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What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them?
Sorry, I was away last week and didn't post this, so it's been a couple of weeks now since the last one.
So, 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 picked up No Man's Sky on a whim last week, when GMG had it for a total 60% off. I've put over 20 hours in since.
I did not expect the game to be so damn engaging. I don't have a clue what it was like before last week, so I cannot speak to how it launched, or how it has been in any prior state, but this current version of the game is huge, expansive, deep, and highly satisfying.
To be clear, I am not someone who generally enjoys sandboxes or "make your own stuff" types. I put Minecraft down after 2 or 3 hours, same with Terraria and Starbound. Stardew Valley wasn't for me, even the Sims hasn't pulled me in for more than the lifespan of one or two sims. I really need a clear objective in my gaming, I guess.
If there's one game NMS feels similar to for me, in terms of the basic gameplay loop, it's Subnautica—slowly expanding your abilities and technology by scavenging, building, supporting, and growing. But in space! With tons of planets! In tons of star systems! Across an entire galaxy!
It's huge. These planets are actually planet-sized! Space is actually.... space! Going between planets is not a mere loading screen, nor is it a suggestion. You have to exit the atmosphere yourself, and fly to locations yourself. When you engage your pulse drive, you still have to wait the time to get through. The only loading screen travel is between star systems but that's because it requires a warp drive, which has very limited fuel that you have to keep on top of with crafting (relatively).
The new multiplayer brings it out even more. Your friend will tell you about this insane thing they found on the next planet over, so you hop in your space ship and actually fly over to their planet, and then their spot on the planet, and then find a place to land. This is one of the few games I've played where the size and scale feels as it should be for actual space travel (within the realms of still being a fun, arcadey game, mind you).
One thing I wasn't prepared for is how many mechanics and systems are in this game. I had just heard it's a game where you explore planets, collect items, and craft a few things. I did not expect space battles spanning multiple frigates, base-building from scratch into a huge facility with employees and automated mining and power, a fairly good mission system that affects faction reputation, nor did I expect a fascinating language-learning system (as rudimentary as it is) so you can figure out what all these aliens are talking about. I certainly did not know there were land-based vehicles either, nor weapons, nor upgrades for all these too!
The crafting too has a certain flow to it that hits my buttons in ways I haven't yet experienced. It's not set up to provide barriers or halts for you, making you wait to build the next item until the RNG lets you find the next piece you need. That's there, of course, but given the game's nature of procedural generation and complete unpredictability about where you will be, the game is pretty lenient about giving you all the base materials you need to craft things you need.
The biggest challenge is actually inventory management. You want to pick up a lot more than you can hold, but upgrading them is possible. Something else I didn't know is that you can upgrade your spaceships and trade them in (or straight up buy one off of other visitors on the space stations), or repair broken ones you find on planets and take them for yourself.
On top of all this, and probably what keeps a lot of it glued, is that the game has an amazing art style. It almost feels like what Destiny was trying to be, in many ways. Even when you come across mysterious alien artifacts and space stations, they feel more alien and more wonderful than anything in Destiny. Space in this game is brightly lit and all kinds of psychedelic colours and I'm totally fine with that. It makes total sense for this game's sense of visual style and I enjoy it.
My favourite part is simply exploring new planets. I love coming into a new system, taking a quick fly around to see what planets there are, and prioritizing which I'll visit. You can get a good sense from the view from space, seeing some that are green with toxic clouds or radiation, or gorgeous ocean-covered planets with islands and continents, maybe a desolate moon. Flying down reveals even more, and you can never predict what you'll find on the surface of any of these. One of my favourite memories in gaming are from the original Mass Effect, where you could explore all those alien planets. They weren't the most perfect experiences, to be sure, but where the hell else can you get such a facsimile of exploring another goddamn planet, standing on an alien surface and seeing what colour the sky is, how dense the clouds may be packed, what strange formations the geology takes? But in Mass Effect, they were all barren. In No Man's Sky, they can be full of life, or completely desolate, anywhere in between. Sure, all the planets have the same gravity, and the range of dynamic factors could be bigger, but overall this game takes that feeling of planting your feet on an alien planet and runs away so far with it that it might as well have blasted off onto another planet's surface.
