My phone is misbehaving with the image embed, but according to TA:

 

436 achievements

10,325 GS

41 games played

168 hours

 

Top game on Xbox: Guardians of the Galaxy

 

I think the total games played might be off. I definitely started up some games via cloud for some of the rewards bonuses etc. I also fired up a few that had updates but didn't actually play them, so I'm not sure how it calculates it.

 

If Nintendo does another end-of-year stats I'll get the full picture since I used my Switch a lot more this year.

 

Also! Fun fact, there are 2,080 hours of work in 52 weeks at 40h/w. So whatever your max hours are, you can see what % of a part time or full time job your gaming was (do you really want to know?).

 

 

I didn't mention the Halo chair, but guess that helps keep it on topic?  I'm leaning towards the Digital Knit backing.

 

Haworth x Halo: Fern Gaming Chair

There's no Mountain Dew cup holder, it's clearly a cheap knockoff.
 

A little late to the topic, but I'm currently looking for a new chair.  I know they cost a ton, but the Haworth Fern looks like it might fit my needs.  I have a PC to the left of my TV and turn around between the two a lot.  The chair looks like it bends with your back a little which seems nice.  Any thoughts on it?  I currently have a 7 year old DX Racer that is falling apart with 1 arm and the seat has mostly worn away.  

The consensus when I asked was Herman Miller, Aero specifically. I was skeptical based on the cost but found a deal on Craigslist ($300 when MSRP is $1600). After 24 hours I knew it was worth it. That damn chair has changed my life based on the amount of sitting I do since all my work is on the computer (reviewing medical records, email, making presentations, and providing therapy over telehealth). 1-2 days a week I literally am at the computer for 12 hours and before the Aero, I had tons of aches and pains which prevented me from doing as much exercise as I wanted. Using this chair now for about a month, I honestly feel a lot more limber and have had a huge decrease in daily aches.

 

Being an adult is stupid. #halo
 

Does anyone else have the problem when looking through the Movies sale that it doesn't show all the content?  For me it seems to stop at the end of movies that start with "J"

It definitely has a "ehhhh here are some movies ya jerk, watch 'em or don't, we don't give a shit" vibe to it. And most of the sale prices are $1-2 over almost every other storefront with inconsistent 4k options.

I really hope the exclusion of Xbox on release is just due to a Game Pass money hat later down the line after most of the sales are made on Switch and Playstation

Let Xbox get the scraps, amirite?

It's definitely possible that they didn't want to bother with an Xbox physical release and will put it out digitally six months later.

At this point I'm not optimistic though.

3 month Game Pass Ultimate codes are 15% off at Target today. I don't think we'll ever get those 50% off deals from the past few years again.

Do you still own an Xbox One X? Do you also have a Series S? Would you say the Series S is worth upgrading to? High on Life and the next gen Witcher 3 update has me really itching to pick up a Series S for the faster framerate and load times. Was hoping to wait to see what MS has planned as far as mid gen refresh goes but that's probably still too far away if at all. I play on a 1080p monitor so it's more about framerate than resolution for me.

I have a Series X on the big TV. Still using the One X as a backup in the office / PC gaming space. I came close a few times to get a Series S in the last month or so with all the sales but haven't bit the bullet yet.

 

Sony. Mandatory 24 games per page and sales just crammed with shovelware and useless currency/DLC makes browsing sales a chore plus the game pages themselves rarely tell you what it's in a bundle.

Ever since they overhauled the store for the PS5 and made all the PS3 stuff hidden, it's been a shitshow.
 

In my experience, the Series upgrade overwrites the original install as a title update, not a separate install.

Did the same thing for me as I had Witcher 3 on external drive but update is going to internal SSD drive.

Ditto. I can't recall another game ever doing that before, the initial footprint was about 93GB and I was pretty surprised.

 

Wifey started the Switch release two weeks ago and is pretty obsessed right now. I may start it soon so we can be enjoying it simultaneously and show her how to transfer saves between platforms. So cool that CDPR is supporting that now with their two most noteworthy titles, I wish more developers would do that as a standard thing.
 

Final Fantasy pixel remasters have been ESRB rated for PS4 and Switch (no Xbox).

Don't worry, I'm sure the FTC will take care of it.

The music performances always seem so odd and out of place during this show.

Ken Levine's spiritual follow-up to Bioshock, Judas, looks pretty great.

Returnal coming to PC, Dead Cells getting DLC for Symphony of the Night. Dang.

An updated controller revision sure would be a good accompaniment with a hardware revision...

