I’ve been playing the original EverQuest (real patient lol) but caved and got Slay the Spire 2 the other day because it’s relatively cheap and seems like a good one. So far I’m really enjoying it and it’s fun to finally be playing a new game that everyone I know is also playing. Usually something comes out and they’re like “what are you playing?!” and my answer is EverQuest 😂
final fantasy 9!
Rise of the Ronin
I’ve been hooked on the open world slop juice. Honestly having a great time with it and I am kind of perplexed it didn’t get better reviews. The combat is really good, there are some charming characters in the cast and the open world is not any better or any worse than your garden variety Ubisoft style open world game. I also quite enjoy the historical aspect of the story and while it isn’t a documentary or anything it’s still anchored in real events and authentic characters from the period.
The combat is the star though and it does have the special Team Ninja sauce I would say. I have some minor quibbles with it (enemy tracking is too accurate, especially when you’ve rapidly changed direction through some movement ability) but overall it’s incredibly satisfying. The pace is super high and frenetic in some boss fights, at least if you’re trying to play to your maximum. Boss attacks come fast and unrelenting and require you to parry, and when it’s your time to punish you can squeeze out maximum performance by attacking at a similar pace, switching stances and weapons constantly and weaving martial arts. I’ve had some insanely hectic and satisfying duels in the Dojo.
Also the Dojo is a great feature, allowing you to fight 1-on-1 and even replay certain bosses, all in a setting where gear is neutralized, your items are limited to 5 healing item uses only and you don’t have access to your pistol or rifle. It’s a great balance where in the story missions you can breeze past bosses through buffs, tons of healing items, using your allies to help and using your guns, but then you still have the Dojo as a true test of skill.
I wasn’t patient this time around, so it’s Slay the Spire 2, early access.
It runs really well on my two core third gen ryzen laptop, and I will gladly recommend it to anyone who likes deckbuilders.
I just started Cult of the Lamb. I’ve tried so many roguelikes and struggled to enjoy them, but this one hits right. It’s not too too hard, and I like the style a lot.
I’ve beaten the first two bishops already, and am working my way towards the third.
Finished Shadows of the Empire yesterday. It’s truly a game of its time (jetpacks!) and the control schemes suffer a lot from being a N64 first game. The last stage, Skyhook Battle, is a mess tho. Why did the devs think that having a never ending swarm of enemy fighters that easily kill you was a good “warm up” before the “actual” level?
Good old Quake.
Started Deep Rock Galactic. Played DRG Survivor recently and had an itch.
So far only solo, to get used to playing first person on the Steam Deck with motion controls, seems fine-ish.
I guess the game really starts to shine with a few friends, so hopefully I can explore it more when my gaming buddies return from vacation next week.
Started playing Rauniot - a post-apocalyptic isometric point&click adventure game set in Lapland. Only few hours in and the vibes are great, although the voice acting and dialogue feels … I dunno, it’s not “bad”, but it feels a bit “off”, like it’s written by “semi-edgy artsyfartsy” type, and the dialogue is performed by aliens who only got the tldr version of how to act human.
Visually the game looks quite a bit like Fallout 1 and 2, just with higher colordepth and resolution. Sound (apart from dialogue) is pretty ambient. So all good in my books. And I gotta respect the absolutely slamming metal tune the main character is blasting in their car during the intro sequence. Hell. Yea. \,,/
Puzzles have been mostly “find a tool to do x”, some items (eg. a rope in the first screen of the game) do blend into the background, so hovering over everything on the screen is a must. Interactables are highlighted in yellow outline, which on some cases can be really soft and it blends to the apocalyptic colorpalette of sepia/brown/gray surprisingly well, but at least all interactable things have a soundeffect when hovered with a mouse.
Gotta play more, I do want to see where it goes with the story and puzzles later on.
Interesting. Haven’t heard of that but it looks neat. Might be the type of game I’d rather watch a Let’s Play of than play myself, though. Also…
the voice acting and dialogue feels … I dunno, it’s not “bad”, but it feels a bit “off”, like it’s written by “semi-edgy artsyfartsy” type, and the dialogue is performed by aliens who only got the tldr version of how to act human.
are you sure they’re not just… Finnish?
are you sure they’re not just… Finnish?
heh, kinda fair, tbh. But then again, so am I, and it still feels like watching aliens :D
I’ve been away from my PC for a couple months, and I finished Fallout season 2 while I was away and it got me in the mood for some balls-deep Fallout playing. I can’t decide whether I want to play 3, NV, 4, or actually play through the first three games because I never have.
3 and NV via Tale of Two Wastelands
Fallout 1 and 2 were rough for me, I never really got through them. I have read that Fallout 2 really defines what the series is so I’ve been wanting to revisit it. Start out with 1! Don’t forget to hit save constantly.
Where did you quit in Fallout 2? I love it but the opening hours are pretty rough, even fans of it meme about the temple of trials and the general first few hours.
I do definitely think you’re right that FO2 defined the franchise, it’s where they moved from a slightly more grim and serious post-apocalyptic tone in the first game to a more humourous style with more pop culture references and wacky stuff. Fans or the first two games tend to be divided over that, with some saying Fallout 1 is superior because of the different tone. I can see the argument, but I love Fallout 2 personally.
There are some great mods for it too, not just Restoration Project Updated but Talking Heads and Talking Heads Actually Talk are both incredible fan made mods that blend right in.
Wall Street Raider, there’s a great solo dev working on moving the codebase to a modern framework, but the original still slaps.
Someone posted a great article about that game a while back. Was that what got you to try it?
How long does it take before everything clicks and you can play smoothly instead of constantly stopping to look things up? The core concept of a realistic investment simulator looks fun, but needing to know and follow all of the real life laws and regulatory minutia from decades ago sounds like a nightmare for a new player.
Uh i been playing since the 90s on DOS lol. I was a bored kid who loved reading the financial section of the newspaper.
You don’t really need to know the laws. the game just tells you you can’t do that if you try to do something like make a merger monopoly. There are tax considerations that can be tricky but I mostly ignore those. You get taxed on profits so you dont need to min max taxes to be successful in the game.
Uhh and yeah im constantly doing research and looking things up in the game, which i mean that’s really what investing is IMHO. It’s essentially a textbased game, you have to read a lot, even if it’s mostly numbers/percentages. The modern rework on steam has a much prettier layout and more charts graphs.
