I’m playing a Necromancer in Diablo 4: Season 5, and I usually play with the blood aspects, but this round I decided to focus on bone. So far I’m liking the season campaign. It feels like a prelude to the DLC coming out in a couple months.

I have only two achievements left for Ghostwire: Tokyo, both dealing with the extra content The Spider’s Thread. I thought I’d just be able to run through it, but it’s been a grind. But since a lot of my focus has been on the new Diablo season this week, that’s ok. I don’t think I have the mental bandwidth for a new game right now.

Had a virtual get together last night with some friends and played Worms W.M.D.. Tremendously fun, and I even won one round.

Maybe they got his lines before he passed? Iirc Remedy was working on the Max Payne remakes way back in at least 2022. Even if not, McCaffrey’s relation with Remedy goes back so far that I’m sure they’ll do him justice.

It’s an Unreal Engine 4 remaster! I haven’t played the original so I can’t really compare, but I have read that they added some additional dialogue lines as well.

I managed to complete one round in Monstrum . I nearly quit a couple times, because wow this game can be frustrating. But I made it through in the end, once I got a better idea of where certain items would be and how the monsters vibe. I’m kind of glad I stuck with it for a couple days; it made escaping that much more satisfying.

The Spectrum Retreat seemed intriguing, so I gave it a go. It was not quite what I was expecting, and I’m not sure I really liked it. The set up was a little odd, in my opinion, where you would have a bit of story and then a block of Portal-like puzzles, sans the humor. The puzzles weren’t really all that difficult, but they seemed disjointed from the story, which in itself was vague and left me with a lot of questions. I guess I shouldn’t have expected much for a game built around puzzles, but still.

Also played through The Vanishing of Ethan Carter Redux. I gotta say, the story is not at all what I expected, in a good way, although I’m not sure I’m a fan of the ending. Walking between areas was a little tedious, but the scenery was absolutely beautiful, and the sprint speed was a lot better that most walking sims I’ve played. It kind of reminds me of What Remains of Edith Finch or Dear Esther, both of which I also enjoyed. I think I might play this again sometime just to take screenshots.

I’m not sure what game I’ll be playing next, but Diablo 4’s Season 5 is coming up next week, so I’ll probably dip back into GamePass to see what’s on there.

For sure, I can see how it wouldn’t be everyone’s cup of tea. There are a couple insensitive moments, and sometimes the game mechanics involving the Darkness itself are a bit of a pain, but I think the overall story and some of the settings (especially the whiplash you get about halfway through) are really compelling.

Finished The Darkness, and still didn’t find all the collectibles. But I did get a bunch of other achievements, so it wasn’t a loss as far as that goes. I am a little sad that this game has multiplayer achievements though, because since this game is so old (and really didn’t need multiplayer to begin with), there’s no one available online. Multiplayer achievements in a primarily single player game are the bane of my existence.

I’ve also already played through The Darkness 2. It’s crazy how the vibe is so different than the first one. The first game had a really gritty feel, meanwhile this one has a polished and “clean” feel to it, probably due to having different developers and art styles. I love them both, they are special in their own ways. While I do miss the “open” world and side quests of the first Darkness, I do love this game. It’s so fun, and so is the extra content Vendettas. It’s like extra story without taking away from the story, if that makes sense? Like you don’t need Vendettas, but the extra bits are still fun to have.

Now I’m attempting Monstrum for the first time. I was a little wary at first because it seemed to start out boring since I was just walking around, but once I ran into the monsters it got a lot more interesting. I’m not sure I’ll actually get all the way through it, but it’s a fun little ride while I decide on what my next game is going to be.

Teamed up with a couple friends this week and finally finished out Diablo 4: Season 4 by taking on Tormented Duriel. I love Diablo, but it is such a relief to be able to focus on something else for a little bit.

Like Diablo 3: Season 32, lol. I am now worried about the progress I’m making. Yes, it’s only been a week, but I forgot how… not good I am in working with the Necromancer’s Trag’Oul set. I feel clunky and underpowered, but I don’t have the full set yet, so maybe once I finished chapter 4 I’ll be able to utilize it better.

Had no idea you could watch whole movies in The Darkness. I learned that when I got way too nostalgic and then invested watching To Kill A Mockingbird. Right now I’m pretty close to the end of the game, but I’ve been taking my sweet time combing over areas for collectibles. Even then, I’m still missing some, and they can be pretty well hidden. I’m having a lot of fun, but I am ready to pick up the sequel, if for nothing else but less stiff controls.

