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I need to finish Metaphor (or at least make more progress, cause let's be real I'm not finishing it before the end of the year) before I can make my list.

Game of the Year Yeah it might be DLC but this expansion is bigger than most full priced games so sorry not sorry, I easily spent more time this year playing Elden Ring again than anything else. With this much content, including the new weapon classes, it's more than worth the $40 asking price. Runner-up Admittedly, this game went through a rough patch and a few controversies, but it eventually landed in a pretty good state. This is one of the most fun multiplayer games I've played with friends in years, to the point where sometimes even dying can be fun when everything is so over the top and covered in explosions. This is one of those multiplayer games where you make your own stories by taking part in some truly insane battles full of setpiece moments that you yourself orchestrate. Throw in the fact that the monetization is usually pretty reasonable and it's hard to go wrong with Helldivers 2.

It's that time of the year again! Game of the Year (But not really because it's DLC): MORE Elden Ring, that's all I wanted, all I needed, all I could ever ask for, and it delivered. Found some of my favourite weapons and armour in this DLC, the bosses were pretty cool for the most part, the soundtrack was amazing. A most excellent addition to an already awesome game. Game of the Year (this time's for real): The Emperor is pleased. First one was fun, but with some issues, this sequel improves on pretty much every aspect while still keeping what made the original so fun to play. Tons of enemies, lots of cool weapons to fight said enemies with, customization, co-op, everything is here! The story is pretty decent, and all I could ask for in a game like this "here's a cool/badass reason for you to go somewhere and kick ass".

Okay forget what I said before. I told a friend of mine about the one I had bought and he directed me to this 27 inch monitor that has the same resolution and HDR and all that other stuff for basically the same sale price. Only trade-off is it's 144hz instead of 165, but I think the tradeoff of getting an extra 3 inches on the screen is more than worth it. This was right down the street at my local Best Buy so I canceled the other one and now I've already got this bad boy bought and hooked up.

I honestly wasn't planning to upgrade my monitor until next year but this was on a Christmas sale plus there was a 30 dollar coupon so I'm getting a $260 monitor for $189. That's just too good an offer to pass up.

Pre-ordered this today. I'm not even sure what prompted it. Total impulse purchase. I mean, I was obviously gonna play it day one. So I had to pre-order it at some point, I guess. I just couldn't tell you why today was the day.

It's definitely time Dave Rodgers actually sang the above

lol, I also bought the same GMG deal.

My old chair was getting uncomfortable but fortunately I had an extended warranty on it. Since there's a Christmas sale going on I got this upgrade, normally $380, basically for free minus the cost of a new warranty.

Fuck it, the Trump tariffs are about to make PC parts stupidly unaffordable again, so I'm just gonna go for broke and be set for the next five years minimum.

There's a pretty decent deal on GMG. I was hoping for a shadowdrop at the Game Awards like last time but at least it's not too far off. I'm really glad they didn't make us wait stupidly long for the PC version again. They really need to get their shit together and start getting these ports out at the same time as the console versions. But at least a little under a year is a huge improvement over the two years it took for Remake to come to Steam. Hopefully part 3 will be multiplat at launch.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle So, that one kinda came out of nowhere for me. I had been following it and was hoping it wouldn't suck but that was about it. Well, turns out this might actually be my favorite game of the year. I knew I was in for something special when one of the early levels basically played like it was a new Thief game. And then I got to the first major area and suddenly it turns into even more of an immersive sim? Christmas came early this year! Seriously, if you love immersive sims and were as crushed by the closure of Arkane Austin as I was, then do yourself a favor and don't skip this game. It's not a full immersive sim in the vein of Deus Ex but there was just enough of that DNA in there that I couldn't get enough of it. I can't remember the last time I went out of my way to get all the collectibles in a game before even finishing the main campaign just because I wanted to stretch the experience as much as possible. I could tell I was getting close to the end and I wasn't ready for it to be over. And if you're a fan of Indiana Jones, then it's the best Indy story since Last Crusade and it's not even close. This feels like a true Indy adventure in a way that Crystal Skull and Dial of Destiny simply didn't. I finally got around to watching the latter last week-end and it's just not the same. It was alright for a final send-off for the character but it's pretty clear that Harrison Ford is way too old to keep making these. Most of the action is just chase scenes, I'm assuming because having a man in his 80s doing more elaborate stunts would be fucking irresponsible, and they got kinda boring after a while. My one complaint is that the game is kinda stupid with its checkpoints. It doesn't save after you pick up a collectible, so it's possible to spend like 10mins exploring and picking a bunch of stuff up only to die and lose all of it because you didn't hit a checkpoint. There were a few times when I was going back through areas to get whatever I had missed and found stuff I had already picked up hours earlier but lost because of this bullshit. So if you die, you need to remember to grab stuff again otherwise you'll need to come back for it later. I hope they'll fix this in a patch because it was kind of annoying. Especially when you missed stuff in isolated areas like tombs and caves because getting back there can be tedious. That was my only issue with the game, though. Overall, I absolutely loved it! MachineGames was not the studio I would've bet on to pick up the immersive sim mantle but this was a very pleasant surprise. I really hope they'll make a sequel to this because I'm definitely down for more.

Okay then yeah that's good. The games I've had with a separate 4k pack don't tell you about it, you have to just find it yourself and download it as DLC.

I downloaded the game pass version and it was a box to check or uncheck when I did it.

Language packs I agree with, but the 4k textures thing annoys me. 4k is rapidly becoming the standard and I hate starting a game only to realize I need to do a separate download to get the textures to not look muddy. *Edit - Though if they wanted to make it so that when you start the game download it automatically asks you if you want to also download the hi res textures or not then that would be good.

Really appreciate that Indiana Jones makes the 4K textures an optional download. I really wish more games would separate things you don't need like language packs and 4K textures.

Stellar Blade This is a cool action game that is definitely not a soulslike, though it does have a few of those elements (mostly just that you have camps that function as bonfires, and resting at them refills your flask and respawns most enemies). It honestly has more in common with something like DMC. It's also pervy in a way that strained my suspension of disbelief, but whatever. The combat feels good, it requires precision without being punishing, and it has the most satisfying parry I think I've ever experienced. All in all, I would definitely recommend it if you like character action games. There is a massive difficulty spike at the end, but aside from that I had fun throughout. Grade: B+

Playing Legacy of Kain Soul Reaver 1&2 remastered. I'm loving the nostalgia, but lord knows how I played these in the past. They tell you nothing. Like trying to navigate to the next area is "X place is to the East of Nosgoth" like, cool. But there is no map other than a world map. Games used to be so hard man! I love the dialogue. Some amazing insults, love hearing some received pronunciation "Degenerate!" being thrown around.

Yo know... a new Chrono game might be nice?

Shokz OpenMove bone conduction headphones. About a year ago I bought some really cheap ($10) bone conduction headphones to test out for riding my bike and stuff, so I can still hear what's going on around me, especially traffic. I wasn't sure how I'd like bone conduction so I didn't want to spend a bunch of money. Well, I did really like it, but because they were so cheap the sound quality wasn't great, and the battery is already kind of starting to crap out, so I decided to get some actually good ones to replace them. So far they're great, would definitely recommend.

Co-op action game, normally I'd be pretty let down by this, but it looks really cool and it's more Elden Ring, so I'm pretty hyped.

If you've watched Secret Level then you'll be familiar with this new version of Pac-Man lol Got extremely hyped and then my heart broke