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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.
Everything else has fallen by the wayside to make room for Elite Dangerous. It had been about 10-years since I last played the game, having spent a lot of time with it on its release and I very much enjoyed it, but it felt kind of shallow. But recently a friend or two of mine have been getting into it so I figured I'd give it another go because it sounded like it might hit right for me at the current moment and boy has it.
Since picking it up on December 2nd, I've put almost 30-hours into it. That may not sound like a lot for 7-days, but it is an almost excessive amount for someone like me who generally plays games for about an hour a day, especially considering there's been days in that week long period where I've been quite busy and haven't played at all. I did start with a decent ship and a small little nest egg of 2-million credits, which I promptly lost over the course of about 4-days with various experimentation and deaths, but now I'm up to almost 30-million credits from just trading.
I've tried multiple things so far, including bounties, trading missions, passenger missions and exploration. I have yet to really try any of the ground stuff, but I'm eager to get enough money to outfit a ship for something other than trading. The game still does feel a little shallow to me, as it mostly feels like I'm building-up credits so that I can buy a better ship to build-up more credits, but I also feel like I haven't explored all my options yet, so we'll get there.
I am a little worried that I've burned so hot and bright with this one that I'm already burning out a little bit on it, which does happen with me. But we'll see where I am next week.
I've also gotten through the first three cases in Case of the Golden Idol on my Steam Deck while lying in bed. I've heard it compared favorably to Return of the Obra Dinn and while I do like it, it hasn't quite hit the same high for me yet; though to be fair, Obra Dinn took awhile to really click for me. I do still want to play more Golden Idol and now that the weekend is over, I'll hopefully have time for both Elite and Golden Idol.
I reinstalled ED a while ago because I was jonesing for that space trucker life for a brief moment. I had forgotten that I had done the carrier grind before but never bought the carrier. I didn't relish the thought of upkeep, so I wanted to grind more but got burned out, then put the game down for a couple of years.
All that's to say that I have like 1.3 billion credits kicking it doing nothing, so if you would like some assistance getting kitted and stuff, I can probably help. There's no easy way to transfer credits that I know of, but I can buy some high-value cargo and jettison it for you to pick up. We can definitely get you a couple million credits to buy a Krait or AspX or whatever, though it'll take a bit of planning and work.
Drop me a DM if you're interested.
Started Path of Exile 2 early access this weekend. Started Saturday because I didn't bother trying to get in Friday on release because I predicted that there would be server issues. (there was)
I only put 10 hours in so far and really enjoying it so far. They changed the biggest friction points about POE1 that caused me to bounce off. The biggest changes to me were:
Ultimately in POE1 I felt that the game was actively discouraging me from experimenting with different skills, passives, etc. With the changes in POE2 I now feel that the game in now actively encouraging experimentation instead. This difference means that I no longer feel pigeon-holed into following a build guide that someone else made and that I can try new things on my own terms. In POE2 I am not afraid to experiment with my build because if something doesn't work I can easily try something else or revert.
Smaller improvements that make the game feel so better:
My only gripe so far is that it's hard to tell the number of charges in the health/mana flasks. I wish I could have a counter.
I'm somewhat into Act II, enjoying the story more than POE 1 as well.
So far I'm finding it a little difficult to judge what gear to pick up or not. That's also part of the great thing about playing a new game: It hasn't been solved yet, so you can just do whatever as long as you're trying without getting flack.
The multiplayer parties are great. The scaling down of levels to play with friends seems to work okay.
Interestingly, playing on my Steam deck showed number of uses remaining on my potions. Of course, everything else is grainy and small so it's maybe not the absolute best way to play, but it's pretty decent on the deck. I imagine playing with a controller on PC would handle the same but look better. Might be worth a look?
I'm really enjoying the game, yeah! I had some issues, but the latest patch fixed them - you can teleport to checkpoints now, no more backtracking for ages to get that last bit of the map explored!
