Add awesome game deals to this topic as they come up over the course of the week!

Alternately, ask about a given game deal if you want the community’s opinions: e.g. “What games from this bundle are most worth my attention?”

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Let me start by saying I really enjoyed playing the Mass Effect games. They are awesome.

I found the plot, though, incoherent. Especially in ME3. I don't mind small conveniences like "good thing this random teleporter beam designed to suck up corpses has easy entrée to the reaper's command center," because it's a game.

But how on earth did Cerberus amass seemingly billions of elite special operations forces with nobody noticing? What do you mean the secret weapon against the reapers has been improved each cycle by people who didn't know what it was supposed to do? How could that possibly result in a functional device?

It's clear, I think, that this wasn't necessarily the direction the first game was going. Cerberus was the subject of a side quest, but nothing more. The authors of the lore seemed to be taking great pains to ensure everything was logical, based on the in-universe rules they had established.

...and then ME2 kicks off and the series is almost as much about Cerberus, from this point on, as it is about the reapers.

What did you think about how the plot unrolled?

(You may also wish to read this series of essays. It's about 18 billion words long, though - fair warning. https://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=27792)

I got Skyrim on PC, which means that I can really MOD now. However, a lot of the MODs are about making things more difficult, complex, or realistic, appealing to very "pro" players. That is not my case. I just wanna do Skyrim the "right way", but without the cruft of a 2011 game. What are some MODs that make the game more manageable and lively?

And yes I'm playing this instead of Starfield :P

Add awesome game deals to this topic as they come up over the course of the week!

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Here's a first world problem: I work remote and sometimes I get bored during meetings. Wondering if you guys had any game recommendations for games I can play on a second monitor or something while I kill boredom in my meetings. Mouse only is probably the biggest requirement, and also something more "turn based" so if I need to I can still pay attention to the parts that I need to.

Some of my recommendations:
Slay the Spire (+ Downfall) - I "beat" all of it (A20H for all characters) so I wanted to take a break, but I loved it.
Monster Train - I didn't get into it as much as StS tbh, it's fineeee but not my personal favorite
Super Auto Pets - I'm not really an Autobattler kinda guy but the slow pace and the rotating sets make this game kinda perfect for what I'm looking for!
Brotato - I've been playing mouse only, but can't really stop it in the middle of an intense run tbh.

Steam or Android games if possible!

I remembered that thread asking about the update to Cyberpunk 2077, and figured after finishing the expansion I'd offer what I've got. I played the game once on release prior to playing now.

The tl;dr - its a hell of a lot better, can totally recommend it, expansion was cool and fun

The long:

First, regarding the update. It's excellent. The game does feel significantly better to play, because a whole lot less is bugging the hell out. You do occasionally come across some silliness, like four of the same car all at an intersection, or the same child populating a cafeteria. But these moments are far, far less frequent, I think I can count on one hand after 50 hours, the number of times stuff like that happened.

Wanted system is functional now. It just works the way you'd expect, and it is pretty easy to escape. More lawless parts of town are appropriately easier to get away with shit in. Driving feels better but still feels weird to me, like everything is slippery/wheels never have good traction.

The skills/perks/inventory stuff is a thousand times better. It has a few weird things here and there but is easier to follow and use. It's nice not having to really mess around with clothes and just look however I want. Combat is a lot more fun now that stuff behaves appropriately. That's really the theme of it, they did fix what needed fixing, and what we're left with much more closely aligns with folks' original expectations.

Quests wrap up and sometimes into one another in ways which are genuinely very impressive, and I encountered all of one that had an issue with it. I pretty much constantly went from quest to quest and found there was enough variety that I didn't really care about wandering much. I still did, and that is all much improved too. Npcs behave a lot better and look nicer, and jobs consistently finish up the way they're supposed to.

I specialized in blades, pistols, and shotguns, and played on Normal, mostly on my steam deck. I mostly raised Reflexes, Technical Ability, and Cool. I got to turn into a Dragonball ninja assassin, occasionally dualing Japanese cyborg women with katanas in the street. I'd get into shit because melee is genuinely pretty fun to mess with.

The visuals are awesome even on the handheld, the preset for the deck is higher than I expected. Performance was consistently good, on the deck as well as my PC. PC can go maximum and is using a 144hz display, it looks really really good with everything pushed.

