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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.
Posted a bit about it last week but have been playing even more of Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales and holy crap it is fantastic. 10/10 game seriously incredible storytelling and art and worldbuilding and game mechanics. Absolutely love the characters, the setting, the plot twists, the little tiny details in the world that make it that much more believable, and pretty much everything else about it. Feels like I'm in a (well-directed) movie.
Oh and one more thing: never before in a game have I felt the weight of my choices like I do in this game. Like the game hits you with some legitimately difficult choices and doesn't shy away from things like genocide, discrimination, starvation, politics, etc. (after all, you are in the midst of a major war). So decisions aren't just "this guy's an asshole, do you want to kill him or let him live?" like how it would be in most other games. In this game, the guy may be an asshole, but you might need to put up with him in order to appease a certain leader whose help you desperately need. So you put up with one small war crime to prevent further war crimes. Pretty deep stuff that most games don't even scratch the surface of. I've been betrayed by characters I thought I could trust, pleasantly surprised by characters I thought were pieces of shit, and straight up horrified at some of the decisions that some of the npcs have made. Reminds me of the early seasons of GoT where no character was safe and literally any minute your favorite character could either die or just casually commit some war crimes.
Wait... this is the Gwent game you're talking about? Well, I'm extra-interested now. I'm a card game lover, and if it has a seriously good single-player story, that sounds incredible! Thanks for posting about it, will have to check it out now.
YES, can't recommend it enough if you like card games. I think it helps that I set the game to the highest difficulty setting. It's not super difficult or anything, but it makes the deckbuilding parts of the game super interesting, like I'm constantly tweaking my deck as new cards become available in the story. Having played a ton of Gwent (in the Witcher 3 and then the standalone game since the beta version) I worried that it might be too simplistic and that once I found a winning formula I would have no more real need for tweaking my deck, or possibly that it would go the other direction and FORCE you to change your deck because some foes would be impossible to beat with/without certain cards.
But I'm happy to report that neither is the case. The deckbuilding feels fluid and I constantly find myself wanting to tweak things further, rather than feeling like I'm being forced to change things because the game made me. There are various points in the game where certain cards come and go from your possession, but they are related to the plot and make perfect sense. Like if you get rid of one of your followers in the story, they naturally won't be in your deck any more. Or if you suddenly find a new group of allies willing to help out your cause, you then get access to new units and cards from that group. It all works pretty seamlessly and fits the story pretty nicely.
Edit: I'll give you an example that I just thought of that really highlights the weight of decisions in this game. Towards the middle of the game I had made a deck that was super powerful and it was centered around this one card. That card was an npc that followed my character in the game. Well during the story, this npc goes and does something super heinous that causes a huge rift with my other followers and I'm presented with the decision of keeping them in my party (and keeping the card in my deck), or rightfully banishing them from my party (and losing my most powerful card). It's a story-based decision, but it perfectly ties in with the deckbuilding side of the game, where your decisions have ramifications on both. I ended up getting rid of that character and then had to spend the next twenty minutes rejiggering my deck now that my strongest card was gone. Super impactful stuff.
To be honest I'm not really sure why it's taken me this long to get the game. I love the Witcher universe, the games, the Netflix show, and especially Gwent, so it's always been in the back of my mind but I never took the plunge until last week and boy have I been missing out.
There's the Gwent game amd Thronebreaker which is also a Gwent game, but single player only.
I highly recommend it, its very, very well written and some of the puzzles are fun.
I liked Thronebreaker, too, but one caveat: I think it's not a Gwent-like card game, it's a puzzle game that uses Gwent cards and rules. I was initially a bit disappointed by that, because Gwent felt much more open and gave more options in its gameplay than Thronebreaker.
It's still a good game and story though.
I will agree that there are a lot of puzzles in the game, but I also feel like there are plenty of opportunities for deckbuilding just like in regular Gwent. How far in the game did you get? I noticed that early on there are more puzzles and shortened battles, but towards the end of the game there were more full battles (which are basically just Gwent matches same as you would find in the standalone version). Obviously Gwent came first, but to me it feels as if standalone Gwent is the sandbox and online modes of Thronebreaker.