Something else I don't like is the ascension system, because I absolutely loathe ultimatum... I think it's possible to do sanctum for all the points, but it's unclear in the game. But aside from that, I'm having a blast, and the boss fights are epic. The end of act 3 was amazing
I've been interested in this one because I love games with buildcrafting but I've never played an ARPG before. Is the game reasonably accessible? Can you play it without a bachelor's degree and twelve browser tabs of guides? I look at screenshots of the skill tree and get a twist in my stomach, feel the weight of my own cosmic insignificance in the face of it
Here's some of the biggest things they did to help with accessibility, which I think really go a long way:
Those plus the other mechanic changes they did gives the game amazing bones. Granted, given that it is still early access their is still a lot of polish work that needs to happen. There are many bugs that need fixing and balance changes needed.
Yes the skill tree is huge, but once the shock wears off the first time, I think its not hard to wrap your head around. Each character has a different starting place, so each character is really only working with about 20%-40% of the tree. There also isn't really "wrong" choices for the first 10-15 levels.
If you're on the fence, wait before jumping in so they have time to iron out the kinks. The game will be Free to Play once its out of Early Access, so you might want to wait until then. That way if it isn't your thing, then you aren't out any money. But if you're ok with some things not working and some bugs and crashes, they feel free to dollars on it.
Just got back for PAX Unplugged this weekend and played a lottttt of board games this weekend!
Surprisingly didn't have too many games I was super into (this year I've probably spent the least I have at a PAX), but I picked up a couple of games nonetheless!
I talked to some of the staff at Oink Games because I've been playing Scout a lot recently, and I got suggested their game Tiger and Dragon which I promptly picked up. It's a tile laying game that has 1 1's, 2 2's, 3 3's, up to 8 8's, and each person has to lay down a tile matching the previous, and putting out their own tile, or pass, and the round ends when someone gets rid of all their tiles! It's an interesting game based on an old Japanese game and it's really fun, I played a lot of rounds with friends and had a good time
Finally picked up a copy of Netrunner for the first time! I played one game with it as a corpo but didn't really understand it too much until it was way too late. I'll say that their getting started guide is a bit too long and needs some refinement and maybe needs to simplify some of the terminology a bit. I enjoyed it a lot though, it felt very thematic and feels like a deep game, and you get all the cards per expansion!
Picked up Moonrollers, the new Moonrakers IP game from IV Studios, mostly because I'm a sucker for their packaging engineering honestly. Haven't played that yet but it seemed pretty fun
Enjoyed the Flesh and Blood booth, and got to get some of my friends into the game a bit more. I wish I had time to jam out a couple of games from my own Nuu constructed deck, but it is what it is!
You picked up a copy of Netrunner? Last I heard the game was in legal limbo since Fantasy Flight and WotC didn’t agree to continue licensing. I might be out of the loop. I did a quick search before replying and found that a company called Null Signal is printing Netrunner-compatible stuff.
yup! Null Signal had a booth and was selling their System Gateway and a bunch of expansions. I htink you can probably get it shipped now too.
Very cool! Thanks for sharing. 🙏
Besides being addicted to Balatro, which is now what I play in bed for an hour before falling asleep, I just started Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. I got it for free on Epic at some point.
So far I like it, I might struggle with juggling all the different augmentation toggles though. They're mapped to F keys by default and I don't find it the most intuitive I guess.
I played Human Revolution a long time ago and was very close to succeeding a fully pacifist run, but I accidentally killed someone towards the end and the game auto saved. Still trying for pacifist in this one, but we'll see if that pans out.
I bounced off of Mankind Divided about 3 times (actually purchasing and refunding it more than once over the course of a handful of years) specifically due to the control scheme, but eventually it just clicked for me and became one of my favorite gaming experiences in a very long time.
I was sad to hear that the Adam Jensen saga likely won't ever get resolved though, his story could really use just one more game. Plus, Elias Toufexis voices Adam as such an enjoyable no-nonsense tough guy.
I may end up remapping some key bindings. Your comment helps confirm that I really may have to do that.
