TheMightyEthan

I don't remember either, it's been over almost a year since I played it. That would make sense though, since that's similar to how they did it in The Witcher 3.

Maybe they shouldn't have made it look like any other random side job then. I'm half kidding. In general I think big open world games are too full of busywork, and I don't have the patience to do it anymore, so I think hiding major content behind apparent busywork is a good way to get it missed and that's on the dev. But, with Cyberpunk specifically I intend to replay the game when the DLC comes out, and now I understand it's a permeating design throughout the world that stuff is just deeper than I've come to expect based on other games, so I do intend to dive into a lot more of that stuff when I replay it.

Okay Mr. Fun Police.

I did not, because it didn't involve a major side character I was interested in. *Edit - From googling around it looks like that one's easy to miss in general, because it just presents like any other random side job, it doesn't get interesting until you're a decent way into it.

Hey! I did all the side stuff for all the major characters! Like Panem, and Jacky, etc... Even the AI chauffeur guy.

So I'm already noticing a pattern emerging for this year... Though Xbox vs. PC is a weird distinction, since most of the PC games I've played have been through Game Pass and are Play Anywhere games so I can seamlessly switch back and forth. The 1 game I actually played on Xbox was Signalis, because its retro graphics didn't really benefit from being on PC and my Xbox uses less power.

Plague Tale: Requiem This game is so good, it's the perfect example of what a sequel should be, feeling very much like the original, just improved and expanded. If you liked Innocence at all I would definitely recommend you play this. I was slightly worried through the first third or so, where there were several sections of getting past enemies that I felt were too long and drawn out and finnicky, but luckily that dramatically improved later in the game, probably due to the additional tools for getting past/dealing with them. And the ending is *so* strong. Spoilers for the post-credits scene: Grade: A with a

Yeah, that used to be the way I played RPGs, but I just don't have the time any more. As I said, I did the side quests that caught me interest, which was a fair few of them in the base game (I think I did every "secondary quest" there), but only like one in Blood and Wine. Basically a side quest has to be interesting enough from the outset that I'm more interested in doing that than I am in whatever the next step of the main quest is, and that's pretty hard to accomplish. The safest way to do it is to have a character I'm already invested in say something like, "come talk to me before you leave town, I have a thing I need help with." I did all of those type of quests. That actually brings up one thing I really liked about this game though, the division of quests into primary, secondary, and contracts. It made it easy to immediately see how substantial any new quest might be.

I beat the base game in 50 hours, Hearts of Stone in about 4.5, and Blood and Wine in 7. I played both of them the same way I played the base game: mostly focusing on the main quest, and doing side quests that caught my interest. *Edit - How Long to Beat puts Blood and Wine at 15.5 hours for most players, 40 hours if you 100% it, so I was fast but you were very much on the long side.

The Witcher 3: Hearts of Stone This was basically just a big side quest chain. I liked parts of it (the heist, the last quest) and really really didn't like others (the wedding, the house). So, very mixed, but I liked the way it ended, which is the most important part. Grade: C The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine This was good, but I think it was overhyped. Everyone made it sound like it was this amazing epilogue to the main game, when it pretty much has nothing to do with it whatsoever. But, that aside, it was well done, and I found it interesting throughout, none of the lows of Hearts of Stone. And Touissant was very pretty, I didn't realize how drab and grey the Witcher main game was until I got there. Overall, it's up there with some of the better DLC I've played, it just wasn't some amazing capstone on the game like people made it sound. Grade: B+ As an aside, playing Blood and Wine made me really really want to go back to Cyberpunk, I wish we knew when that expansion was coming.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt I don't know if any of you have heard this before, but this game is actually pretty good. It took a while to hook me, which I thought was a bad sign after I bounced off the first two, but after about 10 hours it got its claws in me, and once it did I was on straight through to the end. The combat is a little clunky by modern standards, but the characters, world, and story are very well done. I see why everyone was so hyped for Cyberpunk. I made the decision to go in blind and not look up what endings were available or how to get them, and I think I made the right choice. I also managed to get an ending I'm satisfied with, even without looking. So yeah, if you like RPGs I would recommend checking this one out. I now definitely have my eye on the Witcher 1 remake, when before I had no interest. Grade: A Now on to Hearts of Stone, and then Blood and Wine.

Am I probably going to buy Returnal to 100% again, even though I already have too many things to play? Yes, mostly likely I am.

For me there's no "correct" version of Persona 3 to port, but P3P is the best of bad options. The inability to control your teammates in FES is a dealbreaker for me. That said, I wish they'd made some kind of ultimate edition that includes all the upgrades from both P3P and FES.

Whaddya know? That's where I quit!

I really like the shininess.

I wonder if there's something wrong with your particular deck's wifi? Mine is crazy fast, it might be the fastest device I have.

So here's my best guess at what's going on in Signalis:

So, because I'm insane, I decided to get a 4070 Ti, though my brother in law is going to buy my 3080 from me, which will cover most of the cost. So I'm upgrading for just a couple hundred dollars.

Somerville I actually liked this game, not sure why it was panned so bad. It's from a new studio started by one of the creators of Limbo and Inside, and while it's not quite as good as those games, it's close. Certainly captures the same feel. The main change is that it's "3D", although really it plays more like 2.5D, you tend to be moving in one direction and have a small amount of cross-wise freedom, but it's limited enough that I think it could easily be converted into a fully 2.5D game like Inside without really losing anything. The powers you have are cool, and really the worst thing I can say about it is a couple of the puzzles were kind of obtuse, but that's to be expected in a puzzle game. Basically, if you liked Playdead's games I'd say give this one a try. Grade: B+

I already had a USB-C hub with HDMI for use with my Switch when I take it to other places, so we could play Mario Kart or whatever, so I've used that a few times. Mostly I've used it when I need to do stuff in desktop mode, but also broke it out at my sister's house on New Year's to play Jackbox.

Yeah, I really loved the art style a lot.

Signalis This game is basically Dead Space x Dino Crisis, with a 32-bit aesthetic. The plot was weird and confusing and I barely understand what happened, and I loved every second of it. Grade: A+

Yeah, I'm noticing the same thing with my 3080, and it's rather upsetting. I'm probably going to end up getting 40-series card, which makes me a sad panda. Apparently with the Witcher specifically though, it's actually a CPU bottlenecking issue, not GPU. I believe Plague Tale is actually better balanced in that regard, so it may hold up better. With G-sync I'm fine all the way down to about 50-fps, it's below that that things start feeling rough to me (though apparently even with a 4090 and 12900k The Witcher 3 update will be in the 30's-40's in the major cities unless you turn on DLSS3...)

I'm still waiting for the ray tracing patch before playing Plague Tale.

Ooh, what's Heaven's Vault? Banner looks intersting.