Weekly Recommendations Thread: What are you playing this week?

Just finished prototype 1 and 2 for the first time since I was a kid. Very fun and definitely recommend both, but you could probably get away with just 2.

I should not have been playing a game that violent as a kid lol

The message, especially in the second one, is actually pretty positive. And the dark humour even in mission objectives is awesome. My favourite example being that you find out some of the scientists you have in a helicopter are trying to do eugenics, so your objective is to fly them as high as possible and jump out to "fuck over the scientists". Lol

I remember wanting to check out the second one when it first came out but never did. I totally forgot about those games actually. Maybe I’ll pick them up sometime

Euro Truck Simulator 2

The week that I pack away my wheel/pedals is the same time I get the urge to go back to ETS2... :D

Controller and a numpad for extra buttons works really well. Obviously not as immersive but is much easier/quicker to jump in and start playing.

Warning if you haven't played the game: there's a sidestory spoiler in this comment.

Unbelievable, but fucking Death Stranding 😂 The story has some cool concepts and moments—e.g. Mama's story—but it's too obtuse, has too much filler, and many senseless moments. Like, the Junk Dealer and his girl living literal meters away from each other and for some reason trying and failing to find each other or establish contact for years, or an entire MULE camp peacefully coexisting next to a Timefall farm… best way I can describe the world and story so far is it's an inconsistent mess.

Funniest moment though has got to be The Craftsman going "Fuck you, not joining your UCA!" only to go back on that in the literal next sentence with "But maybe if you do X, we can talk!" 😂

Apart from the odd climbing bugs and the silly, barebones combat, the game is nice though. Rebuilding the world and cooperating with other players feels really nice. And barely making it through BT encounters on very hard is exhilarating.

Fucking bikes are awesome to ride too… I love how goofy they're meant to be.

I don't see myself coming back after I 100% it though… I'm halfway through and I don't see any value in replaying the game so far. It's not exactly a skill-based game, and after roads and ziplines, I'm hardly motivated to go back to walking, but I don't think it's meant to be replayable, and I'll probably get like ~70 or more hours out of it in total and I bought it for $7, so I suppose that's OK.

Oh, I forgot to mention "I am Fragile… but not that fragile" Kojima sit down, please 😂

So as a Kojima sceptic, is the story/writing better or worse than you expected? Or about what you thought?
I always felt like Kojima would be unstoppable if he hired an editor and a writer he trusted, and just let those two translate the "Kojima" into the scripts. He has always had lots of amazing ideas, but I'm not sure I would call him a great writer.
- Based on my experience so far, I totally agree with you. I'm simultaneously impressed by the ideas and confused by the package they came in.
  It's just that the fluff and errors are glaringly obvious… hard to fathom how the same mind who came up with these captivating ideas wrote, or at best OK'd, the fluff and errors.
  I'd say I expected poor and somewhat pretentious writing and got that, but I'm impressed enough by the ideas that I haven't started skipping cutscenes yet, so I assume, overall, it's net positive… not by much, but it is.

So, I just got slice & dice and man, I'm hooked. Dunno if that qualifies for patient gaming, it's a bit older than a year.

It's a roguelike, but not really a deckbuilder. Instead, you keep upgrading and improving a DnD-like party that keeps going down a dungeon of some sort, where each person is represented as a six-sided die. Your magician has sides that produce mana, your fighter sides that mostly deal damage etc etc.

I'm several hours in, which for me is already a lot. Just lost my latest run on level 19/20 on normal difficulty, so it feels like I'm starting to get an idea of what works well. The game has lots of unlockables and achievements and looking for upgrades and characters that synergise well is fun. The balancing seems, as far as I can tell so far, outstanding - time will tell if that holds.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1775490/Slice__Dice/

I got AC: Unity on sale on steam so I've been replaying that. The controls are pretty jank and rough, but I'm still enjoying it.

