I played a bit of Infinite coop - that game is super faithful, by way - and that was a lot of fun. Playing this in 2001 with a friend must have been fantastic fun.
I wasn't very patient with that one at the time, somehow managed to get it running on my PC though and had my mind blown. Such a good game, basically everything is fantastic apart from that library level.
You know, having just played the Library level, I get the feeling that it was thematically necessary to drive home the scale of the cosmic horror you’re facing. It needs to be exhausting, overwhelming, unending…
I tried it on PC in 2004 and all I got was a slide show.
Incredible, I’m sure. Especially for people who weren’t playing on PC before - it generally stands up to Half-Life in a lot of ways, including the enemy movement and maybe even AI, but the cutscenes have that more traditional cinematic look. I love the constant immersion of Half-Life, but this feels like watching an awesome sci-fi action movie, like Aliens. There’s enough survival horror and cosmic horror vibes as well to keep you going.
Yeah, the vehicles and battlefield chaos are really well executed. It feels genuinely grandiose today, so it must have been mind blowing at the time. I can also tell the campaign is meant to teach you how to play multiplayer, which other games would go on to do in the years to come.
There’s a lot of Battlefield 3 in there. Or the other way around, more appropriately.
Xonotic is from a different reality were competitive movement shooters never died! It is the active fork of what used to be called Nexuiz.
Xonotic runs on the darkplaces engine, it isn't just stylistically of the arena shooter era it is directly descended from quake and the lot.
Playerbase is small but consistent, Xonotic is very easy to download game (it is on several linux repos for one) so there are always new people wandering in and a solid community of veterans.
Very cool takes for the info. Yeah still to this day I use right click for jump in all my games from playing quake 2. It seems weird on modern shooters but old habits die hard. The new update to quake 2 has really injected new life into quake 2 ctf.
This is why I cannot abide the Halo series. I came to them having been raised on Quake, Unreal Tournament, and Half-Life. Halo was like moving through molasses.
Playing through Hades 1. I never got out of Hades until this time around, and I'm having fun grinding to complete some of the fated choices and lounge renovations.
That's been my experience, too! I was a little worried, after I got out the first time, that I would have no more reason to keep playing, but they did a good job giving the player something(s) to keep working towards.
How did you like it? I'm like 10 hours in and so far it seems ok, but I'm not seeing the super amazing game that my friends raved about. For instance last night while playing I thought about how Bioshock was much more immersive and gripping, and it came out the same year.
Mass Effect 1 is really like the first season of a TV show. The series was still finding its footing, but the story and characters make up for the grindy bits
The first game is a bit different from the rest and it's greatest strength is the world building of the universe, where it is the strongest title of the trilogy. People mostly like the mass effect series for the companions though, and they are at their best in the second game.
The first game suffers a bit from being an awkward hybrid between an infinity engine game and a more action-oriented game. It was a rough time for RPGs in general in that respect. ME2 and 3 lean more in to the action game play for better and worse (mostly better).
Unless you are in hurry to get on to the next game, I'd encourage you to do some of the optional and very easy to miss sidequests that you can get from exploring planets. Its worth checking the wiki for these if you don't feel like doing enough exploring to stumble across them organically, I can in particular recommend the Cerberus quest chain and Talis geth quest chain.
I liked how the combat system evolved and became more immersive instead of a third person rts. The story was interesting, with your choices following you through the games. I did a renegade run and still ended up with paragon points. Also, don't explore and find everything unless you are dedicated to 100percent run.
Super amazing? No. But fun and a good story with fun characters. Talking to them for side missions actually makes bonding with them worth the time and effort. If you have all three games you might as well play the series as intended 1-3.bur if you only have one or two, the game falls flat. They need each other to make sense, have fun, and become one giant decent game.
So i say again, have fun. If you are getting frustrated, back off, relax, play some BioShock, then you get back up and eat that horse. It's more important to enjoy the game then it is to finish it within a set time.
I played death stranding during COVID and it was the perfect game to do then (no idea if that was patient at the time) the world being so beautiful and fun/ hard to navigate was great for when you couldn't go outside.
The soundtrack is brilliant too.
Yeah, playing during the pandemic made it hit harder, I feel. It really drove home the loneliness, but also the need for a connected community during unprecedented times.
It’ll always feel like a relic of that time, won’t it? I wonder how we’ll talk about it in 20 years…
I played a chunk of it then on PS4, but found the text exhausting and put it down. One of these days I’ll have to play it on PC, but it just won’t feel the same.
I played it on PS4 and beat it, then got it free on Epic a while ago. I didn't have a PC powerful enough until I got my Asus ROG Ally last year. So, I had to replay it. I love Death Stranding so much and I can't wait for DS2.
That is to say, it felt the same on PC for me because I used a controller both times, lol.
