Feb post #2 Modern top 10?

 I had an original list of '10 games that influenced my life' that had games originating from 1992-2004ish that influenced me going forward. I would have played most of them between 1998 and 2004 and beyond.

But a modern top 10? 2007-2017 ?

In no particular order:

Civilization 4

I'm playing it right now!

Fallout: New Vegas (fnv>3>4 complete order)

I played 3 briefly on the Xbox after James lent it to me in 2007 or so idk. I got stuck in a rock near the Pentagon. My last save was hours before that. I couldn't escape as I counted as 'flying'.

So anyway I left Fallout for a bit but happened to acquire it in 2010 on my short-lived blue laptop that was randomly amazing at running games. I cleared it for Yes Man fairly painlessly, no DLC or anything. And I LOVED it.

So much so I went and got Fallout 3 with DLC and cleared that soon after, that was that magical 2010 summer. I made a Major Kusangi like character with the Shishkebab and Chinese Stealth Suit and murdered my way to the launcher at the end of Broken Steel, I still remember that day.

So yeah an appreciation for New Vegas which I played multiple times on the Xbox 360 after that laptop died. I got used to the game crashing/saving constantly beforehand. I had long been desensitised to that as I had grown up playing Age of Wonders 1. It's so much better now on my gigantic curved monitor and gaming PC. Plus mods and patches to stop it from crashing so much. 

New Vegas got me into 3 and thus 4; which I have a huge soft spot for even if the writing is bad/non-existent, the gamplay is good. New Vegas is the opposite, the gameplay is aged but the writing is excellent. Hoping for the remake soon.

Final Fantasy 7,8,9,10,12

On the previous list there was no Final Fantasy, because I hadn't played it. I MAY have played 8 first briefly on the PSX my brother had here sometime between 2000-2004 but I don't count that. I bought 7,8 and 9 on Ebay using a 3V card (remember those) for the PSX and ran them on my mini PS2. My brother would play 7 on the PSX due to the lack of Dualshock so I did the same thing when possible.

Resident Evil 4 (OG)

This goes here because it got me into 1. And all of them reall when I find time. I played it for the first time on GameCube in the late 2000's and was hooked since.

Borderlands 1

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Gears of War 1

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Fable 

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LA Noire

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Call of Duty World At War

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Honourable mentions/sub in as appropriate

Minecraft

Fortnite

Baldur's Gate 3 Honour Mode(s) One Fail One Pass 52/54 achievements

 Almost straight after finishing my Tactician Run in the early hours of January 9th 2026 I was back at it again that evening playing Honour Mode. I wanted those Golden Dice. No what I really wanted was the Foehammer achievement. Gold Dice were just a nice plus.

Run #1

I made a Sword Bard Tav called 'Honour' for Honour Mode fittingly enough. Everyone online seem to love the Sword Bard so I had to give it a go. Almost died at various points. I had no set idea of a party but the 'all-girl party' emerged with Honour, Karlach, Lae'zel and Shadowheart. Perfect. Nice to have a theme. Fighter Lae'zel, Barbarian Karlach, Full-Life Shadowheart for safety. What could go wrong.

I had a flight early on 12th January (my birthday) so stayed up all night naturally enough and cleared as far as Nere and was just before Grym I believe. King Glut and his spore Bulette made things a lot easier in the Underdark! Level 5 was such a game changer, the sheer amount of power from that alone. Throwzerker Karlach in particular was monstrous with the Returning Pike. I systematicaly cleared out the Forge of Duergar.

Lae'zel stayed BattleMaster and was a reliable hitter. Karlach was MVP with the insane Throwing, it's just so good. Shadowheart was OK as a Life Cleric but that was a bit much; this game rewards good offence and just killing stuff quickly so re-speccing her to Light Domain (once again) eventually paid dividends. One of the last things I did before taking a week break was the Grove fight: absolutely clowned the besiegers, we only lost one defender to a spider. Insane.

I went away to the States but came back on the 20th only to lose my Honour! I had killed Grym somewhat cheesily and had exhausted most of the Wilderness area so made my way to the Monastery. I cleared most of that so well, wiping every encounter there handily and then into the Creche. I acquired the Blood then initiated the fight with the boss there after going into the Astral Prism as usual.

Karlach and Lae'zel somewhat dispersed their efforts, with the latter failing to disarm the boss. I failed to blind him too and had few options to do so, so he spawned like 12 spiritual weapon/mind swords. Everything just gradually fell apart, Tav went down. Shadowheart had not been rested so had no spell slots, one of the bigger mistakes. I was also just shy of level 7, so was not as strong (no level 4 spells).

I blamed tiredness out of game and not resting ingame for my mistakes. Oh well. 27 hours gone. I was not super enthused by being a Bard in combat BUT the dialogue choices/options were unmatched. In these games it really pays to have your main character as a Charisma build and the Bard dialogue choices were amazing. It feels right. I usually went Paladin first (in Kingmaker and this!). I also really liked using Dual Hand Crossbows. Otherwise my party was fine, but maybe not 100% right.

Naturally I started a new save file immediately then went to bed not too disappointed.

Run #2

I made my original smug looking high elf Guardian from my first ever Balanced run as my main character named Tav for once Paladin (Paladin Vengeance 11/Warlock Hexblade 1), of course. I knew I'd have a Paladin, Barbarian, Fighter, Cleric line-up. 3 frontline tanks and a Cleric to back that up.