I’ve had a fair few talks on here recently about Unity. I liked it way more than the general consensus. I’ve heard there’s a really good mod for it that fixes nearly all of the problems, but I haven’t tried it personally.
- I was looking at some, but there aren't too many that aren't just new outfits or skins to play with; at least on nexus.
  Edit: they did a lot with Unity that I actually really liked. Between the co-op multiplayer missions/heists and story, you also had murder mysteries to help solve, and the "Paris Stories" (I actually quite like them. The Madame Tussaud ones are cool), on top of the assassin contracts. The gear customization was also probably my favorite of any other AC game aside from maybe Odyssey. I also kinda like the city events too, they let me roleplay a peacekeeper of the people type of character.
  I haven't played Mirage or Shadows, but I wouldn't mind if they brought back some more "detective"/vigilante type stuff in the future.

Just finished Infernax

Amazing dark, medieval-fantasy, retro, action-platformer with some Metroidvania elements, very reminiscent of OG Castlevania, and some player choice elements that allow for multiple endings, of which there are 5: 2 basic good/evil, 2 completionist good/bad, and a "redemption" route. Even has old school secrets like special characters if you input the right name and cheat codes you can find. Putting in the Konami code at the title screen even has something special.

Default experience is a classic mode that is very unforgiving, must save at in-game stations (one at each town and every dungeon entrance) lose everything if you run out of lives and try again from the top or try to [exit the dungeon/make it back to town] to save your progress, no fast travel until you find the spell for it, all that jazz. Plus a casual mode that gives some leeway like pitfalls not being instant kills and a checkpoint in the dungeons you can save at.

Gameplay is just good old school gaming. You hit, you jump, you duck and hit low, you can find some utility spells, you talk to NPCs that have cryptic sometimes-useful-sometimes-not dialogue to figure out what to do next, all the bells and whistles.

Warning: it is very gore heavy and even though the artwork is more retro styled, it is still things like guts spilling out, faces getting crushed, limbs being ripped off, etc... So not for the squeamish.

I'm about to finish Deliver Us The Moon, quite interesting.

And before it I played Tacoma, and before it I played Observation, and before it I played The Invincible. I think I'm starting to see a pattern here...

So far my favourite has been The Invincible, I think I'll read the book eventually.

All of them performed like crap on my Legion Go with CachyOS, Tacoma being the least annoying in that regard. The farther I get into a game, the worse it performs.

If someone has more recommendations I'd appreciate them.

For the first time in forever I am playing multiple games at the same time.

Lands of Lore: Throne of Chaos. I had that game as a kid but I don't think I ever got any further than the first enemy. And it's amazing! The whole game is dubbed. And it has four protagonists to choose from, each with their individual voice lines about basically any situation or item you come across. And all the NPC's lines match them and they address you by name.

And the graphics are super beautiful. Pixel graphics but with great details and animations. Like when you get your spellbook you get a super elaborate T-1000-like animation of some droplets forming a scroll.

X-Wing via XWVM: The old X-Wing game with updated graphics and quality of life improvements. Just awesome! It's still an alpha but basically plays like a beta. I have hardly any bugs, just occasional crashes, and none are game breaking. And supposedly they are already pretty far along with TIE Fighter compatibility. Can't wait to play that. TIE Fighter TC is nice and all, but stuffing everything into the X-Wing Alliance engine feels pretty clunky while XWVM just works.

Cyberpunk 2077: My son bought it on sale and I wanted to try it as well, although I don't really like cyberpunk. Too realistic. But the game is great. Plays like a combination of Deus Ex and GTA. I'd say it feels more like the original Deus Ex than the newer Deus Ex games. Maybe with slightly less open levels. But not much.

Limbo and Inside: The games are about to be delisted from GOG so I got them quickly. It's chill to play which suits me well. Love it so far.

