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What games have you been playing lately?
Tell us what you're playing and what you think. I want to know what everybody is in the middle of right now!
Tell us what you're playing and what you think. I want to know what everybody is in the middle of right now!
My game playing preferences fall into basically two categories: games I can play while listening to audiobooks, and short narrative-driven experiences.
In the category of Audiobook Accompaniment, we have Descenders, which is a sort of downhill bike racing roguelike. The maps are procedurally generated and you make your way across a given environment by going from node-to-node, FTL-style, choosing between tracks that have different stats and setups (e.g. some offer more stunts, a good racing line, or an open environment in which you must make your own path).
The game feels really good to play, and there is no stat-based unlocking (only cosmetics), so your bike and rider always feel the same, and any skill increase is your own. The game is easy to get into but also has a very high skill ceiling. You won't be able to just hold down the accelerate button the entire time, as you can go too high off some jumps and make landing safely impossible.
It definitely leans more arcade than sim, so it's gratifying and flashy, and its roguelike setup gives it tons of replayability. It's going to be a nice audiobook accompaniment for a long time.
In the category of Short Narratives, we have A Normal Lost Phone, which is a visual-novel-esque game where you find an unlocked phone and go through its apps to uncover the story of its owner. Most of the game is just reading messages and emails, but there are a few simple puzzles along the way. It takes less than two hours from start to finish, but it tells a complete story.
I liked it overall, and I give it props for having some well-handled LGBT content, which I feel is still a bit rare in games (though certainly getting better than it used to be).
I bought Descenders immediately on release day because I loved RageSquid's previous game Action Henk and think it deserved so much more attention that it got (the name and visual style were probably both too off-putting).
Descenders hasn't really grabbed me though. It's a neat concept, but after only a few hours it was already starting to feel very repetitive, and didn't seem to have much depth with so many of the generated tracks feeling very same-ish. I did only get to the second "world", so I'm not sure if the later ones add more interesting aspects, but what I've played so far hasn't really compelled me to want to keep grinding away at it.
Action Henk is outstanding, but I agree that it didn't put it's best foot forward presentation-wise. Nothing says "precise physics-based time-trial racing in the vein of the Trials or TrackMania series" like an overweight guy in a tanktop running through an offbrand Toy Story world!
I also think Descenders is pretty repetitive, but that's honestly what I like about it. With the procedural generation I get a fresh-yet-familiar game each time. If I played it on its own, I would probably tire of it quickly, but it's perfect as an audiobook game for me since my main focus is listening and it acts as background stimulus. I'll put dozens of hours into relatively mindless or deliberately grindy games because of audiobooks even though I'd get bored after an hour if I played them standalone.
I will say that the second world you stopped on is my least favorite of the six I've unlocked so far. It's a HUGE difficulty increase from the first world and some of its design elements seem to go against the goals of the game (e.g. trees EVERYWHERE). Part of me thinks that's because they wanted to reinforce that it's a somewhat technical game and you can't just hold the accelerator and hit every jump at full-speed, but that feels like a lesson they could have built up to a little better, rather than going all in on it in World 2.
I honestly believe that if they somehow managed to get the Sonic the Hedgehog license and released exactly Action Henk but with all the graphics/characters replaced with Sonic elements, it would be considered one of the greatest games of all time. The game feels so perfect to play, but the presentation hurts it so much.
I definitely understand liking "zone-out games" sometimes, but I think one of the factors that pushed me away from Descenders a little is that I also grabbed Steep recently when Ubisoft was giving it away, and I'm enjoying it more for that purpose.
I never thought about the Sonic connection, but you're so right it hurts!
Sonic games have always had this sort of identity crisis where they're not sure if Sonic is supposed to just go fast or do platforming. They usually can't make up their mind and just decide to do both, but separately. Action Henk is instead the perfect marriage of those two ideas. It's the game that Sonic games have always tried to be (and masterfully executed to boot). Great observation.
I'm elbow deep in Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night and wow I don't know what to think. It's exactly what it was pitched as, which is a Castlevania: Symphony of the Night style game, and it feels right in a lot of ways, but it also feels rough in a lot of patches. It's still designed like one of those games with hard save points, and I've quit out of frustration after losing a bunch of progress over something dumb. Very mixed feelings about it.
I love the tension of wandering into a new area and just trying to stay alive long enough to find a new save room. Then once you are familiar with the layout and enemies, and have leveled up a bit, areas that were previously terrifying feel more like a power trip.
Too many games these days take away the risk and tension by auto-saving every 5 seconds.
Same here. I'm in my initial playthrough, on nightmare difficulty and not using recovery items at all (other than food for first time bonuses), and I'm finding the challenge of inching towards that next save room super enjoyable. Boss fights are really painful, though. Getting twoshot is pretty frustrating...