Wasn't sure who I'd go with but Lae'zel (Fighter BM 12) is just great; Karlach (Berserker 8 Thief 4) too - I was trying to romance her for the achievement but she kept calling me soldier so it ain't happening. Gale was essential. I figured if all else failed, I could also detonate my own personal nuclear football at the end and win the run. Once again I made him the Cleric (Light 12).

Act 1

I had been following a guide someone posted indicating a 'safe route' for Honour mode, essentially almost all of the encounters in Act 1 in a nice order for levelling. I blitzed that in the space of about 15 hours to get back to Grym. I lost King Glut to the Bulette fight but cleared the Forge of Duergar to get to level 6.

I aggro'd the entire Duergar clan by accident despite trying to side with Brovithar again. I had blown up the rockfall and there was some residual fire I think which the NPCs ran into causing the aggro? Not sure. Had to flee with invisibility potions but survived, rested and sought revenge. Grove defence was even better than last time if possible. 2 fireballs and perfection, only 1 person lost to a spider again. Managed to knock out Minthara too.

I cleared the Monastery easily. Blinding the boss in creche was one thing but systematically wiping out the creche prior to going to him but after getting the ‘illithid bonus action’ thing was huge. I was Level 7 and had tons of money/loot. Literally no trouble anywhere. Prior to all this the Gith patrol attacked me because Lae was too far away from me; still killed them and got a neat sword for her! Then another one later in creche! Insane.

Act 2

Entered Shadowlands and re-specced as Paladin 5 and Warlock 2. Not too exciting. Nerfing strength is annoying for jumping, carrying etc. Talked two of the Thorns into killing themselves, gold and drink. The Doktor awaited. I had given my Tav the Actor feat I think to get bonus in conversation (to the tune of +10) and be 18 Charisma so just about worked with Inspiration; 'gold' was easy but 'drink' boss actually managed to get my guy drunk but not killed or anything. I was just short of level 8 after all that.

I dialogue killed the surgeon; cleared the Moonrise Tower systematically (was super easy actually, got lucky they didn't catch me) and reached level 9. I then cleared the major Shadow Blight encounter, Isobel battle, Shadowfell finale, gith ambush. Ketheric Thorm (first time) and then into the endgame of Act 2. Balthazar was super easy because he came out to me. Yurgir I killed by talking to him (tried last time on Tactician but this time the rats were actually dead).

ALMOST LOST THE RUN thanks to the stupid fucking Faith Leap Trial. I had Karlach in there by herself for some reason, made a small mistake (was doing so well with Fog Cloud, Gust of Wind and teleports) and then ALL THE PARTY was sucked in? They were outside the door. Terrifying. Then tried to fix and not panic and all 3 party members walked to their deaths? My hands were shaking so bad. Had to walk away for a bit. Had I died there I would have gone for a 2 hour walk in the rain at night. Karlach managed to get back to the door and lockpicked it and resurrected everyone courtesy of Withers. I just cheesed it with Knock on the main door to the Shadowfell courtesy of a Shadowheart re-specced as a Wizard. She elected to spare the Nightsong so all was well. Then she went back to camp.

I had spent way too much time thinking about the final battle of Act 2 bottleneck, so just decided to get it over with. I descended into the abbatoir and killed Chop and the Intellect Devourers. Then started the lab fight (my fave) and crashed the game for the first time this run by throwing too many Void Bulbs into my Wall of Fire. Oops! Simply reloaded and was before the Chop fight. Did that again and carefully did the lab fight, no crashes. I did everything but was maybe 1000-2000 exp short of level 10.

I descended to Myrkul to fight with 1 Earth elemental, Scratch, 6 Mud Mephits, a Winged Demon, a Zombie and a Skeleton Archer. Ended up not really needing any of these. Karlach started the fight by throwing at Mindflayer and wiped almost half his health and was he prone, dead shortly after. Scratch rescued Dame. Lae double scroll fireballed the 4 Mites. Gale double fireballed the brains I think. Lae disarmed Ketheric then Dame and Tav whaled him down. Second stage began and was he dead in two rounds, mostly from Karlach’s two rounds of throwing for maybe 10-15 a pop but was a team effort. Few smites by Tav etc. Was super easy honestly! Only the Earth Elemental sustained damage from the scythe. Posed for a picture again and back to the throne room.

Act 3

Act 3 is nice because you can get so much experience points from just wandering around. I was Level 10 fairly quickly after Myrkul and soon enough 11 and then 12. I didn't even consider Cazador or Raphael/House of Hope - too risky, plus am saving for my future "100% Custom" run. Anyway, Act 3:

Completely dominated everything, even Orin who I was afraid of and cast multiple elementals beforehand: Lae used Booming Arrows to knock all the cultists off the ledge and then we all ganked Orin in a round or two. Nothing fancy! Then onto Nether Brain and made Karlach the Flayer, which was cool, resolved her issues. I murdered Voss in the sewers earlier so Lae became the rebel leader eventually, also preventing her getting pissy/leaving before the finale. I was thinking I’d use Gale but ended up keeping it as an open option: he said he’d do it and I convinced him to hold off in case we fucked up. He made peace with Mystra after our quick raid of the book vault/killing Loroakan.

I went up the brainstem and… won! Handy enough! Ran around the sides and killed the flayers before they did much at all. Killed all the Flayers and the Shadow Team (Emperor's Telekinesis) easily, ignored the poor dominated Red Dragon. Everyone hid in the Globe of Invulnerability as Karlach did the spell. My brave summons kept the dragon busy.

