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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.
Pokemon The Card Game Pocket officially launched last week. I haven't played any collectable card games out of 2 or 3 MTG matches with a family member.
I like it. It is really simple (your deck consists of 20 cards) and a match is 5-10 minutes (You need to get 3 'Points' by knocking out Pokemon, some Pokemon having a point value of 1 and others 2). Basically, I find that if I am playing a game with another person, I like quick matches and simple concepts, so this is right up my alley.
This is the first time I've played a gacha style game, and I get the addiction of collecting things for the first time. The art on these cards is amazing, and while I haven't drawn one yet, the immersive art cards are super cool (an animation that explores the environment that Pokemon is in). I actually went ahead and spent a bit of real world money, that is something I have NEVER done before in a game.
The solo battles are fairly good - you get rewards for meeting certain criteria. I wish there were more solo battles, and more specifically I wish there was a rogue-like mode. I don't play other digital card games, but it seems to me that you could do a lot of interesting things with something like that.
Anyways, I'm thinking about getting into the standard card game. I'm looking to pick up a couple of decks this week and mess around with PTGC Live. I touched it a little bit but it feels kind of janky, not very intuitive to use/things aren't explained well, and has no solo mode (other than a deck test feature) to practice on.
Just FYI, there's an event that I didn't know about that started today, just a bunch of battles against a Lapras EX deck!
I tried BeamNG.drive for the first time and... it was a bit of a let down. From friends and some online outlets I had gotten the idea it was quite far in its development and support linux/vulkan already but what I got was a flashing nightmare. It also didn't support multiplayer out of the box so me and my friend couldn't even play together. On top of this the multiplayer client wasn't available for Linux it seemed, only the server. All in all, a bit of a let down.
Windblown on the other hand has been an amazing experience thus far. Rogue-lite, dashing visuals, high-speed fun and multiplayer support after you unlock it. It just works, even for an early access title. Really good and highly recommended.
Yes! Tons of fun in Windblown 🤗
It's a big change of pace from WoW which is slow and steady for the most part, plus I'm very comfortable with it from nearly 20 years of playing it, so it's like a comfort food. Windblown is super high paced though, my heart rate is constantly high and that's pretty crazy! I'm still not too excited about the repeating of the levels (even though they are slightly different every time) but it's super cool and very much worth the €20
THE FACTORY MUST GROW... to more planets! Factorio Space Age has been eating my time. I guess it can be described as even Factorio-er? A lot of rough edges polished that make it possible to do things I enjoyed that required mods before with base game systems like the new train scheduler and global signals with radar. Elevated rails are magical. The new planets are requiring new ways of thinking (having gotten Fulgora and Vulcanus up and running so far), although I'm kind of dreading Gleba as someone who's not as big in to the combat aspect of the game.
Other than that, I broke out the Switch for enjoying some of the nicer outdoor days of fall on the patio and I've been working my way through Triangle Strategy. I got it just after it was released but moved shortly after that and it got forgotten about, so I'm enjoying it quite a bit. The story has been interesting enough to keep me engaged, I like the characters, and the combat is nicely challenging.
Can you explain this? The only change I noticed with trains was the interrupts and I think some wait conditions.
Radars now form a global circuit network on their planetary surface. Connect a red wire to a radar, all radars on that planet emit those signals on red. Same with green. It used to require connecting every power tower on the map with circuit network wires to get global network coverage, now you just need to drop down a radar where you need the signals. Can use this to do some fun circuit stuff with trains to make something akin to LTN entirely in vanilla Factorio.
I hated Gleba. It was one of the worst experiences I've had in a game. I don't understand how it could be offered as one of the first tier choices for space exploration. Honestly, it should be the final planet before shooting for the edge of space.
I was all primed for another attempt at playing through space age, with the goal of getting some of those speedy achievements, but the thought of having to redo gleba makes that a non-starter. It's the worst thing Factorio has ever done.
Me and my son (we're playing it together) just got to Gleba and we sort of love/hate it. We have no idea what we're doing and personally I'm ready to just ditch it and deal with it later but he wants to figure it out and stick with it.
I spent some time last night playing without him so I could bootstrap the very underdeveloped robot network on Nauvis into something proper just so that I could start shipping up the ingredients for a rocket silo so I can drop that at Gleba and GTFO.
This week I have been playing the crap out of Drova Forsaken Kin.
This game is WILD GOOD.
Honestly I haven't played something so engrossing in ages. The devs quote influence from Gothic and Morrowind, saying they don't treat players as dumb and the world should have lots to do and see. And it works!
