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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 bought factorio: space age within 5 minutes of it going live. Ive easily sunk 5+ hours a day into it since then, as I had been eagerly awaiting the expansion since it was announced over a year ago.
I just got into space (I way overbuilt on nauvis, took me 30 hours to get space science), but have not gone to another planet yet. I can already say the update is amazing, the QOL features alone added to the base game remove the last bits of jank I encountered.
The space platforms are a really neat design challenge, encouraging you to make a self sufficient platform that not only defends itself from asteroids along the way, but uses materials from them to craft fuel and ammo.
As for the new quality mechanic, I haven't done much for grinding, but I have stuck quality modules into a few things and used the good quality stuff that comes out for high-value items. (for example, quality solar panels are going on my space platforms.) I think its a pretty decent addition to the game, as Im always up for more logistical challenges.
I just rolled credits for the second time on Prey (2017 by Arkane, not the unrelated title from the 2000s). Man, this game is so good. For whatever reason, I unfortunately don't finish many games these days, let alone play them twice through, so it really says something that Prey kept me hooked for 20+ hours even on the second time around.
For those who are unfamiliar, Prey is an immersive sim in the tradition of things like System Shock and BioShock. In fact, I think "Prey" is a really unfortunate choice of title; it's bland and really should have been something like "Psychoshock" or "Neuroshock". It's focused around stealth, exploration, and environmental storytelling. You can shoot plenty of things but it's not accurate to call it a shooter, something I think the marketing missed the mark on back when it came out.
I'm not sure how much I want to say without spoiling things, but it takes place on an art-deco corporate-scientific space station orbiting the Moon, and you play as the VP of the corp recovering from a memory wipe. Something has gone horribly wrong and you have to explore the station to try to piece together what happened and decide what to do about it. One of the core mechanics is the neuromod, a device the corp has developed that allows you to essentially download someone else's skills and abilities into your brain. This is the RPG-ish skill progression system but it's also a big part of the story of the game.
There's some real ethical challenges posed to the player in Prey that even the second time through gave me pause and really made me think, because everything you do has consequences, even if they don't seem obvious immediately (there's a "secret" post-credits true ending that really drives this point home). And the game will play with your head. Again, not saying too much to avoid spoiling it. But it has one of the best opening sequences of any game I've ever played. There's a reason one of the songs in the soundtrack is called "Mind Game". (Beware spoilers on the comments on that video!)
If you're curious it's on Steam, Xbox, and PlayStation. I played it on Xbox but here's the Steam link. I'd love to engage in spoiler-shrouded discussion if anyone's played it!
I loved the Bioshock games, so putting this on my list, though I glazed my eyes out on your description to go into it as cold as possible. Thanks for the rec!
Did you play any of the Dishonored games or addons? Once I discovered the stealth / low chaos mechanics, it totally made the game for me.
So stealth is less good/important than Dishonored but the chaos can be wild. If you like Arkane games and Bioshock it is almost guaranteed you will like Prey.
I believe I started Dishonored years ago but never finished it (not the game's fault). However my sister who loves the Dishonored games also loves Prey, for many of the same reasons. She's a huge Arkane fan in general.
Let us know what you think if you play Prey! It was just recently on sale for $6 on all platforms, so I'd assume there's a good chance it will go on a deep sale again at some point.
Man you're making me want to replay it!
I inhaled Prey when it came out. I played through it start to finish twice I think, going full neuromod and zero neuromod.
I remember I wanted to go back though and get some of the other weirder achievements and endings though.
Man I hope they get a sequel one day and its the same director. They absolutely smashed it with Prey.
Unfortunately Colantonio left Arkane a month after Prey came out, according to Wikipedia, so I doubt a sequel (if it ever happens) could have the same director. But we can dream!
I loved Prey, I'm thinking of getting the Mooncrash DLC, hopefully it's more of the same
It's similar but different in that it is a rogue-like.
Mooncrash is very different but also unique and interesting. If anything, it's a precursor to Deathloop. It's basically a Prey roguelike where you have to perfect your run to accomplish it with multiple characters and get them all out.
It's very different than the base game but also a singular and unique game unto itself.
I bounced off of Mooncrash when it originally came out due to the fact that I don't generally care for roguelikes, but I'm giving it another shot tonight at the recommendation of my sister who says it's fantastic. I will report back in a future thread if I finish it this time š«”
Prey is one of my all time favorite games. I plan to go back to it pretty soon, but I've got a lot of other games I haven't yet played for the first time to get through still. But it's definitely one I recommend to most people.