I didn’t know Limbo and Inside were about to be delisted. They’re some of my favourite shorter games I’ve ever played, especially Inside. I already own them on every platform I’ve owned since they released (PC, Xbox, PlayStation, iOS, Android) otherwise I’d be getting it now on GOG. Those games are awesome.
- I'm excited to play them! I also got them yesterday due to the impending delisting. I typically hate puzzle platformers but I've been assured they aren't too bad.

Started playing Wildfrost, a deckbuilder with some unique mechanics. I slept on it for a long time because it had somewhat mixed reviews early on with some players complaining that it was too luck based or that it was too difficult to evaluate game state. To me this hasn't been a problem and the game was a very pleasant surprise. Thankfully it doesn't try to be a "better Slay the Spire" since nobody seems to get that right but goes on its own way. There is no mana system, instead you pay for cards with time: playing a card (usually) takes up your turn. Some of your cards will stay on the board and periodically trigger based on cooldowns and other triggers - and so do enemies. It's all about timing, sequencing and positioning.

These mechanics make the game flow very smoothly and the turn puzzle is satisfying. The implementation and art are great too making it a very pleasant overall experience.

Just finished Split Fiction.

How was it? My wife was interested in checking it out.
- We liked It Takes Two much better. But if you need to play a co-op game it is decent. ITT was more whimsical and fun. If I had to play it again, I'd rather play ITT.

timberborn

The new zip lines are a real game changer

Still knocking around Enderal.

monster hunter rise

Salt & Sanctuary

I‘ve finally decided to put my mind to Salt & Sanctuary which has been in my library for… a long time but it never grabbed me. Now I‘ve started a new character and I‘m following a guide, it feels more engaging and fun to me with more direction. The guide‘s crazy detailed and I‘m amazed someone sat down and typed all that out (screenshots incl.) for a - in my opinion - rather niche title. The only thing that bugs me is the animation update rate, the game can run at triple digit fps, it still looks and feels like 60.

Octopath Traveler

I‘ve also bought and started Octopath Traveler on Steam which I didn‘t want to at first since I a) have it on Switch already and b) like achievement hunting and boy does that game want you to turn every pebble for that. However, the music is so effing amazing (check out the title theme on YT or wherever) and the game so visually beautiful, I just needed the 60 fps and full res. I realized there‘s something very soothing for me in experiencing a jrpg story in pixelart. I regret nothing (yet).

Ooh I'm very curious to hear about Salt & Sanctuary. After just now finishing Mandragora I've gotten the Metroidvania/Soulslike bug and I'm on the outlook for something similar to fill the void. Right now I'm on Blasphemous but S&S is on my wishlist for the next sale along with Grime.
- I think you’ll like SnS then. It‘s about 80% Soulslike and 20% Metroidvania.
  It‘s a game where you can tell that they played Dark Souls and thought „We really wanna make that as well.“ Armor‘s practically useless, you‘re just looking for the most OP rings and weapon movesets - just like in Souls games (magic is supposedly OP, but I wouldn’t know I‘m not playing a mage, I‘m a 2h kinda guy).
  It‘s a game with lots of love and little budget, with lots of things to find and lots of extra things to fight if you look around.
  This is all just my opinion being maybe 20% into the game so far, though.

Been playing Ni No Kuni, had intended on playing it on PS3 but never got around to it, glad I didn't though as the remastered version is a great experience on the deck! Haven't got sucked into a game like this in a long time.... send help (perhaps the sequel too 👀).

I'm on maternity leave and finally finished the extra levels in Opus Magnum this week after figuring out how to sit with the baby and still use both hands

I’m going to have to figure out how to do that too. I’ve got my first coming pretty soon. I get 8 weeks parental leave so I don’t have quite as much time as my wife gets to figure all that stuff out, maybe I should practice before the baby comes.
- A stretchy wrap is great for newborns since they're often too small for a normal carrier even with an insert. Some brands make ones with buckles if you don't want to fiddle with tying it on every time. I use Boba but there's a bunch of similar brands at the same price point.
  I hate to recommend reddit here, but scrolling through babywearing helped me a ton with figuring out what a safe carry looks like for a tiny baby.

