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The Last of Us Part II Remastered I finished it last night. It's good to have finally played it as I feel like I've been waiting for it for an eternity. I had a feeling the game would make me feel like everyone else is smoking crack and that turned out to only be partially the case. On the one hand, I think it's a massive improvement over the original and I found the gameplay in particular to be incredible. On the other hand, I understand why the game was so divisive based on the story alone. I imagine your typical gamer isn't used to narratives with characters this flawed and nuanced. I also don't think the execution was necessarily the best it could have been. Without getting into spoilers, I felt like the inciting incident was handled about as well as it could've been and when Ellie decides to go after Abby and her friends I was 100% on board with her. The first half of the game was basically what I expected: more TLoU but better. The second half of the game is where I think some issues crop up. Most importantly, I fucking hated Abby so at first I wasn't crazy about having to play as her. When the game finally revealed who she is and what set her on that path, I was like: The game did a good enough job of giving her character nuance up to a point. After a few hours of playing as her, I stopped hating her (it helped that her gameplay was really good) but, despite the writers' efforts, I never stopped seeing her as the villain of the story. So when you catch up to the present after her part of the story, I didn't really like having to continue playing as her during The game also keeps banging on that "I could've killed you but I didn't" drum as if to highlight that I also found the ending unsatisfying but that was clearly by design, so I'm not holding that against the game. At that point, I was kinda shocked the game was still going, tbh. When I got through all of those cutscenes after the theater and then there was more gameplay I couldn't help but ask "why is this game still going? lol". I don't mean that as a criticism, though. I'm honestly amazed that a linear, single-player game this meaty was made. Especially one that's arguably mostly a stealth game. I liked that. I liked that a lot. So yeah, basically all of my criticism is about the story. I thought the gameplay was absolutely fantastic. Why did no one tell me this game was influenced by MGS3?! At least, that was the first thing that came to mind the first time I found myself crawling in tall grass to sneak around and pick enemies off one by one. Ethan mentioned not liking the encounter design a while back and I couldn't disagree more. I had a blast crawling around in the grass, taking enemies out with the bow and leaving mines in choke points only to toss a bottle to draw enemies right to it. The resource management also added another great layer to it. I would crawl into a hiding spot and consider whether to craft more arrows vs breaking stealth and using my limited ammo. I can't remember the last time I found a game's combat this engaging and rewarding. Maybe playing on hard mode had something to do with it. There's actually an achievement for beating Grounded mode this time and I'm tempted to jump right into it but I'd like to finish AC Shadows within a reasonable time frame, so I think I'll go back to continue that for now. Maybe I'll use this as an excuse to do a Grounded run of both games at some point down the line. And with that, I think that was the last big Sony game I was really anticipating. I can't really think of anything else that I would be nearly as excited to play on PC. Well, there is one game that starts with B and ends with "loodborne" but Sony seems adamant on pretending it doesn't exist, so I gave up on that one a while ago. If it does get an eventual rerelease, I expect it to be in a form no one asked for: i.e. a needless remake by a different dev that completely butchers the art direction.

I've been playing Blue Prince, I'm enjoying it, it's good, but I'm not seeing why everyone is so in love with it (at least not yet, 7.5 hours in).

I haven't played anything on my Switch since Mario Wonder, but I will be getting a S2 at some point and can't wait to finally play Bayonetta III on it. Also I grabbed this: Although given that all my gaming time is spent with Khazan right now, I'm not sure when I'll get around to it.

The latest game from the people that made (the wonderful) Sifu. Hopefully this sticks the landing because it looks like it could be good fun, especially with friends. Yes, I'm a little disappointed we didn't get more Sifu.

Mostly we just talk in General anyway.

Never left actually. Just don't check it that often since most of the channels aren't that relevant to me.

Several of us in the discord have been playing that, you should come back!

125 now.

104% tariffs on China?! Are you out of your fucking gourd?!

