September 2025 - Time Stories middle 3 Expedition/Mask/Lumen

August 2025 - DayZ again

 I usually play a load of DayZ around July/August these last few years. 

Finally drove a car!

Or three!

And a boat!

Did not manage to get the 'kill a survivor at 300 metres' achievement yet, but had a good attempt at it on 31st of August 2025; shot my friend at 300+ with a Sporter but too weak; they died of blood loss probably but it say my best shot of a survivor was over 300 metres (thanks Rangefinder).

July 2025 - Outer Worlds 100% completion (3 more playthroughs)

Outer Worlds 2 is coming out soon and I wanted to play OW1 again so I did. I also picked up the DLCs on sale at some point so could finally get the 20+ achievements from them too. These are 3 more playthroughs after my initial playthrough in 2024.

Playthrough #1 (Hard)

I stumbled across a comment somewhere containing a link to a video of a streamer completing OW1 in like 30 minutes so I copied what he did and finished it in around 4 hours on hard difficulty in early June. The key is to shoot the main npc quest givers in the head, nullifying entire arcs of the story and moving you forward to the next one.

I just had Parvati as my companion and had to heal a lot but managed it fine. I didn't even have to shoot a single shot in the final area. 

Playthrough #2 (Supernova)

A week later in mid-June I booted the game up again on Supernova difficulty. I died a lot but took my time and grinded here and there and it was not too difficult. Lots of dying but the limited saves attached to this difficulty was not too hard to manipulate.

Playthrough #3 (Normal/DLCs)

After completing it on Supernova, I played it again the next day on Normal difficulty. So much easier. I also skipped a lot of the missions by assassinating the major NPCs but also had to stop and grind experience as I planned to do both of the DLCs.

The Gorgon DLC was decent, a bit too dark and lonely for my liking. It needed a few more interesting people to talk to. 

The Eridanos DLC was better, I enjoyed the whole murder investigation angle. 

Afterward all I had left to do was the 50 stealth kills achievement. I got that in a few minutes after re-speccing as a stealth sniper. That was actually a lot of fun, almost wished I had done it earlier. I can always get the enhanced edition if I want to get all the achievements again.

June 2025 A Link to the Past (second time in 20~ years)

There was a lot of this.

 I had played this through at least once before on the Game Boy Advance back in the mid 2000's. It was a great experience and a game I wanted to play again sometime. Around 20 years later I finally sat down and played it again, this time on an emulator with an Xbox controller. Big change from a GBA.

The Dark World. The music slaps

I cleared it on the 14th of June 2025. It took about 2 sessions to finish - the first one on the 2nd of June I started it and got all the way to the Master Sword/Dark World, the second one I cleared all the Temples and beat the game.

Definitely an emulator. Save states are so handy

Not much to say, I've been enjoying playing emulators here and there over the last few months.

Bombos is very handy.

I started following a guide at various points, all of them show how to cut corners and skip optional stuff like maps and compasses in dungeons so I was all over that. I usually skip them on replays of Ocarina of Time now for example.

This fucking secret. Anything for a few fairies.

There was also extensive tips on how to find all the heart containers and such but you get like 10 full ones from playing the game normally so I just picked up whatever I could as I went along and had 17 by the end.

Yes!

Still a great game I'd recommend to anyone. Was a bit fiddly with an Xbox stick for movement but I eventually got better at it, just in time to beat Ganon et al.

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I went back to playing Outer Worlds [1] again after this. I cleared it recently on Hard by using a speedrun, will now try to finish it on Supernova. Then, go back and do it on Normal and play the DLC. Lack of saves is a bit scary, not as bad as Survival Fallout 4 but awkward for sure. Also, am trying to keep companions alive for experience kills so have to reload if they die. Ugh.

After that will probably give DayZ a run during the summer at some point and maybe play some new games, the backlog is shorter but needs to be cleared.

May 2025 T.I.M.E Stories 1,2,3 again again again

I want to play all 9 of the original TIME Stories scenarios so I am making it happen. I have played 6 of them multiple times with different people and solo so I will try and clear them again with my good group of friends here then move onto the final 3 for the first time.

The Asylum:

I was the cannibal girl once again, the best all-rounder IMO. I think Royce was the nymphomaniac, Billy the old lady and Dave had anxious girl.

Billy's character has 1 hp so she was KO'd at one point; we did the dead end route at one point (still being brought up to this day). I think it took two runs but the lads were very good; they solved the riddle themselves IIRC.

Asylum is cool because the characters suck and there's a creepiness to the whole art and writing. 

The Marcy Case:

I was the grizzled veteran for the first time.

Royce was the reporter girl IIRC, Billy the FBI agent and Dave the bodyguard. In comparison to Asylum, all these characters are absolute units.

