What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them?

Played through Tactical Breach Wizards (Steam) and it was an absolute joy. The combat is more of a puzzle feel than the punishing pace of XCOM or similar tactics games, since the emphasis is on finding optimal or particular solutions to problems rather than merely surviving intact. The game is free with revisions, respecs and replays in order to let you try each scenario in a variety of different ways.

I would be remiss not to mention the writing in this game, because it is stellar. The comedy is snappy and hilarious, and when they introduce serious dialog it actually hits pretty hard while not disrupting the game's overall laconic tone. An A+ game, by the same studio that released Gunpoint and Heat Signature.

Astrobot: This is probably GOTY for me. But for one particular reason: my partner who doesn't game likes it as well so we are able to play it together swapping the controller back and forth. I really like how the difficulty is curved in such a way that she can play the first several worlds and at a certain point wants a break just as it starts getting difficult enough for me to enjoy it. It's really been a lot of fun to share this hobby with her.

I also picked up an NES and a couple games:
Ninja Gaiden: I really love playing this on original hardware. It controls extremely tightly and I'm really enjoying it.
Joust: We haven't had a chance to play it. My cartridge is pretty sensitive so I just figured out how to load it in so that it is playable. Might have to wipe down the pins a bit.
Excitebike: Having fun learning this one. It's a simple game but has more depth than I remembered.

Bit of a weird week for me.
First I tried out Rainworld after getting it recommend a lot. I heard the controls were a hurdle but wow I wasn't expecting basically getting hand cramp after an hour.
Also I died maybe 10 times already without making much progress, its a hard grind. I think I'll watch some new player tips videos and go back to it.

With my friends we all re-downloaded Outward.
We played like 20 hours of it during Covid and didn't get far with the weird coop. However with the power of mods the game is incredibly fun! We played for hours at the weekend and got loads done. The combat feels very satisfying with some tweaks and we fixed the shared quests which was basically the huge killer for us. Big recommend for anyone looking for a coop game with a bit of difficulty.

Lastly we had one game of Lethal Company. None of my friends nor I had played before and wow I see why it was so popular. I've not laughed so hard in a while, but I also couldn't play for more than like an hour because my adrenaline was going so hard. Always fun to find a game like that!

Playing Final Fantasy XVI on PC and near the end of the main quest now, taking my time to grind out all the sidequests.

On PC performance, it definitely needs Lyall's FFXVIFix. The cutscenes are hard capped to 30 FPS without it and there's a lot of cutscenes in this game. If you go straight with the main quest it becomes very cutscene heavy on the level of MGS4. Those epic FMVs from previous titles? Large chunks of the main quest are like that. It's feels more like a playable big budget HBO series punctuated by some moments of gameplay in between. The M rating is used to great effect here, but don't expect a moogle saying "fuck" or anything. For pure spectacle, it's pretty hard to top. There's multiple plot points in the game that oozes "final boss fight" energy and they keep getting better than the last.

Another is the character writing. Clive and his merry band of friends make a lot of surprisingly practical decisions, some are upfront they're winging a particularly crazy plan. Ever had a moment when watching a show that you wanted to scream at the TV because a character was doing something incredibly stupid at a critical point in the story? Clive is like the complete opposite of that. He doesn't kill a whole bad guy hideout's worth of mooks then spares the leader because he heard a sob story. He doesn't monologue with the big bad guy in a story act trying to change their ways at the last minute. Koji also makes his mark again here with the English localization, bringing the infamous item descriptions from FF14 that read like an English major gone mad.

On the gameplay side, I've appreciated that each mainline title in the series completely change things up, so I'm not putting any expectations that it should be turn-based or have a party or whatever. If you're looking for more meat on the RPG side then this game ain't it. It plays more like DMC-lite in an FF skin given the combat director. Like most games in the series, stat growth is completely automatic and most gear are stat sticks. The game hands you crafting materials that forge a very specific weapon as you go. You have infinite inventory except for potions, gil is practically useless aside from buying music for your hub (which can only be played one at a time on repeat) or NG+ gear. If anything, AP (skill points) is the real "currency" of the game.

