Just wrapped up the Trails in the Sky FC remake and Trails beyond the Horizon, which means I’m now fully up-to-date with the Trails series! If you like JRPGs I cannot recommend the series enough.
Up next will be Dread Delusion. I’ve heard the gameplay isn’t fantastic but the world looks very interesting to explore.
Deep rock galactic
made a bit of progress in every class and one promotion, still learning the game tho a definitely a long road a head of me before I even think of jumping into higher difficulties. it’s nice to play, even with random dwarves in every run
Shadow gambit the cursed crew
got that tactical, sneaking itch to strach, and the game doing it very well for now. I enjoy the story quite a bit, the humor is a nice addition as well, so overall I can only recommend. Crew arcs between mission is great element to explore backstories
Picked it up last sale for like 90% off.
Half single player and half with the wife. I’m just base building on solo and we quest together.
It’s pretty fun going into a game with zero research (as in no player guides).
Learning to deal with surviving and efficiency. Always annoying when there is a easy solution to a problem (like start an open world to keep your base/gear between missions).
Call to Arms - Gates of Hell: Ostfront
I’ve been playing a lot of skirmish matchups with the ai recently. Its a good looking game too so makes great screenshots.
Pikmin
I only have the Emperor Bulblax left to do. I initially started the Nintendo Switch version but changed over to GameCube emulation on the PC so I can test out RetroAchievements. Its been fun and I’ll probably move on to Pikmin 2 soon.
Fable 2
My play through has stalled for a couple weeks now…
I’ve sunk so many hours into Conquest campaigns in Gates of Hell. I’m always a fan of strategy games which showcase artillery, and GoH is among the best in terms of visual and audio design. Of course, it’s a little incongruous when you roll out your big guns, and see they’ve got a range max of 350 meters, but I guess concessions must be made if you’re making a tactical scale RTS.
still bg3. im just finishing up at the last light inn before I head out to the cursed lands. sorta screwed up on my light spell before so gotta play with that.
I decided to go for a change of pace last week and jumped into 2 racing games I haven’t touched in a while: Stunt GP and Race Driver: Grid.
Stunt GP
It’s an RC car racer from 2001 developed by Team17 (guys behind Worms series). It’s a pretty simple game with surprisingly heavy(ish) controls - nothing too crazy but every time I get back to it there’s a second of “oh right, that’s how it feels” flashing through my mind. The game also has 20 or so cars specialising in various styles of driving and an upgrade system (when playing championship).
It’s a neat little title which still feels and look great.
Race Driver: Grid
I started this one multiple times in the past but never really played for long - not because I didn’t enjoy it, it’s just that every time I touched it something else grabbed my attention soon after. This time I’m planning to stick around.
Getting used to normal racing was pretty straightforward, drifting on the other hand can still be a challenge (I dunno, might have something to do with playing on keyboard). It’s not bad or unreasonably hard but it’s definitely a bigger departure from other games I play (unlike normal driving).I have a few small gripes with this titles that don’t necessarily affect my enjoyment but are noticeable enough to warrant a mention. Those being:
- Extremely short seasons - they consist of only 4 events, regardless of their length.
- Number of tracks feels a little on the low side - maybe it’ll improve once I unlock everything but there’s been quite a bit of repetition already.
- Overly aggressive opponents - I was hoping for more… sportsmanship in these races but these guys are a little too contact happy (I literally got bodied into a wall on a wide straight section of a race one time).
- Very fast progression - I’m a weirdo who (almost always) prefers early game. Experience when you’re a nobody, surviving on scraps and luck. Having tons of money and sponsors thrown at you just for not sucking for a bit doesn’t feel right.
Other than that? I love the presentation, both in terms of menus and art style (except of constant orange), and I really enjoy the gameplay. I wish vehicle customisation would be a little bit more involved but I realise that’s not the focus here so I’m not too unhappy about it. The game itself is great and that’s the important part.
Both of these titles feel quite different from my usual picks (Ridger Racer 2 for PSP and Colin McRae Rally 04) so I needed a little bit of time to adjust but after that I was ready to have some fun. Man, I love old racing games.