I finished Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown and it is now my personal game of the year. Last week, I had said "the character and enemy design is great, the combat is fun and varied and, most importantly, the traversal feels incredible" as well as me appreciating that there was some degree of precision platforming required, which I'm a big fan of. I spent about 16 hours on the game and that was with me completing most (but not all) side content and collectibles. I appreciate games these days that give me a consistent 10-20 hours and don't overstay their welcome and this was it. A perfect package for fans of the genre!
Beyond that, I still have the metroidvania bug, so I picked up both Ori games and I started Ori and the Blind Forest. I'm only 2.5 hours in, but my first impression is that the visuals are incredible, the story is very touching so far (I was bawling my eyes out during the prologue) and that the game has a lot of unique character, but I'm not as impressed so far with the mechanics as I was with PoP. It just doesn't feel quite as tight or precise (there was a section where I had to escape by going upwards with a new ability and it just seemed like the window to use it was a little unforgiving). I do like it so far and will be finishing it, if only for the story and visuals, but hopefully the gameplay tightens up a bit as I get more abilities.
Edit: I downloaded Marvel Rivals and played for four hours. Game fun. I'm enjoying this. It's the good and fun bits of marvel, the characters are fun, the gameplay is pretty good. I don't think this is a "knocks it out of the park" game, but a hero shooter with some of my favorite superheroes that isn't loaded to the gills with microtransactions is a fun game to play.
I just picked up Nine Sols for my long flight back to Asia this week, but I kinda also wish I picked up Prince of Persia while it was on sale as well based on your recommendation, I'll have to do that next time!
Gosh, I absolutely love Ori, so if you think The Lost Crown is even better than it, I suppose I’ll have to try that one out!
It’s now officially on my Buy It During The Winter Sale list.
To be fair, I’m only 2.5 hours into the first Ori, I’ll be a better judge of it in a week or two :)
I just finished Metal Gear Solid V: the Phantom Pain last night. I have been playing it since Week 4 of the Backlog Burner even that @kfwyre and @Wes puts on. And I have been sick this past week with the cold that is going around, so I had decided to finish the game. My thoughts about it had not really changed from my post from that week, which is I really liked it, and with only one mission that I wanted to say "fuck it" because of the amount that I kept dying in that mission. But besides that slight hick up, I had really enjoyed the game, despite the fact that I typically don't really enjoy stealth games.
The mission in question
It's the one that you have to save Quiet from the Soviet Forces after she got captured by them towards the end of the game. I kept getting killed by the double tanks and to the helicopter (sometimes). After dying to the tanks for like seemed like for the 10th time, I finally called in a attack run with my helicopter and a bombardment to take out the tanks. Which I finally got passed that fight.
Halls of Torment
I’m at 472/500 achievements. I will definitely be getting all 500. The game isn’t the most innovative take on the Vampire Survivors formula, but it’s definitely the most polished.
I think tying progress to the achievements and having the different grids to uncover was a really smart way of making the game unfold for the player. Unlike other games in the genre in which my main goal is just “grind,” in this game I have to go into my runs with a specific plan about what I want to achieve in that particular session. It gives an otherwise repetitive game a lot more staying power.
I’ve played the game either while exercising (stepping repeatedly up and down off of an aerobic step in front of my TV) or while listening to audiobooks. I’ve come to love this genre of game for giving me something that’s engaging enough to pull me in, yet simple enough that I can prioritize another task while I play. When I’m exercising, the game makes the time go by much quicker, and when I’m listening to a book, the game makes me focus more than if I were listening to the book alone.
It's been a roguelike bonanza. After Balatro, which I swear I'm going back to, I picked up Slay the Spire, and am trying to make time for Caves of Qud (it's been too busy for me since it dropped 1.0).
Super Meat Boy: I'm still A+ing everything, but ragequit when I realized that, I guess, every level has a bandage on it? I can't see most of them for some reason.