I’ll play it with an Xbox controller on PC, but what I mean is the thematic impact of playing it while so much of the world is also isolated isn’t - hopefully won’t be - repeatable.
Same.
I actually bought it again on sale in steam.
Though Ill most probably stick to mobile version + controller for it. PC version is now for mod testing (aka make it mobile-like)
Sadly no online multiplayer, but it is up to date alongside the PC version. There is an experimental LAN multiplayer option, but it's apparently still very unstable
Yes it it kept up to date. Currently 1.6 (newest patch). But no official multiplayer on mobile.
You can, however, copy your mobile save to PC if you have Stardew on PC too. You just have to do the transfer each time (mobile to PC, play on PC, then xfer that PC save back to mobile so the save file stays up to date).
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.
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 just started the first one, took me a few tries to really get into it but I'm enjoying it a lot now. I feel like it's a little bit harder to get into all the lore compared to something like dragon age or elder scrolls. But the gameplay is amazing
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.
Sometimes I just like killing rooms of enemies by walking around. I like Warframe for that - specifically I have a Gyre build that goes pretty hard even through steel path. Nice brain off time.
Does Half-Life 2 count? I played it years ago but fully replayed it over a couple of days to hear the new developer commentary. I never thought Valve would get around to making one for Half-Life 2, so I'm glad they did.
Started playing Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice this week. I may or may not have bought it because I got it mixed up with Ghost of Tsushima, so the fact that it's essentially Bloodborne but in Japan caught me a bit off guard, but it's not bad. There's been three separate times now where I've gotten stuck on a boss, closed the game thinking "I hate soulslike games, this was a waste of money," and then beat the boss on my first try the next day.
It seems like they took into account the fact that you can't summon friends when they tuned the difficulty. It's not easy by a longshot, but it's not as impossible as other Fromsoft games.
The posture gauge is my favorite game mechanic. Having both defense and offense move the fight along makes it so much less of a slog than other soulslikes. Normally I just dart around the battlefield getting one light attack in every 30 seconds, but this game has me standing right next to the boss, actively rewarding me for memorizing telegraphs and attack patterns. It's super satisfying.
ETA: I almost forgot another good thing about this game! You don't level up individual stats one at a time! Some see this lower level of customization as a drawback, but I see it as an improvement. You'll never get to the end of the game and hit an insurmountable roadblock because you levelled up stamina too much. You can get every skill and use every tool. Boss fights become a matter of mutable equipment loadouts instead of irreversible level choices.
I've gotten stuck on a boss, closed the game thinking "I hate soulslike games, this was a waste of money," and then beat the boss on my first try the next day.
Ah yes, the classic Souls experience.
It's super satisfying.
It is, being in a 5 minute sword fight with swords clashing all the time is really rewarding. Many of my favorite Souls bosses are from Sekiro.
The exp requirements for each skill level are exponential for every seventh level, so the half way point in fully levelling a skill works out to be level 92 (out of 99)
I've been playing Monster Hunter Now on mobile, it fucking sucks unfortunately, but it's making want to play MH:World again to just grind out armor pieces casually... Although thinking about it, that's also a chore because unlocking cosmetics is super tiduous and can be really hard... Hmm...
I’m playing Minecraft on the Wii U with my daughter… and since the eShop closed a while ago, I didn’t have any issues unlocking all skins and DLCs by…. Alternative means 😅
I like the style of the Mass Effect texture pack, and it’s fun exploring the included map.
Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex for PSP. It's not favorite genre, being an FPS, but as far as I've gotten, I can rely on my heavily-gunned Tachikoma to handle the problem when I struggle with the controls.
Dragon Age Origins for the first time. I think I'm at the climax of the Redcliffe arc, and finally I understand why people call Veilguard "disneyfied".
The games followed a similar path as elder scrolls. Very heavy RPG in the beginning, DAO is very similar to morrowind or BG3 in that way. As the games came out they stripped RPG elements slowly, although I recall the second game still being very much an RPG.
Then inquisition and veilguard dropped the RPG elements and became action games. You generally choose what type of action you like (caster, rogue, warrior) and thats all of the roleplaying involved.
Veilguard specifically is a re-skin of Hogwarts legacy, so if you tried that then you know what it will be like. Maybe the newer assassins creed games would be a good comparison too, heavy action, minor RPG.
"We might be able to banish the demon and save your son."
"Really?"
"No, it's just fun to get your hopes up. I'm gonna kill the kid."
Veilguard doesn't let you be an absolute dick the way Origins did. The story (what little I've seen) is filtered and sanitized like it's meant for six-year-olds.
It also approaches sensitive topics, like the gender of one character, with the graceful and delicate touch of a fucking brick. If your character in Origins is a woman, Sten will bluntly comment on your role as a warrior, which is reflects the Qunari culture and their strict adherence to their norms. In Veilguard, a character blurts out "I'm non-binary by the way, I use pronouns" and another starts doing push-ups for accidentally misgendering them. It was fucking ridiculous.
