We’re having a discussion on flight sticks over here: Best USB Joystick?
I might pick one up just for MSFS 2024. The game got overwhelmingly negative reviews on Steam because of server issues, but it’s also on Game Pass, so might as well give it a shot once the launch issues subside. Seems unlikely for a game to recover from that many negative reviews, though, unless they pull a No Man’s Sky. Wonder if 2020 will be more popular, especially with all the mods.
I had Stalker 2 on preorder and it went live yesterday. Only had a little time to play but I got through the prologue and a little bit into the world itself along the most obvious path.
It still feels very much like Stalker. Almost weirdly so, given the number of games that tried to capture the same vibe and fell short. I might have guessed that the feel to Shadow of Chernobyl was lightning in a bottle, a combination of intent and tech limitations and the era in gaming and that no other game was going to come close to hitting it again. But after only a few minutes of game play, it felt very much like “Now THAT’S what I remember” for good or ill. It’s tough and janky and brought me right back to the Exclusion Zone.
It’s definitely tough. Playing on medium (“Stalker”) difficulty, I died fourteen times before I was done for the night. I know this because there’s a helpful counter each time you perish. I died to anomalies, radioactive critters, psychic monsters, grenades and bullets. Some people refer to Stalker as the “Dark Souls of shooters” where you enter an area, get whacked and think “Ok, so not like that” and try again. Unlike Shadow of Chernobyl where most of your early opponents were roughly just a bit better than you, Stalker 2 is totally cool with letting you stumble across prologue enemies you wouldn’t have encountered until 75% of the way through SoC. Guess they wanted to send a message.
My play so far has been pretty solid from a bug/glitch perspective. A friend of mine reported more problems but they released a big Day One patch and are still working on it. Spec requirements are pretty harsh.
Yes, they did a fantastic job maintaining the essence of STALKER while expanding the game – both the good parts and all the bad parts. (Jank, no one can run it.) I was certain people were going to roast the game over performance issues. They kind of did, but in a respectful way rather than the 55% Positive on Steam way.
My two cents, if you’re going to die over and over anyway, may as well play on Veteran difficulty.
Not so much “played” as “watched a let’s play of”, but Clickolding is one of the most unsettling video game experiences I’ve ever had.
You play from a first-person perspective where you’re alone in a motel room with a masked man, who is offering you a large sum of money you need for an operation in exchange for taking a handheld clicker and clicking it ten thousand times while he watches, which you must do by literally clicking your mouse ten thousand times.
It’s not explicitly sexual in any way, but it feels really unwholesome.
A while back I watched a “let’s play” of Space Warlord Organ Trading Simulator by the same developers.
I started playing the free game Once Human over the last few weeks and it’s become one of my all-time favorites. It’s a fun & casual combination of open-world shooter (think The Division or Far Cry), survival crafting (Ark, 7 Days to Die), base building/light tower defense (Fortnite), with some crafting & cooking too, along with your usual MMO-like mechanics (bosses, raids, open-world events, etc.)
I started the game enjoying the gathering and gunplay, playing it like The Division, but then started experimenting with base-building and got really hooked on that. The graphics are gorgeous and there are some incredible vistas to build around, from temperate lakes to desert arches to glacial fields. It’s become a bit of a post-apocalyptic version of The Sims for me 
Desert hangout (under construction):
It’s completely free to play. I wasn’t expecting something this good from a developer traditionally known for mobile gambling games (NetEase). But this game actually has an incredibly fair business model… it’s totally free and the paid parts are cosmetics-only, like Path of Exile, with no pay-to-win elements.
It also plays flawlessly on GeForce Now (game streaming service) on my Macbook.
If anyone wants to give it a whirl, let me know and I have a friend code for you (gets you some weapons & armor and a server invite if you want one).
It looks like something I’d really like, but multiplayer irks me a lot these days. How intrusive is it?
Well, much of the normal content can be soloed (so grouping isn’t really necessary just to enjoy the game for the first few dozen hours). You can play through the overwhelming majority of the storyline and side quests all by yourself. I’ve been playing mostly alone for 50-60 hours now and it hasn’t been an issue, although I also do enjoy the occasional group. It’s free, so why not give it a shot and see if you enjoy the soloable content?
You will see other players out and about in the world, doing their own thing, mining ore or logging trees or trying to find hidden treasure chests and building their homes and whatnot. You don’t have to interact with them, but you’ll see them. They cannot hurt you (unless you’re on a PvP server), so they’re really just there as background decorations. If you want to completely minimize your interaction with others, you can also turn off chat completely and disable the in-world Dark Souls-style notes that others leave behind.
