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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.
Due to a recent decision by Windows to just not any more, I had to reinstall my OS... and I took the opportunity to switch to using Linux as my daily driver. This has been rather interesting on the gaming front. Quite a few games just work out of the box now, but I've actually been surprised by how well Proton works to make Windows-only games work.
Some things are certainly harder though. I decided to reinstall Skyrim in a bout of nostalgia, and of course, one can't play Skyrim without mods. The modding scene is definitely a bit more setup involved than under Windows... although again, I was actually pleasantly surprised, since I gave it even odds of not working at all, especially complicated ones with SKSE. However, after the initial bit of complexity to get things installed, it really went quite smoothly. Time to start bashing heads (for like 20 minutes until suddenly everyone starts getting bow sniped from stealth again).
Also been working on finishing up A=B, a somewhat mind bending programming puzzle game. Just a couple puzzles left to finish, although I still have about a third to optimize to hit the challenge targets.
Balatro
1.0.1 went live. So far I like the changes, though I'm worried maybe I just like them because they mostly make the game easier. The big ones for me are:
The tags that give you a certain kind of joker in the shop now also make the joker free. It was annoying before to take a tag and then maybe not be able to afford the joker. Now you don't have to worry, but also, if you don't like the joker you can take it then sell it immediately so you even gain money from it. You also have to worry way less about using a double tag on them.
The ante scaling has a slower ramp up. I have mostly been playing on Green stake and it's been feeling a lot better than my first few goes before the patch (pre-patch I did red, blue, yellow decks and a couple attempts at green. Post patch I've done green, black, magic, nebula, abandoned, checkered, zodiac).
When you beat a boss you can check the upcoming blinds for the new ante while you're in the shop. Before you had to do a shop blind (pun not intended) after each boss.
Blue seals now give you a planet card corresponding to the last hand played before victory. This can really help you scale. I like it a lot because I found the blue seals near-useless before. It is good to have some bad things in the game to make the good things good, but I feel like with something as rare as seals it's good to have them all be powerful. I went to Derek Zoolander's Center For Kids Who Can't Balatro Good and made a deck with Blue Steel cards and was playing Flush 5s and generating 3x Flush 5 upgrades every blind.
A bunch of little tweaks to jokers, I'm mostly happy with or haven't noticed a difference.
Some major changes to Orange and Gold stake (oh and the Jokerless challenge), but I haven't tried them yet.
An anecdote, with some context. There's a joker called Gros Michel that gives you +15 mult but has a 1/4 chance to die at the end of each round played. But after it does this, later on the shop you may find the Cavendish (both are bananas) joker , that gives x3 mult and has a 1/1000 chance to die at the end of the round. Post-patch, the initial chance was changed from 1/4 to 1/6. So you get to keep your +Mult joker longer (potentially) but it's harder to get the xMult joker. So the first thing I do in a run is take a polychrome (gives x1.5 mult) joker tag, and it's a polychrome Gros Michel! With the reduced chance of it dying, I feel like this baby is gonna carry me at least to ante 3 or 4. And it's free! This new patch is insane! Beat the next blind, POP! goes the banana. I burst out laughing. Also this run: I played against the boss that makes 1/7 cards get drawn face-down. My entire opening hand was face-down. I did I double take to see if I wasn't mistaken and it wasn't actually the boss that makes you draw your first hand face-down. I really wish I would have thought to take screenshots and/or record the seed, but I didn't. I lost the run, I don't remember if I even beat that boss.
Celeste
I beat a couple levels from the intermediate lobby of the Strawberry Jam mod but haven't really felt excited to try more. I think part of it is the levels seem like such a mixed bag, and I don't like having to wander around the overworld to get one kind of randomly. As tiny a barrier as that is...I also recently went back and played some of my favourites from the beginner lobby. They were still fun, and there are some more I want to re-visit, but yeah, that overworld is still a bit of a pain...
