# Video Games You've Played Recently **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Tags:** video-games-e-games\ **Created:** [July 25, 2022, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-games-youve-played-recently/968546 "2022-07-25T19:45:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 75
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2026, 11:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-games-youve-played-recently/968546/1499 "2026-05-07T11:55:24Z")
I’ve been playing “[Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era](https://store.steampowered.com/app/3105440/Heroes_of_Might_and_Magic_Olden_Era/)” for a few days and it is pretty great. I almost always avoid Early Access title but this one is good if you were a fan of HOMM3. This is that successor we always wanted and, I think, they finally got right. Again, it is early access so keep that in mind. It has some issues but mostly plays well. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2026, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-games-youve-played-recently/968546/1500 "2026-05-07T17:49:08Z")
I should also add it is -25% off the purchase price for a limited time. I am not here to promote or push any game. This is not free or even cheap. Just FYI. For me, it is worth it. HOMM3 was a favorite of mine and, while I do own it, I have been wanting a worthy successor. It’s taken 20 years but, I think, this is that. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2026, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-games-youve-played-recently/968546/1501 "2026-05-09T00:08:00Z")
The original HOMM is something I’d play with a buddy in college. It was a lot of fun. I never played the sequels. That new game looks gorgeous though, with the same spirit as the old games. Really cool. ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2026, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-games-youve-played-recently/968546/1502 "2026-05-09T04:16:14Z")
I played a lot of HOMM3 back in the day, but I don’t know if I have the attention span nowadays. ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2026, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-games-youve-played-recently/968546/1503 "2026-05-15T21:55:33Z")
Has anyone here played the game **Dead As Disco**? It’s a fighting game where the fights are kind of like the boss fights from one of the Batman Arkham games, but you’re fighting and dodging to the beat of a song like Crypt of the Necrodancer or the like. The music and the look are really stylish. ---
**Author:** ![CaveMike](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cavemike/32/16379_2.png) [@CaveMike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CaveMike)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2026, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-games-youve-played-recently/968546/1504 "2026-05-17T20:54:38Z")
Anyone playing [Crimson Desert](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimson_Desert)? It’s a fantasy-themed, open-world game with fighting, puzzles, exploration, quests, crafting, mini-games, etc. It’s unbelievably good. I am amazed at how much is packed into the game and I’m only on Chapter 2. There’s no hand-holding and the quests are very loose which really encourages playing it as an open-world. It’s fun just to walk around and explore. The graphics are amazing too. The detail, rendering distance, complexity of the towns and castles. One of the reviews I watched on YouTube was spot-on: The first 8 hours are effectively a tutorial because there are so many systems that they have to feed you bits and pieces of it. During that time I kept thinking “This is all really amazing, but am I having fun?”. Then, without realizing, it all clicked and I was having a blast. There are 4 difficulty settings and you can change them at any time. I started on the easiest and didn’t really die at all. Once I got the hang of the controls, I moved it up one step to normal difficulty which is perfect for an old man like me. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Bravo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_bravo/32/493_2.png) [@Johnny\_Bravo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Bravo)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2026, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-games-youve-played-recently/968546/1505 "2026-05-17T23:16:25Z")
I’ve heard the gameplay is great fun but the story is shockingly bad. I’ll be waiting for the price to come down but am definitely interested. ---
**Author:** ![Meatwater](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/meatwater/32/20074_2.png) [@Meatwater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meatwater)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2026, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-games-youve-played-recently/968546/1506 "2026-05-18T00:27:04Z")
I got a a dozen hours in Crimson Desert and it is overwhelming with interaction. I’m gonna wait for more updates since updates are big and consistent. (making the jump button and the interact button the same was a poor choice. Especially when you have to pick up coins individually). Also yeah the story is garbage. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2026, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-games-youve-played-recently/968546/1507 "2026-05-19T01:01:09Z")
> [@CaveMike](#): > > Anyone playing [Crimson Desert](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimson_Desert)? It’s a fantasy-themed, open-world game with fighting, puzzles, exploration, quests, crafting, mini-games, etc. It’s made by the same people who made that overhyped trash game Black Desert Online, which made it a hard pass for me. ---
**Author:** ![CaveMike](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cavemike/32/16379_2.png) [@CaveMike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CaveMike)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2026, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-games-youve-played-recently/968546/1508 "2026-05-19T02:33:00Z")
> [@Meatwater](#): > > making the jump button and the interact button the same was a poor choice. That was pretty dumb. I didn’t start playing until after the input patches, but it’s still a little wonky. My keyboard and mouse have their own key mapping that works around most of the limitations. Yesterday I created a few macros to deal with the left-shift annoyances. > [@Johnny\_Bravo](#): > > I’ve heard the gameplay is great fun but the story is shockingly bad. The story in the first two chapters are pretty generic and there isn’t any characterization. Story-wise, it’s more GTA5 than BG3. Gender roles are traditional, thus most of the NPCs are males. It actually seemed odd to me subconsciously. I didn’t realize how much my mindset has shifted around the fantasy milieu. Since the story is an afterthought, it’s not the end of the world. > [@Atamasama](#): > > It’s made by the same people who made that overhyped trash game Black Desert Online, which made it a hard pass for me. I haven’t been playing new games until recently. What was the issue? Was it pay-to-play? ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2026, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-games-youve-played-recently/968546/1509 "2026-05-19T02:52:09Z")
