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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.
In Herdling, you play a homeless person in a city who is awoken in the middle of the night by the noise caused by a lost, er, magical fantasy yak? You pick up a stick, guide the animal out of the city and before you know it you are now a herder shaman person. The game has you care for a steadily growing herd of animals, each one visually unique. You name them, groom them, pet them, feed them and play with them, and if you're careful and responsible, you will guide them mostly unharmed through vast plains, what must have been Ori's blind forest judging by the terrifying giant owl birds in it, and up treacherous slopes across a steep mountain range (Himalayan-inspired, probably? Big central asian vibes anyway) to magical fantasy yak paradise!
The game is beautiful, with fantastic musical ambience and a melancholic vibe (no other humans are ever seen) that quickly reminded me of the FAR games, so it was rewarding to find out that these are indeed the same developers, although Herdling is in full 3D. It's more of the kind of game they do so well - a short (about 5 hours) but sweet journey featuring exploration and some puzzle mechanics that are never very difficult to figure out. The yaks (or calicorns, as they are known in game) are not as complicated to drive as the boat-submarine, but they can get hurt and apparently can die (I'm happy to say all of mine survived the trip). Guiding them safely requires swift reactions and stealth to avoid collapsing paths, creepy giant owl eggs and spiky hazards, as well as managing their speed, which is tied to the flowers and fruits they eat on the way.
I also played a full campaign of Deck of Haunts (on normal - this matters, since it's shorter on easy). In this game, you play as a haunted house, and your objective is to lure in humans and devour them in order to increase your power. The influence of the classic but still awesome Dungeon Keeper is plain to see, as you have a pulsating "heart room" which, if reached, visitors can use to damage you. After each level, you get to use your power to build more rooms, hiding your heart deep inside a maze of living rooms, guest rooms, kitchens and an increasingly greater assortment of specialized rooms, some of which come with resident monsters that will roam you and help you put those uppity humans in their place.
The second half of the game comes into play during the levels themselves. Visitors will come, each with one or more (usually several) specialized traits from a vast assortment ranging from "panicky" to "doctor" to "has a gun". In order to defeat them you have to use your, well, deck of haunts! That's right, the core gameplay is that of a deck builder a la Slay the Spire. During their turns, visitors move from room to room, using their abilities, looking for the heart. During your turn you play haunts from your deck in an attempt to either kill them (by lowering their health to zero) or scare them insane (by lowering their sanity to zero). Both options have their drawbacks as most visitors will attempt to flee the house when they see a corpse, depriving you of power and increasing the strength of visitors in the next level, while insane visitors hang around until the end of the level and prevent you from using haunts that require empty rooms or solo visitors (in other words, it's less scary with more people around!)
The deck building mechanics are pretty decent, as in other games in the deck building genre. There's a system of "tension" counters that boosts future attacks, and there are combos and synergies. You get to choose cards that you add to your deck, and cards in your deck can be upgraded. You can also occasionally expend power to remove cards from your deck. I had fun playing through the campaign, and since I recall there were other types of campaings that unlocked after beating this one I will probably pick the game up again, though I'm not sure how replayable the game will be until I'm bored. In any event, I got a solid 8 hours of entertainment from it so far. Honestly, I think it's an underrated game.
Previous
Herdling looks rather unique! I've wishlisted it, thanks for reviewing it
Yeah, it was pretty good. It's the type of experience that makes me happy I pick up so many indie games. Like FAR: Changing Tides, it does not overstay its welcome; quite the contrary, as after both of them I felt like I could have played a lot more of the same. But I also thought the way you travel towards a destination you can see in the distance even at the beginning of the game - the cohesion of the experience of the journey as a whole - adds to what made it satisfying for me. I suppose I'll just have to buy the devs' fourth game when they make it.
I was excited to pick up Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 this week but several hours in I'm disappointed to find it's just not for me.
Partly my own fault for assuming a game described as "story rich RPG with turn based combat" would mean it would play at least something like Baldur's Gate 3. The key difference is that combat requires very precisely timed button pressing, which I really struggle with.
Another difference, although not as much of a deal breaker on its own, is there is no element of positional strategy (like, in BG3 characters can move around in combat, get to higher ground etc). I understand it's a JRPG though, and this is how they are. And I have enjoyed other games like this, I thought Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door was especially good.
I thought I could solve the button pressing problem by setting the difficulty to Story, and with mods that make button timing much more forgiving. But even on Story difficulty it seems you're forced to grind up the levels to be able to beat bosses. I think this is the most frustrating part of it, shouldn't Story difficulty mean literally I am just here for the story, if I am trying at all I shouldn't be able to fail?
The story is interesting, the voice acting is pretty good, and artistically I love it, which all just rubs salt in the wound. Perhaps I'll watch a playthrough on youtube.