Easily one of the best games I have played in the last 10 years. I love everything about it and each time I play I have to recycle everything.
Must. Feed. The recycler!
I really liked Prey, too. Someone recommended it to me after I finished the Bioshock games, saying it was basically more of the same, but in space. Spoilers below, encoded in ROT-13.
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Ha, I was imagining using the
function to hide spoilers but this works too.
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Vagrerfgvatyl, ba zl svefg eha V pubfr gb hfr gur ahyyjnir obzo naq V erzrzore srryvat yvxr V tbg qvatrq sbe vg va gur gehr raqvat. Zl guvaxvat jnf gung V jnf ryvzvangvat gur Glcuba jvgubhg evfxvat nal uhzna yvirf, ohg V guvax gur tnzr fnj vg nf gelvat gb fnir GenaFgne'f jbex zber guna gelvat gb fnir gur uhznaf. Gur frpbaq gvzr, V tbg rirelbar gb gur fuhggyr naq oyrj gur cynpr gb uryy.
I'm about 75% of the way through Star Wars Outlaws and mostly enjoying it. It's not going to win Game of the Year in any category, nor is the story particularly original or memorable, but it's a fun jaunt through familiar Star Wars locations, and it looks gorgeous.
There are sections where I just wish they'd just gone full on Uncharted because the world and story feel so well suited toward that. There are places with really big/cool setpieces and mostly linear/scripted action with some light platforming. But everything outside of that is pretty run of the mill open world quest stuff: someone lost something in enemy territory and you need to fetch it. Someone else needs some parts for a thing, and you can bring them those parts from different places. The syndicate reputation system is neat... except it's basically meaningless. I've not found that I've needed to improve reputation with one syndicate over another so far. In fact, I maxed out my reputation with the first syndicate I encountered which made some backstabbing quests fairly trivial, without really impacting the gameplay. I think there's something there, but they didn't commit fully. Same with the story quests: if they'd either excised all the open world baggage, OR gone full into a game where you need to appropriately balance your reputation with the syndicates, taking bounties, working your way up in the underworld... either of those games would've been great. But instead we're left with this middle of the road, not overly exciting or ambitious result.
I'm always in favor of more Star Wars games -- but I hope the industry can finally get rid of its neat to make everything as BIG and OPEN as possible.
(As a final aside, I will say the planet hubs are definitely bustling. These cities feel lived in, even if I find myself getting lost trying to navigate them.)
Factorio: Space Age: I'm going to do my first launch. I'm not there yet, working on getting trains set up and supply chains built up, but I want to see the DLC for myself.
I have a save I started on original Factorio, so I relocated them before 2.0 hit and downloaded the proper version from their site.
No Man's Sky: The "Cursed" expedition is on. It's a trippy, narrative-driven experience, but the resource management mechanic it has is annoying. I don't want to spoil anything.
For those that read my posts every week, you know what I've been waiting for... Black Ops 6 is finally here! I am glad to report that the multiplayer is exactly what I wanted it to be. It's mostly a return to form of the classic Call of Duty games we all loved, like Modern Warfare 2 (2009) and Black Ops 2. Gone is the complex mess of class building, attachments, and game breaking movement from the last few games. The game is simple where it should be and complex where it should be.
One of the main changes from the last few games is that gunsmith is still here, but you're not fighting with menus to look through 20 different suppressors. There is the suppressor, the muzzle brake, etc. Things like sights, grips, and stocks, still have a number of options, but most of the options now are a net positive to stats instead of being a tradeoff, so it actually feels good to unlock new parts for your guns because they make the gun strictly better. In the same vein, camo progression is much more simplified and in a great spot. All the military style camos just require a different # of headshots with each gun, up to 100. Then each gun has a couple special camos tied to various other challenges like x kills in a life y times or whatever. Once the special camos are unlocked, you can use them on other guns too. Lastly, class building is back to a traditional three perks system with some wildcards. So you have your primary and secondary weapons, lethal and tactical grenades, a field upgrade, three perks, and a wildcard. Wildcards are things like overkill (two primary weapons), extra grenades, or an extra perk. There isn't anything here vastly changing the formula over the standard class building and I personally love that, it's much easier and more streamlined to build classes now, and more satisfying since you don't need to spend 20 minutes looking through attachments.
