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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.
The original PS2 version of Katamari Damacy. It's still fun in 2025, even though the controls are sometimes a bit slow. The main game is only 10 short levels, which I can appreciate.
I have never once played that game, yet I regularly listen to its soundtrack. That to me is a mark of some great songs. A lot of other game soundtracks I listen to also have that nostalgia factor, so it's hard to say if I actually like the music or if I'm just fondly remembering the feeling of being a kid/teen again with no cares in the world playing video games all day and night. But not Katamari Damacy, that shit slaps.
The remake is on all modern consoles and Steam if you want to give it a whirl. I've been playing through the second one and it's still a good time. (And wholly unique! Unlike most older games this is nota genre full of imitators and iteration. Just Japanese weirdness.)
Yea, do yourself a favor and take an edible and just set aside an afternoon to playing that game. Incredible experience. I did that during covid and it was easily the most fun and memorable game I've played in the past 10 years.
Then do it again with We <3 Katamari.
Hearing the soundtrack (Pirated of course, because this was the time when it was basically impossible to get video game soundtracks in the US) is actually the only reason why I picked up the game.
I can't say for sure that the music really enhances the gameplay since it's pretty unrelated to what's anything that's happening on the screen, but I can for sure say that the game would not be popular without it.
Lies!
When the soundtrack repeatedly told me “You. Are. Smart.” it was obviously because my strategic pickup order of items in the game was genuinely brilliant.
Speaking of buying the soundtrack legally, I'm going to brag that I snagged this.
The problem is I don't have a record player...
What do you mean, the whimsical feel good and optimist music is unrelated to the whimsical kinda optimist gameplay?
I wouldn’t describe the gameplay as “optimistic”. Everyone is weirdly cheery, yes, but everything and everyone is being picked up like trash to be launched into outer space. If anything, the music forces the mood.
But I suppose you would be the expert on this, Prince.
It's also implied they're turned into planets or stars because the king lost his "belt" or something like that.When you're rolling up cities it's more akin to genocide than anything else, all wrapped up in a whimsical package for the prince to neglect the moral gnawings in his brain.
The story of the brainchild of this odd creation is interesting to hear where he got his inspiration from. A bit sad too because I recall he got snubbed hard and basically earned nothing from it.
I used to have the soundtrack for We ❤ Katamari on my playlist, to be shuffled in amongst the more "normal" songs. It was always entertaining to me when I'd be driving someone new around and started getting the wild beeps, boops, and nas, frequently confusing the heck out of them.
As I recovered from the worst of this stupid seasonal flu, it was finally time to play ANIMAL WELL, the world's first open well videogame. It's like Fez 2 meets Tunic 3, except without the 3D perspective shenanigans of Fez or the hard combat of Tunic. In fact, there is no real combat at all; the whole game is about problem solving, puzzle solving and secret finding, with some platforming tricks here and there. Expect to have to do this 100% of the time; there is no tutorial, dialogue or explanation. On very, very rare occasions, a room is designed in such a way that it teaches you something more blatantly - usually late enough that you should have ideally figured it out sooner. I've seen it described as a "metroidbrania," which is a silly but fairly accurate moniker. If you enjoy those epiphanies where not only you understand something new about the game, you realize that thing has been under your nose the whole time and at some point you'll want to re-check twenty five different locations armed with that new knowledge, this is the game for you.
Aesthetically, AW makes use of that kind of "pixel art" that's far too intricate and polished to be retro. The world of the game is crammed full of uniquely designed rooms with their own cosmetic touches that really help you keep your bearings in what amounts to a very large, very dense vertical maze. The vibe is dark; you spend the whole game apparently underground, surrounded by a variety of animals and animal ghosts, all of them larger than you. Some are reasonably friendly; others are creepy as hell, and eager to literally scream at you, chase you through walls, trample you to death, peck you to death, shoot lasers at you (also resulting in death) and more. The music helps; it's low pitched, ominous and suspenseful. Some rooms are shrouded in complete darkness and require some kind of light source. By default, the game also has scanlines; I turned them off before I even started playing and never once regretted the decision.
Throughout the game, in addition to many objective-type collectibles (painted eggs) and various types of keys, you collect tools that allow you to interact with the world in unique ways. All of these can be used in more than one way, and often solving a traversal problem, a puzzle or finding a collectible requires thinking of these tools from what seem at first to be a game-breaking perspective. It's not! They designed it like that on purpose. I really enjoyed the originality of the tools and how well they fit the game world. I also appreciated that while there seem to be a number of very difficult objectives for crazy speedrunner types, you can complete the game's true ending and get all the achievements without doing any of those.
ANIMAL WELL comes highly recommended. It had one of the highest Metacritic scores of 2024, more than ten thousand reviews on steam averaging overwhelmingly positive, was in several best-of-year lists, and was snubbed by The Game Awards. All of the highest accolades! Steam tells me I played for 27 hours for the true ending (all eggs and such) but there was definitely pause time in there; you can probably comfortably get 20 hours out of it though.
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Nice description of Animal Well!
I think it is an outstanding merit of game design (by one dude!) which really scratches the right itch for a lot of the puzzles.
Bbuuttttt I kinda wish it had a little more interlocking systems rather that skill based puzzles.
I won't spoil anything. The dev says the game is in three distinct layers, the "first layer" which anyone can play and it's awesome. The "second layer" which people can work out on their own and it's more of a challenge. This was also fun to work out, but started the trend into "you are gonna need to platform good to complete this"
And the third layer which requires community effort and is hard. Where I was less impressed to be honest.
Thr community BLASTED through the content which was meant to "take year, maybe never be solved" in like less than a week lol.
But my issue with it is there's more dumb hard platforming and the tools you have don't really get more interesting or anything. Which is kinda what I was wanting out of it. And I think that's a me issue.
Curious what you thought of the later puzzles and systems. Maybe you could spoiler it or something.