I think the main drawback for me was how unlikable I found Booker and Elizabeth to be. It didn’t help that Elizabeth would start talking every time I tried to listen to a voxophone. I remember having to take a break from the game after attempting to listen to one 3 or 4 times, but she wouldn’t stop talking. I really like the gameplay though. I’ll boot up Infinite every once in a while to play Clash in the Clouds.

I wouldn’t say it’s as good as the RE2 remake, but it’s a fun little ride and I enjoy playing it. Like I said, it’s really short, and from what my friends who have played the original say, it cut some areas and isn’t quite as faithful to the original as RE2 is. To me it’s a nice little supplement to RE2, since it also takes place in Raccoon City, as well as giving more to Jill’s story in the RE universe as a whole. I wouldn’t recommend buying it full price, but if there’s a good sale I’d nab it.

Still wading through Diablo 4: Season 4. I have one more objective to get all the rewards for the season, but I gotta choose between beating Uber Lilith, Tormented Duriel, or Tormented Andariel, all of which are a bitch to fight. I have all my glyphs upgraded to the absolute max, and most of my items are in a good place, but I need to go through The Pit some more to upgrade them further, but it’s such a grinding pain that I get bored quickly.

Diablo 3: Season 32 started this week, and I decided to go with a Necromancer after the disaster of a time I had with the Witch Doctor last season. It’s only been a day, but I’m already feeling better about this round.

Finally finished Subnautica! While the last stretch was a little grindy and tedious, the ending was nice, and overall, I’m really glad I stuck to it and made it through. I can see myself revisiting this in the future, if nothing else that to see how building different bases in different locations would affect how quickly I could get things done. Or to just see what amazing base I could build in general. I thought about playing Below Zero, but I haven’t heard as great of things compared to this one, and I’m also not sure if I could stand another 60ish hours of swimming around lol. I did end up getting it on Steam anyway during the Summer Sale, so at the very least it’s on the To Play List.

Had the urge to play Resident Evil 3 REmake again, so I did. I forgot it was so short, especially for a Resident Evil game.

For my next non Diablo game, I think I want to revisit The Darkness series. I’ve only played each game once, but I had a fun time with both, so I might see what achievements there are and do some hunting.

Still swimming around in Subnautica. It’s been fun trying to figure out my next step. Just mulling over stuff and gathering resources until I’m like “Oh! What did this one log from earlier say? Ok, I gotta check out this place over here.” Though I won’t lie, I did end up going and finding a map online, because I was getting lost so easily, especially while underwater.
I can feel that I’m nearing the end of the storyline, it’s just a matter now of getting there. Without being spoilery, I’ve put off making one particular piece of equipment, and now it looks like I’m going to need it. So, my current state is farming for resources and crafting. I’m hoping I finish this game in the next two or three days, because while this is fun, I’m itching to play something else.

I have only four more objectives to finish the season journey in Diablo 4: Season 4. Right now I’m balancing between running through nightmare dungeons to level up my glyphs and taking on Helltides.

I finished the main story line for Mad Max and only have to clean up the rest of the map. But I won’t do that now, will probably just pop in every few days to do stuff.

Still Wakes The Deep came out recently, and I didn’t know much about it other than it takes place on an ocean oil rig near Scotland and is Lovecraftian in nature. I was really looking forward to it, because usually Lovecraftian games center around a detective MC, so this taking place on an oil rig seemed like a refreshing concept, but I ended up extremely disappointed. It started off like Amnesia meets The Thing meets Alien Isolation, but unlike Amnesia, there’s not any puzzles. And unlike Alien Isolation, there’s not any combat or action. Just go here, pull lever, sneak there, have a little chase, flail through awful QTEs (and jesus, there were a lot of them). It made for a very boring ride with bland and shallow story where nothing is explained. The accents were fun though.

I picked up Subnautica again. I’m determined to actually finish it this time. I think my issue in my previous attempts was spending too much time working on building a massive base, so my plan is to just build necessities this round. I think it’s working so far? Right now all I have is a moonpool with some storage, a fabricator, and a med station. I’m not sure how long to “story” is, but I feel like I’m making good progress.

Still working on Diablo 4: Season 4 and Mad Max

Finished F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin and even played the very short DLC Reborn.

I am in love with the Alan Wake 2: Night Springs DLC. Overall it was really short, which is understandable for a free dlc. The stories fit the right tone for the game and for Night Springs à la The Twilight Zone, as well as fitting in with each episode’s playable character’s backstory. It makes me excited for lore drop that’s going to come with The Lakehouse in October.

I got sucked into a conversation with a close friend of mine about Furiosa, and it put me in the mood to replay Mad Max again. I played it earlier this year, but fuck it, I’ll play it again because I love it.

