What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them?

I just beat Iconoclasts for the first time and, while my expectations were pretty high, this game beat them hands down! The story twists and turns, the game mechanics and controls are on point, the audio-visual package is great …and the game play just never lets you down and switches very fast between puzzle platforming and amazing boss fights. So many and so varied boss fights! :O

I think this game deserves to be mentioned in the same group as the other modern metroidvania classics like Hollow Knight and the Shantae series. I would even say that at standard difficulty, I would recommend Iconoclasts to anyone, while the other two can be a bit more ruthless at times, which might turn some people off.

Although it’s not typically in my nature to do so, right off the bat, I already started NG+ and am going for a 100% run.

Flown around the world in Flight Simulator 2020 for a bit. I mean, it's pretty, but it's not for me. Too buggy, too demanding, too slow to load. But after looking at it, I've had a burning desire to install Forza Horizon 4 again for some reason. And so I did, and it's still great.

I've put Death Stranding on hold for now. Not sure why, just not in the mood for it lately.

I've also beaten Deadly Premonition 2. It's a mess. It has its moments, but overall I can't recommend it besides the first chapter.

The mind's eye deepens its gaze, and the shadows scurry a bit further from the light, with each person's end that is met in Cultist Simulator. The enjoyment I feel for it will one day leave me, but for now, it brings contentment, and edges the mind away from despair.

I started playing Spiritfarer this weekend on a recommendation from a friend. It's a story-driven adventure/exploration/resource-management? game where you're helping souls find their way to the afterlife (I think). The animation is a beautiful illustrated style and the gameplay is fun. I particularly like rearranging different rooms (garden, field, housing, etc.) on my boat (oh yeah, you're on a boat). I'd recommend folks check it out, it's brand new.

I got back into Dragon Age: Origins. Technically I've completed the main game and have now started on the (fantastic) DLC Dragon Age: Awakening. I hadn't played it since 2014.

Dragon Age: Origins is one of my favourite games of all time - I've beaten it four or five times by now, while I got through Dragon Age II once and have yet to finish Inquisition, having given up about 20 hours in. This time I intend to carry my save through the series - mostly because I really do love the world of Thedas, for all the games' various shortcomings, and the breadth of choices you can make that affect the story and the attention to their detail is often really impressive.

Some thoughts on DA:O ending world states:

For DA:O, while I do love it... the battle skills do get a bit repetitive, and hoo boy the graphics/animations didn't particularly age well. Everyone looks like dead-eyed little puppets and it makes the romance scenes, with their schmaltzy music, very silly.

I also had my share of graphical glitches, including most of my party getting their arms stuck as though they were holding weapons and fighting a mage who was just a floating head.

I recently got a vr headset, so I've been playing around with that.

I got Beat Saber yesterday. It's a ton of fun. It's quite a workout. I'm sore this morning. It feels really amazing to do well on a level.

I got Euro Truck Simulator 2 going in vr. On the one hand it's really cool to be immersed in 3D, and it's nice to be able to just look around without using the mouse. On the other hand, my computer is a bit underpowered for vr so the graphics are noticeably worse than playing it in 2D.

Not a game, but I've also been using Virtual Desktop to watch movies and tv in virtual cinema. Virtual desktop has a few different environments. I like the home cinema environment for watching old animated movies from my childhood. I watched Oliver and Company and Rikki TIkki Tavi.

I've also been playing The Night of the Rabbit (Thanks @kfwyre !) It's been a long time since I've played a point and click game. It's a charming game. The art style reminds me of Winnie the Pooh. It solves one of the major pain points of point and click games: missing something because you didn't realise you could click on it. You get an item early on that briefly highlights everything clickable when you use it.

This is gonna be a little different. Not entirely sure if this is welcome.

Sonic Generations comes with a purchase-able (with in-game stuff) copy of Sonic (1991/the original/Sega Genesis edition) and I gave that a more serious try.

The inertia in Sonic's movement is definitely something you don't see in many games and you need to be careful to not just drift into an enemy or off a platform and die.

The amount of checkpoints in a level/act can fit in one hand, which definitely makes them a lot more important. (And sometimes you can miss them too.)

