Veilguard is a 3rd person action RPG, not a CRPG. It plays like God of War or something. It has lots of DA characters and lore, though.

I think the PC vs. console divide is relevant here. I’m not sure how advanced text entry on consoles is these days, but I imagine PCs have the advantage with keyboards. Maybe if they use voice recognition on the consoles? But AAA games usually target both, and if interacting with the model is clunky for a big chunk of your market then the big developers might not use the technology.
Of course, indie devs that only target PC can go wild.

I’ve got Pentiment and Persona 5 ready to go. I’ll probably start Pentiment first since it’s undoubtedly shorter.
Balatro looks really tempting, too, but I’d want that for my laptop or phone (?) and not my gaming PC.

I got a free copy with a graphics card I bought recently, but AAA games aren’t really my jam. OTOH, I would like to put the card through its paces… Chances are it will make me create yet another account somewhere to play it, so I probably won’t bother with it.

I loved Monster Train, and Slay the Spire has such a great reputation, but the art style is ass so I’ve been reluctant to pick it up (Monster Train’s is pretty bad too). This doesn’t look like much of an improvement, but perhaps gameplay trumps graphics again here.

Dwarf Fortress? Go hard or go home.

This version of Warcraft II has the map editor, right? I really enjoyed building my own tower defense scenarios.
I’ll pass otherwise.

Yeah, my main complaint with PoE 1 is the way it bludgeons you with lore. The writers are so excited to show off this massive world they’ve invented, they just aren’t very artful about it.

The tone is much less dour than the first one, and I think it does a better job introducing the world. It’s still a lot to take in, but all of the text has links you can click on that explain anything you don’t recognize.

I’ve been replaying Pillars of Eternity II - in fact I have the tavern music stuck in my head right now. Mostly I just need some CRPG gameplay, so I’m not doing anything wildly different with my character this time around. Maybe I should do an evil run…
Knowing how the ending works, I’m still not sure which faction to go with.

Probably Persona 5 at 60% off. I liked 4 and 5 has an incredible reputation.
Wasteland 3 is $8. Seems like a great value.

I’ll second Tyranny and Pillars 2.
Tyranny’s ending is… well… they tacked on some text - but it’s a great game otherwise.
PoE2 is more enjoyable than the first one, IMO, just for the lighter tone. They do a better job of explaining the world, too, because you aren’t bludgeoned with lore-dumps like in 1.

The only console I ever spent a lot of time with was the NES, so I’m not at all native to the modern XBox / Play Station controller with its 166 buttons. But I know that some games are best with a controller, so I bought a Steam Controller and an XBox controller. I made it most of the way through Nier Automata with the Steam Controller, but I put the game down for some reason or another. I also gave Hades (what I think was) a good effort, but I never made it out and I stopped caring.
The only game I’ve completed with a controller is Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, which you really shouldn’t play with m+k, if it’s even possible. I’d never try to play an FPS with a controller.

There are actually speedruns of Brothers, so someone is replaying it.

smacks forehead
Quite right.

I gave it a shot because Bioware, but I didn’t stick with it because dialog choices are timed. I can see why, I think, but I was being picky and put it down for the moment.

Tyranny is so good, and I prefer it to the first Pillars of Eternity. Shame the ending is so abrupt.

I love Steins Gate, but the choices you make are so wildly disconnected from the consequences that I don’t think it really counts. It’s such a strange system.

So, Divinity Original Sin 4?

^Because BG3 is DOS3^

I fill in easier crosswords left-to-right, top-to-bottom.

I’m not sure if I’m enjoying it yet. I’m only 4 hours in and it feels like Divinity Original Sin 3 and not a Baldur’s Gate game. Maybe that’s fine, but it’s not what I was expecting.
The combat seems more complicated and I’m having to rest after even basic encounters, but I guess that’s the way BG1 was too.
Still messing with the graphics settings to get it to look decent and run ~60FPS on my creaky old Vega 56.

How does multiplayer work without Game Spy?

I actually just finished PoE2 yesterday, but I haven’t given any of the Pathfinder games a shot. I played a few hours of DOS1 and it didn’t really grab me.

Same here. And look how long it’s taken for grappling hooks to be reintroduced to gaming.

I just installed BG3 and I’ll probably start playing today. This was my concern - that it will feel like a Divinity Original Sin game and not a Baldur’s Gate game. Not that I have anything against DOS, I just really love BG2.

I started playing Pillars of Eternity II about a month ago, then I was gifted BG3… and dammit, I’m going to finish PoE first. It’s a very enjoyable game. Lighter in tone than the first one and a bit less brutal with the lore. This time I have a good idea who the pantheon are, but I still occasionally find myself confused about people and place names. I used my saves from the first game to start this one, but I have very little recollection of what the hell I did back then, so maybe I should have started fresh.

The developer is Jonathan Blow. You might want to give Braid a look - it’s still a pretty devious puzzle game, but it’s not as free-form as The Witness.

Man, now I’m gonna have to replay it 17,000 times.

Consider Disco Elysium.

Haven’t tried BBEdit - it looks pretty nice. But again, while it is free it’s a complicated free that you don’t see as often with Windows software.

Now this might be down to my search skills, but -
A media player like MPCHC that gives previews when you scrub the timeline
A reasonably small text editor that understands the different line endings like Winpad.

I found Elmedia Player for video, but I end up using VLC most of the time since Elmedia doesn’t generate previews for remote files. For text I found TextMate, which I like quite a bit.

This is something I noticed when I got my Macbook. Apps for basic functionality that would be free on Windows are pay for Mac. Mac users are just used to opening their wallets.

Cool. I’ve heard good things about Pentiment and it’s 33% off. Worth a shot.