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What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them?
What have you been playing lately? Discussion about video games and board games are both welcome. Please don't just make a list of titles, give some thoughts about the game(s) as well.
I'm playing Minecraft again. I decided to play as a vegetarian, which made starting out a little different. It takes longer to build a bed because you need iron to make shears to get the wool, so that means spending nights indoors or underground. Finding coal right away is essential. But after that, plant some wheat and you're basically okay.
I decided that my mine should have a skylight because sunlight is good, so I ended up building a large hole straight down in a sort of inverse Tower of Babel.
Carrion - This is a fairly simple metroidvania, but it's fun because you're the monster. Functionally, it's not terribly different from a Metroid game, without the platforming. There's zero platforming in this game. You just sort of slime and ooze and tentacle wherever you want to go. There are very few enemies that pose much threat, and I think I'm nearing the end after only a couple hours, but this is the perfect game for Xbox Game Pass.
Disintegration - This was free to play on Steam last weekend, and I put a whopping 20 minutes into it. It's alright. Exactly what I expected, having previously seen some gameplay. It has a hint of Hostile Waters: Antaeus Rising with the sort of commander role and inter-party chatter, but I've got other things to play, namely...
Death Stranding - Yep, still playing this. 33 hours in now. I've turned this game into American Truck Simulator.
Regarding Carrion: lovely game, but $20 for a game that takes four hours to 100% is a little expensive. There's some value in a game not overstaying its welcome, though. I felt like all of the time I spent with it was good, and it never felt like we were just retreading ground for the point of stretching it out... but 4 hours feels really short.
I might be inclined to agree if I paid anything, but I got it as part of Xbox Game Pass, which isn't free but it's a terribly good deal for Xbox owners. I'm also not really wrapped up in $$/hr. I don't mind paying for a short game if I really like it. TBH, $20 for something I can 100% in four hours that I genuinely enjoy sounds fair to me.
Wish it had a map though.
Yeah. I was frustrated by the lack of map at one point, but once I realized that it's basically linear it made it a lot easier on me. The only point where that broke down was going into the mine, where you need to return to what had been a dead end, but there was a sign in the background directing survivors to retreat to there, and how to get there, and that was enough to set me on the right path.
I really hate the $/hour metric. I have enjoyed more games that have a horrible $/hour than ones that have a really good $/hour, usually because the game is only as long as it needs to be. I think that it really reduces what it means to be a valuable game to it's worst form and actively makes the industry worse.
Ok. As someone with limited money and time, I find it helpful to describe the investment in money and time that a game will ask of you, and I think it's a point of relevance when talking about the experience. It's not the only aspect, to be sure. Regardless, I did walk away from Carrion feeling like I hadn't quite gotten my money's worth. Is there a way I could express that feeling that wouldn't so clearly upset you?
Sorry. Reading my comment back I realize it comes off aggressive. I didn't mean it that way. I haven't played Carrion so I can't comment on that, but I think that the whole $/hour metric has just too much importance placed onto it. There are a lot of games that feel like they ran out of inspiration half way through and then add little annoying things that don't improve the game to pad out the time. I don't mean anything against you, your opinion of Carrion, or caring about the $/hour. I just meant to say I think that there are a lot of really great games that the $/hour metric makes a lot of people dismiss and I want more value placed on other parts of games.
Totally. A really bland couple of hours where neither the plot nor the gameplay advance does no one any favors. And I think that Carrion did a great job at not padding itself with a difficulty plateau. There's 3 forms, they each get 3 abilities, you deal with areas with those 9 tools, and that's that. I could have taken a bit more time using all of the cool tools together before we reached the end, (and the end is quite abrupt, with minimal signposting that it's coming) but there's definitely more space for there too be too much junk than too little.
