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

I picked up Disco Elysium while it was recently on sale on Steam. I've been playing it for the last two weeks or so and it's the first game in a long time that's managed to get audible laughs out of me every time I pick it up. The writing is funny and engaging. It constantly feels like there are new, interesting characters to interact with and places/things to explore. The abilities and skill trees are meaningful (lots of old-school rpg influence). I wholly recommend it to anyone looking for a laid-back, story-driven experience.

I picked up Rimworld about a week ago based on recommendations from one of the these threads. I like it. The variety is amazing. I've barely touched the surface after 30 hours in. I did the tutorial and one simple game which was 24 of the 30 hours. I did finally give up on that one because at the end I was frustrated with decisions I had made earlier in the game making it difficult to progress off world.

Been playing Super Mario 3D Allstars for my first playthroughs since original release for all three of those games. So, I started with Mario 64 and it is much easier than I remember it being. I'm guessing with 3D games being relatively new at the time, part of the difficulty in Mario 64 was just learning how to play a 3D platformer rather than 2D.

The camera is still very tough to deal with at times, but nothing game breaking. Overall, it's nice to try this one out again after about 25 years of being away (holy cow).

Hades - I set down Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning the minute Hades hit 1.0. This has been in early access for more than a year. I bought in early and I recognized that it was a) Very Good and b) run-based. I stopped playing almost immediately because I didn't want to wear out my interest.

Not wearing out my interest is important for two reasons. I've played plenty of early access games and it turns out that the more I check-in with a game before it hits 1.0, the less likely I am to play it once (much less finish it) after it's completed and released out of early access. Nowadays, I'm mostly taking advantage of early access to get a game I'm very interested in at a price lower than its release price.

The other reason is that I don't tend to stick with run-based games like Hades. I've played a lot of them, and the only one I can name off the top of my head as something I've completed is STRAFE. What usually happens is that I do a couple dozen runs, figure out what the game is about, and then stop playing because I'm bored. I've seen the opening area several times. I've seen the areas beyond a lot less frequently. And then I feel less like I'm building my skills and more like I'm wasting my time. This got real bad in Rogue Legacy. I stopped playing that game because I felt like I was too shitty at it. The currency flushed between runs, so I felt like I was wasting my time with every run that didn't meet the next upgrade threshold.

I'm not feeling that way about Hades though. Almost all of the currencies for upgrades carry forward. The only currency that doesn't is used for in-run purchases. Even if I have a couple bad runs, I've still added to my currency.

The real game changer is the story progression. There's a lobby between runs and it's populated with people you can talk to. They come and go between runs but there's always someone to give me a little nugget of background or chatter. I'm more than a dozen runs in and I'm still meeting new characters. This game has more story than I've seen in any other rogue-like. It's a little intimidating to see how many times I have to chatter with somebody to unlock more information on them, but I'm thrilled to see that I'm not going to run out of stuff to talk about before I get to the end.

Been playing Baldur's Gate 1 for the first time (not EE) in anticipation for Baldur's Gate 3 coming out at the end of this month. I know some fans of BG1 and BG2 are disappointed in the way BG3 looks, and I am a big Larian fan, so I wanted to play so I could understand their point of view. (I have played other games that are similar from around that era, big fan of Planescape: Torment.)

Having played so far for about 15 hours, I think some of the disappointment is understandable and some reactions are definitely over-the-top. The biggest thing is that obviously going from real-time-with-pause to turn-based is a very large change. Although I'm personally ambivalent about the systems overall, that's probably the fairest criticism.

The least fair criticism I think is related to folks worried about the "tone". I'm playing these games for the first time as an adult, and I think some peoples' impressions of the original games are inextricably tied to how old they were when they played them and how seriously they took them at the time. They're worried about it getting too jokey. But in Baldur's Gate one of my first memorable experiences was a man named "Lord Foreshadow" coming up to me and warning me about the city. Come on, that's cute!

As its own thing, I really am enjoying my time with Baldur's Gate despite struggling a bit getting the tech issues all worked out (again, I don't have EE - probably easier, but I already had The Original Saga and I didn't want to purchase again). Gameplay is fun. I think the writing is really good, I like the breadth of potential teammates (though I could go without some of the repetitive voice clips), and of course even when it first came out it had a lot of developed lore and world-building to pull from so that holds up very well. It is the kind of game I would like to play twice.

