Only just started the new Diablo 4 expansion, because I was sick the whole week. I’m still early in the campaign, playing the new Spiritborn.

I got really into TCG Card Shop Simulator. It’s pretty much like all these other “Simulator” games, that pop up in early access every few weeks, like Supermarket Simulator, Recycling Center Simulator and whatever, although the theme is definitely much more appealing to me. The standout feature is probably that you can actually open card packs to collect the gazillion of cards already in the game or sell them as singles. The game is also made with Unity and can use existing mod frameworks, so there are tons of mods out already. You can change the cards to Pokemon, Digimon, and more, along with a bunch of mods to automate the more tedious aspects. I’m at a point right now, where I just need to restock my warehouse every night and can spend the rest of the day sitting in a dank corner and open packs like a degenerate.

The Diablo 4 expansion was supposed to launch a few hours ago, but it got delayed and nobody can play and has to wait.

Good to know. If I get more into Doom an non-official stuff, I might look at those, but for now the batch file will do.

True, how easy it is to get into the games with this port, along with the mod browser, definitely outweighs the few minor issues.

I’ve actually downloaded Woof myself for my Final Doom playthrough. It takes a few minutes to read up on how to create a batch file to make launching the game more user friendly, but once you’re in, it’s has everything you’d want.

I really enjoyed the first game years ago, but never really got into the sequel the few times I tried, although I never disliked it.

I finished Doom II and some levels were an absolute pain. I gotta say though, this re-release (Doom + Doom II) is a bit disappointing. There are a bunch of glitches, although pretty minor, that are just annoying. The most frustrating one for me was, when you have the Pistol Start option activated (to automatically start all levels with just the Pistol), the Backpack is bugged and doesn’t give double ammo capacity. Once you die and restart the level it’s fixed, until the next level. I don’t know if it ever made the difference with me dying or not, but it just sucks.

Today I started Final Doom, specifically TNT:Evilution, which I’ve never played before. Just like before I’m trying UV, Pistol Start, no mid-level saves, but depending on how it goes I might start using saves. I’ll probably try a different source port though, since this KEX engine port isn’t the best.

I also played through Horizon Forbidden West: The Burning Shores DLC, although only the main quests and almost nothing else. It was kinda meh. The story was fine, but the final boss fight was complete garbage. The romance part also felt really rushed, especially since I went through everything over just two days/seven hours in total.

Then, I’m also kinda in-between games right now, since I’m waiting for the Diablo 4 expansion release in a bit over a week. There are a bunch of games I want to play, but probably won’t finish in time, so they have to wait. I tried Ace Combat 7, played through the first mission, but it didn’t really grab me (KB+M is definitely more playable than the Steam forums made it seem). I’ll probably play through one of the dozens of metroidvanias I bought, but never played.

I finished Doom in the most recent re-release (Doom + Doom II), Ultra-Violence, Pistol Start and no save scumming. The base game isn’t too difficult, but still one level per episode gave me some trouble. The fourth episode is a massive step-up in difficulty though. E4M6 took me a lot of tries, but it got a lot easier, once I found some secrets with extra weapons.

After Doom, I continued with Doom II, still on UV, Pistol Start, no saves, and the first few levels are no issue, but it got tough real quick. Basically, just like E4 in the first game, it’s often about finding the best path to more weapons and ammo. The levels are also more open, so you usually have a few different paths to choose from, so figuring stuff out takes a bit. Depending on how it goes, I might start looking at the wiki to check out secrets and pickups and kinda plan a route that way.

