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What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them?
What have you been playing lately? Discussion about video games and board games are both welcome. Please don't just make a list of titles, give some thoughts about the game(s) as well.
I am enjoying The Outer Worlds. Fallout 4 was bloated and disappointing. I hated the crafting and building in that huge unfocused game. I quit playing when I couldn't finish a main quest due to a bug, and there was no obvious fix on consoles.
TOW was made by the studio of Fallout
3New Vegas, and it shows. There are lots of similarities between these games. But TOW doesn't try to be everything at once, and is a better game as a consequence. The world is not that big, and only semi-open. There are less quests, but they're of a consistent high quality. Crafting (if I can even call it that) is simple and straightforward. The companions are actually useful and interesting to talk to. It's a Fallout game with better mechanics, no bugs, and no filler. Also: a bunch of decisions with ethical dilemmas. It's great.Quick correction, TOW was made by the studio of Fallout: New Vegas, which is the superior game vs. Fallout 3, of course! I really liked TOW and I'm looking forward to the sequel as long as it's not a Microsoft exclusive. Since they gobbled up Obsidian I'm getting increasingly nervous as a Playstation gamer.
Thanks for the correction. If I'm not mistaken, Obsidian developed Fallout before the 3D era as well.
Back when they were Black Isle, yes.
I hate and love FO4. I enjoy parts of the experience, and then other parts are so repetitive or otherwise uninspiring that I just can't "finish" the game. By finish I mean play it until I can put it away satisfied. So I'll eventually get tired of it, but half a year it creeps up on me again and I want to play it. I wanna tinker with my guns, build a economic powerhouse settlement network, that kinda thing, but I know I won't actually get the fix I want from that game because the loot drops and the dungeon crawling are so repetitive. It's frustrating, because I know I can't get what I want out of it, but I still get enough out of it whenever I play it that it sticks around to haunt me another day. There's a few games like that for me.
(Edit: There was a halfway coherent thought about what causes this for me, that occured to me while watching this. I'll have to have a look over it again and put it in writing because I feel it was important-ish to me.)
The best mod I ever added to my FO4 game was one that automatically looted all materials nearby and put them into my settlement network. It takes away 90% of the drudgery of the game, and makes the dungeons more interesting, too, since your pace is more about excitement than careful scouring for the right loot.
Good one. I think I saw a similar one. Something about beacons that you just drop in a dungeon and "your scrappers grab the stuff and bring it back" aka. a script moves it to the workbench inventory.
I never added it, not sure why. Maybe I haven't played since? But yes, walking back and forth endlessly or solving the knapsack problem to figure out what to bring home both aren't very interesting gameplay-wise.
I'm grateful for The Outer Worlds because I can't play FNV or FO3 (I realized after forcing myself to finish FNV that the ambient and interior sound design hits all my sensitive spots and causes me to panic). TOW was also intended to be replayed and stand up to any crazy builds, ideas, or emerging narratives the player had, which sold me when I was on the fence about it.
I was disappointed by the size of the worlds, which by your comment don't seem to get any bigger, but if I want a sandbox I can play Skyrim, No Man's Sky, or Astroneer. The mechanics and narrative in TOW are exactly what I liked about how FNV did things.
Agreed, I love the absolute freedom TOW gives you to ally with, betray, or kill anyone. I'm sure I'm not the only one frustrated by unkillable "essential" NPCs in other Bethesda-style RPGs. In TOW, apart from barricading Phineas behind unbreakable glass, anyone can be offed at any time and the narrative will adapt accordingly. My favorite playthrough was as a pacifist negotiator: I discovered that wherever two factions are in conflict, you can take the (harder) path of mediating between them to arrive at a compromise both parties agree to. I found that more satisfying on the whole than just choosing a faction to support blindly. And I can't recall any other game that allows a similar range of choices. Just a shame it's so limited in scope; despite its strengths TOW is very short and the locations are tiny.
