After a few years of mostly playing strategy & tactical games, I fired up Minecraft this weekend. I'd never really given it a proper try before, but it's been refreshing and relaxing. I started on survivor mode but found the enemies kind of annoying, so I switched to peaceful survivor mode and that's been fun so far. Just enjoying the "wander around and build stuff" atmosphere. Honestly makes me want to play more sandbox-y games after a while of mostly playing more intense stuff.
The new Season of Deep Rock Galactic. I don't really like this seasons weapon frameworks, but there's still some cool cosmetics to unlock. Like a plague doctor mask with a fancy hat. :3
Final Fantasy XIV. As a decade+ WoW player, its really nice to find such a nice player base. I'm just hitting level 54 ( so between the base game A Realm Reborn and on my way into the first expansion ) and I've experience absolutely 0 toxicity.
I'm playing the critically acclaimed MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV. Have you heard of it? With an expanded free trial which you can play through the entirety of A Realm Reborn and the award-winning Heavensward expansion up to level 60 for free with no restrictions on playtime.
Just finished up the System Shock remake. Been struggling to find a game to captivate me, but this one surely did the trick. Pretty week ending though.... just like the original, hah.
Would love to see Ultima Underworld 1/2 get the same treatment.
I’ve started playing Deep Rock Galactic, and I’ve been loving it, even just playing a few solo missions to get a feel for it. I’m going to try to get my wife into it, since we’ve been looking for some more games to play together.
Outside of that, I’ve been playing Tears of The Kingdom and that’s been fantastic. Great follow up to one of my favorite games. And then mixing in some Overwatch as well which, despite its problems, is still pretty fun to play with some friends.
I played the Final Fantasy 16 demo. I'm not sold on it, but I tend to favour older games with turn based combat. Still, I did mostly enjoy the gameplay, it seems like it could be a fun game.
I gave Dragon's Dogma another try, and I'm 20+ hours in now. I never made it this far. It's a pretty fun game, though I'm having difficulty figuring out some quests without resorting to searching wikis. My current quest, I need to find a gargoyle, kill it and get back something from it, but it didn't drop anything. I'm wondering if it glitched.
Haven't been playing much but will get some Deep Rock Galactic action later today for the new season content, if that counts. It's my one evergreen game I keep coming back to whenever there's an update lol
Splatoon 3 - Getting ready for a LAN tournament in Philly tomorrow. Excited.
Persona 5 Royal - Finished the third palace.
Them's Fightin' Herds - Casual practice session, by which I mean terrorizing a lobby for a little while.
Slay the Spire - After over 800 hours of vanilla, I've just started fooling around with different mod characters, while watching Youtube in the background. Currently playing The Shaman, has some really cool mechanics.
Factorio. The simplistic art style and easy to grasp gameplay lures you in. But then after a while you get sucked in and end up learning way more about conveyor belts and liquid fuel processing than you ever wanted to learn.
I'm loving Diablo 4 so I've been grinding that out, currently on World Tier 3 with my sorcerer and having a blast. Also playing Destiny 2 at the weekly reset for the new story updates.
I ended up finishing my run of Necesse this week. It's like a Terraria and Rimworld crossover. Has some crafting and base building, and some colony management aspects. Overall was pretty good, especially for the relatively low price.
Now I've switched over to Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous. I'm about 12 hours in, have a party of level 4 characters, and am overall enjoying it. this is my first CRPG, and also my first foray into PF1e. Coming from PF2e, its a little archaic so far, but not insurmountable.
Little bit of Darktide. If you haven’t tried it since the rocky start, it’s not a bad time to get into it again. A lot of the content feels a lot more tight and there is more forgiving mechanics to get good gear.
Other than that, more Warframe as the new update gets closer. Also a good time to hop in as well
I'll be continuing to grind a little bit in Diablo 4 (and maybe hitting up D3 to finish some season challenges). The Division 2 also looks to have a new update, so I'll give that a go as well.