Man you are a true masochist...
Lol, maybe. I just like the feeling of incremental progress, and the taste only gets sweeter if I have to suffer hours of bitterness first.
What weapons/abilities do you find yourself mostly using for explore vs. bosses?
On normal, once I got Rhava Bural I had a hard time equipping anything else, but my friend preferred Greatswords while maxing attack speed as much as he could.
Last boss I beat was the dude who shoots bouncy lasers, so I don't think I'm too far in yet.
Anyway, 99% of the time, I'm running the best whip I have access to; and I'll shamelessly switch to guns for stuff that's dicey to fight at closer ranges. I posted my boss kills so far here! Obvious spoilers for people who haven't started the game.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4_9HuwQeE1bNTCoDxTYURQ
Another warning: my Valac and Craftwork clears are mega cheesy. I'm proud of the Valac one, though.
LOL, I guess Craftwork just didn't feel like coming to work that day.
I'm really impressed with all of these fights. Zangetsu gave me fits just on normal, and I had some trouble with Valac as well, so seeing you wreck those guys on Nightmare is super crazy.
Have you fought Bloodless yet? That's another fight I had a had a tough time with so I'll be interested to see when you clear it.
I haven't! I actually haven't made much progress at all since my last video; been moving to a new home for the past week or two, so I haven't been able to play at all. I hope to get back on this train soon! Maybe another week and I'll be done...
Of all the boss fights so far, I think Zangetsu gave me the most trouble. Being so early in the game, and having moves that oneshot... He really taxed my patience. Took a couple play sessions for me to really get the fight down.
Valac wasn't as bad -- not when I realized you could just... Do the cheese I did, lol. I was thinking about ways to effectively dodge the long fire sweeping phases, and saw the huge gap above the right head. And remembered that I'd just unlocked double jump/divekicks...
I get what you're saying here, but I actually really like this mechanic. It can make exploring new areas of the castle really intense because you don't know exactly when you'll find a save or fast travel room. It feels so rewarding when you finally find that damn save couch after you've uncovered a dozen new rooms of the castle.
It's definitely some old school design, though. It's a little bit mitigated by having cheap, easy access to waystones to teleport instantly back to the home base where you can save and stock up on restoration items, though.
... I forgot waystones exist. I just never use them. I guess I should give those a go.
I'm quite familiar with how these games work, but I don't recall getting this frustrated by SOTN or Aria of Sorrow or Dawn of Sorrow, or any of the other Castlevania games in this vein. I'm sure it happened, but it's hard to tell whether I've just gotten used to games that made exploration easier and I'm getting old or this particular labyrinth isn't as enjoyable as those games were.
Yeah the waystones make a big difference, they take some of the risk of losing progress out of exploring while still making you pay attention and move cautiously.
Been playing Persona 5 at the recommendation of, well, just about everyone I know. I'm pretty picky about JRPGs, but it nails story, characters, aesthetics, music and gameplay well enough to be completely engrossing. The only thing I find frustrating about it is that it's too easy to wipe. While the combat itself is easy enough, both the PCs and NPCs get to make another attack after a crit or attack type match up, which means that the occasional trash mob can do an uninterruptible zero to death combo, causing a game over and potentially wiping out hours of progress.
As a bonus, the game runs quite well on the RPCS3 emulator, even on an 8 year old 2600k.
As someone without a PS4, please tell me more about this!!
It's a PS3 emulator, not a PS4 emulator, Persona 5 launched on both. But basically RPCS3 is a cross platform, open source emulator that's capable of playing close to 50% of the PS3 library. If you've got a decent CPU and a game you want to try, give it a shot.
I am perpetually in the middle of playing Let's Go Pikachu or whatever that pokemon game is. It's very slow going for me and I'm taking my sweet time. It's a "Hey I kinda wanna play that for a few minutes" kinda game, otherwise I don't play it to often.
I guess MAINLY I'm playing Breath of the Wild right now. I got on the hype train late as I didn't have the money to get a switch but O BOI when I did, whew, game over. I've probably sunk a good 200+ hours into that game and I still haven't completed all of the Divine Beast quests, though I'm almost done with all of them. Partly that's because I've been avoiding doing the Gerudo Divine Beast... I guess just because? I've honestly just been like walking around and exploring. Probably my first like 50 or so hours was me heavily progressing story lines and getting all of the towers and trying to find as many temples as humanly possible. I would primarily use the temples and towers as ways to get around instead of walking. Now, however, I am trying to touch on basically as much land as I can and in turn have found a decent chunk of korok seeds! I've also made a stupid amount of money just from roaming around, picking up bits and selling it. It all accumulates faster than you'd think.