Bleh. But in the end I don’t expect anything good out of the AAA industry. I goes it’s an exception nowadays whether as gave like this can be good.
And I mean, it’s not like I was gonna play it anyway.
I’ve been playing Silent Storm a 2004 strategy RPG that is a total hidden gem. A little primitive but it feels a bit like the battle system from BG 3 with guns.
Silent Storm was a fun turn-based tactics game! Not as polished as something like the Firaxis xcoms, but more complete than a lot of other non-fantasy tactics games I've tried.
Sounds like I should try XCom. I bought every Humble Bundle for a couple years from it’s inception and I have 800+ games in my Steam library. I just played Silent Storm randomly and blind and was surprised.
Thanks for the suggestion. Stated playing XCF and I'm hooked. I previously bounced off an attempt at playing open xcom, but XCF has been a good experience so far.
Glad you like it. It has no right to be this good and campy but somehow I also can't put it down.
If you want something even more crazy another guy made X-Pirates on the XCOM engine. It's a catgirl post-apocalyptic pirate mod (NSFW, yeah, not kidding).
::: spoiler spoiler
The year is 2601. The Earth has been long conquered by aliens. You run a gang of female mutant pirates. Rob aliens and their human proxies for fun, profit and power. Features: - Fight nazis with chainsaws as scantily-clad big mutant ladies, Heavy Metal style! - Meet and kill (or capture, ransom, interrogate, enslave) a wide variety of strangers, belonging to over a dozen of factions! - Explore absolutely enormous technology tree! - Approach tactical problems in an endless variety of ways! - Figure out riddles and riddles within riddles! - Cozy up to Amiga-age gfx and music, while the globe mysteriously spins in darkness! - Read (a lot) or Die! - Around 400 hours of gameplay; in active developement; no two games are the same. - Warning: contains non-sexual nudity (15+) and other content that might be not suitable to US audiences.
:::
Fallout New Vegas! I'm really enjoying all the characters that I have met so far, but I'm starting to realize that villifying factions right from the start isn't the best idea when trying to get to new places
Yo, I started FNV for my first time this week! A friend of mine is always raving about it, so he sent me instructions to get it all modded out (Viva New Vegas modlist), so I did that and I'm off to the races. So far so good... it was a bit of a grind to get past the first couple of quests (I kept getting my ass handed to me), but now that I've killed some convicts and stolen their stuff, I'm in much better shape. Also I figured out I can sleep in beds that aren't red.
I also heard that about not getting involved with factions yet...
I played through Gris and had an absolute blast. I finished it in <3 hours, but spent another 3 or so tracking down collectibles (momentos) because the world is so pretty.
I also played Monument Valley 1&2, each in one sitting. The puzzles weren't very hard, but I'm a sucker for non-Euclidean worlds (also loved The Bridge and Manifold Garden).
Other than that, I've been playing a bit of Fire Emblem: Engage. I probably won't finish that before Christmas though, it's a long game.
I'm probably going to pick up Bomb Rush Cyberfunk this Steam sale, which recently turned 1. I have kids, and they're each getting a Switch game for Christmas, so I'll have a few more to play soon.
It absolutely is. I try to play 1-2 of these each year, and I have a collection in Steam called "short games" for experiences under 5 hours with something unique to them.
Some others:
Gorogoa
What Remains of Edith Finch
INSIDE
They're all very different, but they fit into that "games as art" category and don't overstay their welcome.
I'm not always in the mood for these kinds of games, but when I am, they really scratch that itch.
Been on Monster Hunter Sunbreak for a couple weeks now. It's absolutely become my favorite modern monhun game, and it's significantly improved my mental state.
Also playing Redout 2 and Blue Revolver, an old bullet hell shmup that just got a massive game revision.
Other than that, I was playing NFSU2 because of the 20th anniversary and the release of a great soft-remaster mod
I have been waiting for the AEW Wrestling game Fight Forever to be cheap, and am having a lovely time! It's very fun to play, and has an okay roster (i got DLC with it).
I wouldn't be thrilled with buying on release at £50 and then £80 on DLC, but under 20 for the lot seemed okay :) definitely not perfect, but a fun game with some cool details. :)
I gave the first Armored Core a try and played a few missions. The movement is rather clunky coming straight from the buttery smooth Armored Core 6. However, the other systems seem pretty robust for the first game in the series.
Dont know yet, but a very stressful period is done at the end of this week and i have some vacation after so from next week i will find an old gem and play the heck out of it
NFS Unbound and BF2042 cause it‘s five bucks each rn.
I think BF is fine for 5 bucks if you don‘t think about how much worse it is compared to BF3 or 4, it‘s still silly fun for cheap on its own.
