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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.
I played Trombone Champ, a gift from @ricewind . For all my life I've been deaf to the truth, but this excellent rhythm game has taught me the real history of trombones, classical composers, hot dogs and baboons. It's packed with educational, 100% legit information. Trust me, swear to Babi and hope to toot.
The core gameplay is very simple: Levels require pressing and holding a key (or clicking) to the tune of a song. But in order to succeed you need to use your mouse to align an on-screen target up and down to match the pitch of each note, the resulting arm movement presumably evoking the motion of operating the slide of a trombone. It's a really neat idea, very fun, not too punishing for the most part, and the trombone sound generation works really well! During the level, on-screen elements and musical arrangement plot twists will try to distract you, typically by making you laugh. The laughter is compounded by trombones naturally sounding funny when you play them poorly, which you will. There are a whopping 75 levels in the base game (plus several DLCs I don't own for things like Celeste and Deltarune, a level editor and many free user-published levels on Steam workshop.)
The game also features a meta-story-progression that ties in with unlockable content such as new trombone sounds, trombone colors, characters and a card collecting minigame featuring classical composers and other things. I had a lot of fun completing all of this. Trombone Champ is a charming game whose base content can be completed in 5-6 hours and which definitely doesn't overstay its welcome; I can understand why people wanted more of it.
Even though it's not Steam Deck certified, Trombone Champ runs perfectly on Linux. The reason it can't be certified is the mouse requirement. This game was designed to be played with a mouse - and which mouse you use does impact your experience (my shitty mouse had a tendency to be in the wrong place in my desk half way through the song and there is no time to reset it; I recommend a decent, big mouse you can rest your whole hand on). I read reports of it playing poorly on gamepads and touchpads, and promises of improvements from the devs, but didn't investigate further.
Before this I finished Deer & Boy. This game took 4h30m in total. In my first impressions, I highlighted the many similarities with Planet of Lana, but toward the end the game gets more abstract and melancholic. So there's your warning - this game may make you sad. Onions and all.
There are missable achievements for not doing certain things perfectly, but you can return to any point in the story later on using the main menu.
I've been playing Big Walk with a group of friends that overlaps those who played the Lingo games, Blue Prince, Neyyah and Windblown with me. Basically this is currently on my multiplayer slot. I was interested in this game, which was made by the devs of Untitled Goose Game, from the very first weird trailer, so I pushed for us to start this ASAP.
Since the game is actually blowing up you may already know this, but Big Walk is a multiplayer-ONLY game for 2 to 12 people designed around cooperative puzzle solving or challenge solving. Each player inhabits a goofy looking ant made of three spheres with stick limbs. Ants can only talk to other ants who are standing very close to them (you're not supposed to be on a voice call!), raise their arms, squat, push buttons, hold one item at a time, or hold another ant standing on their shoulders. Puzzles are peppered throughout a rough-terrained world, but the ants are bad at climbing and tend to get stuck on things, slip and fall on their asses when going downhill and drop what they're carrying. There's a day-night cycle, and nights are pitch black unless you carry a light source or leave beacons around. Puzzle solutions tend to require timing, describing images, matching patterns, sound recognition, opening shortcuts, bridging distances, tossing items and generally operating the many gadgets you find in your Big Walk, which include but are very much not limited to flashlights, cameras, laser pointers, walkie talkies, binoculars, maps, radios, compasses, etc.
All puzzles require 2 to 4 people each, with world generation not including certain types of puzzles if you tell it only have 2 or 3 players at time of generation. Having more than 4 players justs adds to the chaotic fun though! There's no minimap or any global way of synchronizing with your friends, so you're supposed to plan ahead and make use of things like radio communication, fireworks and landmarks or you risk getting completely lost.
I suspect it will be quite a while until we finish our run as we battle the hardest puzzle of all, scheduling timeslots when 6-ish people can all be available at the same time. But we will persevere!
Previous
It's been a couple years, but I made Trombone Champ on my Steam Deck use the gyro for pitch control. While this didn't make control easier, it made it far funnier.
And seconded on Big Walk. Our five-person group got the ending last night. We still have a ton of gourds to go find to 100% it. This is, without question, one of my favorite co-op games ever. I'd put it up with Baldur's Gate 3. I'm so glad that it got made and I'm so happy to have had a good time playing it.
