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What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them?
What have you been playing lately? Discussion about video games and board games are both welcome. Please don't just make a list of titles, give some thoughts about the game(s) as well.
I play Horizon Zero Dawn for the second time this year. I finished it with themajority of achievements in february and I loved the game so much that I had to play it once again. This time on Ultra hard (New game+).
I love the setting of the game of fantasy/medieval and sci-fi combination. But I what I love even more is the story and how it is made and unveiled in the game. I wen blind into it knowing just screenshots and nothing else. I was completely... I can't even describe it... Overwhelmed? I haven't played such a great game in a long long time. It is one of the best I have ever played. Well crafted game, really.
Here's my Steam review of it for anyone who wants to know more.
Played on Steam Deck and playing on Steam Deck again. Runs okay-ish (28-30 fps, would do more from time to time if not limited by me to 30) on High details, 9W TDP and graphics clock set ti 1100MHz, battery life 2-2.5 hours (OG Steam Deck).
Nice! Any plans on picking up the sequel? I enjoyed that quite a bit as well - I thought it had excellent character development, and of course having a parachute ingame is so nice for mobility haha.
Huge RIP to Sylens' actor - I have no idea how they'll make the third Horizon without him, his voice was so iconic!
I've got it in my wishlist just waiting for it to be released. I have to play it! I hope it will run on Steam Deck somehow okay-ish too.
I had the chance to try that VR Horizon game on PS5 in my friends house. Nice experience. I won't be spending the money though :-D
I felt similarly when playing the original (PS4 for me). I noticed the sequel was on sale this last weekend so I picked it up and gave it a few hours. I'm only a short way past the intro but already enjoying slipping back into that world, so it's definitely skipping the other dozens of games in my backlog to take top spot until I'm done with it.
I have huge backlog myself, but I had to play this game again. I don't care that I have many other games, this one took the spot for now.
I'm looking forward to Forbidden West! I just hope I have hardware to run it...
I just picked it up in the latest sale, planning on playing it over the holidays. Do you, or anyone else reading this, think it can be played from beginning to end without the HUD or minimap?
One of my favorite gaming experiences was playing Zelda BOTW in its entirety without any HUD elements, just using the game's scenery and story to guide me. I loved it so much that I tried doing the same in other massive open-world games like Skyrim, Fallout 4, The Witcher 3, and Assassin's Creed Origins, but found that they relied too much on small details or markers in the minimap. So instead of feeling more immersed and in-tune with the game world, I just felt more frustrated at not knowing exactly where to go or which specific person or item to click on without the game explicitly telling me. I'm sure it can be done, but I found it nowhere near as pleasing as BOTW.
So I've been curious if Horizon Zero Dawn could be played without the map or other HUD elements, or if I'll need some to know where to go or who to talk to.
Is there even minimap? I really wonder although I just put away my Steam Deck just an hour ago. If there is, I don't use/look at it.
There is compass on top of the screen that tells you about points of interest (like iem Skyrim) and helps you locate data packages (when you are in such location). You don't really need it, as you can see lots of those thing on yur main map, but not data packages that tell the story of the game. I highly recommend leaving compass on.
You will get your bearing in the game and if you are not certain there is main map to save the day. Settlements are named and apart from some frm he early game, you will get to know and recognize them. Important people (traders, quests) are marked over their head, you don't need look for them on compass.
Other parts of HUD that are significant are your health, your medicine pocket, ammo count and quick slots. I consider all of them too valuableto turn them off. There are quest markers floating in he world for you, sometimes they are kinda useless (I mean you could do without them), but in some situations you may want to know where to go (general direction) - you can have a look on the main map for this.
I see where you're going from with turning off the minimap or quest markers etc. I come from Morrowind where you had no markers and bad (although kinda real-life) journal. I think that HZD is somewhere between Morrowind and Oblivion. Many tims you can do without help, but other times you may want to have a look.
I don't even know from top.of.my head what can be turned off in the game. I just picked it up and stated playing and got tonknow the game and the world by playing and exploring - I'm curious with my games and their worlds.
Just to add - played Cyberpunk and had to turn off minimap there. It was probabky the first tim I did that. Simply because I was just driving from point to point and lacked the exploring part of the game (like in GTA San Andreas). Only after doing that I started to learn he city a bit by it's landmarks and got to know my bearings. I totally understand you!
