Right now I’m still playing Caves of Qud, but I’ve also started playing Geneforge: Mutagen; the remake of the original Geneforge 1. An isometric RPG where you play a rookie member of the Shapers, a sect of bioengineering-focused sorcerers who is stranded on an island and has to find a way off while figuring out the mysteries of the island.
Fun so far; my present character is of the Shaper class (apparently the easiest in this version, “hard mode” in the original), who specializes in critter creation (“Shaping”), is OK with magic but weak at physical combat. The other available classes are Agents (who specialize in magic, are moderate at physical combat but are weak at Shaping), and Guardians (strong in physical combat, OK at Shaping, bad at magic).
Finished Dragon’s Dogma with 107 hours. I think I over-wandered a bit since the final fights were all pretty easy, likely because I was over-leveled. I liked it; as I said here (or a similar thread, who can keep track) it’s more Dragon’s Dogma for good or ill. It’s a bit of a cult hit so perhaps it takes the right kind of brain to get hooked by it but that’s the brain I’ve got.
Combat is fun and usually engaging but there’s a lot of it. There’s a fair number of monster types but, for all the fighting you’ll be doing, you’ll still see a lot of them. The intent is that you pick up new vocations (classes) along the way and since they all play differently, it keeps combat from getting too stale since combat as a sorcerer is different from that of a mystic archer or a thief or a warrior. You gain skills from each vocation so there is value to it beyond just variety.
The map is pretty large and filled with stuff. Maybe over-filled. I saw a video say the game should be called “Dragon’s Dogma: It’s Always Fucking Something” and that’s right on the head. It’s rare to move more than 100’ from your location without a fight, or your pawns calling out a chest or an NPC or whatever. Very often combat.
Anyway, I really enjoyed it but it might be something where you have to really enjoy what it’s offering because it’s offering a LOT of it.
No difficulty settings though I don’t think it really needs it. Combat usually isn’t very difficult, the death penalty is minimal (you have a slightly lower health bar until you rest; this also happens upon wounding anyway) and, if you have friends who play, you can rent their pawns for free and potentially have a killing machine in your group. Even if you don’t, it doesn’t cost much to rent a pawn slightly above your level.
I usually didn’t mind the lack of fast travel although some escort quests got a bit annoying (as escort quests so often are). Walking the map is supposed to be a significant part of the game and I usually found it entertaining enough. Even after a couple passes through an area, I’d get pawns saying they knew of a cave entrance or treasure chest nearby to go explore and find.
The ox carts do a decent job of reducing travel time and you can drop Port Crystals in far flung locations so if you ARE across the whole map, you can burn one of your Ferry stones to get there. There’s one obnoxious stretch (a far south city with no ox cart heading north) but it was generally fine and foot travel was just part of the game.
This more or less matches my impression of Astroneer. It did about everything it promised it would, but still something about it just didn’t grab me. It felt more like I was in a laboratory rather than some alien planet, like I was training for a “real” mission that just never comes.
From Steam, Elephant Rave 2, a new game from jmtb1 where beams shoot out of nowhere and you have to react SUPER SUPER FAST to avoid them (plus an autoscroll section where if you lose too much ground you’re completely hosed no matter what). Described by the author as “weird”. Most likely made to plug the remastered Elephant Collection.
Eh, nowadays it’s nothing short of a miracle when I have the patience to finish one of these annoying things at all, so I’m not going to rip it here. I’m hesitant about getting the collection, as I remember the quality of those games being wildly inconsistent, but if you’d like a nice change of pace, maybe it’s worth the price.
Thanks much for those who gave feedback on my sale choices. Ended up grabbing Stranded: Alien Dawn. Once I finish with Planet Crafter I may jump into it.
I’ve been playing Fell Seal: Arbiter’s Mark, a turn-based-tactics fantasy game. It has a pretty “Final Fantasy Tactics” feel to it, in a good way. I’d recommend it if you like that genre.
