Video Games You've Played Recently

The Game Room
203

Oh yeah, I know that hotkey. Most commonly used nowadays for watching videos. Toggling between full screen and windowed is decidedly not “exit”, though, which is why I say it’s horribly unintuitive.

How about something simple and intuitive like the Esc key, y’know? I would even accept Ctrl+F4 as perfectly cromulent. Alt+Enter just ain’t it.

EDIT: In fairness, for all I know escape or control F4 might actually work to close it. Still requires the keyboard, which makes it a bad UX design, but would at least make more sense. The space where the menu button was in the old design is now just empty space.

204

Never mind, I found it. If you go to the power button on the side menu, Exit Big Picture is one of the options. This is accessible via both the mouse and controller, so it’s all good.

Escape doesn’t exit but does open the side menu that includes the power button. Ctrl+F4 does nothing.

My main complaint was that you couldn’t do it without the keyboard, but you can, so I stand corrected. Alt+Enter isn’t intuitive but also not required, so that’s not really a valid complaint either. If you consider Big Picture mode to be the full screen version of steam it kind of makes sense.

EDIT: Weird. Pressing Alt+Enter in regular steam opens the old style big picture mode. I assume that’s transitional and will eventually just open the new big picture mode.

205

I bought Mass Effect Legendary Edition a few weeks ago (after having played ME 1, 2 and 3 many times over the years, sans DLC). I finished playing a female Paragon Infiltrator run and then went straight into a male Renegade Adept run. The game improvements are nice and some of the DLC is really pretty good.

206

I’ve been playing a lot of Hogwarts Legacy over the past couple weeks. I’ve been enjoying it quite a bit, there is a lot about this game that is EXTREMELY impressive. The settings are incredible, for one, just navigating around Hogwarts is so cool – the school is huge and I don’t think I will ever truly learn where everything is without just following the quest markers on my map.

The characters, story, and dialogue are quite good. If you’re in it mostly for the story and the lore, you’ll really enjoy this.

I do have a few critiques though: First, I wish there were more enemy types. Compared to Skyrim, for example, it just feels very limited in the different types of encounters you can have in the wild. It’s basically mongrels, spiders, Dugbogs (fat swamp gators), Inferi (zombies) goblins, and dark wizards. That’s pretty much it, other than the occasional troll. And although there are some differences in the way these enemies will fight you, the same combat techniques pretty much work across the board.

Second, the loot is all randomized. That’s good to a point, but it would be great if to acquire certain powerful items, I needed to complete special quests. This is part of the early game, where a quest will lead you to a new spell. But when it comes to gear, it’s all random.

Third, this game frequently falls into the false choice problem of many RPG’s. You often have an option of how you respond to people, but it seems to only impact the very next line of dialogue, and then everything’s back to the on-rails storyline. In the beginning, you are presented with a choice of wand, but that has zero impact on gameplay. Same for the house you get sorted into by the Sorting Hat. There is one quest that differs depending upon your house, but overall it’s the same story regardless of whether you’re Slytherin or Griffindor. And there’s nothing to do in the house common room, so really your house choice feels pointless, besides the colors on some of your gear.

It’s a very impressive game, but I can’t help feeling that it could have been so much more. I would have liked a little more RPG-ness where you could build your character’s skills and gear to fit how you wanted to handle combat. You can apply traits to your gear, and talents to your skills, which is a small taste of that, but it would be nice to have more differentiation in how you build your character as you gain power.

207

I’ve been playing it, too. The fact that they created a full model of Hogwarts and you can explore the entire thing is worth the price of the game.

It has flaws, but I’ve put about 30 hours into it and I really enjoy it.

I’d probably buy a DLC if they release one.

208

Hogwarts is the best game example I’ve ever seen of “Greater than the sum of its parts”. There’s a bajllion things to do and none of them are singularly impressive (aside maybe from the Hogwarts Castle modeling) plus there’s a bunch of minor complaints I have. If I wrote down all of my complaints and handed it to myself, I’d think it’s barely a C-tier game and never bother to try it. Instead, it all comes together extremely well and kept me engaged and entertained throughout the 50ish hours I put into it.

The RPG complaints are legitimate (since they market the game that way) but I find it’s better to think of it as a plot-driven action/adventure game with some RPG-Lite elements for flavor.

209

Just picked up Anno 1800, which looks on the surface to be Banished on steroids. That’s actually what I hope it is too. Always on the hunt for the next Banished, I’ve played Farthest Frontier and Patron, which are okay games but didn’t keep my attention in the same way. We’ll see about this one.

210

have you played any of the other anno games? you don’t have to but unless it’s changed its pretty much a rts except you’re building a colonial town that eventually expands into a colony and eventually you get in a fight with the other colonial powers which other than the slight bonuses depending on who you played only thing that’s different is the style and names of building

211

Thanks for that info. I have not played the other Anno games. From your description, it sounds like it may be quite different from what I’m expecting. Since I don’t really have any experience with rts-type games, I suspect there to be more of a learning curve than I was expecting. Regardless, I’ll still give it a try. Got it for a great price (75% off).

212

I just finished Pentiment this afternoon. A narrative-driven 2D side scrolling adventure/mystery. Takes place in early 1500s and all the art style reflects that pretty well. It’s pretty much all reading, so don’t expect any action or button mashing. The story is very engaging and it kept me interested the whole time. Finished in about 3 or 4 afternoons. I definitely recommend it. Free on gamepass.