I have been replaying the base game, and last night I felt like I was ready to try for the Golden strawberries on the C sides. Mainly because they're short, I've had a lot of practice on them, and usually the bulk of the length are in the last screen (which you have to do without dying anyway). The only other goldens I've gotten before at 1A and 2A. First I tried 1C for a bit and it wasn't going so well. So I decided to really warm up and try for 7C. Funny enough I was having trouble with the first screen at first, but after some more practice I was able to get the golden berry! After that I thought I may as well go for 8C as that's the next hardest for me. Again after a little practice I got the golden! 6, 5, 4, 3 (ughhhh I hate that last screen with Oshiro), 2...1! I got all the C-side golden berries in one night! I really surprised myself. I will likely go for the B-sides next but I think since they have so many more screens it's going to take me a lot longer.
I had never heard of Balatro, and your discussion was so ... esoteric ... it made me go watch a couple of videos about it. It seems pretty neat. It looks like it might be coming to android soon, so I'd spring for it if that happened.
Pokemon Legends: Arceus - on Yuzu, to spite Nintendo.
I finished the main story, now I'm doing sidequests and completing the Pokedex.
Fighting the Lords was cool, I wish it'd be full-on Souls-like combat but I enjoyed it nonetheless.
It's honestly a fresh breath of air for the Pokemon franchise, and I hoped most of its mechanics were kept in Scarlet & Violet, but as far as I can tell that's not the case.
I will play S&V after completing the Pokedex on this one. Also I'm excited for Legends: Z-A, as Mega Evolutions are back and I expect Game Freak to put a new spin on Kalos, which I will love.
I can confirm, Scarlet and Violet sadly lack most of the mechanics of PLA. It returned to the classic battle system, and the open world feels a bit emptier. I still sometimes try to instinctively sneak up on Pokémon to throw Poke Balls.
Like you said, PLA really was a breath of fresh air for the franchise. I still haven't completed all the side quests and Pokedex in it, but it's really fun!
Arceus felt like a Pokemon game that would've been in my head when I was 5. I utterly adored it, and I hope it's still a fresh testing ground for ideas in the future that they don't feel mired down in like the main series. Also hoping the major emphasis on Z-A in the last set of announcements means it did gangbusters or they're going to give it the attention it deserves.
Been revisiting Dyson Sphere Program since I hadn't played it in a long while. Lot of good QOL updates and the combat is decent fun too. Overall much more polished and mature than when I first tried it out.
I've been bouncing between Helldivers 2 and Slapshot: Rebound.
Helldivers 2 is fantastic and a much needed bar-setter for the games-as-a-service genre, despite it's recent issues. I know a lot of people are try-harding at it, but the most fun moments for me are the unexpected ragdolls and fails.
Slapshot: Rebound is a free 'miniature-hockey' game that has filled the hole in my heart that Rocket League once occupied. Community is really small so you get to know the regulars, and the toxicity is quelled for the most part. Fun little kinetic game to throw 5-15 minutes into.
I've looked into Helldivers a little bit - as someone who can't no-life a game anymore, I'm always aware of the bar to entry. Would you say that it's still possible to jump in as a newbie and have fun, or is it like Rust and hard gate-kept by a few shovel-wielding maniacs?
My brother plays Slapshot a lot. I've heard good things!
Helldivers has no meaningful skill floor or skill ceiling you need to overcome or reach to start playing the game. Its hierarchy is flat. The difficulty scaling is slow enough you get used to it as you unlock the higher difficulties (not hard to do either) and you always have full control what difficulty you want to play at.
You'll unlock a couple of things of things relatively early that may be a bit better than the starting stuff, but even the starter gear is viable.
Aside from (mostly) unintentional friendly fire, there is no PvP in this game so you won't be spawncamped by a day one sweatlord with maxed out gear. If anything, this game is a breath of fresh air in how it seamlessly manages to get people to cooperate towards the common goal. Even out of game when one particular corporation needs to have their grabby claws slapped.
Unique game, decent to good community, healthy monetization (all optional, no FOMO, all earnable in game), consistent content stream.
It's a contender for GOTY.
Others have said most of what I was going to say, but to directly reply:
I think I have more fun in groups where everyone is a different skill level. I've pretty much 'grown into' the game at this point, but there is something so goofy about a level 4 friend dropping into your Suicide difficulty game with a bunch of level 25+s, and the grizzled vets taking them under wing. So even if you're out leveled, half the time it's a great experience in spite of that (even if it is also mostly panic).