I did not get to the end, but I played a bit more than 20 hours, and in that time it felt very 'puzzely', and for my taste the game too often took my cards away and replaced them with a special set of cards.
But overall I liked it, the story was very well told, and I enjoyed playing it. Just not necessarily what I expected.
Forgetful Dictator
Fun and quick educational type game. Name all of the countries on each continent, answer some trivia, have a chuckle about pushing dictator T Rex off the map. If that gets too easy, try flags and capitals as well. Get fed to sharks if you fail, try again. It's basically gamified Geography flash cards, which is how I prefer to learn.
Examples of the type of humour:
Permanently free (Edit: with no ads!) on Steam and on Mobile. I saw the recommendation here but I can't find the link anymore....thank you to whoever it was. :)
This is right up my alley! I was just talking to some friends this morning on how I’m into geography, so I was thinking about something like this today. Thanks for the recommendation!
Oh yay let's learn some Geography together!! <3
Just played for a couple hours and got a handful of geography nerd friends to play it as well! I got 160 countries on my first try before losing and I finished them all on second try, but oh boy do I not know capitals. I got about 100 flags and for capitals I got maybe 50? So it looks like I'll be using this to learn capitals and flags this week! I really like the trivia as well, I'm getting all sorts of fun facts thrown at me.
Did your geography nerd friends find it too easy? I knew surprisingly (well to me) few countries but I'm steadily improving! I like that they sprinkle a bit of countries, flags, capitals and trivia in each game mode to mix things up
One of them is more or less obsessed with geography and history and he did get all the countries on first try, ha. But it's challenging for my other friends, too. They'll have to put in some work on flags and capitals anyways, even if they get countries quickly, so I think I just addicted my friend circle to this for a week either way.
I was gifted a "mature" RPG called Fear and Hunger and... just wow. Like I can't exactly recommend it to anyone. It is cruel and unfair and triggering and incredibly disrespectful to the player. Hell, if you spend more than a minute wandering on the starting screen, you're instantly mauled to death by a pack of dogs and if you move past that, even the weakest enemy can wipe your game with a basic attack.
In my experience so far, the mature elements sit in this weird spacr between edgey shock horror, classical Gothic art and making considered decisions far beyond other games in the genre.
For example, enemy sprites are not just decorative. If they have a weapon in their right hand, you need to target and literally disarm that limb before they can do major damage. A hit to the head will end most fights but its a small and protected target. A bite leads to infection that needs attention. Any cut can cause bleed and even dismemberment with a ton of consequences. And there's no potion I know that can grow arms back. Almost every crate and barrel needs to be looted for even the most basic supply. Sleeping in a bed to save is a major risk if enemies are lurking.
It's an interesting take on a souls-like game where my ability is dictated more by my knowledge and awareness more than levels and gear.
But on the flip side, I find the horror, environments and monsters to be a little random, to the point that it can pull me out of the fiction. I enjoy the writing and lore and character interactions and there are some stand our encounters. But overall, it almost feels like the dev had a much grander adventure in mind but was forced to mash their best ideas into a single location.
I have no idea how far along I am, especially since I've died dozens of times and saved twice in 6 hours but I find myself enjoying the experience so far. But I still can't easily recommend it and I think you should look up a few more reviews if it seems interesting.
I haven't played the game but know the story and have heard about the praise and criticisms. If the sexual parts (particularly the nonconsensual parts) are too much for you, there are censorship mods that take those parts out.
This one looks interesting and at $8, I may just take the chance. Just not sure I'm immediately up for a punishing game at the moment, but the premise definitely is intriguing.