NFS I struggle to recommend even for this price, unless you‘re already done with all the Forzas, Crews, Grids, and Dirts of this world. The driving just feels incredibly wrong, lots of „what the fuck just happened?“ And it runs poorly even though it looks mediocre.
Chained Together was fun so far with a friend, although it‘s clearly not very polished.
I also got Deep Rock Galactic, but I haven‘t spent much time in it yet. This one in contrast looks very polished lol
Lastly, Chicory has been a lot of fun and a unique experience. A cute and wholesome game I can recommend.
After I became „worthy“ this week in Distance, I also want to recommend it again. It‘s a game I discovered through people talking about it on here and it was a great experience.
I've finally been playing through Mad Professor Mariarti on the Amiga. I saw it played many times as a child but now I'm finally playing it myself - and beating it!
Nothing new yet. Well, the last few weeks I started a new character in Valheim, the first one for me since the mistlands biome update.
Valheim has been on steam for a year or so, but is only just nearing 1.0 release. I had gotten on fairly early to play with budddies, and it was 20 bucks well spent. Played a good bit with my buds, Iv played a lot more solo. Survival/Base builder. Norse mythology setting. Not sure the price now with release imminent, but worth adding to the watch/wish list if the genre is right or you.
But, iirc the game is called Druidstone. Turn-based tactics game, foresty magic pg 13 looking. Been on my steam list for ever and was 5 bucks recently. Gonna play it soon I swear. I'm a little disheartened because it looks like you are stuck with 3 specific characters, instead of building a party. But hey maybe skill trees? Anywhoots I'll post more about that one later.
I've just finished playing Half-Life (or in fact, the fan-made remake Black Mesa), and Half-Life: Uplink (the demo version that was released after the final game, and it consisted of a short non-canon scenario that's not included in the final game, but lately was included in the 25th anniversary version).
I will be playing HL: Opposing Force and Blue Shift next. And in general I am planning to fish every Half-Life game this month (except Alyx since I don't have good enough hardware for me to enjoy it, and playing it on GTX 1060 3GB is not enjoyable at all), and if it goes well Portal games as well.
I have been playing Stardew Valley because the real world sucks and everybody can piss off 😠
Always nice, are you also on [email protected] ?
Yeah i am! 😁
Halo: Combat Evolved. I get what all the hype was about. This is a good game!
You are sage like patient.
[crosses legs and hums]
I experienced the whole original trilogy last year with a friend on coop. I get it now. Why so many people love Halo.
Btw, Halo 2 and 3 are much better than the first one. If you already liked that, you're in for a treat.
I played a bit of Infinite coop - that game is super faithful, by way - and that was a lot of fun. Playing this in 2001 with a friend must have been fantastic fun.
I wasn't very patient with that one at the time, somehow managed to get it running on my PC though and had my mind blown. Such a good game, basically everything is fantastic apart from that library level.
You know, having just played the Library level, I get the feeling that it was thematically necessary to drive home the scale of the cosmic horror you’re facing. It needs to be exhausting, overwhelming, unending…
I tried it on PC in 2004 and all I got was a slide show.
Can you even imagine how good that felt on an original Xbox?
Incredible, I’m sure. Especially for people who weren’t playing on PC before - it generally stands up to Half-Life in a lot of ways, including the enemy movement and maybe even AI, but the cutscenes have that more traditional cinematic look. I love the constant immersion of Half-Life, but this feels like watching an awesome sci-fi action movie, like Aliens. There’s enough survival horror and cosmic horror vibes as well to keep you going.
Consoles really didn't have many good FPS until then. I'd say the Timesplitters series was a standout, as was Medal of Honor: Frontline.
Both of those felt kind of on rails compared to Halo though. Wide open areas, three way battles, vehicles...
Yeah, the vehicles and battlefield chaos are really well executed. It feels genuinely grandiose today, so it must have been mind blowing at the time. I can also tell the campaign is meant to teach you how to play multiplayer, which other games would go on to do in the years to come.
There’s a lot of Battlefield 3 in there. Or the other way around, more appropriately.
Half Life: Opposing Force
Never played it before and the movement feels a lot faster than modern games. Its a good and fun game.
Yeah growing up with that and quake 2 modern games always feels like im running in quicksand or my controls are broken.
Thankfully we have Xonotic
Awesome I have never heard of this and I will be checking it out
Xonotic is from a different reality were competitive movement shooters never died! It is the active fork of what used to be called Nexuiz.
Xonotic runs on the darkplaces engine, it isn't just stylistically of the arena shooter era it is directly descended from quake and the lot.