I mentioned this in a previous comment, but I've been on pins and needles about a TOW sequel since Obsidian was acquired by Microsoft. On the one hand, this should give them an expanded budget to really take this kind of gameplay to the next level. But, I'm fully bought into the Playstation ecosystem, and should Microsoft decide to make it an exclusive, I'll have to miss out on it.
XCOM 2 - Miles better than XCOM in every measure. Better storyline, better acting, better gameplay, better graphics, better character progression, and better character customization (e.g. my Leather Daddies of the Apocalypse squad). Only real complaints is the fact that it's a PC game that still works better with a controller, the memory leak, the skippable-but-unnecessary fly in/fly out animation at the start and end of every single mission, and that at the start (I haven't beaten it, but I'm in the endgame) there's too much going on/interruptions as you're trying to get established and a stable base. First playthrough is vanilla, I'm pretty sure I'll do at least a second run with War of the Chosen enabled, maybe some mods as well.
Lol, I’m loving the Village People vibe your unit has going on. They look like they’re ready to take out the enemy in tacky, iconic style — and to the tune of a danceable pop earworm, of course. 😆
You damn right! If it wasn't for the random soldier creator that blessed me with a porn-stached, aviator, hotpants equipped guy pretty early I would likely have never been the wiser. Thankfully, I was introduced to my muscle bound mutant slayers and opted to forgo armor altogether. Takes longer to heal post-mission without that protection, but I will not allow my aesthetic be compromised. We shall fight back the alien hordes in style!
It is exactly as non-protective as it seems. Any of the armors you can get later in the game do not respect the aesthetic choices made, so if I want anything greater then I'd have to sacrifice my eye candy and I'm just not going to do that. It's also part of my psychological warfare strategy. It's one thing to have to fight an enemy, it's another when your enemy is charging at you in their skivvies.
Few video games here, but family board games have been good. One that we returned to after not having played for quite a while is Dominion which is a deck building game. Every player starts with a 10-card deck, and there is a central bank of cards that can be purchased using tools from your deck. Some of the cards give you actions you can do, some cards give you points, some act as currency. At the end of the game, the deck with the most points wins. Points cards are "dead" cards though; they don't do anything when you draw them while playing, so you have to be careful about when you start purchasing them because they can stall your deck. It's pretty good as a two player game, and I've been playing it with my wife.
I have also been playing some Chess with my second child (Kid2) and that has been fun. She has gotten into playing chess at school, and was very confident when she challenged me to play a game, so I felt a bit bad about our current record (5-0 for me), but she had a renewed sense of the depth that chess can have. I'll always remember the time I beat my own father at Chess (it has happened once, only), so I hope she has the same experience in the future. We previously played some Hnafatafl (viking chess) and it didn't take long before she could occasionally beat me, so I expect that at some point in the next few months, I'll face a loss at chess. I'm trying to encourage her to start playing Go as well.
I've been mostly playing Farming Sim 22 the last few months. And I'm starting to get burned out on it finally. I really enjoy the concept of the game-- start with a few fields, grow some crops, add some animals, try production chains out, lots of fun vehicles and tools to try out. Heck I even bought a steering wheel to make driving more realistic/fun.
But then once you get bigger fields it's just a time-sink preparing the fields. You have to cultivate them, plant seeds, roll the seeds, fertilize twice, use a weeder or spray (same exact mechanic as fertilizing, just a different substance), then harvest and repeat it all over. And because the fields are so big and there's only so much time to play games you start having the AI do the work for you. But then you realize there's nothing left for you to do. Like the other night I was just sitting at the computer waiting for the AI to finish up a task so I could go to bed. Not even playing the game. And I could hop in and do the work myself, but like I said it stops being fun after a while...it's too repetitive just going up and down a field 15 times.
So clearly I need to take a break from the game :) It's a solid game, I think I've just played it way too much in a short period of time.
