Game completed: Baldur's Gate 3

My journey with this game has been quite something. When it was released as early access I was moderately curious after having played the first one several years ago. But I wanted to wait for proper release. When it did release properly last autumn I was busy playing Starfield and I ended up completely pissed off at this game due to everyone comparing Starfield with it and everything that was wrong with Starfield was because it did things differently from Baldur's Gate 3 according to these people. I wasn't going to play it at all as a protest, but as much as everyone talked about the game my curiosity eventually won me over and I started to play it in December. 

I'm in no way new to the turnbased combat mechanic and as usual Luck was absolutely not on my side. 95% chance to hit? You bet your ass I'm gonna miss. I think I even missed a few 99% chance hits. And sooooo many dice rolls ended up as either complete fumbles or fails because Luck/RNG just hates me. 

The whole companion and camp mechanic gave me strong Dragon Age Origins vibes already from the get-go. Honestly if Dragon Age 4 ends up being like Baldur's Gate 3 I'll be so happy. Open world but still staying true to the roots. Modern but still sticking with the old style that people love/d. 

There will be spoilers in the mix from this point forward.

It soon became clear that the characters were the pivotal driving force of the game. As much as the open world was amazing and full of things to do and discover, and as much as the over-arching story drew the player forward, it's the companions that made the game. Jaheira and Minsc were a great throwback to the first game. Sarevok not so much. I was so happy when I went to Jaheira's hideout in the Lower City and found out she married Khalid. 

I wasn't too keen on Shadowheart at first, but while in the Shadow-Cursed Lands she really grew on me and her whole character arc drew me in. By the time we got to Act 3 she was one of my favourites. Laezel was equally difficult. I didn't expect to care so much for her and surprised myself when Orin kidnapped her in Act 3 and my reaction was to immediately go save her because don't your dare kill my githyanki. Karlach and Halsin are both big cuddly teddybears and I liked them from the start. Wyll was an outlier and it took me the longest to get to like him. Gale was instantly a favourite of mine and for the one hour I had him without the entire team assmbled in Act 1 I thought he'd be the one I'd romance in this game. Then I met Astarion and immediately fell in love with him. His introduction reminds me of Fenris' introduction in Dragon Age 2. 

After I got Astarion every choice I made in the game was the one I thought he would like the most. Except for the choice whether to allow him to go through Cazador's ritual or not. Sorry, but no, I like you the way you are and I'm not replacing one monster with another.

The Emperor was a really cool character, but I put Laezel above him and freed Orpheus. Which made the Emperor leave me for the Netherbrain. I saw it coming and was still sad I had to fight and kill him in the final fight. And he was so mad when I made the deal with Raphael, but dude calm your tits. I fully intended to break into the House of Hope and destroy the contract when I made that deal. Chill. 

My favourite parts of the game were when I talked the Toll Collector into defeating herself, the fight against the Surgeon, confronting Cazador, the fight against Myrkul, and the entire Shadow-Cursed Lands. The Toll-Collector was such a wtf moment, when I passed the persuasion rolls and she ended up blowing herself up without the need for a fight. The Surgeon fight was creepy in every way and I loved it just because of that. Confronting Cazador brought out a whole lot of stuff on Astarion and it was such huge growth in his character. The fight against Myrkul was the first "oh shit oh shit oh shit" moment of the game for me. The Shadow-Cursed Lands were bleak to start but it's also where the game really gets going. Act 1 is sort of a prolonged prologue, Act 2 and the Shadow-Cursed Lands is where the story really kicks off and all the companions come into their own as actual people and not just NPCs and it's just so great. Ngl the fight against Orin was damn cool too.

As for the endings, I chose to destroy the Crown of Karsus with the help of Orpheus who had turned into a mindflayer. Afterwards he asked me to kill him and so I did. Astarion is still a spawn but in a relationship with Tav and out adventuring with her and trying to find a way to let him walk in the sun again. Shadowheart has gone to Selûne with her parents watching over her as moon wisps. Laezel has joined her people as the Comet and his fighting against Vlaakith. Gale retrieved the pieces of the Crown, reforged it, and gave it to Mystra. She freed him of the Orb and now he's a teacher. I broke Wyll's contract with Mizora, he lost his warlock powers and re-educated himself into a Ranger and is still a Blade of the Frontier. I didn't want to force Karlach to go back to Avernus and couldn't find a way to fix her engine so she died. 

