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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.
Finished Alan Wake 2 yesterday. I don't know how long it will take me to recover. I kind of expected to love this game -- I've been a huge fan of Remedy's output, even if I haven't played much survival horror before -- but what Sam Lake and the team have accomplished with this release is unbelievable. It feels weird for me to say this, in a year with Baldur's Gate 3 and Returnal('s PC port) and a half dozen other indie and AA releases that I absolutely loved, but Alan Wake 2 has immediately become my personal game of the year and it's not even particularly close. The game does so much right -- visuals, world design, set pieces, the really unique Writer's Room mechanic, and of course the chief selling point: a brilliant, complex, well structured narrative that is at once dizzyingly postmodern and obsessed with the interiority of its nuanced, thoughtfully-written characters. But it's hard to talk about all those strengths without spoiling the game, so I want to briefly highlight something else: this game gets its tone so right.
The first Alan Wake game was -- well, it was pulpy; fitting for a game that was, in world, written by Alan Wake, a kind of commercially successful hack author a la James Patterson or Tom Clancy or Dan Brown. But for me, that amusing, absurdly self-serious tone occasionally detracted from when the game tried to be more conceptual, or spooky, or surreal. And yet, the silliness was a big part of the charm; part of why Alan Wake was such a cult classic. In the sequel, Remedy strives to retain Wake's pulpiness as a writer; strive to maintain the quirky absurdity of their setting, while also telling a pretty gripping psychological horror story. In my view, they succeed completely, finding a balance point I didn't know existed. This first became clear to me [mild spoilers ahead] a couple hours into the game. After a slow, tension-building opener, the horror truly begins when the corpse of a murder victim you're investigating comes to life in the morgue. It's a scary sequence; the bloated, naked corpse shuffles around; though you're never in real danger if you follow the tutorials, the scramble to get your gun before he sees you is a bit nerve-wracking; the jumpscare that happens when you kill him is cheap, but effective. But then, I climbed the stairs of the morgue, turned left, entered a meeting room and saw a bad commercial for a wilderness tour company playing on screen. It was the sort of half-funny local commercial you've all seen on TV, turned up to 11; bad continuity, flat acting, strange copy. I almost burst out laughing. And then, later when the actors from that commercial showed up in the plot, started getting dragged into the game's spiral, those commercials, and what they meant, began to make me just a little bit uneasy, transforming a funny, tension-breaking collectible into a potent piece of atmospheric storytelling.
The game is full of tricks like this, tools to align you with the characters, control your mood, give you some comic relief while still ratcheting up the horror. Whether it be the mind-boggling 20 minute interactive stage musical or the sequence where you have to perform cognitive behavioral therapy on yourself to continue the game, it's often the game's strangest, most off-beat moments that land best. I've never played a triple-A release this conceptually ambitious -- except, I don't know, Death Stranding? Returnal? but unlike those games, Remedy have, for me, stuck the landing and accomplished everything they set out to.
Awesome to hear. Did they change the combat for the better? I found the flashlight shooting from AW1 to be incredibly tedious and the enemies to be repetitive. I want to play number two because the series checks all my boxes in theory, but in practice I would need better gameplay mechanics to enjoy it.
The combat is improved in a few ways. First, the gamefeel is greatly improved; your weapons, and the enemy attacks, are a lot punchier and more impactful. The flashlight burning off the darkness sounds almost violent and looks like a firework; sparks fly and enemies stagger back covering their face. You shoot a weak spot and it pops, laying open their skin and exposing bones with a satisfying squish. But enemies are spongy, fast, and mix it up with projectiles, while you're slow, your strong weapons take what feels like ages to reload, and the dodge window is smaller than the first game, so an ambush of even three enemies can present a real threat. If you're not playing the completionist looking for hidden stashes, ammo will be scarce enough that you might sometimes have to decide between wasting your last few bullets on a difficult enemy, or fleeing to hide in the nearest floodlight.
The combat loop is never truly deep or anything beyond "good," but it feels good, and sometimes tense, and that's really all the game needs. Compared to the first game (and the power-fantasy action game Control) combat is deemphasized here; outside the game's few big set pieces and bosses, there are fewer encounters, each comprised of fewer enemies. I feel this works a lot better considering the game's heavy narrative focus. Not that combat is an afterthought; it's just a slower-paced game with comparatively less action, which makes the big fights that do happen feel all the more tense, exciting and fresh.
Is Alan Wake 1 a necessary prerequisite to this game? I have it and never played much of it. Got a free copy of 2 from my recent GPU purchase.