I’ve been working on Diablo 3: Season 31 off and on for a couple months now, and I’m kind of over it. I made it all the way to the Conqueror chapter, but I keep getting repetitive and useless legendary drops, even though I’m on higher Torment levels. I’m at a plateau that I’m just not that interested in crossing. I don’t know if it’s because the class I picked or the build or what, but I think I’ll just call it here until next D3 season. It’s like a complete polar opposite of the fun I’m having with Diablo 4’s current season (which we finally got pets for!).

I thought Kona 2: Brume would be a separate story than the first that I played a few weeks ago, but nope, it picks up exactly right where the first one left off. Story wise this game is a lot more interesting and linear than the first, even though it goes in some weird directions and still leaves unanswered questions. I did feel like I was actually learning the story as I went along, instead of going until the very end to have it all laid out for me. I did have to look at a walkthrough for one area because there was a ridiculous amount of back and forth over and over for that size of a map that I kept getting confused on where to go and what to do.

I felt the need to have a FPS after my recent bout of non-shooter games recently, and I was in the mood for F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin. It’s been a couple years since I’ve replayed this for the thousandth time, and it’s still a great time. I absolutely love the entire F.E.A.R. series.

I am finally completely finished with We Happy Few, DLCs and all. It was a lot better and more fun that I really thought it would be, especially story-wise. The characters are surprisingly complex and gray while still be likeable. Sally and Ollie’s stories were great. They weren’t as long as Arthur’s, and they didn’t have as many side quests (that I could find), but it was still a good time. With differences in encounters between the main characters and going through the same areas, it kind of felt like playing the B story in Resident Evil 2. As for the DLCs, They Came From Below gives the game a fun little sci-fi twist. I liked seeing more of Roger and James. Lightbearer was surprisingly super short, and I wasn’t expecting to hear Neil Newbon. We All Fall Down was by far the best DLC. It was pretty heavy, but did wrap up the ultimate fate of Wellington Wells pretty nicely. Also have to add that the music is so fun. I actually sat through the entirety of the credits each time because there were some great jams. Right now I’m dabbling around in Sandbox and Survival mode while I try to figure out what game to play next.

I love the Resident Evil series, though I think Zero is actually my favorite. It has the best version of Rebecca and my favorite version of Wesker, plus we actually get to see him and W. Birkin interacting and being diabolical together. That, and Wesker Mode is really fun.

Resident Evil 5 is probably my second favorite, because imo that’s the best version of Chris (edit to add that it’s also my second favorite version of Wesker). I’m not a fan of how he was handled in Village, and I despise that they used the same VA that they used for Carlos in the RE3 remake. Nothing against the VA, it’s just every time Chris opened his mouth in Village, my mind kept going, “That’s Carlos That’s Carlos That’s Carlos”.

I hope one of Capcom’s upcoming remakes is Code: Veronica. I nabbed it on Xbox a while back, but man, I am not made for those old school tank controls, so I never ended up finishing it.

Finally got the ng+ ending for Dead Space (2023), and… I’m not sure that I like it? It’s not bad per se, but at the very least I wish it had been presented a little differently. There’s something about it that doesn’t sit right with me, and it makes me worried about a remake for 2. I thought about replaying it (again), but I think I’m going to let it simmer for a while so I don’t get burnt out on it.

I’ve been trying to utilize GamePass a lot more lately. Thought Those Who Remain seemed interesting, but the controls were so jank and stiff that I couldn’t enjoy it properly. Because of this, I thought it was an older game. Nope, 2020. After I kinda got used to the controls, I got bored. Just when I was thinking of quitting, I died. Which led to the nail in the coffin, the shit save system. I had to start all the way back at the beginning of the level I was on. No, thank you, I’m not running through all those rooms again.

Decided to try out Scorn even though I initially hadn’t heard very many good things about it. Honestly it’s way more fun than I thought it would be, but in a weirdly abstract way. The graphics are amazing, and the setting is fantastic, but that might be because I’m a fan of H.R. Giger. I’m not sure if it would have benefited more or less if there was a more fleshed out plot than… whatever was going on. Most of the game was me just going around doing “stuff”. No other motivation other than to progress in its purest form. It’s pretty nice if you dream about existing inside Giger’s work, like an interactive art piece first, and then a video game second. The more I think about it, the more I like it lol. Although I will say in case anyone is thinking about playing it, the last act has a whole lot of what-the-fuckery for a game based off of Giger, plus some. It’s definitely not for the faint of heart or those with certain triggers.