I'll probably replay this game a few more times, but as for now this is it. I had a lot of fun with Baldur's Gate 3 and while I don't agree with the people who say that this is the best game ever made and we can just give up now because nothing will ever top this - I do agree it's a good game. 

Movies I watched in 2023

1. White Noise (2022). From the trailer this looked like it would be a fun post-apoc movie with some good banter in it. Instead it was a snooze-fest of contemporary social commentary and no apocalypse in sight.

2. Life (2017). Accidentally watched this twice. The first time we chose it on Netflix and it was pretty alright as far as alien movies go. Calvin was a pretty cool "monster", but if you've seen the movie Alien you know how this one goes as well. The second time we stumbled upon it on TV at my parents' place. 

3. In the Tall Grass (2019). This is an adaptation of a Stephen King story and it shows. It's really weird. I was hoping for psychological horror, but it just ended up being weird. Not that good. 

4. Renfield (2023). I was looking forward to this movie! We watched it at the cinema and it was everything I hoped for. Dark comedy with some decent homage to various vampire interpretations. I really enjoyed it!

5. We Have A Ghost (2023). David Harbour was brilliant in this! The movie was hilarious and sad and it was such a good time to watch. Totally worth!

6. Murder Mystery 2 (2023). We watched the first one in 2022 and I wanted to watch this one as well. Not a fan of Adam Sandler overall, but in these two movies I've been alright with him. This sequel wasn't as good as the original (as per usual), but it was still a good time.

7. Population 436 (2006). This movie has been hanging around our Netflix watchlist for ages and we finally decided that it was time. It wasn't good. The entire thing felt stilted and extra theatrical like movies from the 60s or 70s sometimes seem today because acting has evolved. We both thought the movie was at least 20 years older than it was. 

8. America: The Motion Picture (2021). Extremely over the top and totally hilarious! This movie is a good time. It's about the founding of the US, but not in the way that you know it.

9. Slumberland (2022). Totally heart-warming movie about a little girl that is sent to live with her bachelor uncle after her father passes away. This movie personifies childhood hopes and dreams and adventure. 

10. Next Gen (2018). This was a really cool animated movie that gave us a bit of Big Hero 6 vibes, but very poignant and modern as well. 

11. Prey for the Devil (2022). We wanted a horror movie, and this one was really great. This was the movie that finally convinced us to dive into the Conjuring universe. See below.

12. Nightbooks (2021). A very cute adventure movie. Probably technically for kids but it was still a lot of fun about a nerdy kid saving the world by telling stories. 

13. The Conjuring (2013). Even after having watched all the other movies in the Conjuring universe this is still probably the strongest one. It had me on the edge of my seat and I was actually terrified towards the end. Strongly recommend. 

14. The Babadook (2014). I had been wanting to watch this one for years because the trailer made it seem oh so good. In reality it was a bust. Such a disappointment. The monster wasn't scary, the ending was just "wut", the characters weren't engaging... Just so disappointing.

15. Annabelle (2014). I hate dolls. I hate dolls. I hate dolls. This movie seemed very classic horror, but it was good. Really good.

16. The Conjuring 2 (2016). Pretty much the same as the first Conjuring, but in England. I really enjoyed this one as well. This movie has the first mention of Valak. 

17. Annabelle: Creation (2017). This story is incredibly sad, but I felt this movie was better than the first Annabelle movie. Very well made. 

18. The Nun (2018). Heeeeeeere's Valak! This movie was really, really good. I love how the story was told from several perspectives and you never knew which one was true until the end. Also, nice way of connecting this movie to the beginning of the original Conjuring movie. 

19. The Curse of La Llorona (2019). Easily the weakest movie in the Conjuring universe and the only obvious connection to the rest of the universe is the priest who shows up in both this one and in Annabelle. 

20. Annabelle Comes Home (2019). This one was great. Really amazing. I loved how it's about Annabelle but they incorporated all the other stuff in the Warrens' basement.

21. Lamb (2021). This one was weird. Me and my mom stumbled upon it on TV when I was visiting and it was just really strange. Based on Icelandic folklore (I believe), a lamb that's half lamb and half human is born on a farm, and things just spiral out of control. 

22. The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It (2021). While this one was cool, it was different from what they usually do. More witches and not so much demonic possession (although there was that too). 

23. Uncharted (2022). This movie got a ton of flak for its casting, but we both ended up liking it. Tom Holland did a good job as Nathan Drake. The fan movie still gets more things right, though. 