I actually just recently defeated my first lynel and wow, I was so happy and shocked! It was an ordeal but LORD are the weapons you can get from them seriously damn nice. I think now I might go out of my way a bit to actually fight them instead of avoid them. I think overall, BOTW is just a really nice game to chill out with. The only other game I have sunk so much time into was Skyrim (and then I accidentally deleted my main save fail and have never touched the game again). I think with this Zelda game, there's just so much to do and see and you can basically go do any quest at any time, it's really so much fun. I love just going around and finding little hidden things and places. It's very rewarding to travel on foot and explore.
AutoChess. Specifically? Dota Underlords has stolen my soul. I haven't ever even played Dota and I'm completely hooked. There's something about praying to RNjesus and Lootcifer after the timer clicks down that just scratches the itch. I have come to love some of the characters and it might wind up being my gateway into the moba world? Maybe? I can't wait for more characters. They're trying out a free battle pass type of thing right now where you can earn rewards, too. UGH, save me, but also don't.
This scratches my Hearthstone deck building itch, w/o the offensive pay to win model.
I picked up Final Fantasy XIV on sale. It's pretty fun so far! I like the way they handle classes and jobs, the combat is straightforward and engaging, and they even have native controller support! As someone who dislikes his job too much to give a shit when he comes home, let me tell you how much I appreciate that.
The story is surprisingly well-written too, and the diversity in class story styles is delightful. For example, the Thamaturges are all whimsically dark, while the fisherman's guild speaks in almost Seussian rhyme.
I've only just gotten into the dungeons but they're okay enough. Targetting in large groups is inherently more difficult on a controller so it's a little hectic sometimes if you dont know what you're doing, but everyone else seems to be pretty on the ball and willing to pick up slack.
I'm sure its drawn the ire from the more traditional mmo crowd for the simplification of many aspects of the game, but I like it well enough. I think they'll probably get at least a month or two of proper subscription out of me. End game raiding doesnt appeal to me and while I like the idea of amassing a fortune via jobs, I would much prefer it if I had something worthwhile to spend it on, like a house. Which the game offers! Except you cant get one because every plot is taken and none are for sale.
Interesting. It's odd to me that they would limit real estate in the potentially limitless digital world of an MMO. Any idea why they decided to implement a finite number of plots, the demand for which has clearly been exceeded? I've never played an MMO so I might be missing something obvious, but it seems counterintuitive to me to lock your players out of opportunities like that, especially if your goal is to keep them subscribed long-term.
Just like in real life, having cheap or free land to expand into would encourage sprawl as nobody has any incentive to transfer ownership (since nobody needs to buy). The side effect of this for an MMO is that as the playerbase churns, neighborhoods turn into ghost towns. Only some small proportion of any cohort of players actually keeps playing long term. Many others will just buy a house and then stop playing or play less frequently. This means each active player would basically be living in a small house in the middle of a bunch of empty houses.
Keeping the stock of property finite means you force people to be close to each other and you discourage large tracts feeling empty because the players who own them only check in for a few hours a year. It becomes a prestige item and only dedicated players who play a lot will bother (or even be able) to get one.
I suppose an alternative would be to just force everyone to rent or renew a lease periodically. That way people who don't check in often lose their houses and have their belongings transferred to a chest or "locker" in some sort of hostel.
I have literally no idea. It's also possible I'm missing something, as I've only put about 30 hours into the game thus far, and that's a pittance when it comes to MMOs.
Either way, I'd like to buy a house at some point and it doesnt appear I'll be able to do that, so Squenix needs to hurry the fuck up and fix that.
I haven't played FFXIV in something like 3 years now (but I bought the new expansion and will be catching up and playing some again), but there are multiple different areas you can build a house in, and each of them has somewhere around 20 different "wards", which are different instances of the zone with their own set of land plots. Are all of those full? Between all of that, it should give a ton of different plots overall (maybe ~5000 total) so it used to be pretty reasonable to find vacant ones as long as you weren't trying to be in Ward #1 or anything.
Yep. At least the ones I can access in The Goblet, Lavender Beds, and The Mist. I'm on Famfrit (like Ifrit but if he was chill), and the only place I HAVEN'T looked is Shirogane, simply because I can't get there yet. So there could be space left there, I suppose.
Alternatively I discovered in my bored-work-browsing that you can get apartments as well, so I'll probably just defer to one of those. It won't be as cool, but it'll be something.
Huh, crazy. If anything, I think Shirogane is probably the highest-demand area (or at least it used to be), so I probably wouldn't put much hope on it having vacancy.
They do reclaim land plots from inactive players though, so it's probably worth checking back often once you have enough money to buy one. I'm not sure if there are any sites/apps that can send you an alert if one opens up, but I wouldn't be surprised if someone has created something like that.