Yeah, everything I've seen about the gameplay mechanics has screamed to me that I shouldn't even try it. But I hear its plot is good, so perhaps there'll be some good abridged version of it soon.
Yeah, for games like this, where I find my odds of actually playing are close to nil, I like bingeing "game movies" on YouTube.
Just so you know: there is a mod on Steam Workshop (as far as I remember? anyway should work on GOG version too) that allows you to increase/decrease time for dodge.
I also started playing Exp33, and I love it! So far difficulty is fine for me, but I have the feeling that later I will most probably need to install the mod.
Have you heard of Triangle Strategy? It’s a very good jrpg imo and has a lot of the elements I think you’re looking for.
That was also my problem with the game, in general I like games with parrying mechanics, it feels so good when a parry lands, but when they make the parry mandatory for most battles, it stops being fun.
I’m not sure you’re interested in this tip or not, but the way I learned to parry was to listen to the “swoosh” sound that most attacks play. Whenever I hear the sound, I parry and it works. So not looking at the attack or animation itself - that actually seems detrimental. I am still in Act 1, but on normal difficulty the combat seems trivial so far. There is the occasional strong mob that I lose to a couple of times, but since there is no penalty in repeating the fights, I eventually learn their attack patterns & parry all of them.
I've been playing a lot of The Outer Worlds 2. There are some fairly significant changes to the leveling/items/gameplay compared to the first game but the overall vibe is the same. I really like the flaws system, and for as much as it pains me to not explore every nook and cranny, it's kind of refreshing to have limits to your character. For example, my character is a silver-tongued gunslinger, so it makes sense that he's not going to be able to hack into computers, fix everything, or understand the science behind some wild space technology. The only problem is that you can't respec, and you don't know how high the skill checks are, so you might end up wasting some prescious skill points if you're flying blind.
Overall, it's fine. It's not a life changer, but it's pretty fun and the story/world are engaging enough to not press the skip button on everything. It's basically Avowed in space.
Just not having dumb "oh this is the same gun but found later" mechanics helps a lot, and traits feel a lot more fun since they're more than "+X% to Y"
I've been playing with the philosophy that I should pick 3 lanes and stick with them. Since there are 30 levels and 2 skill points per level, and skills have a maximum of 20, you're guaranteed to be able to max out 3 skills, so that's what I've been planning around. My main playthrough has been with Stealth/Observation/Guns, but I'm also planning to play through with Engineering/Lockpick/Hack so that I can't be locked out of any room, then I want to try out a Medical/Science/??? build, and absolutely have to do something with Speech since it's the best out of combat skill, so I'm thinking Speech/Leadership/???. Oh, and a melee meathead build, so Melee/Explosives/probably Medical.
I don't know if I actually have that many playthroughs of the game in me, but it's been quite enjoyable on my first playthrough, and I've started letting go of trying to do absolutely everything, and instead just doing what I stumble into so that there are still surprises left for me when I play again.
I like where your head's at. I've decided to start a dumb + easily distracted character on my next playthrough.
Skate Story (demo)
Skate Story has been my most anticipated game since it was featured in Summer Games Fest back in 2022 (!!!). After 2 delays, it finally got a release date and dropped a demo.
I am not a skater. I have no attachment to the sport, the culture, or any of the cult classic skateboarding video games. What I wanted out of Skate Story was for it to deliver on the vibes that it sold me in its 2022 trailer :
My biggest worry going into the demo was that the actual skateboarding would get in the way of me enjoying the rest of the game.
It was immediately clear to me in the first 10 minutes that worry was going to be a non issue, and that Skate Story delivers. So much so that I put the demo down midway through the tutorial, so that I could just enjoy the game in its entirety when it releases.
Detective Instinct: Farewell, My Beloved (Demo)
I was browsing through Steam for demos to try, and ended up stumbling on Detective Instinct: Farewell, My Beloved. I don't remember what prompted me to click on it, maybe it was that it reminded me a bit of an anime I liked (Monster). Either way, I ended up playing through the demo and really enjoying it.
It made me nostalgic for anime/manga I've enjoyed in the past (the art of Monster, the detective work in Detective Conan, etc...). I really liked the music. The point-and-click gameplay seems fine, and the story seems compelling enough to make me want to see it through.
This week we concluded our special two-part on Caves of Qud for our podcast on roguelike/lite games, this time focusing on the gameplay and mechanics of the game.
I was a supreme Qud skeptic when I first touched it two years ago. I wasn’t impressed by the menus, the verbiage and terminology was super alien and hard to understand, but 150 hours later it’s become one of my favorite RPG games of all time.
Taking the time to slow burn the game, learn the systems, and understand the mechanics really turned me around on Qud. The amount of polish the devs put in for 1.0 really shine and separate it to be far ahead of any other traditional roguelike in terms of accessibility.