Warsim: The Realm of Aslona
I bought this game several weeks ago when it was on sale after reading comments on /r/gamedeals. This game has an active community in /r/WarsimRPG although, I don't participate. The description on the Steam page describes it:
So, on a hunch I decided to boot it up. I didn't grow up in the age of text games but boy does this game wish I did. I sunk 3 hours into it without thinking. My typical 'Year' in the game includes:
I only played on Easy my first go to get a sense of the game, so there wasn't much challenge. But now I am playing on a harder difficulty so I can really start learning the intricacies involved with managing my kingdom. You can be a good ruler with high positive opinion, or an oppressive ruler that enslaves their populace. I think I may do an asshole run next, just to get an idea of the choices and consequences I get in that playthrough style. Overall though, I can heartily recommend this game.
I have also been playing Killing Floor 2. I really got in to Killing Floor 1 years ago, played KF2 in the early access days, but I didn't really get involved with it. I'm starting to get the bite right now so I have been playing one round of endless mode to grind character levels daily. It is fun and simple PvE gameplay so I can't complain. I do hate the lack of custom servers with cool maps. KF1 had a complete RE1 and RE2 remake that was crazy fun. I tried setting up a server and the ability for others to join was hit or miss depending on the workshop map.
(re: Warsim) How is an ASCII-only game not fully cross-platform? The Steam page only has a Windows icon on it. :\ Anyway, the protondb page gives it a Gold rating, at least.
I think its just one guy doing it in his spare time. He may or may not know how to develop or port to Linux, but if you are on reddit, you could PM them to see what are the hold ups for a port. They are /u/Huw2k8 on /r/WarsimRPG.
I checked the reddit for a short while. There were smatterings of requests or questions about Linux support over the last 2 or 3 years, and the dev said he'd like to port it, but overall, there doesn't seem to be a strong commitment. Oh well. I'll wait for a Platinum or better rating on ProtonDB before adding to the wishlist.
Started playing Persona 4 Golden the other day after grabbing it on Steam on release. I'm enjoying it thus far mostly though I'm only a couple hours in playing on hard. Biggest issue by far it the distance between bosses and save points. If I die in the boss battle it could be a solid 5min before I can get back to the boss with skipping through the story.
Titanfall 2 : I'm only interested in the singleplayer right now, I might go back later for the multiplayer. As far as primarily multiplayer games go I enjoyed the campaign, but I felt like it was still just a tutorial for the multiplayer. It introduced a number of really amazing mechanics, and I loved the levels they were featured in, but they never really expanded on it. Normally games introduce a concept then the next time you encounter it it's the same thing but with a twist or harder. Titanfall never gave me those twists, it was just new thing after new thing. The game was also very short, I finished it in 4hours. Story wise it was generic but we'll executed, the relationship between player and mecha was nice but the plot itself was exceedingly predictable. Everything was well executed but shallow. Overall, if all your looking for is the singleplayer, I wouldn't pay more than $10, but it's a good distraction.
Death stranding : this game is almost he complete opposite of titanfall. I haven't enjoyed this as a game, but it's an interesting art piece. I don't think I'm very far in yet for the record. The core gameplay is actually pretty complex for a bunch of fetch quests, but every part of it is a chore. I feel like this was an intentional decision, and it makes the social aspects tenable. Going in I was apprehensive about players making the game progressively easier, I like games that are a challenge and enjoy the send of achievement from beating hard things. It sounded like the social aspects would remove content from the game and provide shortcuts and remove that sense of achievement. The reality is though that the gameplay is painful, and the social aspect adds much needed relief. The pain of travelling actually makes things quite immersive, and I genuinely feel like I'm fighting the toxic environment around me. I just wish that the pay off felt a little better, something as simple as some flashy colours and more exciting bar fill ups when you finish a level would be enough.
I feel like I've been more negative than I wanted here, the game is very relaxing (like emnil said it's like truck simulator in a Zen kinda way) in a cathartic sort of way, I am enjoying the experience.