Big Walk also worked great on Linux. My Steam Machine played it at high settings just fine, and my 3080 Bazzite box ran it at max settings (though with an annoying graphical glitch when on top one of the towers and while looking at a hill. Totally doesn't affect gameplay, just weird.).
Hurray, congrats on finishing Big Walk! (holds Q+E)
So you call them gourds, do you? My designation of noses (because they look like the noses on the ants) isn't very popular. One of my friends wants us to use McGuffins, reminiscent of Supraland. Another one prefers pears. I think it's a tildes users type situation though.
If I know this group, we're definitely 100%ing it. I think we have seen what we need to do to reach the ending though.
Yeah, "gourds" and "ants" is what our group came up with. You get a ton of fun word jokes off it too: gourd-inates, gourd-inate, "all a-gourd", etc. "Gourd" also rhymes with "Orb", which is what we call the sphere in the spawn room.
What have been your favorite puzzles so far? I really enjoy the ones that physically separate the group across the map, and the ones where you can't see each other.
Describing things is always fun, as is trying to communicate without words. We haven't done that much yet (3 towers) but I'm looking forward to more puzzles that require separation. We've only had two, one with a chair lift and one with a flare.
Motion-based (toss-based) puzzles have been a bit hit and miss I'd say.
Some of us hate it when you're forced to leave your items behind!
I actually don't think we've done either of the puzzles you've described yet! There's so much more to find.
We're definitely going to get back in to it after a little break. The five of us managed to get the ending after about 20 hours and without really feeling like we were rushing it.
How five people across multiple timezones and with families and jobs managed to find 20 hours in the same week to game, no idea. But I'm so glad we did.
Currently doing a Big Walk run with a group of friends from college. We're having a grand time, games like this are often lost on me but this one's got me good. Definitely one of my favorite multiplayer games in years. I love when we're forced to split up across a distance for things and we get far too intricate about making contrived systems to communicate across that distance.
Assassins Creed Odyssey
I mean. It's Assasins Creed Origins in greece. It's got boat travel like black flag. It's massive and full of HUD markers and it's exhausting. I really wish I had more to love. But it makes assassination the passenger in a vehicle that drives with regular combat.
I wanted to like this game but i ended up steam refunding it. I would say I thought AC1 was an all time favorite game, the climbing tech and the city design IMHO were revolutionary at the time, the game was beautiful. I loved the story between two timelines, whenever I was in the modern time I was really sucked into the idea of the mystery. AC2 series I felt still was liking them. AC3 I really like the setting of colonial America, but it was the first one I did not finish. From that point forward I just lost the thread on them. I wanted to like black flag, but I feel like I came back to it a little too late to enjoy it.
I felt at this point the AC branding was a trope that I just started to dislike. I 100% lost interest on anything happening in the modern timeline, and I genuinely detested the damn hood shape which was so glaringly obvious and I had no clue why this got carried forward as an immovable AC piece that could not change. I tried to like unity but I didn't make it far. For origins, I made it like 10 hours but stopped caring after a bit. Odyssey I picked up on sale thinking I would like the setting but I couldn't make it like 10 minutes before my brain was screaming in protest.
I only say this because of how much I LOVED AC and AC2 early on, it was one of the few games I 100% in my life. I don't know what happened between then and now for my current feeling, maybe too much of the same and not enough variation, but it always felt like potential wasted with each new iteration of it.
I think what happened is that the game series was too successful for its own good.
They were obviously going somewhere with Desmond and the modern-day story. It was working towards resolution and it was pretty obvious where they were going with it - a game set in modern-day, with Desmond becoming a modern-day assassin because of the bleeding effect, unraveling everything and stopping Abstergo.
But the games were so damn financially successful (and the premise of throwing people into different time periods/cultures so infinitely milkable), they didn't wanna end it. So they gave up on everything they were working towards, to create an infinite conveyor belt instead. People stopped caring about the modern-day stuff because none of it mattered, nor was it going anywhere anymore. It was just tacked-on nonsense to get you to the meat of the game.
