cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/1232708
I’m going to do these periodically.
Title kinda says all.
I’ll have my own reply later.
Special weekly question:
What do you like most about 2023’s repertoire of video games?
Been playing a game called Astrea, which is a deck builder but instead of cards you have dice. I’m awful at deck builders and am finding it very frustrating.
I also played a few Survivors-likes - Sea of Survivors, where you are a pirate ship, and Death Must Die, where metaprogression is in Diablo-style loot. Sea of Survivors is pretty basic but it works well, while Death Must Die wants you to dodge around a lot and play really actively, which isn’t bad but I don’t prefer it.
Is Sea of Survivors a nautical game? 'Cause I wouldn’t mind something like that then.
It’s nautical themed, yes, but it’s not like Sea of Thieves where you do the stuff on the boat, it’s a pirate ship that follows your cursor and auto-shoots.
Here’s the Steam page, they have a gameplay trailer https://store.steampowered.com/app/2347940/Sea_of_Survivors/ it’s def worth five bucks
Thanks!
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That’s good, but what is GFL 2?
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Ah, I immediately figured after posting that reply, but thanks.
I started playing Workers & Resources thanks to
and really enjoying it.Damn, I should play that one as well, but I don’t really play “strategy games” or whatever you call or categorize Workers & Resources as.
I like it, I would call it a city builder. I got drawn to it when someone mentioned it along with Cities: Skylines. I’m a long time Sim City nerd so I perk up when a new one comes up
Got it, got it. Well, I’ll definitely check them out.
I finally got Borderlands 3 up and running on my linux machine so that’s been taking most of my time. I’m leveling Moze and FL4K and my wife is leveling Zane and Amara. I’m rushing FL4K through TVHM right now so I can start gearing and playing around with skill trees some. Gamma Burst is nice, especially with a pet that can heal during Mayhem levels. I’m doing a nuke build for Moze just for funsies. I can’t see anything onscreen half the time and I love it.
I also picked up Satisfactory while it was on sale. I don’t know why but I really get into the factory genre. I think it scratches the same itch as idle games like Antimatter Dimensions does for me. So far it’s been tough getting into but I did finally get coal generation up and running after having to tear it all down and redoing it. I don’t think I like the first person perspective as much because it’s hard to see what you are doing when building. Factorio and DSP both are third person sky view and DSP also has full planetary view when blueprinting and such so it’s nicer imo. I do wanna give Satisfactory a bit more time before I give up on it.
I heard bad things about Borderlands 3, but that was specifically that it wasn’t as good as Borderlands 2.
Is that the case?
I’m a longtime fan of the series and BL3 is easily my favorite. 2 is obviously the most popular. The main complaints that 3 has is that the antagonists are just not as good as Handine Jack but I don’t think Tyreen and Troy are nearly as bad as what a lot of people say. They are crunchy, sure but Gearbox wanted to go with a Social Media Influencer trope for them. I think they are supposed to be cringy and annoying and they pull that off. The other big complaint is that Normal mode is quite a bit easier than the previous games. I think they wanted it to be more approachable for new comers and casual players.
Where it really excels is the gun play and gameplay loop feels really, really good. And up until endgame and post game builds you can spec each character however you want and it’s still viable and enjoyable. You only get 4 characters but you also get a 4th skill tree with each from DLC. You get enough points that you can spec 2 full trees and then half of a third. With 4 trees this gives you a ton to play with.
I’m at a point on it where I can boot it up and shut my brain off and relax for a few hours so that is nice too.
Also Tannis story arch in it is fantastic lol.
No Scooter, of course and they canned the original Claptrap actor because he wanted to get paid. The new actor does ok but it’s just not the same.
But yeah the main gameplay is easily the best in the series to me.
Honestly, you make Borderlands 3 sound very interesting and I… don’t mind the whole “social media influencer villain” trope. And I don’t mind a game that tries to get newcomers and casual players 'cause, honestly, I’m kind-of a casual player myself (or, at least, I mainly play on easy mode a lot for the story or just to chill). And yeah, the gameplay loops seem to be what I’m looking for.
