A gaming community free from the hype and oversaturation of current releases, catering to gamers who wait at least 12 months after release to play a game. Whether it's price, waiting for bugs/issues to be patched, DLC to be released, don't meet the system requirements, or just haven't had the time to keep up with the latest releases.
Call to Arms - Gates of Hell: Ostfront
I've been playing a lot of skirmish matchups with the ai recently. Its a good looking game too so makes great screenshots.
Pikmin
I only have the Emperor Bulblax left to do. I initially started the Nintendo Switch version but changed over to GameCube emulation on the PC so I can test out RetroAchievements. Its been fun and I'll probably move on to Pikmin 2 soon.
Fable 2
My play through has stalled for a couple weeks now...
I've sunk so many hours into Conquest campaigns in Gates of Hell. I'm always a fan of strategy games which showcase artillery, and GoH is among the best in terms of visual and audio design. Of course, it's a little incongruous when you roll out your big guns, and see they've got a range max of 350 meters, but I guess concessions must be made if you're making a tactical scale RTS.
This was a game earlier today with a great shot overlooking a chapel area in the middle of the map. All the detail is quite overwhelming at the start but its so good when you dig in to it.
This week, I been playing...
Mindustry
Open source factory tower defense. What more can I say?
Forza Horizon 5
When I only have a short time to play, I'll open this up for some dumb fun. Just recently got the Hot Wheels DLC, and that's definitely worth trying. Takes a normally half-serious racing game and adds loops and boosters and upside down track and all kinds of other bonkers shit. So now you're taking real-life serious cars on completely ludicrous, impossible tracks through cool scenery. Huge smiles were had.
Picked it up last sale for like 60% off.
Half single player and half with the wife. I'm just base building on solo and we quest together.
It's pretty fun going into a game with zero research (as in no player guides).
Learning to deal with surviving and efficiency. Always annoying when there is a easy solution to a problem (like start an open world to keep your base/gear between missions).
I decided on Fallout 4, and have already racked up two and a half days' worth of play time.
I almost always get sucked into a Minutemen playthrough. Like tbh I don't think I've ever not done the Minutemen questline, at least up to a certain point.
Fallout 4 is actually probably the Fallout game I've finished the least. I remember completing the main quest on my first playthrough all the way back on Xbox, but I honestly don't think I've ever finished it again since. I know I've never finished it with the Brotherhood, or the Railroad but I did start a RR playthrough once.
TagPro - looks like a really simple webgame, but is honestly one of the best games I've ever played. Extremely simple rules, but hard to master. A lot of skillful plays, but also a lot of choas and fun. The community is overall nice and positive (sometimes individual players get a bit frustrated).
If you want to give it a try, go ahead - no account needed. Currently, only the US servers seem to be busy.
Marathon. I play(ed) Destiny before and avoided PvP but Marathon is a great game.
I'm enjoying being free from gear fear. I've let it all go, just playing for fun. It's great.
Oh the new one, not the original I assume?
Yeah, new one.
That's cool, I quite enjoyed Destiny's PVP back in the day so I'm quietly, and perhaps naively, excited for it
I think it’s kinda boring personally, but I do get what you’re saying.
still bg3. im just finishing up at the last light inn before I head out to the cursed lands. sorta screwed up on my light spell before so gotta play with that.
made a bit of progress in every class and one promotion, still learning the game tho a definitely a long road a head of me before I even think of jumping into higher difficulties. it's nice to play, even with random dwarves in every run
got that tactical, sneaking itch to strach, and the game doing it very well for now. I enjoy the story quite a bit, the humor is a nice addition as well, so overall I can only recommend. Crew arcs between mission is great element to explore backstories
Warhammer 40k: Rogue Trader. If you liked Owlcat's other RPGs, definitely give this one a try. It's strictly turn-based, more like their Pathfinder game had a baby with XCOM, but it feels faster than playing Wrath of the Righteous in turn-based. Story is pretty engaging so far, even though I went in knowing very little about Warhammer. Loving some of the characters, which I feel is always one of Owlcat's strong suits.
Rogue Trader RPG mentioned!
I've been mostly playing Hitman World of Assassination this year and absolutely loving it. I'm hitting me stride with Freelancer now and it's been a heart thumping blast.
