How are you feeling right now (gaming-wise)?
How are you feeling right now (gaming-wise)?
I should probably go to bed at this point. I typed up a short story of my arduous attempts at defending an outpost in the STALKER modpack GAMMA and how my game crashed when I turned in the quest. Sent off that post and woe-is-me, the entire text didn't get submitted and I didn't have it saved in copy-paste. It's just so ironically fitting.
So ya, what's something you'd like to ramble a bit about?
Been playing Zelda, Tears of the kingdom. I’ve blocked all the relevant keywords as to not get spoiled, but now the game is out for quite a bit of time and people are just posting vids and memes without spoilers messages of the keywords. It’s such a huge and beautiful game and I want to explore it on my own time, but I’m scared it’s a race against the clock before I get a spoiler on something.
I finally found a way to end my inability to stop playing WoW after 18+ years of it. I didn't consider myself "addicted" - as I am able to maintain career & family, it was more about it meant I didn't play any other game. I ended the issue by requesting a "private information removal" - which hard-deletes every aspect of your entire battle.net account. Gone. 13,000 hours and it feels great. I also don't feel like I "lost" anything. When you see a 2 hour movie, but then you leave the theatre when it's over - do you regret spending 2 hours? No, you don't.
AAAAnd the very next act I took was to make a new Battle.net account to play Diablo4. The wheel of time, and all.
In other thoughts, I don't expect D4 to be forever, and I look forward to smaller/indie games on Steam. Looks like I need to try Dwarf Fortress, RimWorld, and others.
I just got back from an arcade bar, where I played a bunch of retro games like Frogger, Q-Bert, Tetris, Street Fighter II, you get the vibe.
It's so fascinating playing these old cornerstones of the gaming industry and thinking of how much video games have morphed over their history. The first thing that comes to mind is how the way we think of gameplay has completely changed; these old arcade cabinets have very simple but entirely unforgiving mechanics, whereas nowadays I feel like I need two tutorials and a read-through of a manual before I can approach a game, but once you get the hang of a game's particularities stuff gets easier in a way?
Like, the premise of Frogger is exceedingly simple; cross the street without getting killed. The challenge comes from the mechanics. Stuff gets faster, things are more hectic, you have less time to calculate your next move.
Whereas modern game mechanics are kinda smoothed out. There are less pixel-perfect maneuvers and places where timing is important, there's a bigger emphasis on exploration, figuring things out, interacting with the game world. Like just think of the differences between the original Super Mario Bros' gameplay and say Super Mario Odyssey. I'm not saying one style is better than the other, I definitely enjoy both retro and modern games, but the different priorities as preferences and technology evolved over time are immensely fascinating to me.
I feel super stagnated when it comes to games anymore. I still want to play but I only ever seem to play the same 2 games which are positively ancient now. I have tried to chip away at my backlog, but I will play for one night and then go right back to my comfy games even if I enjoyed it. Then if I want to try again I have to start over from scratch because too much time will have passed and I can't remember the controls or what I was doing, so it's back to the comfy games again because at least I won't get frustrated.
Maybe I need to try some very short games or something? But also maybe I am just being too picky! I look for things that I think would scratch the same itch as my comfy games but haven't found anything that gets close enough (yet!). I just want to have fun why do I have to make this so difficult?! >_<
It feels almost petty to mention, but my main problem with gaming these days is choice... there's just too much. I have a SteamDeck packed with over a decade of Humble Bundles and giveaways. I have a MiSTer FPGA with 10,000 retro games. I have subscriptions throwing me more games in a month than I could play in a year... and amid all that choice, I found I was playing none of it.
So I've taken steps. On retro devices, I've taken to removing the full ROM sets (or hiding them from view) and just selecting a handful of games that I used to own, or definitely want to play. In Steam, I've started a collection list of games I'm interested in and I only ever pick from that.
And, somehow, it works. Seeing only three or four games to choose from somehow short circuits that panic response of seeing three or four thousand. It's easier to fixate on a game, or to find something to genuinely enjoy about a title that may not be that perfect experience otherwise, rather than discarding it quickly and moving on to the next fleeting thrill.
Gaming-wise, I'm honestly having a great time. I think there's never been a better time for gaming. Yes, it's true that a lot of newer games have horrible micro-transactions practices, but there's also newer games that don't do this, there's always older games that can be played, leaked builds of games that you might have thought would have never existed (like Gears of War 3 on PC) which are actually quite fun to play and there's more game mods now than ever before. I think this is kind of the golden age of gaming in it's own way.
I'm feeling frustrated by games that don't respect my time. Don't play the same 30s animation every time I perform a minor action that I'm required to perform 10s or 100s of times, often in quick succession. At least have a skip button at a minimum!