I'm 30 hours in and if you like RPGs with lots of exploration and world to see, this is it.
The combat is solid, the story is decent so far (not winning any awards but its interesting), the quests are all fun and interesting, the characters are decent. But the world is the main character. Its just so good.
Go and try it and post back next week with results!
Thanks for the heads-up on this!
The name was weird enough that it gave me the poke to check it out and it's definitely up my alley. The art style isn't my favorite and I'm not a huge fan of isometric (although this almost looks more like an Ultima viewpoint, whatever you'd call that) exploration, this one is hitting the right vibes as a huge fan of Piranha Bytes games. I picked it up last night and have so far been able to play about 90-minutes (just hit level 3, completing some quests around the Woodcutters Camp) and I am liking it, especially for the fact that it runs and plays fantastic on Deck.
Hopefully I'll have some more time to put into it this evening, but that's seeming unlikely, but I definitely want to explore it some more.
That's great! I hope it's not one of these Indy titles that gets overlooked with the sheer volume of releases at the moment.
Interestingly, I also started playing on the Deck and had I was getting uttly trashed in combat, to the point I was getting frustrated and considered turning the difficulty down. But I tried out the PC controls with kb/m and I found it played much better.
Since my post I've put in another 4 or 5 hours and hit some major story points which had me feeling reasonably strongly about the story and characters, so its going well still.
If you keep it up, would be interested to hear your thoughts next week.
Since Stalker 2 is coming out soon, I updated Anomaly and did the whole deal of grabbing a bunch of mods.
One of the most impressive to me has been Screen Space Shaders. It's modular, so you can pick out which elements you want. Turns out, you can use just about all of it without much issue, so I did that. I love the dynamic weather effects, the puddles forming in the rain really transforms the look of the game and the interactive grass/wind stuff adds a lot of life to the world. Along with that, I installed addons for immersion, like animations for using different items and more complex behavior with your weapons (like holding your gun up when you're up against a wall, more realistic/accurate recoil, etc). There's also a few that change up how factions behave and what sort of tasks folks give out.
When I play Anomaly, I like to set up Warfare and disable the story mode, taking time to really finely tune how the game begins/what factions end up doing. This time around, I decided each faction would begin with only a few squads/a single base, in a zone with a massively increased mutant/zombie population. The factions are set up to aggressively pursue territory, while the mutants/zombies present a constant threat to everybody. The zombies provide a good opportunity to scavenge gear in the early game, and as time goes on and the factions take more territory, it's a smooth sort of progression to take them on and get better stuff.
My character, "Puvic Puchik", began as a Loner/Free Stalker, wandering around and completing tasks for folks until I had some decent gear. Then, I made my way to the Great Swamp and joined up with Clear Sky, because their base is my favorite. I led a squad across the swamp to take territory, until it was just us there/I could send out squads independently to take more spots. Over that time, the other factions did their thing, and I think we're approaching a point where there's going to be a big war. Monolith has swept the northern part of the zone, primarily the CNPP and Pripyat. The other factions control the areas immediately south, and I control the whole of the southern-most territory. The big issue at the moment, is that Monolith has pushed a bunch of bandits and military into the middle, so there's a bunch of fighting going on there. My goal is to eliminate the bandits/military to build relations, and then hopefully get everybody in on a war against Monolith. The northern zone is especially difficult because it's more urban, so while I could probably go in on my lonesome and make it through, I would just frustrate myself trying to capture and hold the territory. Getting the other factions aligned means both an easier time and much more opportunity to scavenge high end gear as folks get taken out in the fighting.
Small scale, the goal right now is to get a pair of good night vision goggles so I can conduct a nighttime attack on a bandit base. I've armed myself with my favorite shotgun, a sniper rifle with some armor piercing ammo, and about a dozen grenades. If we can take out this base, the territory is a good spot to try to gather folks up for making our way north. I've also arranged a bunch of tasks that take me to this area anyway, to maximize how much of a relationship benefit I get from doing all of this. I don't know if it will be enough for the other factions to really ally with me, but I'll see, and holding this territory should mean we can keep Monolith from heading south any further than they already have. While the factions have been fighting in the middle, I've been strengthening my presence in the south, so I've got several squads heading to where I'm at to set up this new base.
Bigger picture, if we can eliminate Monolith, I'll assess my relations and go after the other factions, one by one until we dominate the whole of the Zone. If I get to that point before Stalker 2, I'm going to disable new spawns for my faction, increase the mutant/zombies to maximum, and see how long we can hold out against them.
