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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.
Helldivers 2: This is the most fun I've had with a co-op game since L4D2. I know it's early, but it's already a GOTY contender for me. It respects your time, it respects your wallet, and it has the model to be the best live service yet.
Path of Exile: My favourite game. There's a new league coming up in a few weeks, trying out various leaguestarts to see what I want to play.
Balatro: I love deck building roguelites, and this is one of the most addicting ones I've ever played. "Just one more hand"
Remnant 2: Started playing through it with a buddy recently. Gunplay is solid, maps are fun to explore, enemies are interesting, builds are varied, and environments are cool. Would absolutely recommend to anyone who wants Dark Souls with guns, especially since it's on Gamepass.
Has PoE made any major changes to loot distribution in the past five years or so? I quit because of "off-screening" being the meta, which disincentivized people to actually play co-op. Now I check in every few years to see if that's changed, because I absolutely love the skill tree and socket system!
PoE has changed pretty significantly in the past 5 years, yeah. The biggest change is probably the Atlas passive tree - it's a whole second passive tree you unlock when you reach endgame, which lets you customize and fine tune your end game experience - you prioritize content you want to do, making it harder and more rewarding, while also having the ability to straight up block content you don't want to do.
Group play is still in a weird place, as tend to be the case with ARPGs. I play with a group of 4 and we always run the campaign together, but play solo once we reach maps (occasionally helping each other with bosses, bricked maps, etc). There are builds that shine in group play (like aura stackers, curse bots, etc), but they tend to be more on the expensive side.
Offscreening is still possible, but they've put a lot more emphasis on defenses. Unless you're playing certain bow builds, the old mantra of "ignore defenses, kill them before they kill you" doesn't work as well anymore
I've chilled on Balatro a bit. I've been clean for about a week now, though I still have 45 hours in total, ha. I'm still enjoying the game, I'm just trying to play anything else for a bit before Balatro ruins my life, lol.
The main thing I've been playing is Minecraft and on a server that I created (both physically and set up the software side for)! I talked about it a bit in last week's thread, but ultimately it's been running smoothly. I got my backup script working and I'm now pretty confident in updating server settings (like how I updated the server side render distance this morning). About the game itself, though, my god how this game has changed. I played a bit during beta and early release and it was never really my thing (and to be fair, there wasn't much you could exactly do in the early days). I never really touched it again until last year, when I joined a server with some friends. They were power gamers, though, and had farms for everything set up within a day, so I didn't really feel like I was contributing as a new player and bounced off.
With this current server, my friends are a lot more chill and we're all taking our time and the vibe is so much better. I personally landscaped the majority of our player town and it just feels great to undertake a big project like that and see beautiful results! I definitely "get" the game now. Now that we built our houses, farms, and town, we're breaking off to find the different biomes and bring back building materials not native to our spawn areas and exploration has been a blast, I really like how the world generation works and how many little secrets there are.
In iRacing I've been practicing for the Sebring 12 hour, which is going well. However, my old wheel broke and I didn't have time to troubleshoot it or repair it with Sebring looming, so I bought a new wheel, a Moza R12 and Moza KS steering wheel (to be fair, it was time to upgrade anyways). This thing is amazing! I was using a Fanatec Clubsport 2.5 base before, which is a belt drive base, with a Fanatec formula rim and my new one is direct drive and it makes so much of a difference! The feedback actually feels realistic now instead of being vaguely similar to how a car might give you feedback. I have some track experience, so the new setup immediately felt more correct than the old setup and just added that much more to the immersion.
When I bought that Fanatec setup, it was early/mid 2020, so right before the sim racing craze happened, so I bought that (just the base, not the wheel rim) for around $500 in 2020 and it feels 15 years obsolete now, as I got my new base for $560 and you can even get entire sets (base, wheel rim, pedals) that are direct drive for $500-$600 now (for lower tier direct drive bases). It's honestly insane how far tech and competition in this industry has come in 3ish years.
Besides Sebring, I'm trying to hold myself accountable to doing at least one race a week in two different series so I can practice more. I really want to improve my driving and I won't do it by just running one race every other week and an endurance race every other month. So I'm committing to Indycar Open on Monday nights and am also deciding on a sports car league (probably driving GT3 in IMSA, but I also ran a GT4 race over the weekend and still really enjoy the Cayman). I'm vastly improved from where I started as a driver, but I'm starting to hit that wall where I really need more volume of races and probably coaching to improve, I really need to work on that next step from going from "good" to "great" as a driver so that I can start competing in higher tier leagues. I'd love to not be the weak link in our team endurance races sometimes. I know and accept my role as a consistent and safe driver, which is just as important as raw speed during a race, but I really want to close that 0.5 seconds a lap or so gap I have to my teammates, but for anybody that knows racing, after you plateau in skill for a long time, trying to become several tenths faster in general can be incredibly difficult, so this will likely be a longer term goal for this and next year, rather than something I can accomplish in 2 weeks.
