So, what're you playing?

[Count Nerfedalot]

Steam has Battle Brothers on sale for $10 this weekend.  Well worth it. The graphics are off but work well and it's a very well done turn based gritty tactical medieval low-magic fantasy campaign type game.

[Kail]

Finished Werewolf: the Apocalypse - Earthblood, overall I really enjoyed it, though that's probably more more due to low expectations than it being an objectively good game.  It's definitely got a lot of decisions which would be really bad in a normal game, but Earthblood was so easy that they were just kind of funny rather than frustrating, if that makes any sense.  It's kind of like a stealth action game, except stealth doesn't work particularly well, and you're so overpowered for the action that stealth feels more like you're going out of your way to be kind to the enemies rather than any kind of tactical necessity.  I was about to write a huge post about some of the design decisions or technical bugs which baffled me, but I figure anybody who's played the game will already know, and anybody who hasn't played it won't want to read ten paragraphs for context on why feature X is broken, so I'll just say that it might be fun on steep discount, but I can't just flat out say "buy this" if you're looking for a good game.

[Sky]

Still slow playing RDR2 in chapter 2, just checking out the map and hunting to upgrade the camp, unlock satchels, and get my stats up. It's been tough finding a panther, but I finally got one for the last satchel I needed. Satchels in RDR2 double your inventory stack count (5 to 10), and there is a final version that 'significantly boosts' count. I expected it to go to 25 or 30...it's 99. I guess I just unlocked easy mode for the story. Nice that my chill gameplay ended up maxing my stats and giving me the OP satchel.

[Cyrrex]

Now having finished off both the Witcher 3 expansions (which were both great), I am trying a restart of RDR2, hoping it will stick this time.  The controls still deserve all the scorn I can heap on them, but maybe I will manage to used to it this time.

[Mandella]

So I've been in a slow-paced, "game as art" mood for a while. Played through the Subnautica Sequel and actually enjoyed all the base building and exploration parts, but if anyone wants to compare notes on what I considered the WTF revelation of what happened to the main character's sister I'm there for you. Also, I discovered that this game's cheap knockoff of the first game's Happy Fish was not immortal when I accidentally backed my Seatruck over it...

 

Played little known indie game Kholat, and this is one where I wish someone had introduced the creative team to some actual game designers at some point in the process. What should have been a slowly building horror/mystery was just tedium to me. And if we are going to have a substantial part of the game be based on stealth, can we perhaps include some stealth mechanics into the gameplay?

Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice. Second time trying this game for me. First time I put it aside as I found the combat to just be unworkable, especially problematic with the game straight up telling you that too many deaths would result in a restart. Well after reading that they were basically lying about the latter, and the former I fixed by both reading up online for battle tactics and by turning the difficulty down to Easy. After that I felt the combat was the appropriate level of difficulty to not bog down the story to a slog, and the story was great, IMHO. And for once the featurette making-of that is packed with the game was worth watching.

Next up, Alan Wake.

[schild]

So I've been in a slow-paced, "game as art" mood for a while. Played through the Subnautica Sequel and actually enjoyed all the base building and exploration parts, but if anyone wants to compare notes on what I considered the WTF revelation of what happened to the main character's sister I'm there for you. Also, I discovered that this game's cheap knockoff of the first game's Happy Fish was not immortal when I accidentally backed my Seatruck over it...

 

Played little known indie game Kholat, and this is one where I wish someone had introduced the creative team to some actual game designers at some point in the process. What should have been a slowly building horror/mystery was just tedium to me. And if we are going to have a substantial part of the game be based on stealth, can we perhaps include some stealth mechanics into the gameplay?

Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice. Second time trying this game for me. First time I put it aside as I found the combat to just be unworkable, especially problematic with the game straight up telling you that too many deaths would result in a restart. Well after reading that they were basically lying about the latter, and the former I fixed by both reading up online for battle tactics and by turning the difficulty down to Easy. After that I felt the combat was the appropriate level of difficulty to not bog down the story to a slog, and the story was great, IMHO. And for once the featurette making-of that is packed with the game was worth watching.

Next up, Alan Wake.

Steamdeck finally getting me to play all sorts of shit.

[Rendakor]

I have Kholat too, because I've always found the Dyatlov Pass Incident fascinating...but I never even installed it, much less launched it. Glad to see I'm not missing anything.

[Mandella]

I have Kholat too, because I've always found the Dyatlov Pass Incident fascinating...but I never even installed it, much less launched it. Glad to see I'm not missing anything.

