27
votes
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.
Finally started Indiana Jones and the Great Circle over the weekend. It's a blast. Everything everyone is saying is true.
My only gripe, and this is minor, is the lack of action scenes. I'm maybe halfway through Egypt and there is a distinct lack of them compared to the films. I guess the combat is meant to fill that itch but I was hoping for more set pieces, like in Raiders with the convoy, or the plane fist fight.
It's mostly been solving puzzles which is fun, they did an excellent job with that, and the combat is pretty good too, just a little sad we don't have more big action scenes with the Indy music booming heroically. Maybe there will be more later in the game
I have no attachment to Indiana Jones, and I watched this cinematic until I got to this point:
https://youtu.be/mWE28ObGI44?t=136
I had to turn it off because I got second hand embarrassment - should someone expect more of the same or is most of the dialogue this... dumb?
I guess that depends on which part you're referring to specifically? The speech about devotion or the "choo choo".
Personally I love the choo choo. It adds some brevity to an otherwise very serious plot this far (this is perfect timing as I literally just got to this cutscene) and this particular villain is the over the top, emotional, kind. He has many outbursts earlier as well when his manhood is questioned by another character. He's a very immature and insecure man. Now the choo choo specifically is definitely a one off in the game and I think it fits perfectly with this character and this moment in the plot. But all the dialogue up until this moment is very serious and fitting of an adventure story. A handful of sarcastic comments from Indy, one liners you could say, which is a staple of the genre, but I don't think it ever goes too far or gets in the way. It's the right amount. It isn't a Marvel movie where every other line of dialogue is a quip or a cringey joke.
Now if the devotion speech is throwing you off, that's also part of his character and plays in with the plot a little bit as well. He's just a crazy Nazi who believes that kind of shit. It's intentionally off putting because it's Nazi propaganda. Not sure what else I can say about that.
Thanks for the reply, I should have been more specific with my timestamp - I was referring to the "choo choo" part that you mentioned
That's what I figured, but I didn't want to assume since the timestamp was so much earlier than that moment, all good.
Its definitely a unique moment. At least so far, and I think I'm over halfway through the game now, that's the only strange moment like that.
Maybe I'll try to have a more open mind and attempt to play this game when I get the time
I would recommend watching Raiders of the Lost Ark and Last Crusade to see if it's even a genre you enjoy.
Much less time and monetary commitment to check those out. And if you do like it, the game is pretty much another Indy movie that you play out instead of watch
Someone gifted me Witchfire and its exactly the type of challenging FPS I was looking for. The best way I can describe it is if Destiny was a single player extraction shooter set in the 1800s. They pulled off a really atmospheric Gothic Christian theme from the over-the-top environmental design and the type of diction used. And I wish we got to see the playable character more because the outfits and weapons look incredible.
I'm very much into the story. You have a home base where you gear up and then you have to teleport to a few sandbox maps on a haunted island to kill a witch. There was major campaign that preceded your arrival but they were all wiped out and you're left to piece together what happened with environmental storytelling and lore drops, all while waging a one man crusade against hoards of undead and demons.
And the way the story unfolds can get pretty trippy. Maps have a very general objective to kill a boss creature in the area. And no real indication on how to do it like in the first map it's a Zombie Pirate and he's hanging out by his crashed ship. But if you explore a bit, you find a gauntlet run to a treasure room. And if you solve a weird puzzle, you can access a sanatorium under the map and curse yourself by performing a profane ritual which allows you to access a mirror dimension where you can harvest Divine Essence that can be used to somehow weaken the witch. There isn't exactly any instructions that you can do this and when you stumble into it, they throw really objectives to hint you in the right direction.
The gameplay is very inspired by Destiny, but with practical RPG mechanics and not bogged down by grindy MMO bs. There's actually quite a lot going on between spells, passives, movement, specials, in run powers and upgrades. But the highlight is that you leveling up only empowers you and the enemies are not scaling to match. They are pretty strong already and you are catching up. Even weapon upgrades dont give more damage, but adds more utility to make your raids more effective. Leveling up stats does randomize spawn locations and enemy composition to keep maps fresh. Difficulty only ramps up by progressing the story and it unlocks stronger enemy types, harder regions and spawns bigger groups. But in the end, you should be able to kill an end game enemy as a new character without it feeling artificial.
I'll probably put it down in a few days and wait for the Early Access period to end.
I'm also playing Awaria on the Deck. It's a short and free little bullet hell puzzle. You're a repair girl in some underground complex and you need to run around to repair shield generators. And you're constantly being attacked by cute ghost girls. Your character volunteered for the job because of the cute ghosts (and a tragic backstory) and it's all pretty cute and wholesome.
Its free. The art is very Newgrounds. Music is fire.
Wow Witchfire sounds pretty cool. Great description!
Question though: the second tag on the Steam page for it is 'roguelite', right in between 'FPS' and 'Souslike'. The other two make total sense, but how does the roguelite fit in? Like you mentioned a home base. Do you branch off from that base and each run/life you discover more and more of the world? Is it sort of expected that you'll die at some point in the run, or do you return to the main base each time? It sounds really cool, I was just curious about this detail.
I don't think Roguelite is a very good description of the game. I'd say the structure is more like the original Demon Souls if you played it. The better tag would be a Raiding Game, where your knowledge of the map is just as important as your gear and powers.
From the home base you go to a level select screen and each option is an area with a consistent map. I think the roguelite tag is simply because loot placenent is semi random, the temp passive power ups you find in a run are random and the location of encounters shuffle when you level up. I don't think it's the best tag, but probably some peoples only frame of reference.
The new player experience gives you only a single weapon and runs on the first map are a few minutes before you are overwhelmed by enemies, info and roadblocks. And as you unlock weapons, spells and gear you eventually clear the map and beat the boss. There are things that you still can't do on the map and hints at deeper secrets but it's best to move on. (Its possible to unlock it with a guide but trust me, working out the deep secrets by yourself are pretty fun)
So you unlock the next chapter, jump to the next area and are immediately humbled by overwhelming force, new enemy types and an unnerving countdown to the Calamity. It can get very overwhelming, very fast but each run makes you a little better until you're flawless navigating across the map.