24. The Lost City (2022). I wanted to see this movie since I first saw the trailer, because it seemed like the kind of humoristic adventure movie that I enjoy, and I wasn't wrong. This movie was a riot! 

25. Love, Rosie (2014). Not the kind of movie I usually watch, but I caught this one on TV when I visited my parents and ended up actually enjoying it. Drama movie about how life happens and gets in the way of your plans, but somehow everything works out in the end anyway. 

Games of 2023 - This year has been insane

This year has had way too many amazing new games coming out and I've been struggling to keep up tbh. 

Fire Emblem Engage. 81 hours. What a start to the year. A new Fire Emblem! Admittedly it wasn't as great as Three Houses, but it was still really, really good. I had an amazing time with this. When's the next one?

Hogwarts Legacy. 87 hours. Easily my game of the year. It doesn't get any better than this. I cried so many times while playing this. Mostly tears of fangirl and happiness. I've wanted an open world Potterverse game for 20 years and they fulfilled my every expectation ♥

Atomic Heart. 20 hours. The overland was annoying and the enemies were repetitive. But story was good and gameplay good and characters memorable. I had fun with this. Might replay it for the DLC, even.

ESO: Necrom. I haven't been this excited about a new chapter since Morrowind released. Archanist was a great class addition and the story was good. I really like Torvesaad, although I'm not sure why. Lore implications of this chapter are massive and I really want a continuation of this story.

Starfield. 175 hours. The most anticipated game of 2023 if I dare say so. The community's expectations were through the roof and unfortunately not many of them were fulfilled. That said I still go that Bethesda feeling from this game and I had a lot of fun with it. My playtime ought to speak for itself.

We Were Here Expeditions. 2½ hours. This game came out of nowhere. It wasn't expected, but it was definitely welcome. We enjoyed the other We Were Here games and had a lot of fun with this one too!

AC: Mirage. So Connect doesn't show the amount of hours played for this, but it does for Valhalla and Odyssey. I dunno what's up. I had a good time with this. They were banking hard on people's nostalgia and pulled out all the stops to make it relatable for people who've been with the series since the beginning. I kept seeing Aladdin while I was playing as Basim running along the rooftops of Baghdad. 

Sons of the Forest. 22 hours (so far). We finished The Forest earlier this fall and started with Sons of the Forest immediately after. We had a blast with the first game and figured this game would be just more of it. Sons of the Forest definitely has its quirks though, and so far it isn't as great as The Forest, but it's also still in Early Access with full release coming in 2024. With the way things are going we may still be playing at that point :D

CP2077: Phantom Liberty. 110 hours. I haven't played Cyberpunk since February 2021, but I decided to replay the entire thing for Phantom Liberty and Update 2.0 and it's been amazing! This game is fantastic, although I did experience more bugs in the game now than I did in 2021, go figure. Phantom Liberty has a great story with so many twists and turns I hardly knew who to trust at the end, which is the entire point. There were a few badass boss battles and a bunch of cool new gigs. It was quite the ride!

ESO: Endless Archive. Why does a MMO need a roguelite mode? I knew this wasn't going to be the regular small zone DLC that they usually do in autumn, but I expected something more than a room of spawning enemies, unfair bosses and effects to add to yourself as you went on. I didn't struggle at all until I ran into Z'Baza. A Sload boss that kept spawning AoEs and adds and never remained in one place, making him hard to actually hit with anything. I'm not too excited about this DLC overall, and I suppose it will be added to the ever-growing list that is Maelstrom Arena and Vateshran Hollows that I never complete. But as always, I'll give it a few more tries.

Baldur's Gate 3. 61 hours (so far). I immediately fell in love with Astarion. I also really like Gale and Karlach, and Wyll grew on me. I played the first game some years ago and it's been really nice seeing references to what happened in that game. Other than that first game I'm generally clueless about The Forgotten Realms. I'm playing a kinda reckless character, making shit up as I go along. At the time of writing this I'm running around the Shadow-Cursed Lands, trying to infiltrate the Moonrise Towers and being constntly encumbered because I pick up everything that isn't nailed down. Will do a proper post once I'm done,  but until then have a screenie of my character sitting on Yurgir's throne:

This post is for games that I played that released in 2023. I started BG3 too late for it to be included and I played Fire Emblem, AC and ESO elsewhere, but here's my Steam Wrapped 2023:

Elder Scrolls Online: Endless Archive

Sorry, Infinite Archive. My bad. 