Good art makes you feel something, and this game definitely made me feel things and explore ideas in new ways. But it is not a fun game. I think it's a good game that I will slowly sip at over time, I also think it's not the best game to play during a pandemic.
Why? I feel the central theme connects really well with the whole quarantine stuff that's going on
I find the atmosphere very bleak, which is great at times, but the real world is a little too bleak right now to enjoy the game world fully for long periods.
I finally got my sister to install Steam on her computer, so I have been playing Tabletop Simulator with her for the past two weekends, with various board games.
I have been playing the game exclusively in VR since my headset came in, and there is some pretty rough parts when playing that way. The controls don't really make too much sense and there isn't a way to change them at all. And the tutorial doesn't actually tell you what buttons do which. Context menus and keyboards all come up in the background instead of right next to you, and for some reason it will sometimes it will arbitrarily force you to use one hand or the other to click, the other one becoming disabled.
That being said, this is a really good way to connect to my sister since neither of us like using the phone. The occasional crazy physics is also a good source of laughter.
That's a shame it doesn't translate seamlessly into VR. I'd think it'd be a shoe-in for that :/
Well, it kind of does. You can toss and throw things around, making the flick tool essentially redundant (though it's set to a shortcut with the thumb stick for some reason). It's nice to have a Z axis when picking things up, too. But there is this odd feature where you can use your hand like a mouse to move things on the board, and if you don't have your hand close enough to the piece it goes to that mode and you'll accidentally fling that piece off of the table. Also, scripted things don't work properly - you can't click buttons, so games that rely on scripts can become unplayable and tools like the calculator, timer, and tablet are basically unusable props.
(Honestly, the biggest let down for VR is that every book in every VR application is just a prop. They all have interesting titles but you can't read them!)
Been playing Greedfall lately. It's an attempt to make a modern BioWare-type RPG at a fraction of the budget. It shows a bit in some of the more detailed animation, like mouths not really matching the words being spoken, some stuff more cinematic type stuff instead just done as fade to black and then a character shouting what happened.
But the setting is pretty unique for a bigger budget, high fantasy, RPG. Sort of a 17th century type aesthetic rather than more typical medieval stuff. The writing is pretty good, though I must admit sometimes my character says things that I wouldn't want them in an attempt to streamline conversations with less decisions than a typical BioWare game.
I'm only a couple hours in, but so far it seems like a good way to scratch the itch for that type of fully voiced role-playing experience with Dragon Age 4 still a long ways off and very few other publishers still making games solely focused on a rich, single player experience.
Ha, I just left a comment about the same.
GreedFall is fantastic, but takes a bit to get into. I'm about two dozen hours into it and have barely touched the main story as I've been trying to get all the side quests down which are incredibly fun and enjoyable.
I made a similar comparison to Dragons Age, so I agree with that.
Have you played their other game Technomancer?
I haven't played anything else by the developers. I am seeing a lot of their other games are more mixed critically, but I do think the setting for Technomancer sounds really cool.
I've been playing three games primarily for the last couple weeks.
I'm still chipping away at Outer Wilds 20-40 minutes at a time and it seems like I'm probably getting to the end of it. I really like the game, but I'm recalling now that I actually wasn't into it immediately! I made some assumptions about the game world on my initial exploration, and I was worried a bit that the game would be smaller than it looked or that it wouldn't really be able to deliver emotionally. Those assumptions were absolutely blown out as I got more and more into it. Discoveries unlock information for more discoveries and they go deeper than they look. It's also been charming, upsetting, funny, and sad. Anyway, do yourself a favour and play this game blind, the big joy of it is feeling like your discoveries are your own.
I've been playing Paper Mario: The Origami King and it's... fine. (For context, I've only played Paper Mario 64 and Paper Mario: TTYD.) Like most Western fans what I'm really waiting for is TTYD but more, so the game doesn't really deliver there due to its battle system. The battle system feels like a chore and I avoid it as much as possible. There's lots of collectibles, which I like, but there's so few options for character customization and progression that the collectibles feel kind of useless. You can get trophies to look at, coins & items, or a marginal improvement on one of your battle abilities.