Also, the money allowed them to keep increasing the scope/world size, leading to bloat. The first Assassin's Creed was 20 hours long, about 30 for completionist. The Viking one was 100 hours, 150 for completionist. It's ridiculous, no shit people will start abandoning the games before finishing them.
Funnily enough, I liked origins. It felt like a step in the wrong direction in terms of becoming more of an RPG than a stealth adventure, but the characters were interesting enough to me and the setting and environment were captivating in a lot of areas, from climbing pyramids, to seeing mirages in the sand, to the first streamlined use of an eagle in the sky to track and tag enemies.
But where Origins was contained enough and had a scope to it, Oddysey there's just so much land and not enough to really climb on. It's like ghost of tsushima fort takedowns but like 75% more forts.
There's some good parkour animations and the climbing can be satisfying -- but I almost feel like "DUH, they've been the premiere climber/killer for over a decade, I would be shocked to see a traversal system fall flat."
But it almost does, I have several buttons mapped differently to feel more like assassins creed (don't force my triggers into light and heavy attacks, I guess if I need light and heavy attacks in a stealth game, I'll make them X and Y)
The performances are a little dour, hearing "Greek" accents done with English lines is a little cheesy when it hits the screen. I can't help but feel like I've been handed a game that's too big to enjoy.
Now that this monstrosity is done, I'm back catching up on some games I missed and grinding through demos.
Ithaca
This was featured during Day of the Devs 2026. The pitch seemed interesting so I requested access to the playtest, but only got to it the past week. I wish I got to it sooner, I really enjoyed my time with it.
It's a narrative RPG. The playtest is spent in your car, while you're on a roadtrip, and you pass the time calling and texting people in your contacts list. This sounds really boring, but the fun is in the execution. Your gameplay isn't mediated by an objective tracker, quest log or HUD. The game leaves you with just your curiosity to drive you towards the answers to the questions the game presents.
Light Premise Spoilers
What's the deal with the dude in the trunk? What's the deal with the family dynamic? ... boyfriend? ... politics? ... Greek Mythology?!That curiosity is constantly rewarded by interesting developments in the story and world building. Which is delivered through great voice performances from the entire cast.
I was taken by the mood the game sets. In the background to the conversations, you can enjoy a first person POV of your car ride. Something about the muted hum of the car and landscape drifting by really transports you back to being lost in your thoughts on a long car ride. A feeling mirrored by the storytelling when the protagonist lets her mind wander and reminisces on her past. Even the radio shows and the music capture what you might be listening to on the road.
I'm not really a narrative RPG guy. The only other one I've played was Pentiment and it set a high bar. Ithaca so far has met that bar for me.
Disco Elysium
Starting this after Ithaca just made me realize that narrative RPGs might be one of my favorite genres.
What I'm often looking for in games is meaningful self-expression that the game responds in satisfying ways. Disco Elysium is that idea on steroids. There's so many ways to engage with it, and the game always seems to respond with something satisfying, even to the most innocuous action
Despite spending years hearing how good Disco Elysium was, I'd never heard how funny the game is. It oozes a sardonic humor that complements the otherwise dreary world.
I'm still really early (~15 hours) but I'm having a great time. I will admit the political side to the game is going over my head, but even so there's still so much to enjoy in the experience.
Demos
Broken?
Seems Good, Not For Me
Meh
Want to play
Been bouncing around quite a bit, as I haven't found anything that has really hooked me as of late. I have been playing Link to the Past for the CGA, though only really 10-15 minutes at a time every other day or so, I'd say. I'm enjoying it and trying to make my way through it without a guide and without looking stuff up, though I did just fail on that.
I got to the mountain section and turned into a Bunny. Wandered around forever and tried the various things in my inventory, but nothing did anything. Finally I relented and looked it up, seeing I had to use the Magic Mirror, which worked. But it's weird, I could have sworn I tried to use it prior to that and nothing happened. Ah well. I haven't been back since I finally figured that out yesterday, but I'll get back to it, as I would like to see if I can complete it.
