Hello GB friends.
This year has been a mixed bag for me. In terms of progressing with my life and getting on post COVID, it's arguably been the best year ever. Games wise...not so much. I'm coming to a point in my life where games just don't really do it for me anymore. I kinda grew up and moved on, I guess. When I was in my university years, hearing that an RPG would take me 70+ hours to complete, I would jump for joy and get a sincere thrill to really dive deep into. Nowadays, if I hear a game will be more than 20 hours, I groan and realise I've got no chance. I will still play a "big game" if I hear it's good, but even then, it usually doesn't do it for me. Octopath was the sole standout of the RPG genre this year, and I didn't even finish that.
Anyway, here's the 6 games I played this year, and what I thought of them:
1) Octopath Traveller 2: Switch
I really liked the original OT when it came out a few years ago. The art looked good, the combat was great, the music was ethereal and otherworldly, but the stories were a bit....crap. They just fell flat. I know the big criticism was that "They weren't interconnected" like something like Final Fantasy 6. I appreciated that.
Octopath 2 largely solved those problems. The new characters were a breath of fresh air (To use a tired metaphor) and again, the aesthetics were magnificent. Combat was brilliant, and the new night and day mechanics were pretty fresh.
Saying that, I didn't get very far before real life got in the way. I think I did the first 2 acts for about half the characters. I got to Partitio and the annoying accents put me off.
I could see that OT2 would be an amazing game, one I hope to go back to in the future. Just...I don't think the RPG genre is there for me anymore. More on this when I talk about the disappointment that is BG3
5 stars
2)Hogwarts Legacy: Xbox
I went into this with very little expectations, admittedly. I really wasn't sure what to make of it outside of "Wizard Assassin's Creed", but God I loved this game. Picking your house, meeting other students, learning fun magic spells, brewing potions, and exploring the amazing world of Hogwarts, it was such a treat.
I wouldn't call myself the biggest Harry Potter fan in the world, but I did read the books in my formative years, and I have watched the movies this year, and God I love the Wizarding World Universe.
Hogwarts Legacy did to open worlds what Tsushima did a few years ago: Made them feel interesting to explore, and have some consequence for investigating each little nook and cranny
I'm purposefully choosing to ignore all this idiotic "JK Rowling is a Terf" rhetoric, because it doesn't impact the game in the slightest, and I couldn't give less of a shit about an author's personal politics when it comes to playing a videogame. I'm not an American at University, I'm a grown man, and I don't have time to whinge about trans politics.
5 stars
3) Diablo IV: PC
I mean it's Diablo. You know what you're getting when you play a Diablo game. Click, boom, loot
The only downside I have is that the launch was utterly terrible, and the builds became very "Meta" very early on. I played the Wizard, and wanted to play the lightning variant, but it was very clear early on that if you weren't playing the Ice Spike spec, you were purposefully gimping yourself.
4 stars
4)Modern Warfare 3: Xbox
There's not much to say about MW3 that you don't know. My partner was a bit fan of Black Ops and Modern Warfare 2 back in the early 00's, so we bought this to have something to play in the winter months. I'm absolutely shite at it (5 kills to 15 deaths most matches) whereas she's brilliant at it (The opposite and more).
I haven't tried the campaign outside of the first level, as it looks a bit pants, but Zombies with a long time WoW friend is really fun.
I like the Xmas modes, especially the Snowball fight one
3 Stars
5) Jackbox Party Pack 6: PC
Specifically the alien game. It's a bit like Among Us but a bit different. It's really fun to play with friends, and just hang out accusing each other.
3 Stars
6) Baldur's Gate 3: PC
This was the biggest disappointment in years for me. I played a lot of the Infinity Engine games growing up (BG1+2/ Icewind Dale/ TOEE) etc, and I played a lot of the more modern CRPG's (OS2/POE) etc so I thought I would love this.
Turned out it just felt like a huge wet fart for me. The character creator is interesting, but I remember thinking the hair looked awful. It just has this distinct scent of "Dave's Eastern Bloc Game of the Year". If you told me Owlcat made this instead of Pathfinder, I'd believe you.
Then the game started and it just felt like much of the same. I played the first 6-8 hours and I just didn't connect with it at all. Maybe if I was the kind of person who engages with Twitch every day, the companions would appeal to me more, but they just felt pandering and tired. I know everyone likes Astarion, but again, I'm a grown man, and I don't need to go around in my real life making shrines to him because he's so bishy.
All in all, a let down. Boring world, and the combat just felt trite.
I've been playing DND for nearly 20 years, and I honestly kind of hate it nowadays. It's become so reductive and formulaic that I just don't really want anything to do with standard DND for a while. Starfinder and Pathfinder are more my thing nowadays
2 Stars
I kinda don't want to play any games next year, as they all just piss me off nowadays. There's no soul in modern gaming, and I honestly just want to go back to the xbox 360 era and play Viva Pinata again
See you next year maybe!
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