I also finished Lies of P. It’s a good game and I had fun, but the there are definitely some weird decisions by the devs, although they were pretty minor. Weapon durability felt pretty pointless, I think only for two or three boss fights did I have to sharpen during the fight. Same with the jump, which is only needed a few times. However, since it’s like Dark Souls, so you need to sprint to be able to jump, any more would have sucked anyway. Might as well put in a dedicated button like Elden Ring and make it better, or just remove it. The weapon system was pretty neat, even though I basically just used three different heads and handles. I loved the perfect block mechanic, especially if it also destroyed the enemy weapon. Too bad it doesn’t work on the monster enemies, I guess, since they don’t really carry a weapon. The story got pretty lame in the end, but it’s whatever. I disliked two boss fights, the first Black Brotherhood fight since it was a gank fight, and the penultimate boss, because the hitboxes were just really weird, and I was constantly getting shoved around. Even on a perfect block I was a mile away from the boss, so a follow-up really sucked

Finally, I started Horizon Forbidden West: The Burning Shores DLC. I played the base game earlier this year, when it released on Steam, but I’m not really feeling the huge 3D open world right now. I’ll still finish the story, since it’s pretty short, but will probably only do the critical path and little to no exploring.

Just when the new season in World of Warcraft starts, I stop playing. I had a lot of fun, but also played a lot these last couple of months. WoW is also not a game I just play on the side. If I play it, I basically play nothing else. No idea when I’ll be back, probably if my best friend starts again, but who knows if that happens.

I wanted to check out the latest re-release of Doom with Doom + Doom II, and look at the new episode, but decided to try and play through all the levels of the first two games on Ultra-Violence, Pistol Start, and no save scumming. I’m halfway through episode three of Doom, and it’s not been too difficult so far. Three levels took me a few tries, the rest wasn’t too bad. The main thing is a lack of ammo, especially at the start of a level, so you either got to get comfortable punching things or cause infighting. I usually choose the former, so the Berserk power-up is always a welcome sight.

Then I started Lies of P. I killed three major bosses so far and it’s alright. I play on KB+M, and as always controls are just so-so. It’s not like you have 60-100 keys available, so better put two or three abilities on the same button or force players to cycle through item shortcuts.

I’m a certified Trails hater, but I loved the two Crossbell arc games. It’s a shame those games are connected to the rest of the series, which is complete trash.

More of the new World of Warcraft Expansion. I’ve leveled four characters to 80 now, and equipped two of them. My Monk and Paladin are basically “done” for now, and I’m kinda waiting for the higher difficulty stuff. Next week I’ll focus on gearing my two other characters, a Mage and a Druid. While the Monk is definitely my favorite to play, the Paladin and Mage aren’t too far behind. Only the Druid is a bit underwhelming, since stuff just dies too fast right now, and I need to apply DoTs to anything to do any real damage (Balance spec).

Even though I’ve had the soundtrack for the first game for a while and even recently bought it for the sequel, I never bothered to check what kind of game this is. Then I recently saw a video of shapez 2, and it looks really fun, so I gotta check it out sometime.

The new World of Warcraft expansion was launched, but only if you paid for the giga edition to get three days early access (which I did). It’s a WoW expansion alright.

The stuff you can do during the early access period is pretty limited, there’s no real way to get a gear advantage or something, just more time to level up characters I guess. I finished the campaign on my Monk (skipping all the quest text as usual, but watching the cutscenes this time) and just started a second character today.

It feels a bit underwhelming right now, because a few of my friends, who usually play WoW all year round, are still on holiday, along with the limited things to do. The first and second week in August should get a bit more interesting, since then the higher difficulty stuff launches.

I’m also 100% done with Melvor Idle and the first two DLC and will start on the new DLC, after some more housekeeping and grinding for items.

Maybe a bad time to pick up the game again, since 1.0 is releasing next month, along with the story/campaign, so you might just get to do it all over again!

I played Tunic last December and loved it, and while I found a lot of stuff, I definitely needed some help to get the good ending. I was definitely glad to have done so though.

Another week until the World of Warcraft Expansion releases, and I used the event to level all of my characters to 70. Even my very first character, who hadn’t seen the light of day in over 15 years, is now properly equipped to take on whatever may come. Too bad it’s a priest, which I really don’t like to play, so back into the dungeon he goes. The Remix mode also ends tomorrow, so all of those characters will migrate over to retail, which means I’ll look over those and do some final house cleaning.