Last week I finished (as in, got to credits, I have not 100% completed everything) Hades and moved onto Hades II. I wasn’t doing much else so I already pushed the story as far as it goes for now :)
Hades II is a faithful sequel to the original, and already seems quite worthwhile to play in early access. It’s similar enough to the first game with new twists and additions and of course a completely new story. So far, I would say the (apparent) Big Bad Evil Guy for Hades 2 is a bit underwhelming, story wise, but they definitely make up for it in flavour and fight design. Really excited to see the game develop :)
It’s also the first time I really played on my Steam Deck in handheld mode instead of treating it like a laptop docked into an external keyboard, mouse and screen and wow, it’s so fun :)
In the meantime I might go back to No Man’s Sky which I’ve picked up recently and which had a big update, and of course keep playing Guild Wars 2
How is GW2 right now? I’ve dropped off Destiny a bit and might be looking to get back into a more traditional MMO. Maybe GW2 or FF14 (I think I got to like level 30 in gw2 before and am halfway through stormblood in FF), or maybe the WoW bug bites me again when the xpac comes out. It’s funny, I don’t care about WoW 99% of the time and then I play for 2 months straight when a new expansion comes out. I’d be curious how GW2 is going right now though and if there’s enough to do during the endgame (I don’t even know if the game has raids or whatnot).
I'm curious about the WoW expac too. I have generally followed the same path you outlined, ~2 months for a new expac then I drop it. Dragonflight didn't stick for me, I never left the first area. It just felt like the skinner box was on full display, the combat was trivial and boring with the same rotations I've used for about 20 years.
I'm not excited for the new expac but I bet I buy it, I just hope it can grip me better than dragonflight.
Yeah, I usually like to play through the leveling zones and see the story, but the moment to moment gameplay is monotonous enough nowadays that I can't stick with it, even if I wanted to, yet I feel almost compelled to get every xpac (maybe it's nostalgia or something, as I haven't massively enjoyed the game since Legion). It's impressive how good the game is 20 years on and how much work has gone into updating it, but the fact is that the combat system is still 20 years old no matter what and can only do so much to keep me interested. Obviously it's still an incredibly popular game, but isn't for me anymore, it just isn't the same game as it used to be.
I used to be the same with WoW, but Shadowlands has disappointed me enough to drop WoW for good (for now at least, we all know that they always reel you back in eventually..)
As for GW2, it's having a bit of a resurgence I would say! The last two expansions have been actually quite good, and managed to attract quite a few players, old and new alike. The game is now on a new release cycle of one expansion per year with quarterly releases in-between, and ArenaNet has taken a lot of learnings from the last expansion as they adjust to this new way of working.
There's a new expansion actually coming next month as well, adding some very requested features such as player housing and yes, even a new raid wing! :) GW2 has always been a bit of "set your own endgame", there's a lot of story content to play through, there's Fractals of the Mists (kinda like WoW's Mythic dungeons) as the 5 man end game, there's Raids and Strike Misisons (which are basically raids without trash), and there's the large scale and small scale PvP modes. Each of the game modes has its long term objectives, they have even added a new set of legendary armor obtained through open world play.
If you would be interested and are on EU, give me a poke. I co-run a friendly guild that would definitely take you on and show you the ropes a bit :) And it helps having people to call on, LFG can be a bit of a hit and miss.
Thank you for all the info! I am not EU, but if I decide to download it again I can poke you anyways!
Yeah, feel free to poke me either way!
Trackmania! I am currently ranked 27 in my country which is really high for me - and I'm about 1100 in the world. I think I'm gonna keep grinding this season until I'm 20 and/or sub-1000!
I started playing Let's Build a Zoo yesterday. At around 11 I messaged a friend and went back to playing for a bit. Later checked the clock and did a double-take because it was already 2:30.
So I think that's a sign that it's a decent game? My main complaint is that the music doesn't loop, might be something with Steam Deck since another game (Recettear) has the same problem.
Starfield: I did a full NG+ run to +1 all my powers, and am now at 8 for all of them. For a lark I did it all at once and timed it to 4 hours, including bio breaks, quick snack grabs, water, etc, to get an estimate of the level of effort.