The expansion:

It fits squarely within the best of what the game offers. The storyline is complex and goes into the rest of the world in an impressive way, it's like it's always been there. The characters are exceptionally well done, as is the voice acting. The whole thing felt like a great season of a good show, it kinda proceeds like that too.

Dogtown is a really cool area. The detail is wild and sense of place really some of the strongest in the game. I felt uneasy at night in the rain, that's always cool for a game to evoke. It feels both like it's own independent spot and like a part of the city, they really nailed it with how it looks and what's available there.

Conclusion:

The complete package I'd say is totally worth it. Compared to release it is a completely different game. Feels like a much more realized vision, that consistently hits some pretty high notes. Panam is still the coolest, but Songbird was a really well done character too. With the game not being a flaming wreck, it's way easier to get into the storytelling, and it is pretty great for this medium. Especially those major characters, they're interestingly complicated and don't always behave how you'd expect. The overall experience is kinda like being a protagonist in a tv show, quests have their own arcs and climaxes and characters appear distinctly changed by the events as they unfold. That was always there, but now I'm comfortable saying you'll actually have that experience playing it.

The new Forza Motorsport has released to the masses as of today, and has been available to those who paid extra for premium upgrades and the like for about a week. I got it via Xbox Gamepass and played about an hour of it this morning, and so far it feels like a nice return to form for the series, which hasn't seen a new non-Horizon edition since Forza Motorsport 7 in 2017.

That game had some baggage with the card system/gambling mechanics, and I'm glad to see none of that thus far in the new Forza Motorsport - which, you may have noticed, has dropped the number. There's a feeling that Microsoft/Turn 10 may be aiming to make this something of a long-term platform play rather than just another game in the series.

I'm enjoying it so far, and after playing Forza Horizon 4 and 5 a lot since FM7 came out, I'm glad to have the return to more traditional circuit racing, and absolutely do not miss the supremely annoying voiced characters from those games.

The thing I most immediately noticed upon playing the game (besides the graphics, which are a real showcase for the Xbox Series X or a sufficiently beefy PC) is the new upgrade/tuning system, which requires you to actually spend time driving a specific car in order to unlock the various upgrade parts for it. You earn car points for doing things like clean racing and fast lap times, which you can then spend on upgrade parts between races. The game keeps calling those CP, which makes me think that nobody at Turn 10 has spent any time on the internet. An unfortunate acronym...

I'm curious to know what everyone's opinion on this game is. I know a lot of the audience is turned off by the more sim-like/boring nature of the Forza Motorsport games versus the arcade fantasy for the Horizon games, but I'm very much on the FM side of that divide.

Cities: Skylines II is an upcoming city-building game developed by Colossal Order and published by Paradox Interactive. It is a sequel to Cities: Skylines, and expands upon many of the simulation factors such as simulated city and population sizes, and improved traffic AI and management schemes. The game is scheduled for release on 24 October 2023 for PlayStation 5, Windows, and Xbox Series X/S.

Source: Wikipedia

As we near the release date of Cities: Skylines II, more and more media and articles both substantial and fluff-esque are going to be popping up everywhere. Inspired by the release of Two Dollars Twenty's YouTube gameplay video (linked below), this thread is a repository for any morsel of news regarding the much anticipated city-building sequel. Utilise the tags to see previously posted content on Tildes.

Tildetablers,

What board games, card games and whatnot have you been playing this week? Don't be shy, share those sessions!

For me it was a single game of Western Legends with expansions. I've played this game, sans expansions, a couple of times and have never really been blown way, but the expansion certainly helped and I enjoyed it a whole lot more.

The game sets you as a character in the wild west. It's a bit of a sandbox game: there are a bunch of things you can do and you have freedom moving around and doing them. You can hustle cattle, play poker, buy upgrades, prospect for gold, fight, steal, &c. You basically earn points by doing each of these things and working your way up various tracks to earn legendary points which are victory points.

The expansions added a whole frontier area to explore and added story cards, which are basically thematic events that give you goals to claim. I feel like extra board and story cards really improved the experience and immersion and it was much more enjoyable this time around. We also played two characters each, which may also have helped, as this made it possible to explore different strategies at the same time.

I'm still not massively impressed with the game, but I don't think I'll disappointed if it's suggested now. If I were forced to rate it I'd probably give it a 1.8/π.

So, everyone, what have you played this week? What did you think? What are you hoping to play next?