Ehhh... I like Alan Wake 1, and knowing what happened in it, its DLCs, and Remedy's other games (Quantum Break and Control and Control's DLCs) would certainly add valuable context. But apart from 2019's Control, it's hard to recommend those games. Alan Wake hasn't aged all that well as a gameplay experience, and Quantum Break often falls far short of its lofty narrative ambitions. Honestly, I'd probably just watch a recap of the first game's story and related material. Maybe play Control and the DLC. But AW2 is designed to stand on its own, too; one of the dual protagonists is, intentionally, a newcomer to Wake's horrifying reality, and as she learns about it and its history so will you. You just might not have the full picture that longtime fans do going in.
I replayed Alan Wake a while back, and while I would agree that the gameplay is aged, I wouldn't say it's bad; it's more like the "remedy-like" shooters have improved in general. I'd actually say it had better gameplay than most of the games of it's era with the obvious exception of the flashlight which I found very annoying.
The most annoying thing to me at the time was simply that they were trying to make it spooky and it didn't really work that well (though it worked about as well as a pulpy horror novel, so I guess it succeeded).
Just finished the Musical portion last night and I had this surreal wtf glee feeling the entire time. It was so unexpected and yet somehow made perfect sense in hindsight. I had to look it up afterwards to make sure I didn’t just hallucinate the whole thing and found it interesting that the section had almost been cut from the final game.
Ended up coming down with a fever this weekend. Unsure why but it meant that I was allowed to put 6 more hours into Baldur's Gate. Having a lot of fun now that I've leveled my party and gathered a few more items. Hoping to play a bit more tonight.
Explore every corner, do every stupid thing.
I am co-oping this with my best friend and we have found so much ridiculous stuff in the most unexpected places.
If you catch yourself in any situations where they ask you, "Are you sure you want to continue doing this?" then I recommend you definitely keep doing it. There are several and they're awesome.
Played some of The Finals before the playtest closed.
I think if you're into competitive lootbox shooters, it has an interesting backbone of gameplay. I haven't been into that space in a long time and I don't think it will woo me over, but I bet fans if Apex Legends will like it.
That gameshow narrators were definitely novel, but made me feel like I was playing for an audience's enjoyment that felt maybe a little unsettling to me lol. Might be because of the game genre, but in some sense I felt a little icky with the premise.
That being said, the gameplay loop was cool and the destructible environment and gameplay decisions needing to be made were very unique. I was also impressed that it ran pretty well on my ancient 970.
Strange Horticulture
Only played like 2 hours so far, it's a really cozy game, more interesting than I originally thought (there's a demo on Steam). The narration and skeuomorphic gameplay are well paired, there's something strangely satisfying in manipulating the book, map, and clues, and arranging the plants. So far I'm pleasantly surprised and I'll certainly take time this week or weekend to continue playing, if only to unravel the Lovecraft-ish lore that is suggested through dialogues and descriptions.
No Man's Sky
I have a weird relationship with this game. The first time I tried it I absolutely hated it and refunded it. I gave it a second chance months later and while it's probably my most-played game on the Steam Deck, I can't really recommend it to anyone.
I won't list the many, many, deep flaws of this game, because most reviews cover them already, but I can say that while it becomes wider and wider after each (free) update, it's still barely deeper than it was at release.
And yet I'm 80 hours in. I turn my brain off, look for some feature that I never tried, or some gear update I'd like to install, and simply go at it. It takes forever to do nothing, and yet it's strangely pleasant. A true comfort game.
I really enjoyed NMS after the updates fixed it.
Base building and ship collecting were a blast and space exploration was great.
I played the game co-op with my best friend though, so I think I had a different experience than if I were playing alone.
It surely must be a different game in coop. Like I have 0 interest in base building because I'm alone and 99% of the time in my ship, but I guess like in Minecraft, the dynamics are different in multiplayer.
Actually I intended to buy it on the Switch so that I could play with my kids, and was kinda bummed to learn that there's no multiplayer on that version.
Just played the demo for the Enjenir on Steam. I think this game is going to be amazing for people who love Besiege, Trailmakers, or even Human Fall Flat and Minecraft.
Basically you build a shitty structure like a bridge to accomplish a task and then cross it with QWOP style walking and climbing.
I'm finishing Fallout 2 today probably. It wll belike 20th time I finish this game but the first in last 20 years. It is still that great game that I remember from m youth. Fallout 3 was good, New Vegas even better, but 2 is still the best one. I played Fallout 1 just right before starting 2 and it is almost like a demo for Fallout 2.