Pillars of Eternity: I had finished Act 1 in November. I tried pushing forward with the story but the two missions I've got were getting me murdered. I realized it was because I didn't know what I was doing in the game at all, am under-leveled (my party is level 4), and the difficulty jumps in Act 2. It's not an huge unfair jump, but it becomes more dependent on strategy and party balance skills and positioning. I set the game to auto-pause every two seconds in combat, and when killing somebody, so I can re-organize my party and set attacks, which is helping me with side quests, and am getting the hang of micro-managing my party in combat.
Tyranny: I was going to wait until I finished PoE to play this one, but since it's not a sequel I figured it would be a good change of pace if I get bored of PoE. It's a great idea, playing as the emissary of an evil lord, and the decisions are constantly challenging with no foreknowledge of the consequences. I decided to play it as a brutal but just leader, and seem to be regularly punching people in the face to get them to respect my authority, so I'll see how this plays out in the long run. I do like that the game avoids what director Brian Helms called "moustache-twiddling" evil.
Caves of Qud: I'm still playing my first Roleplay save. I cleared Red Rocks, which is one of the first, easy dungeons, and it was tough. This mode is a great way to explore a game that doesn't lead to you re-rolling a character, but I am also working on traditional runs. I actually like the potential for using cities as a checkpoint, but it's definitely not a standard roguelike experience playing this way.
Nobody Saves the World is terrific. Highly recommend anyone check it out if you enjoy any of:
The unique hook of this particular 2D indie game is that you play as Nobody, a weird gaping-faced being of sorts, that gets ahold of a wizard's wand that allows Nobody to change into all kinds of forms. Each of the forms have very different abilities and you will need to switch through the forms often to get through the game. All the forms level up independently and as you level up certain branches, you unlock new forms to use.
Each of the forms starts with a signature ability, and then you unlock more as you level each one up. Levelling up isn't XP based but instead done by doing actions with each of the forms, like using a particular ability on an enemy so many times, or hitting a certain number of enemies with a single act. The game has largely balanced these out pretty well to encourage the player to explore how each of the remarkably distinct forms are supposed to be used and work to reveal more and more mechanics to the player as you master the existing ones.
The forms start with some standard fantasy ones like a Rat, a Knight, and a Ranger... but then you quickly get ones like Horse, Bodybuilder (complete with a speedo), Turtle, Zombie, and more. This is a comedic game and it wears ridiculousness on its sleeve. With such an eclectic spread of forms comes an eclectic collection of abilities and moves, which creates a surprisingly extensive and somewhat unpredictable moveset. The Horse, for example, can only attack backwards since it kicks out its hind legs in a very powerful attack, and you do extra damage to enemies if you kick them into objects or walls. The Bodybuilder, meanwhile, throws barbells at entire groups of enemies at once.
And then you can mix up the forms and abilities. Suddenly your Horse form has the ability to shoot out a steady stream of the Ranger's arrows, and each hit adds the Rat's poison counter to the enemy. It's a joy to mix and match your evergrowing list of passive and active abilities onto forms to try to create your own unique builds. And it's expansive enough that you can probably stumble across those always-fun "OP builds" you can get in action RPGs, accentuated by personal skill styles and levels. There's a surprising amount of mechanical depth in this bright, funny, deceptively simple game.
On top of it all, it's genuinely funny. The writing is witty and clever, and I enjoy any new dialogue moment. There's tons of hilariously off-beat conversations and story moments in the game, and it's always fun to meet a new NPC or get to a new town. I only found out after some time that this was the same studio, Drinkbox, that made the criminally underrated Guacamelee Metroidvania games, which also had a surprising level of charm and comedy to them along with surprisingly involved gameplay. I've been tempted to liken Nobody Saves the World to Hades because I feel it scratches a very similar itch when it comes to a simple but masterful action game that you can pick and put down in bursts anywhere from 10 minutes to 6 hours long.