Then I’m pretty much done with the Diablo 4 season, but not because it’s boring or anything, but I kinda finished everything I wanted to do and more. I was playing a Chain Lightning Sorcerer, but found the final item to change my build to Lightning Spear, which is just completely overpowered this season. I kinda breezed through everything, killed all the giga versions of the bosses, cleared Pit level 100, the new Infernal Hordes mode on Tier 8, and upgraded all my stuff. Today I killed some more of the Uber bosses and even got two Uber Legendaries (which I salvaged to crafter another one). I might try and push my Pit level a bit higher, and try to kill Echo of Lilith, the final Uber boss, which got reworked somewhat last season or something, so it’s not just you getting one-shot by terrible hit boxes all the time. (Edit: just killed her, wasn’t too bad, but you need to learn the fight a bit, so in the beginning it just feels you randomly die.)

Also, this last year or so I’ve been “playing” Melvor Idle, which is Runescape, but as an idle game. The game recently launched it’s third DLC, but I’ve been holding off on playing it, since I wanted to 100% everything else first. This week I finally got done with the base game and the first DLC and am almost finished with the second DLC, although it might take another one or two weeks just grinding stuff, so I can craft the missing items. I’ve played a bunch of idle or incremental games over the years, but this is definitely my favorite. It’s not a clicker, there is no constant rebirth or whatever, you just choose a skill and you slowly train it. The best part is, you can actually close the game and fully progress offline. The game also has an in-game mod browser with tons of mods, kinda like the Steam Workshop, which is fantastic.

More of the World of Warcraft Pre-Expansion Event. Like last week, I leveled a bunch of characters to max, just because it’s easy, even if they’ll never see the light of day again (until the next event like this).

Then, the new Diablo 4 season started, and in less than a week I’ve basically progressed as far as the whole of last season. I went with a Sorcerer this time, currently running a Chain Lightning build, and it’s a lot more fun than the Minion Necromancer last time. However, now I’m at the point where it’s not just easy upgrades all the time, but grinding for those drops to feel a real difference, so the honeymoon phase might end soon. The new season mechanic seems pretty neat, although I haven’t done a whole lot of it yet. It’s a pretty simple wave based mode in a small room, where you just get to slaughter tons of demons and a boss fight afterward. This mode has different tiers or difficulties, most of which I haven’t tried yet, so I don’t know how much things change, if at all, but considering I’ll probably only play another two weeks at most (until the Warcraft expansion release) I don’t see it getting old.

The World of Warcraft Pre-Expansion Event went live this week, and it was complete garbage. The event got changed two days later, which fixed basically everything wrong with it, and now it’s pretty good. I managed to level almost all my level 60 characters to max through the event, since it barely takes an hour each. Basically none will ever see any serious playtime though, and will just collect dust again.

Then I just finished the Solasta: Crown of the Magister - Lost Valley DLC and enjoyed it much more than the base game. The gameplay is still D&D, no changes there, but the setting is much smaller this time. You’re not on some world-saving quest or killing a god, but a very confined area, with about a dozen locations you can visit (plus sub areas like caves or dungeons). Your party gets trapped in a valley and has to find a way out. There are people living in the valley, complete with a city and everything, but there’s kind of a civil war going on, so you gotta pick a side and which faction to support. Due to my choices, the ending was kind of unspectacular, but still fine. Since there are multiple factions, who are at war, and you can’t please everyone, there’s stuff you can’t do in a single playthrough (mainly quests and dialogue, not locations I think). Since the DLC is on the shorter side, you’re encouraged to play through it multiple times, but I most likely won’t do that. I do however look forward to the second DLC campaign, Palace of Ice, which I’ll probably won’t play for a few months.