Thanks for the thorough answer! I'll definitely check out the settings to see what can be toggled off. Morrowind is another great example of a game that can be played without a mini-map, but at a much slower pace than most games today. I really thought RDR2 would be a perfect fit for this style of gameplay, but the missions killed it completely with their extremely rigid locations that they wanted you to be in. If you were just a few feet off the marked area it would insta-fail the mission, which ultimately meant that you had to look at the minimap in order to know exactly where the game wanted you to be. Outside of missions though, the game was great for HUD-less play, but most open-world games are. BOTW is just the only one where during the entire game I never once felt like "damn I really wish I had that mini-map right about now" and just completely forgot it wasn't there from start to finish.
I think I even tried it in Far Cry Primal, which I've heard is a bit similar to HZD, but I might have gotten lost one too many times in the dense forests.
I just finiahed my HZD session. There is no minimap on the HUD. I would still keep compass on, though. But it's my preference, yours may vary :-)
I keep checing on a map quite often because of how many twists and turns and crossroads are in the game. I can go generally where I wanted to without map, but sometimes I really need to look at it. There is a part with forest too and you may want to navigate using a map there.
The game kinda doesn't care like RDR2 does (from your description, haven't played it myself). More like you enter the right room and ingame cutscene goes off. The game isn't picky. Also - if you like exploring on your own, you won't miss anything. My first playthrough on nornal/medium difficulty was 100 hours with Frozen Wilds included (I think 80 for base game). I walked/run everywhere amd explored every location quite thoroughly, not used fast travel mechanics at all.
Now on second playthrough when I know my whereabouts well doing just story with just only abit of side quests (say under 10%) I'm almost end game in 35 hours - and that is rushing! Not using fast travel though... It will take.me another 5 hours at least.
I wish I could relate to BotW too, but it's almost three years that I played it and I can't remember how much I needed the minimap there.
I hope you will like HZD at least half as much as I do! I went into the second playthrough because I missed the story already AND because I want to 100% the achievements. I don't do this that much, but I want to with HZD. For some background - I own over 400 games on Steam, I have played probably around 100 to some degree, wrote 50 reviews and perfected only 8 games in that time, two of those having only one achievement... That says something about me liking HZD so much that I want to have it perfected.
I’ve heard great things about HZD, so I’m definitely excited to try it. I also love it when I can enjoy the game without fast traveling. Some games are great about that, while others make it feel like a chore.
Everything you’re describing about HZD sounds wonderful, cheers!
And if you ever consider playing BOTW again (or TOTK I guess, but I haven’t tried that yet), I HIGHLY recommend trying it without fast traveling and with any hud and minimap elements turned off. Completely unique experience in my opinion.
I will replay BotW. I would have played it by now if I didn't get HZD fever :-) I also have TotK, I'd like to play them back to back.
I will try tirning of some elements. I will probably recall a few places so I don't get lost. And I can have a look at main map anyway if I need to.
I feel the need to add that I have pathfinding and other stuff for quests and such off in HZD. There is setting for HUD visibikity too, I have it always on. Just so you know how I played the game and understand what were the starting conditions for my previous description.
I just finished the Modern Warfare 3 2023 campaign and I’m just stunned. I haven’t played any of these games since the original Modern Warfare 2 and exodus of devs so I didn’t expect much and I was still underwhelmed. I have so many criticisms:
But what really got to me is the ending. Just an abrupt end on an awkward character death. No payoff. Just a couple of dudes recreating the ending to the Big Lebowski.
It's so bad. I can't believe that CoD campaigns went from being legitimately good (Cod 4, MW2 (original), Black Ops, etc.) to this garbage we have now. Even MW2019 wasn't this bad of a campaign. Well, I kind of can believe it, the franchise is a juggernaut and probably won't sell any fewer copies no matter how bad the campaign is, but you get my point in not believing it.
Fortunately the multiplayer mechanics for 2023 are fun, but unfortunately there's a lot of glitchy movement tech ruining it for me right now (half my games are awesome and so much fun, but the other half are sweat fests where half the people either move 3 times faster than normal or glitch their hitbox with the dumb slide strafing thing).
What made you go for this having stayed away for so long?
Received a copy as a gift.
I'm playing Alan Wake 2 right now.
I was honestly ready to drop it because I was getting so frustrated with some poor gameplay elements and having the immersion constantly broken by characters not being able to step over or around simple things, but I just played Alan's 3rd chapter and now I'm totally stanning for this game lol.
