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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.
Finally upgraded to a 165hz 1440p monitor so I've been breaking it in with Titanfall 2 and it's been a blast. I know its an older game, but I'd def suggest it to anyone who hasn't played. The pacing is perfect, level design is unique between levels, and the wall running mechanic makes for some fun kills, I just think compared to other fps games its normal difficulty setting is a bit too easy, especially when fighting other titans. I'm about to beat it so if anyone has some similar short, non cutscene heavy, fps suggestions I'd appreciate it.
I will never not be upset that we got Apex instead of Titanfall 3 T_T
How is the single player campaign in Titanfall 2? I've been jonesing for a good mecha adventure, but I just don't get into competitive multiplayer games.
Edited my comment to include some more detail, but I'd say go for it. Tbh I don't actually play that many fps campaigns so I don't have much to compare too, but I got stuck in some crazy section in Doom 2016 with like no ammo, so I just abandoned ship and spun up TF2 and it scratched that same itch, albeit not quite as fast paced.
If you haven't played the older FPS Singularity I recommend checking it out. It had mixed reviews, but I loved it. It's entirely single-player and the campaign is fairly short and satisfying.
Def looks like it's up my alley, thanks for the rec.
Protocol 3 đź’”
So recently, I've just kind of been absorbed in Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Combat certainly feels more difficult than its predecessor, and overall I get more of a grindy feel because of the requirement to purchase certain armour sets. But that's just how it goes sometimes, I suppose. At least the ability to fuse weapons together with monster parts, in combination with the liberal availability of said monster parts, makes things pretty fun as long as your last weapon doesn't break, as happened to me recently :/
I agree with everything you said. Combat has a bit more depth to it and requires a little more problem-solving than did BotW. I think that goes for the game as whole, too. It is very focused on evolving what players think they can do with their powers and then pushing you just a bit further to think outside the box.
Ultimately, as I have played it, I have been very happy with the game as a whole. The story is greatly improved compared to the last game, at least in my mind. I've found the gloomier (heh) setting to be more interesting. The memories you find throughout the game are better crafted to actually be important to the main story of the game, rather than fluff. I've had more challenge in the shrines in this game than I did in BotW, also, which is a very welcome change.
It's not without it's shortfalls, though. There have been several times that I've explored an interesting looking location just to find... nothing. Or maybe a korok. And the game really does suffer from the same feeling of emptiness in some areas that BotW had. It's absolutely been improved upon, but there are still areas with very little plant life, animals, monsters, or people around. Admittedly, these are pretty minor details in the grand scheme of things, and TotK as a whole is a lot of fun and definitely worth it, if you like the Legend of Zelda or played Breath of the Wild.
There's definitely places that mattered in BotW that have no relevance in TotK. A heart-shaped lake that once had a whole quest chain is now just a lake. A quarry that was a safe haven from the guardians in the town center is now just a hole in the ground. I have complex feelings about it. It's nice for every spot that feels meaningful to be meaningful, but that not being the case makes the world feel more like it doesn't entirely revolve around me, and that's nice too.
I got one-shot in so many fights at the start of the game! So many strong enemies just roaming around. And I am still stuck in the old mindset of BotW so I usually just fight enemies head-on instead of trying to use the abilities and environment more.
What I really miss from BotW is the freedom of exploration. In BotW, you could start the major quests without having to travel a specific path to trigger the right NPC into a conversation. TotK is less intuitive to me and makes me feel like I'm running fetch quests.
I have accidently gotten myself mildly obsessed with Hitman again. Freelancer mode is equally amazing... and infurating.
You will never know suffering, until you take a shot and a pigeon flies in front of the round and alerts a compound. You die, lose all your good kit and wonder if you could fire your PC into low Earth orbit.
I have to confess, I love Freelancer but I have learned that I like it better if I treat alt+f4 as a viable option.
It does love to find you some really bad bugs as well, which cause failure states where you lose a lot of stuff.
I'm turning off it after literally just now, dying, due to all targets not being the target...
What?
Freelancer is so good! It kinda fell off for me with time, but I'm sure I'll return.
If regular Hitman is a puzzle game, Freelancer is more of a tactics game. You have different options with different times/risks associated with them, and hopefully a few fallback plans. I love how a mission can actually go bad but you are forced to recover -- whereas in base Hitman I would usually reload whenever I broke SA.
Are the Freelancer missions the one you get like one chance to do? Or is the new stuff where you have like a hideout and you pick your missions?
I restarted the series again a few months ago, but then put it down and forget to pick it back up. I should get back in again. The reboot is one of my favorite series.
You're right on both of them.
Freelancer just gives you the old maps, with new targets and the puzzle pieces change. It's fun, but it can get very stressful when the game bugs / breaks something.
I recently discovered Starsector ($15) and fell in love immediately. It’s an exploration-based sci-fi space combat RPG.
It’s a truly unique experience, so there’s no easy comparison, but if you like Kenshi, you’ll like starsector. They are very different games but share parallels in exploration, squad/fleet management, settlement building, clever writing, and an immersive sandbox world.
Like kenshi, you’re limited only by your imagination. Want to be a violent anti-technology religious zealot? There’s a faction for that. Or maybe you’d prefer fitting a fleet for deep space exploration and seeking powerful domain-era tech? Or building a massive trade empire spanning multiple star systems? Or making a fortune as a bounty hunter?
It’s a special game and an absolute STEAL at $15. It’s still in early access, so the main story is incomplete, but it’s perfectly playable as-is with hundreds of hours of content. Sadly it is currently only available from the dev’s website (i.e. not on steam).
I love this game. It's such a wonderful game, has astounding mods, and scratches the hell out of the itch that Escape Velocity left.
Good call mentioning mods. I’ve heard the modding community for starsector is amazing. I recently finished a vanilla playthrough, and I’ve been meaning to start a modded one.
