Expedition 33 has no business being this beautiful

It's been impossible to avoid this game for all last year. And now I get it. Wow. I need to process this. 

I'm avoiding spoilers.

I was specifically recommended this game when I said that I enjoy turn-based combat. Something got lost in translation there because when I say turn-based combat I mean Baldur's Gate 3, XCOM, Wasteland, Shadowrun, Total War, Civilization, etc. Not JRPG. Generally the combat of JRPGs gets a bit stale for me after a while, but I decided to give it a go. 

I'm glad I did. I don't think any other game has made me feel so many things so much all at once before. 

Everything about this game is beautiful: the aesthetic, the characters, the environments, the story, the music, holy shit. I love how unapologetically French it is, yet willing to poke fun at the Frenchness (the mimes and the baguettes omfg). The ever-present mélancolie in French media/culture served this game well. So beautifully utilised. I've had the soundtrack stuck in my head for weeks. 

(This is my fave but I also love Alicia, Maelle, In Lumière's Name, and Une vie à t'aimer)

Each act swung plot twists at me like damn sledgehammers. I saw none of them coming (which is an achievement, congratulations). 

The game starts by telling you that it plays better with controller. I laughed at that, because I won't play better with controller. I would've missed every single parry and dodge because I'd have to look at the buttons to remember which one does what, instead of only missing half of them because I still suck at timing things.

I'm one of those gamers who like to do everything in the world before heading for the main objective. I was very confused by how little of the map was available to me, yet it seemed like I was getting close to the supposed end of the story. At least the point you think is the end in the first half of the game. So I had to look it up, afraid I'd miss something. Turns out the map doesn't truly open up until after act 2. So I kept playing.

Act 1 ended with a gut-punch that took me way too long to recover from. I'm not sure I've recovered yet tbh. The end of act 2 was both satisfying as hell because the puzzle pieces started to come together, but also HOLY SHIT WHAT. I struggled so hard with the choice in act 3 and I think I'll need to replay the game at some point just to see the other ending. 

The gestral beaches had me tearing my hair out. Especially the ascension tower. I think I tried to climb that thing 20+ fucking times and I could not get it done. I kept mistiming jumps, going too far or not far enough. In the end I asked my bf to try it for me. He did it in two tries T_T All the other ones I managed on my own, after way too many attempts. 

Endless Tower was a gauntlet, but I got it done. I got so much XP from that, and I had hoped that I could redo stages of it to grind the last few levels until max, but turns out you get 0 XP from the stages once you've cleared them once. The Flying Manor was interesting. The Painting Workshop was cool. Renoir's Drafts was cool too, until The Abyss. Fuck Simon. Hate that guy. I'll get your optional ass in NG+.

Unable to beat Simon and unable to find enough XP to get the last few levels to max, which kept me from earning the last three achievements, I went and finished the game. The boss fight now turned ridiculously easy because I was way over-leveled for it, having completed everything the map had to offer besides Simon. 

The Thank You Update added a few new bosses in the Endless Tower, as well as a new zone with new mechanics, new enemies, new bosses, new weapons and gear, and a bunch of new stuff to do. Verso's Drafts ended up being one of my favourite zones, except for that last boss T_T And I thought Simon and The Flying Manor were bad. At least I managed to defeat this one. I went in to fight one of the new bosses in the Endless Tower, immediately mistimed the parry and it almost wiped my whole team. Then I noped out of doing any of the new bosses. 

So much frustration went into this game as I mistimed parries and dodges. So many boss mechanics which seemed unfair until I had found the proper equipment combinations. But then I'd do some story or exploration or hang out in the camp and all that frustration would just melt away. 

This has been fantastic. I want to go again, but I think I need a cleanse. To process. 

For those who come after.

Third time playing Hogwarts Legacy

Just before Christmas last year I booted up Hogwarts Legacy again for my third 100% playthrough. Since my previous playthrough they added a few things with free updates, like the previously PlayStation exclusive quest Minding Your Own Business, and a photo mode, among other things. 

I decided to go with my default Ravenclaw House. This time I made a slight roleplaying choice of having my character's hair get longer with each season. She started out with chin-length hair, which then got shoulder length in autumn, and then even longer in winter, and in spring it turned into a huge bun. 

What I was most excited about for this playthrough was the new quest. And it isn't available until winter... I started the quest pretty late in the evening and I think it was past 2am before I finished. It's probably the longest quest in the game. But it was one wild ride. 