On a rough start with a 630 damage Advanced Hard Target, it was probably 5-7 minutes per Temple, 1:37 to get all the artifacts and clear the Masada III temple. So not too bad. The early fights were rough because I wasn't doing damage to enemies for some reason, but don't know if it was armor, a glitch, or Varuun EM weapons killing accuracy.
No Man's Sky: I upgraded my Class C solar ship to an A from a Twitch drop, and am putting around doing story quests until the next expedition. Not much to say but it's a fun game to mess around in
The 5.0 update for No Man's Sky is amazing and it is only part 1 of the overall overhaul of the game! I am really pumped for Expedition 14.
For new games, the only thing I picked up (or added to my overly large lazy susan of games that I'm "currently playing") is College Football 25. I've not been that into college ball, but I had a dozen or so friends pick this up and say how good it was, so I decided to give it a shot, I missed having good sports games. And yeah, it's pretty darn good! It certainly isn't the best sports game ever made and it isn't as feature rich or deep as many sports games from the 00's, but there's an excellent baseline here. While the main complaints are that dynasty isn't that deep (I personally don't mind, I just want to play the games and let the game do recruiting for me), the presentation in the game is by far its strongest aspect and is almost worth buying for just that (if you're a sports or college football fan).
I booted up my first quick match of the Illinois Fighting Illini at the Minnesota Golden Gophers. Oh boy did that immediately send me on a nostalgia trip. Memories came flooding back of going to Gophers games during my freshman year of college and sitting in the student section with thousands of other drunk students all shouting our lungs out. The cinematics, the band, the mascots, the stadiums, all of it is on point. They didn't even cheap out and have generic animations shared between the mascots, that gopher is Goldy, he was doing all his usual shenanigans. Each team feels unique and feels like it's supposed to. The stadiums I've seen so far have an authentic feel and the crowd attendance and even the colors they're wearing can change (I had games where the crowd was mostly maroon and others where it was mixed or mostly gold).
The on-field feel is awesome. The sim engine is great and gameplay is much more fun than modern madden games and is somewhat reminiscent of the more arcady gameplay from something like Madden 05. The main noticable addition is home field advantage, it REALLY matters now. I played a game at Michigan yesterday and panicked more or less the whole game. The game actually screws up your play art, doesn't put buttons above some of your receivers if it's loud enough, if you call a hot route or an audible, there's a chance one or two guys run the wrong play, good luck doing any no huddle plays, etc. It really feels like you're in this intense struggle in a place you don't belong, it's insanely well done.
After recently picking up EA FC 24 and being horribly disappointed in it, I was very thirsty for a sports game. I don't really watch any american football anymore, but it's at least scratching my sports game itch, so I can recommend it to those who need a good modern sports game to play.
Otherwise, I went on some other nostalgia trips this week. I've been utterly fed up with the newer Call of Duty games, so I booted up the original Modern Warfare and Modern Warfare 2. It was pretty easy to find matches in each and they hold up extremely well. In ways, they still feel somewhat modern. MW on PC is just a server browser, but there are a few dozen still populated. It doesn't feel quite the same as playing it on xbox back in the day since that was 6v6 matchmade and on PC it's mostly 10v10 servers with higher scoring on the same maps. MW2 on PC has matchmaking, though, so that felt just the same as playing back in the day and it's still fun! The FOV is annoyingly low on PC (especially on my ultrawide), but it feels great besides that. It really makes me hope that Black Ops 6 is back to basics this year, but I know it won't be....
Finally finished Elden Ring. Beat Malenia and Radagon/Elden Beast this weekend. Both were very fun challenges. I still have some other stuff to do before I start NG+, but I'm happy to have officially rolled credits.
And now we start back at the beginning. I started up Demon's Souls this weekend. I absolutely love it so far. The combat is much slower than Elden Ring, but the game is much easier knowing how the systems in these games work. Started as the Templar that has heavy armor and a healing spell. Immediately stripped some armor to get medium roll and I've had some good success. hit my first roadblock on level 1-1 and after some reading it seems like it's supposed to be a roadblock and I just have to continue in some of the directions I haven't explored yet.