Finding an open spot is just the first step in the staircase to hell. When a plot opens up, it isn't immediately available for sale; it'll actually be available for sale sometime within the next day or so -- and the timer is hidden.
Maybe it'll be available in two hours. Maybe in fourteen. Either way, you don't know; and if you want the house, you have to stand there at the plot, repeatedly trying to buy the plot, until you (or someone else) finally snags it. You can bypass this timer if you're relocating (you already own property elsewhere) -- so you only have to go through this once -- but your first purchase is probably going to suck.
Seeing as you're at least moderately knowledgeable about the game, why tf are they not upgrading their servers? The queue to get in isnt THAT bad, but I had to wait 15 minutes to find a server to make my character on when I bought the game. Any idea what gives?
I'm guessing you hopped on for Shadowbringers; the congestion is a pretty recent issue. I'm not sure what to say; for as long as I played World of Warcraft, the same things happened at expansion launch there, too. I guess it's difficult to want to pay and scale to accommodate a crowd that will largely dissipate after a month or two.
That's reassuring, I thought it was just always like this.
I am basically losing my mind and only play modded New Vegas now. I start up all kinds of other games and want nothing to do with them basically.
The world of New Vegas is just so compelling to me. It feels very coherent and almost real. Power struggles, crafting, using dialogue to avoid combat with smart people, being unable to avoid combat with wild enemies. And of course mods can make the game as unrealistic or realistic as you want.
Just sad to see so many publishers/devs turn into hot garbage fire now. Fallout 76? Battle for Azeroth? Fortnite/Anthem/etc? I do not find these games compelling. New Vegas spoiled me, now I don't want hollow worlds that are 90% combat and shit. Interested to see what Outer Worlds will be like. Not sold on Cyberpunk yet since I am luke warm on the Witcher.
Oh man do I love that game, the amount of choice is something I just haven't found in any other game in the first person style. Just wish I could get it on a more modern engine, last time I tried to play it I had trouble keeping a solid 60 even without mods. And with mods it just becomes a mess for me to get it to hold any type of reasonable frame rate.
Outer Worlds I would be interested in, but since I decided to ignore and/or pirate games on the Epic Store I'm not gonna play it. Just don't want to do anything to support them after they decided they can just buy up a bunch of games and not make a compelling store.
Now Cyberpunk I really want to see more of, I'm hoping to get more gameplay about how much choice and changes can happen in the story. I didn't feel like the Witcher's really had all that much and it hurt it for me. But given Cyberpunk has a lot more freedom of where and what can happen with the story, I'm pretty excited.
Wait wait wait... Epic bought out the Outer Worlds release?? No no you are trolling me, eh? No way wtf
The gaming industry is just a giant wet fart in the face right now. Absolutely abhor it...
What kind of rig do you have? F:NV indeed has a lot of technical issues but modders have a lot of resources/tools for cleaning up parts of the game and increasing FPS/decreasing crashes.
Look for the stability section of Qolore's Viva New Vegas mod guide and look for the INI tweaks section which will provide a lot of insight on improving the game from a technical standpoint: https://vivanewvegas.github.io/
My PC is decently powerful, currently running a 6600k and a 980ti. Just never had any luck getting things to work that well. Never seen that site before, so gonna have to check it out when I get some time. Thanks for that.
Mario Maker 2 - I'm not a maker, I just like playing other people's levels - about 90% complete with the story mode too. Pretty nice nostalgic game if you're a classic mario fan.
I just finished:
What I will probably continue playing in the coming days is the following:
With some stuff I had on my wish list on sale right now, I bought some new games and tried them out, but haven’t played for a long time yet. So here are my first impressions:
I bought Hollow Knight from the Steam Summer Sale and it's been fun so far. It's definitely one of the better metroidvania's I've played. Probably my only gripe is that I'm not super in love with the jump physics (you stop gaining height the second you let go of the jump button which feels a bit unintuitive.
I've also been getting back into playing chess, which has been enjoyable. I'm still fairly bad (1300-1400 elo), but it's fun to improve.
I'm playing Detroit: Become Human on the PS4. It's the standard "androids are more human than us" story. Came "free" with PS Plus.
I love the story, the characters, and the atmosphere, but some mechanics are very annoying. There's no run button, and the characters move VERY slowly even for walking. This makes investigating large levels excruciatingly boring. I get that the director has a cinematic vision, but this is a videogame! I can imagine that the character is actually walking, but I need to go places! Not only that: every character animation seems deliberately slow. The "android view" (like a cyber version of Tomb Raider's instinct) also has a ridiculously long animation (for something you use all the time). At one point I had to quit and fire up some Far Cry to recover my sanity. The quick-time-events are great, though.
But even though I had to take a break, the story is so fucking good that I'll force myself to finish.
This game really made me wanna play Cyberpunk...