One of my absolute favourite games. It’s actually my second-most played game of all time I believe. It doesn’t get talked about nearly enough on here imo, I’m excited to see someone else playing it.
It's just incredible. The amount of work the devs put in and the way everything interlocks, it's so much fun trying to pull it all apart. I feel like I could play this game for years.
I’ve been following the series since probably 2017 (back when they were individual instalments) and I’m still not bored of it so I agree it’s a game you could play for years.
I decided to go for a change of pace last week and jumped into 2 racing games I haven't touched in a while: Stunt GP and Race Driver: Grid.
Stunt GP
It's an RC car racer from 2001 developed by Team17 (guys behind Worms series). It's a pretty simple game with surprisingly heavy(ish) controls - nothing too crazy but every time I get back to it there's a second of "oh right, that's how it feels" flashing through my mind. The game also has 20 or so cars specialising in various styles of driving and an upgrade system (when playing championship).
It's a neat little title which still feels and look great.
Race Driver: Grid
I started this one multiple times in the past but never really played for long - not because I didn't enjoy it, it's just that every time I touched it something else grabbed my attention soon after. This time I'm planning to stick around.
Getting used to normal racing was pretty straightforward, drifting on the other hand can still be a challenge (I dunno, might have something to do with playing on keyboard). It's not bad or unreasonably hard but it's definitely a bigger departure from other games I play (unlike normal driving).
I have a few small gripes with this titles that don't necessarily affect my enjoyment but are noticeable enough to warrant a mention. Those being:
Other than that? I love the presentation, both in terms of menus and art style (except of constant orange), and I really enjoy the gameplay. I wish vehicle customisation would be a little bit more involved but I realise that's not the focus here so I'm not too unhappy about it. The game itself is great and that's the important part.
Both of these titles feel quite different from my usual picks (Ridger Racer 2 for PSP and Colin McRae Rally 04) so I needed a little bit of time to adjust but after that I was ready to have some fun. Man, I love old racing games.
Finally, I got in the mood for Halo: Reach so I jumped into that for a bit. Probably won't be playing the whole thing again this time but I'll at least zoom through a few levels, trying to get some achievements. Oh, I also took the time to customise my spartan beyond gender and colour like before - finally feels more... "mine".
I picked up a ps5 from the local shop because it was 100$ cheaper. I figured it would be wise to get it if I wanna keep socializing with my friends and before they get stripped for parts.
I got Dragon's Dogma 2 and the 2k25 tennis game (we had a tennis game for the SNES so it felt right) from the library and I guess Siege for free.
Dogma 2 is like Dogma 1 but more and prettier still weird in the same way.
2k25 tennis is playable if you're not connected to the Internet, there's training and free matches you can play no problem.
Yet to buy a game for it, been tons of fun. The free to play games are free too if you just don't buy anything.
Redsec is what I play when I do cardio, the gauntlet mode is good enough I'd say.
My little cousin was over and he said "the finals" was pretty good which is also free.
I'm putting my name on the list for the astro bot game with the library because the DS5 is genuinely neat and it seems like the only game with design dedicated to using it. Will be getting the couple of sports and GTA 6 because that's just how I do a lot of my hanging out. Will end up being cheaper then the drive and the flights 😅.
TLDR.
Always buy a console with a disk drive and check out your local library
I put CFW on my PS3 finally so I've been replaying the Uncharted series
Yeesss well done, absolutely game changing, such a great machine with such an awesome catalogue, enjoy
Thank you!
I'm having a lot of fun with it and I can definitely say it is one of my favorite consoles of all time. The lineup is super good and a lot of the games hold up really well in my opinion.
Anomaly Agent. Nice game.
Just finished Outerwilds. Next up is Wagatobi to help practice my Japanese before a trip in a few months.
Crimson Desert.
Yeah, no patient gaming this week, it's time for Crimson Desert. It's by no means perfect but my god does it scratch an itch I've had for a very long time.
Yeah, it’s REALY good!
It's funny how Crimson Desert und Death Stranding II just released at the same time and thus helped me stay patient 😅. I can't decide, so whatever goes on sale first wins and I can play something different in the meantime.