I think my only major gripe at this point is that it’s not a good roguelike for the learning process. It’s much better to play the game on Roleplay (checkpoints at villages) or Wander (most enemies start neutral) to learn the game before trying the first couple dungeons. I feel like the roguelike mode is better once you’ve gotten very far or beaten the game once.
Overall: highly recommended. It’s a super unique game and experience that is coming to Switch soon and I think folks who are interested are in for a real treat of an experience and one of the most rewarding endings to a game I’ve played in many years.
I’m utterly addicted to Hades II still. I’m now up to 35 hours (and I only picked it up on the 1.0 release date) and still having a blast. I can now see the two incantations required to beat the game(?), but in a way, it feels like I’m still only scratching the surface. For example, I found a secret weapon aspect and so I’m guessing there’s one for each weapon that I now need to find. I’ve also barely explored builds with some gods and I keep finding new and unique builds. This game is just insane. This is all me talking about gameplay, but the story, art, and voice acting are all superb as well. I think this might be my favorite game that I’ve played this year, it’s just excellent.
So yeah, while I’m playing that, I’m making no progress on my backlog, but so many fantastic games are coming out that I want to play that I’m not worrying about the backlog too much. I still want to get Ball X Pit and Powerwash Simulator 2. Tavern Keeper also looks very cute and I’m actually thankful it’s in early access and not full release as that means I’m going to wait to pick it up.
When fighting the blind sheep boss, and you morph some of the adds into sheep with a spell from the fairy-moon-girl, he goes "oh, more sheep?". It's so funny.
Yeah, there are a ton of interactions like that where I’m surprised there’s dialogue for it!
FWIW, I'm 250 hours in, having beaten all that was available in 3 stages (release EA, final EA, and final release) and still going. That pales entirely in comparison to the 800 hours I have in the original Hades though.
Oh damn, I happen to check the website right as this thread goes up and I'm due for a break anyways so time for me to go and gush about Arc Raiders some more!
First of all, I know this game isn't for everyone. I'm not going to say "Oh, everyone should play it" because that clearly is not the case. It's a special type of game that doesn't mesh with everyone's play style. That being said, I've had quite a bit of time to think about why I enjoy it so much.
The world building is beautiful. It's both empty and alive. The art team really understood the direction with the visual and audio aspects of the game. They absolutely nailed the 80's sci-fi experience and that alone is quite amazing. It actually is what caught my attention initially. That was when I then also initially passed on the game because of it being an Extraction Shooter. I'm glad I saw those videos of the game being played pre-launch to help change my mind.
The PvE enemies are always dangerous. They can't be taken lightly, as being too lax can quickly turn an encounter into a panic situation. Many are easy to take out one-on-one, but as soon as you start seeing multiples together, then you really need to think about avoiding the contact altogether. A group of 3+ bots and poor cover will be merciless in eliminating you and bringing your run to an end. (I got ganked by 7 last night, they came out of nowhere and destroyed me) The bigger enemies? Don't even bother unless you are specifically prepared for fighting them. The Rocketeer is my nemesis and I give it a very healthy, wide berth when I see one. It has ruined my run multiple times. Most recently? I was running to a raider hatch to escape when time had run out and right as I opened the hatch, it blew me off the hatch and I couldn't crawl back in time to get back in before the hatch closed on it's own.
Other players aren't as toxic as you would think for a game like this. I primarily play solo, and there is a general attitude of "Good luck out there" amongst 90% of people I meet. Very rarely do I come across someone going postal and trying to shoot up the lobby, but then they are quickly dispatched as they are just being reckless and people really do flock to raider flares when they jump someone. Everyone I've talked to has been friendly and helpful and I've only heard one instance when someone had just let a casual slur.
Losing your gear isn't actually the end of the world. Turns out, the base stuff you can craft right away is just as good as the high tier stuff. Yeah, the high tier stuff is more consistent, but you can still win fights with a small machine gun and a big, breach loaded battle rifle. When you die, it doesn't take much to get your kit right back to where you would like it to be. Thankfully, since people tend to play nice (for now) I can just hop into a map, gather what I need and usually be back to the same strength I was before. Additionally, a group of people even with simple weapons (and smart use of scavenged tools) can eventually bring down a the bigger enemies with minimal to no losses. I still haven't defeated a Queen yet, but I did get to see it nearly vaporize some guy who was stupid enough to poke it from near max distance. I learned a healthy respect for that mob (And the guy is lucky I had a Defib).
