FORUM

The only game on my mind right now is Baldur’s Gate 2. So many other games have been abandoned in favour of this BioWare classic, so much so that I’ll probably be writing about it next week as well. I don’t know what my playtime is, but I’m easily over the 40-hour mark and only on chapter four. And honestly, that’s because when I say I’m "playing Baldur’s Gate 2", that usually means I’m writing character journals or making a new character portrait. Do not start playing this game if you’re a writer. I’ve accidentally kept playing until 4 am twice this week. The end is nowhere near in sight.

While the five-star characters in Genshin Impact provide a great deal of variety and fun gameplay, the four-star characters are no less. In fact, some of the best Supports in the game are four-star characters like Bennett, Xingqiu, Sucrose, Xiangling, and now Kuki Shinobu. This team focuses on almost all the reactions possible in Genshin, and it's also the perfect team for free-to-play or low-spending playe

Sayu's Elemental Skill DMG is increased by 6%. When her Skill hits an opponent, Sayu loses 3 Energy but regenerates 3 Energy every 2s for the next 6s. This effect can occur once every 10s, even when Sayu is off the fi

I’m getting back into No Man’s Sky after another of my characteristic long breaks. There’s a new expedition, Leviathan, and that’s an apt word for the challenge of trying to remember what to do and figure out what on earth is going on. Permadeath doesn’t help things, but then I’ve noticed a quirk of being able to claim the Twitch rewards given away a while back, every single time I respawn. That means five ships to scrap, and millions of credits, which should make things more palatable. I’m also planning to do a lot of grinding in Dislyte — I’ve hit a wall in terms of progression, so it’s time to focus on making my Espers stronger.

Electro-Charged is one of the reactions in Genshin Impact that allows you to deal ridiculous damage to big enemies while crowd controlling the smaller ones. This happens when Hydro meets Electro and that's what this team is about. Kamisato Ayato and Xingqiu are arguably the best characters for Hydro application in the g

Once again, players will need to head back to the previous region for the Traveler's trounce material. In Sumeru, the Realm of Beginnings domain can be unlocked by finishing the Homecoming quest in Nahida's second Story Quest chapter. This domain challenge, when cleared, can reward the Worldspan Fern after paying the Resin cost for the rewa

I've been revisiting Cyberpunk 2077 and just met a certain someone with a silver hand. If I remember correctly, Act 2 is where all the best side quests open up, so I'm looking forward to spending some solid time hanging out with Keanu and Judy. I'm also midway through the much smaller (but also cyberpunk) RPG Citizen Sleeper, so I'll probably spend the weekend dual-wielding dystopias. Additionally, I've played a bit of Vampire: The Masquerade - Swansong, but have not had a chance to ahem sink my teeth in, so that's also on the docket. In other vampire-related news, Morbius is back in my local theater and the deluge of memes has given me a morb id curiosity. I've got AMC Stubs A-List and can see it for free, so who knows? I may make an appointment with the Doctor. Then again, I only have this one precious life.

Are you ready to be blown away by how cool I am, ladles and jellyspoons? I’m going to drop two megatons of Chad on you and tell you that I’ve been playing [Redacted] and [Redacted]. Yes, like all those game journalists on Twitter who definitely aren’t getting high on their own sense of grandeur while perpetuating the irritating stereotype that all we do is get paid millions to play video games, the two games I’ve been playing aren’t even out yet. You can’t get your grubby mitts on them, but I have them because I am simply built different. In other news, for entirely unrelated reasons I’ve been dabbling in Mario Golf: Super Rush and Fire Emblem: Three Houses.

I’ve had a sleepy and slow week in the run-up to a rare bank holiday day off, and the games I’ve played have matched that - Cities: Skylines and APICO. Skylines is a go-to game for quiet days when I just want to place down roads. I’m not very good at it. My city is covered in traffic and no one can get to the hospital. Oh well. APICO is a bee-keeping simulator that I played for this week’s indie spotlight, continue reading this.. another slow game about collecting, breeding, and eventually manipulating magical bees into producing materials that you then sell to the neighboring villagers for extortionate prices. Brilliant.

I’ve returned to the comforting neon haze of Need For Speed: Underground 2 for the past couple of weeks. Even after all these years it’s still not lost its charm. Racing around the midnight city with Riders on the Storm blasting out the speakers in my boot (that’s a trunk for the Yanks) clearly never gets old. Does the game look fuzzier than I remember? Definitely. Does that matter? Absolutely not. The thrill of hitting the NOS is still unparalleled . Watching the world twist and contort as my tail lights streak behind me is electrifying, and the nostalgia of playing on my GameCube - the most perfectly designed console ever - makes the game a wonderful cocktail of relaxing and exciting.