The "continue" popup that they added which they apparently tweaked from the original games so you only need to press X (PS3 controller) after dying to makes the game much easier to play. I've only once managed to get past Marble Zone without it.

The impression I've gotten from the zones are:

Green Hill: Has lots of shortcuts, is pretty easy to speed through, basically the core aspects of the game are laid out here, unsurprisingly, it's all well publicized and known.

Marble Zone: pretty far from the above, most of the speed is derived from your own platforming skills and if you don't have them, you're beating each act in ~-7 minutes. That's not really a complaint about the levels, but the level design seems quite different. The Eggman fight is pretty easy and didn't take too much to figure out.

Spring Yard Zone: a lot of ramps to spin out of, the acts felt strangely similar to eachother, the COPE letters are funny as shit and the Eggman battle is a decent bit harder since the ground you're on is actively broken, but not to the point of frustration. It's harder to get there TBH.

Labyrinth Zone:

>MFW unironic water levels

But more seriously, the inertia thing I was talking about is multiplied with water. It's not too hard to avoid drowning but not easy, the level design seems to be more similar to Marble Zone. The Eggman fight is a lot harder mostly because you need to go back and forth making the inertia the core challenge. Made it to the top and... didn't kill Eggman? That wasn't required? "Okay."

Star Light Zone

The '3D' star roof definitely shows age. The level design seems to be more similar to Spring Yard Zone, but with different enemies and a 'seesaw' which I found neat and is used in a few minigames in Sonic Generations. The Eggman battle is definitely easier than the previous zone.

That's as far as I've gotten in the game (that was ~-5 hours of gameplay condensed into this post) so that's it for now.

Most of my gaming time is currently spent playing Forager, but I don't game a lot anymore. It's a great game if you like the survivalist, exaggerated-life simulators. You build buildings that do things (such as furnaces, forges, factories), but you're just one dude against a world. You start on a single island, objects spawn in such as berry bushes, trees, stones, ore, and you have to mine everything, build things, get money, kill monsters, buy adjacent lands. You gain experience points with things you do: mine, kill. When you gain levels, you get skill points.

It's a fun, simple distractionary game, but it can definitely be a time sink in the early goings, as there's a lot to do, in a way. Eventually it becomes more chore like until you encounter islands with challenges, or lots of mobs.

I've also played a bit of Counter Strike: Source again recently. Always a fun time with friends. We found a zombie server, which is kinda cool. You pick a class, guns, and survive the days, leveling up.

I'm still playing Eternal Card Game, with some 200+ hours clocked. Previously, I mentioned how it feels a bit unfair going against other players who have much better card collections, with some really great cards in their decks. However, while I've had some success with a couple decks I've crafted, I've really begun climbing the ranked ladder with this third deck I have. It's allowed me to stand a fighting chance against players with decks that, honestly, routinely have several high-powered cards in them, even though my cards are, in my estimation, quite mediocre in comparison. So, I feel a bit proud of myself that I was able to do some thinking and planning, and craft a competitive deck without the same level of resources (money, time) that other players might have spent.

I still recommend ECG to anyone remotely interested in card battler games, or in one-on-one thinking games. If you like and understand mathematics, statistics or probability (perhaps you know what the term "hypergeometric distribution" means), you'll have a leg up on the competition. It's free to play, so it won't cost you anything to check it out.

I haven't done too much in the way of games lately. I've picked back up with Slay the Spire during my lunch break. Slay the Spire is part rogue-like and part deckbuilding; you choose a character that has certain cards available, you progress through levels in a dungeon, and combat is done via cards. There are various rewards - each battle rewards you an opportunity to draft a new card, some gold, potentially some potions or relics that have powerful effects - and you can update your deck through a variety of means - shops, encounters, rest sites. Each level of the dungeon has different tiers of foes, and they build up over time, as does the power of your deck. It's in my list of favourites on Steam; it's a very good distraction, especially since one run is typically about the length of my lunch break (half an hour).

I'm trying to get more of the achievements, which are kind of fun and silly. I'm having a problem with some surprising ones though - I just cannot defeat the Heart (secret final boss) with the Defect (one of the character options). I also haven't managed to get 999 block, or beat Ascension level 10 or higher, but it's been a while since I've tried Ascension levels, and I think that I'd use the Ironclad to try to progress there since it's easier to build an infinite damage deck with the Ironclad.