Playerbase is small but consistent, Xonotic is very easy to download game (it is on several linux repos for one) so there are always new people wandering in and a solid community of veterans.
https://xonotic.org/
High level competitive gameplay is absolutely wild!
https://youtu.be/pe5y-Kj6Ab4
Xonotic "defrag" is a community of people who just strafe jump race, Xonotic is very popular for that given the buttery dream-like highspeed movement.
https://youtu.be/PTp7DhsMpow
(beginner tip the blaster is your best friend, you always spawn with it and it massively elevates movement in Xonotic)
Very cool takes for the info. Yeah still to this day I use right click for jump in all my games from playing quake 2. It seems weird on modern shooters but old habits die hard. The new update to quake 2 has really injected new life into quake 2 ctf.
This is why I cannot abide the Halo series. I came to them having been raised on Quake, Unreal Tournament, and Half-Life. Halo was like moving through molasses.
Yeah I was excited for halo when it was previewed as a PC game first then MS took it for Xbox never got into it
Playing through Hades 1. I never got out of Hades until this time around, and I'm having fun grinding to complete some of the fated choices and lounge renovations.
Have fun, in my opinion it only gets better as you go
That's been my experience, too! I was a little worried, after I got out the first time, that I would have no more reason to keep playing, but they did a good job giving the player something(s) to keep working towards.
Factorio, checking out Space Age. Discovered that Cliff Explosives are moved further down the tech tree...
My friend and I have just been using nukes lol. Bonus is you can see where cliffs used to be in the mini map it's fun
Same, bought space age but loading up a new save file just makes my heart ache for my immaculate bus and signal setups
Mass Effect. First time through the trilogy.
My buddy convinced me to play the trilogy for my first time like half a year ago now.
Have fun
How did you like it? I'm like 10 hours in and so far it seems ok, but I'm not seeing the super amazing game that my friends raved about. For instance last night while playing I thought about how Bioshock was much more immersive and gripping, and it came out the same year.
Mass Effect 1 is really like the first season of a TV show. The series was still finding its footing, but the story and characters make up for the grindy bits
Totally this. The series really gets its legs in ME2.
The first game is a bit different from the rest and it's greatest strength is the world building of the universe, where it is the strongest title of the trilogy. People mostly like the mass effect series for the companions though, and they are at their best in the second game.
The first game suffers a bit from being an awkward hybrid between an infinity engine game and a more action-oriented game. It was a rough time for RPGs in general in that respect. ME2 and 3 lean more in to the action game play for better and worse (mostly better).
Unless you are in hurry to get on to the next game, I'd encourage you to do some of the optional and very easy to miss sidequests that you can get from exploring planets. Its worth checking the wiki for these if you don't feel like doing enough exploring to stumble across them organically, I can in particular recommend the Cerberus quest chain and Talis geth quest chain.
I liked how the combat system evolved and became more immersive instead of a third person rts. The story was interesting, with your choices following you through the games. I did a renegade run and still ended up with paragon points. Also, don't explore and find everything unless you are dedicated to 100percent run.
Super amazing? No. But fun and a good story with fun characters. Talking to them for side missions actually makes bonding with them worth the time and effort. If you have all three games you might as well play the series as intended 1-3.bur if you only have one or two, the game falls flat. They need each other to make sense, have fun, and become one giant decent game.
So i say again, have fun. If you are getting frustrated, back off, relax, play some BioShock, then you get back up and eat that horse. It's more important to enjoy the game then it is to finish it within a set time.
Just finished Death Stranding, now starting up Witcher 3.
I played death stranding during COVID and it was the perfect game to do then (no idea if that was patient at the time) the world being so beautiful and fun/ hard to navigate was great for when you couldn't go outside. The soundtrack is brilliant too.
Yeah, playing during the pandemic made it hit harder, I feel. It really drove home the loneliness, but also the need for a connected community during unprecedented times.
It’ll always feel like a relic of that time, won’t it? I wonder how we’ll talk about it in 20 years…
I played a chunk of it then on PS4, but found the text exhausting and put it down. One of these days I’ll have to play it on PC, but it just won’t feel the same.
I played it on PS4 and beat it, then got it free on Epic a while ago. I didn't have a PC powerful enough until I got my Asus ROG Ally last year. So, I had to replay it. I love Death Stranding so much and I can't wait for DS2.
That is to say, it felt the same on PC for me because I used a controller both times, lol.
I’ll play it with an Xbox controller on PC, but what I mean is the thematic impact of playing it while so much of the world is also isolated isn’t - hopefully won’t be - repeatable.
Friend bought me ToTK so I’ve been having fun with that.
I'm not a spoiler person but look up the order you should visit the glyphs if you want maximum impact.
Heh, Stardew Valley here. I slept on it for years, until I found that it's available on the Google Play Store lol.
Works really well on mobile!!
Same. I actually bought it again on sale in steam. Though Ill most probably stick to mobile version + controller for it. PC version is now for mod testing (aka make it mobile-like)
Is the mobile version kept up to date? Does it have multiplayer?
