Gaming

Still playing Baldur's Gate 3

Judgement - this is basically just Yakuza Kiwami reskinned as a light detective game. I love the Yakuza games so I’m enjoying this. I wish the detective elements were a bit deeper, but they always do a great job stuffing the world with different weird side quests and characters.

Stellaris (console edition) - first time playing. This is Civilization in space. There’s a learning curve of course, so I started out on easy. I like the bit of detail they add in descriptions of strange sci-fi events, although this probably gets repetitive after your first game. They did a great job with the controls for console. Overall I’m enjoying it but it’s very much like Civilization where AI civs hate you for no reason.

Sea of Stars - this is good. I’m around 10-12 hrs in. The story picks up a lot after the dull intro thankfully. I’m slightly disappointed with the music. It’s fine, but none of the tracks are something I really want to listen to again. I’m impressed with the amount of detailed artwork and animation. I like the verticality of the world which adds interest to running around and provides good ways to hide secrets. The battle system is good. The only thing is I wish there was a bit more to the character customization. It’s pretty standard physical/magic attack and defense and there are very few armor and weapon choices so far. Overall, I’m enjoying it a lot.

Baldur's Gate 3

It's incredible so far. I just made it out of Act 1. For the most part, you can come up with plans and ideas on your own, and they'll usually work, which makes you feel like a genius, but I have to call out two times that this specifically did not work the way I thought they would.

some light spoilers ahead

Early on, there's a target that you have to either eliminate or side with, and I choose to side with them, with the express purpose of getting them to let their guard down so that I can separate them from the group and eliminate them. The dialogue options even allude to the fact that this is a strategy they want you to use. This target wants you to sneak into another (good) faction and open a gate for a bloodbath of an assault on that faction, but the target also leaves their battle plans out in the open. So I figure I'd steal the battle plans, give them to the other faction, and just not open the gate, and then that target dies. Well, it doesn't work that way, and progressing that far along with the target invalidates the other quest entirely. Bummer.

The second is a fight right near the end of Act 1 where you've got to eliminate or side with a target again, in a room with a lot of lava, some slaves you can try to rescue, and a lot of enemies. Depending on how the dialogue goes right before the encounter, you either side with the target against the room full of enemies (but the slaves die), or you fight everyone. There are about 15 enemies in the room, which means they get a lot more turns than you, and since they're all grouped in that room, there's no real way to isolate them and take them out stealthily ahead of the encounter. I tried using a bard Performance to get them to all clump up so that I could push large groups of them into the lava, which was fairly effective, but then the slaves would join that group too, and it was very easy to aggro them. Worse still is that the slaves will happily fight you if you aggro them, but they won't join you to fight the other enemies in the room that enslaved them, let alone the target you're trying to eliminate. The only way I found through it was to reload an earlier save and to make different dialogue choices with a particular NPC so that some of those 15 enemies end up on my side in that fight when the time comes.

end of spoilers

The game usually lets me get away with whatever crazy plan I come up with, but I just wish these two points so far were a bit more flexible.

Sea of Stars! It's great so far. I only like turn based RPGs once in a blue moon, and this one really hooked me

Currently playing a lot of Minecraft with my daughter and her boyfriend. Have set up a server so we can pop in and out when we want to. Having a blast.

Also playing started playing sea of stars. Beautiful game and excited where it will go.

And there is always time to play another round of enter the gungeon!

Metroid Dread on Switch, at the final boss

Voices of the Void. Because I like the subtle feeling of dread and knowing any action could result in something horrific.

Factorio. Optimization can always be improved upon.

Kenshi. Finally got my base built. Only cost a few arms and legs.... and some of them weren't mine!

I'm shelving Baldur's Gate 3 for now after a full run plus more. Had a great time with it, but I think I'd rather wait for more polish first before I tinker with it any more or check out the story branches/side quests in Act 3 I didn't see.

I started playing Hardspace: Shipbreaker and I was surprised at how quickly it grabbed me. The story has a very similar vibe to Papers, Please and something about the UI and the artistic design is reminding me a lot of old space sims. Surprisingly cozy game, though I might look into seeing if I can swap out the music. Don't know if I like what it says about me that I really like games that are work simulators, though.

Been playing Spirit of the North this week. I've actually finished it, including 100% achievement completion, because it's not a huge game. What is really sticking out to me right now, though, is that I adore this game. I like a lot of games, but it's pretty rare for me to absolutely love one.

I've also just finished a run through Baldur's Gate 2, playing a bard for the first time ever. I enjoyed the class more than I thought I would. Onwards to Throne of Bhaal next week!

Baldur's Gate 3 on my partner's days off when he wants to play games, that game is That Game, so freaking good, I think about it all the time. Because I don't want to progress the game past our co-op session's progress, and I've replayed Act 1 solo a few times over by now, I am back with good ol' Skyrim otherwise.

