games

Bought Fursan Al-Aqsa: Knights of the Al-Aqsa Mosque a while ago on discount. Finished it last week.

For those who don't know, it's made by a Palestinian man that lives in Brazil. Got banned in the UK and EU after he added a "Operation Al-Aqsa Flood" mission(basically october 7)

There are actually 2 games in it. One that's already finished called "Classic" and one that's currently being developed called "Remastered". The classic plays a lot like early 2000s shooters like Delta Force. Expects you to go in carefully, conserve your resources and peak around corners and such. I like it a lot but it would probably be frustrating/feel outdated to people used to modern FPS. Contains classics like fighting on an Israeli "frigate" that looks like a WWII battleship, feed the captain to a giant shark with Palestinian flag painted on it before blowing the ship up. Or sneaking into the Iron Dome command center, rescuing Abu Obeida before blowing the entire base up. Abu Obeida sacrificing himself to ensure the success of the mission.

The remastered version plays more like shooting galleries with wall runs and regenerating health. Has less substance IMO except hilarious cutscenes straight out of Mortal Combat. Currently only has 4 levels and is in the middle of an engine upgrade, so who knows if it will ever be complete. The "update preview" shows a 3D render of Yahya Sinwar , which is cool.

Should only take about 7 hours to complete. With an all achievement completionist run taking 9-10.

Mario Maker. Please play my Mario Levels

0XB-33C-RVF

I started playing Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon. It's like a slightly less polished (now, not at launch) Skyrim. Not quite as open world, since things are sectioned into 3 areas/acts but you can sequence break if you really wanna.

Its got very cool lore and vibes because its a dark Arthurian setting which I don't think I've seen too much in video games. The game boots up with a Danish and Old Norse chant and a background of King Arthur on top of a pile of corpses.

Very unexpected but its got a lot of interesting tension between Kamelot, the prosperous kingdom, and the other lesser subjugated regions and indigenous tribes who had their lands stolen. Picts and other made up tribes of people get a lot of screen time and importance in the story so far.

There's also an ongoing plague and wyrd myst that turns people into creatures.

The gameplay is not really that complex but its a lot more intense than something like Skyrim with parries and dodges.

Its also automatically a GOTY conteder because its one of like 5 games that let's you dual wield shields and it isnt a meme. Theres talents that support it.

Got Death Stranding 2 and completed the first couple of missions. The new elements with weather are pretty cool, really looking forward to how weird it's gonna get. I shy away from big games like that these days because all my time is taken up by work, parenting, and party organizing, but I couldn't stay away from Kojima and his madness.

Still on Baldurs Gate 3

Wife and I finished up bg3 over the weekend and then started Divinity Original Sin 2. Really enjoying the fact that it runs well on steam deck so we can take the game to the backyard and hang with the pets / smoke joints instead of being tied to a computer

i got guild wars 2 waaaay back at launch, played it for a while, and just recently picked it back up after literally a decade of not touching it

the ui's aged like complete fucking dogshit but other than that it's good fun

Been grinding away at my Hollow Knight achievements. Currently working on Steel Soul 100%. I doubt I'm ever going to get through all the Godhome content on my normal run—my old man fingies are just too slow, now.

Alone: replaying MGSV, Rimworld (with the new DLC, I'm about to hit 6k hours I think), and WH40k Rogue Trader.

With friends: WH40k Darktide, Ready or Not, and a bit of Arma Reforger. We're probably going to start either a new Enshrouded run soon, or a new Baldur's Gate run soon.

Lies of P

Just started playing spec ops: the line, as I hear it’s a good plot with a subversive ending.

About an hour and a half in. Not been blown away so far - it really shows it’s age mechanically as a very uninteresting shooter with chest high walls everywhere.

Ive been playing an unhealthy amount of minecraft recently and ive been having loads of fun with it!

look at this goob

I was playing the Demon's Souls remake. I've played a number of Soulslike games before, but never any from the original line of Demon's Souls or Dark Souls, and I figured it was about time. It was pretty much exactly what I had expected (which is good), given what I'd heard about it and what I knew from other non-Fromsoft games plus my playthrough a couple years ago of Bloodborne. Probably not much I could say about it that hasn't been said before, but I was certainly enjoying it.