I will probably replay Horizon Zero Dawn next. Just got and assembled Tallneck Lego set and I want to play thegame once more. Oneof the best modern games, at least for me - sci-fi and fantasy lover. It has unbelievably well made story and setting and if you don't know anything about it, I very highly recommend going in blind. Perfectly made game! Hence me replaying it after not even a year passed from my first playthrough.
Fallout 1/2 are always in the back of my mind as something I need to play. I almost completed Fallout 1 back in the mid-late 00s, but a bug prevented me from finishing it and I've never bothered to replay it at this point. So many RPGs that I really ought to play at some point.
I tried to play Fallout 1 a couple of times, but there's a radroach or something equally puny right in the very beginning and for the life of me I couldn't figure out how to actually kill the thing. I could fire, but I'd always miss and it would kill me, so I made a new character who'd be better at aiming. Still died. I gave up and just wrote it off as probably not a game I'd enjoy if the first room was a challenge.
Fallout 1 is really short, you should give it anoher try. Like 15 hours if you know your whereabouts somewhat, maybe 20 if you have to dig into it a bit.
Fallout 2 on the other hand... I'm 45 hours in and just about to tackle the last location.
Great games. They are old in so many ways, but they were made really well (apart from a few bugs in both and crashes - mainly in F1). They are great if you want to take a break from modern games, too.
I'm not to worried about their age, as I lived through the era and remember their releases well... I'm also old... But I just haven't been super motivated, as I don't often prefer Isometric games; I'll certainly play them, but they've never been a first choice for me, so I think that's why they tend to fall by the wayside.
For example, I played the original System Shock back in 2020 and absolutely loved it, but that's because I'm a sucker for a first person perspective.
I don't remember System Shock that well. It is almost 25 years when I played it last.I bought the remake and I'm looking forward to playing it one day when the time comes. Right now I'm going for perfecting the Horizon Zero Dawn, it will take many many hours to do so even though I already have almost all the achievements... I need to finish the game on New game+ on Ultra hard now. And after that I have like 10 more games to play before System Shock. One of them being Breath of the Wild (once again), that is another 150 hours on top of what HZD will be (probably like 60 hours I guess, although I can probably just fly through it in maybe half the time if I wanted).
I got my motivation for Fallout quite easily - the memory of the game came to my mind and was sitting there slowly going higher and higher the chain. And then one day I said to myself "screw it, I know it is great and I know what and how to do, it will be piece of cake". And it really was. After finishing the first one I hesitated for a bit before starting the second. Which I di the same day, to be honest :-) They are still those great games I remember from back in the day.
I've been playing Mother 3 on an GBA emulator and I absolutely love it. Never really played any JRPGs before, and because I was so young when I have my GBA I mostly played puzzle and platform games. I love how vibrant the world feels, and it doesn't feel even a little bit dated at all.
Mother 3 is related to Earthbound, right? Two games that I really ought to play, especially considering I have multiple ways to play GBA games these days, including the system itself.
Have you played Earthbound? Is it necessary to playing Mother 3?
Not the original commenter, but both are some my favorite games and I highly recommend playing both. Mother 3 has a mostly self-contained story, but still contains a lot of references to events and characters in Earthbound (especially towards the end). I recommend playing Earthbound first for the full experience, just know that the game play will feel dated and it takes a bit of time to really get going. But it oozes atmosphere and charm and is quite funny. If you bounce off of Earthbound then you can still play Mother 3. It might ignite your interest to go back and play Earthbound.
Would you say Mother 3 feels dated or just earthbound? Obviously I've only played Mother and it doesn't feel that dated to me whatsoever, especially given I never really played games like this in the past.
They're both JRPGs and suffer from the same faults that most 2D JRPGs tend to. Earthbound tends to be a bit slower though since there's no run key and the only way to go faster is a bike which has limited usefulness. It's a game that is made much better if you play it on an emulator with a fast forward key.
I don't think that Mother 3 feels dated at all. It could be released on Steam by an indie developer today and I think it would be a huge, quirky hit. I personally love Earthbound (even more than Mother 3), but it could use a lot of quality-of-life updates. The combat is pretty dull and repetitive (similar to other JPRGs of the era), inventory management is awful, there is some necessary backtracking and grinding, and there are some weird difficulty spikes. The setting, writing, and music transcend all of those inconveniences though. If you enjoyed Mother 3 then I think you can handle it, just push through the initial frustration. At least try to play until the "Happy Happy Village", that is one of the early highlights.