If you can find a gameplay video from the first level, it'll better communicate just how all these systems work.
Ahh gotcha. Yeah that doesn't sound very rogue-ish, but still fun. I'll add it to my list, thanks!
I decided to give Fortnite a chance, on a whim. It's actually a lot of fun. It's kind of funny that it's often maligned by a certain cross-section of gamers, who are likely to have played Team Fortress 2, when I see it as kind of a spiritual successor to the silliness of TF2 with the gameplay of PUBG. I've been mostly playing the zero-build battle royale mode, but it also basically has Rock Band in it too.
It fits the chill, lower-engagement shooter game niche I haven't had a game for in awhile. I used to just put on a podcast and deathmatch in Quake type games, years ago, and Fortnite seems to also be good for "I don't want to think about the game too much right now" moods.
I've been playing Cyberpunk 2077. I finished the DLC a while ago (absolutely fantastic, can't wait to replay it one day) and am just doing clean up for the achievements (for some reason I have been really wanting to get achievements for the past month? Usually I do not care about them).
I have also been playing Doom (2016). The multiplayer for this game is unfortunately dead, because I think it has been one of the most fresh PvP FPS experiences I've had in a decade. The maps are visually interesting, the movement is smooth, and the loadouts seem to be thoughtfully crafted (rune/weapon combinations). I wish I was able to experience it in its prime, and it sucks it didn't keep a meaningful player base. Maybe there's a discord where people get together to play multiplayer or something lol
Two games have really occupied a lot of my time this week, but I'll start with the one I've played a bit less.
Armoured Commander II is a great little ASCII-Style World War 2, Tank-based Roguelike. I'm not sure how else to describe it, but that's the basic gist. You'll command a tank of your choosing, in a campaign of your choosing, of which there are a huge amount to choose from; I chose to start with Operation Torch, the American invasion of French North Africa in 1942. From there you can choose your vehicle, which again is vast. For my opening choice, I could have chosen an M3 Half-Track with an AT gun, M3 Stuart tank and variants or an M3 Lee tank. You get more victory points depending on your choice, the Half-track and Stuart awarding more, given their smaller armament and armor. I chose the Lee, which was frankly overpowered for this particular campaign, as I'm facing tanks built in 1918 and other French tanks from the 1930's. Here's a screenshot of my Lee destroying one of those 1918 Tanks with my .30 Caliber machine gun. In addition to other tanks, you'll also be fighting Armored Cars, motorcycles, infantry and even the occasional transport vehicle.
You get to manage every aspect of your tank, things like whether your crew is buttoned-up, what weapons you're shooting (many tanks have Coaxial machine guns in their turrets next to their main guns), what the Loader is doing, whether the Driver will focus on driving or trying to spot enemies, etc, etc. I generally have my Commander open up his hatch so that he's more effective at spotting enemies, but this opens him up to danger. I haven't had it happen yet, but your crew can suffer injuries, as well as become fatigued, causing them to perform worse; however, the longer you have any given crew member, the more skill points they're awarded for pumping up their stats or buying them new skills. You also get to choose what kind of ammunition you're firing and whether it's in the ammo storage or ready rack for quick access with your Loader. You can also have your tank in a hull down position to help mitigate enemy shots, but so far that's really only happened on accident to me and I haven't figured out yet if I can read the terrain to spot hills and the like yet so I can actually deliberately choose to go hull down.
I've only played about 5-hours now, but I absolutely love it, especially as a big fan of WW2 and Tanks in general.
I've also been putting an absolute load of time into Dishonored 2. I last played it in 2017 and had stopped when I got to the Grand Palace, always meaning to return, but never have; I even played Prey completely before going back. But the last week something clicked for me and I decided to get back into it and I've been absolutely enjoying the hell out of it. I'm just playing slowly and really taking my time to fully explore levels, knocking out all the guards so I have free reign and it's just been absolutely delightful. Though I'm realizing I don't remember anything about it, which is weird. I mean, my memory is crap, but there are some amazing levels like The Clockwork Mansion and Dust District/Stiltons Mansion you'd think would have stuck with me, but they somehow didn't.
Yesterday, I managed to get about 4-hours of Dishonored 2 in, which is very unusual for me. My kids were playing with a friend part of the day, my wife took them to a birthday party and later went over to her sisters house in the evening, so between all these I had this solid chunk (if disparate and broken up) of time to just play and really get absorbed into the world. It's quickly becoming one of my favorite games of all time, which I suppose isn't a surprise for me, given how much of a revelation Deus Ex and Thief were for me 20 years ago.
I don't really game that much but I wish there were more Dishonored games. I love the stealth mechanics and the variety of ways there are to advance through the levels.
They really are fantastic games. There's also Prey, which is similar, but not quite the same. As well as the spiritual predecessors from Looking Glass called Thief and Thief 2, plus a newer Fan made Thief game called The Black Parade. Thief is pretty much the closest thing to Dishonored; no powers, of course, but interesting items you can use to control, manipulate and move about the world. They're worth at play if you're looking for something similar and they're not too long.
Thanks, I'll check them out (in my alleged spare time)
@BeardyHat I got you to try Drova a few weeks back and after reading "ASCII-Style World War 2, Tank-based Roguelike" you might have got me in return.
I'm gonna check this out! Thanks for your post, it sounds very much like what I'd enjoy playing.
Haha, good! I hope you like it! It feels very unique in the space, I'll be curious to hear your thoughts about it when you get around to it.
It runs on a potato as well, which is awesome and I forgot to mention, it plays exceptionally well on Steam Deck/with a controller, probably better than it does on a keyboard. On my Deck, I cranked the wattage down to 3 or 5 watts, whatever the minimum is and locked it to 20fps to get extra battery life. And for shits and giggles, I tried to run it on a Windows 98 VM with a 233Mhz Pentium II, though it wouldn't start as it wants a newer version of Windows.
Anyway, too many words, so I'll add some more with this sentence. Hope you enjoy!
My wife and I have both picked up a copy of Monster Train over the weekend to scratch our StS and Balatro needs. I have been loving the combinations between the clans and the strategy between unit placement on the different floors.
A great game with rounds lasting 45 minutes to an hour. I really should get some lawn and yard chores sorted before I turn my computer on today...
