So a couple of gaming-related things:
First, Elden Ring. It's not perfect. In fact, it's downright rough in places. A lot of the late-game enemies hit like a truck - and I'm not talking bosses, just regular enemies. This isn't just my non-Souls-playin' "git gud" self saying this either, I've seen quite a few Souls vets say the same thing. Some of the enemies are pretty near broken *cough*giantbirdsnearthebloodpalace*cough*. The quests are beyond cryptic - I'd go as far as to say many of them are impossible to complete without using a guide unless you are insanely lucky. Some of them don't tell you anything about what's next. Heck, they often don't even tell you anything IS next. This may play fine in a more linear traditional Souls experience, but in a massive open world it's frustrating, to say the least. Not saying I want traditional quests, or even necessarily map markers, etc. - just more dialog that actually gave some indication of where you should explore next would be fine (and to be fair, some of the questlines do this - just not all of them). Also, some of the bosses - especially late-game ones - pretty much require you to have certain builds in order to beat them. You can re-spec...but only so many times. It requires an item that there are a limited number of in the world. Why they put a hard limit on this instead of the more typical "each respec costs more money/resources/whatever" I don't know.
So I hated it, right? Hardly. I clocked in well over 200 hours all said & done - and that was a complete playthrough + a new game plus run (I stopped at the final boss in NG+). What the game does right, it does INCREDIBLY right. So much, in fact, that it's worth every second of frustration to experience it. The way they approach open-world design is very fresh and exciting. Exploration for the sake of exploring is very rewarding, and it feels like a real (and yes, deadly) world. I hope their next iteration on this is more polished, but I'll be there for it day one to find out because this was one of the freshest, most enjoyable games I've played in a long long time. If you have the patience for it, it's one of the most rewarding gaming experiences around.
Second, I am completely digging Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart. First, it's gorgeous. I started out playing on "graphics" mode or whatever they called it but quickly switched to "performance". A *slight* downgrade of the bells & whistles, but like I told Tam, "Once you go 60 FPS, you can't go back." The choppy panning you get w/ lower framerates gives me a headache. Anywho, the game itself is just a polished gem, like you would expect. The story is fun, just heartwarming enough (think more Pixar & less mainline Disney
) and really fun. The gameplay is very tight, instantly familiar controls and great pacing. For anyone here that's played it (J I know, dunno if anyone else has) I just played through the Fixer on-rails sequence last night and it was amazing. Just jaw-dropping, really. I said it WAAAY back on the IGN boards, and it's still true - Insomniac is THE top Sony developer in my book, better than Naughty Dog any day of the week. Has there ever been a bad mainline R&C game? I say no.
Eh, let's throw a third in for good measure - I have some making up to do anyway.
I had played Darksiders 3 a couple years ago, got really far into it (I'd say about 80%), then got sidetracked. When I came back to it months later, I had completely forgotten how to play. So I figured enough time had passed now to just start over. And I was right - I had a blast with it, and wrapped it up this time. I did kick the difficulty down about a third of the way through because the enemies are kinda damage sponges, but it felt perfectly fine on easy (or whatever they called it - Story?). The game has some really clever environmental puzzles, some interesting areas to explore & really fun combat. My only real complaint is that for some baffling reason, there's no map. You can warp between points, but I found myself guessing a lot about where I needed to go - a map would have eliminated that problem, and also made the world feel more cohesive. But in the end it's a nit-pick, it's still a great game. Really underrated series of games, honestly. And now I can play the 4th one at some point without feeling guilty about never finishing the 3rd.
I know the 4th one is a departure gameplay-wise, but I've still heard good things about it so I'm looking forward to trying it out.
I also took a week off last week, and it was way too short. 
Hope everything goes well with all those plates.
