Three day weekend … Messed up my schedule. Oh well, what have you been playing? I’ve been checking out a ton of cool playdate stuff, as well as more binding of Isaac. I also picked up a game called the roottrees are dead that I’m excited to check out! It seems like a game similar to case of the golden idol which is one of my all time faves
Since I just got my deck repaired and returned, I can continue Sonic Origins on there. Had to install it on my desktop temporarily.
I also just got the summon I wanted tonight in Fire Emblem Heroes: New Year’s Níðhöggr (Nithhoggr). As a casual I see strong unit like her and think I’m gonna be set for a long time (at least a new unit summoning banner or 2 from now hopefully), like when I got Heir to Openness Alphonse or Gatekeeper (even though he didn’t last long for me).
I’ve downloaded some old PS2 era games. Some of the gameplay is quite dated, but I really enjoy the retro feel of the environments and graphics. Perfect photorealism isn’t always necessary to enjoy a game. I’ve been playing Burnout and Ghost in the Shell SAC.
Burnout, what a game! I know 3 still is regarded as one of the best arcade racers to this day, although tbh - controversial opinion, I know - Paradise is likely my favourite in the series.
As a father of a 8 month old baby, I have barely touched any of my gaming systems for the past year. Games need to be quickly accessible and possible to quit at any time for me to play. So mobile gaming is basically where I’m at.
Slay The Spire works perfectly well for Android. I’ve been playing that a ton.
Pokémon TCG Pocket is weirdly fun. Even though it’s encouraging microtransactions and subscriptions, it’s very much playable without making a single transaction. The TCG is decently interesting, though not without flaws. It’s still in a very early stage, so I’m interested to see how the game grows.
As a father of two the best gaming thing that happened to me was my steam deck.
Biggest selling point is the sleep/resume.
It works perfectly on a lot of games and allowed me to finish for example control in short-ish sessions.
That’s a great point. I have a nintendo switch, but I have more or less played through the entirety of all the games I have been interested in before my child was born. I did pick up pokemon violet, but the game was very short and had some disgusting responsiveness and aestetics which discourages me from grinding the post game.
Maybe a handheld pc will be my next purchase. Thanks for the suggestion!
As a more portable and budget-friendly alternative, consider a small emulation console. I’m very happy with my Anbernic RG35XXSP. Since the screen folds like on the original GBA SP, it’s absolutely tiny and fits into any pocket - without having to worry that the screen might scratch. Configure it correctly and you can close the screen to suspend games.
This kind of system would also make for a great first gaming device once your kid is around five years old.
STALKER 2, and I haven’t felt this frightened to climb down into the basement of a decrepit waste processing station since the original trilogy. So in short, it hits just right.
I actually stood in my kitchen last night eating some yogurt and two Lucky Charms cereal bars just to procrastinate what I knew I had to do.
How’s the AI now?
It functions well enough that I haven’t noticed anything off, save for maybe two occasions in 40+ hours where I was unlucky enough to have bandits spawn in near me. Once out in the woods, and one time they literally appeared sitting in chairs in the room I had just passed through, then attacked on my way back through it. You can’t help but laugh when it happens, but it’s nowhere near like it was on release.
I know that several of the squads I encounter in the wild have been artificially spawned in just outside of my exclusion radius, but they move organically enough that I’ve never had my immersion broken with the impression that these aren’t just stalkers on their own mission. Sure, if I reload a ways back and travel the same route, it may well be a different assortment of them, no one at all, or maybe bandits or mutants the next time, but rather than feeling tacky it keeps the Zone feeling unpredictable. Retracing my steps after reloading often results in a wildly different experience from Point A to Point B, so I can’t cheese my way through much of anything.
I’ve also encountered large, roaming packs of mutants who, when avoided, travel well outside of my exclusion radius and continue to be heard far off in the distance (Flesh are a good example) even though they’re no longer rendered on my screen. I’ve traveled in that direction a short time later just to run into the same pack having changed direction, so there definitely are some persistent A-Life doing their thing out there. It’s just sprinkled with some chance encounters.