To add, the game has a really nice range of difficulty to choose from (ranged 1 to 9). You can take a bunch of easy levels and play solo for a while until the basic mechanics are under your belt, and then if you have difficulty moving up you can grab some friends/randoms and start climbing the difficulty ladder upward.
My only gripe, honestly, is the community is extremely demanding atm. I would stay out of the discord/subreddit (for those that still check that site). Play the game by diving in (lol), learn from mistakes, and make some friends.
And as for Slapshot, yeah it's a goofy time :) I'm not good yet but I've started to not own-goal, which is neat.
100% yes. The difficulties unlock when you complete a mission at the preceding difficulty. but you can pick whatever difficulty you have unlocked. It's even possible to play the first couple difficulties solo. I enjoy my time playing with randoms, it's been a relatively low toxicity game in my experience. But it really shines if you can get a couple friends on voice comms.
Highly recommend it.
Others have made good points about helldivers, but my favorite one for people worried about not being able to "no life" a game is that the gear is (generally) balanced across the board. Your starter gear is just as good as the stuff you unlock, they all just have different use cases. This makes a great situation where there really isn't a best-in-slot kit that you have to take and most people just take what they find enjoyable for their play style
Even the base primary weapon isn't bad. Fairly quickly, you get the SG-225 "Breaker". That weapon can pretty much stay with you the entire game and you'll do just fine and have a good time.
My favorite way to play the game now is to deliberately look out for my teammates as much as they let me. Since I "no-life" the game right now ("funemployed", struggling with depression, enjoy HD2), I tend to play nightly. Yet I still find the occasional newbie who is happy to have someone willing to act as a sheep dog through their experience.
It's best to play it with friends. When you get randos, you never know if you'll have people who are delightful to play with and strive to be a team or a bunch of loose cannons who are all playing their own game. Those occasions, when you get a group of people who want to work together and communicate too? Absolutely sublime. Going back to my band-geek days, it's almost like playing in a symphonic band of people who have rehearsed hard. You play your role. You support your fellow HellDivers. You distributed "Managed Democracy" (aka "Fascism"); remember, this is essentially the true Starship Troopers, The Game complete with all of the sardonic pomp.
ProTip: This game is still buggy AF. It crashes and at the worst possible times.
TIP: to try to keep your game from crashing frequently, delete the %APPDATA%/Arrowhead/Helldivers2/ after every game patch. It seems to help a little.
If you get the game, send me your in-game ID as a message here. I can try to figure out how to send you a friend request. I go by "eight" in HD2.
Manor Lords. I have only got about 2 or so hours in but really enjoying it.
It's so good until it fizzles out.
Which is not a complaint, mind, this is a fantastic game and everything that's already there is pretty stellar, but it's just unfinished. What happens is that you hit the point of no content and it made me just hope there was more.
I've had one successful run and quit. This is going to be great down the line when it nears 1.0.
Enjoy!
Ya I kind of assumed that would be the case. I play through slow since I only get a little time here and there so maybe more content will be added before I get to that point! Lol
Still on my campaign to git gud at souls games. So I'm playing Dark Souls 3
I spent a lot of time on the High Wall of Lothric. Practicing my timings and positioning. Racked up a lot of levels. While running around I cleared the area around Vordt, only had 2 flasks but figured I'd hop into the fight to feel it out. Equipped the Deep Battle Ax because I was told he is weak to dark but didn't use any buffs since the intent was to gain information about the fight. Ended up taking him down on my first try. Suffice to say that gave me a lot of confidence and I've moved on to the Undead Settlement.
Haven't had any major issues and I've explored most of the settlement. I'm overleveled from all my time on the high wall (31 I think), but it's good because it gives me some margin of error. There are a couple areas I haven't explored but so far so good. Will need to find the friend NPCs and the Undead Bone Shard then I'll take on the Curse Rotted Greatwood.
I'm still replaying Witcher 3 for maybe a month now.
I played it on my Switch Lite and finished it there - quite a good port, actually. Yes, it can't run in as much detail as it can on a PC etc. But the game runs just about fine, looks okay for such a portable console and the most of all - it works! It doesn't crash and just works.