So I was pretty disappointed to find out that the autumn DLC wouldn't be the usual small zone DLC, but rather something akin to a roguelite arena added as a location in Apocrypha. I'm not a big fan of roguelites, but as usual I decided to give it a go anyway. Never say I didn't try. 

So I logged on with my main, which is a healer build with decent dps and the only character I have who's got a companion, and off we went to the Archive. Things went fast and easy until the fifth boss, which is the last one of an arc. The bosses are all randomized nerfed dungeon, trial and world bosses. The fifth one I got for my very first arc was Z'Baza, The Sload secret boss from the Coral Aerie dungeon, which I haven't actually done. This boss summoned lots of adds, covered most of the fighting area in AoEs and also teleported around which made the boss very hard to properly attack while also dodging everything all at once. 

You get three attempts in one arc. After you've died the third time it's off to the start with you and start over. I got Z'Baza down to 50% HP every time, but never further. 

After every boss you get to pick an effect which lasts you either specific amount of time or until the arc is over. The effects are typically extra damage, extra defense or extra healing, and it works well. I think my favourite effect I got that first arc was the summons of plague rats which would help fight the enemies and once they died they'd turn into plague blobs that could be picked up and thrown at the enemies doing poison damage. Pretty neat. Another great effect I got was the ability to summon a decoy which would distract the enemies and effectively make them stand still in one spot attacking this decoy with a huge health pool, making them easy to kill all at once. 

The Tho'at stuff could prove interesting though. New Daedra Lord! :)

All in all, not very impressed with this, but I'll keep at it for a while longer.

I replayed Cyberpunk 2077 for Phantom Liberty

I originally played this in early 2021 on my old PC and I had an absolute blast. Hardly any bugs and only a few negligible glitches. Despite everyone's complaints about Cyberpunk's state of release.

Fast-forward to November 2023. I receive Phantom Liberty as a birthday gift and get playing. I resolve to play through the entire game from start to finish and not just do the DLC. That turned out to be a good thing because they have changed so much since my original playthrough. Especially the levelling system, which was a lot more extensive and a lot quicker. There seem to be less NCPD scanner things and less gigs in each zone, which makes completing each zone less of a hassle. I'm disappointed there still isn't any follow-up to Regina's cyberpsychosis research. 

Ironically, now that everyone is praising the game for being good I'm starting to experience all the bugs people complained about the last time around. I've had CTDs, I've fallen through the map, I've had loot fall through the ground and vanish, quest NPCs getting stuck, calling the car simply not working and being stranded in the Badlands after a gig, having to reload the game to get quest prompts to work, and with a better GPU I could have larger crowds which meant I got to see first hand people's complaints about duplicate NPCs - hell I even had quadruplets attending the Samurai concert:

Complaining done, let's get into the good stuff. 

I loved all the hints to Edgerunners that they've added to the game and until I got Johnny's jacket I ran around in David's. Once I got Johnny's I put David's jacket in my stash because I'm holding on to that ♥

I wanted to do all the side content available before I did any main story so I completed Watson before I even got the biochip, and then I did each zone before I moved on with the main quest. Which ended up meaning that I was almost level 50 by the time I started Phantom Liberty and got inside Dogtown. 

The Phantom Liberty story was overall really great. Starting with a bang (literally), mellowing out as a multitude of questions rose up, before all hell broke loose at the conclusion. I made sure to make several separate saves so that I could unlock and see all the endings, just like I did with the base game back in 2021. The King of Wands and King of Swords endings were less dramatic and chaotic than the King of Cups and King of Pentacles endings. Those last two... My adrenaline was so high my hands were shaking by the time I got to make my final choice. That damn robot piece of shit junk... The new ending to the whole game made me super sad. 

Another thing I really liked about Dogtown was that the gigs there always came with a twist and they were never as cut and dry as the ones from the base game. Always a choice would pop up around the middle that could give the gig an entirely different outcome than you would originally think, sometimes for the better and sometimes the fixer would call afterwards and scold you. But that twist and choice & consequence really made those gig a lot more memorable. Run This Town is probably one of my favourite side quests in the DLC. 

Last time I played I missed out on saving Takemura so this I made sure of that and then followed through on his ending so I could get that last achievement. 

Speaking of achievements, some of them don't seem to work. I know for sure I affected 3+ enemies with one single Detonate Grenade quickhack more than once, but that achi never popped for me. I know I hit 2 enemies with the sname sniper rifle shot more than once, but that achi never popped either. And I rigorously used the Distract Enemy quickhack to get that achi, but that never popped either. 