After winning Descenders from the raffle hosted by @kfwyre (thank you once again!) last month, I got around to giving it a whirl over the last week.
Even though I've had this game on my wishlist for some time I wasn't entirely sure what to expect beyond it being a bit of a more sim-oriented mountain biking game. I certainly wasn't expecting it to be a rogue-lite of sorts. Sounds a bit odd, right? But it actually works out pretty well.
The overall concept is very straight forward, ride down procedurally generated trails, do some tricks and/or complete a randomly chosen optional challenge (finish in 35s, do two tweaked 360's, don't use the brakes, etc) and make it to the finish line. On average each trail will run about 40 seconds if you're bombing it.
Each play through is a "tour" which can take you through 4 different biomes/tilesets provided you don't bail too often or too hard and survive the rides. Starting off you're given a handful of HP, and each time you crash you will lose at least one point, though if you hit something terribly hard you will start losing multiple HP in a single fall. You can gain more HP by doing certain tasks or finishing specific trails but if you run out then your tour is over and you'll have to start from the beginning on your next attempt.
When you start a tour you're presented a grid map of the first biome and each node on the grid will be a different trail. At first you'll start on the upper left corner of the map with a single node available and after completing that node it will unlock two more potential routes through the over-world map. Your ultimate goal in each biome is to "defeat the boss ramp" which is a trail node that will contain a big-air style mega ramp set piece at the end. Upon completing the "boss ramp" you'll then progress to the next biome where you'll essentially do the same thing again but in a different setting. Each of the biomes will have their own quirks with how the trails are generated, for instance in the first one the trails are generally very fast and have a lot of flow, while in the second things become much more technical and will actually require you to start using your brakes/sliding through turns.
As you progress through the tour you'll gain Reputation Points by doing tricks and so on, after earning enough of these points they will unlock a new crew member card for that tour. You're given the choice between 5 randomly selected crew member bonuses that effectively are mutators for that play through. These mutators can do a number of things such as adding more checkpoints, allow you to land harder without bailing or even drastically change things by increasing the overall trail steepness, straightening out turns or widening the trail and making the corner berms higher allowing you to carry much more speed through the trails.
The games soundtrack isn't bad and fits the sport, mostly consisting of drum & bass and techno/EDM tracks. The downside is that songs are specific to each biome and there is probably only 5 songs per so you will no doubt be hearing the same 5 tracks very often since you'll spend much more time in the first two areas compared to the last two. I ended up turning off the game's music as it became very repetitive after my 4th hour.
All in all the game is pretty fun and manages to strike a nice balance between simulation and arcade, though the physics can be a bit wonky at times and movement/animations are a bit stiff. I only have a couple issues with the game and they are to do with the controller implementation. First the game has a ridiculous analog stick deadzone, probably somewhere around 40% from the centre point going left and right. I double checked my controller settings on Steam making sure deadzones were properly tuned and then even went on to try different controllers but the issue remained (checked DS3, DS4 and DS5, maybe Xbox controllers don't have this issue?). Second controller issue was that there was no vibration, even though the game says it was enabled, again maybe it works for Xbox controller users). For what it's worth I played the game via Linux and it worked great with Proton, beyond the relatively minor controller issues there were no other hangups. And just to be thorough I did install and test in Windows as well to check the deadzone/vibration issues which still remained there.
I would recommend the game if you're into mountain sports in general or like games such as Shredders, though I would suggest waiting for a sale to pick this one up.
Descenders is Linux-native, as well, and the save should sync between Linux amd Windows/Proton. That might resolve the vibrate issue.
The only issue I had with Descenders is the data for the 4 extra levels is not synced via Steam.
I should pick it back up, it's one of my favorite PC games ever because it ticks so many boxes for me.
Wow, I didn't even realize it was native, I'm just so used to everything running with Proton that I automatically assumed it was using that. I'm going to try forcing it to use Proton tonight to see if it changes anything, though I'm not holding my breath because the vibration didn't work when I tested in Windows LTSC either. I think the game either doesn't like Playstation controllers or something about my hardware configuration.