I did not sign up for a horror game. When those mannequins started moving I got immediate Ghostwire Tokyo DLC flashbacks and I half expected to be sat here wincing "I don't wanna" while trying to get through it. But fortunately these mannequins could be fought and obliterated and that made them a lot less scary than the damn stalker in Ghostwire. 

The one thing I didn't like about the quest was how forceful my character suddenly became. Like throughout the whole game I had been playing this diplomatic, cautious and intellectual person, and now she's suddenly yelling at adults that she's old enough to own a store... Girl, you're not acting it. And where did that come from T_T

My favourite things in this game are flying around on my broom, breeding beasts, and playing The Sims in the Room of Requirement (decoration and management).

I've played through all the House specific quests, but now I have two full Ravenclaw playthroughs and one full Slytherin playthrough.

I'll definitely play this game again. 

The Witcher S04

Season 4, here we go. 

Hemsworth was great, but I still miss Cavill. Hemsworth looks too nice. As if he'd be just as inclined to hug you to death as slice you up. He did do a good job as Geralt, though. 

The entire season was amazing. Yen's fight against Vilgefortz, Geralt's desperation to find Ciri, Ciri trying her damndest to escape her destiny... It was absolutely great to follow all three storylines.

I had Regis figured out way before the reveal. 

Season 5 is allegedly going to be the last season. I really, really hope the end is as good as this season. I need this to end on a good note. 

Atomfall's The Red Strain DLC was like something out of Fallout New Vegas

A new DLC of Atomfall meant a new playthrough of Atomfall and two new endings to explore. 

Ngl, Atomfall feels a lot like a comfort game to me. I enjoy every aspect of it and I still love to explore the world even though I already know it.

Going into this third playthrough I still had one base game ending and one Wicked Isle DLC ending left to explore so I did my best to play through the game in a way that would let me explore all the endings I had left. And I succeeded. 

Gaining access to the new DLC was interesting in and of itself. There was very little hinting towards where you should go. I found a note or two referencing the elevator in Slatten Dale mine, but that was once I had already explored most of the base game lol. 

When you go to the new Test Site Moriah, make sure to bring atomic batteries - you're gonna need them. So the story from Tes Site Moriah is that a strain of fungus, seemingly unrelated to Oberon but still affected by Oberon/Windscale was being researched. They found a lot of useful properties in it, but also discovered that it was full of unpredictable side effects and the site was closed down. However, the Windscale explosion made the Red Strain break free. As the only functional human around it's up to you to decide what to do about it. 

And if you go to Test Site Moriah and start poking around, but then end up doing an ending not related to the DLC... The ending slides got things to tell you about it lmao.

Spoilers after video.

The brain in jars really makes me think of the Robobrains in Fallout and how they behave and interact brings me squarely into New Vegas territory. The ending where you help the brains escape Test Site Moriah to allow them to develop a cure to the Red Strain in peace is very New Vegas coded. Especially with how the brains misinterpreted extraction. I laughed at the monitor when I got that ending. 

Generally, knowing that the Red Strain most likely has escaped I feel like the ending of the world ending is less extreme than it actually is. Having the entire world potentially infected by the Red Strain already means an end to the world. 

All in all I had a good time with The Red Strain, although it felt like a side-step from base game and Wicked Isle. Like a side story that becomes tangentially related due to being affected by the Windscale explosion. 

Movies I watched in 2025

1. Peter Pan's Neverland Nightmare (2025). We watched this one at the cinema. I love these dark adult spins on fairytales (that are technically dark to begin with, unless Disney-fied, but let's crank it up to a thousand). There were a few gory moments where I was sat hiding my face in my hands, but overall this was a good horror flick. 

2. Nosferatu (2024). I adore the original 1922 movie and I had high hopes for this remake. Let's be real - a 100 year old movie can stand to have a remake. It was amazing. Absolutely brilliant. I loved how it stuck to the theatricality of the original (acting has come a long way in 100 years) yet managed to modernise it at the same time. Lily Rose Depp was brilliant. The story was kept intact and surprisingly faithful. The only thing I didn't like about this movie was the moustache. They claim they gave Orlok a moustache because a person from his time period would absolutely have a moustache, and yeah I don't disagree with that, that's true. But as a vampire he had lost all other hair on his body, yet the moustache frickin sticks?!?! Come on. 

3. Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017). We decided it was time to give the reboot a proper watch. It was fun. I like that they referenced the original and even brought some inspo from the cartoon. I do enjoy the video game spin on things though.