At the very least, the writing is cute and the environments are fun and they look great. It's honestly a real shame about the battles. I don't think I'd mind the circle positioning system itself even - it's more the heavy focus on solving the "puzzle" in one specific way (the ideal solution is a single turn, and if you fail your punishment is the battle lasts longer) that makes it feel tedious. I think it'd be so much better if you had more variety of attack AOEs besides a line and a square, and the battles would be improved by not having an "intended" solution. It also needs a better sense of character progression.
I've heard that Bug Fables has a similar battle system to TTYD, so I might give that a shot next.
Finally, I've picked up the game Outward for PC and I've been playing with my brother (who is more experienced than me at it). It's an open-world survival adventure game with a retro PC-game feel... the first few hours were straight brutal while I learned the combat. Progression is tightly tied to money and items and not only do you start with nothing, you start in debt. You purchase skills and recipes with money, and consumables are vital to combat, which means there's a real incentive to take on fights that you think will be net profitable for you and avoid them otherwise. Being outnumbered is often a death sentence and a big part of the game seems to be using the environment to your advantage (leading mobs away, setting traps, etc).
My main complaints so far are the UI and the AI. For a game with such a heavy emphasis on inventory management, the UI is occasionally cumbersome. Just small things here and there that add up. No tooltip hints to remind beginners of keyboard hotkeys. I can't check my cooking recipes until I am at a cooking station. Stuff like that.
As for the AI and NPC routines - the AI itself is OK when in combat, and enemies will try to combo and flank you. They will keep appropriate distance depending on their weapon type and they will try to run away if they get too hurt. But pre-combat it seems like they generally stand around waiting for you until they spot you, and then run at you in a straight line if they do. It just feels incongruent: the rest of the game world has you worried about stuff like boiling river water before you drink it, but shops are open 24/7 and NPCs/enemies stand around waiting dumbly for you at the same spawn points.
I still like the game a lot so far, but I also feel like if the studio had more resources to really polish the game it'd go from good to great. It is fun and there's a lot to love about it, but there's also a lot of unrealized potential. I would 100% buy an Outward 2 because this game feels kind of like "first game clumsiness", and I think a sequel could be absolutely awesome.
This was my experience exactly. I found it kinda hard to get into at first, but now I'm 11 hours in and I finally see how things connect in interesting ways and I have a plan for where I'm going and when and what for and it became super interesting. Though I don't yet see the end in sight and still not sure what exactly happened (though I have the general idea), so still chipping away, yeah
VA-11 Hall-A - Described as Cyberpunk Bartender Action. You play the bartender and learn about the world through talking to patrons of the bar. Amazing art and story. It's one of these simple games that make you feel smarter after you play it. It inspired me to create https://midnight.pub
Just beat The Last of Us 2! Loved it, 10/10 as far as I'm concerned.
The story might've docked it down to 8/10 on its own, but the execution, gameplay, etc. puts it back up to 10/10 afaic. Plus I haven't played gut punches like that in a long time. Good shit.
Also beat Bendy and the Ink Machine. I only played it to see what all the fuss was about-- and by "fuss" I mean the toys at Hot Topic-- and uhhh, yeah it was OK. Mostly a "meh" reaction all in all. A very forgiving horror-themed game with clunky combat but fun setting and characters.
GreedFall, absolutely fantastic game. The people who like Spiders Studio games (Technomancer) will love this one. The game has a lot of lore, a lot of diplomacy, dozens of different factions to contend with, good magic, 17th century inspired landscapes, pirates, science vs inquisition, and a lot of mystery to solve to uncover the world you are experiencing.
The gameplay is smooth, but will be seen as 'clunky' to most AAA games as this is a small studio who has made an absolutely massive and mesmerising game.
If you enjoy Dragons Age, you'll love this one.