That chapter is something else; it almost demands absurd hyperbole: "the best level I've ever played," "an unparalleled creative feat." While the game never really tops that sequence (at least in terms of spectacle), I found that once the narrative got me on board it was pretty easy to overlook the (imo) minor gameplay issues. I hope the game keeps its momentum for you as well :)
I picked up Coral Island. It's strongly derivative of Stardew Valley, but honestly I don't fault it for that. It introduces a couple of interesting mechanics and has a strong environmentalist/eco friendly theme which I've come to quite like about it. Mostly because the people don't get mad at me for letting loose my inner raccoon and rummaging through their bins.
I get some graphical glitches with textures flickering a fair amount so it's a bit unpolished for what they're calling their full release, and there have been a handful of bugs but nothing game breaking.
All in all, I'm really enjoying it and it feels like a great spiritual successor to Stardew. Oh, and the characters are all super attractive and a ton of them are dateable if you enjoy the dating-sim aspect of this kind of game.
Also, the clothes and outfits you can wear are actually pretty great. I'm almost at the point in the game where I can finally afford to buy something new to wear without slowing down my progress and I'm stoked to make my farmer a cute outfit or three.
I blasted my way through the Super Mario RPG remake over the weekend and had SUCH a good time. It's a really really great remake - it captured all the feels of the old game while introducing some new minor fun/extra mechanics and very sensible cleanups.
If I had one criticism, it would probably be that combat is too easy compared to the original - I used like maybe 5 items total while playing (and most of them were in the new bonus bosses which are actually challenging) and definitely remember having to use them way more back in the day. But too easy and fun is probably better than frustrating and not fun so I don't blame them for skewing/designing the game more casually, especially since some of the changes made (e.g. around the casino) were very clearly intended for literal children :)
Played Dead Cells for the last game review of the season for my roguelike podcast
It was such a breath of fresh air to come back to Dead Cells after a long time. I originally played the alpha at PAX West 17 and knew there was something special about it.
I remember playing when it first came out in early access and being excited to finally get my hands on the full release. I've played off and on since then but I was glad to have a forcing function of the podcast episode to really chew hard on it.
Turns out Dead Cells is still great. The fluidity, the tough item decision making, fighting to get those times, and finally getting to the Hand of the King, all a great experience. Maybe I should keep an eye on those DLCs as the next steam sale approaches....
Been playing "Wall World" after getting it in a humble bundle. It's a fun little rogue-lite where you pilot a spider mech up and down the side of an infinite wall. You have to fend off increasingly dangerous monster attacks inbetween drilling into the wall to leave the mech and mine for resources to upgrade your abilities. Eventually you're overwhelmed and die. You lose your upgrades, but keep money that can be used to start the next run with different permanent upgrades.
There's an interesting risk-reward element. Can you squeeze in one more mining run before the next wave? Should you try to move faster up the wall to the more powerful upgrades, but also more powerful monsters?
Every time I start to think it's going stale, there's some new twist or thing I havent seen yet that's keeping it fresh.
Gravity Circuit has been really fun. I'm working on completing all the achievements now that I've cleared the game.
I really like the design choices they made in the game. I had seen some reviews mentioning that the focus on melee combat is worse than Megaman's gun because of the need to get in close range, but I think they did a good job tweaking enemy behavior to accommodate that with your physical hits stunning many enemies, and the grappling mechanic let's you fly through levels once you know what you're doing.
I was on the fence about the discrete nature of the special attacks, but I think the specials in Gravity Circuit are useful enough that it would be overpowered if they gave you a large energy tank like in the megaman games. There's a good mix of offense, utility, and support/healing moves and being able to swap them out in real time makes up for only being able to equip 4 abilities and 3 upgrade chips.
The first playthrough was fairly tough to get through, but subsequent playthroughs I am flying through the levels with ease, which I think is the mark of a good Megaman style game.
Cool to see someone else talking about it. I've gotten all the achievements except for a few 'perfect clear' ones... I am still not that good with the grappling hook. Still find the controls for it awkward.
Yeah, sometimes I end up not aiming the grappling hook where I want and falling into a pit.
If you're trying to do perfect clears, getting hit with the Hardware Barrier move active doesn't count as taking damage. This is even the case in Circuit mode when you can use your health to activate special moves. You would still need to be careful about not getting hit with environmental hazards though.