Also, give me all of the information I need to make informed decisions, and make them intuitive!
Finally started playing Mass Effect legendary. It surely lives up to it's hype. The combat is nifty, but the dialogue and choices are super fun.
Also playing Dysmantle with my partner. It's simple but very cathartic and mindless. It's got issues but overall very worth playing. Especially couch coop.
Big thing for me recently has been quitting Destiny 2. I've invested an...embarrassing amount of time into that game and while there's zero regret about the friends I made and the good times I've had, the game has just progressively moved further and further away from what I enjoyed about it. It's just not something I feel the same way about anymore. Feels weird(but not bad) no longer being tied down to a "main" game.
...but yeah, been nice to catch up on some single player stuff. Playing Tears of the Kingdom quite a bit but Diablo IV is really hitting that loot dopamine part of my brain Destiny did so that's the main thing right now.
I'm kind of tired of triple AAA games right now. So much crap out there. Not sure if it's an issue of sucking the gaming industry dry or what but buhhh. There are outliers but it's pretty exhausting.. however emulation has never been better. I downloaded some OG Pikmin, Mario, etc and been playing through them and having a blast. Such an interesting time that a raspberry pi 4 can play a ton of the oldest games for "free" and the new stuff kind of gets forgotten about in 6 months.
Tears of the Kingdom has been consuming my life at the moment. I have the final boss mission ready to go but havne't commited to that yet. I want to explore more before "finishing" the game
Then I'll follow it up with the Outer Wilds DLC
After that I want to dedicate myself to some platformers and indie games that everyone recommends.
Honestly, feel like I'm in a good place gaming-wise, just planning ahead so there isn't a vacant hole in my life when I finish ToTK
So, Breath of the Wild is my favorite video game of all time, and Tears of the Kingdom is BotW+++, so I'm doing great game wise. I also started Diablo 4 last night and so far I love it. It's like if they took Diablo 2, then added in only the good parts of Diablo 3. I might change my tune as I continue, but so far I'm loving it. I'm still enjoying my daily Marvel Snap addiction, but I've gone from regular sitting in the 70s to struggling to break out of the 40s. But still fun, even if I lose, which is a mark of a good game.
Pretty good. Started gaming in the 80s, so my perspective includes cabinets, consoles, and PC gaming. I have more than enough in my queue to keep me going. Barely touched Shadowrun, Cyberpunk. Still playing lots of THPS, Salt and Sanctuary, Skyrim, and Hot Wheels Unleashed (I have a 4yo son who loves that shit).
I'm just happy that there are a couple games in looking forward to this year. Helldivers 2 and bomb rush cyberfunk. I'm delighted with the first, and honestly kind of concerned with the second. They haven't released any new trailers, teasers, or spoilers in what feels like years and I think it might have stalled out development wise.. But it's supposed to release in August.
Helldivers 2 on the other hand looks impressive, and because of the dev team I have zero concerns on the quality of gameplay or overall feel of the setting. It just doesn't have a firm release date yet.. Some time this year.
I have a backlog but TotK is what I’m playing and a little Diablo 4. I wish I had more time!
I'm reading pc gaming mag because I've no energy to actually play a game.
Playing Pathfinder:wotr and The Outer World, havin' a blast.
I was focusing on Overload a bit, which I've found to be a fun homage or spiritual sequel or successor or whatever to Descent. It does a pretty good job of addressing the problems of players potentially getting lost and disoriented in complicated 3d spaces, and it absolutely preserves the fun of wandering around, trying to spot robots before they're already firing at you, and then frenetically blowing them up. Lots of fun exploring and poking around for secrets and figuring out how to win fights. I feel like I'm only okay at it, I'm playing on a medium-ish difficulty and taking significant advantage of save-anywhere to decide I didn't actually screw up that last fight that badly, but I'm having fun anyway. A bit daunted by how difficult some of the later levels are turning out to be, though..
Anyway, I was doing all of that - plus other things, I have a bunch of gaming balls in the air right now - but then No Man's Sky had a new expedition come out. I only got the game in the last year or two and haven't been interested in it at the same time as an expedition happened, so I spent last night focusing on it. It seems okay? It's nice that my knowledge of the game allows me to render some tasks that might be arduous completely trivial, like knowing exactly what weapon to go fetch and what to do to get my hands on a quad servo fairly quickly. I think I spent too much time early on just getting a bunch of basic supplies lined up, but now I'm moving through everything pretty quickly so maybe that was correct and has paid off; I'm definitely overthinking the experience a bit. It doesn't really seem like that big of a deal, overall - it's not a major transformation of the game or anything, it winds up being what it says on the tin, just a quest line to go do to unlock some cool stuff. The cool stuff is actually mildly appealing to me, which is nice and a bit unusual.