Ooh, this is a good recommendation. I loved “Fell Seal.” It’s really the only game I’ve ever played that gets in the neighborhood of FF Tactics, including the actual Tactics games Square has produced since then.
Anyway at the moment I’m playing Stellaris as their new update and DLC The Machine Age dropped, and I’ve been really enjoying it. The Machine Age is big, cool and fun; I’ve been bouncing all over making the new available types of empires . Right now I’m playing Zenak Robotics, a Individualist Megacorp with Arc Welders origin. Arc Welders is probably my new favorite Origin for mechanical races.
Also, it’s funny how Spiritualist robots manage to piss just about everyone off. Materialists don’'t like you because you’re Spiritualist, while Spiritualists hate you because you’re machines; and complain extra hard because they think you’re some kind of fake mockery of them.
Playing V Rising right now; where your character is a vampire that has to build a castle, avoid the Sun, hunt for blood, gain powers and defeat competitors.
It is pretty fun so far and I usually hate vampires.
My brother tried to get me into V Rising. I’m not much for playing an antihero, so I think that the fundamental premise is gonna turn me off.
Having finished Planet Crafter twice back-to-back, I picked up Factorio again with the Krakatoa mod or whatever it’s called–but it’s not pulling me back in as I’d hoped. So I picked up Fabledom, just released into 1.0. City builder/hero manager in the vein of Cities Skylines or Exiled, with a twee fairytale respec.
It’s got potential, but there’s enough annoying stuff to keep distracting me. Your citizens aren’t happy if they have workplaces far from their homes, but there’s a very clunky interface for moving them around. I can’t find any way to show the production time for various resources. You’ll get quests that (for example) require you to surrender 15 loaves of bread, but I can’t find any way to limit my citizens’ consumption of bread, so I auto-fail the quest. And so on.
I hope they patch it with significant UI improvements.
I just downloaded Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag as it was on sale for twelve bucks. I remember having great fun with it when I had it on PS3, or 2, whichever. So far, I’m overwhelmed again by the expanse of it. I spent the first two hours just tracking down all the collectibles - I’ve done one main mission. I can’t wait to hit the high seas.
This month’s Humble Monthly included Steel Rising, a Soulslike based in a mythical French Revolution era of automatons and whatnot. Unfortunately, I found the controls to be pretty clunky and not much fun to play. When I played Elden Ring, I felt like my losses (so many losses) were skill-based on my part. In this game, it was a lot more “That was bullshit” moments based on poor controls and game play elements.
I started Hellblade 2 on GamePass. This is probably the best looking game I’ve ever seen, though CP2077 may give it a run if you really crank it up (though that probably isn’t a playable experience.) I’m in camp walking simulator in respect to Hellblade 1, so I don’t have high hopes for its sequel.
I was trying to finish Persona 3 Reload before SMT5:V dropped in June, but with enough time to get through another title. That was a bad plan since that’s a long game. I just crossed 50 hours and maybe I’m halfway through it. It didn’t help that I was playing on max difficulty, which required grinding in order to one-day clear some early dungeons. I think I’m over the difficulty hump though. I know it’s lame, but I’m using a guide for the visual novel parts of the game. I’m not going to play through this twice to see everything so I need to 100% the first run.
Just finished watching the Fallout amazon series. Re-downloaded Fallout 4 earlier today and have been playing it a little while now. It’s been quite some time since I’ve been here. I never actually finished it the first time. I didn’t even recognize my old save game, so I just started over from the beginning.
Played through the first few parts and it’s ringing some bells. I had to re-learn a lot of stuff, most important of which is saving often, especially during battles, to avoid unintentionally turning friendly NPCs hostile by accidentally friendly-firing them (I’m beginning to remember why I never finished this game).
Great game! The non-combat stuff was pretty painful at times but the core gameplay loop was really satisfying and the “XCOM as an arena brawler” thing worked much better than I thought it would.