Yeah. Normally I don't bother trying these types of achievements but I felt like playing the game more and they're all that's left to do. I did figure out the Hardware Barrier tech :)
I started a new easy file to do it on (I had another easy file but it was mainly for the other achievements where you don't buy anything). I've sort of been treating running through the early levels as test-runs but so far I've definitely taken damage in all of them...and yeah environmental hazards (including grapple hook mishaps!) is definitely a part. Once I pick a level and commit, I don't think it'll be too bad though. I'm guessing the perfect boss/nega fights will be.
So the 4 I was missing were:
Funny enough, I managed to get the achievement for beating a boss without getting hit (3) when fighting Nega, but I didn't get the other achievement (1). Absorbing a burst technique with Hardware Barrier still counts as getting hit for that one.
I got the level one (2) on the Ore Mines...mainly because it showed the lowest threat on the map. Of course it took a few tries because there are a couple of sections that require the grappling hook....
I finally figured out that you can press up/down on the level in the middle to pick which section you want to replay. For a long time I thought it would only let you replay the furthest section you'd gotten to. Was worried I'd have to start over to fight Nega again.
The Speedrun mode in the file select screen is an absolute Godsend. I also like the addition of the equipment loadouts that you can quickly swap back and forth between in the pause menu.
Anyway, I eventually got them all! Not sure what I'll do next with this game. I already beat it on Hard on Circuit Mode. Kind of feel like I just need to wait to see if the devs will add more stuff.
I've been running through Risk of Rains Returns, it's soooo much harder than the original one imo. I still haven't beaten it on Normal difficulty yet lol.
I also started Persona 5 Tactica, and it hasn't gripped me as much as Royal or Strikers has tbh. Not sure why, I still really love and miss the team a lot, I don't hate chibi art styles but there's something missing with this current iteration.
Dave the Diver has also been gripping my wind down time, it's actually super fun and simple, almost relaxed in a Stardew way, complete with weird time constrictions lol.
The animated cutscenes in Dave the Diver are what made that game for me. They're so insanely well done, and over-the-top funny! The game itself was decent, although did get a bit repetitive after a while, but the cutscenes more than made up for it, and kept me playing just so I could see the next one. :P
I keep playing Doom (1993) and its sequel with dsda-doom. Played through the first three episodes for the umpteenth time and then played through "Doom the way Id did" which is a (great) full set of three episodes emulating the style and theme of the original game.
I also just now finished Creature of Despair without saving for the first time. This level gives you a lot of weapons and ammo and then just throws a shit ton of monsters at you in an arena that opens up as you progress. It's probably the easiest map I've played in this style, but not for a lack of monsters to shoot, so I enjoyed it.
I'm trying to play through the fourth episode in Ultimate Doom, but I find around E4M2 that I just don't enjoy it at all. Maybe it's just that map, though, because I like the first level and I have a vague memory of having finished the whole thing at some point. I like when it's hard, just not punishing in the specific way John Romero seemed to be going for with it which feels more like a puzzle in which you have to find the correct sequence of things to do instead of a dynamic situation you have to manage tactically.
On my way to 100% every Zelda game, I have been working through BOTW. Getting so close to the end. Pretty much everything is done except the stuff in Hyrule Castle and the fucking Sword Trials.
I like the game, but there's just way too much content in it. There doesn't need to be 900 Korok Seeds, they could easily have done 500 with everything else being the same. Especially considering SO many of them are the same things over and over again.
A lot of the game has been a slog because of how much shit there is to do, and how much time it takes to do it all.
I am dreading TOTK when I start that next year after I take a few months break when finishing BOTW.
Games don't need to keep get bigger, they just need to have meaningful content. Had a similar feeling to Starfield. Though I had more fun with that because I'm not going to try to explore every planet or anything insane like that.
I couldn't imagine trying to 100% BOTW--I loved that game but didn't even bother with Hyrule Castle because by the time I got there it was starting to feel like a slog. And it was as though the master sword trials were tailor made to emphasize all the things I disliked the most about the game, so I hard passed on those too.
I got TOTK on launch day, but it didn't grab me the same way BOTW did. As a last gasp before sliding it onto the backlog in defeat, I discovered there were some item dupe glitches that hadn't been patched yet, so I cheesed it a bit to max out my battery power and spent some time flying around uncovering the entire lower map--it took a painfully long time even when cheating. I don't envy the task ahead of you.