Hell yeah, great games. Those three are my holy trinity of roguelike deckbuilders.
Note that there's a speed option somewhere in the settings that makes the attacks and effects run way faster than normal. It doesn't affect the gameplay at all since you still can take as long as you want with each turn, it just speeds up the animations.
Lets you get more runs per play session, or shortens your play session, as long as you're okay with the speedy animations. I find my runs usually lasting between 20-30 minutes, but I've been playing for a while and am used to the cards/effects/enemies, plus I like going fast in these types of games.
What's your favorite clan? I love the play pattern of the Umbra. Specifically the one unit that creates two morsels per turn. Always results in having one super overpowered dude (cuz he just got fed 2+ morsels per turn for like ten rounds) that just wipes the floor with everything, lol. Add something like trample or multi-attack and baby you've got a stew going.
For the first few rounds and for the new clans, I played on slow but have increased this as I learned! I did the same with StS.
Umbra is awesome, I paired a penumbra champ with two morselmakers. One which created two morsels and the other copies any morsels created on the floor. This sealed the deal with a unit which gained protect after every gorge on the floor above. I think they ended with over 20 stacked protects...
Writing this out of order but I wanted to get it out while it's still fresh...
Starstruck: Hands of Time is a videogame that's also a work of art. You might dislike the genre, or not connect with its message, but I believe it's a game everyone should try to play. It's one of the most interesting and memorable games I've ever played, the best since at least Pentiment. I'll hold back on most spoilers post-premise; what I'd really like is to have smarter people than I play the game and discuss it with me. The information that does follow may seem like a weird combo but it contains no metaphors or exaggerations.
You, Captain Whateveryoulike, and your trusty ship's computer Hadley, depart from your moon colony in 30xx in your time-travelling rocket and make your way to 20xx. Your goal is to stop a threat called The Mold that will end all life on Earth. Once you arrive in orbit Hadley tells you The Mold's appearance is connected to Subject A11, a (I believe) teenage boy called Edwin, whom you must monitor in your suspiciously Windows 3.11-like computer UI using Neighborhood.exe . Later you will also have the option to monitor Edwin's childhood friend Dawn. Story chapters unlock chronologically but can be revisited in any order.
Neighborhood is presented as a scale model in a sky-painted room. It's a very good scale model built out of 3D printed miniatures, screws, popsicle sticks, matches, pieces of thick cardboard, painted paper, glued turf, felt, embroidery, balls of cotton and more. All characters are made out of (or modeled to look like it) plasticine/playdoh. Characters are semi-voice-acted using that technique in which the VAs grunt some reusable nonsense alongside the text dialogue. The game mixes rendered or computer-controlled portions with true photographs and film of the sets built by the developers, and with real public domain footage (I'm assuming - there are sources in the credits though).
While the gameplay contains plenty of exploration and dialogue, Edwin and Dawn are both guitarists, and the core gameplay consists in rhythm sequences of the type that make use of button presses - that's right, this is technically a rhythm game, but don't run away yet! The soundtrack is all original and absolutely kicks ass. Some of the songs have (unlike the dialogue) vocals in clear english with subtitle lyrics. The computer keyboard or various types of controllers can be used, latency can be callibrated, and it's possible to reassign key/button bindings and to freely pick one of four difficulty levels. There is also a Free Play mode with a few unlockable bonus songs if that's your thing!
Sometimes Edwin and Dawn might be stuck and unable to progress. No problem! That's when you stick your hand into a teleporter and, as a giant hand that moves like Thing from the Addams Family, absolutely wreck the Neighborhood and remove all obstacles, at times making use of a hammer, mallet, screwdriver or baseball bat. Because why not? (Hands of Time! Get it? Get it?) Don't worry, Hadley will repair all the extraneous damage (using loads of very visible duct tape).
Starstruck contains a full spectrum of emotions. It's very funny. It's very creepy - the main villain sometimes moves around off-camera or during cuts like a Weeping Angel. It touches upon mental illness and abuse relating to three of the four main characters. There is a broad core message that appears to me to be related to art and entertainment and how they're presented and experienced in the modern world. It will get really allegorical towards the end. Bits of real history and myth are taught to the player. Full real conversations from Apollo mission astronauts are included, and you must listen to them. The story connects greeks, romans, germans and americans, cyclical recurring patterns in history, empires rising and falling, and doesn't shy away from going on a cautious tangent about "Germany's dictator," unavoidable because the villain's avatar is a mediocre artist inspired by Richard Wagner. Tag me after playing if you want to discuss all of these!
In its mission to be ridiculously original, quirky and thought-provoking, Starstruck commits a bunch of small UX and accessibility sins that might at times frustrate. For example, you can't pause a rhythm sequence - there is a pause button, but it only lets you quit the song. It's bound by default to the out of the way key of... the space bar. A brush with your thumb and there goes the level. When I first played I was having trouble with this so I contacted the developer (who made this with a very small team of people). He promised a fix (making the key rebindable), and the fix came this month (you can now rebind it!) - he was kind enough to DM me to make sure I knew the patch was out. He also prompted me for my additional negative UX feedback, so I won't repeat it here; suffice it to say that there is almost nothing bad enough to make this game any less worthy of your time (just... if prompted to abort the mission, say that you want to continue). Go play it! Go play it now!
It took me 9 hours to play through the game, finding all the guitars, kicking all the trash cans, getting the secret cutscene, and going to Free Play to get rank A or higher on all songs (including the bonus songs). I played on Medium.
Previous
I spent this week playing another 15ish hours of Uncle Chop's Rocket Shop, which I initially posted about last week.
As a reminder, it's a new (but complete) release rogue like where you are a space ship mechanic. The main stickt is you get a massive manual and you've got to try and diagnose complicated issues either against the clock in the default mode, or you get all the time in the world but your jobs are way harder and therefore easier to make mistakes.
I gotta say I resonate a lot with the Steam reviews for this one. It's ALMOST a brilliant game, and they might fix it in post launch patches, but as of writing there's a lot of frustration to be had.
The game is has classic "pay your rent every x days" and it keeps getting harder. After every rent it introduces more mechanics.
