Mister Jack

I know, right? I originally played Saints and Sinners on PSVR and I liked it there too but some of the guns like the sniper rifle and especially the lever action were literally impossible for me to use reliably with the PS Move but when I replayed it on the Quest they became my favorite guns. So much fun when the tracking actually works.

I'm recovering from surgery right now and can do pretty much nothing but lie down all day so I've gotten back into Pokemon Unite on my phone/Switch, which is honestly a godsend right now. It turns out I picked a good time to pick it up because there's an anniversary event going on to get Mewtwo for free, plus I finally got that Pirate Cinderace costume I wanted through a daily prize drawing. Being laid up sucks, but sometimes it's the little things that keep you going.

Game quality notwithstanding, how are you liking the actual experience of using the Quest vs the PSVR?

Everyone is sucking off Baldur's Gate III right now, but I don't want to drop full price on it before I even know if it's the kind of game that will appeal to me. Got this for less than 4 bucks on CD Keys.

You have to install Oculus ADB drivers, make an Oculus developer account so you can access developer features, and then use one of the sideloading programs available online.

I honestly love my Quest 2. I jailbroke mine but even if you don't there's a ton of games for it and you can also play Alyx if your PC is up to snuff. Meta also started doing a subscription service kinda like PS+ where you can pay 7.99 a month and get two games every month that would normally cost much more than that. You picked a good time to get one.

Diablo IV has its issues, but one thing I like a lot is that unique side quest items will drop from enemies even if you haven't picked up the side quest yet. Your character won't know what it is, but when you run into the NPC who wants it you can just go "Oh hey it just so happens I already have one of those." It's a great little time saver.

Diablo IV This entry tried some new things for the series, some good and some bad. How you feel about the changes will probably depend on how much of a purist you are, but here's where I stand on this game: The Good - The campaign is better than III's campaign. It's not amazing or anything but it is more interesting, and Lilith is a pretty good villain. - The overworld is huge and absolutely stuffed with dungeons, random world events, and side content. You can spend a time of time here without even touching the main story. - Respeccing is relatively painless. Just pay some gold for each point you want back. The cost goes up as you level up more, but so far it hasn't been anything I can't manage. - You can see other players running around on the map and can party up with them in just a couple of button presses if you want. Assuming they accept your invite, of course. - Mounts are now a thing. You can't fight from them, but they help you move around the map faster. You can't use them inside of dungeons, but you can use them in towns and on the overworld. They also help you run through unwanted fights, although if you get too overwhelmed the horse will get scared and throw you off. The Bad - Always online. This sucks. While I understand that certain features like the world events and the timed bounties necessitate a persistent connection, there should at least be an option for a scaled down offline mode with fewer features. It'd be better than nothing. - Level scaling. Some people like it, but I'm not a fan. When the enemies are always the same level as you it barely feels like you're getting stronger. This was patched recently so enemies never scale over level 95, but that really only matters after you've been playing for hundreds of hours. - Some skills are just flat out better than others, build be damned. I played a druid and the poison creep summon was so much better than the wolves and the ravens that the latter two weren't even worth considering. We're talking a massive AOE summon that poisons huge groups of enemies and does lots of damage versus a couple of pets that bite someone every few seconds. The Ugly - The game recently got a patch that buffed enemies and nerfed players by a lot without really giving us anything to make up for the nerfs. As a result the game now feels a good bit harder than it did before, and not in a good way. This actually pissed people off so much that Blizzard had to come out and promise never to do a patch like this again, but quite frankly Blizzard's word isn't worth shit to me. I mostly enjoyed the game and I do intend to keep playing and go for the platinum (getting a hardcore character to 50 is going to be a bitch). However, if you're wondering whether or not to get into it my advice would be to give them a while to iron out the kinks and see where the game lands by the time they announce the inevitable expansion.

Got Diablo on eBay because I need something that will last me for a while.

Got the Final Fantasy XVI platinum. It's not too grindy or difficult. The hardest trophy is finishing the game on hard mode, which requires a second playthrough, but if you're any good at character action games then it's perfectly doable.

I had a store coupon.