To be clear, this is a very casual, relaxing game. It's not challenging. If you want it to be, there are modes for that, but I'm having a blast on normal. It's a great game to toss up with a show or podcast alongside, and have yourself a time accruing materials to either build something or explore more. You never know what you'll run into. I'm 20+ hours in, and I'm still learning things about the game.
If you have any interest in a casual sci-fi game of exploration, this is the game.
I'm back into NMS myself. Previously I had about 80 hours into the game but when the Beyond update rolled out I started a new game to experience it from the beginning. It really is a unique and fun experience! It's not perfect but it's still darn good.
One new feature that I think is bugging for me is the Nexus inside the Anomaly. According to the web that's supposed to be a multiplayer hub, teeming with activity. But when I play, it's empty. There are tons of landing pads and mine's the only one with a ship on it. In the pause menu, I can pull up my network settings and I have "Ambient Multiplayer" enabled. My internet connection's solid. But it shows that I'm the only person in my party. I should be randomly joined by other Travelers, no? Have you had any similar trouble with that?
There's a main area behind the docking area that seems to be where all the other players are, for me. I haven't really spent much time in there since my initial visit though, so I'm no expert.
Apparently the only way to play with others (on Playstation 4) is to pay for a PSN subscription. I must have missed the memo about that.
Darn it, I was so close to buying this game last week! But the boyfriend said it probably wouldn't be that good, and I've never had luck with randomly-generated maps. I guess I'll be waiting for the next sale, then.
It helps that you never have to commit to any of the maps (planets) in NMS. I find that the game's design not centering around a limited type of location really frees it up to let you do whatever you want, despite the procedural design.
If you don't like where you're at, just go elsewhere. I saw some good advice around Tildes somewhere that if you're having problems getting off the ground at the start (literally, you can't find what you need or you're on a planet that insists on killing you ASAP), it's better to wipe and start again. As soon as you can fly away, that's all you really need.
Subnautica. So very much Subnautica.
Seriously, I could've played this game for ages but didn't touch it until recently and oh wow I was missing out. I've been spending the last two weeks on the game and still haven't reached the end, though I wager I'm close. Not to mention how it's sequel – Below Zero – is shaping up, I'll be eager to try that too.
I knew it was a survival game from the start, but the best thing I found when I actually dived (ha) in was the fact that none of it was procedural. It had a fully-fledged story with a consistent map and pretty good pacing to boot. Don't get me wrong, I still like procedural generation, but even the best algorithms today for making randomized game worlds (even partially random, partially designed) can ever live up to content that has had hours of careful fine-tuning put in.
Other than that, I've been playing more Hearthstone, as that's my general go-to timewaster that I play more consistently for less time per session. It's been doing rather well too, all things considered — a lot of fun deck opportunities were released with the last expansion. That said though, said decks are quite expensive, and I still get annoyed by the singleplayer campaigns sometimes due to several design decisions that I feel made no sense, e.g. giving a select few enemies the ability to steal your cards directly from your board or even your hand, which directly takes control away from the player and so I don't believe has ever been found to be fun.
Ahahah I love seeing that answer :) Subnautica is a jewel. You said you feel like you're close to the end, out of curiosity, can you describe roughly where you're at right now?
Sure:
Heavy spoilers
I just finished off my base at the Lost River after finding the Disease Research building. Going to be searching out more alien locations soon. I think it's close to the end because one of said locations should lead me to being cured, after which I can disable the QED, build the rocket and leave.I adored Subnautica. I loved that it had the polish of a AAA game without any of the condescension or hand-holding. Objectives can be "go explore x" but it lets you figure out how and when you do it. You can build a submarine or hoof (fin?) it, it's up to you. Contrast that with most modern games, where it's "you need to go to x, hop in this chopper/jeep/boat and we'll be there in a few minutes."
I would be lying if I said it didn't have flaws, things like quests being a little too open-ended, but it's rare that a game has that level of scope and polish, and doesn't hold your hand.
I've tried the "autobattler" Teamfight tactics that's in the League of Legends client.
I like the genre. The guy who came up with Dota Chess originally had a really cool idea. I didn't like the Dota 2 official clone, but this LoL one seems fun starting out at least. I'm not nearly good enough/have enough time to play to know whether some strategies are broken/mandatory because of balance.