I've also been playing Breath of the Wild via emulation. I do like it, completed the first dungeon or guardian or whatever and am making my way to the second. I do think I am starting to get a little bit bored with it though--although I've also been busy and therefore tired, which makes me lose interest in games of any type--because it does feel very "samey" no matter where you go. Climb the tower, do some shrines, find some Koroks, rinse repeat. I don't find the story particularly compelling or interesting, so that's not exactly pulling me through. I'll probably end-up going back to it again here, just to see if I am still compelled to play it. And I do need to say, it looks absolutely fabulous running at 1600p and 165Hz; I do still switch to my Steam Deck occasionally and play at 30ish FPS, which doesn't feel as nice, but at least the gyro controls work properly and it's nice to periodically suspend the game to come back to later.
When I first tried Breath of the Wild, I was coming off of quitting WoW and had a very quest-oriented mindset toward the game, making beelines to objectives and getting frustrated when there were 15 billion things in the way.
My second time I tried it, I ditched that mentality and decided to just wander and that's when I really started to enjoy the game. I think that's the beauty of Breath of the Wild. You can run around and just explore without any objectives, doing a shrine here and there, picking up items in random places, etc. For most of the play-through, I kind of forgot that there was even a story because I was having too much fun just wandering around at random. I also like puzzle games so the shrines were my jam.
Wandering is my primary mode in any game, so theoretically it works for me. I just haven't felt that there's been much different to see between the several different regions I've explored so far. I will likely keep playing for now, as I would like to finish it, as I do genuinely enjoy the design more than any other Zelda game; we'll just see if it keeps my attention for so long.
It's possible you used the magic mirror in a spot where there was a block in the Light World; in that case it sends you, but then you bounce back to the Dark World immediately. If you don't know what's happening, it may not make clear what the problem was.
I was also going through it very fast, so I may not have pressed the right button at the right time. I was pretty tired and I'm pretty sure I also have a sinus infection, so I was rather fatigued and just might not have been doing it right.
I have lost myself to Age of Wonders 4. I started playing a month or two ago and already have... 130 hours in it which is crazy for me.
It checks a lot of the right boxes for me and I'm honestly annoyed I didn't try it sooner although that at least gives me an insane amount of content and DLC to consume.
Turned based, fantasy, endless possibilities for faction crafting, endless possibilities for map creation. An early game that is most similar to Disciples 2, a game I also dropped a ton of hours into over the years.
This game is the perfect baby of Might & Magic, Disciples 2 and a bit of Civ. Better combat than Civ but more simplistic than Total War.
So many other games to play yet all I play now is AOW4. If anyone here plays it and wants to further suck me in with some coop, let me know!
So after having whiled away a few hours on its surprisingly robust character creator over the past year or so, I finally drop a few pennies on a month of EA Play and set about blasting through Dragon Age: The Veilguard. From having read and watched much coverage lamenting the disappointingly milquetoast, 'HR-approved' writing, I went in with quite low expectations and an itch to go as Renegade as possible - straight to the maximum asshole run. And, yeah, unfortunately those reviews were spot on because that just ain't possible. There might have been some interesting intentions here originally but every aspect of the final script has been watered down more than a Coors Light. Some characters have a touch of depth, but what passes for inter-party conflicts are little more than schoolyard squabbles. The game is flat-out afraid to tackle anything resembling complex morality in its questing design, and damn near every line of dialogue is ripped right from the 'Big Book of MCU Sass.'
Having said all that, the game quite clearly popped straight out of the patented Mass Effect 2 template, and I'll be damned if it didn't use it to great effect in delivering a lot of those classic Bioware vibes throughout. Veilguard actually excels when it comes to combat and exploration, with many different avenues for building out the three base classes and a plethora of modern QoL features to boot. It's kinda jarring in how it gives you all the tools for a great ARPG romp and then proceeds to trip over its woeful script at every turn. In any case, there was enough there for me to get hooked enough to fly through the full game and a good chunk of the side content, though I flat out skipped anything to do with some of the weaker companions and was speeding through a ton of the dialogue and cinematics in the main quests by the end - a stark contrast to my previous Bioware experiences. So yeah, weirdly, I would actually recommend it overall, but with the massive caveat regarding the weak as fuck writing situation.
Oh, I need to remember "HR-approved writing". Thats exactly what I feel trying to play Forza Horizon.