I've been way too addicted to Valve's Deadlock for the past couple of months. I'd never played a MOBA before and still don't totally understand some of the game flow but I've been (mostly) having a great time.
I played Rivals of Aether 2. It's a platform fighter (a smash bros clone), with its own unique cast of characters instead of using existing IP. I'm really enjoying it. Basically all non smash platform fighters are either really ugly, or feel bad as platformers. Rivals both looks slick, and feels slick. It's got a good soundtrack too. The only drawback is that most of the player base feels pretty hardcore. If you've got equally casual friends to play it with it's great, but I can see someone fresh having a rough time online.
Oh I was watching a twitch streamer play some of this at the weekend and I was like, huh. Someone re made smash bros, and one of the characters looks like Greninja.
Looks like Greninja, plays like Sheik.
I finished Killer Frequency the other day, which I enjoyed, but wasn't...amazed, I guess, by. I'm thankful it was a nice compact experience at 7-hours and I really enjoyed exploring and picking up everything, but the story was either very predictable or very telegraphed, as I had worked it out pretty handily before the final hour or two and I am not a smart guy or anything; I almost never work these things out, so I'm not sure what was going on there. Would I recommend it? Eh. It was hitting right for me at the moment, where I wanted something fairly chill, mostly story driven without any real challenge or fail state, so I'm happy with it in that regard. I'm not sad I bought and played it.
I picked-up Pacific Drive in a bundle with Killer Frequency and I'm strongly considering returning it. I've been avoiding it for awhile due to the fact that it has zero mid-mission saves, which is generally a deal killer for me, but I am still pretty intrigued by the game, especially for the fact that I am a car person, so the fact that the car is a main character sounds intriguing. Plus I loved Jalopy, which is a similar game without mid-mission saves where you're constantly fixing up various components of your car.
Now that said, of the 90 or so minutes I've played, I am completely unimpressed and overall quite annoyed with it, mostly due to it's incredibly awful performance for it's fairly mediocre looking graphics. I picked it up in the hopes that I could mitigate the mid-mission stuff by playing it on my Steam Deck, but it struggles to maintain 30-FPS on the lowest settings and just looks atrocious to boot. Running on my laptop with a 5500XT eGPU produces similar results whether I'm running it at 2160x1350 or 1280x800, no real performance gains for dropping the resolution. It's frustrating, especially when I can get Cyberpunk running at a solid 30 and looking great on Deck; Pacific Drive has no room to run this terribly. I may ultimately return it before my 2-hour demo is fully up.
Mostly what I've been playing since completing Killer Frequency is Advance Wars: Dual Strike, running it on emulation with a single screen handheld; one of those DS games that doesn't really make use of the second screen, so it works very well. In the last couple of years I've run through and completed the GBA Advance Wars games, but it's been years since I played the DS version and I'm really stuck into it again. There's nothing quite like this series, I find Fire Emblem utterly boring and uninteresting and all the spiritual successors to AW have never really hit the mark for me, so I'm not looking forward to finishing out the series I get around to playing Days of Ruin. I'll just have to start playing the GBA versions again.
Spent the last week playing Mario Party Jamboree. I'm having a great time with it.
The new boards are all fun and different in their own ways. Pro mode is okay. It removes a lot of the variability which removes some of the fun for me. I like most of the mini games, including the motion ones. The new Jamboree buddy is a great mechanic. I like that everyone has to compete for them. The competition is longer than a regular mini game which makes it more satisfying to win.
The best part of this is the new Koopathon game mode though. I am hooked. I love the fast paced competition as well as competing against 19 other players. The Browser minigame is tough enough that it can always throw things for a loop, so you can usually jump up the rankings by winning.
I bought the Switch online 2 vouchers for $100 deal for LoZ and this. MP is definitely worth the money for me
I have been playing nothing but Black Ops 6. After a week and some change, I'm still hopelessly addicted with no end in sight, they really knocked it out of the park. I also got 5 friends to download it who either already had gamepass or were willing to put down $10 for PC gamepass or whatever it is to play games with me for a month. I still haven't started the campaign because I've honestly just enjoyed multiplayer so much! I just got to prestige 2 last night and I'm continuing to truck on.
I have also been playing Black Ops 6. They did a good job with the zombies mode this year. They brought back the consumable item system from Black Ops 3 and 4, but (for now at least) it's not pay-to-win this time. It also feels like a good balance between powerful enough to be useful and not too powerful to feel like a crutch like it did in Black Ops 3.