There's combo damage but no elemental damage, so you busting out fire magic against a Bomb doesn't matter. There's a few status effects but stagger, frozen and "in midair" are the main ones to care about. Parries and perfect dodges can trigger more powerful versions of existing skills. Magic burst is like a lightweight version of Nero's Exceed. You can charge up your magic attack while attacking and let loose at the end for more damage, which can be awkward on the default controller layout.

For other downsides, one of my main gripes is your current companion don't have enough things to say and kind of just stand there. And you can clearly see where the focus (and the mocap budget) went. Without mocap, side quests have characters awkwardly standing around, or fading to black for things they didn't want to animate or talk that feels utterly dated and 2000s-era Bioware has done better. The most infuriating ones are the long unskippable animation where Clive receives and hands over items out of camera. Clive's magical pocket can even fit things like bolts of linen or planks of wood and he hands them over like trinkets.

Since this is getting long, one last item is a shoutout to the game's metanarrative "State of the Realm" feature. It's the world map superimposed with an interactive timeline of the main quest which feels like a wargaming table or WW2 battle map. It shows what other factions in the world are doing, current troop movements and how your actions in the main quest are affecting everyone else as the story progresses. You click on an object on the map and it pops up a codex entry for that item. I'd love other future story heavy games to just outright steal this feature to give a "what's happening right now" overview of where you're at while playing a long story.

At its core this is an old-school linear theme park ride with all the smoke and mirrors you can muster. And despite some bumps, what a ride it is.

Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom

LoZ is one of my favorite gaming franchises ever! I've beaten almost every main line game. I've been excited for this. I'm almost at the second dungeon and I'm really enjoying it. It's not making my top 5 LoZ games, but I'm really glad they made this. On top of finally playing as the titular character, the mechanic is fun and unique. Being able to play copies of enemies or objects you encounter makes for fun combat and exploration. You can also swing a sword to a limited extent as well.

It seems you might be able to approach the adventure in a non-linear fashion, but I'm just going the way they tell me. The art style is cute and I'm really digging the music. If you like Legend of Zelda and puzzles, then this game is for you!

Also tried Monopoly Go for the first time. It's a fun little time waster

Stellar Blade

Trying to like it. I played the demo when it came out, and thought it was okay, though only ran through it once. Finally found a cheap copy on disc and went for it. It's not gelling with me though. I think the world building / setting is great, and the story might be good too, but I can't force myself to like the gameplay.

The demo left me with a souls-like feeling, which is why I went for it. I so much wanted the combat to be more measured, in the way of Dark Souls, or Monster Hunter, but it really isn't. It's much more Bayonetta than Souls or MH, and I think it's likely that I'll re-sell the disc and move on. I'll watch the story beats play out on YouTube.

Monster Hunter Rise

Just started a hammer run. First time using the hammer in post-World Monster Hunter, though I did use it a bit in Generations. I have many, many, many hours in Rise and all Monster Hunter games before it back to 3U.

Let's see if I can finish the game before Wilds releases.

I finished Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown yesterday. It is a fantastic game and a wonderful metroidvania. It reminds me of the Castlevania franchise but a little more light-hearted and non-gothic. The game took me 28.5 hours to beat (I did a lot of side stuff), but I didn't 100% because that involves completing "trials" which are unbelievably difficult and some seem nigh-impossible. For instance, one challenge involves you beating all bosses in succession without getting hit. I said fuck it.

However, I went and got the new DLC for it and I hated it. It only cost $4.99, but it was noticeably more difficult than the base game. It isn't hard like the trials I needed to complete to 100% the game, but it definitely was made with the idea of trial-and-error to get through numerous sections. Maybe they wanted it to be more challenging as the devs thought the game was too easy, maybe they did this to make the DLC seem longer. Either way, it was a waste of money and I dropped it. I've now resumed Fallout 4 and I intend to complete it now after a month-long break.