Sadly no online multiplayer, but it is up to date alongside the PC version. There is an experimental LAN multiplayer option, but it's apparently still very unstable
Yes it it kept up to date. Currently 1.6 (newest patch). But no official multiplayer on mobile.
You can, however, copy your mobile save to PC if you have Stardew on PC too. You just have to do the transfer each time (mobile to PC, play on PC, then xfer that PC save back to mobile so the save file stays up to date).
^ This. This is the way (No way am I starting on PC from the beginning as is)
Oath!
ughhh multiplayer would be amazing
Got back into Slay the Spire on a whim. Nice little turn based card thingy, with beautiful art, and fun synergies.
Love slay the spire, one of my favourite rogue likes. I love how many viable builds it has, just a little knowledge and you can make most runs viable.
Spire Together (I think that's the name) is a pretty good co-op mod as well
Pseudoregalia. Indie game with ridiculous movement tech. Very fun!
That one is great! I love this indie trend of low poly graphics.
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.
Starting deadfire today :)
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 just started the first one, took me a few tries to really get into it but I'm enjoying it a lot now. I feel like it's a little bit harder to get into all the lore compared to something like dragon age or elder scrolls. But the gameplay is amazing
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.
Gave Warframe a shot again, game is still shit, but I am still having fun, so we'll see how long that lasts.
I have 4700 hours on Warframe and feel more or less the same.
Sometimes I just like killing rooms of enemies by walking around. I like Warframe for that - specifically I have a Gyre build that goes pretty hard even through steel path. Nice brain off time.
Does Half-Life 2 count? I played it years ago but fully replayed it over a couple of days to hear the new developer commentary. I never thought Valve would get around to making one for Half-Life 2, so I'm glad they did.
Half Life 2. They gave it to me for free.
Finished it and got Necromunda: Hired Gun for $13.
Started playing Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice this week. I may or may not have bought it because I got it mixed up with Ghost of Tsushima, so the fact that it's essentially Bloodborne but in Japan caught me a bit off guard, but it's not bad. There's been three separate times now where I've gotten stuck on a boss, closed the game thinking "I hate soulslike games, this was a waste of money," and then beat the boss on my first try the next day.
It seems like they took into account the fact that you can't summon friends when they tuned the difficulty. It's not easy by a longshot, but it's not as impossible as other Fromsoft games.
The posture gauge is my favorite game mechanic. Having both defense and offense move the fight along makes it so much less of a slog than other soulslikes. Normally I just dart around the battlefield getting one light attack in every 30 seconds, but this game has me standing right next to the boss, actively rewarding me for memorizing telegraphs and attack patterns. It's super satisfying.
ETA: I almost forgot another good thing about this game! You don't level up individual stats one at a time! Some see this lower level of customization as a drawback, but I see it as an improvement. You'll never get to the end of the game and hit an insurmountable roadblock because you levelled up stamina too much. You can get every skill and use every tool. Boss fights become a matter of mutable equipment loadouts instead of irreversible level choices.
Ah yes, the classic Souls experience.
It is, being in a 5 minute sword fight with swords clashing all the time is really rewarding. Many of my favorite Souls bosses are from Sekiro.
RuneScape. Always heard about how “grindy” it is. 1 hour in and I think I’m beginning to understand.
Wow you really were patient about this one
The first 10-20 levels of any skill are pretty quick, but then it becomes much slower to progress.
The exp requirements for each skill level are exponential for every seventh level, so the half way point in fully levelling a skill works out to be level 92 (out of 99)
I've been playing Monster Hunter Now on mobile, it fucking sucks unfortunately, but it's making want to play MH:World again to just grind out armor pieces casually... Although thinking about it, that's also a chore because unlocking cosmetics is super tiduous and can be really hard... Hmm...
Also playing Legends of Runeterra.
I’m playing Minecraft on the Wii U with my daughter… and since the eShop closed a while ago, I didn’t have any issues unlocking all skins and DLCs by…. Alternative means 😅
I like the style of the Mass Effect texture pack, and it’s fun exploring the included map.
Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex for PSP. It's not favorite genre, being an FPS, but as far as I've gotten, I can rely on my heavily-gunned Tachikoma to handle the problem when I struggle with the controls.
Oh neat, I didn't know GitS had a game. PSP is a weird console though.
There's a psone game too. You control the tank. Not bad at all for what it is
There's also a PS2 SAC game that came about a month before the PSP.
Cyberpunk,
Finally picked it up on this sale with Phantom Liberty.
Played about an hour so far, seems OK, have to get my Steam Controller setup properly for it still.
Dragon Age Origins for the first time. I think I'm at the climax of the Redcliffe arc, and finally I understand why people call Veilguard "disneyfied".