The zombies mode in the last Black Ops game had you grind to unlock permanent upgrades for different perks and equipment, which was a lot of fun, but in my opinion it made the power gap between new players and high level players really big for a PvE mode. But this time you unlock different side-grades and you choose which ones to equip based on your playstyle. This is a fun way to add some player agency and some stuff to work towards when you play.
They added save and quit to single player zombies, which is a big deal. They had that on the old mobile port back in the early 2010s, it's only taken 10 years for the console version to do it! In all seriousness, that's a welcome feature.
They added some fancy animated calling cards for you to show off in multiplayer if you do the zombies main quests (and some recolored versions of those calling cards if you do the quests close to when the game came out), which is a really cool reward that made doing the quests all the more enjoyable. Progression for your player XP and unlocking weapon attachments is shared between multiplayer and zombies. The prestige rewards reference both old Black Ops multiplayer experiences and, very prominently, zombies experiences. In the older Black Ops games, zombies felt like a "third class citizen", which felt even more true once battle royale started getting involved. Now it feels like they've truly embraced the zombies mode as a core part of the game.
Not everything's perfect, though. It's very clear that the popularity of Warzone is rubbing off on the zombies mode's mechanics, which the existing zombies community does not like. The game now runs on dedicated servers even for zombies, which means in single player zombies, you're only allowed to pause for 15 minutes! If you pause longer than that, you're booted out of your game... But it will at least try to save your match using the mentioned save and quit feature. Also, the past two Black Ops games had multiplayer pause in zombies coop matches, but this game removed it. Can't wait for them to add it in 3 months and act like it's a big deal they're so generous for bringing back... That feature was a godsend and I'll keep bringing it up to whoever will listen until they eventually add it to this one.
I have played a decent amount of the multiplayer as well. It's good, but I'm judging off of the Nuketown 24/7 playlist. I remember from the open beta the other maps were kinda meh, and my friends don't really like them. The actual mechanics and progression is excellent this year though.
As far as the MP maps go, there are absolutely some stinkers, but I think I have a higher opinion on the pool than most. I don’t think there are any instant classic maps like the older games, but I also think there are a number of maps being slept on because the worst maps in the pool are truly awful and skewing perception. I play a mix of TDM, domination, and hard point, both in core and hardcore, and some maps do play better in some modes than others. For example, I don’t like Red Card in core TDM, but it plays pretty well in hard point and in hardcore TDM, it’s a similar case with derelict, where it’s fairly predictable in core modes but is very tense in hardcore. Other than that, I enjoy Protocol, Payback, Rewind, Scud, Vorkuta, and Vault, with the last three listed being my personal favorites, and even Babylon and Subsonic are growing on me in the same way where in CoD 4, shipment would come up after a match on backlot and it was truly terrifying.
So they’re not all good, but I like enough of them where I think once we get like four good maps through the next few seasons, the map pool will be grow on people.
One thing that’s almost baffling is how often CoD games flip from returning some old maps to doing nothing but originals. I think it’s a series where some of the older maps are timeless classics and could probably stick around in modern games, like what happens in counter strike. I like having new maps to play with, but I do wish we had maybe three reprised maps or something. I also think MW3 went too far in the other direction when it had only reprised maps on launch.
About the returning maps, they probably went with all original due to MW3 being all returning, and releasing another game with a ton of rehashed maps after a game with nothing but that at launch probably was something they wanted to avoid. MW3 was all returning maps since (based on basically every leak) the original MW2 was going to get a full on remaster, but they weren't sure if they should release it in the exploit-heavy state it was, or with the balance patch that didn't get added since a bunch of devs left Infinity Ward. They decided to split it into the MW2 Campaign Remastered (which is a kinda weird release to do for this series) and were going to add the multiplayer maps to MW2 (2022). They decided instead to make that DLC into a standalone game that carried over a ton of content from the previous CoD, MW3 (2023). This is also why they promised MW2 (2022) was going to be a 2-year game and then it wasn't.
In terms of getting returning maps in new CoDs, I am definitely a fan! I miss in all the games before Black Ops 4, when returning maps got the same layout but a new theme. I loved seeing Firing Range from BO1 become a movie studio in BO2, for example.