As far as I could tell there were only two items with serious platforming uses, the bubble wand and the frisbee. I'm not spoiler tagging that because you get those very early and it's kind of obvious (you can't progress at all without that realization). I've read complaints about platforming difficulty, but except for that insane top left corner room (which I did not succeed in crossing) I appreciated that platforming challenges were either unconstrained in time, or constrained but dependent on using tools to interact with the game world rather than directly for platforming. It feels like a good compromise, since I had no interest in having to try a million times to platform across an obstacle.
I appreciated the things you could do with the spinning top, the flute and especially the UV light.
Click to expand spoiler.
You could have a game that leans more on systems making use of more "global" devices, such as the animal wheels controlling the moving platforms or the synchronized stateful switches/walls. Maybe the developer will make a game that's more like that one day. But I think that's a design decision with drawbacks that need to be carefully considered. You're catering to the Riven crowd, for sure, but you're also making a game that's already fairly confusing to a lot of people even harder to unpick by requiring a lot more walking around the entire game world. At that point you may want, or even have to, reduce focus on exploration, and be a little clearer about objectives and tasks. Do *I* personally want that? I'm not sure. I enjoyed the freedom of exploration!The wheel felt under-utilized.
I don't know what you mean by community challenges. I didn't look it up. At times I spotted certain things in the background that felt like they should mean something, and ended up not being used during my playthrough. I definitely didn't reach the clocks in time, and I didn't reach the end without skulls. So there are things I haven't seen at all.
I've been waffling on getting this game, because I actually don't like metroidvanias and not huge on platforming (Celeste is basically the only platformer I've really played in the last.... many many years). This might be the comment that gets me to pick it up next time it's on sale. I'm not crazy about The Witness but that "epiphany" moment in games is so, so underused.
I hope you're not disappointed! I've already noticed a couple new things from watching a friend play since I "finished" the game. I also watched a speedrun and learned some more new things. The game is not perfect but I think there's plenty to keep someone interested... If you can stand the platforming of course. I found it generally easier than Celeste at least.
I've been playing the new Indiana Jones game for the past few days, and i continue to be surprised just how fantastic the game is. I've never been more than a casual Indy enjoyer, but I heard the game was both good and giving Immersive sim energy, which is the closest analogue to crack cocaine in my life. So i picked it up through gamepass and found myself hooked almost instantly. The combat is fun and crunchy, stealth is good enough with light disguise systems thrown in, and the puzzles are just engaging enough to not slow it down but also not feel like a waste of time either. Visually the game is stunning, and the two different environments i've been to so far have both been varied and interesting. The adventure feels properly grand, and the music supports the whole vibe really well. Not to mention Troy Baker somehow doing a really good harrison ford voice, or at least what I remember Indy sounding like. It all culminates in a fun romp that feels like playing through one of the films in the best way possible. Also in the current politcal climate of my country, beating up Nazis is very cathartic. Would love to know if anyone else has any thoughts on the game.
Is it open world? What's the moment-to-moment gameplay like?
I know I can just look these questions up, but I like these discussions on Tildes and always prefer to hear real people's opinions (you're not a bot, are you?) rather than random articles I find online.
I'll be honest, I never really cared much for Indiana Jones or any of the movies. But your description of the game sounds pretty interesting. I did hear that the graphics were great, but don't know anything about the game besides that.
Not OP. It is hub world based. There are three major areas you visit that are mini open worlds. You can return to previous ones later on so you don't have to do everything in one place before moving on, you can always come back.
There is one side quest near the end of the game that has you backtrack to previous areas as well.
Moment to moment is you are trying to solve puzzles and avoid Nazis. Throughout each hub area is a variety of locations you'll need to visit to put all the pieces together to solve that hub. Also throughout are Nazis you have to fight or hide from. Later on in the story of each hub you can find an outfit that lets you disguise as the soldiers in that hub so most enemies won't recognize except the higher up lieutenants who will always be suspicious of you. So you are always on your toes a little bit.
Otherwise you're basically running around solving puzzles and side quests, finding collectibles if that's your sort of thing. It's a lot of fun.
The collectibles in this game have a purpose as well, they're not just useless things to collect. They're either notes that provide story/lore or hints at solving some puzzles or quests. Or theyre skill books that improve your skills and abilities, or theyre these relics that seem pointless until the very end of the game where you can unlock a secret area if you have collected all of them.
Great description, thanks! And what about the combat? Is there a lot of action (beating up Nazis) or is it more about the puzzles and the combat takes a backseat?
It definitely sounds like its worth checking out, so I'll add it to my list.
Like a lot of games these days you can choose to go more stealthy or loud. It's pretty satisfying hand to hand combat with occasional guns in play.
You can whip enemies to stun them briefly, and it's kinda like boxing with punching and blocking and breaking through their block. Plus there's melee weapons everywhere so you can smack or throw a shovel or something at them.
I 100%ed the game and never figured out where you get the revolver from, though I was picking up ammo for it. But you can also pickup the guns from enemies, however they only carry one magazine of ammo, so a rifle only has 6 shots. Though you can use it as a melee weapon also to hit guys with if you run out of ammo.
All in all it felt like a unique blend of melee and shooting. Both were satisfying and fun to utilize.
Generally I try to play stealthily, and then go loud when I mess up. And I had a pretty good balance of stealth takedowns, fistfights, and gunfights throughout.
Wasn't sure myself, so I duckducked it. Apparently you have it from the start of the game, but it's part of your adventuring outfit, so whenever you don a disguise, you lose access to it. The developers probably should have made this more clear.
Ohhhh, that's why, I pretty much was always wearing a disguise. I was annoyed every time the game forced me back to Indy outfit cause I had to switch back haha
That is kinda silly, just cause he's wearing a disguise means he doesn't have his gun anymore? Even in his satchel? That doesn't make much sense
He also has more health when he's wearing his adventuring outfit. So I guess the idea is, you sacrifice some combat capability to more easily avoid fights.