EDIT: forgot to say that there’s no skipping whatsoever, even when you’re replaying a scene! This makes playing for alternative outcomes much less appealing.
I also like Detroit, but I had to take a break. The mechanics are awful most of the time.
I like the walking for the game. IMO the part in RPGs where the NPCs walk somewhere, and you have to jog ahead, then wait, then jog ahead just look ridiculous.
The differences in speed are certainly ridiculous, but Detroit’s solution is to make motions morose 100% of the time. It’s tedious and heavy-handed.
I never had an issue with it. I guess it's a subjective matter, but the speed was perfectly fine to me. Never really felt it was overly slow.
The game had some of Quantic's antics plotwise, especially when you think about it for longer, which was my overall bigger complaint, but it was more the most part fine.
It doesn’t bother even when you have to retrace your steps multiple times? What about when you replay a scene? Cause I do that a lot. Maybe you’re simply a more talented player than I am.
For the investigation scenes? For the most part I was pretty meticulous with interacting with everything before moving on. The only part where I really missed something hard was the junkyard, but with the context I didn't really mind the slow speed.
I don't replay individual chapters. Had one playthrough where I decided to just see where my decisions (and QTE ability) get me, then another playthrough a few weeks later with a guide to get the "best" ending.
So you did replay, just not individual scenes.
I’m bummed down by some of the mechanics but I’ll probably finish it this week. The story really is pretty cool.
I just got around to playing Katana Zero and it was great. Gameplay was clean and the story was cryptic enough to make me want to keep playing. Before that I was playing Tales of Vesperia and that turned out to be a lot better than I expected. The characters are all pretty enjoyable, no one was annoying.
Finished a playthrough of the Outer Wilds. It's on Game Pass for Xbox and Epic Store for PC, and I recommend it if that's all you want to know about it. My take is that it plays like it's the same lineage as Edith Finch or Myst, but with a rogue like twist due to you as the player being able to retain information between your "runs."
I haven't finished it yet, but I am absolutely loving Outer Wilds. I won't spoil it for anyone, because the fun is in exploring and discovering.
Have you seen Space Haven?
Cool. Does your game have any kind of internet presence yet where we can keep track of it?
About 60 hours into Xenoblade Chronicles 1 via Dolphin Emulator. And I've reached the point in most action JRPG's in which I'm completely tired of the side quests and combat, only sticking around to finish the main story. The side quests are just the most basic fetch or kill quests possible, with a rather boring story around them all with some exceptions. Meanwhile the combat becomes just slowly clicking the same moves again and again when they refresh and getting annoyed at the AI teammates for not doing what I want. So most of the game at this point involves me using the wiki to find the optimal way to level while listening to music to make the side quests palatable while trying to level up enough to tackle the next story quest and finish the story that I do care about.
Meanwhile at the same time been debating what I should play after I finish XC1. Currently I am between a couple options; I can go and play Xenoblade Chronicles X, finally get around to Breath of the Wild, finish my replay of Dragon Age Origins and sequel games, or what I think I'm going to do and that is play one of these Chinese RPG's I got from a sale a couple weeks back. Since I feel like they should be a nice change of pace from the western and japanese rpgs I normally play.
BoTW definitely has a different pace than XC (at least XC2). It leaves even more control in your hands on how fast and just how you want to approach everything.
If you are looking for a different RPG vibe and slower pace, Child of Light might be worth checking out.
The next big one on my list is Dragon Quest XI – it will be nice to tackle a traditional turn-based JRPG again. And I’m new to the series, so that’s exciting :D
If you're not already, make sure you look into the mods you can use through Dolphin that replace some of the game's graphics/textures with higher-resolution versions. It especially makes a massive difference to how the interface/menus look.
I picked up Monster Hunter: World on Steam sale and it's been fun so far. The best way I could describe it to someone interested is, "Dark Souls boss fights and people invade your world, but they help kill the boss instead of trying to gank you." There's a big emphasis on preparations, getting the right loadout to fight a "boss" (they're actually called "large monsters" in-game), and tracking the monster and getting information on how to beat it instead of just going into the fight guns blazing. I'm particularly excited about that last point, as that was something that The Witcher claimed to have as a central mechanic, but I found sorely lacking.
I also got Supraland on a lark (also on Steam sale), which is a surprisingly fun and dense first-person half-platformer-half-combat game. The game scratches the itch to explore and openly lets you go back and try new things in old areas. The story and general aesthetic are kind of childish but some of the puzzles get surprisingly difficult.
My roommate encouraged me to pick up Rimworld, which I'm sure most of you know by now. I enjoy it as an RTS, people-management game, but I'm not sure if the game is for me yet.
Modded Minecraft.
