Old_Man_Harper

Good that those of us on Team Green have been able to put our shoulders to the wheel for the future of managed democracy. I’ve had great fun with it, a great game to enjoy with booze and friends. Glad it has been a big hit for them.

@Nightcrawler71 I find that coating my sword and arrows with my own very strong bane poison adds an extra edge to my combat ability. One hit and they’re a dead man walking!

@Nightcrawler71 Yep, that’s the last main quest in Trosky - you can still go back there for any unfinished activities after you get to the Kuttenberg map, so no need to do everything first.

I thought I’d give Resident Evil: Village a go and am enjoying it a lot. I wouldn’t call it scary, but it’s entertaining. The start rips off RE4, you get chased round a village by some characters who look like the morlocks from the 1960 Time Machine film and a big bloke off the cover of a bad 80s metal album. Then a bell tolled and off they all went. I enjoyed getting chased round a castle by an impressively Amazonian woman, but it was always going to end in tears.

“We’re spending a ton of money on our so-far deeply disappointing AI efforts and we need to maximise every other income stream to support it.”

I thought Double Exposure was okay, nothing more, although it had some good moments. I thought it was a risk bringing Max back because people would inevitably want Chloe too. To be honest, I think they should’ve just come up with new characters, it didn’t hurt True Colors to do so, it’s probably the best in the series.

@Nightcrawler71 The wedding mission is a total blast isn’t it? I loved the one directly after, too, although if you’ve levelled the right stats up beforehand you can do it pretty easily.

More KCD2 on Series X. I’m doing the Legacy of the Forge DLC. Basically, you must renovate an old forge and raise your standing as a master craftsman. There is quite a lot of forging, as you might imagine, but a lot of the commissions you receive from customers turn into entertaining side quests.

@Nightcrawler71 Yes, they’ll all help. It’s not that tough - land a few good ones on him and he’ll call it quits. After that, it sounds like you’re definitely ready to go to the wedding and really get the plot rolling.

@Nightcrawler71 Yeah, he beat me bloody the first time I tried it too! If you’ve got some decentish armour, keep blocking, countering and leaping back and let him come at you. Blocking and then leaping forward to get behind him also works. Don’t try trading blows with him unless you’re very strong.

@Nightcrawler71 Have you got Tomcat to teach you Master Strike yet? Combat gets easier once you do, it’s still tricky against more than one opponent though!

I guess I’m getting near to the end of the Mysteria Ecclesiae DLC in KCD2, which I’ve enjoyed a lot - quite substantial for DLC, with plenty to do. After that, I’ll head back to Kuttenberg and do the Legend of the Forge DLC.

I bought myself a gaming laptop and - as I’m retiring in a couple of weeks - I’m going to try some of those monster strategy/war games that don’t really translate to console.

Happy New Year!

Rolled the credits on my second play through of KCD2 this morning. This time I got the good ending, which requires taking the tougher or more humane option at certain key points.

Now on to the ‘Mysteria Ecclesiae’ DLC, which takes place entirely in the confines of Sedletz Abbey, which isn’t accessible in the main game. As the name suggests, it’s a mystery and all weapons and armour have to be handed in on entry to the abbey. It should suit my Henry, as I focused on speech and scholarship.

More KCD2. I won a duelling contest, which is something I would have found unimaginable the first time I was in a sword fight!

@Nightcrawler71 a tip for lock picking is to rest the controller on your knee so you can use your right thumb and index finger on the thumb stick to get more control.

All my favourites on Xbox this year were ones I bought: KCD2, Helldivers 2, Jurassic World Evo 3, Lost Records, but I used reward points towards all of them.

I’m mixing working from home (i.e. laying on the sofa and occasionally glancing at my laptop) and replaying KCD2, with a focus on doing the side quests I didn’t do on my first time through.

@Nightcrawler71 It’s definitely not a 40-hour experience. More like 150-200. But goodness me I found it rewarding.

@Nightcrawler71 KCD2 is my GOTY - I’m just replaying it myself. My advice - you’ll soon start a main quest called ‘wedding crashers’ - DO NOT rush this quest. Before you go to the wedding take your time to learn the systems, do some blacksmithing and alchemy (you can easily earn money by doing the latter and you’ll soon be making multiple strong potions just by brewing once). Do side quests, read books, get drunk, play dice, explore. Grind some skills up. Get your horse back. Don’t fight armed people if you don’t have to - get some reasonable armour and learn some fighting skills - ‘master strike’ is a game changer.