Next week, Diablo 4 Season 5 will start, which I look forward to. This time I’ll play a Sorcerer. Let’s hope it’s not another bust, like the Minion Necromancer last time.

Leveling some more World of Warcraft characters. The pre-expansion patch launched, and I’ve read about lots of bugs, but since I basically just play up to level 25 in the remix mode (and then boost the characters to max) I don’t really notice anything about it. Only that low level characters appear to be weaker now, that’s it. The pre-expansion event starts this week, so I’ll check that out.

Then I finished Solasta: Crown of the Magister. The story stays kinda mediocre, and it felt like some characters suddenly lost 50 IQ near the end, otherwise some parts wouldn’t have worked. I still like turn-based combat, so I generally had a good time. The game has multiple campaigns, that were added in the DLC (plus a Dungeon Maker, to create your own campaign and share in on the Steam Workshop). The first DLC campaign is supposed to be a faster pace and shorter than the main one, even if both are level 1-12, so I started that one. I did install a mod that lets you add and change a bunch of things, although I mainly use it for some QoL stuff, plus some more spells (and maybe feats) from table-top DND, so even though I’m using the same characters, I can try out some different things.

Continuing with Solasta: Crown of the Magister. As far as I know, it’s based on 5e and level 1-4 were pretty boring, since you can’t do a lot. I’m currently level 7, and it’s better, although still not a lot to do with only one action and sometimes a bonus action. The story is pretty basic, but the characters aren’t very interesting. You don’t have a lot of freedom, at least where I am right now. You can move between specific points on a map, sometimes get into random encounters, and that’s it. Very light on the RP, with almost no choices during dialog, when you can even speak with an NPC at all (only those relevant to your current quest will talk to you). Some parts are also kinda clunky, but I still have a good enough time with the game.

Then I started leveling a new character in World of Warcraft. Expansion pre-patch will drop in a few days, so I’ll check that out.

Also, more Powerwash Simulator. I’m not really a fan of how the later levels are basically just made as annoying as possible, since you often need to stand in very specific spots to blast away some of the dirt, but the crappy movement and aiming really aren’t made for that.

Some more Powerwash Simulator. It’s neat, but has two super annoying issues. First is the water jet aiming, which just loves to jump around a bit on its own, because the game thinks there’s something in the way. This is basically only an issue up close, so just moving away a bit helps (although not always possible). Second you get stuck constantly, if the ground isn’t super flat, like on a roof or one of the levels is a skatepark with a bunch of ramps. That one just sucks.

Then I pretty much finished the current content in Slime 3K: Rise against Despot. It’s a Vampire Survivors-like which I usually enjoy, but I’m not really sure about this one. The current Early Access version has 10 levels, that kind of try to have a gimmick or theme, but most of them are the same. They all look the same too. The final level is definitely the most Survivors-type thing. Just tons of fodder enemies, coupled with some stronger elites, with more than enough time to get all the items you want and upgrade them. It’s not like it takes a long time to get there, but if those earlier “gimmick” levels are what the devs aim for in the finished release, I’m not a huge fan.

Next I tried Maniac, which is GTA 1 (or 2), but as a rogue-lite, Survivors-like game. It’s just you, running and driving around a city, causing mayhem to get points and try to survive for 20 minutes until you get nuked. So far, I’ve done a couple of runs and won once, but it’s not really that fun. The upgrades and weapons are also pretty boring. I unlocked a few more characters, which I’ve not yet checked out, so I’ll give it a bit more time. I just hope it’s not just a difference in starting weapon or something.

Finally, I’m really in the mood for a CRPG again, and thought about Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, but I know it’s gonna take me like two months or more to get through, and in a few weeks the new Diablo 4 season will start and the World of Warcraft expansion after that, so Pathfinder will have to wait. So I chose another game, that hopefully won’t take as long, Solasta: Crown of the Magister. I played through the tutorial a few months ago and started the game proper earlier today. I’m still at the very beginning, just left the first town, but it’s a turn-based CRPG I guess.