Oh man, I loved playing Dragon's Age: Origins. I had a sort of "unexpected companion" when I played through it in college.
I was a computer geek; I had a gaming PC. My roommate was in a frat and had an Xbox 360. The only games he ever played were Call of Duty and Madden.
One day he came home with a copy of Dragon Age for the 360. He said, "This seems like a game you would know about. One of my fraternity brothers lent it to me. Have you played it?" I had just bought it a few days earlier but hadn't played it yet. Of course I'm expecting Call-of-Duty-Madden-360 roommate to hate it.
Later that week I was going to party and he was staying home -- a reversal of how things usually went. I got home very late, very drunk, expecting 360 roommate to be asleep. But no, there he is, playing Dragon Age. As soon as I walk in he says, "BRO I'M IN THE DWARVEN CITY HOW FAR DID YOU GET CHECK OUT THIS SKILL I UNLOCKED FOR ALISTAIR AND DUDE THERE IS A DOG."
We played through the campaign on our respective machines over the next week, sharing tips and strategies along the way. It was great.
The Talos Principle 2 dropped an expansion out of nowhere. It hasn’t even been a year since the game released! The puzzles so far are really creative and cool, and of course it wouldn’t be The Talos Principle without a healthy dose of philosophizing about the human condition!
I’m still on the first chapter but it’s awesome. But I got stuck on 2 of the bonus puzzles and age of wonders 4 and Elden Ring both dropped dlc as well so I’m currently playing way too much Elden Ring. I have to say that the philosophising in the first chapter didn’t land with me but maybe that’s because love for me isn’t something to thoroughly analyze.
I’ve been enjoying Pacific Drive this week. It’s a great survival crafting game in the vein of Subnautica, which is to say there is a linear progression path for upgrades and improvement, and a well-defined objective and end goal.
I just wish it was less stressful. Even just the normal act of activating a gateway to end a run requires a race through your current zone where one misstep can cause you to get stuck long enough to fail. And sometimes conditions just really stack up against you in a way that can be unexpected and frustrating.
Overall though it really hits the spot with its loop. I love returning to the garage and going through the ritual of healing, fueling up, recharging, transferring supplies, and checking on upgrades.
Oh…I also finished and platinumed 13 sentinels earlier this week. I enjoyed that one a lot more than I expected. It’s as compelling as it is eye-rollingly funny how many sci-fi tropes the main story burns through, but I i was frequently and pleasantly taken by surprise. And the battle system, which through the first area I thought was so easy it was basically a formality, really did become more challenging and tactical, especially when trying to get S ranks.
Against my better judgement, i decided to look into Genshin Impact.
I’ve resolved to not spend any money on it, and I’m fairly happy with my experience so far. I’m currently in act 2 in Inazuma, and I’ve really been enjoying the Archon quests. Despite the fact that I spent 0 dollars on it, this part of the game really does feel like a full retail game experience.
The world quests are alright, though I’m honestly having trouble fitting them into my adventures; too much adventure experience is coming in, which is causing me to hit world level increases, which is causing me to need to grind ascension mats for my roster, which is causing too much adventure xp. It’s a lot! Dragonspine was a fun detour, though.
Story quests are probably my favorite feature in this game. Low stakes hang outs with the weirdos in your party is a fun and important part of RPGs. And Genshin really gets that. The only problem is… A lot of these weirdos aren’t in my party! If Story quests unlocked the characters at their conclusion, I’d have had no qualms with putting $60 down on this game, but they’re pretty much all locked behind the gacha mechanic which suuuucks. Shenhe and Diluc should be in my gang right now, but the funny gacha rocks disagree. Not a fan of that.
The resin and primogem stuff I feel really negatively about. I don’t want that stuff getting in the way of the fun parts, but I’m constantly scraping up against both. It’s not intrusive enough to dampen my experience while actually playing through the quests or exploring though, so I think I’ll put up with it until I’m satisfied with exploring Teyvat.
absolutely! Genshin is actually a surprisingly good game as a f2p player! If you’re having a lot of fun with it, I’d highly recommend checking Honkai: Star Rail! It’s somehow even more f2p friendly, and it’s clear they learned a LOT from Genshin when making it. It is a linear turn-based RPG though, so quite a different game from Genshin.