Bought The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom and finished it over the weekend. The game didn't hook me like Tears of the Kingdom did (where I was staying up late playing even on weeknights), but it was still very enjoyable and feels spot on in terms of length and scope.

General thoughts:

• I love the focus on letting the player experiment with whatever tools they have without punishment for failure. There's no item cost for using echoes (as there is with making stuff in TotK, if you're not using whatever junk is lying around). There's no penalty for falling into a pit when your plan doesn't pan out. You can recover health just by sleeping pretty much anywhere. There are basically no barriers to travelling between regions if you can build something to get you over the obstacles.

• It is a little frustrating at the start to have to constantly hang back and watch your echoes slowly fight even basic enemies, but it's not an issue by mid/late game where you can start deploying stronger units / units which have the strategic advantage in the situation. Selecting the right units for the job and recalling them as needed has an oddly Pokemon-like feel to it which I dig.

• Dungeons are back and are for the most part pretty good room to room, but feel very linear compared to those from Link to the Past (the most obvious inspiration down to the world map) or even Link's Awakening (which had some devilishly elaborate dungeons for a game originally on the GB!)

• Playing as Zelda makes the role playing aspect of the game more interesting. Characters react appropriately to meeting a celebrity. Being the princess means you have pre-existing motives and relationships which come with that background. I wasn't expecting this at all given role playing isn't a focus of the series, but it feels different to playing a blank slate like Link and makes for a nice change of pace.

• Although a lot of the loot you find is pretty inconsequential (just like BotW and TotK), sometimes you'll find equippable items which improve your abilities (or which are just fun in other ways, like the various dress up outfits). I thought this was a good compromise between removing the possibility of discovering cool unique treasure altogether and having powerful items that players might miss or obtain too early in an open world-ish kind of game.

I bought two radically different games this week.

Tiny Glade

More of a toy than a game, it fills the same niche as Townscaper but on a micro scale. The buildable area is rather small, but you can cram a lot of tiny details into each building. You're given a few basic tools, and it's up to you to combine them seamlessly. Don't hesitate to take a look at screenshots to get some inspiration, because you can make really complex buildings that don't look possible at all. It's really pleasant to use, and I got lost an afternoon while reproducing a small part of my medieval city.

It requires a relatively decent PC too. For reference, my Steam Deck struggles to maintain 40fps while the fan is running at max speed, and my map is half empty. Also, as the game only supports mouse+keyboard, it's awkward to use on the Deck.

Nova Drift

Shoot enemies, collect xp, gain levels, and stack dozens of modifications for you ship to make it radically different from a game to another. Drone swarms, stealth with slow and powerful blades, classical pew-pews, flak cannon, lasers, burning shields, ramming tank, life drain... Everything goes. It's varied enough to keep things really fresh, and you can even respec to better synergize your weapon, hull, and shield.

A word of caution though: it looks like a twin-stick shooter, but it's mechanically not. The left joystick is used to orientate your ship (absolutely or relatively), the left trigger is the propulsion, and the right trigger shoots your weapon. The right joystick is functionally useless. It's absolutely weird and looks like a terrible design mistake at first glance, but it's 100% intentional. Mastering your ship's movement is part of the game, and there are several bonuses that affect rotation and propulsion speed, stabilisation, or add a left/right dodge.

A bit of an unusual one, I've been playing the Ace Attorney Investigations Collection... In German. I've played the first one on the DS and the second one as a fan translation years ago. And figured I'd replay it in German to polish up my skills.

Knowing the plot and what they're talking about helps, as does using Google translate for phrases that I'm really lost with. Still learning another language can be tiring for your brain in a pretty different way.

