What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them?

Hollow Knight. It’s a 2D platformer game that’s just incredible in every way. I’ve been gaming for 21 years now and for the past 8 years I’ve been bored of every game out there. However Hollow Knight brought the kid in me back. I won’t say much about the game because spoilers. Just go play it and thank me later :)

Elden Ring. I've mostly not been a fan of the games from From Software, but this one has got its hooks in me. I think it's the open world nature of it. If there's a boss I can't beat, it's not entirely blocking me from going any further down one of three or four branches. There's a whole world out there in which to find better weapons, new spells, whatever. And it means that when I do come back and beat those multiple giants in that tiny awful room, I feel all the better for it.

Elden Ring!

I've never played a game by From Software before, nor have I played any of the "souls-like" games that they have spawned. I usually watch my partner play, and was content to do so this time, too... Until they played with someone whose character was a "knight" named Alanna, and I got very, very excited about the possibility of making a character from a book series I loved reading as a kid.

So I promptly made my own vagabond named AlannaTheLioness, complete with cooper hair and violet eyes. I've have died twice so far, both times falling off a cliff, but I expect to die much more once I stop being so cautious. I feel like a vagabond is one of the worst classes I could have gone for, since I am very bad at melee and prefer range/magic, but I'm committed to being as close to a "knight" as I can. My stats will probably be crap, though, because Alanna is also a magic user, so of course I must do both.

I'm kind of confused by my sudden excitement over this, but it's been a fun way to engage with a game that would normally be too intimidating, so I'm not going to question it too much~

I've returned to working on getting my Private Pilot's License and have basically invested all of my free time into any flying related activity that will help me prepare. So recently that has been a lot of flight simulator stuff. I fortunately have a pretty good set up for flight sims with VR and my T16000 joy stick, throttle, and rudders. The only downside is that I have a difficult time getting my notes that I need in game to reference stuff. This has become more pronounced recently as I subscribed to PilotEdge to help with some of my mic anxiety and to help learn the proper protocol. I need to have notes in game so I know which frequencies to tune my radio, and I would like to be able to have other information like aviation sectional charts and other reference material to help me fly.

I also was trying out Gleim's PPL course that uses X-Plane but in a VR environment, it is just too difficult to figure out the things that I need to do and see what I am being penalized on when I'm making a mistake with my maneuvers. I really need my partner to sit behind me and let me know the text messages it is saying. When I get it to work in VR, it is amazing, albeit limited that I don't that "seat of the pants" feeling when doing a 45 degree banked turn in real life. But because I'm using VR, I don't think that I fall suspect to the hyper focus on the instrument panel that is common with sim-real life pilots.

Other than PilotEdge and Gleim, I have been practicing maneuvers, pattern work, and checklists, in the same plane that I am flying in real life to help me get familiar with everything. I prefer X-Plane 11 for the more realistic flight models and system performance over MSFS 2020 but I think I will move over to using MSFS 2020 in PilotEdge as it gives me a more realistic picture into what I would see in real life. When I start planning my cross-country flights, I will go through the same flight in MSFS to get an idea of landmarks and other features that I will use when navigating.

Horizon Forbidden West is fantastic, at least as good as Zero Dawn. I'm 70 hours in and 45% complete (I'm doing all the side quests etc.), and I'm just loving it.

The combat is really fun. Reasonably tactical without being brutal about it. You can target enemy weak spots, choose weapons that synergize with weaknesses or just brute-force your way through the battle, leverage environmental hazards to your advantage, or sneak around in the brush killing unsuspecting enemies.

The graphics are pretty great. Characters look very human, the landscape is beautiful, and the soundtrack is stellar.

I also find the plot really gets my imagination going.

I'm leaning on Doom-related stuff this week, as there's stuff I want to finish, and new stuff I've found, while also getting bored with my normal rotations of games.

The Adventures of Square is a fun one. I've been looking for a non-violent Doom-based game just to see if it has been done. The Adventures of Square has you playing as a cigar-smoking square shooting other shapes with a paintball gun in a world that's funny, and features a cow on every level (it's legit one of their design requirements in their "dev kit").