Seems most people, myself included, master the early, easier jobs pretty fast. But there's huge spikes in difficulty at some of the rent payments, where you pick a job after sleeping and just instantly die, sometimes without understanding why, then you're forced to play through possibly hours of game again to get back.
And I think it would be fine if it was one or two things, but it's a wild combination of fatal modules and mistakes which will get you.
What I mean is, you might master how fatal module A can fail in various ways and feel comfortable, but then 2 or more of those failures happen at once, or a failure chain happens that means you have to fix X to fix Y to fix the fatal one and that's it, you're done. And the only way to learn this really is experience then use re-rolls or avoid the job.
All that said, there's a really good game here. The core game design is great, the writing is good, the art is wonderful. I'm sure I'll crack the ending soon, but man it does not respect your time well right now if you don't have patience for changing oil 50x!
The problem with viewing these threads is they make me want to get more games when I already have a lot!
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, on the wishlist it goes, and I will be probably get it one day after many years and patches where hopefully yours (and other reviewers) complaints are addressed.
Still playing a ton of Victoria 3 if anyone wants to chat about that. Finally got back up to speed to the point where I feel comfortable doing anything and everything I'd like in the game, and understanding what's causing my problems and what steps I can do to resolve them. (There are A LOT of game mechanics and numbers to know about).
But I'm about to go away for a couple weeks, so I'm sure I'll have to re-remember it all once I come back, lol.
I have my eye on that one, but have been on the fence whether I want to spend on it without a heavy discount. Can you give a summary, maybe comparing to other games? Maybe "If you like ___, you'll like V3. If you don't like ___, you won't like it."
Sure! The easiest comparison is also the least helpful: if you like other Paradox games (Europa Universalis, Crusader Kings, Stellaris, Hearts of Iron, Imperator Rome), then you'll probably enjoy Vic 3. That's really the best comparison because they really have a specific formula down to a science.
If you're not familiar with the Paradox formula: Vic 3 is a grand strategy game like many others, but what sets it apart from most other grand strategy games is just the vast vast VAST amounts of stuff modeled in the game. Like take the Civilization series or the Total War Series, both have maps with provinces/tiles, armies with different unit types, economies with different goods/resources, technology trees, diplomacy and trade, and more. Vic 3 takes every single one of those core game mechanics and models it in like 100x the detail.
To be honest it can be a bit intimidating at first given the sheer amount of stuff there is to learn, but once you figure out how everything meshes together it's truly satisfying and none of the other grand strategy games come close in breadth or depth.
So if you like:
Grand strategy games (Paradox or otherwise)
Factory games (factorio, satisfactory, shapez, infinifactory...)
City Builders (cities skylines, anno series, against the storm...)
Management/Simulation games (football manager series, motorsports manager...)
Then you might like Vic 3. It's not exactly the same as all those, but it hits similar aspects of managing the minutiae of an economy. You can get really detailed with it, or just set everything to auto-produce and then focus on the top-down diplomatic and political gameplay if you prefer that instead. Definitely wait for it to go on sale if you're on the fence, Paradox games have big sales all the time. That said, Vic 3 is their latest one, so it may not get as steep a discount as something like EU4 which is at the end of its life span.
I wish I had more time to sink into Paradox games. I chose CK2 as my entry point, but haven't made the leap over to CK3 or EU4 yet. Victoria 3 seems really cool, but I only have so many hours in the day, and I've been poking away at my tribal African reformed Pagan human sacrifice map painter campaign for years now. I'm curious how far I can get using this tribal model without switching to government types. At this point, it seems like pretty far since I've been demolishing larger empires with my frequent holy wars.
I never really played CK2 or Vic2, so I can't comment on the similarities, but I will say that I think CK3 and Vic3 are some of the most accessible games they've ever put out. Still super complicated, of course, but I think they've gotten better with their tutorials and pop-up tooltips over the years. Most things are explained in game, only a bit deeper than surface level, but that's still more than I remember in EU4 which was much more of a deep dive when I first played it a decade ago, or even Imperator Rome which isn't even that old.
I totally respect the decision to not commit to learning a whole new game. There are a lot of games out there that I feel I would love but I just don't have the time to properly devote to. There are some games where you just learn as you go, and others where it really does pay to watch like three days worth of youtube videos before diving in, and Paradox games are definitely the latter. Which can be very off-putting to a lot of people. But in my personal and totally unbiased opinion as someone with a few thousand hours between all these titles, I think the hurdles are worth overcoming.
Vic 3 hit an all time low of 12ish dollars not too long ago. So it does happen.
I was contemplating writing a similar response but I see that's no longer necessary. Though I was going for a similar conclusion that the only similar games are other paradox games so consider this underscoring that point.
I'll leave it at those two things since you covered most of everything else.
Oh I didn't know it had gone that low! Thanks for the input. Paradox games sometimes also have free weekends so you can try out the game (first hit's free...). I can't remember if Vic 3 has had one, but I know Stellaris has had a few, and I think CK3 and EU4 have had some as well.
And yeah it's hard to compare the games to anything other than other Paradox games. The way the systems in these games interact is so much more involved than most other grand strategy games. I used to play A TON of Civ IV and V, as well as a bunch of Total War games back in the day, but like a decade ago I discovered EU4 and those games just suddenly stopped feeling as fun. Every time I try to boot up a Total War or Civ game now, I encounter something that makes me say "I wish this _____ system was more fleshed out like in EU4/CK3/Vic3" and then I end up playing that instead.
After EU4, everything about the overworld gameplay of both Civ and Total War sucks. Aside from the combat of course, Total War has little to offer over EU4 and I just get incredibly frustrated with movement points, randomly spawning doomstacks, and fog abusing enemies laying waste to a city to set it back 15 turns without any counter play.
Diplomacy often doesn't go any further than giving the AI oodles of numbers far outweighing the actual value in order to get them to do anything, while they handle diplomacy like a kid on meth making choices that appear, at best, random, making them completely unreliable or even entirely unwanted.
Paradox AI isn't perfect, but at least they are generally consistent with their approach to choices. Allies can go multiple thousands of ducats into debt or suddenly have a new ruler decide they want all of your gold provinces and effectively killing your alliance, but at least I can see those things coming and their actions aren't completely out of pocket. Rival webs dictating alliance structures is a stroke of genius because not only does that make for mostly reasonable and intriguing gameplay, it also turns it near infinitely replayable.