Final Fantasy XVI This is quite a departure from the traditional FF experience, but one thing I always respect in this franchise is that they try new things. It doesn't always work out, but they aren't afraid to take risks, which is admirable. In this case, they sure did do a lot of things that will probably piss off purists. Clive is the only controllable character, the combat is purely action based, there are no airships, the world is made up of large hub areas instead of one seamless map, the story is firmly rooted in medieval times, there is significantly more gore and swearing, and there are several series staples missing such as cactuars, tonberries, and status effects. But let's say you're okay with all these changes. How does it hold up as a standalone game without the FF legacy to live up to? Well, pretty decently, I'd say. While the combat was clearly inspired by games like Devil May Cry, it also isn't as complex or as difficult as a true character action game, which is by design. There is a hard mode, but you only get access to it in NG+, which I think was a mistake because the game is kind of easy in normal mode. You get access to a sword, magic that you shoot like a projectile, a handful of command abilities, and equippable special abilities granted by the game's summons. Once you're fully decked out it's got a decent amount of depth without being overwhelming, but it'll take you a while to get there because Clive's combat abilities unlock over the course of the story. The first few hours are pretty simple and button-mashy. Normal enemies you can just whack to death but for large enemies and bosses you will need to use the right abilities to quickly fill their stagger meter and then unload on them with your hardest hitting moves while they're down. The game also has a LOT of cutscenes. Apparently 11 hours worth, according to Youtube, and I could definitely see some people getting put off by this if they're not used to Kojima-like storytelling. Fortunately, I found the plot rather engaging and the characters pretty likable. In fact, this game has what is now my favorite Cid in the franchise, even more than FFVII's Cid. It had shades of Final Fantasy Tactics and Final Fantasy IX to me, which are two of my favorite games in the franchise, but of course your mileage may vary. One thing pretty much everyone can agree on is that the voice acting is probably the best it's ever been in a Final Fantasy game. A really nice feature is the Active Time Lore. At just about any time, including during a cutscene, if you're having trouble following the story you can hold down the touchpad and it will pause the game and bring up a small menu of relevant people and places that you can quickly read to bring yourself up to speed. As many people and countries as there are getting constantly discussed, this is a big help in making sure you don't get hopelessly confused. My main criticisms of the game are its easy difficulty and the fact that most of the sidequests boil down to "go here, kill this." You don't want to skip them though because some of the sidequests unlock important upgrades or even gameplay features, like a rideable chocobo. If you play it, I recommend not using any of the auto-dodge or auto-combo rings that you are given in the beginning because they turn the game into a brainless button masher and also hold you back from using the most efficient combo strings. Think of this as something like Metal Gear meets Devil May Cry meets Asura's Wrath.

Assassin's Creed Syndicate Got it from CDKeys for 6 bucks because I like the Victorian aesthetic. It's fine. What can I really say? It's an Assassin's Creed game. The grapping hook was a really nice addition but other than that there isn't much to write home about. It was worth the bargain bin price I paid for it, but I'm done now. Bring on Final Fantasy XVI.

And this game is one where you really don't want to be making unnecessary button presses more than ever.

Okay so I love Tears of the Kingdom a lot but why do I have to hit the A button to pick up rupees? I really hate when games do this. Why would I ever, in any universe, not want to pick up the money lying on the ground? It should be picked up just by touching it at the bare minimum.

With as much care as they put into the rest of the game it kind of baffles me that they did not think of that.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom I am one of those people who believed, still believes, and will probably always believe that Breath of the Wild was an overhyped tech demo. This, however, feels like the fully realized game that I wanted the previous one to be. Almost all of my major complaints about BotW have been addressed in some form, although sometimes I must admit some of the improvements feel more like a band-aid than a proper fix for my gripes. Weapon durability, my biggest annoyance, isn't as annoying now thanks to weapon fusing. I still think weapons break too fast unless you fuse them with certain materials, but they at least last long enough that I don't feel the need to avoid fights entirely. The dungeons are better, the bosses are better, the story is better, the characters are better, the voice acting is better, and the powers you get are way more interesting, not to mention more useful. Don't even get me started on how fun it is to build stuff. I'm never very good at building games so I was afraid it would be overwhelming but it's very user-friendly and easy to use. I was making all kinds of crazy contraptions. I only have two major complaints, really. First, rain still sucks. I know there are elixirs and armor to help mitigate slipping on wet surfaces while climbing, but it really shouldn't be a thing to begin with. Rain and especially thunderstorms just bring the whole game to a halt until the weather clears up and as far as I know rainy weather has no benefit to you whatsoever. You can't cook, you can't start fires, you can barely climb, you can't equip any metal weapons or armor. Rain is bullshit. My second issue is with the new powers you get from the dungeons. I actually like them a lot and I love how they're implemented on the field, but the problem is they're activated in a way that's really clunky and no matter how careful you are you're pretty much guaranteed to constantly activate powers you didn't intend to use. There is pretty much no way around it and all you can do is learn to live with it. Oh well. Still, huge improvement over BotW in my eyes. I love this game and it's probably going to be my GOTY.

I sure hope you got that one on Game Pass.

No way it's PS5 compatible. I bet that was a mobile game he was playing.

$3500 and it doesn't even play VR games? Who exactly is this for?