Into the inner brain and Karlach threw the Runepowder Bomb at it and a bunch of Force Grenades and Arrows from her and Lae. It became immune to Force and Fire thusly so the next round was a weak Piercing/Radiant effort. Then the third and final round, more Force bombs and arrows and it died. Victory! Saw the after party for the first time, it was nice. And I never broke my Oath of Vengeance!

I had beaten Honour Mode without much cheese at all, and no need to blow up Gale (though he was fully willing to do it). I also got to see the ending party for the first time, seeing as before I had either blown up Gale, killed myself, dominated the brain/the world or killed everyone in the name of Bhaal.

I briefly started another Custom run to see if I had Golden Dice - no! But just turns out you need to select them from bottom left corner. Yes! So that's that. I have 2 achievements left, Hot Date with Karlach and earn gold via Bard but they can wait for my 100% Custom run in a few months. Need a break from Bg3 it's been a wild month or so of it. Hoping to set all sliders to extremely hard, traders want 4 times the gold etc, all the worst options except single save and -1 to proficiency rolls. Then clear it 100% like beating Cazador and Raphael etc.

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So yeah, that's it for BG3 for a while; best game I've played in a few years. Great characters and writing ofc. The music is really pleasant, the graphics are amazing and don't make me feel sick or anything. I was a bit bleh after binging it so much over Christmas but the break in the new year helped. There's still quite a bit of content I haven't seen so am looking forward to that. I think it's a shame they didn't want to do DLC, even some level 12-20 content for us munchkins would have been cool even if it was just dungeons and fights. Seems like a missed opportunity but sure!

Not sure what to do now but have college work to catch up on and must return to other stuff like Civ 4, I want to play that again.

Baldur's Gate 3 Playthrough #1 42/54 achievements 30/12/25; then 50/54 January 9th 2026

 I FINALLY got to play it. Finally. I've wanted to play it since it came out in 2023. 5e? I'm in.

First character:

I had all these plans over the years but I blanked on character creation. Just went with default pretty non-binary Elf as a Fighter, got bored of that and respecedd to Hexblade 1 Paladin 11. Smite was so good, having SAD for my 20+ in Charisma, Hex Weaponry, Eldritch Blast go brr, Paladin tankiness. I broke my Oath by being too morally flexible, the breaking point was letting the Hag live. Oathbreaker was OK but I think I would have preferred to stay Vengeance.

Companions/The Party:

Lae'zel was my first companion and she stayed the whole game! I liked her honesty and could tolerate her whole alien POV. Anytime I felt she was too harsh or direct or whatever I just reminded myself she was from another plane of existence. She really like my whole 'do things my way' approach so ended up falling in love with my character. Woo! She went Barbarian Berserker 9 Fighter Champion 3 IIRC.

Gale I rescued from a portal and I liked his wit and friendly nature so he was in. I kept him as a Wizard for a little bit but as soon as I could I re-specced him as a Life Cleric. I was playing on Balanced so didn't need THAT much healing so re-specced him again as a Light Cleric and he was very useful in Act 2 especially.

Astarion I kept along and made him my Assassin 3/Gloomstalker 6/Fighter 3 I think was the split. He was my designated Thief/Sneaky guy. Enemies LOVED trying to find him while he was Bonus Action Hidden. 

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Most fights would open with Astarion shooting something 3 times and hiding, Laezel raging and walloping stuff 3 times, my Tav and Gale reacting to whatever the situation was afterward. Gale was a bit up and down - bleh in Act 1, excellent in Act 2, mixed in Act 3. I chalk it up to not being familair with what was possible: started to enjoy throwing around Wall of Fire and whatnot by the end with him. Much simpler with Astarion and Laezel. My Tav was a tank by the end, dishing out radiant smites and explosive damage so was great.

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I briefly had Shadowheart in the party but she wildly underperformed (I read later due to her poor build) but next time when I run with her, Wyll and Karlach I'll respec her as a better cleric.

Act 1

What a dense first Act! I tried to beat the Commander before he got backup cambions... and failed. The cambions killed me. So I reloaded for the first time. Got off the ship and collected my party, found the grove, side with them.

I pretty much did every single quest in Act 1, I think, bar one or two. I killed a lot of people. I found the Hag and broke my Oath to get her sweet hair +1 to my Charisma.

I tried to hear the Goblins out, managing to diplo my way into their camp and trust but seeing all the slaves, and murder, and torture... I was like, fuck these guys. Was really handy strategy here and later on: befriend a side just enough, hear them out, then betray them and kill them en masse or in groups. I was able to sort of systematically wipe out the goblins and get their delicious experience points.

I was level 7 when I left the first act, which is a lot. I also acquired the legendary weapon, the Blood of Lathander, for my Oathbreaker-Hexblade monstrosity Tav so I was well set up for a trip to the Shadowlands.

Act 2

The Shadowlands were really easy for me - a Light Cleric and Radiant Paladin? A Gloomstalker rogue? GWM Barb Laezel? It all just clicked. Once again found myself siding with the 'good' guys in a no-brainer.

Sheart ditched me after I cleared the Trials of Shar without her, first companion to no bueno. Fine. Wasn't using you anyway!

Act 3

I was level 10, almost level 11 (out of 12 level cap) by the time I reached BG so was telling myself I wouldn't do every quest; leave some content for next time.