It also doesn't look like both Civ and Total War even consider improving their formula, so I no longer play them.
EU4 still stands head and shoulders above the other Paradox games in my opinion, but I've had more fun in most of them beyond anything TW gave me since Shogun.
And yes! Just around $12. Keep an eye on isthereanydeal.com for these drops and historic lows.
Lol are we the same person, I feel the same way about all everything you said. In a way I'm almost sad, since I have a lot of great memories playing Rome/Empire/Shogun II Total War, as well as Civ V. But I just can't play them now for longer than like fifteen minutes before I decide I've had enough and boot up my beloved EU4. Pretty sure it's my comfort game at this point. I just boot it up, pick one of the ten nations I've played a thousand times before, and just go around fucking over half of Europe before I get tired or the game gets too easy and I call it quits (until next time).
That said, I do really enjoy CK3 and Vic3. Only got into them in the last two years or so, but I'll go through like a month or two where all I want to play is one of these games. Then I'll drop it for a few months, then play it again for another month straight. I'm on a Vic3 binge right now which is why I've been posting about it so much. But I'm sure soon it will pass and by February I'll be playing CK3 nonstop for a while. This also works out well because I get to avoid a lot of the early bugs and issues when patches/updates/dlc first drops. I end up going into it a couple months later once everything's been ironed out.
Also, EU5!!! Can't wait. I'm both not ready to let go of EU4 but also super ready to try a modernized version built from scratch.
I started Vic 3 at launch and while it gripped me for a bit, it felt incredibly bare bones. They also fixed some bugs that made the game better because it made up for some shortcomings, making it less fun to play. It has to be better now but I just haven't had the energy to dive back into it.
But I also bounce off of the glowing glossy bolded style they introduced with HoI4 and can't seem to shake. I like the more real and well defined looking borders in EU4 and I'm super worried with the maps they've published for EU5 so far.
I'm also worried about their straight up decline in quality when it comes to releasing DLC. I'm not entirely opposed to their monetization, I've spent thousands of hours after all, but they've been reducing the content year over year as well as releasing stuff with fewer things they should have just to sell them later. Like Vic3 that launched with fewer knobs and levers than 2, a game released 12 years before.
Here's to hoping! I could do with a fresh installment.
Oh and I've seen where we differ. You play the same ten nations, but besides the Netherlands I don't think I've played a single one twice.
Wow that's crazy! What are some of your highlights then since you play a good mix of em? I usually play France/Ottomans when I'm looking to go balls-to-the-walls from the beginning, Portugal/Castille when I'm looking to colonize, Teutonic Order/Brandenburg into Prussia when I want space marines, and then maybe some Great/Golden Horde, Muscovy, Ethiopia, Florence, Aragon, or one of the Japanese daimyos when I want something a bit different. I've tried plenty of others, these are just the ones I keep coming back to time after time.
I did hear Vic 3 had a horrendous launch, but I picked it up about a year after it came out. I still don't think it's perfect, but they've overhauled quite a bit. So much so that a lot of the videos/tips/info I look up about it online is outdated and just does not work the same way any more. CK3 had a much smoother launch by comparison.
I've played through a buuunch of different patches. Some things that were incredible back then aren't that incredible anymore, although I'd argue that all countries -barring native American tribes- are incredible.
Notable was Florence when you could still stack interest per annum so high that loans were practically free.
Malacca has probably been the most entertaining trade game I've ever played. They were a powerhouse with incredible trade ideas.
Did my first world conquest with Austria into HRE before missions existed and the rework happened.
A more recent great run was the revamped Teutonic Order into Teutonic Horde, which is absurdly cool and wayyyy into the sticks with alt history.
The war against the world pirate Gotland was fun, if a bit unlike regular EU4
My last run was Korea which has an incredible government type that allows you to switch between three modes making you probably the best country in that particular domain for a couple of years.
Ethiopia is a regional contender with the looming Ottoman threat making it an interesting run because you'll never know what happens.
You haven't lived until you've went tall Lübeck.
Bengal is a good mid-level power in India. You'll probably win, but their size makes the early game a fun balance of trying to gobble up smaller nations and sizing up against the other larger powers in the region. Unsure if their ideas have changed since then, but they were fun.
I did the majors or popular ones too at some point, France, Spain, England, Russia, Byzantium, Sweden, and Prussia.
Honestly too much to list. Some countries are quick runs because of the achievement, others are just seeing what happens.
The variety is what makes the game and I recommend branching out. Each nation plays so different based on their ideas that it's a shame to miss out.
Wow some great and super interesting ideas there! I’ll try em out, thanks!
Coptic (or even Jewish!) Ethiopia is incredible. Not only does the minority religion allow you to Deus Vult all over the world really quickly, it gives you the opportunity to cycle religions to attack to lower AE, gives you regions to attack unknown to western powers (also lower AE), and the location gives you a leg up on trade.
By taking Alexandria, Hormuz, the Horn and South Africa, you are set for trade and prevent colonialism for a long time.
If anything, give that one a shot. Be careful though, the Ottomans can be run killers.
Plus all those gold mines! I’ve done a couple of Coptic Ethiopia runs and they went about as you described. Fits my play style of constantly warring all my neighbors, lol.
One of my favorite runs has been that Teutonic Order to Mongolian Empire. Super whacky and extremely strong.
Seeing you guys talk about EU4 makes me want to give it a go sometime, is the base game worth playing by itself, or are the myriad DLCs adding in enough things that it would be worth purchasing their big DLC bundle at some point when I'm able to.
I remember seeing an EU4 bundle years ago and kind of wish I had picked it up then since it wasn't that expensive at the time.
I started writing my answer and it got quite long so I’m just gonna put a TL;DR here that the base game should be all you need to get started. There used to be a few DLC which were considered by many (myself included) to be either essential or damn near it, like Art of War, Rights of Man, and Common Sense, but literally like a month or two ago they were integrated into the base version of the game (probably because they were so essential, plus EU5 should be coming out in a year or two).