I also have found I love metroidvanias so I've usually got one of those on rotation. Right now it's Laika: Aged Through Blood which stands out largely because it is focused on a movement mechanic where you're entirely, always on a motorcycle, very unique for a metroidvania. Combat all happens while you're rollin' and you only get two bullets (4 after upgrading) and the only way to reload is to do a backflip on your bike. There's a lot I could say about it, but I'll just keep it short and say it's definitely fun and unique but also deeply flawed. The story is really quite gruesome, just describing the opening scene and plot motivation would require a number of content warnings. It's got some great original singer-songwriter music, the woman who sang and produced it (honestly has a beautiful voice and clear musical talent) was apparently full on co-creator of the game, heavily involved in the coding and nuts and bolts of the gameplay too, which is cool. One of a slew of indie games coming out of Spain, it does have a strong western "libertarian" vibe, but as is often the case (imo), it feels right on the edge of being a potentially strong left-libertarian story if the creators were just a little more politically aware. I think. The protag does live on a dying commune, after all. The creators do know who the famous Laika was, since the main character is a dog who looks like, well, Laika. But unfortunately, there is nothing in it relevant to the Soviet space program (that I know of so far) aside from a few vague jabs at gommulism=bad, but you have to look for it. Considering its Spanish origin, I wonder a lot about potential inspiration from the Civil War, and who on the team may actually be anarchists, meaning maybe I should actually be giving it more credit as left-libertarian than the initial vibe I got.

At the top, I did say I "was" playing, but now I am not... because my fucking "dualsense" controller suddenly developed severe stick drift, making it too frustrating to play. I've only had it 2 fucking months.

I was literally saving up for over 2 years to get a PS5, it was a huge deal to get such a big treat for myself. I'm disabled, on foodstamps, basically no income, so for me, getting a console is a major expense and I felt guilty for spending that much on a treat. I knew stick drift was an issue, so I've been really careful, always washing my hands directly before playing and even keeping the controller in a plastic bag when not in use (it is really dusty here), I've not dropped it or banged it on anything a single time, always treating it delicately. But after only 2 months, fucking controller is practically unusable.

Isopropyl-dipped cotton swab + canned air around the stick ball edges haven't helped so I think it's just shitty hardware that is plain broken. And it's such a fucking scam, I can't believe it. Well, I can, but you know what I mean. The controllers are widely known to do this. Sony obviously knows and refuses to do anything about it, however many years it is now into the ps5 cycle. There have been a bunch of class action law suits against them (that of course were thrown out) for knowingly using their faulty controllers to bilk players by making them so they inevitably break and you can't replace the parts and have to buy a completely new one for $70. Or you can buy their $200+ "edge" controller which has a few fucking bells and whistles but the main thing most people would want it for is that you can swap out the stick components for new ones. Only they've made those replacement sticks artificially scarce. And their "technology" is patented on all their controllers, so if you want the full functionality, you can't buy 3rd party because 3rd parties aren't allowed to make controllers with the full functionality. So everyone essentially has to just keep buying new controllers all the time as Sony rakes in the cash.

I realize this is hardly unique or new, it's basically standard practice for this kind of shit. But it still pisses me off. Fortunately I'm still under warranty. I mostly only buy this kind of thing used to try to save money, but I knew this was a case where I might need the warranty, but I thought I'd have a little longer than < 2months. But part of the scam is that Sony is well known for being particularly bad with customer service to the point most people give up (again, nothing unique there, but apparently they're really bottom of the barrel with this stuff), I will have to pay fr shipping to them, and it will be 2 weeks minimum before getting it back. So it looks like it will be a bit before I can continue my playthrough of Demon's Souls. I have an old ps4 controller and apparently you can use them for ps4 games, but you're locked out of using it for any PS5-only games like Demon's Souls, and I do have a couple PS4 games I can play, so I won't have to go cold turkey, but still... sucks. If you actually read my boring ass rant, I'm surprised, but thank you.

I want to play the new games I got but I'm too tired after work to learn so I just keep playing Warframe instead. I am shocked I haven't burned out yet, I guess the weekly content is enough to keep me going for now.