I can go on, I found a novel (to me, anyway) way to break Chronicon a few days ago, but I think that's the appropriate amount of rambling.
Alternating between Tears of the Kingdom and Vampire Survivors.
YouTube has been helping my gaming fix. But digging Diablo 4 at the moment. I'm excited for the Xbox showcase since it will be all gameplay trailers verse CGI which shows nothing besides what the game could look like. This year has been great I think game wise. Harry Potter was great, started Jedi Survivor, Pokemon I ran through non-stop (yes it is a mess but I do love Pokemon a lot). Funny enough for Stalker Gamma, that mod got me into Stalker, super excited for Stalker 2
Got to hit Street Fighter's 6 training mode hard to learn some Cammy combos and also to practice some special moves (I'm not used to having a DP) and fundamentals. Getting bodied pretty hard by my friend lately, who mains Juri and plays JP on the side.
Also want to get back to Strive and play some ranked matches and, if I get enough free time, resume my Dragon Age: Origin's playthrough.
Gaming wise it's probably the best period I've had. I've finished a lot of smaller games, found absolute gems such as Outer Wilds (+ the perfect DLC) and Devil Daggers, P-ranked my way through Ultrakill and I'm slowly going through Elden Ring, which is just so awful on many fronts, that I don't think I'll be playing any other soulslikes ever. I've got a nice long rant about it brewing inside me.
Celeste got a massive, high quality community map pack recently, so I'm slowly chipping away at the maps, and I finally found a "main game" that I'll probably be playing forever - Trackmania.
I don't think I'll be running out of stuff to play anytime soon.
I've been playing around with Dyson Sphere Program a bit. It's basically a factorio/crafting game based on creating a namesake Dyson Sphere.
I'm not the best with crafting games so ive been looking up some build guides and good god. Some people are nuts with these setups. It's insanely efficient and mapped out.
I got sucked in last night and next thing I know it's 1am and my "Hey nerd, you're way past when you should've gone to sleep" notification went off. It's really good.
Tears of the Kingdom has kept me busy enough.
I have been branching out into genres that I normally don't play. Having fun in Divinity Original Sin and Stellaris. Taking time to learn something a bit more complicated than just shooting stuff blindly.
I play Destiny 2 but when that frustrates me or is down (happening a lot lately), I play Civilization 5.
I've been on an ESO kick for about 4 years. I start other games, but I'd rather be playing ESO. I have no interest in solo games, and I enjoy the mechanics. Outside of the bit of lag/disconnect in the massive PVP area (Cyrodiil), there aren't any problems that are game breaking, noticeable, or noteworthy (except by minmaxers, who complain about everything in every game).
I'm happy just plodding along in ESO solo, or in group, and have developed a large friend base there. It's turned into a much happier alternative to WoW for me, and I don't see myself doing much in other games for quite a while.
Well, Warcraft 3 Reforged isn't actually as bad as I thought it would be. I thought it was going to be this awful crap experience, but I really haven't seen that (okay yes, it has crashed on me once). I picked it up a few days ago and it's been one helluva nostalgic power run. XD I think they actually did a fairly good job of just upgrading the graphics but still keep the style the same, even though I wasn't a huge fan of the overly comic styling of War3. I haven't done custom maps nor campaigns yet, I know people complained about the campaigns not working. I really only played the Founding of Durotar when I was young.
IDK, it really isn't as bad as I thought. I heard that a new-ish team is running now, so maybe it will get better. I would like to get a custom game browser built into the game, similar to what Star craft 2 does.
It's been fun double timing War3 and D4 the last few days. :)
With SF6 being out I'm trying to get back into fighting games in a big way. The single player has been a ton of fun and I really appreciate how they introduce fundamentals of the genre as part of the mode's challenges.
Marisa (bi poly muscle queen) and Honda (sumo chad) are my mains
I’m in a lull. Horizon 2 DLC was great. TOTK was great, now I feel empty while gaming. I’ve just been playing Kerbal to wile away downtime. Good narratives are hard to find.
Everspace 2 (om nom nom, loved it)
Was at a bit of a slow spot. Then I picked up Everspace 2 on a whim. OMG that is a fantastic game; also learned to use button style peddles for rolls. Everspace 2 combat sits at a pretty sweet spot between No Man's Sky and Star Citizen (or ED). The combat is still arcade like but you can move your ship well in 3d space.
The Rift Breaker (surprise! it's awesome)
Most recently I picked up The Rift Breaker and wasn't expecting much.... oops. Another fantastic game. Brings back some Total Annihilation memories and Empire Earth to some extent due to the massive build out of bases (if you want). The Rift Breaker somehow continues add in more resources in a way that doesn't fatigue much. They also removed "it's a running sim" issue for building your base. Can't wait to see how multiplayer works out, whenever that happens. If multiplayer works well this will be a must play for our little game group.