What is this PC gamepass? Does it give access to other CoD games as well? I've been wanting to play the campaigns of them
It's microsoft's subscription service, where you get access to a large game library for $10 a month. I personally don't use it, but I have many friends that do and it's generally a good value if you play a lot of games. At the moment, the only CoD games on there are Black Ops 6 and Modern Warfare 3 (2023). BO6 is good, but MW3 is easily the worst game in the franchise. As far as I know, more of the older CoD games should be coming to gamepass, but they're not on there yet.
https://www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-game-pass/games#PCgames
Ah, thanks! I used a free 1 month trial to play Forza Horizon not too long ago. It was super smooth, and I feel it's a great deal for trying out games that otherwise are €60
Fair warning: a lot of the older CoD games have extremely bad arbitrary code execution exploits. I wouldn't recommend playing anything older than a few years ago, even in single player. Booting up the loading screen is enough to get hacked from what I've seen. The worst thing is these games are still up for sale (sometimes for full price!) with their servers online even though Activision is aware of this issue. Black Ops III has a whole Steam Workshop community and frequently goes on sale even though they have this bug. It's really messed up...
Getting hacked? As in, someone will gain access to my computer or?
Yeah, apparently.
This Reddit thread suggests that any CoD released on Battle.net is safe, though.
Would I even be in danger if I only play the campaign and never go into multiplayer stuff?
The risk is booting up the older games into online mode. Not just launching multiplayer, even being on the title screen while connected to CoD's servers is dangerous. I THINK you're save if you launch the games with your internet off, but I still don't recommend it to be safe. There are fan-made patches and modded clients that allegedly fix the issue, but then you're trusting them to be up to date and not have their own bugs.
That part I'm not totally sure, sorry. I personally would guess no but maybe do more research (or see if OP replies).
I have fallen deep into the rabbit hole that is pico-8. It’s a fantasy console that runs indie 8bit games. The games themselves are just png files that look like carts. I swear the whole thing is just a blast.
I've been playing Dragon Age: The Veilguard, and I'm mostly really enjoying it! The art is gorgeous, the dialogue isn't nearly as bad as I saw people complaining about, and the story so far has been fairly engaging. I do hate that they did away with The Tapestry and didn't replace it with something similarly comprehensive. I hate that none of my contributions to the world up to that point mattered at all. I won't know exactly how I feel about the game until I'm much further in, but I can absolutely see myself playing it several more times.
I've been killing time again with Hero's Hour .
A very light take on a Hero's of might and magic style game. They recently reworked how hero skill trees work, which is a massive change given how much those affect your playstyle. I still suck overall but it's been fun to try out new builds and the new to me factions such as delirium
This weekend was mostly filled with trying the Open Beta for Monster Hunter Wilds on various platforms, my desktop Linux setup, Steam Deck, PS5 and XBox Series X. Realised I am going to need a video card upgrade for Wilds on PC! Gunlance is feeling pretty fun though, so that's good.
After that, I decided to try Disco Elysium, as it seems to review well and I tend to enjoy story driven RPGs. Did not like it at all. Put a couple of hours in to it, could not stand the way the dialogue was presented, didn't much care for the milieu.
So next on the list to tide me over until February, is likely to be Subnautica on the Steam Deck. Haven't booted it up yet, that's a job for tomorrow night.
I'll also do some more Dystopika most likely.
Disco Elysium isn't really an RPG, at least not by regular video game definitions. It's more of a point and click adventure with dice rolls, and the gameplay itself is such a minor part of it that if you don't enjoy the art and absurd dialogue it's not going to be a good time. It's not something you need to force yourself to enjoy or understand just because it reviewed well.
I am playing Dragon Age: The Veilguard. I don't have a problem with the dialogue or lack of world state imports as others have indicated. I do object to two things:
there's a notable lack of elf-specific dialogue, at least in Act 1. this is noteworthy because one of the settings, Tevinter, is a place where elves are slaves. there are indeed people freeing slaves but nobody is batting an eye when two elven mages are running around beating up cultists
unlike other critics, i dont mind that this game is more action oriented than previous entries. i do find it weird that it did not trade real-time-with-pause for anything equally unique. the main distinguishing feature i suppose is the primer/detonation system with the companions, but that has appeared before in Mass Effect.
other than those, i am having a good time. the world is gorgeous, framerates are stable, and my main character doesnt look heinous.
I ended up getting a review key (my first!) for Metal Slug Tactics so I was sucked into that over the weekend.
It's a little rough around the edges, but it's super fun! I especially liked that you get energy from moving and positioning matters a lot, so it really rewards careful planning. There's a good mix of abilities too, so there are a lot of tools at your disposal.
https://david.reviews/articles/metal-slug-tactics-review/
So I haven't spent much time with the Metal Slug series, but I admit I LOLed during the trailer when it said, "experience an all-new dimension to the series' iconic run-and-gun gameplay" while showing a typical tactical RPG battleground and moveset. Tactical RPGs are great and there's no reason not to make a Metal Slug in that genre as far as I know, but it was pretty funny to hear them try to call it the same as always but with a tweak.
