those games are good only if you have the “feeling of accomplishment” gene which I seem to mostly lack …
You might enjoy Lawn Mowing Simulator too.
I’m playing Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla on PS5 right now. It’s my first real AC experience; I bought the first game on PC when it was new-ish but it wouldn’t run, and I lost the disc shortly afterwards so I never tried with a newer system. It feels very much like all the other open world games - x-ray vision to find loot, side quests everywhere, a settlement development mechanic, climbing walls and trying to be stealthy, etc. But I mean that in a good way, because I loved Witcher 3, Horizon ZD, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, GTA5 and so on. That said, the story is completely incomprehensible - my character occasionally turns into Odin or dreams of being Odin or dreams of talking to Odin for no apparent reason. Maybe you need to have played the earlier games for that stuff to make sense.
I tried Outer Wilds a few weeks ago. The presentation was great, but I just couldn’t get into the game. The space flight mechanic is clunky - apparently deliberately so - and navigation is even more clunky. It’s a shame, because the early part of the story was fascinating.
My main problem with the AC games is I wish the devs would just abandon the whole “modern” era plotline. It was always a really shitty explanation for the game that was completely unnecessary. It’s always the crappiest part of any game in the series.
The modern day part of AC: Valhalla is really minimal. I think it kicked me out of the simulation one time in the middle of the entire 100+ hour game. (My main complaint about AC: Valhalla was that it was too long for me; it felt repetitive by the end.)
But then again, I liked Outer Wilds (which favourably reminded me of Fallout 3, etc.) so obviously tastes differ.
I’ve been enjoying playing through Red Dead 2 for a 2nd time. I am really focused on the hunting and challenges this time, and taking the story and stranger quests as slowly as possible.
I also recently discovered Immortals Fenyx Rising (it’s on Gamepass now) and it is a ton of fun. Yes, it’s basically a ripoff of Breath of the Wild, but it’s like having a sequel to that game and IMO the controls are way more intuitive.
Just picked up PlateUp, a “rogue-like” cooking game. Kind of like a procedurally generated combination of Overcooked and Diner Bros if you’re familiar at all with those games. You get a random scenario to start and must serve every customer every day. Get to 15 days and you “win” the scenario and are given a new random scenario to play.
Like most rogue-like games, it’s fairly brutal. You don’t get a mulligan; the first mistake you make, game over. It’s still super fun, especially multiplayer with friends, but it’s playable single player, if not much more difficult.
Are you sure you are not thinking of “Outer Worlds” when you say it reminded you of Fallout 3? It was made by the Fallout: New Vegas team.
I noticed basically no difference between Fallout 3 and New Vegas in terms of atmosphere. YMMV, of course.
And thank god that Outer Worlds didn’t bother with Fallout: New Vegas “innovations” like 57 different types of custom ammo and 83 different cooking recipes that I never used.
My theory is that when they were making the first few games, they intended to do a lot more with it as the series progressed. I.e., each successive game would be in a later historical period than the last, until the historical period “caught up” to the present day and the final game would be Desmond climbing/parkouring around modern-day New York and fighting Abstergo. Then they abandoned that because it became lucrative to keep milking the series for more sequels, but felt they needed to keep the modern-day gimmick because it was a unique hallmark of the series.
I really haven’t kept up on Assassin’s Creed, but I did play up through the fourth game and that is what I figured was happening.
I just read that they are pulling the present-day storyline from the game and putting it elsewhere. Sounds like even Ubisoft knows people just want to play the main part of the game.
That will also allow them to make the present-day storyline an actual coherent story. That’s been one of the problems with it; it hasn’t really been one since ACIII or so. It’s just been a few brief vignettes per game that don’t form part of any larger whole.
Yeah, I was surprised to learn they still bother with it. The past story was strong enough in each game that I played.