As far as the gameplay, TTK feels great to me, weapons feel responsive, movement feels great, and the game is generally very smooth. On movement, there's a new "omnimovement" system which essentially just lets you dive, slide, and sprint in any direction. At first, I thought people would be finding game breaking ways to break hitboxes like what happened on the MW3 launch, but thus far, it's been great. It's satisfying to use, movement is smooth, but it's not difficult to hit people as they're sliding or diving or whatever. As far as the maps, very few are truly terrible (there is one map I never want to see again and a few that get a sigh from me), but none are truly great. The majority of maps fall into average to good, IMO. They're bearable and the obvious dark spot in the multiplayer right now.
Additionally, because BO6 was a reset point, the game is currently not overrun with stupid crossover skins and colorful skins that entirely ruin the aesthetics of the game. The look of the game is generally very good. It feels like the time period that it's set in, the maps are well detailed, and there are great little touches everywhere (go look at the products in the Radio House on the Rewind map). However, a season pass is coming November 14th ish? We don't know what's in it right now, but there's a good chance over the coming months, we get all the silly skins again that just ruin the vibe of the game, at least for me. But for now, I probably have a few months to enjoy the game before it goes to shit, ha.
Thus far I have only played the multiplayer and I played probably 20 hours over the weekend, it's very good. I've heard the campaign is great, but I haven't started it yet. I will likely do that this week. Personally, I have zero interest in zombies, so I can't speak to how that is.
I've also been playing a lot of multiplayer, and I think you've descibed everything pretty perfectly! TTK feels great and movement feels sooo nice.
I loved OG zombies but I haven't played zombies since BO3, and I'm honestly kinda disappointed in how it is nowadays. apparently Zombies has been this way since Cold War, but I haven't played that so everything feels really new to me. I don't love the fact that you can't points farm anymore, and it does feel like the whole mode nowadays is just the easter egg hunt, which feels kinda bad because sometimes I just wanna train zombies and yap. The maps feel pretty good after a couple of runs though, but my friend and I tried running the "main quest" for Liberty Falls and it was kinda difficult without Wonder Weapons.
All in all kinda mixed on new zombies, but I'll try and get through the quests eventually.
My main complaint is how after each match people always use the same 2 emotes with annoying sound effects. That plus the terrible skins will always leave a sour taste in my mouth.
Otherwise, I've been enjoying this so far too.
Oh my god, that thumbs down slide whistle emote annoys the shit out of me! Itās so dumb and out of place. The āwinners circleā is probably going to be the most cringe thing of all time once more skins and emotes are added. I usually just take a bathroom or water break during that so that I donāt have to deal with it. Honest question: is that what the kids are into these days? I just donāt get it, play of the game is already enough for post game (and I always preferred final kill anyways).
If I had to guess, this is what some business major who noticed the emotes make skin sales go up 2% is into...
So we have POTG again this time? It was kind of hilarious how MW3 launched with POTG, but it was broken, and instead of fixing it they just replaced it with final kill.
Yeah, POTG this time and it does work, I just donāt like sitting through a minute of post match meaningless stuff before I can search for another match.
Been working through the Star Wars movies recently with my 6 year old so I wound up subbing to a month of EA Play and used it to play through Jedi: Survivor. Coming straight off an epic Elden Ring playthrough it took me a few hours before I gelled with the much stiffer feeling gameplay, but I did wind up enjoying it far more than anticipated after those initial lacklustre hours. However, I feel the 'Soulslike' label is entirely misapplied here, it has much more in common with modern adventure games such as God of War (2018) and the recent Tomb Raider trilogy.
With some time left on the sub I then decided to give Dragon Age: Inquisition a whirl after teetering on the fence for so long. And, boy, has that game aged poorly. Dropped it just before hitting the 10-hour mark out of sheer boredom.
Had you played DA:I before? If not, you probably made the mistake of spending too long in the Hinterlands but yeah, I'm not shocked to hear it hasn't aged well. The only game worth replaying in my opinion is DA: Origins.