I was just about to post about iRacing, having never seen it in one of these threads!
I've been racing on and off for 10 years , and iRacing (+ simracing in general) has never been in a better place. The long-awaited rain update has finally been released - to much acclaim from real-life drivers because how realistic it is.
The amount of high quality work the iRacing devs put into constantly improving and updating things really shows what a team that cares about their product can do. For me, it makes the subscription more worth it than any single game.
I always recommend simracing to anybody who follows motorsport. The cost barrier can be a bit high, but it's soooo much fun and really makes you appreciate the pros a lot more.
Rain, is so, so good (and the weather system, in general, I had a great foggy race, too). I've not done wheel to wheel racing in the rain IRL (yet?), but I have autocrossed in the rain a few times and they pretty much nailed how a race car feels in the rain (though obviously a GT3 or GTP car is much, much faster and trickier than an STS class Miata like I drove, ha).
I'm sure your wheel feels a bit better than my G27 from many moons ago but Assetto Corsa on my Index with my G27 is still enough bliss for me.
I finished Advance Wars 2 late last week and have now moved on to sporadically playing Advance Wars: Dual Strike; so far, I love the fact that it moves much, much faster. I actually skipped playing AW2 on my actual GBA, because enemy moves, battle animations and everything else are just so slow. I ended-up mostly playing on various emulation devices I have just so I could fast forward through the enemy turn and battle animations. So the fact that in DS, they're not only much speedier, but I can also skip them entirely is a god send. Otherwise, one thing I don't like is that the sprites are incredibly small; where in AW2 everything was pretty readable, DS can take another half second or so to read, because the sprites are small and appear clipped.
Another poster last week reminded me that I had Radiant Historia: Perfect Chronology on my 3DS, so I fired that up and have played about an hour. So far, the combat is neat, the story is so-so, coupled with anime tropes between the characters and the voice acting, which isn't bad, just tropy as hell. My wife has been making fun of me while listening to me play it and I'm tempted to switch to the DS version for lack of voice acting, but also just because I kind of like my DS more than my 3DS; not to mention, I have a DSi XL, so the bigger screen is nice. Plus, then AW:DS would look sharper when I play it, as I'm currently playing on 3DS, since I'd rather have one system than switch between the two...
Also continuing my playthrough of Gothic; I'm about 8-hours in so far and it's just so lovely and janky. I grew-up on EuroJank, so it's nice to go back through a game I haven't played in 20-years and remember very little of. It definitely has some quality of life issues, but by and large, they're not bothering me, but again, maybe that's simply because I grew-up on this stuff.
I played Radiant Historia a long time ago, and I remember going from enjoying the combat to loving it once you get the character Aht in your party.
I never played the remaster because I didn't like the changes to the fairly distinct art style of the original, so I'm also bummed to hear that the voice acting is bad too.
The combat is definitely pretty cool so far, I'm enjoying it having played just under 2-hours so far.
The art style is different, but I guess there's a DLC to change them back to the old style. That said, the new art apparently has different expressions. I did play about 20 minutes or so of the original on the DS, just to see if I liked the differences and while I liked the art, it wasn't really a game changer for me.
Also, it's not that the VO is bad, actually it's quite good. The characters all have distinct voices and it's all very well acted, it's more that it's just cheesy in that way anime tends to be. Neither my wife nor I are anime fans in the slightest, so it's easy to goof on. All that said, I think I'm going to stick with the 3DS version primarily because of the VO, as I feel like it really adds something, given how well done it is.
Iirc there's a setting to disable battle animations for Advance Wars 1 & 2. Under Options > set Visual to No Visual. In case you ever want to go back and replay some war rooms or something.
Ah ok, never looked, thanks!
Just picked up Cyberpunk 2077 over the weekend as part of the steam sale & have been enjoying it so far. Finished ACT 1 (which really seemed like more of a prologue to me, but I guess I already knew how ACT 1 was going to end - if I hadn’t known going in, I think it would’ve been a better experience. The story beats still hit well, and there was still a few surprising moments (but I can’t figure out how to get a spoiler tag to work so leaving that out for now). Luckily I don’t really know anything storyline-wise about what comes next, so I’m looking forward to the rest of it.
So far, the world feels a little flat (can’t interact with most NPCs or random stalls), but the aesthetics are fantastic so not too much to complain about there.
The gunplay feels good to me, I really liked the whole sequence of breaking out of the penthouse in the hotel - started trying to be stealthy and then quickly that stopped working because I forgot that security cameras would alert the guards, but the stealth takedowns are satisfying.