I played some of the Beyond Sunset demo. Metacorp, the developer, is making a futuristic RPG in GZDoom, which is doable given the various engines it ties together. It modifies movement significantly, jumping feels great, as do the boosts and double jumps, and the weapons/fighting are a blast. It has a system akin to 2016 Dooms Glory Kills, in which you do a special melee attack to get weapons/health.

Strife: Veteran Edition: I've been meaning to play Strife, so I (re)started it on the easiest difficulty just so I can take a stab at it. "Story mode" if you will. It's interesting, and I've only re-done the same few missions several times I think, so I'm determined to progress.

Hedon: I don't have Bloodrite yet as I haven't re-installed the game to get it. I just solved a puzzle I got stuck on, which was fun, and am looking forward to the next one.

EDIT: I wasn't on the hype train for Elden Ring but put a few hours in it, and teared up a bit after killing my first troll (I don't remember where, but it's the one on the path that goes to the giant archer). I had just cancelled a refund after an hour and a half and the game sort of just fell into place, between that and the first cutscene with Melina.

I’m still working through the third endgame stage of Pokemon Legends: Arceus. It’s so fun. I’ve played several Pokemon games and have not completed a single Pokedex, and I’m only three away from done in Arceus (which, admittedly, does not have a very large Pokedex). I can barely put this game down; I don’t know what I’m going to do when Scarlet and Violet come out. We literally put a second Switch on our wedding registry in preparation, anticipating how unlikely we are to want to share!

My partner and I finished BotW over the weekend. Skyward Sword will be here Saturday. Tonight, I played a bit of the demo of Hyrule Warriors. I doubt I’ll get the full version since I keep hearing it’s very repetitive, and that’s not really my jam. I (re) started Skyrim since I didn’t get very far last time I tried to play. I’m way more comfortable with combat games now that I’ve played so much BotW. I will say I hate the camera (both first and third person) and the inability to lock on to targets, but I can get over it.

I played the demo to Ixion, it's a lot like Frostpunk but in Spaaaaaace! It was quite good although there were a couple of times where I didn't know what I was supposed to do. I'm reasonably interested in the full game when it comes out.

I started a new Factorio playthrough using the Space Exploration mod. I've only played maybe an hour and a half. The mod expands the burner phase of the game which I already don't like.

Backbone (Xbox Series S)
There are a lot of things to love about this game. But not the ending. I was sure there would be another full act to the game at least, then suddenly it just ends, and I'm not entirely sure what they were going for. My first thought was they were sequel-baiting. Then I started really thinking about the ending, and figured maybe they just wanted to leave the game open-ended. But the more I think about it, the more I believe they simply ran out of time or money and had to quickly wrap up what they had and ship it out the door.

The developers recently teased a new game in the franchise. Hopefully it will wrap up some of the loose ends and give us some more closure.

Fantasy AGE (tabletop)
Our campaign is off to a pretty good start I think, with three proper sessions out of the way. Combat encounters seem to take about as long as they do in D&D 5e, but with each player getting many more turns in the same amount of time. And everyone seems to enjoy the stunts, which are a lot cooler and more engaging than D&D's boring old critical hits.

Snowrunner (Xbox Series S)
I have a new favourite truck: Chevrolet Kodiak C70. I got one for free after dragging it out of a Michigan swamp, but I just put it straight into storage with barely a second look. Just two axles? No AWD? So tall compared to its width? Only a lunatic would drive this thing. But after eventually finding the AWD upgrade, I finally took it for a spin, and it's so much fun! It's blazing fast, nimble, not as top heavy as it looks, and it handles both snow and mud surprisingly well. I hooked it up to a semi-trailer and made it my primary truck for parts of Alaska.

Spellcaster University (Linux, via Proton)
I finished the campaign. The ending is a tad underwhelming, but that doesn't really matter. It's not the type of game you play for the ending video. It was loads of fun, and I immediately started the campaign over again. Going to try the locations I didn't get to in my first playthrough, and maybe hopefully actually finish a dungeon without all my students dying.

Vikingjarl (tabletop)
One of my friends backed the Kickstarter campaign, but had to wait until someone made a condensed and more understandable rules booklet before being able to figure out the rules. The game has some interesting aspects, but also some serious flaws. I think the recommended 10 victory points goal is too low considering how many points settlements are worth, so if we ever play it again, I'm going to suggest we use a higher goal.