A while ago we had a thread on short games, and I finally got around to playing two recommendations from it.
Subsurface Circular (thanks @Whom!) and Quarantine Circular (thanks @emnii!) are roughly two hours each and can be played independently of one another (their stories are separate). Each one plays like a visual novel told entirely through a messaging app, and each one lets your choices guide the characters and story in pretty meaningful ways. Furthermore, each one pushes you into areas of ethical discomfort, where there aren't necessarily easy answers or "right" moves.
I thought they were very well-executed and thought-provoking, and I recommend them strongly. They're perfect "evening-size games" that can be finished in a single sitting or two.
Beyond those, I've also finished with Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.
As a gift to myself for returning for yet another year of teaching, which is a career that is getting progressively worse and showing no signs of stopping, I finally set up an emulation station on my TV. It's a dream I've had ever since I first found out emulation was a thing, but for a while it was difficult and cumbersome to set up. Furthermore, many emulators weren't in a state where they could reliably run games well.
All of that has changed now. On the advice of others from a thread a while back, I'm using an Nvidia Shield TV (thanks @vili and @Amarok!). After some very painless setup, I now have frictionless click-and-play for the NES, SNES, N64, Genesis, Saturn, Dreamcast, Playstation, and PSP. I'll probably add some others for completeness's sake, but those are the systems I'm most interested in, with the Playstation and Dreamcast being my biggest areas of interest. My goal is to finally try out all those games that looked so cool back in the 90s but that I never actually got to play. I'm scratching 20+ year old itches!
Symphony of the Night is one of those itches, and it has held "LEGEND" status pretty much since I first heard about it. Finally playing through it, I see why it was revered. It was landmark for its time. Playing through it now actually brought me back not just on account of the game's age, but its design. The game has a bunch of hidden stuff, stuff that's not explained to the player, and counterintuitive items (i.e. the next sword you get won't always be better than your current one). In the days of wikis, this kind of stuff isn't that exciting, since you can just look up the game's secrets and optimal builds and whatnot, but part of the charm of playing games back then was that you didn't have on-demand access to all the information you needed to know about the game. As such, discovery was difficult, often frustrating, but mindblowing when it happened.
Symphony of the Night is filled with potentially mindblowing things left and right. The game isn't afraid to hide things from you. Looking them up takes the fun out of the discovery, but modern gamers likely wouldn't have the same patience in bringing those to light. I know I had to resist diving to the wiki multiple times in order to figure out how to get somewhere or identify what a particular item does. When I finally did look in the wiki after finishing up most of the game, I learned there was still plenty of stuff I didn't know about!
Unfortunately, I've now known for a long time what happens at the "ending," so that wasn't nearly as entertaining as it would have been had I played through it without that spoiler. Even knowing what was going to happen didn't ruin the game for me though, and I still enjoyed what it had to offer. I will admit to abusing save states though, but, given the amount of backtracking that's already in the game, I don't feel too bad about it. I think it actually enhanced my playthrough, rather than detracted from it.
Awesome, glad the Shield worked out for you. I found it to be pretty painless as well.
@kfwyre Piracy wise, is that setup fully legal, "grey area" or "black area"? Did you have to root your shield for it?
I'm considering getting a Shield (when the 2019 version releases) to run a local Plex server on, and I would love for it to also be my game station, with emulation for most of the older (or even recent-ish) consoles. I'm wondering how supported that stuff is.
Is there something like Plex for an emulated games library? I remember a few years back there was a product that could be your "emulation library" as long as you had the roms (which are all ROMs of games you bought legally, obviously). I've admittedly never really followed the state of game emulation on a non-linux PC machine.
All you need to do is install a file manager application on the Shield to side-load any .apk files you want, and they'll work just fine once you click yes to the security warnings. The chief issue with apps on the Shield is that those apps are android and likely designed with a phone touchscreen in mind. Finding ones that support television screens, remote controls and joysticks is the real challenge. All the stuff in the Nvidia store supports it, but if you load other android marketplaces, you're on your own for TV support. There's a lot out there already and more being made tv-compatible all the time, though, so it's hardly a desert of zero apps. Long story short, I didn't have to root the Shield to get my emulators running. There are many emulators in the Shield store ready to go.