I read your review, incidentally, and I do think it's interesting what they've done with the adrenaline system to keep the players moving and the gameplay high-octane. As described, it definitely shows a thoughtfulness in keeping with the overall theme. It would just be better served IMO by not trying to call it run-and-gun. :-)
I think that's a valid point! I was surprised at how much the game punishes you for standing in place. In similar games, I'll usually plant a sniper/archer in place and let them take potshots for the whole mission, but that really doesn't work here. So the "run" portion of the description really does become a requirement. Though it'd be more accurate to say it's "jog and shoot and jog and shoot" gameplay, it's not quite as catchy. 😅
Honestly I've been bored with games. The only thing I play daily is Chess and working on some other hobbies.
Any suggestions on how one can become less useless at this game. Learn strategies and whatnot
Sure! Use Chesstempo.net to learn tactics. Do them daily. Your skills will improve and it’s a fun way to challenge your brain.
I peaked around 1100 Elo on chess.com so... still very low, but that was working up from ~400 in about 2 months. The biggest things for me were definitely just playing consistently and actually reviewing my games and trying to learn from my mistakes. At low Elos, it can also just be pretty helpful to learn an opening for white and a defense or two for black to common white openings.
Metaphor: Refantazio: I slowed down a bit pretty early. The first real dungeons feels quite long an I was getting sick of it. But powered through and started advancing the story again. I'm about 15 hours in and I really wish I'd have another party member by now.
CODBLOPSIX: The only COD I've played any signifiant amount of time in was Modern Warfare (2007). I liked multiplayer a lot and ended up pretty good at it. Since then I haven't really touched the franchise. After a couple hours into the campaign I'm pretty happy with it. Gunplay feels good, story is interesting enough. I'll put more time into it but I've been interrupted by...
Dragon Age: The Veilguard: This feels like Dragon Age fans having their Fallout 4 moment. I never really played the series other than taking a stab at Origins back in the day. In fact I really haven't played any Bioware other than Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights. But really I think the game was always going to struggle with expectations. There are things the studio could have executed better, but I think this is kind of what an average AAA game is.
Astrobot: I rolled credits on Astrobot. I absolutely love this game.
I first bought No Man's Sky in August of 2019. I played it a tiny bit back then, but it didn't stick and quickly dropped it again. I saw the Worlds part 1 update and figured I should try it again. After the end of the tutorial I didn't really see what fun I could get out of the game and searched a bit online on what people actually find fun about it. I am not at all unfamiliarly with 'find your own fun' games, and knew that if I just kept going a bit I would naturally discover goals for myself. I eventually did, and fun I found. But I'm not one to stick with the same games for long, and after accomplishing my personal goals I can feel that this is the end of the run.
On the basis that a potential future Worlds part 2 update might break all bases, I decided going in that I would not built anything I didn't want to lose. But once I got going with the base building the decision did not last long. That is not an endorsement of the building system though. I find the snapping system probably one of the worst I have ever tried in a game. It is fine for putting together some of the bigger stuff like the cube modules, but once you start to get creative with the manual pieces, especially the half pieces, it quickly falls apart. Nearly all the time snapping points are just hard to get the game to find, requiring you to look at them from weird angles. Frequently, rotating a piece on a snapping point will completely skip valid angles. Several times I also found combinations of pieces that the game completely refuses to acknowledge that should be able to snap together. But I stuck with it because I liked the end results.
As for Expeditions, I tried the Aqua one which was running when I started. Though at some point I tried to install a ship upgrade that I had gotten as a milestone reward, but accidentally started building an identical upgrade instead. For some reason the game would not allow me to disassemble it so I could install the correct one. Rage quit that expedition. Tried the Haunted one when it started and saw it through to the end. My opinion is sort of meh. I hate FOMO mechanics for a start, so expeditions already didn't sit right with me. I didn't care for the reward ship and would rather have spend the time progressing my main save. Though I can see it as reasons for older players to keep coming back to the game.
Overall it's a pretty nice game. Feels like a puddle when you first step in, but if you keep going you discover an ocean of content. A bit let down by very annoying bugs I ran into which apparently has been around for ages. Also it is pretty clear that the game is designed with primarily console on mind, which dampens the PC experience a bit.