I picked up the new DLC for Rimworld. Haven't played it in ~6 years, so I had to relearn a lot of basic stuff, but now I'm having fun building my little gravship

The Citizen Sleeper games have been great fun for me

I got one of those handheld emulator guys, it came with a ton of trash roms. So I go to mame and hit random a few times and play for one credit.

Too much Vermintide 2 on Quick Play with randoms.

It's just nice when you click with a party and everyone's caring to wait for each other, sharing items, etc. Never cared to play Sienna before but now I enjoy her AoE conflag staff and staggering a lot of enemies in tight situations, leaving a breathing room for others - although it denies cheap health for the team, using it conservatively saved us a lot of times. And flail, although suboptimal in pure damage numbers, trashes the new kind of shielded Chaos Warriors like wet paper bags, wow.

Just yesterday we had fucked up big time: I and Saltz got a Chaos Spawn to 10%, but as patrol jumped at us and murdered both, Krub and Bard got so unlucky CS sucked on them on them repeatedly up to the 100% health. 'Omnomnom motherfucker' as one of them put it in the chat after we all died.

I'm still looking for a PvE game that does it for me like VT2 does. Although not ideal, it's movement and fights feel so natural and fluid. And the themes of getting by in the ongoing apocalypse hit too close to home too.

Expedition 33 on story mode because I'm old and I can't react that fast

Kids and I are playing Astro Bot, which I got for my birthday this weekend! The children are now 4 and 7 and they actually kick ass at platformers. It's been great!

Lots of Alpha Centauri Alien Crossfire, Minecraft and perhaps Project Zomboid.

B42 broke the Legendcraft and Brita's weapon packs

Been playing diablo 2 resurrected on hardcore ladder with my oldest friend who also has a young kid. Nice to game with someone who understands that "afk one sec" could mean "I'm done for the night" without me knowing yet

I am obsessed with My Summer Car. I thought it was a tuber bait slop game for the longest time but it's actually so much fun.

Had to do fucky OS stuff to keep (current game) from crashing. Not gonna say which one. But it has Denuvo 😭

I played Date Everything last week. Fun game, but has at least one softlock (blocking certain 100% related achievements — you can technically end the game whenever) still extant.

Because of the way endgame works, you can be locked out of almost 10 characters' story arc endings by being locked out of one character ending. I'd wait at least until hotfix 3 before starting a game, maybe even the patch after that.

IMO, they should change the character endings to require a maximum of 90 stats rather than 100. 100 stats requires all of 20 characters to not have progress stopping bugs, which was not realistic on launch for an indie game of this complexity.

I wish it was made more clear that hate endings lock you out of 100% realizations. Yes, you get their stats anyway, but I think the game would be better with hate endings for all characters as well. But that would be thousands of dollars worth of writer-hours and voice acting on top of a massive load.

Very cool to see the depth and breadth of voice actors on display, however. And the actors get residuals on the game revenue, which is unheard of for game acting.

umamusume not going to lie

• Planet Crafter: A game about terraforming barren planets. Early stages resemble Subnautica in that you're just trying to cling to life in a hostile environment, but as you secure supplies of food and water and make the atmosphere breathable, the game slowly transforms into something more akin to Satisfactory where you set up automated, efficient production and logistics for terraforming machinery.
• The X-COM Files: A mod of the original 1994 X-Com that acts as a prequel, inspired by media like The X-Files and Men In Black. You start off dealing with cult activity and individual monster attacks, only able to send in two agents armed with pistols and tasers, then gradually build up to X-Com starting tech by the end of the game. You'll never be so glad to see the Skyranger and standard X-COM rifle.

Playing Victoria 3 with my gf and trying to make Great Qing great again. Seems impossible to get a handle on bureaucracy but other than that it’s going surprisingly smoothly. The US started a war with Japan in order to open trade so that’s been fun to watch from the sidelines, I haven’t played enough to know the best way to support one side (also want to help Mexico fight the great satan). This is the first game I’ve played in a while so I’m not sure if the previous system of microing trade convoys is gone entirely now or if it’s a quirk of the Qing trade laws? I don’t know how to properly handle shortages and such when I can’t just send out a few trade ships

i have been helping my various horse daughters to achieve their dreams