Been playing unravel. When I'm done I'll play unravel two. Got them both for $10 the other day on steam

I’ve never played the first one but Unravel 2 is awesome. Played it with a friend years back and it was one of our favourites to play together.
- The first one is great. It has a really sweet story, too. It's my chill game. I love how it has no fights, just puzzles.

I finished Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree this week, and I had an absolute blast with it. I bought it because it was written by Bloodlines-writer Brian Mitsoda, but while the story ended up being serviceable at most I really loved the gameplay. It's very light on platforming - which I loved because I hate platforming - and the PoE inspired skill tree added a dimension to the 2.5D Soulslike that really tickled my brain just right. The Metroidvania elements were well done with lots of exploration, shortcuts and secrets and new parts of old areas opening up with each new method of traversal unlocked. Difficulty felt pretty good too, I'm starting to feel like I'm over the super difficult games and this never got too frustrating. Plus it does have accessibility options. In fact, I liked it so much I was extremely tempted to jump right back in and do NG+, and that is a rarity for me. I was thinking second playthrough first with a different playstyle, but I ended up really loving my build by the end.

Instead though I tried out Blasphemous. I got it on the summer sale at 90% off and thought it could satiate the same craving as NG+ of Mandragora. I'm about a third of the way through now though and... I'm not sure I like it. The world building is amazing and I do really love the atmosphere, story and lore. However, a lot of the gameplay design just feels annoying and unfun for the sake of it. I understand that it's supposed to be because the theme of the game is all about the virtue of suffering but... I don't know. My life sucks enough as it is, I don't need to hate myself more. Also there is an enormous amount of platforming for a game with clunky controls and janky detection for hitboxes and ledge grabs and whatnot. If I knew how much platforming it had I wouldn't have bought it, even for a dollar. We'll see how it goes but I'm very close to shelving it as I'm not really having fun.

As a palate cleanser today I played through GRIS, which was also 90% off on the sale. While I generally hate puzzle platformers, this is more of an interactive artwork than anything and thankfully the puzzles and platforming bits were very simple and forgiving. I enjoyed it a lot, it's an absolutely gorgeous game, a very short (couple of hours) emotional journey through grief with a fantastic score and some stunning visuals. Definitely recommend it. It's a perfect intermission game in-between longer titles.

I’m finally playing Horizon zero dawn. Liking it a lot so far.

I've been back on COD Mobile this week. I'm just doing F2P. They had a collaboration with Gundam so that drew me back in. The Gundam TDM mode is really nice.

Contrasting that: I got SmokePatch set up with PES 2021 (on Linux!). I moved from EA FC to eFootball when it became too much like a slot machine. while the 30th anniversary stuff in eFootball looks cool, it's turning into a slot machine as well. SmokePatch doesn't have any mtx, it has great community addons, and it retained Master League. Enjoying the immersion of my favorite team, their stadium, and commentary in my preferred language.

If I get a little more free time, I'll finish the last three chapters of Fire Emblem Warriors. I just worry that my team isn't leveled up enough yet, so I might have to do some stories in History Mode first.

Just got home from holiday a couple of days ago, and while the plan was to open up my laptop and continue my Kerbal Space Program game, it's simply too hot here these days to enjoy anything for fun. So I mostly just do "nothing" while playing chess.

Looking forward to colder temperatures next week.

I feel that, it’s scorching where I live too (at least for me, I prefer colder temps). I had to buy an extra portable AC this year otherwise I’d be in the same boat as you.

Still Antimatter Dimensions, though not paying too much attention to it. I pop in and out of Baba Is You after solving (or failing to solve) a few levels. Still not sure how to break Baba and Keke out of jail.

I'm stuck on that level of Baba is You as well. I'll inevitably come back and hit my head against the wall on it every few weeks.
- Hope Baba is Hint helps you. I did not get it with these hints, but maybe you will.