Well, it is short, so it's got that going for it. Plus everyone likes different things -- I'd actually be interested in a different person's take on it. It doesn't have universally bad reviews -- and for some people the atmosphere overcomes the gaming shortcomings.

Interestingly, once I got into it, that's the way I felt about Hellblade. Wonky and slow paced and short, but I actually miss playing the game. I loved the art direction and the way the story was presented.

[ezrast]

I just finished Cult of the Lamb, a delightful hack-and-slash action game with some Animal Crossing-esque base management mechanics. The combat frequently gets compared to Hades, which I have not played, but it also draws some very obvious inspiration from The Binding of Isaac, both mechanically and flavor-wise (the humor isn't quite as dark as Isaac and mostly stems from cute cartoon animals delighting in service to a brutal cult compound).

All the base management tasks take a little too long to animate, and I hit a bug that blocks tech progression early on but doesn't prevent you from beating the game so I wound up redoing the same maintenance jobs over and over, which got fairly tedious. The bug is fixed in the Steam version of the game but the patch hasn't been deployed to other platforms yet. Other than that the game is a blast and I'd recommend it to anyone who likes dungeon crawls and isn't turned off by the aesthetic.

[schild]

$24 and came out last week

I wanna play it but that confirms I'll get it from humble choice or something

[Khaldun]

I have shit in my queue that I want to play but I'm too tired to play it for some reason. I started up Disgaea 5 the other day, having picked it finally in a Steam sale, and somehow I just couldn't deal with all the JRPGness before I got to the gameplayness. I'm in a comfort food mood at the moment.

[Sky]

Decided to take a break from RDR2 cowboy life for a while (again), as it's not a setting I'm really into (which imo speaks volumes of the well over 200 hours between PS4 & PC, it's a real masterpiece of a game).

I figured enough time has passed for PB to fix some stuff in Elex 2, so I got into that. Love these games: choices matter, tough combat that rewards smart play, rewarding exploration, no Ubi-style icon map, no level scaling. You have to be careful with the 'weak dinglebird' or whatever, but also wary that an adult dinglebird might be hiding in a bush nearby that will kerpwn you. The map allows icon notation, so you build out your own Ubi-style map by exploring and marking it up yourself. If you just try to roll into combat, you're going to push daisies. Nice exploration vignettes, like finding a rare rocket launcher with a note about 'no idea who the previous owner was due to finding it in a destroyed fuel depot'...in a destroyed fuel depot. Also the jetpack continues to deliver.

And it's old school in that it's highly incentivized to save scum. Before a conversation (choices matter), before a combat, whatever. Good quicksave to try monsters out as you're learning where your power level is.

Also good because I've got an infrequent, non-reproducible CTD graphics bug (not just this game, happens in Madden, too). But I lose almost no gameplay in Elex 2, which also loads so quickly I'm barely even perturbed by them (unlike Madden, don't lose gameplay but it's a long damned load into the game).

[Rendakor]

I have shit in my queue that I want to play but I'm too tired to play it for some reason. I started up Disgaea 5 the other day, having picked it finally in a Steam sale, and somehow I just couldn't deal with all the JRPGness before I got to the gameplayness. I'm in a comfort food mood at the moment.

Long tutorials have always been an annoying hallmark of the Disgaea series, more so even than other JRPGs. I generally liked D5 though, and haven't bought 6 because I hear it's worse in most ways that matter.

[Rasix]

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 has been fantastic. Still not a fan of the "win fight, lose cutscene" shit that sometimes happens, but this is a great JRPG. Less cringy than 2, but it does have its anime moments.

[Khaldun]

The "win fight, lose cutscene" structure in any videogame is something that always enrages me.

[Riggswolfe]

The "win fight, lose cutscene" structure in any videogame is something that always enrages me.

I am taking a break from Scarlet Nexus for this very reason. I keep winning boss battles only for them to laugh at me and escape in cutscenes and its super annoying. If you don't want me to win the fight just interupt it when I get them down by 25% or something so I'm not sitting there going "Why the hell did he get up from being broken and out of HP on the floor only to laugh at me and escape like he actually won the fight?"

On the game front I find myself replaying Assassin's Creed Odyssey. I dig its combination of RPG and, well, Assassin's Creed. It actually ruined me for past games in the franchise because they feel so bland after playing it.

I'm mostly in a holding pattern waiting on something new to come along if I'm honest. I keep thinking about making a 3rd try at RDR2 but each time I finish up the prologue then kind of get bored during the Open World part. I think it's because I don't connect to any of the characters really.