BOTW has taken me almost 2 months, I imagine TOTK will take 3, my hope was to finish it before next May, which will be 5 years from when I began this journey. Thought it would be nice to have completed it all in 5 years...but we will see.
Not looking forward to it either. But I am looking forward to the new mechanics that TOTK brings.
This was starting to grate on me for BOTW. When I discovered you stopped getting rewards past a certain number of seeds, I was pretty pissed. Why not Rupees? hell, gimmie the maracas.
I actually found that rather charming. That, and the fact that they heavily imply that you're collecting poop. I enjoy it when games have those good-natured jabs at the player.
Korok seeds mostly exist just to get the player to do those little side games. There's tons of them because you really aren't meant to collect them all; you're supposed to run into them to give you something to do as you traverse the map. In the sequel there were some of them that I found annoying, so I opted to not do it after the first couple of them and I didn't really miss out on anything for it.
I get how some people couldn't stand it, though, and perhaps this jab could have been a bit too cruel.
I can understand wanting a buffer so players don't have to find every seed to unlock all their slots, some of those seeds are hard to find or hard to get (getting a rock on top of a building in Lurelin I'm looking at you).
But there's no reason they couldn't give rupees like you suggest. Also only have ~500, that's still plenty of buffer. I think you only need about 450 for all the slots.
And it's like the same 10 types of puzzles for 95% of the seeds. There's a few unique ones that are different but not many of those.
Started Like A Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name yesterday, and beating up random thugs on the street as
KiryuJoryu is just as fun as it was when I first started this series. The new, more technical fighting style with the gadgets is a cool twist, but straight up brutalizing people with Dragon of Dojima style is still immensely satisfying (though I hear they reduced the activation frames on my beloved tiger drop, how dare they). Sure, the locations are just reused from the previous games, but RGG studio has a way of making them fun no matter how many times you've already been there. Even the minigames are still more or less the same but still fun. First thing I did once I got to go back to Osaka was beeline to the golf center, unlocked the expert difficulty in "closest to the hole", and kept playing it til I got an S rank. I plan to crush everyone in darts next, and after that maybe I'll progress the story a bit more.Still no idea how to win mahjong though. You will never get me to like mahjong RGG. Those hands are bullshit.
I don't particularly care for the Yakuza games, but I can definitely understand the appeal. I find it utterly amazing how different the combat can be between the different titles but still be so consistently engaging.
Playing Lost Judgment now. Between 7, this one, Isshin, and the new one that'll be in Hawaii, I'll have a lot of hours in the future. It feels like an afterschool special at first, but once the gov conspiracy plot folds in it becomes quite compelling. And I feel while there's fewer outlandish moments, the characters feel more believable in this offshot series.
I'm playing Fallout 4.
I'd heard so many good things about Fallout over the years, so I'd been meaning to give one or more of them a try. Earlier this year I tried out the original Fallout, but the controls were just too clunky. I couldn't get into it. I probably would have liked it more if I'd played it contemporaneously with its release.
Anyway, I expect I'll be playing Fallout 4 for quite a while. It should be fun.
Then earlier this month Steam had a 75% off sale, so I got Fallout 4 and the DLC for about $10. I've been playing it ever since.
This game is enormous. I've put about 22 hours into it and I've explored just a small sliver of the corner of the map. The base building aspects seem like they could be an enormous time sink all on their own. I keep comparing it to the last game I finished. It took me about 35 hours of gameplay to finish The Talos Principle after getting all of the stars. (I'm planning another playthrough at some point to get all the achievements.) Fallout 4 looks like it'll take many times that to finish.
I'm really enjoying the open world exploration. The base building is decent. I haven't really run into much plot yet, but what I've read online is that the plot is pretty thin. I'm okay with that tradeoff for the rest of the gameplay.
I kind of like the semi-turn-based combat, now that I've gotten used to it. You can just point and shoot like in most FPSes, but you can also hit a key and go into this interface where time slows down drastically, you can see percentage odds of hitting each enemy (and each part of them, e.g. torso or head or arms), and you can plan out your shots before hitting “go” to do it. Each shot takes a certain number of Action Points, so you have a limited number of planned actions before you have to go back to normal time and let your AP regenerate. At first it seemed like a gimmick, but now that I've used it a bit, it adds an interesting dimension to combat. It looks like the RPG character development options would let you do a build that did well with the more traditional FPS approach, but it feels like the game generally expects you to heavily use the pseudo-turn-based combat.
