Featuring: Ammosart, Ashgar, Belghast, Grace, Kodra, Tamrielo, and Thalen
Hey Folks! It is that time again, time for our yearly Games of the Year show. Last year we learned that it was far better to record two weeks in a row instead of creating a marathon three-plus hour long show and cutting it in half. This week we dive into the second half of the show covering the final eleven games. These are games that were important to us this year and may or may not have actually been released this calendar year. A lot of them were, but I just wanted to set the expectations.
This year we did not have a lot of overlap, which is to be expected given that the seven of us have some wildly different tastes. It was a big year and I am sure there are a lot of games that you think might need to be on this list that we did not choose. Hopefully, you enjoy our thoughts all the same.
Featuring: Ashgar, Belghast, Grace, Kodra, Tamrielo, and Thalen
Hey Folks! Sorry, we were out last week but we ended up with too few folks to feel like it was worth recording a show. This week we are back and talk about the launch of the Trial of the Ancestors League in Path of Exile. Grace talks a bit about their adventures in Genshin Impact and exploring the realm of the Hydro Archon. Kodra gets featured again on Cracking the Cryptic with a Sudoku and then talks about his adventures at GenCon. Finally, we wrap up the show with an attempt at a spoiler-free discussion of Baldur’s Gate 3.
We have a pretty small group this week as we are down a Kodra, Ammo, and Thalen for various assorted reasons. We start off the show with Tam talking about Viewfinder a bit which winds its way to Bel talking about the coin pusher indie Clockwork Owl. Grace has been playing a lot of XVI and we talk about the Giant Kaiju Battles that take place when two Eikons fight. Bel got into the Palia beta this week and he talks a bit about what feels like Stardew Valley the MMO. Many of us stopped playing whatever we were playing this week with the launch of Baldur’s Gate III, so we spend a bit talking about that game in largely general terms. This leads to a discussion of JRPGs and CRPGs and how they are generally telling stories in very different ways. We close out with a few topics and Bel shares that he no longer has concerns about Path of Exile II.
Good Morning Folks! This is me doing a Saturday post, which is not exactly something that I do often. However this month we have Blaugust running and I thought that just maybe for once I would try and hit 31 posts in my own damned event. In truth, the only day that I don’t normally post is Saturday given that I make weekly normal blog posts, and on Sundays, I advertise the podcast episode. So that really means I am only trying to squeeze a few more blog posts in total to hit 31 so I might as well actually make that happen. I figured that I would start off the first of these and talk a bit about what has garnered the majority of my attention for the past two days… Baldur’s Gate 3. This is a game that I have technically owned since 2020, but have avoided doing much with because I did not want to spoil the experience. I get that probably does not make a whole lot of sense, but I am a huge fan of Larian Studios and I viewed my purchase of Early Access as a way of helping fund the development. It turns out that faith was rewarded as all of the early access holders got access to the digital deluxe version free.
The original Baldur’s Gate was a heck of a lot of fun, but I will be honest it wasn’t really until Icewind Dale was released that I began ravenously devouring these games. So when Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows of Amn I was well enough indoctrinated into the series to be hyped and ready to go on launch day. Playing Baldur’s Gate III, over the last few nights has felt like my memories of Baldur’s Gate II. What I mean by that is that I have been transported back in time to an era when I could just meld with the game and become hopelessly engrossed in it. I’ve experienced “time loss” like I have not in years where I sit down thinking I am only playing for a few minutes, and I look up and three hours have passed. I mean this in the best way possible, and while it took me a bit to get used to the slower pace of a real-time-action game… now that I am engaged I am fully engaged.
I’m not going to dive too deeply into the story, that will probably come for a much later blog post. For character options, I decided to keep it simple and went with a Barbarian. I opted to go for an entertainer background which gave me performance and acrobatics, both of which have already come in handy. For the race I decided to follow my heart and go with a Dwarf and given the Ithilid roots of this game, I opted to go with Duergar. So far I am pretty happy with all of my choices save for maybe the voice I went with. To be truthful, none of the voice actors really felt like a Duergar should feel. Thankfully most of the time I am a silent protagonist, but there is a bit of a mental disconnect whenever I say anything.
For the most part, I like all of the characters. If you told me this was a Bioware game I would have believed you, because I already care about my little party of misfits. Like we really are a “bad ideas” party, but I am enjoying adjusting to the nonsense and I am glad I am able to be zero shocked when someone reveals more awful things that they are dealing with. It does feel a bit weird that in a party of “chosen ones” I seem to keep being set up as the “most chosen” of them all. The only character I am sus about is Lae’zel but mostly because she is a bit aggro all the time. I run around with her mostly because apart from me she is the strongest hitter.
I like Gale an awful lot, but he has this weird uncanny resemblance to a young Mel Gibson. I have to see it every time I play the game so now you do too. All things told though while I don’t normally like “finger wigglers” as I call them… he is pretty cool for a magic user. Like he has his own “bad ideas” traits about him, but he reminds me a bit of my love of Dorian from Dragon Age Inquisition. Shadowheart is probably my favorite, but truthfully… were Shadowheart introduced differently I probably would have hated the character. I have this thing against the “does not trust you” characters… so I could see Shadowheart reading as a “Corso Riggs” if I was not already inherently wired to want to help her because I saved her from a pod.
All told I am about ten hours into the game and still have yet to replace the weapon I got from the tutorial. Admittedly there are a lot of people who probably did not get that weapon, and I only did so because I happened to read a bit specifically stating that I should. Right now my party comp is Shadowheart, Lae’zel, and Gale and I am not sure if I completely missed getting Wyll. I’ve done some research as to where to find him, but I never seemed to bump into him in that area of the game. I do wonder if I screwed that up and am completely unable to get him now. I need to backtrack a bit and roam around the area just to make sure I did not miss something.
Anyways greatly enjoy the game, and will very likely be mainlining this at least until the launch of the Path of Exile Ancestor’s League on the 18th. I hope yall are having a most excellent weekend. It is raining this morning, which we desperately need because it hit 107 the other day… which is just not fun.