Zenless Zone Zero Does one ever actually beat a free to play game? I dunno but I reached the end of the current story content at least. Gaming is just getting too damn expensive lately and with Nintendo and the tariffs it will only get worse so I've been trying out more free to play stuff. This one is kind of like a f2p brawler game. I wouldn't compare it to Devil May Cry exactly. It's not nearly as complex, but it's full of memorable characters who all have their own unique combat mechanics and you do missions in teams of three, swapping out characters for combo attacks after building up a stagger meter on your enemies. It is a gacha and so far I've only pulled two S rank characters, but one thing I appreciate is that the main story never gates you off because your characters are too weak. It will always let you try out the relevant characters for the chapter who are appropriately leveled for the story content you are doing. I also like that when you need a certain resource to upgrade one of your fighters or items it will give you the option to instantly launch whatever mission you need to do to farm the stuff you need right there from the upgrade screen. The story itself has an interesting premise. Interesting enough for me to finish the season, at least, and there were some pretty decent boss fights in there for a f2p game. Genshin Impact didn't grab me for very long because it eventually felt like I couldn't go any further without spending money, but that never really happened here. I'll most likely stick around for the next season and while I hate gacha mechanics and don't want to pay for pulls, I might toss a few bucks at cosmetics or something. When a f2p game manages to entertain me for a while I feel like they earned a little something from me.

Old phone is 4 years old and with tariffs hitting I'm expecting prices to jump, so I thought I'd go ahead and upgrade now. Pixel 9 Pro XL

That's a hell of a haul.

Yeah, I'll be on the lookout for pre-orders this week. I'm not in the US, so hopefully I'll have an easier time securing one.

Hope you manage to get hold of one with all the issues, else that's a lot of games to sit on your shelf!

Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 (PC) This was way easier than I expected, don't know if it's because I recently played Sigma and Sigma Plus, or if 2 was nerfed more for the Sigma version, either way, managed to get to the last boss without much issues, the worst part were a couple of back to back boss fights, and the first phase of the last boss. I know there's a mod that's meant to bring this closer to the 360 version, might take a look at it at some point lol, for now, I wanted to see how the vanilla version played, still pretty fun, would recommend, though I had some issues where it would freeze when trying to quit the game, or return to the main menu. Also love the notes you find, most of them are either "I suck, can't even do this basic ninja technique, I'm the worst" or Grade: A+

I guess I'm getting a Switch 2! Having skipped the first system means I'll have a hell of a launch line-up available to me, so I figured I'd start building the library early. I'll probably grab a few more between now and June 5th.

The first one was basically anime Armored Core, interesting to see this time they're moving away from mechs and towards power armour stuff.

Yeah, I'm gonna hold out for an OLED version.

Probably not a game I'd play but interesting Nintendo got an exclusive from Fromsoft. I hope it means they are going to court third parties for big titles and not just rely on first party and indies - though being underpowered will always cause problems on that front. UK prices are £395.99 (514 USD) and £429.99 (558 USD) with Mario Kart World for comparison. I don't think I'll be buying it at launch which is a first in a while from me for a Nintendo console. Maybe when the next mainline Zelda comes out with the Switch 2 PRO/OLED.

Still don't know how to feel about the new magnetic Joycons, release button also looks like it'd be kinda easy to accidentally press while playing. Mouse controls could be cool (specially for games like Metroid Prime), but my desk doesn't have room for it lol. Funny that after all the speculation, the C button ended up being for online chat. Console MSRP is $450 for base console, $500 for the Mario Kart bundle. Games are apparently meant to be $80-$90 which is a big yikes for me, specially once that price is adjusted to MXN, wouldn't be surprised to see them going for more than 2,000 pesos lol, that made me lose a lot of hype for it. I might still get one, eventually, but those game prices hurt. This was the biggest surprise of the direct (for me at least): New FromSoft game, close enough, welcome back Bloodborne. Except it's apparently a PvPvE multiplayer game.

I got my niece a Retroid Pocket (3+, I think?) and put a bunch of retro games on it for her. All she uses it for though is Mario Kart 64 and running around the castle in Mario 64, lol.

I'll be interested to hear what you think, that kind of game is very hit or miss for me.

I was lucky enough to get one of those RG40XXV's for Christmas (for the playing of legitimately owned ROM's of course), and it's opened up an entire world of games I was too young to enjoy when I was a kid. Punch Out, Super Mario Bros (yes, I know), Rocket Knight Adventures (hard as fuck) and the absolutely wonderful Drill Dozer being the first four games I've chosen to play through since getting it. Does anyone else have one of these handhelds, and if so, what are you using?