That doesn't seem like a worth trade off, especially once you get the uniform for the area, cause then all enemies but the lieutenants won't bat an eye at you
I am for the most part really enjoying the game, but there are sections I struggle with. Its greatest strength in my opinion is immersion. This game makes me feel like I am Indiana Jones, in one of the better Indy movies.
In Gizeh, I felt most of the side quests were uninspired, so at one point I just decided to do the main quest to get to the next location.
In Himalaya, I struggled with a long stealth section, which I had to retry several times before I got through it. I suck very hard at stealth games, and I remember almost giving up on Breath of the Wild after failing to sneak through the Yiga Clan hideout a dozen times.
The game goes very over the top a few times.
examples
Like that time you're navigating a German battleship as it slides down the hills of the Himalayas. Or that time you're fist-fighting a Japanese soldier on the wing of a flying aircraft.I'm currently in Thailand, trying to finish a very frustrating platforming section.
description
It's hard to see which platforms can be reached by jumping or climbed up onto. And every time I fall down into the water, I get eaten by a giant snake. I've been eaten by that fucking snake *so many times* now!So I do have a few issues with the game. I was actually thinking of quitting it because I'm so frustrated with the current section, but reading semsevfor's comment, I may be closer to the finish line than I realised, so maybe I'll just find a walkthrough to help me through the current section and see if it improves after. But for the most part; great game!
If you're at the part with the giant snake then you're about halfway through the final hub area, and then there's some more story stuff after that.
If you're not doing side quests and only main quest you probably have 2ish hours left to finish.
I've been playing Metaphor Refantazio and it's okay... I'm something like third/half way through the game but it just seems like pretty standard JRPG with Persona mechanics. I don't really understand what made this game one of the best of last year. Though I was similarly disappointed with FF VII Remake.. maybe JRPGs just aren't my thing.
I also bought Balatro on Android (after pretty much 100%ing it on PC last year) and gotta say I have to eat my words when it comes to my theorized "grind" phase. I was able to win my second game easily. And third. And fourth. Sadly this means the meta seems to be indisputably solved, though the gameplay is so solid I probably will just go through every challenge anyway.
I watched my husband play through most of Metaphor and I really didn't see why people went so crazy over it. Yeah, it does a lot of things well, but it seems that people really liked it because it was just Persona but different. It's kind of weird that people didn't go as crazy for Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE, but that may be because it's more 'anime' or because it's stuck on Nintendo systems.
So I'm 18hrs into Metaphor. Just finished the quest to find the necromancer in the Grad Trad Cathedral. And yeah...I'm starting to get that feeling as well. That this game is alright, but not some "OMG, best JRPG ever!"
Don't get me wrong; I'm somewhat of a JRPG traditionalist. So this is right up my alley. And it's definitely good we're seeing new AAA IPs in the space again. But I've yet to see why this is a GOTY contender. Obviously still being in the early part of the game, maybe it'll be revealed later. And I am enjoying it. I guess we'll see.
Yeah, it seems like it's just a solid JRPG. There are some quality of life improvements like immediately restarting battle (which trivializes things like "steal" but I don't mind that) and ability to switch and unlock Archetypes (jobs) immediately in the world.
Though I'm not sure if either of those things are actually new, I'm not that into JRPGs.
Same here, so I’m the third to agree. I made it quite a ways in and just bounced. The story was terrible and the characters flat. The monster design was cool though
I don't think the story and the world as a whole is bad, there's plenty of ideas and conflicts that are interesting but everything is just written so blandly. I guess that's partly by design, the game communicates (and spells out) everything so bluntly that it's easy for anyone to understand, even those that can barely read. But that's why everything comes across as almost like a Wikipedia entry, you hardly care because you aren't feeling the story.
And the protagonist is such a blank slate but that's what they're in Persona games too (I think).
Metaphor got super repetitive and was missing literally the best thing about the Persona/SMT games in the fusion system. Archetypes are a step down from the old system imo.
Makes the enemies repetitive too because you're just fighting the same minotaurs and bird monsters but reskinned. I'm on the last deadline and don't really have any intention of finishing the game, which is a bit sad.
It's definitely a simplified system.
Thinking about what I like in JRPGs and realizing that Like A Dragon games have been the ones I've enjoyed the most (not that I've played that many), I probably just enjoy the casualness of turn based combat but the actual meat for me is in exploration and story. And Metaphor just isn't checking those boxes for me, especially when it comes to writing.
I decided to crack open a very well-acclaimed game that I had been sitting on for a while, The Outer Wilds. I had heard a bunch of very good reviews about this, praising it as the sort of game that is best experienced blind, so I went into it blind. Initially it was charming and interesting, but I quickly felt that the game was actively trying to waste my time with its construction and core gameplay loop. Without spoilers, the way the game is structured involves you repeating certain actions rather frequently.
While this is not something that would have killed it for me on its own, in combination with the capricious physics engine it meant that I often felt that I was arbitrarily being bounced back to the start for things I had no ability to predict or in some cases even control - and, yes, I am aware that this aspect of the game is somewhat intentional, but I did not find that it improved my experience. Combined with the game's format for distributing new leads/clues, this meant that my reward for fighting through all this was ultimately a few scraps of information to do the same thing elsewhere in the game's world. In the worst case, it was a few scraps of information that pointed me towards something I had already done. To call this result frustrating is an understatement.
The Outer Wilds is probably still an excellent game, based on the huge number of people who enjoyed it immensely. It's just saddening to pick up something expecting a meaningful, thoughtful experience and find that it was made in ways that are wholly not to my taste as a gamer.
To be fair, I bounced off it the first time out of frustration because I went to reasonable random places and felt very lost. Nothing made sense, nothing linked up.
But second time I decided to keep going back to the same place and keep following the same lead, then had a much better experience as it felt like I was actually like, working it out.