Why is that? I played Origins on ps3 but I’ve never played any of the sequels, so I have no idea.
The games followed a similar path as elder scrolls. Very heavy RPG in the beginning, DAO is very similar to morrowind or BG3 in that way. As the games came out they stripped RPG elements slowly, although I recall the second game still being very much an RPG.
Then inquisition and veilguard dropped the RPG elements and became action games. You generally choose what type of action you like (caster, rogue, warrior) and thats all of the roleplaying involved.
Veilguard specifically is a re-skin of Hogwarts legacy, so if you tried that then you know what it will be like. Maybe the newer assassins creed games would be a good comparison too, heavy action, minor RPG.
Haha. No, those games give me no frame of reference. But that kind of tells me everything I need to know anyway!
Cheers!
"We might be able to banish the demon and save your son."
"Really?"
"No, it's just fun to get your hopes up. I'm gonna kill the kid."
Veilguard doesn't let you be an absolute dick the way Origins did. The story (what little I've seen) is filtered and sanitized like it's meant for six-year-olds.
It also approaches sensitive topics, like the gender of one character, with the graceful and delicate touch of a fucking brick. If your character in Origins is a woman, Sten will bluntly comment on your role as a warrior, which is reflects the Qunari culture and their strict adherence to their norms. In Veilguard, a character blurts out "I'm non-binary by the way, I use pronouns" and another starts doing push-ups for accidentally misgendering them. It was fucking ridiculous.
Bleh. But in the end I don’t expect anything good out of the AAA industry. I goes it’s an exception nowadays whether as gave like this can be good. And I mean, it’s not like I was gonna play it anyway.
I’ve been playing Silent Storm a 2004 strategy RPG that is a total hidden gem. A little primitive but it feels a bit like the battle system from BG 3 with guns.
Silent Storm was a fun turn-based tactics game! Not as polished as something like the Firaxis xcoms, but more complete than a lot of other non-fantasy tactics games I've tried.
Well 2 months later I have beaten both Xcoms. Thanks for the tip they were a lot of fun.
Sounds like I should try XCom. I bought every Humble Bundle for a couple years from it’s inception and I have 800+ games in my Steam library. I just played Silent Storm randomly and blind and was surprised.
Sounds like you guys might like The X-Com Files. A mod for the original.
Thanks for the suggestion. Stated playing XCF and I'm hooked. I previously bounced off an attempt at playing open xcom, but XCF has been a good experience so far.
Glad you like it. It has no right to be this good and campy but somehow I also can't put it down.
If you want something even more crazy another guy made X-Pirates on the XCOM engine. It's a catgirl post-apocalyptic pirate mod (NSFW, yeah, not kidding).
::: spoiler spoiler
Fallout New Vegas! I'm really enjoying all the characters that I have met so far, but I'm starting to realize that villifying factions right from the start isn't the best idea when trying to get to new places
Yo, I started FNV for my first time this week! A friend of mine is always raving about it, so he sent me instructions to get it all modded out (Viva New Vegas modlist), so I did that and I'm off to the races. So far so good... it was a bit of a grind to get past the first couple of quests (I kept getting my ass handed to me), but now that I've killed some convicts and stolen their stuff, I'm in much better shape. Also I figured out I can sleep in beds that aren't red.
I also heard that about not getting involved with factions yet...
Sand Land. The style is great. Story is pretty cool and well delivered. Gameplay is meh. Feels like a watered down Mad Max.
The game felt like it would be better as an anime.
Then the anime came out on Hulu.
I played through Gris and had an absolute blast. I finished it in <3 hours, but spent another 3 or so tracking down collectibles (momentos) because the world is so pretty.
I also played Monument Valley 1&2, each in one sitting. The puzzles weren't very hard, but I'm a sucker for non-Euclidean worlds (also loved The Bridge and Manifold Garden).
Other than that, I've been playing a bit of Fire Emblem: Engage. I probably won't finish that before Christmas though, it's a long game.
I'm probably going to pick up Bomb Rush Cyberfunk this Steam sale, which recently turned 1. I have kids, and they're each getting a Switch game for Christmas, so I'll have a few more to play soon.
Gris is such a beautiful game. It's up there with Journey and Sayonara wild hearts for me in the games I can easily hold up as art category.
It absolutely is. I try to play 1-2 of these each year, and I have a collection in Steam called "short games" for experiences under 5 hours with something unique to them.
Some others:
They're all very different, but they fit into that "games as art" category and don't overstay their welcome.
I'm not always in the mood for these kinds of games, but when I am, they really scratch that itch.
Sayonara Wild Hearts was such an unexpected banger to play through. I still hope they make another one.
Took me a while, but I finally took the time to play Watch Dogs and Watch Dogs 2, and recently started Watch Dogs: Legion.