All in all, the A-Life isn’t exactly where they/we want it to be, but they’ve taken enough corrective steps that I find it very enjoyable, and I say that as a long-term fan of the originals, as well as hardcore versions like Anomaly. Honestly, the only thing I truly dislike about STALKER 2 is the number of bloodsuckers. They’ve become a lot easier to dispatch with my better gear, but if I’m ever going to run into three bloodsuckers in the wild, it should be like one time. But there are times where I encounter packs of them several times per day, and on Veteran difficulty that is absolute bullshit.
Thanks for the detailed reply!
No problem. I don’t know what it is about 6am bathroom time that makes me write novels.
Sounds familiar. Been there countless times: One paragraph planned, one “War and Peace” written.
Nothing. My GPU is in for RMA. It died in the middle of me and a friend finally hanging out to get into the RE4 Remake together.
What I WANT to play is Deadlock.
…
Actually, I have a steamdeck, so I’ve been tackling an MGR playthrough on revengeance difficulty. But holy crap the Deadlock withdrawal is real.
Recently finished one playthrough of Torchlight 2, so now I went back and am doing a playthrough of Torchlight 1.
I have been playing fortnite. And I’m kinda digging it. I completely despise their monetization, but I’ve been enjoying the gameplay loop. It’s a solid Battle Royale game. I find the pacing is pretty good in terms of how long you wait to engage other players.
I also like that they update it semi frequently. Usually, I don’t* like when games do that. But the core fundamentals stay the same while the extras (like the map and weapon/tools) change.
I didn’t think I would ever enjoy it.
I’ve also been playing Persona 3 Reload, and sniper elite 5. Both of those are pretty solid too. Sniper elite 5 felt weird at first because the game felt extra punishing until you unlock more options for stealth. I might have been playing it wrong.
Persona 3 reload is fun, but I feel like the two styles of gameplay don’t exactly mesh perfectly? They just don’t feel like they’re as robust as I want them to be (but the game has a decent amount of depth so idk how they would do that without overwhelming the player). I realize the game is a remake of an older title, though, so I’m assuming it’ll just get better as the series progressed.
Alwa’s Awakening
It was challenging, but fun. Looking forward to playing Alwa’s Legacy soon which apparently made some improvements.
Tekken 8 is slowly consuming me whole… and I don’t mind. I love the game so far! When I’m not playing, I’m looking up combos, pro replays, various advanced tutorials… I’m fully committed at this point, haha.
That being said, my library has let me know that a copy of Sonic X Shadow Generations is available for borrowing, so I’ll switch it up a bit this week!
I played an unhealthy amount of Baldur’s Gate 3 and finished my run. Sadly, Ansur, the last boss before I went onto the finale, ended the Honor Mode part. I’m a bit salty about it, since it wasn’t the boss being too hard or something, but mainly bugs, that did me in.
My first try I got him to half HP, then the game just didn’t want to use any actions anymore. I couldn’t even save and quit, but had to go through Task Manager to kill it. Next try I get him to like 80hp, fresh turn with all of my characters, but the game just crashes. Third time, he’s at 80 or so again, but because of terrible animations I didn’t see that he was supposed to be flying in the air, charging his giga attack. Because of some debuff, he was just writhing on the floor, so I just couldn’t really tell. I had a dozen Globe of Invulnerability scrolls, so I could have survived easily.
Anyway, I’ll do another run next month, after Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, and maybe the new Diablo 4 season, but dunno about that last one.
Pentiment, an awesome point-and-click whodunnit with meaningful choices and beautiful medieval graphics. You only have limited time so you can’t do everything and follow every lead.
Return to Moria, a generic survival/crafting game that was recently free on Epic. I had low expectations of this one, but it is surprisingly solid. But it really sucks that there is no dedicated server support.