213

I saw a quote from on of the designers on why the game didn’t have a morality system, and his answer was something like, “It’s an RPG, and in an RPG you don’t want to constrain a player’s actions by imposing penalties on them for doing the wrong thing.”

All these controversies over this game, and I feel like people are overlooking the real outrage.

214

That’s kind of amusing since there isn’t really “wrong” actions to take. You can be a bit of a dick in the game but not in any serious way. You certainly can’t align with the back guys or try to usurp the throne or drive off party members (such as they exist), etc. Playing the game with every asshole option will just give you the same game with slightly different dialogue. There’s only one lasting choice you get to make and it’s at the very end of the game.

So, I suppose there’s no penalties for doing the wrong thing but there’s also no differing consequences one way or the other. Some people might be put off by that if they were expecting a “real” RPG so I just prefer to not think of it as an RPG (regardless of the dev intentions).

215

Hogwarts Legacy

I played to the end and am in the post-game, which is decent for a game I was not expecting post-game to. I am aware of the controversy of the game since JK Rowling turned out to be terrible, but I’m not sure what to say. I decided to play the game and I’m sure my money will go to other jerks in the future.

It was a great game…well, a really good game. They mapped out Hogwarts entirely and the entire castle/school is explorable and no doors are “fake doors” like you get in so many buildings like this in games. Whole school, all four common rooms, every thing you expect. All there.

Hogwarts is not the entire game, but I spent hours wandering through it and looking for its various secrets. There is an entire open world, which is quite underwhelming compared to much better open worlds.

Anyway, fun game, I was never bored. I think the appeal is mainly for Harry Potter fans. I’d say it was “decent” if you didn’t read Harry Potter and “really good” if you did.

Still, the castle of Hogwarts is a great piece of video game architecture. I still think about it.

216

I played the whole game (Hogwarts Legacy) as a goody-two-shoes but then I got the evil ending due to my final critical choice. The “good” choice just sounded like the more boring option so I went with the more exciting but apparently also “evil” choice. Ah well, all my do-gooder-ness was apparently for naught. The differences in the two endings are pretty slight though, and nonconsequential.

217

Spoiler-box or email me your choice and I’ll see. I thought I got an OK ending, but I haven’t leveled up to level 34 and attended the end of year feast. I presume that ending is like a bonus ending, though.

I think Professor Fig agreed with whatever I chose.

218

I started playing Assassin’s Creed Syndicate last night, after deleting three files to actually get to the game rather than just sitting on the epilepsy warning.

Reminds me a lot of the Just Cause franchise, transported to a steampunk setting.

219

Finally found a go-to (for the time being, anyway) besides Snowrunner.

Been playing Generation Zero the last several weeks. I had gotten a little ways in to it several months (a year??) ago, and then dropped it. 13 y/o then recently found it and got me to play with him. Then we convinced my Dad to play with us last weekend.

Son and Gramps have a thing where they play, usually Fortnite, on Saturday afternoons. Last week I posted a video playing Gen 0 on my Facebook, and he replied “Hmmmm”. And then I knew we could hook him :slight_smile:

Anyway, the game if you’re not familiar: You go on a fishing trip, and when you come home (to Sweden), Sweden (or at least your part of Sweden) is taken over by killer robot mech things. Where did they come from? You gotta find out. And have many delightful adventures along the way.

Is it the most solid game ever? Neh, prolly not. But it’s still pretty good. 1st person shooter, light RPG and light crafting. The machines are very cool to look at, and even cooler to hear. I think the sounds are one of my favorite things about the game.

You can ride a bicycle around by default, but kiddo bought me the motorbike expansion which makes getting around faster, and makes it easier to escape an encounter you’d rather not be in.

220

Solid game. I put almost 75 hours into it. Free on gamepass.

221

Picked up Inscryption, The Hex, and Pony Island in a bundle from the Steam Spring Sale. Haven’t played any of them yet. I’ve seen some of them so I know they’re very mind-fuck-y. What was interesting was Inscryption on its own was $11.99 on sale, but the bundle was $11.97, so you actually get 2 cents off and 2 more games when you buy the bundle!

Also picked up Wasteland 3 and Salt 2. The latter is an Early Access game that’s kind of a single player Sea of Thieves-lite. I just like sailing around, finding islands, crafting, and fishing. I don’t really care about all the pirate stuff, which is much easier to ignore in this game, and the world is not full of griefers fucking with you the entire time like in SoT.

222

I bought Henry Stickmin (or however you spell it), and after 30 minutes of mostly-cutscenes, got a refund. So I bought Red Dead Redemption 2, and you can guess what I did after about an hour of play.

So I bought Against the Storm

Against the Storm isn’t Banished on steroids, but it sure owes that game a debt. It’s like Banished got turned into a rogue-light in a low-fantasy universe. A “round” of it takes a couple of hours to play (or less if you speed it up), as you try to build a settlement to the queen’s specifications before her impatience meter maxes out, and every settlement earns you perks toward future settlements. There are dangerous events (machines on the verge of explosions, dread spirits in the forest, cauldrons leaking toxic effluent), but there’s no combat at all; most of the game is figuring out how to gather mushrooms and reeds and berries and clay and other goods from the forest.

It’s early release, and it’s excellent.

If Oxygen Not Included and Satisfactory and Banished are your jams–like they are mine–check it out!