April has felt like a really long month at this point. We had a very stressful health crisis with Lola that felt like it erased a week of our lives due to sleep deprivation and worry. One of my best friends from high school died and that hit me really hard. And at work we’re in the middle of a huge transition between support partners so things have been crazy there, too. I was about to talk about how I hadn’t played much but thankfully I was keeping a list and in fact I finished two games before everything went to shit. It was just a couple weeks ago but it feels like months ago! (Lola seems to be on the mend now but she almost passed twice during the ordeal.) [Spoke too soon, as of this afternoon she is back in the hospital.]
Playing
I finished Death Stranding and really thought I had written a post about it, but I guess not. LOVED IT. In fact the only real reason I stopped playing after completing the story is that Death Stranding 2 is coming out at the end of June and I wanted to take a bit of a breather from wandering the wastelands before it arrived. I will be there Day 1 for Death Stranding 2, no doubt!!
I played through South of Midnight and that one I did write about. Really enjoyed it as well.
Dragon Age: Veilguard is still in rotation and I think I’m liking it more the longer I play it. Basically it took a while for my expectations to fade and for me to accept it for what it is. It feels like a game that would’ve done better if it had just been called Veilguard and they’d dropped Dragon Age from the title. I mean it takes place in the same world and all, but it doesn’t feel like a Dragon Age game to me. But it’s a decent enough action-RPG. The image at the top of this post is from Veilguard.
Oblivion Remastered hit Game Pass and I couldn’t NOT try it. It’s kind of my background game. I fire it up when I have 15 or 20 minutes and just putter around. I’m enjoying it. I never got very far into the game when it first came out. So far I’m ignoring the main story and just messing about in some small-ish town (Bruma??) I stumbled into.
Clair Obscura: Expedition 33 also hit Game Pass. This is a turn-based RPG set in a really interesting (to me) world. It feels like Logan’s Run meets The Hunger Games or something. On this island, cut off from the rest of the world, an entity known as the Paintress writes a number on a monolith every year. When she does, everyone that is the same age as that number basically dissolves and is gone. Every year an Expedition leaves the island to try to stop the Paintress. The first Expedition was numbered 100 and they’re counting down, so there hasn’t been a lot of success, and no one returns from these expeditions. The world is really strange, the voice acting is top notch, the character models are amazing…there’s a lot to like about this one and I look forward to really digging into it. Semi-trying to finish Veilguard before I fully commit to Expedition 33.
Watching
Daredevil Reborn, which I wrote about.
Years & Years, which I ALSo wrote about.
The Last of Us season 2, which has only dropped 3 episodes so far but has been really good. It is different from the game, but I’m always fine with that kind of change. I’ve already experienced the story in the game; I’m fine with having a somewhat different story in the show.
The White Lotus came highly recommended and since we’d signed up for HBO the The Last of Us, we decided to give it a try. We’re mid-way through Season 2. I LOVED Season 1 but not loving Season 2 quite as much. But we’ll see; they could still turn things around. But Armond in Season 1 was just fascinating to watch… (The White Lotus is the name of a chain of resorts and the show is like a much darker Fantasy Island. Season 1 took place in White Lotus Hawaii and S2 takes place at White Lotus Italy.)
Reading
Still working through the pre-Shannara books, by Terry Brooks.
Finished The Elves of Cintra and started The Gypsy Morph. These books are really tightly coupled. Cintra just kind of ends and Gypsy Morph picks right up. We’re still trying to save the elves from the demons and once-men. Which won’t mean anything if you haven’t been reading the series. But I’m enjoying them well enough.
And that’s April in the rearview mirror. Here’s hoping for a quieter and less dramatic May. I’m ready to be back in a rut, bored by my routine. Never thought I’d miss that, but here we are!!
Expedition 33 has absolutely taken over my gaming world at the moment. The story has absolutely gripped me, even though near the end I started to worry it was going to pull a ‘Lost’ and not explain any of the mysteries it setup.
Thankfully, that is not the case.
It also doesn’t overstay its welcome, as even doing a lot of exploration on my way through the game, I finished what I *think* is the main story around 30ish hours in, which for a JRPG-styled game (even if this one is aggressively french) is quite the thing!
I’m still playing through the Epilogue, and there is more story to be found here. I think a full completionist run is something on the order of 60 hours, but a lot of that as I understand it, is end game challenge bosses and areas.
Could not recommend it highly enough at this point though.
I haven’t gotten very far but I’ve loved what I’ve played so far. I’m still in the underwater-ish area and, without spoiling anything for others, just added a 3rd party member.
But I love the combat system even as I’m still coming to grips with it. I’ll see a baddie and think “I have no chance” but then I find if I play smart, I DO have a chance. But if I just kind of try to grind through every battle the same, certain fights seem to pummel me. So I like that I have to think a bit.
Great game so far, I agree!