But yeah, I mean, I can understand why you'd not enjoy it tbh, I think Outer Wilds is a little over hyped.
Obra Dinn on the other hand is fucking good and everyone should try it.
I think I immediately got that I had to keep going back and following the same leads, haha - that just sounded incredibly tedious to me. There is a structural element to the game's core mechanic that inevitably forces blocks of wasted time every time it occurs, and having those interrupt the process of exploration and discovery just killed any desire I had - especially when "going back" often involved dealing with spaceflight and platforming puzzles that take a reasonable amount of time to repeat.
This is exactly how I felt about it. I played for a couple hours and was actively frustrated the whole time. Never picked it up again after that. Glad everyone who loves it loves it so much, but it's definitely not for me.
The game provides very little guidance on how to progress, and allows many very different paths to the end. Some people take a very focused approach and try to solve every puzzle or challenge they encounter as they encounter them. However, you can run into challenges of widely different difficulty as you chose how to explore the world, including some more end-game challenges, so this can lead to frustration.
I am older and generally have very little patience for time wasting in games - but for me the approach that worked really well was that as soon as I hit something that was too difficult to solve in 1 or maybe 2 attempts, either due to lack of some knowledge, or skill (like controlling the craft initially) I continued the exploration somewhere else (as there were always countless other places and leads to follow right from the start.)
This way I was always discovering something new, and never felt too frustrated or stuck. And I found that as I came back to challenges I abandoned earlier, they became a lot easier to solve, either due to increased skill (I got much better at flying the craft as time went along, and understanding the various game mechanics) or increased knowledge from exploration.
The game does reward exploration a lot - for example most places that are hard or frustrating to reach at first, once reached, reveal some kind of shortcut that can be used to access them easier in the future, so that you rarely have to repeat frustrating parts of challenges you already solved - but these shortcuts are not always obvious and need to be discovered through exploration. There are few possible exceptions to this (I don't want give away too many spoilers) but even there, once you understand the challenge well enough, it is not actually difficult to execute.
So my advice to anyone getting frustrated would be, don't get too stuck on the first approach you come up with to do anything - if it's too frustrating or difficult, let it go and come to it later, and try to think of different possible ways to approach the problem.
It is tricky to balance handholding with free exploration in a game like this, but I ultimately I found the lack of handholding to lead to some of the games biggest payoffs and rewards, and a worthy tradeoff. That said, I watched various playthroughs after I completed the game, and realized that I completely missed at least 3 things that would have made some of the parts that challenged me the most so much easier. The way I ended up getting through the <most feared path in the game> was absolutely ridiculous in retrospect, and not at all intended by the devs - I admit this was one place I did get frustrated, until I found my method, which worked but was still extremely stressful. Watching others play the game I realized there were at least 2 other ways to do it which are so much easier, I felt like an idiot for not figuring them out :)
Ultimately it's still not going to be a game for everyone, which I can understand (to be willing to spend time in the world and invest effort in the challenges, you do have to enjoy the vibe and mood to some degree, and that is probably quite subjective - in my case the world always sparked enough wonder in me to make me want to keep going, even when I was somewhat aimlessly just kicking rocks and looking around to find something interesting) - but I would advise anyone to give it a chance, and to not get discouraged by initial difficulty - a small change in approach to the game could still unlock its magic at least for some of those who give up too soon.
I think I may have stated my gripe unclearly, so let me take another stab at it. I don't think the game is particularly difficult. I never had a moment where any of the mechanics asked me to do something that took more than a bit of trial to accomplish. My specific problem is with the arbitrary and punishing physics system, and the way the game sees no issue with inflicting random run-ending or at least run-detouring calamities on you.
Let me detail some specific examples.
Spoilers.
I discovered the probe cannon thing on the twins by following a clue. Figured it out, read the text, no problem. Get in the probe, play with the controls, launch the probe - immediately killed by physics.
I figure, fine, I'll give it another try. Hop in the ship. Fly to the twins. Land, resummon probe. Pay attention to the vector it's pointing, choose a different moment - launch, immediately killed by physics.
More the fool me. I figure I'll follow up with a different aspect of the clue and go to the interloper, since it was referenced there. I intercept the comet, land on it, find the ship, and get a single direction to go do the thing I've already been doing at the twins. Meanwhile the comet has lost its grip on my ship, which is now floating some distance away in interplanetary space. Run over.
Another time, I'm on the one with the black hole in the middle, can't remember the name. Doing the underground platforming thingy, trying to explore - except that some of the platforms cave in. Not in the traditional style where you get some warning, but as though they're not even there. I fall into the black hole, and yes, I can get back easily through the station there, but every time involves going to the station, standing in the middle and staring up at the sky until the dumb thing rotates to send me back.
Those sort of get at the crux of my issue with the game. There is difficulty, and there is arbitrary punishment. I felt that the inconveniences in this game fell strongly towards the latter. I increasingly felt like I was playing a game of minesweeper with no clues, where every time I tripped a mine I was forced to, at minimum, repeat a set of actions that cost me a minute or five, even if there wasn't a mechanic that gated segments off (looking at you, rising sand levels!). All this for a few sentences of story and a signpost towards the next place to look.
The fact that the board never changes does allow one to remember the pitfalls, once encountered, and avoid them. I just never found that the game's rather thin flow of story justified my mounting frustration with it.
Well, there's a planet that players should visit first, and the game very strongly hints at it.
Spoilers on where and why
The first thing your character sees when waking up when the loop restarts is the Orbital Probe Cannon explosion. It's the game pushing you to explore Giant's Deep.
Oh man, I don't think I could disagree stronger - I don't think the game cares where you start, and I don't think any individual starting place will offer a better experience over any other. In the tutorial area, almost everyone you talk to will give you some hints of places you could go, but there is a strong emphasis on leaving the choice up to you. Depending on which of the MANY threads offered to you in the beginning you tug on, you might feel compelled to go to any of the planets first, and there is no wrong choice - the point is to pique your curiosity enough to make you go explore, somewhere, anywhere, and slowly suck you into the central mystery as you discover things.
