Content from Last 48hrs

Palworld Finished the story with the 1.0 release version. Man, this game is addictive. I never really get into the whole survival/crafting/base building thing but somehow adding a bunch of collectible creatures into the mix just makes it so much more appealing to me, especially when they help run your base. The Pal designs are great, probably the best I've seen outside of Pokemon itself, and since the early access several of them have had redesigns to make them look less like Pokemon counterparts. They've got so much personality in their animations, too. Leafan is always doing kung-fu poses, Dupin juggles and does magic tricks, Sekhmet dances while idle, and more. It really goes a long way to make these creatures feel more like living things and not just numbers to plug into an optimization formula. There's a few more palette swaps in the roster than I would like but there's more than enough original designs to make up for it. The story is basically an afterthought. Go fight a bunch of tower bosses and then go to the world tree and fight the final boss. There's lore journals you can find but honestly nobody is playing this game for the story. It's just for the love of catching these creatures and using them to make yourself a kickass base and that loop is honestly plenty addicting enough. There's definitely some 1.0 jank in there and stuff like Pals clipping through walls but I wouldn't say anything is truly broken. It only crashed on me once or twice during my over 100 hour playthrough. I would complain about stuff like item durability and crafting speed but the thing is that you can just adjust that stuff in your world settings so there's really no reason you can't get the experience you want out of it, especially if you're modding it on PC with steam workshop. I suppose the only thing I can complain about is that certain endgame crafting materials (AI cores) take a very long time to get and endgame weapons, armor, and buildings always require a bunch of them. I'm sure there's a mod that'll just give them to you but I'm only modding for quality of life, not to straight up cheat. Even with that gripe, there's a very good chance this will be my personal game of the year unless something else comes out to blow me away and no, that's not gonna be GTA VI for me.

Ghost Recon Wildlands: Last Rites I guess Breakpoint didn't do too well? Otherwise it's kind of odd that Wildlands gets the anniversary update along with a new mission that seems to set up the next entry in the series. It was a fun mission, somewhat short but pretty cool, during the day it felt like good old Wildlands, at night though, with the music and the whole cultist atmosphere, it felt almost like a horror game. Didn't know how to feel about the new CIA lady but the end improved my opinion. The rest of the story was interesting, if a bit short, the documents you find mostly set up the next game (or at least that's what it feels like) talking about a new criminal organization, the CIA investigating them, and requests to deploy the Ghosts there. Really like the Ghost Lead outfit you get for completing this mission, hoping that's the style they're going for. The biggest thing though, is that this came with an update that added improved graphics on current consoles, and a ton of difficulty settings, you can now change a bunch of stuff like enemy health, damage, alertness, and even stuff like Unidad max alert level. Best part though, is that now you can disable SAM sites! Grade: A

Beast Of Reincarnation The first chapter sucks. Everything you'd heard about the game is true. All of it. The second chapter soften things up a little, you get into a nice grove with the combat and you realise that whilst everything you'd previously heard about the game is true, there are caveats. The combat system whilst a little repetitive is actually really kind of fun. There's a constant feed of new moves and powers you can utilise to beat back the enemy. The once-jarringly emotionally empty cutscenes start to make more of a sense from a narrative point of view. I've just beaten chapter 3. And whilst the game is far from being the best game released this year, I can't help but feel it's being somewhat unfairly (or fairly, I guess, given the studio) judge for the fact that it isn't the best thing to come out since Elden Ring. It's limited in its scope. It's world feels empty and at times it feels like it's there for the sake of being there. The cut-scenes are overly long and at times utterly tedious to watch.....And yet, I can't stop ploughing 2+ hours a night into it. I'll finish this, and I'll probably look excitedly towards it's no doubt bigger and better sequel.