My biggest gripes so far are the T-Posing NPCs in cutscenes for the first like 5 seconds of the cutscene before they actually start doing their walking animation correctly, and the fact that I’m so bad at driving in games like that I feel the need to walk everywhere or fast travel.
The motorcycles are a lot more responsive and easier to drive, IMO.
Spoiler button
Text inside
Thanks!
I apologise. I did not read that well enough.
This could've been said nicer when it pertains a game that released four years ago. Even if I'm being generous with the rework date and say six months.. it's been a while already.Did you miss this part of OPs comment?
AugustusFerdinand was just helping OP out by explaining how to do it.
I totally did. Edited.
Yes! Your words about the world are exactly why Cyberpunk didn't really enrapture me. I played about 35 hours, but haven't gone back to me because the world just feels sort of bland and there's this disconnect about it, where it is so high fidelity but the little things like NPCs being flat or buildings I can't go in, that kind of thing, really rips me out of the world when I encounter it (which is often).
Frankly, playing Gothic feels like a more believable world because NPCs have routines, at the very least. It's 23 years old, yet it feels much more immersive than Cyberpunk when you're just roaming the world.
I played through cyberpunk back when it released, and then again just a few weeks ago. The game is miles and miles better than where it started with the 2.0 release. If you didn't get phantom liberty, then I'd advise getting it if you can. It adds a lot to the story and gameplay in a way that helps the city feel more fleshed out.
But yeah, glad you're enjoying so far. Always interests me to hear what a new player thinks about this one.
I was assuming Phantom Liberty was post-main story, but after looking a bit more that doesn’t seem to be the case. I will likely go ahead and pick it up - I don’t think I’m past the expected starting point for it then.
I've been playing Cyberpunk as well for the past month, having wanted more of the world after watching Edgerunners.
I agree that the world is a bit flat at times. Edgerunners had me more immersed in Night City than the game has managed to thus far. I haven't had the issue with NPC T-posing though, I think that would have ruined the experience quite a bit for me.
The gunplay/gameplay mechanics feel good to me as well, it's nothing revolutionary or anything, but it does the job and it's satisfying to blast some gonks and send some quickhacks their way. I didn't like how the melee felt during the tutorial though, so I've avoided that as much as possible.
I think where Cyberpunk 2077 shines for me is in it's storytelling, especially in the more directed stories. Some of the major sidequests had me very invested (don't want to mention too much here to spoil your enjoyment) and that's what has had me coming back to play more.
Oh yeah, and driving - I think most cars handle like crap. Another comment mentioned that motorcycles are easier to drive and I agree, so I mostly drive a motorcycle if I need to get somewhere and can't/don't want to fast travel.
Edgerunners was phenomenal IMO (assuming the Netflix show, not sure if there’s something else sharing the name).
I’ve always been a fan of the cyberpunk genre since getting into Shadowrun (both the RPG and the games Shadowrun: Returns & Shadowrun: Hong Kong).
Luckily I don’t get super immersed and so the T-Posing didn’t throw me off, was more of a “ah, so there are still bugs like this around.”
I really so like cyberpunk-esque stories, so I’m glad to know that the side quests are decent. Looking forward to playing more this week.
Yes, I agree about Edgerunners! (I did mean the Netflix show)
I have a soft spot for cyberpunk as well. Shadowrun (the games) is something I've seen around many many times before but never engaged with, so maybe that's something to look into next time I'm looking for a new cyberpunk experience then!
Still playing Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. I'm about ~25hrs in. Blind playthrough, with a completionist bent. I'm not aiming for like a perfect 100%, but I'm definitely doing all the sidequests.
I'm in the second region (Junon), and I'm getting a bit annoyed at a couple of things: open world repetitiveness and minigames.
I finished one region and did all the things, then went to the next region...and have to those things all over again. I'm reminded of Assassin's Creed (at least the first one), where every town/area, you have to do the same missions, just different targets and environments. Or maybe Far Cry where there's a lot of exploration repetitiveness.
Same goes for minigames. I don't mind a minigame here and there. But I feel like there are so many. There's the card game, "Queen's Blood." Then "Fort Condor" makes an appearance (based on the original FF7 Fort Condor game). There's a Piano minigame. In Junon, there's some kind of "Fall Guys" minigame. Capturing chocobos is a mini puzzle. Why are there so many?
It all just makes the game feel really grindy, which is pretty typical for open world games. And I say this as someone who generally has no issue grinding in MMOs or to "level up" in JRPGs. Sure, the game, for the most part, doesn't require doing all/any of these. I probably could just go main scenario quest to main scenario quest. But then how short would this game be? And would I be under-leveled by not doing them?