In my playthrough the planet you suggest was like the 5th one I went to, and I still had a great time. Watching many other playthroughs on YouTube, I have seen people take a crazy variety of approaches and different places to start. This makes watching others play the game almost as much fun as playing it for the first time, because they often put it together completely differently from how I did it, and even though we both experienced many similar moments of discovery and connections, the exact constellation of clues is often different, leading to different experiences.
I didn't mean that it is the starting point, just that the game strongly hints you at visiting it asap, and that it feels like an excellent beginning area for the listed reasons. I just think it's the most simple and straightforward planet to visit first 🤷♂️
The other planets are not bad starting points, but I can see new players being more easily frustrated with them because they're longer and more difficult to navigate.
If it helps, back when I played I did not go to that planet first. Or second. There are other places that are just as easy to want to go to first, for example
Click to expand spoiler.
IIRC Brittle Hollow is incredibly easy to navigate to after lifting off from Hearth, as it will appear right in front of you.I keep getting sucked back into Satisfactory every so often. I really enjoy setting up the factory and getting things going, but things start turning into spaghetti and I start to lose interest. I've never actually "finished" the game, this might be the run.
Board game I just played for the first time is Camel Up. It's a game where you bet on the outcome of a camel race in several rounds with some twists thrown in. More fun than I thought it would be given the premise, and didn't overstay it's welcome with my gaming group.
Satisfactory has been my game of the week as well. I picked it back up after someone on here made a post about it (I forget which one) during the Ficsmas event, but got maybe 3/4s of the way through the Ficsmas tech tree before the event ended (I was starting from a fresh save, and you need to get to phase 2 at least to finish the tree).
I was initially bummed, but then I realized that you can just manually set your system clock back to December and all the Ficsmas junk gets re-enabled. I now have several thousand snowballs and am less than a hundred star ornaments away from the last Ficsmas unlock.
I'm still frustrated by the liquid transport mechanics and logistics challenges that come with unlocking petroleum, but this time I'm starting from the Dune Desert, which despite the higher-level creatures surrounding it I've found to be a much easier starting zone wrt logistics.
I haven't yet experienced the breakthrough I keep expecting that'll snap factory design and logistics into focus, and I probably won't with this save as I picked up Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth and will likely start playing that as soon as I start hankering for a narratively focused game.
What do you mean exactly by snapping factory design into focus?
Are you building with foundations? Once I started building everything on foundations (ensuring I had enough space to expand foundation size if needed) it was pretty easy to figure out optimal logistics.
Prior to that when building with terrain in the way I was constantly getting frustrated and having to re-place things cause belts wouldn't work a certain way.
Plus foundations make it so easy to make multiple floors of you need more space as well. By the end of the game nearly everything I built had a second level at least to accommodate all the early parts I needed to pump out to finish my later parts.
Sorry, I was sort of continuing a comment I made about the game in another thread. I said I kept expecting some sort of epiphany to come that would let me intuit factory building and logistics, but it never seemed to arrive.
Yes, I use foundations extensively, and this playthrough I've been trying to build up instead of out wherever possible and utilizing logistics floors between production floors. Everything is still spaghettified all to hell. I'm still missing that realization, I think.
Camel Up is great fun! And it handles up to 8 players, so it's a good game to have on your shelf in case you ever have a load of people over and need something to do for an hour or so.
I have been playing the Pantheon MMO which i'm enjoying greatly but its for those of us that existed on EQ.
Also just beat the Indiana Jones game which I think was great.
PLaying two puzzles games Uncle Chops rocket shop puts you in charge of fixing space ships by following directions.
and Loco Motive is a point and click in the style of Maniac Mansion or gabriel knight but a much more lighthearted tone. It's been great.
I haven't heard of Patheon, but you have my attention. I suppose I can just look up some streams or let's plays, but how early is the early access? I'd like to potentially get into another MMO (especially if it stylizes itself a bit as old school), but if the game is still very jank, I might have to pass on it until at least summer. I've been thirsty for another adventure MMO (rather than what WoW is these days of do the campaign and then just queue for dungeons and raids and never talk to people), so I'd definitely be curious about this one.
Also, if they're trying to be reminiscent of EQ, are there at least some modern quality of life features (like good control and graphics settings, a good UI, etc.) to make a game like that more playable in modern times?
It's still early but the content they have is pretty solid. They have several of the classes in and about 6 zone I believe and just announced they're increasing their team to start really pushing it out. Unless you're just super eager to get in i would wait, but I had preordered years ago and play with friends and what we do I really enjoy.
I picked up Rocket Shop after watching Olexa play it, I'm really enjoying it. It's a bit of a cross between Keep Talking, Papers Please, and Tin Can. So far I'm finding the different modules to be difficult/impossible to figure out initially without the manual, but easy enough to remember after reading the instructions and practicing a few times. I probably prefer this style to the more difficult Keep Talking where you usually still need the manual open to determine next steps; Rocket Shop feels more like learning a skill (or career) where once you get the process down you can leave the manual on the shelf.
I'm not that far into the game yet so I can't speak to the late game but I'm definitely enjoying the process of learning the different systems.
I agree, its a lot of fun. Manual for first run but then memory kicks in afte.r I've made it to the first boss ship and haven't played since I got there. Been too busy but man do i want to keep at it.
I am still hitting Destiny 2 pretty hard this week to wrap up some season 2 stuff and get ready for the new season next Tuesday, I'm pretty excited for it! There's a new dungeon coming, so I'm sure I'll no life that with my clan mates for a few weeks before falling off again until the upcoming expansion (that we don't really have details or a release date for yet).