As for the legality - if you bought the roms from somewhere or own the cartridge, I think you're good enough. Otherwise it's piracy. Technically you're supposed to dump the ROMs from the carts yourself to be 'perfectly' legal, but I don't think anyone does that. It's still quite a grey area. There doesn't seem to be enough money in emulation yet to get the lawyers involved. It's not like the companies holding the old game IP couldn't sell the roms, either. That'd solve the legitimacy issue.
Do you have recommendations on the apps you use?
Also, what are your favourite games to play on the Shield?
There's a big project called RetroArch out there that aims to be a one stop emulate anything framework. I've had some issues getting that app (which is in the store) to work just right with the joysticks depending on which emulator engine is loaded. I think it likely RetroArch is going to become the standard, once that open source project matures further. It's great on PC, but has TV/joystick issues on the Shield. I think these can be fixed editing configs, there's info on the retroarch forums, but I didn't bother.
So, instead I use standalone emulators (all open source) like SNES9x from the Nvidia store. I play a lot of classic RPGs, like Phantasy Star from Sega, and Dragon Warrior or Zelda or Actraiser from the NES, or Ys saga from the old Turbo16. If you hunt around on certain... places, you can find ROMs that, for example, move around all of the items in the original Zelda, even change the maps/dungeons/puzzles, so you can play it fresh.
The Shield hasn't got a lot of space, I think it's only 12GB. You can use Android to permanently mount folders on other systems using NFS/CIFS though, so your roms/cd images/etc don't have to live locally.
Yes, a NAS hooked up to the Shield is a common recommended theme I've found. I'll probably go with that, as I want to actually have my local media library to watch with Plex. This video recommends a Synology NAS with some WD Reds in RAID 5. I've not looked into that further.
Personally I'd like to have at least 8-12TB to work with, which puts the complete set up at around ~1000 EUR. Pretty expensive. I don't know if there's better solutions out there.
I have two older Synology NAS devices. Basically, I got sick of messing around with building home file servers and decided to appliance-ize that aspect of my home network. Synology makes that utterly painless and idiot proof. It's running a custom Linux distro, but one that is open to tinker with - you can get a root terminal right in the GUI. Lots of hacking going on over in the synology forums. I think it's debian based.
My primary is a DS1813 with 8x4TB Reds, about 19TB actual space. It's been running smooth for almost seven years now. Still gets regular security and feature updates from the company. The only gotcha there is if you plan to have the server doing any transcoding of your media for plex/whatever, you need to be sure you buy the model that has the extra CPU/memory to actually do the work. Try to transcode on a model like mine and it's stutter city, it can't keep up. My endpoints all do the decoding, though, so I didn't care. I don't use Plex, I just have Kodi and mounted shares built in such a way that a Kodi library import gets every scrap of data/images/subtitles/etc from the fileserver.
It's worth adding a small high/write capability SSD to the box as well, newer models have a mount on the inside for that and it'll use the SSD to vastly speed up write operations. You can build out the disks as any linux-based RAID level you like, or use Synology's own SHR filesystem. The advantage there is one could replace all of one's disks with double the size platters, then with a click upgrade the SHR to use all the new space. I used standard linux RAID6 for mine, so that if the box dies I can still plug the disks into any linux system and recover the data.
Think of the file server as a longer term investment. This isn't a gaming rig you're going to replace in two or three years. This is an appliance you'll be using for a decade or more without even touching it beyond the initial setup. It's going to house all of your most critical data - games, media, movies, family photos, resumes, tax returns, etc. It's data security and longevity you're building for here, not fast hardware turnover. You can also buy larger units with more bays and then just add disks and expand it over time rather than having to put the whole thing together up front.
You can chain two more of these onto the first one and have a 24-disk array if you want to go bonkers with it. I don't even think those other two chassis have to be Synology cages, anything eSATA will do. eSATA ports in the back make it easy to plug in a hard drive toaster and just pop in/out other hard drives to move large volumes of data around, too.
