In Enderal (an absolutely amazing, totally free game that runs on the Skyrim engine - if you own Skyrim you owe it to yourself to play Enderal), at the end of Esme’s questline, sitting on top of the lighthouse and discussing the events of her story.

Gods yes. What a brilliant piece of writing that DLC was - simultaneously hilarious and deeply poignant.

Saw it last night, mostly agree with this take on it, though in a bit less glowing terms. I didn't think the emotional payoff alluded to in this review really worked, because I didn't think they'd laid enough groundwork for it. Too much of this movie was more storyboard than story, with not enough time spent on actually delving into these characters' feelings and relationships. That said, it was definitely a fun popcorn flick, with some great action, a good sense of humor, fun characters, and, as the article points out, minimal required external knowledge. And everything said about the publicity was spot on.

After finishing a playthrough of Baldur's Gate 3, I'm now on Tiny Tina's Wonderlands. Fun, but nowhere near as good as the original Tiny Tina DLC for BL2. Still, I'm 26 hours in and I'll definitely finish it. After that… maybe I'll go back and do a different run of BG3. I'm looking forward to getting back to CP2077 and picking up Phantom Liberty, but I'm going to wait for that to be on some sort of sale.

Played Outer Worlds earlier this year, and I agree with your assessment. I did play Fallout New Vegas later on, and while New Vegas felt bigger, I think I enjoyed Outer Worlds a bit more. Mainly I think the humor hit more consistently FOR ME in OW, and I really think the humor kind of makes the game. But of course humor is very subjective, so I understand why a lot of people prefer FNV (not to mention it has a certain built-in cachet from all the other Fallout games).

Anyway, I enjoyed it, I'm glad I played it through to the end, but I wouldn't play it again (e.g. to try different playstyles or run through with different companions). Glad you are also enjoying it!

Still playing BG3. About 120 hours in, still my first playthrough, but I think I'm getting close to the end. Wouldn't be surprised if it takes me another 15-20 hours to get there though. After that I need to decide if I want to play through again with different characters/choices, or do something else first (recently got Tiny Tina in a bundle and looking forward to playing that).

YOU GET A HEADSHOT, AND YOU GET A HEADSHOT!

No. And while I will treat those who do with the same level of dignity and respect I grant to everyone, I secretly do think less of them for it (especially when I see them perpetuating the indoctrination with their children).

Ultimately, the world is not a grid. So while grids may be great for pure strategy games like XCom (and I really enjoyed XCom, not knocking it at all), I think a lot of people would say that for more story-focused games like RPGs, they break the immersion. Thus, BG3 (which I’m also really enjoying) does not use one. Neither do any of the party-based RPGs that I can think of off the top of my head. For me personally, it depends on the game. I am perfectly happy without one in BG3. But I enjoyed having one for XCom, and more recently for Warhammer 40k Mechanicus. I would offer that as a suggestion if you are looking for a gridded turn-based strategy game.

Ok, maybe not Faerun, but just spitballing here - Total War: Blood War. Massive armies of devils vs demons, with yugoloth mercenary forces for hire, spread across the battlefields of the lower planes. Could tie in nicely with a re-release of Planescape as well…

Current game pet peeve - the delay after each enemy acts in combat in Baldur’s Gate 3. I absolutely love this game, but big combats take longer than they should because after each enemy acts, there seems to be a 5-10 second delay before moving on to the next.

Favorite game pet peeve - The overall poor performance/memory management in HBS’s Battletech game. Again, love the game, have put nearly 2000 hours into it over the years, but damn the performance can just be painful sometimes.

AC/DC - You Shook Me All Night Long

Kiss - God of Thunder (Destroyer was the first album I owned)

HBS’s Battletech (2018). One, it brings me back to some good high school memories playing tabletop with my friends, and two, you can never have too much big stompy robots shooting each other.