Playing ‘Ghost of Yotei’, I’m about 10 hours or so in. It has somehow greatly improved on the already nearly flawless "‘Ghost of Tsushima’. There are many quality of life streamlinings in the menus and button flows, reducing the player click-burden. The game environment and quests are unfolding much more organically, the game world feels much more custom-crafted, where Tsushima became more repetitive and asset-stamped. Yotei also feels a bit more challenging in a good way, with a slower power curve, where Tsushima was a bit too easy to cheese/gamify the enemies.
Jealous! I loved Tsushima, but Sony backtracked on their cross-platform stuff (probably because of the Steam Machine) and probably won’t be releasing Yotei on PC 
Damn it, Sony.
Going Medieval just hit 1.0:
and I was in the mood for a new game, so I picked it up.
It’s a Rimworld clone, like, super-heavily Rimworld clone, only set in medieval England (as opposed to medieval Scotland like Clanfolk is). The biggest difference, other than the setting, is that it’s 3d: the camera can move and twist, and there are 16 layers of elevation that can be played with. You can build multi-story buildings like castles and guard towers, as well as cellars that stay cold where you can properly ferment your wine and store your cabbages.
So far I like the vibe, but the systems and the information feedback seem much more simplistic than Rimworld. I’m not sure it’ll have that depth of play.
Meanwhile, if you want to scratch your Rimworld itch, take a look at Clanfolk. I’m waiting until it has a few more early Access updates, but it’s got tons of personality. Your clanfolk have children, and they age and die, and you can track your family tree, and I think there’s a single developer who treats it as a labor of love and goes down ridiculous rabbit holes where he does things like research the historical presence of beavers in Scotland and design entire game systems just so your clanfolk can interact with the furry little devils. It doesn’t have combat–at least, not as of the last update I played–but the winters are cold and harsh enough that you feel the threat nonetheless.
Awesome, I’ll have to check it out. I picked it up sometime last year but haven’t played it yet. I was waiting for early access to end, so, sweet! Also, I didn’t realize it was Rimworld-esque. Double bonus.
Bought “Retro Rewind,” a video rental store simulator set in 1990. Pretty standard shop sim as far as gameplay goes: buy products, buy shelving, organize and stock the store, choose decor, give it a name, check out customers, reshelve tapes, gain XP, level up, unlock more stuff, buy upgrades, etc.
For what it is, it’s very smooth, no really tedious activities, no annoying minigames for basic tasks. You just run your little video rental store, that you totally did not decorate to look exactly like Blockbuster. 
I am near the end(final area) of Dragon Quest VII Re imagined.
This game received a lot of criticism because they cut a huge amount of time out from the original, which was a 100-hour JRPG. I do see a couple things, like a Casino and one or two islands, that should have remained. However, I think a lot of cuts are quality-of-life and also just reducing tedium..
I am at 40 hours in the final dungeon. That is short for a modern Dragon Quest game, but it still felt like a full DQ game to me.
Overall, very good. Dragon Quests are made to high-quality standard. The story and characters are only adequate, though.
Do you like JRPGs? This is a good, but not top tier, one. Dragon Quest 11 is a lot longer and a lot better and more memorable.
I’m also sorry to hear the faint praise for Atomfall. I’ve been playing it for over a week now and am having a blast with it. Now, I’m not a super experienced gamer, only having gotten into gaming in my old age a couple years ago, so I’m used to seeing someone mention on this forum a game I enjoyed a lot and saying, ‘eh, it’s ok, but (X) game is better’. In that case I think “I need to check out this other game!”. So I looked up ‘Avowed’. Might be a great game, but I’m just not into sword & sorcery style games. The Sniper Elite series sounds great, and SE 5 is only $10 on Steam, but according to snfaulkner it’s not first person, and I have a thing with that. I tried playing Mass Effect and couldn’t get past looking over my character’s shoulder. Got to be first person for me 
So, Atomfall may not be for everybody, but it just works for me. For one thing, I like the mysterious story unfolding, the quest system with investigative ‘leads’ that you follow that weave separate storylines together, and the general vibe and setting. For some reason I’ve been gravitating toward these sci-fi retro-futuristic games, like Fallout, Outer Worlds and Bioshock, and Atomfall fits right in with that aesthetic.
Gameplay-wise, I understand the criticisms-- the weapons aren’t great, the ammo is scarce, and unless you get a clean head shot, it takes several precious bullets to kill an enemy. But that is kind of good for me. Games like Fallout 4 encourage my hoarding tendencies too much-- I got to the point where I’d travel with an armory of weapons, and if I got below 1000 rounds of my favorite ammo, I was immediately off to an ammo trader. In Atomfall, finding scarce ammo, and once you unlock the perk, upgrading your weapons, feels like a real accomplishment. It also makes me get creative when I need to take out a group of enemies. I will say it’s kind of frustrating that enemies respawn in various revisited locations, but ammo and other loot does not seem to respawn (except when looting the dead respawned enemies, but if it takes two bullets to kill them, and I loot two bullets off them, it’s a wash). Seems a bit unfair.
The ‘takedown’, where you sneak up from behind and snap an enemy’s neck, was not great until I got the ‘Stealth Instruction Manual’ perk. Before if I tried a stealth takedown on a seemingly lone enemy, it would bring many others around quickly and I’d get clobbered. Now I can sneak up on two enemies who are close together but both have their backs to me, and take them both down, one after another, if I’m careful, without wasting a bullet. Very satisfying.