I'm replaying it on Steam Deck now. I run classic version (you can select it in Steam properties of the game) as the display is so small you won't be able to make differences, probably. Also classic is much less power and performance hungry. I run 30 fps locked on 2 years old (OG) Steam Deck with reported battery health of 85% and it can do 2-3 hours depending mainly on brightness and complexity of scenes (Novigrad needs more power than some beach on Skellige). If I run next-gen version it would need much more power to run 30 fps resuling in considerably less baterry life. It runs perfect on Steam Deck!
The game itself... There's not much to tell. I believe it is very well known and in high regard accepted one. I think it did age really well. I don't think there are many more recent singleplayer oriented games of such quality, such complex vast world that actually isn't empty and has its own story. Game mechanics are still good, quests are still good (they vary in length a lot and also there are more ways to solve for many of them, they are not repetitive, which is great). I like the game a lot. And considering you can get it for literally a few bucks and have at the very least 150 hours of great content... Yeah, it is kinda unbeatable in its category. I think every RPG or action-RPG or action-adventure (or whatever this game is) fan should play Witcher 3.
If you want the most enjoyment out of it, go for highest difficulty, the Death March. You will learn to parry, dodge and use all thepotion, oils and signs very quickly and the game will be challenging. I think this is the way to play it - I didn't even try lower difficulties. And I'm not that great of a gamer. If I could do it, you can at least try :-)
I picked up Another Crab's Treasure when it came out about a week ago, and it's been a blast. It's a souls-like game where you're a hermit crab using different shells to gain different abilities and armor. Your main goal is to get your stolen home back, but you end up having to do more and more just to meet the demands of the business shark who stole it. This is the most I've ever played a souls-like, since in the past my muscle memory from Monster Hunter has interfered with my dodge timings to the point that I couldn't get very far. Another Crab's Treasure is relatively lighthearted and simpler than most of the genre, but it still includes common mechanics like dodging, blocking and parrying, quick/light and slow/heavy attacks, health potions, and bonfires/checkpoints. It's full of references, memes, and puns and overall it's been a blast to play.
Now that Sony has backed off on their decision to force PSN accounts, Helldivers is back on the menu. It's been mentioned farther up in the conversation, but I really think that this is the best co-op PvE experience we've gotten in a long time - and that includes most of my beloved Monster Hunter. The gameplay is third person over-the-shoulder, with first person aiming down sights for most guns, where you're fighting either Automatons (robots) or Terminids (bugs) who are encroaching on planets claimed and controlled by Super Earth. The whole game is set in a satirical fascist future where the government can do no wrong, and the satire is laid on thick enough that most people are able to catch it early on. There are battlepasses, but they're optional, can be unlocked for free via gameplay, and never expire, so there's no fear of missing out to motivate you to indulge in microtransactions. Overall, the developers (Arrowhead Games) are doing their absolute best to do everything right, and the game has only gotten better since it came out.
Finally, I've been casually playing and streaming BPS - Bullets Per Second. It's a FPS roguelike where you shoot, jump, dodge, and generally act on a beat similar to Crypt of the Necrodancer. Movement (yours and enemies) is not constrained to the beat, so you have to keep moving to avoid getting hit. The gameplay feels fast-paced and overall pretty smooth, but sometimes the beat detection just feels sloppy and a shot doesn't go off or your combo multiplier gets reset as a result. One of the stars of this game is the soundtrack - each level you go through has its own soundtrack, and areas like shopkeepers have their own tracks too. It's almost all metal, which fits the Norse theming of the levels and the Valkyrie characters you play. My two winning runs took me roughly an hour each, so it's a good game to pick up and play in relatively shorter bursts if you don't have long stretches of time.
I started playing Hotel Dusk: Room 215 for the Backlog Burner event. Only just finished the second chapter. Controls took a bit to get used to (I still keep looking at the touch screen instead of the actual room), and it's pretty cool to hold my DS that way compared to other games. I also got a couple game overs already. (The one time I decided to go for the harsher dialogue option instead of trying to be nice and patient—)
I do shamefully have a spoiler-free guide open because I got too focused on one of the first puzzles (the suitcase), and didn't realize I was supposed to come back to it later on. When I opened the guide, I'd even already gone down to the first floor to look for a tool, so the game would have advanced anyway. The guide helped me out though after one game over, since I didn't realize that game over basically reset the stuff I'd done in that room.