Any favorite mods of yours I should look into?
It's been a bit since i've done a playthrough (been meaning to dive back in with the recent patch). In general though i'd say just scroll through the list and grab what looks interesting to you.
Nexerlin is the main one that makes the game a little more 4xish, and then I tend to like the stuff that adds more vanilla frames.
It does seem that some of the more famous ones like Diable are sorta in limbo, as some modders have moved on, but at least in that case you can just update the json and it seems to work.
In general i'd say go to the forum and just page through the mod index. There's a ton of great stuff in there.
I've been playing through Hades on my Switch. I knew it had cool art, but I didn't now it was such a complex game. The world building is neat, and especially the weird and funny relationships between all the characters. I've been playing may 15 hours so far, and haven't seen any dialogue be repeated and am still meeting new characters. Highly recommend. The gameplay feels like a cross between bullet hell and just slashing at enemies. Definitely a lot of projectiles. The art though, is incredible.
Supergiant's games have always had impeccable art direction. I remember playing Bastion when it first came out and being utterly enthralled by it, and it's probably the most similar to Hades. If you're interested in seeing where the studio started from, it'd be an interesting one to play (it looks like they've even brought it to the Switch). Transistor and Pyre and definitely more experimental in their gameplay, but still amazing in terms of art and world building.
One small thing, since I've seen it happen on the Hades subreddit: the game is not over when you defeat the final boss. Keep going, the game's main story will let you know when it's done. Oh, and then there's the epilogue after that.
I wanted to add that their art direction extends to the soundtracks in their games, too. They really set an ambience with their audio-visual setting and use that to tell us a neat story and I think they're one of the best to do it.
I loved Bastion! Playing Hades definitely makes me want to check out Transistor and Pyre though. The quality of their art is so good. If Hades was a comic book I would be about it.
Deep Rock Galactic - forever a staple that I always come back to
DCS World - After ~5yr break, got myself some Virpil gear and have been re-learning modules
Plague Tale: Requiem - just finished it, great title. Play the original first if you're new to the series.
Space Engineers - working on things with my DCS buddies.
Rock and stone!
Rock and stone brother!
Street Fighter 6 has me completely occupied my gaming time lately. Fun single player story mode, lots of depth to fighting mechanics, and of course an insane skill ceiling.
What is surprised me the most is how solid the online play performance has been. I am on the east cost in North America and I can play with someone in China with virtually zero perceivable latency.
Its also a great starting point for players new to the series thanks to the simplified "Modern" control scheme. 9/10 would recomend.
Game's too good. The single player, the online experience, it's all pretty spot on.
If there's enough tildes residents, maybe we could organise a club and/or just play some casuals!
66 hours into Diablo 4 so far.
No real complaints. I still wish I could assign more skills to hotkeys like I could in D2 and there are some UI/UX elements that are severely lacking, but actual gameplay, challenge, and things to do are better than the previous games by miles. Plus it's gorgeous in comparison to every previous Diablo game and every ARPG I can recall. Multiple times I've caught myself just stopping to stare at the depth of the design, background, etc. Need to see if there are more "lookout" spots, I've only found one so far.
I'd love to play that one, but the always online requirement is something I just won't touch out of principle, and at $70...that's not cheap.
I hear you. I typically stay away from always online, but D2's offline mode was terribly boring unless you installed mods to get newer gear. I didn't play much of D3, so can't comment there as I found it's endgame lackluster. I play D4 almost exclusively with my friends, so I'd be online to play anyway, making it less of an issue in this case. Now, if they decided to make D4 like WoW and be subscription based, I'd be playing something else. I do not pay subscriptions.
The $70 price tag took me a minute to come to grips with as well as I typically wait for games to go on sale to buy them, but I bought D2 on launch and adjusting for inflation it would be $88 today ($50 launch price in June 2000); which was a much bigger hit to my wallet 23 years ago. Considering I'll easily get 200 hours+ of time into it since I'm at 66 hours with only two characters so far, none in hardcore, and before the season even starts, I'm sure I'll get my money's worth.
That said, the price creep is real, the companies could certainly be run more efficiently, and while there are no game breaking bugs that I've encountered, there are still things wrong with the game that is sadly the state of the industry right now while D2 just worked out of the box (literally since I had the box).
I'll probably check D4 out when the price drops, but I don't have any friends as is, so meh.
If that's what's holding you back, I suggest go for it as soon as any deal is offered. I've been playing solo so far and it's been absolute great Diablo style fun. Playable with a controller even and comfortably at that. The price is something that certainly hurts, but I've not played since D2 so I guess I fool myself because "I haven't been already giving them tons of my money over the years".
My only real gripe with Diablo 4 right now is that it seems like the dualsense support is a little lacking. It does apparently work but as far as I can tell that's only the case if the controller is physically plugged in, not if you're playing via bluetooth, which kinda sucks.
That is pretty annoying. I've been using an Xbox One controller via bluetooth without any issue so far. Sony still has the better controller lol
I didn't think too much of the dualsense haptics/adaptive triggers stuff until I tried it myself. Astro's Playroom is an amazing showcase of the tech that really got me hyped up for its potential. I know Sony has little incentive to push that stuff on PC but I do wish they'd work on that stuff a bit more.
I've always had connection problems with my Xbox controllers for some reason. I use bluetooth for everything but the xbox ones always randomly get disconnected for a few seconds and it's just unplayable.
Noted. I'll keep an eye out for price drops. Blizzard are really stretching themselves to ask $70, in my personal opinion. Consumers like myself only have so much disposable income, and only so much of that for game purchases, and so on.
I'm in the same spot with the price. It's hard to justify ÂŁ60 when I'm already playing PoE for free. Definitely want to try it after a sale though.
I've also been playing D4, just managed to get access to World Tier 3 at L48 last night. I am worried about the amount of grinding ahead of me, especially if they're launching Season 1 in only a month or so.