Then finally maybe just some relaxing time in American Truck Simulator as a way to wind down!
Same thing I play every week. Coral Island and RCT3.
Coral Island is in Steam Early Access and is as yet unfinished, but is making steady progress and the devs are doing great at keeping everyone up to date on progress. Coral Island is frequently compared to Stardew Valley. Frankly, I don't enjoy SDV. I've tried and tried and it just doesn't do it for me. Coral Island is everything I was hoping SDV would be. It's game play is similar, but I find the whole thing much more enjoyable.
I've been playing RCT3 off and on since I first bought it on CD a million years ago.
I usually play a lot of new indie and old AAA games but rn the biggest time sink is Zelda Tears of the Kingdom.
As anti-consumer as Nintendo is, they know how to make quality halo games.
I think if like me you are a total scardey-cat then it'll be an effort!
I adore the visuals, the world, how well it runs on my Steam Deck. I have a slight girl-crush on Claire (after a full-blown crush on Jill after playing RE:3 before this!), and a disctinct realisation that if a zombie apocalypse comes? I am toast.
The issue is I am terrible with scary games! But I am really quite taken with the world in the game!
I've started a new playthrough of cyberpunk after putting about 50 hours into Street fighter this week.
Figured with the new Cyberpunk DLC coming out it was time to return to it. I played about 3-4 different endings on release so looking forward to going back to it.
Solasta - Crown of the MagistercRPG trying to replicate the feel of tabletop RPG as well as possible
IMO they did it really well !
Not everything is perfect of course, and it's more combat-centered than my tabletop experience, but I'm really enjoying this first playthrough (playing in coop with a friend).
Divinity - Original Sin 2RPG with a turn-based combat system, a somewhat open world and interesting storylines
I stopped playing on normal and started again on tactician, I was getting bored by the fights becoming too easy during act 2.
Autobattler with mechs. Very lively atm and you get a game in a minute easily. Super well executed game, but it is in early access and definitely has jank when it comes to user experience.
I've mostly been playing A Tale Of Two Wastelands, which is a mod for Fallout New Vegas that takes all of Fallout 3 and adds it to NV. It merges the engine upgrades and gameplay improvements from NV into 3, plus custom content to make it all work. It's a HELL of a lot of fun.
Finished Midnight Suns on monday iirc. Pretty decent overall, really liked the combat and the relation between characters but god the writers didnt really know when to shut up and even cool dialogues are dragged into the mud because the dialogues get awkardly long, like none of the two characters talking know how to end the conversation. That and the game forcing you through side content makes a game that was close to a 9 to barely a 7.
Playing Ghostwire Tokyo too and i think im close to finishing it too. It has been a fun ride but i dont know if the enemy variety and core gameplay stands on its own for 10+ hours. The setting is amazing and enjoyed most of the side missions i did. Loved learning a lot of japanese culture with the game, its been done with a lot of respect for Japanese folklore.
I've been playing The Division 2 and I'm really enjoying it. I stopped playing for a few years, and now I've managed to stop the game crashing every 5 minutes, it's really good fun.
I am a big fan of crpg: usually I play Baldur's Gate, Solasta, Pathfinder... but I will play DIV because I want to try a new class (done the campaign with a Sorc, next one will be a druid or a necro).
Diablo IV. I'm still somewhere around Act 2, and the game is really well done in its genre.
For when I'm tired of slaying demons, I got Back 4 Blood. Haven't been playing this one since its first release, and this time I really got hooked. Pretty good HDR implementation, and overall it's a worthwhile Left 4 Dead successor. I also got all the DLCs, so plenty of content before I run out.
Almost done with Dungeons 3. Really fun little game that was free on Epic the other week.
Also, I finally managed to get War Thunder working with HOTAS and Quest 2. That is pretty amazing. For the first time the climb phase a the beginning of a realistic battle is really enjoyable and not just an extension of the loading screen.
