Gaming

I definitely feel like I got an absolute steal of a deal. No idea when the sale ends, but I got all 3 games in the BioShock series, with DLC, and the 2 remasters for a little over $11USD before tax this weekend. I just finished my first time playing any of the games on PC. Had to install the original on my desktop with win10 because I couldn't get the resolution right or brightness slider working on my steam deck when docked. Definitely prefer console controls because I was having a lot of trouble with mouse and keyboard controls, so I'm gonna have to switch to controller.

Other than that, I started playing Stellar Initiative this weekend as well and it's was pretty difficult on the easiest difficulty while I was learning how to play and what works well with which enemies.

Actively, I’m on my second Baldur’s Gate 3 run. Recently made it to act 3 and I couldn’t be more excited about rearranging Gortash bones with my monk.

Also playing Disco Elysium and enjoying it so much. However, I feel it requires dedication or else you lose track of what you’ve got to do, which is a struggle for me.

Got two more games on the “paused” pile, but I won’t say which ones to avoid awakening the shame neurone ~~because the pause has lasted a whole year~~.

The New Order was enjoyable vengence porn against Nazis, it's a good time; maybe I need that again!

I've been playing the heck out of Harebrained Schemes' BattleTech; I haven't binge-played like this in a long time. It never feels fair; 2-1 odds is typical, but it's always possible. Pretty satisfying to overcome unfair situations. Makes me feel smart and capable! Plus, jumpy stompy robots!

Just finished pillars of eternity, waiting for avowed to come out now.

Diablo 3 & 4

Been playing Arcanum, hopefully through to the end for the first time this time. Only begun it before, never got far. The game has a lot of charms, but also a lot of frustrations. Typical Troika, I guess. When it's firing on all cylinders and the pieces of a quest puzzle happen to click into place it can be great, but oftentimes imbecilic design decisions get in the way of having fun. And it doesn't help that combat is horrible and the animations are ugly, even for its time.

I'm towards the end of the game now so I'll try to push through since I'd like to have finished it at least once. I do enjoy the world building, at least parts of it. It's a little disappointing that the races are derivative sort of boilerplate fantasy Tolkienesque Dwarves and Elves and Halflings etc, but the Victorian era inspired steampunk setting is well executed and the tension and conflict between magic and technology feels fully fleshed out and very grounded in the game world. I also really appreciate the again very Victorian flavored racism towards Orcs and Half-Orcs, including an explicit reference to The Jewish Question.

I couldn't put down Baldur's Gate 3, again, but managed to beat Honor Mode for the first time. It felt like my characters were doing twice the damage, compared to my previous time in Act 3, so I just mopped the floor with pretty much all the bosses. There are a few more playthroughs I want to do, but I want to wait a bit. I've had like over 150 hours of BG3 this year already.

If anyone is interested, here are some more details of the run:

Then, I continued Final Fantasy VII Rebirth today. I completed a quest, won a Chocobo Race and fought a boss. Not much progress, but with BG3 done, maybe I can focus on this one.

I started 1000xRESIST over the weekend and just can't put it down, I should finish it in a few hours.

After that, I'll likely pick up either Divinity: Original Sin 2 (I'm a couple of hours in) or the DLCs for Alan Wake 2 (since I finished the main game a few days ago), we'll see.

Most of my gaming time recently has been The Finals. Of all the new shooters released over the past couple of years, I feel The Finals has been the one that tried the most to be its own thing. And I think that is why its earned its own dedicated fan base. I normally try play a couple rounds a day and keep it casual.

There is also a !THE_FINALS@fedia.io community. It would be cool to see a Lemmy Finals community grow.

Playing some more of DA: Veilguard. My wife is desperate for me to finish it so she can discuss the ending with me. I'm really enjoying how dynamic the combat is definitely the most fun from an action perspective on the series, less tactical but more technical with the parries and dodges. I'm digging the found family vibes too, it's just nice to hang out with some good mutually supportive people sometimes rather than loads of conflict drama.

Just finished Yakuza 0 and am psyched to start Yakuza Kiwami (which is a remake of the first Yakuza game). The action is soo good. Beating the shit out of enemies is already satisfying enough, but where it gets really good is when you build up something called a Heat meter as you're fighting. Once it builds up, you get access to Heat Actions and they are nuts.

I mean just look at this madness (spoilers for move unlocks)!

I've started playing a game called Yaoling, which is a monster taming/collecting game. The battling system is much more like Yo-Kai Watch than Pokémon - you're not really bossing them around, they kind of do their own thing once you've made preparations and started.

Absolutely spectacular gameplay so far, I'm really impressed. Love the artwork and monster designs. It's in early access right now and it warns you to expect some bugs, but other than a lot of typos in the English translation I've only come across a couple minor issues. Official release planned for mid-July I think.

I played a bit of Granblue Fantasy Relink, I'm at the last chapter of the story. I still haven't finished it, the story itself wasn't particularly memorable, but the environments were gorgeous and the gameplay is fun. For the gameplay tho, I'm a bit worried about the endgame/postgame, as there wasn't much variety in fights.

I'm still playing Fire Emblem Engage. The gameplay is overall really good, but I'm a bit confused that new units are much better than most of the previous ones. From the initial party I think I've kept using only Chloé and Jean, while the others had better replacements every few chapters. It's not exactly a complaint but it feels a bit weird.

I would have tried continuing FFVII Rebirth, but I remembered I bought FFIX last sales and played that nonstop during the weekend.

I too am in the mood for Wolfenstein, I'm thinking of playing the second one.

Played a bit of Metro Exodus last night. One of the best games I've played in a while, even though the silence of your character is weird.