First time playing it but I was aware of the Hinterlands advice from Steam reviews and was actively avoiding the busywork fetch quests. I do fondly remember playing through Origins twice around the time of release but the narrative / lore just wasn't doing it for me this time round. Admittedly, having come off two action-oriented games I was playing it in a more active style, as the game offers, and avoiding the isometric RTWP element, which I imagine offers a richer tactical experience but, ultimately, I was in the mood for something faster paced. Also I have been fairly burned out on traditional medieval fantasy settings lately, could be some of that at play here too. So, yeah, probably was just a case of 'wrong game, wrong time.'
Yeah the story/lore is not as good as Origins. And there is little benefit to pausing so you didn't miss much there either. At least it sounds like Veilgaurd is getting decent reviews.
I finally picked up The Talos Principle 2 over the weekend because it went on sale and I feel like I made away like a bandit.
I held out for a long time fearing it would never hold up to itās predecessor but boy was I wrong. Iām no where near finished but Iām already blown away by its breathtaking beauty and the depth the story is once again going.
I was not ready for how deep some of the conversations with other characters are going, at some point I was caught so off guard by how close to home it was hitting me all I could do for the next hour was wander around aimlessly through the gigantic landscape while tears where running down my face.
It is a lot to take in. It dives deep into what it takes for a society to grow, the fears for the future, the wisdoms and errors of our predecessors. Itās a game I have to put down every couple hours because it leaves me mentally exhausted and I love it. I love it dearly and I am so happy this game exists and I think ideally every human being should play it at some point.
Everyoneās experience will probably a little different, I donāt know yet if there are different endings but while I am trying to remain hopeful for this virtual society I can not say the same for our own. Thatās a point this game is making abundantly clear to me so far. I hope I am wrong about this too.
For some reason, this game makes me immediately and overwhelmingly motion sick. Itās strange, the first one did too to a certain extent and theyāre really the only two games that have ever done that. Itās a shame, because I love the puzzles and the first game was excellent.
I get really bad motion sickness in first-person games with low FOVs. I looked it up, and apparently the game defaults to an FOV of 75.
I play most games at 105, with 95 being about as low as I can go before I start getting issues. Might be worth trying to adjust the FOV and seeing if itās better for you.
Both games have an option to disable head bobbing in the menu, from what I've heard that's whats causing most peoples motion sickness.
I was definitely worried about this too when I played it near launch, but I was very glad my fears were misplaced. I think I still like the first game more, and it certainly made me more emotional; but I was also deeply invested in the second's story and it completely avoided retreading the material from the first to tell a beautiful story.
What surprises me is how invested I'm getting with the companions. At first I rolled my eyes at the (sometimes) so so voice acting (severely my opinion don't listen to me) and not perfect animations but now about 15hrs in I'm looking forward to hear whats on their minds, I actually argue with these people, shouting at my screen at times, laughing, crying, the whole range. That rarely, RARELY happens for me.
The depth these conversations are going sometimes, how well thought out they are. I get to feel like an explorer and a philosopher and I get to feel like what I have to say actually matters to people. Not something you usually experience nowadays...
Still playing Rimworld and it's crazy to me how differently people play this game. I looked up some advanced tips and tricks online and like half the shit that I found involves systems or mechanics that I never even interact with. Tried out a few of things I found and it just felt so foreign to how I normally play, so I went back to how I was doing things and it feels way more 'right'. Anyways, if you're looking for a game with no wrong answers, Rimworld is it.
I occasionally watch Mr Samuel Streamer's content for this reason, because he in particular has a really unique way of not just reskinning but also seriously uprooting rimworld in interesting and fun ways.
His mod packs are always available to play after the series starts and they are always incredibly good.
And whenever he plays with the real ruins mod during his play throughs, he questions the sanity of players because of the bases that he comes across on the maps. So, fefellama is not wrong about thinking the other people's way of playing Rimworld is wrong.
Wrong for me, but right for them! That's the beauty of the game. Do what feels right and hopefully your colonists won't die.
Iāve been playing since it was in alpha and itās wild to see how far itās come. Iāve ignored a lot of the DLC despite it being very cool stuff; it just overwhelms me mechanically.
Same here. The DLC seem to focus on the sci-fi and magical parts of Rimworld, but honestly I prefer the nitty gritty survival and nature sides of things. Finding food for the winter, fending off the cold or heat, keeping my pawns happy, and maybe raising a couple of muffalos along the way.
I finally got around to buying and playing Slay the Princess. It ended being well worth the praise, I think. I especially liked the small bits of animation throughout it. I can't really say much about the game itself, because I think the different routes you can take are meant to reflect upon the player. In a way it kind of reminded me of Song of Saya; it's something that presents something profoundly beautiful out of some very ugly parts. It's well worth the purchase price.