I've yet to actually feel like it's a grind yet. Not like I have in other games or D2/D3 before it. There is simply a lot to do in D4 between world bosses, legions, dungeons, nightmare dungeons, helltide, favors, and side quests. First character just hit 60 last night and I have enough gear to make 2-3 completely different builds viable if I wanted to change it up. I have a full list of 20 side quests to do and still encounter more I need to get to as I run around the utterly massive map.
Don't know if you follow build guides or anything like that, but I will state this: Check the guides to make sure you aren't missing any synergies with the skills you use, but don't actually adhere to them. It's still early, the various build guides disagree on lots of things, and the "best" build isn't going to remain the same for long. They're also really boring. I am partially re-speccing constantly as I find gear that gives benefits to skills that the guide would dismiss for not being BIS, despite being fun to run.
You're very right, there's a lot of activities to do. I had fun checking out a helltide and I was able to kill the mobs even though they were 7 levels higher than me (L55). The sidequests are fine and some are even interesting. There's a lot to do but ultimately the thing I'm interested in is fleshing out my (well, Kripparian's) build as it's capable but not complete yet. That requires a lot more levels and gear as far as I can tell.
I've got way too many hours already in it. I'm really digging it over what d3 was at launch. The limited skills is kinda rough, but I've grown used to it. If I get even 10% of the playtime I got out of D2 I'll be happy.
Biggest surprise to me, is the launch. I've run into very few queues and limited issues. I hate this whole always online thing in modern games, but at least it's been smooth. I was afraid for full launch, but no complaints so far.
I've also been enjoying Diablo 4. The artwork is indeed gorgeous. It captures the feel of Diablo 2 that people knew and loved but for modern times. I also find myself stopping to admire and gaze at the scenery.
I think it captures the hack-and-slash gameplay well, but I think that my tastes as a gamer have grown beyond it. Combat lacks several things:
Furthermore, gameplay is rather lonely. Social features are sorely missing. I'm in a largely LGBT clan and it's still difficult to find people to do quests with. There's little/no player chatter in towns. I'd like to see:
2b. If you want interaction, run with a Shadow Necro, they'll interact with you by making sure you can't see any of the environmental hazards. :]
2c. More seriously, my Ice Sorc works well with my friend's Spin-to-Win Barb as he pulls them, I freeze them, and we both drop nukes to clear the group. Rinse repeat.
Man, Mario kart is like crack. I thought I had squeezed all the dopamine out of it but this latest booster course pack has me playing it again almost daily.
Wife and I have been having an absolute blast taking turns with the new Fortnite season. I swear, this game just never fails to deliver when they update it like this. The jungle is just dripping with atmosphere, and using thermal vision to scope out targets hiding in the bush is just chef's kiss. We've both gotten in 1st place once since the update, which is pretty awesome for a couple of yuppies playing against a bunch of kids on summer break.
Pro tip: when you run into someone building like a freaking machine, just burn it down!
After years and years of making fun of the game, a friend wore me down and I caved and played it for the first time. Technically I played it back when Save The World mode was their main idea but that barely counts. I had some decent fun! I don't like the rotating skin shop, but I had decent fun and even won a match using the thermal DMR. It's a pretty neat mechanic and I felt like a badass providing overwatch for my friend as we trudged through the greenery.
This has been similar to my experience as well.
Friend of mine finally convinced me to play, despite my years of refusal to even install EGS on my machine.
I wish I had begun playing sooner, because it's the most fun I've had playing something in a long time, and now it's basically all I've been playing for the past three months.
The new season is absolutely killing it. Great game.
I really enjoyed the 30ish hours I put into that when it first came out. I should start that back up again, maybe after I finish ToTK and Baldur’s Gate 3
Baldur's Gate 3 cannot come soon enough, assuming it isn't KSP2 levels of bugged on release. I'm still super scarred from that.
I’ve had the early access since it came out but didn’t play much of it. I ended up playing a few hours and buying Divinity Original Sin 2 and enjoyed every minute of the 120hrs it took me to beat that game.
I’m so excited to play it. My dnd group has been in Waterdeep and I’m excited to see another city in the world. The previews make it look huge
What's it like having a group? I've missed out on a lot of games because I just don't have the friend group to jump in.
In Baldurs Gate 3 or in my actual dnd campaign?
I played all of DOS2 by myself and started another campaign with my buddy that fizzled out, we also started the first bit of Baldurs Gate but both decided to wait on the full release for getting that going
It’s pretty fun doing the games with a buddy, never gotten to do it with a full group though. Takes a little of the group management out of it because you don’t have to control all four characters.
The games are definitely fun solo too! If you haven’t played DOS2 it’ll definitely tide ya over for the wait for Baldurs Gate
I played completely through both entries of the Divinity: Original Sin series.
What mods? I played the entire thing mod-free, and thought it was fine.
Hm. That seems a bit much :) but you do you.
For a challenge level more in line with what the designers intended, I recommend:
Remove:
can keep:
I've been grinding Blizzard's MOBA, Heroes of the Storm. It's an older game that's definitely declining in popularity, but I know how to play it, and don't have a ton of free time to learn a new game. Plus, my 1080 Ti can still run it maxed out without breaking a sweat.
I loved HotS. It seemed so much better than LoL to me: shorter games, nicer people (in my experience), less focus on roles (so it was easier to just play the heroes you wanted to play), no items, etc.
Yeah, as far as MOBA's go, it's more chill than the rest I think. Who are your heroes of choice? I do my best in support. I refer to my best two heroes as "Anduin-the-Manduin" and "Kharazim best-azim". Although lately I've been on a Medivh kick, his win rate isn't that great because a lot of people don't how know to synergize with him, but his kit and play style are a lot of fun.