4. Night at the Museum 2 (2009). Stumbled upon this while visiting my parents. Just something to watch on TV. It was alright. Pretty fun.

5. San Andreas (2015). Disaster movie about California experiencing The Eartquake that everyone's fearing and expecting. Pretty standard as far as disaster movies go. 

6. Day After Tomorrow (2004). We continued the disaster movie trend with this one. I watched this one way back in the day as a teenager when it was new. Already back then my mom and I commented on how ridiculous fake the wolves looked. The CGI had not improved with age.

7. Jumanji: The Next Level (2019). The second movie of the reboot. Not as good as the first one, but still decent. I can't decide whether I liked having Nick Jonas in it. I'm still surprised when I see him in any other context than music. 

8. Terrifier (2016). Bf really wanted to watch this one. I hate clowns. So we watched it. It was really good. There was too much going on for me to really focus on the clown aspect. A bunch of gore, but I can't remember having to hide my face, so it wasn't too bad. 

9. Midsommar (2019). Everyone talked about this movie for a while, so we decided to watch it. Neither of us understand why people talked about this movie. It was extremely slow to start, to the point where it felt like it never really kicked off, before it ended in a drug-infused orgy. I'm so confused. Ironically, this was shown on TV when I visited my parents for midsummer. I made them switch the channel. I didn't want to watch this one more time. 

10. Saw (2004). I remember when Saw was new. Can't believe it's a classic now. We decided it was time to rewatch this classic franchise. And oh damn, Jigsaw is so great. Both of us had seen this one before, but it had been at least a decade.

11. Saw II (2005). Same as above. 

12. What Happened to Monday (2017). Stumbled upon this when visiting my parents. A dystopian movie where only one child is allowed. A set of septuplets live their lives as one single person, each getting one day of the week each. Then Monday disappears, and the whole thing unravels as the sisters try to figure out what happened. Surprisingly good. 

13. Saw III (2006). Neither of us had seen this one before, but we wanted to continue with our Saw rewatching. This is probably the weakest of the three. Yet that twist at the end... *chef's kiss*

14. The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023). This was better than either of us expected. We had a lot of fun with it. It's exactly what you expect, but it's really well made.

15. Nimona (2023). Aside from Nosferatu, this was probably my favourite movie of the year. An animated adventure, clearly for kids, but with enough humour that adults can appreciate it. Classic story of embracing differences and good vs evil, but it was humoristic and light-hearted in all the right places, and handled the dark parts really well.

16. The Haunting of Margam Castle (2020). Probably the worst movie of the year. Don't watch this. I'm not even gonna say what it's about. It's shit. Fucking deadpan acting looking like they were all reading off a teleprompter.

17. Five Nights at Freddy's (2023). Neither of us have played the games, but hanging out with other gamers ofc we had the rough idea of what the games are about and what this movie would be about. Funny, gory, dark and scary in all the right places. Better than I expected.

18. Cunk on Life (2024). This got a bit too silly and dumb. It had its moments, but imo it leaned a bit too far into dumb territory, straying from fun and silly. Mockumentary about life on earth.

19. The Thursday Murder Club (2025). I really enjoyed this one. There's something cosy and wholesome about a bunch of pensioneers spending their time solving old crime, because they have nothing better to do. And then a real crime shows up. 

20. Soundproof (2006). Another movie I stumbled upon when visiting my parents. It was really unusual to see a movie where deaf people took centre stage. Generally it was a pretty standard criminal drama, but it played on prejudices and difficulties communicating across language barriers.

21. In Your Dreams (2025). Super wholesome animated adventure movie for kids that just hit all the right notes. This was great. A family on the verge of breaking apart and the children wishes for them to stick together. Then they find out the Sandman can grant wishes. 

Thoughts after playing through The Outer Worlds 2 twice

I was really excited for this game and replayed The Outer Worlds 1 in anticipation for it, even though I knew that the games take place in two different colonies. 

The first thing of note is the main menu. It's hilarious and expertly provides the Outer Worlds feel immediately upon starting the game. A feel which, in my opinion, is very much absent from the rest of the game. 

I had heard it said that the devs had taken people's criticism of the extreme absurdism of the original game under consideration and opted to tone it down significantly for the next game. To me, that absurdism is what made Outer Worlds unique and I really miss it in Outer Worlds 2. 