This took two runs which is not surprising; I think we had everything we needed from the first run to breeze through the second run. The finale we didn't have some of the items to make it easier but had plenty of time. For the second time, lots of noise was made with firearms. In the first few plays of this scenario I did years back, the wisdom was to not use the guns at all - this has changed!

I used to think it was the outright best, but it might be slipping behind EE and Asylum.

The Prophecy of Dragons:

I played the Thief so we could have the option to steal stuff. I always take them if no one else does, so handy to have.

Royce was the Paladin (best character IMO) Billy was the Elven Ranger (also very good) and Dave was the Cleric (I'm still iffy on the mages in this scenario).

We found the 3 McGuffins easily enough and did the Fighter route to the midway point; we almost did the Mage route but I vetoed it as we would completely rely on poor Dave to make every roll.

We managed to clear it in one run, we got to the midway point and got our TU refreshed and then cleared the second half in a second session a few weeks later. We didn't use any tokens/beacons yet but did in Expedition Endurance later.

PoD is the weakest scenario - the multiple routes (4?) to the same midway point make it unfocused. There is no mystery, no plot, no named characters to keep track of throughout the scenario only at the very end.

Points per scenario and token taken:

#	scenario	points/token pick
1	Asylum	31/green blue
2	Marcy	42/green blue
3	Prophecy	64/pink

Next up:

Expedition Endurance we cleared at the end of May 2025 but soon we will play Under the Mask and eventually Lumen Fidei, bringing us up to 6/6 of the ones I've played; after that I will post an update here on those and then get to crack open Brotherhood, Estrella and Madame for the first time.

April 2025 - Vegas trip I guess

March 2025 assorted WIBPL

 I'm back working and whatnot so am too tired to do much else. But managed to get some classic gaming done via assorted means.

Duckstation: Smackdown! 2: Know Your Role

This was done in February 2025 prior to me knowing how to map the controls onto a controller, so I played this again with a keyboard. The first thing I did was create the Blacksmith and friends and then started the Season Mode.

I managed to clear the first year of the Season Mode. It was super weird. I was buried in various feuds with the likes of Val Venis, D-Von Dudley and xxx. I never feuded with any top talent at all until I deliberately won the World Title in Single Mode by beating the Rock in a TLC match. Then suddenly I was defending against the Undertaker over and over (losing once in the process) and despite winning the Royal Rumble I did not headline Wrestlemania 2000 or even defend my title. I wasn't even on the card!

It was a grand old time, nice to play the Season mode again. I had done like 4 years before in maybe... 2006? 2007? Idk. Apparently if you complete 5 years of the Season mode it unlocks everything. I don't know if I'll ever bother doing that, even though I can simply hold down Tab and 1000x speed through endless pointless cutscenes.

Duckstation: GTA 1

I had a hankering to play classic GTA 1 over the last few months so finally got around to it. I figured out how to map the controls of a classic PSX to the Xbox One/PC Controller I have here so was able to play GTA 1 again on my gigantic curved monitor. I cleared it for the first time a few years back but on the PSX; I could dig up the old console but eh, this is easier.

Not much to say except everything was fine until the 6th and final mission when it became glitch tastic. Like, I saw no issues until that point. Whatever. So I managed to clear the first 5 missions relatively easily despite all the driving and the final one is just a load of killing missions.

Holdfast segue

I briefly segued into Holdfast and played it a few times; always good fun, kind of mad seeing the same people playing it. Shoutout to Berry, have fought with them on either side at various points now and I am assuming that's a Sharpe reference.

Initially I was just farting around being a pure musician but then decided to try some trophies. They changed the achievements (sort of) but I managed to get 2 more: healing 1000 points worth of damage and killing 2 people with a blunderbuss blast. Was particularly happy with the second one, as it is both easy and difficult to do. Also, it's called Harper's Pride which is again a Sharpe reference. Sharpe's buddy Harper wields a volley/nock gun, a brutal looking 7 barreled weapon. God save Ireland!

Project 64: Majora's Mask

I had not played this since 2018/2019 when I infamously cleared as far as the fourth and final temple and decided to mess around with the cheats. I gave myself all the masks and items (just to see!) but then when I went to undo it it would not let me. So I lost all interest in clearing the game properly and stopped. I was also playing with a keyboard back then which was super tough.

So it was a billion times easier with the Xbox controller. My goals fluctuated a bit but I got set on: get all fairies, get all 24 masks, clear the game. Also, collect no heart containers and complete no heart pieces - just have 3 hearts.

All was well until what I dreaded was coming: the Goron race track on the moon. I fell off a couple of times but eventually managed to complete it. It was not essential but I was worried that maybe the controls were off and would prevent me from clearing the track. All was well in the end and I managed to finish the game easily with the Fierce Deity Mask.

I could go back now and attempt to clear the journal and get all the bottles, upgrades and heart pieces etc but that's enough for now.