Season 2 for Black Ops 6 comes out tomorrow and has a bunch of new maps, weapons, and a few new perks, so I'm excited to also try that! We're also getting a belt fed attachment for LMGs that makes it so you don't require reloading, but can overheat, I'm ready to be a bullet hose.
I'm still plugging away on Super Mario Odyssey for an hour every couple nights or so, it's a relaxing game to play when I don't want anything too complex.
Other than that, I'm waiting for Civilization VII to come out next week (holy shit, it's next week already) and Avowed on the 18th. I've been still eyeing up Caves of Qud, but I don't think I should buy it when Civ and Avowed are right around the corner and while I'm still working on Veilguard and have new seasons for both CoD and Destiny....
I think I'll probably wait for a sale before I buy Civ7. The last years I've mostly been getting my Civ fix from Humankind, which solved most of the issues I had with Civ5 and Civ6. But Firaxis has taken heavy inspiration from Humankind this time, so if we're lucky, we get the best of both worlds.
How is Destiny 2 still faring these days for you and your clanmates? I and the vast majority of my clan effectively quit a few months after Final Shape dropped after we cleared the raid a couple times and played out the seasonal content, since we were mostly burned out from playing the game regularly for years. Is Bungie still hanging on and delivering good seasonal content? Are you optimistic for the stuff they have planned for the next year?
My clan also 80% fell off (including myself until last week). There are still three or four of us playing at least once every few weeks and three of us will be getting together for the dungeon next week (thankfully I cleared Salvation's Edge enough to get the exotic and red borders with another group). After July 5th, I only played about 10 hours until October 8th (revenant release) (using https://d2scrub.land to see my heatmap), then I played until the end of October and only just logged in again on Jan 12 and have played about 15 hours since then.
To answer your question on the game's quality, the seasonal content is a noticeable step back in quality and engagement from prior seasons, but it's still ultimately Destiny 2. I really only played the seasonal content starting with witch queen (I previously only played D1 and vanilla D2), so I can't speak to seasons before that, but this is not a Season of the Seraph or Season of the Witch, it's the least engaged that I've personally been since I started playing. The story in Echoes and in Revenant were both sub-par and Bungie have been playing a bit with content delivery and it just made for a less fun time.
I am, however, still somewhat optimistic for Heresy (starting next week) and for upcoming expansions. I think the golden age of the game is dead, gone, and never coming back (even if a Destiny 3 came out in like 6 years, I doubt it would feel as special as D2), but I think it can still be an enjoyable game going forward. I don't expect it to ever feel like it used to, the community has dropped off pretty hard, but I expect to be coming back to this game at least every few months over the next few years. Heresy's setting (the dreadnaught) has me more interested potentially and I'm a sucker for hive aesthetic and lore, so there will probably be something for me in this season, especially if Bungie dials in the content delivery to make it more engaging on a weekly basis.
Along with the story is some sandbox updates and new arc aspects to spice things up a little. I do suspect even with all the changes, I will still probably only login for the first few and last few weeks of the season. The current plan is still for them to release an expansion after Heresy ends this summer (presumably), but there's very little info on what it is. They did previously mention wanting to explore almost a roguelike space for the game, which they somewhat did with "The Coil" in season of the wish, and I do think something like that could get them in a place where the game is fun to play repeatedly while Bungie not necessarily needing to put in the amount of work that something like The Final Shape takes. Unfortunately I think we're either going to see this delayed or the expansion will be Shadowkeep tier or worse.
I'm willing to see what they have planned, but the vibe I kind of get from the community right now is that people are burned out after 10 years. I think it's okay for Bungie to release some smaller expansions and seasons to keep some of the daily players satisfied while hopefully working on something bigger and better for the future (whether that be another great expansion like Forsaken or TFS or something else). But the game, both in the community and because of what Bungie is/isn't working on, isn't quite as special anymore, even if it's still fun.
On a game deals thread, someone had mentioned Genki has a new Tokyo Xtreme Racer in early access and, let me tell you, that thing is catnip to me. I've got a wave of nostalgia pouring over me and I'm half tempted to pull out Import Tuner Challenge and just look at all my old cars again. That game just has so much charm and style - and most of the gameplay is just "pull up behind someone, race them, continue" with the odd "challenge someone to a race in the parking area." Man, it's a good game.
Then, to continue the quasi-nostalgia train, we we're stopping at Bomb Rush Cyberfunk which is Jet Set Radio combined with... Well, they added bikes and skateboards and the main cop after you doesn't have a huge revolver anymore. Funky jams, graffiti tags, and a story about taking over the streets. No, I couldn't ask for more.
Then, I just recently picked back up Dave the Diver. Couldn't really remember why I put it down but it's fun. I basically lose myself in all three of the games mentioned here but it's really easy to burn through a couple of days in Dave and realize I need to go do something else.
What’s the state of Tokyo Xtreme Racer in regards to early access? I’m definitely the target audience (Dreamcast for life!), but I’d also rather play a game that’s fully cooked than still in development.
Should I wait it out, or is it mostly complete already?
I mean, I'd love to tell you to pick it up now since it seems to be a very stable game but I believe Genki has said there's only about 50% of expected content in the game currently with no roadmap for when expected completion that I found.
There's teams to battle, a larger map, and high level Wanderers to battle for the "post" game though so there's already a pretty robust game for what's there.
The closest to a roadmap we got is that they intend to be out of early access in about 4 months going off the Steam page.
Mind, the game's been out for not even a full week, if they wanna tell us what's to come it might be closer to a month since release, assuming they don't just drop updates out of the blue.
Finally played Wolfenstein II. Been meaning to since it came out but never got around to it. I may have been more invested if I replayed TNO since I haven't played that since even before II came out.
I found it very disjointed with some really strange pacing. They had a lot of interesting ideas but then kinda just mashed them together and it was kinda off putting.
Also there was several plot threads they did nothing with. Wyatt solving the spiritual puzzle/possibly becoming enlightened? The weird gold hex key from Roswell? They did nothing with these.