Instead, Outer Worlds 2 is a simulator in three ways of oppression: totalitarian dictatorship, extreme corporatism, or conforming theocracy. That last one seems the least oppressive of the three, but scratch the surface and you find that people die if they don't adhere to the dogma or listen to the Seers. 

Exactly how oppressive the corporatists are starts out small. You come across a couple fishermen on Paradise Island who've been "liberated" by the corporatists and gush about how excited they are to be getting paid for their work, and actually be allowed days of paid vacation. It takes a darker turn on Praetor where, in a Faction quest, you're asked to break a workers' strike. Their demands are 18 hour shifts instead of 20 and unlimited bathroom breaks (asking for the bathrooms to be unlocked at all times). I assume this is supposed to be a hint to their previous level of absurdism, but all it really is is a callback to the early days of industrialisation, before workers' rights were a concept. This isn't absurdism, it's a history lesson. 

Aside from my complaints about the lack of the Outer Worlds vibe, I really did enjoy the game. To the point where I played through it twice, 100%ing both times, the second playthrough immediately after the first. 

In my first playthrough I messed up my build quite a lot. I was so focused on making sure I could get in everywhere and interact with everything that I didn't focus on any one skill and ended up being pretty unskilled in everything, and by the time I got to Praetor I was severely lacking in everything. So in my second playthrough I decided to focus on Speech and Hack as main skills and Observation and Lockpick as secondary skills. It got the job done, but I hate leaving things as they are. I really wished I could've maxed out Engineering as well, or maybe Medical. Having max level at 30 and no way to respec was a bit limiting. The community seems to agree judging by the mods over at Nexus. Next time I play I'll probably download something. 

In the first game I really liked most of the companions (especially Max and Felix). In this game I ended up absolutely loving Tristan and Marisol and they ended up being my default squad, unless I was doing a companion quest. I liked Aza too. Inez never grew on me. Niles is the forgettable one I drop as soon as someone more interesting comes along. Honestly, he and VAL only ever stayed as my squad for their companion quests and before I had anyone else, being the first two companions available. Tristan's reactions to most things are amazing. He tries so hard to be this proper, stern Arbiter, but what he really is is an excitable guy discovering the pleasures of an unrestrained life. And teaching Marisol to be less murderous is a joy to me.

One thing I miss from the first game is returning to the ship and finding the companions interacting with one another. They don't do that anymore. They just stick to their assigned spots waiting for you to talk to them while "looking busy". They do talk to one another when part of a squad together, so it's not like their respective loyalties stop them from socialising. They just don't on the ship. 

This post came out a lot more negative than I envisioned. I did like the game. I had a lot of fun with it. I know back when Avowed released some people said that it felt like Outer Worlds but fantasy. I didn't see that. Avowed and The Outer Worlds 1 are entirely separate in my book. But The Outer Worlds 2 does feel like Avowed but in space. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, since I loved Avowed to bits, but it doesn't feel like Outer Worlds. 

I loved the game, I promise xD

A Man on the Inside S01-02

This show popped up on Netflix and it seemed like a fun ride, so when it was my time to choose a show I chose this one. 

It was marketed as a comedy, but there were many profoundly sad moments, which I suppose comes with the territory when the main character is a senior citizens and there are more endings than beginnings left in life. 

That said, he gets up to a lot of hijinks for someone at 75 years of age, and it's a really fun ride most of the time. The end of the first season was both heart-wrenching and heart-warming. 

The second season wasn't as good as the first one, yet it was still a neat mystery with a lot of shenanigans. 

We kept calling Charles Michael due to The Good Place xD

Haunted Hotel S01

We randomly found this show on Netflix and it seemed like a cartoon version of Ghosts, which we loved, so we started watching it. 

Abadon is the best thing in this entire show and I love his arc culminating with saving his new family, despite getting no glory from it because they'll never know what he did for them. 

Every episode was a good story and while there's an overarching story, each episode tells its own little tale. 

I hope it continues.

And then there was Deadfire

I only planned to replay Pillars of Eternity, but once it was done I couldn't help myself and reinstalled Deadfire (Pillars of Eternity 2).

Despite having played through it twice already this year, there are so many choices to make in this game that I stumbled upon new scenarios in this playthrough. It was the first time I watched Aeldys hanged by Furrante.

I considered going with the Prìncipi this time, but I can't overlook the importance of animancy what with the ending of Deadfire, and the only faction that places the same importance on it is the Vailians, so once again I aligned myself with them when it became time to choose. 