The UI and UX aged kind of poorly, but it's nothing I haven't dealt with before. I am unfamiliar with the edition of DnD that it was based on so for me, mechanically, character development is kind of a struggle. Also in early levels you and some of your companions have so little HP that a lucky critical can insta-gib you, but hey, that's DnD! The difficulty is also a little weird - I'm finding 99% of fights are brainlessly easy, but every now and then there's been one good encounter that... I mean, it doesn't feel unfair, but it does feel like it's out of nowhere.

I’ve been playing FIFA 19. Kinda boring to talk about: it’s a competent soccer game, you know. I don’t give a fuck about “story mode”, minigames, alternative rules, etc. When I play a soccer game everything besides the match is just noise (Rocket League is obviously an exception). Soccer is beautiful as it is, I’m satisfied to see it happen.

I wish I could disable fluff like replays and cutscenes. There’s a freaking EA Logo on the screen at all times. I don’t wanna play a simulation of a TV broadcast, I wanna play videogame soccer.

I miss my PS2 sometimes.

Maybe I’m getting old.

Still playing chess. I'm just doing it online all the time now. Online chess has always been big, but with the pandemic, it's blown up. Chess.com and lichess.com often have 100,000s of players at any given time.

Mario 64 on PC. I won't link it because of piracy, but it runs really good, with an HD texture pack,and full resolution at 60FPS. I'm thinking of doing a run on it because i have never beat this game, getting about 90% through an my DS back in the day.

Super Mario Sunshine, but in Dolphin, with HD textures, upscaling, in widescreen. It plays fine, and I'm having fun when I dip into it and get a couple shine sprites. FWIW, I own SM3DAS, but don't have my switch ATM, and figure if they're emulating, I can do it better. It's got some jank, the scene transitions are still 4:3 because they're all texture based, but it's normal for this sort of emulation. I'm trying to figure out how to do Galaxy/Galaxy 2 with one control scheme, but that won't need any upgrades.

I'm still doing THPS 1+2. I'm hitting 2 million point combos by accident now, but can do a million on purpose on a few levels. I'm working on all the achievements, as well, but it's going to take a while, especially those 20-million point secret scores. The senior designer on this game is a dude who is known in the community for his scoring, but not for being the best at high score runs (hundreds of mil on this game vs a billion points), so he hid these treats in the game for people who can pull crazy scores. I got the secret board on Chopper Drop, at least, which is the easiest to get.

I'm dropping another top-level comment because I found some winners.

First one is Hedon. It's an FPS built on the GZDoom engine, but framing it that way doesn't do it any justice. It feels like a commercial game in a good way, with plenty of polish, while still getting some of that old-school vibe. I'm actually amazed at this game because it's not a run-and-gun shooter all the way through. There is a lot of puzzling to do, and even the combat can be more strategy than just destroying everything. I didn't expect to like it all that much, but it's a favorite. I've gotten stuck a few times, two on puzzles I couldn't figure out (investigation led me to the solution), and twice on combat sequences, where I had to carefully plan my way through because I was low on health and ammo. I enjoy that it's an option, though. There are also some interesting platforming moments that feel good to finish, which is mind-blowing on what is essentially a feature-rich Doom engine.

The second was art of rally, from Funselektor. If you played Absolute Drift and enjoyed it, you may like this game. The driving is almost identical on tarmac, but as a rally game, you've got gravel and off-road dynamics to deal with as well. It's substantially more intense than Absolute Drift. Different cars, engine types, drive types, dimensions (also an issue in AD). It just came out today, but after their summer demo, I was sold on this game. I played about an hour today, and it's everything I expected it to be. It is a bit more intense than Absolute Drift being a rally game, but it's still really chill. You know, constant time-trialing, improving your run, but race seasons only take 10-15 minutes.

I've been playing Death Stranding and I can't tell if I legitimately like the game or if I just like the feeling of delivering packages (which is kind of amusing given the prevalence of MULEs in the game - people who spend their lives just trying to maintain that rush).

I've been playing keep up with my wife as she plays hollow knight for the first time. Her playthrough is on normal mode, mine is on steel soul mode, which means I'm playing with permadeath. No real close calls so far, but I'm putting off the soul master fight until I can buy the two charm slots that Salubra sells so that I can run fragile strength and fragile heart.

It's also fun to watch someone play the same game so differently than you.In spite of the fact that I lose my save if I die and she doesn't, I'm still way more greedy and less patient when it comes to trading damage.

Just been playing Battletech and Eternal Card Game almost exclusively.