Towards the end of this playthrough they dropped Update 2.1 which added hangouts with your love interest, radio for walking, being able to take the metro around the city (sightseeing woooo!) and repeatable car races. I made sure to do everything.

I had a really great time with Cyberpunk this time around as well, despite this buggier experience!

The Fall of the House of Usher

From the creators of The Haunting of Hill House and The Haunting of Bly Manor, still this show came completely out of left field since neither of us had even heard about it. Yet after two great shows ofc we had to watch it and it didn't disappoint.

Because each of the other two shows were based on one book each, I originally thought this would be a show based entirely on the eponymous work by Edgar Allan Poe, but I soon discovered that each episode was named after a Poe text, and each of the episodes was a retelling of a Poe story with the House of Usher as the overarching plot. It was brilliant.

I love Poe and I've read a bunch of his work so it was great to see how they transferred the plots of those stories into the overarching plot of the show and make it work. 

There's very little of the "spot the ghost" game from Hill House, but it does happen. There are a few jumpscares, but nothing too bad and usually you can see them coming from a mile away. 

All in all, this was absolutely brilliant.

Castlevania: Nocturne

I really, really, really enjoyed the original animated Castlevania show, so when this finally dropped on Netflix I couldn't wait to get into it! 

Setting it in revolutionary France is interesting, but it works out. Richter and Maria aren't as fun and interesting as Sypha and Trevor and I can't really bring myself to care about Annette. But Edouard's fate and plight are both extremely interesting to me (although whenever he bursts into song it feels mostly like filler), and I absolutely loved both Olrox and Drolta. Especially Olrox. 

The art style of the Vampire Messiah reminds me of Sailor Moon villains though.

It's only got this one season so far, but after that ending how can I not look forward to the next season?

Comparing it with the original show when this one only has one season seems unfair so I won't do that. 

The last three episodes of the season were a hell of a lot better than the first five episodes, though.

My last 5 books: Thriller and adventure

1. Troubled Blood, by Robert Galbraith. This book was brilliant in so many ways. Exploring Strike's feelings for his family, but also for Robin, and Robin exploring her feelings towards her job, her future and for Strike, as well as dealing with a nasty divorce from Matthew. The agency is doing great and they're handed their first cold case: the disappearance of Margot Bamborough back in 1974. This book takes place in 2013-2014 and it's almost 40 years since she disappeared. Strike and Robin are given a year to try to find out what happened to Margot, and it becomes a case that has them delving deep into astrology and psychopathy, with lots of unsavoury men and women who aren't what they seem. There are so many plot points, so many side plots and all of them come together brilliantly in the end. It's extremely satisfying to see the author tie together everything in a way that makes complete sense. The only thing that brings the overall rating down is the fact that it sometimes gets a bit too preachy with the feminist stuff.

2. Varney the Vampire; or, The Feast of Blood, by James Malcolm Rymer. This is a compilation of a penny dreadful, so it's trash literature, but it's trash literature that has somehow lasted almost 200 years so that's got to count for something. This penny dreadful predates Dracula by half a century and I was so excited to get into another gothic vampire tale. But penny dreadful authors were paid by the word and damn it shows. After 210 pages I just couldn't anymore. In those 210 pages we've had the initial vampire attack and then just 200 pages of reiterated dialogue and back-and-forth actions that didn't lead anywhere. 200 pages in and we're still in the same situation we were 200 pages ago. And it isn't even halfway. As to not completely kill my reading mood I decided to DNF this and potentially come back to it at a later time. There are glimpses of a complicated and interesting character in Varney, but it's all so densely buried in all the useless dialogue and non-actions. The editor's footnotes in this edition are a highlight though, as it seems they might've been a bit passive-aggressive towards Rymer and the Victorian society overall. It's so frustrating because I can see there's a story underneath all the useless words, it just takes an age to get through all the words to find the story. 

3. The Ink Black Heart, by Robert Galbraith. These two characters has to be the slowest slow-burn in the history of slow-burns. I need them to stop being so goddamn polite and considerate and just talk to one another! The story in this one revolves around the dark side of fandom, and it's eerily accurate sometimes. Honestly, the most unbelievable thing is that Robin didn't know tumblr or Twitter before she started working on this case. It's 2015, she just turned 30, which makes her only five years older than me, she would've known about both of those sites. Or it's just implied she has spent the last 12 or so years living under a rock while social media evolved online. I get Strike not knowing, but not Robin. I had all sorts of theories throughout reading this as to who the killer was, and once or twice those theories touched upon the truth, but I could always find reasons why someone else was more probable. As someone who spends a great amount of time chatting online while staying mostly anonymous, this was a great and pretty chilling story. One of the best ones in the series!