The beta for Descenders Next is out! It's a demo for the snowboarding/mountain boarding stuff, more than a full game, but it offers a solid preview focused on the new elements of the game and it's phenomenal. The snowboarding takes some getting used to as it's really slidy, but once it clicks it plays amazingly. The mountainboarding is somewhere in the middle, where it's really grippy, closed to original Descenders, but you do board tricks instead (grinds, grabs, flips, etc). I'm looking forward to whenever they get the bike stuff out, because that'll be even better.
Those are some great games! Have you played Celeste and/or Monster Train? You're probably familiar with them, but Celeste is similar to SMB and Monster Train is similar to StS. Both are great games in case you are looking for some recommendations!
Haven't played Caves of Qud before, just saw that it was released on Steam recently and was interested in checking it out.
I'm stuck on 100%ing Celeste but chip away at it slowly, it's definitely a favorite of mine. inactially found a ton of parallels in Meat Boy and Celeste in the design.
i'll check out amonater Train, for sure. i've been looking at deck builders differently since my first go at Balatro two weeks back and find the genre fun.
Yup, that's why I figured I'd mention it in case you hadn't played them both yet. I played a bunch of SMB back when it first came out and then tried Celeste when it was free on Epic (damn it's already been like five years, huh). Both scratched the same itch, though something about the story in Celeste made me connect with it more than I ever did with SMB, which I believe started as a flash game hence the lack of backstory.
Hell yeah! Love me some roguelike deckbuilders. There are so many though that it can feel overwhelming if you're just diving in for the first time. Funny enough I'd place StS, Monster Train, and Balatro as my top three in no particular order. They're just incredibly fun, polished, and deep (yet accessible to any experience level).
My head has been out of the Math game for a wee while now, so I decided to install a math game, Cross Math.
I'm struggling on Medium 😭
I recommend it for anyone who wants Sudoku type brain stimulation using basic arithmetic.
This game may also have broken my 15 year old, but this can only be good for his build up to GCSEs.
I picked up a bunch of games during the recent deals, have only played couple so far. Looking forward to playing the rest soon enough!
Bridge Constructor: Portal
Holy crap what a great game. Super pleasantly surprised by this one. Been on my radar for years but never really bothered to get it, but picked it up now for less than two bucks for the base game and its dlc and it's been a blast. Great puzzle game, lots of creative solutions to things. Absolutely recommend to anyone that loves puzzles, hits that 'one more turn' feeling that keeps you playing til like 2AM. And great portal references too, it has that same sarcastic no-regard-for-human-life laboratory feel of the two main games. Now I'm considering getting some of the other bridge constructor games that are on sale, like BC Medieval or BC Walking Dead (never watched the show but feels like I would enjoy it nonetheless).
Satisfactory
Been wanting to try this one out for a while. Passed up on it during the last sale and regretted it almost immediately after. I've tried other factory games in the past and enjoyed them to an extent. But things become overwhelming and repetitive fast, so I never last too long in them. But so far this one has been pretty fun and keeps introducing new things to keep the game feeling fresh. I would be playing it more if not for...
Victoria 3
So I've actually already had this game for a year or so now, played it a couple dozen hours previously. And for some reason, playing Satisfactory made me want to boot up Victoria 3 again. So I did, then spent another day or two remembering all the different mechanics and the ins and outs of trade and economics. Plus a bunch of stuff was added in the months since I last played, so plenty to catch up on mechanically speaking. Have been having a blast now that I've gotten back to remembering how to properly play the game, lol.
Who are you playing as in Victoria, and what are you goals?
Playing as Brazil and trying to dominate South America and get as big as I can be. Took a couple of retries to remember everything about the game but I think I finally have it down. Currently I’ve taken all of South America minus the northern couple of nations, plus have colonies in South Africa and Indonesia. Now just trying to maximize my economy.
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle came out last night! I'm only about two hours in so I don't have much to say yet, but I am definitely enjoying it. Troy Baker is putting in an excellent Harrison Ford impression (not perfect but it feels like Indy). The game as a whole feels like a cross between Tomb Raider, those old Nancy Drew games from HER Interactive, and maybe some Splinter Cell. Now that I write it, that sounds like an odd mix, but trust me, it works. Also the game looks incredible and runs at a rock-solid 60fps on the Series X.