*Proceeds to wait to hear about GGP beating an old ass Mega Man game again for the double digit time while blindfolded and riding a unicycle...*

My time may be limited, but Mega Man is *timeless.*

I agree. My free time is limited as an adult and I'm in the less-is-more category. A "long" JRPG used to be 40-50 hours, these days that's downright quaint. My biggest barrier to Andor is that it's 12 episodes. 12 hours of my life I'll never get back, lol.

You could recommend Andor to people who aren't even into Star Wars.

I guess it has that in common with Mandalorian, then. Obviously it may be more enjoyable if you know the world and backstory, but it stands on its own. Okay I'll keep watching.
 

Borderlands 3 Ultimate is finally a decent price. If you haven't played it, the full game with both season passes is a helluva lotta game for $30.

 

I saw my sister this past weekend and she demanded I watch Andor, insisting it's on par with the Mandalorian and just starts slow. That's a pretty high bar but I'm going to give it a chance now. Mostly I just hope Andor is a limited series and not something they try to turn into a six season serial drama which stops being good 1/3 of the way through.

How is the Aeron with upper back/neck support? I'm 6'2 and always seem to have issues with chairs and the upper portion being made for shorter people.

The lumbar support and slight recline prevents slouching without forcing you into a rigid posture. It's kind of like sitting on an exercise ball. They also make different sizes (A, B, and C) in order of body size. The B chair tends to be the most average, which is what I have, but a C might suit you better, I'm not sure.
 

Oh yeah and I'm assuming there will be a special sale this Wednesday or Thursday to coincide with the Geoff Keighley Winter of Keighley Keighley Awards like there normally is.

I wanna buy Stray on Steam but they are resisting that $20 price point / only doing $23.99. Then again it will may end up on Game Pass after some timed exclusivity.
 

Hey! How's that Aeron chair working out for ya?

Give it to us straight, if it don't work for ya after all our rec's it's cool. Happens.

A dream come true, honestly. A lot fewer aches in my back and legs, which makes it easier to do actual physical activity / exercise/ etc.

Nothing exciting, but definitely getting Astalon: Tears of the Earth before the sale ends. Apparently a wonderful 8 bit retro modern Metroidvania.

It’s pretty gory…probably excessively gory, lol. That said, while I’m still early in the game, I haven’t seen anything that absolutely disturbed me yet. Not sure if it gets more dialed up as you progress. Right now, I’d still say if you could handle Dead Space and Doom games, you should still be able to handle this. It’s just those games taken up a notch (so far at least).

FWIW, the trailers give you a pretty good taste of what it’s like.

That sounds doable. Doom and Doom Eternal were plenty gross, but in an over-the-top cartoonish kind of way. The more realistic and detailed graphics get, the less I like the super gory stuff. The torture sequence in GTAV is a perfect example, it felt too grounded and made me want to stop playing, whereas if it had been in GTA3 it would have been silly.

 

I'll probably play Callisto eventually. I'm slightly more interested in the Dead Space remake at this point.
 

Played Callisto for about an hour. I’m liking it so far. Dodging technique will require some practice (already died once fucking it up). But combat overall is fun and satisfyingly brutal. It’s a more action focused Dead Space and that’s what I wanted it to be.

Had to force myself to stop having to work in the morning.

How does it feel in terms of violence / gore etc? It's definitely been a big part of the marketing, I love horror but don't love excessive gore (see: most of the Saw films) and I really want to play this game eventually, even if it's not a $70 purchase.
 

Really excited for all these games coming to Game Pass that I don't have time for, which I'll start as soon as I finish Signalis, Live a Live, FF6 PR, Lodoss War.....

A great get!

 

 

Also, a few solid games leaving in two weeks, including DQXI, Record of Lodoss War, and Lake. The latter two are 6-8 hour game and could be knocked out in a weekend, easily. I'll probaly by DQXI at some point just to show demand for the series, esp. since it's Play Anywhere (I really wish more games did this, especially Sega and Square-Enix titles, which are inconsistent).

They’re okay games but think MS really would be better killing off GWG. I mean pretty much every month it looks ridiculous against PS Plus (this month being Mass Effect Legendary trilogy, Biomutant and some new fighting game). It’s just embarrassing. Do the MS higher ups not see how it looks?

Not likely as long as Sony is pushing the monthly Plus lineup so they can say (on paper) that the services are similar, even though Sony has had some huge gets (Mass Effect Legendary in December) and MS has only been unknown indie games for awhile now. I used to defend GWG but it's clear all their licensing budget is focused on Game Pass now. I doubt there's any holdouts who only have Gold who are looking forward to GWG the way we used to back in 2017 etc.