> [@CaveMike](#): > > What was the issue? Was it pay-to-play? It was a game where you had to pay a base price then heavily incentivized you to pay to progress. I hated the gameplay; the combat was a boring combo-based set up, where you had to hit 20 different abilities in a particular order. You were overwhelmed with too much crap to do pretty quickly, and gear progression involved that **terrible** cliche Asian MMO feature where you “upgrade” gear through a gambling system; it could go up, stay the same, or break. But to me the fatal blow was how the game had zero UI customization. It would have light-colored text on a transparent background, so if you are trying to read something in a bright area it was unreadable. And they released a console version, charged players for it, then almost immediately abandoned it and left all those players in the lurch. It’s a bad company and they’re never getting a dime from me. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2026, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-games-youve-played-recently/968546/1510 "2026-05-19T04:17:47Z")
> [@Atamasama](#): > > It’s made by the same people who made that overhyped trash game Black Desert Online, which made it a hard pass for me. I enjoyed BDO up to the PvE ceiling but really one of its best features was the character creator. Which made it ironic that Crimson Desert is a set protagonist. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2026, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-games-youve-played-recently/968546/1511 "2026-05-19T04:32:21Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > I enjoyed BDO up to the PvE ceiling but really one of its best features was the character creator. I do agree that the character creator was excellent. It’s kind of the gold standard IMHO. ---
**Author:** ![Dark\_Sponge](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dark_sponge/32/121_2.png) [@Dark\_Sponge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dark_Sponge)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2026, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-games-youve-played-recently/968546/1512 "2026-05-20T14:32:34Z")
New Cycle is pretty great if you like the City-building/Frostpunk-like genre. The story: in the future, extreme solar flares hit the earth which destroy all electronics and plunge the world into chaos. 50 years later you’re the leader of a band of people looking to settle down and recreate ‘civilization.’ You still have people in your group old enough to remember the old technology, but you need to rediscover it, and make it work without computers. Just in case a ‘New Cycle’ of solar flares start up. It’s still in early access, and I ran into game-breaking bugs toward the end. But what I got to play was great. A bit easier than Frostpunk but the difficultly is adjustable. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2026, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-games-youve-played-recently/968546/1513 "2026-05-20T21:58:32Z")
> [@Dark\_Sponge](#): > > The story: in the future, extreme solar flares hit the earth which destroy all electronics and plunge the world into chaos. 50 years later you’re the leader of a band of people looking to settle down and recreate ‘civilization.’ You still have people in your group old enough to remember the old technology, but you need to rediscover it, and make it work without computers. Just in case a ‘New Cycle’ of solar flares start up. I don’t like these kind of city-builders, but this concept seems really good to me. ---
**Author:** ![by-tor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/by-tor/32/266_2.png) [@by-tor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/by-tor)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2026, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-games-youve-played-recently/968546/1514 "2026-06-01T22:23:40Z")
Enjoying Forza Horizon 6. I haven’t played any Forza games before and I only race against the AI but this game is a lot of fun. The driving is just slightly harder than it is in GTA. So it is not for simulationists. There is a lot to do and cars to save up for or win. The setting is beautiful. Thumbs up. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2026, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-games-youve-played-recently/968546/1515 "2026-06-01T23:00:38Z")
Tempted. It’s down to $46 online right now. I’ll wait a bit longer. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2026, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-games-youve-played-recently/968546/1516 "2026-06-01T23:28:36Z")
I got Forza 4 a very long time ago, but never downloaded it because the file size was bigger than my internet could cope with, and my GPU was creaky old. I should give it a go now my pokey PC of today is closer to its expected specs of 10 years ago. ---
**Author:** ![CaveMike](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cavemike/32/16379_2.png) [@CaveMike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CaveMike)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2026, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-games-youve-played-recently/968546/1517 "2026-06-02T12:34:01Z")
I’ve been playing [Slay the Spire II](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slay_the_Spire_II) with my adult kids. I think it has already come up in this thread (or has its own thread) so I won’t drone on about it, but it is quite strategic and quite fun. It is still in Early Access, but the game is solid. * * * In case there are any Civilization fans, I also want to give a shout out to [Old World](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_World_(video_game)); a 4X game that focuses on the early eras of civ. It has a lot of really cool mechanics, the game gets frequent updates, and the DLC are quite inexpensive (some are $5 or $10). The best part is that the AI is quite good. It is from Soren Johnson’s company – he worked on Civ 3 and led 4 IIRC. Old World feels like it is built by people that love playing the game. * * * > [@Atamasama](#): > > It’s a bad company and they’re never getting a dime from me. Good to know, thanks @Atamasama. ---
**Author:** ![Raza](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/raza/32/213_2.png) [@Raza](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raza)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2026, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-games-youve-played-recently/968546/1518 "2026-06-02T13:26:23Z")
Old World is on sale on Steam until June 5. > **[Save 75% on Old World on Steam](https://store.steampowered.com/app/597180/Old_World/)** > > Old World is a revolutionary new historical strategy game where you lead your dynasty over generations of rule against rival kings and queens. Wage massive wars, manage your court, and build a dynasty — or watch your empire crumble to dust. What... [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-games-youve-played-recently/968546.md?page=74) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-games-youve-played-recently/968546.md?page=76)