Closing note: the game makes a 10/10 fascist-punching simulator. Really hits the spot right now.
Yeah I really enjoy the structure of the game too with the open levels with lots of ways to get into places and backtracking. Kinda reminds me of the Resident Evil games in terms of that actually.
Yes! I explore everything when I play games and this is tickling my brain in just the right way.
During the prologue, I got curious how far off the path I could go, so I went for a swim in the lake, prompting the last remaining Peruvian guide to ask me if I'd never heard of the toothpick fish.
I've only punched a single person so far, and haven't yet confirmed that he's a fascist, but the game is off to a great start!
Recently, I have gotten back into The Legend of Zelda : Breath of the Wild. I switched to French part way through my play through, and it has been interesting hearing the voice acting and translations in French instead of English. I am almost done the game! Furthermore, I am hoping to finally start Tears of the Kingdom in the new year.
The other game which I have switched to French recently is Octopath, I am a little sad that there is no voice acting in French, so I switched to the Japanese VAs for that. BUT it has also been quite fun. I am rather fluent in French so it is not difficult at all for me to read / listen, but it is not my native language so it is still an "exciting" experience for me, breathing fresh air into games I have been playing on and off for a while now.
Generally speaking, I am bad at finishing games, but I am hoping that I will take the time this holiday season to relax and actually finish some for once!
I did the same with Octopath Traveller! Gaming is a really underrated language learning tool; great for picking up vocabulary and practicing active engagement with the target language.
I played a lot of Dungeons of Hinterberg this week after getting it from a gift exchange santa. There's a lot to say about it.
You're Luisa, a young austrian lawyer who, disillusioned with her career of choice, quit her job to take a long sabbatical in Hinterberg, a lovely alpine lake town where magic was recently rediscovered. That's right! Portals to twenty five different dungeons have opened in the region, and tourists from all over the world are flocking there to rediscover themselves while slaughtering large quantities of goblins. It's OK, they're guaranteed non-sentient. "Enjoy your slay!"
I'd say this game takes the core Atlus/Persona formula, building on it in a novel way. Luisa's life is structured in days, with morning, noon, afternoon and evening sections. Every day Luisa goes to a region of your choice, which you can freely explore (noon) and then you can select a dungeon portal of your choice and explore the dungeon in the afternoon, or spend the afternoon relaxing in a scenic spot. "Dungeon" here really means a pocket dimension, not unlike in Persona, so they can be pretty much anything. In each region Luisa has access to two distinct "spells" which have both combat and puzzle solving applications for the dungeons in that region.
I recently complained, talking about a different game, about poorly implemented combat with heavy, deliberate hits. I'm happy to say DoH implements it very well. On normal, battles (which usually contain one or more waves of multiple monsters) can be difficult but never feel unfair. The dodge action is very limited but still very useful, and both Luisa's and the monsters' movements are consistent and reliable. There are several dimensions to how stats, equipment and upgrades work, including a charm system that functions like Nier:Automata of all things.
In the evenings Luisa can socialize with one person of your choice. In addition to shops and entertainment, Hinterberg contains a cast of locals, pro slayers, regular tourists, shopkeepers, and... one dog, that can be met and progressively befriended. Unfortunately the game isn't voice acted (I found it very lacking in the audio department really), but the people are still interesting enough and the social aspect is massively important in another way: Each friend will unlock various items, upgrades or power ups for Luisa that are essential to her improvement. In fact, at first I was speeding through the game at a rate of one dungeon per day, but eventually I realized there's enough social content for way more than 25 days, and just taking a few days off means Luisa will have a much easier time in subsequent dungeons!
The game's visual style is pretty interesting. The game is full 3D third person, but shaded with saturated colors, flat or posterized, bold ziptones and very thick outlines, reminiscent of 20th century pop art posters or comic books. It doesn't always work perfectly - I find the foliage pretty ugly for instance - but it works well enough and I applaud them for doing something different.