Solo and Squads are two different beasts. My wife was interested and we played together for a bit, but she got distracted with the new Pokemon game and the fact we kept running into trios as a duo. I do think the one QoL is that they can add a Duo queue for people like us so we aren't fighting down a person every time someone decides they want to fight. (which, unfortunately, is often)
Anyways, I love this game. It's the first time in ages where I've come across a game that does not have major bugs, no chronic performance issues on PC and very few server overload issues. It's about as close to perfect as anyone can ask for in this day an age. I also love what it's done for the genre in proving that it doesn't have to be a huge sweat fest like Tarkov. Between Ark Raiders and Duckov, I think there's a real possibility that we will be seeing some new extraction shooters that are not aimed at the sweaty market within the next 1-2 years and I'm genuinely curious about what that will be.
I've also sunk quite a lot of time this week into Arc Raiders and I've reached a point where I'm basically comfortable playing it. I'm comfortable with going solo, actually much more so than in a squad, which is already a huge plus for casual play and player retention in general. I could only play Hunt in short bursts since it was bloody stressful but I can just hop into Dam Battlegrounds and go for a nice stroll, kill a few drones, say hi to passing strangers and maybe get into a firefight now and then. Getting a very cheap but functional loadout is easy so I'm not constantly pressured to run free loadouts and put myself at a steep disadvantage, and it's usually no big deal if I do lose it, especially with the safe pocket. The atmosphere's also great and has only gotten even better with the introduction of the Electromagnetic Storm event, with the rain drowning out your footsteps and the very close lightning strikes keeping you on edge. Most solos are still fairly non-confrontational, if not outright friendly. Heck, I went to the launch tower in Spaceport and someone was already looting the place so I asked them if they found any cooling fans and they just gave me one for free. I'm cautiously optimistic now that when they add more very PVE-focused events, players will actually cooperate and not betray each other at the end. Though it's still important that you get shot by another raider now and then, can't have people getting TOO comfortable.
I've been having a blast with the game as well. I started falling into the trap of thinking that players trying to kill me are assholes, but then I got betrayed, it started my villain arc which I had a blast with, and I realized that the guy who betrayed me really helped me enjoy the game more.
If it wasn't for him, I'd just be farming relatively easy PvE and the games legs probably wouldn't have held for much longer.
Now, if I see people extracting and I'm not in any major danger, I'll pop a Ferro shot into them, not to try to kill them, but to put the fear in them, and give them the gift that I received.
Oh yeah, the real peak "PVE" player experience is getting a solid loot run in, maybe teaming up with a few other friendlies, then surviving and escaping an ambush from other players during extract. Gives you a taste of everything the game has to offer without anyone being scummy or toxic. I remember my trio sitting on top of the Dam control tower watching 2 squads team up to extract together and fight off a leaper, so once the doors opened we just started firing off our ferros at them for shits and giggles. Didn't down any of them and they all got away safely, and we got the achievement for hitting a target from 250m away, a good time for everybody.
Embark also just dropped the trailer for the next major update which releases tomorrow, and it looks like there's going to be a community-wide event to unlock the new map, Stella Montis. Very exciting times to be a raider.
I picked up Arc Raiders late last week and it's quickly taken over all my free time (and lunch breaks lol).
I have never tried an extraction shooter before, so this is new territory to me, but I would echo all of your comments about the overall friendliness of the playerbase. I also feel like it's early in the game lifecycle, and I wonder if it will stay that way or not. With the large influx of players (I'd heard maybe 2 million copies sold in the first week across all platforms?) it'll be interesting to see how it goes. In my completely uninformed opinion, I think the fact that the PvE stuff is actually dangerous it helps keep some of the PvP aspects from getting out of hand. But I have been shot in the back while trying to leave more than once and have had to just log off and come back the next day.
I started out solo and that was tough but then had a couple friends show me the ropes and get me going and now I'm totally comfortable going out solo even with a somewhat better loadout. There is a pretty steep learning curve to this game, and I'm assuming it's to this genre, but now that I have a better handle on what loot is good, what I need to look out for on a run, and what areas are generally more sweaty than others, I find I can hop in and out with relative ease. I have found that even just enabling the "party fill" option before you join is worthwhile if you want to group up. The randos I've matched with have all been helpful, seem to use voice chat, and overall have been fun to play with.
Speaking of voice chat, proximity chat has been a lot of fun, especially with the voice changer (raider voice). I have talked my way out of some scrapes already and if you approach people with a "Hey raider!" and don't surprise them, they seem to leave you be. I have also found out that as the rounds go in the last 10 or 5 minutes, people are way more likely to shoot first and ask questions later because they don't want you to shoot them by that point.
I've hit level 21 or 22 so I think I've unlocked all the things. I am unsure about some of the late game stuff and am still working on upgrading benches in town, but overall I think I'll be playing this for awhile.
Railroads Online
As a new father with very little downtime, this has become my go-to dad-game whenever the rare opportunity to play something presents itself.
