I mentioned in a couple other posts I'd post like this. I like to read through these posts for game ideas and it's been a while.
So to start off, I had mentioned Trepang2 being a new indie FPS game that came out just this last week and the style of it being so much like F.E.A.R. That being one of my favorite FPS games, I had to break my own rules and give it a shot. I got it for $30 on GOG and am almost 5 hours in. Finished 3/5 main missions, 1/6 side missions, and 1 of the combat sims that is basically a horde mode. There's intel to pick up around the level if you're the completionist type, along with gun mods and such. A lot of reviews I've seen complain it's too short or reference some YT video where they beat it in 2 hours already by speedrunning, but all in all I don't feel screwed for $30--and I rarely buy games for as much as $30 even.
The good part, it's a pretty well put together game. I haven't run into any real bugs. I don't think it's crashed once. The graphics look good-to-great. It's a bit impressive for a team of four guys to have made something that definitely would have passed as AA+ not all that long ago. Don't really notice wokeism. I'm sure some of you nitpickers could find that there's a choice for red shoes and how don't I know red shoes are a dog whistle for drag queens or something like that, but in the grand scheme there's nothing glaring so far. Map aesthetics reminds me of F.E.A.R. Slightly better as it's not all office buildings. Shooting mechanics and bullet time from that game as well.
What I don't like is more of a difference from expectation to reality. This game is not F.E.A.R. at all. It's much more like 2016 Doom. I find it useless to even try to stealth or really use any tactics other than sprint around like a maniac. On top of the fact that there's grenades constantly chucked at you, there's just too many enemies all over the place to really adopt any other tactics.
So yeah, if you want a crazy adrenaline shooter go for it. It's a fun game. If you want a slow creepy horror shooter, find something else.
Also, what all are you playing? I've been down with a bum foot all weekend so I've been playing this and Dante's Inferno (yeah the really old one from 360/PS3).
What I've been playing:
Forgot about Path of Exile. Maybe I try it. I've been wanting something like that and Blizzard will never get any more from me either. If I want to play a microtransaction fest it might as well start off free.
It’s good, Grim Dawn is also great if you want a Diablo like.
I picked up Grim Dawn last week and goddamn does that game scratch the Diablo itch. The number of class combinations and resulting potential builds is staggering. It's definitely a crunchy game with all the stats to juggle, but all the game feel is really solid.
The only critique I have is that the music is so thoroughly underwhelming. I get that they're going for atmospheric, but it's a bit off and doesn't feel dynamic enough or engaging to really support the game the way a lot of more successful games do. The soundtrack for a game is hugely important and while the music in isolation isn't bad, I don't think it carries the game in the way that a good soundtrack should.
I've spent about $100 on stash tabs for it, because my pack rat tendencies will not be denied.
PoE is my second-most played game on Steam, and I'd wager first-most played of all non-MMO games, and I've only put like 20 bucks into it, and that's only because I felt like the devs deserved it. I could have easily gone the entire time without spending a dime.
As far as Diablo-alikes go, PoE is the best, as far as I'm concerned. And I started off with the original Diablo.
Hate to be the one of those people, but the BattleTech IP holder was confirmed to have gone regressive.
I've been having a few runs of Rogue Trader and Wrath of the Righteous, with some Star Citizen on the side. Also decided to hop back on colony survival to see how it has changed since I last played it.
Currently playing a new campaign in Ultimate Admirals Dreadnought as England. Last playthrough, I almost conquered the world as the U.S., but Germany cock blocked me last minute.
Next up will be Dredge, then the System Shock remake, then Rogue Trader.
Trying FF16. It’s pretty good so far. Re-playing the Witcher 3 after years away, forgot how good it was. Still stumbling through TOTK and some Doom Wads. A friend gifted me Slayer X : Terminal Aftermath and it’s enjoyable, basically Redneck Rampage if it had been made by an edgy teenager in 2002. Looking forward to Pikmin 4, thinking about getting a Steam deck. That’s about it. Too much shit to play, no time to play it.
Doom WADs, now that's my childhood there. One of these days I hope to stumble on my old creation. It was posted online years ago but I've totally lost it. I'm not even sure if it was downloaded or not from my site. I'd made an entire three episodes.
I tried Pikmin 1 way back when I had a Wii. Couldn't get into it, but I think some of it was I just didn't like stuff like that with motion controls. Maybe I should try 3.
Pikmin 1 is pretty good, but it's definitely very primitive compared to the other two. I like it more than 2 though. 2 has that stupid, stupid flower system where you have to grind caves in order to get enough purple/white Pikmin. It ruined the whole game for me. Thankfully they did away with that for 3, which is easily the best game of the trilogy. It remains to be seen how 4 is.
