Yeah, I knew it was released later and that at least the Steam Reviews are only mixed. Still, I didn’t think it would be such a waste of time.

Baldur’s Gate 3 coop, we’re in Act 2. For some reason, my friend started a fight, inside the throne room at Moonrise Towers, while surrounded by 20 enemies, half HP and no spells. We died, and because he hadn’t saved in an hour, we have to do some stuff again.

Then I finished the Solasta: Crown of the Magister - Palace of Ice DLC. It’s definitely the weakest campaign for me (base game and two DLC). The final dungeon was also pretty disappointing, but I liked the very final decision you had to do.

Then I started the Baldur’s Gate - Siege on Dragonspear DLC. I played the base game a year ago for the first time, and I think the game didn’t age well at all, and this DLC doesn’t improve things. I’m close to the end, but I really don’t like how it’s playing out right now, and I don’t care about the story at all.

Nice, thanks for the info. It has a few games I’m interested in, so I’ll get it.

I didn’t realize this was set in the Pillars of Eternity universe. I might have to check it out, after I’ve played Pillars 2.

I’m in the middle of a coop playthrough and wanted to do another solo run, once no more new stuff is coming, but it seems that’s gonna take a while longer.

Companies will find a way to apply this also to the rest of the world, citing some bogus reasons.

I struggled this year to find some proper nominees.

My favorite game this year isn’t on Steam, the World of Warcraft Pandaria Remix mode, which was some of the most fun I’ve had with WoW and gaming in general in a long time. The rest of WoW was also pretty good and the game just dominated almost half of this year for me.

Other games I really enjoyed were not from 2024, so I can’t nominate them for most cateegories. Baldurs Gate 3, Solasta, Lies of P, or the latest Doom re-releases.

I have watched a bunch of streams of 2024 releases though, so I managed to scrap some stuff together, although I’m not really happy with everything.

Nothing yet, maybe the Vampire Survivors Castlevania DLC. Otherwise probably nothing and wait for the Winter Sale.

Nioh 2

The in-game shop, definitely, but out-of-game promos, I don’t know. Most of the stuff is US or China exclusive anyway, so you don’t know about them outside those countries.

I’d guess these kinds of promos are kind rare , and that’s the reason this one blew up so much. If WoW had something like this every few months, most people probably wouldn’t care anymore, and only those who want to collect everything will pay someone to get the codes.

Like I said, what’s the difference? You had Coca Cola promotions in the past, when the game was still “pure,” according to some. Why couldn’t people with money hoard those TCG codes back in the day? For me, it’s all the same.

I’ll say basically the same thing as two weeks ago, when this exact topic was posted:

I think you’re looking at this through rose-tinted glasses.

Back in the day you also already had Collectors edition mounts and pets, the stuff from Blizzcon (before it was digital), TCG codes, etc. Not much different than these Mountain Dew promos and whatever else you have.

Why is scalping promo codes bad now, but back in the day it didn’t matter?

A bit more Baldurs Gate 3 coop. We just made it to the Githyanki Creche and next time everyone will die.

Then I got back to Vampire Survivors. Played a bunch of different “Survivors-likes”, but nothing really is as good as this. There’s so much stuff I have to catch up on, tons of unlocks and characters.

Finally, I started the Solasta: Crown of the Magister - Palace of Ice DLC. I really liked the more intimate setting of the previous one, Lost Valley, but this one is a straight-up sequel campaign to the base game. So far it’s not as good as Lost Valley, but it’s a higher level campaign up to level 16 (base game is up to 12), you get to play around with the higher level spells (also my ranger can attack one more time now). However, performance in some areas is horrible, with huge frame drops. Also ran into a potentially game breaking but, but luckily a full game restart helped.

Check out isthereanydeal.com, for a history of sales.

It looks like it was on sale a few days ago, and will probably be on sale again next week for the Fall Sale and Winter Sale after

I’m watching a streamer play through Cyberpunk right now and it looks really good. I gotta play it myself next year, when I (hopefully) upgrade my GPU.

I did play on core difficulty (“intended PF experience” or something), but as far as I can tell nothing affects the enemy HP, just how much damage you take (maybe there’s something in the custom modifiers). I guess even with a weak character you can get through on a lower difficulty, but it’ll take ages.

However, even if I used proper builds, I still used my very limited knowledge of these games and systems. If you know what you’re doing, you can probably use better spells or abilities to kill things faster.

I finished Prince of Persia The Lost Crown. It’s good but some weird decisions by the devs. For example, you can buy treasure maps at the end, so you don’t need a guide to find everything, just for some reason those maps to not actually show everything. I already mentioned the arbitrary limitation on the pictures you can take last week. Then, the whole game you’re trained to use your parry, normal enemies or bosses, just so some of the later bosses can just spam attacks you can’t parry.

I’m also done with Vampire Hunters. Beat all the stages, unlocked all the characters, but it just doesn’t have a lot of variety. It’s all just “normal” weapons, that shoot forward, nothing really crazy going on. Every level also plays the same, so it gets old relatively quick.

Then I tried HoloCure - Save the Fans!. This (F2P) game isn’t just like Vampire Survivors, it is Vampire Survivors, but with a VTuber skin. Since it’s copying the best in this genre, it’s not bad, but I’d rather just play Vampire Survivors. I’d only recommend this, if you’re a huge fan of VTubers, don’t want or can’t pay for Vampire Survivors, or have put in like a thousand hours into it and just want something a little bit different.

Next is Karate Survivor. Like the name suggests, another VS-like game. This one I’m not so sure about. The theme is 80s Martial Arts Movies, and you’re playing as Jackie Chan from Wish. Instead of weapons, you’re combining different fighting moves into a combo. It sounds neat, but the beginning is pretty rough. You can only run around, and your attacks basically all go forward. Since it’s martial arts, your attacks also have a tiny range, so you’re basically standing inside the enemies, so you can hit them. My first few runs weren’t that fun, but you unlock new moves of course and also some movement-type abilities, like rolling over obstacles or sliding under tables. You can also kick or throw small objects at enemies, like bottles, buckets, etc. or use some objects as weapons, like a broom or baseball bat. These weapons are a bit lame though, since they all have the same attack animation. Later, you can also kick bigger stuff at your enemies, like pallets or motorcycles. Each of these unlocks make the game more fun, but the normal combat, still isn’t my favorite. I’ll stick with it a bit longer, but dunno how long.

Finally, a bit more Baldurs Gate 3 coop. Grymforge is cleared, there were no survivors (except our party). Next is the rest of the Underdark.

Since I got basically no experience with DnD or PF, I’ve used build guides for my playthrough, so I’d like to think they were well built.

As I’ve written in another post, the last third of the game was just a complete slog, with overtuned enemies, that took far too long to kill.

Nothing game breaking for me as well, but tons of small stuff, plus atrocious performance.

Also, in my opinion, the last third of the game was just a complete slog. Enemies had just far too much health. Some of the final fights against trash mobs took as long or maybe longer than the final boss. I wouldn’t call that balanced.

Dunno if you want to count it towards the balance, but the Kingdom Management was also not implemented well at all. In the first half it’s just event after event, no breathing room. The second half it’s constantly waiting, doing nothing, just clicking “next.”

Yeah, 220 hours for mine, including the DLC campaign. Game is a buggy mess though and not properly balanced, especially near the end. As long as WotR improves at least those things, I’d be happy.