I've been playing this game from the start, and ditched the Vanilla experience somewhere along the way in favor of the depth of modpacks. I really like designing complex systems while also just building things and having fun with friends. Modded Minecraft is pretty much applied ADHD where there is so much to do that everyone continuously forgets what they were doing, and, worse, why.
The Modded Minecraft scene is one of the highest-quality modding communities I've ever seen, where community content frequently surpasses base game quality in terms of content, design, creativity, polish and support. It's a wholly different game at this point, forever interesting. Since it's still very active there's always something new to try on every playthrough. Best €10,- I've ever spent.
It's not just gameplay though; I've been messing around with shader code over the past few days and ingame code through computer blocks that run on Lua.
It's a really creative game, and the mods invite you to be even more creative. I've made mod textures in the past, which has lead to me discovering that graphics design and creating systems is something I like, which has led to an education path change, due to which I'm now doing a product design course. I'm convinced that the playtime I've had over the years has somehow contributed to that, so that's nice I guess.
Still want to learn how to make mods sometime, but I'd have to tackle Java first. I know non-OOP C and Lua, so the OOP part of that may be a bit difficult, but I'lll manage.
I went through the same hurdle. I know a variety of non-OOP languages, but learning Java (specifically for Forge modding) definitely threw me for a loop. Even just the concept of assigning objects was confusing ("It's not a string, int, or boolean... what is it?"). Eventually I wrapped my head around some of these new funny concepts and even made a mod or two.
So if you're like me find it off-putting at first, I can only say that it'll eventually click as you spend more time with it. Check out other mod's sources to see how they do things. Many if not most of them are open-source. Best of luck. :)
Dishonored has for me the perfect stealth mechanics. Challenging, varied and open, but not too complex (I’m looking at you, MGS5!).
Different strokes for different folk, I guess. Coming from someone who played a lot of thief, my first dishonored play-through was naturally pacifist. Idk, just seems natural to me to be rewarded for pure stealth.
Mostly it's Star Wars The Old Republic, which I dropped for years. I only recently came back to discover that they removed a single line of code: "INHIBIT FUN: TRUE" Since then, it's been a lot more enjoyable.
Seriously, though, I don't know exactly what they did, but the game is actually fun now. I don't know why it wasn't before, but there you go.
I finally got a better graphics card (the Radeon RX 5700 is a really good deal right now!), Specifically so I can play Cyberpunk 2077 when it comes out.
Coincidentally, the upgrade means I can finally start playing The Witcher 3, which will be the first CD Projekt Red game I have actually been able to play. The new card not only makes playing the game acceptable, but I can do the highest settings and still get full speed on my not-quite-4K TV, and everything looks stunning.
This is somewhat of a drawback, as I was originally playing A Hat in Time, which is incredibly cute and makes me very happy whenever I play it.
I picked up "Shadowrun: Hongkong" during a recent GOG sale and been playing that. I quite like it, but as someone relatively new to the Shadowrun universe I wish some mechanics would get explained more. Especially durign fights it happens that some stuff just happens without me knowing what caused it, how I can prevent it in the future, and what's going on.
I also bought Into The Breach, from the guys who made FTL. It's very FTL-y, but feels less frustrating to me. So I can recommend it if you liked FTL or the concept of it
I've been playing a lot of Heat Signature lately. It's a little indie game from the maker of Gunpoint where you're basically a space pirate. It has the sort of emergent gameplay of Breath of the Wild but in a much more spartan way. It is still incredibly fun!
Downloaded Bioshock one. Game is creepy yo. I have to start with Stardew Valley again.
Some time ago, I've had an itch to play a JRPG, so I started playing Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky. It's now a good month later and I'm already playing part 2 (it's a duology, from what I understand). The game is mostly text and does not have voice acting outside of combat, but man, I am really into it.
The story started off really slow, but it did eventually get its hooks into me, roughly around chapter 2. As far as the story goes, I like that it's not the usual "teenagers fight god to save the world" trope I've seen more times than I'd like, though that might change since, as I've said, I only just started playing part 2. It seems to be more focused on fleshing out the world and the characters. The game even has a newspaper that you can buy and read after certain story beats. There's quite a few in-game books to read, but they're more like short stories, about 5-10 pages long.
The main reason I got into it, though, is the combat. My first JRPG was FF7, which I absolutely loved, but nowadays most Squeenix JRPGs look like single player MMOs. As in, real-time combat, numbers popping up everywhere, making the screen look cluttered as hell and eh... I just don't like it. Trails, however, mercifully has turn-based combat, has a nice, clean interface, has a magic system that reminds me of materias from FF7 and the game has limit breaks! Sorta. They're actually called S-Crafts, but you know, potayto, potahto.
In short, I'm really invested in the game at this point and can't wait to pour more hours into it.