The game allows you to build and operate a narrow-gauge railroad set in the US during the age of steam. What really sets this game apart from other train games is the focus on building the railroad itself in a physics-based sandbox. There are plenty of games where you can build a railway and manage it from an strategic/economic perspective (e.g. Sid Meier's Railraod Tycoon series, Transport Tycoon and Transport Fever,) and probably just as many pure train-sims (Microsoft's Train Simulator series, Trainz, and to an extent the more recent Railroader). But Railroads Online incorporates both, and does so fairly well. You build tracks between industries accounting for gradients and avoiding obstacles, then run trains between industries to earn money and use that money to buy more rolling stock and more powerful locomotives. While an update introduced a 'fly' mode, most of the gameplay is designed for a first person perspective and the UI does a surprisingly good job of accommodating this.
In fact, the game has essentially pioneered it's own genre: Infinirails is in early access and seems to be a very similar concept with an infinite generated world, and Century of Steam is an upcoming title from Railroads Online devs that have splintered from the studio to create their own game (more on that below...).
The game ticks a lot of boxes for me personally. I adore games that allow me to build my own world and have enjoyed setting up props around stations to make towns look as realistic as possible. I have my own experience with steam engines and narrow gauge heritage railways, enjoy historical settings and really appreciate that the game allows me to set my own goals and complete them in my own time, which is great as an adult and even better as a parent. Progression isn't tied to skill trees or experience points (though these are required to unlock more powerful engines in the game), for me it's been finally finding a route to an ore mine on top of a hill that doesn't exceed a 2.5% grade, or finally setting up a depot in a way that's realistic, usable and looks pretty. It's really become my comfort game, y'know?
Unfortunately, there are a lot of shortcomings and disappointments when it comes to the game, namely:
In summary, I've really enjoyed my time with this game but mostly appreciate the genre it's spawned. Very much looking forward to Century of Steam filling this niche for me in the future.
I started playing My Time at Sandrock. Seems like a charming game so far. The stamina system makes it feel a little too much like a mobile game, but that's probably (hopefully) just because in the early game you don't really have the means to replenish your stamina yet. I'm expecting stamina to become a non-issue later on as your resources become more abundant. Apart from that, it feels a lot like 3D Stardew Valley, which I like. (I've never played My Time at Portia.)
I've also installed Morrowind again, thanks to @kaffo, who pointed me towards OpenMW (a full engine rewrite) and Tamriel Rebuilt (a massive map and asset expansion). However, every time I played Tamriel Rebuilt my eyes kept twitching at another name on the list of modlists... Starwind, a Star Wars total conversion for Morrowind set during the events of Knights of the Old Republic. So, as a massive Star Wars fan, and even bigger fan of KotOR, I installed it right away and have been enjoying it immensely so far. The voice acting is hit-or-miss, but it's a fan mod; I'm honestly surprised it has voice acting at all. Most NPCs in the base game don't even have voice acting.
Apart from that, the mechanics are translated surprisingly well into the Star Wars setting. Blasters are a bit unwieldy, but they Just Work™. I forgot how tricky Morrowind's early game can be; that certainly hasn't changed in Starwind. You'll absolutely get your butt whooped if you don't know what you're doing. Fortunately, my years of Morrowind experience have imparted me with the elusive and rare skill of... using my once-a-day racial ability during every encounter, then using the wait function to let 24h elapse and get the cooldown back that way. (My racial ability, in this case, is summoning a droid to aid in combat. That little guy absolutely decimates any early-game opponent.)
It's actually crazy how many races you can choose from at character selection (assuming you're using the recommended race mods on the Starwind modlist). You can even play as a Hutt or an HK droid. I went with Chiss, because the Chiss are my favourite Star Wars race (Thrawn may be partly to blame for that). I was a bit miffed that the Chiss faces are (as far as I can tell) just the Tamriel Rebuilt Dunmer faces with red eyes, in the same way that the Mandalorian faces are just the Tamriel Rebuilt Nord faces, but I got over it.
Anyway, I'm really enjoying it so far. If you're a Star Wars fan and you own Morrowind, I'd strongly recommend you give Starwind a try. It has a ridiculously high production quality for a fan mod.
I’ve never heard of Starwind, but that sounds ridiculous and I want to try it!
I find it odd you consider the stamina mechanic in MTaS to be mobile gamey when Stardew has essentially the exact same thing
Stardew also has a stamina mechanic, that's true, but in Stardew it's never an issue to the same extent as in MTaS, or at least it never was for me, what with weapons (iirc?) not consuming stamina, stardrops increasing your max stamina significantly, and the spa allowing you to rapidly regenerate stamina. I remember the "automatic passing out" mechanic if you stay out past a certain time to be a much bigger issue in Stardew, but so far I've never even come close to that time in MTaS. But like I said, I'm still close to the beginning of the game, so we'll have to see how it develops later on.