Oh - the Synology can also pipe select files/folders or the entire thing up to any cloud storage vendor you choose, and restore from there, so it makes using cloud providers as a backup pretty damn easy. Just be prepared to be patient if you're trying to synch multi-terabyte datasets with cloud storage and you haven't got a fiber connection. It's designed to be friendly to Apple, Windows, and Linux, supporting every kind of file server service and access protocol you can think of.
Black area, definitely. I'm fine with it ethically though. I don't pirate games outside of retro gaming, and if there were a service like the one I'd set up, I'd gladly pay for it. Furthermore, outside of a few big names, most of the games I'm interested in haven't been available for sale since their original releases, so I don't feel too bad about taking them for free on account of how old they are.
I didn't have to root the Shield, or sideload any .apk's like @Amarok mentioned. Every emulator I'm using comes straight from the TV Play Store and works with the controller. All I've done is put some ROMs/ISOs on a flash drive and pointed the emulators to the right folders. A few of the emulators won't read from the flash drive, but in that instance I've just copied the ROMs into internal storage and then they've worked.
Also, the Plex-like for emulation you mentioned is probably RetroArch. I found it to be a bit more hassle than it was worth (and hence I went for standalone emulators), but if you take the time to set it up, it's a powerful one-stop-shop for retro gaming.
Given how many hundreds of dollars I spent on my games in my youth, I'm fine with it as well. Those companies definitely got their pound of flesh out of me. I'll happily sign up for a subscription service, though.
Oh yeah you won't find me judging; I'm more asking in terms of "how likely is it the cool setup I'm imagining is supported", and the answer seems to be very.
I don't think RetroArch is the one I was thinking about. It might be; it was several years ago. Some googling leads me to believe I was thinking about Lutris.
Just picked up Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate after having played MH4U several years ago and MHW pretty heavily this year. The game feels great, and the hunter arts are neat, but for the Hammer (hammer main reporting in), I'm not really compelled to try anything but good ol' guild style. I'm a sucker for the classics.
The weapon crafting is markedly different from MH4U, and to be honest, unbearably fucking slow. I can tell that for where I am, I should have a much better weapon, but all the better weapons are locked behind primarily High Rank quests, while I'm still HR2.
Overall, though, I'm having a blast. Lots of cool monsters, the weapons are much cooler looking than they are in World, and the game has so many more monsters. Online is great, though I wish people would stop crowding the head and give me my rightful place. Good ol' japanese HR999 players are always a great help
Just tried the last RPCS3 with my new Ryzen processor, and Demon's Souls run perfectly. There's even a 60 fps patch apparently. I've just done the tutorial but it looks pretty good so far, at high resolution the graphics are pretty solid. Given that I'm a big Dark Souls fan, it's time I play it.
Protip: back up your saves. I lost a 12 hour character due to a crash. rpcs3 doesn't have save states yet, so you'll need to back up the directory manually.
Otherwise though, it's a great game! Enjoy it.
I've been meaning to check out this emulator, but I didn't realize it was quite that stable yet. The only thing stopping me is not having a blu-ray drive to play my games with.
I'm curious what processor you're running it on. Is it a 2nd or 3rd generation?
I've got a 3700x, I've tried on my previous processor (i5 2500k) and it was running but shuttering a bit. I guess 2nd gen Ryzen would work too.
That said my shield is invisible, so it's not 100% perfect. It depends on the game too.
You can easily find ISO for the games online (e.g. downloadgameps3.com).
Telling Lies
In short, the game is full-motion video voyeuristic narrative game, where you have access to a government database of tons of private video calls and recordings, mostly occurring between four central characters. You basically piece together the story in a non-linear order by watching the videos, and coming up for keywords to search for within the videos.
I cannot say enough good stuff about this game. (I wrote a long-form profile of sorts on my blog, you should read that).
I played Sam Barlow's Her Story when it was first out, and man, the games press couldn't shut up about it. So many places did profiles and reviews and then spoiler podcasts on it, and I fully expect similar things to happen here. There's so much to the story to unpack.
This is a game where you should not have much context in order to jump in. You want to have fewer ideas of what to search for from the start, so you really can find everything. Have a notebook handy, because you'll take a ton of notes: if only just to keep track of keywords you want to search for once you are done traversing a branch.