Oh man, it's been years since I've played. I tended to like the bruiser/tanks; I think Artanis was one of my most played? Him, Arthas, Leoric, and Ragnaros where probably my go-tos.
brawlhalla
love the devs to bits. They keep polishing the game, no unfair monetization, no bullshit, they care about the lore, simple stuff like that.
Star Citizen. Why do I hate myself? I love this game and I hate this game. I am told that this is the normal reaction.
I recently finished Ashes Afterglow, a Doom 2 Risk Conversion. I loved it and it introduced RPG adjacent mechanics, like hub towns with side quests, so I thought that was neat. My main complaint was sometimes it wasn't obvious where to go and I ended up wandering around for a good long time before eventually figuring things out. My only other complaint is that there are two boss fights, which just aren't fun in the slightest; the bosses are just damage sponges with high damage, high AoE attacks that just feel cheap and boring. The very final fight, I got fed up and just used the classic IDDQD to finish it off and be done. Kind of soiled the experience of an otherwise excellent game.
But now I've started on System Shock. I played the original for the first time in 2020 and absolutely loved it to pieces, even moreso than the second game, which I also loved. The new remake took me a little but of time to acclimate to, but I'm beginning to really love it; Cyberspace, while still confusing, is much improved visually and just generally more fun.
I'm also impressed with how well it runs. I tried playing for a bit on my Deck, but the UI was too small and things just didn't feel natural, so I switched over to my laptop, which has an older i7 and an MX150 GPU. Running the game at 1080p, 75% render and Medium settings, it's good and playable. Seems like a consistent 30+ fps. It feels much more natural to be playing with a proper keyboard and mouse (even if I play using Trackpoint...)
The one thing that throws me off is the pixilated textures, it just seems incongruous with the look of the rest of the game, but I'm beginning to get over it.
I have Game Pass and only play Fifa 23, Halo 5, UFC 3 and Tekken Tag 2. All of these games I play regular ranked online matches. No special career mode or anything like that. Occasionally I'll throw on Gang Beasts.
My main go to as of late has been Path of Titans, a dinosaur survivor mmo game. I'm not normally for dinos but a buddy insisted on me getting it and I gotta say while its still in early access its a treat. Gameplay itself is a bit rough but nothing too bad. The real enjoyment is the community servers and just the playerbase in general. Besides that I've been dabbling in Yakuza 0 and Jedi Fallen Order. Not much to say about them but yakuza feels like a better bigger shenmue and Fallen order is just fun. I'm still early on so I'm not sure how it pans out but so far the combat is engaging.
Besides taking my sweet time playing Tears of the Kingdom, I also alternate between playing novelty builds in Elden Ring and doing some casual runs in the Binding of Isaac. Lately, I've been trying to get some completion marks done on Apollyon (not tainted, just regular. I'm so bad that I'm nervous to even do T. Isaac runs lol) and have been attempting some later challenges.
In the mobile scene, I'm grinding in CIFI right now and looking for another incremental/idle-ish game to fill some time. Plus, I recently learned that Peglin is out on mobile and I'm on Cruciball 7 so far! I'm having a blast with it and only raging at RNG very occasionally
T. Isaac is actually not that bad! He was one of the first characters I got all my completion marks with. You think the item limit is awful at first, but I believe the game ups the item quality to balance it out. That, and the effects of health items don't go away even if they're switched out.
What are your favorite ER novelty builds so far? I've gotten bored of going through the unending rebirth cycle of dex/arcane bleed -> glintstone sorcery -> big axe smash guy.
I think that some of the weapon-restricted runs I've done have been my favorite, actually. I just pick a weapon that I think would be fun to use, sometimes with an accompanying cosplay for my character and run with only that weapon. No consumables, no shields, no status effects. The only exceptions are for cosplay builds, where I really try to go for something in character. That might be only a specific type of status/Ash of War, minimal/no armor, trying to emulate their fighting style as best I can, etc.
My favorite so far has been a spearman with nothing but peasant clothes and the Storm Assault ash (or whichever the one is that jumps into the air). It's a lot of fun being lightweight enough to sprint through everything, having the range to get in some pokes, and having the heavy slam from the AoW.
I can't really seem to get into single player games anymore compared to before. Maybe I just need to find the right one to get hooked on. Last one I really enjoyed was Ghost of Tsushima.
Right now all I play are online games with friends. Rainbow Six Siege, Apex Legends, and League of Legends. And if they're not online, I don't really play all the often.
I just want to call out Ghost of Tsushima as being an absolute masterpiece of a game. If ever a game were to be called art, I'd say it'd be Ghost of Tsushima, Witcher III: Wild Hunt, or Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. But digressing, Ghost of Tsushima deserved every accolade it got, and then some. Straight up tour de force by Sucker Punch.
Agreed. I still occasionally watch the scene where the title drops. The music, riding through the forest on the horse, then the music swells and you exit onto a field of pampas grass with the title drop. Absolute masterpiece.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9T5mIOA1hqQ
The ending scene too where the final duel occurs and the player is given a choice at the end. (Not sure how to spoiler tag something, so I don't want to say much more). Just a chef's kiss moment.
I've only heard of this game but never seen it before. I'll have to try it, that video is amazing.
I've been slowly working my way through Assassin's Creed Origins. I'm well behind on my gaming backlog.
I spent a serious number of hours with Tears of the Kingdom upon release and finished most of the main story objectives, along with a handful of side content and casual exploring. I did not enjoy Breath of the Wild very much back in the day but found myself loving TotK. It improved on most of my main critiques of BotW and because I didn't play a ton of BotW, many of the things that were new to players in that game actually became new to me aspects of TotK. I like that the pace of the game can change so much depending on what I feel like doing: cozy casual foraging and cooking simulator, monster hunting adventure game, puzzle solving with surprising depth, etc.