There is a lot to do in the city, I LOVED everything to do with the circus,

Killing Orin was tough but managed to knock her off the battlefield with Illithid push.

Ansur was easy with the one Scroll of Otiluke's I had used there.

Gortash was too tough/I lost the will to push on so I resolved to keep him until he gets himself killed by the Nether brain later.

I accidentally made the Emperor the wielder of the final spell of the game and missed out on becoming an illithid! I had a head canon as my Tav being a Illithidphile(?) so was annoyed when I realised I missed it, at the very end of game. Luckily I reloaded and fixed it later, as below.

I expect when I return on Tactician and Honour Mode I'll be using Act 3 a lot more to get experience points so I'm kind of glad I skipped a lot of the content.

Ending

I finished it December 30th 2025 but I think in my eagerness to skip bits of dialogue it didn't show me any character-specific endings? I didn't actually fully finish any of the companion quests so maybe that's why. Did a quick search there and seems like it's usually pretty quick. I did finish it 3 times back to back:

1. Gale-bombed the brain. Partially because I could not kill the red dragon/mindflayer spellcasters/etc the way I wanted to. Cut to BG citizens cleaning up corpses and celebrating lmao.

2. Reloaded further back and became a mindflayer myself (as I had originally meant to) fought and subdued the brain. Domination. Everything was so much easier the second run to the Nether brain; partially because I knew what I was doing this time but also Mindflayer Tav was what I really wanted. I didn't mean to make the Emperor the Orpheus vessel or whatever but missed the dialogue cue for what I wanted. Good thing I had a save.

3. Reloaded at the choice at end 'dominate or destroy' and destroyed it. Mindflayer Tav killed themselves after. Seemed 'canon' as an ending as what I neglected to mention is Laezel was my lover but got pissed and left the party/attacked when I disregarded Voss too much. Had to recruit a Dwarf Barb off Withers at the pre-endgame checkpoint. So Tav killed themselves to stop the hunger/maybe be rejoined with Laezel somehow in Sovengard/destroyed the Netherbrain-Crown etc.

Astarion remarked that he could be in sunlight in the 3rd ending. Karlach died as I hadn't done her questline. Laezel was dead in all 3 endings so nothing to see there. Gale was his usual cheery self but didn't go to see Mystra so his quest wasn't 100%. Wyll was free from his bondage so I was happy with that. Shadowheart ditched me in Act 2 because I didn't bring her to the Trials of Shar.

Next time

Will definitely go back to it in a few months but was so burnt out by the end. I need to play through on Tactician and Honour mode so that's a whole thing to look forward to. Will probably get the full endings with the companions then. I had reached level 12 early in Act 3 so kind of lost interest in seeing all quests through, but I tell myself I will have plenty to look forward to in a second or third run! Also there's all the Dark Urge stuff to do. One of those runs will be a Durge playthrough!

I'm really looking forward to the second run but am completely wiped out from BG3. Haven't binged a Christmas game like that since Twilight Princess came out on the Nintendo Wii.

Update: Tactician finished January 9th 2026

Hoo boy!

So myself and Dave played a quick co-op session on the 2nd of January 2026. I blanked again so rolled a half-orc barbarian I think. Dave was a DB Bard. We had one goal: disarm and kill Commander Zorg or whatever his name is. We did that so quickly, in less than 30 minutes or something on balanced! I think Dave managed to disarm him and I picked up the sword. Cue us walloping him. Easy! We played a little bit of the starting area but got killed in the Grove. Oops!

Second character (Tactician):

I caught the bug again. I had to roll up a new character and go through on Tactician. No regrets. I was fresh from my 90 hour Balanced playthrough where I had played all of Act 1, most of Act 2 and maybe half of Act 3. I was in just the right headspace to clear it efficiently (in about 70 hours).

I made a half-Orc Fighter with a ridiculous hairdo. A few days later I throughly enjoyed watching the adventures of 'Twilight Eclipse' on YouTube. Anyway I went gradually went Battlemaster and (shockingly for me) did not multiclass my character. I think less of the Tav as my character and more of 'my party' I am the omniscient being that guides these 4 hapless heroes to greatness more so than I am Tav. Especially because my Tav here is the Dark Urge and Bhaal's Chosen.

Fighter 12 is OK, not too exciting, plus Battlemaster is pretty damn good. Being able to trip/push/menace/goad various enemies was cool. Kind of like being a fighter who casts combat spells. I enjoy gish builds but I think all of this is just leading me to my inevitable honour mode playthrough as a Sword Bard.

I went with a Polearm/Sentinel build (very hard to give up shields for me, lover of high AC and HP) and it was OK. Sentinel/Polearm builds are praised to high heavens which might hold true on the tabletop but did not excite too much here. I think unlike my first game I didn't quite equip my characters optimally (by accident first time) so maybe I missed a step here. 

The second party/companions (tactician)

Lae'zel once again made it into the main party. I had her as a Fighter until I met Karlach, then dismissed her. She had been arguably my #2 best character in my first run as a Berserker (with 3 levels of Champion) with a Great Weapon Master, Giantslayer Sword and who threw stuff occasionally. So anyway she was dismissed. After the Grove Fiasco (see below) she was BACK in my party and arguably became #1 as a Tavern Brawler, Berserker, Gloves of Hill Giant Strength Throwzerker. By the end of the game she was my most reliable hitter and arguably took party carry and MVP.