Aloth never left my party and for this playthrough I got even more Aloth romance mods. He still has the worst timing xD I've seen a lot of people complain that Aloth is difficult to gain approval with, but this playthrough he was the first one I maxed out with, even before Edér and Tekehu. Aloth initiated the more than friends dialogue before I had even entered every part of Neketaka for the first time. 

My playthrough this time of both PoE 1 and 2 was an Aedyran aristocrat pale elf wizard who ended up very animancy positive, loyal to Berath, and defender of the Wheel. 

One thing that I dislike is that even if Aloth's companion quest ends with him feeling absolved of responsibility for his actions where the Leaden Key is concerned, he still leaves to continue dismantling them. I get that it's personal for him and he wants to finish what he started, but still leaving even after being absolved doesn't come off as absolution to me. He even admits that he doesn't think he'll succeed because they're too ingrained in the world. What he should do is build a network of spies and infiltrators and go at it from multiple angles. It would allow him a less hands-on approach and maybe even allow him some peace and quiet. Aloth doesn't think it can be done in his lifetime and as an elf, that's a seriously long time. So why the hands-on soloing approach? 

More than ever I want a PoE 3.

Replaying Pillars of Eternity for the second time this year

Third playthrough, all three in the same year. Every time I play the Pillars games I can't decide which one I like the best. When I playe PoE1 I feel like that's the best one, then I play PoE2 and I feel like that's the best one. Both are just too good. 

This time I decided to check out mods, but most of the stuff on Nexus relates to character portraits which I don't really care about. I did get an achievement enabler though and set out to complete the game on Path of the Damned difficulty with console commands as backup in case things got too hairy. The dragons were mad annoying on PotD though... The Llengrath fight took AGES

Just like last time, Aloth didn't leave my party even once. This time, however, I tried really hard to get to know Hiravias better. I still think he's crude and uncouth, but okay, he may be growing on me. Curiously I struggled with Durance's quest this time. It just wouldn't progress no matter how many times I went through his dialogue tree and rested after I completed each of the subquests given by Council of Stars. Then suddenly it just did and I have no idea what made it click. I had a similar issue with Grieving Mother: the prompt where she falls into trance after a rest just wouldn't pop, until suddenly it did. Which was after Durance's thing had popped. idk... I didn't have either of these issues on my first two playthroughs this year. 

There's always such a homey feeling going through Act 1 and 2: the prologue, the wilderness, Raedric's Hold, Caed Nua, Dyrford and Defiance Bay, like all of these places just make me feel nostalgic and content and somehow homesick all at once. I think it's because there's less sense of urgency in Act 1 and 2. Yeah you have your objective and you'd prefer to do it before you go mad, but you have to find out where to look first. So you can set your own pace, because you can't rush finding things out. Then Act 3 comes along and even if you, from a gameplay perspective, are still in charge of the pace and can do whatever you like in whatever order you like, there's suddenly a sense of urgency. Now you know where you're going and who you're after. Once Act 3 starts I always start to feel a little stressed so I leave the Dyrwood and fuck off to The White March for a while, in an attempt to recapture the feeling of the early game (and completely failing, I'm still stressed).

Getting to Act 3 comes with a sense of woe as well, because I never want this game to end, and once Act 3 begins that end is just around the corner. 

I'm still discovering pieces of the lore as I go (mainly from dialogue and events because I suck at reading books in-game), but the more I find out the more fascinating it becomes. I'm still intrigued by the whole souls exist as quantifiable, measurable, and tangible things, and the entire world is influenced by this fact. It's fascinating and intriguing, and after PoE2 and Avowed I can't wait to see where they go with it, and I really, really, really want need a Pillars of Eternity 3. Pretty please? I don't need it to be my Watcher, just a PoE3. 

Alice in Borderland S03

We finally watched the third season and it was great. It started off pretty slow and generally the beginning made this season feel like an afterthought, as if this season wasn't really meant to be but came about due to the popularity of the first two seasons. Considering this is based on a manga though, I have no idea whether this is true or if they're just staying true to the source. 

It took way too long for Arisu to remember what had happened to him before. 

The zombie game was probably the greatest couple episodes of the entire season. 

The only really negative I can think of from this season is when they decided to give it the Squid Game treatment and place future instalments in the US. Why would you do that T_T

I replayed The Outer Worlds in preparation of The Outer Worlds 2

The Outer Worlds 2 releases on October 29th unless you preordered the Premium Edition in which case you can start playing tomorrow. So of course I had to make sure to replay The Outer Worlds 1 before the sequel happened. 