The other game that has been taking my time lately is Bloodborne. I finally bought a PS5 in anticipation of FF16 later this month and figured I'd give Bloodborne another try after bouncing off of it a few years back. I'm a huge fan of From Software and have played hundreds of hours of most of their other Souls/Souls-adjacent games, but Bloodborne just didn't click for me in the beginning. I think Yharnam is a poor intro area and the first few bosses are not good introductions, but the lore is top-notch and kept me thinking about it, and I knew From could design a combat system like nobody else. So I kept at it, experimented with other weapon builds, and got myself more comfortable and familiar with the specific combat mechanics. It has become one of my favorite games and probably one of my top From games too.
Last night I decided to pick up Tactics Ogre Reborn. I'm a huge FFT fan, it was the first PS1 game I saved up my money for and bought at Toys R Us! The music, the dialogue, it all hit that same spot in my brain it seems. Only a few missions in, but super looking forward to diving into this one and playing around with classes and setups.
Also about to start a NG+ on Miles Morales PS5 since I just finished my NG+ on Remastered. I'm waiting for when I'm done with work because my daughter loves to watch me play as "Spins" from the Disney show. Really looking forward to Spider-Man 2.
Just really enjoying picking through interesting games now that I dropped Destiny 2 after Lightfall. I needed new things and experiences again in games, and D2 just sucks up too much time to get you staying engaged.
Europa Universalis 4 has been my addiction the past 2-3 months. Gone from having never played it to jumping in head first into a wide Ireland run, sunset the invasion Aztecs, and currently trying to gobble up all of South America and Africa as Mali. Decided to chip in for the $5/no all dlc sub and it's really been worthwhile!
EU IV can be dangerously addicting.
I just had a blast of a campaign with the Ottomans after getting Domination. It's so satisfying to watch your little eyalet swarm pour into Italy.
Are the big guys fun? I keep picking some of the small to mid sized nations to start because I really love that uphill climb you face.
I have fun telling stories. The Ottomans are fun for me because I have fun telling the story of the Ottomans inheriting the Roman legacy and founding a new Islamic Roman empire. Given the relative tolerance of the empire (compared to its European contemporaries), I also have fun having powerful religious and ethnic minorities rise to power and prospering in that empire.
From a mechanical point of view? The Ottomans are the easiest nation to play. It's fun to marshal your forces and overrun Europe. The events are very flavourful, and the mission tree is huge. All of that is fun for me, but it's not what some people are looking for. It depends on what you want.
That does sound really engaging. My challenge with some of these smaller nations is the very apparent lack of love/attention from Paradox. Which, to be fair, makes sense. Limited time to dedicate so you focus it where it'll make the most impact.
Once this Mali game is done I may need to give the Ottomans a go and see how the big green blob rolls.
Yeah, you get spoiled by Paradox's golden children, and it's hard to go back to nations that lack these lovingly put together mission trees. I've been waiting for years for a Middle East revamp. Let me refound Babylon!
I definitely recommend giving the Ottomans a try at least once. I've been reading Ottoman history recently (trying to force my Judeo-Christian brain to look at the 'other' as a protagonist), and it paired well with my Ottoman campaign.
I played the System Shock Remake after backing it originally in 2016. It was an absolute blast!
I had no nostalgia for the OG - in fact I never played it because the Remake was coming - and really enjoyed it. It feels distinctively old school because of the level design but has interesting modernized aspects. Was really happy and can recommend it to people who are looking for something that looks new but is also a blast from the past at the same time.
Besides that I am mostly playing ROM Hacks on the SNES these days. :)
I've just started playing Timberborn a few days ago, and man do I enjoy it!
It's a lovely peaceful city builder where you build a town for your beavers, plant crops and trees, build damns and floodgates to weather the periodic droughts, manage the water to irrigate new areas.
I've had issues getting into city builders lately because most current ones don't really let you just build in peace. That, and the aesthetic of Timberborn is just great!
On a completely different note, I often go to Hard space: Shipbreaker to just relax and listen to maybe an audiobook or podcast while disassembling a futuristic spaceship piece by piece until there is nothing left.
Or maybe ignite the fusion reactor on purpose just to see how the ship would look like in little pieces that slowly drift apart. Depends on the day really.I really like Timberborn and think it's a fun, unique spin on the city builder. I haven't played for a few updates, but I like the way it's been developing.
The other recent city builder I really enjoyed and thought was unique is Foundation. The main thing that sets it apart is that you don't build roads or houses (you can only designate where houses can be built). Roads will grow where the villagers walk most often, and they'll try and build houses close to where they work (and which meet other criteria). Very little in terms of disasters and other interruptions.
Oh yes, Foundation is also a great city builder! The organic growth of paths and houses is something I've never really seen to that extent.
Funnily enough I'm in a very similar situation with Foundation that you are with Timberborn, haven't looked at it in quite a while, I should try it out again.
On that note, now could also be a good time for you to get back into Timberborn again: Update 4 just released 2-3 weeks ago and apparently they massively improved performance, made districts unlimited (although you still loose efficiency, so multiple districts are still useful) and gave the Iron Teeth an (almost?) entirely different diet than the Folktails, although I haven't played the Iron Teeth yet.
I finally started the Shadowbringers DLC in Final Fantasy XIV! I took my time doing the post-Stormblood content, including the raids and alliance raids. I would just run those over and over trying to learn and master them (read: quit dying so much). But after ~4mo it's time to move forward. I also started learning the Machinist class. I'm an Red Mage main, because it's easy. And I hear MCH might even be easier!
Still playing some of the other games I mentioned either last week or week before: "Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney" (DS emulator on Steam Deck) and "Live A Live" (Steam Deck).
I just recently got my partner into FFXIV, and came back to the game myself after some 4+ years away. Since I no longer had any memory of what was going on, I ended up just rolling a new character and starting from the beginning with her. We only just made it through the end of the Realm Reborn story at level 50, and are finally starting the expansion train, but having an absolute blast.