The upside of all these sidequests is that many do provide lore. The world of FF7 is an interesting one, especially this remake version. Why did Junon and Shinra go to war? What kind of nation was Junon in the first place? So on and so forth. The answers to these questions and others like it at least provide a decent payoff some of the time.
Idk. This is why I don't play many open world games. And if I do, why I quickly put them down. I'm not a JRPG purist; I like seeing how JRPGs are modernizing and catering to a new audience. But I feel like this swings too far towards western open-world RPG. I thought FFXVI had a more reasonable amount of sidequests and things to do. This feels like too many.
Oh well, I'll keep playing. I'm annoyed, but I'm not hating it.
I mean, I hope I don't come across as insensitive, but why are you forcing yourself to play the game with a completionist mindset if you don't enjoy side content? It sounds like you're just forcing yourself to so something that you actively dislike. When I played XVI, I did like 2 or 3 sidequests early on and quickly realized that they wouldn't really get any more ambitious, so I stopped. I would imagine VIIR side quests are no different.
Why not just play critical path and only dip into side content when you're really interested?
A lot of the lore is revealed through the sidequests. And like I said, I enjoy lore. Some of the stuff I'll just dip into as you say, like the Queen's Blood card game or piano game. I don't think there's any lore reveal stuff there. At least I haven't seen any.
I suppose the towers don't give any big lore reveals. Some of the explo/intel stuff does, but like the fiends and Chadley's simulation don't. So those I could give up. The jobs I'm mostly fine with (as they tend to give the lore reveals)
You're not wrong; at the end of the day, I am forcing myself to do all of this. I play FFXIV; I don't do EVERY quest in that game. Just the main quests and other important "blue quests" that could help me out or open up new content. The vast majority of sidequests I'll never do. So why am I doing it here? Just because it's Final Fantasy 7? Idk.
I am 35h ahead of you, and doing a completionist run, so I may give you an insight (I've hear it first on the FF7R thread on ResetEra) : they're palate cleanser after heavy story beats / set pieces.
It's a remarkably similar structure to the one of the Yakuza games (story, then open-world with sidequests, then story rinse and repeat), except you get a new area each time.
And let me tell you: there's a lot more minigames. And apart from Queen's Blood, there's very few reuse (even the horrible stealth chocobo section disappear for a while). In fact, I would flip the script by saying that the game is very generous with minigames. I enjoy most of them so I don't really mind, by most of their reward are accessible via other means. That being said the sidequests (green) do change the bond with your companion, so it's not a bad idea to complete them.
Traversal gets a bit more interesting after Junon ; each region has its own traversal gimmick. But it's true that tower unlucky is reminiscent of Ubi games, and in a bad way. My advice would be to explore without interacting with them till the end of the chapter. Just wander around and discover the various interest point in your own, and only use the tower of you really cannot find what's left for you to find.
Broken Queen's Blade strategy that can you get you quite far into the game
My strat is based on the mind flayer ability to continuously insta kill your own low level card. If you combine this with Midgardsommr (initially) or Tomberry (later on in the game), plus spawning cards such as mandragora, then you can easily rack up a line with 20+ points on it, enough to obliterate most other opponents.
Appreciate the tips!
I've definitely been doing it the other way around. Like I got to Junon, went to town to kinda "start" the area off, then went straight into sidequests. I'm almost down with the sidequests in Junon, so perhaps in the next region, I'll do it how you're suggestion. So far, Junon has gone faster than the Grasslands, which is good.
Do tell me how it'll go !
l started doing this (ignoring the towers) around Cosmo Canyon, and I found myself paying more attention to the actual world, but it's doesn't magically turns it into BotW/TotK Hyrule either.
Otherwise in doing the same thing as you, as in trying to clear the sidequest first.
I just started Cassette Beasts at long last because we're traveling. I was hooked in the first five minutes, and have been consistently hooked since. I went in blind and didn't expect it to be an isekai-type setting/story, or for the player and NPCs to transform into beasts instead of using them. Currently battling a third captain, but we're about to head out to dinner so it's on pause.
Overall it's pretty refreshing!
I played this on Game Pass a few months ago and loved it. Would have paid full price it's a unique game. Have some gripes near the end but nothing crazy and it was very interesting and fun and the soundtrack is so cool, I still think about it.
I just finished playing Bus Driver, a 2007 simulator game from the same developers as Euro/American Truck Simulator. I went for the Gold Edition, which has extra levels and buses compared to the standard version. Basically, you drive your bus along a set route and have to stop at each bus stop to deliver passengers to their destination while obeying traffic rules.