Hollow Knight
This game is a platformer and it was so much more than I expected. What appealed to me at first was the aesthetics of the game. Then the amazing music that plays throughout your exploration of Hollow Nest. The composition of sound for every different area you enter is just so well done, really memorable, I even ended up getting the soundtrack for the game.
The characters in the game don't actually speak just mumbles like The Sims, and you have to read the text. The lore, oh man it's so fascinating you pick up stories from NPCs that you talk to then some time down the road you'll enter an area only for the environment to complete telling the story for you. Going deeper underground Hollow Nest only brings about more questions with even more fulfilling answers.
The combat is simple yet requires more precise timing with harder enemies. The game can be really difficult it truly isn't a easy game. But accomplishing all the challenges make you feel so good and then you get rewarded in game as well. I thought I had finished the game at one point only to find out there were still other quests to complete or lore to uncover. The game is a simple must play. It's also getting a sequel, Silk Song.
The best distillation of HK I remember being told is that it's "2D Dark Souls."
Well said. Comes with the rage too!
Factorio! Started a vanilla game with biters off in a huge starting area so they'll only show up lategame, since managing defenses proved to take 90% of my playtime in the past. It's nice to take it slow and not have to worry about 3654 things at once.
I'm also working on modding the game; l've made a few 3D models years ago and l really want to actually publish something now. l asked a modder if his mod needed graphics and he agreed, so l'm working on that.
There are a few games I've been cycling through in the last ~1 week (all available through xbox game pass ultimate).
Moonlighter
For those who don't know, Moonlighter is a rogue-lite. And like any rouge-lite, it has a twist: rather than being a heroic adventurer, you play as a heroic merchant! Honestly, though, it amounts to the same thing, except there's an additional merchant mini-game you play each day in which you sell relics collected from the dungeon.
I found the gameplay loop appealing to a rather reptilian part of me: do [activity] for [bigger number]. And since the game only saves at certain times, you're constantly vacillating between setting up shop one last time (so you can buy that upgrade) or one more dungeon run (since it's only a few minutes) -- it's a real cheese and nachos situation.
It took me less than 10 hr to complete it, which was probably just the right amount of length. Had it been any longer, it probably would've outstayed its welcome.
Also, the music is great.
Outer Wilds
Maybe it's because I play at night (or maybe it's just agoraphobia), but this game spooks the bejebus out of me. I do enjoy slowly piecing the story together, but because I know I'll have to return to some place that that stresses me out, I doubt I'll finish this game.
Tomb Raider (2013)
While I never played the original, after ~5 hr of playing, I decided to switch to something else. I might return to this game later, but it has yet to hook me.
Mass Effect
Somehow I managed to avoid playing this in high school. Well, that was a mistake. After 4.5 hr of playing, I am finally the commander of my very own starship!
A subtle yet appreciated feature I'm noticing is that the dialogue options actually show up slightly before the end of dialogue, which means the flow of conversation isn't constantly interrupted by unnatural pauses. If Bioware figured this out more than ten years ago, why haven't other developers adopted this feature?
If you take a look at the original pre-release trailers for the game, you'll see it originally had a time feature as well where you had a limited amount of time to select a response so that you could interrupt NPC dialogue with your own. Not just skip their dialogue but the actual action of interrupting the NPC mid-sentence!
It was removed from the final game but a simplified version (press a button to do a Paragon or Renegade action mid-scene) is in ME2 and 3. What you're seeing there is a bit of a leftover of that initial system.
I can think of one game that implemented Mass Effect's original dialogue system: Alpha Protocol.
You should check out katana zero. It has a dialog system with interruptions. I think they made it work very smoothly too.
Ohh, that one's on my wishlist.
It's a cool concept, but it requires listening and reading at the same time to be ready to reply before the timer runs out. Conversations in Alpha Protocol made me stressed, and it's the main reason I couldn't really get into the game.
I suspect that's why it was pulled out of ME. Alpha Protocol is definitely a very... experimental game. An excellent experience for seeing how far a game can push a customizable story, but definitely rougher edges than sandpaper.
Honestly, I'm glad they chose not to implement this. If they had, I'd probably just end up constantly cutting people off, which would be less immersive in the other direction.
But if ME2 & ME3 have this feature as you say, then I guess I'll see if my prediction holds true.