Last night we just started the Inspector Hildebrand series of side quests, and I think that storyline has probably generated the most "WTFs per minute" from both of us out of any other video game we've played.
Welcome back and congrats on getting past the ARR slog! I've played FFXIV on and off since 1.0. Rerolled a couple times because just like you, I didn't remember what I was doing when I came back. But this current character I've been playing fairly regularly for the last 2-3yrs.
I love the Inspector Hildebrand sidequests. It's literally one of the first things I try to chase down when starting a new expansion. I'm not usually one for slapstick, but the Hidebrand and Co. just hit me differently. I think because It's just a nice break from the whole omg-the-world-is-ending-again panic at the beginning of every new quest arc. I greatly enjoy the story so-far in FFXIV. I'm a sucker for any Final Fantasy game. But having the ability to put the saving of the world on pause for a bit is appreciated!
For video games, my partners and I are playing both Conan Exiles and Final Fantasy XIV together. The former is a great game for just tense adventuring, especially on a private server. The latter is, to me, the most satisfying MMO experience I've had since the wee early days of playing Dark Age of Camelot after its launch.
Tabletop, we just this past weekend started a brand new RPG campaign using Palladium Fantasy RPG, 1e. My partner and I put in a lot of work making a custom character tracking spreadsheet, and everyone so far is having a blast. I'm running this one, and I've decided to re-skin and overhaul a bunch of old classic D&D adventures like B1 and B2, and so on. Given that Palladium is really just a set of AD&D house rules, it works out very well.
I have been just exploring and playing many different roguelike/roguelite games.
List includes: Inkbound, God of Weapon, Dicefolk, Gunfire Reborn, Wildfrost, Crab Champions, StS Downfall, Aces & Adventure, etc
Favorite: Slay the Spire and Gunfire Reborn has been my favorite. One is a deckbuilder and the other is a shooter. Inkbound is my highly anticipated for full release. Dicefolk has a very interesting dice mechanic where you choose the action of your team and also the enemies.
My friends and I have been super into Crab Champions. It's crazy how much fun that game is and also how good the soundtrack is.
Gunfire Reborn is one that I just can't get into though. Played it a decent bit but it got boring for me really quick. Honestly not sure what it is.
Gunfire Reborn's loop just feels vapid. I couldn't get into it either, partially because of the scaling just being broken (e.g., my friends and I would do fine on the second level, and then get kerb stomped on the third).
Yea the difficulty curb can increase pretty fast, where things just feel like bullet sponges. Its when you start realizing that builds matter and the gemini inscriptions are your tickets to beating the game. Some characters skills are also just absurd that can carry also.
That and RNG is just...hell
For a different kind of roguelite, have you tried Against the Storm? It's a roguelite city builder I've been playing recently and it's quite fun.
It has been appearing in my wishlist on discount and youtube feed! I think I'll purchase it and give it a go. My first impression on it seemed like Warcraft III graphics. However, I hear the mechanics of the game is definitely a go-to especially with the building management theme. Thanks for the suggestion!
I have a group of friends that I met playing Overwatch a long time ago, but we stopped playing that a couple of years ago. Since then, we haven't played together much, which was slightly dishearten. A couple of months ago, a couple of them had mentioned picking up League of Legends.
LoL is a game that I have been off and on for over 10 years. Them starting it up made me want to pick it back up, and we have been having a lot of fun. It is definitely different from what I remember. The jungle is very different, champions and items are different, as well as the overall meta. But if you have played a MOBA before, it is somewhat self explanatory until you get into the fine details.
It is a very detailed game in the end. It is easy to play, but difficult to play well. The community is somewhat toxic, but better than I remember. I still mainly enjoy it with friends and don't solo queue at all.
I've been playing Bioshock. I bought the series ages ago on Steam but I'm just getting around to playing it. At first I felt like maybe it was a shallow spooky jump-scare shooter, but I find that I'm getting more into the story as I get farther into the game. I'm interested to see where it goes.
Oh, and Stardew Valley, which remains to me the best mobile game I've ever played. It's a nice stress reliever also. What's interesting to me is that I almost always prefer PC or console to mobile ports. This one though I've tried on mobile, PC, and Switch. I prefer the mobile version, especially now that it has the 1.5 update content.
Snowrunner. It’s an addicting trucker game where you go from Point A to Point B, but uh.. you accidentally fell off a bridge with the cargo. So now you need to mount a recovery mission with a large crane and hopefully the 51” all terrain tires you have on your secondary rig are capable enough of making it through a deep trench of mud and snow in a post apocalyptic Wisconsin. No problem! I’m not sure about the things that seem to lurk at night just out of sight of your headlights but I’m sure they won’t be a problem.
It’s uh.. a fun game with lots of a little moments and a good progression system.
Snowrunner is a great game! It's like playing an extreme version of Eurotruck Simulator 2. Getting a big truck set up correctly and then just eating through the mud and/or snow meter for meter, earning every centimeter of the way is a great feeling.
And like you said, the secondary rescue and (for me at least) also setup missions (like strategically positioning aid or resupply vehicles along the planned route) are also very fun!
A friend dragged me back to modded Minecraft (it didn't take much convincing) to play the Cottage Witch modpack. We've been taking it a bit more laid back than our usual tech-fueled race to automate everything, and there's lots of good options for decoration. I've been enjoying Ars Nouveau, which is reminiscent of the old Ars Magica mod but with lots of differences.
My main group's staple of Deep Rock Galactic is currently on hold so we don't burn ourselves out, but that will likely change soon with the new season coming out later this week. They really do seasons properly. No paid pass, and progressing through the levels is pretty achievable. It really is the best co-op multiplayer shooter out there.