Other than that, one thought I can't get out of my head: Louie looks a heck of a lot like Dan from Game Grumps. I don't see many characters with hair like that, so every time I see him it's just my first thought. Him having an old friend named Danny does not help xD
Easily one of my favorite games on DS. Don't forget to check out Last Window: Secret of Cape West the follow-up. I actually thought it was better than Hotel Dusk.
Finished Super Mario Wonder. It was a good time all the way through. When I finished the final level, I was missing a badge. I needed to buy the rest of the character stands. Fortunately there was a level that gives you a decent amount of flower coins. Plus you can play as a Yoshi or Rabbit to not take damage. A bit of grinding and I was able to 100%.
Jumped back into Advanced Wars: Reboot Camp to play Black Hole Rising. It's been awhile since I played the first one. I forgot about how nice the graphical updates are. After the first area, you're free to jump to other countries. Having that choice is cool and you unlock other maps if you capture specific buildings sometimes. Can't remember if that's how it was in the original game, but it's really cool here.
Abiotic Factor released in early access last Thursday so I picked it up with a friend and we binged it together until we progressed to the story's current state of completion. To put it simply, it's a survival crafting style game set in an underground research facility that's very reminiscent of the Black Mesa Research Facility in the first Half Life game. You play as one of the researchers in the lab and your goal is to escape to the surface after the lab suffers a total containment failure and all hell is breaking loose. The graphics are even done up to appear visually similar to the first Half Life, though the lighting and other details make it feel modern enough. Even the sound design is similar to the first Half Life. Aside from all the Half Life referencing though, there's also some inspiration taken from SCP. There's various anomalies and whatnot that are either locked up in containment or interactable to varying degrees.
If you like the original Half Life and also enjoy the survival crafting genre this game is a great way to kill 40ish hours so far, with more on the way. Getting past some of the puzzles needed for progression can definitely be a bit confusing right now though since the game usually won't hand you the solutions on a silver platter, so make sure you read the lore and journal entries, the information there can be good for more than just world-building.
I bit the bullet and got No Rest for the Wicked. It's such a masterpiece already for an early access title. Moon Studios is looking to supersede what they delivered with both Ori-titles and I really dig it. The content is a little scarce but the groundwork is there. My recommendation is firm but I can also see why people would want to wait out until the 1.0 release.
Still cracking away at Dragon Warrior 3 on GBC here and there. Finally made it out of the pyramid and to the next town, which is further than I've made it in the past, so I'm pretty happy.
Wish I could tell how long I've been playing, as I feel like I've already done 15hours or so and I've barely explored the map, so it feels like there is a ton more to go, not that I'm complaining.
Yeah it's around now when the game opens up more. I think you are about to discover some pretty cool things. And you're right in that there's a lot to go (I didn't actually finish the game, maybe one day... but I'm on a JRPG-free diet this year). After the next couple of quests is when I got really stuck, stupidly. I had a clue that said to search a for a particular geographical feature, and I got obsessed looking at the wrong part of the map for the wrong thing! I just couldn't fathom that I was looking in totally the wrong place for it, so had to peek at a guide there. If I could have just have someone say "look somewhere else, doofus, it isn't there" it would have helped haha. Also around this point is where I was thinking, "WTF was it we are supposed to be doing again?!" It seems like your original quest is mostly forgotten as you stumble from one weird request to the next, and yet they all lead you to exploring further.
I've definitely been consulting a guide here and there when I feel like I'm losing momentum. I'd generally prefer not to use them, but when I'm not sure where I go next, I do look.
I'm back on Assassin's Creed Origins.
I started to play last summer on the Steam Deck, then forgot about it for months and only picked it up again a few weeks ago on my desktop. It can be played for short sessions of 30 minutes and there's always something to do, though I'm trying to not let myself too distracted by the side quests and collect-a-thons. Overall this game is a nice surprise: the AC Ezio trilogy are among my favorite games, and AC3 and 4 were huge disappointments. I did not expect to like another AC game, but Origins has a likeable protagonist and the story is "good enough" for a video game.