Awesome! Glad to spread the gospel of EU4, lol. So yeah the big elephant in the room with most paradox games, and especially EU4, is the large number of DLC. It puts a lot of people off, and there are plenty of very valid arguments against it, but I don’t mind it so much because it means the devs are still supporting the game even though it’s literally a decade old. It has changed a bit over the years though, so a lot of the criticism has become less applicable in my opinion.
They used to have some major game mechanics locked behind DLC and that rightfully pissed off a lot of people, hence why the few DLC considered essential are some of the first ones ever released. But they sort of learned their lesson along the way and now the way their DLC works is that it comes out alongside a big and free game update. So the main mechanical changes will be free but the flavor stuff like new missions and country-specific content will be in the DLC. But if you have no interest in playing in that region (most DLC focuses on a specific region) then you wont be missing out on much anyways.
A good place to learn more about the DLC is the wiki page. They have good description of what each DLC adds so you can see if any particular one interests you. I myself usually get them a few months, or even a year or two, after they’re released because by then they’ll be a big sale and it’ll be like 3-7 bucks. Unless it’s one that I really want in which case I might get it sooner.
Oh and I just took a look at the steam page and realized there’s like a million other dlc packs there for the game but you can ignore any of the ones that say content pack or music pack or whatever. Those do not change the game at all and just add some songs or cosmetics. The wiki page lists all the actual important dlc.
And if you do get the game, I’ll mention that it really can be very overwhelming at first. The in-game tutorial (can’t even remember if there is one, there wasn’t when I first started but they might have added something since) can not possibly cover everything there is to do or see in the game. I highly recommend watching a few vids and lets plays on YouTube before and during your first few hours of the game. It’s just so much easier getting the flow of the game if you watch someone who already knows what to do. Plus check out the wiki for any mechanics if you have questions about, it does a good job of breaking things down into simple terms.
Plus feel free to reach out if you have any specific questions about mechanics or the AI or if something didn’t work as you expected it would! It can be overwhelming at first, but can also be the most detailed and fulfilling grand strategy game you’ll ever play.
Thank you for the great reply! I appreciate you taking the time to write that out. As a beginner CK2 player, ~250 hours or so, I'm familiar with the giant DLC list and thankfully got them on a humble bundle which was a great deal. I'm actually hoping to pick up the comestic packs for CK2 as a few mods I'm interested in would look noticably better with the extra unit type slots and face models.
I'll take a look into this and give it a go during a free weekend with the base game to see how I like it!
No problem! Yeah if you like CK2 you should feel right at home in the complexities of EU4. The biggest difference (that I had to learn in reverse) is that you play as the entire state/country in EU instead of individual characters and bloodlines like in CK. It was a bit of a mindset shift for me when I first tried CK3, but eventually I got the hang of it. Damn near lost my mind the first time my whole realm split in half when my character died, lol.
Oh actually I think there might have been someone giving out a key of EU4 on the recent game giveaway thread. Maybe check it out if it hasn’t been claimed by anyone.False alarm sorry, it was EU3
Having experience in any Paradox game will make it easier to pick up. Their approach to UI, UX, and menus is similar enough throughout their lineup that it feels at least somewhat familiar in each one.
If buying some or all of the DLC is too bothersome, you could also try their subscription model. That will include all DLC. I wouldn't usually recommend that at all being generally opposed to subscription models, but with EU5 on the horizon it really makes no sense to buy the EU4 DLC unless you know you're going to continue playing even after 5 launches.
Thank you! I am enjoying EU4, and also enjoyed Cities: Skylines. I'll wait for a good discount. I don't mind waiting a few years for a game.
I mentioned in another comment, but Paradox games often have free weekends so you can try out their games. Cities Skylines II just had one a few weeks ago actually. So maybe add Victoria 3 to your wishlist and I think you'll receive a notification when those free weekends happen so you can try it out!
Heading into the holidays I've felt more driven to hit up the smaller games I've missed.
Ballionaire: Think Balatro + Pachinko. You have a pegboard on which you place triggers. Examples of triggers are a "pinball bumper" that bumps a ball away from it, you have triggers that bounces a ball up, or a teleporter that teleports the ball to a teleporter placed higher. Your ball scores points while bouncing down the pegboard in order to beat you Balatro style blinds.
But as you may guess it doesn't stay simple. Triggers start adding "items" to the ball that it carriers. Or begin spawning in elemental balls that interact with other triggers in different ways. Very early into the game you will be building boards that build up tomatoes, cheese, and bread carried by your ball, with the goal of landing in a pan to make a pizza, and scoring points by getting the pizzas into mouths.
Kill Knight: A difficult combat focused, twin shooter, swarm shooter, rogue-type. The aestetic is pretty cool synthwave inspired. Combar feels good, tight and efficient but punishing. Your primary weapon is a gun with an active reload trigger, so if you time a sword swing correctly during reload it does more cleave damage. Right trigger has a heavy weapon. And once your vacuum up enough special shards you have a ultimate that causes killed enemies to drop healing shards. Obviously there is a dodge, it works well but I haven't quite figured out the i-frames. I haven't quite firugred out progression. There is equipment you select before a run but it so far has unlocked very slowly. It is a perfect podcast game for me though.
Minishoot' Adventures: LTTP-like bullet hell twinshooter but you play as a little Protoss type probe? This is a lot of fun. It's what it says on the box. I find it enjoyable.
Indika: This is a game I kept wanting to play but then I'd forget about it. The story concerns Indika, a young nun that has something else going on. I was surpised because this game looks amazing for a small studio. Graphics are 3d realism which I didn't expect. But then 16-bit sections represent flashbacks to other times in Indika's life. A lot of discussion on determinism, free-will, faith. Anyone who grew up religious will find the topics and themes very resonant.
I've seen some discussion on the game having some "highs and lows." I hope I'm not giving the game too much of a pass, but based on how competent the good sections are and the story being told. I read these "lows" as extremely intentional. This is a very good game and I highly recommend it. If I get around to it I might write up a discussion thread because there's a lot I want to process.
Next up: Mouthwashing.