I recently 100%ed TUNIC on a second playthrough, with the help of a guide for the final couple of secrets (I didn't really want to translate the book, though from reading the guide I did understand how the language was constructed). I think it's the best reconstruction of what a 2D Zelda game feels like, with some challenging boss fights and some well-placed secrets.
I've been playing trough Fallout New Vegas again. I've never actually finished it, but I've gotten right up to the final mission multiple times.
Visually, it was outdated when it came out and it hasn't really aged well. But if you can look past that it's a great game. It's a pretty well written world, with multiple factions that interact with each other and you can decide the fate of all of them. Most quests have multiple ways to complete them, a lot of them have multiple different outcomes. There are a few different playstyles and it's fun to theorycraft new characters.
I've been enjoying the DLCs significantly less than the main game, but that could be because i played a bit too much, almost treating it like a full time job
Old World Blues was the DLC I liked the most. That game is so good, but yeah graphically it has not aged well. I recently booted up Oblivion just to reminisce and see if it was still fun (it is, but it is hilariously ugly).
I've been been meaning to go back to FNV recently, and yeah, it didn't age very well graphically but I recently discovered these two mods: Titans of The New West and Menace of the New West
amongst a few others, and goddamn, having Power Armor and mutants looking like they did in the old games (big and chunky) is so fucking cool, not to mention the one-handed rifle animations are absolutely awesome. Really makes me want to do a BoS aligned playthrough.Replying Final Fantasy Tactics. It's been I don't know how many years, but I still can't get over how much thought and love they put into this game. It's just sprites, so it's little things, like the party walking toward and Ovelia being slower and having to run a bit as the camera pans up. Or little silent moments, like when Ramza and Delita just play grass whistles together, or during the Tietra scene, Delita doesn't say anything and just hugs her.
It's my favourite Final Fantasy game by a mile, and it's not even a numbered title.
As random as it is, I just recently started playing Metal Gear Solid: Integral. I picked it up because two of the commentators on a podcast I listen to are huge Metal Gear fans. They also super highly recommended John Wick, which I recently saw (and loved) for the first time, so I decided to give Metal Gear a go as well.
It's predictably a little rough around the edges, but I am absolutely loving it so far. It's such an awesome stupid story that has all kinds of goofiness and crazy stuff happening all the time. The gameplay is pretty cool as well. One thing I found really interesting about Death Stranding is how deep "Kojima games" seem to go on random gameplay elements that they absolutely didn't need to, but feel really fun to have. Things like how many different weapons and items there are, the silly radio system, and all that good stuff.
If anybody is on the fence about playing MGS1 I'd highly recommend it. If you do play the PC version though make sure you get the MGSILauncher and Widescreen Patch listed on PCGamingWiki so you can have full joystick support, widescreen, music patches, etc.
Steam had a Warhammer 40k games sale recently, so I picked up some older titles I never played because I didn't even know about 40k back then. Mechanicus is hitting the right Final Fantasy Tactics vibe I really enjoyed playing as a kid.
Otherwise I play Magic: The Gathering. I half pay attention to releases, and play via Spelltable with friends online. I play F2P on Arena as well.
I'm currently making my way through Encased, a turn based sci-fi rpg. I really like the overworld travel mechanism, although after traveling it a bunch, some of the encounters do start to get a little repetitive. My favorite part of it at this point is honestly just exploring and finding new places and people. I'm hoping it won't take me 100+ hrs to finish like DOS2 though.
It's not the full game, but I played the demo for Jusant yesterday and I can't stop thinking about it. It's a game that is centered around climbing, where you manually select your hand placements, where to attach carabiners, pitons, all that sort of stuff. It's such a fresh take on a control scheme that feels both intricate and intuitive, and the art style is really beautiful and eye-catching. I honestly never expected a game like this from the developers behind Life is Strange!
I just finished my first playthrough of Elden Ring. This is the first souls game Ive been able to finish, having an open world made it easy to find ways to make progress without feeling like I had to either grind or git gud. I'll probably come back to NG+ soon to try a different build.
Right now, I'm getting into Gran Turismo 7. I'm a pretty casual racing game player and don't play much online. I'm enjoying the single player experience, but judging from how much the higher end cars cost, I can see myself getting to a point where I won't make much progress without spending real money which is a deal breaker for me.
I seem to be in an on phase for Cataclysm Dark Days Ahead again. I am not a fan of the hardcore pseudo-realistic simulation direction the main branch is taking so I am personally mainly in the Bright Nights fork. The sheer amount of depth for the sandbox is impressive but unsurprisingly comes with a solid amount of bugs/jank but mostly not on stable. The main got 0.g release so I will probably see how some of the more controversial/annoying features progressed.
As for some other, even more unknown games I want to mention a Titan Outpost - a non combat RPG taking place on (unsurprisingly) outpost on Titan. Features several possible paths, exploration, so-so voice overs and some bugs though they mostly dissappeared over the versions. What I personally liked was the atmosphere of the lonely base which can eventually get quite crowded and the venturing forth for connecting pipes/connecting with the other faction and going to the dark part of the moon.
I’ve been playing Dofus again after 15 years!
It’s crazy that it’s still active and lively after all this time.
It’s so nostalgic, one of the best MMO ever. Stunning art, incredible music and sound effects, everything is so polished
The gathering, crafting and economy are great.
If you haven’t played it, you should check it out!
Been playing Darkest Dungeon II recently, have beaten the Act 3 boss just yesterday. Despite the initial misgivings that a lot of DD1 fans had about it changing the formula to a roguelite, I think that it really does a lot to continue where the original left off in its presentation and themes. The artstyle has received a significant bump in my opinion, transitioning from 2D to 3D seamlessly, and the general theme from the first one of fighting back against looming eldritch horrors is tempered with a bit more of a hopeful message without compromising the presentation.
