it’s an indie city builder in which your first goal is to secure the survival of the settlement. Graphics are adorable and retro-ish and the gameplay is challenging. Although it could use a it more polishing and there is some getting used to the games quirks. But it’s quite cheap (~3€) so I feel it’s okay.
Been rediscovering factorio after a few busy months, it’s not for everyone, but if you look it up and it seems interesting I wholeheartedly recommend you give it a go, it is truly an amazing game
Styx: Master of Shadows. Been meaning to play it for years.
On paper, I should be enjoying the fuck out of this. Stealth is my favorite genre, I enjoy fantasy, and it even reminds me a little of Thief in some aspects (mainly art design and some of the mechanics).
Yet, I’m just not enjoying it. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s the skill tree gating basic abilities like aerial/ledge kills, but I never had an issue with the skill tree or gated abilities in something like Dishonored, just as an example.
Maybe I’m finding the AI overly aggressive and hyper aware, but I rarely have that problem with most other stealth games, some of which do have acutely aware enemies who’ll spot you immediately.
Maybe it’s that it feels like there are just too many guards/enemies in each level, while also feeling cramped (like there’s oftentimes no corner you turn without a new enemy to deal with), which makes it crowded and much more difficult to navigate.
Maybe I’m just not vibing with the controls or the story or something.
I honestly don’t know. It just doesn’t feel fun for some reason, despite checking nearly all my boxes. It’s missing something that I can’t quite put my finger on.
Kind of in between games at the moment. Been digging through my backlog, looking for something to play, but nothing has really clicked yet. In the meantime I've been doing this little gaming advent calendar thing with Mission in Snowdriftland. It's a platformer that used to be a flash game that was used to promote Nintendo products back in the 2000s. It's set up like an advent calendar, with 24 levels. You could probably beat it in a few hours, but I've been enjoying taking it one level a day,
Since getting a PS5, a good chunk of my time has been spent with my PS4 library I fell off of when loading was too obnoxious. I had a Last of Us Left Behind save on grounded difficulty that I had never beat because, while I enjoy the brutal difficulty of the last encounter, waiting to load every time I died was miserable. The much faster (but slower than PS5 games lol) load time got me over the hump.
Stranded Deep is on Game Pass, so figured I’d give it a shot. Good so far. Kind of a mix of Raft and The Forest. It is a little rough to start since you pretty quickly need to travel to other islands to get materials and the starter raft is not fun to use. Once I built my own it really picked up though
Still playing the field since finishing my second BG3 playthrough a few weeks ago:
Sniper Elite 5: I wish I’d known about this series 10 years ago. SE5 is a surprisingly fun stealth action game, with enormous sandbox levels that encourage varied approaches, styles, and paths. Lots of unlockables and customizations (and unlike the new Hitman games, those unlockables can be used across all levels once you get them). Unfortunately I’m just not super into this kind of experience anymore, but I still had a lot of fun for the time I did spend on it before getting worn out. I’m keeping it on my system because I’m sure it will scratch another itch soon.
Bus Simulator 21: I wanted something I could zone out with, just kind of dive into mundanity and focus on little details. The game does meet that criteria conceptually, but the gameplay just doesn’t feel super well-tuned, and you get these little penalties for everything that goes wrong. I didn’t play it long enough to deal with the business management aspect, which I think is a significant part of the appeal, but it really just didn’t click like I wanted it to.
Firewatch: Skipped this when it released and was a huge deal. I didn’t know anything going into it and really liked the format of the game, exploring the woods, pulling up the map and compass to navigate and all that. Characters and performances were exceptional. But ultimately I was kind of disappointed because …
spoilerit makes you think it’s building to some fascinating conspiracy but ultimately reveals it was just one nutjob playing games. I guess I was more invested in the superficial potential of the high-concept narrative than the actual story the game was probably knocking me over the head trying to tell.
Concrete Genie: Really stellar artistic achievement. The quasi-stop-motion style of the in-engine game, the animations of the genies, and the sketchbook style cutscenes all looked phenomenal in their individual styles. The story was touching and I loved the idea of a hero whose value is his artistic drive, but I was a little bothered by what I felt was a fairly reductive approach to bullying. But the biggest problem was that the game feels really incomplete. Exploration is competent, but the drawing mechanics are not nearly robust enough to tap into the creativity it’s trying to celebrate, and the final act of the game introduces a whole new set of mechanics that, again, are really shallow. By the halfway point, the game felt more like a really, really sophisticated proof of concept than a completed game.
Two Point Hospital: This game is doing a much better job with what I was hoping to get out of Bus Simulator 21. Love the art style and UI. No complaints, just something easy to dip into from time to time.
Paradise Killer: I just started this and it is fucking nuts in a very sincere way. Opening lines: “The Syndicate created the first Paradise Island to worship their dead alien gods. Guided by Leader Monserrat, the Syndicate attempt to resurrect the gods by forcing Citizens into psychic worship rituals. However, the worship invites demonic corruption from beyond the stars. The islands always fail. The islands die and a new Paradise Island is born. The cycle repeats.” Really unique art style and game world. Time will tell if the investigative core lives up to the rest.
Currently re-playing Assassin’s Creed 1 and playing Vanilla WoW for the first time on a private server.
Im remembering how much I liked AC1. I know many people say it wasnt that great of a game, but to me its exactly what an Assassin’s Creed game should be - stalk, plan, stealth, assassinate, escape.
WoW is also really fun. I tried getting into retail a few times over the years but there was just too much. It was way too overwhelming. Vanilla seems to be just right for a new player.
Star Citizen. It's a buggy mess as usual but it's such a fun mess. Especially the Siege of Orison event going on right now, I've had some really amazing emergent gameplay moments come from it that have me very excited for the future of this game.
Just got into Backpack Hero recently after someone I watch online released a video a week or two ago going back to the game now that it’s released. I kinda became a little addicted as it’s pretty much been the only PC game I’ve been playing since I got it.
I just got the jingle jam collection and started playing Godfall. Straight forward smack-em-with-a-sword game but lots of fun so far. Kinda reminds me of kingdoms of amalur. Hoping to try out a few more games from the collection as well as I’ve heard good things about quite a few of them.
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