard to really compare two items but the game also isn't hard enough for that to matter. Looks like I could import my switch save if I really cared but I kind of want a refresher on the complete nonsense story anyway.

I have been playing Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear and that's pretty good! I mean, it's definitely not on the level of the Bioware games but I've enjoyed it. I think, if given the chance, Beamdog could make a much better Icewind Dale-type game than a Baldur's Gate-type game. Linear, bigger combat encounters, better dungeons, etc. I don't think the storytelling is as good as BG1's or what I've played of BG2 - sometimes it's a bit too snarky for its own good - but for the most part it's fine. It's essentially Wizards of the Coast giving Beamdog leeway to publish their own fan-fiction interquel and I think it's worth playing. I also think that if you want to skip it and jump straight to 2, you can do so and not miss out on anything, and just play the first Icewind Dale if you're really into linear dungeon crawling.

Star Citizen: Great fun alone and with friends. Waiting for SC PU Alpha 3.14

Sindome: The best cyberpunk game I have played.

X4: Foundations: One of those games I start from the beginning again and again. Despite its weak points it is definitely one of the best games I have player recent years. Looking forward upcoming "multiplayer" support.

Warhammer 40,000: Gladius - Relics of War: Just got it from Steam. After couple of hours it has made good enough impression to play it much more.

Final Fantasy XIV

I tried to play Generation Zero, but it was too boring, even as a Fallout 4 apologist.

So, a Bruce Greene inspired Skyrim run sounds like a plan.

Scarlet Nexus: Completed the game as Yuito in about 30 hours (skipping the rote sidequests but collected every gift). Just got to the point where everyone meets up in the story as Kasane and they have all the gifts I gave them in the Yuito playthru and its super cute. WAYYY too easy on second playrhru because enemies dont scale. Still a solid game that hopefully gets a better sequel.

Escape from Tarkov: New wipe, new factory expansion, new scav mechanics, new double length grind to get flea market.
Its honestly like a whole new game and I know people hate the Flea Market change (lvl 20 instead of lvl 10 to access) but it makes raids and loot actually matter and I love it

Right now I'm watching the show The Devil Judge.

Juggling two games right now: Super Mario 3D World on my Switch and Dragon Quest 8 on my phone of all places.

Mario is great as always, having a great time running through as Luigi while collecting absolutely everything! Looking forward to playing co-op with the gf later as well. The game is gorgeous too. It even looks good in handheld!

Dragon Quest 8 is my first Dragon Quest ever and honestly I'm liking the groove I've fallen into with it. Never thought I'd play a console game on my phone, but it's great for grinding sessions when I just wanna kill some time. And while the story isn't anything amazing, it's pretty dang cozy and easy to drop in and out of, like a nice little anime that you catch up with every now and then. And the combat still has enough depth for me to specialize the characters the way I want to.

I can totally see why the Japanese consider the series comfort food. If I keep enjoying it this much, I could see myself picking up another one on my phone. There's plenty to choose from apparently!

18 hours into Yakuza: Like a Dragon

Assassins Creed Odyssey, game never ends. What a world to explore though.

currently playing: Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Ender Lilies, Minecraft RTX

podcast games: Heroes of Hammerwatch, Streets of Rogue, Binding of Isaac, Noita, Dead Cells, cities skylines

games i need to get back to: Biomutant, Mass Effect Remake, AC Valhalla, Dragon Quest 11

Assetto Corsa Competizione and Automobilista 2 on PC.

Tomb Raider Anniversary on PC and Baldur's Gate 2 on Switch. Hey wait, ain't that backwards?

Tomb Raider Anniversary is solidly in "pretty good" territory. Nothing about it jumps out as particularly amazing, but every bit of it thus far has been well-paced and well-executed. There has been one jump that I think is pretty sketchy, otherwise I've had no real problems playing this game. Except... well, the camera. You know how in PS1/2 era 3D platformers the camera will try its best to stay behind you? Well, Anniversary takes that to the extreme and it results in a wildly swinging camera anytime you're near a tight space or jumping around between ledges. Which is often. I got used to it after a little while but it did make me a little bit motion sick at first. I don't remember having this problem when I played it in high school, but years of playing 3D games where I am 100% in control of the camera 100% of the time has made this kind of annoying. I still think this game is worth playing, especially since it's only like 7-9 hours long and very cheap right now, but that camera might be a dealbreaker for some.

