What have you been playing, and what do you think of it?

I don't know what is wrong with me but I've "sort of" gone off games. I say sort of because I still follow gamer news and I regularly watch a couple of casters. I love watching new trailers and I get psyched when a promising new game is announced, for example I'm really looking forward to the new Doom, I relished the single player in that. The aural experience blew me away honestly.

Regardless, despite having less time with irl commitments I still keep my ear to the ground but replace actual play time with watching videos of others playing and commentating. Could it be that I'm just not a fan of becoming a noob and putting in the effort to get good or could it be that there is simply a massive drought of truly worthwhile games out there? In case you are interested, the games I spent a large portion of my time in were Battlefield Vietnam, Battlefield 2, Left for Dead 2, Dawn of War 2 and DC Universe.

Edit - to answer your question, the game I play most often at the moment (maybe once every three weeks) is Cities Skylines. I fuss about making intricate road layouts then rush everything else just to see how traffic copes. Kind of cathartic.

I'm very much a patient gamer, I'll generally pick something up a couple of years after it's come out. I've finally started in on Life is Strange and I'm loving every moment of it. Beautiful storytelling.

I've been playing the newest God of War recently. I never played any of the original games, so I wasn't on the hype train for the new one like a lot of people were, but after hearing so much about how it's one of the best games of the console generation, I decided to buy it last weekend.

It really is incredible. I'm only about halfway through so far, but it definitely deserves the praise it gets. The graphics, gameplay, acting, and story are all fantastic. There are a few things that I think could have been improved on a bit, but overall it's definitely a masterpiece.

I've been l playing Vampyr and I'm really liking it. It's a very good blend of narrative-driven gameplay, simplified but more fluid Dark Souls-esque combat and choice system that actually impacts the world. Because the game area is limited to 4 disctricts of London and maybe 40-60 characters in total, developers made sure that all of them had an effect on others and if there's one missing link in a district people are going to notice and there are going to be consequences. The fact that you're a doctor and a vampire at the same time creates and interesting contradiction as well as an interesting spin on how you should behave, your morality, etc. I could go on for a while, but I'm still around half way through the game, so I'd rather finish before gushing about how great it is. I'd love to hear people's thoughts or/and answer questions tho!

Mass Effect: Andromeda. I loved all the previous ME games, heard bad things about Andromeda but it was £6 or something recently on the Sony story so I picked it up. It's good for £6. I'd probably be a bit disappointed if I'd paid full price but it's not awful. They have had time to patch the worst of the problems as well.

At the recommendation of youtuber Joseph Anderson, I bought and played through the game Prey (2017). It's a fantastic game that is most like Bioshock in terms of both gameplay and story.

The opening of the game is probably the best opening in any game I've ever played. Unfortunately, the story really drags and becomes background noise in later portions. But the beginning 1/3 is super well done. And the gameplay is good throughout. If you try to play it like a standard fps, you'll have a lot of trouble. Fights need to be planned out and approached carefully and the biggest difficulty is learning what tactics to use for what enemies.

Last thing about it is the world. The environment is gorgeous and richly detailed and the game does a great job of getting you to pay attention to it through its systems.

I'm never satisfied with one game when there's so many genres to play with.

My current roguelike is Caves of Qud. It has interesting character build options, choosing natural growth of mutations or installed cybernetics as you can find them in the ruins. Combat is varied and interesting, and the devs have just released a beta of the expanded random quest generation system.

My current FPS is Prey. It's currently 50% off on the Steam Summer Sale, and just released a new expansion. It's in the vein of System Shock, giving you a number of options for how to explore and fight your way through the game. It's also got a mind-bending plot on top of its solid gameplay.

My current weirdness is Cultist Simulator. Made by the designer of Fallen London, it's deep with the mysteries of forgotten worlds, unseen horrors and nameless cults. It's a resource management card game, but unlike anything you've tried before. It's not for everyone, but it's really worth checking out.

CS:Source gun game. I always go back to it and I have no idea why. It's just so fun to me.

Also delver. It's a small indie game made by one or two guys and it's super fun. It has just a right amount of difficulty and feeling of exploration in it to keep me hooked. I played it years ago when it first came onto steam, but didn't play it again for years until recently. The implementation of mods is also pretty fun. I wish it had a bigger following because I love streaming this game. I just get lost in it, which hasn't really happened in a long time for me.

Bought Battlegrounds II the other day. Campaign is remarkably short. Finished it already, which kinda sucks. At least it's really pretty, though.

Just finished Prey with 20 hours. I really enjoyed the atmospheric immersion and the plot driven game play. Exploring the ship and piecing together the different lives of the individuals before the catastrophe was definitely an experience. While playing, you're rewarded when you explore and investigate areas given your chosen upgrades. The game felt like a mixture of dishonored and dead space, with solid weapon handling and good stealth tactics. I really recommend picking it up for the 15 dollars if you'd like an immersive FPS.