The original Mother on the NES, on the other hand, I could not get through. That is a rough game to play nowadays. Maybe some day I'll give it another shot.
Yes it is! Mother was renamed to Earthbound when released in the west. Mother 3 is the third in the earthbound series.
I've not played either of the earthbounds, and I don't feel like I'm missing anything. From what I've read online it does appear that it's not necessary to play them, and that they just generally have the same themes throughout.
Recently discovered dwarf fortress, and holy hell, no wonder the game has the following it does. Sure, it's slightly complicated, though I think a lot of that comes from the ascii version which I tried out of curiosity after playing the steam version and it's night and day. But with the steam version, it's incredibly seamless once you play for about 10 hours and have an idea of how to start out. The story of your fortress' rise and fall is always interesting, and I'm looking forward to starting my next one soon. Would definitely suggest buying this one, $30 is not a lot for a game with infinite replay-ability and that has developers that claim they will "keep developing the game for the rest of their lives".
I honestly could not tell you why I have put so many hours into playing .hack//G.U. Recode.
I never got into the .hack games but I got the game in the Bandai Namco bundle that came out a while ago (which I basically bought just for Katamari Damacy REROLL). It’s almost striking how badly it starts. There is a very short tutorial stage you go through before the plot begins in earnest and there is a bunch of times where it seems like it’s trying to hype you up for a fight but then it either does it in a cutscene or just skips it altogether. Practically every interaction that is relevant to the plot is a cutscene and worse, even a lot that is not is a cutscene. Because you can’t just read and push a button to go to the next line it makes the whole game very slow. And because the game is simulating the experience of playing an MMO, it’s also simulating the internet around it, and that means in order to understand everything you will have to do a lot of reading, but it’s all on the side so it’s not terribly engaging much of the time, especially at the beginning where you have to read through over an hour’s worth of text to understand the world of the game and society in the fictional future.
In a way, I feel it is the exact game to demonstrate why Japanese games fell from grace at the end of the generation. This was a period where everyone I knew hated these games and their endless cutscenes. This game is like the personification of everything they didn’t like in a game.
But in spite of this really heavy starting cost, I don’t think the game is actually bad. The combat is actually pretty enjoyable. I don’t think I have enjoyed grinding in any RPG quite as much as I have with this game. But having played it for 7-8 hours and still only feeling like I’m just barely getting a taste is not a good look. It’s especially annoying because the story starts off with you having played the game for 8 months and become strong enough to get the nickname “The Fear of Death” only to be reset to level 1.
Backpack Hero - I switched to the testing branch/beta to get access to story mode, and wow, it makes the game so much more interesting and engaging. It gives more of a purpose to each run. For those who don't know, it's a roguelike, turn-based dungeon crawler with an emphasis on inventory management - you will constantly be changing weapons and shields and other items out as you progress.
Bioshock 1 - My first play through. Just got past the "twist" and hoping I can finish it. Planning on completing the entire series.
Hades - Started a new save file while playing from my Steam Deck while on a flight. Progressed further in 4ish hours than I did on my previous save. Again, for those who don't know, it's a roguelike, action combat dungeon crawler with leveling elements that carry over to future runs. I'm enjoying it quite a bit, but not sure if I'll focus on playing it more soon with all the other games I'm looking at.
Minecraft - Mostly spun up a server for my partner to play on, but I'm jumping in here and there. I'm not too engaged in it anymore, I feel like I've played a lot in the past and not enough of the core of the game has changed.
Just Cause 3 - Mindlessly blowing things up when I don't want to think too much about a game. I skip the cutscenes because they're just intentionally bad B-movie style themes.
I finished up playing Bayonetta Origins: Cereza and the Lost Demon. I enjoyed it a fair bit. If I had a complaint, it would be that it's slower paced than a lot of games, but it is in a weird spot where the slower speed feels very much intentional and actually sorta adds to the charm of the game. All of the cutscenes are done with a storybook styled aesthetic. There's a narrator and visual page turns. I feel like its method of conveying information is just really slow, especially in the beginning of the game where you are given a lot of story set up with very little gameplay. But it's also really well done, it invoked the feeling of my grandmother reading me bed time stories perfectly. And the plot is a children's fairytale about a child getting lost in a magical forest, so that decision is the correct one. The character movement speed is also pretty slow. Also something that I think it intentional given that you have to control two characters at the same time. The combat starts out very easy, but the end game stuff is actually a challenge, and I think it would be frustrating if the whole game moved faster. The one big gripe with the speed though, is that since the map is very much a metroidvania style map, you explore things way slower, and back tracking takes way longer than I would like.