I don't know if you played it for the Pristine cut version, but it came out on Thursday it seems:
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1989270/view/4507632758953082950?l=english
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6Kg5NCYIkY
Edit: the reason I'm pointing this out is because of this:
Update notes, might contain light spoilers, namely the names of some ending scenes.
For those of you who aren't aware, The Pristine Cut is a free upgrade to the base game, that among other things:Give or take a year? ;)
I just might buy that.
Oops! I shared the wrong link: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1989270/view/4507632758953082950?l=english
updated in original comment as well!
Ahhh, gotcha!
Halls of Torment
Iāve been keeping up with regular exercising, and one of the ways Iāve been doing that has been by playing games on my TV while stepping up and down off of an aerobic step in front of it. Itās not high intensity or anything, but I figure itās better than sitting on the couch.
Iāve found that survivors-likes/bullet heaven games draw me in while Iām doing this, to the point that I forget that Iām stepping and can easily pass an hour or two exercising without really thinking about it.
Halls of Torment has been my most recent focus. Itās great.
If you donāt love the survivors-like formula, this game wonāt change your mind. But, if you do like it, then this game is a really smart iteration of it.
There are 500 different challenges/benchmarks to meet, each one tied to an achievement, an unlock, and persistent XP gain. The challenges are spread across different stages, characters, and in-game actions. So, each run you can set your own goals towards checking off various ones that are in reach. Getting those gives you more stuff and makes you slightly permanently better, so you can then chase down some other challenges that are now in reach. Rinse and repeat.
For someone like me who loves āchecklistingā in games, itās sublime. I canāt get enough of it. Iāve played a lot of games of this type and this oneās easily one of my favorites.
Iām in a Steam family share with my husband, and he originally started playing my copy. He very quickly bought his own copy as well because he didnāt want to have to wait for me to stop playing it, so the gameās got its hooks in him too! š
I got a GameSir T4N Lite controller for my birthday, so I was looking for something "Zelda-like" to play on Android. So far I am working my way through Turnip Boy commits Tax Evasion which is as bonkers as it sounds thematically. I find the game play a little light / linear, but it has been a fun thing to break the controller in with.
Interested if people have other recs for Zelda-like PC or Android games (or something that can be emulated). I've played through some of the older Zelda games, like Ocarina of Time and Majora's mask, though it seems there are a number I have missed, so I might have to dig through some of those.
Neva
From the studio that made GRIS, it's another gorgeous 2D platformer, this time with a wolf companion and combat. Its look and enemies are heavily inspired by the anime movies Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke. It took me about 4.5h to beat. I've been replaying a bit of it to find collectibles. Overall I really like it.
Minor complaints:
Sometimes they want to show off a scene and it takes too long to walk across it. I'd get the simultaneous feeling of "wow this is so beautiful" and "wow I'm so bored of holding right". Maybe those sections should have just been cutscenes. My gamer brain also made me spam the roll button across them to try to go faster. Maybe they should increase the run speed when you've been going for a while. I will say that later on you get to ride your (now giant) wolf through similar sections and it feels great, and maybe it would feel less great if you hadn't had to walk before.
Sometimes it can be hard to make out certain important gameplay elements like exactly where ledges are because of artistic elements obscuring them, or which dark streaks in the forest will hurt you. Climbable walls have white dots on them and those are also sometimes hard to spot.
When hunting for the collectibles, sometimes it's a little frustrating where I can see the thing I want to get, but if I explore a little too far forward trying to figure out how to reach it, I end up in an area I can't backtrack from, and have to restart from quite a ways back.
The short final chapter is a little annoying. I don't want to spoil it, but there's a conflict that sort of comes out of nowhere and its resolution that takes place in a cutscene is a little frustrating given what you fought through in the previous chapter. The aftermath is satisfying so I get why they did it. But I felt like it needed to be re-worked somehow.
Balatro
Continuing to tear through my new save on mobile. Finally collected all the legendary jokers around the time I completed black stake. I just beat the challenges. 18 and 19 were not as tough this time around for me. 20 (Jokerless) was still brutal! I got a very lucky early game where I made a Steel card with a blue seal and copied it, then was able to go for Flushes and level it up like crazy. On the current patch you can't get the final bosses that probably screws you over (the one that debuffs your cards until you sell a joker), but you also can't get any free-rolls either (the ones that disable your jokers or flip and change their order). Also kind of interesting that I wouldn't have been able to use the strategy I did on the previous patch because blue seals made random planet cards before so I couldn't have gotten the flush upgrades as reliably.