4. The Time Traveler's Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger. A few years ago everybody talked about this book so I decided to read it. It started out interesting enough, but within 100 pages it was getting obvious that this was all there was to it. This is the story of their lives which are absolutely ordinary aside from the little thing that Henry is so-called chrono-impaired, meaning he sometimes just time travels for no reason at all. Sometimes just for minutes, sometimes for days. It never becomes a conflict and the only major issue it presents is that it makes it difficult for them to have a baby. Throughout the story there's this looming shadow of something that's going to happen when Henry is 43, but when it does happen it's completely underwhelming and I just face-palmed when I read it. It was a very disappointing end to an otherwise bland book. Not my thing.

5.Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, by Rick Riordan. I've been meaning to read this series for years. I love Greek mythology. This book was just as fun as I expected, albeit a bit predictable. I didn't expect Percy to be twelve though, I thought he'd be at least fifteen, but it ended up not being such a big deal. Despite the book being a lot of me figuring things out way ahead of time and me just waiting for the characters to catch up, I had a lot of fun reading it and I'm excited to keep going with this series. Despite having heard of this series I knew nothing about it going in. I knew there was Greek mythology and that was about it, really. I figured out Percy's father long before the rest of the characters. I figured out who was going to betray Percy as soon as the Oracle told him the prophecy. I figured out who the ultimate bad guy was long before they started speculating, but it's a kids book so it was fine. I love all the characters and the story was fast-paced and fun. I'm into it. 

Game completed: Assassin's Creed Mirage (+ the end of AC Valhalla)

This is like the fifth post of mine that's related to Valhalla... This game... it feels good to finally have completed it. 

After I finished with Starfield I decided to do the last few things of Valhalla before I started up Mirage. So I started out doing the last few Tombs of the Fallen and finished that little thing and then I dove into The Forgotten Saga, which is a roguelite and I'm not the biggest fan of those. But I gave it my best effort. I managed to get all the way to Nidhogg, the poison dragon, and the last boss before the last area and Hel herself. At that point I was breezing through everything up to Nidhogg, and he thoroughly put me in my place and told me to not think so highly of myself in the most detailed way possible - his adds beating me to a pulp while he solemnly watched. The fight was just a whole bunch of AoEs to dodge or I'd get a DoT (which stacked) and there were no healing items in the area - not equipped, not lying around, just nada. I was so done with The Forgotten Saga after that, and decided to just do The Last Chapter update and then move on to Mirage.

The Last Chapter was a nice little ending to Valhalla, which probably would have had a bigger impact if I hadn't played the base game in late 2020 when it was new, and barely remembered half the characters on the goodbye tour. The Basim stuff was a lot more interesting than Eivor's goodbye tour and half-assed footnote as to how she ended up in North America. The Basim stuff explains how he's still alive over 1000 years later and how they got their hands on his DNA so they could view his memories. It was a pretty decent connection/bridge over to Mirage.

I don't like sand. Every time a game asks me to play through a desert I'm instantly bored. Sand is just boring. I don't like it. And I knew the landscape of Mirage would bore me even before I went in, which was a contributing reason for why I shelved the game for two weeks before I finished it. 

That said I did enjoy the game overall. They were hitting people's nostalgia as hard as they could but implementing a lot of polished up mechanics from the earliest AC games. I hated pickpocketing in AC2, but in Mirage it was a lot of fun, especially Darvish's collectables. Being at Alamut made me half expect Altaïr to show up, except it would be a few more centuries before he's even around. That tutorial climbing scene with Basim is a direct translation of the tutorial climbing scene in the original Assassin's Creed with Altaïr :3 And those are just two examples, there are many more ways that Mirage attempts to throwback to the earliest games of the franchise. It's great fun. 

As always I made sure to get every single collectable and do every bit of side content and uncovering the entire map before I completed the story.

As for the story itself, I feel like it was pretty predictable. I had figured out Nehal's circumstances way before that reveal even came. The only thing I hadn't figured out was the purpose of the djinni and I was dreading it as a final boss of the game, instead... nothing. So that was a bit disappointing. I also feel like they established the characters of Roshan and Basim in the early stages of the story only to throw it all out in the end scenes and have them become complete stereotypical tropes, which kinda ruined the end a bit. And as much as the current time portions of any AC game kind of feels like filler, I did miss having it in Mirage. Even as filler it's an integral part of the games' universe. 