I'm certainly enjoying it, and it definitely pulls me into the "just one more try" mentality then suddenly it's an hour past when I should have gone to bed.
I sort of ignored it when it came out for some reason, but I finally got around to Horizon Forbidden West. I don't know why I waited this long (although it's nice to play on PC). I loved the first game, and ended up 100%-ing it, and I'm right back in it with this one. It's really a sweet spot open world for me, one that I think is only surpassed by the Switch Zeldas. Big world, fun to explore, and plenty of meaningful locations to discover. Lots and lots of stuff to gather and pick up from defeated enemies, and it's generally all useful. Fun combat that's engaging and challenging, but not too difficult or frustrating. Plus I like the characters and stories. The acting is really well done across the board, even for the minor characters.
That was something I really noticed when I played the game. Even minor quest givers that you maybe see for 10 minutes are beautifully designed, animated, and voiced, and almost every character feels unique, has their own personality, and feels like they actually live in the world and the world itself feels lived in by these characters. It's an aspect that really adds to the immersion and makes it such a joy to just walk around. I'm glad you're enjoying it!
Oh man, I have this in my "when life slows down". The way you described it is everything I loved about the first one. So looking forward to it.
I picked up Tunguska: The Visitation on sale about a week or two ago, and started playing a bit in between life stuff and reading.
One of my favorite games ever is STALKER, and Tunguska feels like a real homage to that title. Where STALKER centered on the Chornobyl power plant, with its own explanations for the weirdness, Tunguska leans harder on Roadside Picnic for its narrative. You're exploring the USSR after an event that caused an area of land to go wonky and strange, as a 20th century American journalist. Pre-internet, so no pda or smartphone, less of a mix of western and eastern tech/weapons. You have to keep track of the directions folks give you and build a mental map of where you are, because there is no GPS or quest markers. It's third person and top-down, where STALKER was a first person shooter, which means you can be more methodical, especially doing stealth.
I haven't gotten very far into it, but what I've seen has endeared me pretty hard. The developers clearly loved STALKER, and clearly had their own vision, so it feels kinda like playing a different take on the same ideas. There's a much bigger emphasis on roleplaying and quests. You're a journalist, so part of your goal is to learn about the place and report your findings. You can interview people to learn more, then reach your editor with the big stuff to progress some that along. It's up to you whether to focus on that, doing stuff for people, and/or exploring.
The very beginning is straightforward but quickly you're given the freedom to go wherever and find what's out there. It has full controller support too, so while it does take some adjustment I'm finding it very comfortable to play on my steam deck. I'm interested to see where it goes, because of all the stuff spawned through Roadside Picnic the original story has always been my favorite thing and thus far Tunguska seems to be straightforwardly attempting to use it for a pretty detailed survivalist-rpg sort of experience.
I just got into Enlisted. It's a F2P WW2 FPS where you play a squad at a time. Think of them kind of like extra lives you bring with you but actually help sometimes.
It's surprisingly a bit addictive in a good way.
I've been playing Dungeons Of Hinterberg.
It's got dungeons that are very similar to legacy Zelda dungeons. I'm glad to see that the concept of including these types of dungeons can absolutely be done in a brilliant way, because I feel like Nintendo is really doubling down on these new types of dungeons that appeared in BOTW.
Regardless, Dungeons of Hinterberg is pretty great. The dungeons are definitely not as complex as a typical Zelda dungeon, but they are fun to traverse through. I'm also only a few hours in, so I imagine the more you go, the more complex they get. Right now though, the style and gameplay is fun.
I was really enjoying Yakuza: Like a Dragon and still want to go back to it, but my buddy got me hooked on the old private vanilla World of Warcraft server we play on here and there and I've just been obsessively playing it.
Though one big reason WoW sees a lot more play than Yakuza is that I can play WoW and do other stuff. Yakuza, I need to pay attention to, between running around the city and then watching cutscenes; things I really enjoy, but I often have to Pause or take breaks due to life reasons or even put it down entirely when my wife and I want to watch TV in the evenings, where as WoW, I can just play and not need to really pay 100% attention to.