Fun, easy to pick up and get into, not that big a deal if you put it down and don't think about it for a month (or a year), and really easy to pick up and get back into afterwards.

Lately I've been playing quite a lot of Destiny 2. I like the leveling aspect of it and that you do it by completing weekly activities. Some days the "complete 3 games of PVP" turns into a whole-day obsession and it feels really good. The same thing happens with Gambit (mixture of PVE and PVP). I rage quit from time to time and last time I opened a crack in my controller lol. I need to get something soft I can throw at a wall or something haha.

I actually got the game (used) like 2 years ago. At the time I tried the original campaign and thought the gameplay was alright but the story was terrible. So I dropped it until about 2 months ago when I felt like taking a break from Final Fantasy XIV. So far besides the 15 bucks for the game I haven't spent a single dime on the Season Pass or DLCs. Even at 10 bucks I think the Season Pass (a season is around 3 or 4 months) is too expensive for what it offers. There are 4 DLCs to the game: 2 are free and the other two are 25 and 35 each. Again, I feel it's too expensive for what it offers (maybe I should point out that I'm at a point in my life where I'm not making much money so I want to keep my expenses as low as I can).

I guess that if one takes the perspective of price per hour, the values are low, but I'm still reticent about spending money on the game. It is a good game but it has the potential to be much more. Another factor that makes me not want to spend money on the game is Bungie's (the developer) plans for the next DLC to be released in November. Basically they are going to remove a bunch of content from the game and put it into a "vault". They say the content will return in the future but I think this is a terrible decision. I want the game to be a behemoth of content to discover and learn. I guess their idea is to have a smaller game to maintain and maybe (this is speculation) rework the old content if it is to be reintroduced into the game. I hope things turn out for the best but I am a bit worried.

Anyway, coming back to the actual game: a few weeks ago I tried a raid with random people I gathered online. I almost hated it. I'm kind of a sensitive person and being stuck for 6h playing a game is not for me. I need breaks or the freedom to turn off the game if I don't want to play anymore. Because I didn't want to left the group hanging I ended up staying until the end but it was so frustrating and exhausting. I guess I prefer content with a more casual bend. There are 3 repeatable instanced PVE modes in D2: Strikes (very casual, take around 15-20 min to complete), Raids (you need to learn mechanics and it can take a lot of time) and then there are Dungeons which is something in between the other two. I enjoy doing the weekly dungeon. It still takes some learning and cooperation but it is not as extreme as a raid.

D2 has a lot of different weapons and gear you can collect. They range from Uncommon to Legendary to Exotic. Each Exotic piece is unique in the sense that it has abilities no other piece has. You can get these randomly, by doing certain activities, completing quests, trading with NPCs for resources, and more. Some of these are locked behind the paid DLCs which is understandable. Today I continued a questline to get one of these exotics but I will need one more player to tag along. Not only are the enemies stronger than average, you also have a time limit plus a platforming puzzle.

Talking about puzzles, since I started playing games like FFXIV or D2 I noticed that I have very little appetite to "waste" time figuring out puzzles or mechanics that I don't use in the rest of the game. It actually takes effort on my part to look up how to do these things and then implement it. I expend a lot of mental energy on my studies and doing self-maintenance so usually I don't want to play a game like it is a job. Learning incrementally by repetition does feel good and natural to me. I enjoy knowing more and more about a game's universe the more I play it. Just don't ask me to look at guides on Youtube to solve a very specific piece of content.

This all connects with something I've also started doing more since I really got involved in FFXIV: finding other people to play with and be your mentors is great. Sometimes I feel like a lazy opportunist but there are people that actually like to play the teacher role. Having a group to whom you can ask your questions or help you do parts of the game is great. Hopefully this will also lead to a friendship or two but so far that hasn't happened yet. Finally, the urge to have other people to play with has led me to create a Discord account, something I avoided for a long time out of privacy concerns. I want to avoid the "services in exchange for your data" business model, but sometimes it still is too limiting. It's a tricky trade-off and I guess I could be harsh with myself and say "man you are trading your privacy because of a video game... cmon". However gaming has (at least sometimes) become a way for me to escape other problems in my life, without avoiding and facing them though. So I am now on Discord but I am careful about the information I put out there. Ironically I do share a lot about myself in a post like this, and it's something to think about. Maybe I'm not as consistent in my thinking as I would like be haha.

