I just bought Cereza and the lost demon. I’m very early in the game and already stuck.
I want another Botw. That game was the best money I ever spent. Countless hours of play. I don’t end up liking Totk quite as much as I’d hoped.
I finished playing Fallout 4 (blew up the Institute with the help of the Minutemen) and I’m now on to Dragon Age: Inquisition (on my creaky old Xbox 360).
I’ve started playing They Are Billions, which I’d been eagerly waiting to go on sale. It’s supposed to be a combination of RTS and tower defense, which is a combination practically tailor-made for me. Most reviews seem to agree that it’s tough and unforgiving, which I can attest to it is. But it’s so fun! Just loving it. I’m only on my second map in the campaign so far, but I think I have over 10 hours played already. These maps are long, and failure has already become expected. Each failure penalizes you, which is sick and demented. Love it.
The only downside is that the sale was on GOG, and while I initially thought that was great because of the whole no DRM thing, it turns out I hate playing games outside of steam. I hate everything about not being on steam. I hate that launching the game opens the stupid GOG Galaxy launcher, I hate that steam is not getting this playtime data to help its algorithm recommend games to me, I hate that when there are updates I’ll have to open GOG Galaxy just to check for them…I hate it so much! I console myself with the fact that I couldn’t have waited any longer for a steam key sale. It’s just too good.
I’ve been playing Red Dead Redemption 2. I’m now in Chapter 6, as Arthur tries to make things right with the people he’s wronged before he dies.
I saw that today, the quietly updated the PC version to run in 60FPS.
I put DA:I on pause for now (I started remembering the parts that I found kind of frustrating, like the stupid war table missions that require real time to complete).
I switched to playing Marvel: Ultimate Alliance (still on the 360) which is good mindless beat-em-up fun. I probably haven’t played it for 10+ years, I think.
I never finished DA:I either. I really enjoyed the first two games but this one never grabbed me the way the others did.
Just to clarify, I love DA:I and I have played it beginning to end at least 4 or 5 times. Just not this most recent time!
I finished playing Marvel: Ultimate Alliance (twice, on regular and hard mode). Next up on the cavalcade of Xbox 360 memories is Batman: Arkham Asylum.
Oh, I liked that part. It was my first and only DA. I thought it was a pretty good game, though the romance was really clunky. I romanced The Bull. But no video game has ever pulled off good NPC romance.
I can’t remember if I finished the game or not. I tend to get really completionist and try to do all the side missions and then get really close to the end and just stop. I don’t know why I am like this.
I liked Dragon Age Inquisition a fair bit, but only once I realized there was a lot of filler content I should just completely ignore. DA:I is something like 20-40 hours of good RPG content hidden beneath a layer of 100+ hours of low quality generic MMO-style garbage. It’s not a good game to go into with a completionist mindset.
I have been playing Blaster Master Zero 2, possibly the most unwieldy title in the history of video games. When I was a kid, the original Blaster Master was one of my favorite games, and I still occasionally find its weird wall-walking tank creeping into my dreams; so when I saw there was a highly-lauded sequel available for ten bucks, I jumped at it.
Damn it’s hard.
There’s a boss that I’ve tried about a dozen times. Each individual bit isn’t too bad, but the battle is long: four main stages, with each main stage precursored by a tank sequence. The whole boss fight begins with a super-long unskippable dialogue exchange; and there’s no way to save mid-fight. I’ve once gotten about 95% of the way through the final stage before dying.
If this were a PC game, I’d cheat my way through the fight: a dozen failures are enough. As it is, I might have to drop this game.
A very big update just came out for Satisfactory so I am enjoying some of the enhancements, especially the plethora of new options in a game’s Advanced Settings that formerly required mods.
When I want to burn a half-hour but not think too hard I jump into Brotato, though I’ve unlocked everything but one.
And Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 of course. Something like 1500 hours into it; I average about a flight a day.
I’ve been going through all the survival horror games on game pass and having a great time! Most are really shorty and can be done in an afternoon or two.
Soma, all 5 of the Amnesia titles, Prey. All really fun and creepy. Prey is probably the best games I’ve played in a long while, though quite a bit like longer than the others. But Amnesia Bunker was quite good too.
Then also, Return to Monkey Island. Also a wonderful game. Good writing, good voice acting, good art style, decent puzzles. Really lighthearted, which was a welcome relief from all the high intensity horror I had been playing. I was sad when I finished it.
Now playing Dishonored, which I’m also enjoying. Same people that made Prey, so the art and animation and mechanics and very similar ever if the settings are completely different.
I like open world games where you pick up various missions as you wander around. But it does seem strange that there are a couple of regions that don’t tie into the main plot or loyalty missions in any way (and one region that only ties into a loyalty mission very briefly).
I had a little time off this week so I bought Terra Nil. Think Sim City in reverse - you start with barren, desolate wasteland and your job is to create a lush green ecosystem and then leave without a trace. It’s pretty relaxing. I’m playing on the easiest mode and it has challenging moments but for the most part is pretty chill. It does get progressively more difficult from level to level. Creating the ecosystem is the easy part - the challenging part is cleaning up after yourself, recycling all of your materials and leaving the planet. You have to build everything in such a way that it can be recovered later. So far I’ve managed to figure out a solution to all of my screw-ups, but I figure it’s inevitable that I’ll fail at some point and have to start the level over.
I’ve been playing Age of Empires 2 again. It is probably the second or third game I played as a kid, but thanks to the Definitive Edition it really holds up (though I don’t have all the new DLC yet).
I’ve been playing Ranked, and doing absolutely terribly, since it’s been over a year since I played at all. But that’s OK, it just drops my rank which means I play easier opponents for a while.
I picked up one of the new OLED Steam Decks and threw (among other things) the “original” PS Spider-Man game on there. Sort of old at this point but finally at a price point I felt like paying and “older” feels like a feature since the Deck isn’t exactly high-end desktop hardware.
Only put a few minutes in so far but it looks great and feels like a good couch game. I had a little trouble getting web-swinging down (kept trying to use A+R2 in combination) and winding up in the street but finally figured out it’s just R2 once you’re in the air so Peter won’t be forced to walk everywhere.
(Other installed games are Horizon Zero Dawn, Resident Evil: Village, Mirror’s Edge and Slay the Spire. Aside from StS, mostly action stuff made for consoles/controllers so I wouldn’t miss the lack of a KB+M setup)
We started Super Mario Brothers Wonder today on Switch. Oooohmigosh it’s so cute. Everything’s bright and colorful and the flowers talk to you and there are all sorts of fun creatures you encounter. Koopas on roller skates? Check. Singing piranha plants? Check. Despite the cute, it feels like the same difficulty as any other Mario game. We are trying to teach my three-year-old how to play because he has expressed interest. In addition to standard characters, you can play as any one of a number of yoshis that take no damage, so it’s good for younger kids. I’m not sure if my son is quite ready, but he definitely wants to learn.
Some of the challenges are difficult for two or more players. If someone darts off screen, the other person gets left behind and made a ghost. So in the speed runs if you get caught behind another player, you’re screwed for the rest of the stage.
Other than that, I’ve found it very enjoyable.
I just finished replaying Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. I would compare it favourably to Elder Scrolls: Oblivion and Witcher 2, although Oblivion came out 6 years earlier.
It’s now the time of year for me to replay my new holiday tradition: Saints Row IV: How the Saints Save Christmas
I wanted something completely different to play, and ended up trying Gas Station Simulator. I’m finding it a lot more fun, and way more hectic than I expected. I’m only about 3 hours in, so I assume the novelty will wear off before long, but it is a strangely entertaining game.