Battletech: Over 40 hours in now, and I feel the series of battles is getting a bit monotonous. However, that con is being kept at bay by the campaign storyline, and the progression of upgrades on my mechs, pilots and HQ. Considering the size of my game backlog right now, I'm not sure I'd keep playing this game after I finish the campaign. However, I've already felt like I've got my money's worth.

Eternal Card Game: I've grinded enough to have 2 campaign card sets now. Campaign sets have a high percentage of powerful cards. I feel moderately competitive now, but it's clear I've hit a ceiling on the ranking ladders, which is Silver I on the Throne ladder. Gonna take some homework and grinding to break through that to Gold III.

Outside of SM3DAS, I got my order confirmation for my Valve Index headset and controllers. Unfortunately, this is not the full kit with the base stations, as that order is still processing with 8+ weeks of expected processing time. I put in the headset+controllers order last week and got my order fulfilled the very next week. Makes me wish I had placed this order when the base stations were in stock, but c'est la vie. I bought a base station locally for a bit of a markup, but worth it so I can get my headset sooner.

I'm so excited! I have been adding tons of VR games and experiences to my wishlist.

Streets of Rouge. I recently picked this one back up after leaving it for a couple of years. Its a freeform, top down rougelike set in a satirical dystopian city. Gameplay wise, its combat system takes heavy inspiration from nuculear throne, with its gunplay and melee combat. Each level, (or floor of the vertical city) has a series of quests on it that you have to complete in order to progress to the next floor. the rewards from these quests, along with items you buy, steal or loot from bodies along the way, are your primary source of progression within a run. You also get character perks each time you level up.

Each character has its own abilities, traits, and overarching quest. For example, if you are playing as a cop, all npc cops are friendly to you, and you loose EXP for doing illegal things. You also gain the ability to handcuff people. The characters are quite varied, both in their form and function, everything from the hacker who barely ever has to enter a building in order to gain access to its contents to the zombie who sends his former enemies turned zombie buddies in to do his dirty work to the sentient gorilla who just charges in.

Ive been enjoying it a lot. Its a good blend of tactical and mindless that just allows me to relax while playing it.

I downloaded A Monster's Expedition Through a Curious Exhibition on the recommendation of some people here. It's ... OK. I love puzzle games, but there's just not enough in this one for me. It reminds me a little bit of The Witness in that all the puzzles are of the same type. But with The Witness there were lots of cool things to see, and the puzzles often explained themselves. Here, they don't explain themselves and there's not a lot to see. Most of the islands are empty except for the trees you have knock down to get to the next island. The exhibitions are not very interesting or funny in my opinion. In The Witness, it felt like you were making progress and uncovering things. Here, it feels like you're just kind of aimlessly wandering around. And the puzzles seem harder than they need to be. When I've been staring at one for several minutes and finally figure it out, I don't get that same sense of accomplishment I get with other puzzle games. It's more like, "Ugh! That was it? Finally! Let's see what's on this new island! Oh, nothing. Just a single tree. Bummer."

Given the sequel is coming out this week I decided to give another serious attempt to spelunky. I hear so many good things about this game but I really did not enjoy it, perhaps I have played too many games that took inspiration from it. I only got to the second world or so so maybe things get more interesting later on but I find that the game play is not very varied. There's only a handful of items and they don't really synergize at all, so every playthrough feels pretty similar, I find it especially annoying that you can't hold most weapons and also your special friend or key, it promotes back tracking, which by itself is already rather unfun, but then throw in the time limit ghost and I find myself just ignoring the friend once I get a goodish item as the added risk of going without the weapon is not really worth the extra health. In General the game doesn't have the race to power up as fast as the enemies that make most rogue-likes so appealing to me. I also find that I almost always have far more money than I need, and I'm picking up cash I see on the way, I don't find the item you invariably get from locked chest is at all worth the extra effort of carrying a key around. There's also a lot of noob traps. For instance, getting the golden idle is trivial if you have already know whats about to happen, but if you aren't expecting it you will almost certainly die. I also dislike how much insta death there is, there are often times where I have to take a leap of faith to continue, and if there happens to be spikes at the bottom the death feels rather unfair, it feels even more unfair when I have 5 health and then accidentally get hit by an enemy and get knocked into the hole that ends in the spikes. I can definitely see the appeal for speed running but as a regular game I think it's not great, am I missing something? I'm torn as to whether to get the sequel, as I wonder how much of the criticism is just being a somewhat older game from when indies weren't quite so profitable and big free updates were not the norm.