Gale was once again in my party, this time as the Hexadin and not the Light Cleric. Lmao. Some day I will run him as a Wizard. Anyway he sort of underperformed in this role - still rock solid and had the benefit of two levels of Warlock so had Repelling and Agonising Blasts. This was better than my (already excellent) OG Tav with 11 Pal 1 Warlock. But I kind of fucked up his equipment and unlock OG Tav was not doing Radiant Shockwaves with the Blood of Lathander so yeah.

Shadowheart I got second and she stayed all the way to the end, plus completed her questline! First companion I did that for. The Shar fight at the end was tough but like most of my major fights in this run, only required one replay. She took the Light Cleric 12 role Gale had held in first game. Not as stunningly impressive as the first time (especialyl by the endgame) but Wall of Fire is so good. Fireballs. Spirit Guardians kind of fell off this time but was good early on. I mistakenly used Fire Bolt/Igmiss a lot early on (based on INT which I had nerfed).

So it all worked pretty well, I was usually able to kill/shut things down first round and go from there. I should say I had all 4 party members partially-Illithid this time around. Flight is just so OP. Plus a few other powers. Having Durge use Black Hole to sweep crowds into a ball for Fireball/throwing weapons/Wall of Fire was great.

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Astarion I recruited after a brief tussle with a knife but then killed him when he tried to take a bite out of me while I was sleeping. Rude!

Karlach WAS in the party immediately when I got her (last to recruit as usual) as the designated Barbzerker BUT she left after the Lae'zel/Grove Fiasco. I will get that Hot Date trophy one day but not today. Lae'zel took her place.

Wyll WAS in my party as the designated Hexadin but left after the Grove Fiasco. Understandable. I strongly considered a reload but the last save I had was before the (long) Grove defence so no bueno. Gale took his place.

Act 1 again singleplayer Tactician

Usual escape the Naut. I disarmed the Commander for his awesome sword for my Dark Urge. Otherwise just got the hell out of there.

Usual explore around, got Sheart, then Gale, then Laezel. That was enough to help me tackle the first Grove fight. Exploration nets a lot of experience so I searched the map and passively levelled up. I acquired Wyll and Karlach around here somewhere so Lae'zel and Gale were camp-bound forever, or so I thought. Despite it being Tactician, I found every fight much easier. I just knew what I was doing in BG3 terms and 5e terms combined.

One episode that disturbed me greatly was during a long rest in the Owlbear Cave the tiefling bard came to join the party, cool! Hadn't seen that before. Was thinking of even giving her a spin on the main roster. I woke up to find her brutally murdered. Oops! Dark Urges! It disturbed Eoghan let me tell you but Durge revelled in it.

Anyway the Grove. I told Minthara I would help them take the Grove. Karlach was mad but I told her to trust me. We go to Grove eventually and turn on the Goblins, helping the Grove defenders. Long, battering battle but Karlach landed the final shot I think. Anyway we celebrated afterward and as I had no strong relationships in particular (having rejected Gale twice lmao) I was set for sleep. But Lae'zel wanted to talk [!] so I did. She said if only I hadn't ignored her so much we'd be lovers. Fine. I did what any Half-Orc thought a Gith might appreciate and smacked her with my Sword, thinking a duel would break out or something? I was set on killing Laezel right there. Karlach ftw.

Instead, ALL the Tieflings at the party became my enemies, minus Chell, and we had to fight Zevlor (defence MVP) and all of them plus Halsin after having already exhausted ourselves from the Grove defence? So we killed them all ofc. Wyll was on the beach so joined the fight super late. Anyway immediately afterward Karlach and Wyll left the party for good! And I lived in a weird existence where some people would acknowledge my defence of the Grove against the Goblins and others would say we killed all the good guys.

Kind of fitting for a Durge playthrough but may have slightly broken the game and locked me out of a lot of content. Oh well. Also, Lae'Zel and Gale were back in to replace Wyll and Karlach who were replacing them. So the same as last time except Astarion was dead (otherwise I would have consigned him to camp forever anyway) and Shadowheart was here to stay, as planned.

I explored the Underdark to a reasonably thorough extent, I enjoyed siding with King Glut this time. The Forge Fight was a bit tough but I used the Hammer to wipe him easily. I went on to clear the Creche as usual (easier this time) and finished Act 1 at level 6 or 7. Same as last time.

Act 2 again singleplayer Tactician

I immediately killed the Goblin as usual then the Goblin scouting party, in record time. Found the Spider guy and killed him. Wiped out various mobs of Shadows and such. The Harpers blew passed me without saying hi. Rude. I went to the Light Inn and helped the demons smuggle out Isobel. Then darkness fell and all the Harpers turned so had to kill them. Jaheira was still on my side but died fighting.

I proceeded to kill the 3 Thorm baddies by talking to them. Gold Lady killed herself, Drunk drank himself to death while I told him stories and pretended to drink; Surgeon allowed his harem of nurses to perform surgery on him, killing him for me. All that was left was Ketheric (and Isobel). I cleared the Shar Trials relatively painlessly and Shadowheart elected to spare the Nightsong and dyed her hair grey. The Nightsong cleared the trash out of Moonrise for me but I still had to fight the set battle in the entrance hall versus the Warden this time: much easier and quicker this time. Up to Ketheric and he was a total joke.