Balatro
Bought it on mobile. Wasn't sure I was willing to pay for it again, but caved almost immediately the first time I was bored on my phone. They don't have a way yet to import data from other platforms (though they say its on the roadmap), so started from scratch. It's kind of crazy how fast you can unlock stuff when you've got a few hundred hours of experience under your belt. I've just finished unlocking all the jokers and vouchers (though still need to collect a few), which took me about 5 weeks less than my first go :)

Progress pic. The jokers I'm missing are 3 uncommons 1 rare and 4 legendaries. The vouchers are the level 2 hand, discard, and Void. Still haven't gotten a Black Hole or the Mega Spectral Pack. For achievements, other than completing stakes challenges and collection, the only one I still need to get is Tiny Hands (thin a deck down to 20 cards or less).

There was a bug on launch with the Campfire joker that made it not upgrade when selling other Jokers. I had the one that generates 2 commons every round and got Campfire and was sad. Apparently they fixed it already!

Dune: Imperium - Rise of Ix and Immortality expansions

I think both added some interesting things to the game and enjoyed aspects of both of them, though I would give the edge to Rise of Ix over Immortality. Playing with both at the same time didn't seem ideal, at least for my first time trying them.

A potential problem with Rise of Ix is that visiting Foldspace becomes overly important to get 2 influence with the Spacing Guild to unlock the double Shipping action (since Heighliner is prohibitively expensive in the early game, and Shipping replaces the Sell Melange space, which was the easiest way to get a burst of Solari before).

Dreadnoughts are cool! I like having an immortal unit you can chuck into combat just to see if you win anything. I was worried they were going to be too similar to sand worms in Uprising but they didn't feel that way at all.

One of the biggest pros of Immortality is that it replaces your "Dune, the Desert Planet" starter cards with cards that have more upside and that interact with the expansion's mechanics. Seems like a fantastic idea to swap out some of the most "boring" cards so experienced players have more fun things to do from the beginning of the game. Oh yeah, and the other is the family atomics (each player get 1 token they can spend during the game to refresh the card market). Previously I had always played with the "sand worm eats the cards" house rule where at the end of the round, the last card in the row gets refreshed. Since the market can get stale and no one wants to buy a bad card just to see the next one.

I am now curious to see how these expansions play with Uprising, since they are supposed to be compatible.

I discovered nobody saves the world last week, and I had an absolute blast. I’m about 10 hours in, unlocked eight-ish characters and did the first five or six dungeons. The combination of the open worldiness of the game where I can just walk around and discover new places while smashing crates with the procedurally generated dungeons (which I had to retry like 6 times before clearing them) really works for me. It’s just the right amount of grindy. (I like to overlevel)

I’m not normally too skilled in character building, but the game takes you by the hand in terms of the types of skills you can combine and it’s easy to switch between characters to test if a different character is a better fit for the dungeon you’re trying to clear.

The writing is also pretty funny, which compensates well for the almost non existent story. Some side quests are ultra short and absurd, others span multiple npcs/areas and require you to have unlocked specific characters. That makes me feel like I’m always unlocking something. So great pacing.

I also bought UFO 50, and I would love to love it, but after an hour I’m stuck in the first game and it just handles too poorly for me to enjoy it. I know they’re mimicking oldskool games, but the first game just feels too slow for me to enjoy it. Maybe I’ll try again in a few days. (if anyone has any advice into which game is a great starter game in the ufo 50 series: feel free to share!)

Started and finished 1000xResist over the course of a few days. In general I often find myself turned off by games with aging graphics, not for any good reason but more that I just find less of a pull towards them. I have more trouble being engaged or immersed, unless there's a really strong art focus. This is one such game that I was worried I wouldn't get pulled into, and in fact one that sat on a list of "maybe I'll pick it up" because it was so highly reviewed but I was worried about that facet. It did not take very long for the game to grip me, however, because of it's excellent storytelling. In fact, the game is almost entirely about storytelling, so there's not a ton that I can share other than to say that it deals with a lot of difficult themes like intense trauma, bullying, having a tough childhood, extreme ideologies, and the long term effects of violence. It also deals with more societal and human issues like protests, fascism, extreme duress, how self-interested and powerful individuals can cause serious problems and inflict violence, being optimistic or nihilistic in the face of overwhelming odds, and the threat of extinction.