Lots of places to explore and things to do without getting bored (yet), action, stealth, a crafting system that doesn't require a boring grind, casual enough to not get frustrated... I can't ask more of an AAA game.
Don't give up on the side quests entirely, though. There aren't too many collect-a-thons, and most of the side quests have an actual, interesting, and world-building story.
I think it's one of the only games I actually went out of my way and try to do all quests, and it never felt like it was a chore.
Oh sure I always enjoy those side quests, but I'd like to actually finish the game 😅
This week we played Barony for our podcast on roguelike games
Overall: its...okay? The youtube community loves this game and for a while I couldn't figure out why. Barony is brutally difficult, even in its tutorial section, to the point of being frustrating I feel. There are a lot of accessibility options you can turn on to help with it, luckily, but much of the core gameplay loop feels like the difficulty is masking the lack of gameplay options available.
Case in point: melee in this game feels objectively bad. Now first-person melee systems are hard to do in general, but in Barony you can't backstep at a fast enough speed to swipe-retreat from your enemies like you can in Minecraft. Instead, the idea is you attack, turn, run, turn, attack. You can shield, but your shields can be broken and raising a shield feels like it doesn't really do much to stop the onslaught of rat attacks.
I think the appeal here is largely with co-op. Playing with more people makes the game substantially easier from a firepower perspective, but also being able to heal allies, and generally having more combat options open. Split-screen co-op is particularly fun, giving the game an old-school feel that I haven't felt since maybe the N64 era.
Barony in co-op is just on the verge of managed chaos constantly and I think that's where it shines best: a bunch of friends on the couch with maybe a couple spectators cheering in bemusement when a boulder rolls over someone unexpectedly.
I'm basking in the afterglow of Disco Elysium. It took a while to get into at first, but when I figured out what the game was even about, it clicked. Then when I figured out what the game was really about, it clicked again. That game clicked so hard with me. I'm going to miss it!
The multitude of dialogue options were overwhelming at first, until I realized it's a way to ask the player questions about themselves. I didn't have to pick every option, and I felt better by skipping some options entirely. It was pretty disco
Little late to it, but the remaster of Dead Space is amazing. It's been years since I played the original, however this title still packs a punch!
Project 1999. At a high level, it's Everquest if Everquest had stopped at the Velious expansion. Free to play, 0 real money transactions. Runs on pretty much any hardware, in modern Windows or Wine in Linux (probably mac too).
If you played 20+ years ago it's pure nostalgia.
If you didn't play 20+ years ago, it's a shining example of what MMO's could have been. I still find myself regularly in awe of the detail and variety.
The game is hard. You can seriously distinguish yourself from the teeming masses with practiced skill and knowledge. It doesn't just not hold your hand, it bites it. You lose about 20 minutes of grinding experience when you die, sometimes more. Gear stays on your corpse (corpse recovery can be seriously problematic). No in game maps (you can install or roll your own log file parser to super impose a dot for your location on a zone map). No exclamations over quest giver's heads. No in game tutorials (youtube videos are abundant and the wiki is extensive). Unlike 20 years ago, the community is generally positive and supportive.
I picked Shattered Pixel Dungeon up again, and just polished off earning Silver Champion with Hostile Champions, Badder Bosses, and Swarm Intelligence active. I'd previously completed a Rogue run with Barren Land active, that wasn't too bad. This run was a test of my skills though, and were it not for the frankly ridiculous combination of a Glyph of Camouflage and the Huntress's Rejuvenating Steps skill granting almost on-demand stealth, I don't think I would have made it to the end.
I got serious about Epic Seven again, and finished the Real Time Arena (RTA, where you and your opponent draft units back and forth and then face each other in real time) season at a tier high enough to earn a skin for a character for the first time. It was kind of scary at first, as I was learning essentially how to draft, but I knew that one could hit Master (the tier necessary to earn the skin, and there are four more tiers above it) with a 33% win rate... But I hit a pretty good stride, and made it up to a 53% win rate. I think that if (for some reason) you're looking for a gacha to play, you need look no further. The company seems to genuinely care about player satisfaction, and the writing is at least most of the time more than good enough.