Guys, I'm back on the Roguelite train. Specifically Undermine on Xbox Game Pass, it's progression loop usually has me scrounging up enough gold to get an upgrade, and then I can do another run with better stats and try and unlock another upgrade. Also noticed that it is pretty heavy on the run tuning, in that it seems to give me a smoother run if I get got earlier than usual. Beat the Rockpile mimic, working on the sandworm boss.

I'm a sucker for interactive stories, some time ago I got Erica (PS4, it was free with PS Plus). I didn't count the number of times I played the full story, I think it was 4, and each time I got an entirely different point of view of the same story. I still have a lot to figure out about the people, the past and the present. It's a game that is worth playing several times.

I've been playing Noita. It's pretty good. It could be great. The devs seem intent on going their own direction though. it's still early access, but I personally would like to see more chemistry in the environment, fewer you win the game combos, more reward for experimentation (most of the time, if you try something new, you die.), and faster transport. I don't want to spend 10 minutes walking the same surface of the world, especially in a roguelike. However, the base game is fantastic.

Battletoads - I know the original game isn't great, but I love it anyway. When I started this decades past due sequel, I was put off. It's really cartoony. After playing through the first three levels, I'm more onboard. It's still cartoony and the jokes miss more than they hit, but I'm finding it a bit more charming. It's over designed with buttons on top of buttons. Seriously, the left trigger is like a shift key that switches from fist attacks to tongue attacks. The first turbo bike portion was less frustrating than the original. I guess I'm really just interested to see where it goes. I never finished the original, but I want to keep playing solely because it's Battletoads.

I started playing The Legend of Zelda: The Windwaker. It started as me just getting the ROM, and seeing how it ran in Dolphin. Then, seeing how to stop stutter. Now, I just cleared Dragon Roost Island. When I last played, I used a strategy guide. As an adult, I'm more committed to solving out games, and revisitng ones I've beaten literally my lifetime later is a great way to experience these games with fresh eyes. I also wound up ordering a USB GameCube controller because I keep stumbling with this XBox One controller I'm using (and I plan to beat Twilight Princess, OoT and MM). I also implemented the Dolphin Gecko widescreen hack, and most of a HD texture pack to get HUD, character, and item HD textures. Even keeping the environment textures in their standard definition, this game still looks great.

The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX: I played too much Lenna's Inception after my second game turned out to be a bust (got 7/8 of the dungeons on my map, gonna just replay my first seed), and decided to jump back twenty some-odd years to this classic, on a Game Boy Color. I beat it on Switch, but never on a Game Boy, and I plan to change that ASAP. This will lead into the Oracle series, which I never got to play.

Poly Bridge 2: Still chipping away at this, but the later puzzles I'm stuck on are too frustrating. I've got three left in World 4, then World 5 to do. I get close to a solution, get frustrated, make bad choices, and the cycle continues, but I'll keep plugging away at it.

Been playing the alpha(?) for Amazon Games' New World. I dig the aesthetics, so far. The game kinda plays like a more arcade-y Dark Souls. Oh, and it's big on factions and PVP, with the map reflecting which faction has control of which zones at any given time. I believe that can be changed via in-game "wars." Though, I've yet to experience any of that. I just wish it had gamepad support.

I have been playing Hypnospace: Outlaw since last week and I'm absolutely loving it. It's a way to get back the internet of old, the geocities and the like. You get to explore (and monitor) a web of homepages. Great music, graphics. Would definitely recommend. It inspires me a lot for https://midnight.pub

Finally got around to dark souls 3, having loved demon's souls, dark souls, and dark souls II. Frankly so far it's just kind of...okay. The PvP is the most lopsided nonsense the series has even shown. Invading has a 90% chance to drop you into a 3 man gank squad, and the game is designed so that solo players almost never get invaded, so you can't just burn a cinder to get some good fights going. The actual bosses are pretty par for the series so far. I think predictability is ruining things for me a bit. There's almost no problem in any of the games that can't be surmounted with rolling and light attacks.