Jagged Alliance 3 (like really? a real deal this time?)
Cautiously curious about Jagged Alliance 3. They brought in the director from JA 1&2 and looks like they have really tried to not screw up this installment. Could be good, I'll likely roll the dice on that day one as I loved JA:1&2 and others in this genre.
Starfield (oh buddy!)
Finally, completely throwing caution to the wind..... Starfield. This is the top game on my watch list and I cannot wait to see how it plays out. I classify Bethesda Fallout and Elder Scroll games as "clutter looters" and absolutely eat them up. Whatever Starfield may be, 1000 worlds for mods to drop content on is likely going to give it a very long life. Really looking forward to this one.
Bored with the feeling of nothing to play.
I finished TotK, as in finished all of the shrines. I was planning a pokemon fan game on my steam deck for about a week but finished that too. I was playing Melvoe Idle on my phone for the last 6+ months but just 100% it.
I feel like I am growing out of video games a bit. Work and young kids make it hard to put energy in a game unless I'm really into it.
I'm playing the same multiplayer games over and over but I'm not really progressing on my backlog of games and it's been this way for 6 months, so i think it could be going better
I have 68 games in my Steam library that I haven't touched.
On the other hand, I just finished Monument Valley 2 this weekend!
I'm having a ton of fun playing the remake of System Shock. Earlier I played Pentiment, which was amazing, and wasn't able to get on other games until System Shock came out, which I must say that I'm having a blast with it.
When I finish System Shock, I'm planning on starting Deus Ex or something similar.
Gaming-wise I'm in a tough spot. I have a wonderful amount of games to play through and experience. But as a Twitch affiliate, I like to dedicate my time to video games just when I'm streaming, so that I can share my experiences (and also write about them, with video proof). I also find that I need time to do other things in my life besides video games (socializing, adulting, etc) so the window for me to play games is getting smaller.
After going on a binge of buying Switch titles over the last six years I think my purchases are going to be really sparse from here on out. Especially if I make use of my Game Pass subscription more often.
To be fair, I was expecting Diablo IV to be a complete fiasco considering Blizzard recent track record but things to be going really well here! The game is Solid!
I have so many games that i've gotten from ps plus and steam sales that if I was back in middle school i would be having a fucking field day. Back then i only had like 1 or 2 games that i was actively playing (mostly kotor and halo games), now i have so little time tho, my backlog is insane and i don't know where to start.
I need to finish hollow knight and elden ring and then i have all these long, heavy hitters in my backlog like witcher 3, rdr2, dragon age inquisition, elder scrolls online, salt and sanctuary, superhot, star wars republic commando, half life 1, deus ex 1, metroid samus returns, celeste, far cry 3, and tons tons more, and if i get my ps3 set up there's even more.
Too many games too little time
Been playing a LOT of Victoria 3. It's wild to know exactly what people dislike about a game, feel the game has severe shortcomings... and yet still obsessively play it.
So many games just want too much attention.
The single-player games are bloated with crafting, mission timers, levelling trees, giant worlds that required mounted traversal, etc. They all want to be 50+ hours game time each.
The multiplayer/Live service games are battlepasses, dailies/weeklies, limited-time content. They all want to be 6+ hours a week each.
When I decide to play a game after working, I'm not playing those games anymore. I want to, and I have a bunch of them installed, but they're just sitting in my library. Games like that require me to choose to spend X hours at a time playing only that, and I'm probably not going to do that.
I love video games, and I enjoy playing those larger SP games when I do play them. But I had to dial back and stop playing a lot of 'Live service' games because the content was in passes that demanded too much time I couldn't give them. I wasn't playing enough to complete them, but their games were built around them that there wasn't much point playing them if I couldn't.
Each evening I feel like playing a game, and I just watch Youtube while playing something I can pickup and play for 30min instead - or fuck around on the internet and not play anything at all.
I decided to play Witcher 3 because it was so highly reviewed, and after playing it for ~5 hours, then going to bed and feeling like I was still in the 'tutorial starting zone', having mostly run around over empty ground. Barely any characterisation or story progression had actually occurred. With no meaningful progress or reason to continue, I just... didn't. A few days later I decided to uninstall.
Man I had to blast through Tears because I'm moving and I'm leaving the Switch behind with my family... would've liked to take my time, do all the shrines and side quests. Too bad!
Game ended on a fantastic note through!
TOTK final boss spoilers
Got floored when he flurry dodged me the first time. Learning what to look for was tough but doable with the hearts I had. Dorf is a SKILL CHECK dude.