[Job601]

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 has been fantastic. Still not a fan of the "win fight, lose cutscene" shit that sometimes happens, but this is a great JRPG. Less cringy than 2, but it does have its anime moments.

I liked the original Xenoblade Chronicles, but I couldn't play 2 because I didn't want my kids to see those character designs (and also didn't really want to look at them myself for 60 hours.) Do you think I would I like 3?

[Khaldun]

The "win fight, lose cutscene" structure in any videogame is something that always enrages me.

I am taking a break from Scarlet Nexus for this very reason. I keep winning boss battles only for them to laugh at me and escape in cutscenes and its super annoying. If you don't want me to win the fight just interupt it when I get them down by 25% or something so I'm not sitting there going "Why the hell did he get up from being broken and out of HP on the floor only to laugh at me and escape like he actually won the fight?"

On the game front I find myself replaying Assassin's Creed Odyssey. I dig its combination of RPG and, well, Assassin's Creed. It actually ruined me for past games in the franchise because they feel so bland after playing it.

I'm mostly in a holding pattern waiting on something new to come along if I'm honest. I keep thinking about making a 3rd try at RDR2 but each time I finish up the prologue then kind of get bored during the Open World part. I think it's because I don't connect to any of the characters really.

It does take a while to connect to Arthur but man, when you do, the game really takes hold of you.

[Rasix]

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 has been fantastic. Still not a fan of the "win fight, lose cutscene" shit that sometimes happens, but this is a great JRPG. Less cringy than 2, but it does have its anime moments.

I liked the original Xenoblade Chronicles, but I couldn't play 2 because I didn't want my kids to see those character designs (and also didn't really want to look at them myself for 60 hours.) Do you think I would I like 3?

The character designs are a lot more muted. Everyone's wearing full clothing and there's few strategic boob windows or tactical thong placement. A couple of the female side characters are a bit busty, but the main party is much less so. The game is a lot less horny than XC2.

The combat is also has a lot more in common with the first. No blade pokemon with this one.

[Riggswolfe]

I'm mostly in a holding pattern waiting on something new to come along if I'm honest. I keep thinking about making a 3rd try at RDR2 but each time I finish up the prologue then kind of get bored during the Open World part. I think it's because I don't connect to any of the characters really.

It does take a while to connect to Arthur but man, when you do, the game really takes hold of you.

I just don't like most of the characters and even Arthur I'm meh on. I liked John Marten in the original but Arthur just doesn't work for me. He comes across like a sort of gruff A-hole and that's just not the type of character I enjoy playing as. Still, a few of my friends have said the story is awesome and even emotionally moving towards the end so maybe I'll give it a try. Perhaps if I just ignore the side activities for the most part and concentrate on only the story I'll power through it. Who knows.

[Sky]

I don't mind Arthur, he's gruff and can definitely be played as an ass, but there's a lot of room for him to be a man out of time trying to make the best of the end of his life (and lifestyle). I struggle with a lot of the criminal stuff, but that's a Rockstar game for you, you're expected to be a typical American gamer who venerates the Wild West, gangs, and all that.

That said, the vast majority of my 200+ hours is just riding around exploring and hunting. But that's kind of my jam in a lot of games.

[Mosesandstick]

Felt the urge to play through Dragon Age Origins again (w/ all the DLC this time). Mods remove a lot of the rough edges and I think it still holds up really well.

Also finished Telling Lies, which I felt was a real disappointment compared to Her Story despite the visual polish. I saw that reviews for the newest game from the same designer, Immortality, are coming out and it looks like a real return to form.

[Sky]

I've been enjoying Elex 2, but have to label it Not Recommended unless you're a hardcore fan of the series. I'd rate it about equal to Gothic 3 in quality. Maybe better or worse than that title (the previous series low of actual PB-developed games), but it's been too long to remember details). If you want to try one, go for the original Elex.

Combat is a bit faster, but not better. The old combat was wonky but also l2p and solid and brutal within its own restrictions. But the explorations, story, and world-building are all phoned in this time. Both from a design and implementation standpoint. It's mostly re-used assets and they're placed without the thought that normally goes into a PB world. The vignettes are less meaningful or defined, and the amount of seams, leakage, and straight up wrong placement is staggering.

I'm still going to get my money's worth just dicking around with the (excellent) backpack and blowing shit up while I try to find cool stuff on the map, but it's not exactly compelling to return to.

And the character models are about as bad as they've ever been, and they've never been good.