Been on Monster Hunter Sunbreak for a couple weeks now. It's absolutely become my favorite modern monhun game, and it's significantly improved my mental state.
Also playing Redout 2 and Blue Revolver, an old bullet hell shmup that just got a massive game revision.
Other than that, I was playing NFSU2 because of the 20th anniversary and the release of a great soft-remaster mod
I finally picked up Balatro on Android. Wow, I'm hooked.
goty, this gsme got addictive too damn fast
I have been waiting for the AEW Wrestling game Fight Forever to be cheap, and am having a lovely time! It's very fun to play, and has an okay roster (i got DLC with it).
I wouldn't be thrilled with buying on release at £50 and then £80 on DLC, but under 20 for the lot seemed okay :) definitely not perfect, but a fun game with some cool details. :)
I gave the first Armored Core a try and played a few missions. The movement is rather clunky coming straight from the buttery smooth Armored Core 6. However, the other systems seem pretty robust for the first game in the series.
I never tried it before because I thought the RPG part would be dumb. But it's surprisingly fun and has the great Meretzky humor.
it's even on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1104470/Super_Hero_League_of_Hoboken/
EDIT: GOG version is probably superior: https://www.gog.com/en/game/superhero_league_of_hoboken
I've been having a lot of fun with Green Hell lately
Dont know yet, but a very stressful period is done at the end of this week and i have some vacation after so from next week i will find an old gem and play the heck out of it
I started and finished The Case of the Golden Idol. Good stuff. Playing the sequel now.
Bulletstorm full clip edition.
Really fun shooter with an interesting scoring mechanic.
I fuckin love Bulletstorm and wish it got its sequel
NFS Unbound and BF2042 cause it‘s five bucks each rn.
I think BF is fine for 5 bucks if you don‘t think about how much worse it is compared to BF3 or 4, it‘s still silly fun for cheap on its own.
NFS I struggle to recommend even for this price, unless you‘re already done with all the Forzas, Crews, Grids, and Dirts of this world. The driving just feels incredibly wrong, lots of „what the fuck just happened?“ And it runs poorly even though it looks mediocre.
Chained Together was fun so far with a friend, although it‘s clearly not very polished.
I also got Deep Rock Galactic, but I haven‘t spent much time in it yet. This one in contrast looks very polished lol
Lastly, Chicory has been a lot of fun and a unique experience. A cute and wholesome game I can recommend.
After I became „worthy“ this week in Distance, I also want to recommend it again. It‘s a game I discovered through people talking about it on here and it was a great experience.
Thief, anno 1404
MGS Ghost Babel! Obviously a little primitive because it's a GBC game but the plot's pretty exciting and holds up even today
I've finally been playing through Mad Professor Mariarti on the Amiga. I saw it played many times as a child but now I'm finally playing it myself - and beating it!
Finally got some time alone to play some more octopath traveller 2 and make some progress in a couple of storylines
Unnamed Space Idle. Not very patient though, unless you count the gameplay itself haha.
Slay the Spire co-op mod and AC6 are also recent plays for me but not strictly this week. I'm not sure that I'm gonna stick with AC6 though.
Finished Lego City Undercover and The Veilguard. Had a blast with both.
That final dive to earth in LCU is amazing, it's like they suddenly had a Call of Duty budget to play with.
Yeah. It was fun to play through.
I have sunk so much time into Voices of the Void it's honestly crazy
Nothing new yet. Well, the last few weeks I started a new character in Valheim, the first one for me since the mistlands biome update.
Valheim has been on steam for a year or so, but is only just nearing 1.0 release. I had gotten on fairly early to play with budddies, and it was 20 bucks well spent. Played a good bit with my buds, Iv played a lot more solo. Survival/Base builder. Norse mythology setting. Not sure the price now with release imminent, but worth adding to the watch/wish list if the genre is right or you.
But, iirc the game is called Druidstone. Turn-based tactics game, foresty magic pg 13 looking. Been on my steam list for ever and was 5 bucks recently. Gonna play it soon I swear. I'm a little disheartened because it looks like you are stuck with 3 specific characters, instead of building a party. But hey maybe skill trees? Anywhoots I'll post more about that one later.
I've just finished playing Half-Life (or in fact, the fan-made remake Black Mesa), and Half-Life: Uplink (the demo version that was released after the final game, and it consisted of a short non-canon scenario that's not included in the final game, but lately was included in the 25th anniversary version).
I will be playing HL: Opposing Force and Blue Shift next. And in general I am planning to fish every Half-Life game this month (except Alyx since I don't have good enough hardware for me to enjoy it, and playing it on GTX 1060 3GB is not enjoyable at all), and if it goes well Portal games as well.
Check out the fan games, Half-Life: Echoes and Entropy: Zero 1 and 2 afterwards.
Outlast Trials and I'm giving Destiny 2 a shot.