The good parts of the game are really good. It is very pretty. The character models are way more simplified compared to Bayonetta 3, but aesthetically it blows it out of the water. Bayonetta 3 is a decent looking game really struggling to meet it's full potential with the Switch's outdated hardware, Cereza and the Lost Demon looks amazing in spite of the limitations. If they ever made a Bayo 4, I would be 100% okay with it looking more like Origins than the mainline games. The combat is simpler than the mainline series for sure, but it is still very fun. Cereza can't attack, but can freeze enemies, and Cheshire does the hitting, but has somewhat limited abilities to handle multiple opponents at a time. Battles become a time management thing, where you decide if you to separate their attention to manage the crowds, or if you want both of them to focus on destroying one enemy as fast as possible.
End game spoilers
The upgrade tree made the combat more traditional Bayonetta-like power switching being like weapon switching. When the final bosses made it actually just like Bayonetta I had the biggest fucking grin on my face.
I actually also think that this is just straight up the best Bayonetta story, and while there were hints about it, I was genuinely surprised by the final twist. Though I guess it should have been obvious that the fairytale would have an evil witch in the woods
Overall I would recommend it if you are a fan of the series.
I was feeling a little listless recently, after 35 hours of Elden Ring, getting bored with it. Not because of any flaws in the game itself, but because my headspace changed and I'm just no longer in the mood to play something with such high intensity.
I ended up tinkering a bit with Turtle WoW, something I tend to do from time to time, but what really caught my attention was the Steam free weekend for Anno 1800. I've 1701 both extensively on PC and Nintendo DS, as well as 2070, which didn't really grab me and 1800 is just such a massive improvement on the formula.
Just between Saturday night and Sunday night I ended up putting in 6 hours, which is a damn lot for me in 24 hours! At any rate, I really love it and ended up buying it yesterday, along with the Season 2 DLC. I've only had the chance to put in another 45 minutes, but I'm eager to spend a lot more time with it.
On the side I've also been playing Symphony of the Night, having just made it to the Inverted Castle. I like it well enough, but having had Aria of Sorrow be my introduction to the series, I find the GBA games much more compelling. While SotN is good, the latter games have surpassed it. I still want to finish it, but I've definitely slowed down in the Inverted Castle, which I find a bit irritating more than anything.
I agree with you about the second half of Castlevania SOTN. The inverted castle was a mind-blowing discovery the first time I played the game, the problem is that the map wasn't really designed to be played upside-down so navigating a lot of areas got pretty tedious and awkward. It's still one of my all-time favourite games, but the GBA sequels definitely feel a bit more polished.
I feel like the difficulty kind of runs up into a cliff, as well. The early game of SotN is challenging, but doable, whereas a lot of the enemies in the Inverted Castle just feel a little like bullshit; it also doesn't help that, as a product of it's time, it has a ridiculously long time to get back into the game once you're killed.
At any rate, I feel like I'm one hitting most things, taking 1 damage from everything else, to suddenly needing to hit enemies multiple times and taking 1/8 of my life each time they hit me. It just ends up feeling frustrating and annoying.
I really want to finish it, if only because I have a party coming up and a person I know who loves SotN will be there and I want to be able to speak on it intelligently and with some knowledge...
Trying VR games on the Meta Quest 3.
My favorite is Angry Birds VR: Isle of Pigs whose greatest strength is the control scheme is transparent, right away you are shooting birds out of a slingshot and watching pig fortresses come down. I've played not quite half the levels so far and they are getting gradually harder, I'm blaming myself or the level, not the headset or controllers, when I have a hard time.
NFL PRO ERA thrilled me immediately by putting me on the ramp of an NFL stadium and going out to play... Wow! I'm the quarterback! That illusion was satisfying, if a bit overwhelming but right away I through the pass and made the play. Then I am at practice and they're giving me complicated instructions on a wristband which isn't quite aligned with my wrist (the "button" I am supposed to tap on it is two inches off) then I am in the locker room thinking "Boy do I want to try this" but that's a project for another day.