I played Daniel Linssen’s Leap Year, and I highly recommend it! $5 for a delightful single sitting. Goofy mechanics whose depth you slowly discover by exploring and experimenting. Some of the most brilliant level design I’ve seen.
Slowly grinding my way through a Pokemon Red Professor Oaks Challenge(Yay, switch-training Magikarp…), and when my brains to the point of melting from that, Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous. Kitsune Bladebound Magus, happily traipsing her fluffy way down wherever Desna may guide her.
May the Gods have mercy on the crusade she’s going to lead.
well kind of. I’m actually playing Caves of Qud a bit, now that I understand it more (I did end up installing the tutorial mod, thank you for that! and I did watch a small non-spoilery tutorial series as well) and I’m having a really good time. I started out with a character the tutorial recommended and have been fighting fish to level up. planning on taking on the first big quest tho!
sadly I’m stuck on an old gaming laptop that doesn’t really like to play games, so I can’t jump into all the games I want to. even my gacha game I play is pushing it, although I still login every day and do my required stuff. the laptop just gets extraordinarily hot. it handles Caves of Qud, because ascii, but I was wanting to jump in to Elden Ring at some point (I don’t have the DLC, does it make new runs more exciting at the beginning or is it a later thing?) and realized it’s not an option I think due to my laptop’s specs and general grumpiness.
so I’ve been wrestling with Borderlands 3 to get it to work, and my partner and I have been playing that for a bit. I love the BL series, although 2 was imho the best for writing. the humor still annoys me sometimes but I started playing the series with the first one when it came out, as a kid, so it has a special place in my heart. my partner hasn’t really ever played first person shooter games, so Destiny 2 (when we played) and Borderlands was their introduction.
Still playing Dark Souls 2 - almost 100 hours in and there’s just Darklurker and Aldia left. This game just keeps going and going, really well worth the cost. Since I’m almost through, I can see why it seems to be the black sheep of the series. But, despite some problems (like needing to refer to a guide constantly) I like it a lot, and will definitely do a NG+ eventually.
Also started Yooka-Laylee and I love it already. It’s very true to the Banjo Kazooie style.
Last summer I played Act 1 of the game and found myself thoroughly satisfied, and decided to wait to play the rest.
Act 2, like Act 1, is just as awesome. We’ll see if I decide to take another break before the third act, haha! This game is nothing short of a masterpiece.
Other than that I’ve been taking a lot of 10-15 minute breaks while working from home and enjoying the minigames on Meta Horizons.
Once again, I played far too much World of Warcraft Remix this week. I do have three more maxed characters now though and all achievements for the mode. I found Frost Mage to be surprisingly fun, after I totally hated it (my old main) and completely abandoned magic DPS altogether at the beginning of Shadowlands. This time I’ll definitely take it slower and will try to only play my Druid. It went so well the last two weeks.
Depending on how much I get into the new expansion, The War Within, Balance Druid and Frost Mage are definitely some I’ll consider taking a look, although my Windwalker Monk will most likely stay my main.
Then, more Diablo 4. I’m almost level 90 with my Necromancer, Minion build is still boring, but I’ll keep it at least until level 100, and I’ve checked out more endgame stuff.
I’ve been mainlining Esports Godfather, which is the surprise hit of the year for me so far. The title is nonsensical and on the surface it looks like it can’t be good, but it’s been so much fun.
It’s a MOBA-themed sort of deckbuilder/autobattler/management game - which sounds like a hot mess but plays so much better than you’d think. At least after you get over the initial information overload.
I wish the AI was a little smarter, but even with the game being a touch too easy it’s incredible how much fun it is. Loads of cards and heroes to build synergies with and rotating version rulesets keeping things fresh even within a single run.
At just €16 on Steam I’d easily recommend it to anyone with an interest in the genre, and there is even a free demo that covers the first couple hours of a run.
gaming
Hot
This magazine is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.