As you upgrade your tools and level up stamina also becomes less important over time in MTaS (same in MTaP). Depending how quickly you move through the story I'd say within the first year of the game you won't be worrying to much about stamina anymore.
In both My Time games it got to the point where I was running around trying to figure out what to use my extra stamina on to collect more resources before ending the day. But I generally enjoy playing efficiently like that.
Has anyone been playing Clues by Sam? It's a Guess Who adjacent logic puzzle where you sort people into either "innocent" or "criminal" and it's been a nice addition to my daily Squardle and Murdle. You get a little square chart based on how you did, Worlde style and it gets harder throughout the week (around Halloween there were some fun seasonal flavor bits too)
Clues by Sam - Nov 11th 2025
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Hey that's a pretty neat game. Reminds me a lot of Murdle mixed with some sudoku or minesweeper or something. Thanks for the recommendation!
Yeah it's fun, it gets very tricky and bonus puzzles come out in the newsletter weekly
I started playing WoW Classic Mists of Pandaria the other week. It's been an interesting reminder of how god-awful leveling up used to be in that game. 1-60 Cataclysm-era Azeroth, 60-70 Outlands, 70-80 Northerend, 80-85 Cataclysm-era Azeroth again. And only then do you get to the "current" expansion content -- Pandaria.
And it's such a big skill curve going from Cata to Pandaria with Cata quest blue/green armor. I remember it fondly from when Pandaria first came out. I didn't really perfect my ability to CC and survive encounters as a Mage until Pandaria because it was so much more challenging than Cata content was.
I'm getting a little burned out already though. I chose a Retribution Paladin and I'm very tired of him. And usually I'd just roll an alt and have fun with that, but I lack the motivation to redo the 1-85 experience again.
I know modern WoW gets lots of shit for shuttling people to the most recent expansion as quickly as possible, but you’re absolutely right that leveling was just absurdly long and tedious in the MoP days, having to go through all of the expansions. Going through all the content was really only acceptable up through TBC or WotLK. That said, MoP is so good, I’ve been fighting the urge to play MoP classic…
I think those people must just forget how tedious it was. Or they're remembering the experience with full XP-boosting heirloom gear, XP events, etc.
Because with Mists classic I'm experiencing it as a new player would have because I don't have any heirlooms or previously max-level characters in classic since I skipped BC, Wrath and Cata classic entirely. And if I didn't already know the game's lore, it would be very confusing from a storytelling standpoint!
Battlefield 6
Sharing my buddy's recent text:
Lot to love, though. Best BF in the franchise for me, thus far. But I'm a new recruit!
I've entered a renewed Pokemon fixation as of late! It started as I was fiddling with my 3DS, as one does, and got an itch to boot up Pokémon Mystery Dungeon again. Blue Rescue Team and Explorers of Sky are incredibly important games to me, with the former being the first non-shovelware game I've ever owned and finished, and the latter being the best version of its phenomenal sequel.
Yet I never fully finished the post-game aspect of either, which is far from unusual for me, but a shame. Hence, I've been playing my old save of PMD2 again. Ironically, I have still barely progressed the main plot thread of the post-game (I left it at Shaymin Island and have now beat Blizzard Isle) but I've been thoroughly enjoying learning more about the systems and strategies I didn't engage with enough as a child, building up new Pokémon and beating side dungeons and missions.
I can't recommend these games enough. Their gameplay loop is comfortable yet often surprisingly challenging and should be very engaging for anyone who likes Pokémon, roguelikes (Mystery Dungeon is one of the first roguelite series, predating the indie roguelite boom!) or just good old JRPGs, and they're incredibly dense in content. I personally think they're some of the prettiest games on the console thanks to their beautiful pixel art ; PMD2 even makes use of some dual screen tricks to create striking set pieces that are uniquely vertical for a game with this perspective ; and of course, many people who've played them will tell you how their narratives are some of the best the franchise has ever put out (I'd say they beat out most of the core series in that aspect).
This also led me to having a go at competitive play again. I've tried it before but when I realized how much success depended on knowledge of a very dense, frequently changing metagame over fundamental skills, I was kinda scared off. But it turns out, if you stick to Smogon's Pokédex and use an automated calculator like Showdex, as others do, it's not too hard to start having fun with it! I made myself a nice little gen 9 NatDex OU team and I'm happy, I'm managing to outplay some people.
Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Darkness recently became my favorite Pokemon game, I liked it more than all time classics like Emerald and SoulSilver, it really is THAT good.
You should try Sky as well! It's a near straight upgrade of Time/Darkness, with gameplay enhancements, more dungeons and five special episodes separate from the main story where you play as some of the major NPCs and learn more about them.