While it isn't a very long game, consisting of maybe a dozen hours of gameplay, I found myself putting it down for a while after certain chapters in order to process what just happened. The story throws a lot of curveballs and reveals information that can easily change the way you frame entire chapters of the story from earlier, but it never feels like it's done in a way that inspires whiplash - nothing ever feels like a 'sudden' realization and I'm honestly not sure how much of it can be attributed to such a difficult story (if everything is fucked, what's one more thing?) and how much is because they do a masterful job at slowly unraveling the enigma of the story that very few pieces of information ever really feel out of place. There's unfortunately only so much I can write without spoiling the story, but I will say that it was one of the best stories I've heard or played through and I'd thoroughly recommend it to anyone who likes a good story or wants to explore the themes I've mentioned above. Also, if anyone else out there played through this, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the story... what did you think? Do you have any lingering questions left over? Were there parts of the story that irked you or that you found particularly moving?

Did play a bit of Timberborn again after having not touched it for a while. There have been several updates, and I was mostly interested in the upcoming update 6 which is available through the experimental mode.

It still is a very fun game to me, and I greatly enjoyed building up a colony. But, I now have a healthy colony which will survive droughts and badtides, so I am already feeling that my itch has been scratched. I greatly enjoy watching some YouTube creators do very extensive builds covering the entire map. But when playing it myself, I often find myself being "bored" before I reach that point.

Which likely has little to do with the game, I find that with all city sims and build games at some point when things stabilize I am also done with the game. I still think it is a fantastic game that only has gotten better over time.

The game I've been binging all month just got released, leaving Early Access, Axon TD.

A fantastic TD from the creators of ElemenTD, meant to be its successor in gameplay. As a veteran fan of TDs from the Warcraft and Starcraft era custom games, this game absolutely scratches the itch that every TD since has failed to reach for me. It currently has 3 modes (Quickplay, Campaign, Survival), but supposedly there may be a 4th mode to be announced in the future. Fingers crossed its a competitive multiplayer mode as I'm not particularly interested in the co-op multiplayer modes that many are enjoying.

I've been dominating the Quickplay leaderboards with no real competition until one guy popped up after the release, hopefully more to come to get some motivation to push the game to the limits.

It may have its current issues such as smorgasbord of units in the later game waves and a couple redundant tower types, but it already achieves such a fantastic balance of tower and maze strategy. For score, there's a very high skill ceiling for pathing the longest asap and both choosing the right tower & placing them in their best performing spots.

Shame its such a niche genre, this game is really fun to get the brain juices flowing without needing twitchy reaction times.

I just got done with Persona 3 Reload via Xbox Gamepass. It was my first experience with any Persona game, and I enjoyed it for the most part. I wound up putting approximately 110 hours into it, but it did feel like it was starting to overstay its welcome towards the end.

I did find it surprising how they managed to stretch out such a small number of locations in a game this long. I played it on easy, and I suspect that the final few boss bottles would have been a rage-inducing slog had I played it on higher difficulties.

I wasn't sure that the high school setting was going to click with me, but it didn't take long for the characters to get their hooks into me. The music was also surprisingly good.

Once I finished with Persona 3, I started with Star Wars Outlaws. I'm only a couple of hours into it yet. The graphics and scenery are excellent, giving a pretty authentic Star Wars vibe, but I'm not too keen on the gameplay so far. It feels pretty slow, and I don't enjoy stealth mechanics all that much, but going loud isn't really an option for me yet because I am stuck with beginner gear and an un-upgraded blaster pistol until I can get a few more missions/side jobs under my belt.

This is probably the first Ubisoft game I have played since Far Cry 5, so it has been a few years. I will reserve judgement for now.

I've also been playing Balatro since it came out for iOS/Android. I already have it on Steam with tons of hours put into it, and now it can ruin my self control when I'm out and about too. Well worth the $10 they are asking for it, and it is also on Apple Arcade if you're into that (I'm not).