If you're looking for a JRPG I'd honestly recommend Chrono Trigger. Either the Nintendo DS or Steam version offer the definitive experience, because they have a bonus endgame dungeon and a new ending to unlock.
While the Steam version is a direct port of the shitty Android/iOS version which was released to overwhelmingly negative reviews and even pulled from their respective storefronts, Square Enix have patched the game regularly and improved many issues with the game such as the UI, shaders, settings menu and framerate. Thanks to these patches it's been brought to parity with the DS version and has become the definitive release. Put it this way, the game went from Mostly Negative to Overwhelmingly Positive reviews since the patches were released.
Thanks man, but I already finished Chrono Trigger 3 times. I think? Definitely finished the SNES version and I've finished the DS version at least once, maybe twice. I'll definitely come back to it again, just because of how quick you can finish it, compared to the rest of the games in the genre and it's always fun to bust out an old console, handheld or otherwise, and relive some memories.
I've been playing a lot of indie-ish games lately (Rain World, Dead Cells, Hotline Miami, Cuphead, Into the Breach, etc...) and they've all been great to pick up and play for an hour or two but the game I've been enjoying the most is Detroit: Become Human.
I honestly would not have picked up this game if it wasn't one of the free PS+ games this month and what a mistake that would have been. This game is simply phenomenal and unlike anything I have ever played. It's beautiful, engaging, and you quickly become personally invested in the characters. My choices led to two characters dying last night and it was easily the most upsetting video game experience I have ever had. This game will make you feel! I highly recommend giving it a shot.
The past week, Unavowed, Raft, One Finger Death Punch 2.
I finished the main quest in Super Mario Odyssey a few weeks ago, but I'm still doing the rest of the stuff. I was kind of disappointed when I realized how short the main quest was until I saw the sheer magnitude of things you could do afterwards.
I'm in the Luncheon Kingdom right now and have probably 1/2-2/3 of moons available so far. Without spoilers, apart from moons, is there much else to afterwards?
After you finish the main quest two more kingdoms can be opened. One immediately and another after you get a bunch more moons. There are more activities that open up in the different kingdoms as well including a serrehaavat enpr npebff rnpu xvatqbz (rot13 because I'm not sure how/if spoiler tags work on tildes).
But it's all basically more power moons, but different ways to get them.
Ah nice. I did notice that there seem to be moons that I have no clue where they are nor how to get the clues. Extra kingdoms are a nice surprise thanks.
Also you find out what those strange silvery blocks are.
Oh neat. I tried breaking and toppling those before. Good to know it is after the main game the secret gets revealed.
I've started playing Quake 1 with the Arcane Dimensions map pack. God DAMN that pack is what Quake should be! It adds like a dozen extra enemies and a couple of weapons, all of which feel like they completely belong in the world.
I've been playing Divinity: Original Sin 2 lately. It's actually my second attempt to start and I actually like it now. My first time I just couldn't get into it, the control scheme felt wonky and I think I went in expecting some Mass Effect quality writing and characterization, the lack of which put me off. So I didn't really go much further than the first half of the first act.
This time around I've gotten to the second act and I'm having a lot more fun. Going in without expectations was the way to go. I'm playing on PS4, though, which I do not recommend as the control scheme just doesn't work well for it. I have a hard time blaming the developers too much, I understand isometric, click based gameplay is tough to do on a controller. But it's definitely something you want to do on PC if you have the option.
BUT I've had a pretty rough couple of week at work that have left me basically checked out professionally so I think I'm going to put the cognitively heavy gaming aside for a bit and focus on updating the resume and maybe studying for some technical certs to get the ball rolling on transitioning out of a work environment that is not challenging for any of the right reasons (interesting work and creative differences with coworkers that we have to compromise out) and is very challenging for all the wrong reasons (boring work and coworkers who are stirring up drama because the work isn't keeping them busy enough).
So I decided to get into some more relaxed, visual novel style games that I can play in bite sized chunks to decompress as I go through the hideously demoralizing slog that is job applications. I played What Remains of Edith Finch the other day and loved it. I decided to start Life is Strange yesterday and am enjoying it too, though I do feel like the game affords the player too little control to really feel immersed in. For something where photography is such a central element of the plot, for example, I'm shocked that it doesn't let me actually do the work of framing a photo. I'm playing this one on PC though, maybe it plays better with a controller. For a game this relaxed and slow paced, though, I kind of wish I could hold a cup of tea in my hand while playing. One-handed operation (stop sniggering!) would make this sort of thing more engaging.