I've also picked-up Professor Layton and the Curious Village on my DSi, a game I've attempted to play many times over the past however many years, but I usually get flustered and quit. This time I'm realizing I can really take my time and be patient, there's no urgency to any of it, so it's another game I can play and kind of think about, but not have to give all my attention to.
I finally got to sit down and start playing the Elden Ring DLC in earnest, and it has occupied pretty much all of my rare free time since then.
I'm choosing to play it completely blind, which is somewhat frustrating because where I'm supposed to go next is NOT. INTUITIVE. AT. ALL. Also, I have absolutely 0% of an idea as to what's going on with the story. I'm going to try to beat the whole thing and then go back and do a deep dive into the lore. Right now, I'm just going around, killing these mean-looking bosses and being assisted by people that I think are supposed to be on my team, without a clue what I'm doing.
Biggest pro would be that it's more of the same ole' Elden Ring, which I've already played through 3 or 4 times. Newer and cooler weapons and gear, more vile bosses, a huge new world to explore, etc.
Biggest con would be what I've stated already: I really have NO clue what the DLC is about and everything is very hidden. For example, how are people even supposed to know to go touch Miquella's cocoon hand to even get into the DLC? Why are we transported to a completely different realm by touching said hand?
I'm sure I'll find the answers once I go back through the lore deep-dive. I'm certain I won't find the answers prior to that though, because that's The Elden Ring Way.
Follow the Grace. The DLC opens up with a castle and the Scadutree in sight. Go there. How you get there, or if you take 50 detours doesn't matter, those are your landmarks.
Vague? Perhaps. Unintuitive? Probably not, you have your first and last objectives in sight from the first second.
Good luck skeleton, and don't you dare go hollow.
One note I see in other communities is that if you hit the NPCs in the right order and keep up with them, the story is actually more clear than base Elden Ring. But if things progress in an uneven way it is easy to miss some key lore dumps.
For example, there is an NPC who you meet pretty early who relocates after an event is triggered. If you find an item and give it to the NPC in their new location they essentially tell you the whole story. If you don't do this.. well.. the last boss comes out of left field and it's very much a "wtf?"
The Riftbreaker: returned to this now it's had a few DLC packs. Still just as fun as it was when I first played it, and the mix of tower defence and factory building is a nice combination. It's a bit too easy to build up overproduction of basic resources by the time you reach the late game which can take some challenge away. The missions in the newest DLC feel a lot more creative than the base game and do a lot more storytelling.
Forza Horzon 4: Brought it cheap on Steam after the announcement parts of the online services would be shutting down. The big setpieces are fun but it's such a big game that I don't feel the pull to complete everything I normally would with the "big world map with a list of tasks" style.
Final Fantasy XIV: Slowly going through Dawntrail. Won't say much as I've not finished it and I don't want to spoil anything, but I'm having fun.
The past week I've fallen into the Once Human rabbithole. It's a recently released survival-crafting-light horror MMO, which is usually the sort of thing I wouldn't like, but it's actually pretty good.
It's free to play, but is actually free to play, with only cosmetics in the mtx shop. It doesn't gate gameplay with long timers that you can pay money to shorten or do other standard tricks. I really appreciate this, because I hate how money twists game design into "make it annoying enough so that people pay money to actually play the game".
Other good things:
Bad things:
I've been playing a looot over the past few days while I've had some time off and will most likely finish out the season over the next few weeks. It remains to be seen if it will hold me into the next season - it depends how different it is. I'm not sure I want to redo a lot of grind, but I'm also not sure that I don't....
Currently working on Fallout 3. I got to Galaxy News Radio and left with the Fat Man. Now I'm once again traveling through tunnels trying to get to a museum. My issue is that every enemy in this game kills me so easily. My weapons are shit, my health and my ammo are low, and running past the bad guys only works for so long. I need to get more powerful but it is so easy to die. It frustrates me.