Gave in and finally got Helldivers 2. Really, I just wanted to play some games with my friends, since I haven't played anything with them, aside from FFXIV, in awhile.

It's fun! Put in like 20hrs in the last week. Like it's both a serious game, but also dumb fun? Sometimes I'll just call in a napalm strike to clear the bugs...but I'll call it in right on top of us for some added chaos. And if some of us die, oh well.

Dustborn (PS5)

Finished the game, and had mostly happy endings all around. This was a great little adventure.

I got really into the rhythm game sections, and I'm hoping for a spin-off which is a pure Guitar Hero style game where the band tours the Divided States.

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 (Windows)

I was a little harsh on this game at first. It does get more interesting as you progress through it, and get access to new weapons and enemies. I've also played a few operations, where you have character classes to choose from which have their own special abilities, as well as progression trees with unlocks. Still not something I'd play alone, but fun with friends.

Last Train Home (Windows)

Travelling on a train across civil war era Russia. I'm enjoying the mix of base management and tactical missions. The setting is very cool, and it's based on real events.

Knights of the Old Republic II

Playing a heavily modded Android version, which has been fun. I just got off Peregus station, which just seems to go on and on and on; that said, it feels very Obsidian by comparison to the first KOTOR. You're immediately thrown into the intrigue and there's already a lot going on with the story, which has been fun to follow, though I do need to take breaks here and there, given it's very dialogue heavy.

Mobile Golf on GBC

This has been my chill game, when I just need to shut my brain off for awhile and not pay too close attention to anything. It's been fun and I'm running a really neat Shader overlay on it that really makes it feel like a proper GBC screen; it even adds ghosting.

I think I'm nearing the endgame of Satisfactory. We'll see.

I now have a train network between a few factories across the rocky desert, and I'm setting up drones at the moment for some of the trickier targeted deliveries.

I'm getting a bit bound up in the complexity, which is usually a sign I need to automate something a bit better. I'm hoping drones can enable that, as some of the recipes are requiring some crazy stuff now from all over the map.

I've slowed down a bit to take in the beauty of the game. It really is very pretty. Sometimes while I'm pondering my next big project I'll just hop on one of my trains and ride around taking in the sights.

I have finished Witcher 3 a week or two ago after playing it for half a year and was thinking what I would like to play. I want to play Star Wars Fallen Order, Zelda BotW (and right after that the TotK), Forza Horizon 4 and a few other games. After spending 200 hours in half a year in Witcher 3, I didn't want some big game that will last for another half year... So I started for milionth time one of my top favorites games - Morrowind :-D Given I play one game at a time from start to finish, I think I'm in at the very least into the spring of 2025 :-D

I play on Steam Deck using OpenMW set up through Luxtorpeda. The game looks amazing with shaders, translucent water, shadows and all! I don't use ANY mods, I want vanilla OpenMW experience. The game is very well suited for playing on a controller in OpenMW and I love that I can finally give this great game the time it needs to be fully enjoyed thabks to Steam Deck. I finished Oblivion two years back after putting over 200 hours into it (finishing it only for the second time since I bought it when it launched) and now I know I will do Morrowind justice!

Is it dated? Hell yes! Does it look good? Stop joking! Is it great user experience without spoken dialogues etc.? No, it's not. Is it the hardcore TES experience for hardcore fans? Yes, it very much is! The game is still full of characters with their stories, full of different fauna and flora, full of quests, many of them bugged (as we expect from Bethesda), full of easter eggs and powerful weapons and atrifacts that you can have from level 1, all the caves and tombs where you can die easily even when you are level 20 and best of all - cliffracers!

Let's be serious for a moment though. Morrowind is game from old age, almost nobody would willingly play it nowadays, only hardcore fans who experienced it back in the day and wear a bit of nostalgia glasses would come back to it and love it as they did in those times. But for those fans the game really has a lot to offer. It is flawed in many ways but it is great in other ways at the same time.