Fit XR I like the idea of a fitness app. Asked for my email address, then dropped me in a pretty lobby with a big dark screen on one end that stayed dark. This is at the same level as Horizon Worlds where frequently I get invited to some event but when I try to join it I can spend several minutes in the lobby before it finally times out
Out of Scale: A Kurzgesagt Adventure seems to be somewhere between a game and a theme park ride. I found myself impatient with the setup explaining how you can shrink and expand yourself and other things and wanted to learn how to work the game more quickly but I got into some situation where I dropped the drone controller and it's not clear what I'm supposed to do to advance which again is a problem that happened in Horizon Worlds where I got dropped into a frustrating minigame and didn't see a clear path to circle around. I'll give it another try.
Celeste - I finished my second playthrough. It took about 40% of the time and 40% of the deaths my first playthrough did (which I'm pretty happy with). The final chapter "Farewell" and getting the moon berry were still really tough. I forgot how to beat some of the screens and had to figure them out again. However I had a shit-ton of practice on the final screens, so those didn't feel quite so bad. Even if they still took me a lot of tries.
A little context: For most of the game, sections are very short and if you die you can quickly resume close to where you left off. The last screen of Farewell is a very long section (and dying takes you back to be beginning of it) where you have to juggle a jellyfish that helps you glide through the air and can also gain height from your boost -- bounce it off things and throw it to safety then get back to it and grab it again. Once you reach the end of this long section, you break a circuit box, and can go to the right to the end, or to the left and try for the moon berry. You then have a steep and challenging climb. Eventually there is a checkpoint, but if you die before then you've got to do the whole jellyfish juggling section again. On my first playthrough I was fortunate or in-the-zone enough to not die before that checkpoint. Not so lucky on my second. I died several times on my way up to that checkpoint. Including the most embarrassing dash off the circuit box instead of breaking it. And of course, screwed up the juggling section a bunch of extra times for good measure, in ways I never did before.
I remembered something else I wanted to nitpick about the game. Some of the music is kind of annoying. I've seen lots of praise for it. I think it can be hit-or-miss....and even the hits get repetitive when you are dying a lot on a hard part. I spent a lot of the game just listening to my own music.
I've played a little of the Backpack Battles demo (it's free).
It's an enjoyable auto-battler where you design an inventory of items that then auto-battle against builds other people have made in non-simultaneous PvP.
If the rest of the game adds more variation, I can see i being a game I could sink a lot of hours into. Even though this is just a demo with two classes, there have been several balance patches and there are several different strategies in the meta-game at my rating at least.
MK 1 - I'm a sub main, so i've got it on the backburner and am hoping that on Nov 9th the omni man release comes with some sort of buff or changes to make him more fun. He can win at the lower levels i'm at, but god I just don't feel like i'm playing the same game, and lao being everywhere (and making everything +2) isn't great for variety.
Submachine Legacy - On chapter 10 and holy hell what a great game. I should've finished this when it was on flash forever ago and I'm so happy it came to steam. Easily up there with Riven as a brilliant puzzle game.
Marvel Snap - Don't really love the current meta. I like interactive decks, but feel like the current powerlevels sorta swirl around "what do you do about luke cage". Most good decks now put out power that's hard to interact with. Lots of 7/8 power units so you can't shang them or some major combo that puts out too many targets to shang, no ongoings to purge with enchantress/rogue, etc.
So instead you're looking at shadow king, and what counters shadow king (retroactively no less...), Luke. Luke is literally in a tier of his own on untapped, and while the recent mobius change at least opened up the meta, he's still just everywhere in the worst sort of way. Too many games feel like they come down to "did they draw cage/did i counter it", at least if you're trying to run the sorts of off meta/counter decks I really enjoy. Now if you want to just go over the top of your opponent with big numbers, hey that's fine, and the meta is fine, but for someone like me this is just boring.
Worse this also murders decks that want to run things hazmat/spiderwoman (i've got a fun clutter deck based around this that's just doa) since you'll just get destroyed out of nowhere on T6. Cage is just unique in the hate card meta, because he's all upside and no downside. Don't need to commit early, doesn't shut off your gameplan, and so on. I hope he gets some sort of rework soon because otherwise I'm probably moving on.
Starfield keeps delivering. My character is 130hrs in and I always find something cool wandering around, or just loot POIs. I'm prepping for NG+1 by clearing activities so I can see content then just reincarnate a bunch of times and see what is at the other end of the rainbow.
I surveyed all of Sol which was fun after watching HazvsRPG on Twitch survey every planet, but I don't want to go that far.
I restarted Vampire Survivors without the DLC to 100% the base without cheating, which I'm chipping away at. It's fun but I'm amazed at how much you have to unlock. I also can't wait for progress knowing what is out there, it's pretty exciting.