You hit that particular nail on the head. I love the actual driving mechanics in Forza Horizon, but goddamn everything is so... safe. Risk-averse. Sanitized. Even the 'street racing' seems to be completely sanctioned and above board, just with traffic NPCs, lol.
Same feelings on Veilguard. I played it a few months ago and thought it was exceptionally.... fine? The actual gameplay was good enough, and the writing was wallpaper. I didn't really have strong feelings about any of the characters.
The rock-paper-scissors of the setup-explosion abilities was neat - you could make basically any character work with any other character, so it made it easy to switch sidekicks out each mission. I dislike when games give you a stable of people but make it so that the ones you don't use lag behind in abilities, or everyone is so specialized that you can only set up 1-2 to really work with your character, and so end up using the same people the whole time.
The problem is largely one of context and expectations. When it's an entry in a series that built a reputation on its gritty take on traditional fantasy, from a studio with the narrative pedigree of Bioware, and releasing in the wake of genre landmarks such as The Witcher 3 and Baldur's Gate 3, to deliver something on the tonal level of a typical MCU movie was a massive misfire. It didn't even need to go full grimdark, necessarily; it could just as well have worked if the writers were able to get to a Pillars of Eternity level in their depth of lore and complexity in choices.
But again, in terms of mechanics and classic Bioware stylings, it absolutely delivers and there is still a lot of fun to be had. You just need to calibrate your expectations going in.
Working through an exceptionally thick backlog of games (as always):
Bravely Default HD: Played this a bit on my 3DS last year, but kind of fell off of it due to everything taking a bit too long. Picked up a copy for my Switch 2 and the QOL from the HD version was very necessary as the pre-selected skill templates made farming a bit less painful. I say a bit less because at a certain part of the game (chapter 5?) you go through some annoying story beats that start to require real hands-on control which is fine, but lots of the instadeath and 1-shot mechanics started to wear on me. I'm technically at the near-end of the game, but put it down for...
Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake: Had never played a DQ game just because I felt it was more "Final Fantasy"-lite. But hawt dog, just what I needed with some of the burgeoning systems and complicated setups I think is weighing down the recent FF entries. I loved the style and really think they did a great job using the 2d-3d mix to a pretty good effect (Ragnarok Online was ahead of its time apparently). Game was simple, but compelling with its music, auto-battle setup, and generally chill vibes to roll credits in about 25 hours with some post-game remaining. With so much left to play, little palate cleanser next...
Dragon Quest Builders: Same franchise, but technically a "What if" of Dragon Quest 1 if it doesn't pan out as the game intended and instead ending up with a Dark Version of the world where you have to rebuild the world Minecraft-style. The only open-world crafting games I've enjoyed, though, is Terraria (2D-Minecraft) but I actually fell in pretty well with this version of simpler building with a really whimsical atmosphere and structured story chapters. Where most open-world, crafting, survival games are more ludonarrative, build-your-own-story I really appreciated the chapter layout which imposed different situations (low-food start or other variation) in service of a story of rebuilding a broken world. Nothing ground breaking, but this game was originally released 10 years ago (2016!) on the PS Vita (dang!), so I'm impressed it was this polished and may try the second game at some point in the future.
Next up: Dragon Quest 1+2 Remake
I just realized that the developer of 20 Small Mazes, FLEB, released a second game at some point last year called Strange Jigsaws. Blew through it quick over the last couple of days. Both of these games are great and I highly recommend them. Bite-sized puzzles that don’t really ever stray into moon logic. I had several laugh out loud moments due to clever solves and cute design choices. 20 Small Mazes is free, and as of the posting of this comment, Strange Jigsaws is 50% off on Steam for a grand total of $2.50 USD. It takes about twice as long as 20 Small Mazes does (at least for me, I’m not great at puzzles) and is totally worth the price of admission!
I also just 100%ed Pepper Grinder a couple days ago, which is absolutely not like me for an arcadey platformer. That one sunk its claws into me DEEP; great combination of addicting, fast-paced gameplay with a time-trial mode that, all things considered, was pretty forgiving. The drill movement was fun and new mechanics were introduced throughout which made it easy to want to keep playing, and nothing overstayed its welcome. Soundtrack was also great; strong Celeste vibes throughout.