There are 36 routes in total (6 tiers of 6 routes), each of which takes about 10 minutes to complete, although the later ones can take longer – the final one takes almost an hour and goes around the entire map. I liked that the map was varied; you drive through rain and snow, on hills and in the city. Overall, the game is quite easy, although following all traffic rules and arriving on time is basically impossible for the first five tiers. One thing I really didn't like was the fact that traffic lights are only green for a very short time, so sometimes when you're approaching a traffic light you have to stop well in advance even if it's just turned green. So no matter what you do, you'll lose points for either running a red light, overbraking, or not arriving on time. The points system is very forgiving, though, and as long as you're not completely reckless, you'll be fine.
The game is a bit older, and you can see that some mechanics haven't been worked out yet. Graphically, it's fine for what it is. I liked the intro music and enjoyed the general atmosphere, and I can see myself replaying some levels again from time to time for fun.
I've watched a few Mario Maker streamers' videos on YouTube for years as either background noise or something easy to follow and not think about too much. So following the recent news and countdown to beating all Super Mario Maker 1 levels, I joined Team 0% for a bit and played though a number of Mario Maker 2 levels that haven't been cleared yet.
I don't have the skills for the technically difficult levels but I can put up with the kind of nonsense that no one better has come across yet and just takes a little grinding to get through, like dark levels where you can't see ahead. Having online level viewers available so you can see what the entire stage looks like first (including hidden blocks that might be used to troll players) allows me to pick out ones I think I'll have a chance at finishing rather than blindly trying something uncleared without knowing what's in store for me.
While I've never been super into playing Mario games myself it has been a part of my life from a young age so I find it nice to be part of a community effort rallying for a cause, even if that cause includes playing a lot of terribly-designed platforming levels.
Finished Jedi Survivor this past weekend. I really liked it. Managed to 100% it too (minus achievements). Definitely an improvement on the first one. Having fast travel was so awesome. I liked trying out the new stances, but ultimately traditional worked best for me. Played on PC and did get a crash almost every session. The huge light rays seemed to be a big cause of that for obvious reasons. Aside from that performance was pretty good.
Just started Sifu. I'm enjoying it a lot so far. I like that you get thrown right into it. On regular difficulty it's challenging enough, but not punishing. The combos aren't too hard go pick up. I'm not into fighting game too much, but I can keep up here.
Once I'm done with that, I'll probably pick up Mario Wonder. Heard that was good and it will be nice to have something on my Switch to play again
I've been playing Helldivers 2, exclusively with a friend.
While I can totally enjoy a game of Deep Rock Galactic in solo or with randoms, I have absolutely no desire to launch Hellldivers by myself. DRG is something I enjoy casually (usually in "Danger 3" out of 5), but IMO Helldivers really shines when it's chaos... which is only fun and less draining (and frustrating) when you're laughing with a friend as he has to mercy kill you because the game is bugging and you cannot move after opening a valve or something.
More of a game-making tool than a game, the first alpha of Picotron was released 3 days ago.
In short, it's a "fantasy workstation", a sort of retro self-contained OS (it still runs on top of your "real" OS) that you can hack and create games with in Lua. Kinda hard to describe as there isn't anything quite like it. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, except regular users of PICO-8 or TIC-80, because it's a real alpha 0.1 version: it's broken, buggy, lacks any real documentation and a ton of features... but if you know what you're getting into, it's fun and I can definitely see its potential.
If you want something solid to teach yourself (or your kids!) programming, go take a look at PICO-8 ($15, awesome community) or TIC-80 (free OSS, smaller community).
Totally agree about Helldivers 2. I've been playing it with a group of friends too, and we've been having a blast. The accidental (and sometimes intentional) team kills have been hilarious. And I also love how everything can go from relatively calm, just clearing an enemy camp with ease, to turning into absolute chaos within seconds whenever bug breaches or drop pods suddenly appear next to us. Which then ends up making everyone panic, and often forces us to split up as we're all just trying our best (and often failing) to survive. But like you, I also have absolutely no desire to play it solo, since without the team element and chaos that the harder difficulties brings, it would just be a bit of a painful grind.
In my PlayStation platinum challenge, I’ve come to Odin Sphere Leifthrasir. I was curious about it because I tried 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim a while back and was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it and found it more than the sum of its parts, and I thought I’d see what else Vanillaware had in its back catalog.
OSL is a very pretty game, it’s like playing a beautiful picture book, but one filled with some… Interesting character designs, angst-ridden protagonists, and a combat system that I’m kinda exhausted by. I rarely find myself wanting to play for more than 20-30 minutes at a time before I need to do something else.