Division 2 still.
Still waiting for it to get better. I have a group of friends to play it with, but we're tapering off on the endgame content/have pretty much done all there is to do. It's been a great ride to the end, but I think we're gonna move onto either Fallout 76 or back to Overwatch.
If anyone's on the fence about getting it, I'd say get it, but don't bank on the endgame being all that great. They have a lot of things to fix. Maybe wait 'till next year for them to get their stuff together.
The next four-player game we're really looking forward to is Dying Light 2.
Return of the Obra Dinn. It was great. You get exactly what's advertised on the cover: a murder mystery on a ship, where you piece together the puzzle bit by bit, by looking at each character one after another.
It sucked me in more than expected, given the initially clunky controls and monochrome aesthetic. It is so satisfying getting each puzzle piece in place, which the game thankfully validates for you frequently, starting long before you have all the pieces in hand.
I resorted to a guide for the last few unimportant characters, who felt like extraneous repeats of other ones, with similar approaches that I couldn't be bothered to do again. Game could have benefitted from some quality of life improvements like jumping around the timeline directly from The Book. Also playing on a touchpad was cumbersome; it's meant to be played with a mouse.
Other than those quibbles, I liked how the game could be played anywhere from a few minutes at a time, to hours, and also allowed for pondering puzzle strategies before bed. Recommended for people who like mystery puzzles.
Timespinner on Xbox Game Pass, it's a kind of Metroidvainia that really wanted to be a JRPG growing up and goes all out on presentation. Of note is that the easiest difficulty is pretty much a God mode where your HP just tops back up against once you die, which is kind of nice if you want to tank bosses, just explore and collect all the pretty things.
I spent most of my time last week playing Forager. The old site has a demo which is outdated (it's from the beta) but does give a glimpse.
I loved it, and almost 100%ed it. (Got like 3 achievements missing, but they're all busywork, so I'm not sure if I'll finish them too). It feels a bit like Stardew Valley, without the socialising aspect and a bit more combat
I have really been interested in Forager and I have it on my wishlist (it screams Humble Monthly bundle). It looks like it has a good 'hook' in it by what I have seen.
Absolutely! I had some issues with the pacing (especially in the demo), but maybe because I tried going full factorio on it. ("Oh neat, you can automate stuff. Let's automate everything!"). Same happened to mee during the Satisfactory open stress test weekend too though, so maybe it's just me tryign to apply too much factorio thinking to other games :)
Over the weekend, I finished Wolfenstein: Youngblood. I played almost all of it solo, and it wasn't terribly inconvenient to do so. It was okay. Fairly short, almost void of narrative, and failed to exploit its setting (Nazi-occupied Paris in the 1980's). But it's still a Machine Games Wolfenstein and it's still a lot of fun to blast Nazis.
I've also sunk some time into Ion Fury and I think I'm going to put that one in the DNF pile. It's like they made a faithful recreation of Duke Nukem 3D, except they removed all the fun. The main character is almost mute, the environments aren't as interactive as Duke3D, and the enemies are not very fun to fight. The weapons feel pretty good, but there's a reload to all of them. It also feels like max ammo counts are too small. I found myself running out of ammo for the shotgun in situations where the shotgun is the weapon I should be using. Even the levels are just destroyed futuristic city over and over again. I'm just not impressed by it, especially after DUSK. Fingers crossed for WRATH: Aeon of Ruin. Or maybe I should finish Sigil.
And between those two, I've put a bit of time into Death's Gambit and The Iconoclasts. Death's Gambit is alright as a 2D Souls-like, but not quite as fun as Salt & Sanctuary. The Iconoclasts, though, is really impressing me; bright, colorful Metroidvania. It's just a bit linear right now.
I love the co-op of Insurgency. Some of the best players vs. AI shooting I've experienced. Which Insurgency are you playing?
Eh, there's a lot of saltiness over performance since it's running on the Unreal 4 engine and the spec requirements have shot up compared to the version running on Source. Granted, it's not the most optimized game either. Gameplay-wise, I'd say it's an upgrade as the new aiming system feels more realistic and less arcadey, and the new effects and audio design is super immersive. The AI is leagues above previous versions of the game too, they're a lot smarter and better shots now.