I've never heard of Gris or Neva before. I looked them up and they look beautiful! I'm definitely wishlisting those.
Just want to add my 2 cents, I had reealy-reealy high hopes that Neva is a GRIS-2, but thats definitely not the case. At least for me. Game have similar graphic vibes but overall expression did not match GRIS. Maybe my hopes was too high...
Care to elaborate why?
Sure.
I really love GRIS. Beautiful art, expressionistic landscapes, lore without clear explanations of events, so you free to have personal impression, personal explanation what is happening right now.
And thats my issue with Neva. Its not a bad game, its a good game (reviews on steam quite positive), but after GRIS it feels a bit
shallowtoo direct for me. Neva have more interactions, more defined story, more platforming and more gameplay in a classic sense. But I believe that this time 'more' does not mean 'better'. All these features makes Neva more distant from GRIS which (lets be honest) is more about art, about making impression than game.Again, thats just my personal impression, nothing more. Tho, small number of steam reviews agree with me. But in the end we all different people and can and should have different impression from the same game.
This week I have had a fantastic week, not playing Factorio, but playing Dorva - Forsaken Kin.
This game is excellent. I am having such a good time.
The developers basically really loved Gothic 1 and this is a spiritual successor in 2d with a hell of a lot of modern UX.
I'm told its around 40 hours long which is perfect for me. I'm 15 hours in and I love the setting, the combat, the world and exploration. Its one of those games that gives you a reasonably zoomed out map and expects you to take notes/mark it yourself. The world is incredibly dense with stuff to see and do. Its all unlevelled and hand crafted. Its had me laugh, feel sad and feel really good about certain interactions and I'm honestly really happy to see a title like this in 2024.
Would seriously recommend to anyone who likes an exploration RPG. The only thing its missing is branching quests/dialogue, but I don't miss them here because the game is carefully crafted around the sheer quantity of stuff to do.
I got on to talking to my kids about PSX and PS2 era demo discs, and they were pretty impressed with the concept. I remembered seeing Next Fest ads on Steam recently, so we scrolled through to see if any interesting kid friendly games were still available.
We found Popucom.
Popucom is a cooperative 3D puzzle platformer with match-3 inspired mechanics, alongside other gizmos which give each level a unique twist.
My 7 and 8 year old played it together, while I watched and filled in for the 7 year old when they struggled with the controls.
It's joyful little game so far. Defeating enemies by shooting colour blobs at them is incredibly safisfying.
It makes a really good kid-parent co-op experience if you can accept your kids are going to take a bit longer to grapple with some of the mechanics. Be warned there are some difficulty spikes too, but we worked through them, and had some hard earned high fives afterwards.
There are some mechanics in the game that are a bit trying. There's a device which sends out a cat in a flying machine that can lift things up, and having to coordinate the kids to carry one object together, and not fly in opposing directions, was unduely challenging.
There's also some design choices I hope they iron out. Each player can swap between 2 colours, and will need to change colours to solve certain puzzles. The colours changed between each level, and were sometimes hard to distinguish between -- like light blue and teal. I have to assume they want you to be able to tell the colours apart, and they don't want you to have your character repeatedly get eviscerated by lazers because you weren't sure if they were red or orange.
But on the whole, I'm keen for more, and will definitely be purchasing the full game when it's available. It looks like the demo is still available on Steam until 5 November.
Bouncing around a bit here lately, but what I've been playing most of:
Heroes of Might & Magic 2, using the recreation fHeroes2. In spite of this being harder than the original, as it has rewritten AI, it's kind of my comfort/cozy game. I've been working my way through Roland's campaign, only on mission 3 so far, as mission 2 was kicking my ass and I finally beat it on my third try. I've been playing it in Portrait mode on my Surface Go 2 and it works wonderfully with touch controls. Heroes 3 is technically the better game, but I just love Heroes 2 so much, probably largely due to the art style.