Plus, to my understanding there are 5 protagonists to play as. I finished the first one’s story and have started the second, and already I see that I’m basically doing the same thing, just in a different order and with a different weapon. I’m hoping I’ve got more to look forward to than three more playthroughs of “Okay, NOW this character has a reason to visit the forest” or else I think I might be in for a bit of a slog
LAN weekend with the guys this past weekend. We played:
Last Epoch - Will give this another shot solo as it didn't work well for us this weekend as we are/have settled a little too much in our routines for an ARPG. One of us is an ARPG pro that has already played it and can pretty much blast through most ARPGs with his eyes closed, used to be near the top of ARPG season ladders, speed runs, etc. One of us sucks/thinks they suck at ARPGs and needs to stop to read all the stats and all the gear to figure it out even at low levels where gear doesn't really matter and is just is-this-number-bigger swapping. One of us is in the middle of the other two. So fun wasn't being had and we stopped playing.
Baldur's Gate 3 - I've played this solo, finishing the campaign in about 120 hours, intend to play it again when a major update/DLC brings me back. One of the guys had never played it, one of the guys had played it a little (20-30 hours). The guy that hadn't ever played it didn't like the DnD style of being limited to what he can do by spell slots and needing to long rest so often. Which I think is a fair criticism as unless you're out of your various ability slots you don't really have any indicator that it's time to rest since there is no passage of time in the game itself. So we hadn't even done much and needed to take rests in order to actually play the game. BG3 is also not the most stable game and crashes were too frequent on our LAN play, since the save state is based on the host and the saves don't occur often, we more than once lost 30-60 minutes of progress which killed desire to continue playing.
For the King II - This ended up being the main game of the weekend. We played and enjoyed the first game on a previous LAN weekend and we all enjoy roguelikes. Took a minute for us to get back into the swing of it, but did get pretty far in the first act before getting wiped. Which was well timed as it was nearing the end of our LAN weekend anyway and back to normal lives as everyone packed up and headed home.
ARGPs to tend to be like that. If everyone isn't on the same pace, then not everyone will be having fun. definitely do give LE another shot though, it's a fantastic ARPG.
Balatro
I started grinding difficulty levels (aka stakes). I tried for quite a while to beat the hardest one (Golden Stake) with the Spectral deck but so far have not been able to do it. The reduced hand size of the final stake feels like a big jump...and more grindy than I could handle for now. I decided to take a break and play some of the decks I unlocked by beating other stakes. One of them lets you see more planet cards in the shop, and as luck would have it, on my first run with the deck I got the joker that makes planet cards free. I think I ended the run with every hand leveled up to 8 or more, full house was somewhere at or above 12. I still have 2 jokers to unlock, one from having $400 and one from scoring a 100M hand. Best I've done so far is ~$150 and ~50M.
So, while I feel like I still have fun things to experience, and I think getting to know the nuances of each of the decks will be interesting, I am a little bit worried about the endgame. Golden stake seems a little too brutal (though maybe I just don't understand enough yet).
Celeste
I had trouble getting the mod tools working on Steam Deck with Heroic Launcher so I bought it on Steam (on sale for ~$7CAD). Still had one problem I needed to fix to get it working. Was able to find a video guide that showed a config file I needed to modify...the same fix might have worked on Heroic as well if I had known about it...oh well.
Started playing the Strawberry Jam mod levels. There's a little overworld for them; honestly I would prefer if it wasn't there. Some of the levels I have really enjoyed, some not so much. As to be expected! Looking forward to playing more.
Magic: the Gathering
I bought a bunch of sleeves and have been re-sleeving up some of my old Modern decks so I have a bigger variety to play casually with friends / my brother. Since a bunch of my decks have overlapping card requirements I bought some redundant copies of some inexpensive cards and made some budget replacements for lands in the decks I consider lower priority. I have been thinking about buying a bunch of proxy fetchlands/shocklands for my overflow decks.
I stopped playing in sanctioned events after Modern Horizons 2 (2021). MH3 is coming this June, and I assume the format will be destroyed and remade again. I think it would take a miracle to get me back in, but I will still be reading the cards and seeing what they put out there.
I agree with your thoughts for the Golden Stake, I got through it with full RNG on Checkered Deck which I personally feel like is the easiest deck to pilot in general, but I don't think I could reproduce it consistently. I think it really messed with my thought process about the game in general, since it really just locked me into getting flushes lol. I'll go through the spectral deck next! though the new deck that Golden Stake unlocks is actually really funny imo.
I was playing a lot of the Spectral deck to give me higher odds of collecting the 5 legendary jokers. But I agree the pull towards Flush.deck is strong!