I'm playing Victoria 3. I haven't updated to the newest patch because the balance looks like a hot mess and I'm still trying to learn the game (particularly some of the harder high potential countries) without it constantly changing on me.
I really wish the cultural mechanics and assimilation made more sense. Accepted cultures are the only ones that assimilate, which makes assimilation worthless. Plus they don't represent the downsides of multiculturalism, which means multiculturalism is the meta. You absolutely need the immigrants as well because the birth rates aren't as high as they were historically. I don't know if it's a woke agenda or just poor design.
As someone who loves Vicky 3, I will agree that the agitators are kind of busted at the moment. I am waiting until the next update since they are going to fix the agitators as well as some new military upgrades.
Also, if you are wanting to do a more enclosed country, I highly recommend rushing automation tech. Yes, factories and farms need a lot of workers, but if you replace the need for workers with tractors and steam engines you dont need the immigrants. I have played through as a Nationalist, Culturally Exclusive Netherlands and did just fine (although it did mean imports for some of my goods).
As for myself:
I am currently doing one last build in Cities: Skylines before they drop CS2 later this year. Highly looking forward to both, and intend to build a city with the same name and build philosophy just to see exactly what differences exist.
After that, I have been playing Chivalry 2, Snowrunner, Stellaris, and Railway Empire 2.
It would probably help if I played someone other than the USA lol. But I've found them to be a good tutorial country and I've had a lot of fun with it.
Its all good. But like I said, if you are wanting to do a more closed off country, Cultural Exclusion is probably your best bet. Because it makes it so that pops only have to have one trait be the same as your primary culture to avoid discrimination, and therefore assimilate. So you can get away with people only knowing, say, English and still have them start having to assimilate. Or have them be Protestant and have them start assimilating, etc.
The USA is indeed probably one of the better countries for a tutorial though. They are just such a way that you basically have to use Multiculturalism to not have major issues (although you can get away with Cultural Exclusion).
FEAR was such an awesome multiplayer game. Up there among the best ever.
you guys should try battle bit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4B_4RrNA8o
also playing Monhun rice and Daemon X Machina
I definitely will have to check out BattleBit. Looks fun. No spawning by dropping with a ducking parachute either. I hate that mechanic
Sticky for community interaction!
Dude, I loved Dante's Inferno. A really underappreciated game, as to be expected from the shadow of God of War's influence. But stands well on it's own for sure.
Had Sonic Mania in my library for a while. Everyone said it's great but I really dragged my feet on opening it since the last time I fell for "it's not shit" was Generations and, well...
But, legitimately good. I was concerned up front there were too many copy/paste from earlier games but there are ton of new tricks and map changes that makes it feel fresh. Some new gimmicks but not so many that it feels gimmicky like newer Mario titles started to feel since the New Super Mario Bros on DS. If I have any real complaints about it it's that some of the new stages have way too much stuff flying around and it's hard to separate eye candy from important stage information as you're playing. There's a kind of city zone that was driving me crazy because I felt like I was boxed in all the time but it was just foreground and background elements that didn't really stand out from the actual stage data Sonic was interacting with. And some of the bosses are full on BS but I'm open to me having to just git gud.
Sailwind. Nonstop.
If anybody here is into sailing, you should def check it out. Still in EA mind you.
There's no combat ATM and it's not on the devs roadmap.
But it's the best sailing sim I've played so far. Nice balance between realistic sin and arcade like features.
The game is just basically merchant marine in the age of sail simulator.
Intriguing. Not sure I need something right now with that much time investment, but that game is definitely going on the list. It’s not multiplayer is it? Meaning I can control all of the boat myself? For example Sea of Thieves has many boats that you can’t reasonably operate yourself and I don’t want that.
They have multiplayer on the "maybe" section of the roadmap.
There aren't any huge ships that you can't handle by yourself, but the biggest ones will definitely be challenging.
I'm counting on big ships and multiplayer in the future, but the game is great as is IMO.
Apart from the fact that you don't have a crew, it will make sailing in sea of thieves seem simple and arcadish in comparison.
I've seen 2 streamers that are real life sailors that have high praise for this game's sailing realism
Finally played some Distant Worlds 2 thanks to the new update that made it playable.
Played as the treacherous spiders, was a good game but my pc is so old it bogged down in endgame so I went back to Distant Worlds Universe.
Also reinstalled x3 litcube and x4, tempted to get the race dlc for x4 but paying for what should of been stock races like the Terrans and the Boron, kinda gay.
Battlebit, Battlebit, Battlebit :D
Solasta: Crown of the Magister coop with a pal. It's got some woke crap, like picking they/them pronouns (even though they're never used), a tough negress NPC you see for 2 scenes so far etc. I'm usually a purist about these things but coop turn based RPGs are not easy to come by. Fun gameplay, though it's 5e D&D. I'd never play that crap IRL.