Current plan is going through old Zachtronics games that I got a good bit of the way through but didn't finish. I'm currently working on TIS-100. Got almost all the puzzles on the first half done. Getting slowed down due to my refusal to submit a bad solution so I keep re-solving them until I'm at least under the 50% mark on the leader board of the execution time stat. Of course, crazy optimizing is part of the fun - heck, I even had the untied #1 global solution on a couple puzzles in Turing Complete at one point :D I've previously fully finished Exapunks, Opus Magnum, Shenzhen I/O, and Infinifactory. I need to finish SpaceChem (I did everything but the last boss years ago when it first came out, plus I need to do the expansion), and I haven't really dived much into Molek-Syntez or the tactics games.
I'm also still playing Kittens Game, but as an idle/progressive game, I'm currently in a "there's a lot of waiting between major actions" phase so it's mostly running in the background accumulating antimatter and relics.
Can I just say I'm impressed by the number of Zachtronics games you've completed? I love them but I don't think I've finished a single one.
Have you got a favorite?
This is probably a minority opinion among Zachtronics fans, but Infinifactory was my favorite to complete. Of the ones I've completed, I'd say Exapunks was the next. Some similar gameplay elements to Shenzhen I/O and TIS-100 but I found it more polished than TIS and I had more fun with the concept than Shenzhen.
Opus Magnum would be the best one if your goal was to finish one. It's really well balanced between being able to be completed without craziness but giving room for the obsessive to optimize.
Just finished the co-op expansion to the free Portal2 mod Portal Reloaded. If you haven’t herd of Portal Reloaded it is a mod that ads a new 3rd green portal that lets you jump forward and backwards in time. Results in some neat time travel/causality mechanics that build upon the existing portal ones. It can get a bit mind bending flying thru both space and time portals to reach the end of the test chambers.
I am a bit late to the party as the co-op update was released June of last year but had to wait for my one friend that I trusted that could wrap their head around portals + time travel. With the holidays/new year’s you might have some similar friends that are available. The co-op campaign is not quite as hard as the single player Portal Reloaded one was but there were a couple levels where we were scratching our heads for some time while quoting Dr. Emmett Brown. I didnt set a timer but I think it took us around 3 hours to complete. The harder puzzles do give that satisifaction once you figure it out and a few of the test chambers are very cleverly designed.
Minor Spoilers for Witcher 3's early game
Started playing Witcher 3 on the Switch last night. I've done maybe 5 quests in total and I'm already really impressed by how much storytelling and worldbuilding they cram into short little side quests. "Devil By The Well" was particularly cool. Starts off simple enough -- A father's daughter got sick drinking tainted water and needs pure water. The only source being a nearby well, which is haunted by a ghost. Which seems like a pretty generic quest... "I need X, but Y. Defeat Y".. but it's *not* that simple. Over the span of 20 mins or so you uncover what's binding the ghost to the well and learn her story, which is pretty tragic. Then you free/kill the ghost. And unless I'm mistaken, it appears the well is directly connected to the very lake that the tainted water came from? Either way I didn't quite feel right collecting payment on that contract (I foresee being poor in this game).My point being that a simple early-game side quest was packed with story and drew me into the world immediately. And I love that. If that's any indication of what the rest of the game holds, I'm very excited to continue playing!
Playing it on the Switch is interesting. There's a weird clumsiness to the switch's graphics that's very reminiscent of the PS2 era. But obviously it looks much nicer than a PS2 game..it's hard to describe. I'm glad there are a bunch of graphics settings to tweak, because after some tinkering, the game is substantially less hard to look at. But I really can't complain...it's a full blown open world RPG on a Switch Lite. The game's $9 on PC right now, and if what I read is true, there's cross-save functionality between Switch/Steam somehow, so if I really feel compelled to experience this a bit more pretty, I could just do that. But for now, the convenience of having it handheld is more important than the graphics.
I was very disappointed with Seasons after Fall at first. It's a very pretty game, but I figured I was in for a 2D walking simulator with a narrator, which is a type of low budget game I've seen time and again, with development usually led by an artist or marketing department, and which rarely brings anything new to the table.
Fortunately, there are two voice actors, and actual gameplay mechanics, so it ended up being kinda fun. It's still a bit of a floaty, slow platformer, with an "open" world consisting in just four "corridors" that meet in a central hub area and lots of (slowly) running around from place to place. Allied with its colorful painterly art, I'm going to compare this game to Hoa in general.
You play as a little fox that's trying to perform the "Ritual of Seasons", which may or may not involve awakening forest guardians, planting a seed, doesn't matter, the objective evolves as you play. In the course of the game you collect the ability to change the current season into another specific season (a bit like... Ary and the Secret of the Seasons?) At first this power is limited, then later you can do it whenever you want for all four seasons. Changing seasons has effects in the environment around you, making plants open or close, and making different things happen, such as wind currents propping up leaf platforms, jets of water making trees grow, lumps of snow letting you climb higher, that sort of thing. This allows you to traverse the current area and reach your goals. While there's real puzzle design in the game, it's not super difficult; you should be fine if you are not an experienced puzzle solver.
It took me 8 and a half hours to 100% (all achievements)!
Previous
Pulling out of my deep backlog to finally play Steamworld Heist. I haven't played X-Com or other tactical squad turn based games, but felt this one held up really well. I'm on the third system and it really plays nicely where I get trounced because of a rough seed (most levels are randomly generated), I can go at it again know what's gonna pop out but just not where.
It's pretty awesome they recently'ish released the second game, but I'd love to dabble in the other 3 genres of games they have in the same universe (Steamworld Dig 1/2, Steamworld Quest, and Steamworld Build).
I've played almost 40 hours so far of Jagged Aliance 3 since I started on 5th December.
I consider myself veteran olayer of Jagged Alliamce 2 and I love that game! Even though I played it up to this day thanks to open source engine called JA2 Stracciatella - yes, it's called by the ice cream flavour as was first 12 or 13 versions of this engine (ie. vanilla, strawberry...), I was waiting for continuation of the series. I have tried Back in action which looked to me like fan-made 3D port of JA2, I own Flashback that I didn't ever played and when I heard about JA3, I was getting a bit skeptical. Then it came out and reviews started to pour in. And it seemed they actually pulled the unthinkable.