I saw a guide on reddit about beating golden stake with every deck using...High Card strategy. Basically you keep retrying til you can clear blind 1 in 1 hand and are able to get 1 of a certain subset of of around 30 jokers... Then with jokers so good it doesn't matter what your hand is. I realized now that one of the best chip jokers is Stuntman and I don't have that one unlocked yet. I think Burnt Joker is the real icon of the strat though, lets you upgrade High Card every round.
ahhh yeah High Card feels like it'd be really strong when you're so limited. I think my winning Golden Stake deck used a Burned Joker and the 4 Finger Joker to just guarantee a flush every time. I think the one thing Balatro doesn't have for me, that I really enjoyed about Slay the Spire, was a desire to play at higher difficulties. I loved regularly grinding A20H decks and it felt like it was more of an expression of skill, while Golden Stake feels more like an expression of how well you can get the RNG properly. I could definitely grind the lower stakes much easier though at least, but it doesn't scratch that particular itch as much.
I got into some gameboy stuff recently. Super Mario Land is genuinely pretty good.
Super Mario Land is great! The second one expands a ton and is also worth checking out (introduces Wario as the antagonist).
Yes! I modded my 2DS XL and have been playing a few GB and GBC games. I played SML again for the first time in years, and managed to go all the way through it on muscle memory (I'm very bad at platformers, and the game is pretty short, so this isn't some awesome boast haha) If you play it on Retro Arch, there is a retro achievements set to make it more interesting. Stuff like beating worlds without losing a life, collecting lots of extra lives, beating scores, or collecting coins in hidden locations.
I should play SML2 too, because I remember it as being superior back in the day - those big "SNES-style" sprites must've convinced me - but I reckon the original game was more fun and might have aged better.
I recently opened Logistical back up to slowly chip away at a few of the modules I own. I've been playing it on and off for years and enjoy it when I do play it. I'm planning on buying the big Logistical 3 Earth game when I have some extra spending money but I don't think that will happen anytime soon.
Advance Wars by Web has still been fun but this week I've had less time to play.
I watched Majular’s retrospective on the Shadow Tower series and it got me thinking. Now that I have been able to get into King’s Field (which I played after his retrospective on that series), maybe I would finally be able to get into From’s newer games?
And so I shuffled through my library and pulled out the game that disappointed me when I tried it the first time: Bloodborne.
And you know what? I think I get it a bit more now. It still feels very wrong, though; the third person perspective and speed of combat feels weird still. I find myself fighting the camera a lot, which is kind of weird.
I'm currently working on Silent Hill. I haven't had too much fun with it, but it isn't completely terrible either. I just dislike how dated it is (25 years old) and it's more of "run around until you find something to let you progress further." I'm also working very very slowly on No More Heroes on the Switch, which is decent. I tried playing it twice on the Wii back in the day, but I just didn't get far. Finally, I started and paused Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch a few weeks ago. I really hope to see that one through to the end this time.
Silent Hill benefits from supporting the atmosphere. Turn the lights off, isolate yourself, don't look at your phone or anything, and really try to figure out what's going on. The second game is widely regarded as the best of the series but honestly I think the first four are all pretty good.
I got the new Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown and I am in love with it. It's truly an incredible metroidvania. The map design is incredible, the story is decent but engaging, but the combat is awesome. It's surprisingly deep and has a lot of risk/reward stuff that makes it fun even late into the game. Plus the bosses are really cool. It's dripping with style and honestly a must-play for fans of 2D adventure sidescrollers.
Abandonware website has some great old games. I'm currently playing call of duty history Channel Civil War. Super fun and silly.
I finally actually beat Receiver 2 the other day.
Spoiler button
The leadup to the ending was intense, but ultimately underwhelming, tbh. I was expecting some super hard boss fight before 'ascension' or whatever, but they decided to go for a 4th wall break instead. Still felt good to get there though. Not gonna lie, my heart was pounding while listening to the final tape, holding this crappy cowboy gun, half-expecting a giant robot to come swooping around the corner. Was left wanting more... so yeah, I would love a Receiver 3.Been playing friends vs friends for the last couple of days. It has charm but not alot of meat on its bones. You also need to have at least somewhat decent aim to enjoy this game. Deckbuilding aspect is fine but has less depth than I might have hoped. Leveling up cards is needlessly grindy but tolerably so. Matchmaking is fast but not very balanced. System requirements are light but not as light as they should be. Game is cheap especially during spring sale. Worth checking out if you like pvp shooters and dont mind rng.
I've gone back to Yu-Gi-Oh: Master Duel after... more than a year I believe? I dunno, been a long time (around tax dragon time, far as big things go). It reminded me in record time why I love and hate YGO: there's a lot of ways to play, many decks you can make... and the power differential is at least on par with Warframe. Think the only seriously close fight I had was the first Plunder Patroll duel in solo mode with my sub-optimal even back then, fairly sure they had support added but I didn't bother with anything, P.U.N.K. deck. Everything else was pretty one sided.
Glad to see my main had some support added (just 2 cards, but still useful ones), and that they finally added some quality of life to the effect texts (Effects are highlighted in relevant context, single-use effects shows if they have been activated this turn).