Nothing really, unfortunately. Life has been busy lately and, with kids, gaming is almost nonexistent.
This weekend my wife and kids will be out of town for five days and I’m honestly contemplating buying either Tears of the Kingdom or Diablo IV and just going to town on one of those all weekend…
I've been cleaning though some games that I had only partially completed in anticipation that I will need more hard drive space come september. Finished the dlcs for both Spiderman and Horizon zero dawn which I quite enjoyed, and now I'm playing far cry 6 which is okay but definitely not living up to it's own potential.
It's been a few patches since last, and Update 8 is live on the Experimental Branch, so I started a new save of Satisfactory.
Never managed to get far in previous runs, because I tended to think complicated instead of thinking big, so have a new strategy this time. When I need modular frames, I find a fresh set of iron nodes and dedicate the entire output of those to modular frames. Things are more spread out, but collecting resources is an uncomplicated problem to solve.
Cyberpunk - I like it but it's still buggy to the point of having to reload at times. The main story is absurdly predictable and short, barely got into it and I'm at the point of no return. Maybe the conclusion will save it. Replayability is low due to all the unskippable pseudo cutscenes. Combat is meh. So far a 7/10 game
I've been playing CDDA for a few days now, and you know what? This game is amazing in all aspects (except for UI and graphics). It's hard enough, sometimes scary, and very interesting in general. Highly recommended! (And it's free)
A bit of 'Death Road to Canada' lately--basically the oregon trail but in a zombie apocalypse and everything is randomized/procedurally generated. High replay-value up there with The Binding of Isaac (not quite that good, but it's close). Supports split screen co-op. Banger retro soundtrack. Witty. Do recommend.
Hunt showdown w my mates, rimworld for myself. Looking for a tactical mp fps to tide me over for Fallujah but Sandstorm didn't really click for me. Might wait for Squad to hit a deep sale.
poly bridge 3! very chill but still stimulating game where you get a variety of maps and scenarios to build bridges in. i did have to watch two hours of bridge building tutorials because my knowledge of physics is abysmal but if you passed a physics course in high school i doubt it’s nearly as challenging.
I'm going through the Street Figher 6 World Tour Mode and am near the end I think. No idea how much I'll play it afterward. Maybe I'll try out some stuff in the Battle Hub, like the Arcade Mode or the different training modes, to actually learn some stuff.
I've broken my winning streak, and found my way back into Eve Online again. This time I'm in Faction Warfare, which actually seems like fun, and not an eternal blobfest all over the place.
Forgive Me Father. I rarely play shooters these days but this one is a quite pleasant for short sessions so far with just a tad of old doom-like tactics, but more streamlined, and has nice aesthetics too
I remember playing a little bit of Inquisition years ago, but I never got very far. I felt like playing a somewhat old school RPG and I know this game is held in high regard so I'm giving it a shot. So far it seems pretty good but I've only put a couple of hours in.
Like 3-4 people put together a better Battlefield game than DICE ever did, with up to 127v127 fights, community servers on top of official quickplay, and a $15 pricetag. It's insanely good and this shit doesn't even feel like it's in early access.
Just finished playing the Lies of P demo. Almost rage quit on the last boss but finally beat it this morning. Really enjoyed the demo, very Bloodborne-esque and now looking forward to the full game release.
I've been jumping back and forth between The Finals Closed Beta and Battlebit Remastered when I'm not leveling my sorcerer on Diablo IV.
Outside of that, for demos I played the FF16 demo which blew my wig back. Lusant is another one coming from Don't Nod that I played a small chunk of and quit because I knew it was right up my alley and didn't need to see more, have a feeling it'll be a shorter experience. Then I tried Lies of P, which has busted HDR support on PC, so gonna give it a shot on PS5 today. Overall dug the vibe and combat, the influence from Bloodborne is all over the damn game.