It is quite rare to find a physical copy nowadays, but that shouldn't stop anyone.
I'll definitely try it. I played Darkness because I had the cartridge lying around, but I still haven't had the chance to play it.
I'll check Sky since I enjoyed the story a lot, and having extra episodes is worth the effort to play the main story again. Also, grinding in the game is very addictive, a feeling that I never experienced in the main Pokémon games.
Assassin's Creed Shadows
I've finally bit the bullet and got Assassin's Creed Shadows. I was really off-put by all the negativity around the game. It's interesting how there have been two polar opposite stories told about how the game is extremely woke because of Yasuke (the black samurai in the game) and on the other hand Ubisoft making stuff up to defend their position instead of outright saying "Hey people, we have always taken liberties with the Assassin's Creed property and we just think Yasuke is a cool character".
So, now that I finally got it, I have to say: I like it. I was itching to play a new RPG-ish Assassin's Creed and Shadows is delivering. The modern day story is heavily toned down (at least in the first 10-20 hours how much I've played until now). Yasuke is a cool dude who is just playing the cards that have been dealt to him. For how much outrage there was, it's interesting how much it takes to even unlock him as a playable character. I was looking forward to playing with him, but he's really not my cup of tea. He's basically a tank knocking people around. Physically, it makes absolute sense, but man, I'm not a fan of playing an AC game without being able to parkour around so I'm just playing as Naoe (the female ninja character) and having a blast.
The feudal Japan setting is beautiful (as opposed to Origins where I just couldn't enjoy the drab sand everywhere) and conquering castles and camps is fun. Turns out, it's a good game.
SP Football Life 26
And now for something completely different: football! Of the soccer-y kind and not of the American kind. :)
I've always loved playing FIFA. Not in the highly competitive or whatever sense, but just to have fun, relax and play a match or two. The newer games have completely veered off into the microtransaction hellhole and haven't really given me anything fun to do at all. I guess that I'm not the only one who felt that way since the modding community around legacy football games is huge. And, to my knowledge, the biggest project there is is SP Football Life 26 which is based on Pro Evolution Soccer 2021.
Well, SP Football Life 26 is exactly what I was looking for. It's updated with the newest rosters, has heavily modified tweaks to the gameplay, has got a lot of UI / banners / art / whatever you can think of updates. There are face packs available to get the likeness of the players and whatnot. It's also wonderful to see how the game isn't all arcade-y. What I mean is: when I play FIFA (or EA FC as it is now known after the dispute between EA and FIFA), it feels like the ball is sticking to the players. I can pass a ball forward (like it got unstuck from a player in the field) and the player in front recieves it (it now sticks to him) and just continues running. The momentum of the ball, the turnaround of the player, the friction with the grass... it's all just missing. Well, Football Life (actually PES which is underneath) has all of that in spades. The same with shooting at the goal. In FIFA it always seems like the ball is prescripted to either go in or not. In Football Life I already had quite a few of "accidental" goals because the ball bounced off of 1 or 2 players and changed trajectory completely which threw the goalie off. Marvelous!
To keep it short: if you are itching for a good football experience, SP Football Life 26 is definitely it.
I read your take on AC Shadows since it's been on my waitlist for a while now. Then I saw the second half of your post talking about SP Football Life and was piqued since I love soccer. I totally get you on the whole FIFA microtransaction thing. Used to play them every year but haven't touched them for probably a decade or more at this point once all the ultimate team stuff took off. Have some fond memories of PES from when I was a kid, so your description of SP Football Life 26 sounded interesting.
I was already contemplating whether or not I should spend the money on it. How much could it be anyways? If it just released then maybe it's like 50-60 bucks, but if its a smaller studio then maybe its cheaper at like 30-40. So I go to look it up and see that there's no Steam page. Uh oh, maybe it's a console exclusive, darn. Then I click on the main page for the game and learn that.... it's a free community-driven passion project?
YES dude career mode was always my favorite. So basically it's an updated, single-player, free version of PES made by people who love the game. Hell yeah dude thank you for introducing me to this! Sounds exactly up my alley and I can't wait to check it out once I get home later.
You put it in words better than I ever could. Have fun!
In regards to Shadows: if you've played the older Assassin's Creed games (especially AC2, 3, and Black Flag), how does it compare to them? The last AC game I played was Syndicate, so I've been curious to try one of the new generation of AC games. Since I both love Japan as a setting and Naoe, Shadows seems like the best call for me in that regard. But it's still a Ubisoft game, so the game would really have to be able to match up to the older AC games if I was going to get it (otherwise I'll just wait for Yotei to come to PC, haha).
I've played most Assassin's Creed games and the new RPG entries (Origins and onwards) are all large scale open-world games with typical Action RPG elements (leveling, gear, upgrading gear, level-gating, skill trees etc.).