I have been playing Six Sided Streets by Chris Klimowski on Itch.Io
It's a fun puzzle game. You "place trios of hexes to grow your town outward from the TOWN CENTER".
You score points by connecting street hexes together, and more points if they connect to a port. You score points by joining parks together. Wind turbines like to be on a hill, but also like to be alone, so don't join wind turbines to other wind turbines.
I'd be really interested in other similar low key puzzle games with tile placement. Nothing too hard, simple to pick up, easy to play. (Any console, too, especially if it's PS1 or older).
Animal Well released today, and it's pretty great so far, a few hours in.
It's sort of a mix between a metroidvania and a puzzle platformer, and it feels like there's layers of things to uncover. I've collected two macguffins out of three (maybe four?), and I'm loving the items and the creative ways you can use them.
Spoilers for an item
I just accidentally discovered that the disc/frisbee can be ridden on, and I'm only just now beginning to think of places to apply that. And that's on top of what you can do with the bubble wand.It really feels like one of those games that rewards curiosity and exploration, in a way that reminds me a little of Rain World. I highly recommend trying to avoid spoilers, it's definitely the kind of game you want to go in blind if possible.
I'm playing through the Mass Effect trilogy using the legendary edition on gamepass. I played maybe ten minutes of ME2 on PC years ago, but didn't get into it at all. Starting with the first game after several years of growing to love RPGs and with the graphical/QOL improvements has made all the difference. The hooked on the story, world, and characters.
Somehow I've never had the story spoiled for me in all my years of reading and talking about games. I've just heard that Andromeda kind of ruined it... But that's all I knew.
I'm doing missions in the order suggested by the spoiler free mission guide on reddit and trying to do all the side content. The in game timer has me at 60 hours, but I think that includes lots of long pauses when I fell asleep or left for work. Still, it feels like a really deep game for it's time and I love the characters and alien cultures. Every moment spent reading in this game feels like time well spent, and I'd seriously love to sit down and have a beer with Wrex, Tali, Joker, or just about anyone else from the Normandy crew.
My only complaint is that the exploable planets (except for the major plot planets) all have the same three or four POIs with little variation. In that sense it reminds me a bit of starfield. But overall I think bioware nailed the RPG elements in ways that BGS missed with starfield. Namely in the world building and cultural intrigue. I really want to know more about all the different species, their beliefs, systems of government, et cetera.
Best excited to get to the end of ME1 and probably ill go straight to ME2 when done.
Yakuza Kiwami 2. I am only in the fourth chapter so far. I love the first game, Yakuza Kiwami, from the seriousness that the main story, which is more of a crime drama, to the very silly side stories that is carried on in this installment. And to the over there top finishing moves that Kiryu does to the poor fools that picks fights, which seems to be expanded upon from the first game. So I am enjoying it so far.
I am also playing Genshin Impact, which I have been playing for the past 2-3years now. I am enjoying the new event and the newest character that was released after the update.
I'm trying out V Rising on Steam since it just graduated from Early Access. It isn't what I expected based on vague reviews, but I am enjoying it. I was expecting a more vampire themed survival/building sandbox game (e.g. Valheim, but as a vampire instead of a viking), but it feels more like the PS1 game Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain, but with co-op and base building. It's a pretty interesting game and fairly challenging, but half the challenge thus far is the clunky UI and lacking tutorial. I'm still trying to convince others to play as I think it will shine more in co-op.
The original Fallout. What I've been reminded is that it's a really cool introduction into that world, but kind of a dogshit interface overall, at least by modern standards that take the players' satisfaction into more account.
The conversation trees are often a bit buggy or at least not fully fleshed out. Sometimes the things you have to do to trigger the right thing in a conversation are really buried or not particularly intuitive.
But that said, the music is still pretty amazing for a late 90s game, the graphics are dated but not terrible, and you really do feel like you're out scouring a proper irradiated post-apocalyptic L.A. It's also been neat to see the nods in the TV series to the original.