I also bought Doom and am playing through that right now. So far it's looking like everything I want in an FPS, but I'm only an hour or so in (just got the chainsaw). The comedic relief is so well done and realistic. I hope that keeps up.

The Wolf Among Us.

Not very good, the Walking Dead was much better. Going back to Dota.

I've been playing a lot of Pavlov. Sadly there aren't many multiplayer VR games, but pavlov has one of the most active playerbases among the existing ones. I think playing an FPS in VR adds a new dimension to the experience that you don't really get with conventional FPS's. You can peak around corners, look and shoot in different directions, reloading actually takes time (rather than one button press), etc. Pavlov does a pretty good job implementing it all in VR. I don't think I'll go back to playing conventional multiplayer shooters anytime soon.

I don't go through games fast enough to have something new to name for each of these threads, but one that I forgot to mention last time was that I revisited Sonic 3 & Knuckles and that is a must-play from yesteryear.

I picked up Sonic Mania last year and it was nearly as enjoyable as the old games it pays homage to. But there's something special about the originals. What has happened to the Sonic franchise is a generally sad story, but the original side-scrollers will always remain among the greatest platformers of all time. No gimmicks — just great level design, inspired music, and a euphoric sense of speed.

Quake Champions has been my main thing as of late, I missed being able to play an FPS without dealing with a team. I want to git gud, but my internet is really bad and it's not uncommon to have 500 ping for a significant portion of a match.

So I've been playing Quake again in the meantime. I don't think I ever beat it as a kid, so this is fun. It reminds of DOOM 1 where you end up with weapons and ammo just as you need them...just really tight pacing (I was worried I'd be reminded of DOOM 2, which is just a clusterfuck in my eyes).

I tried to start Final Fantasy VI but I just couldn't make myself care enough to keep going. I'll try again soon.

Well I'd been playing Civilization 6 the past few weeks but haven't really touched it in a week or so. Started a game today and quit after maybe 20 minutes. It's just not really fun anymore - which is a shame, because I really want to like it. I think it's because it's too complex. It's too much for me!

I also installed WoW again, as it was a free weekend just now. I've only been unsubscribed for about 6 months but it's really weird, it doesn't feel the same at all. I'll still return for the next expansion but it's mostly for the story at this point. I don't see myself staying subscribed for more than a month or two this time around - the grind is too real.

I also have hundreds of hours in CS:GO, but that one is on the back burner as well as the community is way too toxic for me to play matchmaking, and it's a bit too stale for me to play casual.

So Fortnite it is. Have been playing this game religiously since February, and except for a couple of days here and there, I'm putting hours into it every single day! It remains a lot of fun, the graphics continue to be easy on the eyes and really attractive, the gameplay is kept interesting as the developers really know how to keep it fresh. Like 90% of the updates for it are good to great and they update it all the damn time. If anything, there are too many updates - something I never thought I'd say about a video game. I've never experienced such a devoted developer team.

Pokemon Ultra Moon finally hooked me. I'm still hating Rotodex and wish it was more difficult, but since I got past the early, horribly on-rails intro, the most fun I've had with a Pokemon game in 5+ years.

Rimworld: I’ve waited so long to play this, thinking it might come on sale, but finally I realized it wouldn’t come on sale any time soon. Very fun and challenging.

Some FIFA but mainly Rimworld and BF1 before they completely ruin the series with the next game. Really looking forward to the release of Satisfactory, I have lots of hours in Factorio, but I've never been able to get suuuper into it like others, this game looks very promising though

I played Firewatch recently and wow, what a beautiful game. I love story games, and this did not disappoint in the slightest. Navigating around with a map and compass was a pretty fun mechanic, and the premise, story and characters are so intriguing. It’s fairly short (4-5 hours of gameplay), but if you get it on sale it’s worth every cent.

Clocked The Room, and started The Room Two. The vast majority of it isn't puzzles, more-so 'find this tiny lever that's hard to see' or 'i didn't reseal that was meant to be a knob' good enough to kill time but not really challenging. A game of hide and seek mostly. My only gripe is the annoying hints you can't turn of.

I played mostly fortnite for the last months. But yesterday I made a huge mistake. I bought civ 6 on my iPad because it is on sale. This game is making hours feel like minutes and I have to prepare for some job interviews lol

I'm still playing WH40k Inquisitor: Martyr. They (mostly) fixed the issues with co-op so it's getting better. And from what I understand they are working toward an actual endgame progression system too, so maybe it will actually have some longevity beyond the story stuff. I'm hopeful, but... we'll see.

I play a few hours of Overwatch every few nights and have a blast. The new looking-for-group feature is awesome, Symmetra is actually fun to play, and endorsements have led to a LOT less toxicity and more teamwork.

I also just bought The Banner Saga on Steam after years of wanting it, so we'll see how that goes.

I finished Florence ( a simple interactive story), and I've been playing Rocket League again.