In that regard, Shadows, like the other RPG-entries, differs from the older game because the focus of the game is not only on assassinations, but also on character building and progress. It is still possible to go through most of the game by doing assassinations and stealth, but you can also brawl if you wish for some nice Action RPG style fighting.
All in all, I like the newer RPG games much more than the old ones because they are huge, allow me to play however I want to play and I like RPGs in general.
And, yeah, I'm also waiting for Yotei to come to PC, but it's announced only for Q2 2026 so it's going to be a wait still.
Oh, I wasn't aware that there's been an announcement for the PC version. Do you have a source for that? (It's not that I don't believe you, I just want to see if there's any other new info on the PC port.)
I saw https://www.ghost-of-yotei.com/release-date and it seemed legit, but now that I searched a bit more, I don't think that the site is actually trustworthy. Bummer.
Compared to the older games, Shadows has great stealth mechanics (on the highest difficulty). Possibly the best mechanics in the series. But there is no social stealth gameplay.
Compared to AC3 specifically, it has a ridiculously small number of animations for everything - parkour and combat finishers. Expect to see very repetitive animations, all of the time.
It is also an extremely bloated checklist game, with a bunch of faff to see & collect all over the map. Another difference is how the gameplay is “RPG-ized”, as in: if you don’t have a high enough item level, you can’t damage any enemies. I think at least on the stealth side of things the game is manageable, since they implemented an instant assassination in the settings. But if you’re looking forward to the combat, then good luck on your grind for items.
Not playing as much lately, but I really enjoy Heroes of the Storm. A few months back I took a break because it felt like the meta had gotten a bit stale, after years of no new content patches and very few balance changes. Recently there was a major PTR change which is looking to shake things up so I'm looking forward to start playing again once that's live. It's still the most fun MOBA. Enjoyment is a bit capped by your proximity to Blizzard servers though; when you can play with low ping it's possible to actually execute clutch plays, but if your ping is too high then you're kinda forced to play without taking as many risks.
Recently I found out there's a private server project that allows you to play a really old League of Legends version. Since I never played it back then, I'd love to try that out sometime just to see what the game was like during the first few years. I only got around to trying League of Legends between 2023 and 2024, but by that point it felt a bit too polished for balance and pro play. I only managed to climb to emerald in ranked mode before burning out; the playerbase is a bit toxic because they've all been playing for nearly two decades, so they expect you to know how to do a million tiny micro-optimizations. Overall, I think that game is dying because it's very unwelcoming to new players. But I'm still really curious to see what the original game was like, before they optimized all the fun crazy and creative elements out of the game.
Hellblade Senua's Sacrifice for me, I remember following the original developer diaries and purchased it for PS4 once it was available but for some reason never actually got around to playing it.
Fast forward to recently and I found out there's a free PS5 upgrade so picked that up and finally got stuck into it.
Given the subject matter I ended up playing it in short bursts, but very glad that I've actually played and finished it now.
Anyone that has played it, I'd also recommend watching with the developer diaries or the making of featurette included in the PS5/Xbox series version if you haven't already.
Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon is a really amazing light RPG in the Elder Scrolls tradition. I really like the vibe, the map design and especially the caves. I almost get kind of Ultima 7: Serpent Isle vibes from the state of the world, the variety and fascination of the places and the obvious love that was poured into making this.
I'll probably be playing this for the next hundred hours.
I played through A Webbing Journey, a physics platformer/puzzler where you control a spider and work through a to-do list of tasks in whichever order you want. The puzzles are with a few exceptions very open ended; you don't have to follow some arbitrary sequence of steps along the way towards the end goals but are given great freedom to come up with your own solutions using very satisfying movement and webbing mechanics.
It's in a pre-release state so not all levels have been finished. There are three rooms, in which I've spent 7.8 hours in total, and the developers are planning on implementing a fourth room. Highly recommended if any of that sounds interesting.
I also played Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor but it wasn't so much for me. The environments are very drab looking, the premise just not very interesting to me, all that collect/upgrade cruft on top never interest me and the combat feels disconnected from player actions. I will not say too much, because I don't think I've gotten very far into the game.
On the other hand, I really enjoyed En Garde! which I think is mechanically quite similar to Shadow of Mordor in terms of combat. Despite that, combat felt much more interactive and also quite challenging. The same basic principles apply: you press buttons to block, dodge or attack in response to very clearly telegraphed enemy actions, but enemies don't wait for their turn so obviously and will easily overwhelm you if you let too many get close, so you have to come up with ways to separate them. To that end, the environment is filled with props that can be used to stun, confuse or hurt enemies, and you rely on moving around between these to fight well. The result is very slapsticky, like Zorro tuned to 11.