I've been lazy with making my "Game beaten" posts this year. I've actually played a lot of games, but just haven't felt like making posts about them. Not because they were bad or anything, I've just been lazy.

I've also been tracking what I've been playing through my new site/service timeplayed.me which is really fun because I can track all platforms there.

Clair Obscur Expedition 33

Incredible game. Felt like the best game I had ever played when I played through it, but now in retrospect I've kind of forgotten it.

I loved it though. It's a modern game with the heart and soul of a PS1 JRPG, and it's wonderful. Highly recommended!

Cities Skylines

There was like a week in April or something where I played the heck out of this. I grabbed a SimCity 4 soundtrack mod and it was like the best out of both worlds.

Kind of tempted to try the 2nd game, but only heard bad things about it so... not yet.

Balatro

Not sure if you can beat this game... But I played it alot. Great game on Steam Deck

GTA V

I got hyped by the GTA VI trailer, so I played through V again. Still holds up. I played the RTX version on my fancy PC but it really didn't look that different.

Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty

It was so weird to play through Cyberpunk again because I haven't really touched it since the 1.0 era. It's like a completely different game now.

Phantom Liberty was decent anyway. I got all the achievements. Not great not terrible.

THPS 3

Fantastic game on the Steam Deck. I traveled a bit this year, and I love doing a run with one character during the plane trip.

THPS 4

Also fantastic game on the Steam Deck. I went for all achievements on RetroAchievements but did not finish.

THPS 3+4

What a colossal fucking disappointment.

The 3 portion is fine. It's not entirely accurate either though, but it's fine.

4 is butchered though. Having 4's maps without the NPC's just feels soulless. I hate it.

Mario Kart World

I got a Switch 2 and so of course I got this game, and honestly? I don't care for it. I think 8 is way, way better. This game feels like a downgrade in some ways.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom - Nintendo Switch 2 Edition

This is my most played game this year so far. I got really into it. Playing it on Switch 2 is a completely different experience, it is just way better.

I got 300ish korok seeds and 100ish shrines, and then beat the game. I kind of want to go back and finish the rest of it though. We'll see.

Important to note is that I used some Switch 2 exclusive glitches that let you dupe items and equipment and most importantly: you can get the MsgNotFound sword, which is a unbreakable weapon. The game is infinitely better with unbreakable equipment. Such a load of your mind.

Star Wars Battlefront II

Me and my brother started playing this randomly one night while we were drinking on ye olde Xbox, and we got really into it. We got so into it that we ended up finishing the Rise of the Empire campaign, coop.

Really awesome game. Haven't really played it before (I only played the first one back in the days).

The first game has a better loading screen though.

Donkey Kong Bananza

Was really excited for this game, and it is really good and addicting.Unfortunately my hand kind of hurts when playing it, because I mash the dig button so much, so I can only play it for short sessions.

But from what I've played so far, I really like it. Not the greatest thing since sliced break or anything, but definitively better than Mario Kart World.

Need for Speed: Most Wanted

This is a fantastic game. Currently playing it on the OG Xbox, and having a blast. It is really fun, the gameplay loop is very fun and the music is fucking awesome (I have like 80% of them on my Spotify liked list).

I think that's all I've played a lot this year, so far. Obviously I've played a bunch of other stuff too, but these have been my biggest time sinks.

Anyway, I think that's it for now. This blog post was totally not just a test post to make sure my new blogging thing still works. The old lambdan.se blog is redirecting here now.