Another haul from the local library with 2 PS4 games:
Control. I like the subtle office-horror aesthetics with all the 60s brutalist government building architecture and obvious SPC influence. The shooting is tight and spectacular, as I'd expect from the makers of Max Payne. But it does get repetitive and a bit exhausting. There's a metroidvania element to it but the maps are almost impossible to read, which is kinda part of the story but clashes with the gameplay as I keep running into same-y looking concrete dead ends. All enemies have this identical theme with orange glow in their faces and whatnot and it feels stale and videogame-y. I played some Resident Evil before, for example, and it seemed every zombie was a character that fit its space and I miss this in Control. 10 hours in, I also miss bullet time. This is Remedy, right? Still, there's absolutely moments that make it all worth it. I love the "gravity gun" style telekinetic combat, for example. You got to applaud a AAA game for trying something a little different.
Assassin's Creed: Odyssey. Not sure why I thought I needed another Ubisoft open world game in my life but what can I say: It's a historic theme park. One where you violently murder thousands of people, but still. I love seeing all these ancient temples in their glory days, ugly paint jobs and all. Only problem is that ancient cities – the occasional giant temple aside – were... flat. Like there's nothing to parkour, really. It's hut after hut with a huge dirt road between. So you end up riding through landscapes and small towns a lot and honestly, I'm kinda over that. It's a competently produced, modern game but it's still the same "videogame environment", the same smeared-over rock textures, cardboard-grass and empty mountains I've awkwardly stumbled around for like a decade, now. The stealth/action gameplay with its slow-as-hell levelling system isn't that exciting, either. Sparta-kick is awesome, though!
Can't agree enough. For about a game focus on being "SCP, the game", you would expect something more creative than a various around the theme of "corrupted human with a red glow".
It kinda solves a few gameplay/fiction clashes. Like, the environments can be quite detailed and orange glow is easy to see. The "essentially ghosts" fiction allows them to drop in and disappear and it being covered by the narrative. And you get recognizable silhouettes that allow you to quickly distinguish enemy types. I get why. Still, it's a weird clash.
I mean, if you're really going to go more than general theming deep on SCP guns stop being a solution to a lot of things very quickly. That said, while I'm definitely on board with there being gobs of corrupted humans around, I'd certainly have been happy with a wider variety of oddities and more environmental curiosities.
Been playing some Noita. It's an action platformer where you have to dive down a bunch of levels and get to the end boss, with a few caveats:
1)Every pixel of the environment is simulated so it's all destructable and can lead to massive chain reactions
2)You can customize wands with spells and spell modifiers which in some ways follow programming logic
3)You will die. A lot. And dying means you restart from basically nothing
4)The map is MUCH bigger than what is considered the 'core' game
1-3 means the game is absolute chaos and winning is mostly about managing that chaos and not blowing yourself up. 4 means that there is a lot to explore if you're motivated.
It's pretty fun, and actually feels a lot more like a literal rogue-like than most games that carry that descriptor. It reminds me of the hundreds of hours I sunk into Nethack back when I was younger.
I've also been playing some X4. The beta for patch 5.0 is out so I started a new game to celebrate. It's a 4X space game when you start with a shitty ship in the middle of pretty huge map filled with various aliens. Over time you can hire on more ships and build space stations and what not. It's a lot of fun but takes a pretty serious time investment. And the new beta patch is adding some cool features like creating salvage stations so you can pick battlefields dry and turn the husks of ships into parts to use or sell. The new patch was going well until I ran facefirst into a bug that completely wrecked my entire economy, so I'm waiting for a patch within the next few days to hopefully fix it so that I can get back to SSSSPPPAAACCCEEEE
I've been playing Curious Expedition since u/cfabbro recommended it on the end of the year thread. Excellent recommendation! I've been pairing it with the "fireplace" on Netflix for a fun atmosphere.
Embarrassingly, it took me a while to get the strategy down but once I did it was fantastic (I didn't originally understand that there was a final destination in each level and kept going back and forward from the ship to drop loot). The interpersonal aspects of expeditions were well thought out, particularly the quirky aspects of some characters (like the chef that is secretly an arsonist). There are so many ways to play the game.