“I’m at a point on it where I can boot it up and shut my brain off and relax for a few hours so that is no e too.”
Yeah, that’s what I’ve been looking for lately.
Not wanting to totally sell it as a perfect game. I am playing it through proton so it might be better on Windows but it’s the buggiest of all the games in the series.
Oh, also purples and legendaries have a greater drop rate so you are constantly upgrading with fun gimmicky guns that make you feel like a badass. Forgot to mention that.
That last part certainly sounds fun…
My newly diagnosed ADHD has been kicking my ass recently so I haven’t gotten around to setting up my PC after moving so I’ve only been playing switch.
That said, I’ve been going back and forth between Red Dead Redemption and the Super Mario RPG remake and I’ve been loving both. I immediately bounced off RDR2 finding the controls very clunky and slow, but I’ve loved my first play through of RDR1 so far and the Super Mario RPG remake is probably one of the best RPG remakes of all time.
I’ve also been playing the only good mobile idle game, Super Snail.
Definitely get ADHD medication like Vyvanse or whatever now that you’re newly diagnosed.
I also couldn’t play video games until I got my ADHD meds (and I especially had trouble doing anything else besides playing video games).
Also, on another note, I really should get into “idle games” sometime.
I have to work my way through Kaiser’s system before they’ll actually get me medication, but it’s actually moving way quicker than I expected. Getting back into therapy for the first time in like 8 years should also help.
On the idle games front, I can’t recommended Super Snail enough. The tutorial is frustratingly long but once you get through it, it has a really satisfying loop and you do feel like you’re making progress every day. There are no forced ads and I’ve never felt pushed to buy any of the micro transactions to keep progressing.
Spent 3 weeks playing System Shock 2. Did three play-throughs back to back (holy crap is the Psi-guy build OP). Have had this game for ever and realized, as I was in the final 3rd of the game, that I don’t think I ever actually beat it years and years ago.
Found a Bioshock disk (never played it, got it when I was cleaning out a deceased relatives place) and fiddled with things until I manged to get it playing. Did a few playthroughs immediately after my month of playing System Shock 2. Realizing how much I like games that can be beat in 10~15 hours but repeated playthroughs wind up giving you some more breadcrumbs of story that you missed during a previous run.)
Watched a YT video by RagnarRox about Clive Barker’s Undying and found that there’s a copy available on the Internet Archive’s “Software Clearance Bin” section. Fiddled with it some and got it running. (Also found a copy of “I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream” and “Transformers: Devastation” on the Internet Archive in the same section but haven’t fiddled with things to see if I can get them to work yet.)
Is this the new System Shock remake?
?
Oh no. System Shock 2 was an actual sequel to System Shock. I think it came out in 1999.
Ah, yeah, they have yet to do the remake for the second one then…
Recently finished a China run in Vic 3 1.5.10. Encountered too many bugs to really enjoy it. Currently in the middle of Stellaris run, which i’m enjoying a bit. They’ve added too much content to the game now though. Astral tears are just replica of the archeology content. Too many events to click through :(
Big oof.
I normally don’t jump into bandwagon games, but Lethal Company seems interesting- and I can at least play it single player if the multiplayer is bad.
Yeah, that’s a good option.
Got BG3 on PS5, played it for basically 100 hours straight, loved every second of it. AW2 on ps5 as well, really really enjoyed it, despite some pitfalls, it really scratched my Twin Peaks itch. If it weren’t for BG3, that would be my GotY, easy.
Mostly through Cyberpunk 2077 now, pirated a 2.0 repack. Its…fine? I lol’d really hard at all the glitches when it first launched and a huge majority of those seem to be gone, and it plays decent enough on my high-mid tier setup, but man, the story is bad, the the gameplay is mediocre, and to be honest, all of the effects, while gorgeous, just make the game that much more unreadable. Its sensory overload, every frame, and that could have been used to be an awesome critique of capitalism, the writers don’t understand what that means.