Down into the depths and cleared through all the Mind flayer sludge easy enough, then came the final battle of Act 2 versus Ketheric/Isobel/Mind Flayer, then later the God of Death Myrkul. The first fight was easy after killing the Mind Flayer. Had to replay it a couple of times early into the fight to make sure he was dead first. Isobel was easy as were the Intellect Devourers/Necromites. Ketheric too.

Myrkul was grand - he wiped me the first time, but I got him handily enough the second time, a theme of this run. Wall of Fire kept eating at him. Gale hammered him with Blood of Lathander smites. Laezel walloped him. Durge shot his two hand crossbows. My Earth Elemental had killed all the Devourers, then proceeded to help hold off Myrkul. The Nightsong did a little bit of work too. A surprise honourable mention were two Mephits I had summoned: they were able to one-shot Necromite eggs. Those healing the boss had defeated me the first time. None reached him the second time. Posed for a picture then it was off to Act 3.

Act 3 again singleplayer Tactician

Baldur's Gate! 3! I immediately helped Squatters stay in the house then explored the entire region for easy experience. Bought a statue of myself for 5000 gold in the circus. Resolved the circus fights. Watched Gortash be crowned. Defeated the serial killer. Helped out the hag survivors. Boinked the Emperor. Made everyone turn half-Illithid. Killed Loroakan and robbed his vaults. Murdered the firework shop people in a poorly fought showing. Should have went smooth but I kept making mistakes, oh well, we won. But SH and Gale had to go to jail for some reason? Broke them out of jail. I completed the trial of Ansur but did not kill Ansur himself. Best left.

Went to Orin and finally used my Slayer Form in a one on one duel, Bhaal on a Pole Match. I did a good bit of damage but she wiped me out. Shit. I revivified the Dark Urge and proceeded to defeat her and her cronies, but then Bhaal rejected me and squished me to death in a cutscene, but I was fine after the cutscene? One of many weird instances this run. I reloaded and fought the duel again, no Slayer Form. Kicked her ass as Battlemaster. I went Slayer Form toward the end of the fight just to put an exclamation point on it.I also had a Deva and a Quasit but they were of minimal use.

Gale talked to Mystra who wanted the Crown, completing his quest (almost). she would not be getting it. Shadowheart went to the House of Grief and we fought a horde of enemies; the first time they grinded me down badly; when you're spending your rounds healing, you've lost. I reloaded and played it slightly differently and kicked their asses. Consulted the Mirror and got a +1 Charisma for Gale and +2 Constitution for Lae'zel. Could not get it to work for my Durge so gave up, that was a good haul.

I slightly respecced Gale at last after finally re-affirming my oath to take advantage of that +1 for 18 to start with (17+1) and earlier I had slightly optimised the other three by respeccing once again (sometime earlier in Act 3). Shadowheart got Resilient Consitution 15>16 for example. Small feat changes. Tried Tavern Brawler at last with Lae, small changes to Durge maneuvers etc.

Anyway I went to Hell and stole the Amulet of Con and Gloves of Strength. Did not fight Raphael this time. Content saving? Gave both items to Lae, negating the Mirror boost but oh well. Will optimise another time. I think in future run Honour Mode only lets you do the mirror once, which I did anyway in Tactician. Back to the mortal plane and assassinated Gortash: I flew up the side of the castle, left everyone in the belltower and then drew him to me. Fuck dealing with all the traps/bane/Steel Watchers. Took a few reloads to get the optimal opening to all this. He climbed up the ladder and two turns later he was dead. The worst part was all the stalling as the SW couldn't reach me so just took forever to flee the place. I had to collect Nyrluna as I had Lae throw it at Gortash but because combat started to fast it glitched and just lay there. Gale got it back and we all flew home.

I had been level 12 since the Shar Temple I think so my interest was dipping. Still felt good just time to end this. Still a lot of Act 3 content I've never seen so am happy enough to leave it for the next time(s). Started the finale and managed to nat 20 the brain on DC99 to get a nice debuff on it for the final final fight! Nice. No reloading required! Killed Voss before he fled like a coward so Lae was not mad at me because I took his silver sword. Nice! I was afraid she was going to leave/fight again. I had no allies other than Withers, Sorevok boost and the Nightsong. It was so quiet and empty again lmao. I skipped the courtyard fight/bombing run with an invisible Shadowheart. I kind of like both sequences but just wanted to save my energy/resources for the two final fights. The whole party was teleported up the brain stem for the finale.

Ending

Was way easier this time, by far. Everyone had fire resistance. Throwzerker Laezel on the left flank wiped out a Mind Flayer or two before dying. Gale and Djinn on the right flank killed another two eventually. The Durge held the centre and drew fire/killed soft targets. The Red Dragon never died but stood there and did minimal fire blasts to us - I initially threw stuff at him with Lae for huge damage but abandoned attacking him completely. Oh and the Shadow Party I simply Telekinesis to their deaths and/or killed easily. The Emperor completed the ritual and we all piled into the brain. Flight is so broken. Had revivified and then used Shadowheart’s Divine Intervention to heal/rest everyone inside the brain. Killed it in the 3rd round easily. Probably could have killed the Red Dragon if I wanted but best left. Gave up everything for Bhaal. Fin.

Conclusion (again)

Had way more fun the second time. Felt good to play a slightly resistant but ultimately all-in Bhaalist. Also just knowing enough about 5e myself and the Bg3 system by now that I was able to sweep through the game relatively painlessly. Honour Mode beckons.