Also, for all the talk of pre-2013 Lara Croft being a video game sex symbol, this might be the tamest game with any suggestive content I've ever seen. This barely rates PG-13.

Setting that aside, hey, you might have heard of this company called Bioware, that made these games called Mass Effect? Well, before that they made some games for the original Xbox, and before that they made a mech game called Shattered Steel. Wait, fast forward a bit. If you didn't know already, 1998's Baldur's Gate is the game that put the biggest RPG dev of the 2000's on the map. I wouldn't make a big deal of this if I hadn't heard at least a few people IRL surprised that Baldur's Gate was making RPGs before KOTOR.

Anyway, this is the first time I've played through a decent chunk of BG2 and yo, it's great. BG1 was a lot of wandering through empty fields doing sidequests without much meat to them, which I really enjoyed but recommending it comes with the caveat that you're going to be bored sometimes. BG2 kicks off with a dungeon vastly superior to anything in BG1 and then just keeps going with expansive sidequests, meaty dungeons, lots of great story and character moments, just all the great stuff that Bioware has ever been known for. And my understanding is that this game is massive. The quality on display here would normally mean a quality over quantity thing but, no, HowLongToBeat characterizes this thing as 70 hours long for a normal playthrough. Am I going to beat the whole game? I hope so! I certainly have a goal of doing so! If it really does keep up the same momentum it's been going at, I probably will!

I said all that to tell you that if you enjoyed KOTOR and Dragon Age, you should probably think real hard about playing BG2. The Enhanced Editions even ensure that you don't have to do any fuckery to get them working reasonably well on modern machines and they're on consoles if, like me, you're a heathen and prefer RPGs on a controller whenever possible.

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When I finish Tomb Raider Anniversary I'm thinking real hard about playing Shadow of the Tomb Raider. I was actually heading into Steam to buy that when I saw that I could get all of the Tomb Raider games for ridiculously cheap right now so I went ahead and did that.

Since Generation Zero was too bare-bones even for me, I ended up buying Fallout 76 during the Steam sale.

I finally managed to pick up a PS5 last week, so I've been spending time burning through some of those games. I platinumed Astro's Playroom and Ratchet & Clank, both of which were fun, if safe, technical showcases for the PS5. They also made me realize pretty quick how monstrously uncomfortable the DualSense is compared to the DualShock 4 (two words - stick tape).

I got a little way into Demon Souls before putting it down. I have a vacation coming up and I figure it's the sort of game I don't want to take a 2 1/2 week break while playing through. Instead, I've been dipping my toe into Returnal, but I'm not sure if I'm going to like it yet. It's certainly super-pretty and plays well, but I'm already running into issues with the lack of any save feature and I don't find the meta-progression between runs satisfying at all. We'll see on that one.

I have been playing Screamer on PC which I've bought from Steam sale about a week ago, this is one of the games that I've missed out on in my childhood then I finally got my opportunity to play it in my adulthood!

I really wish if there are more new arcade-style racers to have similar gameplay to Screamer, Ridge Racer, and Daytona USA.

I've blasted through Demon Souls in a week. For all the moaning I did about how it looked, the PS5 remake is a much better experience than the original. I've got Bugsnax and Astro to get through but it's also let me download Isle of Man TT 2 which I thought was one of the PS4 games that didn't make it over.

I just picked up Wildermyth today, given all the positive buzz it's been getting. Only a couple of hours in but I'm sold so far. Really charming x-com like with some great writing and procedural elements. Reviewers have been bending over backwards to heap it with praise, so I'm hopeful in a few days I'll be feeling the same way.

Because I am me: Dark Souls 2 for the umpteenth time. I still think this is my favorite From-Souls (Nioh being better overall). Yeah, the bosses are pretty much all knights but I like fighting knights (probably why I love Nioh and think the good fights in Sekiro are the best in the industry). Yeah, everything is weirdly balanced to the point that you need to wear heavy armor and you will STILL get stunlocked by everyone. And yeah... the level design is a choice

But it is that level design that makes me love it. It is BAD but it is fascinating because it tried things in a way even Dark Souls 1 didn't So let's break down the two main issues people have with it:

First: Nothing is connected. And yeah... I don't like that. Sure it is only Dark 1 and Bloodborne that really does the giant metroidvania thing (and to a much lesser extent 3) but that means you can get some really good variety. Dark 1 could only get away from "western europe-ish in the spring" by having a teleporter. Same with Bloodborne. Whereas Dark 2 can take you to a desert hell or probably the only good swamp section in all of From's catalog to two different Sen-like fortresses to a truly gorgeous mountain top gauntlet. And while it is stupid that it is a thirty second load hallway between them,. there was a lot of stuff added to show that you are really traveling a large distance. Rain will start or stop and when you check the map near Cale you have clearly been walking across an entire continent. In a lot of ways, it feels like a prototype for Elden Ring (also, it is a prototype for Sekiro both narratively and mechanically). And I kind of think I might prefer the truncated travel of Dark Souls 2 versus spending five minutes on the highway every mission in GTA5.

The second point is that... whoever took over for Miyazaki while he was getting his Bloodborne on was a HUGE dickbag. And whoever "fixed" it for Scholar (which I think WAS Miyazaki?) is an even bigger bag of dicks. The rest of the From games like to put one red eye knight and MAYBE surround them with a few small hollows that are more to intimidate than hurt you. Dark Souls 2 will put two Red Eye Knights next to each other with another three JUST within range to come running when they hear combat. And then you'll have a witch who is throwing high level pyromancies at you. And two hollows with crossbows. And it does that a LOT.

In theory, I like that Dark 2 did that. So many people never learn to "run past everyone" and Dark 2 even lets you permanently kill enemies if you kill them enough times. And generally, those hell points are right next to a bonfire or a boss gate so running past really IS viable. But if you are trying to grab loot or just stupid then... you are gonna fight four ogres in a tiny hallway while a few eyeball guys try to petrify you. Repeatedly.

But still, I like that. Because it means that even if you are over leveled because you took a different path at the fork (which is just as viable), you are going to have some challenge points. It is VERY hard to outlevel an ogre and they are going to fuck your shit up. Same with the phantom with a scythe who breaks through your shield and so forth. In most souls games you would just DPS burst through there (and you still can, to a degree, since twinblades are stupid) but it is very much meant to cost you and make you question if it is not better to run past.

And unlike pretty much every other Souls game: Dark 2 is worth doing an NG+ run even if you aren't a crazy person who studies ass cracks. To my knowledge, no other Soulsborne really mixes things up to this degree. You get more enemies in some areas (Falcon Knights who are very reminiscent of the red samurai who show up in Sekiro after a point) , some encounters are different (you fight one boss a LOT earlier), and the souls that bosses drop change in ways that actually add to the lore in interesting ways and help bridge the gap with Dark 1. I imagine most of that is a remnant of when Dark Souls 2 was supposed to involve time travel and greater dream/memory invasion but it is still a cool feeling.

So yeah... Dark Souls 2 is an obnoxious piece of shit. But it is also REAL good. And in case you somehow read all the way to here but haven't realized it: Dark Souls 2 is Sekiro 0. Sekiro changed the setting and gave you infinite stamina and havel armor by default but mechanically, narratively, and even boss wise they are VERY similar and Sekiro owes a lot to all the mistakes Dark Souls 2 made. And, in a lot of ways, it fits with how I like media: I would rather something fail at being interesting than succeed at being safe.

Spiderman Miles Morales, I like it though the game does feel short though I haven't done any of the side missions or challenges. Probably do those before I finish the main story

New Super Lucky's Tale, had a blast with this game as it felt like something Nintendo would have released. You play as a fox who can burrow underground and collect coins along the way and pages to fill up a book. Beautiful game though it was short but I am replaying it to collect everything that I missed in the levels.

Crash Bandicoot 4, heard how hard this game was, and boy is it difficult.

I’m going to be playing so many games once I get my hands on a ps5. It‘s not even going to be funny.

After years of being unable to get it to run on Windows 10, I found a repackaged version of Freelancer on PC that works like a charm. It is quite possibly my favorite game of all time, and one of the most underrated titles of the last 20 years. Being able to play it at the settings I could only dream of in 2003 on my laptop that has an integrated (read: shitty) GPU has brought a huge smile to my face.

I also finally got Persona 5 Royal and have been playing through that and loving every minute of it.

The Binding of Isaac: Repentance. I completed the game in Afterbirth+, and now, with the new DLC, I can't stop playing. More than 1000 hours behind me 😅