Finally, I got in the mood for Halo: Reach so I jumped into that for a bit. Probably won’t be playing the whole thing again this time but I’ll at least zoom through a few levels, trying to get some achievements. Oh, I also took the time to customise my spartan beyond gender and colour like before - finally feels more… “mine”.
TagPro - looks like a really simple webgame, but is honestly one of the best games I’ve ever played. Extremely simple rules, but hard to master. A lot of skillful plays, but also a lot of choas and fun. The community is overall nice and positive (sometimes individual players get a bit frustrated).
If you want to give it a try, go ahead - no account needed. Currently, only the US servers seem to be busy.
Marathon. I play(ed) Destiny before and avoided PvP but Marathon is a great game.
I’m enjoying being free from gear fear. I’ve let it all go, just playing for fun. It’s great.
Total War: Warhammer III
It was given away a while ago (by Intel I think?), you could chose one of many and I chose this. My laptop is not powerful so it looked ugly and a little laggy, but it is fun. I was thinking to buy II or I so it could run better in that laptop.
Gekishin Squadra
F2P, but fun. Paid features are cosmetics and unlocking characters immediately, but you can unlock them playing.
Death Stranding 2 just released on Steam so that’s what the next 4 business weeks will go towards
Chrono Ark
I went back and finished Chrono Ark. Well, okay, I still haven’t won a run with every character yet and I have some DLC content to get to if I want. But I reached both endings and the epilogue. Which, as a note for anyone who gets this game because of my recommendation: your game might bug out and unlock the epilogue before you’ve seen both endings (it did for me and I sadly started watching it unbeknownst before reaching the second ending). Try to avoid watching it until at least after seeing the second ending, or it won’t make a lot of sense. Though having watched it now it really would make the most sense after having reached golden friendship with all investigators first.
Anyway, I really loved this game. I’ve already waxed about it in these threads. The gameplay is really fantastic, and while the actual prose itself isn’t always the best (partially due to translation I’ve been told) I really enjoyed the story and several of the themes it touched on. It surprised me at several moments, and even with the prose sometimes lacking it still managed to land the big moments for me.
I do have one small complaint, and that is in the marriage of cinematic storytelling and a challenging roguelike deckbuilder. Now granted, this might be exacerbated by me sucking at the game. But I did find the climax of the story somewhat frustrating since it took me a couple of attempts to clear the final two bosses. And that’s fine in a roguelike usually, you shouldn’t expect to win against the final boss on the first attempt. But here the story and the presentation was all laid out in a way that made the losses feel very bad - I just wanted to see the conclusion of the story. Especially since unlike something like a Souls game or whatever it’s not just like you can gradually work on beating the final boss. You have to invest over three hours into another run just to see if this time maybe your deck is good enough. Though I will say: there is a “Hope” difficulty meant for those who just want the story, and maybe I should have used that when it was time to see the endings. So it might be partially user error.
Having gotten that off my chest though, it still does nothing to tarnish my overall rating of the game. It’s a phenomenal roguelike deckbuilder that will appeal to anyone who likes the genre purely through gameplay, and on top of that it’s a full fledged visual novel with an actually surprisingly interesting story. I will definitely keep playing it, maybe I won’t 100% it but I would like to explore the DLCs and try out some of the team setups and combos I still haven’t tried out.
I decided on Fallout 4, and have already racked up two and a half days’ worth of play time.
I almost always get sucked into a Minutemen playthrough. Like tbh I don’t think I’ve ever not done the Minutemen questline, at least up to a certain point.
Fallout 4 is actually probably the Fallout game I’ve finished the least. I remember completing the main quest on my first playthrough all the way back on Xbox, but I honestly don’t think I’ve ever finished it again since. I know I’ve never finished it with the Brotherhood, or the Railroad but I did start a RR playthrough once.
Crimson Desert.
Yeah, no patient gaming this week, it’s time for Crimson Desert. It’s by no means perfect but my god does it scratch an itch I’ve had for a very long time.
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