100%ing the game more or less comes down to collecting all of the hidden coins and getting gold medals on all of the levels. The hidden coins feel very New Super Mario Bros. - they are indeed hidden, but not so drastically that you'll be wasting hours of your life finding them. And the time trial golds are basically all achievable by going through the levels as intended without making any huge errors - they're pretty forgiving. Each level is ~1-2 minutes in length, with some standouts in either direction.
I've been playing two hacks of Pokémon Fire Red.
One is FRLG.ips. It lets you catch all the Pokémon, among some other things, and there is a new rock by the water. It's just like you remember. Would recommend to a certain subset of people. There is a new rock by the water.
(conceptual FRLG.ips spoilers)
FRLG.ips a neat little hack that consolidates assorted Pokémon rumors and creepypastas into a narrative. There's a big ARG element that makes up the meat of the narrative, which I won't spoil the start point in case there are some serious freaks who would go many many hours of content in or solve the cipher puzzle to find it.
It was a fun ride. I'm writing a Backloggd review to sort out thoughts; the story was between fine and flat-out bad. Conceptually it was extremely derivative of Toby Fox projects without adding much to his commentary. But it has some flashes of brilliance that I think will jive hard with certain others who grew up on TRsRockin kinda sites or a 1998 playground, and I don't regret it at all. Tedious at times, to mixed effect, but I think it has a surprising amount of reservation in how to pace itself at times.
Then people were pointing me to Celia's Stupid ROMHack afterwards. I've played four sessions in the last three days with some friends in Discord, and every time I come out in physical pain from laughing too hard. Celia's feels like Undertale in how meticulous it is at trying to get you to interact with everything and reward you with humor for doing it. Every Pokémon, move, ability, item, NPC, fight, or corner of the map, text box in the game is the opportunity for a quip, cheap or not. My friend mentioned it's like Airplane! in joke delivery, except Airplane! wasn't 30+ hours long. And somehow I'm still not tired of this. The sheer effort behind some of these bits is insane.
If you consider yourself a Pokémon fan in pretty much any regard - even if you've fallen out of love with it - or especially if you ever enjoyed Pokémon Red / Blue or Fire Red / Leaf Green, and you don't mind the hit-or-miss nature of a comedy game, I recommend this. Terribly. It's so stupid. I can't guarantee every joke is going to land; some of these are some real deep cuts that my friends had to explain along the way. But I can probably guarantee there will be at least one joke in the first ten minutes that will slam into your gut and make you too curious to stop.
I've been playing an absolute ton of SULFUR recently, and actually beat the game for the first time, which was very gratifying. I really love the Endless Mode that comes after that, too, plus you can still play the regular stages, which I appreciate.
I don't know why more people aren't talking about SULFUR. It's an offline solo extraction shooter, with extreme gun customization and old school difficult boomer-shooter FPS gameplay. That's kind of a grail game for me, and I feel like a lot of people I talk to are looking for something similar too.
I just can't think of any other game where you can rebore your pistol to take shotgun shells, then oil it with massive +spread and +projectile count modifiers, and finally enchant it with poison, resulting in a small automatic handcannon that shoots a massive suppressing poison cloud that covers the whole screen. And then also lets you display this abomination on a variety of gun racks and pull it out for just the right occasion. It's beautiful.
In terms of board games, I got a copy of Tax the Rich while traveling, and I really enjoyed it, for more than just the premise. I think it'll need a dedicated group of devotees to trick taking games for it to really shine, since it's full of bidding, team play, turnarounds, and basically everything else that makes a classic trick taker a bit obtuse. It's nice to see a relatively old school design like this in a more approachable modern box, though.
I think my favorite mechanical flourish is how you can kick off multiple different types of revolutions, but never two at once, and that affects how your opponents can respond. Like, if you hold the cards for it, you get to decide if you're causing a class revolution to reverse all ranks in the deck, or a feminist revolution to make all the cards with women on them suddenly overpowered, and your opponents will simply have to go along with what you choose. I think that's really neat.
SULFUR is great; enjoyed the demo and I plan on giving it a go as soon as it leaves early access! Glad to know it’s an enjoyable game all the way through.