The controls have their own challenges. I'm left-handed and I have my computer set up with the mouse on the left side. Consequently, I'm used to remapping games' controls to focus keyboard actions around the numeric keypad. Fallout 4 mostly lets me do that, but there are quite a few hardcoded things that assume you're using the default WASD controls. So some things have awkward reaches across the keyboard to hit the right keys. I think there's a mod that fixes this, but I haven't yet gotten around to mucking with mods.
I ended up liking Fallout 4 alot more than my original impressions. I recommend increasing the difficulty once you have the hang of things as it spawns more legendary monsters, meaning more legendary loot.
I'm still deeply in The Division 2 on PS4. If anyone else is playing, shout me on here because I'd love to join you.
We're in year 5 of TD2 and they still have content coming, however they have now announced 3 so I expect it'll dwindle. I'm definitely going to need a console upgrade for that. If you love a FPS looter shooter, with great mechanics, I can highly recommend it.
I blitzed through Inscryption a few weekends back. It was a wild ride. If cards games and puzzles are favorable, then just buy this game. Don't research it. Just get it and play it.
I want to play Inscryption because I really like the works of the guy who made it, but I'm so turned off at the idea of it being a card game.
I'll eventually get around to it, but it's going to be a while.
I felt the same way. I bought Inscryption because it looked interesting, but it sat on my hard drive for ages without me playing it. When I finally got around to trying it, the card aspect definitely put me off. I'm terrible at those kind of games.
I am currently playing through Half-Life for the first time. It is interesting because it is nice mix of puzzles and combat and it does have the Valve humor tucked into it. The only thing that I don't really like, and really only gripe that I have, is how floaty Freeman is in the game. It feels like he is on ice skates. Which makes the platform puzzles a lot more harder than they should be. But overall I really like the game. And I had already played Half-Life 2 and its episodes, so I already liked the series.
If you're liking HL1 and enjoyed HL2 then I definitely recommend checking out Black Mesa. Fan remake of HL1 that updates just enough to make it the superior way to play HL1 in 2023 even after the recent Valve update. Especially the Zen parts.
Last night I spent a few hours playing through Star Ocean 4. Boy, it reminded me of why I never finished it when it was still a new game. It throws wave after wave of easy enemies at you that can even go down with the same basic three-hit combo, and then you'll reach the boss and those attacks will basically do nothing. You better hope that you remembered how to do all the skill-based moves like dodging, jumping, blindsides, chain combos, juggling attacks, rush mode, rush combos, and so on. Because the fodder enemies go down if you sneeze at them, you might not be able to practice them without making the long trek back out of the dungeon, through the field map, and back to your ship where there is a battle simulator.
It might not have been that bad if you were playing in a continous run, but if you're like me you are picking this game back up after a long hiatus and most of these things are extremely opaque and difficult to figure out. I think the devs know this because the battle simulator has a painfully in-depth tutorial built into it It's just a shame that they made it so hard to get to. It would be nice if I could just get it from the main menu.
I don't know why I'm complaining about it; this is a Tri-Ace game, and every Tri-Ace game is like this. I think I may have lost sight of what made me such a fan of their work in the first place.
The one game that really stuck out in my mind that I've played recently is an older title from 2012 called DefCon. Basically it's the video game equivalent of the movie WarGames, and you are in charge of both waging and mitigating nuclear war. It's one of the most sobering things I've played in years. The soundtrack is unsettling enough without quickly realizing once the missiles begin flying that millions of people (fictional mind you, but still) are being killed by your actions and that of your "adversary". Just like WarGames, the only winning move is not to play.
Cobalt Core: Holy shit, this game, y'all. This is just as addicting as Slay the Spire. It's pretty similar in that you're choosing a route through a map and you're building a deck. However, you actually pick three characters at the start of a run to be your crew, and each has a different deck and theme, so combining 3 of the 8 characters in different ways gives you a ton of different play styles. Some crew are focused on defense, some are focused on offense, some are focused on putting out drones, etc., and then the card rewards after fights might have cards from any of the three decks in it. It's easy to learn and not that difficult to master, but even though I'm getting a winning run about 50% of the time, I'm still having a lot of fun and would ultimately like to get all the secrets done (when you win a run, you pick one of your crew and unlock one of three memories for them, so you have to get something like 21 or 24 wins to get all the memories). This very quickly became one of my favorite roguelikes. I don't see myself spending 200 hours in it like FTL or Isaac, but after 10 hours, I'm pretty sure I'll be playing this for about 20-30.