Hinterberg is ran by an ambitious mayor, Karin Wagner, who prioritizes tourism above all things and is dead set on turning the town into a world class tourist trap. She's a ruthless politician whose friendly facade disguises a lot of arrogance and disdain for her own constituents, and is obviously the villain of the story. As someone who actually lives in an european town with tourist appeal whose jackass mayor is dead set on turning it into a tourist trap regardless of the will of the locals, this story spoke to my heart!
It's probably obvious by now that I enjoyed the game and think it deserves the glowing reviews it's getting. It's fun, well balanced, well made and, as far as I could tell, bug free. There is a difficulty setting if you need it. On normal, you can comfortably play it in some 20-25 hours, although regrettably if you want to be more of a completionist and complete more achievements and friendships, you might have to "grind" a little by spending some extra days collecting materials, relaxing and socializing, in which case expect 30+ hours.
Previous
I was given a license for Stray by a friend for the holidays, and blew through it over the weekend.
It's a lovely game, though kinda insubstantial. I wouldn't call it a walking simulator, but it's in the same ZIP code. It's a bit of a stretch to call it a puzzler since nothing in it really requires much brainpower, and there's not really any action to speak of outside of three or four semi-scripted escape sequences sprinkled throughout. The result feels quite a bit like a modern point-and-click adventure with a bit of exploration gameplay thrown in for good measure.
What it does have is atmosphere. Walled City 99 is dripping with it, quite literally. The whole place is perpetually drizzly and dark, like a densely-packed Hong Kong slum after the rain. The devs put some effort into world-building, but were only partly successful. It has a great vibe, but the lore explanations are a little hand-wavey. It's pretty clear that they put much more effort into creating an atmospheric setting than they did actually building out the world, which is fine. It does a great job looking good, but falls a little short in getting you immersed.
I had it in my wishlist since launch because I had a feeling that the regular asking price was a bit big for what you'd get, and my instinct was right. If you're just going for story completion, you can expect about 6 hours of gameplay, to which you can probably add about 2 hours if you're going for 100%. Throw another 2 or 3 hours on if you want 100% plus achievements, most of which are things like "complete the game in under 2 hours" or "die 9 times." Once you know where the key items are, it should be no problem to race through it in that amount of time, which speaks poorly of its replayability.
All in all I recommend it, if you can find it for <$15 on sale. It's a three-sitting sort of AA game, which I think the industry could use more of.
Playing Tales of Kenzera: ZAU, which is pretty fun. It's billed as a metroidvania, but it's really more of a 2D puzzle platformer. The environments are vibrant and the abilities are fun. Combat is a little clunky, but largely satisfying. There are some cool traversal abilities too, which I've been enjoying. A nice story as well.
I think this would have been a slam dunk on the PS2. Consequently, some of its designs feel a little dated. But I'm having a good time for what it is!
Balatro
I reached my goal of completing gold stake with all decks on mobile, catching up with my progress on Steam! The achievement is still bugged lol. I had to do another run to unlock it.
If anyone is interested in seeing stats, here are my stats from mobile that I just finished, and here are my stats from Steam. There are some small differences, some might represent changes in my evaluation of something (Hanging Chad rise up!), some are probably just variance. Also on Steam I played a lot more Endless mode (even if there wasn't much potential to go super deep, just trying to learn and enjoy as much as I could), so Blueprint in particular got to sit in play for a lot more rounds. Whereas on mobile I was only doing Endless mode in order to unlock jokers, and unlocked them all really quickly.
I don't know how much energy I will end up putting into pursuing Completionist++. I had the idea of trying to stack as many Double Tags as I could with Anaglyph deck then converting them to Negative tags and getting a bunch of gold stickers at the same time. I tried it a couple times on Steam without much success but my first try on mobile went exceedingly well. Got the perfect Ante 8 Small Blind Negative Tag, and bought as many as I could after beating the large blind. Unfortunately I ran out of money for rerolls and bricked on a couple Tarot cards in the shop so 2 of my tags went to waste. However, I also lucked out big and found my second Legendary joker of the run in the tarot pack in the last shop.