Anyway, again, Atomfall may not be for everybody, but I’m having a heck of a good time with it right now.
I played Atomfall and I was frankly bored by it. It felt empty and there was nothing drawing me to keep playing it.
Oh yeah?!? Well, I think Rebel Galaxy sucks!!
Just kidding-- I still haven’t really played RG yet, other than starting it and playing for a little bit to get a taste of it. I am optimistic I will find it very fun when I do start playing it in earnest, and I appreciate your rec of it in the other gaming thread.
As for Atomfall, well, we all like different stuff. No biggie. I do seem to tend to like games that others do not so much-- for example, as I’ve said before, I love Fallout 4 (being the first Fallout I tried may have something to do with that) but never really got into FO3 or FNV, both of which usually get much better spoken of here on the SDMB than FO4.
It felt very Fallout-like to me, which is not at all a bad thing. But it felt like Fallout without all of the touches that make the Fallout games great; the goofy humor, the mid-century retrofuturism, the storyline. From what I remember, there wasn’t really any kind of story at all, because you are woken up by a scientist in a middle of a crisis and you have amnesia, so you are just reacting to things happening around you.
Once I got out into the open world, it felt really empty; just traversing the wilderness going from place to place and fighting stuff on occasion. I guess if I had kept going, some sort of plot would eventually reveal itself, but the problem is that you have to have a reason to keep going, and there didn’t seem to be much of one.
I guess some people might be intrigued by the mystery, and compelled to discover what’s going on, but certainly not myself. The gameplay didn’t seem to have anything novel about it, it was a pretty standard FPS survival post-apocalypse game. And looking at the game’s mediocre reviews, that seems to be the consensus. It’s not a terrible game, just a forgettable one.
So what game(s) would you recommend that are in a similar vein-- that are first person, anachronistically sci-fi (meaning either the retrofuturism of the Fallout series, or a game that takes place in the past, but with anachronistic sci-fi elements, like Bioshock or Atomfall), with a good story and enjoyable gameplay? The anachronistic element isn’t that important, could be straight sci-fi. But like I said, I do seem to gravitate toward those types of games.
The similarly-named Atomic Heart is the first one that comes to mind. That was very BioShock-esque (to the point where you could have called it a BioShock franchise entry and I would have believed it). It’s a couple of years older than Atomfall, but it had a really good story (taking place in an alternate history futuristic utopian/dystopian Soviet Union of the 1950s, with robots running around everywhere). A sequel was announced last year, though there is no ETA yet on release.
Looks good, thanks! It’s $60 on Steam right now though, so I’ll keep an eye out for a Steam sale.
I think that’s a really good idea. It’s a few years old so a deal is going to pop up at some point. If nothing else, you might see something in the summer sales.
$15 on Gamebillet.
https://www.gamebillet.com/atomic-heart-pre-order?affiliate=1c8adfeb-78f3-4d89-9a91-5b697ec73e37
Bought NBA 2k26 for $17 and change the other day. Haven’t bought a new NBA game since 2k17. I like the different eras being included from modern, to the Steph era, the LeBron era, the Kobe era, the Jordan era, and the Magic/Bird era.
Been enjoying going back in time and manipulating rosters more than actually playing the games, honestly. Allen Iverson and the Sixers are making another run at it!
Anecdotal, and of course, what works for one person doesn’t work for another.
I haven’t played Atomic Heart, but I was talking with a friend of similar gaming tastes who played it through Gamepass. And he was really frustrated with his mixed feelings on the games. He loved the visuals, but felt the gameplay was a lot less open to style choices than, say Fallout or Skyrim. He felt it played more like a Souls game with more interactive combat, while trying to have a real RPG story like a Bethesda game. But in his words, the story felt wide as an ocean, with a ton of neat hooks… while still being an inch deep. That you didn’t get the lore, nor the hooks that made your story feel meaningful. He compared it with a game we both had a love-hate (more hate) relationship - Wolfenstein: The New Order.
Looked good (at the time), felt grounded (by action shooter standards), and lots of bits of interesting lore and background, but in the end it was classic loot and shoot with a great setting but minimal actual immersion. And that leaves out all the hate I have for it for creating a setting in which, guess what, the Nazi’s genocide and hate was actually sort of … justified?
Of course, in all sincerity, YMMV with all these games.
Speaking of Fallout-likes, are the Wasteland series (as in the recent-ish 2/3, not the original from the 1600s) any good?
I have one or the other in my library, but never played them. I loved the old Interplay Fallouts back in the day, but these seem so quaint now.
Worth playing at all?
Wasteland 3 is kind of cool. It’s sort of like playing Baldur’s Gate 3, with turn-based strategic gameplay in an RPG, and a neat story, but with 2 characters in the party. I didn’t play it very much though; just got pulled into other games. I should probably go back and play it some more.
I was a fan of the original Wasteland, but a LONG time ago, before Fallout even came out (mid '90s).
Which is the lowest it’s ever been: Prices - Atomic Heart - IsThereAnyDeal
A few other stores have low prices on it, too. (All Steam keys.)
And Is There Any Deal only uses legitimate resellers with genuine keys.