I have 4 achievements left: Karlach date (easy?), 100gc from bard (easy), free Sazza x3 (should be fine) and beat Honour Mode (we shall see).

2025 retrospective

2025 was better than 2024; it's pretty much all been great since July 2022. Here's to a better 2026!

Overview/Timeline

January -

February -

March - Theo is 13!!! A teenager!

April -

May -

June -

July -

August -

September -

October -

November -

December - 5 exams, Xmas chill/NYE

Music

Minutes on YouTube Premium were not correctly tracked so it gave me some pathetic number that doesn't reflect that 100s of hours of walking/exercising/sitting around listening to music so I am going to give that as much effort as they did.

Top 5 tracks according to Premium: N/A because they fucked up.

My actual top 5 (ish)

1. Just Close Your Eyes (Story of the Year)

2. Ashes to Ashes

3. Slide

4. You Are You Are I Am I Am

5. Elevated

Top track(s) by month:

January no forever maykay; brighten up my life stunning February y2j; natasha b these words; cody kingdom; shallow gaga-cooper March aj styles i am i am; cody epic; MSP Motorcycle Emptiness April Bear Claws, Holy Mountain, Shinya Aoki DDT entrance May     luchasaurus, epic Cody; ascending MI:final reckoning June     save a prayer duran duran, orange crush REM July     ashes to ashes, black hat vincent pedulla, pressure queen/bowie; elevated August come up and see me; aj styles (last tna one); circles post malone September aj styles (last tna one), slide calvin harris; john farnham voice October only exception/true believer paramore/hayley; just close your eyes (waterproof blonde) November christian cage waterproof blonde just close your eyes; various reverbs December christian cage just close your eyes (story of the year), vince mcmahon theme

Movies/TV (week starting; yellow best non-2025 movie, green best 2025 movie)

Jan 1 juror #2 Jan 6 a real pain Jan 13 absolution Jan 20 flight risk Jan 27 elvis Feb 3 lee Feb 10 killers of the flower moon Feb 17 rocky 3

Mar 3 Mickey 17

Mar 31 minecraft Apr 7 ghostCatAnzu (jff) Apr 14 postcard to earth Apr 21 sinners

Jun 16 28 YEARS LATER

Jul 7   still he waits (FF)

Jul 21 superman Jul 28 fantastic 4 Aug 4 naked gun re Aug 11 big short Aug 18 la confidential westport Aug 25 weapons Sep 1 pulp fic

Oct 6 ooba Oct 13 smashing machine (10th)

Nov 17 fog of war

Dec 8 FNAF 2

Dec 15 mononoke Dec 22 nausica

Games by month 2025

• January - Star Ocean 2 R, Civ 6, Age of Empires 3

• February - Smackdown 2: Know Your Role!, LA Noire, Aoe3/2

• March - Civ 4, Holdfast, Majora's Mask 3 heart challenge

• April - Civ4, New Vegas

• May - civ4, fortnite

• June - lttp; OW 100%; cv6

• July - re4r, Marvel Rivals, civ6, DayZ

• August - DayZ

• September - DayZ, Kingmaker

• October - DayZ, Heavy Rain

• November - DayZ

• December - New Vegas, Gears of War 1 Reloaded; Baldur's Gate 3

Reading

I read nothing this year! Will try to rectify in 2026. Something about going to bed at 5am and not reading beforehand.

Exercise

Walking

I walked 180 times, so once every 2 days at least and covered 1500+ kilometres.x

Cycle

I cycled 75 times for 854km. So a bit down from the year before but it was mostly for work. I'm giving it a break for a bit but maybe start again in mid to late January.

Running

I ran 20 times for 133km, so maybe half of what I did in 2024 but fine as I started in August and finished by November. Will hopefully go back to it properly in 2026.

Lifting

Chest/bb - still doing 2 chest and triceps a week and 2 back and biceps.

Planks - did a lot less this year but blame that on work/exhaustion; 

Travel

Las Vegas, April. Got to see the Hoover Dam, Boulder City, Lake Mead. Mania 41!

Mayo July climbed Croagh Patrick again

Sligo August Hagstravaganza

ICELAND October/November

Work/College

Worked February to October, was good money, 4 days a week and easy work. Went back to UoG in September so quit to focus on that.

Writing

Didn't write anything other than a few notes but hoping to go back in 2026.

Wrestling

My fandom is mainly now: know who has what belts in the major companies, watch the occasional AEW/WWE PPV if I'm up late for it/I remember it's on; casually follow what's happening via Twitter/clips/podcasts.

D&D/board gaming

No D&D, played some Britannia, TIME Stories,

My own weird shit

Personal challenges per month (cycling, running, walking, post per x etc) will continue!

Necut? Is ALIVE

Writing? SOON

The superschedule/mood per day/day rating/month rating - TBC

The blog itself

2026 - no restrictions, minimum 1 post

Huge drop-off in my effort here, mainly due to commitments elsewhere. Also, a deliberate 'leave less of a digitial footprint/people don't need to know your business' attitude since early 2025.

Plans for 2026

Finish college, acquire internship/fake email job, save money again.

November 2025 Heavy Rain completion 55/56 / Star Ocean 2 R 100% complete 51/51

 All I had left to do in Heavy Rain was:

1. Perfect ending: heroine, helpless, innocent left; ethan arrested/freed;Madison saves the day ending
2. happy birthday: first chapter do optimal day
3. kamikaze: perfect car drive?
4. pride kept: take off no clothing only a button?
5. im not afraid: twins no mistakes QTE
6. best friends: good day w/ shaun, 2 rides, buy candy, leave

I completed all of these except for I'm not Afraid (might do it next year).