Lets see:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1-VyHIx_SY
I was playing Minecraft with a discord community I run, which was really nice, I'm appreciating the game more than I have in years. It should be a world for you to build with close friends. It feels so cozy.
However, I've tried out WoW Classic and since I started I basically haven't stopped. My experience with WoW was just enough to have an opinion ("it's okay..."), but not extensive at all...so this all feels very new to me while to everyone else it's a nostalgia trip. The community is great right now, grouping happens so naturally and it feels like a proper social mmo experience which we're lacking nowadays and WoW itself managed to kill. I love how long quests can take. They're never that hard when you have a group, but grinding for quest item drops can really force a feeling of camaraderie. I've yet to touch much other than questing or professions, but it's a good time.
I'm in a really comfy guild with all trans players, so between that and the currently friendly community, I love it. Also, if anyone here wants to play or just have someone to talk to in-game, just PM me :P
Ion Fury turned out to be pretty good. A challenging Build engine FPS with some of the best weapon design I've seen in a game. It actually makes the starting pistol incredibly useful and relevant throughout the entire game. A bit disappointed at the lack of Vulkan support, because OpenGL is a bit naff.
I also started Season 18 of Diablo III. The Legacy of Dreams is probably the best gem they've introduced, because it has an effect similar to the Legacy of Nightmares ring set, but without requiring Ancient Legendary items.
Hyper Light Drifter (steam) - Action adventure set in a post-apocalyptic fantasy world. Gorgeous pixel art and environments, fairly satisfying slash-and-gun gameplay. No dialogue, a very abstract story is "found" in bits and pieces while exploring or "talking" to npcs with images. Somewhat short and there were a few mechanics that I couldn't never quite the right timing to pull off, but overall pretty fun. Best played with a controller.
RiME (steam) - A puzzle adventure where you play as a kid alone on a mysterious island. At a quick glance, something like Ico or Journey. Beautiful environments and music/sound, but the rest was disappointing. The story was alright, the gameplay and puzzles are simple, repetitive, and a bit boring. Not a particularly long game, and I picked it up for free from Epic, so I won't complain too much.
Oxenfree (steam) - A dialogue-driven "supernatural mystery graphic adventure game" about a group of teens who go to an tourist island at night for fun and stumble upon weirdness. Voice acting was great and dialogue was well written (way better than the "how do you do, fellow kids"-level garbage in Life is Strange), though the interrupt-style dialogue was frustrating trying to get a natural conversation pace. Movement was extremely slow and clunky, the most-used puzzle mechanic (tuning a radio) was also super slow to use, and the puzzles were painfully simple and boring. Pretty short game, wanted to enjoy it, but didn't and wouldn't recommend.
Skyrim VR - The first time I played this, on PSVR at a convention in 2018, I was absolutely blown away. I don't use this kind of language often, but I had truly never experienced anything like it.
Recently I got a Samsung Odyssey+ for myself and I've been modding Skyrim VR heavily. With Natural Locomotion, dark nights, immersive hip-weapon slots, and room-scale tracking, and a fan blowing straight at me it is an otherworldly experience.
Slowly and cautiously walk the roads between towns on a dark moonlit night, hearing distant howls and jumping at the sight of any movement close by. Never thought I would experience something like this.
Honestly if you ever get the chance just try it. Words are not adequate.
Jet Island - another VR title, where you're given a hoverboard, jet boosters on your wrists, and grappling hooks. Vast alien landscapes and giant colossal bosses, with multiplayer/coop support.
If you don't have your VR legs, this one will put you on your arse. Feels incredible to zoom down a near-vertical slope and cinch a ledge at the last second to avoid the incoming blast of a giant mechanical wurm.
The controls and balance take some getting used to but the experience is one-of-a-kind.
I've been playing the Burnout Paradise remastered Xbox One version. I mostly completed the base game (all billboards, all "smash gates" etc) after about 50 hours.
It is significantly easier than the original Xbox360 version supplied on disc with no updates.
The DLC content "Surf Island" was created by a British company and they've crammed it with references from UK culture. Most of these are from children's tv show Grange Hill, but some of them are names of British radio DJs. It's somewhat jarring to see buildings with the names of prolific sex offenders in the game.