I did like the bold move they made halfway through, I won't say cause it's a pretty big moment I had spoiled for me but would've preferred not knowing (even though I had an inkling from the tease they did early on with it).
I remember loving TNO and the story being pretty good and consistent, but maybe I'm remembering wrong. I just felt like it didn't hold up to what it was built up to be, but it could have been with a few changes.
But maybe I'm off base because it's been so long since it came out, idk.
I just finished the empire campaign of Star Wars: Empire at War, and I’ve really enjoyed it so far. It took me a bit to understand some of the strategy, but now I think I have a good grasp over what everything does any how to do combat (with a bit of help from some steam guides). Overall, I think the ground gameplay is quite uninteresting, and ended up beating most of the later land sections with only Vader and bombing runs, which seemed to work surprisingly well. I found the space combat much more interesting, with each ship having counters and strengths, leading to the structure of your ships being vital to victory.
Other than that, I’ve been clearing up some space missions in Star Wars: The Old Republic to upgrade my legacy level, and that’s been fun overall, even though it can get tedious if I fail to get a bonus objective in a longer mission. And The Stanley Parable courtesy of @Tmbreen, which I’ve found utterly bizarre, but incredibly amusing. I really enjoy the short repeating nature of the game, as it helps put my completionist brain to ease and allows me to think about what’s going on rather than worrying if I’m missing something.
Tokyo Xtreme Racer released into early access last Thursday. I already have nearly 23 hours on it.
Gameplay has you go into the Shuto Expressway and challenge every rival to SP Battles (racing game façon fighting game: you both have a SP bar as your HP, get ahead of your opponent to drain their SP while avoiding contact to keep your SP) to gain credits and BP; then you get back to your garage to unlock and buy new cars and upgrades, and you keep repeating those 2 steps.
It runs very well on Steam Deck, even with TSR which makes it look real good.
Fair warning, it has a wall that's literally stronger than the boss it's hiding (going from others' posts, I haven't beaten Melancholic Angel) and basically anything you can make at the time, but she can be beaten apparently.
I've also got DOOM, the ones with more sourceports than franchises got entries.
Not much to say that wasn't said countless times before (it's Doom and Doom 2), but I basically started with Time Tripper (only thing I did before that was check if I set up zdl and steam input right on Doom 2's MAP01), which goes from beautiful (a good example is C1M3's second room) to trippy (both liminal spaces), it's also harder than the base game (going off it's site, Normal is equal to Ultra-Violence), which when combined with me still getting used to controlling this on the deck made for a difficult, but memorable experience.
BuildMaster is yet another one of those shitty mobile strategy games masquerading as a bridge builder puzzle game, and while the bridge building elements make up about 30% of the content (an extra 30% are RPG battles and the remaining 40% are base building menus), I have zero respect for a mobile game that puts you on an immediate 3 hour timer as soon as the fucking tutorial to clear 60 stages, sufficiently level up your base and defuse six bombs in order to save your rocket.
I have mainly been trying to get back into Old School RuneScape, since the last time I seriously got into the game was back in the RuneScape 2 days. What put me off of really committing to OSRS in the past has been me having to re-do quest lines which I found fucking tedious nearly two decades ago. In the past week, I've cleared Biohazard, Priest in Peril, Nature Spirit, Merlin's Crystal, Tourist Trap, Goblin Diplomacy, The Fremennik Trials and a few other quests. As refreshing as I find the lack of ironman restrictions which Leagues V had, it's painful to go back to regular XP rates. It feels like it's going to take months for me to grind out the levels and quest requirements which will let me truly get into the meat of Old School's new high-end content.
Going back to mobile games, Dice vs Monsters is a very cool concept, or at least it would be if it weren't for:
Calling this game Dice vs Softlocks would be more accurate.
I'm playing the ARPG Drova. Whenever I see ARPG I tend to think Torchlight but this is nothing like that, it's got lots of really good writing and plot impactful decisions. It feels more like an early Baldur's Gate game but with action instead of turn based combat. The focus also isn't about repetitively killing monsters since you get waay more experience just completing quests. I've also found it fairly challenging since it gives you the freedom to explore a lot of places that will just flatten you at low levels. While it's not what I expected I am really starting to enjoy it.
Advice for Drova which is not well documented: when you get the choice between Nemeton and the remnant camp go hard for one side or the other. If you role play your character at all then sign them all the way onto on side or the other, if not then sign yourself up and be on board.
It sounds weird, but the story does not lend itself to being a free agent or changing sides.
Except for that, enjoy! It's a wonderful game and I had loads of fun!
Ahh I was afraid that would be the case as they do seem polar opposites. The game has also been challenging to me because I grew up with linear JRPGs and western ones always feel too open to me so I end up trying to systematically explore everything which just doesn't work out that well.
For what it's worth, Drova is pretty well balanced in terms of exploration, in that you could explore everything right from the start of the game, and that's fine, you'll see a lot! Maybe get some good levels and gear, but the game is split into acts and until you progress the main story you won't actually get harder enemies nor better gear.
So really, it's intended to pace at your own leisure. I'd recommend progressing the main story when you feel the combat is too easy, because 99% of stuff you "miss" in previous acts you can still do later (unless you are like achievement hunting).
Yeah it's just a different type of exploration, in a linear RPG it's better to completely explore a town or dungeon before moving onto the next, if something is too hard you go back to grind the earlier areas.
I had been trying to completely explore the Remnant camp and do all the quests there but they were getting quite difficult. I finally decided it might be worth risking the trip to Nemeton and when I get there the first quests were suddenly very easy again. Not what I was expecting at all! I think just pays better to follow the story more than trying to peak into every corner first.
It's been a while since I've played any video games. I've been busy with personal projects and starting off with a new job. But a while ago I watched a weird youtube video about the death of the studio Piranha Bytes and how the games they made were what he described as collectivist RPGs - games where instead of strictly relying on levels and skills to power up, you would have to navigate through society and have power granted to you.
