I’m still working on my second run of Baldur’s Gate 3 with the Ghost Recon team in Act 3. The two big bads of the chapter before the final boss went down like chumps. For one of them, without spoilers (you know the one), I didn’t even need to stop the chant, because I just had so many actions with each member of my team. I’ve been playing less of BG3 now though, because I already did a pretty thorough run of Act 3 the first time around, as opposed to Acts 1 and 2 where I left a lot of content behind with my first character.

I beat 30XX. It’s very good. I don’t think it’s as good as 20XX. The upgrade system is significantly more complicated to understand for basically no discernible benefit. There was also one major problem with 20XX, which was that, as a roguelike, you could see the seams in the level generation and easily identify the same pieces of the levels way too quickly, as opposed to something like Streets of Rogue or Vagante where you could play for over a hundred hours before it feels like you’ve seen these exact levels too many times. 30XX did not address this problem. So in the end, it’s more 20XX, but it’s not better 20XX. It’s a shame, because I know the developers spent a lot of time trying to make this a substantial sequel, and the art style is improved at least, but this feels like a lateral move. Play it if you liked 20XX and wanted more.

I’ve also been playing Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew. Similar to that 30XX review, I think this is a step back from Mimimi’s predecessor games, Shadow Tactics and Desperados III. It’s still great; it’s just that those games did it better. I’m in Act 3 (of 3), and this game’s got ideas, but only some of them seem to work, and most of them feel like they’re worse than the more linear design of the other games. It’s also a bummer that this is Mimimi’s swan song, as the developer is dissolving after this. Play it if you liked their other games and wanted more.