I just finished:
What I recently picked up again (but haven’t mentioned in the previous comment yet):
I recently got the following:
Strangely been giving "Tempest: Pirate Action RPG" a strong go of it but doing so on iOS instead of on PC. It's a pretty straight forward AC4:Black Flag Clone but in a land of magic and leviathans and such. It's been a great time killer and pretty addictive once you get the hang of it and the nuance for which factions do what.
final fantasy 14 : shadowbringers
Was a bit disappointed with the previous expansion but this expansion really hit everything right in terms of story. I have a few minor complaints about how they reworked some of the classes to make it more simple for casuals but it's still fun. I just hope it doesn't go the way of WoW in the future in dumbing down the game.
I recently returned to Final Fantasy XIV after having not played since late Heavensward. The furthest I got before was Level 44, before the ARR line of main scenario quests pushed me to complete boredom and tedium.
That's right, I'm using FFXIV to cleanse my pallet of the absolute turd that was Battle for Azeroth.
Celeste! It's a pretty hard platformer, which is at the same time perfectly manageable to beat. Got all the berries and pink hearts, done 3 of the b sides so I guess I have 5 more to go. Loving this game, 20 hours in so far and still loving it. Most days I just pop in, progress a bit, go through a few screens in the b-side I am working on and return later. I love how every screen is a new checkpoint.
I put some time in on Surviving Mars and enjoyed it. It's a city-builder where you colonize the red planet, and there's an add-on where you can terraform it too. You have to balance ten different resources while also managing your colonists and growing your colony. It took me a long time to get a solid, long-lasting colony going but even the failures were fun. I played it on a PS4. It's a game with a whole lot of stuff you can do, so the controls can be a little obtuse but, after a learning period, they are fairly intuitive. Would recommend.
I've also been playing Everspace, a charming little space-based rogue-like. It gets a little tedious for me to play over and over again, but I find myself coming back to it because it has a lot of replayability. The graphics on a PS4 Pro are gorgeous and it is fun to just fly through an ancient wreck or an asteroid field.
Witcher 3 (Far too much, and enjoying it far more than I thought was possible for a game).
Technobabylon is one I've started a few times now and haven't gotten far (always start it while slow at work...) but going to pick it up a bit more here this week.
Elite: Dangerous is a love of mine that will suck 8 hours of my life every time I start it and I have to take a step back because it only feels like 30minutes. Talk about traveling through space (and time).
I've recently bought the amnesia collection for PS4 and I'm quite impressed so far. The water level is incredibly tense and well done.
In video games I have been trying to get through Flywrench, it is a very hard platformer-type (though you always stay in the air, never walking), it is very fun with a great soundtrack. I've also been trying to get better at Devil Daggers, a first person hell game where you try to kill demons and survive as long as possible, my best is 215 seconds.
I have also been super into the card game Dominion lately, I own a bunch of the expansions now and all of them are just so cool and fun to play with and trying to come up with a new strategy each time. It is surprisingly deep with what you can do in any given game, and each expansion does a bunch of different cool stuff. Warning: if you get the base game you may find yourself buying a lot of expansions and spending a lot of money.
I've been playing Assassins Creed:Odyssey for the last 100 hours or so - the main quests are all done - I'm just going through the last of the side quests. A lot of reviews from people seemed to pan it, but I think it's been great. I'll probably play through again using the new game+ thing - I just wish it kept my viewpoints so I don't have to go exploring for them all over again.
Beat Saber
I haven't been playing video games like I used to and still haven't finished Shadow of Tomb Raider, but this game once or twice a week is not only quite the workout, it's an incredibly fun experience that I just don't get with any other game or activity in my life right now!
I don't like dancing, but I make the silliest dances on there. I jump around, I duck, I sway side-to-side. It's immersive like VR should be, but also a completely new gaming experience where I can have real fun, slashing through my favorite songs and pretending like I'm greatest Jedi dancer the world has ever seen!
Mobile gaming
Similar to what OP wrote, I'm mostly enjoying mobile games while listening to podcasts.
More specifically:
for the gaming part and:
for the podcasting part.
If you have any recommendations for anything, definitely let me know!
I have no interest in VR as a platform simply because I get motion sickness really easily (like, from many standard first-person games), but Beat Saber is the first game to make me feel like I am genuinely missing out in that regard. It just looks like so much fun! Glad you're enjoying it.
I play World of Tanks on my Xbox 360, some open source games and FPS games. They are cool.
Recently, I picked up Automachef. I only found out about it because I got a coupon for it. Tried out the demo, fell in love with the gameplay (despite some nagging but not game-breaking UX issues) and figured, "why not!"
No regrets and it looks like the dev is still working on it!
Been playing the crap out of Destiny 2 again.....The break from Activision has got the community in high spirits, higher than it's been in a long time. I'm trying to get caught up on all the right gear and Triumphs prior to the Shadowkeep Expansion in September. Shadowkeep is bringing cross save so I'll bounce back and forth between X1X and PC