I'm mostly finished with The Cult of the Lamb - just doing boss rushes and minor cult duties for fun and I have also been playing McPixel 3. I fired up The Binding of Isaac for a quick run, too.
I feel boring after scrolling through all the other replies and just saying Diablo 4. :p
I died against the final boss earlier this week after getting them down to a couple hits left, so I spent all week grinding renown and paragon points and just completely face rolled them this morning. Feels good, man. I can't wait to start on the endgame content.
Other than that, I played that Grimace game on my GBC style emulation handheld. It's... a game. I also played Microsoft's Bejeweled clone in the mobile Xbox app to get rewards points.
I'm extremely hype about Phantom Liberty so I reinstalled Cyberpunk and have had a bit of a poke around. Don't want to get too involved in a new playthough until the DLC drops so just loaded up an old save for now.
I’ve been on a bit of an Alan Wake replay marathon this week in preparation for the sequel. Played Alan Wake and American Nightmare back to back and then threw in Control with the AWE DLC.
Just started Mass Effect Andromeda after finishing 2 runs of the original trilogy (loved them). Sadly my internet is out and EA won’t let me play which is a massive bummer.
Kena Bridge of Spirits. I'm so glad I tried this game. It's quite good. The gameplay is similar to Horizon Zero Dawn and the story line touches the heart. I grabbed it free using PS plus premium.
I am nearly finishing Breath of The Wild, using CEMU instead of using my Switch (which my gf is using to play BOTW and Pokemon Violet), and I am playing Football Manager 2007 for a bit of nostalgia.
I will then finish Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night which is a great metroidvania, for those who loved Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (because it's the same producer, Koji Igarashi).
Is it already that time of the week? Well, I'm still playing BOTW, Dead Cells on my Switch, Dawn of War Unification mod on the PC, and some Omega Strikers on the side, slowly climbing the ranked ladder. I'm thinking I can make Gold rank before the end of the season.
Also taking a moment to get back into shmups, I popped onto Mushihimesama and Dodonpachi yesterday and I wiped before even the third bosses, I'm super rusty.
I am playing Oxygen Not Included again. I have played and died of heat death many times before, but someone tipped me off to guidesnotincluded.com, so I am working my way through that and trying to learn how to do things properly this time.
Your Only Move Is Hustle! YOMI Hustle for short. Turn based fighting game. If you've got a decent understanding of fighting games (Smash Bros specifically helps), you can play chess with a whole mess of moves. You can predict exactly what each move will do, as well as predict what happens for the opponents moves as well. No more failing inputs, since ever move is one click away. You get to learn high level concepts like frame advantage, oki, spacing, it's all there with as little barrier of entry possible.
I've been hearing a lot about "extraction shooters" in the last month, and DMZ was the most suggested one to try. So I gave it a try this week.
I'm no stranger to FPS games, I watched a few hours of DMZ beginner videos so I understand the systems. But jumping into MW2 as a newbie... the MW2 client is overwhelming with battle passes, account level, rank ups, perk unlocks, missions, etc. etc.
Not sure I will play anything in the coming week, as I haven't the previous one.
I have been meaning to get Minecraft setup on my M1 MPB... have also started a few games on PS5 - but I just haven't the time or energy lately - we normally end up just watching a movie before bed which is a bit less engagement.
If I find some time, then probably Horizon Zero Dawn solo, or playing It Takes Two with my partner 😊
I've been enjoying the Evercade Piko Collection 3 cart recently. When new carts come out I like to try out every game and go in-depth on a least a couple games so I have a reason to come back to it later after there's a new shiny out.
So I've been playing and streaming 40 Winks (I'm about halfway through now), enjoying some Radikal Bikers, and loving to hate the hilariously bad Sword of Sodan.
Vintage Story! It started as a type of Minecraft mod, but was remade as a standalone game. It has a big emphasis on crafting and working your way up the tech tree manually by increasing the tools available to you. Food can be hard to come by in the beginning. The overall story also has a sort-of post-apocalyptic, lovecraftian vibe.