I have Baldur’s Gate 3 on my Steam Deck and it’s running well and looks well, though the PS5 version seems like a treat.
Oh, and Alan Wake 2 looks amazing, but I probably won’t play it till much later; I have a bunch of other games I want to get through first.
I got AW2 started a week or so ago but those jump scares at the beginning really got me. I loved Control, but never tried AW1. Wasn’t prepared for the horror elements I guess
Hard to find time to play when I’m now only willing to play it in the light of day
Just finished my first playthrough of AC6.
Also playing Cities:Skylines 2 on and off while I wait for mods to come out.
World of Warships is the other game I’ve been playing, mostly on the weekends.
How are you feeling about Cities:Skylines 2 ? 😃
It’s not nearly as bad performance wise as I was expecting. Not great either.
In so far as gameplay it feels like Colossal had a lot of ideas for how things work and how interconnected they should be, but it feels a bit too busy for my liking. There are also some annoying gameplay bugs that kind of hamper the experience. Some have been fixed, but others persist and even existed in CS1, like how emergency services in the neighborhood don’t dispatch and instead you get one for way farther away. I had an entire block burn down even though I had a firehouse 4 blocks away.
I want to play Galactic Civilization 4 (space 4X) and Wartales (turnbased mercenary fantasy game) soonish. Will wait until closer to Christmas when I have more time.
Sweet! Hope you find both of them fun.
Victoria 3. I really haven’t been tapped into the 23 zeitgeist, but I realized recently that achievements in games give me something to shoot for, and I’ve been a hoi4 fan for a min now, so I figured I’d give it a shot.
, if anyone knows how 2 🏴☠️the dlc w a legit base game, hmu
Cool beans.
Currently near the end of Atomic Heart. So far I’ve been really enjoying the game. I haven’t seen anything explicitly anti-Communist yet like I was expecting so that’s good. There are so many Soviet 50s - 80s references that my parents would probably love this game if they actually played videogames.
I’ll probably play Mass Effect next since I haven’t done a playthrough of that trilogy in like a decade. I kind of hate the Human background lore of Mass Effect since it’s basically neoliberalism 150 years into the future, but seeing how bland sci fi games are nowadays like Star Citizen or Starfield really made me miss Mass Effect.
“since it’s basically neoliberalism 150 years into the future,”
I… think I have an idea of what you’re talking about since I’ve seen it before in other sci-fi and I fucking hate it already.
The background codex for Earth literally states that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. I believe they also imply that African countries still haven’t advanced much because they are still being exploited.
Thanks, I hate it…
I’m having a good time playing crusader kings 3 again. My current run started with the Avars in what’s now Hungary. I’ve been playing it pretty chill, but have now grown to be an independent kingdom out from under Bulgaria, converted many people to Krstjani, (recently viewed as heretical by the Orthodox and Catholics - might get to defend some fun holy wars.) Hybridized culture with Croatian for some good stuff and more drip, and got equal inheritance for women after several generations of work.
Gonna build a cathedral in Esztergom, probably hybridize again, maybe tweak faith, but mostly just vibe for a generation now. Long term goal is to take Constantinople and hopefully have fun withstanding the Turks and Mongols. For whatever reason the Magyars kinda failed to launch this game, so I didn’t get to deal with them. I had one 40s ruler just straight up die while wrestling though, putting his very young (and soon to be lunatic) son on the throne for what would ultimately be a very cool reign.
“withstanding the Turks”
Good luck giving my ancestors Hell, comrade.
It recently went on sale, so I picked up Midnight Suns and was surprised how much it sucked me in. Reminds me of Fire Emblem a lot.
Super Mario RPG remake has been my on the go choice these days, but I have a copy of Sea of Stars on the way.
Both of the last games (Super Mario RPG and Sea of Stars) are ones I want as well.
Really digging the SMRPG remake. Has a lot of quality of life improvements, but still feels like the original in a lot of ways. Didn’t feel bad about getting it on release day since Nintendo stuff rarely goes on sale.
Yeah, even the animations look great.