16th October - Happy Birthday and Best Friends

Gods bless the guides people write.

With the help of a guide I easily cleared both of these, though really they just remind you exactly what to do. I don't think I ever did the technical drawing as Ethan before for example.

Also for the second one I remember not being able to do the boomerang game properly so completely evaded doing that.

18th October - Pride Kept and All Endings

Madison was going to be the big damn hero in this second full playthrough. I had gotten the first 50 achievements in my first playthrough of Heavy Rain way back in October 2023 in abotu 20 hours; playing through once then reloading to get different endings.

Madison went to the clerb and only opened one button before lamping the seedy nightclub boss. Achievement get.

Madison escaped the killers house, Norman was dead in the junkyard, Scott was wandering the streets and Ethan was in jail - Helpless ending unlocked. Then I reloaded.

With Ethan in jail and Madison single/unforgiven, she would save the day by finding Shaun all by herself. Thus Madison unlocked the Heroine ending and Ethan got the Innocent ending.

20th October - Kamikaze

On the night of the 19th / morning of the 20th I booted up Heavy Rain and went straight in and completed this after two attempts. Had to go through the whole garage sequence twice. I was following a guide of course so just paused every time I completed a Quick Time Event and checked what was next. In retrospect some of them seem obvious now but whatever.

I was considering loading up the Twins chapter but fuck it. Maybe next year or some other time.

---

I loaded up Star Ocean 2 R instead. I had cleared most of the achievements in 2023 when I first got it and at the start of this year I got all the Rena-related ones. All that was left was Cooking Master/Beat Yarma and the achievement for 100% completion tied to that.

I blitzed through on a Claude playthrough on Universe difficulty. I briefly tried Chaos but it was insane. Some other time. I got as far as Energy Nede easily enough then got tired of it. R is good but it's too polished. Being able to skip every dialogue and even most battles now just makes me miss the PSX version.

So I loaded up an old completed file where all my characters were level 255 and happened to be right at Fun City - I must have been trying to do this before.

25th October Five-Star Chef/Master of the Star Ocean

I had briefly attempted the Cooking Master once or twice before in the remake but did not understand it at all.

I watched a bit of a video of someone beating all the contestants. That helped me figure out what was necessary to do. You just gotta press X or click the left mouse button right before the white circle closes in on the dish you are about to make.

It took me a few attempts but I eventually got into the rhythm of it. Some of the contestants kicked my ass but then after replaying some of them I noted they would randomly fuck up and get KO'd. So I either beat all of them legit by points or by Pressure KO, either from me or by their own hand. I'd take anything.

Yarma himself was tough, besting me the first time but I got him on the second attempt. This unlocked the achivement and the final 100% achievement together. All of this took maybe an hour or so.

I could go back and keep playing my Claude Universe mode playthrough but eh. Something that's bothered me for a long time was not beating Universe on the PSX after clearing it normally and on Galaxy almost all the way. I think IIRC I got as far as Indalecio Limiter OFF on Galaxy (yep). I think I still have that save file on a memory card so might need to do that somehow then do Universe Mode on PSX. I think I just miss the old version.

October 2025 Pathfinder:Kingmaker in Sep 2025

 I got three more achievements in this run in September; I stopped playing around HATEOT. I'd seen enough.

---

Evil Is My Name - Make three special 'Evil' story choices.

Comrades-in-Arms - Succeed in all available companion quests and win the loyalty of your comrades.

Prosperous Kingdom - Raise all kingdom stats to the 10th rank.

---

Evil is my name was easy enough as I was playing a Chaotic Evil character. It's still kind of uncomfortable picking the dick options in this game. I'd definitely play as an evil character again and be a dick if I wasn't trying to max out companion loyalty too.

Max comrade loyalty was not too bad either; just made sure to do every companion quest as they came up. Juggling all these things with making the perfect kingdom was a little tough. No need to do the full DLC companion questline so it finally popped after completing all the OG companion quests.

Finally, Prosperous Kingdom was not too bad once I knew what to do - complete all Problems and don't be too focussed on Opportunities. I reloaded a few disaster result Problems. Not too many, but they were punishing. I almost always had a few Crisis Points for every Problem but not always.

---

I could probably have grinded out the 100 random encounters one but I found myself tiring of Kingmaker. Might give Wrath of the Righteous a go next year.

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

 An update on the T.I.M.E Stories Campaign and my attempt to finish all 9 of the original 'White Cycle'.

Expedition Endurance

We did this 4th though I think it was the 5th expansion. Oh well.

I was the Dog; I can't remember the exact composition of the party after that.

We spent a blue and a pink token (latter I think it was for the final boss fight)

We got 40 points so chose a pink and blue token to replace those lost.

Under The Mask

We all changed vessels a lot in this one. I was one of the guards at the start. Royce was the priestess with the re-roll; Dave was the guy who could read and various others as was Billy; they changed a lot.

More fun than I remember; we got 51 points and a green and blue token.

Lumen Fidei

We played this one briefly then stopped as we were out of time;

We used a blue token in one of the initial runs.

The fight with the crusaders is ridiculous (if you don't have beer or whatever to pay them off).

TBC.