Outside of game play, I really enjoyed the between expedition functions. Hocking artifacts to fund future expeditions felt very on the nose (It made me think of Salt and Belzoni in Egypt). I'm a big history buff so each character unlock was incredibly exciting. It's also rare that Richard Francis Burton appears in any media I consume so major points for that. They even snuck a Tintin knock-off in as a side character!
I'm glad to hear that you have been enjoying it! Have you given the multiplayer a try yet? I don't know how populated it still is anymore, but it was loads of fun during the beta.
p.s. For anyone else interested in playing them the first game is still only $4 on Steam, or you can get both for $15.
Euro Truck Simulator 2.
Picked up most of the map DLC when it was on sale recently, and got back in to it after 6? years of not playing it.
I'm not sure why I've supplemented my real job with a second job of driving a truck to make deliveries in a video game, but I am, and I guess I'm enjoying it, because I've been playing it almost as much as a real job that would actually pay me.
Project Zomboid. Version 41 was released, and it brought with it multiplayer, a huge array of changes to the combat and crafting systems, a full audio overhaul, etc, etc, etc. It's a ton of fun, and even more so because it's a game that's very moddable, so there's a ton of good mods out there to expand and change the experience.
I’ve been revisiting TW:WH 2 in advance of 3’s launch. I’m probably not going to play 3 for quite a while, but reading about it gave me the itch to play again. I haven’t played in quite a while, but have kept up on the DLC so there is lots of new stuff to try. I’m also using the SFO: Grimhammer 2 overhaul which adds a fair bit to the game and also slows down the gameplay somewhat. It’s definitely not a strategic masterpiece or anything, but it’s a really fun game where the focus is more on emergent storytelling and sandbox style gameplay than on the strategy itself.
That sounds like a cool game, but what's its name? I can't parse that acronym.
Oh sorry about that haha, I meant to hyperlink the acronym to the steam page.
The game is Total War: Warhammer II.
I'm still down bad with Dirt Rally 2.0. I've joined 2 clubs for some friendly competition, the Expert Historic club where players only drive the old cars, most likely stopping around Group B 1980's cars, and the the RFDC (Rally Fans Discord), which only runs newer cars; Group A and newer.
I'll most likely never be on par with anyone from expert historic, we have people in there setting world record stage times almost weekly, it's kinda ridiculous. And my RWD game is not great at all, but there's a lot of learning that happens there!
RFDC however is heating up 👀 I got my first ever stage win in the Sweden rally we completed last night, and there's always a person or two close to my times that I'm striving to catch up to. The skill level in the lobby is varied enough that there's all sorts of (friendly) rivalries between players at all parts, which is nice. a lot of the participants also stream their runs as they're doing them (including me) which is another excellent learning opportunity!
Other than that, I've been playing Halo Infinite as well, but not nearly as much as DR2
I tried Project Highrise. It's okay, it needs some polish still and there's some design choices I don't care for. For example you can build a simple studio apartment, it's your starting apartment. Later on you can build deluxe studio apartments, but you can't renovate a simple studio apartment into a deluxe studio apartment, you have to evict the tenant, wait for your crew to clean up the rubble and build the new apartment. Furthermore evicting tenants creates a debuff to your prestige rating. Also some apartment types require certain decorations but I find that the game isn't clear what kind of decoration you have to build. So I spent several thousand dollars on art, when all that was needed was some chairs.
I tried Timberborn, it's a lot like The Colonists but with beavers. I don't have a strong opinion on it. One thing I found odd is how you unlock new structures. You build a research centre which lets you accrue research points which unlock a structure. Some structures are quite useful like the sawmill, while others less so like a wooden bench.
I played chapter 2 of the Sim Settlements 2 mod for Fallout 4. It was quite good although I found one later quest at Gunner's Plaza to be quite buggy, I had to use the tgm command through pretty much the entirety of it to get stuff built.
OpenTTD is still great, the XIS Extreme Industry Set mod really ramps up the production chains of industries. If you thought FIRS Extreme was easy take a look at XIS.