But there is no true single-player or offline mode. It is a live service online game, after all, and beyond simply seeing other players, that also means:
It’s not like Elder Scrolls or Far Cry where your progress is uniquely and permanently yours, in your own private world. You share the server with other players and are subject to the whims of the seasonal mechanics. It’s the kind of game that wants you to draw you in and keep you playing for months or years, not something you can ever really “finish”.
So if you want a true single player experience, it’s probably not the best title for that. There are many other games in the survival crafting genre, though… this one stands out because it’s live-service, which is what drew me to it. If you wanted something more solo and offline… well, you might as well give it a try because it’s free and there’s plenty of solo fun to be had for the first few tens of hours… but there are probably more appropriate games designed for that particular niche.
Once Human is unique in that it melds several genres and puts them together in a multiplayer online world in a shared campaign. I don’t know any other games like that. But a true singleplayer game it is not.
And most of the solutions come down to, “Think like a cat”, for example, “Knock something off a shelf”.
It sounds quite a lot like my experiences with Fallout 76 - which I put in a few hundred hours or so. The “best” stuff gated behind multiplayer content, but you could do Most everything else with some hard work, planning and careful builds. But the seasonal aspect is probably a big “no” for me. That was an option in F76, but one I avoided like the plague.
That’s not to say it’s wrong, but I only allow one stupid periodically reset game at a time, and right now that’s still WoW.
Now, on the other hand, if I could get some friends to play Once Human with me… Hmmm. That was part of the issue with F76, plus they were super aggressive in making their paid version (Fallout 1st) ever more, if not pay to WIN, pay to have your quality of life not suck (storage and building limits mostly).
Yeah, I’ve heard it compared to F76 a lot. I never really played F76 (I have the opposite problem as you; I prefer social games and that one felt way too lonely).
I’m not a huge fan of the seasonal mechanic either, but it hasn’t been a huge deal so far. I’m actually kinda looking forward to it… rushed through the game in my first play-through trying to get to the endgame, but it’s actually the early-mid game that’s much more enjoyable. The raids and bosses etc. aren’t too much fun for me, and I wish I just enjoyed the numerous quests and exploration puzzles and such at a more relaxed pace.
I don’t really think there is month and months of content here without the seasons, anyway. So if you can get a friend or two to try it with you, it’s a good 30-40 hours of free gameplay, after which you can just stop playing and never encounter another season
And there is truly (astoundingly) no pay to win in this game. And it’s not very hard either, especially on a Novice server, so you can really just casually play through it. Even if you lose stuff at the end of a season, it’s not like it was very hard to get in the first place. It’s “survival lite”, really.
Good information there, thanks, added to my Steam watchlist for the moment.
I’m a bit over-committed right this second, with World of warcraft’s new expansion, and doing the pre-release stuff for Towerborne ( a friend was involved in the creation, so have some obligation to play ) and I really wanted to start Valheim, and of course, I still haven’t gotten around to Baldur’s Gate…
It’s sometimes good to have pleasant First World Problems.
I put about 5ish hours into Stalker 2 today. And it’s…fine, I guess? I’ll probably keep playing it mostly because I’m waiting for the next updates for 7 days to die and Project Zomboid. But there’s nothing terribly special about it. Not yet, anyway.
Picked up a rogue-like claw machine game called Dungeon Clawler. Somewhat odd concept but a fun little game. You use the claw machine to collect either weapons you then use against enemies, and/or shields to block their attacks and protect your HP. Collectible perks alter the gameplay. Well worth the $9 I paid for it.
Steam’s sale is here, and I’m thinking about buying one of four games on my wishlist:
All of these games are in the build & explore (and/or community-management) genre, one that I pretty well enjoy. My thinking:
All things considered, I’m leaning toward Manor Lords; but I’d love input from other folks.
Something to note about Nightingale is that the developer is dead after layoffs a few weeks ago. I wouldn’t count on it progressing much beyond its current early-access state.
I constantly confuse Nightingale with Enshrouded, so maybe the latter is one to consider instead. (I haven’t played either.)
Manor Lords isn’t ready yet. I tried it on game pass and it just needs more time to cook.
In the quasiSubnautica genre, I think I just saw Breathedge mentioned in the free games thread. I didn’t finish it but I enjoyed what I played (I always lose interest after the initial ‘oh shit’ phase of these games). Unlike subnautica it’s pretty linear in a literal sense: you’re following a trail of wreckage and the biomes are strung along its path.
Good to know! Reading the Reddit, people were saying there was plenty of good stuff to play already, but Reddits for specific games are generally populated by that games biggest fans, so are not reliable.
Oof, But also good to know! I will definitely take that off my wish list.
Oof, wasn’t a Doper involved in that?
Looks like @Lightnin was:
Hope they’re doing okay!