I’ve been playing Asscreed Origins a lot recently. I really like the vast ~45BC ancient Egypt map, very impressive. Seeing all the pyramids and temples accurately modeled and placed, but painted in vibrant colors and in an busy everyday life context is really interesting. Even then there were older abandoned ruins and tombs, and you explore many of them.
Also working on Darkstar One, I love space sims but none 100% scratch my itch. This one is fun, has a decent story, and it’s easy to play however long I want at a time.
Played a really neat game last night called Metal: Hellsinger. It’s like Doom mixed with Shadow Warrior mixed with…Rock Band. It’s a full first-person shooter with a rocking metal soundtrack, but if you time your attacks to the music beat they do a lot more damage and build up combos etc. It’s really fun when you get in the groove, and I find myself headbanging to the game.
Working my way through the Fantasy General II campaign, it’s a hex-based turn-based combat game and looks like a 4X game such as Civilization 5, but the campaign isn’t 4x, it’s a series of missions/scenarios. It took me about 5 times to beat the last scenario defending against a much larger force, but the current mission seems to be much more forgiving. You fight with spearmen and slingers, but also have a mage that can throw chain lightning and a hero that rides a bear.
Playing a Flatout-inspired racing game called Trail Out. It’s a bit clunky and is obviously written by someone who doesn’t speak English natively, but it scratches the mayhem racing itch.
Playing Stardew Valley co-op on my Steam Deck, it’s a great couch co-op farming and exploration game. A day in the game takes about 10-15 minutes real time.
And playing Skyrim Together with a friend over the internet one day a week. It’s a Skyrim mod and server that lets you play Skyrim with 1-7 friends. Pretty glitchy at times but basic seeing each other and movement and exploration works pretty well. I like it a lot better than Elder Scrolls Online because it doesn’t feel like a MMO, every MMO feels the same to me with players spastically running around and toolbars everywhere.
Right on. I was looking at this but was very sceptical. I think I’ll probably check it out now.
I picked up Motor Town: Behind the Wheel a while back. Nice little sandbox delivery game in early access.
Horizon - Zero Dawn was my game of the last few weeks, and it has turned out to be really rather excellent. At first it was the familiar mechanics, campfires for fast travel, merchants, currency, but it hit a point where it was “this is too hard”. Two ravagers kicking the shit out of me when rescuing a couple of braves, and then… Over time, I hunted the bits for the decent gear, and the weapons and combat make it a very different game, ropecasters, sling bombs, overriding enemies (never got corruption to work though) and I don’t struggle with each of these big monsters, unless there’s say eight of them, and I’ve really rather enjoyed it. Excellent scifi story too.
For some reason I went another way before this, and did Her Story. In the end I cheated and watched all the videos, it seemed a weird mechanic to have to use search strings to find the videos. Then I looked up people answers, That left me unsatisified, I think whether each of the two characters was left or right handed was the defining feature, and none seemed to notice this, focusing more on hairstyles, which can be easily faked.
Watch dogs legion was the game before that, and ran the campaign and the dlc till the end. All in all I’ve enjoyed all the Watch dogs games, and I missed some dlc from previous ones which means I need to go back and find out what, if I have it, and then play it through. The second felt like a very short game and I believe the dlc fixed that.
ISTM that the idea was for AC to be a trilogy, with the third installment coming out in 2012 so as to match up with the 2012 Mayan end of the world prophecy which plays into the modern-day plot - but the first two games were far more successful than anyone imagined, which led Ubisoft to insist on a new installment every year, which forced them to pad out the “trilogy” with Brotherhood and Revelations, and once they finally got the third game out it had turned into a franchise zombie.
I just finished Horizon - Zero Dawn a little while ago and also found the story and gameplay very enjoyable.
If I have one complaint, I found the main character Aloy was a bit “meh”. I felt like she kind of went from teenage wilderness outcast to effortless good at everything and knowing everything about everything pretty quickly. I get that she’s smart and all, but I felt like there should have been more of a sense of wonder or strangeness or whatever as she discovers all this new stuff about the world.
Also the silly hats everyone wears.