Do you mean for PC? Death Stranding 2 has been out for a while now.
Yep, PC, I don't have a console. So new and shiny for me 🤗
It’s an amazing game! Enjoy!
Chrono Ark
I went back and finished Chrono Ark. Well, okay, I still haven't won a run with every character yet and I have some DLC content to get to if I want. But I reached both endings and the epilogue. Which, as a note for anyone who gets this game because of my recommendation: your game might bug out and unlock the epilogue before you've seen both endings (it did for me and I sadly started watching it unbeknownst before reaching the second ending). Try to avoid watching it until at least after seeing the second ending, or it won't make a lot of sense. Though having watched it now it really would make the most sense after having reached golden friendship with all investigators first.
Anyway, I really loved this game. I've already waxed about it in these threads. The gameplay is really fantastic, and while the actual prose itself isn't always the best (partially due to translation I've been told) I really enjoyed the story and several of the themes it touched on. It surprised me at several moments, and even with the prose sometimes lacking it still managed to land the big moments for me.
I do have one small complaint, and that is in the marriage of cinematic storytelling and a challenging roguelike deckbuilder. Now granted, this might be exacerbated by me sucking at the game. But I did find the climax of the story somewhat frustrating since it took me a couple of attempts to clear the final two bosses. And that's fine in a roguelike usually, you shouldn't expect to win against the final boss on the first attempt. But here the story and the presentation was all laid out in a way that made the losses feel very bad - I just wanted to see the conclusion of the story. Especially since unlike something like a Souls game or whatever it's not just like you can gradually work on beating the final boss. You have to invest over three hours into another run just to see if this time maybe your deck is good enough. Though I will say: there is a "Hope" difficulty meant for those who just want the story, and maybe I should have used that when it was time to see the endings. So it might be partially user error.
Having gotten that off my chest though, it still does nothing to tarnish my overall rating of the game. It's a phenomenal roguelike deckbuilder that will appeal to anyone who likes the genre purely through gameplay, and on top of that it's a full fledged visual novel with an actually surprisingly interesting story. I will definitely keep playing it, maybe I won't 100% it but I would like to explore the DLCs and try out some of the team setups and combos I still haven't tried out.
Just grabbed the Kerbal Space Program DLCs in the sale.
My daughter is really into space stuff atm, so I think about starting to play it with her.
Elden Ring seamless co-op with my husband. Highly recommend this mod
What OS are you on? I’ve been wanting to try modding Elden Ring but I’m worried it’ll be tough on Linux (I also haven’t had time).
Windows on this computer unfortunately. I'm not sure how well it works on Linux. I'm worried about that too, that's why this computer still has Windows
Just wrapped up the Trails in the Sky FC remake and Trails beyond the Horizon, which means I'm now fully up-to-date with the Trails series! If you like JRPGs I cannot recommend the series enough.
Up next will be Dread Delusion. I've heard the gameplay isn't fantastic but the world looks very interesting to explore.
Very old indeed but I've been on Carrion Fields a lot lately, revisiting old haubts, and it's still as fun as I recall. Uniquely for a MUD they even released on Steam with a client package and everything.
In the past I took characters very seriously and any time I died (let alone faced down the inevitable permadeath), it was emotionally crippling. This time around I'm mature enough to see the silly and just have fun with it.
It was given away a while ago (by Intel I think?), you could chose one of many and I chose this. My laptop is not powerful so it looked ugly and a little laggy, but it is fun. I was thinking to buy II or I so it could run better in that laptop.
F2P, but fun. Paid features are cosmetics and unlocking characters immediately, but you can unlock them playing.
Sun Haven with twin. They added the ability to teleport to the various farms, cool. The water zone and the new city zone, while aesthetically cool, ate boring. No farm, just basically one quest line in both. Sadness.
Power Drive Rally on the Atari Jaguar
Death Stranding 2 just released on Steam so that's what the next 4 business weeks will go towards
MGS: Peace Walker which so far has the best gameplay out of all MGS games I've played but I hate the boss fight
Drakengard 1: I like the story but the gameplay gets kinda boring but I'm still close to the beginning
Resident Evil 1 (PSX): I finally get why people love this series, I hated REmake but this makes actually want to play other RE games