TheMightyEthan

Also got an SD card, planning to put Windows on it for the Steam Deck so I can play Game Pass games too.

Ordered the 512GB Steam Deck. They're still saying 1-2 weeks, so fingers crossed that holds and there isn't a massive post-Christmas slowdown. Especially since it's looking like I'm going to have to go on a work trip starting on the 17th, and I'd really like to have this for that. I'm also planning to get an SD card and dual-boot Windows so I can play Game Pass games and stuff on it.

I shelved that game after a couple hours. The combat was barely passable, and the humor was just mildly amusing. My main reaction to the jokes was "I understood that reference," which isn't exactly high praise. So scores in the 60's seem about right to me.

GOTY: Horizon: Forbidden West I loved Zero Dawn, and this is basically just a refinement of that. The world is just so cool, exploring the lore is so cool, I love the story, everything about it is great to me. I can't wait for the DLC. Very few things could have topped this for me, and since there's no Zelda this year it clinches it. Runner-Up: Elden Ring The fact that this is even on my list at all is really quite an accomplishment. I have previously tried and bounced off of Dark Souls, Dark Souls 2, Bloodborne, and Sekiro, so I was convinced From games just aren't for me. The only reason I even tried it is because everyone was hyping it up so much, and boy am I glad I did. I think the factor that finally made it click for me is that the ability to go wherever you want means you don't have to just keep beating your head against a wall if you encounter a part that's too hard, you can just go somewhere else for a while and come back when you're stronger. I'm sure there's more to it than that, but that was the biggest thing, and boy am I glad they did it. This game is great. Honorable Mention: Sifu This is another game that kind of came out of nowhere for me. Normally I'd say I'm not a fan of "hard" games, but Elden Ring and this one would seem to question that. The combat in this just feels so good, and I loved learning the levels and strategizing how to go about it to keep your age down going into the next level. I can't wait to see what they do next.

That looks cool, kinda wish they'd kept the 65 million years ago thing a secret though, could have been a cool reveal, like the Matrix.

Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope This game could have been great if it hadn't spent so much time shooting itself in the foot. I loved the first one, so this was a major disappointment, made all the more frustrating because the actually battle system is improved from the original. The problem is the stupid open areas they made for each world, where you have to do boring, tedious puzzles to advance to get to the next battles. It was okay for the first world, by the second world it was starting to drag a bit, and by the third world I was completely over it. By the fifth world I was legit hate playing the game. Then, the sixth and final world does away with all that and it's glorious and just makes me even more frustrated with the rest of the shit I had to put up with to get there. The battle system is great though, it's similar to the first but refined, and the grid system is removed, instead allowing your characters to run around freely within a certain distance of their starting position until they fire their weapon, which locks them down. It feels great to play, and I wish the rest of the game didn't ruin it. Grade: C+

God of War: Ragnarok So, you may have heard, this game is pretty good. I had a good time throughout, I never felt like it dragged, it had the perfect balance of giving me side stuff to do when I wanted and not gating the main story so I could always progress if I wanted that instead. The combat was really fun too, especially the new weapon. You definitely feel the limitations of the different realms, they're open-ish but still feel pretty restricted, in a way that feels more like a PS360 era game than a modern one, but once you get used to it it doesn't detract from the experience. The story is also really compelling for the first 95%. I did think the very end fell a little flat, I was hoping for more spectacle in the last confrontation than what we got, which left me a little down on it when the credits rolled, but the epilogue pulled me back in and the really-actually-the-final-end part was about as perfect as it could have been. Since finishing it I've been wrapping up the remaining content, working towards the plat, and I've cycled from love to hate and back again about three times. Basically there keeps being more to do than what I realized, and I keep getting irritated with it for that, but then I get back in the groove of actually playing, and it just feels so good that I can't stay mad at it. It also keeps dropping little extra lore tidbits that are just amazing, even in the post-game, which definitely helps lessen the feeling of grind. Grade: A

I'm afraid that this DLC is gonna be one of those things where I go back to it and am like "oh no, I have no idea how to play this game anymore..."

I want a new monitor, but I just can't justify it when I spend probably 90% of my PC gaming time on the TV anyway.

With the sequel coming out I've been meaning to replay Outer Worlds and play the expansions, which I've heard good things about, and even though the base game is on Game Pass the full collection was almost as cheap on Steam (through cdkeys) as just the expansion pass was on the MS store, and I don't like buying DLC for games I don't own, so I decided just to buy the whole thing this way.

What resolution are you playing at?

Yeah, I agree, the first one was great, the sequel is a slog, and it's entirely due to the open worlds in between battles.

Ooh, let me know how it is.

I definitely thought so.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever This is one of the better Marvel movies they've put out. Solid A-tier. It does have a little bit of a problem with the antagonists being anti-colonialist again, which is unfortunate, but at least it avoids actually putting Wakanda on the side of the imperialist powers so it avoids the biggest problems that could cause. Definitely recommend if you think there's even a chance you're interested.

There's an especially egregious one in Knights of the Old Republic, on the water planet after you blow up the underwater mining facility, when you return to the surface the guards come to arrest you (understandably). I was playing dark side, and was all ready to fight the guards, cause fuck that, but noooo, my evil Sith lord goes along with the bastards!

The Spectrum Retreat This game was okay. It seemed really promising at first, the setting was intriguing and the puzzles were engaging. As it went on it kind of lost its lustre though. It seems to think very highly about itself, like it has a very Deep and Important story, but it's really just not all that interesting. And the puzzles go from enjoyably difficult to irritatingly obtuse, with many of the later puzzles ending up with you stuck where you cannot possibly progress due to information you can't possibly have known, so you have to just restart them. It makes it less solving a puzzle than just brute-force trial-and-erroring your way through, because you often can't get enough of a picture of the whole setup to be able to plan ahead. I liked it enough to finish it, but there was definitely a little bit of hate-playing there at the end. I wish the whole thing lived up to the start. Grade: C

... what is it?

Alien: Isolation It was the time between save points that killed it for me, combined with the occasional unavoidable death from the xenomorph. It just got too frustrating when I'd have to redo the same 5 minutes multiple times because of things that I didn't feel like were my fault. It sucks, because otherwise the game was really really good.

I already probably wasn't getting one at launch, and now I'm definitely not getting one at launch.

Hey, I also quit after the first puzzle! Crazy how that works... I actually thought the art style was really well done, but it seems like it's completely divorced from what you're actually doing. Like, it could have been replaced by a generic run-down abandoned science facility and everything else could have been exactly the same.

Yeah, I already didn't like Dead Space 2 as much cause it was too Aliens and not enough Alien, so if DS3 is even more that then I don't think it's for me (which is also in line with everything I've heard).

Nope It was described as a horror, but I don't really think it was one. Still great though. Beyond that, I don't have a whole lot to add to what Metal already said, but that last spoiler tag blew my mind. Us Also wasn't what I was expecting, but in a good way. Creepy as absolute shit too.

Do you think the execs will ever realize that they need to build up the individual franchises before they bring them all together for one big team movie?

Scary.