Diablo 4: Season 2 - Completed the Season Journey thanks to some nice randoms hanging out outside of Duriel's dungeon. That is one thing that I do like about playing D4, there's always someone hanging around somewhere to help you out. And if the end of the first two seasons are anything to go by, I'll definitely be needing those someones towards the end of every season.
Diablo 3: Season 30 - Finished Chapter 1-3. Working on Chapter 4.
Firewatch - I picked up this game on GamePass because I needed a little break before I started a new game plus run of Alan Wake 2 and wanted something that wouldn't take me more than one night. I knew going into this game that it was going to be "solving" a mystery, but I did not expect it to play out the way it did, or it to be such a story driven game. Even starting out in the first 10ish minutes I didn't expect the game to go in the direction that it did. It was a bit of a slow burn (wink wink nudge nudge), but it was a lot of fun, especially since it's one of those games where you come up with a theory of what's going on and then second guess yourself over and over. Plus the whole time I was walking around from objective to objective, I kept having the thought of how cool it would be to just roam around without a looming goal hanging over my head, and lo and behold, after I finished the game, a free roam setting was unlocked.
Alan Wake 2 - Gave in and started a new game plus. This game has got me in a chokehold right now, even with its many, many problems that keep popping up. Kind of wish some more was changed based on the events of the first playthrough, and I'm not a big fan of how they treated ng+ inventory or some gameplay decisions that Remedy made, but I'm still having fun.
I miss the rebirth feature as well. I've heard whispers and rumors that the devs may add it in the future since it's requested so much, but that's just hearsay.
Yeah I'm not a huge fan of the Nightmare Dungeons myself; the only reason to go through them is get glyph upgrades. It seems they rotate which dungeons become Nightmare ones each season, so I've been slowly working on a list of which I can go through the fastest so I can focus on other stuff.
iirc the Tree of Whispers is a guaranteed drop for sigils, but from what I've found they're usually lower tiered then what I want so I end up salvaging them anyway.
I spent way more time than I should have playing Dice in Kingdom Come: Deliverance.
Edit: I also just remembered the hacking system in BioShock had a very mini-game feel to it. I had a lot of fun with those too.
Diablo 3: Season 30 - Season 30 started this week, so I've been working on leveling up my monk and completing Chapter 1 objectives.
Alan Wake 2 - Finished the game, and now I'm debating on going thru again on The Final Draft (aka new game plus) instead of moving on to Dead Space. I heard the beginning and end were slightly different and that there were extra manuscripts and videos to be found, plus I only have two achievements left, so why not go for 100%? Besides, I loved it. Remedy has been building a universe, and I can't wait to see what they come up with next. There's nothing that I've played from them that I haven't loved so far.
::: spoiler 🔦💥
There is a bit towards the end where you play as Alan and you're going through the forest and it had the original music from the first game. I didn't think this game would make me tear up, but it did during that section. I would love to see the original Alan Wake overhauled with the new engine. It would be phenomenal.
:::
Unless they change it with the upcoming season, there's no downtime between seasons for Diablo 4 like there is with 3, but they do give you the whole season to sort through your inventory in the eternal realm instead of just 30 days.
If I picked Wolfenstein: The New Order back up today, I'd probably have a better time with it, since it's been a decade since I touched it last and my gaming abilities have improved since then, but for whatever reason this game was ridiculously difficult for me, even on the easiest setting. It finally came to a point where I just couldn't finish it, and I'm not sure if I ever will.
It would be interesting to see how many 'patient gamers' are actually into multiplayer games at all because of this reason. I wouldn't call myself one per se, but I probably fit the criteria, and most of the games I wait to come on sale are single player campaign.
I feel like if this was truly an accident because the character was overlooked, then wouldn't they just not have any voice at all? Even copy/pasting dialogue into some (free, according to the article) software and then inserting it into the game takes some effort.
Control is amazing! Probably one of my favorite games. I'd also recommend Quantum Break since it seems like Alan Wake 2 also references it in some roundabout ways (and Quantum Break has a couple neat little Alan Wake easter eggs). And I definitely agree, the game is a trip.
Diablo 4: Season 2 - Got all the items for Midwinter Blight, so now I'm back to working on season objectives. I only have 2 more to complete in order to get all the rewards. Right now my focus is on upgrading 5 glyphs to level 21. So far I've completed 3.
Diablo 3 - Logged in to do the Darkening of Tristram anniversary event for fun and realized I was missing a reward for a challenge I have never got around to completing, so I'm currently working on killing all the unique monsters for the event for the classic demon portrait. I'm only missing two and it seems like those bastards are just refusing to spawn.
Alan Wake 2 - I still haven't finished this, and it's mostly because I keep getting sidetracked with exploring and trying to find every little thing. But I am loving every second of the story, I don't even know how to describe it. I've been having so many emotions seeing characters from the first game being what they are now. I'm also starting to run into some visual bugs that are weird, but nothing game breaking. I feel like I'm toward the end of the game, so I've been backtracking a lot to find things that I may have missed. I'm kind of hoping I get it done this week, because I would love to get to the Dead Space remake.
As for what I'm looking forward to in 2024, I'm really hoping Outlast Trials gets out of Early Access. I love the Outlast series, but don't really like jumping into games when they haven't been 'officially' released.
I think Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 is supposed to come out this year (hopefully), but I don't think I've seen an official release date yet.
The lags and stuttering could possibly also be a hardware issue too, depending on what platform you're playing on. When I first started playing Diablo 4 a little after it first came out, it was on Xbox One, and I had terrible lag around legion events and word bosses, like you do. But when I finally upgraded to the Series X, I noticed that the game greatly improved, and I rarely have any lag problems anymore, so I'm sure an upgrade in specs helped.
Diablo 4: Season 2 - Still working on farming for Midwinter Blight. But I finally hit level 100 in doing so, so I'm pretty happy about that.
Slender: The Arrival - Apparently I got around to this just in time for the 10th year anniversary update, and I must say I was super impressed with the overhauled graphics. There were a few areas that I wished hadn't been very chase heavy, because I would have loved to explore the surroundings more. I guess they also added a chapter or two. It wasn't a bad play overall, and there was some great tension and scares, even if a few of them were cheap jumpscares. I've read that the devs will be expanding on it over the next year with new DLCs and multiplayer (of all things, after ten years lol), so I'll have to keep my eye out for whenever those drop.
Today for Christmas I finally got an Xbox Series X, so I have a nice little line up of games that I've been nearly dying to play. Right now I'm trying to decide between playing Alan Wake 2 or the Dead Space remake first. Dead Space is one of my favorite franchises, but I also adore the first Alan Wake game. Either way, I think I'll be looking at a good time this week.