It hasn't been all that long since I discovered The Outer Worlds, it was just last year after all, but going back in felt extremely nostalgic. I considered doing a Board loyalty run but I love Felix too much and there's no universe where I'm okay doing what Akande wants me to do with Edgewater. I did it once to get the achievement, and never again. I even rerolled that save after the achievement had popped so I could save the town. 

Since it was my third time playing this game I decided to take a look at the modding scene, hoping that the modders would give me a way to finally, finally smooch Max, or alternatively just give me some more content, more missions, anything to make the game longer. But the state of The Outer Worlds modding scene on Nexus made me realize how very spoiled I am with Skyrim (and Bethesda games overall). Most of the mods there related to raising or removing the level cap, which Spacer's Choice edition already solved. I found nothing I wanted so went ahead and played the game vanilla again. 

As soon as I picked up Max he never left my party. I love this man. Every time my character picked a lock and he said "You're an artist, Captain!" or "Brilliant as always!" my heart melted. His gratitude when I talk him down from straight up murdering the guy who betrayed him always makes me all sorts of happy. Max is the perfect amount of broken and trying to heal. 

Edgewater and Eridanos are my favourite zones of the game. There's something special about being dropped into the first area and have it have such a big impact on the rest of the game, rather than just ending up a footnote where you learned the ropes. This little backwater town ends up being extremely important in many different aspects. Especially in the context of Gorgon. And having it look like that, giving me Morrowind vibes while also being both familiar and inherently alien. It's just so perfect.

And then Eridanos, a combination of a detective story and dystopian sci-fi, while being breathtakingly beautiful and just so absurd, all at the same time. It's uncanny and creepy and hilarious all at once. 

Meanwhile Scylla is a footnote, Monarch is a drag, Byzantium is lowkey the most boring place in Halcyon, and then there's Gorgon. I feel like Gorgon tries to capture the same spirit as Eridanos, but to me it fails so hard at that. Yes, what we find out is disgusting and horrifying, but once you gain access to Gorgon it's pretty much par for the course where Spacer's Choice and the Board are concerned. 

This game hits all my notes, I just wish it would be longer and bigger. I always finish it feeling disappointed that it's already over because I'm nowhere near done. Would I play a massive open world open-ended game set in Halcyon in the exact same style and with the exact same vibe? Yes, yes I would. 

I considered going through it all once more after I hit that ending screen yesterday. I still had time left before the sequel would drop after all. Instead I chose to go spend some time with my other favourite Obsidian boy - Aloth Corfiser. But not before I went and read some more fanfiction featuring Max. 

Why are you never real? The shifting states you follow me through, unrevealed. Just let me go or take me with you. So let's make trouble in the dream world, hijack Heaven with another memory, now I make the most of the turning tide, it just split what's left of the burning silence. 

Traversing the radioactive wasteland (all three Metro games + extras)

This post has been in the works since July lol. Here we go, finally.

Metro 2033 Redux wasn't at all what I expected. I went in expecting something akin to Fallout or STALKER, what I got was radioactive Wolfenstein, but once I had adjusted my expectations I ended up having a pretty good time. Just like Wolfenstein the game assumes a lot though. I discovered the lighter by accident after the game told me I could use M to bring up objectives. Not once did it tell me I could use it to burn away spiderwebs. The game told me how to turn on my flashlight in the prologue and then loading screen tips would tell me multiple times to be sure to keep it charged... Not once did the game tell me how to charge it. Had to ask how to equip my grenades because I couldn't find it. Turns out it's listed as Secondary in the controls list. Not Grenades, not Throwables... Secondary. 

I was always stressed when trying to explore areas, because either I'd be with someone who'd tell me how important it was that we got to the next place quickly, or I'd be stressed out about the gas mask filter, feeling as if I was on a timer. Made it hard for me to go about and explore the places I went to. 

The last area, the tower, was annoying as fuck to deal with and I died more on that level than I did in the entire rest of the game combined. If I hadn't known it was the last area and that I was on the home stretch I'd probably dropped it right there, because I was so fucking annoyed by hearing "He's coming to destroy us. Stop him" thirty-odd times. 

Did I like it? Yeah, it was aight. Mostly I just wished it'd be bigger. More world, more exploration, more open, just more. More of everything. I finished the game in 10,5 hours, making it one of the shortest games I've played recently. I also wished it didn't try to BBQ my PC until I asked google and found out that SSAA is a major issue for this game and to turn it off. Also make sure to not have PhysX and Tessellation turned on at the same time - which they were by default, go figure. 