It wasn't exactly what he was referring to but he did briefly mention Greedfall, and it happens to be a game that was already in my library as part of Humble Choice. It's one of those games that I've meant to try for a long time but haven't been able to get tihe activation energy to work on a sweeping epic RPG.
I've only gotten past the first part of the game, but so far it's been utterly fantastic. This may be the first game that scratches that specific itch of games that offer branching means of solving problems in the way that Obsidian's RPGs do. But unlike Obsidian RPGs, this game actually has pretty good combat. I honestly don't know why I haven't heard more people talking about it.
The whole thing has me wondering if Europe must actually have a better marketplace for games. Piranha Bytes wasn't popular at all in the US: I've literally only seen one other American ever talk about any Gothic game in spite of it aparantly being a somewhat legendary title in it's native Germany. Greedfall is also pretty obscure here, and I don't think if I ever brought up the studio who made it, Spiders, to anyone I meet in the real world that anyone would recognize who they are. This game is only the second title of theirs that I have ever heard of, and the only other one - Of Orcs and Men - I only heard of because I have a niche interest in the game's composer Olivier Derivier. Games from US developers seem to get spread across to Europe effortlessly, but the same doesn't seem to be true for European games. Though to be fair, that impression is tainted by the fact that you can't easily identify games as being European in origin these days. It seems the days of "eurojank" being commonplace are behind us for the most part.
I had played a bit of the original Gothic (I need to go back and play some more of it), and the first character that you meet says that he does not care who you are, when you were trying to introduce yourself to him. And that really sets the stage of the trilogy, because your character literally has no name because no one cares enough to learn it. And it is hard because everything wants to kill you, even some of your fellow prisoners and you feel under level or under powered when compared to the veteran prisoners on that island that has the skills that you need to learn so that you can survive and to be an actual threat.
And THQ Nordic is publishing a remake of the first game, that was announced 6 years ago with a playable teaser being released.
I started played the 2D/3D remake of Dragon Quest 3 this weekend and I am loving it. A ton of nostalgia since it was my favorite RPG on the NES (as Dragon Warrior 3), but it has a very fresh feeling since it is done in a 3D view with nicer graphics similar to the Octopath Traveler games. They fleshed out the story a little bit, added a new class with a "blue mage" monster skill vibe and there are voice overs for important NPCs. It is pretty well done, but it is clearly still a short game compared to most modern jRPGs.
I started Uncharted: Legacy of thieves collection, specifically A thief's end. By the chapter numbers I'm already halfway into the game. I expected Tomb Raider wothout Lara and it is kinda what I got. I like the game even though it is different - I can't put a finger on what it is though. I will report back after some more gameplay.
About the gameplay - I like that I can kinda pick if I want to do stealth route or go in guns blazin'. I olay on normal difficulty on Steam Deck (thus gamepad) without aim assist and it can be a bit challenging when it cones to shootouts. It is great for stealth gameplay, though.
I tried out Dynasty Warriors Origins, and was hugely impressed. It's a complete mechanical overhaul, with great production value and a whole lot of content. The combat feels great, looks amazing, and they did a great job of making your tactical decisions matter. It demands your attention in ways the old games kinda looked like they did, but didn't. Officer duels are awesome, with parrying and dodges along with a skill palette and the big special moves. Instead of an enormous roster, it's one character with 11 weapons, that have their own growth trees along with character building stuff. While the gameplay is action focused, it all proceeds like a jrpg, with a big world map, small optional encounters, and a more mystical story surrounding their original character.
The soundtrack is as awesome as ever. Outside of battle, it's very orchestral and martial. In battle, driving metal/rock, lots of widdly guitar shit and power chords. The animations are really fun to watch and there's a certain physicality to it that feels kinda like a comedy show, or an anime. The camera does a lot of small cinematic moves to emphasize what's going on as well as give you a quick idea of the space you're in. In the best way, it's like someone looked at DW and decided they would do the most serious attempt they could with it, keep its gimmicks and spirit but otherwise elevate it as far as they could
I really hope this is the new direction for these games because it's a gigantic step up. Dw9 was terrible and before that, while I liked the huge rosters and different game modes, the production value and simplicity of the gameplay never escaped "mid" for me. I rarely recommended them to folks because they're just something you come to yourself, your "long day at work turn my brain off" game. You either love em or hate em, at least that's what I've seen. But Origins I think I'd recommend to anyone who likes action games. There's a demo, and they even did some special stuff to accommodate the steam deck.
I've just started Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, but prior to starting, I figured I'd play through the Yuffie content in Remake. After finishing the main story, I wasn't able to conjure the enthusiasm to play it, but felt obligated to play it before getting into Rebirth.
It was all right.
Gameplay wise, being able to spam elemental attacks made most encounters pretty easy -- and a maybe little samey. But it was still a satisfying, visceral experience for the most part.
The Fort Condor minigame seemed okay, but I didn't stick with it long enough to actually figure out the mechanics properly. If I wasn't impatient to get into Rebirth, and my game time not so limited, I feel like I would have given it a bit more of a shot.
Ultimately, the overall experience just wasn't as compelling without the nostalgia baiting. It was a new story, with new characters, and without being able to nod and wink all that much toward the original game, it struggled to gain my interest.
They didn't nail the execution in Remake -- Sephiroth was way too prominent, the dialogue was cringe, I could go on. But I shudder to think how many hours I spent playing and replaying the original as a teen. Seeing key settings and moments play out in a modern engine does things for me, and that's the thing that suckers me in.
About 2 hours into Rebirth and I'm hooked. Can't wait to get back to it.
I started Force Unleashed for the first time emulated on a Steam Deck. Maaaan I have not had a smile playing a game in a long while. I'm a few hours in and it's just pure fun.