But all in all it was a good game and as much as I love massive open world RPGs it was nice to play something smaller for a change. 

And I forgot to take a single screenshot.

And young Basim just reminds me of Disney's Aladdin. 

Good Omens S02

I don't know why we didn't watch this season sooner considering we both loved the first season (which I know realise I never wrote a post about, oops). 

So the script for this season was allegedly based on an unfinished-but-practically-finished manuscript that Gaiman and Pratchett had written as a sequel to the novel.

I feel like the original will always be the best version in terms of sequels etc, but this season was really damn funny. Shax was great (who knew Rita Skeeter could be that funny?) Jon Hamm was fabulous as a confused and blundering dude and then as hopelessly in love. Every role I've seen of him he either plays stoically handsome or strong-but-sad (strong man refuses to accept he is currently broken, i.e. still stoic), so it was very nice to see him in something more comedic :3

New Beelzebub was better than old Beelzebub.

I did not like that ending T_T

Young Sheldon S01-S06

We're both fans of The Big Bang Theory so when we saw that Young Sheldon had come to Netflix we decided to watch it.

Sheldon himself is great as usual and so dimwitted despite being so smart. It's great :3 Missy, Connie and Paige are amazing characters, whereas Mary is just a big facepalm for me, but she means well. Georgie is dumb but street smart. And George is just always trying so hard and it never gets him anywhere. 

Paige's storyline alongside Sheldon's storyline shows two different sides of the same coin and I always enjoy the episodes with Paige in them, because it shows just how damn lucky Sheldon is throughout his whole childhood. 

Season 6 ended at a bit of a cliffhanger and season 7 keeps being delayed due to the strike shenanigans going on, but I really can't wait for season 7 :3

Game completed: We Were Here Expeditions

After Grounded we discovered that there was a new We Were Here that just released and it was free. We jumped on that and immediately got it downloaded and started to play. It was really nostalgic to be back in the roles of our Arctic explorers/rescuers even though it wasn't all that long ago we played through the series. 

This time the setting was more piratey than the medieval/castle/knights/royalty/magic kind of theme the rest of the series had going, but there is a tiny reference to previous games in the very beginning, in the intro, so that's cool. 

Just like the original We Were Here our only complaint is that this game is too short. It took us just over two hours to complete and that's with us redoing several of the puzzles just for fun and to try to get better results. Why is it that a puzzle always goes better before we're really sure of what we're doing and when we know what we're doing we somehow end up doing worse? 

The puzzle where one player is drugged to see paths that aren't there or paths that are there have turned invisible, and the other player watches from above, mind unmuddled, and guides them through what's real or not was a really cool puzzle and we had a lot of fun with it. 

I also really liked the puzzle where you had to coordinate between each other to make the best and most color combinations. 

We did both of those puzzles so many times xD Which the short little shareable/downloadable clip at the end showcased xD

All in all, this was a really fun adventure. Could've been longer, but that's honestly the only nitpick and for a free game it's negligible. 

Game completed: Starfield

Alongside Hogwarts Legacy this was my most anticipated game of the year. So when September 1st rolled around I immediately started to play even if the time was 2am. I didn't do much aside from creating my character that night, but at least the game worked and for me it has been mostly smooth sailing throughout all of my 174 hours. 

I'll keep this post very vague so as to avoid spoilers and you'll mostly be getting my overall thoughts and feelings rather than any details of companions or quests.

I put off doing the main quest for so long, which I realise now was a bit of a disservice to the game. I was probably level 30 before I even encountered the main antagonist. That first encounter adds a lot more to exploration and I recommend getting to at least that point in the main quest before heading off whichever way to explore.

So for my first character I chose traits that were pretty much all useless to me, but that I thought sounded cool. Neon Street Rat was very useful, but Alien DNA I had removed with a doctor almost immediately. I chose the Adoring Fan perk because of nostalgia and then I never used him because he was just as annoying as I remembered. I just stuck him at an outpost in the middle of nowhere and never saw him again. 

Surveying planets became tedious if it was done too much and too often, but as someone who enjoys ticking boxes it was very much my thing - if done sparingly. Every time I visited Earth I got sad.

As for the side quest lines, my favourite was easily the Crimson Fleet. I always try to do a good character so navigating the Fleet questline via Persuasion and Bribery instead of murder and robbery was a lot of fun and actually made me think more specifically how I would get through a quest. 