Meanwhile, Arknights' main story (+ CV-8, why does he gets teleportation in the second phase?) is reminding me that I am an idiot and that Eckogen and Kyo are mandatory watching.
And World of Warships: Legends, just two things:
In the end, our destroyers had no help when detected, leading to them dying real fast, after which the battleships kept cowering behind what little cover we had (and us cruisers would have a lifespan when detected measured in seconds), and pretty much everyone was caught in a crossfire as the match ended 2-9.
Secondary battery does chip damage at best, with the only ones dedicated to it being the German battleships (and a singular USN battleship, nothing in the ussr lineup iirc). It was about as expected as that implies so my own main battery did shoot at it too, either way I had that last kill.
I nearly got a 6th kill too! Too bad we hit the point limit before we could kill the Izmail...
Also, both were done in the same ship, either back-to-back or with just one game in between them. You lose some, you win some.
My main game for a while was Asgard’s Wrath 2 which I backed away close to the end because there is a sequence near the end where you have to make a number of inputs very accurately and since this is VR my arms will get really tired if I try to do it many times in a row so some days I will make a few attempts and one of the days I’ll make it.
I put the NVIDIA Shield on the TV upstairs and relegated the XBOX One to the guest room downstairs and cleaned out most of the games that don’t work because I don’t have XBOX gold or it needs a dead service or such. (I have a lot of reasons to be sick of the XBOX, the most serious is that Jellyfin doesn’t work properly on it.)
On the Shield I’ve had two “causal” games going, one is Pac-Man 256 which is a good sequel to Pac-Man, as much as the Shield is a great Android TV it kinda fails in the gaming department so I installed retroarch so my son and I have been playing Advance Wars 2 in multiplayer mode handing the controller back and forth. (The controller is touchy for Pac-Man 256, if I really wanted to do better I would push harder on the D-Pad but then I think I’d get blisters on my fingers.)
I have a powerful gaming PC downstairs so I use Sunshine + Moonlight to play games on either the XBOX or Shield so I will probably play something from my PC but I still have an backlog of games on the XBOX I’m interested in. I also have a backlog of VR games for the Meta Quest and might start Demeter which is one of the first AR games for it.
Usual staples of Guild Wars 2 (our Diablo style ARPG of choice) and Forza Horizon 5.
Was waiting for the Steam Spring sale to see if Radio Free Europa went on its usual discount, and it actually went a little lower so that was nice, especially since my partner and I were each going to get a copy. It's a tough little space shooter roguelite, and we've got some hours on it already, learning the ropes, and I have some lengthy feedback to get posted to the dev, since they're still around and active with the game.
Spent some time checking out Crew 3 Motorfest (aka Crew Horizon), since it was doing a free weekend and we have Crew 1 and 2 (soon to be just 2, since Ubisoft jerks are killing C1, probably because it still makes a lot of C2 and 3 look bad). Sadly, C3 kinda sucks, but it's a little hard to judge since it willfully puts its worst foot forward. It's definitely annoying, though, which will be a shame if we end up playing it. I mean, eventually we'll want a new face around for race day and C3 will be like $5... Pretty much what got C2 in the door. We like arcade racing, and what few options we get anymore always involve a lot of things we have to put up with for some new races. Wish we could get more without all the crap. Bad enough we're just driving plain cars nowadays instead of something like Blur. Of course, C3 may have a harder time getting in the door with this level of mediocrity if we just keep playing custom Horizon races, since those are much more substantial this edition.
I am playing CK II once again (yes, I know thath 3rd one exists) - I think I am slightly addicted to this game. This time I am playing with Geheimnisnacht (Warhammer) mod. Cool, but little unstable.
I tried Fire Emblem: Three Houses and was initially disappointed.
I have enjoyed Fire Emblem games for a long time, both the turn-based strategy and hack n’ slash versions. This one is a turn-based strategy but it was developed by Koei Tecmo which is the global leader in hack n’ slash.
I was hoping for some good combat but at least at the beginning there are long times where you have to walk around the academy, do quests, play a (dreaded) fishing mini game, etc. I spend every work day walking around an academy and often go to campus on the weekend so this doesn’t give me the feeling of escape that I’m looking for in games. Having a calendar which makes me feel like some time pressure could be involved (like Persona 4) just makes me feel stressed out.
Sometimes I really enjoy those elements in games (except for the fishing minigames) but at this point the characters and settings seem generic to me and it seems too slow paced so I am not feeling the love.
Reading about it does seem like the academy phase doesn’t last that long but I’ve got a huge backlog, if I want to play another turn-based strategy game it might be Disgaea 6 or an old XCOM game I have on my Xbox