And I'm here to tell you that they really did it! JA3 is true successor to JA2. I don't even know where to start...
AIM.mercs are here with their personalities, Bobby Ray's guns store is here, many various weapons are here and with modifications that change their characteristics and not (only) how they look, action points are here (nothing like modern XCOM), you can target body parts, you get points for shooting from above... All the stuff you can think of.
There are changes and there is a lot of them. Inventory space based on strength, for example, only limited militia, mercs have special abilities/perks, mercs get better at their statistics and when they level up, you can unlock newperks depending on their stats. You modify weapons by making modifications from parts rather than finding them and slapping them on (as you did in JA2)...
I'd rather make this a question thread - if you olayed and liked JA2 and are thinking about JA3, ask.me anything. I would try my best to answer your questions.
I may pick up and try JA2, as it's significantly cheaper and I'm poor...
I still remember the ads for the original in PC Gamer, but I never did play any of the games.
Go for it! It is kinda hard game to get into, but if it catches you, you won't ever let it go. It will become part of your gaming life forever.
I don't know how it runs by itself today, have a look at said Stracciatella open source version of the engine.
Also - Wildfire is for vetera players, I recommend starting with vanilla JA2.
Optionally you may (or may not) want to have a look at Patusco's Strategy guide, which is absolutely exhaustive dig-in guide for the game. I would recommend at least having a look at how character stats make or break your merc (so you don't make an absolutely bad merc for yourself). This depends on how you like to play your games - if you want to experience them raw or have a bit of knowledge.
If you buy it and have any questions, feel free to come back and ask.
Thanks, I'll give it a go! At least, I will at some point in the future! I did just pick-up JA2 for $2.15 on GoG, so I'll take the opportunity to install it with Stracciatella and give it a go when I'm feeling motivated.
I'll probably just tinker with it first before jumping into a guide, which I think will end-up overwhelming me and making my brain shut down.
If I recall correctly, game manual is quite good as well. Maybe forgot about the strategy guide at first and read the manual instead. The basics are covered and you will learn the rest.
I recommend easiest dofficulty, tons of guns, no alien mode and no ironman mode. When you get better, you can try making the game harder.
Thanks, I'll give it a go!
I'm playing Balatro, after it went on sale and I am a sucker for a good roguelike. I holds up well, much better than I would expect. Also, if you're someone who has any experience playing poker, there's basically nothing hard learn. You know the odds, you know the values, it makes it a kind of mindless game for me sometimes.
I spent years playing The Binding of Isaac and have had trouble finding roguelikes that match Isaac's sheer possibilities and I could see Balatro doing that.
Are there any Digimon fans on Tildes?
The free to play, Gacha oriented game Puzzle and Dragons is now 12 years old, and on Dec 26 they're releasing a Digimon collab. All your old childhood favorites are here in one epoch resetting collab. Apparently, the stuff that roll out of the Gacha from this collab is game breakingly good.
Anyway if there are othr Puzzle and Dragons people gimme a shout :)
This time of year we pull out the Christmas Luge, where you play as a penguin trying to collect scarves for other cold penguins. It's like if someone took the penguin race slide level from Mario 64 and turned it into a silly little Christmas game. It's janky and the scoring is weird and we can't figure out what some of the items do, but it's free and fun for the kids.
I finished Stalker 2, and I gleefully chose the ending that all youtube videos are calling "the worst". Having watched the other endings, I'm not so sure about that judgment. But oh well, the complete experience was pretty good. At some point near the end I got tired of the combat and inventory mechanics so I modded those things to not be a problem. A really good game as a whole.
Don't really have anything lined up to follow that.
I'm still going hard on Dragon Age: The Veilguard. I'm 25 hours in now and still thoroughly enjoying it. I'm absolutely in love with the setting, characters, and writing (there was some poor writing at the start of the game, but it got much better). I do wish there was currently more political intrigue that my character and party were directly involved in. Maybe I'll get more of that deeper into the game, but I've had a few conversations now with NPCs talking about political drama going on, but I never seem to be involved and seem to more just be helping people in need and killing monsters over making difficult decisions thus far. On the other hand, I'm glad that the game is taking the time to flesh out your companions and many of them are pretty damn deep so far. I won't spoil whom or the exact details, but I did not expect to have a mature conversation about someone possibly figuring out that they're transgender (I haven't gotten further in that storyline, so no idea what happens later or not, but the opening part to that storyline was actually impressively maturely handled), along with other difficult themes. I'm pretty all in on this game and will for sure be playing quite a bit of it in the next few weeks.
I also tried the demo for The Crew: Motorfest this week. I'm extremely mixed on this. The driving model seemed somewhat impressive for an arcade racing game, it felt good to drive the cars as opposed to the modern Need for Speed games. However, the game does the same thing that all modern arcade racers seem to do and it holds your hand for HOURS before it lets you play the game how you want to play. It just assumes I know nothing about cars or racing (I am on a sim racing team lmao) and does everything in its power to make sure that I have as little fun as possible so far, by directing me everywhere and giving me two billion popups on my screen at any given moment. On top of that, while the driving model is fun, the rubber banding in races is just unacceptable. Instead of dynamic difficulty, you select one of five difficulty levels. On 3/5, I absolutely smoke everything and it isn't fun. On 4/5, I should be capable of winning races, but the AI will never make mistakes and do things their car doesn't allow them to (I got smoked in a straight line in my RX-7 by a Miata... because the game decided the race would be more exciting if I started a mile back and had to catch up), but then I'll just "magically" catch up near the end. It completely turned me off from the game. I didn't expect this to be anywhere close to a racing sim, but I at least expected serviceable AI that doesn't rely on rubber banding to allow me to have a fun time. I'm perfectly okay with placing 5th in a race if I make mistakes. I don't want to win every race by a mile, I want to be challenged, but I want the other cars to race under the same rules that I'm under.
Really, I just want a game that allows me to buy and customize cars and race them around. I've played a ton of Forza Horizon 5 already or I would absolutely be going with that, but it just seems like any alternatives fall short. I still have like 3 more hours left on the demo, so maybe I'll play it out and see if it gets better, but I'm really frustrated by Motorfest so far. I'm also open to recommendations of other games in the genre.