Metro Last Light Redux was basically just 2033 2.0. I don't know why I expected anything different. In comparison I enjoyed 2033 more than Last Light. The so called romance with Anna was especially heinous and I hated it. This girl Artyom has met once spent the entire time calling him names and making fun of him, then they're in quarantine and sleep together. Anna plays it off as having nothing better to do, but it comes across as a thank you fuck for saving her. And after that they're suddenly sooooooooo in love and absolute soul mates. It's kinda gross.

2033 served as an introduction to the world and its factions. Last Light was just an escalation. 2033 but more, and not always in a good way. 

And you're telling me that in 20 years nobody has tried to find D6 before? Rumoured huge store of food, ammo and meds, and nobody has tried to find it? Really. 

Ofc I got the bad ending because it didn't occur to me that a FPS game would require me to not shoot enemies. Seems counter-intuitive to me. I was so unimpressed with Last Light that I didn't even bother with the DLCs and instead went straight for Exodus.

Metro Exodus was more in line with what I had originally expected the series to be. More open world, more exploration, more time spent in the world on your own, and crafting. You gain more of a relationship with people around you and Anna actually becomes a person. Reckless and clingy, sure, but still a person. 

The story was all over the place though. It changed direction every few hours. Starting with Artyom's foolish idea that people had survived in other places, became a quest to reach the surviving government, became a quest for a new home, became a quest to save Anna. This time I did manage to get the good ending though. I took a page from Last Light's book and basically shot nobody at all. 

The Volga was my favourite map. The Yamantau map felt like I was playing Wolfenstein The Old Blood. I hated the Taiga map and actually stopped playing for a while there, until I managed to rediscover my motivation to finish the game. 

The two DLCs were fantastic. Especially Sam's Story, like holy shit, why couldn't the entire game be like that?

The one thing that bothered me throughout all three games was the fact that they clearly took their time to record Artyom's monologue for each chapter, yet he doesn't have a voice in-game. The other characters talk to him as if he's responding, or they make comments to explain away his silence. Like, why spend time and money on the monologue, but not on actually giving him a voice while you play? It was so refreshing in the Exodus DLCs that Khlebnikov and Sam had voices and could speak when spoken to. 

But all in all, Exodus was great and my clear favourite of the three. I even shed a tear at the end. 

Paradise Lost is a walking sim, but I knew that go in so that didn't phase me. It's a story about a boy going to find where he came from. What starts out as a Nazi bunker turns out to be a breeding program, which then takes an even darker turn when you realise they're making computers from humans. The idea being that humans get plugged in and their brains function as the computer's CPU. The story is told through notes and items found in the world and via this girl he talks to over the speakers who's lost somewhere inside the bunker. It becomes a quest for the boy to find this girl and he discovers who she is and where he came from as he works his way deeper into the bunker to find her. The environments are haunting and the story is dark as hell. The only hint we get of what's going on in the outside world is that the boy mentions that it's empty. It can be assumed that in this universe a lot more bombs fell before WW2 ended. My only gripe with this game was that there was an achievement for having seen both endings. The game was pretty short so I played through it twice. After the ending scenes were done and the credits started rolling I skipped the credits both times. Only to discover that you had to let the credits roll for the achievement to pop... T_T

After Paradise Lost I got a bit sidetracked and replayed Fallout 4 for the first time since 2016. I went with the Railroad and the Minutemen this time around and obliterated both the Brotherhood of Steel and the Institute. But before that I had completed the Far Harbor DLC, where I made it so everybody got along and made peace with each other. A lot later I returned to the island and blew up the Children of Atom and destroyed Far Harbor, and then told the Brotherhood about Acadia and obliterated that place too. This time around I decided to mod the game too. The first thing I did was to make it so that junk and aid items had no weight. Settlement building became a lot more fun when materials was no longer a constant struggle and I spent hours just building. The build mechanics still leave a lot to be desired though. I originally wanted to build a mega structure over the main street of Sanctuary with each individual house as a sort of chamber in said mega structure. I soon figured that wouldn't work partly because the build mechanic doesn't function for shit in leaning ground and partly because the game decided I built too much. I also downloaded a few spicy mods so I could finally smooch Hancock ♥