Anyone here even crazier than me and have tips to share about collecting gold stickers on every joker? :)
Been playing Cities: Skylines II. It was free on Steam over the weekend. I just bought it (20% off; down to $39.99).
For me, it's completely stable. Though admittedly, my current village is only like 4000 Cims. Either way, it hasn't crashed, nor have I noticed any hitching or lag. There were some really minor graphical artifacts here and there, but I'm not even noticing them anymore if they're still there.
I played a lot of Sim City (the original, 2000, 3000, 4, even 2013) and Cities: Skylines, so I've been wanting to try CS2. Obviously it came out to awful reviews, so I stayed away. But having given it a try...it's not bad. I played several hours over the weekend and enjoyed it. I should say that I've never been super hardcore in how I play city builders. I'm not trying to min-max everything and get everything perfect. Not that I need to defend myself, but I think that perspective helps shield me from some of the deeper problems that others have with the game. I'm interested in learning how this game is different from CS1 and I'm having fun while doing it.
Anyway, gonna go play some more.
Just watch out for crashes. I did the same as you and bought it this weekend. I’m no pro level player and have enjoyed it (unbelievably played 8 hours in a day somehow, which I haven’t done in like 15 years).
Within 30 minutes of actually buying it after the free 2 play weekend, it crashed. Then an hour later it did again. Around 40k population. The first time was a big bummer because I had just completed a big highway build through my city.
Last night I was saving basically every 10 minutes or after a big project.
I’m not super critical of these things but crashes CAN happen so just save a little more often than you might normally.
Been playing through Lorelei and the Laser Eyes. Wonderful art, great puzzles, fascinating game. A little frustratingly difficult, but if you enjoyed things like The Witness or Outer Wilds, this is for you
Easy Red 2 (Windows)
Been playing this WW2 shooter with a couple of friends. One of them describes it as the most chill WW2 game he's played. It brings back some good memories from Battlefield 1942, but it's more than a decade since I last played that game, so I'm not sure if the comparison holds.
Some cool features:
I'm also playing Black Ops 6 with some other friends, and while both are fun, the two games are polar opposites in many ways. But ER2 has soul.
I've been traveling a lot, which sounds like the perfect time for gaming but I just don't spend as much time playing games while flying as I expect I would. What I've found is that I really prefer a 2DS to a steam deck for gaming while traveling.
Pokemon Blue: What a perfect game for the trains around Japan. I really enjoy starting a podcast and just grinding in Pokemon.
Stellar Blade: I stalled out on this game around release. But I recently switched it down to an easier mode and have been enjoying it more. The combat starts kind of slow and technical but after the difficulty change it's feeling faster and looser which I enjoy. I'm not really paying attention the the story, mostly I like running around completing objectives and experimenting with the combat. Also... the soundtrack is awesome. It's 10 hours long on Apple Music and it has some very nice tracks on it.
CODBLOPS6: I hop into multiplayer for an hour or so at a time. I'm having a lot of fun with it.
Astrobot: My GOTY. I finished the game several months ago but I keep going back to replay levels and find all the hidden objects. I pretty much never do this with games. But once you clear a level you can go back in and spend 100 coins to unlock a bird who will alert you when you are near a secret that you haven't found. Also a great soundtrack.
Vermintide II was on sale a few weeks ago for like 1.40€, and I got much more than what I expected.
It's basically Left 4 Dead in the dark fantasy world of Warhammer, with big rats instead of zombies. Absolutely fantastic game that's worth its full price, if you have at least a friend to coop with. Totally playable in solo but obviously less fun.
The maps are gorgeous and have varied objectives and hidden items to collect, and the weapons are all fun and all feel different. It's ridiculously brutal and bloody, and there is a light RPG layer that lets you slowly unlock specializations and passive skills for your characters. There's loot too.
The in-game store is full of real-money cosmetics, but I can't blame them, as they just released (literally today) a new free map. It's probably my favorite discovery of the year.