Modern Warfare 3 (2023): This game as a whole is hot garbage (and reviews correctly indicate that). The campaign is one of the worst single player experiences I've had in any game, in any genre. Half of the missions are basically roped off areas of the warzone map, complete with you having to participate in warzone mechanics (finding and opening weapon crates). I completed one of these missions in about 2 minutes, in a series where the campaign is usually a fun action film romp with epic set pieces. Utterly disappointing. I never thought I'd miss the crafting mechanics from MW2 (2022), which were also trash, but at least the campaign as a whole was decent.
However, I do find the multiplayer fun. It's nice to have all the maps from the original MW2 (2009) back. They're all remastered to work with the modern games (interior spaces, doors, etc.) and they play well. The multiplayer as a whole plays well... when people aren't exploiting it. I thought MW2's pace was plodding, but there wasn't a lot of movement tech to abuse and the game was generally pretty fair. In MW3, pace is heightened and time to kill is heightened. There are also some exploits with slide canceling and mantle speed (and a perk that increases it) that make your character model near unhittable. Additionally, the higher speed and higher TTK means that melee weapons are ridiculously powerful now (still one hit kill, but the wielders are faster and can't be killed easily). So the multiplayer experience is just bad when there are people in your match exploiting the mechanics, which is a shame since the multiplayer is very good in matches where people are playing the game as expected.
Some examples of game breaking movement tech:
https://vxtwitter.com/modernwarzone/status/1726841567590391941?s=46
https://youtube.com/shorts/6U4eLaweD14?si=1FLRwqICIduQgxv7
https://www.reddit.com/r/ModernWarfareIII/comments/17xbems/tried_playing_terminal_247_and_this_is_what_every/
Hardspace: Shipbreaker: Holy cow, I wish I picked up this game months ago. This is hitting the same notes for me as powerwash simulator, which I also didn't think I would get addicted to. I am very much not a person who normally vibes with games like this, but there's something so satisfying about it. For those unaware, basically you're just a space ship salvager and the gameplay is just finding safe ways to dismantle ships (they have hazards like fuel lines, electrical lines, and reactors that you all have to deal with) and deposit the various parts and materials in one of three deposit areas. The game world has a fun, but unsettling vibe. You basically sold your rights as a person to LYNX for a job (reading the lengthy terms of service your character has to sign was a fun time) and are now paying off a huge amount of debt that they saddle you with immediately. I'm not that far, but the rest of the story seems to be other salvagers talking to you about life, the company, what they want to do when they get out of their, essentially, prison, etc. I'm guessing the story is not gonna be anything to write home about, but the gameplay is relaxing, yet exciting when you find a nice puzzle of components.
Warhammer 40k Boltgun: KILL THE HERETICS. DESTROY. I MUST DRINK THEIR BLOOD IN SERVICE OF THE EMPEROR. This game is fucking awesome. I love retro shooters and this is giving me the exact power trip I want, of being a near invincible space marine (except in boss fights, holy shit they fuck you up) and stomping out heretics. It's a very fun time and is gonna get me to pick up a whole mess of other retro shooters, which seem to be having a bit of a renaissance right now.
Fortnite: After being unsatisfied with CoD (which I detailed above, lol), I tried this out since I still want a brain-off shooter I can enjoy, and there seems to be a shortage of arena shooters like CoD right now. Honestly, I'm having a great time. I'm not a huge fan of battle royale games (I played like 200 hours of PUBG when that was popular and that burned me out), but this has been fun. I like the lack of mechanical density, it allows for simpler fights that really just come down to who is aiming better (obviously there are still some things like grenades and rifts that can turn the tide).
I'm also enjoying Cobalt Core a lot and I'm surprised it's not more popular (although that will probably change soon). Aside from the fun gameplay, I was surprised by the high quality of the writing. There are a ton of exchanges between characters depending on who's in your ship, which cards or abilities are in effect, and what enemies you're fighting. The dialogue rarely repeats and a lot of it is genuinely laugh-out-loud funny, or at least endearing. Reaching the "true" ending requires a lot of playthroughs, but uncovering more dialogue and story is keeping me motivated.
Yes, I absolutely LOVE the dialogue in the game. It's witty, funny, and light-hearted. It's a perfect compliment to how cute the game is.