Caves of Qud: Admittedly, I haven't gone back to my roughly 5-hour save in a couple of days, but I do want to get back to it. I've owned the game for awhile, but with the imminent release, I figured I'd give it a go on my Steam Deck where it works beautifully. I am playing Roleplay mode, so it has periodic saves you return to if you die, which is way more up my alley. I don't generally care for Roguelikes and I honestly think that Qud is better for having saves; the world is so vast and it has quests running through it, so to get a good distance only to die to a silly mistake would completely turn me off of the game.
Killer Frequency: I only just picked this up last night and put about 90-minutes into it. I was craving something spooky and this popped-up on my radar about a week or so ago and lucky me, it just went on sale yesterday. Seems interesting so far and pretty much exactly what I was looking for an expecting; I'm hoping to finish it before Halloween, but I haven't yet looked at how long it is. I like the conceit of being a radio DJ and helping people escape a killer; it's fairly low impact with no combat and plenty of wandering around your office so far, talking to people and looking for stuff.
I haven't touched Qud in a couple of weeks, but loaded it up last night. At this point I am pretty sure I built a PC with a 4070 TI Super, 7800x3d, and 32GB RAM so I can play Minecraft, Caves of Qud, and Pokemon Blue/Silver lol.
I'm playing through the Phoenix Wright series. I forgot how much I liked these games. I just finished the first one. That track that plays when you start finding holes in testimonies is so satisfying.
We already have Hollow Knight at home! Isn't that the metroidvania in which you play a small, swift, masked critter with a stick-thin weapon? It has a cool soundtrack. It has a mechanic for restoring some health using your limited reserve of energy, which you refill by hitting enemies, and which can also be used for special attacks. It's a challenging game with various tanky but satisfying boss fights, including that memorable one with the three lordly creatures. You first fight one and it's kind of easy, then two at the same time, and then you have to defeat all three together which is pretty tough. And there's also a stag beetle! There are rest spots that act as checkpoints, a relatively small amount of fast travel locations, and items you can acquire and equip in a limited but expandable number of slots, which grant you limited improvements and allow you to create different strategies for combat. Some of them are bought at shops. When you're not fighting bosses, you might want to keep an eye out for the little lost critters and bring them back to their parent.
Except, no, mom, that's Bo: Path of the Teal Lotus. You might be forgiven for mistaking the two, as Bo is an unashamed tribute to Hollow Knight - even the progatonist's animation reminds me of it! - but it's a pretty good game on its own merits. Bo puts an emphasis on platforming with a "pogo" type mechanic that allows you to gain an extra jump when you hit an enemy or highlighted feature in the environment, which might also remind you of Shovel Knight or Cuphead. I've read criticism about the difficulty of the platforming, but I merely found it challenging and fun - it's a far cry from the more speedrunner-oriented games I've tried. Traversal mechanics you unlock throughout the game are all about gaining height in other ways, like sling launches, air current gliding and wall climbing.
Bo also has a beautiful japanese ink painting aesthetic, a little like Okami (but in 2D!) The various concepts and mythical creatures are from japanese folklore or inspired by it. It's definitely a more colorful game than Hollow Knight, although the world is sadly smaller and less interconnected; it's a shorter game overall.
According to the save screen I played 97.5% of the game in 12.5 hours. I missed one final health upgrade which required a seed item that I'm pretty sure I got, but was not in my inventory. According to the Steam forums this is a bug others have experienced but the developers seem to be ignoring, which is unfortunate. I also didn't get a final Omamori (charm/memento) which required a long aerial platforming challenge with no checkpoints (I did try the challenge and got through most of it) and I didn't do that quest that required carrying something across the map without getting harmed. Yes, just like Hollow Knight. I didn't do it in Hollow Knight either! Overall, I enjoyed the game a lot, as should anyone who liked Hollow Knight.
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I recently finished Cyberpunk 2077 and the Phantom Liberty DLC and I very much enjoyed it. This is probably the newest game I have played that is not a remake or a port of some sort, and the graphics are absolutely amazing; as well with a great cast of characters that definitely make you feel something or another at least at one point in the game, especially during the intimate conversation moments you may have with them. Although this game will never reach the expectations placed upon it from the 48 minute watchable demo released in 2018, I think they redeemed themselves relatively gracefully and I very much look forward to their next Cyberpunk release, there's a lot of this world that needs exploring and good Cyberpunk genre games are few and far between.
On the other hand, I am once again going to try again to get into Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door which I am having great difficulty picking up, never mind completing, but I think I am going to persevere and push through it because I promised my friend I would play it.