Feels like PB needs to clean house and get rid of some dead weight, as well as hire some new engine folks or farm out to a 3rd party engine (even if I hate the trend away from in-house engines that ends up with everything looking like shitty generic UE4).

[01101010]

Begrudgingly I reloaded No Man's Sky - for a game that fell flat on its face back in '16, this game has evolved into a pretty great sandbox.

[Hoax]

Begrudgingly I reloaded No Man's Sky - for a game that fell flat on its face back in '16, this game has evolved into a pretty great sandbox.

yeah im excited to pick it up when price is right.

[01101010]

Begrudgingly I reloaded No Man's Sky - for a game that fell flat on its face back in '16, this game has evolved into a pretty great sandbox.

yeah im excited to pick it up when price is right.

I have gamepass on Xbox so the price was right for me

[Khaldun]

Was toying with trying Conan again now that they've got the sorcery shit in the game plus a genuine sandbox mode.

[Mandella]

Was toying with trying Conan again now that they've got the sorcery shit in the game plus a genuine sandbox mode.

Me too now that my Starlink is finally in. That 45 gig patch isn't looking too bad now.

[Sky]

I don't know if they updated the motion aiming in Days Gone for the PC, but it feels really good and I didn't do nearly the amount of tweaking options as I did with the PS4 version. Nice.

[Kail]

Been having a lot of fun with Arcade Paradise recently, but it's one of those games where if someone goes, "oh, yeah, I hated that game" I can't pretend not to understand why.

The concept is that you're managing your dad's laundromat and you find he's got some arcade cabinets in the back, and before too long they start pulling in more money than the laundromat so you decide to focus on growing your arcade business.  Most of the machines in this game are knockoffs of classic arcade games (DDR, Missile Command, Pong, Bust-a-move, etc.) and they gain popularity by you playing them and completing achievements.  Very light business management plus retro game feel, I thought it was a lot of fun.

Problem is the game is pretty janky (multiple bugs including several crashes, not necessarily shocking considering it's emulating like three dozen homebrew arcade clones) and it feels like someone's first passion project, both from the "wow, it feels like someone had a lot of passion and vision for this game" and in the "wow, it feels like someone had a 'fuck the testers, we're doing this my way' vision for this game."  Like, for example, you can't save your game, it autosaves on exit (see also: crash bugs referenced previously) and when you do that it counts as closing early and when you boot up the game next, the laundromat will be a bit trashed, because you weren't there to watch it.

[Khaldun]

Been playing some Civ VI with all the DLC content and you know? it's finally come together, at least for me. The AIs act more consistently in terms of their specific goals.

[Rasix]

Failed my done-with-league PoE gamble and my bargain basement build attempts failed on everything but my SRS necro. So, onto new stuff.

Brotato is great. I love this auto-twinstick (musou) genre. It could use some more variety in stages/mobs but it's a pretty solid experience as is for $5.

Also decided to try Grounded since it's officially 1.0 released and free on GamePass. The power progression on this one is pretty harsh. Just about everything kicks your ass and it's a struggle to figure out what you can actually kill. I think I've hit a point where I'm actually not super weak, but everything is still really dangerous. Some stuff just trucks you, and I don't think that's going to change much. This one might be a struggle to actually finish.

[Khaldun]

Yeah, I was going to give it a go soon too. Mostly in a few short plays during Early Access I just got hung up on the shelter building which felt clumsy.

[Sky]

Started a new custom settings game in No Man's Sky.

On the 2nd planet in the starter system I dug up a scanner upgrade +7600% bucks per scan analysis.

Millionaire just by scanning 2nd planet while doing tutorial.

[Sky]

My main problem with NMS remains, and it's the same for any procedural-generation-based game. Too much random stuff, exploration is almost meaningless. It's just more overt when exploration is so front and center. It's still a cool game to chill out with and fly around for the very rudimentary 'quests', though I've seen better quest chains from minecraft mods. Also the graphics seem massively downgraded, or maybe I've just been spoiled lately...tons of pop-in and garbage draw distance with everything set to ultra.

So I switched gears and loaded up my old Witcher 3 save with ~90 hours on it. This is how you make a game for explorers. I can't believe it's been this long and there really hasn't been anything that meets the bar it set. It's hard to believe that I'm ~100 hours in now and level 20 with most of the map explored and somehow will end up at least double my current level (based on mob levels in places I can't fight my way into yet).

Also tried the Soulash demo. Seems like a cool little indie game but could not make it run full screen at 4k with readable text. Lower res forces a window that can't be maximized, no options to scale the UI. Ahh, indie games.