For example - you are level 1 character, but you can just step into a tomb meant for high level characters and if you know a few things about the game, you can emerge frm he tomb wielding powerful artifact weapon without even fighting; or you will die in that tomb in one hit. When I played Skyrim (and kinda also Oblivion in that sense), I didn't fear going literally anywhere, as I knew everything is leveled to my character and thus there won't be anything that could easily kill me. Not in Morrowind. I also love that things have durability, you have to tend to your weapons and armor. I also love that silver longsword has pre-set damage that doesn't scale with your level (only hit chance does) - by having it that way, you know ebony sword will always be more powerful than steel axe and not vice versa. In Oblivion dagger could have been more powerful than warhammer - you get used to i, it's just the way it is. But I like Morrowind style more. I come from time of Diablo 1 where weapons had pre-set damage and it stuck with me.

I could continue writing about it for hours, so let's end it here. If you played Morrowind back in the day, you probably know what I'm talking about anyway.

Starfield: I finally got all powers to 10, which I finished yesterday, just before Shattered Space dropped. I'm on the default normal difficulties, woth my lvl94 maxed starborn. I was worried it would be too easy, but you actuall sorta have to use everything at your disposal on the first mission that opens the DLC, at least at my level. I won't spoil anything but enjoy it so far, and it feels like playing Starfield the first time again. I'm also using Geforce Now to max out the graphics because my CPU chokes on Starfield and Baldurs Gate 3 apparently.

Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom: I played this on Yuzu to get 60fps, bur also had the cart. I got nearly to the end, and decided to just play on Switch when Yuzu got shut down, and it's been a blast. I have completed my first full stamina wheel, had fun getting all the towers, and am exploring The Depths clas carefully as one can with 4 hearts (I'm pumping stamina first). It is just as fun the second time.

WoW!

There's been some pretty big issues with the matchmaking of solo rated battlegrounds which is super annoying. My first 8 games of the season were losses. It then became a little closer to 50/50, but then I had another streak of about 10 losses. So my rating plummeted from almost 1500 to 1350 and my winrate is 32% which is just not how matchmaking is supposed to work..!

Delves are a really cool new feature and I almost did a tier 11 on my own - boss had like 15% HP left on my best attempt, but my next attempt were more or less instant wipes. It seems heavily RNG whether or not Brann grabs aggro, as well as whether or not (and where) he throws healing potions. I sadly ran out of revives but will definitely try again once my ilvl is maybe ~5 higher. They were also tons of fun to run with a friend but it's more or less meaningless to do higher than tier 8 unless you go for the achievements at tier 11 since 9 and 10 don't give higher rewards or anything else. Tier 8 used to be super challenging for us, which was fun, but now it's relatively easy and comfortable so I think we're trying to find other things to do together. Maybe more 2s arena at some point!

I started going for Insane in the Membrane as well! While it is certainly still a hell of a grind, it is much easier and quicker than it used to be, so it kind of feels like the prestige/insanity of it isn't all that cool anymore. It's still a cool title to have, but it's not the coolest which I felt it was. The grind in total can take less than a week if you're committed, and I feel like it used to be many times more than that?

Anyways, still playing albeit a little less than at launch 1 month ago. Will probably stay subscribed for another month or two - I still have to grind out the new renown as well!

I didn’t play a whole lot in the last week. I put some more time into Ghost of Tsushima and I’m well into act 3 now and finishing up some side character stories before I finish out the main story. It’s been a wonderful game, but at 50ish hours in now, I’m pretty much ready to be done.

I’ll be playing Throne and Liberty tomorrow. I don’t expect anything amazing, but the gameplay seems okay to good. I’ll play for a few weeks for free and probably bounce off.

I’ve been very obsessed with Star Trek lately (just started season 6 of DS9 on my very first watch through), so I may look up some Trek games to play. Otherwise UFO 50 caught my eye if I get bored of T&L too quickly.

With a new Destiny 2 dungeon, Black Ops 6, and Dragon Age just around the corner, I’m sure I’ll be a very busy girl come late October and early November!