Chernobylite is a game I've wanted to play for a long time, but I've held off because I heard it's pretty mid. I ended up having a really great time though. I figured out half the twist around halfway through the story, though, so the final reveal wasn't as dramatic as it probably should have been. The character portraits gave me Shadowrun vibes. I really liked how much choice and consequence was involved and how it's possible to fail the final heist due to said choices. Where the memory mechanic comes into play. I enjoyed building the base and making it nice and comfortable for everyone. I had fun playing around with different kinds of weapons even though the gunplay wasn't the best. The game had a new take for training skills (at least to me) that made the whole learning something new feel a lot more immersive than a simple fade to black like so many games do it. The going back and forth between the same areas multiple times didn't bother me as I discovered new things pretty much every time I returned to an area, and the added risk of the Black Stalker showing up and more monsters as time went by made it a bit more exciting with each visit. I had a lot more fun with this game than I thought I would, and I really don't agree with it being mid. 

I had initially planned to do a replay of Wasteland 3 after this, but I'll save that for another time. Gotta replay The Outer Worlds before the sequel drops at the end of this month!

My last 4 books

1. The Running Grave, by Robert Galbraith. I've been on a Strike binge for a few weeks. I watched all of the TV show and finished it up by reading the latest novel. I can't get enough of Cormoran and Robin! I love their relationship despite how much their slow burn frustrates me. This book had me on the edge of my seat throughout. I struggled to put it down and really didn't want to go to bed and sleep when the book was demanding to be read. Cormoran does a lot of personal growing in this book and Robin takes a lot of personal risks. I really can't wait for the next one! In this book they're investigating a cult and Robin goes deep undercover within it, while Cormoran and their contractors deal with smaller jobs as well as finding everyone who ever got out of the cult. What starts as a job to get the client's son out of the cult ends as a job with the goal to tear down the cult from its foundation. The character portrayals are so good and their actions always convincing and within the scope of their personalities. She does a great job describing trauma and how different people may choose to deal with their trauma in different ways. Just a really amazing read!

2. Malice, by John Gwynne. It took me a really long while to get into this book. I think it was well over halfway before I even felt invested in the story, yet every time I put it down there was this nagging feeling that I wanted to know what would happen next. So I couldn't DNF it even though it took me months to get through it. The main thing that bugged me is that the character tropes are so obvious. The author tries to make it seem like Nathair is the fated champion of all things good, yet it's obvious he's set up to be the villain. It's obvious Corban is set up to be the hero. The Ben-Elim call Nathair "kin-slayer" in front of Veradis, yet Veradis is too dumb to put two and two together and realise Nathair killed his father. The deaths at the end of this book would have been more shocking if the characters had been more than just marginally utilised until the last few chapters before their untimely deaths. Cywen is my favourite character, unsurprisingly. Will I read the continuation? Yeah, probably. I enjoy the world, and I hope this book was just a build-up and things will get properly interesting in the following three books of the series. 

3. The Last Temptation, by Neil Gaiman. I've been wanting to read this for years, but it's surprisingly hard to come by both in physical shops and online. When I finally found it in an online bookstore I immediately pounced on it. I've been a fan of Alice Cooper since I was sixteen and I'm intimately familiar with the album this visual novel portrays. This comic has all the telltale signs of Gaiman: a little bit dark, a little bit twisted, a little bit dreamy, and it works so perfectly with Alice as the Showman trying to entice and trap the boy Steven. Steven shows up in multiple of Cooper's concept albums portraying twisted innocence, innocence trying to endure even as the encroaching darkness of the real world attempts to crush it. This is a really short read, but I enjoyed it very much. 

4. Rebecca, by Daphne du Maurier. This book made me sad. I had of course heard of it before but never read it. I ended up loving it. It hits all the points of cosiness, melodrama and mystery that I enjoy. Max's torment both appealed to me and exasperated me, and I could relate to how he both wanted to reach out to somebody while at the same time not wanting to trouble anybody and knowing that telling somebody at all would lead to trouble. His new young wife is perfectly portrayed. Deeply in love with her older husband and way out of her depth stepping into the everyday workings of his life, and unable to step out from under the shadow of his previous late wife. She inherits a mystery alongside the day-to-day of Manderley, a mystery which slowly unravels until it ends in catastrophe. The book starts at the end and then tells the story to explain how we got there, and when I finished the book it was with an overwhelming sense of sadness. Because this book is about grief of many different stripes, with a thin furnish of love placed over it. Gorgeous writing. Instant favourite.