I wanted to like SULFUR, but it's one of those games that despite ticking many boxes for me, I can't get into it at all.
Recent updates added difficulty modes that change how much you lose on death, now ranging anywhere from nothing at all to the whole save file, if that was one of the things that didn't click with you.
But yeah, I get it, it is a very unique game so there are naturally a lot of potential problems to be had depending on one's preferences.
I am playing the Halo 1 remake. The game is ok but I'm not too impressed to be honest. I've never played any of the halo games before, maybe people overhyped them a bit?
It's worth remembering that Halo was released some 25-ish years ago, and has been super influential ever since. Its truly ground-breaking elements have been homaged into the ground in the intervening decades, such that it can't help but feel a little stale. Few games that blaze trails manage to fully realize their potentials on the first outing, so inevitably landmark titles will be lacking the mechanical polish and QoL improvements that their imitators refined.
A remake should address some of that, but it's a tightrope walk: refine too much and it'll lose a bit of the nostalgia that is the basis for consumer interest. Refine too little and people will argue that there's no reason for the remake. Oftentimes walking that line will mean some of the rougher edges remain, even, and perhaps even especially those elements that were sanded down by titles that took inspiration from the OG.
I'm fine with the gameplay or QoL - I don't know how much the remake has changed, but they did well because I didn't notice any age on it. Game plays fine.
I'm underwhelmed because of the story. I expected something different, something more serious. While I've never played the halo games, I've obviously heard people talk about them. And there's always this.. reverence, like it's some epic grandiose sci-fi story that was unrivaled in the history of games. And I've heard about these cool ring worlds, and that there's ancient aliens involved, and I knew Microsoft even named their AI after the AI in the game. Everything sounded designed for me to like, so I had high expectations. To be blunt, I kinda expected Mass Effect but FPS.
Instead.. the game is kinda silly. The story just.. isn't trying very hard. It tells you "go here", "go there", but little serious characterization or drama, or anything beyond very surface-level. And the enemies are these silly little guys running at you with grenades,making funny noises... Or taller guys with ridiculous one-liners. It's silly, that's how I'd describe it.
I wouldn't say it's a bad game or anything, I'll certainly finish it. It's just... Let's just say it's no Mass Effect, lmao.
I've never played them either (I traded my launch-purchased OG Xbox in after a couple days for a PS2–the Duke was just too chonky for my taste).
My impression has always been that the more epic parts of the series are in the later installments and some of the tie-in media, but I wouldn't bet my reputation on it.
Yeah, it's entirely possible the series becomes more serious later on. It's just that I've also heard that later Halo games are not that good and the series is overall in a bad place (and has been for a while). So I kinda assumed it's the first ones I'd like the most, hence being underwhelmed.
It's probably just age. 25 years ago even games with "good story" were kinda "good for a video game". Nowadays we are spoiled with these Hollywood level productions with A-list actors motion capturing complex emotional scenes and so on.
No shit a robotic lady from 25 years ago telling me to move to the next room isn't gonna hit the same. But if I played it at the time, I'd probably have been quite impressed.
From my recollection, the series started its downward trend after 3, when Bungie left and started on Destiny.
I've been on a gaming drought lately and mostly doing other things in my gaming time. However I did manage to come back around to kingdom come deliverance II . I had about 28 hours in when it released and I got distracted, then didn't make my way back to finishing it. I started up a fresh save was reminded how much of an amazing game it is.
I'm drawn into the voice acting and story right off, this is usually quite difficult for me to get pulled in. I had tried octo path traveler 2 recently and was feeling really MEH about it and was not able to get past about 5 hours of gameplay with that. But the KCD2 game world is beautiful to walk around in. I looked at a few mods and grabbed a graphic upscaling, an armor mod overhaul, and a nice mod that marks time sensitive quests with asterisks. I think the kingdom come games feel best when you are powerless and broke, so this early part is always particularly good. I do remember a little bit about where things are on the first map (never made it to the second map) so it's not as exciting to explore, but still very fun.
I'm really excited for star wars zero company on the 28th, so I'm probably going to end up quitting at the exact same spot last time, but damn I really do like this game and am hoping for a long enough window to finish it.