I also enjoyed the UC questline for the sheer amount of wow moments. Revelation after revelation, it was great! I really liked Hadrian when she was part of her questline. Too bad she lost all her personality afterwards when she became just another follower. 

The Ryujin questline was a slog to start with, but once I gained access to the Executive floor things became really interesting and the last few quests were pretty cool. I ended up having more fun with this one than I initially thought. Unfortunately those early quests are indicative of the kind of missions you get from their mission board post-questline, and they aren't very engaging. Still a lot of easy credits though.

Finally, the Freestar Collective questline wasn't my thing at all. I struggle to remember what it was even about and had to look it up to even write this post. The final confronation was kinda cool I suppose. Unfortunately the final confrontation of this questline was at the same place I had a Ryujin stealth mission at and it wouldn't let me sneak past the final confrontation to complete the Ryujin mission before going back to do the final Freetstar quest... So I ended up getting a pay deduction from my Ryujin mission -.-

The main quest proved a lot more interesting than I normally expect from a Bethesda game and at one point even heartbreaking. Literally sat crying in front of my PC until I could reload an earlier save so I could change the outcome because I was not ok with that! It didn't hurt that the main quest had some of the most beautiful visuals in the entire game. Temples did get slightly repetitive though. 

As for the companions, I adored Sam. He became my best friend and my husband (and he made me smile like a doofus every time I talked to him after we got married). Andreja, despite being the last Constellation member I picked up, quickly became my favourite after Sam. Both Barrett and Sarah annoy me. Barrett is too silly and Sarah is too high and mighty. That said, I still got a ship that could fit all of the Constellation followers at once and they all became sort of like a family. I also made sure to do all of their companion quests. Everybody's except for Barrett's were pretty interesting tbh. I liked Sarah's and I hope there'll be more to Andreja's at some point. Sam's felt oddly high-stakes but that's probably due to Cora's presence. 

I'll end this by addressing some of the complaints I've seen regarding the game. Some of them are just too stupid to address though, so I'll just leave this here:

Complaints about graphics and crashes and optimization, I can't do much about. The game worked well for me (rtx 3060). I had two CTDs in all my 174 hours. The game didn't like when a download was running in the background and became laggy whenever Windows Update decided it was time to download an update, otherwise it worked great. 

People complain about desolate worlds and I can't help but wonder if they only ever landed on moons or planets without an atmosphere. There was an abundance of planets that had all sorts of life and were beautiful to just wander through.I have so many screenshots from both desolate and vibrant moons and planets.

The achievement disabler was buggy, though. Which is probably the only major issue I had with this game. I had to use the console to no clip through a door that remained [INACCESSIBLE] even though the quest was supposed to open it to be able to progress a quest. I was hoping that achievements would only be disabled for that session (like in New Vegas) and then be enabled once I restarted my game. No such luck though. I wasn't too far in so I figured I'd make a new character and start over. It wasn't too bad. Except the game marked my brand new character and saves as modded too. Despite me never touching the console on that character. It's supposed to not do that on new characters :P So I downloaded the mod that make achievements work even on modded/console playthroughs. Problem solved.

Another complaint is that locations are copypaste. Unless you do a lot of mission board bounty quests you probably won't even notice this much. But every single Abandoned [...] on planets are the exact same. So when I was running through my probably 50th Abandoned Cryo Lab to get that outlaw bounty I was pretty sick of them. All Cryo Labs look the same, all Relay Stations look the same, all Robotics Labs look the same... Which I can kinda, sorta justify by them all being UC and UC probably had a model they built things after, but damn it gets tedious.

Finally, the end of the main quest leads you right into NG+, but you can choose to not play through the main quest in the exact same way all over again. So now I'm kinda excited to play through it once more just to see how much will be different. Probably not a lot though, so I'll be moving on to other games, but keeping a lookout for DLCs because I really don't feel done with this game.

Disenchantment S05

The final season! Time for all the loose ends to come together and for Bean to say goodbye! We've both really enjoyed this show and this last season was no exception.

Mop Girl was a welcome addition to the team and I love her with Elfo.

I enjoyed seeing Luci embrace his goodness when he was with Jerry visiting God. 

The shenanigans with bad Bean alongside Bean's relationship with Moira, and Bean finally embracing her weird-ass family were all highlights of the season. 

The ending gave a sense of finality, but also left things slightly open-ended should they wish to make more Disenchantment. 

Such a great show.