My picks were:

1 - KCD2 (by a wide margin the best game I played this year)
2 - Helldivers 2
3 - Jurassic World Evolution 3
4 - Lost Records: Bloom and Rage
5 - Ball X Pit

I can only contrast the 267 hours (with more to come - I haven’t played any of the DLC yet) of KCD2 with the 3 hours 22 minutes which were all it took for me to lose interest in E33…

Finished JWE3 - really good fun if you like that type of game, and I do. Started my second play through of my GOTY KCD2 on Series X now that all the DLC is out and enjoying relaxing back into medieval Bohemia. I also bought myself a gaming laptop in the Black Friday sale which was delivered today, so will take some tentative steps into PC gaming…

More Jurassic World Evo 3 on Series X. A very engrossing game - the different parks in the campaign all provide different challenges, but I’m now onto the last one, so I should soon find out who has been sabotaging my parks. I have a strong suspicion…

If you enjoyed any of the Life is Strange games, Lost Records is definitely worth a go, one of my favourite games of this year.

I’ve had a right laugh playing this with my friends. The levels of destruction you can unleash are hilarious and impressive. How about a nice cup of liber-tea!

I dropped to Premium. I’m retiring in January so I’ve had a cull of subscriptions. The ‘big releases’ on Ultimate this year haven’t impressed me enough to keep it, especially at the new price, although that may change.

@TheCrafter1578 Did you learn Master Strike from Tomcat? Once you learn that, combat gets much easier.

At this rate, I’ll be playing it in a care home or a hospice.

@TuscanUK I took my time over it - started in February, finished in May. I didn’t play anything else at all during that time - I enjoyed it so much that I didn’t want to.

You aren’t really going to be able to scratch the surface of it in that short time! My playthrough took over 200 hours and there were quite a few side quests I didn’t do.

Yesterday was pay day so I bought Jurassic World Evo 3. If you’ve played the other games, it’s basically more of the same but better, which is fine by me.

I haven’t tried them all, but Ball X Pit is excellent, Breakout meets bullet hell.

They deserve their success, Helldivers 2 is a great laugh with friends, the best since Horde, although judging by the amount of friendly fire damage me and my mates manage to inflict on each other, we’d be incapable of running a back garden firework display without losing limbs.

I played a bit of The Casting of Frank Stone, but I wasn’t in the mood for something gloomy, so I switched to Ball X Pit which is very addictive. Might give Keeper a try tomorrow.

Good Lord, what a horror! Wasn’t the wolf spider bad enough?

More Subnautica. I have now constructed the submarine which I will need to go down to the deep depths and hopefully solve the mystery of this planet. However, it will still need strengthening to withstand the pressure and I’d really like to add some weapons too, because there are some right horrors down there!

This seems sensible to me, if they are going to release on multiple platforms. Give your own customers first bite at the cherry (and on Game Pass), then everyone else a bit later.

More Subnautica - really engrossed by this now and intrigued by the story you uncover as you progress.

Kind of cool that they are releasing it on Mega Drive.

For the King 2 looks interesting, it hadn’t been on my radar but I’ll give it a try.

I thought I’d try Subnautica again as I didn’t really get anywhere the first time I tried it, and lost interest, which bugged me as I know others had a great time. This time, having played Grounded and others, I’ve got a lot more experience with survival games and am finding it much easier to progress.

I can’t see past KCD2 for my personal GOTY. Honourable mentions to Lost Records and Helldivers 2. Some games I’d looked forward to - E33, Blue Prince - just didn’t click.

I bought it, so I can’t really review it on Game Pass, but I thought it was a pretty solid 8. The story is somewhat vanilla in comparison with the earlier games, but the combat is really good, apart from that flipping dragon that electrifies the ground. He took some killing.

A bit more Gears Tactics, which I’m enjoying, having not played it since back in 2020. May also try a little solo Helldivers 2, just to get a bit more experience and familiarity with the mechanics before the next session with my friends.

@Vordus That reminds me of when I bought Dark Souls 2. I bought it, spent an hour or so installing it, pressed start, watched the opening cinematic until I got control of the player, then thought “Do I really want to play another damn game like this?” and that was as far as I ever got with it.

I finally got round to playing it with my Thursday crew and we had a great time! There was rather a lot of accidental friendly fire, so God help us when we get serious weaponry….

I played through the first remastered game earlier this year and thought it was showing its age a bit - lots of corridors and courtyards and quite grey/brown to look at - so I don’t particularly fancy trying it again.

I thought I’d have a go on Gears Tactics - I’d forgotten how good it is, the three-move turns make it a lot more kinetic than (say) Xcom and it captures the feel of Gears well. I’ve got Helldivers 2, but saving it for Thursday when I can play with my usual crew.

Veilguard has the most vanilla story of any of the series but it isn’t that bad. It looks good and the combat is the best of any DA game.

I expect I’ll mostly be on Grounded 2, but I’ve installed the updated Hellblade 2 and will also have a go at that.