Only available on their website, but it's a ton of fun!
Mostly relaxing games like Unpacking to kill time while I wait for FFXVI. I'm afraid of committing to other games at this point. Though I think I might get back into Vampire Survivors to help kill time too though.
I'm playing Vampyr again! I had already played it up to a certain point but never finished it. Recently I finished Tchia and felt like coming back to Vampyr, because I really like most of it (some details irritate me, like most of the regular patients in the hospital and all of the freshly spilled enemy-blood not showing up in your "blood detection" vision).
Oh and in addition, I started dabbling in this super eerie and janky MMO called Animyst.
Probably more Elden Ring and iRacing. Need to progress with my second character in ER and do more sprint races in iRacing, I have been doing long races almost exclusively for the past months.
After much fun with World of Tanks, I discovered World of Warships for me this week. In which I have quite a bit more luck than with the tanks I must say. Not once have I been blind-spotted and then fired upon by 5 enemies I couldn't even see yet
Also I tried MotoGP 23 but for the life of me, I can't get that bike to stay within the track limits. Most laps are relatively fine otherwise but these track limits keep invalidating my time.
I've played bursts of Hades throughout the day, and that'll probably continue during the week. I'd been neglecting it for a while but it feels like it's suddenly clicked and I've now made it to the final area/boss. So close! It's also a great one to play during work breaks on the Steam Deck.
Besides that, TOTK has been a fun one to dip into a little bit each day. I love going in with an objective in mind, then getting distracted for an hour on something completely unrelated (mostly blowing myself up by mistake or accidentally sending koroks to their deaths).
Battlebit remastered. Definitely got curious from their ads, but it is a battlefield experience like no other. Puts 2042 to shame. It looks silly but its challenging in all the right ways.
On the weekend I was playing Cross Code but I put that aside for my vacation.
I don't have much time after work at the moment, so I found a really strange game called Sally can't sleep. Digging the atmosphere. Gameplay is a bit wonky and frustrating but I love just to roam around. But I can imagine that it's too strange for most people.
Since yesterday, I have been playing Deep Rock Galactic. The new season is started and this time I want to make it to the end (during the last one, I stopped playing for a couple of months and I managed to get to level 85).
I'm trying Red Faction Guerrilla again cause I couldn't get into it before cause I remember the start being fine but somewhere later on i just dropped off cause i wasn't sure if was very hard or just me not playing the game right
Spider-Man Remastered on Steam. I haven't played a Spider-Man game since the original. It was/is on sale. It's really fun, but it does have performance problems.
I just restarted Kingdom of Amalur: Reckoning. I started it almost 10 years ago but didn't get very far. It's dated, but I'm really enjoying it so far!
Excellent game. Minimally annoying sometimes, but it's worth it. I play it differently than other games to improve the experience: I have a printed map of the bunker (with markings, coloring to mark where I was and where it's safe and a legend), a small music stand lamp (to see the map, the room is otherwise dark) and a piece of paper to write down to-do's and general things to remember. That makes it even more fun, while further making this game a bit more playable for cowardly-me. :D
If anyone plays this game, you need to try that out! It really feels different than "just playing" a game or this game in particular. Try to mix things up so you can have as much fun too!
SmokePatch Football Life 23, a modded standalone PES 21 with updated squads, kits and a lot of things, it also has custom things like the gameplay. I guess it's nothing interesting in general.
Mainly Trackmania and Rocket League as of recent, but also diving deep into Snowrunner again as of this week, planning to actually get far into a save this time.
I've been playing Dishonored 2 on my Steam Deck. Played the original for the first time and went through in a pretty non-stealthy high chaos way, so I'm trying to go for a low chaos playthrough here.
