Now that I finished SHATTERED SPACE, it’s time to try Baldur’s Gate 3 yet again.

I’ve tried Baldur’s Gate 3 twice before, and bounced off it both times.

This was kind of frustrating, partly because I had played BG1 and BG2 back in the Old Days, and partly because the game received such universal acclaim and I just couldn’t get my head around it.

I did get the game for PC when it came out in August 2023, even though I knew I wouldn’t have time to play it, but I wanted the soundtrack. So it has sat in my PC game library ever since.

I’ve mentioned before that to celebrate my 150th book (GHOST IN THE VEILS) back in March of 2024, I got a portable monitor. They’re designed for business travelers, and intended to be plugged into laptops in hotel rooms and the like so business travelers can have second screens whilst on the road. However, I realized that I could use the portable monitor on my lap connected to my Xbox, which let me play Xbox on the couch without monopolizing the TV.

As it turned out, this created a very comfortable gaming situation from an ergonomic perspective. That was when I seriously started playing STARFIELD, which was mostly what I played for the next year.

However, when Baldur’s Gate 3 was ported to Xbox, I decided to give it a go in summer 2024.

It didn’t really work for me. Part of the problem was that the Xbox port had a lot of issues and glitches, and tended to crash a lot, at least when I used it. Another issue is, that at least in my opinion, BG3 really needs a mouse and doesn’t translate well to a controller-based interface. I might be alone in that opinion since BG3 has sold a lot of copies on Playstation and Xbox, but it the game’s interface is very complex and works best with a mouse.

So I gave up on that and went back to STARFIELD, but in early 2025 my laptop died unexpectedly and I had no choice but to get a new one. It was a big upgrade over my previous one, so I thought to try BG3 on it.

The game worked, and I got farther than I had on the Xbox port. The problem was that the laptop gets very, very hot when running BG3, and the fans kick into maximum overdrive. That was uncomfortable enough that I stopped playing it after a while.

So, fast forward to November 2025. I saw a “free electronics recycling” event in the local area, which was a chance to get rid of some dead computers in the closet. Given how expensive it is to recycle e-waste generally, I jumped on the opportunity. But! I scavenged enough parts to build a reasonable gaming desktop tower, and I decided to put it next to the couch and connect it with my portable monitor.

So it’s time to try Baldur’s Gate 3 for the third time.

Playing it on adequate hardware is definitely an improvement, and not having a superheated laptop on my lap is also nice. The desktop tower next to the couch has a fan vent on the top, and if I hover my hand over it I can just feel the heat pouring off the CPU while playing BG3.

So this is my third attempt on the game. Let’s see if the third time is the charm!

-JM