Two Point Hospital - I picked this up a while ago from an Epic freebie and started playing it recently when looking for a chill/low-thought game. It's overall fun. I like the goofy aesthetic (the diseases are silly things like Jest Infection, which makes people clowns, and you have to run them through a special machine that looks like a clown tent to cure them). The music is also very good, and the overhead announcements are funny. However, after playing a bunch of stages, it feels very samey, building the same rooms again and again and again. The stages are only slightly different - this one might have more of one type of disease, or this one might have more earthquakes that damage your equipment, or this one might have a weird layout so building efficiently is slightly more puzzling. None of the stages so far were challenging past the early part of the level. It's very easy to get enough patients that the money just rolls in.
Control - I love this game and am playing it for a third? fourth? time, in advance of the sequel coming out. I'm a sucker for games that give you "magic" abilities (like telekinesis, flying/gliding, etc). I also love the SCP-like worldbuilding. I don't really like horror, but like a light spoopy vibe, and this hits that part of the spectrum perfectly. This is my third? fourth? playthrough and I just found a room I'd never been in before!
Valheim - I played the shit out of this game when it came out and started a new playthrough with some friends a few months ago. Looking forward to the full release of it in Sept where the last biome will hit. I just got to the currently-last biome, which is new content for me, so very excited to be exploring.
Few games for me recently
Sunset Overdrive - One that came up via digging through my steam library, I guess the way to try and explain this is if Ratchet & Clank were edgier and set in a post disaster open world?
Overall pretty fun, but only played through the main story without really engaging in side content.
Rollick N' Roll - Not a narrative game, but a marble run inspired puzzle game. You need to get little themed vehicles to complete each course, with difficulty being based on increasing the number of vehicles that need to complete each course.
Assassin's Creed: Shadows - Bit of a mixed bag for me. Story overall felt a bit disjointed, I think the individual focused parts of the story for both Yasuke and Naoue were better than the you could be either if them sections.
Gameplay wise, I found I preferred playing as Naoue, purely because I preferred the stealth style movement as it felt closer to what I'm used to across the franchise.
story musings
For late game story, Yasuke's felt better executed of the two as with essentially the only core game mention of templars.
Naoue's story of mother might still be alive and full confirmation of the assassins just didn't quite land the same way.
Should be noted I've only finished the base game and not started any of the post launch content yet.
I finished Wayfinder! For real, this time.
I deleted my comment of last week when I thought it was over (but honestly fighting a gigantic boss in a quest titled "Epilogue", saving the world, something super important happening, and unlocking endgame activities kinda feel like ending the game).
So yeah, fortunately it wasn't over yet because the last area consists of gorgeous underground and overgrown ruins, and I loved it. In the end, aside from some issues with the story pacing, it was an excellent game and I played it entirely solo for nearly 70 hours, which is kinda exceptional for me. The MMO bones are still there and sometimes feel a bit janky, but I thoroughly enjoyed the whole experience.
I could probably squeeze a few more hours out of it if I had coop partners to grind with me, but I think I'll leave it at that.
I'm currently playing the 2022 PC release of Judgment, originally released for PS4 in 2018. This is a game from Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio, the people behind the Yakuza/Like a Dragon series, and if you're comfortable with those games then you know pretty much exactly what you're in for.
It is set in the same old Kamurocho as many of the Yakuza games. The ridiculousness is toned down a bit, with this being supposedly a detective story, but you are a detective who still solves most problems by getting into brawls with street thugs and Yakuza. There are some new mechanics added, such as stealthily tailing suspects, lockpicking, and using a drone to surveil some bad guys, etc.
I'm about 25 hours into it and thoroughly hooked, just like I thought I would be. This setting and gameplay loop just really works for me.
I have already bought the sequel (Lost Judgment) and will be playing that next.
Side note, this game works excellently on Linux under Proton. I'm playing it using an 8bitdo Ultimate 2 wireless controller. The game strongly recommends that you use a controller to play it, though it can be played with keyboard and mouse if you wish. I haven't even tried that, because I played through all of the Yakuza/Like a Dragon games on console with a controller, so that's what I'm used to for this type of game.