I know it is a meme, but I genuinely have the thing of only modding and not playing Skyrim. I am proud to say I am at a point where I just play, instead of finding more mods. I feel like I have a pretty stable modlist, seldom crash, and this is because last winter I spent a lot of time with the crashlogger thing weeding out problematic mods. It is really hard not to go to nexus, I actually don't visit it anymore at all, it is intense FOMO when I see others' screenshots. My main achievement is that upon returning to Skyrim after a break, I even picked up my same character instead of starting over with fresh mods--it was like, not giving up progress.

Just finished Rakuen not too long ago and I love(d) it. The game play is really simple, any of the puzzles are simple enough, the music is for the most part pretty solid, and the story was pretty good. Nothing to complain about besides how short it is.

Not sure what the next big game I'll be playing is, but I have been thinking about saying screw it and playing Ratchet and Clank: Size Matters again.

Unlike the rest of the answers here, I've been mostly retro gaming this week. Got my new Miyoo Mini Plus handheld emulator and it's been awesome, playing mostly SNES, GBA, Sega Genesis and PS1 games.

Games that I'm playing right now:

• Mega Man 7 (SNES)
• Prince of Persia: Sands of Time (GBA)
• The Lord of The Rings: Two Towers (GBA)
• Metroid Fusion (GBA)
• Prince of Persia 1 (Genesis Romhack)
• Crash Bandicoot 1 (PS1)

The awesome thing about the handheld I'm using is that it supports instant saving and game switching, so if I'm getting bored I just press one button and switch to a different game, and jump into exactly where I left off. Or just press the power button and it'll instantly suspend, and pressing it back is again an instant resume. Other modern handhelds are more involved or not pocketable, so this has been perfect for me (especially considering the low weight of the thing). I think I've gamed the most this week compared to any other weeks this year, because of how convenient it is to game on the Miyoo.

I'm on vacation, so I've returned to my default Steam Deck game: Wildermyth. I love its storytelling, particularly with carrying characters over from one campaign to another. I've grown particularly attached to the warrior from my first campaign, now fully fire-transformed. However, he's moved on from his first love, who is now far too crow-like.

I started playing Children of Morta with my son yesterday and I'm pretty impressed with it. I e tried playing Diablo 3 a couple times and found it really boring, so I assumed dungeon crawlers just weren't really my thing. But I started to find some depth in the combat after a couple runs in CoM, and I quite like the roguelite cycle and progress. We're making pretty slow progress because my son is young and kinda sucks at it, but I'm enjoying it more with him than many other games we've tried.

I also started Baldur's Gate 3 with my partner with it yesterday and am pretty much in love so far. I had similar experiences with both Divinity games but they both were just a liiiitle too long and we would lose steam around the end. Hoping that's not the case with this one.

Tarkov

I'm replaying Dark Souls 2 SOTFS with a couple buddies. Have also been playing Dark and Darker which is an incredible early access pvpve dungeon crawler.

Way too much Tetris on an emulated SNES

Oh nice! I super want to get Blasphemous 2. I loved the first one.

I’m continuing my slow progress through Mass Effect Legendary Edition.

I've started playing Ghostrunner. I've really missed level based games, and the gameplay is just thrilling. It's really been a blast trying to go faster than my friends, as well as collecting all the items in some really well designed levels

Baldur's gate 3

I'm in Act 3 of Baldur's Gate 3 on my main run and keep proliferating new playthroughs instead of finishing the game.

Trying to beat Spider-Man before Spider-Man 2 comes out next month. Also finally got around to Stardew Valley. I need to finish off Horizon Zero Dawn. Too many games, not enough time, the exact opposite of my childhood lol!

I picked up Slay the Spire after kinda recently learning about deck building games and how much I apparently love them. Been having a bunch of fun and beat the game for the first time just recently. Now I have to do it with the other characters :3

Working through the new Guild Wars 2 expansion. Once I'm done with that, it'll probably be back to Baldur's Gate 3, though that might change if it takes me long enough that the new Cyberpunk DLC is out.

Can finally rum 2077 so in the last third or so of that. Flipping over to BATTLE TECH when I need something slower.

Diablo 4. I've been trying to push to get the season objectives done. Right now it's basically sitting around and waiting for the world bosses to show up every six or so hours.
In the meantime I've been running around in the remastered version of Quake. I'm kinda bummed id Software didn't also remaster Scourge of Armagon or Dissolution of Eternity. Still gotta use GZDoom to properly play those.

BG3, Battlebit and Starfield.

Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition.

Witcher 3: Blood and Wine Finished hearts of stone last weak. Enjoyed the main quest, but felt much smaller than blood and wine. Love the new and „shiny“ are that came with blood and wine.

Working my way through completely exploring the entire world of Assassin's Creed Odyssey. I really love this game, but goddamn is it enormous. I'm about 75% in.

And just picked up the switch port of Red Dead Redemption. Really glad to be able to play this one without dragging out the 360. Still an awesome game, and a damn good port.

I finished NG of Armored Core 6, it's a good game, and I like it a bit more than other Souls games, largely thanks to how speedy the mech movement is.

I'm going to do bit more NG+, restart Wattam, since I was distracted by some other games previously, and replaying AI The Somnium Files, since I can't remember the story and bought the sequel on sale a few months ago.