Combat is fairly similar, but rather streamlined - I like most of what they've done, not having to weigh accuracy against dodge and such. My only complaint here is that the "tokens", little icons that represent status effects, are not explained sufficiently - there is a single static page that lists a lot of tokens and their meaning, but leaves out quite a few more seemingly at random.
The only real criticisms I have for the game is that parts of the UI feel unpolished or missing features (let me see a relationship web and all my character's goals at each inn without lots of clicking, I beg you) and that I wish they had added more than 1 new character. Overall I'd recommend.
I'm DM'ing a pathfinder 2e game for five players. We're running Abomination Vault+Troubles in Otari, so I'm having to modifying the content to keep it level appropriate. I don't think I've quite got the proper balance as the encounters still seem too easy. Work in progress.
I'm hopelessly addicted to Football Manager 23 right now. I'm playing a save as Wrexham, hoping to take them from the National League all the way up to the Prem. I'm most of the way there as im in my second season in the Championship.
It's a great game if you like sports management/franchise mode type games. FM and Out of the Park Baseball offer way more detail and better simulations than the franchise modes of the mainline sports games.
Recently, I haven't been playing much due to lack of time, but one game that I did play recently, and is responsible for hundreds of hours spent at the keyboard is FTL: Faster Than Light. It is an indie roguelite 2D pixel art top-down spaceship simulation game. Initially released in 2012, it got a major update dubbed the Advanced Edition in 2014.
The premise is that you control the crew of a ship belonging to the Galactic Federation, which has been on the losing end of a brutal civil war against a human supremacist rebellion. You are tasked to bring data that represents the last chance of the Federation regaining the upper hand to the remaining Federation forces, eight sectors away, while the full might of the Rebellion is chasing you the whole way. Problem is, your ship is woefully underequipped for the journey. As danger increases through each sector you go through, you need to upgrade your ship on the way, taking advantage of whatever you can before leaving... but not to the point where the rebels would catch up to you.
In typical roguelite faction, this is a lot easier said than done. The game's difficulty is best described as brutally unforgiving, and permadeath is in play, meaning that if all your crew dies, or your ship breaks apart, you're right back to the hangar to try again from the beginning. And you will. Repeatedly. Until you learn to bend the RNG to your will and finally make your way to the final sector. Spoilers ahead, although the game's foundation is its gameplay rather than its story, with lore elements scattered among the many events you'll find while exploring space. As well as hostile ships of various descriptions, the usual space hazards, the occasional store that for some reason accepts scrap as currency, and giant alien spiders. They're no joke.
So, what's that all-important data anyway?
As it turns out, the Rebellion intends to destroy the last Federation base by bringing their fleet's flagship to the fight, and its defeat would mean the fall of the Rebellion as a whole. With the rest of the Federation fleet otherwise occupied, it falls to you to bring it down and end the war. Good luck, you'll need it.
If dying horribly in space and/or committing war crimes interests you, the game can be bought on Steam, GOG, the Humble store or the Epic Games store for ~10€ outside of sales (as I'm typing this, it happens to be 75% off on GOG and EGS).
But wait, there's more!
As I have been playing for hundreds of hours, I've experienced most of what the game has to offer, and while that's fine by me as the game's procedurally generated runs mostly keeps the experience from going stale, there is an active modding community, most notably FTL: Multiverse which picks up the plot where the base game left off and adds a ton more content. I would highly recommend trying it out once you feel the base game has ran out of content.
Lately I’ve been playing Metroid Prime on Switch and unsurprisingly the remake rules.
I’m not sure what else to say about it other than it has a vibe and that vibe is excellent.
Have you played Dread? It's the only Metroid game I've ever played so far but was absolutely amazing. Would Prime still hold up in comparison?
So the Prime games are just 3D FPS versions of the same formula.
That doesn’t speak to everyone but I love the immersive qualities of Prime.
Few different things:
Halls of Torment Rougelike. You have to make decisions on how you will allocate your resources before going on a run. Better equipment or better stats? There's some really clever elements and I don't want to ruin it, so if you like Vampire Survivors and/or Diablo, and have an extra $5, spend it on this while waiting for Diablo 4's price to drop!
I always get sucked into one FPS for an extended time. For right now that's Overwatch 2. At other times it's been Destiny, Valorant, or Fortnite. I loathe OW2's monetization scheme and direction/management seems to be utterly incompetent, but I cannot find gameplay like this elsewhere. Being team based, being a shooter, but also having all of those unique kits that don't all revolve around straight aim is so special. One of my long time loves was Destiny. There, aim was king and you could be counted on individually to do a lot. Here, how you work as a whole matters. It's a great accidental counter to the big sniper problem in FPSes, because one person alone can't dominate a good team.
Aside from that, I'm on and off playing Civ 6, Sims 4, and Spider-Man (PS4) as offline chill games. For anyone that doesn't play world sim games, Civ is such a special experience. Its cues from history are unique and getting a victory condition other than score feels so rewarding. I don't have all the DLC but I expect to do so before Civ 7 drops.
Tears of The Kingdom.
I'm taking the game slow, which is what I did for Breath of The Wild. I often get burnt out whenever I try to finish games as fast as I can, and I don't want that to happen. So far, the dungeons are an improvement from the first game. The Lightning Temple especially felt similar to older dungeons. It's not perfect- you can still cheese some parts of it- but it was very enjoyable to play. I didn't expect so many old enemies to come back.
Though I am disappointed in how some items are gone, specifically the Gerudo outfit. I've seen how much solace it gave to my transfem friends, and it sucks that it was taken away from them. So I am hoping that there will be a DLC that brings back old outfits and items from the first game.
I'm finally playing through Quantum Break. It's pretty great. The gameplay is a lot like the Max Payne series, but much faster paced. The live-action show that goes with it is also pretty good (not amazing, though). Next up is Alan Wake.
Also, in multiplayer I've been playing Starship Troopers: Extermination early access, which is pretty fun, and holds lots of promise.