I also grabbed Cassette Beasts on sale, so I've put a few minutes into that and I'm enjoying the 3D with 2D sprites aesthetic that I loved so much in the NDS Pokemon game
Like a lot of people, I'm balancing my time between Diablo 4 and Tears of the Kingdom. I just downloaded Disney Speedstorm so I'll give that a spin some time this week as well.
I've only been able to get a few hours into TOTK due to being a "responsible" adult with no free time, but I'll keep churning away at it half an hour here and there.
Took me over a year to finish BOTW to a reasonable degree, I imagine TOTK will keep be going for the foreseeable future.
I'm probably going to be playing Deep Rock Galactic, getting back into Team Fortress 2, and perhaps finally wrapping up Devil May Cry 5. The first and second games are excellent especially with friends and DMC5 has been quite the blast even if I haven't played it in more than a month.
Since I'm limited to one hand (I fractured my elbow), I've been going back to my strategy game catalogue. At first I started with Endless Legend, which I've got over 100 hours in, but I wasn't vibing with it. The backlog game I had on the side, Age of Wonders Planetfall, became my main game. I'm still trying to get into it, but it just feels too cluttered for it's own good. I don't think I want to give up on it but alongside that I began playing Endless Space 2 which is really cool! Even with experience in the Endless series it still feels a bit complicated, it's not as insane as Stellaris, but I have a good feeling about it now.
Been working my way through Immortals Fenix Rising and having a lot of fun. Wondering what others think of it, but i like the cartoon style and the general attitude of the game. Narrators are fun, combat has enough teeth, and the loop of foraging/ questing/ upgrading is pretty satisfying.
All I really saw were a few youtube videos before deciding to pick it up on a deep sale and its turning out to be a great $11.
V Rising, it felt like Diablo, but new and fresh, and not as complicated as PoE. A new patch dropped last month, so my friends and I have dusted it off for a new play through.
I started playing Shovel Knight a couple days ago and I have really enjoyed my time with it so far! I'm not much of a 2D side-scroller/platformer kind of gamer, but this has been a lot of fun. I'm really looking forward to the other playable characters.
Other than that, I still hop onto Death Stranding occasionally. Being in the end game makes it really easy to hop in and make a few deliveries and then hop out.
played through the Lies of P demo for the second time, feels like a mix of Bloodborne with a dash of Sekiro in the posture system. super generous demo as well, lots to chew on.
I held off on Cyberpunk since even after the performance and bug issues were mostly fixed, I kept hearing complaints about stats and upgrade systems. I heard the next update is going to make a ton of changes and fix the gameplay, but I decided to buy the game now and play a bit so I can see the before/after.
According to steam I have 4 hours in-game, but really that was 2 hours of tweaking settings to try and fix a stuttering issue that made the game unplayable. Turns out my mouse being set to 1000hz polling was the problem; lowered my mouse to 500hz and the game runs smoothly. That has never been a problem for me in any Unity or Unreal game, if RedEngine can't support 1000hz the least they could do is add a popup to tell me that's what the issue is so I don't waste time toggling every setting and reinstalling drivers for no reason. After that I spent like an hour customizing my character, and in the hour in which I was actually playing the game I made my way through some of the intro/tutorial missions.
Not a good experience starting out, but I'm hoping to have enough time this week to finish the intro stuff and finally be able to run around the city.
System Shock. I'm really enjoying it so far even though the difficulty can be punishing. Kinda reminds me of Bioshock mixed with Metroid Prime. The Bioshock connection is obvious, but I never figured Metroid Prime to be influenced by System Shock.
My friend group has been enjoying the new update to Dead by Daylight. It's a pretty big game on a lot of consoles and pc platforms, but for anyone who hasn't seen it: it's a horror-movie inspired game, even featuring famous licensed movie and video game characters, that plays out as an asymmetric 4v1 type of tag/hide and seek. The new update adds a rogue AI killer and a space colonist survivor, but many different themes and tropes all come together in DbD. it's a fun casual experience, but unlocking things can take a long time and mastery comes very slowly