Also looking forward to beating Elden Ring: Shadows of the Erdtree DLC once I purchase it, can't wait for that.
Been playing Ikenfell on Switch. It's a lovely RPG/turn-based bit of pixel-y goodness. It's got puzzles plus your basic grid battle strats with little bit of quicktime event-type elements to give your moves extra oomph (however I REALLY like that you can adjust the time requirement in the settings and even remove it completely). The chapter I'm in feels like it has some unnecessary padding which is making things drag, but hopefully it's limited to this part of the story.
Also downloaded the Monster Hunter Wilds beta this afternoon and know I'm going to end up playing the heck out of it all weekend (assuming it runs okay)
I have been sinking a ton of time into Stationeers, which I had seen around here and there on streams as akin to Space Engineers or other building/survival simulator games. I did not expect to find a game nearly as full-featured and complex as this. It is a very detailed simulation of extraterrestrial survival that does a wonderful job providing a friendly overlay to what would otherwise be an intimidating set of mechanics. Everything fits together well, and I constantly find myself having to engage with new systems I have yet to fully explore. I did not expect that I would have memorized the ideal gas constant or learned a MIPS-based programming language for a game, but here I am.
10/10, excellent simulation. Heartily recommend if you're into crunchy space survival stuff.
I love Stationeers too! Great gem from our DayZ friend Dean Hall because he enjoyed Space Station 13.
Annoyingly I always get a bit stuck with it, I find thermodynamics and fluid/gas mechanics surprisingly difficult to remember, so always end up blowing up half my base and having to start from scratch lol. And the building isn't fast in Stationeers on your own!
Its one game I couldn't get any friend to play. Everyone looked at it and said "why is this fun?" Which I understand. Its very nerdy!
I was playing Red Dead Redemption on my Xbox, but I got Black Ops 6 last Thursday and I've been having an absolute blast. It's like the Modern Warfare remake from 2018: you know this will be the best Call of Duty for a while.
The multiplayer maps are fun, the game doesn't have issues I've noticed, the campaign is entertaining and not just "shoot and run to the objective," and the graphics are beautiful even on my 2016 Xbox One S. I am truly loving this game and I have put quite a few hours into it already. I'm playing RDR when I get bored, but that's taking the backseat for now as I get my CoD fix.
The Holy Gosh Darn (PS5)
While I was playing Dustborn, I heard the news that another Norwegian studio (Perfectly Paranormal) had released a new game to great reviews. So I decided to make it my next single-player project.
It's basically Groundhog Day where you're playing as an angel trying to save Heaven from exploding using time-travel shenanigans. The humour and voice acting are great, and the puzzles are logical and fun. There's lots of religious satire. There are also lots of references to and recurring characters from the studio's previous two games (Manual Samuel and Helheim Hassle), but you don't need to have played them to enjoy this one.
Girl Genius: Adventures In Castle Heterodyne (PS5)
I was trying to find somewhere to buy the newest volumes of the comic, but instead I stumbled over this game, which came out under my radar last year. By pure coincidence, it's developed by a Norwegian studio (Rain Games), and I'm on a Norwegian-developed games binge.
This went under the radar of most, it seems. On Steam it has a modest 39 user reviews. On Playstation; 1. Apparently Rain games has earned a reputation for stealth releasing their games, which is a strategy I don't really understand.
Anyway, I've only played one of their games before; Teslagrad, their first game, which is also about exploring the castle of a mad scientist, so I can see a chain of events unfolding that results in this studio getting the contract to make a game about Castle Heterodyne.
The story is based on the story arc where Agatha enters her ancestral castle to try to take control of it, before her enemies has a chance to, and so far it seems to stick very close to the events of the comic, even using drawings and dialogue straight from its pages. (Weirdly the game doesn't capture the comic book feeling as well as Dustborn (a game not based on a comic) did.) It's not my favourite story arc, but probably the one most suitable for a video game adaptation. Using an actual storyline from the comic sets it apart from other games I've played based on comics, like Blacksad: Under the Skin (standalone adventure) and Battle Chasers: Nightwar (continuation).
I've played less than an hour so far, so I'll write more when I know more. So far I'm just excited that this game exists at all! (And still looking for somewhere to buy the comic book volumes missing from my collection. For some reason no Norwegian stores carry them. Let me know if you know a good European online book store!)